‘You forget your place,’ Robert said, raising his voice as he spoke over Guibert. ‘Now, be seated and keep your tongue inside your head, unless you want me to cut it out.’
The other barons were all calling for Guibert to sit down, but he wasn’t listening. ‘I will not be silenced,’ he shouted over the din. ‘Everyone here agrees with me, even if they are too afraid to say so. I speak for them as much as for myself.’
A hush fell. The high-pitched calls of waterbirds down by the river pierced the air; from further off the sound of a lyre floated on the breeze, and voices singing a bawdy tune that seemed familiar, although the words were different to the ones that I remembered.
‘Well?’ Robert asked, his face reddening now as he looked about. ‘Is this true? You haven’t yet spoken, Eudo. What do you have to say?’
Eudo shrugged, probably realising it made little difference what he said now. His feelings, like those of us all, had already been made plain. I had known him and Wace for many years, and he had always been the joker among the three of us, but the last few weeks had taken the edge off his humour, and his expression was sombre.
‘What the king has in mind is folly,’ Eudo said, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘We all think it. If another causeway is built and we try to attack across it as before, the outcome will be no different. Many of us will lose our lives, but what choice do we have, except to do as the king orders?’
A murmur of accord rose up. Although outwardly Robert maintained the same calm expression as before, inside I imagined he must be seething at such open defiance. Surely, though, he saw the truth in what we were saying?
‘There is nothing more to be said.’ He shook his head, a grim expression on his face. ‘It doesn’t matter whether you agree or not. The king wishes it, and so it will be. We have our instructions and we will follow them. Do you understand?’
No one answered, or at least not in words. A few of the men spat upon the ground, a clear measure of their discontent, for it was rare that men would disgrace themselves by insulting their lord with so vulgar a gesture. Others simply cast their gaze towards their feet, not daring to meet his eyes.
‘Very well,’ Robert said. ‘Go. We gather here tomorrow at midday. I expect to see you then.’
I alone remained while the other barons filed past me, grumbling amongst themselves. A few, recognising me, spoke a curt word or two of greeting, although most simply ignored me. With the exception of Wace and Eudo, they had all served the Malets far longer than had I, some of them for twenty years and more. They had heard of my exploits and resented my closeness to Robert, and shunned my company. Nonetheless, I shared their sentiments. Of all the campaigns we had fought since arriving on English shores, this had been without a doubt the most gruelling. And still it went on.
‘You try to speak with him,’ Eudo said, shaking his head as he passed. His expression was hard, his mouth set firm, his eyes dark in the gloom of the hall. ‘See if you can make him see sense, and hopefully he can sway the king’s mind in turn.’
‘Robert will listen to you if he listens to anyone,’ Wace added, scratching at the battle-mark below his right eye, as he often did when he was frustrated or angry. An English spearman had given him that injury at Hæstinges, and ever since he had only been able to half open that eye, so that he forever seemed to be squinting, although it had done nothing to dull his sword-skills.
As the hall emptied I approached the hearth, beside which Robert crouched. A chill had entered the chamber and I wished that, like the man standing guard outside, I had thought to fetch my cloak before coming here. The floor of rammed earth had turned to mud, there were holes in the roof through which water had dripped to form wide puddles, while up in the cobwebbed rafters a mouse scuttled. Its droppings were scattered around the bedrolls where Robert’s hearth-knights would sleep tonight. For once I was glad that I had my wind-battered tent to go back to.
Robert looked up as I approached. ‘Tancred,’ he said, with some surprise. ‘I didn’t see you come in. When did you get here? You were expected back from Cantebrigia some hours ago.’
I shot him a look, not only because Atselin had said much the same thing, but also because he was the one who had foisted this escort duty upon me in the first place. The king had made Robert responsible for assembling the parties of knights who were to accompany the supply wagons, and he in turn had passed that responsibility on to me. Whether that was because he trusted me more than his other vassals, or because he thought I would value the time spent away from camp and thus meant it as a favour, I wasn’t sure.
‘We came back by a different route,’ I said, and went on to explain what had happened earlier that day, telling him how we had seen the smoke, how we had come across the burnt vill and found the priest close to death, how we had chased Hereward and his men to their boats and slain one of their number. I left out the last part of the story, about how the fear had gripped me, for even all these hours later I could not make sense of it. My instinct was to bury the memory deep inside my mind where it would not trouble me, but I could not, and still the Englishmen’s taunts rang in my ears. I wished I might have that moment over again so that I could ram my lance-head into Hereward’s throat, silence him and his companions and help bring an end to the rebels’ stand and to this godforsaken campaign.
‘Even if you had killed or captured him, it would have made little difference,’ Robert said, after I’d told of how he had escaped. ‘He is the least of the rebels’ leaders. If anyone holds command over that rabble, it is surely Morcar. He is the one who holds Hereward’s leash.’
At that I couldn’t help but laugh. The notion that anyone could hold the leash of a man such as him seemed to me absurd. But Robert was right in one sense, for Morcar was indeed a formidable figure, and one who had caused us much trouble these last five years. Before the invasion he had held the earldom of Northumbria, and he and his elder brother Earl Eadwine of Mercia had been among the first of the English to see sense and lay down their arms following our victory at Hæstinges. As a reward they were received as esteemed guests at King Guillaume’s court, albeit deprived of their ranks, but a mere two summers later, hungry for greater influence, they had risen against him. Indeed, for a short while they had been successful, winning more than a thousand spears to their cause as they raided far and wide. More than half of those spears, however, were wielded by peasant farmers, who all dispersed to bring in their crops as soon as the harvest season arrived. After that their revolt quickly crumbled and once more they were forced to bend their knees before the king, seeking his pardon. Fortunately for them he was gracious enough to grant it, giving permission for both to return to their positions at court, and allowing them to keep their heads if not their landholdings.
Such was their pride, though, that the brothers were not content with that for long, and so earlier this year they’d fled his court for a second time. Eadwine had ridden north, to seek help, it was thought, from the King of Scots, only to be betrayed by some of his men and overtaken on the road by a conroi of knights, who slew him and all those accompanying him. Morcar, on the other hand, had made for Elyg to join those rebels already gathered there. With him went many of those who had lent their weapons in support of his earlier rebellion, who saw him now as their only hope for a leader who would drive us out of England.
Robert would argue that it was because of Morcar that we were here, and few would disagree with him. Without the former earl’s leadership the rebels’ loose alliance of squabbling thegns would surely have collapsed months ago. Not only that, but his arrival had bolstered the enemy’s numbers by somewhere between, we reckoned, one thousand and twelve hundred men of fighting age: men who could carry swords and spears and shields into battle but who, more importantly, could also dig ditches, raise earthen banks and fell trees from which they could build palisades to surround their stronghold, so that by the time we’d arrived in force, the enemy were already well ensconced upon the Isle and easily able to repu
lse our attacks.
None of that, though, undermined Hereward’s importance, or made him any less of a threat.
‘Lord,’ I said, ‘if it weren’t for Hereward wreaking his ruin, the rebels would do nothing but sit inside their fastness. Morcar, Siward, Ordgar and the other magnates might possess greater wealth and standing amongst the English, and have larger followings, but Hereward is the one who inspires them and gives them confidence. By his raiding he alone brings them victory and delivers them booty, and so exerts an influence far above his rank. Destroy him and many of the others will quickly lose belief. Only when that happens do we stand a chance of being able to defeat them.’
Robert shook his head sadly. ‘I wish it were so simple.’
‘Do you believe that the king’s strategy is any more elaborate?’
‘You heard, then.’
‘Not all of it, lord, but enough. I understand that the king has been rebuilding the causeway on to the Isle.’
Robert nodded. ‘He’s moving most of his forces back to Alrehetha, where he has recently finished building a guardhouse to watch over the marsh. He is determined to break the enemy once and for all, and wishes to make another assault within the week.’
The manor of Alrehetha lay to the south of Elyg, separated from the Isle by a mile-wide bog that neither horse nor man could easily cross. We had tried to bridge it twice already, and both times without success. The first attempt, built of timber and loose stones supported by sheepskins filled with sand, had collapsed even as our forces streamed across it, brought down by the weight of so many knights and spearmen hungry for blood and for glory. God only knew the number that had drowned; we were lucky not to have been chosen to spearhead that first assault, or we would have been among them. Instead we’d watched from the banks, powerless to do anything as, shouting and screaming for help that would not come, our fellow Frenchmen floundered in the sucking mire, struggling for breath, burdened by their heavy mail, while their panicked mounts thrashed spray everywhere and the enemy hurled javelins and shot arrows into their midst. Even now, two months later, the marsh was still littered with many hundreds of swollen corpses. Together they raised a sickening stench that gripped men’s stomachs and caused them to heave, and when the wind was up could be smelt for miles around.
The second attempt had been barely any better conceived. By then more than a month had passed since the first causeway had collapsed, and the king was beginning to grow desperate, so much so that he had been persuaded by one of his nobles, a certain Ivo surnamed Taillebois, to put his trust in the power of a wizened Englishwoman with a harelip and only one leg, who claimed to be able to work the magic of the old gods. Wooden towers had been constructed by the edge of the bog while some of the marsh folk were put to work repairing and strengthening what remained of the bridge, and upon one of those towers the Devil-witch was set in order to protect them with her charms from the enemy’s depredations, and also to weaken the rebels’ resolve and sow ill feeling among their ranks.
Needless to say, the plan had failed. Before the causeway was even half repaired, a band of rebels, some said led by Hereward himself, had sallied from the Isle one night. Making their way by secret routes, they had set fire to the reeds and the briar patches that surrounded its main platforms and the bases of the towers, so that they and the crone were all consumed by writhing flame that some claimed had been seen from as far away as Cantebrigia. What became of Ivo Taillebois after that no one knew. Probably he had fled the moment word reached him, although it was also rumoured that the king had killed him and disposed of his body in the marsh.
Angered by this second setback and losing the faith of his barons, the king had gathered most of his forces at his main camp here at Brandune while he contemplated what to do next. For a while he had tried to cut Elyg off by land and water and so starve the enemy into submitting, but there was no sign yet of that happening. Indeed if the few reports we received were correct, their storehouses were sufficiently full to keep them fed for several months to come. And now it seemed he had no more ideas left.
‘Tell me what’s in your mind,’ Robert said.
‘Lord, if I may say, Eudo and the others are right. The king has taken leave of his senses. We will not take the Isle by sheer force, not by such a crude strategy, at least. The causeway didn’t work before. Why should it work this time?’
Robert had no reply to that and so I continued: ‘This attack will fail, just as the last attempt failed. Even if the new bridge proves strong enough to take the weight of our horsemen, the best it will do is channel our forces into a killing quarter where the enemy can easily pick us off. Even if we survive that, there is still the small matter of capturing Elyg itself, and that will be no easy task.’
‘What do you suggest, then?’
Probably Robert was hoping that would silence me, but our encounter with Hereward had set me thinking. ‘The enemy know the secret ways through the marshes. They know which channels are deep enough at high water for boats to sail down, and where to find the paths at low tide. They’re supposed to be the ones under siege, and yet they continue to move freely. They raid widely, waste manors and lay ambushes for our patrols—’
‘All this is common knowledge,’ Robert said. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘If we could discover some of those same passages, lord, or else capture one of the Englishmen who knows them, then we might be able to attack the Isle that way.’
‘If there were any such passages large enough to sail a fleet through or march an army across, our scouts would have spotted them long ago.’
‘Perhaps,’ I conceded. ‘But it wouldn’t require a whole army. The enemy travel in small bands, rarely more than thirty strong. If even a few of our men could penetrate the fens and get on to the Isle, they might be able to cause enough trouble to confuse or distract the enemy while the rest of our army attacks across the bridge.’
‘The king has forbidden any more raiding-parties venturing close to the Isle. We’ve lost too many good warriors that way already. You know this. And even if we could find some of those passages and succeed in landing a few men close to Elyg, what would be their chances of success? The men chosen for the expedition would be venturing deep into country that the enemy know well, cut off and with little hope of retreat if anything went wrong. Who would put himself forward to lead such a band? You?’
‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘I did at Beferlic.’
Indeed Robert might not be here talking to me if I hadn’t. Looking back, it was probably not the best-considered plan I had ever devised, and it had relied on a certain amount of luck, too, but I had always believed that a good warrior made his own luck. In the end it had worked, and that was all that mattered.
If anyone could lead such an expedition, I could. Of that I had no doubt. Anything to avoid having to cross that causeway.
‘No,’ said Robert. ‘It is the most reckless idea I have ever heard, even from your mouth.’
‘Is it any more reckless than the king’s strategy?’
I meant it as a challenge, but should have known that he wouldn’t rise to it.
‘I won’t allow it,’ he said simply.
I shrugged. ‘You asked for my suggestion, and I have given it, lord. As I see it, we have only one more chance to capture Elyg, but we will squander it if all we do is repeat the same strategy as before.’
‘In what way?’
‘You only need to ask around the camp to see how confidence is waning. Few still believe we can win this fight. Another defeat as great as those we’ve already suffered and many will decide that they wish no more of this. Regardless of whatever oaths they might have sworn, they’ll begin to desert and return to their homes. Without men willing to fight, there can be no victory.’
I didn’t need to remind Robert that many of those same men had also been called out to fight Eadgar Ætheling and the Danish host last year too, and had little appetite for another long campaign. Nor did I add that many of
the mercenaries the king had hired from across the sea, such as Hamo and his band of archers, would in time probably also leave the king’s service. Although they were paid a generous stipend from the royal purse, plunder was what they sought above all else, and if they saw little chance of receiving it then they would have no qualms about seeking employment elsewhere.
‘We have only one more chance to take the Isle,’ I repeated. ‘If we fail, then we’ll have no choice but to surrender it to the rebels.’
Four
‘SURRENDER ELYG TO the rebels?’ Robert asked, his voice thick with scorn. ‘No. The king will never do that.’
‘It isn’t a question of whether he wishes to do so or not, lord – merely whether he has the men and the supplies to keep fighting this war. You know as well as I do that no army can stay in the field for ever.’
‘If we yield the Isle, what’s to stop more Englishmen allying themselves to the rebels? Or, for that matter, the Danes? If they return, we could find ourselves fighting last year’s battles all over again.’
The Danes, led by their king Sweyn, had finally left these shores at the beginning of this sailing season, their ships laden with chests brimming with the silver and gold that King Guillaume had paid them as an inducement to return to their own lands across the German Sea. But such peace was fragile. The moment they smelt another opportunity to win wealth and renown here in England, they would be back. Of that few had any doubt.
‘That’s why we cannot suffer yet another reverse,’ I said. ‘Tell me one thing, lord: do you really agree with the king’s judgement in this?’
Robert said nothing, and I supposed he was right to hesitate. It was one thing for petty lords such as myself and the others to speak ill of the king’s strategy, but for him to do so was far more dangerous. It didn’t matter that he spoke in private company; walls were thin and there were few places within the camp where a loose tongue was not easily overheard. If ever word got back to the royal household then it might be said that Robert was fomenting treasonous thoughts amongst his followers. King Guillaume was not the kind of man one did well to cross, and the events of the last two years had only served to harden him and make him more stubborn. From the many tales I had heard, he did not take kindly to being contradicted. Among his chief barons there were perhaps a handful whose counsel and criticism he accepted, and the Malets were not among them. Not any longer, at least.
Conquest 03 - Knights of the Hawk Page 6