now and none dared challenge him. ‘For Fitz Osbern and for King Guillaume!’
That was when I recognised his pudgy face and his stout build. Berengar. It shouldn’t have mattered to me who had taken the flag, but somehow, even amidst everything else that was happening, it did. I only hoped he did not expect me to make good on my offer.
Having seen their banner and their king fall, Rhiwallon’s men were turning tail now, but they were not the only ones. Bleddyn and his retainers had driven deep into Earl Hugues’s ranks, and on all sides were cutting Normans down in their dozens. Blood sprayed and mailed knights toppled from their saddles, and suddenly those conrois were breaking. A horn blasted out: a single long note that was the signal to withdraw. The white wolf and the black and gold were turning, and suddenly along the whole battle-line knights were peeling off, taking to flight. Nor was this the feigned flight that we often practised, that had worked at H?stinges to draw the enemy out from their positions and help divide their forces. I had campaigned long enough to recognise panic, and theirs was real enough.
The Welshmen pursued them in their hordes, running through those who were too tired or injured to flee, with Bleddyn and his mounted bodyguard leading the massacre.
The battle was lost. After everything, we had failed, and now the field belonged to the enemy. Anger boiled within my veins.
Even as I sat there, my feet rooted to the stirrups, a red-faced Wace was shouting, not just to his men, but to everyone: ‘Retreat! Go north; follow the river!’
Similar cries were raised by the other barons, weary horses were spurred on again, and I had no choice but to follow. Around me men were running, abandoning their pursuit of the enemy, abandoning the fight as fear took hold of them.
Maredudd’s retainers helped him to his feet and on to his horse. His eyes were tight shut, his face contorted in agony, the thigh of his trews dark with blood. His men were gathering one by one, standing by their horses and watching, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around them, to the sound of the war-horns and sight of the men fleeing. I had seen men take worse injuries and live, but not often. And yet one thing was for certain: he would die if we did not get him away from there.
Not ten paces away lay Rhiwallon’s body, his eyes wide in death, his mouth hanging open as if gasping for breath. The black-crested helmet was still attached to his head, but even were it not, I would still have recognised him by his red moustache. His throat had been slit and Maredudd’s dagger with its gold-worked hilt left in his groin for good measure.
‘It is done,’ Maredudd said when I rode alongside him. ‘His life for my brother’s.’
His breath came in stutters and I could see it was hard for him to speak, let alone find the French words.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We have to get away from here while we can.’
Only too well did I understand his grief. And for all his arrogance, I had liked Ithel too. But there would be time enough for that later. Serlo was shouting at me, telling me to leave the Welsh whoresons behind; that if they wanted to stay and get themselves killed, that was their choice and not mine.
The chants of the enemy were growing ever louder, ever closer. I glanced once more across the muddied field towards those lines of brightly painted shields and shining bosses marching towards us, then I turned and spurred Nihtfeax on, following my conroi, thinking of nothing save pushing harder, riding faster. Hooves churned what was left of the turf into a quagmire as, with the enemy’s cries of victory lifting to the stone-grey heavens, we raced across the meadows, through the cold mist and the soaking rain, away from that place.
Seventeen
The enemy did not pursue us. No doubt Rhiwallon’s death had shaken them, and left them without the stomach for a long chase. It was small relief. Our raiding-army — the one that not much more than a week ago had ridden to war dreaming of blood and of glory — was all but shattered. Of the five hundred with which I’d begun that day, less than half now remained. Nor had Earl Hugues’s host fared any better, as I saw when eventually we caught up with him. He’d left Scrobbesburh at the head of fifteen hundred fighting men, but whereas his spearnen were still for the most part fresh, having never had the chance to face the enemy, easily half his knights — his best fighters — now lay dead.
In all it was a sorry band of warriors that we were left with: spent, bruised and broken, in spirit if not in body; limping, leaning on the hafts of their spears and shoulders of their friends for support; their faces smeared with dirt, their tunics soaked in vomit and their trews reeking of piss and shit. Many were grievously wounded, soon to leave this world for whatever fate awaited them beyond, comforted in their final moments by their companions.
Among those left behind was Turold. He had clung to life as long as he could, they said, but the spear that had pierced his side had been driven deep, and the wound was too severe. His final breath had left his lips moments after he had been dragged from the fray.
‘He was a good fighter,’ Serlo said once the priest had left us. The big man was not usually one to show his emotion, but I saw the lump in his throat as he swallowed.
Pons’s head was bowed towards the ground. ‘A good fighter,’ he echoed, more solemnly than I had ever heard him speak. ‘And a good friend.’
I nodded silently; there was nothing more I could add. Turold had been the first of my knights to enter my service, mere days after Lord Robert had granted me Earnford. The only son of a wine merchant from Rudum, when I met him he had been begging outside the alehouses of Lundene, having been cast out by his drunkard of a father not long before. Three boys his age had taken a dislike to him for whatever reason: perhaps he had insulted them, or else they were simply looking for a fight, for they had set upon him. For a while he held them off, wrestling one to the ground, biting the arm of another and kneeing him in the groin, and bloodying the nose of the third. Eventually, however, they got the better of him, and he was pinned against the wall. Had I not frightened them away then he would probably have ended up with broken bones, or worse. Still, for one who had never had any training he had proven himself a ferocious fighter, and I saw that his youthful appearance belied a quick temper and a stout heart.
Perhaps it was because I was sorry for him, or because he reminded me in some small way of myself at that age, but I took him in. It was often said among men of noble birth that if a boy had never ridden a horse or begun to practise sword- and spearcraft by the age of twelve, then he was fit only to be a priest. That said, I was into my fourteenth summer when I started on that path, and things had not turned out badly for me. Turold was seventeen, he reckoned, though he did not know exactly. Despite that he was a sturdier lad than I had been, and already a talented horseman, with a natural affinity for the animals: a more accomplished rider, in fact, than many men twice his age. Eager to learn and to please, he spent hours each day in the training yard, practising his cuts and strokes at the pell. Within months he was using the skills he had learnt on the Welsh bands who came raiding across the dyke.
It all seemed so long ago. In fact I had known Turold little more than a year, hard though that was to believe; it felt like much longer. But while Pons and Serlo both seemed to take his death hard, I could feel only numbness.
Our host finally halted some hours later. Thankfully there had been no sign of enemy scouts following us, and so we had some respite while we decided what to do next. Still, we were in a low-lying position in open farmland that afforded little protection; the only reason we had stopped was because so many were collapsing from exhaustion. The sooner we could move from here, the better.
I went to seek out the black-and-gold banner. Lord Robert and his knights had survived for the most part with little more than cuts and grazes, together with a few broken teeth. Nonetheless, they were decidedly fewer than when I had last seen them in Scrobbesburh.
Several of the men fixed me with cold stares and spat on the ground when I approached.
‘You,’ one said, rising to block my way. Broad-shouldered and brusque in manner, I recognised him for Ansculf, the captain of Robert’s household. ‘What do you want, Tancred?’
We had met several times, the first of those being a year earlier. I had not liked him much then, and I liked him even less now. As always a thick smell of cattle dung clung to him, though I had never worked out why that
