Knights of the Hawk c-3

by James Aitcheson

  ‘Take him,’ I yelled to my knights and everyone else who happened to be with me. ‘Kill the rest, but take him alive!’

  No sooner had the words left my lips than the thegn spotted us coming. His huscarls, the ten or so that remained, closed ranks around him, presenting their scratched shield-faces and their gleaming axe-blades, sharp enough to take a horse’s head from its neck in a single blow. But they were few, while we had the might of an entire army behind us, and he must have sensed that to fight on was useless. He let his sword fall to the ground and raised his hands aloft.

  ‘Gehyldath eowre wæpnu!’ he bellowed at his retainers, but they did not seem to be paying him any heed. Obviously they preferred to meet death with steel in their hands rather than suffer the shame of giving themselves up to the mercy of their enemies.

  I would have granted them their wish, but we were still some thirty paces away when their lord barged his way through their lines and wrested the axe-haft from the grasp of the huscarl to his left, tossing it down.

  ‘Gehyldath eowre wæpnu,’ he repeated, gesturing towards the others’ axes and spears and seaxes.

  One by one, not daring to take their eyes off us even for an instant, his men lowered their weapons and dropped them to the ground with a clatter of steel. Their nasal-guards and cheek-plates made it difficult to see their faces, but even so I could clearly see the scowls they wore, and the hardness in their eyes. Even in defeat, there was much pride there.

  I reined Fyrheard in, halting before them, and Wace drew up alongside me. The rest of the conroi did not need any instruction from me, but straightaway formed a circle around the band of Englishmen, just in case they tried to make an escape, though I didn’t think they would.

  I fixed my eyes upon the thegn, their leader. He unlaced his chin-strap, letting his helmet fall by his feet. Unkempt hair fell across his brow and he swept it back from his face before staring, unspeaking back at me. His eyes were as blue as the midday sky, his chin raised in defiance.

  ‘Ic eom Thurcytel,’ he said flatly. I am Thurcytel.

  I recognised the name. He was, or had been, among Hereward’s oathmen, if I remembered rightly what Godric had said: one of those who had supported him only to later shift their allegiance to Morcar.

  ‘My name is Tancred of Earnford,’ I said, just as flatly. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of me.’

  ‘Should I have?’

  I moved closer. My sword was still in my hand, and I pointed it at his breast. ‘Don’t try my patience. Not unless you want me to bury my steel in your heart.’

  ‘You won’t kill us,’ said Thurcytel.

  Wace gave a snort. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Your king is, at heart, an honourable man. Were he to learn that you received our submission only then to kill us, I think he would not be best pleased.’

  Wace laughed. ‘Do you think that he cares whether you live or die? After he’s spent this long trying to capture the Isle? After all the trouble you and your countrymen have caused?’

  Thurcytel didn’t answer, which was probably for the best.

  ‘I’ll see that your life and those of your men are spared,’ I said, ‘provided that you do two things for me. First, I want your sword and your scabbard.’

  He spat, and grudgingly unbuckled his belt, letting it fall next to his sword. His scabbard was decorated with copper bands inlaid with gold, while in the middle lobe of the pommel was a single emerald. I nodded to Serlo, who dismounted and collected them from where they lay at Thurcytel’s feet and passed me first the sheath — though the thegn was wider around the waist than me and I had to pull the belt-strap tight to fasten it — and then the blade. The cord wrapped around the hilt was stained red and blood was congealing in the fuller, but otherwise it seemed in good condition, with few nicks along its edge. It was balanced a little more towards the point than I would have preferred, but otherwise it was a weapon befitting a knight.

  I slid it back into the scabbard. ‘A fine blade,’ I said to Thurcytel, who merely sneered. ‘Now, the second thing. Tell us where Hereward is.’

  His expression changed, from defiance to something like disgust. ‘Hereward?’

  ‘Is he here, on this field?’

  The reward for capturing someone like Thurcytel would be reasonable enough, but the prize for bringing Hereward before the king would be far greater. From everything I had heard of him, he seemed the kind of man to lead from the front, rather than skulk in the ranks. Except that there had been no sign of him during the battle, and that was beginning to worry me.

  Thurcytel made a sound that was neither a laugh nor a snort, but something in between. He spat upon the ground. ‘Hereward will not so much as talk to Morcar, let alone fight in the same shield-wall. Always he must do his own thing-’

  ‘Just tell us where I can find him.’

  The battle-anger still simmered inside me, and I was fast losing patience with this Thurcytel.

  ‘The last I heard, he was still at Elyg, praying at the shrine of St Æthelthryth for her to grant him her favour and help him to bring us victory.’

  ‘How many men does he have with him?’ Wace asked.

  ‘A hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred. No more than that.’

  ‘Dead, all of them,’ someone called, and at once I recognised the voice, which was deep and harsh and rich in arrogance. ‘Or, at least, they will be shortly.’

  Morcar strode towards us, a wide grin upon his face, which was flushed with triumph. He was dressed in a leather jerkin reinforced with iron studs, but there was not a speck of blood or dirt on him anywhere, and I wondered whether he had dared enter the fray, or so much as unsheathed his blade during the battle.

  He clapped a hand upon Thurcytel’s shoulder. ‘Alas, my friend,’ he said. ‘Fortune did not favour you this day.’

  ‘You bastard,’ said Thurcytel, shrugging off the other man’s hand. ‘We gave you our allegiance and you betrayed us!’

  ‘Temper,’ Morcar said in a soothing voice, as if trying to still a querulous child.

  For a moment the thegn tensed, as if ready to hurl himself at Morcar, but that moment quickly passed. The earl was accompanied by some dozen of his own spearmen, and Thurcytel must have realised that any attempt he made would not go well for him. He contented himself with spitting at the other’s feet. Morcar only smiled, clearly relishing in his success.

  ‘How do you know they’re dead?’ I asked him.

  Morcar turned and fixed me with a stern look. ‘I recognise you. You’re Robert’s man.’

  I was not to be deterred. ‘How do you know they’re dead?’

  ‘Because I ordered it,’ he retorted. ‘As soon I glimpsed your boats arriving upon the shore, I sent my swiftest rider to Elyg with instructions to my hearth-troops there to kill Hereward and all his followers.’

  Even presuming he was telling the truth, that could have been around an hour ago at most, by my reckoning, which meant that Morcar’s messenger had probably only recently arrived.

  ‘And how can you be sure that all your hearth-troops won’t themselves end up killed by Hereward and his band?’

  Morcar drew himself up to his full height and inspected me closely, as if I were some manure he had trodden in, but I was not about to back down. He might consider himself an earl, but we both knew it was a title acquired through treachery and only then by the king’s grace. Whatever noble blood he’d once possessed had soured in his veins long ago. The man who stood before me knew nothing of honour, and he was mistaken if he thought himself worthy of my respect.

  He opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could speak something else caught his attention. His eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond my shoulder, and then he and Thurcytel and all their retainers were bending their knees and bowing their heads. I glanced behind me and saw the king riding hard towards us, flanked as he always was by his household knights.

  Hurriedly I sheathed my sword. The king paid no attention to us, though, nor indeed
to our captives. He was interested only in Morcar.

  ‘Where were you?’ he barked without so much as a greeting. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘My lord,’ Morcar began. ‘I don’t-’

  ‘The moment we arrived upon the Isle. That’s when you were supposed to begin your attack.’

  ‘Have I not given you victory, my king?’ he protested. ‘Have I not given you the Isle, as I promised? Is that not enough?’

  Suddenly I understood why Morcar had waited so long before committing his forces. He’d wanted to see which way the battle would turn before deciding whether to hold to his promise. Only when he could be sure of being on the winning side had he finally marched to help us.

  No doubt the king realised this too, since he regarded Morcar for what seemed like an eternity. In his eyes burnt a fire more intense than I had ever seen, and I think that, were it not for the fact that several hundred of the Englishman’s sworn followers were watching, he might have struck him down there and then.

  ‘You have given me nothing yet,’ the king snarled as he turned away.

  ‘What about my nephew, lord?’ Morcar shouted to his back. ‘It was agreed that he would be returned to me.’

  The king curbed his horse, no doubt startled, as were the rest of us, by such effrontery. ‘What makes you think I haven’t already ordered him killed?’

  ‘If you have, then our agreement is finished,’ Morcar replied, but though his words suggested defiance, his tone betrayed his lack of confidence. Having wormed his way into the king’s favour and allowed our army on to the Isle, he would be foolish indeed to risk losing everything by fighting us now, especially over such a small point.

  The king smiled and raised an eyebrow in amusement. ‘It is as well, then, that young Godric lives. You entertain me, Earl Morcar, and for that I will see that your nephew is brought to you.’ He turned towards one of his household guards, a dark-featured man with a broken nose and a scar upon his lip. ‘Fetch the boy from Alrehetha.’

  ‘Yes, lord king,’ Scar-lip replied, and broke off from the conroi, making back towards the bridge.

  ‘In the meantime,’ the king said to Morcar, ‘you’ll come with me.’ He turned his gaze upon myself and Wace, although his expression showed no sign of recognition. ‘You too. Bring every man you can muster.’

  ‘Where are we going, lord?’ I asked.

  ‘To Elyg!’ he shouted over his shoulder as he galloped away. His household guards fell into close formation around him, and they made towards the head of the main part of our host, which was once more forming up in its ranks and columns. Frenchmen cheered as he passed, showing their respect for the man whose vision and unfailing resolve had, despite the months of setbacks and frustrations, despite the misgivings of almost every man in his army, despite the fact that the odds had not favoured us, led us to this victory.

  Except that it was not won yet. There remained Elyg and Hereward. For all Morcar’s conviction that he was as good as dead, I would believe it only when I saw it with my own eyes. Indeed if I’d learnt but one thing of Hereward in recent weeks, it was that he was not a man to be underestimated.

  Morcar, red-faced, was calling for someone to fetch him a horse. When a servant-boy finally brought one to him, he was rewarded for his trouble with a clout around the ear that sent him sprawling. The earl noticed me watching him and scowled, as if I were somehow responsible for having brought the king’s wrath upon him.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Pons and Serlo, gesturing for them to follow as I mounted up. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘What about them?’ Pons asked, meaning Thurcytel and his men. ‘We’re not going to leave them, are we?’

  The disappointment on his face was clear. The capture of one of the rebel leaders would bring us not just glory but riches too, and I was as reluctant as he to give those things up. But the king had spoken. Once the Isle belonged fully to us, then we could begin to think about prisoners, but not before. Not while there was still work to be done.

  ‘We have no choice,’ I said. ‘Now, with me!’

  We were in danger of being left behind. The king’s banner was already on the move, striking out across the flat country to the north and east, in the direction of Elyg. I searched among the assembled banners for the black and gold, and found it towards the middle of the column. Robert was there, together with his knights, most of whom seemed unhurt save for some small scratches and cuts, although as we grew closer I could see that our numbers were decidedly thinner than they had been.

  Only then did I realise that one of us was missing.

  Robert saw us then, and came over to greet us, but before he could say anything I asked him, ‘Where’s Eudo?’

  He glanced first at myself and then at Wace, frowning as if not quite understanding. ‘I thought he was with you.’

  ‘He was,’ Wace said. ‘And now he isn’t.’

  I turned to Serlo and Pons. ‘You were close to him in the fray, when the English had us surrounded,’ I said. ‘Did you see what happened to him?’

  ‘No, lord,’ said Serlo, while Pons merely shook his head.

  I swore under my breath, at the same time trying to think when and where I had last seen him. I didn’t recall having spotted him fall, but that meant nothing, for in the heat of battle one’s world becomes narrowed, and there are many things that one cannot hope to notice amidst the din of steel on steel, screaming horseflesh and the glittering blades of the enemy.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Robert said, laying a hand upon my arm in reassurance. ‘He can take care of himself.’

  ‘His knights were with him,’ Wace pointed out. ‘They’ll have seen him to safety, I’m sure.’

  I hoped Wace was right, and silently prayed that the cost of victory here today did not turn out to be Eudo’s life. If it were, I would never forgive myself.

  We arrived outside Elyg a little more than an hour later. The skies were ablaze with pinks and oranges and the sun was rising, steadily burning away the remaining tendrils of marsh-mist, and glaring so brightly off the still fens that we had to shield our eyes.

  Exactly as Godric had told us, the rebels had fortified the place in preparation for a siege, strengthening the gatehouse and throwing up a stockade around the monastery. Instead of shutting themselves away inside those defences, however, men and women were flocking in their scores and hundreds away from the stronghold, herding their children and carrying the smaller ones in their arms, even as others drove swine and sheep from the pens and the fields towards the woods and the marsh. Others followed, with wagons and pack animals, but they were so laden with goods that they were in danger of being left behind. On first sight of our approaching army they abandoned their goods, instead taking flight as fast as their legs could carry them. No sooner had they done so than the plunder began, as groups of riders split off from the main part of the army, raiding those same wagons and spilling the contents of the packs on to the ground in search of silver and gold and anything else that might be valuable. They would be lucky to discover much of value among the possessions of mere peasants, however. The monastery was where the greater riches were to found.

  Or so I thought at first. We soon learnt that when Morcar’s order had reached his men in Elyg, they had taken it not just as the sign to attack Hereward and his band, but also as an invitation to begin looting, perhaps thinking that anything they didn’t quickly lay claim to would shortly be seized by us Normans. Breaking into the abbey’s treasure house, they had filled sacks with coin and gilded candlesticks and anything else they could lay their hands upon, before crossing the cloister to the church where the service of prime was then in progress. There they had drawn weapons and driven the monks out, seized jewel-inlaid crosses, torn down tapestries bearing images of the Passion, stripped altars of their expensive cloths and even stolen the strongbox containing the monies that had been given as alms.

  This news was brought to us by one of the king’s messengers, who in turn had heard it from Elyg’s abb
ot, an Englishman named Thurstan, who, together with the rest of the monks, had met the king at a small village named Wiceford a few miles from the monastery, having had no choice but to leave Elyg to the ravages of Morcar’s hearth-troops. On hearing that our army was approaching, he had come seeking his liege-lord’s protection, as well as his forgiveness for having harboured his enemies for so long, a circumstance which he claimed had been imposed upon them against their will.

  ‘What of Hereward?’ I asked the messenger. He was built like a bear, and was almost as hairy as one, too.

  ‘Gone,’ he said.

  ‘Gone?’

  He nodded grimly. ‘The king is less than pleased. From the sounds of it, Morcar’s men were less interested in risking their lives than they were in claiming booty. There was some fighting in and around the cloister, but it seems Hereward and his band had received forewarning that they’d been betrayed and had already started to make preparations to quit Elyg. They were ready when Morcar’s hearth-troops came for them, and managed to overpower them and break their way out.’

  ‘They escaped?’ I asked.

  ‘Not all of them. Morcar’s men killed a good few, and even managed to wound Hereward before his companions could pull him from the fray. So the abbot says, anyway.’

  Somehow I’d known this would happen. Not only had Morcar failed to keep to the strategy he’d agreed with us, but he had also allowed Hereward to slip through his fingers.

  Wace shook his head in disbelief. ‘After everything, who would have thought that the feared Hereward lacked the stomach for a fight? That he would turn out to be such a coward?’

  ‘He’s no coward,’ I assured him. Wace would have known that if he had crossed paths with him as we had. I turned to the bear-man. ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘Out into the marshes to the north of here, by way of the secret paths.’

  ‘And Abbot Thurstan saw all this happen?’

  ‘With his own eyes. He is a broken man. Three of the monks under his protection were killed in the confusion as they tried to flee. He blames himself for their deaths.’