The Splintered Kingdom (30 page)

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 Hæstinges 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 was. He was some years older than myself, and he resented me, as he resented Eudo and Wace, for having been rewarded so generously after Eoferwic while he still remained landless, without the honour that a manor of his own would give him. This I knew because he had told me as much on more than one occasion.

‘I want to speak with Robert,’ I said. ‘Let me pass.’

‘You’re not welcome here. It’s because of you that Urse, Adso, Tescelin and the others lie dead.’

I bridled at his tone. Of those three names only the first was familiar, and I tried to remember which one Urse was; after a moment his round, piggish face rose to mind.

‘Because of me? What do you mean?’

‘Leave him, Ansculf,’ called Lord Robert. He strode towards me, his expression tired and hollow. ‘I will speak with him myself.’

But Ansculf was not going to back down readily. ‘Lord, this man—’

‘Enough,’ Robert said sharply. ‘Tancred, come with me.’

I followed him until we were out of easy earshot of his knights, although they kept casting sneering glances in my direction and I could still catch parts of their conversation. They spoke loudly of how my mother was a whore and the daughter of a whore besides, and how they had heard that I preferred the company of men to women: all of it doubtless meant for my ears, to provoke me.

‘They are angry,’ Robert said dismissively. ‘Their sword-brothers are dead and they need someone they can blame.’

‘Then they should blame the men who struck the blows that sent them to their graves,’ I said. ‘What do their deaths have to do with me?’

The words came out more petulantly than I had meant them, and I saw that they had stung Robert. For a moment he looked as though he were about to turn on me, but after a moment’s hesitation he simply shook his head.

We kept walking until we had come to the wolf banner, which had been planted in the ground at the edge of one of the pasture fields. An audience had gathered around Hugues d’Avranches by the time we arrived, and among them I recognised many of the barons who had been there in the hall at Scrobbesburh, their faces red with anger as the young earl tried to shout them down, demanding order.

They fell silent as I approached, and one by one turned to fix their gazes upon me.

‘At last he decides to show his face,’ one of them called. ‘The Breton for whom so much Norman blood has been spilt.’

I felt as though I were on trial, accused of some misdemeanour of which I remained ignorant.

‘What?’ I asked, but no one seemed willing to answer. The Wolf gazed back at me, stony-faced and stern despite his youth, as if somehow I ought to understand already. As if I were stupid for not being able to see it.

‘He is no less a Norman than any of you,’ Robert said. ‘So unless
you have anything useful to say, you would be wise to keep those tongues inside your heads.’

One of the barons shoved me in the shoulder as we made our way through the crowd. Even so many hours after the battle my blood was running hot. The pain of defeat was still fresh, and that small slight was enough to bring my anger to the surface once more. Without pausing to think I shoved him back. In an instant he had drawn his knife and I mine as we faced each other.

‘Put away your weapons,’ the Wolf barked. ‘This is not the time for squabbling.’

‘I’ll sheathe mine as soon as he apologises,’ I said, staring into the cold blue eyes of the one who had laid his hands upon me.

‘Apologise?’ he snorted. ‘To the man on whose account some of my best knights lost their lives? It was your own foolhardiness that led you into the enemy trap. It would have been far better if we had left you and your Welsh friends to your fates.’

‘If you had left us?’ I asked, frowning. ‘What do you mean by that?’

I glanced at Robert, but he would not meet my eyes.

‘I didn’t have to come and rescue your wretched hide,’ Earl Hugues said. His voice was hoarse, but there was no mistaking his frustration. ‘You weren’t supposed to meet the enemy host at all. If you hadn’t blundered into their ambush, we could have forced them to meet us on ground that suited us.’

‘Why did you come, then?’ I demanded. ‘Tell me that. If there was no advantage to be had, why did you commit your men at all?’

‘Because of your lord.’ He gestured at Robert. ‘He convinced me to meet the enemy in battle, to take the fight to the brothers Rhiwallon and Bleddyn. You would not be standing here now were it not for him, so have some respect and be thankful that you and your companions still live while so many do not.’

His fiery gaze burnt into me, but I held it. Eventually he turned away, shaking his head. A hush fell; no one dared to speak.

Lord Robert was the one to break the silence as he said: ‘What do we do now?’

‘We return to Scrobbesburh and make ready to face the enemy there,’ the Wolf replied.

‘You’d have us retreat?’ I asked.

‘We haven’t the strength to fight another battle,’ the Wolf replied. ‘On the other hand the enemy’s confidence will have grown in the wake of their victory. As the news spreads, even more men will flock to their banners. Soon they will march again.’

‘One of their kings lies dead, struck down on the field,’ I said. ‘If ever there was a time to strike, it is now, before they have the chance to rally and bolster their numbers.’

‘Look around you, Tancred,’ said Hugues, an exasperated glint in his eyes. ‘Look at the faces of the men. How many of them do you think have the heart for another clash with the enemy? Many have lost friends and brothers and most are half-starved besides. How well do you think that they’ll fight on empty stomachs?’