Knights of the Hawk

while another, gangly and with dark hair trailing from beneath his helmet-rim, grabbed hold of my spear-arm. I smashed my boss into the first’s temple, then jabbed my elbow into the second’s chin, sending both stumbling backwards and bringing me a moment’s respite, although it had to be only a matter of time before they overwhelmed us.

‘There are too many of them,’ Serlo shouted, as if I didn’t already know. ‘We can’t-’

‘Hold firm,’ I said, shouting him down. Whatever he had to say, I didn’t want to hear it. ‘Stay close and don’t let them through!’

My heart was hammering in my chest and my lungs were burning as I struggled to breathe. I was determined, though, not to give in. Not while I still had a sword in my hand and my head upon my shoulders. I would keep the battle-anger blazing in my veins as long as I could. If this was my fate, then the least I could do was take as many of the Devil-spawn with me as possible.

That was when the shouting began. Cries of surprise, of panic and of pain filled the air, together with howls of the wounded and the dying.

It took me a few moments to realise that those shouts weren’t in French but in English. That they weren’t coming from among my countrymen, but from the ranks of the enemy. I risked a glance towards the source of the screaming, and at first was convinced that my eyes were deceiving me. Surely I had to be imagining this. For what I saw seemed like a gift from God. My heart swelled with relief and joy, my limbs coursed with renewed strength, and suddenly I was laughing.

Laughing, because those men of the white stag weren’t marching to aid their countrymen. They were coming to kill them.

Morcar had held to his word after all. He had arrived not a moment too soon, and now the slaughter would begin.

Eleven

Like me, the foemen surrounding us were slow to understand what was happening. When they did, however, the collapse was as complete as it was sudden. No matter how many times I have seen it, it never ceases to surprise me how quickly a battle-line will crumble when fear and uncertainty take hold, and so it was then. One instant they were pressing at us, their war-cries filling my ears, drowning out my thoughts, and the next they were abandoning the struggle, running in all directions: towards the ramparts, towards the shore, towards the copses of alder and willow, towards anywhere they might find shelter. They didn’t realise that between our forces and those of their erstwhile ally, Morcar, they had nowhere to go.

Chaos reigned. Bands of Englishmen who only a few moments ago had been friends, united by a common cause and by their hatred of us, suddenly found themselves on opposite sides and unable to tell each other apart. In their panic some of the enemy mistook their own comrades for Morcar’s troops, and set about one another. All the while the men beneath the stag banner drove on, as relentless as they were disciplined. At the same time the main part of our host was beginning to advance once more, not just the knights but also the spearmen, all led by King Guillaume himself, his helmet-tails flying behind him. Beside him rode his standard-bearer, raising the lion of Normandy for all to see. The golden threads glinted in the morning light, and to the east the sun shone with the promise of victory.

And so the rout began.

‘Kill them!’ I heard Wace shouting, and the order was echoed throughout the conroi, passed on from man to man down the line. For the second time that morning we charged down the fleeing foemen, slicing our blade- points across their necks, slashing at the backs of their legs to fell them, only on this occasion there were none of their friends waiting to surprise us from their hiding places, to halt our charge.

Crumpled bodies of the wounded and the dead lay all about, their leather and mail pierced by sword and knife and spear, their clothes matted to their flesh, their weapons and shields beside them, their eyes open but unseeing. Blood ran in rivulets, pooling in the hollows and running into the ditches and pits the enemy had dug, while elsewhere the ground, trampled and torn up by so many hundreds of feet and hooves, had turned into a sucking quagmire. Through it all we rode to the sound of the victory horn and with roars of sword-joy all around. After the heat of the fray, the battle-calm had descended upon me. Nothing mattered but finding the next man whose lifeblood would foul my gleaming blade. I gave myself over to instinct; each thrust and cut, each parry and drive, came without thinking. Long years of training in the yard and at the quintain had ingrained those movements in my limbs. All I had to do was lose myself to the will of my sword-arm, to let it guide me.

What I do remember is glimpsing a blue, mud-spattered banner ahead of us. Beneath it a thegn and his hearth-troops, his huscarlas, stood amidst the screams and the chants and the roars and the howls, bellowing instructions that went unheard, desperately trying to rally the panicked hordes, but all their efforts were in vain. This must be one of the rebel leaders, I thought. He was the wrong build to be Hereward, for he was possessed of a stocky frame and hunched stance, and was fair-haired besides, but nevertheless I reckoned he must be someone of importance.

‘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?’