I Am the Chosen King

by Helen Hollick

  Unsupported, uncoordinated, they met with spears and javelins at close range, the men coming behind pushing those in front on to the waiting blades of the English, the dead and dying heaping, one atop the other, before that wall. They tried, they jostled and pushed, swung axes, cursed and spat, but could inflict no damage upon the English. Instead, they were being destroyed with the ease of a man’s palm swatting at flies…The centre reached the top of the ridge, found, as had the left wing, an undamaged wall of shields and men with death-tipped blades. The thing was hopeless! The Bretons broke, turned and fled back down the hill.

  Confusion and panic spread as fire fanned by a wind. Their flank undefended and exposed, the Norman centre milled in disorder, wavering. The cavalry, coming behind, saw that the Bretons were fleeing and that their own infantry were beginning to turn also, starting to dodge through the excited, almost uncontrollable horses, running back down the hill in fear and terror of those English, standing, the line barely depleted, up on the hill.

  Harold’s orders had been to stand firm. At all cost. Stand. He had ridden along the length of the ridge, talking to the men, reassuring, jesting, praising, swelling the high morale of battle lust. Repeating, again and again, his order. “Stand firm. If we stand William cannot break through. Unless he can break our line, he can do no great damage to us. Until I give command, stand firm, my brothers, stand firm!” Harold knew the Duke’s practised tactics, knew also his own vulnerability of cavalry against infantry. He and the men were tired; they had marched, fought and marched again. Add to that, not all the fyrd were yet here. He had to contain William, hold him back in this peninsula, and to do that, had to let William do all the work. Let him charge up and down to the ridge, let him weary himself on the slope and in the mud at the bottom. The English were going nowhere, were to stand. Firm-footed.

  Harold’s right wing of fyrd men saw the Bretons running, the Norman centre confused, bleating and threshing like sheep frightened by the stench of a wolf. They heard a roar of victory go up from their own centre, saw the attacking Norman line give ground and begin to retreat.

  It was all over! They had won! The Normans were running, were beaten…and the fyrd, experienced militiamen but without the hard-ranked discipline of the housecarls, dropped their shields and erupted from the ridge, down the hill, in pursuit of a broken enemy, jeering and shouting.

  Both commanders watched in growing, sickened horror. Two men in their prime, capable and gifted warlords. Two men who claimed the same crown, the same kingdom. Harold, four and forty years of age, six years his opponent’s senior, stood surrounded by his personal guard beneath his two standards, set into the high ground to the left of his centre. William, astride his impressive black stallion, observing from the lower slope of Telham Hill.

  The rules of engagement were changing as the fight unfolded, here on this battlefield, on this day, the fourteenth of October in the year of Our Lord 1066. Rare it was for battle to last more than an hour or two. Never had mobile cavalry gone against a line of static, immovable infantry. Never had William been beaten.

  Without consideration, he clamped his jaw, sat deep into the saddle and spurred his horse from a stand into a gallop. The impatient beast responded with the swiftness and stamina of his breed. He half leapt, half stumbled through the churned quagmire, heading for the turmoil of the Norman cavalry to the left of the centre division. Bellowing and shouting, the Duke turned those riders at the rear, who milled, uncertain.

  “Turn back, turn back! Fight, you bastard scum—turn back and fight! Look—they’ve run out, they’re unprotected—ride them down, you whore-poxed fools! Ride them down!”

  As Harold well knew, no man on foot, vulnerable and unprotected, could withstand the flying hooves of a galloping horse and its rider with hefted spear. Too late, those Saxon fyrdmen realised why their king had told them to stand, that they had thought wrong, that it was not all over. The Normans were not broken. By leaving the shield wall, the Saxons had isolated themselves. They tried, desperately, to assemble into a wedged formation in the shelter of the trees on that copsed hillock near the Asten brook. Stood with spears, axe and short-sword pointing outwards, with brave hearts and stout courage, tried to defend themselves against the swamping flood tide of battle-crazed, iron-shod horses.

  There was nothing the men of the English fyrd could do, nothing, except die.

  22

  Sendlach Ridge

  Defeat had nearly overrun William’s army, but by some fortune—by God’s grace or his own swift action—the rout had been avoided. The Breton infantry had fled in disarray, the morale of his centre and right flanks was ebbing as fast as a tide could abandon the island monastery of Mont Saint Michel. Leaving the slaughter of the English right-wing fyrdmen to the Breton cavalry, William recalled his army, a tactical withdrawal to gain a respite, gather the wounded and re-form. He was not beaten; it was not ended. Although he was shaken, he could hardly believe that he had come so close to defeat—so uncomfortably close.

  The brow of the ridge was clearing of Normans, leaving the litter of battle in the place of troops: broken weapons, lost helmets; the dead, horse and man. As they walked or limped back down the hill, the men collected what they could from the dead. Shields that were less damaged than their own, a tighter-fitting helmet, better-quality boots. Hauberks—a prize indeed! Used their daggers to put a swift end to maimed, dying animals and the occasional comrade; carried with them their wounded.

  The commanders were vociferously rallying them, Bishop Odo, Eustace de Boulogne, Robert de Mortain and fitz Osbern, working hard to restore heart and vigour, issuing supplies of arrows, new weapons where needed; sending those with wounds to be patched up by the priests; replacing horses. All the while, William sat on his own horse on the Norman side of the Asten brook, assessing that first attack. What had gone wrong? Why he had failed? More important, how best to send in his men a second time? He could not afford another near disaster. Merde, he would never hold these men through a second debacle like this first had been! He began to reorganise his army into three divisions: infantry, cavalry and re-equipped archers. He marshalled them with encouragement, threats and bribes. Told them they were heroes or whoresons. Proffered rewards of land and gold, or retribution that he himself would see to if they again failed him.

  For Harold, too, the pause, which lasted half of the hour, came as a thankful respite. The fighting had lasted over an hour; there was no need yet for food, but the passing of the water skins along the lines came welcome to dry-throated, breathless men. With the wounded and the dead lifted shoulder over shoulder to the rear, the line closed ranks. Because of the depleted right wing, the shield line was shortened, but the carcasses of dead horses were hauled closer and topped with dead Normans to create an extra barricade. Those who were not dead, beast and men, were dispatched with a dagger to the throat and added to the gruesome wall.

  William made a good general because he used quick, decisive thinking. His first attempt had failed, therefore he must change tactics. This second attack was to be better co-ordinated, the distance between archers and infantry decreased, the cavalry sent in closer. The ranks must arrive together at the ridge of the hill, push forward in a concerted effort, not in a raggle-taggle mess. To do this, and to ensure their courage did not fail, William himself was to lead the advance.

  Nearing the eleventh hour of the morning, the Norman trumpets sounded again and the line began to roll slowly forward. Up on the ridge, the Saxon English straightened to attention, tightened their grip on axe, sword and shield. Gyrth and Leofwine, set to right and left of the centre line of housecarls, exchanged a raised hand of salute to each other. Harold himself let out a yell of encouragement that was taken up from man to man, voice to voice: “Oli Crosse—Holy Cross! Out! Out! Out!” The rhythm of the war beat thundered on their shields. “Ut! Ut! Ut!”

  The advance up the hill was slower than before, the quagmire deeper and spre
ading where the water from the dammed brook was beginning to flood. Gone was the emerald-green grass; the scatter of flowers; the robin. Instead: swathes of blood-puddled mud; the scratched and torn clefts where horses’ hooves had gouged as they plunged or fell; the dead, stripped of mail, boots, helmets. Of dignity.

  The Saxon line shook, but held. The Norman line pressed and pushed, without wavering, but to the other side of the shield wall. Where one man went down, another leapt in, as savagely determined to hold firm. They tried and tried again to break through that damned impenetrable shield wall. Could not do it.

  William drove his black stallion forward with spurs that flecked blood on the animal’s lathered flanks. As he rode and fought he bellowed encouragement, goading his men onwards, tongue-lashing the waverers. The stallion was terrified by the noise: the yells, the clash of weapon upon weapon, the cries of the wounded as axe or sword hacked at sinew and gut, the screams of mutilated horses; he was crazed by the anger and the fear, the stench of blood and the raging press of men that battered and jostled his quarters and shoulders. Ears back, eyes rolling white, he trod on the fallen, for those who went down at the front had no chance of getting up. The animal tried to swing round, to escape, but William curbed him, bullying him as hard as he did his men. Fighting his rider, the beautiful animal reared, his hind legs sliding on the slime of gore and gutted entrails. He half toppled, scrabbling with his forelegs to keep his balance, and lurched against the shield wall, his weight, almost half a ton of solid flesh, plunging into the English. But they knew how to deal with any horse or rider who came within range of their long-handled, broad-bladed battleaxes—the terror weapon that could cleave through armour and the man wearing it; could slice off the head of a horse in a single blow.

  The black Andalusian was dead in the instant an axe struck downwards behind his ears, severing the skull from the neck. William screamed, kicking his legs free of the stirrups, tried to roll away from the carcass as it fell, was caught, trapped by the lower leg. He lay for a second—seemingly a lifetime—hands cradled over his head, curled into a ball, as the trampling sway of men and horses pummelled at his back and shoulders. Hell was made here, before this shield line at the place of battle! A shout from a yard or two to the left: the shields were giving ground. The Norman line shifted slightly, all effort concentrating on that one small, weak point—and William found himself, for a very brief flurried moment, almost alone down among the dead. He pulled his leg free, though pain shot up from his ankle, crawled and wriggled through the thinned mêlée of men, his hand stamped on by boots, his head reeling from kicks—was surprised to find himself suddenly out in open ground, down behind the Norman line. He loosened the strap of his war helmet and vomited, the inside of his brain whirling with red, muzzy dizziness. Slowly he lurched to his knees, then stood, his body shaking, screeching from the pain of multiple bruises and what felt most assuredly like a broken rib. His ears were ringing, his vision was blurred. Pain thundered down his leg and his arm, where blood also trickled. His face, the front of his chest and his thighs were splattered also, though how much of the blood was his own he would not know until he removed his armour.

  Had he moved without realising? Why was he among men again? Why were they passing him? Running—oh, God’s curse! That breach could not have been made, they were being repelled, were falling back! He stood, arms lifted, shouting. What could he do, one man standing among so many? Then he heard the cry that was rippling from tongue to tongue:

  “Mort. Le due est mort!”

  “Où est le duc?”

  Mon Dieu! Non! They were panicking. They thought him dead! William swung his head, ignoring the dizziness that threatened to come upon him again, searched frantically for an unridden horse, saw Eustace de Boulogne astride his grey, beating at the Franco-Flemish right wing, trying to turn them back. The Duke ran to him, at a shuffling, hobbling pace, bellowing for him to dismount.

  “Votre cheval! Vite! Vite!”

  De Boulogne was off, one hand clasping the rein of the maddened beast, the other boosting William into the saddle. The Duke nodded his gratitude and spurred the animal along behind the line. Suddenly he realised the men could not recognise him now that he was not mounted on the black. He yanked at his helmet, exposing his face to full view. Cried out over and over, “Regardez! C’est moi! It is I, it is I! Je vis I live.”

  For almost three hours the struggle had continued. The English line swayed and rippled—the occasional breach being sealed instantly—but it held. Only a few from the left wing, again the lesser men of the fyrd, had broken in the same way their comrades had earlier in the day. De Boulogne’s men, rallying after they heard Duke William lived, had slaughtered each one of them, but it was not sufficient. Nothing was going to move King Harold’s housecarls from the top of that ridge of Sendlach Hill.

  William’s second assault was crumbling into disarray. He had no choice; his men were exhausted; too many horses were down riderless; swords were broken or blunted, spears all used. If he did not take the decision to withdraw and regroup, then they would surely break and there would be no holding them this time.

  Respite was welcomed by everyone except the Duke. It seemed hopeless. A quarter of his men killed, as many horses slain or made useless. How many more men were slipping away unseen? His soldiers sat where they fell on the far side of the morass that had, at first light, been nothing more than a calm brook. Too tired, almost, to drink from wineskins, eat the food that was passed around. Only the commanders were active, for William had called his captains to gather at his standard. One last try at it. Once more only and they had to use it to their best advantage. Looking out over the men, some weeping, others numb to feelings, all of them nursing sword or wound, William de Warenne, who had once asked his duke about England, wondered how they were going to get them up on their feet again. How they were going to make them go back up that foul and stinking slope that led direct to the devil’s hell.

  23

  Sendlach—The Shield Wall

  Morale was running high among the English; twice, now, had they beaten off the Norman whoresons; their casualties—even counting those fool men of the fyrd who had not heeded the King’s orders—amounting to less than half the Norman dead strewn over the battlefield. Aye, the line had dwindled to only two or three men deep in places, but shortened, gathered in towards the centre, they ought to be able to withstand a third assault.

  Food and drink were passed from man to man, those women who had come—wives, mostly, who had no children to care for—issuing flat-baked barley cakes, wheaten bread and recent-picked sweet and juicy apples. It was from the women, too, and the priests, that the wounded sought aid, hobbling, being carried or supported to the safety of the baggage line. Not that there was much that could be done for many of them, beyond the comfort of a clasped hand or a pretty smile and the offering of prayers.

  Harold threaded his way to the front of the wall, clasping men by the hand, gripping their shoulders as he passed, praising, encouraging or sympathising with those who sported minor wounds.

  Pointing to a bloodied rent in one man’s byrnie, he exclaimed, “Godfin! Is that a wound to your side?”

  “Nay, my Lord, ’tis nothing serious. An arrow poke to me belly. Could ’ave been worse ’ad it been lower. Might have nipped me in the family tool department, eh!”

  Godfin offered a skin of ale to his king, with a laugh and nod of appreciation. Harold accepted, lifted the pig’s bladder to his mouth and drank a mouthful. It was strong-brewed ale, stuff for men.

  “By the Christ,” Harold jested, wiping his lips and handing it on to another man, “we ought give some of this to those bastards down there—it’s strong enough to blow their balls off!”

  It was easier to laugh and joke, for the terrible carnage at the front of the line would be too sickening if there were not something to balance its horror. The stench was appalling. A horse wandered, broken reins t
railing, lamed in the foreleg by an axe stroke that had gouged part of his lower shoulder away; another stood, head lowered, bewildered that he could no longer see, for a sword had slashed across his face; a third struggled to rise, not understanding that he no longer had a hind leg…Not four yards from the shield line, a man lay, moaning, calling piteously for water, his stomach and entrails exposed, black blood oozing. Already the ravens were circling the field. One, more brazen than its companions, landed a few feet from the dying man, hopped closer, its beak preparing to pick at the exposed flesh. They went for the eyes, these nauseating scavengers. The soft flesh of the eyes, not caring whether a man or beast still lived…Thrusting aside two of the men who stood in the front rank, Harold pushed his way through to the open hillside, his dagger in his hand. A ruffle of unease spread through the men as he stepped out of their protected shielding, but he ignored it. He waved his hand menacingly, chasing the obnoxious bird away, bent and touched the man’s shoulder. A Norman, a young lad, no older than his second son, Edmund.

  “Give me water, my Lord!” he croaked in French, and Harold answered him in his own tongue.

  “There’ll be water in plenty awaiting you, son.” With his dagger, he slashed neat and quick across the boy’s throat. Aye, he was a Norman, but no one deserved to die that way. Except perhaps William himself…No—Harold, shouldering his men aside, returned behind the lines, dismissing the thought from his mind—no, not even Duke William, for if he thought that, then he was no better than him. Uncaring, unfeeling. Ordering this day of death, causing this mighty pain and suffering for no reason except his own wanting of something that could not, by any lawful right, be his. No, Harold was not like that.