The Bastard's Crown Page 18

  After the two armies had formed up ready for battle they stood and watched as a minstrel called Taillifer rode out singing the song of Roland and then charge to his death. The time had come for battle to be joined.

  Chapter Seven – 14th October 1066

  Wulfric watched as the whole line of archers advanced on a broad front followed by the men-at-arms. When the archers arrived at the bottom of the slope they halted and began firing up at the English. Wulfric ducked down behind his shield as the arrows flew all around. Some struck the ground in front and some flew over his head to hit a few unfortunates in the fyrd behind him. A cross bow quarrel hit his shield square on and penetrated it, the head stopping just above his forearm. He looked around him but few housecarls seemed to be hurt.

  He sheathed his sword and picked up a javelin from the pile lying beside him. He cast it downhill at the archers and had the satisfaction of seeing one go down, though he couldn’t be certain it was his that hit him. A lot more javelins were now flying and the archers were beginning to suffer significant casualties. Wulfric was scarcely conscious of the trumpet blast which recalled them but suddenly they were replaced by charging Norman infantry. Wulfric cast one more javelin then drew his sword and waited.

  Cenric stood at his side holding a large two handed battle axe which he prepared to swing down on the charging enemy. Then the two sides met with a crash. A man at arms in front of him went to squeeze through the sharpened stakes but Wulfric knocked him back with his shield then followed up with a sword thrust into his belly. His thick leather jerkin took some of the impact of the thrust but a good four inches of steel cut into his abdomen. Wulfric was conscious of two men attacking him whilst he was pulling his sword free. He batted the thrust from a spear aside with his shield but the other man would have killed him if Cerdic hadn’t brought his axe down at that moment cleaving the Norman’s chain mail and cutting deeply into his shoulder.

  After that Wulfric concentrated on keeping his shield in front of him to protect both himself and Cerdic. He used his sword to cut at the legs of opponents that he could see below his shield. After a while the press of the dead and wounded from both sides built a grisly wall between them and the Normans began to lose heart. A little while later they withdrew and both Wulfric and Cerdic drew in great lungfuls of air. Boys ran along the line with water bags but withdrew hurriedly when a warning shout went up that the Norman cavalry were preparing to charge.

  ~#~

  Hugo watched the ineffectual bombardment by the archers and the defeat of the infantry with dismay. His conroi was in the second wave of knights and he prayed that the shock of heavy cavalry would break the shield wall so that all his men had to do was ride through the gap and mop up. But it wasn’t to be.

  The first wave of seven hundred and fifty knights struck the line of housecarls and came to a shuddering halt. The charge uphill had slowed the horses considerably and many had shied away from the stakes. The English then killed great numbers of horses, bringing their battle axes down on their heads. Some unhorsed knights were killed before they could get up and those that did found themselves having the same problems as their infantry. They were not trained to fight against a shield wall and were easily cut down.

  The temptation to break the shield wall and kill the dismounted knights proved too great for some and when Hugo’s second wave arrived a significant number of the knights managed to get in amongst the housecarls. Hugo slashed wildly left and right cutting down several before he realised that he had made it through into the ranks of the fyrd. He killed quite a few before they moved out of his way in fear. He turned his horse in the gap but then realised that he was trapped alone in the midst of the enemy. He spurred his horse on through the fyrd until he was clear then he galloped along the rear of the enemy towards their right flank.

  When he got there he was amazed to see that the English were streaming down the hill pursuing the retreating Norman left flank. He charged downhill through their ranks slaughtering many of the surprised Saxons as he went. At the bottom of the hill the retreating Bretons realised that they were about to ride into the marsh and so they halted in confusion until Alan of Brittany managed to rally his men and led them back up the hill towards the disorganised men of the fyrd. The latter were now spread out all over the hill and stood no chance against the armoured knights, despite trying to form isolated groups to defend themselves. Unarmoured and poorly armed as the Saxons were, the Bretons and their allies dealt with them group by group until the remnants regained the hill.

  Hugo cut across the slope and re-joined the centre. The various conrois were all muddled up in the confusion of battle and he found himself amongst a group of knight he didn’t know. Until one of them sidled up to him and spoke to him.

  ‘I wouldn’t turn your back if I were you, de Cuille.’

  Hugo turned in amazement and looked straight into the scarred face of Rollo St. Laurent. He was shaken by the unexpected encounter and sat there looking at his archenemy in horror. Then out of the corner of his eye he spotted movement as Rollo drew his dagger and went to plunge it into Hugo’s side. Hugo dug his spurs into his destrier and the surprised horse reared up and then dashed forward, scattering a few knights out of the way in the process. A stream of profanities followed him as he desperately tried to locate his conroi. It was only then that he noticed that his destrier was wounded so he turned and headed to the rear to find Roland and change it for his courser.

  By the time he had returned it was to discover that the English line had advanced off Senlac Hill. The shield wall was coming down the hill slowly and steadily driving the disorganised Norman knights before it. Then a cry went up that Duke William had fallen. Hugo was told later that his horse had been killed under him but that he had immediately seized the horse of another knight and forced him to give it up to him. Hugo was relieved to see the bareheaded Duke riding through the Norman ranks crying out that he was alive and well.

  Hugo charged back into the battle and forced his way to the front where the mounted knights were trying desperately to break through the shield wall. Suddenly the wall parted to allow a big man wielding an axe through to chop down another horse. Seizing the moment Hugo spurred forward and as the axe came down he swung his sword and took the head clean off the Saxon. Immediately another cry went up. This time it was that Earl Leofwine was dead.

  The English advance halted in uncertainty and a few minutes later they started to retreat back up the slope to their original position.

  ‘Well done, my boy. Hugo de Cuille isn’t it? You have just earned yourself several manors.’ With that the duke rode off to exhort his men to attack the retreating housecarls.

  ~#~

  Wulfric was close to exhaustion. After some three hours of fighting his arms felt like lead and the panicked withdrawal after Leofwine’s death had turned his legs to jelly. He had been one of the first to regain the hill top and he watched in despair as the Norman knights cut down many of the retreating housecarls. He saw Cerdic facing a large Norman wielding a mace and groaned as the mace came down crushing his helmet and breaking the skull beneath. Cerdic dropped like a stone.

  When the shield wall reformed it was noticeably less tightly packed than before.

  A lull then followed until Wulfric noticed that the knights on the enemy’s left had formed up to charge the fyrd holding the right flank. Because the battle line curved out of Wulfric’s sight he couldn’t see what was happening but after about twenty minutes the Bretons fled back down the hill once more and yet again the fyrd abandoned their position in pursuit. This time the Breton and Flemish withdrawal had been a feint and the knights turned and, accompanied by their infantry, they set about slaughtering the English right. The fight moved back out of sight as the Norman advance reached the top of the slope.

  He turned his attention back to his front where the Norman archers and crossbowmen were forming up again. This time they advanced closer to the English line before firing. The crossbowmen fired in a flat
trajectory, as before, but the archers fired high so that the arrows dropped down into the ranks of the fyrd and onto the housecarls from above. Wulfric raised his shield to protect himself from the arrows but in doing so he exposed his torso to the crossbowmen. He was lucky that he wasn’t struck but he cursed the fact that there were no javelins left to return fire with.

  From the shouts that went up behind him he gathered that some of the fyrd had started to flee from the incessant hail of arrows and now the Norman knights were forming up for another charge with the infantry behind them. Meanwhile, from the noise to his right he was fairly certain that the Bretons were rolling up the defence as they advanced along the ridge.

  Wulfric braced himself for the charge and managed to plunge his sword into the chest of a warhorse before something hit him on the head and he fell to the ground unconscious.

  ~#~

  Hugo had spotted Wulfric in the Saxon line earlier on and had seen him putting up a gallant defence. But now he saw him go down out of the corner of his eye and made a rough note of where he had fallen. Hugo was fighting two housecarls at the time and was hard pressed to keep them at bay. Then another knight drove his lance though one of them and a man-at-arms chopped into the exposed side of the other as Hugo parried his sword. Once again Hugo was though the shield wall but this time the fyrd was already fleeing. As the Normans broke through and rolled up the Saxon line the fighting dissolved into isolated pockets of resistance. The fiercest fighting was round the two English standards of the Dragon of Wessex and the Fighting Man.

  Hugo left them to it and went in search of Wulfric. It took him some time and when he did find him someone had already stripped him of his chain mail shirt. He was breathing but still unconscious so Hugo lifted him across his horse’s back and started down the hill to where Roland waited.

  Once there he examined the Saxon and found out that he had a bad cut in the back of his head. Roland bathed it and bandaged it then tried to give Wulfric a drink of water. He coughed and spluttered as soon as the water reached the back of his mouth. His eyes opened but they were unfocused, then he lapsed back into oblivion.

  It wasn’t until Roland helped him off with his hauberk that Hugo noticed that he had a considerable number of minor flesh wounds. One of his boots was difficult to get off because two of the protective metal strips that lined them had been badly dented. He reflected that, had it not been for the metal reinforcements, he would have lost his foot. The squire set about stitching up his wounds and so absorbed were they – Hugo by the pain and Roland by the task - that they didn’t notice Rollo de St. Laurent dismount nearby and silently walk towards them with sword in hand.

  ~#~

  Oswin had reached Dorchester on 11th October to find that only half the fyrd had been mustered. He pleaded with the ealdorman to set out with what he men had in order the reach the rendezvous by the time stipulated by King Harold. However the old man would have none of it.

  ‘King Harold will wait until the muster is complete before committing himself to battle.’ He told Oswin complacently.

  ‘You haven’t seen the rage the king was in over the despoliation of Sussex. Nothing will stop him from engaging the Normans as soon as possible and he will need us there.’

  ‘Better that he outnumbers the Normans in a day or two than he risks being overwhelmed now, surely he can see that.’

  ‘Have you considered the outcome if he loses?’

  The ealdorman shrugged. ‘Then we will form another army and defeat them then. There are many, many more English than there are invaders you know. If Harold is so stupid that he can’t wait until he is certain of victory then he deserves to lose the throne.’

  ‘That is treason, my lord.’ Oswin had to refrain from hitting the man. ‘And who will lead us if Harold dies?’

  ‘Why Leofwine or one of the other earls and Edgar the Atheling will be king, as he always should have been. But he won’t; Harold will wait for reinforcements’

  There was nothing Oswin could say to change the ealdorman’s mind.

  Late on the afternoon of 14th October the Dorsetshire Fyrd, together with that of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire, nearly five thousand men with another three hundred housecarls belonging to the nobles and thanes, neared Caldbec Hill only to be met by fleeing Saxons. The reinforcements were far too strong to be bothered by the isolated groups of pursuing Normans but they had arrived too late to change the outcome of the battle. Oswin ground his teeth in frustration and wept for what might have been.

  After a hasty conference the leaders decided to disperse back to their counties and wait for the summons from Edgar. Oswin was left alone as dusk fell. He briefly considered looking for the bodies of his father and three brothers but he knew that, if he did, he would soon be killed by the Normans scouring the battlefield.

  For a while he watched the English wounded being killed where they lay, frustrated at not being able to do anything to stop it. Then, as it started to get dark, he sorrowfully turned his horse and, with a last glance at the battlefield where so many of his countrymen had died, decided to head for Burneham; though how long the manor would remain in his family’s hands remained to be seen.

  Chapter Eight – Aftermath: October 1066 to May 1067 A.D.

  Just as Rollo raised his sword to strike something made Hugo glance up. He was paralysed, realising that there was nothing he could do to save himself. Roland was holding his sword arm tightly as he pushed a needle through the skin to sew up a cut and, in any case, Hugo’s sword lay several feet away where he had discarded it.

  Then the expression on Rollo’s twisted face changed from a triumphant leer to one of complete shock as an arrow took him in the neck. The archer walked over and drew his dagger across Rollo’s throat to make sure he was dead. Hugo and Roland looked at him in amazement.

  ‘Ralph, I don’t know how to thank you. How did you know?’

  ‘I didn’t. I was just coming to find you to give you Tristan’s bow. He wanted you to have it.’ Tears were streaming down the boy’s face.

  ‘Is he..?’ Hugo began.

  Ralph nodded dumbly. ‘He was killed in the fighting around the English flags right at the end.’

  ‘Ralph, I am so sorry.’ Hugo thought back to the day when Tristan had first broken ranks with the other squires and warned Hugo about Rollo. It seemed somehow fitting that his brother should bring that particular chapter to an end.

  ‘Roland, finish sewing me up then take a horse and go with Ralph to bring Sir Tristan back here where we can look after him until we can bury him properly.’ Roland nodded and quickly finished tending to Hugo.

  It was nearly dusk by the time that they found Tristan and put his body across the horse. Roland looked across at Calbec Hill where a lone figure sat on a horse staring at them. It was too difficult to make out who it was at that distance in the gathering gloom but Roland had a uncanny feeling that it was Oswin. Roland wondered what now lay in store for the Saxon, and for his brother lying down below the hill with Sir Hugo.

  By the time they got back Rollo’s body had disappeared. Hugo told them later that he had put it over his courser and had taken it out on the battlefield to dump. He had broken the arrow and pulled the two halves out as the arrow was identifiable as Norman.

  The next morning the other members of the conroi slowly rode in. Of the twenty six that had paraded the previous day only fourteen were left alive and two of those were badly wounded. Hugo went off to report to his battalion commander.

  ‘All my conrois have had similar losses, I fear.’ Guillaume told him. ‘The duke has decided to stay here for a while to regroup and to give the English nobles a chance to come in and pay him fealty now that Harold is dead.’

  ‘I suspect that he may be sadly disappointed in the latter regard. How did Harold die?’

  ‘Four knights fought their way through his housecarls and hacked him down. However the duke isn’t that pleased with them as they dismembered his corpse. But I don’t think that the
battle marked the end of the duke’s conquest of England, merely the end of the beginning.’

  ‘What happened now? We have lost so many men that I don’t believe we will be in a fit state to leave here for some time.’

  ‘That’s where you are wrong. We move on Dover and then Canterbury starting in five days’ time.’ He changed the subject. ‘Do you have any squires in your conroi who are suitable for knighting?’

  ‘Well I certainly have a lot more squires than knights.’ Hugo thought for a moment. ‘There are three who are twenty and Roland, who is only nineteen but who I would like to see receive the accolade now.’

  ‘That would give you sixteen and leave you with, let me see, twenty two squires?’ Hugo nodded.

  ‘I have another six squires who will be newly appointed knights by tonight so that will make your conroi up to twenty two. That will have to do for now.’

  ‘Thank you. When will the ceremony be?’

  ‘No ceremony. There isn’t time with everything else we have to do. I’ll send them to you and you knight them with the duke’s blessing. That way you will have their loyalty from the start.’