‘We don’t have the numbers, lord,’ I said. ‘If we retreat we can gather our strength, sally out on our own terms.’
‘No,’ Robert said, and his dark eyes bored into me. ‘They fear us, Tancred. See how reluctant they are to attack! We will defeat them tonight and we will defeat them here.’
‘They haven’t attacked because all they need do is hold us here,’ I pointed out. ‘The rest will come around the side streets.’ And I told him how we had come upon a group of them close by the bridge. ‘They’ll return, and when they do it will be in greater numbers than before. When that happens, we’ll be trapped here with no hope of retreat.’
He remained silent. The English continued to bang their shields; some of the Norman lords were doing the same as they tried to encourage their men.
‘Take thirty knights, then,’ he said at last. ‘Try to head the enemy off.’ He began to marshal a dozen or so of his men to go with me as he retied his helmet-strap under his chin.
I swallowed, for I knew if we became cut off from the main army, then we were all dead men. But the order had been given and I could not refuse.
‘Give me forty,’ I called after him.
He looked back at me. For a moment he hesitated, as if uncertain what to do, but then he nodded and gave the signal for ten more of his men to follow me.
‘If you can’t head them off, then we’ll have to retreat,’ he said. His lips were solemn and his eyes had the look of one who was beginning to see only failure ahead of him; a look that, in twelve years of campaigning, I had never seen him wear. This was the man who had led us at Varaville and at H?stinges, who had rallied us when all had seemed lost, whose temperament never wavered, whose prowess at arms was bettered by none — and yet I saw his despair. A sudden chill came over me.
He rode back to the head of his men. Breathing deeply, I raised my lance and waved the pennon so that the whole of my conroi could see me. There were men of all ages: some young and fresh-faced, who had only recently sworn their oaths to Robert; others who had served him since before the invasion, who were nearly as old as myself.
‘Stay close to me,’ I said to them. ‘Keep in mind always that the strength of the charge is in weight of numbers. Watch your flanks; don’t lose sight of the men beside you.’
I checked to see who was behind me, and was relieved to find Eudo and Fulcher and Gerard, though none of them were looking at me then; their eyes were either closed or fixed on the ground. Perhaps they were thinking over the instructions I had just given, or perhaps they were imagining the charge and what they would do when we met the English line.
I glanced once more towards Robert, who was speaking now with one of the other lords, his face red as he gestured wildly at some of the men further along our line. I swallowed once more, but as I lifted the hawk pennon high above my head, all my doubts fell away. For I knew that in twelve years of fighting I had faced worse circumstances than this, and had made it through. As long as we kept faith in our sword-arms, we would yet prevail.
‘For Normandy,’ I shouted.
My heart pounded as hard as Rollo’s hooves as we climbed back past the church and on around the bend, towards the western side of the town. That was where the enemy would be coming from, if they were coming at all, for the approach to the promontory was less steep there than it was on the eastern side. We passed the place where we had fought our skirmish earlier, though the road was now empty.
‘This way!’ I said, as I cut to the right, down a street so narrow that three of us could barely ride abreast, between houses on one side and wattle-work fencing on the other. I caught a glimpse of the river to our left, a ribbon of deepest black weaving beneath the trees.
Then the houses came to an end and we came out on to a field of furrowed earth, some thirty paces in width and perhaps two or three times as long. And there, at the far end, from out of the midst of the houses, were Normans fleeing towards us, scores of them on horseback and on foot. Behind them, roaring, running forward with torches bobbing and weapons drawn, came the enemy.
Three
I lowered my lance, gripping it firmly in my right hand just as I clutched at the brases of my shield in my left.
‘On!’ I called to my conroi. ‘For St Ouen, Lord Robert and King Guillaume!’
‘For King Guillaume!’ they returned the cry, and we were racing across the field, scores of hooves trampling down the furrows, kicking up mud and stones. Beside me rode Eudo and Fulcher and Gerard, knee to knee, with three more on either flank, so that there were ten of us in that first line, leading the charge. A few on our right were beginning to draw ahead, and I shouted to them to keep formation, though how many could have heard, above the thunder of hooves and wind buffeting in their faces, I did not know.
The fleeing Normans scattered from our path. The enemy were behind them still, a tide of men rushing forth to meet us, but we drove on, and then we were among them, crashing our lances into their shields and their faces, riding over their bodies as they fell. The rest of the conroi were behind us as we tore into their ranks, beating down with our swords, and the screams of the dying filled the air.
‘Godemite,’ one of the enemy shouted, raising his spearpoint with its scarlet pennon high into the air. ‘Godemite!’
Unlike the rest who went without armour, or at best with only a leather jerkin, he wore mail. His sword-hilt was inlaid with gold, and I took him for a thegn — one of the English leaders — for he was rallying his men to him, until seemingly without any signal being given they began running at us, their spears levelled forwards. So eager were they to die, however, that they came not all at once with shields overlapping, but rather in ragged fashion.
I charged on with Eudo and Gerard and the rest beside me, cleaving, battering the enemy down, until the thegn himself stood before me. His teeth were gritted and his face was red as he aimed his spearpoint at Rollo’s neck, but I swerved right and it hammered into my shield instead, sending a shudder up through my shoulder and knocking me backwards against the cantle. I gripped Rollo tight with my legs, determined not to fall.
He drew his gilded sword and made to attack again, but before he could, Eudo had come around by his flank and was slashing across the man’s unprotected forearm, through the bone, severing the hand which remained still gripped around the sword-hilt. The man screamed and stumbled back, clutching at the bloody stump, but in doing so he brought his shield out of position, and his head was exposed.
I saw the opening and smashed my sword down into the thegn’s face. His head jerked back, his long moustache soaked in blood; the nasal-guard of his helmet had taken the brunt of the blow and still he lived, though not for long. Eudo sliced across his chest, penetrating the links of his hauberk to the flesh beneath. Gasping, the man took another step back, looking down at his breast as he pressed his one remaining hand tight against the mail. Blood spilt through his fingers; his eyes glazed over and his lips moved, but no sound came out; and then he collapsed.
No sooner had he done so than he was forgotten, for I was moving on: parrying, thrusting, carving a path through the enemy until there was space around me. I checked to see that the rest of my conroi were with me still, and most were, but not all. Several horses lay dead on the ground, their riders beside them, and among those who had fallen I saw the face of my countryman, Rualon.
I had no time for reflection, however. Over the enemy’s heads, to my left and close to the river, I glimpsed a white shield with a black hawk upon its face. Its owner, robust and barrel-chested, was fighting on foot and his free hand wielded a long spear: a spear which carried a pennon the same as mine. He had his helmet on and his ventail up, but I could just see the scar below his eye which he had borne ever since H?stinges, and I recognised him straightaway.
‘Wace!’ I called, hoping to catch his attention, but above the noise of swords clashing upon shields and mail he could not have heard me. I raised my sword aloft. ‘With me,’ I said to my men. ‘With me!’
&nbs
p; Apart from Lord Robert himself, I knew of few men more skilled with a sword than Wace. He’d been in Robert’s employ even longer than I, had fought in the same battles, and, like me, was in charge of a full conroi of his household knights. Except that now there were but six or seven men with him. Three were knights, for they wore mail and helmets. One had lost his shield and was fighting with a spear in either hand, another with two swords. Together they were being pressed back into a tight ring as the English closed on them from all sides.
‘On! On!’
Northumbrians fled before me, and my sword felt light in my hand as I brought it down, again, again, again. I no longer knew how many I had killed, for all I could see were those ahead, and I knew I had to get to Wace. He stabbed his spear up under the shield of the man in front of him, into his groin, but no sooner had that corpse fallen to the ground than another man had stepped over it to fill the gap, eager for blood. On the other side, the Norman with the two swords pressed his advantage, coming out of the ring against his comrades’ warnings, raining blows on the shields before him, hacking so hard that the hide fell away from the wood. He forced his way through their wall, striking out left and right, and several of them died before a spear pierced his chest.
Wace looked up and saw me. He shouted something that I could not hear, but it did not matter, because the enemy were beneath me and my blade was singing with the joy of battle, gleaming in the torchlight as it struck and struck again. And I was reminded of the end of the day at H?stinges, when the last of the English tried to hold us off, even though the battle was by then already won, and the man they called their king lay dead on the field. I recalled how we had pursued them as they fled the melee, and suddenly I was there again, riding the enemy down, losing myself to the will of my sword, arcing it down, slicing it across their throats.
‘For Lord Robert!’ I cried. ‘For Lord Robert!’
I looked about for my next kill, but the enemy were running back to their ranks, where hundreds more, it seemed, were slowly advancing, shouting as they came: ‘Ut! Ut! Ut!’
Wace stood, breathing hard, while the three men that remained of his group rallied around him. The shaft of his spear had cracked, lodged in the chest of one of several Northumbrian bodies littering the earth in front of him. The pennon, soaked with blood, was torn to shreds. He looked, half squinting, up at me. The same blow that had given him his scar at H?stinges had also crippled his eye, and though he could still see almost as well as before, he had never been able to open it fully since.
‘You took your time,’ he said, which was exactly the kind of remark I would have expected from him. He had a voice like gravel: rough and sharp.
‘We have to get back,’ I told him, ignoring his lack of gratitude. ‘We must get back to the fastness.’
I glanced about at the rest of my conroi, who were staring at the massed ranks of English spears bearing down on them. Some of them were already turning, breaking off, riding back the way we had come.
Sheathing my sword, I waved towards the promontory and the palisade wall ringing its crest. ‘Retreat!’
Several horses had lost their riders and had bolted away from the fighting, down towards the river’s edge. Already Wace and his men were making for them, though some seemed reluctant to take another rider and were taking flight again, a few lashing out with their hind legs at any who approached.
A horn blew again, and it seemed to me that the sound was coming from close to the church, the tower of which I could see even now, rising above the roofs of the houses. Embers blew on the wind, some of them landing on the thatch and starting to set it alight; from further to the north came a long cloud of black smoke which billowed in my face, obscuring the way ahead and causing me to choke, but I could hear the cries of the enemy behind me and I knew I had to keep riding. The furrows ran the length of the field, and I followed them until the path between the houses came into sight. Rollo was slowing, and I knew he must be tiring, but I could not let him rest yet.
As we came up the steep slope towards the fastness I heard the clash of swords ahead in the main street; we came out just as two Englishmen were finished on the spears of a group of knights. And among those knights I recognised the square face of Mauger: one of the two I had left to protect Oswynn, who was not with him-
‘Mauger!’ I called, trying to make myself heard above the clash of steel, the cries which were coming from the marketplace, the drumming of hooves.
He looked up, tugging on the reins so as to face me. ‘Tancred-’ he began.
‘Where is she?’ I cut him off, glancing about to make sure that I hadn’t missed her. But my eyes had not deceived me. She wasn’t there. ‘Where is she?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and I saw the lump in his throat as he swallowed.
‘What?’ I stared at him, urging him to go on, my gut already wrenching as he opened his mouth and I sensed what he was about to say, though I did not want to believe it. ‘Where is she?’
He looked down towards the ground. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘The enemy — they came upon us without warning while we were riding back to the stronghold …’
‘No,’ I said. I felt suddenly cold, as if my very soul had flown from my body. Words stuck in my throat, the breath torn from my chest. ‘It can’t be.’ I saw her face before me, her black hair running wild as she glared at me with her dark eyes, cursing in her English tongue.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mauger said.
‘No,’ I repeated. ‘She’s not dead. She’s not.’ I stared into his eyes, willing him to deny it, but I saw only his guilt. Guilt because he had failed me. I wanted to strike him for that failure, strike him from his horse to the street below, except that all the strength had left my limbs and I could not have done so even had I tried.
I heard Wace’s voice behind me, ordering the retreat, and the horn blowing from the direction of the marketplace, and the shouts of all those men, cheering, screaming, chanting, dying. Around me the smoke was growing thicker and blacker, swirling in my face, stinging my eyes. Sparks lifted into the air like a scattering of stars, flaring momentarily before one by one their lives were extinguished and they disappeared, swallowed up by the night.
Men rushed past me, on horse and on foot, and I heard their cries but knew not what they were saying as I sat frozen to the saddle. Behind me the drumming was closer and I imagined all those Northumbrians marching towards us, with nothing but murder in their hearts-
And I knew that Mauger was not the one to blame.
I yanked hard on the reins and Rollo reared up, but I no longer cared, for I had but one thing in mind.
‘Tancred!’ Mauger said, but I pretended not to hear as I turned back down the way between the houses, pressing my heels in harder than before, drawing every last fraction of speed from Rollo’s legs.
I pulled my sword free of its scabbard, flourishing it high above my head, just as the smoke cleared and then without warning the English were rushing towards me. I crashed into their first line before they could even come together and form their shield-wall: roaring, swearing death upon them all; slashing, scything, cleaving with my blade; and I was shouting in anger, shouting without words, shouting so that my voice would be the last thing they heard before I sent them all to hell.
There were others with me now as I tore into the enemy, but in truth I didn’t care whether or not they were there, for the bloodlust was upon me and there was nothing that could stop me. I heaved my sword up and across the back of a Northumbrian’s helm, and he fell under Rollo’s hooves. Straightaway I was turning, lifting for another stroke, using the full weight of the weapon to batter down another’s shield before drawing the point across his throat and up under his chin.
Beside me, a horse rose up on its hind legs; its front feet pawed at the air and the whites of its eyes gleamed in the darkness, before one of the Englishmen plunged his spear deep into the animal’s belly. It thrashed wildly, screaming in pain, and its rider was suddenly thrown from the
saddle. The breath caught in my chest as I saw that it was Fulcher, but I was too far away to do anything. He was struggling to get to his feet when the same spearman thrust the point down, through his broad chest into his heart.
‘Fulcher!’ I shouted, and gritted my teeth, putting all of my strength into my sword-arm as I swung-
There was a flash of steel from below and pain seared down my lower leg. I clung on to Rollo’s neck even as I backhanded my blade across the chest of the one who had struck me, screaming to God and the saints, as the full agony overtook me.
‘Get back,’ someone said, and I realised it was Wace’s voice. Fire reflected in his sword as he brought it to bear upon the enemy. ‘Get back!’
It took me a moment to realise that he was shouting at me and not at the English, but in that moment the bloodlust faded and suddenly I found myself in the midst of more spears than I could count, with only Wace by my side. I looked to my left just as Gerard was dragged from his mount, and I sat rooted to my stirrups while the English set upon him with swords and knives and spears. Still he struggled, fending off the blows with his shield, until one of the enemy, taller than the rest, came forward with a long-handled axe and brought it down upon Gerard’s chest.
‘Go,’ Wace was shouting.
Sweat poured down off my brow into my face, mingling with my tears. I didn’t care whether I lived or died; all I wanted was to strike down the man who had killed Gerard. I charged forward before he could lift the weapon for another swing, turning my sword-hilt in my hand so that I held it instead more like a dagger. His eyes widened as he saw me coming, and he dropped the axe as he ducked to one side, but he was too slow and too tall and I was able to stab down, driving into his back so hard that the blade stuck as I tried to pull it free. The hilt was slick with the spilt blood of my foes and my own sweat, and I felt my hand slipping. I struggled to clutch on to it but my fingers found only air, and then I saw it falling behind me, tumbling point over hilt, glinting with the light of so many torches, before it thudded into the ground and fear overtook me.
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