And at that moment a member of the fyrd, seeking immortality, cut his horse’s throat with a slash of his razor-sharp seax and William went down for a second time.
A great cry went up around him, of triumph and despair, and all along the line men paused in mid stroke or wheeled their horses away and with eyes shielded peered down into the wide hollow.
William flung one of his own men out of his saddle, heaved himself into his place -- but his crown or coronet had gone and none knew it was he until he tore off his helmet, hurled it at the Englishman who had slain his second horse, plucked his standard from the lad who still contrived to be only yards behind him, and went careering along the broken line, showing both sides he was still alive. His men, cavalry and foot alike, recovered in body and spirit, now surged down the slope into the marshy hollow where most of the English right were now gathered. The slope was now against the English, Gyrth and his earls, fearful of disobeying Harold’s orders, were not there to rally them, and three or four hundred were slain before they could regain the ridge behind them.
It was there and then the battle turned ineluctably in William’s favour. The English had suffered that worst of all moments of despair which follows hope betrayed, they had lost an unaffordable number of men, and, above all, everything that rumour had said about their adversary seemed to be true: William was invulnerable - either because he was the devil’s whelp, as some said, or because round his neck he still wore the relics on which Harold had sworn away the throne.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Dead on noon with the sun a lemon-coloured disk glowing through cloud, the Normans - would you believe it? - broke off for dinner. All through the morning sutlers in carts containing baskets filled with bread and the big round cheeses of Normandy, also the flavourless, floury, yellowish apples they insist are so delicious, had been trundling up the track from Hastings. Without leaving their lines, but maintaining a watchful eye on our shield wall, the whole fucking army spread cloths on the churned-up turf and fell to. We were not so well prepared and, while most of the fyrd had brought their snap along with them and were prepared to share a little with us housecarls, there was nothing like enough to go round. Taillefer might have done something with five loaves and two fishes but he had gone. There was bugger all to drink apart from the brooks at the bottom of the hill, but these were within arrow-shot of the Normans, and whenever a man went down with his helmet off to scoop up the water he was peppered with arrows, which did little damage so long as they kept their heads out of the way, but left them looking like pin-cushions.
Anyway, when they came on again at dead on two hours after noon, they were in better shape than we were, though another two hundred or so had come down the road from London to join us.
‘Not enough,’ said Harold. He put them on our right to replace the losses we had suffered when our men went down into the valley after the retreating Normans.
However, in the next phase William concentrated his assault on our left, where there had been less fighting than elsewhere. Again it was the foot soldiers who came on first, but he’d put the horse of the regiments far out on his right -- they were mostly Franks and mercenaries from east of the Rhine -- to a point where the ground was flat, and even sloped in a little towards the space between the two armies. Something like what had happened with the Bretons in the morning happened again, though this time it had a look of preparation, planning about it. Make no mistake, I do not think the foot-soldiers feigned a retreat to pull Leofwine’s men out of line, they were well beat, but when they did retreat in poor order and the housecarls broke out after them, the horse were on hand to charge amongst them, cover the foot-soldiers’ retreat, and inflict heavy losses. Leofwine plunged in amongst his own men, urging them to regain the ridge and reform as quickly as they could before the wall could be turned, and in doing this was struck down, skewered from behind on a horseman’s lance.
This so confused his men that they hesitated, and milled around in a leaderless fashion like so many headless chickens, which gave the Franks a chance to reform and attack again, both horse and foot together, before the remnants of Leofwine’s men regained the ridge.
Harold concealed his grief with rage. He stormed down the line - we, Daffydd and I, had to pluck the standards out of their holes and follow as best we could - urging on his commanders that, come what may, they must now stand and hold the ridge and not leave it, no not even if the whole Norman army pulled back or even, though now it did not seemed possible it could happen, broke and fled.
Again there was a respite, for although the afternoon fighting had been heaviest at the east end of the line, all had been engaged and both sides had suffered badly, and both armies were dead tired, the Normans perhaps even more than us, even though they’d had a decent meal, for we had mainly just held our ground, while they had marched up and down that hill as many as five or six times. About four hours after midday, and about two after the resumed fighting, the whole ugly field, churned up mud, dead horses, dead men, dying men and dying horses, blood and shit everywhere, had the weary sick look of a stalemate about it.
Which was fine with Harold, fine with us. If they didn’t break us by nightfall they were done for -- they couldn’t stay where they were, exposed below us, they’d have to pull back to their fortified camp and maybe even Harold would let our light troops harry them as they did. And all through the night and the next day reinforcements would come in from the North and the West, and William would have to sue for peace on the best terms he could get and all would be well. So for twenty minutes we thought we were there, that we’d made it, but all the time we could see William cantering up and down the lines, standing in his stirrups, bellowing orders, sarcasm mingled with threats, and bit by bit he got his line into shape again, this time with the horse in front for they had suffered less loss than either of the other arms and were the ones who had had most success against the wall.
Harold sent messages down the line: ‘This has to be the last push they can make before sunset - withstand this and we’ve won.’
William brought his front line up the hill and stopped them about fifty yards below us, just within lethal arrow shot had we had any bowmen left who had not shot off their last arrows, and then he came out in front, and turned his back on us! But we could hear him. The voice high now, cracking occasionally, the phrases coming in short bursts:
‘Land for all. Castles and slaves and women, because there will be no men left. Mutton, beef, boar’s meat everyday. Hunting whenever you like, your own hounds, your own horses. Enough mead and wine to keep you drunk till you die . . .’
His horse, his third of the day, a big bay this time, gave a shiver and tried a pirouette which maybe jogged his mind to higher things.
‘This day you will begin a new order. A reign which will last through generations. Your sons will inherit this earth and your son’s sons, maybe to the crack of doom, certainly for a thousand years. Yes. Follow me now and claim your share in a lease of a thousand years, albeit a thousand years has all too short a date. Summon up all your strength, stiffen your muscles, and once again cry God for William, the England that will be ours and Saint Saint . . . George? Yes. Saint George.’
‘Christ and his Holy Cross defend us,’ Harold muttered.
And William pulled his horse round to face us, lifted his mace (someone had got another for him), and thumped his spurred boots into the beast’s sides. It took off and almost had him on the ground, but he held on, got it back under control and was off again on a short rein in a slow trot, and all his men followed. And at that moment we realised, and maybe his army did too, that he did not mean to give in or go back. And for all his screeching, and manic posturing, for all his bullying and attention to minute and pointless detail, for all he lacked perfect control over his long limbs, he had a power about him, a sort of black aura that made you shiver. You knew he was vulnerable, you knew that scratch him he’d bleed, but he didn’t. He didn’t know it.
Within se
conds we were at it again. The horses pushing sideways into the shields, the maces and swords flashing above our heads, the screams of the wounded, the clash of arms on armour, the neighing of horses, the sudden fountain of blood that blinded you, yours or someone else’s, the throng so thick at times you were crushed and could hardly move at all, at other times giving bewilderingly away and leaving you where a horse could fall on you or a mace take off your head . . . Then the horse wheeled away and the foot soldiers came in and it was back to single combat again, but now it was not so single for more and more it seemed there were three against two even two against one, if at all we parted shields and tried to make a real fight of it. The thing of it was, at the beginning of the day we were able to stand shoulder to shoulder in two lines along the whole of the ridge or in four lines in open order and now, in spite of reinforcements, shoulder to shoulder we could barely hold it in one. No doubt the Normans were as depleted in numbers as we were, but they could concentrate where the line seemed weakest, and this they did, bringing up the horse behind the foot and storming in wherever a gap appeared.
There was only one thing for it. I think I said this ridge, this hill was linked to the downs and the forest by a narrower isthmus. The only way we could shorten our line was by pulling back on to the end of this and about an hour before sunset we did just that, carefully and in good order, it was the sort of manoeuvre we had been trained for. But when he saw it happening the Bastard realised he might lose the advantage he’d gained and he tried to gallop round our right with about twenty horsemen. For a moment, he moved so quickly, it looked as if he might, but Harold’s brother Gyrth rallied enough men in front of him and they turned him back. But not before the Bastard himself smashed Gyrth’s face in with his mace -- he was going at him at almost full gallop.
Harold saw it this time. He had no room for anger now. His eyes filled, he almost wept, then he shook his head and said: ‘Later, later.’
For a time, a short time, it seemed we had done enough. Concentrated again, we were solid. But the movement had two bad side effects. First, it meant we had abandoned the apple tree. Thus far and no further is what the apple tree had said to us and now it was swallowed up in the Norman advance, although we were only a hundred paces behind it. That sort of thing shouldn’t count, but somehow it did. Second, we no longer had the advantage of the slope. At first this didn’t make much difference, it was level ground, more or less.
Again there was a short pause, I suppose while the Bastard sorted out the new situation. It came on to rain. Not heavily but enough to question your grip on your sword . . .
‘You have not said anything about your sword. Was it not in any way special? Like an old and trusty friend, forged by goblins? An heirloom?’
‘No, nothing of the sort.’ She’s heard too many Romances, Walt thought. ‘Lot of nonsense sung about that sort of thing. Excalibur, Durandil, whatever. It was just a sword. One picked out of many because its weight and balance suited me.’
He went on.
That greasy rain made things seem slippery, though heaven knows there was enough blood about to have the same effect. What the Bastard did now, and of all the things he did on that day it seemed about the most stupid, was bring back his archers. Until then his bowmen had been shooting uphill and their arrows, which were light and more of a nuisance than anything else since they would not pierce leather let alone steel, had hit our shields or passed over our heads, and most of them had run out.
Anyway, he called them up again and course there were a fair number of their own arrows on the ground we had left, so they got together enough for a proper volley or two. And when the first lot didn’t seem to do much damage, someone, maybe the Bastard himself, rode amongst them and told them to shoot up in the air so they’d fall on the other side of the shield wall. Stupid idea really. Almost impossible to judge the right trajectory and they were close enough to make it possible for some of the arrows to fall on his own men. And anyway we all had helmets on . . .’
‘But.’
Four swans flew out from over the forest, heading towards the estuaries, and Harold looked up at them. We heard the wingbeats coming from behind us and to our left. You know, there are some sounds you just have to look round and up for. He counted them, not with numbers but with the names of his brothers: ‘Sweyn, Tostig, Leofwine and Gyrth.’ And a stupid little arrow hit him in the right eye.
It wasn’t fatal, not even serious, though almost certainly he’d have lost that eye, but naturally he went down. Well, you do. Even if it’s just a finger or something, if it comes hard enough, and of course it bled a lot, all over his face, and he stayed dead still for a minute or so, again the way you do when you’ve been hurt badly, until you’ve worked out just how bad it is. And that was it, enough for the word to go down the line that he was gone. Well, both wings had already lost their leaders and now the King, too. It means something - the King. More than just the ring-giver, whatever Quint might say. And both his brothers who might have been king after him, they’d already gone. Quite a lot of the housecarls out on the ends of the line just broke and ran for it, and, of course, the fyrd in the rear went with them before we could mop Harold up enough and get him on his feet and show them he was still alive.
We were down to as few as five hundred now and there was no way we could block off even the narrower part of the hill. We formed a circle round the king and the standards. The sun had almost gone. There was still a chance if we held on we’d get Harold out, under cover of darkness. One thing, though. William sent a lot of his horse down the hill on the west side after the fugitives and we could see how, just before he launched his final attack, they got caught in a deep ditch down there, many were thrown and there were enough English still about to cut their throats.
But, anyway, here they came again. And now they could ride right round us, swinging in at us, smashing at us with their swords and maces from all sides and all angles. Of the eight companions there was just Daffydd, Timor and me left round Harold. He was in a lot of pain, but he kept telling us: ‘Keep the standards flying, keep them up.’ Then there was a lull, and we could just make out how the Bastard called together four or five of his heftiest knights. They were only fifty yards away and they had torches flaring now, and they were silhouetted against the sky and the very end of the sun. Then those five came at us, riding at a full gallop, and the men in front of us, they were all wounded, and near dead with exhaustion couldn’t hold them and four of them broke through . . . and then it happened.
‘Harold got killed.’
‘Worse than that. In a way. For me. I should have been killed, too.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s . . . what . . . one should do, really.’
Walt wanted to live. He wanted to go back to Iwerne, to Erica, to the hearth. These were the things he was fighting for. In that critical moment he turned his back on a millennium in which the mead-hall, the feasting, the boasting, the oaths, the training, the loyalty, above all the loyalty to the Chief, dominated the lives of young thegns and housecarls. To die for one’s chief in the shield-wall might still be the greatest glory but to live amongst one’s family and people and serve them is better than glory.
When the first blow fell, a sweeping stroke from a sword held two-handed, his body could have been between it and that of the King -- instead he tried to parry it with his sword and arm. At that moment, perhaps, with that choice, the civilisation of the English reached its zenith - it turned its back on the savagery of war and embraced hedonistic willingness to live as well as one can and help others to do the same. And - at that moment its decline began.’
Not Walt’s fault, though - the battle was already lost. Nevertheless, the companion should have been killed with his Chief and it was the presence in his soul of all that the hearth had come to mean that denied him that glory. He walked away from the battle with three insufferable burdens -- guilt that he had not died with Harold, guilt that he had allowed the hearth to betray him, guilt
that he could not force himself back to Iwerne where he knew he would now be more desperately needed than ever before . . .
‘Walked?’
‘Yes. Daffydd was dead but Timor survived. In the darkness he bound up my arm. He said he owed me one because I had saved him from drowning when we were kids. Then he left me and I passed out. I came to not long before dawn. The crows and kites were already gathering over the hill. There were people moving about. With lanterns. Women . . .’
‘Don’t cry. Tell me about it. Who were they?’
‘Edith Swan-Neck. Next day Timor took me to Dover and on the way he told me how she had made him take her back to Bosham instead of Weymouth. They had to gather Harold up. He had been, well, more or less chopped in pieces. Only his mail, slashed and torn though it was, held his torso together. Edith knew him though.
‘William found them shortly after dawn. He said Harold had broken his oath to God and would not let them bury him in holy ground. So Edith and Timor and a few others of us buried him on the beach beneath a cliff near Hastings --’
Walt wept.
Eventually Amaranta asked: ‘What will you do now?’
‘I’ll go back. There’s an English boat in the harbour. I’ll work my passage with them.’
‘I can give you money.’
‘No. I shan’t need any.’
‘It’s a very small boat. Aren’t you frightened of drowning?’ ‘Terrified.’
Epilogue
It took a year. Piraeus, Venice, Messina, Moorish Valencia and Cadiz, Santiago de Compostela. On the way they picked up news of how things were in England, of how the resistance had gone on and still continued. Of how Harold’s and Edith Swan-Neck’s sons from Ireland had landed in the West Country and been driven off. Of how East Anglia had risen, but the rising had been betrayed by a turn-coat called Hereward the Wake. And of how the north was still in arms against the man they already called the Conqueror. And of how wherever he was resisted he laid the land waste, of how his men burnt villages in reprisals and how castles were built everywhere from which the Normans and their mercenaries, armed and horsed as they were though still only a few thousand in number, looted and raped at will.
The Last English King Page 41