Godric struck again, and the helmet flew off. As Fulk struggled up, black hair awry, he put up his right arm as protection; a third swing broke it.
One or two Flemings started to move forward, but the knight on the horse waved a spear and stopped them.
Fulk was now to his knees. Even his good eye was staring. Flecks of foam appeared on his lips. His two arms looked as if they belonged to a drunken puppet. He was roaring incoherently.
Godric limped towards him. Another blow smashed his cheek and knocked him to the ground again.
He uttered a hideous cry that made the watchers’ flesh crawl. The limbs, though bent, went rigid at unreal angles. Blood oozed down his chin from where he had bitten his tongue. His face and lips turned a ghastly blue, which made the blood look dark.
Saxons and Flemings alike were transfixed with horror. They all wanted it ended.
‘Here, man!’
Godric turned. The thin Saxon tossed his spear. Godric caught it, laid down the broken haft of the axe, and once more took a two-handed grip.
He stumbled forward again until he stood right over Fulk. The body was now jerking and twisting in violent spasms. A fiendish, tense-jawed mask glared evil up at him.
Godric waited until the convulsions took Fulk on to his back, then he plunged. The spear went right through and embedded itself in the grass – so far that Godric almost overbalanced.
Fulk grabbed the spear with both hands, but there was no strength in the misshapen arms. He writhed with staring eyes, foam and blood running from both sides of his mouth. A dark stain appeared on his leggings at the groin. Where the blood had spread on his chest, it mingled with the mud on the mail, and ran black across the dark ringlets.
Men on both sides gasped and crossed themselves.
Godric held on grimly until all movement had ceased.
The knight on the horse trotted forward. The mail coif, steel helmet and nasal guard masked his face. He looked down at the spreadeagled body.
‘Fortunes of war,’ he said.
He turned to the silent Flemings. ‘Fortunes of war,’ he repeated, more loudly.
He dug in his spurs, and they were forced to move aside. Then he was gone.
The Saxons pulled Godric back up the hill with them. He made no resistance.
Florens was the first to recover. He looked around.
The whole of the Norman attack had ground to a standstill. Men were streaming back on both flanks; the Bretons were in shame again. One or two stepped aside to loot dead bodies. Brian paused, picked up an axe, and put a horse out of its misery.
At the top of the hill, the two English standards still flew.
Florens clapped his hands. ‘Wake up! Back! Back!’
They could not take their eyes off Fulk’s body. For a moment Florens considered giving orders for them to move it, if only to give a few of them something to do. When he saw the horror on their faces he changed his mind. Frankly, he did not fancy touching the body himself, though he knew there were gold coins in a belt wallet. Perhaps later, in the evening.
He gave Fulk one last look, and turned away.
‘Back, back, regroup over there, by Beaumont’s pennon. Move!’
Montgomery watched Florens at work. The man was a professional to his fingertips, and he would have them ready for another attack in good time. But he was no Bloodeye.
Montgomery looked up the hill, where jubilant fyrdmen cheered Godric’s return, and a hundred willing hands repaired the gaps in the shield wall. The giant was exercising an influence out of all proportion to his rank and position. That one duel had knocked the stuffing out of the Flemings. Florens would re-form them, and they would go into action again, but it was now an open question what would happen when they reached the English line.
Beaumont pulled up noisily beside him.
‘Let us do it. Let us try it.’
‘What?’
‘A retreat. They have come out after us twice. Let us pull them out this time.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
Beaumont stared. ‘This is just the situation that Lord Geoffrey was preparing us for. We shall never get a better chance.’
Montgomery ignored him. Beaumont became angry.
‘What have you got against the idea? Is it too new for you? Like that old man Giffard?’
Montgomery lost his temper. ‘Were we anywhere else than where we are. I should call you out for that. So much for your arrogance. It is surpassed only by your stupidity.’ He flung out his arm. ‘Just look at those Flemings. Set them running, and they would not stop till they reached the sea. And the knights would follow. We should have nothing else left here but a chorus of lonely trumpeters and one young idiotic nobleman waving his sword.’
Beaumont flushed. ‘So what do we do – sir?’
‘We do not try to harness fear. We change it to hope.’
‘And how do we do that?’
‘By removing the cause of the fear.’
Beaumont swallowed. ‘You mean – the giant?’
Montgomery sneered. ‘Not so keen now, eh? I thought not. Have no fear; I shall not ask you. I shall not ask anybody.’ He hawked and spat. ‘And neither would Sir Walter Giffard if he were in my place.’
As Florens trudged away, he thought of Fulk and of the partnership of the past years. He could not escape a twinge of relief amid the natural regret.
Fortunes of war.
Sir Walter Giffard looked up Senlac Hill. No doubt now; the shield wall was shorter. The ring of men on the top was smaller, but it was just as still as ever. The only movement he could detect was the dead being tipped over the wall.
The cries of wounded men reached him. A score of arms were raised in the grass to his front. Norman losses were serious too, in men and above all in horses. They had used all their fresh mounts. Now it was a case of change and change about until they dropped. The stud and stables at Longueville would take years to recover from this.
The corrupt Flemish infantry had let them down on the right as well as the Bretons on the left. There ought to be gaps in the line by now for the cavalry to exploit. Call themselves professionals?
Giffard spat.
Worst of all was the hill. The damned hill. And the stream. Proper firm open ground that they were used to, and there would have been no problem. At the top too, the lopsided rampart of shields and stakes. Behind it the wild heads in the centre and the forest of ridiculous farm tools on the wings. The only consolation was that Beaumont had been no more successful on the right. All the more reason for Giffard himself to think of something in the centre.
He looked up once more at the Saxon line – a wild hedgehog of amateurism and out-of-date bumble. They had no right to be still there; it was all so stupid and unfair.
‘Bastards!’
Robert of Mortain reined in beside him, slid off his mail coif, and wiped his forehead.
‘If only they would move, or sway a bit, or something.’
The Duke rode up.
‘We shall give them something to sway about.’
Mortain saw the archers trudging by yet again with swollen quivers, and marvelled.
‘Brother, how did you get all those arrows out of de Clair? He garners them like a miser.’
William grunted. ‘We spoke.’
He shouted to the archer sergeants. ‘Further round still, for the sun. I want them high again.’
Their faces fell.
‘High, sir?’
‘Yes. But this time you can show off your marksmanship too. No blanket firing. I want everything in one place. You go for the tree and the two standards. All of you – understand? The tree and the standards. And high!’
‘Sir.’
William turned to his vassals. ‘Come, brother. Come, Giffard.’
Eustace of Boulogne pushed his horse forward.
‘Please, my lord. Let me fight this time. Let Turstin carry. It may be my last chance.’
Turstin of Bec tensed himself in the saddle. William looked
up the hill.
‘I doubt that.’
‘I beg you, sir.’
‘No. Come, my lords. We make them move, or at least we make them sway.’
On Telham Hill, Gilbert fumed and fretted.
‘How much longer?’ he demanded.
‘As long as necessary,’ said Ralph, unmoved.
Gilbert pointed. ‘There they go again. Much more of that and there will not be any English left to attack.’
‘That is the general idea,’ said Bruno.
Gilbert swore.
‘They are slower,’ said Ralph.
‘Hardly surprising,’ said Bruno.
Ralph grimaced in anxiety. How much closer could they go in after the bows? Much more, and they would have arrows in Norman necks.
‘Sir. You must come. They are gathering again.’
Harold replaced the two shrouds, crossed himself, and got to his feet.
‘If anything happens to me, see that my mother is told where they are.’ He paused, listening. ‘What is that noise? It comes from behind.’
‘It is the women, sir. They are down there, praying and—’
‘Weeping. With good reason. But courage, lad.’ Harold shook off the mood. ‘We shall yet give them a day to be proud of. Something for the orphans to sing about, eh?’
The messenger fidgeted. ‘Sir – your orders.’
Harold drew himself up. ‘Yes. Yes. I want all the wing housecarls to the centre again. We can yet surprise the Bastard. Thank God he is a chess player.’
In the next few minutes, no man in the English line would have guessed that Harold had only just dried streaming tears. Running with bent legs from one block of the wall to another, with his shield held like a canopy over his head against the whining arrows, he chivvied and coaxed and cheered; he swore and blasphemed and made black jokes; above all, he encouraged and inspired.
The thinning line of housecarls turned to face the labouring Norman horses with a fresh gleam in the eye and a fresh grip on the axe.
Harold plodded up to the apple tree. One of the standard bearers was sagging with an arrow in the top of the shoulder. The Dragon of Wessex swayed. Another man grabbed it and held it up again.
Harold was shocked at the number of arrow wounds among his headquarter staff. For a moment he considered moving his command position, but decided to assess the current battle situation first.
He stood by the tree, laid down his shield, and put a hand to his eyes to shade them from the afternoon sun.
The attack was now being pressed. Harold was so used to the dreadful noise that he was barely conscious of it. He had to watch, and judge, and guess – and out-think the Bastard.
Nor far away a knot of Norman knights crashed through the shield wall. Kicking and hacking, they carved an avenue of death towards him. Desperate housecarls ran after them, swinging axes and swords at stirrups, legs, haunches, hooves, anything to stop them. Fyrdmen ran in from the wings and formed a block in front of the King – stabbing, cutting, clawing the enemy down.
One of them saw Harold, pointed, and yelled something.
Suddenly Harold felt a great blow on his head, and a stabbing pain over the eye. The impact flung him against the tree. He put up a hand and wrenched the arrow from the rim of the helmet.
The blow had left him dizzy. Blood ran down into his eye and blinded it. He leaned against the trunk and blinked and shook his head.
In front of him, the leading Norman was at last dragged from his horse and cut to pieces. The one behind caught a glimpse of the King fumbling for his sword like a man in the dark. Half his face was a mask of blood.
The Norman screamed, ‘The King is stricken!’ before an axe laid open his back.
One by one, the frantic English tore down the maddened, yelling Normans. They paused in front of their wounded king, their chests heaving, their hands red and sticky. Harold waved to show that he was not badly wounded, but it did not look like it.
Behind them, more housecarls hewed like maniacs to stem the flood of Normans through the gap, and at last sealed it, partly with shields and partly with enemy dead.
Painfully but steadily the attack was turned back. All along the line were piles of dead and dying. Crippled horses uttered sounds to give men bad dreams for the rest of their lives. One destrier seemed to twitch although it had no head.
No words were exchanged. No orders were given. The gaps were repaired. The wings shuffled and closed up. Severed limbs were kicked aside. Men leaned on axes and grimaced with the effort of drawing breath.
Harold, bareheaded and with a stained bandage over his eye, walked up and down with drawn sword.
‘It can not be long now. Hold on. Hold on. We are still here. And the Bastard is still down there.’
The exhausted vassals stumbled back to the Duke, who now sat on his fourth horse of the day.
He listened to their report and to the account of their losses. A glance around could have told him anyway. At least a quarter of the knighthood of Normandy was lying up on Senlac Hill; with the infantry it was harder to tell, but casualties had been heavy. The non-French contingent leaders painted a similar gloomy picture; they would probably exaggerate in hope of greater reward, the news was still depressing. Even the mercenaries had suffered; Bloodeye himself was gone.
Montgomery confirmed his impression that the English resistance seemed stiffer on the right than on the left. Something about a giant inspiring the fyrdmen.
Only the archers had light losses, but that was to be expected, since they had not been closely engaged, and they had done no defensive fighting.
Men dismounted heavily and stood about in small groups. A few took drinks. Hardly anybody ate.
They gazed up to the top of Senlac Hill. The Saxon line was shorter, the ring of shields smaller, but it looked just as still and just as permanent. Above it the two Saxon standards flew by the tree. Was it imagination, or did their golden stitchwork gleam yet more boldly in the rays of the late afternoon sun?
William looked at the length of the shadow cast by his horse. Time was now running against him as well.
He could not continue to snap and gnaw at the English line like this any more, though he felt sure that it was producing results. His men were running out of strength, and the army’s morale could not stand much more of these repeated huge efforts and heavy losses without much apparent success.
Moreover, he had barely two hours of good light left, if that.
He banged his gloved hand impatiently on his thigh. Think of something!
Men were glancing over their shoulders at him. If he did not give them orders soon, he would find it difficult to get them to obey.
This was the time. It had to be now. There was something, too, that he had heard men shouting at the height of that supreme effort, when they had come so near to breaking through.
He could not be sure, such was the terrible noise, but it had sounded like ‘He is hit! He is hit!’ It had flown from front to rear like a flung pebble bouncing across smooth water.
Every nerve and instinct told him that the battle could be won, or lost, according to what he now did. This was the moment.
He trotted across to Sir William Fitzosbern, who greeted him with one word.
‘Nearly.’
Praise God for Fitz and his faith and his level head!
With banishment of doubt came inspiration and decision.
‘This is what we do, Fitz . . .’
‘Why has it gone quiet?’ asked Edwin. ‘Why are they pulling right back? Have we won?’
‘No,’ said Wilfrid.
Edwin hung his head. He could not imagine lifting another weapon again, much less swinging it.
‘So they are coming again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will they break through?’
‘Maybe.’
‘So you think they will win?’
‘Maybe.’
Edwin stared. ‘How can you say that?’
‘I like to fight b
eside a truthful man. I hope you do too.’
‘But, Wilfrid – if we do not win, what happens?’
‘We lose.’
Wilfrid saw his ashen face, and patted his shoulder. ‘Cheer up, lad. I only said “maybe”. And you do not really need me to tell you that. Besides, your eyes are sharp and your legs are long.’
Edwin shook off his hand. ‘Are you suggesting that I should run away?’
‘If the King falls and we are overrun, yes. One fights only to save a cause. Why die when the cause is dead?’
‘But you are a housecarl.’
‘I was talking of you, not of me. Yes, I am a housecarl. I shall likely die in the next attack, or the next one, or the one after that. I am ready.’
Edwin gulped. ‘So am I.’
‘No, you are not. Boys of your age never are, and a good thing too.’
‘I am not a boy.’
‘You may be a lusty lover to some girl or other, but to me you are a boy.’
Edwin winced.
‘So, mark,’ said Wilfrid. ‘Fight like Hell, yes. If you try to run away before all is lost, I shall break your neck. If you do not run when it is lost, I shall still break your neck.’
‘Satisfied?’ said Ralph.
The cavalry had been drawn up again, along the widest possible front. Gilbert saw the fluttering pennons of all the remaining Norman vassals. To his right – Beaumont, Montgomery, de Warenne, Malet, Mortagne. To his left – Giffard, de Montfort, de Tosny, de Grandmesnil. There were others he did not recognise, they were so tattered. In the centre, and slightly back, was the Duke, with his brothers, Odo of Bayeux and Robert of Mortain. Fitzosbern was at the Duke’s shoulder.
In between the cavalry contingents were the remains of all the infantry that could be scraped together – Flemings, Frenchmen, Normans, Count Alan’s Bretons. There was no longer any attempt at maintaining separate identities; Fitzosbern had shoved men into the line wherever they were needed. Old quarrels had died in minutes; groups that had suffered heavy losses were grateful to be strengthened by men who that morning had been life-long rivals. Soldiers were now going into battle beside faces they had never seen before.
From Telham Hill and from the wagon train, the Duke’s marshals and heralds had collected scouts, messengers, drivers, grooms, servants – anything that could walk or hold a weapon or ride a horse.
The Last Conquest Page 47