It had to be them.
‘Stay close,’ I said. ‘From now on, not a sound.’ I glared at Hamo’s men, who as usual were laughing between themselves at some private joke, probably at my expense. ‘We move quickly and we move quietly.’
I didn’t wait for any acknowledgement but spurred Fyrheard on. The path led us to the willow thicket, which stood upon one of the many small islets that dotted the fen. Its slopes were slick with mud, but we struggled up them, ducking beneath low branches, pushing our horses as fast as we dared as the track dipped and rose, until we burst forth from the trees into the blinding brightness, and could see the way stretching out in front of us.
And there I saw them. There were, I reckoned, around three dozen of them, although it was difficult to make an exact count, since they were not all together, but rather strung out along the path, the closest of them a mere hundred paces ahead of us. And those were just the ones who looked to me like warriors, for there were also women and even a few children, scurrying along behind their mothers, not to mention those leading the packhorses, who had taken up the rear.
Hamo gave a whoop. Before I could do or say anything, he was galloping past me down the slope, almost knocking me from the saddle. Behind him thundered the rest of his men, their bows in hand.
‘Kill them,’ he yelled. ‘Kill them!’
‘Hamo!’ I shouted, but it was too late. I’d wanted if possible to surprise the enemy, but there was no chance of that now. I swore aloud.
He nocked an arrow to his bowstring, narrowed his eyes as he pulled back, took aim and then let fly, closely followed by his companions. The air whistled and the midday sun glinted off the steel heads. The first struck one of the sumpter ponies on the rump, tearing through its flesh, and it went down with a shriek, thrashing its hooves and spilling the contents of its packs. The second buried itself in a man’s back and the force of the impact sent him tumbling forward, and then came the rest, raining death upon the Englishmen and their families. Children were screaming and crying; somewhere amongst them a dog was barking, and men were shouting to one another as they realised the danger. While some grabbed the hands of their womenfolk and picked up the smallest of the children to carry them to safety, others were shoving their way to the rear, unslinging their round shields from where they rested across their backs and forming a line to obstruct our path and cover their retreat. The way was wide enough for three men at most to stand abreast and they formed the shield-wall across it.
But they could do nothing to stop the hail of steel. The air whistled as Hamo and his men let another volley fly, and another and another, and they did not seem to care whether they loosed all together or not, for they were merely intent on killing as many as possible and staining the marshes with English blood. One of the women stumbled as she ran, and fell upon the ground. A boy who might have been her son turned to try and help her up, only for an arrow to take him in the chest. The remaining ponies were whinnying, rearing up, kicking out at anyone who came too close, the whites of their eyes showing. The wounded lay on the ground, cursing, yelling out to God and the saints.
And then, striding forward through the throng of fleeing women and children, came Hereward himself. It was only the second time our paths had crossed, and on this occasion he wore a helmet that served to mask his face, but I recognised him at once. His dark hair straggled about his shoulders, and there was the same purpose, the same confidence in his bearing that I remembered. He came with a seax upon his belt and his own bow slung across his back, and with a score of mailed warriors behind him. Abbot Thurstan must have been mistaken, for he didn’t look injured at all.
He roared an instruction that I couldn’t quite make out, but I didn’t need to. At once the shield-wall was breaking and the Englishmen were surging forward with steel in hand and death in their eyes.
‘Get back!’ I yelled at Hamo. The path was too narrow to fight effectively on horseback, but if he and his men could withdraw to join us on the higher ground by the thicket, then we might just have the space in which to give our sword-arms room.
Either Hamo didn’t hear me, though, or else he chose not to listen. Barking an order to the rest of the archers, he drew and loosed another two shafts from his arrow-bag. The first fell wide, disappearing somewhere amongst the sedge, but his second found the throat of one of the onrushing enemy. The man’s legs buckled and he toppled backwards to cries from the comrades into whose path he had fallen. Two of them stumbled as they tried to negotiate his fallen body and, as they did so, their shields dropped out of position, just for the briefest of instants, but it was an instant too long. One dropped his seax as an arrow pierced his upper arm, while another was struck upon the breast; the head must have found a gap between the links of his mail, for the shaft was buried almost up to the fletching. Suddenly the track was slick with blood and obstructed by the corpses of three men, over which the rest now had to climb.
‘
The same bow with which he had felled Pons’s destrier. The same one with which he humiliated me before my own knights.
He drew the string back past his chin and held it there for a few moments before finally releasing it. The arrow sailed over the heads of his countrymen, flashing silver as it flew, spearing towards Hamo and his company. There was a yell and then one of them was tumbling from the saddle to the ground: the gaunt one with the large ears who was forever grumbling about how empty his stomach was.
‘Ansfred!’ one of his friends shouted, but Ansfred was already dead. He lay on his back with his eyes and mouth open, a surprised look fixed on his face, and a white-feathered shaft flecked with scarlet protruding from his chest.
‘Get back!’ I yelled for the second time. Whether it was because they heard me, or because they had seen one of their number fall and had no wish to suffer the same fate, I didn’t know, but finally Hamo’s men seemed to awaken from their bloodlust. As the Englishmen charged towards them, they all began to turn, riding back to join us on the higher ground where the willows stood.
All, that was, except for Hamo himself. Seemingly oblivious to the death of his man, he stood his ground, loosing arrow after arrow as fast as he could draw them from the bag at his side. Most fell wide or else stuck fast in the leather and limewood of the English shields, but a couple found their targets, and I saw that several among the enemy were beginning to waver as they stepped across the bodies of their slain comrades, their feet slipping on the blood-soaked mud, even as those behind pressed forward. Hereward called for them to advance, but while some were paying attention, confusion and indecision had gripped the rest.
Long years of experience had taught me that such moments were fleeting. If we were to take advantage of their confusion, we had to do so quickly. An idea formed in my mind.
‘Stay here,’ I said to Wace and all the other knights as I pushed Fyrheard into a gallop, racing down from the cover of the trees towards the English ranks.
‘What are you doing?’ Wace called. ‘Tancred!’
‘Trust me,’ I shouted back, and then to the withdrawing archers: ‘Form a line in front of the trees. Wait for my signal!’
Hamo must finally have used all his arrows, for only now did he follow the rest of his company. His cheeks were even redder than usual and his face showed a smirk of satisfaction as he rode past.
I checked Fyrheard about fifty paces from the enemy lines, raising my hands in the air, away from my body, to show that I had not come to fight but to speak.
‘Sheathe your swords,’ I said in the English tongue. I was aware that I was taking a chance, but I reckoned that they would be intrigued enough to want to hear what I had to say. ‘I’ve come to speak with your lord.’
I’d lost sight of him among the ranks of his men, but I knew he had to be there somewhere.
‘Where are you, Hereward?’ I shouted. ‘Come and show your face!’
My heart was beating fast. This all depended on my sounding confident, but I was not confident at all. One arrow was all it would take, if Hereward decided to use this opportunity to finish what he had begun one week ago.
His men broke ranks and I saw him. He handed his bow to one of his retainers and strode forward, stepping over the corpses as easily and indifferently as if they were fallen branches.
He stopped about ten paces from me, removed his helmet and that was when I saw him properly for the first time. The man who by his sword-edge had probably accounted for more Normans than any other single Englishman had managed in the last five years. The man who had defied us all these months. But if his pride was at all wounded by being betrayed by his allies, by having to flee the place that for so long he had helped defend, it
