‘Regroup at the top of the ravine,’ FitzStephen shouted to the cavalry who followed him further up the ravine. At the lip of the hill he turned Sleipnir and calmed him with a rub to his shoulder. Walter de Ridlesford ran over to FitzStephen and demanded information about the battle.
‘Do you need my men to help out?’ he demanded as FitzStephen threw his legs over the side of his courser and jumped to the ground, pulling off his helmet and working his shield onto his back where it hung from the guige.
‘Gather your men, Walter,’ the knight panted as he stabbed his lance into the long grass. Ridlesford whooped and shouted to his sergeants to organise the two hundred infantrymen under his command. As he did this, FitzStephen signalled Hugh de Caunteton to take control of the cavalry while he pulled his lance from the earth and jogged downhill into the trees. The distinctive twang of bowstrings snapping back into place accompanied by the screams of agony told FitzStephen that Richard de la Roche had unleashed the ambush. He prayed that his ruse had been successful or very soon he would encounter two thousand Norse of Waesfjord charging towards him. The feigned flight was an age-old Norman trick and, coupled with the precision and power of the Welsh archers and Flemish crossbowmen, he believed it capable of destroying this foe. He saw men ahead in the trees, but could not yet tell if they were friend or enemy and he slowed his pace and listened intently at the sound of the battle: splashing, screaming, bowstrings, the clash of arrows on shields and the thump of weaponry striking flesh. To his left he espied Richard de la Roche’s surcoat and he made for his friend’s side. It was only when he approached the Fleming’s side that he saw the slaughter that the archers had wrought. Four and a half thousand arrows and quarrels hammered into the Ostman army every minute. Incredibly, as FitzStephen watched, the men of Waesfjord still struggled into the ravaging rain of arrows, huddling behind the few large trees on the western bank. The Norman captain had only been absent from the riverside for a number of minutes, but there were hundreds of dead and wounded prostrate before him like supplicant slaves.
‘Keep giving them hell!’ Richard de la Roche shouted, but FitzStephen could already see that the Ostmen were defeated. Then, starting with groups of one and two, more the Norse began to turn and make their escape. And that was when the damage became even more severe. The Ostmen, deprived of the protection of the wooden and leather shields, were open targets for the hawk-eyed archers from the Welsh March. One sensible warrior threw his shield across his back, but its swirling colours drew the eyes and the arrows of the archers and by the time he reached the waterside, twenty arrows were poking from his back like a hedgehog and he had to crawl on his face and slide into the water. Miles Menevensis and Richard de la Roche knew their trade well so FitzStephen left them to their work. He watched with pity as they ordered their companies forward to the bank of the river where they targeted the men wading back to the eastern shore. Walter de Ridlesford’s men had taken up a position between Miles’s crossbowmen and Roche’s archers but his cousin had found himself surplus to requirement and was extremely unhappy at that state of affairs.
‘God’s teeth,’ Ridlesford cursed as he joined FitzStephen. ‘May a pox rot off their balls! They’ve gone, the cowards!’ He then pointed an accusatory finger at Richard de la Roche’s mailed chest. ‘You couldn’t have left something for us to do?’
‘Of course we left you something to do,’ the grizzled old warrior laughed from behind his beard and pointed to the bodies which lay strewn around the forest. ‘You can collect the arrows from the bodies. It wouldn’t do to lose those, they were bloody expensive.’
Walter hummed and nodded his head seriously. ‘And how about I take those same arrows and shove them up your arse?’
FitzStephen knew that the war of words would continue for some time between the two men so he left them to it and went to stand beside the river and watch the Waesfjord army flee through the woods on the opposite bank.
‘Walter,’ he interrupted his cousin mid-profanity. ‘Take your men across the stream and secure the far bank and woods.’ As he turned, he sighted Diarmait Mac Murchada, Domhnall Caomhánach, and Sir Hervey de Montmorency walking through the wood towards him. Diarmait’s son seemed shocked at the destruction visited upon the Ostmen who he had believed invincible. His father had a look of wicked triumph plastered across his face as he walked amongst the bodies peppered with arrows. He congratulated young archers as they stooped to cut the valuable projectiles from the flesh of dead men. The wounded were finished off with the same knives with barely a hint of emotion.
Sir Hervey looked nonplussed by the horror. ‘Easy pickings,’ he sniffed.
Diarmait ignored him and issued a huge laugh. ‘Fifteen minutes,’ the King announced in his native language. ‘Just fifteen minutes and he defeated them.’ He shook his head disbelievingly.
His son, Domhnall nodded as he knelt beside a wounded Ostman and held his hand. The man was dying, his intestines piled in his lap as he sat propped against a tree. The man appealed for help and Domhnall gave him the quick death he needed, plunging his knife expertly into his armpit where it punctured his heart. He cleaned his knife of blood and climbed to his feet after the man had drifted away.
‘They had an army twice the size of ours,’ Domhnall told his father with a stunned shake of his head. ‘The Ostmen were in a place of strategic strength and they were ready for us. Yet he destroyed them.’ He shook his head and nodded his head in FitzStephen’s direction. ‘Tell me, Father, have we done the right thing bringing this Norman to Laighin?’
Mac Murchada’s eyes glowed white-blue and his son could see that the King was no longer listening to his words. ‘Our enemies will beg for mercy,’ Diarmait murmured as Walter de Ridlesford’s troops jogged loudly past the two men. He watched as they clambered into the river before disappearing into the trees on the opposite bank. Diarmait began laughing again and slapped a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘Come on, boy,’ he said and nodded his head towards FitzStephen who was talking to Richard de la Roche and Miles Menevensis. ‘Let’s go and congratulate our all-conquering heroes.’
FitzStephen watched as the King of Laighin and his son approached the riverside, but he ignored them and turned towards his two lieutenants, awaiting their reports.
‘We had no losses amongst the archers,’ Miles told his uncle. ‘A well-performed manoeuvre, I would say.’
Richard de la Roche nodded his agreement. ‘I would guess five hundred Ostmen dead and as many wounded, perhaps more.’
‘If every battle is this easy we will have Diarmait back on his throne before Yuletide,’ FitzStephen said with a hint of relief.
‘Forget Diarmait,’ Miles laughed. ‘If every battle is this easy we could put you on the throne, uncle.’
FitzStephen did not answer and held up a hand to quiet Miles as the King of Laighin came within earshot. ‘Take your men across the river and scout ahead of Walter – harry the Ostmen as far as you can, but do not engage them in battle,’ he told his nephew. ‘You can take Prendergast with you and I will follow with the Irish and my milites.’ Miles nodded and jogged back through the trees to deliver the message to the Flemish commander.
‘A marvel – that is what you are, my boy,’ Diarmait announced with a huge smile and hugged the Norman.
FitzStephen returned his grin, embarrassed but happy at the histrionic show of emotion. ‘It will take more than that old trick to take Waesfjord,’ he said, ‘and more than well placed arrows to put you back on the throne of Laighin.’
Diarmait nodded, but he was barely listening to his warlord’s measured assessment. FitzStephen saw the passion in those blue eyes, but the appearance of Maurice de Prendergast and his light horsemen made him forget any worries in his new ally.
Prendergast, tall and stoic in the saddle, nodded to both knight and king as he passed by. ‘Yes, yes, do not engage,’ the Fleming pre-empted FitzStephen’s order with a grimace and without stopping. His horse splashed into the river. ‘We’ll not take Wa
esfjord until you get there. But you had better not take too long,’ he warned.
FitzStephen turned towards his king. ‘It is time to cross the stream, Lord.’
‘No, Sir Robert, it is time for some vengeance.’
Eirik Mac Amlaibh had barely spoken a word since the disaster had befallen his army at Dun Cormaic. All down the long road through the low hills, more of the army of Waesfjord had re-joined the column as they retreated towards their longfort home. Helmeted men, many with horrific wounds, walked with great effort in varying degrees of disorder. Most had thrown away their weapons so that they would not be weighed down and caught by the enemy scouts who stalked them through the hills of Forthairt, yet their progress was desperately slow. Every few miles the Ostmen would hear the outriders’ hooves thumping on the mountain turf and they would be forced to stop and turn, form a hurried shield wall, and make ready to defend themselves against the devilish horsemen.
No such attack had been forced home yet. It was as if the enemy were herding the Ostmen back to a pen. But the Norse of Waesfjord were not sheep, they were wolves. Ingólfur Andersson had proved this when he captured one horseman who strayed too close to the retreating warriors. The youngster had spilled a lot of information before Ingólfur had savagely spilled his guts on the mountainside. Normans – that was who the enemy were according to the dead boy. Eirik prayed that those vicious men had not set their sights on Ireland. The stories of their massacres among the Danish peoples around Jorvik were still told by traders who frequently visited Waesfjord. It was rumoured that there were still swathes of uninhabited land in northern England, empty since William the Conqueror had savaged those who had supported the King of Denmark’s invasion a hundred years before.
Eirik could see the line of torches as Diarmait Mac Murchada’s army came down from the mountainside on the Ostmen’s tail. The curling line of fire looked like a great fiery dragon straight from the old sagas and it sent a shiver down Eirik’s spine. The dead Norman outrider had divulged the full scale of their army and Eirik, who had seen for himself the destructive power of their archers and cavalry, could not believe that his mighty army had been shattered by such a small number of warriors. He would not make that mistake again.
‘How far to Waesfjord?’ asked Eirik of an axeman who walked in front of him. He had lost his bearings in the dusk and his voice was hoarse from the effort of walking without water or rest.
‘Just over the next ridge,’ the man said gruffly. Noticing the Norman torches on the hillside behind for the first time, he picked up his pace.
‘Don’t worry,’ Eirik told the man, loud enough for everyone around him to hear, ‘we will regroup back in Waesfjord. Their horses won’t be able to climb our strong walls and their arrows cannot go through solid timber.’ The men around him seemed to consider this as they trudged on in silence through the cold boggy hills. ‘No one has ever taken Waesfjord,’ Eirik shouted. It was still and cold in Forthairt and he mightily desired to get back behind the safe walls and the warmth of his longhouse rather than trudging through the hills on already wet feet. Presently the land began to slope downwards, and the evergreens began to thin, and Eirik was able to see the town which was bathed in the light of the large full moon. Wax torches burned at points all along the walls while whale fat lamps smouldered in some of the longhouses belonging to the richer traders. As they crept towards the walls of the longfort, Eirik and his men were greeted by the Gaels whose homes huddled around the five Celtic churches outside the town walls. Thirty people had come out of their houses asking for news and offering help to the injured.
‘Are you alright?’ one old woman asked in the Irish tongue as she came out of her hovel.
‘Yes, my dear,’ Eirik answered but, as he stared at the woman, he had a thought that made his blood run cold and backed away from the woman’s care. ‘You there,’ he flapped a hand at a soldier called Óttar Mac Óttar, ‘you have men?’
‘I do,’ the warrior nodded.
‘You must take them and get those torches,’ Eirik told him, flapping his fat hand towards the town walls, ‘and then you must burn the churches outside the walls.’
‘You want me to burn the churches?’ Óttar was shocked at the command and could not believe that he had possibly heard correctly. ‘Burn a church?’ He repeated the statement disbelieving and shaking his shaggy long-haired head.
‘Only the ones outside the town,’ Eirik snapped. ‘The Norman archers will use the high towers against us, you fool. We must burn them … and the homes …’
‘Burn out the Gaels?’ an outraged Óttar asked again.
‘Yes of course,’ Eirik told him. ‘Can you not see that they cannot be trusted? Then we must expel any Vestman inside the town. Yes, that would be best.’ Eirik could not believe the stupidity of Óttar in not understanding his plan.
‘My mother is a Gael,’ Óttar said angrily, ‘and his wife is one too,’ he pointed to a warrior walking ahead of them in the column. ‘What do we do about them?’
‘Alright,’ Eirik replied nervously, surprised to have his orders questioned, ‘we can eject their men from the town, though.’ He waited for a reluctant nod from Óttar who collected his troops and ran off towards the gate of Waesfjord.
‘Ingólfur,’ he called to the warrior who had fought so furiously at Dun Cormaic. ‘We have a problem,’ he said, ‘one that requires your attention.’ He repeated his fears about the Gaels to the tall warrior.
‘You are right,’ Ingólfur said with relish, ‘we should drive out any Vestman, whether they be man, woman, or child. Beggars and vagrants, that is all they are,’ Ingólfur said. ‘We cannot trust Óttar to do this,’ he said. ‘I will begin the fires myself.’
‘Thank you, finally someone who understands,’ Eirik said, suddenly confident now that he had a great warrior’s support.
Ingólfur nodded and began shouting orders to his men.
‘Sir?’ The old Irish woman came back towards Eirik, casting a nervous eye at the armoured warriors gathering just outside her home in the light cast by the burning torches. ‘Would you like some water?’ She held a skin up to the rich merchant.
Eirik waited until Ingólfur threw the first fiery torch onto the woman’s house before he answered. ‘Yes, that would be lovely, my dear,’ Eirik said with a smile. ‘I am so dreadfully parched.’
He grabbed the heavy skin while around him the shouting began as the first flames licked the thatched roof. Irishtown would burn so that Waesfjord could live.
* * *
Smoke filled the lungs of the three men who stared down from the hill and onto the longfort of Waesfjord. The Ostmen had set the houses outside the earth and timber walls alight and the menacing glow of the fires reached even to the trio of warriors.
‘Well,’ FitzStephen told Walter de Ridlesford, ‘at least the smoke keeps the damn flies away from our camp. Bloody bogland,’ he said as he slapped another insect from his arm. The two Normans, joined by Diarmait Mac Murchada, had crossed a small river on foot and made their way beyond the outlying pickets to the edge of the hills to get a better look at their target. It was cloudless and with the moon at its zenith the men had been able to get a great view of the Ostman town. They had been quietly studying it for weaknesses when fire had begun to spread amongst the thatched houses. It had started slowly in the north around the Irish corn market, hardly noticeable even to the three men up on their vantage point, but it had spread south with great speed, borne by torches thrown by more Ostman warriors. Churches, inns, shops, and homes went up in flames; none were spared in Irishtown. Some of those living outside the walls had come out to try and stop the blaze, but unarmed and unprepared for the attack they stood no chance and were hacked down by the marauding Ostmen. The rest screamed and ran, abandoning all their possessions to the fire. The flames lit up the earth mound, the glacis topped with a heavy wooden fence, five times as tall as a man, which surrounded Waesfjord.
A seething Diarmait had pointed out the five Celtic chu
rches which stood outside the five gates to the longfort. Four of the churches burned, flames licking the inside of their high stone towers, gutting the wooden stairs and floors and leaving them uninhabitable and useless to the Normans, just as the Ostmen had hoped. As they watched, the northernmost church buckled in the heat and collapsed in on itself with a creaking crash which resonated around the hills and over the water.
As he stared down on the longfort, FitzStephen could see people as they spewed out of the town gates, ejected by the Ostmen. Screaming children, men and women, slave and freeman alike, ran for their lives from warriors carrying fiery brands and unsheathed weapons. Fully armed and filled with fury, the townsmen were unable to stay their hands and began hacking down the Gaelsas they fled past their burning homes. Only St Michael’s Church, far to the south, was left untouched by the Ostmen.
Diarmait was inconsolable with rage. Even Walter de Ridlesford, who had seen his share of carnage and horror, was aghast as the Ostmen continued to burn and murder. It somehow seemed more calculating and cold to the Norman because they were not taking the Gaels’ belongings; they just inflicted wanton destruction upon the fleeing folk.
FitzStephen crouched on one knee in front of the other two men at the edge of a small spinney of trees. ‘Well, that was incredibly silly of them,’ he said.
‘Silly?’ Diarmait ground his teeth, clenching and re-clenching his jaw angrily. ‘That is all you can say?’ The fires of the town reflected in his eyes. ‘You think burning people’s homes to the ground is silly?’
‘Irishtown is not Fearna,’ FitzStephen said calmly and, with one eye closed, traced the shape of the walls of the town with his finger in the air. It was easily distinguishable under the bright moonlight; a long thin rectangle with walls on three sides and the bay lapping at the muddy beach at its back. ‘How many men can they have left to defend their walls?’ he asked.
‘A thousand?’ answered Ridlesford with a shrug.
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