Knights of the Hawk (22 page)

‘There he is,’ I cried, pointing in its direction, and felt a surge of joy for I knew at that moment that the day belonged to us. ‘It’s him! It’s Morcar!’

Except that his troops were not moving to cut off their countrymen’s retreat, as we’d been expecting. Instead they seemed to be merely holding position, watching, waiting.

‘What’s he doing?’ Serlo shouted. ‘Why isn’t he attacking?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, as an anxious feeling gripped my stomach. Once our first conroi had crossed the bridge, he would turn his spears against his countrymen. That was what he had told us. That was what he had promised. He had given us his own nephew as hostage, as proof of his good faith. We had fulfilled our side of the agreement. We had crossed the bridge and captured the shore. All that remained was for him to make good on his word. What, then, was he waiting for?

That was when I realised. He had never meant to aid us. The rat-turd had pledged his support only so that he could lure us into a trap. Why hadn’t I seen this before now? How could any of us have thought that he, who had broken so many oaths before, should keep to this one?

And a trap it was, for our only hope of withdrawal rested with the bridge and the punts, and neither of those offered a swift escape. While some might get away, others would be left to hold off the enemy at our backs, and we would probably lose almost as many men that way as if we fought the enemy in open battle.

‘He lied to us,’ I said. ‘He betrayed us!’

My grip tightened around my sword-hilt. Without Morcar’s help, we faced an almost impossible struggle. For he held the higher ground, and to have a hope of defeating him, we would have to assault their defences, or else somehow draw them out, and I did not see how we could do either. The king’s plan, so carefully crafted, lay in ruins, and all because of Morcar.

Perhaps it was because my mind was filled with all these thoughts that I didn’t see the danger ahead, or perhaps it would have made no difference. My blood was up and I was thinking only of killing as many of the rebels as I could before they escaped to the protection of their ramparts. Between the grass-heads I managed to glimpse a band of them half running and half stumbling away from us, across the tussocks and through shallow, murky pools.

‘Kill them,’ I yelled to Pons and Serlo, and all those others who were with me, as we charged through the grass after them. ‘Kill them! Kill—’

I was still shouting when a shriek filled my ears and I found myself falling. Fyrheard’s forelegs gave way and I clung to his neck until I could hold on no longer and was pitched sideways. The ground rushed up towards me and I met it hard. My head rattled inside my helmet as I tumbled into a gully, where I found myself looking at the sky, with blood and dirt in my mouth and all the breath knocked from my chest. I was trying to work out what had happened when there came a second shriek, and a third, and suddenly horses were falling all about. I ducked just in time as hooves lashed out barely an arm’s length above my head. Clods of earth and wet turf showered my face.

Panicked shouts filled the air, and then not far off I heard the English battle-cry: ‘
Godemite!
’

Blinking, I raised myself to my feet. My shield was still on my arm, having somehow survived the fall, but my sword had slipped from my grasp. My head still spinning, I looked around, searching for my blade amidst the mud, and in so doing nearly missed the bearded, leather-clad foeman rushing at me from the side with a seax in hand, a smirk upon his face and victory in his eyes. I raised my shield just in time to meet his strike. He feinted low before thrusting forward over the top edge of my shield towards my face, but I was too quick for him, turning to one side, grabbing his arm in my free hand and twisting hard so that he dropped his weapon. He staggered forwards, howling in pain, and as he did so I landed a kick upon his backside, sending him sprawling.

‘Tancred!’

I looked up to see Wace wheeling about my flank with a spear in each hand. He tossed me one and I caught it, and as the bearded one tried to rise I used both hands to sink it into his thigh, before tugging it free and turning it upwards, driving underneath his jerkin and into his groin. He bellowed out in agony, and I plunged the steel deeper and deeper still, twisting so that it went in all the further, until his cries trailed off and I was sure he was dead.

All was confusion. The rebels, who until a few moments ago had been fleeing, were suddenly turning upon their pursuers, reinforced by a line, three ranks deep, of helmeted and mailed spearmen, who must have been hiding in the long grass, for I could see nowhere else they could have come from. Horses screamed as a forest of blades sprang up towards their bellies; those that were not impaled reared up and kicked their hooves and tossed their heads in terror, only to turn and find themselves with nowhere to go, trapped between the English spears and the rest of the oncoming Normans. Into that chaos the enemy piled themselves. They buried their steel in the animals’ bellies and dragged knights from the saddle, setting upon them with knives and seaxes.

‘Fall back!’ Wace was shouting, though no one but me seemed to hear him.

I looked around for Fyrheard and saw him scrambling out of the gully, which was half as deep as a man was high, and thirty paces from end to end. The rebels had dug ditches amongst the tussocks so as to break up our charge, overlaying them with branches and reeds so as to disguise them, and into those same ditches we had ridden blindly, like fools.

From every direction came cries of alarm and of pain. I left the spear in the bearded Englishman’s groin, for I had at last spotted my sword, and recognised it for mine because of the turquoise stone that I’d had set into its pommel. I sheathed it, hauled myself from the ditch and ran to Fyrheard. His eyes were wide, and on seeing me approach he tensed, but then he recognised me. The fall had clearly shaken him, but he looked unhurt, and for that I thanked God as I glanced around and saw those that had been less lucky, flailing in the gullies and struggling to stand on broken legs. I rubbed the side of his neck in reassurance, but knew we could not tarry here. The stench of death was everywhere, and it was the stench not just of blood and spilt innards, but of piss and shit and vomit too. The corpses of our fallen countrymen and their steeds lay strewn across the field, along with many more who were not yet dead but whose end was near, desperately crying out for help in French and in English.

‘Withdraw,’ cried a familiar voice. The gold threads of the Malet banner glinted away to my right, and beneath it Robert was waving, trying to attract the attention not just of his conroi but everyone else who was with us. ‘Withdraw towards the shore, back towards the lion banner!’

Turning, he pointed his sword back in the direction of the bridge and spurred his steed into a gallop. Around a third of our horsemen, I reckoned, had made the crossing by then: some three hundred knights marshalling beneath the colours and devices of their lords. King Guillaume himself rode up and down the battle-line, bellowing exhortations to them and to those of our foot-warriors who still remained.

The enemy were swarming forward like carrion birds around a corpse, taking advantage of the confusion they had wrought. On either side of us Normans were fleeing on horseback and on foot, running, riding, limping, a few being helped along by their comrades. Doing their best to cover their retreat, around fifty paces away, were Serlo and Pons, Eudo and his knights, and I recognised them by the emblems on their shields, but even at a glance I could see they were outnumbered and close to being outflanked. For the conroi’s strength lies in its swiftness and in the weight of the charge, but once its force has been met and its drive is halted, it becomes vulnerable, and I knew that they couldn’t stand toe to toe for long against all those English spears.

Robert was already riding back to join the rest of our host, but Wace still lingered, along with his hearth-knights: the quiet-spoken Gascon whose name I still hadn’t learnt, and a dark-haired lad not much older than Godric but almost twice the size, who was known to everyone as Tor, which in the French tongue means Tower.

‘Wace,’ I yelled, and as soon as I had his attention: ‘We have to get to Eudo!’

He nodded breathlessly. His right cheek, I saw, was streaming with crimson where a fresh cut had been laid across it, to add to those he had taken at Hæstinges, although I wasn’t sure if he realised it.

Without further hesitation, I leapt up into the saddle and dug my heels in. Sweat rolled off my brow, stinging my eyes, and for a few moments all I could see was a watery blur, but still I pounded on. Already the enemy had surrounded Eudo and the others, and I knew we didn’t have much time. The ground had been trampled flat by the passage of so many feet and hooves, which meant that we could see the ditches easily now, and we swerved around them.

‘Normandy!’ I cried, hoping to catch the attention of some of those Englishmen, to draw them away, but my voice was hoarse from so much shouting, and they didn’t seem to hear me.

In fact it was probably a good thing that they didn’t, since it meant that they knew nothing of our charge until we were upon them. With weapons drawn and gleaming in the morning light we fell upon them, throwing our sword-edges and our lance-points into the fray, losing ourselves to the wills of our blades as we struck and struck again, laying about with sharpened steel, roaring as one, clearing a path through their lines, swearing death upon them all, smashing our shield-bosses into their brows, burying steel in their backs, piercing mail and cloth and flesh, riding them down so that their skulls and ribs were crushed beneath the charge, doing our best to drive them back.

Eudo risked a glance towards us, and I saw the desperation in his eyes. His shield was splintered and the hide, emblazoned with the tusked boar that was his device, had half fallen away from the limewood boards, rendering it all but useless.

‘Retreat!’ I yelled to him and Serlo and Pons and the dozen or so others who were with them, and hoped that they heard me above the clash of arms and the shouts and the screams.

‘Back to the lion banner!’ Wace was shouting.

For suddenly there was open space at our backs, offering a way out of that mêlée, and I knew we had to seize this opportunity while we could. Our charge was beginning to slow; the enemy were regrouping as warning shouts echoed through their ranks and they turned to face the new threat, and with every heartbeat their numbers were swelling. If we were to beat our retreat, now was the time.

‘With me,’ I said. ‘With me!’

I clattered the flat of my blade against an Englishman’s helmet and wheeled about, looking to escape the fray—

Too late.

Already the enemy had come around our flanks, and now they were closing upon us from front and rear, presenting their bright-painted shields and overlapping the iron rims with those of their neighbours so as to form a wall.

We were surrounded, and there was no way out.

Then from the ramparts to the north came a sound that was only too familiar, as hundreds upon hundreds of warriors struck their spear-hafts and axe-handles and swords and seaxes against the rims and the faces of their shields, keeping a steady rhythm. With each beat they roared a single word, over and over and over, like a pack of ravening wolves who had scented easy meat.

Ut. Ut. Ut.

The white stag was advancing, leaving behind it the defences the rebels had built. Under that banner bobbed a thousand shining spearpoints. Morcar’s confidence had overcome his caution, and he would wait no longer. He saw a chance to press his advantage, to drive us back into the marsh, to win glory and renown among his people and give his followers and Englishmen everywhere the victory they had long desired: one that they would sing of in their feasting-halls and that would be remembered down the ages. They would praise him as the defender of Elyg, the man who dared to stand against King Guillaume and who did what Harold and Eadgar Ætheling could not. Little would they realise that he was nothing but a worthless perjurer, a foul oath-breaker.

‘Tancred!’

I tore my gaze away from the stag banner just in time as the enemy surged forward and I found myself staring at more blades than I could count. Fyrheard lashed out with his hooves and my sword struck and struck again, but for each one I dispatched, it seemed that two more took his place.

‘Die, you bastards,’ Eudo was yelling as he heaved his blade around, backhanding the edge across an English throat. Blood gurgled forth, trickling down the man’s neck as he clutched at the wound and gasped vainly for breath. ‘Die!’

One thickset warrior clutched at the bottom edge of my kite shield, trying to tug it down and out of position, while another, gangly and with dark hair trailing from beneath his helmet-rim, grabbed hold of my spear-arm. I smashed my boss into the first’s temple, then jabbed my elbow into the second’s chin, sending both stumbling backwards and bringing me a moment’s respite, although it had to be only a matter of time before they overwhelmed us.

‘There are too many of them,’ Serlo shouted, as if I didn’t already know. ‘We can’t—’

‘Hold firm,’ I said, shouting him down. Whatever he had to say, I didn’t want to hear it. ‘Stay close and don’t let them through!’

My heart was hammering in my chest and my lungs were burning as I struggled to breathe. I was determined, though, not to give in. Not while I still had a sword in my hand and my head upon my shoulders. I would keep the battle-anger blazing in my veins as long as I could. If this was my fate, then the least I could do was take as many of the Devil-spawn with me as possible.

That was when the shouting began. Cries of surprise, of panic and of pain filled the air, together with howls of the wounded and the dying.

It took me a few moments to realise that those shouts weren’t in French but in English. That they weren’t coming from among my countrymen, but from the ranks of the enemy. I risked a glance towards the source of the screaming, and at first was convinced that my eyes were deceiving me. Surely I had to be imagining this. For what I saw seemed like a gift from God. My heart swelled with relief and joy, my limbs coursed with renewed strength, and suddenly I was laughing.