asking Roger and Thorkell to be godfathers. With the military campaigns underway it was likely to be some time before all the required people could gather for the baptism.
Being November the activity associated with harvest was over and the autumn ploughing complete. The harvested grain was stored safely in the granaries and the sacks of salt from the salt-pans was in the salt-houses awaiting later processing and sale. Fruit and vegetables had been gathered and either stored in barrels or preserved by drying, pickling or made into jams. The small barrels of honey from those villages with bee-hives had been dispatched to the towns for sale. The annual sale or killing of animals that would not be able to be cared for by the villagers over the winter had commenced. Cattle and swine were driven off to the market at Colchester. The small sheep, little more than knee high, were less susceptible to the rigours of winter due to their wool fleeces and would require only the provision of hay over the winter. Beef and pork was smoked, salt-cured or pickled for use over the winter, either as joints stored in barrels or as sausages hung from the roofs of store-rooms to keep the rats at bay.
Anne ensured that the poultry pens belonging to the Hall, containing chickens, geese, ducks, quail and pheasant, were ready to protect their inhabitants both from the winter weather and from hungry foxes. Firewood was cut and stacked under cover to provide winter warmth. Acorns were gathered from the forests to ensure that the swine in their pens in all the villages for the winter could use the bounty of the forest before it disappeared under snow. The fisherman plied their nets in the shallow waters of the Colne estuary with any surplus catch being dried, smoked or salted for the winter.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The North November 1069
A week later a summons was received from Robert Count of Eu for the knights and men-at-arms of Essex to march north to Lincoln. There he was amassing a force to retake York, while not taking men who were desperately needed in the south-west and west of the kingdom.
Alan was annoyed to receive the summons. He already had eighteen of his own men and two ships in the king’s service, and had negotiated freedom from the requirement to provide feudal levies. He was determined to leave a strong force to protect Tendring Hundred and took with him just one squadron of ten of the Wolves led by Edric, who as usual had his one-handed battle-axe hanging from his saddle pommel. Pack-horses carried weapons, armour, tents, pots and pans and a week of supplies for man and beast. Robert fitzWymarc’s man Gerard de Cholet from Elmstead with several men rode separately from Alan’s party. Engelric’s man Leax of Birch Hall and his half- dozen English retainers chose to ride with Alan’s men.
They rode west through the flat and almost featureless countryside to Cambridge, braving the cold and blustery weather, before turning north and joining the Roman Ermine Road. Swamps and fenlands were on their right to the east as they rode through long passages of wasteland interspersed with occasional villages and cultivated land. Other parties of armed men, both on horse and on foot, were moving north, along with slow-moving ox-drawn wagons carrying supplies and weapons.
With winter drawing in and with short hours of daylight it was the evening of the third day before they rode across the bridge at Lincoln and up Steep Hill to the castle. The city was crowded with armed men, much more so than when Alan had been here just a few weeks previously. The castle was packed with men and Alan was instructed to have his men set up their tents on the eastern side of the city, where a veritable canvas city had been created. The other Normans, being only men-at-arms and not knights, were directed to the camp without even the courtesy of riding into the castle.
Due to his position and influence, Alan was given a small room in the castle barracks which he was to share with three other Normans. After using a bucket of ice-cold water to wash off the sweat and grime from three days of travel, Alan dressed in a clean tunic and hose before venturing down to the Hall where the two Counts, Robert of Mortain and Robert of Eu, were sitting together with a dozen or so men. A map of the northern route to Durham was unrolled on the table before them, each corner being weighed down by a cup of wine.
“Ah, Sir Alan! Join us please!” exclaimed Robert of Mortain. “We’ve received some information from your men and are looking at how best to use it. I understand that you scouted the way north from here last year for the king, so you know the lay of the land?”
“In general terms,” replied Alan. “I know each bridge and defensible position, but not every tree or god- forsaken swamp.” He was handed a cup of wine and took a sip. “This is not a good map,” he commented after a close examination of the parchment. “What information do we have?”
“The Danes are to be here in two days time.” Robert of Mortain indicated a place on the map.
“Ashby,” said Alan. “South of the Humber and on the edge of the fens. They’re now camped on the Isle of Axholme. Why should they move?”
“Some sort of local celebration. I’m told it’s because the locals haven’t had to pay the royal taxes for two years. The Danes have been invited and it’s not very far from their base.”
Alan scowled, “That seems a weak excuse for them to be there, but knowing your sources the information is likely to be correct. I don’t know that area. It’s well to the east of the direct route to York. You’ll need to get some good local guides. How many men have you got?”
“I’m taking 2,000, and leaving 500 here,” replied the Count.
“And the Danes?”
“Probably about the same.”
“Then let’s pray for surprise, because the Danes are damn good fighters if you give them an even chance, and men on horse don’t perform very well in swamps,” said Alan with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Amen,” muttered several around the table.
The men marched north well before dawn the next day. Lincoln to Ashby is thirty miles and that evening the army stopped five miles short of Ashby on one of the few patches of higher and relatively dry ground in a flat green landscape of marshes and fens. Numerous scouts were sent to both screen the army from prying eyes and to seek the enemy. Word was received that there was indeed a substantial gathering at Ashby. Late in the day came reports that the Danish ships were as expected at Axholme, not far to the north-west.
The Anglo-Norman army marched north in the fading moonlight, striking camp at three in the morning. An army of 2,000 men does not move quickly at any time, even if many are on horseback, and the darkness did nothing to speed their progress. However, when first light came at half-past seven they were where their generals wished, about a mile south of the village of Ashby- but they were strung out along the narrow and muddy track that led to the village.
The vanguard pushed forward to seize part of the hummock on which the village was built. The remains of numerous fires littered the Green, surrounded by large numbers of men who were just stirring from their blankets after what appeared to have been a night of heavy drinking. Shouts of alarm rose in the air as the approaching army was seen and suddenly the small and evidently poor village burst into activity as men seized weapons and gathered to face the Anglo-Normans who were now running up the road to get into formation.
The Danes, although numerous, were at a decided disadvantage. Taken by surprise they struggled to form a line, their leaders shouting for their own men to form up on them. They had come for a party and not a battle, so while all had their personal weapons at hand, none wore armour. This was a repeat of the mistake made by the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge. Just as the marshland surrounding the town and the narrow tracks to and from the village impeded the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, so the Danes were prevented from making an orderly withdrawal. However, their bellicose response to the approach of the Anglo-Normans indicated that whether they would have chosen to retreat was doubtful, with only a few men at the rear taking the opportunity to slip away along the tracks leading north.
Robert of Mortain was at the centre of the mainly Norman force as it formed line, mounted on his huge destrier and towering above the armoured men-at-arms that crammed on foot into the tiny battlefield that was barely 200 paces wide by 300 paces deep. The Danes stood in a haphazard manner in a line near one end of the battlefield, the line stretching from the swamp to the east to the swamp on the west.
