Mercenaries (6 page)

‘Do you think we are close enough?’ he asked.

‘How would I know?’ his father responded.

‘Well I just thought…’

‘Don’t think, William,’ Tancred replied sharply.

‘Take the word of one who has been in this before. Thinking in a battle will drive you to forget what you should be doing, which is what others have decided. You’re here to fight, let others do the calculating.’

William de Hauteville was not about to say so, but such a notion induced a feeling of deep disquiet. He wanted to say the time had come for them to attack. The enemy cavalry would fall upon the disorganised flank of the King’s foot soldiers and if there was no one there to rally them to face the onslaught that part of the host could be rolled up and thrown back on the centre, which might panic and crumble.

Asked how he knew this, he would have been unable to say, but he felt sure of his conclusion. He had been raised in a warrior household, had heard his father describe every battle he had been engaged in, and not just him but every fellow knight who was a visiting friend. There was, in each contest, they had said, a moment of decision, and for William, that moment was right now.

‘Why is the duke waiting?’ he demanded, unable to stay silent.

Tancred de Hauteville sighed. ‘For the same reason as his ally hesitated to let us open the fight. He wants the King of the Franks deeply troubled before we intervene. For our liege lord, this has to be his victory.’

‘So when?’

‘Soon.’

The enemy cavalry had moved, though they had no discipline, but little was needed for what they were obviously trying to do and they charged off their raised ground, using the slope to gain momentum. As soon as the cavalry charged, the enemy front solidified, no longer being pressed back but instead holding and in some places pressing forward. Frustrated at what he was witnessing, William was suddenly aware that the duke was to the fore, a convoy of his familia knights bearing his banner and ducal gonfalon, raised high, alongside him.

‘I told you,’ he heard his father say.

Then the arm dropped and the gonfalon dipped, and as one, the whole Norman front line, a hundred lances, moved forward. When their horses had gone ten paces, the second line began to move. Though none of the de Hautevilles could see it, their eyes being fixed on the task ahead, the rest followed in unison, five lines of warriors. Humphrey’s horse, always more excitable than those of the rest of his family, wanted to do what all horses do, race his fellows; it took a strong hand on the reins to bring his head in and slow him down.

‘Hold your line,’ Tancred ordered, long after it was necessary.

All eyes were on Evro de Montfort’s banner, for that set the pace, which increased to a canter as the slope
before them increased. Each man’s world had narrowed to those on either side and what he saw before him. The commander of the enemy cavalry had slipped half his force sideways – clearly he had anticipated the Norman move – while the others were still engaged in pressing back the now disordered infantry. They had turned to face and charge the oncoming Normans. Unbeknown to the men in the front line, those to the rear had, under their own commanders, slowed their pace back to a trot.

For the front line, a horn blew three high notes, and the Normans stood in their stirrups, shortened and looped their reins, to be gripped by the hand below their forearm shield straps. They then dropped their lances to couch them, a solid line of points facing the oncoming enemy, who by now, in their wild charge, were a disordered, galloping throng. The Normans did not gallop; they held their pace and their cohesion, though the speed increased to meet the oncoming threat. Beside him, William could hear his father calling on every saint in the canon, but he could not look at him; like every knight in the line he had picked the man with whom he was about to collide and all his concentration was on ensuring that the fellow would take the point of his lance.

What told, as it always did, was that Norman discipline. Their line was solid, so that each charging
enemy, seeking to avoid an oncoming lance, might pull his horse to right or left, only to find himself faced with exactly the same danger from another. It takes, not a brave man, but a fool to maintain his charge in the face of near certain death, so it was no surprise that the enemy cavalry sought to slow their mounts and to seek a chance to defend themselves. Their swords and axes swung at the lance points, but for every one that was fractured or sliced off, another took the rider or his horse.

Men went down on both sides; it could not be otherwise, but the Norman lances pressed forward still with great solidity, men and horses falling before them. Those like William whose lances were lost had out their broadswords and were hacking away at the enemy, still stood in their stirrups, swinging their shields to deflect return blows. One swipe of William’s sword took an opponent at the join of neck and shoulder with such force that it split him to the lower chest, covering his attacker in a fount of bright, warm blood.

As soon as discipline became fractured, the second telling feature of Norman warfare was exercised: the quality of their battlefield leadership. Evro de Montfort might be a tubby and self-important little pouter pigeon, but he was a proper commander and his yelling voice was calling for his battaile to disengage. This they did and followed him to the left,
beating off those of their opponents still fighting. If the enemy cavalry thought they had scored a victory they were soon disabused, for the lances of the next battaile, led by an on-fire Bishop of Fécamp, were on them before they could spur their mounts into motion.

Hit by repeated waves of Norman lances the number of bodies on the ground rose as they took the now stationary or retreating enemy. They were a beaten foe, looking for a way to flee and in doing so they would leave their footbound brothers to face certain defeat. De Montfort had led his men to take station behind the as yet unengaged Duke, yelling that they should reform. Only then did Tancred realise two of his convoy were missing.

‘Drogo, Montbray.’

‘Will have to rely on God,’ William shouted back, wondering why his mouth was so dry.

Suddenly, with the enemy cavalry in flight, there before the Norman host lay the exposed mass of the still-fighting rebel milites, and it was clear that the Norman horse had the power of decision over men on foot, which they moved to execute. Behind the front line panic took over as, pressed on the flank by slashing horsemen and to their front by jabbing pikemen, the rebel force broke as each man sought to save himself.

They found Drogo standing over a recumbent
enemy, who by his attire was a wealthy individual, to be informed the fellow had sought mercy for ransom. Montbray was on his knees, the cross he wore in his hand, his surcoat bloody, praying for the souls of those deceased who had fallen to his own lance and sword. There were dead horses too, and many more wounded, some with injuries that would mean they would need to be quickly despatched. Better that than a lingering death.

On the mound once occupied by the enemy cavalry, Duke Robert met the King of the Franks and they embraced with the kind of ceremony of two men whose trust for each other is limited. All over the field of battle below them and their colourful retinues the dead were being stripped of their arms and what they wore, while some of those too wounded to survive were being despatched by the foot soldiers of the Frankish King. The rebellious brother had fled the field as soon as he saw that his cause was doomed, not pursued for there was no need. Where would he go? Few would offer him sanctuary.

‘It’s the oubliette for him,’ said Tancred, to his men, all of whom had taken possession of enemy horses and weapons. The old man had hoped to get to the baggage train of their foes but it was clear that had been plundered by the household knights of the Capetian King, none of whom had deigned to take
part in the fighting, leaving that to the Normans.

They were on their way back to the encampment, surrounded by equally weary fellow confrères, when they came across Serlo and Robert, leading half a dozen heavily laden packhorses. The boys grinned at their sire, only to cease to do so when his voice thundered out to ask them what they were about.

‘Can you not see, Father?’ said William. ‘Our two little robber barons have beaten the Franks to some booty.’

‘They were supposed to stay out of harm’s way.’

William laughed. ‘They are your sons, sir. They do not know how.’

‘I’ll tan their hides.’

‘Only after we tot up what they have managed to steal.’

The de Hautevilles did not linger, not from fear of Duke Robert’s anger, but because, once they had been paid for their service, the cost of maintenance fell on them and that was cheaper at home than loitering here. They sold or traded what they had taken from the field of battle, as well as most of the contents of Serlo and Robert’s enterprise. Drogo even sold his ransom at a heavy discount to the Constable, given it would be easier for a high official to collect on a prisoner housed in Duke Robert’s castle of Moulineux.

On the first night they camped back on Norman
soil, and after all had been seen to with horses and food, Tancred sat down his boys round a fire to tell them what they already knew: there would be no service in the ducal household, no chance to raise themselves in that service. There were other things of which they were aware, whatever their age: that this had dashed their father’s long-held hopes and the reason – the property on which they had been raised was too small to support them all.

‘I had hoped, as you know, that you would win your own advancement. We fought today, and fought well, but who can say what the future will hold?’

It was William who underlined what his father was driving at. ‘With Duke Robert allied to the King of the Franks, there is little prospect of war service…’

‘I have no desire to arm myself with a plough,’ Drogo insisted.

There was a weariness in Tancred’s voice as he responded to that. ‘I raised you to do what I did, and that is fight. That you can do, but William has the right of it.’

‘The duke might fall out with the Franks,’ said Geoffrey de Hauteville. ‘They are not natural bedfellows.’

‘How long will that be?’ Tancred replied. ‘One year, two years, ten? The Bretons were our allies today, as well. As for the Angevins, they too are supine. For the first time in my life the borderlands are at peace.’

‘Which is why our Duke Robert can go on pilgrimage.’

That opinion came from his namesake, really too immature to be taking part. It was a measure of Tancred’s gloom that he did not remind the youngest son present of the fact. ‘Jerusalem? He will be gone a year at least, possibly two.’

‘He may well come back a monk,’ Drogo scoffed.

‘Would that be so bad?’ asked Montbray.

A period of silent reflection followed, as each son contemplated a life of peaceful husbandry, albeit such an existence would be punctuated by the kind of local conflicts endemic to the Contentin, not one of which would ever advance them in any way. They were no more farmers than their sire, and so it seemed to the eldest they must do what he had done when a young man.

‘We too should seek the solution elsewhere,’ said William.

‘A pilgrimage?’ Drogo demanded, in a voice that showed what he thought of that idea.

‘Your soul is beyond redemption, brother,’ William replied, grinning, ‘and you know that is not what I meant.’

‘The work of God is being pressed east of the Elbe, converting the Slav barbarians.’

William looked at Montbray. ‘That is your work, cousin, not ours. We need to fight for recompense, not
to spread the faith.’

‘Which means Spain to fight the Moors, or Italy?’ Tancred said, without enthusiasm.

William nodded. ‘Those who have returned from Italy seem to have done well.’

‘Which is a tenth of the number whose bones are still there.’

‘Show me an alternative.’

‘I could try to speak with Duke Robert again,’ his father responded, but in a voice that held out little hope.

‘Beg!’ William exclaimed. ‘Not even to a duke would I have you do that and I cannot ever see myself bending my knee to a man who denies consideration to a blood relation in the way he has so clearly done.’

‘Let me think on it.’

William de Hauteville was quite brusque with a parent to whom he normally showed great respect. ‘It is not yours to decide, Father, it is up to each one of us who is of age to make that choice for ourselves.’

In the firelight, all of Tancred’s sons could see the disappointment in his face, looking more lined in the flickering fire than it truly was. From oldest to youngest, they all knew the hopes he had entertained for his house, hopes that through his sons the name of de Hauteville would stand high in the annals of Normandy, hopes held over many years that had been
dashed in the last week.

He had said many times how they would rise in the service of their liege, had said the death of Duke Richard made no difference, his brother would inherit the title and the obligation to the sons of his sister, and that, given the way he had raised and trained them to be warriors, they could be so assured of advancement. Their half-siblings too would prosper in the same way, on the backs of their established brothers.

He had put aside their doubts when his repeated requests to the court, written for him by his nephew of Montbray, received no reply. He had kept them training, and saw them use their skills in various local quarrels. His boys were not just good: they were, as fighters, exceptional, so much so that in the part of the Contentin in which they lived few dared to dispute with the family now so many were grown to a good age. A de Montfort would because he commanded enough lances; no one of the same rank as Tancred dared.

On the journey home to the demesne, in which every avenue was discussed, what was a notion became a decision. Money constrained them, even with what they had just acquired; only two could make the journey, but they, if they were successful, could send for the others. William claimed the right to be first, which naturally meant Drogo asserted that he should
be the other. Humphrey and fourth son Geoffrey would follow, while their cousin of the same name declined to even consider a move to Italy. His ambitions lay in the Church and Normandy.