The Conqueror (40 page)

‘God on the Cross, beau sire!’ Raoul was out of the saddle, even as the Duke reached his feet. ‘I had nigh ridden you down! Up! Take my bridle!’ He thrust it into the Duke’s hand, and ran back, dodging and ducking between the riders.

The chivalry fell back again; the Duke ordered his archers up and volleys of arrows were loosed into the Saxon ranks. A fresh storm of missiles drove off the bowmen; they retreated to the rear, and the chivalry charged up the slope again.

For over an hour the cavalry attacks alternated with the volleys of the archers. The store of Saxon missiles was running out; while the archers loosed their bolts the English ranks stood motionless and silent, and the chivalry at the foot of the hill drew up for the next attack.

The sun was setting in a red ball of fire behind the trees to the west. All day the desperate fight had raged, and still showed no sign of abating. The Saxons were holding on till nightfall or until the long overdue levies of Edwine and Morkere should come to their relief. Their lines were maimed and crippled; the flanks were swept away, but the standards flaunted obdurately on the highest point of the hill, and the thegnhood formed an unbreakable wall round them.

Ralph de Toeni looked towards the sun, and said: ‘It will be dusk in an hour, and we are nigh spent. They are devils, these Saxons!’

‘Their axes dismay our men,’ Grantmesnil said, binding his scarf tight about a flesh wound on his arm. ‘The Duke is wasting his arrows: they stick in the Saxon shields, and do little harm.’

The Duke was spurring towards the archers; their captains ran to meet him, and stood at his stirrup listening to what he said. He made a gesture, snatched a bow, and bent it to show the archers what he needed; FitzOsbern rode up to him, anxiously questioning, the captains ran down the line of bowmen, explaining and exhorting.

The archers now aimed their arrows high in the air. The shafts shot upward, over the heads of the front ranks of the Saxons, and fell in a sharp rain right in the heart of the thegnhood.

The Saxons had no more missiles to throw; they could do nothing but stand passive, gritting their teeth, while the dropping arrows thinned their ranks. When the archers’ supply of shafts was exhausted they fell back to refill their quivers, and the chivalry charged up the slope to attack the shaken line. Again steel rang on steel, again the ranks surged back, recovered, and stood firm. The chivalry flung itself against the wall; the English were a solid mass through which it was impossible to break, but they were becoming wedged so tightly that it was difficult any longer for them to wield their weapons. The chivalry drew off again; more arrows dropped, carrying noiseless death.

The pauses between the attacks were nerve-racking to the helpless host. Below them the Saxons could see the Norman horse drawn up behind the archers, standing motionless while the arrows weakened the enemy lines. Harder to bear than the shattering cavalry charges were these periods of tense silent waiting. Hardly a movement stirred the Saxon ranks. From under the shade of helmets haggard faces looked out, worn with endurance, and eyes
stared westward to where the last glow of the departed sun was fading. A thousand brains dulled by fatigue drummed with the thought: only a little while longer: only a little while till darkness.

Over the marshes in the valley dank mists were rising; a grey shadow stole over the battlefield, and an evening chill spread through the patient ranks. The arrow-shower ceased; a sigh rose from the English lines; men grasped their shields tighter, and dug their heels into the churned earth in readiness to withstand the attack that would come.

The chivalry thundered up the slope; the whole mass of the Saxons shuddered under the crash of meeting; almost the only movement in the host was the dropping of the dead.

The Normans were nearly as exhausted as the English. Some still fought with the old dash, notably the Duke himself; his Seneschal; the Lord of Moulines, who was spattered from head to foot with the blood of the scores he had slain; and Robert de Beaumont, whose energy and courage seemed invincible; but the greater part of the army fought like men in a dream, mechanically hacking, cutting, guarding.

Raoul had no longer strength to force his way beside the Duke; Mortain still held his post, the Watcher was swept away down the line, hardly caring, having in his head only one fixed thought: I must kill or be killed. A kind of dull rage possessed him, and lent new strength to his arm. His sword was dripping, the hilt sticky in his hold, and the runes on the blade hidden under the blood that had dried over them. A Saxon, breaking out of the pack, dashed at him; he saw the gleam of the
seax
thrusting up at his horse’s belly, and slashed downwards with a snarl of fury, and rode over the still-breathing body. His horse was sliding and plunging on a heap of slain, snorting in terror, with wide nostrils and dilated eyes; Raoul drove it on to the locked shields ahead, shouting: ‘Harcourt! Harcourt!’

A shield was flung up; a face drawn with weariness swam before his blurred vision; eyes he knew were looking steadily into his. His sword-arm dropped. ‘Edgar! Edgar!’

A horse jostled his; he was forced on down the line, white as death and shaking. The fight raged about him; a spear glanced along his shield; he parried it mechanically.

The Count of Eu’s voice sounded, shouting above the din: ‘Normandy! Normandy! Smite for Normandy!’

‘Yes,’ Raoul echoed stupidly. ‘For Normandy! I am a Norman … a Norman …’

He gripped his sword-hilt tighter; his arm felt heavy as lead. He struck at a hazy figure, and saw it go down.

A scuffle drew his eyes to the right. He saw Roger FitzErneis, flinging his lance away, take sword and shield and ride like a maniac at the Saxon front. He burst through; Raoul saw the flash of his sword, hacking, thrusting. He was up to the standard, his blade slashed at the shaft. A dozen spears surrounded him, and he fell.

His heroic attempt whipped up the flagging spirits of the Normans; again they charged, and the Saxon mass was borne backwards under the fury of the assault, until the ranks were wedged so tightly that the wounded and the dead could not fall to earth, but stayed, jammed between their living comrades in the pack.

Raoul’s horse stumbled over the carcass of a destrier, and came down, pitching him over its head. He was all but trampled under the hooves of the Lord of Bohun’s horse, but managed to rise and stagger clear of the danger. He heard the trumpets sounding; the chivalry fell back; he found that he was shaking from head to foot and reeling like a drunken man.

He made his way down the hill, stumbling over the debris that littered the slope. A head lay cupped in a hollow in the ground as though it had grown there; the glassy eyes stared dreadfully, the lips were drawn back from the teeth in a kind of macabre grin. Raoul began to laugh in lunatic gusts. Someone caught at his arm and tried to drag him on; Gilbert d’Aufay’s voice reached him. ‘Raoul! Raoul, stop, for God’s pity!’

‘But I know him!’ Raoul said. He pointed a trembling finger at the gruesome head. ‘I know him, I tell you, and there he lies. Look, it is Ives de Bellomont!’

Gilbert shook him. ‘Stop! Stop, you fool! Come away!’ He forced him on down the hill.

The archers were moving forward, and again the shafts shot upwards into the air and fell in the midst of the thegnhood. The light was now very faint and uncertain and the painted shields had become dark barriers still held against the enemy. Of the twenty thousand men Harold had led into battle very few remained. The fyrd was almost wiped out; more than half the thegns lay stretched on the ground, wounded and dead and dying; and round the standards the remnant of the host made their last gallant stand.

It was not the Norman chivalry that at last broke the shields, but one chance arrow. A bitter cry arose from the Saxon ranks: Harold the King had fallen at the foot of his standard.

Men dropped on their knees beside him, frantically calling his name. He was quite dead, must have died instantly. An arrow dropping through the dusk had pierced through one eye to the brain. They raised him in their arms; they could not believe that he was dead. They pulled out the arrow and tried to staunch the oozing blood; they chafed his hands, imploring him to speak. And all the time the arrows were falling.

‘He is dead.’ A huscarle let fall the limp hand he held. ‘Dead, and the day is lost!’

‘No, no!’ Alfwig, the Earl’s uncle, clasped the body in his arms. ‘Not dead! not now, with the end so near! Harold, speak! Speak, I charge you! You have not lived this day through to die thus! What, is all then in vain? Alas, alas!’ He let the body fall, and sprang up. ‘It is over! The King lies dead for whom we have fought and died, and there is no hope left to us, but only flight! What guard we now? Nothing, nothing, for Harold is slain!’ He tottered, for he was badly wounded, and would have fallen but for the thegn who caught him.

Down the slope the Normans could see the line above them waver; the archers fell back, a last charge was made. William of Moulines-la-Marche, yelling his battle-cry, led a party of his knights straight for the Saxon shields with a ferocity that cleaved a passage through the ranks right to the foot of the standards themselves.

The Saxons were already flying from the crest of the hill. The Lord of Moulines slashed at the standards, and they fell, and a roar of exultation went up from the Norman ranks. Harold’s golden banner lay trodden in blood and mire; two of the knights, mad with a savagery that equalled their lord’s, hacked at his body where it lay.

All that remained of the Saxon host were escaping northwards towards the dense forests that lay behind the hill. The descent upon this side was no gentle slope, but a precipitous drop leading to a fosse at the foot. The thegns flitted through the half light down the steep sides; a party of Normans, riding in pursuit, blundered over the edge of the scarp, unable in the dusk to see what lay before them. The treacherous fosse afforded no foothold for the horses; destriers and riders rolled headlong down to the bottom, and there the Saxons, rallying for the last time, turned and slew them in one brief desperate encounter. Then, before reinforcements could come up, they fled on into the darkness, and the forests swallowed them from sight.

Five

The noise of the fighting at the foot of the scarp reached those above and inspired one man at least with a lively alarm. Count Eustace Als Grenons, thinking that the levies of Edwine and Morkere must have come up, rode towards the Duke quite pale with dread, and catching at his bridle-arm advised him in the strongest terms to retreat.

The Duke shook off his hand, and turning from him with a look of disdain gave orders that his tent should be set up where Harold’s standard had flown all day. ‘Clear me a space,’ he commanded. ‘It is here that I will spend the night.’

The camp-varlets were busy with this work when the Lord of Longueville came riding up in a bustle of disapproval. ‘Beau sire, what are you about?’ he demanded. ‘Surely you are not fitly placed here among the dead? You should lodge elsewhere, guarded by one or two thousand men, for we know not what snares may be laid for us. Moreover, there is many a Saxon lies bleeding but alive amidst the slain, and would be glad to sell his life for the chance of killing you. Come away, seigneur!’

‘Are you afraid, Walter? I am not,’ said the Duke coolly. ‘Join Als Grenons if that is the mind you are in.’ His gaze swept the battlefield; he said on a note of anger: ‘Bid the leaders look to their men. I will have none of this plundering of the slain. Let each side bury its dead, but Earl Harold’s body do you find and bring to me presently to my tent with all honour. Raoul, I want you.’

It was over an hour later when Raoul at last slipped away from the Duke’s side. He had stripped off his battle-harness, and washed the bloodstains and the sweat from his person. His squire, a zealous lad much devoted to him, had brought him water, and a clean tunic of fine wool, and his long scarlet cloak.

Binding the straps around his hose Raoul nodded to where his discarded garments lay in one corner of the tent, and said curtly: ‘Burn them. Throw that hauberk away; it is smashed across the shoulder. Have you cleaned my helm?’

The squire held it up, and the sword too, both burnished very brightly.

‘Good lad. Buckle the sword round me.’ Raoul stood up and fastened the mantle across his chest while the squire knelt to adjust the sword.

The Duke was at supper with his brothers and the Counts Eustace, Alain, and Haimer. The tent was lit by candles, and the meats were brought to table as though the Duke sat in one of his palaces. No one entering would have dreamed that all round the tent dead and dying men were lying in heaps on the festering ground. The Duke, who showed no other signs of fatigue than a certain taciturnity and a slight furrow between his eyes, ate and drank sparingly, but the noble Counts, smelling the spices that flavoured the dishes, smacked their lips, and made to forget the day’s turmoil in feasting.

Raoul escaped as soon as he was able and made his way between the cluster of tents to the spot along the ridge where he thought he had seen Edgar in the press of battle.

He carried a horn-lantern and a costrel full of wine. All over the hill-side other lanterns were moving to and fro, but the moon was coming up and a faint cold light threw the mounds of slain into silhouette.

Raoul found that already priests and monks were moving amongst the wounded, some Norman, some English. A monk of Bec looked up at him as he passed, and recognizing him advised him not to walk over the field unarmed. ‘There are many Saxons who still live, Messire Raoul,’ he said, ‘and they are dangerous men.’

‘I am not afraid,’ Raoul answered. He turned the light of his lantern on to a crumpled figure that lay face downwards at his feet. The big shoulders had something of the look of Edgar’s; Raoul bent, and with a shaking hand turned the body over. It was not Edgar. He drew a sigh of relief, and passed on.

His foot slipped in something; he knew what it must be, but he had seen and shed so much blood this day that it no longer had the power to disgust him. Or perhaps he was too tired to care. He did not know, but his eyelids were heavy and his limbs ached. Sleep was all his need, sleep and forgetfulness, but even this held off while Edgar’s fate was still uncertain. A faint hope lurked in his breast that Edgar might have been amongst those who escaped into the woods to the north. He had been searching this shadowed field for a long time now, but the task was too great. It seemed as though the world contained nothing but dead men, lying in still, twisted attitudes under the stars. There were thousands of them, tall and short, old and young – thousands of Saxons, but not Edgar.

Some of the mercenaries were sneaking along the sides of the hill to strip their ornaments from the slain. No, thought Raoul, you cannot stop an army such as ours from plundering.

He passed a priest kneeling beside a dying huscarle. The priest looked up at him in vague alarm, but in the glazing eyes of the huscarle hatred gleamed. Raoul saw him drag a hand to his
seax
;
a rush of blood poured from his mouth and nostrils; he fell back dead, and the priest gently drew the lids over his eyes.

It was very quiet along the hill, strangely quiet after the day’s din and clamour. The only sound was a low moan that seemed to come from the earth itself. Sometimes it would resolve itself into a single voice, sometimes a shattered form would stir, muttering: ‘Water! water!’ but mostly the sound was confused and indistinct, made up of many voices.

A hand clutched at Raoul’s ankle, but there was no power in the stiff fingers. He saw the sheen of moonlight on steel, but the knife fell to earth. He hurried on. Something writhed at his feet; the lantern light showed a mangled form, still breathing. He stepped over it; it neither shocked nor revolted him. He remembered how he had turned sick at Val-es-dunes at the sight of far less horrible wounds than these, and supposed that either he had grown callous or his nerves were dulled by fatigue. If he could only be sure that Edgar had escaped he would not care who else lay dead on Senlac field, he thought.

Then he found Edgar. As soon as he saw him he realized that he had known all the time, known since that moment of prescience long, long ago in Rouen, that this was how he would find Edgar, lying at his feet with his golden curls dabbled in blood, and his vigorous limbs sprawling and limp.

He dropped on his knees and raised Edgar in his arms, feeling for the beat of the heart under the shattered byrnie. The lantern standing on the ground beside him showed blood welling from many wounds. Across Edgar’s brow a sword had slashed a deep furrow; the blood from it had matted his hair and trickled down his face; his beard was sticky with it.

Under his fingers Raoul thought that he could detect a feeble flutter of the heart. He snatched the costrel from his belt and set it to Edgar’s lips. The wine slowly trickled past the shut teeth, some of it running out of the corners of Edgar’s mouth and spilling on to his breast.

Raoul set the flask down and quickly unfastened the cloak from his shoulders and managed to fold it with one hand into a pillow for Edgar’s head. He lowered him on to it and began to tear strips from his tunic to bind round the gaping wounds. Edgar stirred, and lifted a hand to his head. Raoul bent over him to catch the words he muttered. ‘Something in my eyes … I cannot keep it out.’

Raoul wiped the blood away, and fashioned a bandage from the strip of woollen fabric. He took Edgar’s hands, and chafed them. Under the grief that clogged his tongue a curious sense of fatality possessed him. He picked up the costrel again and forced some more of the wine down Edgar’s throat.

The blue eyes
opened; Edgar was looking at him. ‘The fyrd broke,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Raoul answered. His voice was steady and low. ‘Don’t think of that.’ He tore another strip from his tunic, and tried to staunch the blood that oozed continuously from a deep shoulder wound.

Recognition crept into Edgar’s eyes. ‘Raoul,’ he said. ‘I saw you. You rode at me, your lance to my axe, just as you said once, oh, long ago!’

‘I did not know until I was upon you. Ah, Edgar, Edgar!’ Raoul bowed his head, shaken by bitter grief.

‘Well, it is all over,’ Edgar said dreamily. ‘Harold fell.’ He moved his head as though in pain. ‘Soon I too shall take the swan’s path, following him.’

‘You shall not!’ Raoul was slitting the thongs that fastened Edgar’s byrnie. ‘Edgar, no! You shall not die!’ But he knew that he spoke vain words. It was of no use to bind the wounds, no use to force wine between those strong teeth.

Edgar said: ‘Do you remember how I told you once that Duke William would only reach to the throne across our dead? It was many years ago: I can’t recall. But you see it was true.’ He paused, and his eyes closed. Raoul had cut away the byrnie and was trying to stay the bleeding of three wounds at once. ‘Let be, Raoul. O God, do you think I want to live?’

Raoul took his hand. ‘I cannot let you die. I know – oh, I know! What need to tell me? Would to God I too lay dying, for my heart is dead long since!’

‘No.’ Edgar roused himself. ‘No, you must not die. There is Elfrida. Care for her. Promise me! There is no one else now. My father was slain, my uncles too, both, fighting side by side. I am the last. It was too much, and God was angry. Tostig came with Hardrada. We slew them at Stamford. That was a long time ago.’ He raised his hand to his face. ‘My beard is all sticky – oh, it is blood! Well, no matter. I hoped you would come, Raoul. Friendship does endure. When we heard of the landing I thought it did not, but it is different now, or maybe I am too tired to hate.’ His hand clasped Raoul’s feebly; his speech was becoming laboured. ‘We marched on London, league after league. I cannot remember. After a time we could see only the road, stretching on and on. Then we came south, not waiting longer for Edwine and Morkere. And Harold had prayed in his Abbey at Waltham, and we knew that God was angered, for when Harold came from the chapel the tower fell to the earth. And Gyrth would have led the army in his stead, but he would not have it so.’ A trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his mouth. ‘How cold it is … The sun went down so slowly. We needed the darkness, and prayed, each man in his heart, that God would send it in time. But He was angered, and held off the night. If Edwine and Morkere had been true! if Harold had not fallen! We could have held till darkness. We could, Raoul!’

‘I know it. No men have ever fought as you did.’ Raoul raised him again, and holding him against his shoulder wrapped the scarlet mantle round him.

‘We were driven back, but the shields did not break, did they? Do you remember Alfric? An arrow slew him at my side, but we stood so close that he could not fall. That was very near the end, round the standard. Thurkill said the day was lost, but it was not. The day was ours while we held the hill and Harold lived, even though we could no longer move in that press.’ A shudder ran through him. ‘It was worse when the arrows came. But the light was fading, and we thought – But Harold fell after all. It was cunning of William to loose the shafts in the air.’ His eyes closed; he seemed to sink into a sort of stupor. The blood had soaked the bandage round his head, and was running down his face again. Raoul laid him down, and tried to tighten the strip. Edgar gave a fretful moan. He roused himself; Raoul saw that he was smiling. ‘Harold sent two spies to observe your camp. They brought word the Duke had mustered an army of priests because you had short hair and no beards – shaveling.’

Raoul could not speak. After a moment Edgar said: ‘I saw FitzOsbern. And Néel too. Do they live yet?’

‘Yes, they live,’ Raoul said drearily.

‘And Gilbert? I am glad. They were my friends. Not Alfric, nor Thurkill. All those years in Normandy: I wanted to be at home, but then the Duke let me go, and it was all so changed – or maybe I was. I don’t know. I shall die very soon now, and it will be ended – all the heartache I have known, and the bitterness, and the strife in my breast.’ His eyes were wide open, looking into Raoul’s. ‘I would have slain even you if by that I could have saved England from Duke William. But I could not; even Harold could not. I hated you. I hated every Norman I had ever known. I wanted to slay and slay, sparing no man amongst you.’ He sighed; his voice sank to a whisper. ‘But I am tired now, and you are by me, and I remember only how we rode to Harcourt, and your father gave me an eyas of his own rearing, and how we hunted at Quévilly, and how you thrust a brat into my arms when we took that town in Brittany.’ He groped for Raoul’s hand; it clasped his, and again he sighed, almost contentedly. ‘I try to think of England under William’s heel, but I cannot. I can only think of the jests we had in Rouen, and the way you used to call me Als Barbe, and Barbarian, you and Gilbert.’ He gave a little laugh which changed to a cough and brought a rush of blood to his mouth.

Raoul wiped it gently away. ‘O Edgar, friend of my heart, carry only those thoughts with you down your swan’s path!’ he said. The hands in his were very cold; he tried to warm them in his breast.

‘Elfrida …’ The word fluttered wearily past Edgar’s lips.

‘I will care for her,’ Raoul said steadily. ‘I would give my life for her. That you know.’

‘Yes. You said you would have her in despite of us all. And you will. Well, I always wanted to be able to call you brother.’ His breath caught; he tried to struggle on to his elbow. ‘I shall not do it now: it is too late. But you will be kind to her, and perhaps it is best after all.’ He heaved himself up still further, struggling for breath; his eyes stared past Raoul, and widened; he made a huge effort, and flung himself clear of Raoul’s hold. ‘’Ware, Raoul, ’ware!’ he cried, and fell back on to the ground.

Involuntarily Raoul looked round. A dark form was crawling towards him; the lantern-light glinted on the blade of a knife. He grabbed at it, felt the steel sear his arm, caught a wrist, and twisted it hard. The knife fell; he threw his assailant off, and quickly picked the knife up. Hardly caring whether the unknown Saxon had strength to come at him again or not, he turned back to Edgar.