The Wind From Hastings

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “Perhaps it is better so, in some ways. We had months of waiting to fight and it came to nothing; it merely wore down the spirits of the men and used up the food supplies. Now at least we know the enemy awaits us and there is something solid to fight! My eyes grew so tired, Aldith, watching the horizon for those ships that never came!”

  I walked with him to the palace gates. He was tall and strong in the gathering twilight, and I saw how all the men looked up to him with respect in their eyes. He made his farewells quickly and simply, a soldier gone off to yet another fight but certain of return on the morrow. As he swung astride his restive horse, I felt a compulsion to run to him, to place my hand on his knee and say … something. Something important that he must know and take with him, something I did not understand myself. While I hesitated, trying to shape the words on my tongue, he rose in the saddle and gave the command to move forward. Trumpets sounded; the night breeze from the river caught the standard bearing the golden dragon of Wessex and set it a-ripple.

  “Now see there!” a voice exclaimed. “It is the fiery dragon from the sky, gone to lead our King to glory! It is a good omen!”

  The people cheered as the horses clattered down the road and splashed into the shallows.

  It was only three days later that the next couriers reached us, bearing chilling news. Tostig and Harald Hardraada had drawn up their troops at a place called Gate Fulford and pitched their camp beneath Hardraada’s fearful banner, Landravager. There they were attacked by the combined forces of Edwin and Morkere, and a bloody battle had been fought. Several times the English thought to win, and drive the invaders back to the sea once more, but at last Hardraada broke through the center of Edwin’s line and drove the English troops into the river.

  The courier’s description was horrifying. “So many of the dead Mercians were piled up in the water that the Norsemen walked dryfoot across the river on their bodies!”

  And so it was at Fulford that the invasion of England had its first success and my brothers’ armies were almost decimated. The victorious Hardraada marched on to York, and Harold Godwine marched across the country after him.

  STAMFORD BRIDGE

  WAITING IS WORSE than knowing. Grief rends the heart cleanly, that it may begin to heal; waiting shreds the spirit.

  At Thorney we each searched for ways to fill the time between the coming of messengers from the North. I had innumerable womanly tasks I had been eager to get to, chores and projects that had been put off by our summer encampment on the Isle of Wight. But with time stopped, its hungry maw gaping to be fed, I could find nothing to put in it. I picked up my embroidery and put it down again, unable to concentrate. With Rotbert the steward at my heels I toured the kitchens, watching the preparation of food with unseeing eyes.

  The children provided some distraction; Wulfstan had recommended a young cleric, one Hugo of Lewes, to tutor Llywelyn, and I often sat and listened to the lessons. The King had given Rhodri a tame hawk, and we occasionally took it out together in a fruitless attack on the sparrows. Dressing my daughter was a pleasure that could distract my mind for a little time as well.

  But nothing held my attention for very long. My ear was permanently tuned to the sound of horses on the road, and I came to recognize that listening look on the faces of the others as well.

  Gytha was distraught. In her grief, she lashed out at everyone, even her remaining children, so that Leofwine threatened to send her to a nunnery rather than encounter her uncertain temper in the halls of the palace.

  “You did not take it so amiss when Harold marched against Tostig at Sandwich, madam,” he reminded her.

  “But this has a different feel about it! The King means to kill his brother, I know he does, I saw it in his face!”

  I had seen it too, and it chilled me. I had no reason to mourn Tostig Godwinesson—he was naught to me—but there was a horror about the confrontation that must be taking place. Brother killing brother; it was a bad omen for the kingdom.

  Seeming dragfooted, the couriers came. We learned that the King had set his men a grueling pace as they pushed northward, and that he was drawing shiremen and yeomen from each territory they crossed. Word was being sent to the disassembled fyrd to gather itself once more and repel the invader, but there was no time to create the mighty mass which had needlessly awaited William of Normandy the past summer.

  The fighting force of both Northumbria and Mercia was very greatly reduced; Edwin’s thegns were beginning to straggle home, saying the north country was lost to Hardraada.

  “Malcolm of Scotland had a hand in this!” Leofwine roared. “It is he who gave sanctuary to Tostig this time, then sent him out again to join forces with Hardraada, I am sure of it! He thinks to overrun us and take our land to add to his own; we will be nibbled away by our neighbors until nothing is left. At this rate, the Irish chieftains will soon be crossing the sea to claim their own bite of us!”

  The lesser nobles streamed into London, hurrying to the palace to explain why they had, or had not, supplied the King with fighting men and provisions.

  Leofwine was soon sickened of it and put Gyrth in charge of listening to excuses.

  But, in truth, no one was deliberately failing the King. It was just that the situation was impossible. Armies could not be created overnight, or food grown to feed them. More than two hundred miles lay between Londontown and York; the haste of the march must surely weaken what troops the King had managed to obtain.

  Then came word that Hardraada occupied York, and Tostig had been named by him as Earl of Northumbria once more. “It was not an unjust armistice,” the courier said. “The city is not sacked, and in return for their support against King Harold, the Northumbrians have been promised a lasting peace.”

  My brothers, I thought bitterly. They go as the wind blows. My heart was heavy with disappointment in them, and I felt little better than Harold did about Tostig. “Earl Edwin was taken at Gate Fulford and is the prisoner of Hardraada, but Earl Morkere is said to have escaped. In his absence, Hardraada and Tostig will deal with those nobles who still live and can be found; a gemot to treat for peace will be held at the crossing of the River Derwent—the Stamford Bridge.”

  So they had not abandoned their land to the invader! Whiny Morkere and Edwin the self-seeking had not been party to a surrender. The court did not seem overly surprised at that, but they did not know my brothers as I did. In all the bad news from the North there was that spot of happiness for me: Aelfgar’s sons had held true.

  The courier who had brought us this news had passed through the Saxon lines at Tadcaster; that meant the fyrd had traveled two hundred miles in less than a week, marching day and night and dragging their supplies with them. Most of the men were afoot—only nobles and housecarles were mounted—and for the sake of speed food and armor were carried on the backs of the fyrd rather than in slow oxcarts. If Harold was already encamped at Tadcaster, he was within striking distance of the Norsemen; the next news we received must tell the tale.

  So then we heard nothing.

  We sat about the Great Hall and looked at one another. Leofwine paced; Gyrth fretted that he had not gone with his brother. “Waltheof and Bondig the Staller and Ansgar have commands with the King; why did he not take me as well?”

  Archbishop Stigand, keeping the watch with us, tried to placate him. “The King has made London the capital of his kingdom, my lord. Those whom he has entrusted to guard it have as high an honor as those who march with him. Besides”—and he voiced the fear that hung unspoken in the hall—“if something happened to the King, you would be needed here to fill the regency.”

  Food was prepared and sent away again, untasted. Even the voracious Saxon appetite was dulled by the waiting. We all took turns walking to the courtyard and the main gates, bidding the warder open the privy door and then standing without, looking down the empty road and willing a rider to come.

  A deputation of chapmen came from the City, reminding us that business went on even in time o
f war. Leofwine was abrupt with them but handled the matter well; we all gave it more attention than it deserved because it helped to pass the time.

  Gyrth fumed again, “I should be there!”

  I patted his hand. “It is no good to think of it, brother. Whatever has happened has happened already; no matter how it falls out, the battle must be over by now. It has been days since they reached Tadcaster; doubtless we will hear soon.”

  The hours passed, leadfooted.

  We were in the King’s chapel when news finally came. A herald burst into the nave, cried “Victory! Victory!” looked around embarrassed, and dashed out again. I never heard Latin rattled off so quickly; the service was over almost before it had begun, and we all exited with sacrilegious haste.

  “It was a surprise attack, a complete route!” was the joyous news. “Volunteers came to the levies from as far away as Worcestershire; men fell in with the King’s fyrd every mile along the way. King Harold had seven full divisions by the time he crossed the Don, and everywhere men came to him swearing their love and allegiance!”

  It was impossible, an impossible thing, yet somehow Harold had done it. He had created an army where none existed, and poured into them his own fighting will. We stared dazedly at one another, scarce able to credit our ears.

  The courier, a young lad not much older than my Llywelyn by the look of him, was gray with exhaustion. Before he was allowed to continue, Leofwine sent for strong ale and meat for the lad and bade him sit on the King’s own footstool to eat it. We all pressed around him, footshifting, desperate for him to continue.

  Between mouthfuls of bread he did. “I was with the fyrd, coming up from southern Mercia, and I tell you it was a mighty thing! We were not allowed to slow, or be tired; we just ran on and on, and when we lagged the King himself got off his horse and marched with us. If a man grew weary, the King took his pack and carried it himself. None of us could fail him after that!

  “When we reached Tadcaster, we expected to see outriders guarding the way to York, but there were none. The land was as quiet as if it were at peace! The generals were jubilant; they felt Hardraada had so underestimated us that he had not even begun to make preparations for our arrival.

  “And that was how it fell out. We rested well in camp, and people from the shire roundabout came to us under cover of darkness and brought us good food and ale. They told us of the capitulation of York but four days past and marveled that we had arrived so soon. I marveled at it myself, as did we all!”

  The members of the court crowded around the boy nodded in wondering agreement.

  He continued, “When the fyrd was rested and ready, we were drawn up into our battle formations once more, and that evening King Harold took a detachment of guards and rode unafraid down the High Road to York.

  “He met no guards, no sentries; the Norsemen and the Earl Tostig”—the boy’s eyes darted fearfully around to see how we would react to mention of that name—“had already gone with the force of the army to a gemot at the Stamford Bridge.

  “The city went wild with joy to see King Harold ride through its gates once more. The officials, the earls and thegns—all were gone to Stamford Bridge, leaving only the people themselves to see that England had come to fight for them. The townspeople entered into gladsome conspiracy to see that no news of the arrival of the Saxon fyrd reached the Norsemen, and King Harold rode back to us much heartened.

  “Before cockcrow the next day we were on the march. We went right through York, and the girls threw flowers and kisses at us!” His young eyes sparkled; this was a boy who had already been seduced by the glories of war, I could tell. Whatever blood he had seen spilled since had not dampened his enthusiasm. And, the way he told it, it did seem to be a thrilling and joyous enterprise. Almost I found myself wishing I had been marching with them, wearing hauberk and hose and carrying a glittering spear in the bright sun!

  “We went through Gate Helmsley and some eight miles farther, so that by midmorning we were in the valley of the Derwent. We could see that several roads converged there; it was a good place to encamp an army and arrange a peace treaty with the battle force spread out for all to see.

  “We walked past fields where cattle grazed, and small boys fishing in the stony shallows of the river called to us and stood gape-mouthed as we passed. The land rolled gently; we began to catch occasional glimpses of a body of men in the distance. But they were spread about at ease, not drawn up into battle formations, and our captains ordered us to march double-time and reach them before they could be alarmed.

  “We, my troop, had not yet reached Stamford Bridge when the battle was joined. King Harold rode in the lead, swinging his ax as he galloped, and the mounted knights rode with him. They poured down upon the startled Norsemen and killed them left and right. Up ahead of us we could see the battle standards, the Fighting Man and the Golden Dragon of Wessex, and a mighty cheer went up all along the fyrd when we knew we had caught the enemy and the surprise was complete.”

  “I wish I had been there! Oh, I wish to God I had been there!” Not Gyrth but Leofwine said those words, and every one of us felt them, I think. To see the Saxon fyrd come swooping down on the overconfident invaders—that must have been an hour of glory in God’s eye!

  “It was a hard battle,” the boy went on. “Although the Vikings in their arrogance had put aside their body armor, they were hard men to kill! But the housecarles rode among them with axes, and the foot soldiers came up fast with pikes and clubs, and the air filled at once with the cries of the dying.”

  He stopped to take a deep draught of ale; we all begrudged him the missed minute of narrative.

  “Only one Norwegian guarded the foot of Stamford Bridge, and before our foot soldiers reached him he had slain a number of men. They lay fallen around him like the petals of a flower, and he stood in the center, blooded from head to foot and crying in a terrible voice as he swung a sword about him. I hated to see him go down—it was such a brave defense—but go down he did, and the Saxon fyrd swarmed over him.

  “The river was deep by the bridge; no man cared to ford it if he could cross dryfooted. So we pushed and jostled one another in our eagerness to get to the enemy, and someone took from me my pouch of throwing stones. I have a very good arm!” he added with pride.

  “Go on!” Leofwine growled.

  “Surely! Someone shouted that the slain defender at the bridge was none other than Harald, son of Harald Hardraada, and our captain sent a party to lay him aside, that his body not be despoiled. Everywhere men were fighting, hand to hand and breast to breast, and in the crowd there was often not room to swing an ax. Some of the foot soldiers had darts, and they did much damage with them. I had no weapon at all, having lost my stones, and the battle was too hot to allow me to find more. So I set about me with my fists and feet and did a right good job.

  “My captain, seeing me unarmed, pulled me out of the fray and gave me his own knife. ‘Go you ahead, Byrhic,’ he told me, ‘and give word to the King’s men that the bridge is secure.’”

  The boy’s eyes drooped with weariness, but we could not let him be; every word he spoke was as gold to us.

  “So you went forward, to the King’s location?” Gyrth urged. “And how was it with him?”

  “Oh, the fighting was fiercest there! The few Norsemen who had not put off their armor in the heat of the day were met with the main body of Saxon housecarles, and the flags of England and Norway were planted not five hundred yards apart. There was no mistaking the King—he fought like ten men, right in the thick of it—but I could not get close to him. I am but a cobbler by trade, my lord, I do not know the faces and rank of the great nobles. I did not know who to go to with my message or what was to be done with me after. So I yelled it out a few times into the general noise and then took the knife I had been given and attacked the nearest Viking.” His eyes glowed. “I killed him, too.”

  We all smiled; it could not be helped.

  He did not need further urging.
The ale had restored his strength, and the excitement was peaking in him once more. The words began to tumble out in a rush. “Up ahead I saw the flag of Hardraada, a great ugly thing with a cannibal crow upon it. ‘Landravager’ they called it. And near to it I glimpsed the Norwegian King himself. It could be none other; he stood as high as a horse, even a head above King Harold! And he wore the Viking helmet with the two horns. I tell you, it chilled my blood to see him!”

  Gytha, who had spoken not one word during the lad’s recital, spoke now. “And the Lord Tostig, did you see him there?”

  He glanced toward her. “No, my lady, not at that time. But I would not have recognized him if I saw him, as I told you.

  “The Norwegians had thrown up a shield wall, and I could see the Viking giant riding back and forth along it, giving instructions. Then someone hit my wrist a terrible blow, breaking something inside it, and I dropped my knife. Rather than stand defenseless I made off to one side, out of the heavy fighting, where there was a little rise in the ground and I could see well about me.

  “Throwing spears were singing through the air from every direction. I had to duck betimes, but aside from that I was in no immediate danger. I saw a truce party gather, and there was a little break in the fighting. A noble came from behind the Norwegian shield wall and went to meet a mounted Saxon noble. All fell quiet to listen to what was said, but I could not make it out until I heard the Saxon cry, ‘Then we will give Harald of Norway seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men. And no more!’ The rider whirled on his horse and cantered back to our side, and the fighting went on.

  “I was watching the Viking giant when I saw an arrow find its mark in him. He staggered, drew himself upright, and then staggered again. A mighty roar was set up around him; his men crowded around to hold him up with their hands. But he was like a mighty tree gone rotten with age and struck by lightning. For all his size and strength, he could not prevail against the bolt, and so he fell, and I thought the crashing of that huge body must shake the earth around it!