Conqueror tt-2

by Stephen Baxter

  'We are privileged to be sailing with him,' Orm said evenly.

  Odo grunted, amused. 'You're saying what you think I want to hear, aren't you? But you're right. And if we succeed, if Normandy grabs England with this bold stroke, I dare say that in days to come the men who will claim to have sailed with William tonight will outnumber us ten to one. Eh? And, of course, we sail with a far mightier presence.'

  'The Lord God.' Orm bowed his head.

  Odo laughed. 'You really are trying to please me, aren't you, pagan?'

  'You're a bishop,' Orm said. 'Just trying to be polite.'

  'Yes, very well. But God does sail with us, for we have the Pope's endorsement. And that's why I wanted to talk to you.'

  'Lord?'

  'I'll get to the point. I have heard all about the Menologium of Isolde. The prophecy that has been bandied about in King Harold's court.'

  'That belongs to a priest called Sihtric.'

  'Yes. Whose sister you tupped.'

  Orm kept his face blank. 'Your spies are good, my lord.'

  'Yes, they are. And they also tell me you have been present when this fool Sihtric has tried to fill his King's head with nonsense from this document.'

  'And if I have?'

  'Don't be evasive, boy, it doesn't suit you.' The bishop's face was hard, more like William's than ever. 'This prophecy has become famous, at least in the English court. And such instruments can be dangerous. Perhaps even if we win the day, this prophecy will be read by wishful thinkers to say that William's days will be short, that soon an English king will be back on the throne, Harold or one of his brothers. Something like that. You must see that such a prophecy can form a seed from which rebellion may grow. And I want you to make sure that doesn't happen.'

  Orm frowned. 'How?'

  Odo shrugged. 'Work it out for yourself. Find this Menologium. Destroy every copy. Dispose of Sihtric if you have to. That sort of thing.'

  Orm said tightly, 'We are about to invade England. Thousands of men will die in the coming days, whatever the outcome. And you fret over a bit of parchment?'

  'It is a detail, I grant you. But worlds can be won or lost over details – and I see it as my duty to William to take care of such details for him.

  'And there is more.' The bishop leaned forward, his clever face intent. 'Once, under Rome, the Church was united, from Syria to Britain, from Germany to Africa. When the empire fragmented, so did the Church – and Britain fell away. A few centuries of incursions by your pagan forefathers didn't help.'

  'And yours,' Orm said curtly.

  Odo grimaced. 'I suppose I deserve that. But my point is that the popes in Rome have long been pursuing the reunification of the Church. When we are done England will be cut free of its ties to the barbarian nations of the north, and brought back into the Latin centre of the south, where it belongs.

  'And this is only the beginning,' he said. 'Some of us are thinking further – of a Europe joined together, waging war to reclaim what has been lost. Perhaps we can drive the Moors out of Iberia. Perhaps we can go as far as Jerusalem. Perhaps even the great church of East Rome can be brought back to the ancient centre. Some thinkers call such a war cruciata – marked with a cross, a crusade. The Norman invasion of Britain is only the first of these crusades. And that is why its holiness must be unblemished. The mere existence of this prophecy, with its unknown provenance, no doubt heretical, is a challenge to that holiness.

  'Think about it, Orm. By destroying the Menologium and all who protect it you will be doing a service to the mother Church that will see you rewarded in heaven. Even if,' he finished harshly, 'you have to slaughter the girl you tupped to do it.'

  It was with relief that Orm heard the cries rising from the lead ships, now dimly visible in the gathering light of dawn. 'Land! Land!'

  XVIII

  Orm's ship was one of the first to enter English waters. The Normans were relieved that Harold's navy did not come out to meet the fleet. Perhaps the English had been caught unawares.

  They landed at a place called Pefensae, on the coast of the old kingdom of the South Saxons. It was a complicated, treacherous bit of shoreline; the still water shone in the low dawn light, and the ships glided like shadows between shallow islands. As they worked their oars silently, the soldiers peered out, many getting their first glimpse of England and the English. Hovels of reeds and sod slumped on the islands, no doubt inhabited by the poor sort of folk who made a living at the margins of seas. But there was no sign of life, not a thread of smoke or a rack of drying fish. Perhaps, Orm wondered, one of William's local guides had tipped off his relatives that thousands of hungry Normans were about to descend on them.

  And, more to the point, there was still no sign of any English resistance, not so much as a sword edge or shield boss. The spies' testimony that Harold had had to withdraw from the south coast to face Harald Hardrada must be true. The men joked nervously that they didn't know if they would face an army of smooth-faced English or hairy-arsed Norse when they landed.

  They came at last to a peninsula, where a curtain of walls with round corner towers stood proud – Roman, that was obvious by the quality of the stonework, and the courses of red tiles embedded in the facing blocks. Orm could see now why this place had been chosen for the first landing by the Norman scouts. The harbour was big enough to accommodate William's ships, and the fort large enough to take his troops.

  William had his ship pulled up on a shingle beach at the western end of the peninsula, where it was joined by a narrow neck to the land beyond. The men laboured to unload the ships, and the first horses were led ashore, whinnying.

  Orm walked into the interior of the fort, with Odo and Count Robert. They passed through the western gate of the old Roman fortifications, the stonework still intact but the woodwork rotted away or robbed. Orm could see holes in the stone where the gates' pivots had once been placed. Inside the walls there wasn't much to be seen. A tracery of foundations in the grassy swathe showed that there had once been stone buildings here, presumably Roman, and shapeless mounds in the earth were probably the remains of later buildings, mud-and-stick shacks sheltering within the Roman walls. Orm had his sword drawn, but he disturbed only a few seagulls that flapped away into the grey dawn light. The walls themselves, a curtain of stone that ran around this near-island, were remarkably intact.

  'Too remote for the stone to be robbed, I imagine,' Robert murmured.

  Odo said, 'The Romans called the fort Anderida. They built it to keep out the English. They threw up this place in haste, and yet their work stands centuries later. Remarkable people, the Romans.' He opened his arms wide and turned around. 'And look at the scale of it! This will hold all our army and more.'

  Orm knew the plan, roughly. This was a good place to land, but not to defend, for the country here was poor. The army would form up tomorrow and move along the coast to Haestingaceaster, a fortified town with a good harbour. There the army could dig in, within reach of the sea and the ships.

  And they could get to work ravaging the countryside in the traditional way, both to acquire provisions for the army and also to provoke Harold into a response. Having come so late in the season, William wanted to bring Harold to battle quickly, and this land of the South Saxons was the heartland of the Godwines. 'And we will gnaw at that heart,' William had said darkly, 'as a worm gnaws at an apple.'

  But first things first; they had to survive the night here at Pefensae. 'I want a ditch system across that neck of land to the west,' Robert said briskly. 'And I want fortifications in here as well. We don't need all this room. Maybe we can cut off that corner,' he said, indicating the eastern end of the wall circuit. 'An earthwork, a palisade.' The Normans had brought wood in prefabricated sections for just such a task. 'Orm, see to it.'

  Orm nodded.

  'And in the meantime we'll send parties out into the country. Even in a place as poor as this, there must be something worth robbing…'

  Thus the first English would soon die, Orm r
eflected.

  The half-brothers of William walked on, speaking in their blunt Frankish tongue, scheming, plotting, as Orm went about setting up a Norman camp, in a Roman fort, under an English sky.

  And beyond the fort Orm saw the sparks of fires across the darksome landscape. Signal beacons, bearing news of the landing to King Harold.

  XIX

  The vanguard of the English army reached the hoar apple tree as dusk fell.

  A horn blew. The lead riders slowed, pulled off the road, and began to dismount. They unloaded their weapons and shields and other bits of baggage from their horses, and looked for a place to spread out their cloaks and rest. The men moved as if they were very old, Godgifu thought. Some of them limped, favouring wounds from Stamfordbrycg. Barely a word was spoken.

  Godgifu herself had ridden with Sihtric, all the way from Lunden, just as they had ridden down from Stamfordbrycg to Lunden only days earlier. Every bone in her body ached from the jarring of the endless ride, and she felt so stiff she could barely lift her leg over the saddle and reach the ground.

  In the failing light she looked back along the road. It was a Roman track that cut across the rolling green country, back towards Lunden. Long robbed of all its stone it was nothing but a strip of turf, but eerily dead straight. The bulk of the army, the troops on horseback and their baggage in carts, was strung out along the road. It might take them an hour to assemble here, or more.

  This place was called Caldbec Hill, only perhaps half a day's ride north of Haestingaceaster, where William was camped. This was Godwine country, which Harold knew intimately from a boyhood of hunting, and when in Lunden he had issued the order for his new army to be assembled at the old hoar tree, everybody had known what he meant.

  The apple tree itself, thick with lichen, stood at the top of its hill impassively, silhouetted against the deepening blue of the sky. It was October. The summer had been wet, the autumn warm; the tree was still in leaf, but there was no sign of fruit. Godgifu wondered how old the tree was. She had heard that the Romans first brought apples to Britain; perhaps a legionary planted the tree when he passed this way, building the road. Impulsively she stroked the tree's rumpled bark; it felt warm, solidly alive. It would stand here long after the events of the next few days were history.

  Sihtric handed her a leather flask of flat beer. 'Careful,' he said. 'Our pagan ancestors worshipped trees.'

  She grunted. 'Trees don't make war on each other. Perhaps they are wiser than us.'

  'I'll have to set you some penance for that.'

  The first baggage carts drew up. The housecarls and the fyrdmen unloaded equipment and tents. Godgifu saw them lifting down heavy mail coats, so rigid they kept their shape, like hollowed-out men.

  Godgifu asked, 'What day is it?'

  'I'm not sure. Friday, I think.'

  'We're all exhausted. All this damned riding.' She worked her muscles and joints, twisting her arms, rocking her hips, trying to smooth out the aches.

  'Yes. But only the housecarls have ridden with us from Stamfordbrycg. The fyrdmen are local; they are fresh…' Troubled, he let the sentence tail away.

  It was true that the fyrdmen were fresh, relatively. The King had sent fast riders to raise the fyrd of the southern shires, and as they rode down from Lunden it had been reassuring to see them gathering at their muster points, with their polished swords and gleaming mail. But there were fewer of them than Godgifu had expected.

  After all this was the fourth such call-out of this extraordinary year. England, it was thought, could raise some fourteen thousand fighting men in total. Thousands had already been lost in the battles at the Foul Ford and at Stamfordbrycg, and many of these southern fyrdmen had already spent a long summer waiting on the south coast for the Norman invasion. England's strength was being drained by this year of total war.

  Godgifu looked to the south, wondering how far away the nearest Norman was.

  Sihtric seemed plagued by doubt. 'Some say Harold has marched to meet the Normans too hastily. He has allowed the Bastard's violation of Godwine land to inflame his thinking.'

  'No,' Godgifu said. 'Harold has a plan. At Haestingaceaster William has a defensible position, but Harold has ordered his navy to cut off any Norman retreat by sea, and stationed here to the north we contain him from moving further inland. We have bottled up the Bastard. All we need is a few days for the northern earls and the rest of the fyrd to join us, while the Normans starve and die.'

  Sihtric muttered, 'Just a few days. But will the Normans give us even that much?'

  'Well, in the meantime, I'm hungry. I'm going to find some food.' She walked off, looking for the first fires.

  XX

  Orm was wakened by a kick in the ribs. His hand went reflexively to his sword.

  The kick had come from Guy fitz Gilbert. He carried a lantern so the men could see his face. All around Orm on the floor of this dingy mud-walled tavern, men under their cloaks were stirring, grumbling.

  The window, just a hole in the wall, looked south, and the sky was still dark. Orm could hear the roll of the sea, and smelled salt and smoke. He remembered where he was. 'Haestingaceaster.'

  'Yes,' fitz Gilbert said. 'You're still here in this arsehole of a place.'

  Orm sat up gingerly. His head was sore, his belly aching. Last night he had joined the men in drinking this miserable tavern's stock of English beer dry. He could do with a bit more time to sleep it off, but that wasn't to be. He got to his feet and looked for his boots. 'I don't even know what day it is.'

  'Saturday,' fitz Gilbert said, glaring. 'God's teeth, Egilsson, I'm glad it's not me paying your wages today.'

  Orm scowled at him. 'Why am I even awake?'

  'Because the Duke has had word, from Robert fitz Wimarc…' There were Normans in England before William's landing – merchants, mercenaries, immigrants. This fitz Wimarc had been a court official under Edward, and had no love for Harold. Now fitz Wimarc had informed William of the events of the last few weeks: Harold's victory at Stamfordbrycg, his rapid march to Lunden.

  'They're trying to bottle us up,' Orm said. 'It's what I would do.'

  'William is having none of it,' said fitz Gilbert.

  'He isn't?'

  Fitz Gilbert grinned, wolfish. Aged about thirty, he was small, stout, balding. In Normandy fitz Gilbert had struck Orm as pompous, ambitious, an irritant who was never likely to achieve much. But in England he seemed to be growing in stature, assuming an air of command. Normans were natural warriors, and on this stolen patch of foreign soil, fitz Gilbert was in his element. He said, 'We're going out to meet them before Harold has time to get his wind back from his march and dig in.'

  'When?'

  'Today. This morning. Now. God's teeth, Orm, find your wretched boots and come with me.'

  Today was the day, then. The climax. Orm felt his heart thump.

  Outside the tavern, under a pall of smoke from burning buildings, there was a stench of blood and shit. It came from the bodies of the tavern-keeper, and his wife and daughters. The women had been raped in the usual way, their lives ending with drunken impalings on swords and spears and axe-handles.

  This had been a pretty place when they came here, like much of the country Orm had seen before, with sheep flocking in the well-kept fields, and bright new parish churches shining in the autumn sun. Now the sheep were driven off, the farms robbed and ruined, the people killed, even the churches burned out; this corner of England already smelled of blood and smoke, like Brittany and Maine and Anjou.

  Riding with Normans, you got used to such things. Orm walked away, looking for the leaders.

  Under the grey light of the pre-dawn English sky, William attended mass. Officiated by his half-brother Odo, a bishop in chain mail, it was held in the open so that as many of William's men as possible could see him and join in his prayers. William had a reliquary around his neck, a gold box containing the saint's finger on which Harold had sworn his broken oath in Bayeux.

  At the end of t
he service William, stocky, bristling, stood before the restless ranks of warriors in their mail coats. 'Do you expect a speech? You won't get one from me. You all know what's what. We're stuck here, far from home. Death or victory, those are the only choices today. But if we win you will all soon be drowning in gold and women. Follow me, and it will be so. Let's get it done,' said the Bastard.

  The men growled like bears.

  William's nobles quickly formed the men into a column. Orm heard it was going to take two hours' marching to get to Harold's supposed muster point. Before the sun was up they were gathering on the road, the infantry in their mail coats, their shields on their arms and their swords in their sheaths on their backs, the archers and crossbowmen and slingshotters with their complicated gear. They stuck to their national groupings and their lords, the Normans with William, and the Flemish and Frankish, the Bretons and the men from Maine marching separately. The cavalry would ride beside the road. Scouts on fast horses set off, riding ahead to work out the lie of the land.

  As the infantry began to march, shuffling slowly before they got their rhythm, they sang psalms in Latin. Their thousands of voices, joining together, rose up over the ruins of the burned-out town and the ruined farms beyond. If there were any English left alive they did not show themselves.

  Orm was carrying many pounds of iron in his mail coat and his weapons. The massive men around him, laden as he was, jostled as they walked, iron clanking on iron, and dust rose up from their footsteps. But the pace was brisk, the air fresh, and as Orm walked he swung his arms, opening his chest, and felt his heart pump faster. He would soon burn off the ale at this rate. It was going to be a good day, he thought, and he joined the Normans in singing their songs of their God's mercy.