‘… it is beautiful countryside,’ the Fleming babbled. ‘I could happily make a manor here, after we beat Diarmait’s enemies, and get me a wife here and one back in Rhos.’ He scratched his big ears. ‘It does remind me of Flanders,’ he added wistfully.
FitzStephen was sure that Cullen had never seen Flanders, which was a flooded flat land if Richard de la Roche’s account was to be believed. But he did not stop the man talking about his future prospects in Ireland. It was good that more men were planning for their lives in this land.
It took until mid-morning to get the army just five miles up the coast to the first obstacle on their path – an impassable river which ran south into the bay. Domhnall Caomhánach had taken the lead as the army marched inland for a couple of miles towards a settlement called Dun Cormaic where they could successfully ford the river. The little mottle of hovels was on the far side of a deep ravine with long sloping sides through which the river ran amongst the thick trees.
It was just FitzStephen urged his palfrey to follow the Laighin vanguard that the screaming began.
The scream of the dying told Eirik Mac Amlaibh that his two thousand-strong army had successfully ambushed their enemy at the bank of the river at Dun Cormaic. Though he could not see the front line, a howl and the clash of steel on steel followed by the grunt of exertion told him that the two masses of men had come together in battle. The leader of Waesfjord looked to the sky and prayed to St Ivar and St Michael the Archangel that his fight was righteous and that those holy warriors would bring his appeal for victory directly to God.
Eirik had hidden his men amongst the thick sycamore and oak trees on the eastern bank of the high ravine. There, they had waited for the vanguard of the enemy army to splash out of the deep river crossing and onto the steep slope of the riverbank. It was only then, when they were at their most vulnerable, that he had ordered his warriors to form shield wall and advance slowly downhill towards the unsuspecting Gaels who struggled upwards in their soaking robes. He espied a rock and clambered onto it so that he could see over the helmeted heads to where two armies snarled and stabbed and perished.
‘Kill them,’ Ingólfur Andersson shouted as he brought his axe down on another Irishman’s head. Blood, bone fragments, and caked hair flew through the air. Eirik cheered his brother warriors.
Forty enemies had died in that initial clash of arms while another fifty of Diarmait’s tribesmen stood in the depths of the river. Despite their obvious disadvantage, Eirik was shocked that the enemy continued to attempt shrieking assaults up the bank to where the axes of the Ostmen made mincemeat of their puny weapons, and every thrust of sword or spear was stopped by shield or chainmail shirt. Diarmait’s men fell backwards in agony with open wounds and obstructed the path of their compatriots behind, allowing the Ostmen to step forward and swing their battle-axes, inflicting yet more damage. The shield wall which faced them was impregnable but still the valiant men leapt from the river in attack. Battle-axes swung two handed, ripping arms and legs from the enemy soldiers. The bearded faces of the Ostmen grinned through clenched teeth as they carved men apart from shoulder to torso.
‘Push them back into the river! This land is ours,’ Eirik Mac Amlaibh exclaimed from his vantage point.
‘Slingers,’ Ingólfur shouted as rocks the size of fists began to fall amongst the Waesfjord men. One rock landed close to Eirik but, for the most part, the bombardment had no effect on the warriors sealed in mail and crowned with iron helms. Within minutes, the Irish bodies were piling high and the Uí Ceinnselaig taoiseach finally called to his men to retreat back to the western bank.
As they fled, Eirik led the triumphant hollering. ‘Go back where you came from, you Vestmen bastards.’ He grinned and raised his hands to salute his warrior townspeople. Eirik knew that there would be more to face but this small victory was to be enjoyed. He supposed that with this defeat, Diarmait would send forward his new collaborators from Cluainmín. The long forgotten excitement of the bloodlust had risen in the chest of the old trader, and he relished the crash of shield on shield. He had chosen an unbeatable position on the high eastern bank. What could Cluainmín bring to the battle that he had not seen before?
Eirik laughed out loud. All the land to Banneew Bay would be his and all his people would rejoice with him in glory.
Sir Robert FitzStephen leapt into the saddle of his courser and began issuing orders. The vanguard of Diarmait’s army was pouring back through the sycamores in disarray, some with gashes and wounds open and horrific.
‘Miles,’ he shouted towards his nephew, ‘get your men down to the river, but do not engage. Do not engage,’ he repeated sternly. Miles nodded and began issuing his orders to crossbowmen. They then followed him as he vaulted down the hill into the trees. Seconds later a horseman burst through the treeline and pulled up beside FitzStephen. It was Domhnall Caomhánach. Blood poured from a cut hidden beneath his saffron robe. He spoke in Irish to King Diarmait who, accompanied as ever by Sir Hervey de Montmorency, reined in alongside the two men.
‘Ostmen from Waesfjord,’ the King translated his son’s words.
Nerves showed on Domhnall’s face but Diarmait just stared at FitzStephen expectantly and the Norman realised that the King wanted to see his new mercenaries in action. FitzStephen squared his jaw, nodded to Diarmait, and turned his courser’s head towards the valley where the noise of war rang clear. He tried to tell himself that he was excited at the prospect of a battle, unexpected though it was. Just six weeks before he had been a prisoner in a Welsh oubliette without a future and now he had an enemy he could fight. That thought rang around his head and suddenly another emotion crept into his body, emanating from his belly. It was a sensation he had not felt for many years but he identified it immediately – self-doubt. The army’s advance towards Waesfjord should have been undetected, but obviously something had alerted the Ostmen to his army’s location and the enemy now had a position of strength on the far bank. He paused to think, aware that Diarmait still watched him, judging his every move.
You fight a battle – his father’s words, spoken to him during childhood, came back to him – then you build a castle. The sentiment comforted and calmed FitzStephen. Simplicity was the Norman way and a plan quickly came to him. His mind made up, FitzStephen raised his hand to bring Richard de la Roche to his side.
‘Robert?’ the Fleming asked as he approached. He too was nervous.
‘Hide amongst the trees with Miles,’ he told him. ‘We shall handle this in the old Norman way and lead them to you.’
The Flemish commander grinned from beneath his thin, greying beard and began issuing orders to his company of archers.
‘What will you do?’ Diarmait asked FitzStephen, his eyes darting to watch the archers as they disappeared into the trees. Hervey de Montmorency was at the King’s shoulder and stared through suspicious, narrowed eyes at his rival.
FitzStephen ignored Hervey and addressed his master, the King of Laighin. ‘I will destroy the Ostmen,’ he said simply though his confidence belied his true state of mind.
Diarmait seemed contented and nodded his head slowly in consent before urging his pony towards where his son’s vanguard assembled and licked their wounds.
Hervey, however, could not resist another remark. ‘Yes, good luck, FitzStephen. Don’t let King Diarmait down like you did King Henry at Aberteifi.’ His broken-toothed grin was off putting, but FitzStephen didn’t have the opportunity to retort as Walter de Ridlesford jogged towards him and took hold of his bridle.
‘Where do you need my men?’ he asked.
‘Keep them ready, Walter,’ FitzStephen replied, ‘you are the reserve.’ Ridlesford looked devastated that he would not be involved in the fight and stomped back towards his troops to deliver the bad news, his bald head reflecting the hot sun which poured through the heavy foliage.
As FitzStephen trotted over towards his conrois, he heard the Ostmen begin singing their battle songs of victory down in the ravine. The m
usic was interspersed with terse shouts that he supposed were profanities which cursed their enemy’s timidity. FitzStephen smiled, for the men of Waesfjord were about to feel the full force of the Norman way of war. His men were already in the saddle, horses circling and snorting, as they too felt the excitement build.
FitzStephen held up his hands to stop the activity. ‘Men, are you ready to earn King Diarmait’s pay?’ Led by the older men in the conrois they shouted assent. ‘Then follow my standard down through the trees and into the river,’ he said. ‘Keep your horses moving and watch for when I make my move.’
As the men passed back his orders, making sure everyone understood the plan, FitzStephen pulled his chainmail hood up from his shoulders and over his head where he bound it with a leather drawn string at the back of his skull. His son, Ralph, ran up to him with his helm and lance, both crowned with a blue and white plume. FitzStephen took the flat pot helmet from his son who looked up at him looking for thanks. He offered none and Ralph was left standing beside his father, looking up like a dog waiting for a morsel of food from his master’s hand. FitzStephen fixed the helmet onto his head, securing the masked iron defence with a leather strap under his chin before accepting his lance which he held aloft above his head, steel tip pointing towards the enemy.
‘Are you ready?’ he shouted, and his milites snarled their affirmation.
‘Then follow me.’ FitzStephen swung Sleipnir around and trotted him through the trees above the river. He could hear his own heavy breath beat off the inside of the steel face mask and the rattling chainmail did nothing to cover the nervous pulse which rose throughout his body. Above it all was the roar of the Ostmen’s song. FitzStephen had to duck as the branches slashed past him, but he could see Richard de la Roche’s red and white surcoat up ahead. Even through the small eye slits which obstructed his sight, he could tell that the Fleming was nervous.
‘I count two thousand,’ Roche said with a grimace as FitzStephen approached. ‘They see us but are waiting for us to attack.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to let them down,’ FitzStephen replied, happy that his helm hid the nervous sweat which poured from his brow. ‘Stay ready,’ he told his friend as he clipped his heels to Sleipnir’s flanks.
‘Be careful,’ Roche whispered after his captain.
The trees became less dense towards the riverbank: mostly bushes and undergrowth, and FitzStephen was able to see the coloured circular shields of the enemy lining the opposite river bank. The nameless stream was just twenty paces across and beyond it he could just see the hovels of Dun Cormaic. He immediately saw that it was indeed a good place to ford as the gravel bottom was just a foot or two below the trickling surface. The Ostman victory song suddenly turned into a din of abuse as they spotted FitzStephen at the head of the Norman advance. Shouting and crashing of weapons on shields erupted from their lines as the line of forty horsemen divided either side of their captain and lined up, facing the Ostmen across the expanse of the river.
‘Hold,’ FitzStephen shouted, listening as his order was reiterated down the line by the senior milites. Before him, bodies floated in the shallows, caught on vegetation and discarded weaponry. Diluted blood mingled with golden pebble and black water.
Already some of the Ostmen were in frenzy and had jumped into the river, throwing aside their shields and shouting challenges to the Norman horsemen who waited on the western bank. The men of Waesfjord already had blood on their blades and were filled with a lust for more. They screamed insults and urged their brothers to the great deeds of their fathers.
‘Steady,’ FitzStephen shouted, straining his voice so that he could be heard. His horse beneath him struggled against the reins which he held in his left hand. ‘We hold! Disciplined men of Wales.’ The longer that FitzStephen held his men back, the more defiant their enemy became. Young Ostmen jumped out of the shield wall and into the shallows of the river. They were overcome with the blood fury.
‘Fight me, you cowards,’ one man screamed in the Nordic tongue before switching to that of the Gaels. His compatriots gnashed their teeth and tore the chainmail from their breasts like the berserkers of old, daring the iron-wrapped invaders to fall on their line. They threw down their shields, hefted their axes, and clashed their breasts with fists.
‘Look, I have no armour. Fight me if you dare,’ another man, a duck hunter from the Waesfjord Bay slobs, shouted as he cast his shield across the river at the enemy. ‘I’ll kill you all!’
‘Hold!’ shouted FitzStephen as his own men started to snarl at the Ostmen’s defiance. ‘Hold!’
Behind the Waesfjord army, Eirik Mac Amlaibh looked around at his warriors for answers. ‘Horsemen?’ he shouted at the bearded and helmeted men alongside him. ‘Who are these horsemen?’ He had to shout to pierce the hullabaloo made by the warriors on the bank of the river.
Covered in blood from the earlier massacre, Ingólfur Andersson shrugged to answer his chief. ‘They are armoured,’ he said, ‘so they must be Danes or Norse. Or else the Vestmen have finally developed brains and put on armour.’ He laughed at that unlikely conclusion. Around him many men joined in his amusement.
Eirik did not like that he now faced horsemen when he had been expecting to fight an undisciplined horde on foot. At worst he had imagined taking on a shield wall, but the sudden appearance of cavalry had brought about a dramatic effect on his own forces. More and more of his soldiers splashed into the water challenging their foes to single combat, or were hurling abuse in the Nordic and Irish tongues. ‘I don’t like this,’ he told his chief men. ‘We should get those men out of the river,’ he added with a whisper.
‘I don’t see what difference it makes that they are on horseback,’ Ingólfur said confidently. ‘We outnumber them by fifty to one and they have to cross the river to get to us! It is laughable that they would even try,’ he said, indicating across the river with a flippant wave of his hand. ‘Look at these colourful fools; they are scared of us!’
Eirik decided that his companion, more experienced in warfare than he, was probably correct and smiled as Ingólfur laughed loudly. ‘I would not attack when faced with the flower of the youth of Waesfjord,’ he said, safe behind the pulsating Norse lines, ‘and they will not either.’
It was an unfortunate statement because just as he said it, the horsemen vaulted into action, smashing into the already rippling river and thrust across at the Ostmen. Eirik could only watch as the men in the river, maddened with the battle-fever, waded out to meet the horses and were cut down by the glittering spears of the horsemen, steel blades striking through chainmail and into neck, lungs, and throat. Within a few heartbeats, thirty Norse bodies joined the dead Irishmen already floating face down in the beautiful river, and the enemy surged ahead again towards the warriors amassed in battle order on the bank. In the blink of an eye, the horsemen leapt from the river and met two thousand Waesfjord warriors with shields locked and axes poised to strike. But the Normans did not close the gap between the two forces, preferring to prod and hassle, stab, and retreat out of reach. Water swirled white below them as they thrust down before sweeping their horses away, leaf-shaped shields covering their left sides and that of their horses from Norse retaliation. They whooped and cat-called as they bled the front rank with a hundred cuts.
In their midst, Sir Robert FitzStephen ripped his lance from an enemy warrior’s neck, taking half the man’s throat tissue with it, and stabbed another through the elbow. His pennant was flush with blood and ripped where one of the Ostmen had tried to pull it from his hand.
‘Keep moving,’ he shouted at his comrades and stabbed downwards again. Another man charged out of the Norse lines, an axe above him ready to strike. FitzStephen calmly pushed his courser forward and into the man, not even bothering to lift his shield. Half a ton of horse meat pummelled the man onto his back before FitzStephen forced Sleipnir onwards to stamp on the man’s body; the distinctive crunch told him that the warrior below had broken bones. He quickly swung his ho
rse around ready to take on his next attacker but there was no-one within arm’s reach. Instead, he wheeled his horse away from the Ostmen and quickly assessed the state of his cavalry. Up and down the line the remaining Normans intimidated and probed the enemy to frenzy. It was time, he thought, to finish the battle and destroy the enemy.
‘Panic, panic!’ he shouted and his call was duplicated up and down the Norman line. FitzStephen raised his standard and kicked Sleipnir into a retreat back across the river. ‘Panic, panic!’ he continued. It had been no more than three minutes since the Norman cavalry had crossed to attack and yet a hundred Norse bodies lay on the bank of the river; fathers, brothers, uncles, sons, friends, and comrades of those left alive on the bank. And those men had been moved almost to madness by the Norman cavalry’s harrying.
Behind him, all FitzStephen’s warriors disengaged and followed his lead, screaming ‘panic’ and fleeing back across the river. A roar of elation came from the vengeful Ostmen and they plunged en masse into the water in pursuit of the escaping enemy whose horses vaulted up the opposite bank and into the trees, throwing fearful glances over their shoulders at their pursuers.
On the bank of the river, Eirik Mac Amlaibh found that he was almost alone, apart from the wounded who screamed in pain. He watched his fellow Norse struggle up the far bank or through the river, but something kept him from following. It was not fear but a foreboding of disaster and he was paralysed as he prayed that he was wrong.
‘Come back,’ he whispered. Eirik suddenly felt ludicrous in his armour, with his enormous circular shield propped against his thigh, a helmet on his head, and an undrawn sword at his side. More and more men were crawling up the steep bank after the horsemen with the oddly shaped shields.
Eirik held his breath in anticipation.
Sleipnir was breathing heavily as he vaulted from the river and took FitzStephen up the bank between the sycamores. The Norman nodded his helmeted head to Richard de la Roche as he and his conrois thundered past the Fleming’s position amongst the tight deciduous trees.
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