The Last English King

by Julian Rathbone

  ‘Taught the bas . . . the bulgar a lesson,’ he said, and let the head slip off and roll under the hooves of Harold’s horse.

  ‘How about,’ the Englishman began diffidently, ‘if we send some scouts on . . .’

  ‘On ahead to see how, haaa-aaah, the land lies?’ The Duke was still a touch breathless from his exertions. ‘Just what I was about to ask you to do. Why are you getting off your horse?’

  ‘They won’t see us if we are on foot.’

  ‘But they’ll catch you if they do.’

  ‘A chance we’ll take. Rip, Albert, Daffydd and Timor, come with me. The other four cover us.’ Back to the Duke. ‘Give us an hour.’

  Then to William’s amazement and indeed that of his Norman entourage, they not only dismounted but divested themselves of helmets, shields and byrnies, which was the English word for hauberk, swords and spears as well, and slipped away into the reeds. But first they dipped their hands into the mud and smeared their faces. With their dun-coloured under-garments, they were almost immediately invisible.

  The four Harold had named spread out into open order with Harold at the centre, Rip and Albert at each end and Daffydd and Timor coming ten paces or so behind, making the two base points of a ‘W’. Twenty paces behind them but with even bigger intervals between them came the other four. They were thus spread over as wide an area as they could be without losing contact with the man who was nearest or being out of earshot of the one who was furthest.

  At about half a mile from the river, Rip eyeballed a Breton picket squatting in the reeds about forty paces in front of him with his back to them. It took him a minute to work out what was happening. The man was shitting, but facing his own people, no doubt so he could stand and cover himself, and thus avoid embarrassment, should one of his mates approach. Rip cut the man’s throat with a short serrated seax kept hidden beneath his jerkin. The patrol filtered through the gap in the picket line.

  They were back in less than an hour but nevertheless heard William in his high loud voice hectoring those about him.

  ‘You see, gentlemen, what sort of person this Harold is. Slips away like a villein or a slave! Is that how a Lord, a Prince should behave? Mark my words, gentlemen, that’s the last we’ll see of them. Either they’ve used this as an excuse to get away, abandoning their arms and armour and heading back now for England, or they’ve been caught. Conan is no fool, he’ll have patrols out who will soon round them up and deal with them . . .’

  ‘If so, God Bless William, King of England,’ a viscount named Robert FitzAlan called out, and all those nearest the Duke banged their shields with their maces or mailed gloves and shouted with laughter, then stifled it.

  From where none could exactly say, Harold had appeared among them.

  He took the nearest available spear and quickly made marks across a patch of mud in front of the Duke’s horse.

  ‘The shore-line,’ he said, speaking briskly. ‘The river, the causeway, St Michel. The Bretons are split into two forces, more or less equal in size, each at about six hundred men armed and mounted, with four or five hundred peasants, mostly archers, in support. The first of these are on the eastern bank of the main stream, covering the end of the causeway, that is on this side, while the second is drawn up along the western bank in a north-south line with their left flank on the sea-shore where the ground is firmer and drops away to sand and shingle. The river in front of them is wide, with sand banks showing, and is, I suppose, fordable at the moment, though it appears the tide is on the turn. I suspect that as the tide begins to cover the causeway, thus preventing a sortie from the garrison, Conan will withdraw the troops covering the causeway back across the river to join the ones already there. He will have to time this move carefully, with the causeway covered but the river still fordable. If you time your attack while he makes this manoeuvre you will catch him at a disadvantage. If you move your army forward a mile or so in battle order, I will go on ahead with a trumpet and signal to you when the best moment for an attack is at hand.’

  He pushed his hair off his forehead, looked up at William and shaded his eyes against the sun which was now behind the Bastard’s head, and burning off the mist. For a moment the pointed helmet, the nose-piece hiding much of the Duke’s face, the chain-mail black against the sky and the large leaf-shaped shield looked alien, menacing. Harold shuddered, but concealed it.

  William wrenched his horse’s head to the right.

  ‘I know my business best,’ he barked. ‘We will demonstrate in front of the enemy’s left and centre while a third of our force crosses the river above his right flank and turns it. Then the attack will become general.’ And, ignoring Harold, he issued brisk orders to his chief men.

  It did not fall out like that. The force attacking up stream with the intention of taking Conan in the flank found their horses floundering up to their knees or higher in a bog Conan knew very well would protect him. The footing lower down was, as Harold had suggested, much firmer and the Duke’s men got across, but in doing so exposed their flank to the troops guarding the end of the causeway. William attacked, drew off, attacked again and soon it became apparent that although he was suffering heavy losses he was bit by bit forcing Conan back and driving a wedge between the two sections of the Breton army. Also, by late morning, the Normans who had been caught in the bog had extricated themselves and were able to come to the Duke’s aid. Conan now ordered a retreat and brought off his main force with little loss, only losing some of the section on the eastern bank. The Duke’s force had been so badly mauled a proper pursuit was out of the question.

  Harold and his men watched most of this from a slight rise in front of the river. Whether or not he was surprised by what was going on, Walt and the others could not tell, but they certainly were.

  The men at arms on both sides remained mounted and fought from horseback, that is the crack troops, not the drafted peasants. The English onlookers had never seen anything like it. As far as they were concerned, you used horses to get from one place to another as quickly as you could so you would be fresh for the fight when you got there. Once there you kitted up, and went to it. If the numbers were equal you charged at each other and traded blows with axes and swords until a numerical advantage had been gained on one side or another. But if, at the start, your enemy had the advantage of numbers then you formed a shield-wall with overlapping shields and faced out their attacks either until you were all dead or the other side gave up. Those were the basics. And if you had a wise commander, who could, like Harold, first make his knowledge of your enemy’s strengths and weaknesses and then his reading of the lie of the land work for him, then that made all the difference and you won anyway.

  ‘Don’t they ever get off their horses and fight like men?’ Walt asked.

  Harold shook his head. He was watching intently, chewing his bottom lip. More than anything he was watching the Bastard. William was everywhere. He led charge after charge, had two horses killed beneath him. The second was speared to death by foot soldiers he had ridden into. Surely now with ten or so around him, armed with bows and arrows as well as spears and axes, he’d be done for. But, for all the weight of his armour, he was on his feet before his horse’s legs crumbled beneath him. Warding off thrusts with his shield he waded into them and within seconds had them running from his flailing sword, while a groom came up with a third horse. At another moment a section of his knights broke, turned and fled back towards the river but he galloped out of the fight at full stretch, came round behind them and herded them back into the fray.

  At last Harold sighed and turned to Walt.

  You know what it is about him?’

  ‘He has the Devil in him?’

  ‘Perhaps. It has been said. Whatever. But the thing is -- he just does not expect to get hurt. He so believes in himself, so believes in his superiority, he simply cannot conceive that there might be someone opposing him mighty enough to do him serious injury. It’s a gift. A dangerous gift, but until he is hurt, he c
an do wonders.’

  They watched the final stages. As the battle slowly petered out and Conan’s army melted away into the evening mists Wulfric spoke up.

  ‘I tell you one thing though,’ he said. ‘Our fyrd will never stand being attacked by armoured men on horses.’

  ‘It’s of no consequence,’ Harold replied.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. So long as it’s stalwart, no horses will ever break a shield-wall.’

  Conan fought a skilful retreat back to Dinan - indeed his numbers were not all that inferior to William’s. There he shut himself up in the fortified part of the town. No doubt he expected William to extract from him renewed oaths of vassalage, take some tribute, and go away. But William’s ire was up. He sent back to Rouen for reinforcements and invested the fortress while the rest of his army set about comprehensively pillaging the surrounding countryside. Though clearly he and his men enjoyed this a lot there was policy in it too. The Breton lords and people of the region would never again support a Count who got on the wrong side of Normandy.

  Three weeks passed before the reinforcements arrived during which William and Harold studied the fortifications. Dinan was at the top of the tidal estuary of the river Rance and situated on a bend in the river caused by a rocky prominence. It appeared to be untakeable. However, Harold pointed out that the actual walls above the highest part of the crag, though of a height and even higher than the rest, were actually in themselves only forty feet or so above the rock on which they stood. In short, if a small force could climb the rock, the walls at this point were vulnerable to an escalade.

  William fixed him with his cold eyes and stroked his goatee beard.

  ‘Do it then,’ he said.

  Harold ordered ladders to be made, giving precise specifications so they could be carried or pulled on ropes up the cliff face in sections and then reassembled. He also ordered lengths of strong but light ship-cordage to be prepared. He and Helmric the harpist, who had exceptionally good sight, watched the battlements evening and dawn from across the river for a week and plotted the movement of the guards above.

  Timor was the expert in rock-climbing, having spent his time on leave climbing the cliff-faces in Cheddar gorge, just as his father had done, raiding falcons’ nests for chicks to rear for falconry. On a night at the beginning of October, moonless but frosty and filled with starlight, he and Daffydd scaled the cliff, dropped ropes and hauled up the sectioned ladders.

  Harold was first over the battlements but what none of them had known was that the landing on the other side, was a mere catwalk, unfenced, only a yard wide with a fifty-foot drop to a small courtyard below where washing gleamed whitely from a line. Carried by the momentum of his leap Harold swayed over the drop and would have toppled had not Walt, already with one leg over the battlement, not grabbed the collar of his padded jerkin and held on.

  When they got their breath back Harold took his hand.

  ‘Thanks, Walt. I owe you.’

  Later, when it was all over and Conan had escaped using the ropes left by Harold and his men, they walked through the market square of the town. All around them houses were burning, while the Normans butchered all but the old men and young boys out of the males, and raped and slew females of child-bearing age.

  Harold’s face was white with anger, loathing, and a sort of fear, but he listened to what Walt had to say.

  ‘Wexford, Ireland. When I was a lad, a boy. You saved me from drowning, then stopped old Wulfric from bashing my brains out. I still owe you one.’

  ‘You saved my life in Wales.’

  ‘Just quickness with my shield.’

  They walked on down a narrow cobbled street. The central gutter ran with wine and blood; the stench of burning houses, charred flesh and faeces. Harold muffled his face with his cloak and stumbled on. Walt, following, recalled how his lord had always stood back, kept aloof, often with his eight men about him, when the rest of his army went to it, ravaging a border village that had gone over to the Welsh or a Welsh town that had resisted too long.

  Suddenly Harold turned on him.

  ‘Walt,’ he cried, ‘we must never let these Normans loose in our own land. We must do all we can to stop them.’

  ‘Of course . . .’

  ‘Swear it.’

  Walt swore.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Early the next morning William made Harold a knight, requiring again an oath of loyalty. To Williams obvious distress, Harold repeated the oath he had given before -- to serve William wherever William ruled by right. When that was done the army formed up and moved across the base of the Cherbourg peninsula to Bayeux. As soon as they reached Bayeux, and the march took nearly a week, Harold sought an audience with the Duke.

  He was taken to a hall where William was once more back at parchment work, surrounded by clerks. He was apparently checking the Autumn returns of taxes paid in cash and kind by the principal barons of west Normandy. It seemed these lords, none of whom had turned up on the brief campaign, though they had sent armed men and money, were the cross, as he put it, William had to bear. Each had at least one large castle near the borders of the duchy which meant he could connive and plot with the counts on the other side or even the King of France or the Duke of Burgundy. Although they honoured the Duke as their overlord, and accepted that the land they held was his by right, they had absolute control over it through manorial lordlings beneath them, right down to the serfs who tilled the soil.

  ‘One day, dear Harold, I shall be in a position to organize things more sensibly . . . with your help, I hope.’

  No question as to which day he was looking at nor where he was thinking of.

  ‘Then I’ll get shot of this lot, let one of my sons have it, and do things my way, in a neat orderly fashion, everything in the right place at the right time. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I have been absent from England and from my duties there for six weeks. I should return.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. Oh, by the way, it’s only a formality, doesn’t mean a thing, but when you’ve been knighted it’s usual to address the man whose knight you are as, um, Your Grace, Sire ... I mean, of course, sir. Something of that sort. Eh? Think nothing of it.’ He repeated: ‘Doesn’t mean a thing. Just do it. All right? Tell me. Why are you here? What did you come for?’

  ‘As you will remember, Duke William . . .’ There, that was as far as he would go, ‘I came to take home my young cousin Wulfnoth and nephew Hakon. And so far I haven’t even seen them. I don’t even know where they are.’

  ‘Oh, Lanfranc will know the answer to that one. Lanfranc knows the answer to most things.’ The Duke put his finger to the side of his large nose and dropped his voice. ‘Scholarly type, bit of a school-master. Damned good administrator, though. Couldn’t do without him.’ He raised his voice again. ‘Hey, someone get Lanfranc. He’s around somewhere. Probably in his office.’ He turned back to Harold. ‘Sit down. Have a drink. Glass of water for my friend Harold!’

  When Harold was settled close to him, he put his arm round his shoulder and brought his face close up so Harold could smell the pennyroyal on his breath and the bitter hunger behind it.

  ‘I’ll be straightforward, if you will. May I call you Harry?’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘You don’t like the idea? Too informal? Keep things on a proper footing?’

  ‘It’s not just that. Harry is a familiar form of Henry, not Harold. Henry is a Norman name.’

  ‘And you are not a Norman?’

  There was a long silence that seemed to say it all. You are not a Norman. Yet. The voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. ‘Harold -- under what circumstances would you unequivocally support my claim to Edward’s throne?’

  ‘I should support it if the Witan, unforced and speaking for itself, offered you the crown.’

  ‘How many brothers do you have? Four? Five? And all on the Witan? Plus how many other hangers on? No. Put it like this. Under what circumstances would you support my claim
in the Witan?’

  ‘To stop a war, to prevent an invasion, I would accept you as King of England. But only on one condition. You would have to acknowledge me as your deputy and viceroy in England, as the one who ruled on your behalf and in your name. And you would undertake to stay away, apart from ceremonial visits when you would be guarded by my men, not yours. And when you needed arms and men to protect your interests on the mainland I would see that they were provided.’

  William chewed his knuckle, shook his head.

  ‘Won’t do. Got to get shot of Normandy. Pain in the - neck. Need to start over again, start new. Get it right this time.’

  Harold, sweating now, feelings of despair and desperation closing down on him, twisted his face into an ugly grimace. William watched him for a moment with some bewilderment upon his face. Then:

  ‘Ah. Here’s Lanfranc. Lombard. From Lombardy. He’ll help us out. Dashed clever sort of fellow.’

  Lanfranc, about Harold’s age, was wearing the Benedictine habit with a solid but plain gold cross and a ring that looked episcopal. He was heavily built, short, jowelly, but pasty faced and had strong, heavy hands. His eyes were sharp, wary, intelligent.

  ‘Lanfranc, tell Harold here where his cousin and nephew are.’

  ‘At Le Bec, my lord. Studying.’

  ‘Lanfranc has an abbey there which he’s turned into a school. Mainly for clerks of course, but he has an annexe where sons of noblemen are taught to read, study law, rhetoric and so on. Lanfranc - Harold wants to be off in a day or two. Get the youngsters up here as soon as you can and we’ll have a bit of an old feast, whatever, see them off in style. There you are, Harold. That should please you. Now . . .’ he pulled a parchment across the table towards him, turned back to the clerk who was still at his elbow, quill and inkpot at the ready, ‘that old rogue Montmorency out at Coutances has fallen short again. Take a letter . . . Harold,’ he raised his head for a last time to the Englishman, ‘if you’ve got time on your hands why not go over to the women’s abbey and ask the Abbess to show you the tapestries her nuns turn out. Well worth a visit.’