The captain turned and shielded his eyes from the high sun as he looked southwards over the sparkling grassland. It spilled away from the walls of Dun Domhnall. Flies buzzed around his face, but he could not see if the outer gate was open or closed. However, he trusted the strength of Fionntán’s eyes to discern the truth.
‘Just get to the gates,’ he told the slouching Gael. ‘They will admit you.’ Fionntán looked unconvinced, but Raymond ignored him and lifted his left hand to point at the smoke cloud belching skywards. ‘Waverider is on fire and that means only one thing – we will have to remain in Ireland. Before you let yourself be worried, I will remind you that each of you helped me build the walls of Dun Domhnall. Each of you poured your sweat and effort into them, and you know how bloody hard they were to put up. Imagine how hard they will be to tear down! They will hold. They will be tested, no doubt about it, but they will hold as long as we stand together.’ He let his last word ring in their ears and pulled to the side of the path, allowing each of his men to pass him. Raymond made sure that they saw the defiance in his eyes and, for their part, most returned his stare before kicking their mounts into a canter towards the distant battlements. Only two paused to speak.
‘Why aren’t you coming with us?’ Alice asked as she reached from Rufus’ back for Raymond’s arm. He took her fingers in his own and gave them a supportive squeeze.
‘Bertram and I will make sure those youngsters get safely back to the fort,’ he told her and pointed to the small number of people, pages and esquires, fleeing back towards the wooden rampart from the beach. ‘I hope that the Ostmen have paused to plunder all that they can from Waverider, but that will only stop them for so long.’ He looked past his former lover to address Fionntán. ‘Keep her safe?’ he requested of his new friend.
‘We’ll see you both back at the fort,’ Fionntán sniffed and turned to bid good fortune to Bertram. His face dropped almost immediately for, past Bertram’s shoulder and less than a half mile away, he had spotted a warrior on foot as he emerged from behind the wooded ridge. Within seconds fifty more had followed him into the sun-soaked landscape to the north. ‘The Gael are here,’ he warned, and reached out to take Alice’s bridle. ‘It’s time to go,’ he ordered and tapped his heels into his horse’s sides.
‘Raymond!’ Alice called desperately as she clung to her saddle, but whatever her words they were lost below the thump of their hooves.
Bertram shifted in the saddle to look at the enemy army as they poured towards Dun Domhnall, a hundred, then two hundred, and soon more than he could hope to count. ‘Do you think it might be time to go, captain?’ he asked nervously and rolled his leather reins around in his hands.
Raymond nodded and shrugged his shield from his back and onto his left arm. ‘Forget about them,’ he told his companion. ‘It will take them some time to reach our walls. We will worry about the Ostmen on the beach and getting those lads – and ourselves – safely back behind the palisade.’ Though what safety the walls of Dun Domhnall could provide against the horde of Veðrarfjord, Raymond did not know. He swept the gloomy thought from his mind and focused on the task at hand. Bertram copied his actions and hefted his lance from his shoulder and upright to vertical, balancing the end upon his right foot in the stirrup. He was a cousin of the powerful Staffordshire Verdon family and, like his captain, had little prospect of making his fortune at his home hearth, and so had taken a place in Strongbow’s household with the promise of trappings and armour, and two square meals a day for both his horse and himself. He was a steady warrior who never let his temper get the better of him and this, to Raymond’s mind, made him the best from amongst the conrois.
Both men squeezed with their legs to make their coursers start forward, and a click of the tongue saw them into a trot and then a canter. They had only been riding for a matter of a few minutes when Raymond saw the first Ostman, bearded and helmeted, as he rose from the beach like a demon clambering from the pits of hell. More enemy warriors quickly ascended onto the grasslands before the walls and began running, their colourful, circular shields bouncing on their backs as they galloped forward with steel sparkling in their hands. The Norman boys had already reached the base of the palisade and were running along its length towards the outer gate, but the first Ostmen were only fifty or sixty paces behind them and, despite their armour, were quicker over the ground. At the other side of the small peninsular, the conrois, with Asclettin at their head, were almost to the outer gates.
‘Why aren’t our archers shooting?’ an exasperated Bertram shouted towards his captain and waved his lance in the direction of the rampart. ‘They could drive the Danes off in seconds!’ He had to yell so that his words could be heard over the noise of their cantering hooves and the wind as it swept by.
Raymond did not answer immediately but guessed the reason for the oversight: Sir Hervey had been too engrossed in organising an evacuation from Dun Domhnall and had not readied his archers for a battle. He stole a glance at the wall and could see only the outline of spearmen atop the defences.
‘We’ll have to drive them away from the barbican,’ he replied as both man and horse leapt over a small, watery ditch which interweaved the terrain. ‘That’ll give the esquires and the conrois enough time to get through.’ He did not wait for his companion to realise what that would mean for them if they remained outside the walls when an army of several thousand arrived. Instead he aimed Dreigiau at a point behind the fleeing Norman youths and clipped his heels to the courser’s flanks. A prayer to St Maurice tumbled from his mouth as he rode forward, asking forgiveness of his sins and pardon for leading Bertram and their two coursers towards danger.
Glancing over his right shoulder, Raymond saw that Asclettin’s group had reached the outer gate, but they had still not been permitted to enter. In the circling mass of men and horses he caught sight of Thurstin standing in his stirrups, shouting up at the men on the barbican, threatening violence and then pleading with them to open the gates to allow the conrois through. Raymond did not wait to see if his warrior’s plea was accepted. He fixed his gaze on his enemy. The long line of Ostmen, at least sixty in number, were still in pursuit of the Norman boys on a trajectory that would inevitably take them to the outer gates where the small conrois and archers waited.
‘Keep going!’ Raymond called to the boys as he and Bertram cantered past. He smiled briefly when he saw the sweat-drenched Fulk of Westminster with two tearful and grubby-faced pages thrown across his young shoulders. The boy, no more than sixteen, nodded and redoubled his efforts, bellowing encouragement at his fellows as Raymond and Bertram hurtled in the opposite direction. The captain’s stare settled on the Ostmen who had reacted to the threat of the two horsemen and stopped to organise into a defensive formation, locking their shields together in a line and issuing a roar of defiance.
‘St Maurice!’ the Norman captain bellowed as he kicked Dreigiau into a gallop and stood in the stirrups, ready to strike down with all the weight that their thundering charge could provide. The Ostmen bared their teeth and gripped the leather straps of their shields, prepared for the clash of Norman lance, but the blow did not fall for, rather than waste his energy battering the pine boards and metal bosses of the sturdily made shieldwall, Raymond pulled Dreigiau out of the charge a few paces from the enemy line and, with a whoop, knifed along its length to attack the men who had not yet been able to immerse themselves in the safety of hastily constructed barricade of shields. Raymond lanced one man in the shoulder as he tried to lift his shield to defend himself while Bertram hunted down a beardless youth as he tried to run for cover under a nearby bush. Both men were panting hard when they wheeled away from the Ostmen’s shieldwall and planted themselves between their enemy and the outer gates.
A roar of bellicose anger erupted from the shieldwall as, still in formation, the Ostmen began inching towards the gates of the Norman fort.
‘It is you, you bastard!’ the voice called in French and Raymond turned to see his enemy, J
arl Sigtrygg, leap out of the shieldwall and remove his helmet so that Raymond could see his bearded face. ‘I told you that we would meet again, you whoreson of a Norman,’ he thundered. ‘I warned you that there would be no place that you could hide.’ He waved his men onwards. ‘We’re going to kill everyone in your pathetic little fort, but you’ll be the last to die,’ he screamed as he shoved his helm back on his head. ‘You’ll watch as I send them to hell!’
Raymond ignored the jarl, but noted his position in the shieldwall. ‘Where are the archers?’ he mumbled as he searched the walls of Dun Domhnall again. The Ostmen were an easy target for even a handful of archers, but not one appeared to force them into retreat. Instead one of the Normans threw a lance from the outer wall, but it fell well short, earning a cry of utter disdain from the Ostmen’s ranks.
‘Get some archers onto the wall,’ Raymond cried towards the sentries on the wall. ‘And for God’s sake open the gates!’ he shouted, indicating towards the barbican with his bloodied lance. He could not tell if the men even heard his words, and prayed that they would have the good sense to realise the predicament of those left outside the battlements.
‘They’re moving again, Raymond,’ Bertram warned. A broken spear tip had been buried between the boards of his teardrop shield and the Norman grunted as he pulled it out and tossed it into a patch of nettles.
‘They can’t move forward quickly and keep the shield wall intact,’ the captain replied. ‘So we need to worry them like a wild dog would a flock of sheep,’ he said and hoisted his lance again. ‘If they lose cohesion, give them a bite, but otherwise try to make them bunch up and slow down.’ And pray that we get some archers onto the wall, he thought with a final look towards Dun Domhnall.
With that both men tapped their spurs to their coursers’ sides and cantered towards the line of Ostmen. A cry from Jarl Sigtrygg brought the enemy advance on the gates to a halt and the Ostmen again steeled their resolve to meet the charge of the Norman horsemen. But neither Raymond nor Bertram went close to attacking the line of overlapping shields. Instead they divided and began circling the enemy in opposite directions at a trot, waiting for the opportunity to strike at anyone stupid enough to break the stability of the shieldwall.
‘Move,’ Jarl Sigtrygg bellowed in the language of his fathers. ‘Move,’ he exclaimed and his warriors edged forward again, slower than before as they worked to keep their shield edges locked together. Ostman insults bombarded the two Normans as they orbited their enemy like cats working to kill a vicious rat. The men of Veðrarfjord screamed abuse, claiming that the Normans were cowards, that they would not dare get down from their horses and fight like real men. They cursed their mothers and fathers, and called them curs and runts and worse. Neither Raymond nor Bertram reacted to the slurs, busying themselves by periodically kicking their coursers into action and charging menacingly close to the Ostman lines before wheeling away once the shieldwall had been forced to come to a shuddering halt.
‘Keep going,’ Raymond called to his companion as he retreated back to a safe distance after one such ploy. ‘Don’t give them the chance to get marching forward!’ If Sigtrygg’s crew did build up a rhythm, he knew that he and Bertram would never be able to stop their advance. At its best, a stationary shieldwall was almost as strong as a castle rampart, though it could also be used in attack to devastating effect if its structure could be maintained. Raymond did not doubt that Sigtrygg’s men would be experienced practitioners of the art.
He was already panting hard, and could feel that Dreigiau was similarly fatigued. Nevertheless he pressed the courser into another circuit of the enemy position which, he now realised in alarm, had travelled over halfway along the front of the rampart despite their efforts to stop them. He quietly cursed for he knew that his enemy’s advance was inexorably moving towards his tired conrois.
‘Come on, open up,’ he moaned as his circuit forced him to turn his back on the outer gate. Insults which had blasted Raymond and Bertram now blended and developed into a raucous war song from which the men of Veðrarfjord took their pace. The stomp of their boots and angry crash of steel weapons on wooden shields echoed upon the earthen palisade as Raymond watched Bertram take his turn at attacking the shieldwall. Instantly the war song was quelled and the drumming feet brought to a standstill as the Ostmen turned to face the young miles’ charge. Raymond looked on with pride as Bertram skilfully leant into the turn which took his courser towards the shieldwall before the slightest shift of his weight and a tug on the reins with his one free hand took him out of reach of enemy battle-axes. Bertram whooped in joy at the perfectly performed manoeuvre which had again brought about the desired outcome of stopping the shieldwall in its tracks.
Raymond smiled at Bertram’s victory, but knew that the standoff could not continue for ever and that if Sir Hervey did not allow them to enter, he would face a last stand before the gates of Dun Domhnall alongside eight tired horsemen, the Welsh archers now devoid of arrows, a handful of pages and esquires, and the woman he had sworn to protect from all harm. Their only path of retreat was through the closed gates. All other options had been taken from them.
It was at that moment that Jarl Sigtrygg acted.
‘Now!’ came his cry from amongst the enemy ranks and at either end of the shieldwall the Ostmen circled outwards to wrap around Bertram as he turned his horse towards them and make another charge upon their lines.
‘Look out!’ Raymond roared, but it was already too late. A heavy axe took Bertram’s horse in the neck and the animal screamed in pain as it went down. ‘No!’ the captain yelled and cut back towards the enemy shieldwall. He stabbed down twice, kicking Dreigiau to keep him moving, but Jarl Sigtrygg was ready for the move and had ordered half his men to turn and form a second line between the two Normans. Raymond screamed as he battered the shieldwall with his lance, but he struck nothing other than wooden shields. As he fought, Raymond saw Bertram climb to his feet and draw his sword to defend himself, but it was thirty against one and he could see that his cohort was winded and hurt from the fall. The Ostmen had again stopped in their tracks and had formed into a circle around Bertram, whose injured leg gave way under him as he swept his sword back and forth in wild strokes at those who came forward to meet him. Screaming in agony, Bertram climbed back to his feet and deflected a spear thrust aimed at his chest, but he could not turn quickly enough to meet all those who desired to take his life and, as Raymond abjectly bellowed his companion’s name, a bearded Ostman cut him down from behind before two more began hacking at him with axes as he fell to the floor. Raymond was powerless to prevent the death of his cohort, and he impotently stabbed his lance down once more before pulling on Dreigiau’s reins and scampering away to a safe distance. He would’ve wept for Bertram d’Alton, but he was not afforded the time.
‘Forward!’ Jarl Sigtrygg called, more desperately than his orders had sounded before. He had stepped out of the shieldwall and had his axe pointed directly at Raymond de Carew. His men responded by abandoning their formation and, with a peal of joy mixed with fury, began charging at the Norman captain.
Raymond was momentarily taken aback by the change in Jarl Sigtrygg’s tactics, and for several seconds simply sat astride Dreigiau watching the frenzied stampede. His eyes were drawn to their circular shields bearing hypnotic, swirling devices of all colours as they rushed towards him. Their glittering spear, sword and axe blades were pointed skywards and caught the light from the high, midday sun. They cast a churning dapple of reflections upon the grass before them.
At their head was Jarl Sigtrygg, his red hair wild as it flowed from beneath his iron helmet and across his armoured shoulders to swing furiously in the racing wind. He looked every inch the seaborne warrior of old as he bellowed his war cry and led his men forward. Raymond was reminded of his youth and of the stories that his father had told him and his brothers about the men from the north. Vikingrs, he had called them. They had been the scourge of Christendom and the underlings of the
Devil. Watching Jarl Sigtrygg’s attack, Raymond felt sure that he understood the same terror that had been inflicted upon any victim of those attacks.
He sucked air down into his lungs to calm his mind, and made ready to attack the unruly band. He knew that he could not stop them all, but Raymond was sure that from horseback he could avenge the death of Bertram many times over before his own life was claimed. He promised that Jarl Sigtrygg would be first and searched for his foe in the midst of the charging war band. His red, braided beard was easy to find and Raymond had half-turned Dreigiau towards the enemy leader when he noticed that Jarl Sigtrygg’s eyes were not locked on him, but on a target behind him and to his right. He quickly swung around in his bucket saddle to see what had prompted the Ostman’s wild charge.
‘Oh no,’ he wailed and, turning Dreigiau away from his enemy, he kicked his heels into his courser’s sides, for disaster was about to befall the Norman bridgehead and it would require a miracle to save it.
Sir Hervey de Montmorency thought that he had seen war of every kind. As an esquire to Gilbert de Gant, he had seen Scots cast down by arrows on the fog-bound fields of Cowton Moor, while at Lincoln when King Stephen had been captured, he had experienced boring siegecraft as well as knightly combat on the field of battle. He had fought the war of the raider, prowling the countryside to pillage and harry minor lords, their villeins, churchmen and freemen alike, when the wars of the vying royal houses had raged and the barons of England had sought to proclaim their independence. Hervey thought he had seen everything that this world of constant war could throw at him, but he had never faced odds like those which stared at him across the peninsula in the land of Siol Bhroin.
He stood on the barbican of Dun Domhnall gaping out over the little copses of shrubs and smattering of tiny trees, piebald patches of foliage upon an otherwise unending carpet of bountiful green grasses, to where the enemy gathered and made ready to attack. The baying of their vast herds of cattle sounded like the trumpeting of those Gallic savages who had stormed Rome, and the barbarians’ clanged their weapons on their shields and sang animalistic songs of defiance that were so different to the soft songs of his homeland. The clamour was supplemented by the all-encompassing sound of the ocean and the screech of the gulls that circled the headland searching for food. Noise and heat and stress assailed him from all sides. To his right he could hear the roar of flames as they licked clean the shell of his ship. The plume of smoke was carried away from the fort, but he could still taste the devastation of Waverider on the wind. She had been his last hope for escape, and now she was gone.
Lord of the Sea Castle Page 32