The Last Conquest

by Berwick Coates

  Florens and Fulk looked at each other and laughed.

  ‘Just a little secret we share,’ said Fulk, with that gentle growl in his throat that made Dietrich shiver.

  ‘Now,’ he said, clapping his hands, ‘to your positions.’ He raised his voice. ‘Do as I tell you this day, lads, and I shall make you all rich men.’

  ‘Or lonely ones,’ muttered Florens to himself.

  Wilfrid watched their own scouts labouring back up the slope towards them.

  ‘See that mud fly?’ he said to Edwin. ‘Heavy going. Damn good thing too.’

  ‘It will be wetter still either side of the stream,’ said Edwin. ‘All those rushes.’

  Wilfrid sniffed hugely. ‘Aye. So they will get wet feet first, and when they get here, we shall give them a dose of cold feet too.’

  Edwin looked up at the fierce eyebrows, the beak of a nose, the magnificent moustache, and felt a surge of confidence. It was surely no mere chance that his king had put him to fight beside a champion such as this.

  To his left stood the stolid rows of fyrdmen, balancing spears, flexing fingers, digging with heels to make firmer footholds. Further left again were ranged the extra shire levies, and all the other rag and tag who had been scooped up by the army on its rush south from London. In front of them had been placed many of the shields of housecarls who stood in the third and fourth ranks and further back. Between and in front of the shields were scattered whatever stakes they had been able to bring with them from the woods behind, some firmly rooted, others already lolling badly – all in a crazy variety of angles and intervals. Some were still being sharpened at the last minute.

  These yokels talked loudly, and swung a wild assortment of weapons. As they watched the housecarls prepare, they too decided it was a good idea to jab and poke at imaginary enemies to their front. Even to Edwin’s unpractised eye it was faintly laughable, especially when he turned to his right and saw the real thing.

  If the earth allowed it, the housecarls rammed the butts of spears upright into the ground beside them. Edwin bravely did the same, gazing in awe as Wilfrid and his fellows uncovered their fabled axes. Up and down the line, these mailed giants walked and squatted and stretched, and flexed shoulders and swung arms. Then came the practice swings with the axe – forward and back and cross and down – faces vacant with concentration until they were satisfied with tension and response and performance. Whetstones were stuffed into pockets. Blades were caressed and breathed upon.

  Gradually the line settled down.

  Earl Leofwine rode the length of the left wing once more, making final adjustments of concentration and strength. Edwin noticed that a solitary archer had appeared from nowhere, and now crouched furtively behind a shield at his side.

  He felt a nudge from Wilfrid, who leaned down and whispered throatily in his ear, ‘One thing – he will not be short of arrows when the Normans get going.’

  ‘Do you think it will be long now?’ said Edwin.

  Wilfrid glanced over his shoulder, past the stepped ranks of housecarls behind him, up to the top of the hill, where the scouts were making their last report. They pointed to Telham Hill, and Edwin saw Harold shield his eyes against the sun to look in the direction they showed. The banner of the Fighting Man gleamed above him.

  The King made a sign to his groom, who led his horse away to the rear.

  ‘Not long, I should say,’ said Wilfrid.

  Edwin turned back to the front, straining his eyes to the top of Telham Hill. He found himself yawning, of all things.

  Wilfrid glanced at him, and smiled.

  ‘Ever used these things before?’ he said, indicating the sheaves of spears.

  Edwin thought of a score of boastful answers, but looked at Wilfrid’s sharp blue eyes and said, ‘Yes – a bit.’

  ‘Make every one tell,’ said Wilfrid. ‘If you miss, you can not run out and get them back. If you hit something, you will not have time to go and dig it out.’

  ‘I – I shall do my best,’ said Edwin.

  Wilfrid patted him on the shoulder. ‘I dare say you will, son.’

  Edwin’s face twitched in thanks.

  ‘Frightened?’ said Wilfrid.

  Edwin swallowed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. I like to fight beside a truthful man.’

  All the same, Wilfrid would have preferred his cousin Oswy, now lying with a split skull in two feet of water under the bridge at Stamford.

  Gilbert ground his teeth.

  ‘Did you hear what he called me?’

  ‘Keep your temper,’ said Ralph.

  ‘At a time like this, he can still manage to be sarcastic.’

  Ralph pointed. ‘There is Senlac Hill. We have just reported the enemy’s dispositions on Senlac Hill. Odo would not be human if he did not recall the joke.’

  ‘It is not a joke!’

  ‘All right, all right, it is not a joke. But keep your temper. Lives will be saved today by cool heads, not hot ones.’

  ‘A fat chance we have, up here all day.’

  Ralph was not listening; he was watching the deployment. Bowmen were already fanning out on the front slopes of Telham this side of the stream. Ralph smiled – Sandor’s ‘Sandlake’. Blocks of infantry were forming up on the brow, waiting for the word to follow. Behind them, the knights and senior commanders were changing mounts, and checking gear on their war destriers. At the rear, baggage wagons and their drivers were looking for dry patches of level ground; marshals and other harassed staff were yelling at them to keep away from the horse lines and other concentration areas.

  The Duke had listened to Ralph’s report in his usual tense way.

  ‘Roughly what we expected, sir. Housecarls in the middle, several ranks deep. Fyrdmen either side and country riff-raff at each end. I think he has his headquarters round the tree on the top.’

  ‘Any defence works?’

  ‘Shields, mostly. They have made a sort of wall out of them. Difficult to see anything at this range.’

  ‘It can not be very strong,’ said Odo. ‘They have not had the time.’

  He rode resplendent now in mail. Not a stitch of clerical cloth on him.

  ‘It will provide protection rather than strength, sir,’ said Ralph. ‘Against the archers.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said the Duke, ‘I see no reason to depart from our general design. They can not have a shield for every man there. Those without will suffer.’

  Ralph looked across once more at the English army, then down at the bowmen and infantry arranging themselves before him. The English would not look so ragged when you looked up at them from down there. Already men’s eyes were being caught by a thousand gleams from spearheads and axes.

  ‘I said, “A fat chance we have,”’ repeated Gilbert.

  Ralph came out of his reverie. ‘Your time will come. Many men down there at this moment would gladly change places with us.’

  ‘Then let them come and change,’ said Gilbert.

  ‘Be patient,’ said Ralph. ‘You wanted to be a scout. Now be one.’

  Gilbert moved his horse restlessly. ‘So we remain here all day?’

  ‘If necessary – yes.’

  ‘And what do we do, pray? Get blisters on our—’

  ‘We learn, that is what we do. We watch, and we learn. If you ever stop learning in our trade, you stop living very soon.’ Ralph pointed. ‘Out there, today, you will see in action two of the finest commanders alive. If you do not find something to learn from them, you are either blind or stupid.’

  Gilbert grimaced. ‘But – all day?’

  Ralph softened a fraction. ‘Have no fear; a lot can happen in a battle, and very quickly. When the first blow is struck it is like a stone tossed into a pond. The ripples will reach us all on the edges – in time. And when they do, you will wish otherwise, I promise you. You will not have time even to offer a prayer for Adele.’

  Gilbert winced with remorse; he had barely given her a thought.

  Ralph stretched a h
and and waved it to and fro in front of them.

  ‘Look before you. What do you see? Tell me honestly – what are you thinking?’

  ‘How quiet it is.’

  ‘Exactly. And perhaps slow?’

  ‘Yes – yes!’

  Ralph nodded. ‘Just like laying out the pieces on a chessboard. Well, by the end of this day those pieces will be all over the place and the board itself may be overturned. You will see and hear such confusion that you may be forgiven for thinking that the last day of the world has come. We shall become involved – that is almost certain. But it is the time and manner of our involvement that is hidden from us. All I can tell you is, it will be a surprise. You must prepare for a surprise, and you must react as if you were expecting it.’

  Gilbert stared. ‘You mean – we might lose?’

  ‘Oh, that? Yes, that is possible too.’

  ‘That is treason,’ spluttered Gilbert.

  ‘Not treason – common sense. Our two commanders are very evenly matched, I should say. If I were a Saxon, I should cheerfully follow Harold, and I should be standing up there now, sneering at the Normans.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘Easily. Look at them. Now imagine yourself down there. Would you like to slosh through that stream, plod up that hill with mud weighing you down, and throw yourself against axes that can cut a man in half?’

  ‘But – but they are the enemy.’

  Ralph laughed. ‘They are not “the enemy”; we are. It is their land.’

  Gilbert sighed. ‘Now you have thoroughly confused me. Why are we here then? How do we ever get started?’

  ‘Because all war is a form of madness. No battle can start without it. There comes an instant when men stop thinking of common sense and reason, and think only of killing and surviving – sometimes not even of surviving.’

  ‘If that is all it is, how can you get a decision between equal commanders when everyone is going mad?’

  ‘Because there will come a moment – a hesitation, a gap, a weakness, a tension – something. Victory will go to the man who sees it and pounces.’

  ‘Suppose the English break at the first charge?’

  Ralph grinned. ‘That will be the surprise I was talking about. Come. Let us find Bruno.’

  As they cantered off, Ralph sighed at the irony. Gilbert was depressed because he did not understand everything clearly; he, Ralph of Gisors, the great scout, the great observer, was depressed because he did.

  A cloud moved across the sun.

  The Norman archers looked faintly ridiculous as they skipped across the tussocks of grass, their quivers bouncing on their buttocks. In the stillness Edwin could hear the ratchets of the crossbows being tightened.

  A small group of horsemen cantered down from Telham Hill. Slightly ahead was a magnificent white charger.

  ‘There he is,’ said Wilfrid in Edwin’s ear.

  A murmur of recognition ran along the line.

  ‘Steady, lads.’

  Single housecarls stood at intervals behind the line on either wing.

  The bowmen were across the stream now. Behind them, the blocks of French infantry edged towards the far bank.

  Every eye on the field was now held by the figure on the white horse.

  William turned to his groom and took his helmet. He looked to left and right as he fastened the chinstrap. Two heralds moved up, one on either side of him. He glanced up at the banner with the embroidered cross, then took a lance that trailed a long pennon from behind its head.

  ‘Ready!’ said the archer sergeants.

  Fingers curled round bowstrings.

  William looked over his right shoulder. The straggling cloud moved away, and sunlight flooded the field. Right into the English eyes.

  ‘Now.’

  He raised his lance, and his heralds put their trumpets to their lips. The thin, brassy braying floated towards the stream.

  The lance dropped.

  ‘Fire!’

  The volleys went humming and whistling up the hill.

  ‘Down!’ roared Wilfrid and a hundred others.

  Every head in the English army vanished.

  As he crouched and shivered, Edwin could hear the whizzing in the air and the thudding on the shields. Commands in French floated up the hill. A scattering of screams and curses broke out behind him. The lonely archer trembled and muttered prayers.

  Wilfrid nudged him. ‘Do you fancy the odds?’

  The archer managed a sickly smile.

  ‘How long?’ said Edwin.

  ‘Till they run out,’ said Wilfrid.

  A few foolish yokels put up their heads to have a look after the first volley, and died without striking a blow. Friends dragged them away, and broke off shafts that stuck from eyes and mouths and windpipes.

  On the right of the line, Gyrth peered through a slit between the shields.

  ‘Not long now, lads; then you can stretch.’

  The sheepman found himself gazing into the face of his madman. True, the fellow had crouched when everyone else did, but he had done nothing to show that he was aware of the slightest danger. He had taken up a place in the line – would that it had been any other – and had not uttered a word. Now he squatted with his face a few inches away, and gazed emptily at nothing. And, great God! He was eating. Eating! Huge hands caressed the shaft of the axe.

  It would drive a man off his head just watching him. The sheepman struggled to turn the other way. He put out his left foot to brace himself, and bellowed in pain. An arrow had found the small gap between the narrow, tapering feet of two shields. It had not transfixed the flesh, but it had made a nasty cut in passing.

  The sheepman tied up the wound as best he could, and stared at the vacant face before him. The man had not shown a flicker of emotion.

  When the quivers were empty, the bowmen withdrew.

  ‘Steady, steady,’ warned the housecarls. One or two stepped out in front of the restless wings and held up axe-handles.

  ‘Quick,’ said Wilfrid to the archer. ‘Now is your chance.’

  The man scrambled to his feet. Wilfrid eased back two shields.

  ‘Let them have it!’

  With each arrow that flew after the retreating Normans the English cheered. When one stuck in the buttock of a burly Picard and made him fall in the stream, men roared with laughter. Ribald advice was bawled down the hill at the two comrades struggling to fish him out.

  Gyrth scanned the field. ‘A good start,’ he said.

  ‘They will be back,’ said Harold. ‘If I know William, he has wagons bursting with fresh arrows behind the brow. But we have respite, at least.’

  ‘So far, so good,’ said Leofwine.

  Harold looked up at the two standards, and nodded at the two eager young bearers.

  ‘Give them a wave,’ he said.

  When they saw the standards fluttering defiantly, the line cheered like thunder. They were mightily pleased with themselves. For a few heady minutes the bewildered, back-slapped archer was a hero.

  ‘It does not seem to have done much,’ said Gilbert.

  ‘Pricking and probing,’ said Bruno flatly.

  ‘Every little counts,’ said Ralph. ‘As a mouse gnaws at a tree.’

  While the archers replenished their quivers, it would be the turn of the infantry to probe with sword and spear. On the wings, where the enemy was weakest. It was sufficient to present only a show of force in the centre just to keep the housecarls occupied – for the time being.

  Behind the heavy contingents in the centre, Sir Walter Giffard flexed his toes in the stirrups and waited. He looked towards Fitzosbern and the Duke. Not that he expected an order yet to advance in strength. Please God, the infantry must not do it at the first attempt, on their own!

  ‘There go the Flemings,’ said Gilbert, pointing to the right. ‘Look at them. Great Jesus, you have to hand it to Bloodeye.’

  Bruno pointed to the Bretons on the left, who were stirring towards the stream. ‘Cou
nt Alan’s pride and joy.’

  Ralph tensed in the saddle. ‘Who is that?’

  The Breton line had halted on the very edge of the reeds and sandy patches. Sergeants were running about urgently. To the left again a man had appeared on a thin, rangy horse. He wore no mail.

  Gilbert gasped. ‘Taillefer!’

  A small rider emerged on a light pony.

  ‘He has Sandor with him.’

  ‘I hope you are pleased now,’ grumbled Sandor. ‘To be close to the enemy like this.’

  ‘Not pleased,’ said Taillefer, ‘but content.’

  He took an onion from his pocket and ate it.

  A young soldier near the end of the line looked up at him. His face seemed familiar, though Taillefer could not place him at first. He knew he had not seen him strained like this.

  ‘I know you,’ he said.

  ‘That night in the hall, sir,’ said Brian. ‘The one with the carrot.’

  ‘Ah!’

  The boy’s colour was awful. All down the line it was the same. Fear was spreading like spilled wine on a sloping table.

  ‘Prepare!’ bawled the sergeants.

  Swords came out; thongs were fixed over wrists. Spears were couched.

  ‘At the walk – advance!’

  Not a foot moved.

  The sergeants, uneasy, gave the command again.

  ‘At the walk – advance!’

  Another sickening pause.

  Taillefer urged his horse forward. Sandor, alarmed, followed.

  Taillefer dismounted in front of the Breton line.

  ‘So, my babies, today we walk to glory! ’Tis I, Taillefer, the Cleaver of Iron, who will be your guide. Behold the brand that will be your standard!’

  He took out his sword and waved it above his head, well knowing how the sun would catch it.

  The slightest of sighs ran along the line.

  One of the sergeants swore, and moved to stop him, but another held him back.

  ‘No. Wait. You may witness a miracle.’

  Taillefer flung his sword in the air and caught it. Then he flung it again, making it twist and turn and flash. He made it leap and somersault from hand to hand, and all the time he was chanting names of heroes. ‘This sword has seen – the feats of – Rollo – and Richard the – Fearless – our first duke – of that name – and Charlemagne – and Roland – and Oliver – and Arthur – and now . . .’ He caught it for the last time. ‘My sons – it leads you to glory eternal.’