The Conqueror Read online

  ‚ÄòHe is dead.‚Äô A huscarle let fall the limp hand he held. ‚ÄòDead, and the day is lost!‚Äô

  ‚ÄòNo, no!‚Äô Alfwig, the Earl‚Äôs uncle, clasped the body in his arms. ‚ÄòNot dead! not now, with the end so near! Harold, speak! Speak, I charge you! You have not lived this day through to die thus! What, is all then in vain? Alas, alas!‚Äô He let the body fall, and sprang up. ‚ÄòIt is over! The King lies dead for whom we have fought and died, and there is no hope left to us, but only flight! What guard we now? Nothing, nothing, for Harold is slain!‚Äô He tottered, for he was badly wounded, and would have fallen but for the thegn who caught him.

  Down the slope the Normans could see the line above them waver; the archers fell back, a last charge was made. William of Moulines-la-Marche, yelling his battle-cry, led a party of his knights straight for the Saxon shields with a ferocity that cleaved a passage through the ranks right to the foot of the standards themselves.

  The Saxons were already flying from the crest of the hill. The Lord of Moulines slashed at the standards, and they fell, and a roar of exultation went up from the Norman ranks. Harold‚Äôs golden banner lay trodden in blood and mire; two of the knights, mad with a savagery that equalled their lord‚Äôs, hacked at his body where it lay.

  All that remained of the Saxon host were escaping northwards towards the dense forests that lay behind the hill. The descent upon this side was no gentle slope, but a precipitous drop leading to a fosse at the foot. The thegns flitted through the half light down the steep sides; a party of Normans, riding in pursuit, blundered over the edge of the scarp, unable in the dusk to see what lay before them. The treacherous fosse afforded no foothold for the horses; destriers and riders rolled headlong down to the bottom, and there the Saxons, rallying for the last time, turned and slew them in one brief desperate encounter. Then, before reinforcements could come up, they fled on into the darkness, and the forests swallowed them from sight.

  Five

  The noise of the fighting at the foot of the scarp reached those above and inspired one man at least with a lively alarm. Count Eustace Als Grenons, thinking that the levies of Edwine and Morkere must have come up, rode towards the Duke quite pale with dread, and catching at his bridle-arm advised him in the strongest terms to retreat.

  The Duke shook off his hand, and turning from him with a look of disdain gave orders that his tent should be set up where Harold’s standard had flown all day. ‘Clear me a space,’ he commanded. ‘It is here that I will spend the night.’

  The camp-varlets were busy with this work when the Lord of Longueville came riding up in a bustle of disapproval. ‘Beau sire, what are you about?’ he demanded. ‘Surely you are not fitly placed here among the dead? You should lodge elsewhere, guarded by one or two thousand men, for we know not what snares may be laid for us. Moreover, there is many a Saxon lies bleeding but alive amidst the slain, and would be glad to sell his life for the chance of killing you. Come away, seigneur!’

  ‘Are you afraid, Walter? I am not,’ said the Duke coolly. ‘Join Als Grenons if that is the mind you are in.’ His gaze swept the battlefield; he said on a note of anger: ‘Bid the leaders look to their men. I will have none of this plundering of the slain. Let each side bury its dead, but Earl Harold’s body do you find and bring to me presently to my tent with all honour. Raoul, I want you.’

  It was over an hour later when Raoul at last slipped away from the Duke’s side. He had stripped off his battle-harness, and washed the bloodstains and the sweat from his person. His squire, a zealous lad much devoted to him, had brought him water, and a clean tunic of fine wool, and his long scarlet cloak.

  Binding the straps around his hose Raoul nodded to where his discarded garments lay in one corner of the tent, and said curtly: ‘Burn them. Throw that hauberk away; it is smashed across the shoulder. Have you cleaned my helm?’

  The squire held it up, and the sword too, both burnished very brightly.

  ‘Good lad. Buckle the sword round me.’ Raoul stood up and fastened the mantle across his chest while the squire knelt to adjust the sword.

  The Duke was at supper with his brothers and the Counts Eustace, Alain, and Haimer. The tent was lit by candles, and the meats were brought to table as though the Duke sat in one of his palaces. No one entering would have dreamed that all round the tent dead and dying men were lying in heaps on the festering ground. The Duke, who showed no other signs of fatigue than a certain taciturnity and a slight furrow between his eyes, ate and drank sparingly, but the noble Counts, smelling the spices that flavoured the dishes, smacked their lips, and made to forget the day’s turmoil in feasting.

  Raoul escaped as soon as he was able and made his way between the cluster of tents to the spot along the ridge where he thought he had seen Edgar in the press of battle.

  He carried a horn-lantern and a costrel full of wine. All over the hill-side other lanterns were moving to and fro, but the moon was coming up and a faint cold light threw the mounds of slain into silhouette.

  Raoul found that already priests and monks were moving amongst the wounded, some Norman, some English. A monk of Bec looked up at him as he passed, and recognizing him advised him not to walk over the field unarmed. ‘There are many Saxons who still live, Messire Raoul,’ he said, ‘and they are dangerous men.’

  ‘I am not afraid,’ Raoul answered. He turned the light of his lantern on to a crumpled figure that lay face downwards at his feet. The big shoulders had something of the look of Edgar’s; Raoul bent, and with a shaking hand turned the body over. It was not Edgar. He drew a sigh of relief, and passed on.

  His foot slipped in something; he knew what it must be, but he had seen and shed so much blood this day that it no longer had the power to disgust him. Or perhaps he was too tired to care. He did not know, but his eyelids were heavy and his limbs ached. Sleep was all his need, sleep and forgetfulness, but even this held off while Edgar’s fate was still uncertain. A faint hope lurked in his breast that Edgar might have been amongst those who escaped into the woods to the north. He had been searching this shadowed field for a long time now, but the task was too great. It seemed as though the world contained nothing but dead men, lying in still, twisted attitudes under the stars. There were thousands of them, tall and short, old and young – thousands of Saxons, but not Edgar.

  Some of the mercenaries were sneaking along the sides of the hill to strip their ornaments from the slain. No, thought Raoul, you cannot stop an army such as ours from plundering.

  He passed a priest kneeling beside a dying huscarle. The priest looked up at him in vague alarm, but in the glazing eyes of the huscarle hatred gleamed. Raoul saw him drag a hand to his seax; a rush of blood poured from his mouth and nostrils; he fell back dead, and the priest gently drew the lids over his eyes.

  It was very quiet along the hill, strangely quiet after the day’s din and clamour. The only sound was a low moan that seemed to come from the earth itself. Sometimes it would resolve itself into a single voice, sometimes a shattered form would stir, muttering: ‘Water! water!’ but mostly the sound was confused and indistinct, made up of many voices.

  A hand clutched at Raoul’s ankle, but there was no power in the stiff fingers. He saw the sheen of moonlight on steel, but the knife fell to earth. He hurried on. Something writhed at his feet; the lantern light showed a mangled form, still breathing. He stepped over it; it neither shocked nor revolted him. He remembered how he had turned sick at Val-es-dunes at the sight of far less horrible wounds than these, and supposed that either he had grown callous or his nerves were dulled by fatigue. If he could only be sure that Edgar had escaped he would not care who else lay dead on Senlac field, he thought.

  Then he found Edgar. As soon as he saw him he realized that he had known all the time, known since that moment of prescience long, long ago in Rouen, that this was how he would find Edgar, lying at his feet