It was well known that infantry fared ill against cavalry. The English stood little chance if they elected open battle. The Duke only wished he knew of Harold’s intentions. The hill where Harold had mustered his men formed an effective gateway, lying across the road that led out from this narrow strip of marsh-locked land. Were the English intending to hold that barrier, entrusting that their ships could retain an effective position seawards? Or would Harold approach the coast, provoke a fight nearer Hastings? Non. Any sensible general would entrench at the narrowest point through which the enemy must march to gain new ground. Cage his opponent, create an effective siege. Ah, but was Harold an effective general? Was he or not?
Duke William poured himself wine and sipped. In Normandy he had taken the English Earl to be a cock-crowing, uninspiring sort of man. A family man, a woman’s man. Look how Mathilda had admired him! Pah, she’d claimed she had no liking for him, that she had merely been attempting to find out what she could from him. Did she think her husband so naive? What was it she had said? That there was more to Harold on the layers beneath than on those that were visible to the eye? She had certainly been right where his devious double-dealing had been concerned! But what did a woman know of what made a good leader or no, of the making of battle plans?
As she had come to mind, William briefly considered how Mathilda would fare in Normandy if he were to not return. Could she hold the duchy together until their son reached maturity? He had left sound men to assist her; Robert de Montgomery he could trust implicitly, for the firm promise of a lion’s portion of English land as a reward for his loyalty, if for nothing else. Nor would her father, Count Baldwin, allow Normandy to fall to anyone other than his grandson.
He tossed back the wine, savouring its mellow fruit. No point in brooding over what may be, not when the now must first be considered. He doubted any man could hold the duchy together as effectively as had he, had no particular care of what happened after his death. He was not doing all this for the reward of others, this was for himself, for his own satisfaction. As for Robert, he had no real feeling for that irritating boy who was—God knew how—his son. Let him see to the muddle if there came one. If he could muster the manhood to do so.
“What would you do, fitz Osbern?” William asked, repeating his previous thoughts aloud, kicking his second-in-command’s boot from where it was stretched before a dying brazier.
Fitz Osbern started, grunted. He had been dozing; the day had been long and wearisome. His scouting venture with the Duke earlier in the day, covering those few miles to observe the English position, had depressed him. There were so many of the English, and they would be fighting on their own soil—they would dictate the when and where. In addition, the day had been hot and humid, the return walk to Hastings seeming twice as long as the outward trek. Fitz Osbern had felt dizzy and unwell—his stomach had the runs. This brackish-tasting English water was upsetting many of them.
They had taken their hauberks as a matter of course, but had not worn them. Once, stumbling, Will had fallen to his knees, the weight of the mail in his arms dragging him down. He was sweating, exhausted—but not Duke William. He had put a hand under Will’s elbow, lifted him up and carried his armour for him along with his own. Did nothing hamper or deter this duke? He had the courage of a lion, the heart of a stag and the strength of an ox—ah, but there were so many of those English!
Will fitz Osbern tried to formulate a helpful and suitable answer. “Were I in Harold’s position,” he opined with slow deliberation. “I would build a timber blockade and fortifications where I sit. Starve us out.”
“And that, my friend,” William said, “we cannot allow.” Decision made, he strode to the tent opening, calling for his captains and commanders. Then he swung round to grin confidently at his companion and friend. “We cannot afford to be penned up like herded cattle awaiting the autumn slaughter, nor can we allow this man who calls himself ‘king’ the chance to catch his breath.”
Men began arriving at a jogtrot: Comte Brian de Bretagne, Eustace de Boulogne, Robert de Beaumont…both the Duke’s half-brothers, Bishop Odo and Robert, comte de Mortain. D’Evreux, de Mortagne, vicomte Thours, Walter Gifford, Ralph de Tosny. Mont-fort, de Warenne, Malet, Guy de Ponthieu and more, the blood in their veins rising with the excitement of approaching battle.
“Call in the foraging parties.” William barked as his first order. His next was: “We march at dawn.”
***
First light, an hour before sunrise, on a dew-damp Saturday morning, the fourteenth day of October. A pale, laundered blue spread like an incoming tide from the east. The sky swung high and clear, decorated by skimped wisps of cloud that would tinge pink once the sun rose.
Harold had lain awake, staring into the darkness, his arm cradling Edyth, her head nestled into the familiar, comfortable hollow of his shoulder. She slept, her eyes flickering, body twitching, from a visiting dream. A smile was on her face, so it must be a good dream. They had made love twice during these few short hours of privacy, the first time with the frantic desire of need, the second for the sharing, the giving and taking, of love. He had come to bed late, close to the midnight hour, for there had been much to see to: the briefing of his commanders; a tour of the camp, talking to the men, exchanging conversation with those he knew, enquiring after family—a marriage, a birth, a death—asking after the healing of wounds received, in honour, at Stamford Bridge, exchanging anecdotes of that day’s victorious fighting. With those he knew not, asking their name, their home, kindred. All the while making it seem that each man was the important one, their king’s friend and companion. It was the way of a good commander to talk on equal terms with his men, to listen, to be together as brothers. As they would be, come the day of fighting.
As the tent lightened with the dawn, he slid from the bed, settling Edyth’s head gently on the pillow. He dressed in tunic and hose, unlaced the entrance flap and stood in the opening, looking out on to the new-born day. Men were awakening, he could hear the sounds of stirring: stretching, coughing and yawning; from the nearer tents, the cruder body functions. So many thoughts in his mind. Alditha and the coming child. Goddwin. His daughters—they at least ought to be safe. Gunnhild was receiving her education at Wilton; he had sent Algytha to join her there. Ulf he had taken to London, to be with Edgar and the remainder of the court. Edgar had wanted to come to Sussex, but Harold had forbidden it, for the same reasons that he had seen his own sons safe, and for the sake of England should things go wrong here in the South. He would rather his own son, should Alditha bear him one, follow him as king, but if William should by chance win his way out of this enclosed peninsula and he, Harold, was unable to take the fight to him again…Edgar remained ætheling. It would be for Edgar to rally the North, to fetch Eadwine and Morkere to London…He must not think pessimistically. William was the one who was caught like a rat in a trap. Not he.
He would like good marriages for his girls—it was by far time Algytha were wed. Perhaps as a wife for Edgar? It was worth considering. He must mention it to Edyth…ah, Edyth. He had not wanted her to come, not where there was to be fighting. Battle was no pretty thing. All the stories, the sagas and songs told of the glory and the pleasure in victory; you never heard the truth from the taletellers’ lips: the cries of the wounded, the screams of the horses, the stench, the spilling of gore and blood.
He was on the very edge of pulling back, of agreeing terms with William. The man could not rule both countries with the efficiency he would crave, would have to appoint some lord to rule as regent. Would it, Harold thought, damage my own pride so severely if I were to abdicate? To save the slaughter, the widowing of too many wives, the slaying of children’s fathers? Earl of Wessex is no mean title—do I need to be king?
Movement behind interrupted his thoughts, a hand on his back, an arm slipping round his waist, the summer-flower scent of Edyth. He lifted his own arm, brought her closer to his side so t
hat she too might see the glory of this autumn morning. No, he had not wanted his beloved Edyth to come, yet he was glad that she had: something beautiful to see and touch, to ward away the ugliness of conflict.
He looked southwards, towards Hastings. Was William standing, questing northwards with his mind and instinct to help him decide what to do? Or did he already know?
Small in the distance, a man was galloping down the incline of Telham Hill. An English scout. Harold’s arm tightened around Edyth’s waist. He dipped his head, lightly placed his lips on the crown of her hair, guessed the news the runner was bringing. They had known, last night when he had walked through the camp, they had all really known. He had known when he had lain and loved with his Edyth, that William would not wait.
***
At dawn, Bishop Geoffrey de Coutances had taken mass and offered Communion to Normandy’s commanders and to her duke. Had blessed them and prayed for God’s deliverance on this most especial day.
By the half-hour past six, Duke William’s army was on the move. Bretons, with Poitou, Anjou and Maine, headed the column led by comte Brian. Next the Franco-Flemish—the fierce fighting men of Picardy, Boulogne and Flanders with comte Eustace de Boulogne, Robert de Beaumont and William fitz Osbern. And then came the Normans, the infantry, together with the cavalry on foot, leading their horses so the animals would be fresh for the hardship ahead. Across the saddles lay their hauberks, the chain-mail armour, ready to be donned when the time came to form the battle lines.
Duke William himself rode his black stallion, the Andalusian charger, a gift from King Alfonso of Aragon. He was a good horse, coming from a man who could prove useful to Normandy. He would make a suitable husband for Agatha, when this business in England was satisfactorily completed. Snorting and prancing, the magnificent, long-maned beast paced beside the column of men. William, clad in leather under-tunic and braies, the mail leggings and sleeves laced and tied, rode from the rear forward, so that he might have a chance to speak to every one of them as he passed. Again and again he repeated his words as he trotted past rank upon rank—close on 18,000 men.
“Our hearts and spirits fly high this bright morning! Fight well, this day, my brothers, and your reward will be great—and for those of you who do fall, die well, knowing you enter God’s Kingdom with the honour of a warrior. The sons of your begotten sons, or the children of your brothers and nephews, will say with pride: my kinsman fought, that day, in England at the place they called Hastings!”
He was there to watch them, as the long, long column of men dispersed upon the hill that by the afternoon would be called Blackhorse Hill, the hill where the baggage wagons were to be left, the supplies minded and the wounded brought. There would be many wounded, most of them beyond helping.
The men, eager and apprehensive all together, ran their thumbs lightly across axe and sword edge, tested bow strings, set arrows loose in the quivers at their hips. Hoisted spears, tapped shields for soundness. Hauberks, for those fortunates who had chain-mail, were pulled on, fitting like a tunic that reached to knee or calf, split from hem to crotch rear and front, the loose skirting laced, for those cavalrymen who preferred it, to form crude breeches. By ill chance, William’s hauberk twisted to the left as he brought the mail coat down over his head, ending backwards about his body, the sword slit to his right side, the coif to his front. Men saw and the whisper sped quickly from mouth to mouth. Bad luck? An omen!
William laughed, his head tossed back, a great guffaw of amusement, although inside he was quaking—God’s love, but he must turn this thing quickly, in face and word, else he could lose them! He swivelled the mail to its right side, shouting, “see how I turn it from the wrong to the right with such ease? Thus shall I, this day, right Harold’s wrongs and turn my duchy into a kingdom!”
They heard and the anxious sweep of superstition fled with a yodelling cheer. The Leopards of Normandy, carried by Turstin, were set in the curve of the hill. Duke William, after signing himself with the cross, sent his men down the slope and into position in the valley beneath the high rising ground, where, upon the ridge, the English stood. Waiting.
21
Sendlach Hill
The English were ranged along the high ridge of Sendlach Hill, a seven-hundred-yard line of men, seven or eight deep. The front rank of more than one thousand men stood in close order, their shields before them, overlapping in place, forming a wall almost as solid as anything that could have been built. In the centre, the area more vulnerable to cavalry attack, were the housecarls—the experienced, elite warriors. On the flanks were the fyrd, protected by the sharp drop of land, forest and marsh to east and west of the ridge. The ridge itself dropped down ahead a full hundred feet in every four hundred yards, before rolling on across a shallow valley towards Telham Hill, more than a mile away. Sendlach was a high, dry watershed for the Brede river and the Asten brook—the sand-bottomed water channel that normally meandered sluggishly across the low-lying ground between the rise of low hills. Only the Asten brook had been dammed with logs, soil, brushwood—the carcass of a dead sheep—anything the English could quickly lay hands on. With its outlet blocked, the water had nowhere to flow across the narrow, flat level, could only seep into the lower ground. For most of the summer—and the summer before that—this ground had been waterlogged, a quagmire of boggy marsh. The surface had only dried out these last few wind-blown and sun-drenched weeks; the grass looked safe, green and lush…until the first of William’s men, the Bretons, set foot on it.
It took less than an hour for Duke William to see his men deployed into line. The Bretons were to his left flank, facing what had become bogged, heavy clay ground but a shallower incline; the Franco-Flemish to his right, with firm, dry but perilously steeper ground. In the centre, under William’s two half-brothers, the archers with bows and slings waited. Behind, the ranks of infantry and behind them the cavalry. Morale was high and the weather was holding good; rain would have made the ascent of that fearsome slope impossible. Rain, which had fallen so incessantly this year, would have been a Godsend for Harold on this one day.
William sat on his fidgeting horse, gazing out over the mass of men, the sun glinting on armour and weapons, on banners and pennants of blue, green, gold, red. From the position of the sun it was near nine ante meridiem; Mass would be beginning in monastery and church, as God’s judgement must begin here, William fingered the relic pouch that hung around his neck, then looked to his trumpeters who stood, eyes fixed on their lord duke.
He raised his arm. Let it fall.
“Ut! Ut! Ut!” Sword or spear beating upon shields, feet stamping, the noise slammed down from the ridge as the Norman army started to advance. The cries of Harold’s own battle call of “Oli Crosse” mingling with “Godemite!” reverberating between that continued, fearsome “Out! Out! Out!”
The Normans began to fan out sideways and forwards as they marched, the line stretching longer and thinner, filled with foreboding at the views. One hundred and fifty yards ahead, fifty foot higher, rank upon rank of bellowing, spear-edged, axe-sharpened death bringers.
Between the two lines lay green, untrodden grass, dotted with the occasional golden-flowered gorse bush, and pock-marked by the last fading blooms of field speedwell and red campion. To the left, a copse turning autumn russet, the trunks twined about by briars, bearing the last few blackberries. The hedges, all gay with bright berries. A rotting alder tree, tumbled by some past storm, lay aslant halfway up the hill; on one of its skyward-pointing dead branches, oblivious to men and weapons, perched a robin, incongruously piping his territorial song.
Duke William smiled, complacent, as the first wave of arrows arched into the blue sky like a black, hissing storm cloud. And another, and another. And another. One thousand and more archers, each with a full sheaf of four and twenty arrows. The first phase of his planned attack to wrest the crown of England from Harold Godwinesson: archers, to cause maximum casual
ties, to maim, to kill. Shooting arrow after arrow until their quivers were emptied—and then, as they marched forward, they would gather the spent arrows sent downwards by the English that had missed their targets, and return them in further waves of destruction…only William’s plan went awry from the start, for there was no return of arrows. The English were not using their archers. Whether Harold had thought the southern wind too strong for effective shooting, or his archers had been depleted by the fighting in the North—or whether the Englishman had deliberately planned to reduce the quantity of Norman ammunition, William had no way of knowing. The laconic smile hardened as he watched his archers withdrawing from the field, with nothing more to shoot. So, Harold was using his brain, was to make a proper fight of this. That was agreeable to William.
They were nearing now, the infantry, having crossed over the quagmire of the brook and scrabbled up the hill. Using high-held shields, they deflected the missiles raining down from above: stones, rocks, sticks, billets, broken axe heads, clods of earth—then spears and javelins. It was to be expected. The defensive line would remove as many opponents as possible before the Norman infantry came close enough for hand-to-hand fighting; the attackers would then attempt to create breaches for the cavalry to exploit, to crash through the barrier of standing men, inflict their lethal destruction and then pursue those who dropped their weapons and ran…most battles went that way, the fighting usually all over within the hour.
The Bretons had found the crossing of the brook hard work; the sodden ground soon became ankle deep in clay. Caked by mud, the men struggled on; once across, they found the hillside a shallow climb and, unlike in the centre, the debris hurtling down on them was not so substantial. Intent on their own path, the Bretons reached the top and came face to face with the shield wall, intact, for the arrow flights had mostly passed harmlessly overhead. And they were alone, had outpaced the line of men to their right.
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