16
York They buried Tostig within the York Minster, his coffin laid a discreet distance from the altar, a granite slab covering his resting place. Some grumbled at the honour granted him, murmuring that he was a traitor and a murderer, but most were filled with the exultation of victory and paid little heed to those less benevolent. In death, the man could do no further harm and he was, after all, brother to the King.
The victory had been great – worthy of a tale-teller’s saga. The march north to surprise the unsuspecting enemies; Hardrada and Tostig killed; substantial casualties for their luckless army. Among the English, a few noble and good men were killed, others wounded, but a mere handful only in comparison. Among them, though, were Harold’s own sons: Goddwin had received a sword slash to his right arm, which would most assuredly ache on a winter’s night, and Edmund had a fractured leg, but a clean break that would mend with rest and time.
Swinging with confident strides back along the road to York, yodelling their victory songs, the English proclaimed Harold a great warlord and a worthy king. Harold accepted the flattery with good grace, but nonetheless remembered the truth of Stamford Bridge.
Hardrada had been careless. He ought never have marched with so few men in hostile country, and certainly not without taking armour or proper precautions. Tostig too was responsible. Undoubtedly, a part of their failure had been due to his arrogant assumption that Northumbria would bend its humbled knee to him without question and that men who had professed loyalty to him would prefer a Norwegian foreigner over an anointed, English-born king.
The rout that had followed Tostig’s death had been complete. Those who had not died trying to swim the river had been slaughtered or captured. Three hundred longships had made their hostile way up the Ouse; only enough men to sail four and twenty of them survived to return to Norway. Fewer than one thousand men. The keening of the widows would darken the coming winter with the song of sorrow. The rest of the fleet, Harold kept for himself as spoils of victory.
Magnanimously, he allowed those men captured to leave England with their comrades, Olaf, son of Hardrada, among them. Eadwine and Morkere, come from their place of safety, were all for beheading him, but Harold was wiser. It was unlikely that Norway would try for England again; Olaf was no Hardrada. Better to receive his homage and agreement of peace, and allow him to return home – he would be fully occupied these next few years with consolidating his own inherited kingship.
Come the fourth day of the October month, the feasting and merry-making was ended, the men of the fyrd returning to their homes, the noblemen picking up the abruptly severed threads of government. Wounds were healing, life returning to normality. Winter would soon be coming, and there was always much for a man to be doing to ensure the well-being of house place and livestock before the first snows fell.
For himself, Harold had felt little joy in the victory. How could he take pleasure in the slaying of his own brother? A brother who had been fighting in fury against him? He stood in the quiet solitude of the minster, looking down at the tomb. Aye, he was pleased at the splendid achievement of the men who had marched north so quickly, who had fought with exceptional bravery – what king would not be justifiably proud of such heroes? But the fight, for his own heart, was tainted by too much sorrow.
‘I trust you are satisfied. Now that you have no one to stand against you.’
Harold raised his head. His sister Edith was standing on the opposite side of the graveplace, her expression one of cool contempt. Her face had thinned, these last months; she looked pinched and hag-bound, like a frustrated, mean-spirited spinster. An unfulfilled woman who had never found happiness, nor was ever likely to. He ought to feel sorrow for her, but there was no room left within him for anything beyond loathing.
He had not seen Edith since the funeral day – his coronation day
– when she had swept from Westminster, taking all she could carry with her to Winchester, the Queen’s city. By right, Winchester ought be Alditha’s, but Harold had not had the opportunity to claim it from his sister. And he knew, were he to do so, he would have another spiteful fight on his hands, the possible spilling of yet more English blood. Edith would never, willingly, give up her dower land to the woman who had replaced her. Regarding her sour, condemning expression, Harold realised, all these years later, why Edward had so hated his mother for her refusal to give up and retire quietly.
‘There is no point in my saying that this saddens me,’ he answered, gesturing to the grave. ‘You would not believe me.’
Edith had arrived two days previously, her entourage of 500 men sweeping into York, demanding hospitality for the lady within the palace. Morkere, his wounds paining him, his mind occupied with settling the trouble Tostig had stirred, would rather have kicked her backside over the sea with those humiliated Norwegians, but she had been queen to King Edward, and therefore required respect.
She must have been on the road well before the twenty-fifth, the day of battle. Prudently – in case she answered with something he would prefer not to hear – Harold had not asked how she came to be riding to where she expected their brother to be residing. And with her so many men bearing arms and armour. That she had come to aid Tostig did not need to be asked. She had been about to commit treason, but it mattered for naught now. Tostig was dead and she had no champion. Her cause was ended and already beginning to moulder beneath this granite slab.
‘He was never a favourite brother, Edith, but for all that, he was my brother. Our mother’s son. I had no wish for this. It was not of my doing. His own greed caused it. Not me.’
Edith’s response was to step around the grave and slap Harold’s cheek, the sharp, bare sound ricocheting from the stone walls, echoing across the nave and chancel. Monks gathered in a western chapel glanced up, concerned.
‘You did nothing for him!’ she spat. ‘You betrayed him by making no attempt to regain his earldom, to help him salvage his dignity! And then you pushed him down to his knees by setting Edward’s crown upon your own head – and still you made no effort to help him!’ Again she slapped him, the force of her anger and grief thrusting behind the blow. Harold’s head reeled, a bruise instantly reddening from eye to jaw, but he did not move, said only, with such great sorrow, ‘He could have had anything he wanted, Edith, had he only asked. Anything, except for Northumbria.’
She spat at him, a globule of saliva that landed on his cheek and dribbled into the trail of his moustache. Turning on her heel, she stalked from the minster, her boot heels tap-tapping in her haste. Outside, the sun was shining as if it were midsummer; the weather was most assuredly turned inside out this year. Irritably she called for her mare and was preparing to be boosted into the saddle when the clatter of hooves, coming fast along the road that ran towards the London gate, halted her movement. Edith’s guard, monks, the minster folk, men and women of York, housecarls and soldiers all turned to watch the rider come galloping through the wide-flung gateway, sparks flying from the shoes of his horse as he hauled at the reins. The lathered, sweat-dripping animal came down on one knee; blood oozed from his flanks where the spurs had driven him. The rider flung himself from the saddle and, pausing merely to ask the whereabouts of the King, took the steps in one stride and ran into the minster.
Curious, Edith followed him into the shadowed coolness. She watched him run the length of the aisle and stumble to his knees in front of Harold, his lips moving before the King had barely registered his presence. Standing within the doorway, her back to the sunlight, Edith saw Harold’s face drain chalk pale, his hand go to his sword, the fingers clutch, tight, around it. He asked a few brief questions, which were answered with equal despatch.
The King nodded his head, once, and headed for the doorway. He brushed past Edith without seeing her, shouting for his horse. He mounted by vaulting into the saddle and heeled straight into a canter, giving simultaneous command that the officers of his housecarls were to be summoned.
‘What is it?’ men
were asking, perplexed, a little fearful. ‘What is wrong?’
Ealdred, Archbishop of York, came hurrying, his vestments gathered into his fists so that he might run the faster. He put his hand out to signal Harold to stop. ‘What has happened, my Lord? What tragedy? What is wrong?’
‘We are in dire need of your prayers, my Lord Archbishop,’ Harold said quickly, as he hauled the beast to halt. ‘I must ride south immediately. Duke William has landed his fleet at Pevensey.’
17
London Harold reached London late in the evening of the ninth of October. The news was bad. His brother Leofwine awaited him at Westminster, was first down the Hall steps into the torch-lit courtyard as the King rode in.
‘Well?’ Harold demanded as Leofwine ran up.
‘He has fortified himself within that area of marsh-edged land known as the Hastings Peninsula. It would be difficult to take our army in there – boundaries of marsh and river are as effective as any palisade wall. For the moment he has no lack of supplies, is living off the land, looting all he can and destroying what remains.’
Harold tossed the reins of his stallion to the nearest servant, unbuckled and removed his war cap as he strode up the wooden steps leading into his Hall. Alditha stood at the top, the cup of welcome in her hand. She offered it to him, he took a quick gulp and passed it back, pressing a light but inattentive kiss to her cheek. ‘I have no time for formal welcome, lass, but would appreciate a tankard of ale and something to eat – cheese will do.’ He kissed her a second time, more fondly. ‘You look tired,’ he added. ‘Does the child bring discomfort?’
‘No, my Lord, the child is well,’ Alditha answered him, but he did not hear, for he was talking again to Leofwine and others of his command who were gathering around the table set beside the eastern wall, already cluttered with maps and parchments. His queen, for want of something to do to help, went to fetch ale.
‘I have been studying the route south, and the entire Hastings area,’ Leofwine said, indicating one map unrolled and spread, a salt box, tankard, ink pot and wooden fruit bowl anchoring the four persistently curling corners. ‘From what we have already learned, these villages’ – he indicated three – ‘have been burnt, razed to the ground.’ ‘Casualties?’ the King snapped.
Leofwine cleared his throat, glanced at his own captain of housecarls, knowing Harold would not be pleased at the answer. ‘Several.’
‘Aye. I would expect the Bastard to butcher the menfolk.’
‘ ’Tis not just the men. There are bodies of women and children
– bairns, some of them, still at the breast.’ Leofwine swallowed hard, reluctant to continue. The brutality of the battlefield was no stranger to any of the warrior kind, but this, this was sickening. Quietly, his voice hoarse, he said, ‘Many are only charred remains – they burnt with their houses. Nothing has been left standing. No one left alive. It seems he has not come merely to conquer England, but to destroy everyone and everything in the process.’
Harold was standing with his palms resting flat on either side of the map, looking at the markings of river, coast, settlement and hill. He set his jaw, said nothing. He dared not. The words that were sticking in his throat would have erupted into fury had he released them. He swallowed down his anger with a gulp of ale from the tankard that Alditha fetched him, his mind turning to campaigning in Brittany . . .
William’s determination to succeed, whatever the cost in human life or suffering. His manic obsession with winning. Too clearly could Harold see in his mind that smouldering ruin of Dinan. The senseless killing of the innocent. Of women and babes. Heard in his ears the screaming as women and their daughters, innocent of men, were violated. Now it was happening to his own, to English people. People he knew – and knew well, for he held estates in that coastal area, had hunted there often as boy and man grown. He had a stud of fine breeding horses at Whatlington, and Crowhurst held a mews with some of the best hawks in the country. His hawksman there was a loyal and good-humoured man, his wife and four daughters all exceptionally pretty. Crowhurst had been one of the places Leofwine had pointed to.
After a while, when his breathing had calmed, Harold asked, ‘Do we know the extent of his supplies? The Hastings land will not feed him for ever.’
‘With the number of ships he has brought with him, I would say he is capable of withstanding a siege through the winter at least.’
William could devastate the area in that time, and aye, it would be difficult to flush him out. The Hastings Peninsula might be no stone-built fortress, but it mattered not. A siege was a siege, whatever the defensive circumstances, and Duke William was well versed in siege warfare. Nor, Harold reflected grimly, was he likely to make foolish mistakes through arrogance, as had Hardrada.
‘I say leave him to rot!’ That was Gyrth, who had just entered the Hall, stripping off his riding gloves as he did so. Like Harold, his beard-stubbled face was grimed with white dust, his clothes sweatstained, eyes tired. Twice, in a matter of weeks, had they made the journey between London and York in six days. Once in itself was feat enough for any man, but twice? Surely this king deserved the respect and loyalty of his subjects!
‘We shall ensure he cannot get reinforcements; therefore he will run out of food eventually – perhaps his men will not stand firm if we starve them out, Leofine added.’
Harold pushed his weight from the table, hooked a stool forward, sat. He was so weary. His body felt a dead, limp weight, but he could not afford the luxury of paying mind to it. ‘We need to consider this carefully,’ he said. ‘I know Duke William. Know some of his vile tactics – he made damned sure I did. I see why, now. He hopes to goad me into hasty action through what he has ordered done to my people in Sussex.’
‘He intends to draw us into the arena, do you think?’ Leofwine spoke his thoughts out loud. ‘Is waiting for us to go in after him, lure us into an ambush?’
‘Or, once he has burnt and plundered everything in sight, will he march out towards the Weald?’ a housecarl captain asked, indicating a possible route with a grimed nail. ‘Could he have designs on Winchester, or Dover?’
‘That we must wait and see.’ Harold selected a chunk of soft goat’s cheese and bit into it, not tasting its tangy saltiness. ‘I do not care to let him run riot in the Weald. With only one narrow road in through dense woodland and impassable marsh he is safe from any land-based attack, but equally, that makes only the one route out. Within Hastings, we have him contained, can choose our own time to attack.’ He ruffled his hair, then brought his hand down over his nose, across his chin. ‘It is easier to spear a boar while it is trapped. Only a fool would prod such a creature out into the open.’
‘How long do we wait?’ Leofwine queried. ‘A few days, weeks?’
Harold answered him with a vague shrug. His mind was too tired to think, to make decisions . . . He forced the drowsiness aside. ‘We wait as long as we can. We are all tired, many of the men are wounded and are still straggling south – we were too short of horses for us all to ride with haste.
‘My poxed brother’s treachery has placed us at a disadvantage. Let us just hope William is as uncertain what to do next himself – he cannot have made plans, for he would not have expected us to be occupied in the North.’
Not for the first time during the dash south did Harold wonder at that, though. Had William known? What if Tostig had made an ally of Normandy also? There was no reason, save that of family honour, to have prevented him. And honour was, without doubt, a quality Tostig had been grotesquely lacking.
‘The fyrd, I assume, is alerted?’ he asked of Leofwine.
His brother nodded. ‘The war horns await your orders for their blowing.’
All summer had the fyrds of the south and eastern counties been on alert, alternating their patrolling of the coastline. Now they were to be called out again. They were not obliged to come, for already they had served their compulsory time. Before Stamford Bridge, Harold might have doubted their eagerness, but not
now. They would join together under his banner, for no warrior would miss the chance of a good fight, a good victory.
‘Will you not come to bed? You need to sleep.’ Alditha stood beside her husband, laid her hand over his. Midnight had passed; she had been abed, asleep, but had awoken to find Harold sitting brooding before a brazier that was only feebly glowing.
He began to rub warmth into her fingers. ‘I have too many thoughts tangling in my mind. Sleep would not come.’
She knelt and laid her head in his lap. He stroked his hand over her loose hair. She always smelt of chamomile. So did Edyth.
‘Can you defeat Duke William?’ she asked.
‘I defeated Hardrada.’ But that was different. He slid his palm along her cheek, down the nape of her neck. ‘The fight with Normandy will depend on how long I can delay. If I can delay.’
She looked up at him, her solemn eyes questioning. ‘If? Surely you will wait until all can reach you? You will not march with only half an army?’ Even Alditha, a woman, could see the potential for disaster in that.
‘I have lost men and many horses. If your brothers and the fyrds of Northumbria and Mercia could have come south with me, then Duke William, for all he believes he is superior, would not have stood a chance against us. As it is, the North has fought twice with great bravery already, has taken a hard toll of casualties. Both your brothers were wounded at Gate Fulford. Eadwine, like my son Goddwin, has an arm wound that lost him much blood. Morkere took a spear deep into his thigh. They will heal, but not fast enough to be of immediate help. How long will William wait before pressing for an advantage? Once he learns that my armies are not at full strength he will spare no mercy for me or England.’
Digesting his answer, Alditha buried her face within the folds of Harold’s cloak, but the sob that she tried to suppress escaped her lips.
‘What is it, sweetheart?’ Harold tipped up her face with his finger and wiped away the trail of a tear.
She made several attempts to pluck up the courage to speak and at last blurted out her fear. ‘What if you were to lose to him? What will become of me and my daughter, of this one, in here?’ She clutched her swollen belly. She had not liked to ask. It was taboo to mention defeat, but she had to know. Had to!
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