by Tony Roberts
Casca, shaking his right hand, as it was stinging due to the blow he’d made against the second man’s guts, watched as the first man collapsed in a heap at his feet, his eyes glazed over. The second man was on all fours by now, heaving, and Casca wiped both hands in his jerkin and stood over the two defeated men. “I don’t want to see you two again. I don’t care if you’re the Sergeant’s personal pets, if I see you again I’ll kill you. You’ve stolen your last from these men. Now get going and don’t stop until you’ve reached the Alps or the Pyrenees. Either will do, I don’t care which.”
The man who’d thrown up got to his feet and dragged his shaky accomplice up, and the two staggered off, accompanied by jeers and catcalls. Casca grunted and accepted the backslaps and thanks from the others. Then suddenly it all went quiet and the crowd parted, like, Casca thought, the Red Sea in the Bible story of Moses. He saw Robert coming towards him, together with four armed men; his retainers obviously.
“You attacked my men?” Robert bellowed indignantly. “I’ll have you skinned alive, you disrespectful…”
“Shall we take the pay scrolls to Walter Giffard, and show him how those two were looting these men’s pay from them?” Casca interrupted, pointing at the documents lying on the grass. “You’ve got fifty men here, and I bet nearly all of them have had ‘stoppages’ from their pay, all for things they shouldn’t have been paying.”
Robert glared at Casca. The scarred warrior stepped up close to the stubble-chinned sergeant. “Or do I understand that these two men were acting without your knowledge?”
Robert ground his teeth together in rage. This newcomer had him by the short and curlies. If he admitted they were doing his bidding he’d probably be strung up, but to say they had been doing it without his knowledge would mean the two had no chance of ever returning to the army, and he would lose his two enforcers. Self-interest won. It was no contest, really. “They were. I had no knowledge of this!”
The men muttered and looked at the sergeant with hostility. It was a lie and everyone knew it. But Robert’s retinue standing behind him deterred any of them from speaking out. Casca grunted and kicked the scrolls towards Robert. “Then it won’t happen again. Is that right, Sergeant?”
“Of course! What do you think I am, a thief?” he jutted his jaw forward belligerently.
Yeah, you dirty little bastard, Casca thought. Instead he nodded and turned away. “Best you pick trustworthy men to issue the pay from now on, Sergeant. It would be a shame if this happened again.” He didn’t wait for a reply but walked off through the throng of men. Others from different units had drifted over to see what was going on, but there was nothing to see anymore.
Robert picked up the parchments and scowled at the broad back of the warrior. His look was anything but friendly.
The next week or so saw the rest of the army gather on the grassy slopes of the fields outside the small fishing village of Dives, sat at the estuary of the river of the same name. The sea filled up with vessels, ships to take the men and horses across the narrow stretch of water to Saxon England, and to teach the English king, Harold, that breaking his sacred vow to the Duke was punishable by death.
The men received their proper pay but there was nowhere to spend it. Dives was too small to have such luxuries as brothels or shops, unless you wanted fish, and there were enough of those caught by the camp cooks to make the men sick of it for months. The wind blew in the wrong direction so the invasion was delayed, and then news came that the Norwegians under their king, Harald Hardrada, had landed in the north and the Saxons had rushed north to deal with it. The south was left undefended.
And then the wind changed direction, allowing the fleet to sail to England.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The storm came out of nowhere and threw the ships in all directions. Waves crashed over the decks of the vessels and spray blinded the eyes of the sailors who were desperately trying to keep away from the rocks of the Normandy coast to starboard.
The wind shrieked through the rigging and did its best to drive them all to destruction, enraged at the audacity of puny men to put their faith in God; the winds and seas were older than that religion, and wanted to show feckless men who was still in charge.
Casca braced himself below deck against the shuddering of yet another blow from a wave. Men fell or rolled, entangled with equipment and bedding that had long since been neat and tidy. Vomit swilled along with sea water, and men retched as the ship rolled back and forth, stomachs empty. Many lay there hoping for the welcome sound of rocks splintering the thin hull, for then at least the torment of being seasick would end.
Casca had good sea legs but even he was feeling the effects, and decided that a spell out on top would be better than inhaling the acrid pungent smell of puke. He pulled himself up the wooden vertical steps and hauled back the hatch. Rain hammered down on his head and he had to quickly pull himself onto the treacherously slippery deck and slam the hatch shut.
The sea was white and black. It was a tormented, tortured heaving mass, driving this way and that. Rain came horizontally at him from the south-west, from roughly behind the ships, astern, and stung with its ferocity as it lashed against Casca’s exposed neck and arms. He hunched his head lower and made his unsteady way forward, stepped over the coils of rope, loose, sliding boxes and vibrating rigging. A couple of the crew miserably stayed at their posts; the oarsman to the starboard side who had lashed himself to the rail to stop himself being swept overboard, and the lookout at the prow, peering ahead for the tell-tale signs of the Normandy coast.
They were little more than dark blurs through the rain and spray, and Casca made his way to the port rail, just for’ard of the single mast, and stared out into the world of water. Where the sea ended and the sky began he had little idea, for it was a formless, shifting nebulous beast, writhing and thrashing in fury.
The storm had come up on them without warning just as they had rounded a large promontory, and the fleet had scattered. Some had, no doubt, been dashed to pieces on the rocky shoreline, and others probably driven towards England or even Flanders some way off to the north-east. Casca leaned on the rail, the tendons taut on his arms with the effort of his grip, and he mused on the previous time he’d come to the land of England. It had then been Britannia and it had been after he’d fought the Saxon pirates on board the trading ship owned by Ortius. Then it had been an outpost of the dying Roman Empire. He’d not been back since.
A wave flung itself at the ship, spraying the deck in white froth, and Casca glanced behind him. Why he chose to do so at that moment he couldn’t say, but there closing in on him were two men, daggers in their fists. He couldn’t see them clearly as their faces were screwed up against the rain and waves, but he guessed they were two of Robert’s men. Whether they’d been ordered to deal with him or had decided to do it by themselves mattered little. They were on a mission to kill.
Casca let them close in and then swung his left foot up hard. It struck the left hand assailant on the arm and jolted it enough to knock the weapon out of his grip. It clattered to the wooden deck behind him. Casca flung himself off the rail and smashed his head into the chest of the second man, his arms striking aside the second man’s as he struck. They both went to the deck in a heap. Casca rolled and sprang up, soaking wet. The first man was scrambling for his fallen knife so Casca stepped forward, half staggering as the ship lurched, and chopped down on his neck.
The man crashed lifelessly to the deck and Casca turned. Or, rather, he tried to turn. At that moment the vessel staggered down the side of a trough in between the waves. Casca fought for balance, arms flailing. Just feet away the second assailant got to his feet, still gripping his knife. Hate poured out of his eyes as he realized Casca was a matter of inches from his blade. “Now you die,” he growled, blinking against the rain striking his face.
Casca waited for the ship to level, as did the knifeman. Then both got their balance back and the Norman struck. Casca had expected it and was alr
eady falling back, aided by the tilting deck as the ship went the other way, violently. It creaked and groaned audibly above the sound of the wind, and the knifeman overbalanced, expecting to strike a victim who would have been still standing in front of him.
Recalling the moves Shiu Lao Tze had shown him all those centuries ago, also on board ship, Casca fell back and grabbed the knife arm. Thrusting his feet up in a tuck, he planted them against his enemy’s chest and propelled him up and over his head. The man shrieked into the wind as he was sent flailing over the rail and vanished into the storm-tossed sea. Casca rolled to his feet and grabbed the rail.
The man was gone. He’d be dead in minutes. The other was lying on the deck groaning. Casca grabbed him and pulled him to the rail and slapped him a few times. “Okay you dog,” he shouted, “who put you up to this? Who told you to take care of me?”
The Norman groaned and looked away. Casca shoved him over the rail and held him there, straining in the wind. The man wind-milled his arms and cried out in terror. Casca hauled him back so he was inches from him. “I’m waiting, shit-head.”
“Nobody! We thought it up today!”
“Huh,” Casca sneered and released him. He might be lying, he might not. The Norman scrambled for purchase and Casca stepped away from him. His knife lay close to him so Casca threw it back at him. “Here, this is yours I believe.”
The man nodded and looked at his weapon. Casca staggered as the ship lurched and the Norman decided it was too good an opportunity to miss, and lunged. But it was a ruse. Casca had waited for it, and evaded the blow, chopping down on the man’s arm, numbing it. He grabbed him by the throat and spun him round. The rail was three feet away and in seconds Casca had pushed him against it, facing out. “I gave you a chance to live but you stupidly threw it away. Au revoir!”
“Nooooo…!!” the man yelled but Casca heaved him up and off the ship. The dark shape flew for a heartbeat, then smashed into the sea and was swallowed up in seconds.
Casca made his way back to the hatch. He couldn’t remain out in the storm for long, and although the hold stank, it was a haven compared to the madness on deck. He would also look to see if anyone reacted to him appearing and not the two would-be murderers.
The groans of the seasick and the crashing of the loose equipment struck his eardrums as he began descending, shedding water as he went. One or two looked up in curiosity but they were too full of their own misery to really be interested and they rolled over on their rudimentary bunks and shut their eyes. Casca gripped the ladder and looked around the hold. Robert and his remaining buddies were grouped together close to the stern and none of them seemed remotely interested in him. So it would seem that the two had made their own plan to get rid of him.
Casca thrust himself away from the ladder and, using the lurching of the ship to make his unsteady progress, got to his space and sat down heavily. “You’re wet,” Arnand, the man lying next to him, commented. Arnand was a young, stocky man. Brash and confident, he’d already served in the campaign to subdue the Bretons and saw himself as a veteran. He had begun to give Casca advice on how to fight, which the scarred warrior found amusing.
“Went up for a pee,” Casca said and dripped over the already wet decking. “Not good up there,” he added. “If you’re thinking of going up top hold on tight; you could get washed overboard.”
“Thanks but no thanks,” Arnand grumbled. “I’d rather pee myself than try that.”
Casca laughed. Arnand was one of the new generation of Normans; more French than Viking but just as warlike. He was fit, young and tough. He was also looking forward to getting land in the new Kingdom. The Duke had vowed he was going over there to grab the throne and be declared King of England. How the Saxons would react to that was open to debate, but they wouldn’t be jumping for joy, that was for sure!
It looked like the Duke was counting on one huge victory to secure the realm.
The storm finally blew itself out, as all do, but not before it had done damage to the fleet. Three ships never turned up and it had to be assumed they had been lost with all hands. The fleet put into the mouth of another river along the French coast to carry out repairs, and the men and horses allowed to step ashore to exercise. The horses were more of a concern as many had been upset by the storm and needed to be calmed down, and some even had to be destroyed as they’d broken legs during the chaos.
Robert called Casca over during this time. He was looking upset and rounded on the scarred warrior the moment he came within earshot. “Two of my men have gone missing. You know anything about that?”
“Why ask me?” Casca growled back. “I’m not their keeper.”
“Answer the question!” Robert shouted. He was red-faced and glowering. Ever since this disrespectful man had joined the company, he’d caused no end of trouble and was costing him a nice lucrative business. The sooner he got rid of this man the better. “Where are they?”
Casca shrugged. “Dunno.” And that was the truth. They could be anywhere at the bottom of the Channel. He stared Robert down. Behind the sergeant his remaining retainers gathered, all equally hostile.
“You were seen going on deck during the storm, and the two missing men went up shortly afterwards. Only you came back.”
“Really? They must have had poor sea legs. I coped all right.” Casca wondered who had been whispering in the sergeant’s ear.
“You bastard,” Robert hissed. “I ought to have you hanged. I might well do so!”
“You can’t prove anything, Sergeant. Unlike the fact you’ve been stealing from the men’s pay. I can have you punished if I wanted to. Now get off my back and let me do my job. If you’ve proof then say so; otherwise shut the hell up.”
“You insubordinate swine,” Robert snarled. “I’ll have you on punishment duty.”
Casca laughed. He’d suffered far worse in his time. Whatever Robert could throw at him was a doddle compared to rowing for decades on an imperial Roman slave galley, or being chained underground in a Greek copper mine, or having his heart cut out as a sacrifice to foreign gods. “If it makes you feel better, Sergeant.”
Robert went dark with anger. The bastard was laughing at him! “You’ll be pumping out the bilges for the rest of the voyage when we board again! And then I’ll find some equally shit task for you to do when we land over there!”
“Do your worst. You could always be a man and challenge me to a fight to the death.” Casca grinned in the man’s face. “But you won’t.” He turned his back and walked away from the speechless man. A pox on him. He’ll be dead soon enough, and Casca would still be continuing as before. He could endure the petty stupid little acts the frustrated sergeant had planned for him. There was a war coming and that was what called to his soul. And then there was the unfinished business with Lesalles. He would have to hunt him down and see to that unsavory specimen too.
He walked angrily through the camp, past the blacksmith busy hammering away on a new blade, backlit by the flames from his roughly made smithy, and past the rows of tents. He ignored the calling of the women, busy selling their bodies to the soldiery. Many of the women wouldn’t mind testing the strength of the big tough looking man who strode past them. He didn’t even spare a glance at the camp sellers, each insisting their wares were the best to be found this side of the Alps.
He wanted to be away from them all. He tired of man’s petty ways; their little games of profit. He cared little for them. His long life had taught him that riches were illusory. Here today, gone tomorrow, so he never lusted after wealth the way he’d done so before the Jew had cursed him on Golgotha. What good did they bring him? He’d been richer than any of these people here put together in his time, but fate had intervened to rob him time and time again.
Nothing was forever, he’d learned that. It had opened his eyes to the pointlessness of it all. But it was no good telling them that; they weren’t interested. So Casca had decided many years ago to let them carry on their search for profit. They couldn�
��t take it with them when they died, and he’d found out many times that possessing great riches didn’t guarantee happiness. It brought new problems, new headaches. New enemies.
Let the damned idiot sergeant wallow in the filth of extortion and theft. One day someone would kill him and everything Robert had fought for all these years would be for naught. Maybe Casca would kill him. One day. Casca nodded to himself. But not today. He was too tired and fed up to bother with that sort of thing.
He stood in the shade of a beech tree and gazed out over the glittering sea. So calm now and peaceful looking. Only the day before it had been a wild beast. He glanced to the right, where the river estuary emptied into the Channel, and saw the flags of the lords who led the army. The Duke’s standard was amongst them. He could see them standing in groups talking. No doubt deciding how to carve up the Anglo-Saxon lands between them. They wouldn’t follow Duke William for any other reason than for personal profit and gain. They couldn’t care less if he remained Duke of Normandy or became King of England. What they wanted was a nice big fat reward. And they’d get it on the blood of their followers and Men-at-Arms.
He stiffened. The unmistakable figures of Roland and Aveline were slowly walking along the wide avenue in between the gaily colored tents of the nobility, escorted by the equally unmistakable figure of Lesalles in his blue and a number of armed retainers. His gaze centered on the slim girl as she carried on, holding onto the arm of the Norman rent-collector. He gently thumped the trunk of the tree. Now there was someone he desperately wished to be alone with! He didn’t know what it was about her that got his blood rushing, but he certainly felt a deep need to discover the delights of her body.
Damn! Maybe the camp whores had a use for him now, after all.
CHAPTER NINE
They sailed the same week, and landed in a wide, shallow bay, marked with a small, lone town on the end of a promontory jutting out from the west. Behind it to landward loomed an old fortification, crumbling into ruin. It looked to Casca as he approached up the long steep slope to the entrance as an old Roman fort, probably built to counter the old Saxon pirates in the dying days of the Roman Empire’s grip on Britannia.