A continuous line of trees ran along the top of the ridge to that rise, which would help provide cover for the Welshmen as they moved into position, and would with any luck prevent them being spotted from the mill.
‘And the others, lord?’ Giro asked.
‘They’re to join us here. We will trap the enemy with the river at their backs.’
There was no bridge close by, and the waters looked too deep and fast-running to be fordable. We would drive the horsemen into a corner, or else further up the valley, into the ranks of the Welsh shield-wall. Either way they would be forced to surrender.
That, at least, was the plan. No sooner had the rest of our host assembled in that copse than Berengar was barging through the ranks towards me, his face a picture of fury.
‘Out of my way,’ he said as he shouldered his way past Pons and Turold.
‘Quiet,’ I hissed. ‘What do you want now?’
‘What kind of a fool are you, sending the Welshmen on ahead? How do you expect to be able keep an eye on them now?’
I bridled, but somehow managed to keep my calm. ‘Keep an eye on them?’
‘Don’t you realise what will happen? Or are you blind as well as stupid?’
‘Berengar-’
‘They will betray us,’ he snarled, his face so close to mine that spittle struck my cheek. ‘And it will be your fault. Fitz Osbern made a mistake when he made you leader of this expedition, but we are the ones who will pay for it.’
‘That’s enough,’ Turold said. ‘Know your place-’
But Berengar wasn’t listening. ‘You will kill us,’ he said. ‘You will kill us all with your foolishness! Am I the only one who sees it?’
Serlo clamped a hand on his shoulder. Berengar whirled about, faster than I would have thought a man of his size could manage, thrusting his elbow in Serlo’s face. Suddenly the knight was reeling, clutching at his nose as blood spilt through his fingers.
Without pausing to think I lunged at Berengar. He wasn’t expecting it and in spite of his weight I managed to topple him. The two of us crashed to the ground, and I was on top with both hands gripping his throat, throttling him, until suddenly I felt hands on my arms and around my torso, tearing me away and dragging me to my feet.
‘Tancred!’ someone shouted in my ear, and in the other, ‘Forget him, lord. He’s worth less than a goat’s turd.’
I struggled, but it was no use. Slowly I came to my senses to find Wace and Pons either side of me, pinning my arms and preventing me from moving. Berengar lay on the ground, red-faced with anger, breathlessness and, I suspected, more than a touch of embarrassment. He struggled to get up, helped by his knights. He spat in my direction, his eyes filled with a look of such hatred and vengeance as I had rarely seen.
‘You go too far, Breton,’ he said. ‘Too far!’
I was about to reply, when something else caught my attention. About forty paces away, some of the knights had left their horses and broken from the line and were pursuing another figure through the undergrowth. They had mail and shields to slow them down, however, whereas he had none, and I saw that they would not catch them.
‘Hey,’ one said. ‘Get back here!’
It took me a moment to realise what had happened. While the men guarding him had been distracted, Haerarddur, the Welshman we had captured at Caerswys, had managed to get away from them. Now he was crashing through nettles and branches, half stumbling over exposed roots, making for the open ground beyond the woods.
Swearing, I shook off the hands of Pons and Wace. ‘Fetch me Nihtfeax!’ I said, in an instant forgetting about Berengar.
Already Haerarddur had reached the fields that lay between the copse and the mill, and now he began waving his arms wildly, shouting something in Welsh. A warning, I guessed, for through the leaves and the branches suddenly I spied movement by the ruined mill as men came to see what was going on. So much for our surprise attack, I thought.
My destrier was brought to me by Snocca. I took the reins and a javelin from Cnebba as I worked my feet through the stirrups and gripped the crossed straps of my shield in my palm.
‘Go! Go now!’ I shouted to my conroi and to all the other lords. ‘Ride!’
We burst out from the trees in pursuit of the Welshman, who for all his years was a fast runner. The enemy had been slow to react, at first seemingly bemused at the sight of one of their countrymen flailing down the hill, but suddenly they understood. They rushed to their horses, mounting up and hacking with knives and swords at the ropes that tethered them. They had seen our numbers, and none among them wished to fight.
Behind me our war-horn blasted out. At its bellow Haerarddur risked a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder. He saw us bearing down on him but he did not stop running; in fact if anything it seemed to spur him on, though he must have known that he could not hope to outpace us.
I hefted my javelin tightly, drew it back, then hurled it at his exposed back. It sailed through the air, wobbling in the air as it descended before striking home. The steel point drove through his ribs and out the other side. He sank to his knees, gasping for breath that would not come, clutching in vain at the spearhead protruding from his chest. Eudo was not far behind. He swerved to the left to give his sword-arm room, and then it was just as if he were practising against cabbages at the stakes in the training yard. He swung the blade down; the edge sliced through the Welshman’s neck, in one blow severing the head with its lank hair and gaping mouth, sending it flying. It landed amidst the long grass at the same time as the rest of the corpse collapsed forward.
Ahead of us stood the low stone wall, and beyond that the mill and the river. The last few enemy horsemen were making their escape, and in their hurry to get away they left behind their carts and their oxen. The animals had been spooked by the sound of the horn and the sight of us riding hard towards them, and now they were scattering in all directions, lolloping in ungainly fashion.
The enemy had a couple of hundred paces on us, but as long as Ithel and Maredudd were ready for them that should not matter. We would drive the enemy into range of the Welshmen’s bows. Between the two halves of our host they would find themselves trapped with no place to go.
Blood pounded through my skull as I yelled out, ‘On, on, on; for Normandy!’
The cry was passed down the line as we spurred on across the meadows. A few pulled ahead of me, their mounts enjoying the feeling of open ground beneath their hooves. Normally I would have called on them to keep formation, but the only thing that mattered now was speed. Most of the enemy were not burdened by hauberks and chausses as we were, which meant that even though their horses were smaller than ours, they were beginning to open the distance. Already they had almost reached the bottom of the rise where I had sent Maredudd and Ithel with their men. I hoped they were in place; any moment now a flurry of arrows should be let loose from out of those trees, the spearmen would march out from their hiding place and form a shield-wall to block off the valley floor, and we would fall upon the enemy from behind.
Except that the arrows did not come. Nor was there any sign of the spearmen, and still the enemy were drawing away from us.
‘Faster!’ I shouted, for all the good that it would do. ‘Faster! Ride harder!’
The enemy passed beneath the rise, not one hundred paces from the thicket where our Welsh allies were supposed to be waiting. I gripped the straps of my shield in one hand, the reins in the other, as silently I prayed to God and all the saints: let the arrows fly. But still they did not. Where were they? Unless they had found a better position further ahead, though I couldn’t work out where. Beyond that thicket, the valley broadened out and the only cover was provided by the thorny briar patches beside the riverbank.
Hooves thudded upon the soft ground, kicking up turf and stones. Nihtfeax’s mane whipped in the wind; my cheeks were wet from the drizzle blowing in my face. I dug my heels in, drawing every last ounce of strength that I could from his legs.
‘For Normandy,’ someone shouted close by my flank. I risked a glance and saw that it was Eudo, his eyes filled with the battle-joy and the thrill of the charge, fixed on the horsemen ahead of us. ‘For King Guillaume!’
And that was when it happened, so quickly that at first I could not quite comprehend it. A cluster of black lines shot out from the thicket, their silver points bearing down not upon the enemy but upon us. There was a sharp
