The Last Conquest

by Berwick Coates

  Giffard yawned. Fitzosbern continued imperturbably. ‘Count Alan of Brittany will lead the left; Sir Walter Giffard the centre; Sir Roger of Montgomery the right. Count Alan will have, besides his own swordsmen, the knights of Maine and Poitou, and the Angevins. Sir Roger will have the knights from the Ile de France, Champagne, and Vermandois, and the Flemings. He will be attended by Robert of Beaumont, who has distinguised himself in the summer campaign in Normandy and the training since we landed.’

  Giffard sniffed. Summer campaign? Little more than armed reconnaissances and recruiting drives. Call that fighting? And as for the parades and drills that Geoffrey was pleased to call advanced training . . . Giffard had said it before and he would say it again: there was no substitute for battle experience. There was no substitute for the tried and tested methods. And there was no substitute for a man’s knightly honour if you wanted to get the best out of him.

  He felt a distinct thrill pass through his fighting arm as he contemplated the coming conflict. Eyesight going? Running out of puff? Muscles turning to flab? Living in the past? We should see, we should see. When that puppy had survived half as many clashes as he had, then, perhaps, he could claim that he had done some service.

  Baldwin de Clair ploughed through endless details about wagons and spare arrows and spears, lanes of withdrawal, buckets and water-bearers, grooms and extra mounts, concentration of reserves, until Sir Walter could barely sit still for impatience.

  What was all the fuss about? The Bastard had the finest body of experienced, battle-hardened, heavy cavalry in Christendom. All he had to do was find some open ground and turn it loose against these stolid, plodding fyrdmen. If that failed, well, it would be just too bad, and the planning for patterns of withdrawal and priorities of embarkation and all the rest would prove a complete waste of time. A defeat was a shambles and that was all there was to it. If it was not a shambles, it was not a defeat, and it could be turned round to a victory. And God knows, victories were chaotic enough.

  The time for debate and council and planning was over. The only thing to do now was to move fast on to the enemy and get the battle over and done with, and the sooner they did it the better.

  As for God’s Will and the holy relics, Sir Walter could not help thinking that a good night’s sleep, an early breakfast, and a brisk march to set the blood tingling would prove a great deal more use than a neckful of holy relics and a forest of Papal banners.

  God, he had noticed in a long and eventful life, was distinctly inclined to help those who showed willingness to help themselves.

  That reminded him: as soon as this infernal meeting was over, he must find a priest and—

  He jumped. The Duke was on his feet. The meeting was breaking up. Limbs were stretched; yawns were stifled.

  ‘Now,’ said William, ‘we visit the army.’

  There was a noise that sounded dangerously like a grumble.

  One man spoke up, however.

  ‘All of us, sir?’ said Fulk Bloodeye.

  ‘All of us,’ said the Duke, not even looking at him as he gathered his gloves. Nobody else met Fulk’s eye.

  Fulk, deprived of an audience, shrugged and made ready.

  Everyone stood back as the Duke strode towards the door. He paused in the open space of the threshold, with the evening sky behind him. There was just enough light to pick out gleams on the rings of mail at his shoulders.

  Nobody could see his eyes in the shadow, but no man doubted that they were darting from one face to the next as he spoke. The voice shed a little of its customary harshness and speed of delivery.

  ‘My lords,’ he said, ‘tomorrow, if God wills it, we commit ourselves to the greatest quest that could be offered to any knight in Christendom – to fight under the sacred banner of His Holiness the Pope to secure a whole apostate kingdom. A whole kingdom. Surely no man can reasonably expect such a moment to come twice in a lifetime.

  ‘Each of us, therefore, must make sure that nothing has been overlooked that may prevent us from acquitting ourselves to the very limit that our honour, our courage, and our ambition demand.’

  Saints and angels! thought Montgomery. Never before had he heard the Bastard string together half so many words.

  The Duke looked out towards the tents and shacks and wagons and fires, then back at his silent vassals.

  ‘Out there is an army. I say that word with due consideration and pride. A whole army. Not a motley of faint-hearts, drained by a daily dribble of desertion; not a pack of caged animals, awaiting only the key of the keeper to be able to roam at will in selfish lust of blood and private profit. I have taken all that Christendom has to offer, and I have forged it and tempered it until it is a single weapon to do my will. My will!’

  Somebody coughed.

  William glanced in his direction.

  ‘I know their motives, true. But they also know mine, and they know my will. We shall all achieve our desires – God willing – because I have built a force that is capable of it. All through spring and summer I have trained it and held it, with not one mutiny, not one revolt, not one false dissipation of strength. Every tremor of energy has been turned inward to tense the spirit. Week after week I have strung the bow tighter and tighter. Only I, Duke William of Normandy, could have held such a bowstring.

  ‘And now – we are ready to release it, to deliver at the perjured Saxon such a shaft of concentrated force that even the conqueror of Hardrada himself, the man who mastered the greatest Viking of all, will be unable to stand against it. Splendour of God – how great will be our victory!’

  He paused. The gleams on his hauberk grew fewer; his silhouette darkened against the fading light.

  ‘But first, we visit my army. All of us,’ he added meaningly. ‘Avarice draws men to the field, but only leaders take them into battle. Tomorrow we shall expect many of these men to die. They have a right to see the faces of the men who will lead them to that death, or, worse, send them.’

  William fastened his short cloak. ‘Follow me, and be seen.’

  He went off, humming tonelessly to himself.

  As they filed out, Walter Giffard looked at Roger of Montgomery, and smiled. How could they possibly lose?

  Sir Walter Giffard found further reason to admire his duke as they progressed round the camp.

  William was not a man who was normally good at company. He did not charm men as Harold did (even Normans testified to the Saxon’s personal magic on his visit in ’sixty-four). He did not coin jokes or clap soldiers on the shoulder. He did not make memorable remarks or grand gestures. His eye was cold and restless, his tongue was harsh, his hand was hard, and his lash was savage.

  Yet he had made his authority total and his will spring-clear to each and every man.

  Giffard marvelled at the effect of William’s presence. Everywhere men leaped to their feet, their expressions a mixture of gratification, eagerness, and apprehension. A man as tense as that, they felt, would miss nothing. They fell over themselves to answer his questions, partly, Giffard realised, because they were such practical, understanding questions. They dived to show a piece of equipment; they fumbled in their excitement to demonstrate it. They agreed fulsomely with his predictions for the coming day. As he turned away to move on, they exchanged delighted glances with each other behind his back, their eyes glowing in the dancing firelight. When he had gone they fell back to their sacks and sheepskins, put their heads together, and relived the previous few minutes a dozen times over.

  For a man who habitually said little, William made Giffard’s jaw drop at his uncanny skill in communicating. Understandably the men of Normandy responded easily enough – soldiers from the Bessin, Perche, the Pays de Bray, the Cotentin, the Pays de Caux, the Bocage, the Vexin, the Pays d’Ouche – though it was something of a feat to get these men of often rival regions to work together. But men from the surrounding lands responded too; Giffard recognised details of dress or heard idioms and accents from Ponthieu, Artois, Picardy, Vermandois; from Champ
agne, Nevers, the Auvergne; from Maine, Poitou, Anjou, Touraine, Brittany. There were men from as far south as Guienne, Périgord, Gascony and Toulouse. The stolid mercenaries and shifty soldiers of fortune – from Hainault, Brabant, Lotharingia, Franconia; from Swabia, Bavaria, Lombardy; from Apulia, Calabria, Sicily – many with feeble French – took strength from the resolution in his voice. Small stray groups from distant lands on the outermost frontiers of Christendom and Moorish legend – Navarre, Béarn, Leon, Barcelona, Castile, Roussillon and Foix – felt a surge of confidence at the sight of the tall, vigorous, commanding figure.

  The Duke gave much attention to the archers and the few crossbowmen. Giffard was again surprised at the extent of the Duke’s knowledge. Surprised too that the Bastard should bother so much with such troops – mere skirmishers, optional extras, expendable material. They were fringe men, base-born, poorly paid and easily lost. They had little discipline, less tradition, and no code of honour. They were notoriously difficult to organise, and tried to surround their simple craft with a cloud of false mystery. Archers were bad enough, but crossbowmen delighted in baffling you with deep talk of ratchets and lubrication and tension and trajectory. Moreover, they seemed to be under the impression that there was nobody else on the battlefield except themselves.

  All bowmen were gloomy by nature too; everything was wrong. They were forever gazing bleakly at the clouds and muttering about bowstrings, or testing the wind with a damp finger and shaking their heads.

  ‘Why does he concern himself with them?’ Giffard asked sourly, as they plodded through sticky mud between wagons and fletchers’ fires.

  ‘Because they are first in,’ said Montgomery. ‘If they falter, what will the rest do? Especially the paid infantry.’

  ‘Damned mercenaries!’

  ‘Damned they may be, especially with Bloodeye in charge of them. But necessary, Walter, necessary.’

  Giffard growled. He stood apart in stiff silence while William and Fulk talked to Florens of Arras and the tall Rainald and one or two others. Even so, his soldier’s eye told him that Fulk’s men were well equipped, purposeful, and in fine shape. The workmanship on their padded and studded jerkins was of high quality. Many had steel-banded helmets with nasal guards. A few possessed mail. All were well shod. Fulk maintained, among other things, a full-time shoemaker who went everywhere with them. They had their own armourer too.

  ‘You have to hand it to him,’ said Montgomery quietly. ‘They are beautifully turned out. He may be a devil, but he knows how to lead men and he is a fine soldier.’

  ‘Until he gets paid,’ said Giffard. ‘Then watch out.’

  Montgomery smiled. ‘Walter, we are all here in hope of reward.’

  Giffard glared at him, but said nothing.

  He became better tempered when they reached the knights’ area. After a few words with his own contingent from Longueville, he felt more disposed to follow the Duke around the rest. He was also familiar with the talk – of saddles and gauntlets and shield-straps, above all, of stirrups. A wise knight checked his stirrups time and time again. Even when he was ready in the saddle, it was the last thing his groom looked at before he rode off. And before the charge, secure the wrist-thong of the sword, tighten the shield-strap on the arm, ease out awkward folds in the mail, fasten the chin-strap of the helmet, flex fingers in the gauntlets – all these things. But finally, brace the feet in the stirrups: a man’s life depended on their strength and sure fastening.

  Giffard felt at home. Here were men he understood. They lived and thought and fought the same way that he did. Some, perhaps, were roughly born, but their career and training gave them all the same outlook. You had to pass through the long years of practice and apprenticeship before you could appreciate the full meaning of the word ‘knight’. No wide-eyed beginner, no envious clerk, no gawping ploughboy, no fat tradesman, no clever book-reader – nobody could understand the many skills that were necessary to the mastery of the knightly craft.

  The sword, the dagger, the mace, the spear, the lance – all had to be studied, weighed, handled. All made their own demands of strength, dexterity and finesse. The horse too: not your plodding pack pony, but a huge animal of great strength and spirit, which had to be mastered, understood, handled, and taught to obey a hundred commands of gait, speed and manoeuvre, to tolerate violence and clash and the most terrible noise. There were a thousand details of gear and equipment that had to be learned, if a knight was to be reliably prepared for battle, and moreover if he was not to be deceived by wily grooms and slovenly craftsmen.

  When you were on the animal’s back at last and ready for action, the most difficult trick of all – that of coordination, the putting together of all the skills so smoothly that horse and rider and weapons moved as one, each an extension merely of the others.

  Men who had triumphed over all these obstacles shared a past and a commitment and a professional pride that needed no words of expression or communication. It was obvious – or if it was not it ought to be – that any other soldiers were second-rate by comparison. Man for man, there really was no question of their superiority. All they had to do tomorrow was prove it.

  Proving his own capacity was another matter, but Beaumont would get a surprise that would blow the fluff off his face . . .

  Giffard was dismayed, and furious, when the Duke moved on yet again.

  There was a tour of the new castle. They all had to put up with the company of the gloomy cripple, Ranulf of Dreux, as he moaned about imperfections and deplored poor fields of fire. Giffard noticed, however, that some timbers had decorative carvings and protective paint on them. If workmen had found time for that, Ranulf’s preparations must indeed be well advanced.

  Still the Duke was not finished. Interminably the tour went on, through what Fitzosbern called the ‘hidden army’. When Giffard and the others tried to hang back, William looked sharply and said simply, ‘Talk to them.’

  So Giffard and his fellows swallowed hard and tried to think of things to say to servants and grooms and water-boys; to wagoners and carters and carriers; to armourers and saddlers and smiths; to the teeming host of men whose work would put the Duke’s army in the field the next day.

  ‘Why? Why, for God’s sake?’ said Giffard to Fitzosbern during another weary trudge. ‘All they react to is a sharp command and a cheap reward. They will not respect us for all this friends-and-comrades nonsense. Do it with soldiers – yes, I can accept that, up to a point. But not this riff-raff. We are like travelling preachers, calling sinners to repentance.’

  ‘It is not sin we are fighting, Walter,’ said Fitzosbern.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Fear,’ said Fitzosbern.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fear, Walter. No man is proof against it. If a man told me he was, I should fear him more than I fear the enemy.’

  He waved a hand at two dark, cowled figures flitting past. ‘Have you ever seen so many priests so busy before? Geoffrey will have penitents lining up at his bedside, broken leg or no broken leg. Even Odo will be doing God’s work tonight for once instead of his own.’ He poked Giffard familiarly in the chest. ‘And if you are honest, Walter, you will admit that you will seek to cleanse the soul before dawn comes. I know I shall.’

  Giffard made a vague noise in the back of his throat.

  ‘The Duke is a wise man, Walter,’ continued Fitzosbern. ‘He is also a professional. He leaves nothing to chance. He does not talk to cooks and pot-boys because he is a kind shepherd. He does not squat round fires with rude bowmen because he is a saint. He knows that the greatest enemy, next to Harold – perhaps greater than Harold – is fear. Fear is a disease that can break out anywhere, and can spread with terrible speed. It can eat into a man’s mind and paralyse a sword arm without his knowing whence it comes. The only way to stop it is to throw a blanket of reassurance around the shoulders of every man here, so that none will suffer the chill of dread, and none therefore will infect his companion.’

  Fit
zosbern stopped outside his tent. He scuffed some mud off his boots.

  ‘There is maybe something else too. Tomorrow will be a special day. William wants them to realise that.’

  Giffard grunted. ‘They surely realise they might die. Is that not special enough?’

  Fitzosbern shook his head vigorously. ‘No. I mean really special. Besides, a man might die any day. Just think, Walter. Hardrada, Harold, and William. The three greatest commanders in the whole of Christendom. Striving for supremacy, each against the other. And all within three weeks. For an entire kingdom. We are not talking about petty border forays and a scuffle of sieges at frontier castles. An entire kingdom! And only one of those three champions will be alive at the end of it. One has already gone. What a challenge for the other two! What a moment!’

  Giffard had never seen Fitz so carried away. Fitzosbern realised it, and made an effort to resume his usual flat style. He shrugged.

  ‘Well. I think William is trying to convey to them the sense of the occasion, that is all. This will be no ordinary battle, and they must rise to it. Victory will go – God willing – to the man who plans for everything. Everything.’

  Giffard did not look entirely convinced. ‘Well . . . all I can say is, I should never have done all that.’

  Fitzosbern grinned. ‘Just so. And that, Walter, explains why you are a vassal and he is a duke. Soon, we hope, a king.’

  Wilfrid the housecarl stopped by a group of Berkshire fyrdmen.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  A voice came out from under a fresh shelter of sticks, fern, and leafmould.

  ‘Marvellous. Just send up another cask of ale and a couple of shoulders of roast pork, will you? And see that the crackling is properly done this time.’