Conqueror tt-2

by Stephen Baxter

  XXI

  'There,' Sihtric pointed. 'I see them. On that ridge to the south.'

  Godgifu peered that way. The sun was up now, and she had to shelter her eyes.

  She was standing on marshy ground at the right hand end of a low ridge, where the English army was hastily assembling. The ridge, which was called Sandlacu, ran east to west, and bordered a swathe of uneven land that fell away to the south before her. Harold had advanced here from Caldbec Hill on being warned by his scouts of the Normans' advance.

  And on another rise, further to the south, she saw a splash of colour: red, green gold, and what looked like stalks of wheat, waving in the slight breeze. Those stalks were spears.

  'The Normans,' she said.

  'Well, this is the battlefield,' Sihtric said. 'Where the weaving of time's tapestry will be completed. The Normans to the south, advancing from their ships and their base at Haestingaceaster. The English to the north, blocking their way to Lunden.'

  'Shield wall against shield wall.'

  'Ah, but it won't be so simple.' Sihtric pointed to bodies of horsemen, indistinct in the mist of morning, that rode back and forth before the Norman lines. 'See that? Cavalry.'

  'So the Normans did not give us the days we needed to assemble our forces.'

  Sihtric grunted. 'No. The Bastard has come to attack. I suppose if I were William I would have hesitated, and lost. But I am not William.'

  'Then we must stand firm against him.'

  'It's not impossible. The position is defensible.'

  Glancing around, Godgifu saw that Harold, with an intimate knowledge of the country, had been wise to choose this green place, Sandlacu, to make his stand. To get here the Normans would have to cross rough, boggy grazing land. Godgifu saw English soldiers working their way across the field, hauling branches and building hasty mud dams to block streams, flooding the ground to make it even more difficult. And even when they got across the field the Normans would have to climb this ridge, which was guarded by steep drops with a patch of scrubby forest to the left and swampy land to the right.

  On the ridge there was a churning grumble as thousands of Englishmen tried to find their place. At the centre Harold's housecarls, several hundred of them, were taking their places in the front line, with their round shields held proud before them, their stabbing spears and axes in their hands. More housecarls, with the more able-looking of the fyrdmen, gathered into ranks behind, seven or eight men deep. Harold's party, under his standards of the Wessex dragon and the Fighting Man, was at the back of this block of men.

  His brothers took their places with their own men: Gyrth on the English right with the East Anglians, Leofwine on the left with men from Lunden and the neighbouring shires. As a fyrdman you always fought under your lord or your thegn or your bishop; neighbour fought alongside neighbour.

  Almost all of Harold's troops were infantry; he had few archers, for the archers promised from the land of the East Saxons had yet to arrive. But it might be enough. English armies fought only one way, like this, on foot, as a solid mass of shields and swords and axes.

  Sihtric and Godgifu were outside the mass of fighting men, with other priests, clerks, and women. Now Sihtric led his sister back from the army's flank, to the cart they had ridden on from Caldbec.

  They passed close to Harold's party under their standards. Even now the Godwines were arguing. Gyrth and Leofwine had urged patience, to let the northern earls come, to assemble an overwhelming force. But Harold seemed intent on a fight, on finishing this now.

  The mood among the housecarls was fractious too. They were big men, massive and imposing in their mail coats, and in their restlessness and anger they were frightening. But rumours ran through the English camp that William had brought his white papal banner, and around his neck he wore a relic, a withered finger in a golden box: the relic on which Harold had sworn his perjured oath. Why, by leading his army in this battle Harold was perjuring himself again. Men even muttered about the curse the old King was said to have laid on Harold on his deathbed.

  Everybody was intensely religious, and soldiers more than most. There was a sense of destiny hanging over the battlefield, of forces greater than human channelling through the bodies of the warriors: the will of an offended God, and at least in Sihtric's head the manipulations of the Weaver. And a cloud of unease hung over the excommunicated King, gradually rotting his authority and his confidence.

  Sihtric reached their cart and rummaged in the baggage. And he pulled a mail coat out of a sack.

  Godgifu was astonished. 'What do you think you are doing?'

  'My bishop is in the ranks already. I'm a sort of reserve.' He sighed. 'It is a day when God wills us to fight, I think, Godgifu.'

  'You'll be cut down in a heartbeat.'

  'And so will many others, like blades of grass. But perhaps, together, it will be enough.'

  'Sihtric-'

  'I'm not going to debate this, sister. Look, help me get it on, will you?' He held up the mail coat, with its dangling leather ties; he looked as if he could barely manage its weight.

  Harold came walking along the ridge. A big man, his greying red hair tied back from his clear face, he climbed up on a cart so his men could see him, and there was a ragged cheer. 'We have the Normans like rats in a trap. They will fight. They will ride their horses at us, but horses are useless against shield walls. Attack the horse, not the man, remember that. And stand firm. That's all we have to do.

  'The Normans are brutes, who make slaves of men and whores of women. They mean to stay, and if they defeat us today they defeat our children too, and our children's children, for all time. But they won't defeat us. The Normans are on our soil, and their blood will water our crops. Stand firm – remember that one thing, whatever happens.'

  Another ragged cheer. But Harold's face was drawn.

  And then a cry went up. The Normans were advancing.

  XXII

  Orm stood with the Norman heavy infantry, near the centre of the Norman line.

  There were three blocks of infantry. Before each of the divisions were the missile-men, archers and crossbowmen and slingers. And behind them were the cavalry on their restless horses, the mailed knights with their mail coats and boots of steel.

  Orm wasn't in the front row. Only Normans took those places, at least at first; Orm, a mere mercenary, was one rank back. But Orm was taller than the average, so he could see quite clearly to the north, across a marshy field and a steep rise.

  And there stood the English, a vast row of them on a ridge, their colourful shields bright in the low sun. Harold faced William, then, for the first time since that fateful oath-taking in Bayeux.

  Orm knew that the Normans preferred not to fight pitched battles at all. Easier to break a few peasants' heads than take on professional soldiers; easier to drive a country into submission with terror than to defeat it by force of arms. Today, it seemed, the Normans were going to be forced to fight the English way.

  Orm's own hauberk, much battered and patched, was already hot and heavy on his shoulders. The hood that protected his neck and cheeks was a stiff mass over his head. Under the mail coat he wore a quilted tunic, with sleeves of boiled leather to protect his arms and legs. His conical helmet sat heavy and secure on the crown of his head, laced under his chin. His shield was a leaf-shaped slab of alder with a tip that swept down to his feet – awkward in the charge, but useful when the shield walls locked because it went low enough to protect his feet and ankles.

  He weighed his axe, with its long ash shaft and blade of hardened steel. It was a massive weapon, heavy enough to cut through mail or fell a horse, another memory of Viking days. His sword was ready too, and he reached back with his gloved hand to grasp the hilt between the pommel and crossguard, testing the smoothness of the scabbard on his back. The long tapered blade of thick mild steel had a double edge and a central groove to reduce its weight. For most of the Norman infantry the sword, mace and lance, with leaf-shaped head and heavy shaft,
were the main weapons. But Orm was a Northman and fought like one – indeed he fought more like the English, who were half-Danish now, like their King, and he hefted his big two-handed battleaxe.

  Over the rumble of the voices of thousands of men he could hear the snap of the standards carried by the Bastard, where he rode with his half-brothers Odo and Robert behind the infantry lines. Orm looked over his shoulder. There was the white Pope's flag with its gold cross – and William's own standard, the black raven, a symbol of his pagan Viking ancestry, a memory of hell. The mood tightened, wordlessly; the men could sense the moment of attack was near.

  The commanders of Orm's unit, Guy fitz Gilbert and Robert of Mortain, walked before the lines, their own bright swords drawn. 'Here we go, lads,' Gilbert called. 'If you need a shit or a piss do it now before you strap up your hauberks.' From the smell around him Orm knew that some of the men didn't need telling twice.

  There was courage of a brutish sort in the faces of the men around him. They were restless, the burning energy that had been gathering since they had been roused before dawn surging; they longed for the killing to begin. But most of them were too young to know what was to come today.

  And it was going to take a long day, Orm suspected, to dislodge a warrior like Harold.

  At last the trumpets sang. The missile-men to the Normans' left were the first to go running across the field towards the English. Lightly armoured, they moved quickly.

  So it began. The men roared.

  The English on their ridge clattered their shields and shook their swords and axes. Orm could hear their cries of defiance: 'Godwineson!', and 'Bastard! Bastard!', an insult aimed at the prickly Duke. The Normans around Orm roared back: 'God aid us!', 'Holy Cross! Holy Cross!' As the missile-men ran on the noise became tremendous, pealing back and forth across the field. Orm, immersed in it, yelling himself, felt his heart beat faster, his spirit burn like fire. But through it all he could hear the most basic and brutal of the Englishmen's chants: 'Ut! Ut! Ut!' – Out! Out! Out! This was their home, and they were here to drive the Normans back into the sea, and that single word repeated over and over, a rhythmic animal grunting, communicated their determination as did no other.

  Now horns blared, and at last came the order for the infantry to charge. Suddenly the world was full of motion and noise.

  Hefting his shield on his left arm, his axe in his free right hand, his sword on his back, Orm strode forward with the rest. Around him powerful men in their heavy mail pushed forward, not quite running, their advance a fast determined pace. Looking over the heads of the lead troops Orm was able to see that the whole of the line was in motion, Normans at the centre, Bretons to the left, Flemings and Frankish to the right, thousands of men tramping down the hill.

  The Norman missile-men were closing on the English lines, and Orm heard the cries of their commanders: 'Notch! Draw! Loose!' The archrs' bows were taller than they were; they held them up and drew their strings back to their chests, and the crossbows spat cruel iron bolts that splintered English shields. Orm could see a few of the English fall, and the day's first blood had been spilled. But the English had the benefit of the height of their ridge, and most of the arrows fell short.

  The lead infantry reached the field's lowest point and began to slog up the marshy hill towards the English line. The going was hard over ground that was cut up by spiteful little ditches and gullies and ravines, and in places was too soft to bear the weight of an armoured man. Around Orm men fell, cursing, and hauled themselves to their feet, their mail coats covered in mud. Even if you didn't fall it was exhausting to battle through this heavy English clay. Orm was reminded of how he had fallen in a bog in Brittany, not unlike this land, and how Harold himself had saved his life. But still the Normans marched, still they kept formation, still they screamed their insults and clattered their shields.

  When they got close enough the English responded. Missiles fell from the sky on the Normans, a hail of arrows, javelins, and stones from slings. Orm raised his shield, and took blows from falling rocks that jarred his shield arm. Again the height helped the English; their rocks and bolts fell hard. Your mail coat should protect you from the arrows: the English had no crossbows. Even so men fell around Orm, unluckily picked out in the face or neck by an arrow or a javelin. Blood blossomed bright, its first iron stink as shocking as ever.

  Orm sensed the men around him flagging, tired even before they closed to fight, young faces showing fear at the first nearby spilling of blood. He raised his axe above his head. 'Let's at them, lads! Let's go in running! Those motherless English cowards won't expect that!' The shield wall in front responded. With a renewed roar they ran, their feet driving into the muddy ground. It was hard going up the brutal slope, but once he had the momentum, once his blood was up, Orm felt himself fly.

  And suddenly they came on the English. The shield walls closed on each other with a slam. Orm was trapped in a struggling crowd, only one rank behind the Norman shield wall. The sheer momentum of massively armoured men smashing into their line pushed the English wall back, one pace, two. But they were held by their own ranks behind them, and the battle compressed into a long line of men, pressing. Metal flashed, blood splashed bright, and the screaming began.

  Orm could barely move, let alone raise a weapon. But right before him a Norman infantryman went down under an English sword, and suddenly there was a hole. Orm stood on the still-writhing body of the fallen Norman to fill the gap.

  A big brute of an Englishman faced Orm, swinging his sword under the Normans' shields, hoping to hamstring his opponents. But Orm got his axe over his head, free of the melee, and slammed it down into the face of the Englishman. Bone crunched, and the man's head was split like an apple from forehead to nose. His jaw gaped, wrenched loose of its joints, and blood gushed from the ruin of his face, drenching Orm's tunic. For one heartbeat Orm felt something quail in his soul. This first instant was always a shock in the head and the gut, when your arms and hands first felt the ache of the sheer effort of ending a man's life.

  Then the man fell back. Orm dragged his axe out of his face.

  Another Englishman came screaming out of the mass at him. He looked very young. Orm had a bit of space, and he dropped his axe and reached over his shoulder for the sword on his back, and swung it down with all his strength, once, twice. You didn't fight with the heavy weapon, sword on sword. It was essentially a sharp-edged club, and he just battered the Englishman down to the ground. Orm felt a stab of pity for the fallen boy.

  But another came at him, screaming, and Orm raised his weapon again.

  So it went on. All around him men fell, from both lines, but there were always more to replace them. There were no insults now, no chanting, only the meaty gurgle of torn flesh, iron scraping on bone, the liquid gurgle of blood, the rending screams of the fallen, and the stench of sewage and slaughter. It was the stink of the shield wall. And Orm, working at his gruesome butchering, knew that at any moment if he lost his concentration or dropped his guard he too would be scythed down.

  XXIII

  A vast murmur went up from the English. Godgifu saw a standard fall, on the English left. Was that Leofwine, brother of Harold? Had he fallen so soon, perhaps struck by a lucky arrow or javelin?

  But on the field the fight continued. She saw that the line where the struggle was most intense was raised up, as men fought standing on the fallen bodies of their allies and enemies.

  And now something changed. Trumpets pealed from the Norman side. There was a shift in the compressed crowd of warriors, shield on shield, like a wave passing through them. The Normans stepped back, all along the line, prodding and jabbing with their swords and goading the enemy. The English held their position, and gradually a gap opened up between the two lines of shields. The ground between them was churned to mud, and it was blood red, rich with flesh and bits of bone.

  Sihtric stared, appalled, fascinated. 'Who would think so much blood would spill from a man? If God had meant us to
fight in wars He would not have given us skin as thin as a spider's web.'

  Godgifu saw the wounded struggling to get back to their lines. Some of them walked, but many were hideously maimed, with hands severed or eyes put out or blood gushing crimson from some rip in their bodies. Those who crawled were worse. The wounds were grotesque, almost comically so.

  As the withdrawal continued Godgifu allowed herself a moment of hope. 'Is it over?'

  There was a thunder of hooves.

  'I don't think so,' said Sihtric.

  The Norman cavalry came charging in from the left. They rode in units of eight or ten, men in mail and helmets standing up in their stirrups. The animals were small and stocky; they were stallions, and with their heads jerked back by cruel bits and their sides pricked by spurs they were fast. Godgifu was horrified by the huge physical presence of the horses, masses of flesh and hooves racing at the English line. The very ground shook.

  But no horse would charge straight into a wall of shields. In the last moment the horses turned their heads, and their bodies slammed into the shields, scattering men like skittles. They ran along the line towards the English right, hurtling down the corridor between the facing infantry masses. The knights they carried hurled their lances, then chopped and stabbed with their swords, as the Norman infantry cheered and shook their spears in the air. But the English hacked back. The trick was to aim your axe at the horse's neck, Godgifu saw. Soon men and horses fell in the dirt.

  Godgifu thought that each horse took out three or four English fighters as it fell. But the line held.

  Sihtric yelled at Godgifu, 'And look!' He pointed. 'The Normans to the right! They're running!'

  They were not Normans but Bretons. Alarmed by their own cavalry's assault, their orderly withdrawal turned into a rout. Worse, in their panic they started tumbling into a ditch they had crossed safely earlier.