The Splintered Kingdom

by James Aitcheson

  ‘Are these all the men you have left?’ I asked, gesturing at the small band he had brought. I’d sent them with around one hundred and fifty men, of whom half remained. A few were doubled over, vomiting, while others were too shocked even to stand, and had collapsed on the ground.

  ‘Get up!’ Wace was saying to them, and when they did not respond, Ithel joined him, yelling: ‘Kyuodwch chwi!’

  Maredudd nodded. ‘This is all we have.’

  I cursed aloud, but we had no time to waste standing around if any of us we were to survive this day. The enemy would not hold back for ever; soon their battle-hunger would outweigh their patience and they would come streaming down from the woods upon that ridge, swords and spears in hand, death in their eyes.

  Until they did, however, we had work to do.

  ‘Rally your men,’ I told the brothers. ‘Their spears will be needed before long.’

  Even as I left them an idea was forming in my mind: one that might just give us a chance. It wasn’t much, but we had nothing to lose by it, and if it worked we could at the very least be sure of taking a good number of the enemy with us.

  Fifteen

  SNOCCA AND CNEBBA were waiting when I returned to the head of our host. Other boys were attending to their lords, bringing them spears and shields, leading their destriers away and corralling them with the packhorses on the open ground behind our lines. This battle would not be won in the charge but in the clash and grind of shield-bosses, the crush of men, the struggle of wills. Not with swordcraft but with the grim, close work of spears and knives.

  ‘Come with me,’ I said to the twins, and then to a group of sturdy lads carrying bundles of spears under their arms: ‘You too.’

  I would need strong arms for what I had in mind, and so I called over Pons and Turold and Serlo too.

  ‘See those carts, the ones the enemy left behind? I want them laid on their side, blocking the gaps in that wall.’

  The wall ran along the firmer ground on our left wing, coming to an end where the mill-pool had once been. It rose only to waist-height in most places and chest-height in some, and so on its own hardly presented much of an obstacle. Together with the carts, though, I hoped it would be enough to frustrate the enemy’s approach and present them with a choice. Either they could waste time and lives trying to clear the obstruction before they could meet our shield-wall, or else they would have to attack across the marshier ground on our right, where Wace and our Welsh allies were positioned.

  We got to work without delay. The carts were heavy things, and it took several men to pull them, and to turn them over on to their sides. Other men, seeing what we intended, pulled timbers from the ruined mill and added them to our crude barricade. It wasn’t much, but it all helped. Had we more time, I would have tried to find some way to set fire to the whole thing, but we didn’t, and so it was a futile thought.

  ‘Quickly!’ I shouted, at the same time throwing my shoulders and my back into tipping one of the carts over, grabbing the rough timbers from beneath as Snocca and Cnebba each took a corner. It took the effort of all three of us with Serlo as well, but eventually I felt it slipping from my fingers, falling away from me and coming down with a crash on to its side. The barrels it had been carrying spilled and rolled into the long grass that grew in the open ground between us and the enemy. I’d half hoped they might contain something that we could use, but luck wasn’t with us, for they were all empty.

  ‘Next one,’ Serlo said. ‘Next one!’

  Two of the carts remained, but there they would have to stay, since at that moment Turold yelled out a warning.

  The cry was passed through the ranks and down the line, and I looked up. The enemy had seen what we were doing and now were sending men to stop us. Already the first column of them had begun the long march down the hillside and across the valley floor, beating their shield-rims and raising the battle-thunder. My heart thumped in my chest, louder than I had ever known it, but now the din drowned it out.

  ‘To arms,’ I shouted to the men and boys. ‘Find your lines!’

  Most did not need telling twice, but a few of the boys weren’t listening. Running out across the meadows, four of them took the pole with the yoke that usually sat across the oxen’s necks while two others pushed from behind. The wheels bumped over the uneven ground, sending some of the barrels toppling over the sides.

  ‘Leave it, you fools,’ Serlo roared, but it was no use.

  Those of the enemy with bows had stopped to nock arrows to their strings, and now were letting fly. Most of the shafts fell well short, but one sailed true and sunk itself into a barrel inches in front of the nose of one of the boys pushing. A delighted cheer went up from the rest of the enemy warriors as they closed on us, little more than a furlong now from our makeshift barricade.

  ‘Bring your men forward,’ I shouted to the barons, not for the first time. If the wall and the carts were to be of any use, I needed our shield-wall right behind it where their combined spearpoints and axe-blades could threaten the enemy as they tried to negotiate the obstacle.

  Now that the enemy archers had found their range, steel was falling in showers all about the lads hauling the cart. A silver point struck one in the back; he fell to the ground and suddenly the rest were shouting to each other, fleeing back to our lines, leaving their fallen companion where he lay on his back, his eyes tight and his teeth clenched, as forlornly he cried out for help that would not come.

  For the enemy were on their way, hundreds of them roaring with one voice. They did not march in even ranks but rather came at us in a disorganised rush, having divided themselves into two main groups: one approaching our left wing in front of which stood the wall and the overturned carts, the other across the boggy ground where Wace and the Welsh princes blocked their path, while the contingent of archers drew up in a line behind both. At least with the river at our backs the enemy could not outflank us, although they did not need to. All they had to do was throw more and more men at our shield-walls until our resolve broke, as eventually it must.

  I took my place next to Eudo in the first line of the shield-wall, with Serlo to my left and Turold and Pons on the other side of him. Hurriedly I donned my helmet and tied the chin-strap, before someone from the rank behind passed a spear forward to me.

  ‘How long do you think we can hold out?’ Eudo asked as he overlapped the rim of his kite shield with that of mine.

  I had no answer to that, and so said nothing.

  ‘I never thought I’d meet my end like this,’ he said. ‘I always thought that it would be in the midst of the charge, not fighting like a cornered beast to hold some godforsaken scrap of land, in Wales of all places.’

  ‘All of us die someday,’ I replied. ‘And if today is our time, then the least we can do is kill as many of them as possible first.’

  The first of the enemy were less than a hundred paces away now. I fixed my gaze upon them as they ran through the tall grass towards us, so close now that I could almost see the visions of blood and slaughter in their eyes. One or two stumbled as they ran, falling over the hidden barrels, but not nearly as many as I had hoped.

  ‘Stand firm and hold the wall!’ I yelled to those around and behind me, my voice already growing hoarse. ‘Keep your shields up; don’t let them through. Remember the faces of the men either side of you. The enemy may be strong but we are stronger! We will defend our banners; we will hold our ground whatever it takes, we will grind them into the mud and we will kill them!’

  The words came tumbling out in a rush. It was not much of a rallying call, but it would have to do.

  ‘Kill them!’ Eudo echoed, and the cry was repeated through the ranks, the words coming in time with the beating of their weapons, until with one voice they were shouting: ‘Kill them!’

  Had we had more time I might have tried to offer further encouragement, to rouse their spirits and inspire them to even greater fury. Still, words could only do so much, and valour alone never won a battle. Wil
l, wits and the strength of one’s sword-arm were what really mattered, and I could only hope that our small host possessed enough of those things. Enough, at any rate, to overcome their fear. For no matter how many years a man had been fighting, no matter how proficient he was with spear or sword or axe, he would have been lying if at that moment he said that he was not scared.

  I inhaled deeply, steeling myself as best as I could, grasping my spear-haft tightly, feeling the grain of the wood against my palm.

  And then they were upon us. Some worked together to try to pull the carts aside and make gaps through which the rest could charge, while others stood next to them, protecting them with shields from the javelins that those in the ranks behind me were hurling at them. Most glanced off their bosses or else lodged in the wood, but one at least found its target, plunging into a gangly Welshman’s breast right where his heart was. His eyes glazed over, his mouth gaped wide and his knees gave way beneath him. No sooner had he hit the ground, however, than another came to take his place, stepping over his blood-stained body.

  My ears were filled with the sound of men yelling, cursing, screaming, dying. We pressed forward, thrusting our spears over the top of the stonework and through the gaps between the carts, aiming for the enemy’s heads, since only a few possessed helmets. That was when I realised that most of this rabble were no more than peasants: sent, no doubt, to test our fighting spirit, to soften us up and tire us out before the more hardened warriors were given their chance to finish us. Yet for all their enthusiasm, mere farmers and labourers such as these usually lacked the stomach for a long struggle; they could hold a spear but little else. It would not take much to break them, or so I hoped.

  My blade found a man’s neck, tearing a gash between the bottom of his ear and his collarbone, and he reeled back, clutching as blood bubbled from the wound. Some way to the right, his countrymen had managed to partly shift one of the carts, exposing a gap in the wall wide enough for a couple of men to stand shoulder to shoulder, but none of them wanted to be first to try their luck against our stout shield-wall. The two at the front hesitated, uncertain what to do, until eventually the weight of bodies behind them forced them forward on to Norman spears.

  ‘Ut!’ the enemy bayed, a deep-throated call that put me in mind of wolves on the hunt. ‘Ut, ut, ut!’

  It was a battle-cry I knew well. I remembered first hearing it that October morning at Hæstinges, when with the glimmer of sun rising over the trees and breaking through the clouds, we had stared up the slope at the ridge they called Senlac, and shivered at the sight of so many hundreds of the usurper’s vassals and their retainers, their pennons flying defiantly in the breeze, their mail and their spearpoints flashing in the autumn sun.

  Which meant that these men standing before us were not Welsh but English: some of those who had taken up arms under Eadric’s standard, I didn’t wonder.

  Across the top of the wall, their shields met ours. The sound of steel upon limewood rang out as all along the line blades and bosses clashed. My feet were braced, ready for the impact, but even so it jarred through my entire body and I was forced to take half a pace back to steady myself. The man who faced me was a giant; easily more than six feet tall, he towered the better part of a head above me. The bloodlust was in his eyes; wordlessly he yelled as he tried to thrust his spear down towards my groin, but I saw it coming and used the face of my shield to trap it against the wall, before smashing the upper edge into the base of his chin. His jaw streaming with crimson, he reeled back, stunned. Before he had a chance to recover I lunged forward, aiming for his groin, gritting my teeth as I tore upwards into his bowels and then quickly wrenched my weapon free. Like a great oak uprooted in a storm, he toppled backwards, almost falling on top of one of his comrades, who just managed to dodge aside as he crashed to the ground.

  Blood and shit pooled around his limp body. The stench of fresh-spilt guts filled the air, so thickly that I could almost taste it. Burning bile rose in my throat but I held it back. Dimly I was aware of others around me, of shouts and screams and men falling on either side; my world had narrowed and I saw only myself, my spear and my shield, and the next Englishman who had come to meet his fate. This was the moment that the poets and the troubadours often told of. As the killing began, so they sang, at the same time came the battle-calm, and they were right, for I could feel it happening then. Blood surged through my veins, filling my limbs with renewed vigour. No longer did I need to think as I became lost to the dance of blades, to the clash of shields, to the rhythm of thrust and parry and cut, each movement ingrained in me through years of training so that it came as if by instinct, until suddenly the English were falling back.

  Blinded by the bloodlust and deaf to the warnings of their lords and comrades, a few of our men followed them, breaking from their lines, clambering over the wall and rushing forward after the enemy, either alone or in groups of two, three and four. They started to cut down those who were limping or injured or otherwise straggling behind, but in doing so they were making themselves vulnerable.

  ‘Hold back!’ I bellowed, hoping that the other barons would hear me and prevent their men from committing similar folly. If the enemy had been in full flight then I might have allowed them to free their sword-arms and inflict some slaughter. But they were not; this was merely a lull while the enemy gathered their wits and their numbers for the next assault.

  When people who have not known the sword-path hear tales of what happens in battle, they sometimes imagine endless clashes of steel upon steel, men standing toe to toe, trading blows, hacking at each other for hours at a time in fearsome duels of strength. Of course there are times when the lines will meet and there are such flurries of swordplay, but always there are moments of respite in between, when the lines fall back and all feels strangely still. Moments like this. They can be the hardest, for it is then, when his thoughts are no longer solely on keeping himself alive and he sees the corpses strewn across the field, that a man’s senses and confidence are most likely to desert him. In the final reckoning battles are more usually won not by the most experienced warriors or those with the best sword- or spear-arms but by those with the staunchest wills, the strongest heads.

  ‘Come and die, you bastards,’ Eudo called out, partly to taunt the enemy but also partly, I thought, to inspire our own host. ‘You goat-turds, you sons of whores, you worthless Devil-spawn! Fight us!’

  Whether any of the enemy heard him above the din, I could not say, and I doubted they would have understood in any case, for few among their kind knew anything of the French tongue. But they came nonetheless, led by their thegns, who in times of peace were their lords and in war their leaders. I recognised them not just by the flags nailed to their spears, but also because they had the means to possess mail and helmets, to decorate their scabbards with bands of copper inlaid with gold and silver and precious stones. I searched about for Wild Eadric, hoping to identify him by some such embellishment or else by the size of his retinue, since I’d never seen his face and did not know his device. Perhaps he was among them, but I failed to spot him.

  The English came a second time and a third, and with each assault the crude barricade was gradually weakened further, the carts either dragged to one side or else hacked to pieces by men armed with axes, while the wall, which was not mortared, crumbled and in some places fell down altogether. It had done its purpose and broken the first few onslaughts, allowing us to kill more than we might have managed otherwise. As they fell back again I saw that all that remained were loose stones, broken timbers and splintered fragments, like the detritus that the tide washes up on to the shore, strewn across the field together with the bodies of their countrymen and no doubt more than a few of our own. It was hard to tell amidst the blood and the long grass, although as I glanced down our front line, I saw several faces that had not been there before.

  On our right wing, where Wace, Maredudd and Ithel were commanding, we seemed to have lost fewer men, but then the ground was t
rickier there and the enemy seemed to have found it difficult crossing the bogs. Several score had fallen to Maredudd’s archers before they had even reached the shield-wall. Their corpses lay in the mud; from their chests and their sides protruded long goose-feathered shafts, which the bowmen were now rushing to recover before the enemy returned.

  I felt down the front of my shirt for the little silver cross that hung there, which for years had protected me, and also for the pendant that contained St Ignatius’ toe-bone, grasping both tightly in my fist as I closed my eyes and silently said a prayer to God.

  ‘Christ be my shield,’ I murmured when I had finished, and put the cross to my lips just for a heartbeat before tucking it back underneath my mail.

  Again the English rushed forwards, marching now in ordered lines, with their thegns once more leading the assault, and it seemed that they were throwing the greater part of their force against our wing: against myself and my knights and Eudo. They knew that if they could breach our line in one place then it would not be long before the rest of our ranks broke. Not that that meant there would be any respite for Wace and the princes fighting to our right, since I saw one of the two lion banners making its way down from the ridge. Beneath it marched a horde of Welshmen, and at their head rode one of their kings: either Bleddyn or Rhiwallon, though I had no way of knowing which.

  Obviously they’d decided that they had played with us for long enough. They were throwing their full force against us and now the real fight would begin. Sweat rolled off my brow, stinging my eyes, and I did my best to blink it away, breathing deeply, knowing that if we could not hold the line we would all be dead men very soon.

  ‘Stay close,’ I called out. ‘Keep your shields together! For Normandy—’

  It was all that I had time to say before our lines clashed once more.

  The shield-wall is a brutal place to be. In all my years I have known nothing else like it, and to those who have not experienced it, it is a hard thing to describe. For until a man has stood shoulder to shoulder with his fellow warriors and stared death in the face – until he has stood so close to the man trying to kill him that he can gaze into his eyes, that he has smelt his putrid ale-stinking breath, his shit-filled braies and the sweat running from his armpits; until he has buried his blade in that enemy’s belly and watched his guts spill forth and his lifeblood slip away – until he has done all that and survived to tell the tale, he has not truly lived.