From his vantage point Harold could see the battle progressing well and took comfort from the knowledge that the Norman infantry could not continue to take many more casualties; by nightfall there would be nothing left of them. The shield wall crossed the ridge as it had done earlier in the day, although it had not escaped his attention that the housecarls were taking the greatest losses, as evidenced only feet away by the ever-closing distance between himself and the Norman front line.
Again, even behind the chain mail and helmet, Harold could see enough of his beetroot face to recognise William, just outside spear range, encouraging his men forward in an attack upon the English standard. The Golden Dragon wriggled gently in the breeze, as if taunting the Normans. The Fighting Man waved his club from his banner. Harold could pick out William Warenne from his long grey hair, hacking away at the shield wall. And he could see hand axes flying to defend their lord. Even in the din he could recognise Haakon’s voice trading insults with Normans who were once his captors. Looking round to the left, Harold saw the giant Godric in the thick of the fighting, his new double-headed axe mincing French mercenaries with all the precision of the grim reaper. To his right, Abbot Leofgar was shouting encouragement to the men under his command. Then, as so often happens, just when we think all is going well, the worst befalls us. William made the pre-arranged signal to Alan the Black and the Bretons turned and fled as though in panic. Norman prayers were answered. From behind the housecarls, less well-disciplined members of the fyrd forced their way through the shield wall to pursue the retreating Bretons. Leofgar and the others shouted for them to stop but it did no good. Down the hill they ran, their hearts pounding with excitement, their faces full of glee.
In all, about five hundred fyrdmen broke ranks to pursue the Breton infantry down the ridge. The fyrdmen never bothered to look behind; why should they? They did not see William signal the Norman cavalry to move in behind them, cutting off their retreat. They only realised their mistake when the Breton cavalry wheeled round to charge them and by then it was too late. Like their comrades in the morning, they rushed for the shelter of the little hillock and its protective tree. Like their comrades before them, they were hacked down, speared or, if they climbed the tree, shot by crossbowmen happy to shoot such easy targets. On the ridge, spears, axes and even stones were hurled at the Bretons to keep them at bay, but all in vain. No one survived.
Harold, powerless to help, looked on as five hundred of his men died within a few minutes and the Bretons, emboldened by their success, attacked again with vigour. Once more the entire stretch of the hillside was engaged in the fight. Then on Harold’s left flank William’s mercenaries ran screaming from the battle. Once more fyrdmen broke through their own shield wall to give pursuit, only to be cut off and isolated by the same manoeuvre that had led to their comrades’ deaths only minutes before. They gave a good account of themselves before they were scythed down.
William’s ruse had worked well. In little under a quarter of an hour, Harold had lost a thousand men to the Normans and fear had got the better of some of the others. Sensing a turn in the tide of fortunes one or two fyrdmen disappeared but most stood firm, as did all of the housecarls - as yet their losses were not critical. It was just as well; the Norman cavalry attacks were beginning to succeed in weakening the lines. For half an hour wave after wave of cavalry attacked; one group after another rode along the shield wall hurling spears at the defenders. At the bottom of the hill the infantry recovered, ready for another attack. Then, in the golden light of the October afternoon, the cavalry assaults stopped, giving Harold and his men some respite.
Godric’s cheery smile greeted Harold as he looked over to his left, the big shire reeve beaming as he held high his blood-drenched axe. To his right, Abbot Leofgar also looked happy. He called both men over so they could report the damage.
Harold guessed that at most only one and a half hours of light remained until sunset. As the wounded crawled or were carried back behind the lines to helping hands in the baggage train, Harold looked to see how his bodyguard had fared. Everyone appeared to be all right. Then he noticed someone missing.
‘Where’s Haakon?’ he called out.
No one replied.
‘Skalpi, have you seen Haakon?’
‘Not for a while, my Lord. The last time I saw him he was charging towards Duke William. I think someone hit him on the head with a mace, my Lord. But it’s hard to say.
‘Take some men and see if you can find him.’
Finn and Thorkell took some of the men to look for Haakon. They made a macabre sight searching amongst the dead for the King’s nephew. Turning bodies, scrutinizing smashed faces. As they went they piled up the dead to make more obstacles for the Normans, being careful not to slip in the gore. Search as they might they failed to find Haakon.
Under his standard Harold talked to Leofgar and Godric.
‘I have a question for both of you; will your men last out till dark?
‘Abbot Leofgar, what do you say?’
‘If we keep our discipline, my Lord, we should easily last out.’
‘Sheriff Godric, will your men last till dark?’
‘Easily.’
‘Good. Then we’ll win the day.’
It was then that Harold noticed a change in Godric’s expression.
‘What is it?’
‘Down there. The Normans, they’re up to something.’
Harold looked to see a group of Normans on horseback making their way up the hill. There were about twenty of them. Something about their movement struck him as odd. They did not look like cavalry about to make an attack. Then he noticed they had someone with them on foot. His hands were bound behind his back and his legs were tied together in such a way he could only take small steps. He was being prodded with swords and spears to encourage him to keep moving. Then Harold recognised him. It was his nephew, Haakon.
It was William Warenne who had picked him out and with the help of Walter Gifford and a few others he had managed to capture him in the last foray. The party came to a halt just out of spear range. An unearthly hush descended on the battlefield.
‘Do you want your nephew to die, Earl Harold? Why should this young man pay the price for your avarice? Surrender. Give to the Duke what is rightfully his; his kingdom.’
Harold looked Warenne in the eye. ‘I’ll make no gift of this kingdom to any man. It’s no possession of mine to give away. England and I are one and made so by King Edward and the Great Council.’
Warenne grabbed Haakon by the hair and pulled him forward. With his face only inches from his prisoner’s he yelled, ‘Did you hear that? Did you hear what your beloved uncle had to say?’ Then turning to Harold he shouted just as loudly, ‘It seems your uncle cares for you less than you thought. He’s betrayed you. Still, what do you expect of an oath breaker?’
Sir William then kicked Haakon’s legs, forcing him to his knees.
‘It must be difficult for you, Haakon, to have to gaze on the face of your betrayer, but I’m not a man without feelings. I’ll spare you the pain of looking upon such an unpleasant sight.’
Positioning himself behind Harold’s nephew, Warenne grabbed hold of the boy’s head, forcing him back against his thigh before using his fingers to gouge out both eyes. The screams were terrible. The English army looked on the ghastly spectacle, readying themselves for their King’s command, while Haakon’s screaming, eyeless face stared blindly upward at an unseen sky.
Harold gaped in horror, his nephew’s screams ringing in his head. He started to move forward but Skalpi and Finn held him back as Warenne pulled out a knife and held it to Haakon’s throat, all the while grinning at Harold, tempting him forward.
‘There, Earl Harold, look what you’ve brought on your family. All your brothers are dead; your nephew’s blind. If you can’t protect your own family, what chance do your men stand?’
Once more Warenne turned his attention to his victim. ‘Now you’re blind, your life really isn�
��t worth living. Allow me show you some kindness.’ Looking directly at Harold, the old man slowly cut the youth’s throat, stood up and kicked the corpse face first to the ground.
Harold rushed forward now, the housecarls by his side, all of them wanting revenge. But Warenne had anticipated their move and in a moment had remounted his horse and with his comrades was galloping back to the Norman line, the housecarls behind throwing axes spears and insults at him.
On their way back down the hill, Warenne and his men passed the infantry heading up towards the English. Within a minute, once more the battle was raging.
William repeated the tactic of the feigned retreat, first with the Bretons on his left flank, then with the Frisians on his right but the English held firm, refusing to be tempted by the thought of easy victory. After half an hour of hard fighting William had the retreat sounded and his men gladly broke off from the fight. The Duke was growing more desperate by the minute. ‘We can’t let the English off the hook now, Monty,’ he said to his friend. ‘There can only be an hour of daylight left.’
‘Have you seen what’s arrived?’ asked Count Eustace, galloping over to join them.
Duke William looked in the direction indicated by Count Eustace and was pleased to see four wagonloads of arrows being shared out like sheaves amongst the archers. There was a rush as hundreds of bowmen hurried towards them. The Duke shouted over to their commander to open up an attack immediately.
The men in the infantry and cavalry saw this new turn of events as more of a nuisance than a real threat to the English. Archers were viewed with disdain; they inflicted the least damage and took hardly any risks.
‘They’ll give the rest of us a break,’ the Duke said resignedly.
‘Do you think a few archers will make any difference to the outcome, my Lord?’
‘Do you have any better ideas, Count Eustace?’
‘If we had the same amount of men in cavalry, now that would make a difference.’
‘But we don’t have any more cavalry or any men at all for that matter. At least the men we have are well armed. We can’t ask for more than that.’
‘But what’s the point of archers? They shoot their arrows and the English just lift their shields and stop them all. It’s a pity there aren’t more archers to shoot them when they’re holding their shields so high, that’d sort them out.’
The Duke’s expression froze as a vision flashed before his eyes.
‘What is it, my Lord?’
‘You know, Count Eustace, you’ve just given me an idea.’
Three thousand rearmed archers began marching up the hill. At a comfortable distance they stopped and prepared to shoot their arrows. Duke William’s inspiration was about to pay off; he ordered the infantry to attack the enemy line. Amongst them, making up for the number of fallen comrades, were chevaliers whose horses had been killed under them. The cooks were there, too, and so were the wagon drivers and anyone else William could find for the final, desperate push.
The bowmen were instructed to hold fire until the Duke gave the command to shoot; this would be just before the infantry clashed with the English. The creaking of thousands of bows being drawn gave William a great deal of satisfaction; a smile appeared on his lips. He had told the bowmen to aim high so that their arrows dropped on the English from above while in front of them spears and swords would probe undefended flesh. The English would fall to either arrow or sword.
Once more the Normans trudged up the hill, while again the English started their chant of ‘Out! Out! Out!’ Like hailstones in a heavy summer storm the arrows fell hard on the English, who held high their shields for shelter from the vicious downpour. Protected from arrows from above, they were vulnerable to sword and spear, to which many victims fell.
A particularly fierce volley was aimed at Harold’s standard, wreaking havoc and causing concern for safety of the King. In the fading light, both sides cast ever more anxious glances towards the centre of the ridge, one hoping to see the Fighting Man fall, the other hoping to see him battling on. But the centre held firm; it was the right flank that looked in danger of giving way. Bravely though they fought, the men under Leofgar had lost many of their number; fatigue was overtaking them, arms were tired, hearts were aching, desperation was taking hold. Arrows had stopped falling, it was true, but now cavalry and infantry were attacking as one; men on horseback as well as on foot were attempting to force their way through the line. Still the shield wall held.
The Duke’s men were closing in on the Golden Dragon and the Fighting Man. William himself could be seen barking orders at his bowmen. Once more they let fly their arrows; high into the air they shot before turning earthward, screeching like a flock of angry hawks, diving on the men below. So intermingled were the soldiers of the opposing armies that some arrows fell on William’s own troops, but many more fell amongst the English. By the time the last volley of arrows struck, the bowmen had already turned to search amongst the bodies of the dead, looking for booty or souvenirs. Some of the bodies were so recently slain their wounds steamed in the chilly air.
On the ridge, behind the English line where Harold and his men were fighting a furious defence, there was a metallic ring as an arrowhead struck Skalpi’s shield boss. The deflected arrow shot straight into Harold’s eye. The instant he heard the scream, Skalpi knew the King was hit. He turned to see his lord down on his knees, his hands to his face, his axe lying by his side. Blood and vitreous fluid oozed between his fingers. Skalpi barked orders to the housecarls around him and shouted that the King was all right, not dead but injured. The rumour spread that the King had gone down. Worried soldiers glanced at the standard to see if it still stood.
‘Are you all right, my Lord?’ enquired Skalpi, urgently.
Harold’s pain was so intense he could barely reply. When the arrow struck, all he saw was a blinding light and all he felt was searing pain. Instinctively putting his hand to the wound he found what he took to be an arrow. Because of the trajectory on which it had been shot, the arrow had fallen almost vertically. Skalpi’s shield boss might have slowed it a little but it had travelled behind the eyebrow, through the lid, split the eye and entered the bone of the lower eye socket. He knew it would have to come out so pulled hard, tearing it out of the bone and back through the flesh the way it had entered. It felt worse than the initial strike. What was left of the tattered eye lay useless in its socket. But word spread along the ridge that Harold had fallen dead. Some of the fyrd, brave enough to fight for their king, lacked the courage to fight without him and slunk off in the twilight.
With Skalpi’s help, Harold groped around until he found his axe then staggered to his feet. Even with one eye he could see the situation was dire.
At the oak where Edyth watched, she could sense all was not well. Something was different about the way the housecarls fought and about the way they gathered round the standard. There was something, she was sure. What it was she could not tell, but the feeling that there was something dreadfully wrong with Harold would not leave her.
Out in the field, in front of the scavenging bowmen, William had the same feeling but he knew the battle was not over while Harold still lived. Suddenly he saw him on the top of the hill, with the remnants of the housecarls still grouped around the Golden Dragon and the Fighting Man.
Alan the Black led the first attack to break through the shield wall, isolating the extreme right of Harold’s flank. Mauling their way up the slope, the Bretons fed more and more men onto the ridge. The Normans, knowing this was their last chance to win the battle and sensing the English resistance crumble in the failing light, possessed a new lease of life. The knowledge that they had to be victorious before the sun set spurred them on further. English spirits, seeing the shield wall crumble, began to fall.
With a quarter of an hour of sunlight left, William began the attack on Godric’s section of the ridge. Encouraged by the success of the Breton attack and realising victory just might be theirs, the Frisians fought wit
h a wild fury. Wave after wave of cavalry charged along the eastern side of the ridge. Just behind the infantry they rode, hurling spears into the ranks of the English. The foot soldiers, pressing hard, finally pushed through with the cavalry charging amongst them. Ralph Pomeroy was there, fighting on foot against men whose shields, he was surprised to see, were covered in arrows, hedgehog-like. Seeing a huge fellow swinging a double-edged axe, Pomeroy started heading in his direction, flailing his sword at all comers. The giant with the double-edged axe was fighting like Thor himself, single-handedly cutting swaths through the mercenaries. Bodies lay all around him. Pomeroy knew in an instant he would kill the man. He would be seen killing the man and claim the glory.
Now outflanked on both sides, Harold had all but lost the crucial advantage of the high ground and was having to fight off attacks from three directions at once. Driving hard at him was William, cursing him as he came. The Breton infantry was slowly making its way toward him from the west and in the east he could see Godric and his men fending off cavalry as well as infantry; they were fighting a losing battle. Daylight was rapidly fading but if their luck held, the Normans would have to give up the fight because it would soon be too dark to continue. As if to remind him time was indeed running out, at that moment Finn screamed in agony as he was crushed by the fall of an enemy’s dead horse. His ribs put up no more resistance than dry tinder. The sound of splintering bones was drowned out by his short-lived breathless scream. Squashed under the equine weight, his guts burst out of him, splattering others from head to toe. A few feet away, Azur cried out and fell to the ground disembowelled.
Revitalised, William rode round the battlefield calling for Count Eustace. Even though William had claimed to be willing to meet Harold in single combat, now that he saw him close to he remembered his Samson-like strength from the Brittany campaign and he thought better of it. He thought he had found a way of killing two birds with one stone. Unwilling to lead an attack against Harold in person, he could rid himself of Harold and a cowardly bore at one and the same time.
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