Including those who had this moment arrived from the fastness, I guessed that we had fewer than four hundred in that square — too few given that we had come to Dunholm with a thousand and a half. Most of those men were spearmen and horsemen, but there were some archers too, busily loosing volley after volley into the English ranks, though it seemed to me they were only wasting their arrows; most of the enemy had shields and few of the missiles got through.
Lord Robert rode towards me. His hauberk was spattered with English blood, his eyes were bloodshot and he bore a bright cut across his cheek.
‘Tancred,’ he said.
He extended a hand and I clasped it in my own. ‘My lord,’ I replied.
‘They were waiting for us,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘As I said they would be.’
‘They were.’ I would have liked to know how they had managed to break into the town, where so many men had come from, but it seemed to me pointless to be asking then, when they were standing but fifty paces from us. It looked as if the whole of Northumbria had gathered to drive us out from Dunholm. I glanced back at our small host arrayed below the church, their anxiety almost palpable in the air. My spirits fell, for I knew that we could not hope to drive the enemy off.
‘We have to fall back to the fastness while we still can,’ I said to Robert.
He came closer, lowering his voice so that the others around us could not hear. ‘If we do that, we hand them the town,’ he said. ‘We don’t have supplies to withstand a siege. We must fight them now.’
‘We don’t have the numbers, lord,’ I said. ‘If we retreat we can gather our strength, sally out on our own terms.’
‘No,’ Robert said, and his dark eyes bored into me. ‘They fear us, Tancred. See how reluctant they are to attack! We will defeat them tonight and we will defeat them here.’
‘They haven’t attacked because all they need do is hold us here,’ I pointed out. ‘The rest will come around the side streets.’ And I told him how we had come upon a group of them close by the bridge. ‘They’ll return, and when they do it will be in greater numbers than before. When that happens, we’ll be trapped here with no hope of retreat.’
He remained silent. The English continued to bang their shields; some of the Norman lords were doing the same as they tried to encourage their men.
‘Take thirty knights, then,’ he said at last. ‘Try to head the enemy off.’ He began to marshal a dozen or so of his men to go with me as he retied his helmet-strap under his chin.
I swallowed, for I knew if we became cut off from the main army, then we were all dead men. But the order had been given and I could not refuse.
‘Give me forty,’ I called after him.
He looked back at me. For a moment he hesitated, as if uncertain what to do, but then he nodded and gave the signal for ten more of his men to follow me.
‘If you can’t head them off, then we’ll have to retreat,’ he said. His lips were solemn and his eyes had the look of one who was beginning to see only failure ahead of him; a look that, in twelve years of campaigning, I had never seen him wear. This was the man who had led us at Varaville and at H?stinges, who had rallied us when all had seemed lost, whose temperament never wavered, whose prowess at arms was bettered by none — and yet I saw his despair. A sudden chill came over me.
He rode back to the head of his men. Breathing deeply, I raised my lance and waved the pennon so that the whole of my conroi could see me. There were men of all ages: some young and fresh-faced, who had only recently sworn their oaths to Robert; others who had served him since before the invasion, who were nearly as old as myself.
‘Stay close to me,’ I said to them. ‘Keep in mind always that the strength of the charge is in weight of numbers. Watch your flanks; don’t lose sight of the men beside you.’
I checked to see who was behind me, and was relieved to find Eudo and Fulcher and Gerard, though none of them were looking at me then; their eyes were either closed or fixed on the ground. Perhaps they were thinking over the instructions I had just given, or perhaps they were imagining the charge and what they would do when we met the English line.
I glanced once more towards Robert, who was speaking now with one of the other lords, his face red as he gestured wildly at some of the men further along our line. I swallowed once more, but as I lifted the hawk pennon high above my head, all my doubts fell away. For I knew that in twelve years of fighting I had faced worse circumstances than this, and had made it through. As long as we kept faith in our sword-arms, we would yet prevail.
‘For Normandy,’ I shouted.
My heart pounded as hard as Rollo’s hooves as we climbed back past the church and on around the bend, towards the western side of the town. That was where the enemy would be coming from, if they were coming at all, for the approach to the promontory was less steep there than it was on the eastern side. We passed the place where we had fought our skirmish earlier, though the road was now empty.
‘This way!’ I said, as I cut to the right, down a street so narrow that three of us could barely ride abreast, between houses on one side and wattle-work fencing on the other. I caught a glimpse of the river to our left, a ribbon of deepest black weaving beneath the trees.
Then the houses came to an end and we came out on to a field of furrowed earth, some thirty paces in width and perhaps two or three times as long. And there, at the far end, from out of the midst of the houses, were Normans fleeing towards us, scores of them on horseback and on foot. Behind them, roaring, running forward with torches bobbing and weapons drawn, came the enemy.
Three
I lowered my lance, gripping it firmly in my right hand just as I clutched at the brases of my shield in my left.
‘On!’ I called to my conroi. ‘For St Ouen, Lord Robert and King Guillaume!’
‘For King Guillaume!’ they returned the cry, and we were racing across the field, scores of hooves trampling down the furrows, kicking up mud and stones. Beside me rode Eudo and Fulcher and Gerard, knee to knee, with three more on either flank, so that there were ten of us in that first line, leading the charge. A few on our right were beginning to draw ahead, and I shouted to them to keep formation, though how many could have heard, above the thunder of hooves and wind buffeting in their faces, I did not know.
The fleeing Normans scattered from our path. The enemy were behind them still, a tide of men rushing forth to meet us, but we drove on, and then we were among them, crashing our lances into their shields and their faces, riding over their bodies as they fell. The rest of the conroi were behind us as we tore into their ranks, beating down with our swords, and the screams of the dying filled the air.
‘
Unlike the rest who went without armour, or at best with only a leather jerkin, he wore mail. His sword-hilt was inlaid with gold, and I took him for a thegn — one of the English leaders — for he was rallying his men to him, until seemingly without any signal being given they began running at us, their spears levelled forwards. So eager were they to die, however, that they came not all at once with shields overlapping, but rather in ragged fashion.
I charged on with Eudo and Gerard and the rest beside me, cleaving, battering the enemy down, until the thegn himself stood before me. His teeth were gritted and his face was red as he aimed his spearpoint at Rollo’s neck, but I swerved right and it hammered into my shield instead, sending a shudder up through my shoulder and knocking me backwards against the cantle. I gripped Rollo tight with my legs, determined not to fall.
He drew his gilded sword and made to attack again, but before he could, Eudo had come around by his flank and was slashing across the man’s unprotected forearm, through the bone, severing the hand which remained still gripped around the sword-hilt. The man screamed and stumbled back, clutching at the bloody stump, but in doing so he brought his shield out of position, and his head was exposed.
