Needle in the Blood (2 page)

William and Eustace gallop on down the Norman line. The gold cross on the Papal banner glitters as the flag snaps in their wake. William waves his helmet in the air as though he has already won a famous victory. When he reaches a spot directly opposite the apple tree up on the ridge where Godwinson’s personal standard flutters, the Fighting Man looking more like a dancer, he draws rein and bows. The unmistakable red hair falls over his forehead, catching the autumn sunlight.

For a measure of time that might be a second or might be forever, there is neither sound nor movement among the Saxons on the ridge. Their shield wall traces the contours of the high ground and behind it they are invisible. Then a single javelin thuds into the churned earth, yards short of William but close enough to unsteady his horse. The spell is broken. William crams his helmet back on his head, raises his sword and begins the charge up the hill, Eustace at his shoulder.

Odo gives certain puzzling instructions to units of cavalry under his command, but all are men who have been promised much in exchange for their support and they do not question him. Twice during the remainder of the day, they feign retreat as he has ordered, drawing off troops from the Saxon side and then surrounding them and so crucially weakening their force.

Odo himself fights beside his brothers, as he has been taught, with the club that is the weapon of priests, having no cutting edge. He stands in his stirrups to make best use of his height and lays about him, twisting his upper body this way and that, throwing its weight behind the blows. He is aware of nothing but the working of his body, the linkage of muscles from groin to waist to shoulders and arms, the flexing of joints in wrists and elbows, sweat running between his shoulder blades, the flow of the horse between his thighs. He splits skulls, cracks open breastbones, splinters vertebrae. A fragment of memory comes to him later, a strange and shaming impression that he was thinking, not of the lives of the men he killed and maimed, nor even of his own life, but of Tacitus’ Agricola: “…
atque
ubi
solitudinem
faciunt, pacem appellant.
”

He is everywhere in the battle, yet he is off the field, changing horses behind the lines, when news reaches him of the death of Godwinson.

“Shot in the eye, my lord,” says the page with relish, eyes shining in his grubby face. What is he? Ten, eleven maybe? Shortly to become a squire, dying to be a knight.

“In the eye, eh?” Good, fitting, though surprising it should be fatal. Blinding is how poachers are punished. Odo winks at the boy. “Thank you for your news, boy. Go safely. No, wait.” He wants to give the boy something, out of gratitude for his good tidings. He feels he has not shown sufficient elation. The fact is, he is worn out. All he feels is relief, and a desire to sleep.

“My lord,” says the boy. Odo fishes inside his hauberk and unclasps the brooch fastening the neck of his shirt. It is silver and amethyst, Celtic workmanship. He hands it to the boy, noting how warm it is to the touch. The boy beams as he takes the bishop’s gift, a little too quickly perhaps, afraid that it might be withdrawn.

“For your pains, boy. Now off you go with your news.”

The boy runs off, grinning, and is soon lost to view among the tents.

Odo mounts, takes helmet and shield from his squire and a mouthful of gritty water from the skin the young man offers him, and rides off westward at an easy canter. It is almost sunset, and the dead cast long shadows on the trampled ground. The last residue of fighting has moved away from the Norman lines to the far side of the ridge so the shouting, the clash of arms, are muffled by distance. Crows flap lazily into the air as he passes. Camp fires are beginning to flare, their glow competing with the bloody remains of the sun pushing between the horizon and the canopy of cloud stretched above it. The homely scent of woodsmoke overlays the stench of carrion.

It’s over
, he thinks.
We’ve won. William and Robert and I have won. I’ve
won
.
I’ve
won
. He tries to savour the moment, but his mind runs on. This is only the beginning. There will be so much to be done. Roads must be laid, fortifications built. There must be churches and abbeys, laws and inventories. Forests must be cleared and wildernesses claimed. The might of Christ will drive out wood sprites and water nymphs; His light will shine in the darkness. There will be order. Today they have dug a foundation only.

And now he is thinking of home, of his palace in Bayeux, of the plans for his great new cathedral of Notre Dame spread on the table in his dark, empty hall, weighted down with an assortment of plates and goblets, and a mottled pink stone Adeliza found on the seashore, years ago. Now he will be able to complete it, once William has kept his promises.

He finds William, together with Robert and several other lords, close to the tree where Godwinson had raised his standard at the beginning of the day. How long ago? Six, seven hours at least, to judge by the sun. Feels like more, feels like less. The men are staring at the ground, contemplating something. A corpse, naked, recently mutilated. Only now does he notice the shockingly intimate, meaty smell of butchered men. His gorge rises as he approaches. Sweat breaks on his top lip, and saliva floods his mouth. He removes his helmet, pushes back the hood beneath it, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, noting he needs a shave, hoping he isn’t going to throw up.

“Shot in the eye, I was told,” he says, drawing rein. His horse, unnerved by the stench, tosses its head and dances beneath him. He pulls its ears and talks nonsense to it until it settles.

“Might have been. We haven’t found the head yet,” says William.

“How do we know it’s him, then?”

“She says it is.” William nods toward the tree. Now he notices the women standing in the shade of its gnarled branches. There are four of them, Saxons, two ladies of high rank from their dress, and two others he supposes to be ladies in waiting.

“She?”

“Godwinson’s whore. The young one. You know her, don’t you? The other’s his mother for God’s sake.”

Odo gives a grim laugh. “How does she know? The part she’s most familiar with is missing, as far as I can see.”

William shakes his head. “Marks on the body known only to her, she says. How would I know? But that’s his standard lying beside him. That’ll do for me. The women want him for burial.”

“Will you let them?”

“No.”

***

The head is found. Some joker has stuffed the penis into its mouth, but the eyes are intact. Darkness has fallen when William gives orders for the remains to be taken to the beach and buried. Odo does not accompany the burial party. Godwinson has no need of a priest, William tells him, and Odo does not argue with him. Godwinson swore to uphold William’s claim to the English throne, swore on holy relics from Odo’s own church, fought alongside William against Conan of Brittany, and then grabbed the Confessor’s crown before the old man was cold in his grave. The thought of his oath, his raw boned hands resting on the delicate reliquary shrines, makes Odo feel defiled. Of course Godwinson has forfeited his right to Christian burial.

Odo sleeps soundly in his tent pitched on the battlefield beside those of his brothers. When his servant removes the mail shirt that shields his body from neck to knee, he feels as though he is floating on a cushion of air as he slips into unconsciousness. The moans of the wounded and dying do not disturb him, nor the cold seeping into his bones. The blood dries on his face and beneath his fingernails. Corn gold stubble grows along the sweep of his jaw. He does not remember his dreams.

All Souls 1066

Tomorrow,” says the messenger, on one knee before the great chair beside the hearth where King Harold used to sit, his voice a little unsteady. The word ripples around the hall. Heads bend toward one another, a swing of plaits, a brush of sleeves, as the women murmur together, round eyed with fear and fascination. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. They hand the word along, one to the next, like a hot coal. Trudy lets out a little shriek and collapses onto the bench alongside the oak table running down the center of the hall. One of the others pours wine for her from a chased silver jug, but she dashes the cup aside with the back of her hand.

“I’m not drinking that,” she says. “It’s French.”

“French, my dear, not Norman.” It is the first rational remark Lady Edith has made in two weeks. “Drink up,” she continues, her words sounding hollow from the depths of the king’s chair, falling into the tense hush that has descended on the hall like pebbles into water, “and bring a cup for this man here. He looks in need of it. Where is Gytha?”

“Here, madam.” Gytha steps from behind her mistress’s chair, set apart from the Saxon women by her small bones and raven’s wing hair, though they all turn expectantly toward her like flowers to the sun.
It’s a miracle
, thinks Gytha, smiling at Lady Edith.
It must be. A sign. They will stop the Bastard here, in Winchester, the seat of the old kings
.

The messenger rises and bows, then drifts toward the table where Trudy holds out a cup of wine with her usual dimpling and eyelash batting. Edith Swan Neck leans forward in her lord’s chair and grasps Gytha’s hands in her own, the skin still with a rusty tinge, black crescents of blood congealed beneath the nails.

“You must go to the gate for me,” she says, then, addressing herself to the messenger, adds, “Where will the duke enter?”

“By the West Gate, I believe, madam.”

Edith nods. “Yes, that is the way from Hastings. We came that way ourselves when…after…” Her high, pale brow knits in a bewildered frown. Taking her hands from Gytha’s, she holds them up in front of her face and examines them, twisting them slowly palm to back, as though the end of her sentence might be written there.

There is the end of everything
, thinks Gytha, stabbed by despair as Lady Edith’s face seems to close up again, the spark of reason extinguished as she contemplates her beloved lord’s blood still staining her hands. There are no able-bodied men left in the city, and what could a mob of women, children, old men, and cripples hope to achieve against William of Normandy’s army? She has seen what it is capable of, on the ridge between Caldbec Hill and Telham Hill, which the Bastard’s men now call Senlac, the Lake of Blood. In that at least, Gytha agrees with them. You could not imagine such butchery if you had not seen it, and as there are no words adequate to describe the smell, or the slip and squelch of their feet among blood and offal, or the clamminess of dead flesh on a damp autumn evening as they turned over corpses in an attempt to identify the king and his brothers, she and Lady Edith are bound by a conspiracy of silence.

“Send someone else, madam,” she pleads. “You need me to take care of you.” No one who was not there can possibly understand Lady Edith’s retreat into madness, her absolute refusal to wash Harold’s blood from her hands or change the gown whose hem is stiff with gore. It is all she has left, not even a grave to put flowers on, thanks to William Bastard.

Edith shakes her head. “You must bear witness, Gytha; you must see it through. You will not be afraid?”

“No, madam.” Not of the Normans marching into Winchester, only of being separated from her mistress. And yet, she asks herself, what is there to fear? Everyone she has ever loved has been wrenched from her, and somehow, she has survived. Perhaps that is what she should fear. Survival.

“Bring the children to me,” commands Edith suddenly. The women exchange doubtful glances, then look to Gytha, all at once, synchronised like mummers in a play.

“The children are in Ireland, madam. Don’t you remember? King Harold sent them there, before he left for Yorkshire, to King Diarmait.”

“Ah yes, yes, of course.” It is plain she remembers nothing, perhaps not even her children’s faces. She says these things from time to time, dredging up phrases from happier days without any sense of their meaning.

***

Gytha sleeps fitfully and wakes before dawn, though she can tell morning is close by the rustle of the doves and chickens roosting in the eaves of the hall. She sits up, rubbing the backs of her calves to drive out the hard cold of the earth floor. Since their return from Senlac, and Lady Edith’s refusal to leave the king’s chair, they have given up retiring to her bower, where they had mattresses of wool and straw to sleep on, and have made do with the hall. As her eyes adjust to the thinning darkness, she becomes aware of shapes moving toward the king’s chair, where Lady Edith dozes, slumped against one of its carved arms. She jumps to her feet to intercept them, her heart lurching into her throat as though it has been thrown free of her chest wall by the force of her movement.

“Who’s there?” she demands in an urgent whisper. Have they come already, the Bastard sending some men stealthily ahead of his main force to take Edith and find out from her where Harold’s sons are hidden?

“Just me,” replies Trudy.

Gytha sighs with relief. “God, you gave me a shock. I thought you were a Norman.”

“We thought we’d try and get her changed while she’s still half asleep,” says another voice. Malfrid. Always easily led.

“What?”