by Jodi Taylor
We watched in silence, and then Sykes said, ‘Was that the Malfosse incident?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said doubtfully, ‘I think that occurred at the end of the battle and there’s hours to go yet.’
She looked at the struggling men on the screen. ‘Hard to believe they’ll last that long.’
‘Many of them won’t.’
They had been fighting for hours and William had made no progress at all. The Saxons still stood around their two standards. Harold was making good on his promise not to cede one inch of English land. The ditches were full of bodies, lying in a tangle of bloody arms and legs. The breastworks had disintegrated. Absolutely nothing was left. Not even a few splinters to show where they had once been. The Saxon ranks were dreadfully thinned but the Fighting Man still stood, seemingly immoveable, and blocking William’s path to the crown.
Presumably William thought so too, unleashing charge after charge up the hill. One after the other. Both sides met with a terrible impact and loss of life, but every time, the Normans were thrown back. Every time. The day was wearing on and still William was getting nowhere.
Around mid-afternoon, there was a lull. We all shot off to the bathroom – me first, because rank hath its privileges. I splashed water on my face and returned to my place at the console.
It would seem that William had used my absence to have a bit of a think. He desperately needed to rest his knights and their horses. New tactics were called for.
He recalled his archers. From somewhere they’d found or cut fresh arrows. It seemed a new strategy had been devised. Now the archers fired into the air, over the front ranks, their arrows falling on the largely unarmoured fyrd behind the shield wall. The Saxons could do nothing but stand and endure the storm of arrows that fell from the sky, blackening the sun, but those who had shields protected themselves and their comrades as best they could. Still they stood firm. It would seem that nothing William could do would ever shift them.
The sun was beginning to set, sitting over the horizon like a giant red ball in the sky, but no redder than the earth beneath. They’d been at it for hours and hours. William must be growing desperate. The longer the Saxons stood, the better the chance that the northern Earls, Morcar and Edwin, would turn up with the reinforcements and, on the hill in front of him, still the Saxons stood, greatly depleted but still obstinate and unbreakable.
Horns sounded again for yet another cavalry charge. Although a cavalry trot would have been more accurate. Some of the horses could barely get up the hill. They dashed themselves against the front ranks. The hand-to-hand fighting was ferocious. The Saxons were crowded together so tightly that there was no room for the dead to fall, but still the Normans couldn’t break the line.
It seemed to me that the hail of Saxon missiles was thinning. Harold’s army was running out of things to throw. Many of them were making do with simply clashing their axes against their shields and shouting, ‘Ut! Ut! Ut!‘ Well, why not? It had worked well for them so far.
The sun nearly gone. I could see mist rising from the marsh at the bottom of the hill. Where the day had been hot – now it was turning cold. If the Normans couldn’t break them now…
William responded by hurling everything he had. The archers never let up, unleashing volley after volley, high into the air. The blood-splattered cavalry charged again. Spearmen ran up the slope, dodging through the horses. I’d never seen anything like it. The entire Norman army was hacking at the Saxon shield wall.
The Saxons took a weary grip on their weapons, steadied their shields against their shoulders and braced themselves through onslaught after onslaught.
The Normans were equally exhausted. Their knights were right up against the shield wall. Many were on foot. Both sides were slugging it out, face to face, so tired they could hardly raise their arms. Horses fell because they simply couldn’t stand any longer.
It did the Normans no good at all. Horns sounded and William’s forces disengaged and trailed slowly back down the hill again.
The light was nearly gone.
Thousands and thousands of men were dead. Brutally, horribly, bloodily dead. The fyrd was nearly gone. A few thegns still surrounded Harold. The Fighting Man and the Red Dragon still flew, but there were so few of them left.
The last light was fading. Surely it must be over. I knew how this ended but looking at the state of play now … I had no idea it had been so close. If William couldn’t break the shield wall in the next few minutes, then he was finished. The northern levies would sweep down and between them and the survivors today, his exhausted army would be annihilated. I know – we all know – how Hastings ends, and yet I couldn’t help wondering if I hadn’t strayed into another universe somehow, and that in this one, Harold won. Or – always our main fear – by simply being here we had changed some tiny event which meant that William lost and Harold won. Which would be a bit of a bugger, not least because History would have something very terminal to say about that.
The sun was going. The Saxons were intact and the Normans finished. William would never get them up that hill again.
And then, unbelievably, a shout went up from the Saxon lines. A great groan of anguish and despair rippled outwards. The Fighting Man dipped.
Harold had fallen.
‘What?’ said Bashford in disbelief. ‘When did that happen?’
‘Close up,’ I said. ‘Find him. Quickly now.’
We focused on the milling confusion in the Saxon ranks.
‘I can’t find him,’ said Bashford, panning back and forth.
‘Me neither,’ said Sykes.
‘Concentrate on the area around the Fighting Man,’ I said.
There was no time.
Horns were sounding and Norman heads lifting.
Weary men turned their horses around to confront a hill that must have seemed like a mountain. To give him his due, William was right up there at the front. Somewhere along the way he’d lost his white horse and now rode a black one. His tattered banner followed at his shoulder.
The horses could only advance at a walk. There was no more strength for thundering charges.
They walked up the hill, the men at arms following on behind them.
Orders rang out. Whether Harold lived or was dead already, the Saxons drew together. Both sides knew that these were the deciding moments. If the shield wall held then the Normans were beaten. Wiped out. After today none of them would survive to make the voyage home to Normandy.
If the shield wall crumbled then the Normans would swarm over the top of them, obliterating every last one of them, and that would mean the end of Saxon England for ever. It was make-or-break time.
The shield wall did not hold.
Men fell like trees. Holes began to open up that could not be filled. With roars of exultation and triumph, the Normans forced their horses through, trampling men too exhausted to crawl away. The foot soldiers followed. For a few minutes, the whole thing was just a massive mêlée and then, suddenly, the famous shield wall disintegrated. Odd pockets of resistance lingered, but the Normans had the scent of victory now. They were unstoppable.
We could barely make out what was happening and in this strange half-light our night vision wasn’t much help.
I was simmering with frustration. Somehow, we’d missed Harold falling. I’d had every camera trained on that small area around the Fighting Man. If Sykes had got any closer she’d have been on the other side of the screen, but we’d missed it. And certainly no one was staggering around with an arrow poking out of their eye. Dusk was falling fast and there were just so many indistinguishable people – everyone was red with blood. All this time and effort and we were no nearer to establishing the cause of Harold’s death. I could only hope that once we got all this lot downloaded and had a chance to go through it, frame by frame, that we would be able to establish, once and for all, how Harold died at Hastings.
The Fighting Man banner went first, slowly toppling sideways until it disappeared, ne
ver to rise again. A moment later, the Red Dragon of Wessex swayed violently as a group of knights hacked at it, and then it was cut down and lost.
His thegns fought. Dear God, did they fight. They grouped themselves into a tight bunch and fought like madmen. One by one they fell, gushing blood, limbs missing, pierced by many wounds. The survivors simply closed up, gritted their teeth and fought on.
They were massacred, almost to a man. None made any effort to flee. They were Harold’s men and their king had fallen – they saw no point in surviving him. Did they have some idea what was to happen to their nation? If they had fled and regrouped later, could they have mounted an effective resistance? Could they have tempered, somehow, William’s brutal obliteration of Saxon culture? Useless to speculate. We could only watch as the Golden Lions of Normandy were raised up. Ten thousand Norman throats bellowed their victory.
We sat back in silence.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Bashford.
Lights sprang up as fires were lit. People took torches and began to move around the battlefield. I suspected Norman and Saxon alike were looking for Harold’s body.
The whole area was a wreck. In some places, the bodies were piled three or four deep. Occasionally there was a movement as someone attempted to extricate themselves from underneath a corpse. Men tried to drag themselves away to safety, inching their way along on bleeding stumps. Horses stood among the corpses, heads down, exhausted or too injured to move.
The Norman wounded were being tended. Someone had put up a row of tents for William and his nobles. Someone somewhere was cooking something. I remembered William was famous for his hearty appetite.
Sykes put the kettle on and we sat down with a cup of tea. I called up the others. Their pod was closer to the battlefield than ours and I wanted to make sure there weren’t any Normans trying to batter their way inside.
‘We’re fine,’ reported North.
‘Did you see Harold fall?’
‘No – didn’t you?’ she said, with more than a hint of criticism. Sykes stiffened.
‘Probably,’ I said, loyal to my team. ‘We covered everything, so yes, almost certainly.’
I heard a muffled voice in the background and then she said, ‘We have to go, Max – there’s a procession of civilians arriving and there are women amongst them. I think this might be Harold’s wife and mother, come to claim his body.’
These were the two most important women in the realm. Harold’s mother, Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, would offer William Harold’s own weight in gold in exchange for the body of her son. An offer William would refuse.
His handfasted wife, Edith the Swan Neck, or Edith Swanneschals, would identify Harold’s body by certain marks apparently known only to her, and request permission to take the body away. Again, William would refuse. Wisely, I think. He wouldn’t want Harold’s resting place becoming a centre of resistance, although the legend persists that Harold received a Christian burial by the monks of Waltham Abbey.
This was an important moment. We might yet catch a glimpse of Harold’s body and learn how he died.
I called up North. ‘Can you see what’s happening?’
‘Of course not,’ she said irritably. ‘William’s receiving them in his tent. Wait no, they’re coming out. Hell and damnation!’
‘What? What?’
‘They’re bringing up a body. It must be Harold. They’ve laid it on a bier. There’s torches everywhere, but it’s wrapped in a cloak and I can’t see. I think the tall woman must be Edith. She’s identifying the body and we can’t bloody see it for everyone clustered around.’
Just for a moment, she sounded nearly human. And exactly like a frustrated historian. I knew how she felt.
‘What’s happening? Tell me.’
‘Well, he’s treating both women with great respect. They don’t seem to be subjected to any … jostling … They have an escort. Norman knights obviously. They seem to have been granted safe passage. They’re talking. She’s leaving now. Without the body. No – we’ve lost her in the crowd.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. We’ll sort it all out when we get back. That’s it people – start shutting things down. We’ll jump back in thirty minutes.’
I sat back in my seat. This assignment hadn’t been a complete success. Yes, we’d got the battle. We had some really good footage. Thirsk would be pleased. But unless we could identify Harold, we were no nearer to solving the mystery of his death. On the other hand, North had some shots of his mistress come to identify and claim the body, even if we didn’t have any of the body itself.
I shifted my position and became aware my back was hot and sweaty. I realised we could really, really do with some fresh air.
I switched the internal lights to night mode and said to Evans, ‘Can you cover the door?’
He nodded, took out a stun gun and took up position by the open door. Cool, damp air flooded in and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
It wasn’t quiet out there. Apart from the ordinary noise made by thousands of men moving around or talking, we could still hear the cries of the wounded. A horse would neigh occasionally. Someone would shout an order or there would be a burst of laughter. I suspected the wine was going around.
I stepped to the door to look outside. It still wasn’t completely dark. A glow of lighter sky hung over the horizon. I took a moment to take it all in. I was at Hastings. The Battle of Hastings had just been played out in front of us and we’d been there. We’d seen it. All of it. Except for Harold, of course. I was suddenly impatient to get back to St Mary’s to view the footage and work out what was what.
I turned to step back into the pod and at the same moment, a proximity alert pinged and Evans pulled me inside.
Bashford said, ‘Door,’ because they were either fleeing Saxons who wouldn’t let anyone or anything get in the way of their escape, or they were Normans, despatched to dispose of any survivors. Neither would be good for us.
‘Two or three people,’ said Bashford, studying the readouts. ‘No, four or five. Maybe more. It’s hard to say. They’re not moving very quickly.’
‘Men searching for cover? Looking to hide somewhere?’
‘Even slower than that. I don’t know.’
‘Are they within range?’
‘I think so. Just a minute.’ He angled a camera.
I saw dark figures, perhaps six or seven of them. One man led a horse which appeared to be dragging some sort of litter. They were moving very slowly. Because the litter carried a wounded man. And one of the figures was a woman.
Every historian in the pod stiffened. Like a collection of gun dogs pointing at their quarry. All quivering noses, pricked ears and outstretched tails.
‘No,’ said Evans in alarm, moving in front of the door and blocking our way.
‘It’s only for a moment.’
‘Out of the question.’
‘It’s our job.’
‘And this is mine.’
I yanked open a locker and pulled out a blanket, tying it around me like a cloak.
‘Then you can tell Dr Bairstow there’s a possibility that Harold Godwinson passed within twenty feet of us and we didn’t check it out.’
‘Still preferable to telling Dr Bairstow I let three historians stumble around in the dark during the aftermath of a big battle.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘There’s no way I’d let three historians stumble around in the dark during the aftermath of a big battle.’
He relaxed.
‘I’ll go by myself.’
There was a storm of protest from everyone else in the pod. Historians hate being left behind but, as I said, it was far too dangerous for them to go outside, and Bashford said that was kind of the point. Evans said he never thought he’d find himself in agreement with an historian, and while they were beaming at each other, I got the door open.
Evans sighed. ‘You two stay put. You…’ he looked at me … ‘stay with me at all times. Mess me abo
ut in any way and I’ll shoot you myself.’
‘OK.’
We slipped out of the pod.
They were heading towards us so all we had to do was move towards them, step into deep shadow and wait. The horse plodded slowly, his head held low. This was no warhorse, but an old farm horse, watching where he put his feet.
We drew back further and waited. Waited to see whether this actually was Harold Godwinson being smuggled from the battlefield. And whether he was still alive.
How had they managed this? Had they had some sort of contingency plan, or was the idea hatched as Harold fell? It was vital to get him away to safety, so he’d been smuggled away and Edith Swan Neck, having waited nearby, goes to William and begs for his body. She identifies a body, mangled beyond recognition apparently, by marks conveniently known only to her, and while she’s distracting everyone, the real king is sneaked away.
William would be desperate for confirmation that Harold was dead. Especially if, far from meeting a noble end on the battlefield, he was castrated and chopped to pieces by four knights, one of whom might have been William himself, viciously venting his frustration on a helpless enemy. He certainly wouldn’t want that story getting around, so he supported the story of the arrow in the eye. A much more chivalrous and above all, politically acceptable story, than he and his knights hacking a helpless man to death.
And then, out of the darkness comes Harold’s mistress, conveniently identifies Harold beyond doubt. requests his body, probably knowing the request will be refused, and disappears back into the night again. Everyone’s problems are solved. William has an identified body and Edith is able to sneak the still living king away to safety. Because if William had even the slightest doubt that Harold was not dead, he would tear the country apart to get at him. So here they were, smuggling Harold Godwinson into the night and out of History.
The shadows were dark and we never made a sound but they found us, nevertheless. In an instant, we were surrounded by a ring of swords. The horse stood patiently with his burden.
‘Don’t move,’ said Evans. I wasn’t going to. We were in some deep shit here. Two sword thrusts and we were bleeding to death in the undergrowth while they vanished back into the dark. And they would kill us – no doubt of that – they would kill to keep their secret.