The Wind From Hastings (23 page)
Read The Wind From Hastings Online
Authors: Morgan Llywelyn
Llywelyn came to me and leaned against my shoulder, and I could smell the sweet-salt of his childish skin. His breath was a little rotten still, from sleep, unlike the milky scent of babies. “Did you see the King, madam?” he asked me.
“No, the fyrd is some little distance from here. There is a wide ridge running across the Hastings road, and they are encamped there. It is too far to recognize men, but I think I spotted the King's tent.”
“Will we go to watch the battle when the Normans come?” Some of the eagerness for war had gone out of Llywelyn's voice. I wondered if he remembered seeing
his father's head with naught but space beneath it.
his father's head with naught but space beneath it.
“I will go to see it, son, but I am depending on you to stand guard here and care for your brother and your womenfolk.”
“Womenfolk? You mean Nesta?”
“And Gwladys, you must cherish her as well. You are the Llywelyn now; I trust you to keep everyone safe and hidden until I return.”
His radiant smile rewarded me. “I can do that, my lady! You need not worry at all!” Brave, sweet lad. God spare you. God spare us all.
I paused a moment longer to give instructions to Gwladys. “I will take Osbert and go as close as he dares to the battle, that we will know its outcome straightway. Keep the children dressed warmly and be ready to flee. I do not know how long it will take, but when it is over, I will come back here. Keep quiet, light no fires, and put out that one on the hearth. On forfeit of your life, let no one suspect we are here!”
A strong injunction for that loyal soul, but I intended that there be not the smallest disobedience. She was undone by my words and clutched my cloak, begging me not to go.
“You forget yourself, Gwladys! Of course I will see the battle! Did you think we came all this way so that I might cower in the woods like a hind? My place is by the King! When the battle ends I must be the first to reach him; I have things to tell him that can wait no longer. He dreamed of unifying all England, and I would have him know that I understand that dream at last. And love him for dreaming it, even as I deplore the slaughter to come! Think you that he will understand that, Gwladys?”
The woman looked at me wild-eyed. “I do not understand it myself, Your Grace!”
To my own surprise I laughed. “Perhaps I do not either. But no matter now, it will sort itself in time.”
Osbert awaited me outside. With one hand always
on his knife, he led me by some trackless path at the very edge of the forest until we reached a point almost even with Senlac Ridge. Our view was better than that of Gytha and that other woman on their hill, and so long as we stayed within the cover of the trees we were unlikely to be seen. The whole west side of the ridge was clear to our view, and we could now see its steep face and the Hastings Road beyond it.
on his knife, he led me by some trackless path at the very edge of the forest until we reached a point almost even with Senlac Ridge. Our view was better than that of Gytha and that other woman on their hill, and so long as we stayed within the cover of the trees we were unlikely to be seen. The whole west side of the ridge was clear to our view, and we could now see its steep face and the Hastings Road beyond it.
The fyrd was drawn up in its battle position. Along the whole front of the ridge stood the loyal housecarles, the most skilled of English warriors, holding their shields pressed edge to edge to form a shield wall. Behind them, shoulder to shoulder and ten deep, were the rest of the housecarles and armed ceorls. Theirs was the most terrible of weapons, the mighty battle-ax brought to England by the Danes. No man could live in its deadly path, as I well knew. A skilled axman could cut his enemy in twain so quickly and cleanly that the man would continue to stand upright for a bird's breath before falling dead into separate islands of cooling meat.
Soldiers not carrying axes awaited the Normans with spears and longclubs, to the heads of which round stones had been bound with thongs. “Skullbreakers” Osbert called them.
“Do you wish you stood with them, Osbert?”
“I am doing the task the King assigned me, my lady,” he answered simply. “Caring for you.”
The thegns were easy to recognize, being horsed and helmeted. My eye was drawn to one who wore plainest garb yet towered above the others as he sat on his chestnut destrier. The horse was footsore, picking its way over the broken ground gingerly, but Harold of England looked almost as fresh as if he had not driven an army twice the length of England in three weeks.
He was riding toward the summit of the ridge from the direction of Gytha's hill, whence he had no doubt gone to seek his mother's blessing before the battle.
(And another blessing, too? From a raddle-necked woman with patient eyes?) He had to kick his tired horse to make it canter up the rise to the summit, where the Fighting Man waved in front of the headquarters tent. He made as if to dismount, but just then someone grabbed his horse's bridle and gestured wildly toward the south. Harold rose in his stirrups for a better look; and I steadied myself with a hand on Osbert's shoulder as I mounted a fallen tree to improve my own view.
(And another blessing, too? From a raddle-necked woman with patient eyes?) He had to kick his tired horse to make it canter up the rise to the summit, where the Fighting Man waved in front of the headquarters tent. He made as if to dismount, but just then someone grabbed his horse's bridle and gestured wildly toward the south. Harold rose in his stirrups for a better look; and I steadied myself with a hand on Osbert's shoulder as I mounted a fallen tree to improve my own view.
Up the rutted road from the Channel, a sea of a different kind poured toward us. Wave upon wave of metal armor gleamed in the sun. Hundreds and hundreds of huge horses bore knights protected from head to hip and preceded by a mass of bowmen and infantry.
One group of knights detached itself from the main body and took up a position on a knoll some three hundred yards from the foot of Senlac Ridge. “The Bastard and his barons have picked themselves a good vantage point,” commented Osbert.
It was now well into the morning; the sun was up and the mist had all burned off. The two armies came together, not with a clash of weapons, but with a raucous burst of hoots and jeers. Each side taunted the other with the wildest insults as they strove to work themselves into a killing rage. From where we stood I was spared the words, but the meaning was clear enough.
Just when it seemed that the Normans would charge at last, a wondrous thing happened. A path fell open through the heart of their ranks, and a fellow clothed as a minstrel came galloping out of the mass of Norman soldiers onto the open ground between the two armies. His horse was most gaily caparisoned; bells jingled on its gilded reins. When the rider reached the foot of the ridge directly beneath Harold's standard at the summit, he reined his charger back on its haunches and hurled his lance high in the air.
English and Norman alike, the men stopped their shouting and stared agape. The amazing minstrel caught his lance by the blade with his ungloved hand and immediately tossed it high again.
“The man is mad!” Osbert exclaimed. Mayhap he was, but it was a glorious madness. For that my Griffith would have applauded him, and written a triad about it later.
A third time he threw the lance, and we watched it spin silver, end over end, in the sun.
But whatever finale he had planned for his amazing performance was not to be, for the horse chose to play a part of its own. With a lunge it tore the reins from the rider's hand and bolted straight for the ridge, leaping up the slope with prodigious bounds. In a few heartbeats it had carried its hapless rider to the center of the Saxon line. The poor fool swung his lance about him desperately but vanished almost at once beneath a press of men and axes.
As if that were a signal, the battle was joined at last. The morning came alive with a hellish roar. Screams, yells, curses, the clash of metal and the thud of wood, the neighing of horse and the long singing hiss of arrows in flight.
Behind the shield wall the Saxons stood firm as the Norman arrows came up at them. Most of the arrows glanced harmlessly off their shields and fell back onto the slope. A few men were wounded in their knees or feet, but when one fell another immediately stepped into his place.
The Norman archers reached into their quivers and fired a second volley, then a third, with little more result. When our men did not return their fire, the Normans eventually found themselves reaching into empty quivers while their needed arrows lay beyond their reach on the sloped face of the ridge. So did the King's first strategy succeed.
The Norman infantry moved up to take the place of the bowmen. Above them the housecarles raised their
battle-axes, and the fighting became savage.
battle-axes, and the fighting became savage.
The axes cut through helm and hauberk as a knife cuts through rotten meat. The Bastard's men fell back with their heads split open, showering blood and brains around them. Our thegns hurled their spears with skilled accuracy, and many tore through the Norman chain mail. One mounted knight raised his helm for a moment, as I watched him, and made to wipe the sweat from his eyes. Instantly a Saxon javelin spitted through his neck and he tumbled off his horse.
Trumpets and horns sounded continually; orders were being shouted from all sides. I doubt if the fighting men really heard any of it. The general noise was so great no individual sound stood out clearly.
This was muchly different from the limited warfare I had seen between Godwine's men and Griffith's, in Wales. The war horses, the heavy armor, the great masses of menâbut above all that ceaseless racket. Every man at Senlac Ridge must have been yelling constantly, save only the dying, who shrieked and moaned.
The Normans fought well, but the English fought better. At last we could see a faltering in the Norman charge. “Men become reluctant to press forward when they must climb over the piled-up bodies of their comrades,” Osbert explained.
Never had I seen so much blood. The axes created a crimson world, a nightmare place where everything was blurred by the constant red spray. The coppery sweet smell of it came drifting to us as the breeze played fitfully across the battleground.
Harold sat calmly on his horse, directly beneath the Fighting Man. He sat as if relaxed, his huge ax resting across his shoulder. It was still too early in the fight for him; his bloodlust was not yet sufficiently roused. He merely watched the battle closely and called out orders or encouragement to his men.
Then it happened that a few soldiers on both sides began to lose their nerve, throw down their weapons,
and run away. Some Saxons fled toward our wood and fell with Norman arrows in their backs. We saw Normans making for the marsh, but then our view was cut off and we did not know what happened to them.
and run away. Some Saxons fled toward our wood and fell with Norman arrows in their backs. We saw Normans making for the marsh, but then our view was cut off and we did not know what happened to them.
Osbert's experienced eyes saw something mine had not. Harold's brothers, the earls Gyrth and Leofwine, had been in the thick of the fighting at the shield wall. Just as the first charge of Norman cavalry succeeded in reaching the foot of the ridge, Osbert gave a cry.
“Lord Leofwine has fallen!”
“Where? Oh, Osbert, are you sure?”
“Yes, Your Grace. I could pick him out in any throng. He pushed forward to meet the Norman horsemen with his ax, and a foot soldier got to him unnoticed and cut him through the body with a sword!”
Poor Leofwine! Good and kindly, brought down by a faceless stranger.
The Norman charge gave ground, but I saw gaps appear in the shield wall that were slow to fill.
“There is Duke William, my lady ⦠there, on the black horse, beneath the banner of the cross. He flaunts the papal blessing for this enterprise!”
As a new charge galloped up Senlac Ridge the axes met them. The helmeted knight Osbert identified as William of Normandy had a horse cut to pieces under him, and a cheer went up from the fyrd. But he scrambled straightway to his feet, caught the bridle of the nearest riderless horse, and was back in the battle. The Bastard was no coward. Armed with that spiked iron ball they call the mace, he fought as savagely as any, and soon I lost sight of him in the press of men and horses.
Having seen William in the forefront of his knights, King Harold gathered his reins and rode down the ridge at last, his mighty ax singing its terrible song about him as he went. The tales of his prowess were true; I saw men fall before him like scythed wheat.
The strain of standing so long and the tension of
the day were giving me a headache. I could feel a throbbing pain behind my eyes. It was impossible for me to go lie down somewhereâanything might happen if I took my eyes from the field for a momentâso I bade Osbert fetch me water from the supply he had cached in the woods.
the day were giving me a headache. I could feel a throbbing pain behind my eyes. It was impossible for me to go lie down somewhereâanything might happen if I took my eyes from the field for a momentâso I bade Osbert fetch me water from the supply he had cached in the woods.
As soon as he was out of sight I attended to a call of nature and then seated myself on the fallen log. Once I was no longer standing, my feet and legs began to ache cruelly, and I longed to lie on the leafy earth, but I dared not.
To the west of the English position lay a steep gully, through which flowed a stream. Looking across the open ground behind our soldiers, I saw a group of Norman knights come charging right through our line and, unable to stop, ride their plunging horses straight over the lip of the gully and fall from sight. It was as if the earth had swallowed them up. The foot soldiers who followed them through the break in the line were terrified. In a frantic scramble they raced headlong down the slope of the ridge and into the marsh.
Above the din of battle came a new sound: the echoing scream of injured men and horses at the bottom of the gully. It was answered by the hysterical shrieks of the foot soldiers, who panicked and ran as from some supernatural occurrence. Not having my vantage point, they could not guess what had happened to the knights, and they must have been sore affrighted.
In a few short minutes the loss of the horsemen had been enough to turn the tide of battle in our favor. Normans by the hundreds, knights as well as infantry, caught the contagion of terror and fled. We saw the noonday sun on the backs of the invaders.
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