I Am the Chosen King (59 page)

Westminster

Alditha could understand none of it. “He is your brother.”

“Your father went against your grandfather—’tis not much different.”

“But that was a family quarrel. My father rode into Wales in a temper because he could not get his own way. A temper that soon cooled once he realised his action was leading him nowhere except along a stonier path.”

Holding hard to his patience, for there was much to do, Harold glanced up from the map he was studying and looked at his wife. Her eyes seemed bigger, her mouth wider, for despite carrying the child she had lost weight. Worry and stress. These months had not been easy for her. Harold snorted to himself: these years. She had been trundled from pillar to post, never treated with the devotion that she deserved.

When he came back, when all this was sorted out, he would have the time to put that right. He would indeed send her to rule the North—a double chance to prove to Morkere and his brother, to the northern land-folk, that he was determined to fight his own brother in order to keep the peace and the laws of his kingdom. That a king’s sworn word would not be broken.

“This, too, my love, is a family quarrel, one that has spread wider than the boundaries of normal sense. Jealousy is a dangerous weapon if allowed to grow out of proportion.”

Crossing the bed-chamber—Harold was in her room, for it seemed the only place where he could find the blessed sanctuary of peace this busy day—she gazed at the map spread over her small dressing table. He had cleared it of the pots and phials, the brushes and combs, the precious silvered mirror. They all lay in a discarded heap atop the bed covers.

“This is your intended route? The North Road, direct to York?” she asked, tracing the inked line of the road with her fingernail. It did not seem so long, two hundred or so miles, drawn thus on a parchment map. When she had travelled south from York as Harold’s new wife, it had taken the royal entourage almost four weeks to reach London. Admittedly, their progress had been slowed by the crowds that had come to greet them, and they had rested for several days at Nottingham and Leicester. Nor had that been the more direct route, but even so, an army marching could take all of two weeks to reach York.

Reading the thoughts by the expression crinkling over her face, Harold explained, “We shall all be mounted. I take no infantry.” He pointed from London to York. “I hope to traverse the distance in seven or eight days at the most.”

Her eyes widened. Could that be done? She opened her mouth to ask it, remembered Harold’s swift attack on Wales after her father had died and closed it again. Observed instead, “Tostig will not be expecting that.” As Gruffydd had not expected it.

He leant forward and brushed his lips briefly against hers. “No, he will not.” He paused, studied the map again, before adding, “The messengers have given me an estimate of almost three hundred ships.” He resolutely turned his thoughts from the niggling horror that he might have to order his own brother hanged if he was not killed in battle. Too much to hope that he would see sense and turn aside from this venture. “We may face several thousand men. Hardrada will undoubtedly leave a rearguard for the fleet.” Harold wondered whether Alditha was interested in the details—Edyth would have been—and to his pleasure found that aye, she was.

“My brothers have raised a defence, I assume?” she asked. “Have called out the fyrds of Northumbria and Mercia?”

“That they have. Let us pray to God that they have already sent these seascum running back to their ships, as they did at their first attempt.”

He lifted the map and rolled it. This day was the eighteenth of September. They were to leave London at dawn on the morrow. He was impatient to be mounted and going. If only they knew what was happening up there, how things were going—had gone.

It would be much easier to learn that Tostig had already surrendered? Or been killed. Ducking the responsibility and shuffling around the consequences, aye, but so much damned easier!

***

They left London, under the protection of Earl Leofwine and the boy Edgar, in the early hours of the morning. Others joined the King’s housecarls, the warrior elite, as they rode north. The experienced and the battle-scarred; the young with their swords new-oiled, spears new-shafted. Earl Gyrth came from East Anglia with his fyrd; Evesham Abbey and the Abbot Ælfwine of Ramsey readily sent the fighting men of their estates. Godric, thegn of Pagelsham in Essex, added forty of his best men to the column of horsemen…and Harold’s own three sons, Goddwin, Edmund and Magnus. Harold had openly admonished young Magnus’s determination, but had then ruffled the lad’s unruly fair hair and sent him to ride with the baggage boys. “Mind you earn your keep, lad,” he had ordered sternly. “No one comes along for the joy of the ride. You can groom my horses and clean the mud from my boots.”

Magnus had grinned back at him. “Most willingly, Sir!”

“And for me? What do you wish for me to do, Father?”

It had been the first evening, camp had been set—a makeshift one; they stopped only for a few hours to give the horses a chance to graze and doze. There would be little sleep for the men. There had been no opportunity to talk before then, for the pace Harold set was a steady jogtrot and, as they rode, messengers had been continually clustered around the King, coming and going at a gallop.

Goddwin asked his question, staring direct at Harold across the blaze of the campfire, one man to another. The shadowlight of the flames illuminated his father’s face: the high forehead, the straight nose, jutting chin. Goddwin was almost as tall as his father, but not as broad-shouldered; his eyes were a shade darker. He sat, resting his hand on the sword Harold had given him for his sixteenth birthing day. A fine weapon, well-crafted, with a clean blade that could bite the wind. He had not yet had the chance to use it beyond the practice field.

Considering how to answer, Harold chose to tell the truth of it. “As your father I would ask you to mount your horse and go home before we smell and taste the salt of spilt blood, our own and theirs. To take your brothers with you.” He raised an eyebrow and began to stretch out his hand above the smoke scutter of the fire. “But as your King, I ask you to ride beside me, to fight”—he paused, grinned—“where I can keep a damned watchful eye over you!”

He thrust his hand further forward, clasped it, palm to wrist, with his eldest, first-born son.

“Strange,” Goddwin said, his own white-toothed grin matching that of his father, “but that is exactly what my mother ordered me to do for you!”

Word of foreign ships in the Humber river had spread throughout the Middle Lands of England with the speed of a rushing wind. Men waited for the sound of the war horns: alert, ready, weapons set beside the doorplace, hauberks, war caps and byrnies checked for damage. Horses shod, bridle and saddle to hand. When the summons came, they rode out in ones and twos, met with others on the war trail, becoming four, eight, ten, twenty…came to swell the great army of men on their sturdy war ponies, heads and manes tossing, bridles jingling.

Miles passed beneath their shod hooves. Rest for an hour during the noon of the day and then on again. Halt at dusk, the mounts watered and fed on a ration of good corn, allowed to graze; a few hours of snatched sleep for their riders, on again before the midnight hour came. And all the while, more and more men came up on to the North Road that had first been built by the red-crested legions of Rome.

In places the surface was worn, potholes needed tending, the occasional collapsed bank or choked drainage ditch causing ankle-deep muck, but the English system of maintenance was long established and efficiently organised. Each town, each village was responsible for the upkeep of a designated section of the King’s highway, with heavy fines to pay if the work was not attended to.

There was one blessing: the fyrd of Middle England had not been called for duty most of the summer, as they had in the South, where the patrols had been set in case William had come. Many a man, in addition to Harold himself, considered the irony of it. Ready and waiting for William to land in the South, only to march northwards, in the end, to meet Tostig and Hardrada.

As the host travelled further north, the numbers joining Harold’s army dwindled and rumour became louder. On the fourth day of marching, the twenty-second day of September, a grimed, exhausted messenger galloped down past the column of mounted men—riding twelve abreast where the width of the road permitted—his eyes fixed on two standards, the Red Dragon of Wessex and the King’s personal standard, the white figure of the Fighting Man. He reined in, pulling his lathered horse back on to its hocks so sharply that the floundering animal almost fell. He dispensed with any formalities of royal acknowledgement: “My Lord! Eadwine and Morkere have fought and lost in battle two days past, on the twentieth day, at Gate Fulford. York has surrendered to the Norwegian, to Harald Hardrada!”

Harold had halted, the men around him reining in also, the column easing to a stand. Word whipped forwards and backwards along the line, a murmur of appalled disbelief rippling in its wake.

“My two earls live?” Harold asked.

“Aye, but both have suffered wounds that will take some weeks to heal. Casualties were heavy—on both sides.”

“Are they captured?” Harold barely dared ask it.

“No, my Lord. We managed to get them away. They are safe in a manor out on the moors. They say they wish to come, to fight beside you.”

“No. Not if they have wounds. They would serve the North better by healing surely and quickly.” Harold ran his thumb and forefinger down each side of his nose, smoothed his moustache. Did not much want to ask this next thing. “My brother?”

“Fought as Hardrada’s second-in-command. When I was sent south, it was he who had entered York on the Hardrada’s behalf.”

Harold looked ahead. It would be dusk in another two hours. They ought to be seeking a camping ground.

“He had best enjoy his victory while he may, then, for it will be of short duration.” The King stood in his stirrups, calling out in a loud and positive voice, “We do not make camp this night. We shall rest as soon as may be for two hours, no more, then march on to York. This day is Friday, if we double our pace, we can be within striking distance of York by the Lord’s Day!”

The pace would be gruelling, but the animals were fit, the men all eager for a fight. The anticipation of unsheathing their swords had been humming like lightning electricity all summer, and now that their blood was up, the song of the battleblades was vibrating through the static-charged air.

Stamford Bridge

They reached Tadcaster an hour before noon on the Sunday, hot, tired, dusty, but confident. Some of the mounts were lame, and men nursed blisters to heel and backside: minor injuries, nothing that goose grease, a rest and a meal of wheat-baked biscuits and nourishing barley broth would not cure.

The news was grim, but information plentiful and readily given. Tostig had entered York, putting to the sword without mercy men who had played a part in removing him from his earldom. Had retrieved tribute and sworn homage from York’s leading citizens. Hardrada himself had returned to his army encampment at Riccall, on the northern bank of the River Ouse. Now was the time when Harold must make good his promise to Morkere and Eadwine—that he would not allow Tostig to take vengeance. York had capitulated to the invaders through lack of choice, but York was only too willing to declare for their king—if that king was willing to fight for them in return. And he was. More than willing.

At Tadcaster they paused, letting the sweating ponies gain their breath and the men take their ease for an hour or so. Harold and his commanders were gathered beneath the shade of an oak, thankful for this short respite from the heat of the day. At least these last three hot, dry days had ensured no mud-deep roads and miserable tempers from wet and damp—although the heat of early autumn had its own annoyances. The ponies’ coats were already thickening, thirst increased for mount and man, the road wore harder on ponies’ hooves and raised a dust cloud that choked throats and irritated nose and eye, flies were a nuisance.

But these discomforts meant little to a fighting man whose thoughts were focused on an invading army and an approaching battle.

Harold pointed a sharpened stick at the map scrawled in the dirt at his feet. “Hardrada and Tostig are removed to Stamford Bridge, eight miles east of York, where four roads meet.” He looked for confirmation at the fourteen-year-old lad who had brought the information. “They await the arrival of hostages and further tribute, I assume?”

Waltheof, the young son of Siward, had judged it prudent not to surrender and plead homage to Tostig. As with many another, he had fled leaving hurriedly through the north gate as Tostig had ridden in through the south. Morkere was his guardian and because of that Waltheof had been in no doubt as to his fate had he decided to stay. He nodded slowly at Harold, answering for all those who had fought so valiantly. “Stamford is most suited for meeting with those who have no choice but to capitulate—good to march to or from in all directions.”

“They know of our coming?” That was Gyrth, Harold’s brother, his voice eager.

A laconic smile spread across Waltheof s face, which was, as yet, unshaded by beard growth.

“They must know of that, my Lord Earl, only a fool would not expect the King of a land such as this to sit idle in London while usurpers attempt to wrench the crown from his head. But they cannot know how fast you have come, nor how near you are. For if they knew this, would they be resting easy with their wine, their stolen meat and their captured women? Would they not, instead, be preparing to come to meet you or defend themselves against you?”

“Would they not, indeed!” Harold answered, delighted, slapping his thighs with the palms of his hands. “We shall ensure that this whoreson Hardrada who dares to violate my kingdom, and my brother, the traitor who lopes at his heel, receive more than they are expecting on the morrow, at this meeting place of Stamford Bridge.”

He returned the boy Waltheof’s gaze, matching his earnest stare with one as determined. “We march at first light, pass straight through York and surprise the bastards. We shall catch them while they sit on their backsides, expecting only the defeated.” His expression hardened. “Instead, they shall meet their own bloody defeat.”

***

Monday dawned with a covering of white-wraithed mist that, come an hour after sunrise, had burnt away in the rising temperature. By nine of the morning it was already hot and, as their mission to the bridge at Stamford was solely to bring to a peaceful conclusion the treaties previously agreed in York, many of the Norwegian army left their heavy leather-studded byrnies within camp at Riccall.

They were in holiday mood as Hardrada marched 5000 of his men along the old Roman road. Tostig, glowing with pleasure at the ease of their taking of York, was reciting accounts of successful hunts in the area. “I brought down a boar over to the left there, by that hillock. An ugly great brute it was, gave me one hell of a fight. And over there, by that copse, my favourite hound caught a hare—what a magnificent chase that was!”

Harald Hardrada was not listening, his mind occupied by the more important matter of what should be his next move. Wait here, near York, for Harold Godwinesson or cross the Ouse and meet him while he rode north? Best to await his arrival, let the English be the tired ones, the footsore and weary. Especially in this late September heat. The fighting at Fulford had been a close thing—too many of his men were wounded. As he rode, his experienced eyes automatically scanned the countryside—over there would be a good place for an ambush. The grass away to the right, bright green and lush, indicated boggy ground, ideal for drawing any attacking force towards. He wished Tostig would stop prattling—he was a man over-stuffed with his own importance. When he had claimed the crown for himself, would he be able to abide this fool as Earl of the Middle Lands and the North as they had agreed? Hardrada shifted weight in the saddle, scratched at a discomfort in his crotch. Once he was king, Tostig could be disposed of easily. He allowed a wry grimace to curl at the corner of his mouth. As they had agreed—hah! How binding were agreements? That this invidiously resentful younger brother coveted the English crown for himself had not been lost on Hardrada’s intelligence. Each of them had agreed to the alliance because they needed the other’s help—fully aware that once Harold Godwinesson was out of the way, their own warring for the owning of a sovereign’s trinkets would spit like sparks from a smith’s hammer on iron.

Tostig boasted he knew the country around York well, but Harald had his doubts, for it seemed to him that this Englishman had spent more of his time pursuing his leisure at the old king’s court than taking notice of the lie of the land. No matter. He had scouts who could recognise a suitable place to meet this English king in battle. There was no word yet from the men Tostig had sent out from York to keep watch on the road—that was becoming another niggling worry. He had advised against sending Northumbrian-bred men, for all that they were men who had remained loyal to Tostig throughout the troubles of this last year. To Harald’s mind a man would be as pleased to serve any lord if the reward were high enough…ah, well, that was for Tostig to sort out. For now, these northern moorlands must be secured, homage paid and hostages given, otherwise they would be watching their backs while defeating this King Harold in battle.

The noblemen of Northumbria were not due at the rendezvous until late afternoon, giving the Norwegians time to make camp. The men caught up on sleep or played dice and started on the ale barrels they had with them. Someone had brought along two cockerels and a noisy cockfight was in progress to the edge of camp, near the sluggish water of the Derwent river. Tostig, weary of idling within his stuffy command tent, was strolling through the makeshift village of tents and bracken bothies, exchanging a word here and there with faces he recognised, commenting with swaggering pride on their success at Fulford, on their future victory.

Drawn to the excited shouting, he paused to watch the two cockerels. The larger of the two, a solid bird with green plumage round its neck, seemed to be gaining the advantage over the lighter, younger bird. “I wager a silver coin on the younger!” Tostig declared, slamming his coin down on the betting barrel. “He may have less experience, but I reckon he has more stamina.” He pushed his way to the forefront of the yelling circle of men. “Come on, my son! Fight him!” The younger against the elder—aye, as it would be for him and his poxed brother!

It was soon over. As Tostig had predicted, the younger bird possessed greater strength. His spurs, long and sharp, raked through the older bird’s chest and it was done, finished, in a splatter of gore.

Gloating, Tostig collected his winnings and strolled the last few yards to the river to rinse his hands. Oh, for a hot day like this earlier in the summer! More men in the mood for a fight might have rallied to him had the weather been more pleasant. Had that happened, this thing between him and Harold would have been finished by now, with the ease and finality of that cockfight. He would not have had to go begging for help from Hardrada—nor would he then have to dispose of the foreign bastard. Once the crown was on his head, Normandy would have no claim on England. Duke William’s contest was with Harold, for the breaking of a sworn oath. The Duke had no cause for disagreement with either him or Edith.

The river reeds grew in thick clumps along this, the eastern bank. He knelt, bent forward and dipped his head into the water, savouring the coolness as it swirled through his sweat-greased hair. He was almost tempted to wade in for a quick swim. When these essential concessions had been wrung from the poxed Northerners, he would return to York, to the comfort of his palace. Enjoy the luxury of a bath. He tilted his head back, eyes closed, trickled water down his throat and under the sweat-stained collar of his leather tunic.

Something made him open his eyes, some sound, some inner sense of alarm. He was looking across the sky-reflected blue water towards York. At the rising incline of land. A glint of something metallic along the brow of the hill, the sunshine reflecting on…on…

Tostig screamed. He scrabbled to his feet, began running. The war horns from the sentries were sounding the alarm. Men, confused and startled, stared around, uncertain what was happening, saw, with dawning horror, the shuffle of movement no more than one mile distant, their shouts drowning Tostig’s own cries as he ran. Waking from sleep; board games tipped and scattered; women with their skirts dragged up, breasts exposed, abandoned. Hardrada’s army lurched for their weapons and armour. Cursed their stupidity at leaving most of it behind at Riccall.

“Harold!” Tostig gasped as he burst into Hardrada’s tent. “My brother Harold is here!”

Hardrada had already been roused by the activity and noise from his own quick-snatched sleep. He frowned with aggressive annoyance at Tostig. What nonsense was this Englishman raving now? Hardrada was a giant in stature and reputation, had the strength of a bear and shoulders of an ox, a chest as deep as a whale’s and stood a full two hand-spans more than six feet. With his bushed beard and mass of curled red hair, he epitomised the warrior Viking king, who certainly did not panic at such nonsense. “Do not be an imbecile! Your brother could not have come so swiftly from London.”

Angrily, Tostig crossed the space between them in two strides and confronted Harald, his fist clutched around the pommel of his sword, his legs planted wide, the effect subdued by having to glare up at the formidable face towering above. “Come look for yourself, then! Harold’s army is massing on the hill beyond the river—then think of calling me an imbecile!”

***

A man, alone, carrying a green branch in his left hand, rode within an arrow’s distance of the wooden bridge that spanned the twenty or so yards of somnolent, deep-running river. He halted his stallion and hailed the man who stood beneath the Norwegian banners that fluttered in the light breeze on the far side of the water. “Tostig Godwinesson!” he called, using the English tongue. “There is no need for this insanity between us. Englishman ought not to fight Englishman. We will offer you a return from exile, the land you own in your own right and a guarantee of peace, if you but furl that banner of war and lay down your sword.”

“What will there be for my ally? For Harald Hardrada?” Tostig shouted back. “He looks for English land also—and what of my earldom? Will Northumbria in its entirety be once again my earldom?”

“No, not your earldom. That is held by Morkere.”

Tostig sneered. “But I have already taken it from him! Have you not heard of Fulford? It is mine by right of victory, since Morkere ran away with shit sculling down his backside!”

The man sitting relaxed on the stallion on the eastern bank shrugged. “Then it will be taken back from you. As for Hardrada, he will be granted only enough land to cover his body in a grave.”

Tostig made a dismissive cutting motion with his hand. “Then I see no point in our talking.” He drew his sword to emphasise his statement. “It seems we fight.”

The stallion’s rider let the branch slide from his fingers, raised his sword hand to his war cap in a salute of acceptance and wheeled his horse round, setting it with his spurs from a stand to a gallop. As it plunged, the animal’s hooves mangled the leaves of the peace branch.

Tostig translated the exchange to Hardrada who, watching the horseman gallop back to the ranks of the mounted English army, nodded his head in approval. “And who was the messenger?” he enquired. “You know him?”

“Oh, I know him,” Tostig answered derisively. “That was my brother, Harold, King of England.”

Absently Hardrada ran his thumb along the blade of his two-handed axe, his gaze remaining on the horseman. “That is a fine stallion. He rides well, your brother the King.”

“Who gives a damn how well he rides?” Tostig barked with annoyance. “It is how he fights that is of consequence!”

Raising the axe head into his line of vision, Hardrada squinted along the wicked-looking edge, taking pleasure from its perfection. “And how well does he fight, then, my friend? As well as he rides perhaps? Better than you?”

Tostig scowled. Harold could do everything well. Always had done, damn him. Then he remembered, suddenly, the cockfight. The elder is often the slower. And it is not I alone whom he opposes. Harold may be good on a horse and in a fight, but he is wrong if he thinks he is a greater warrior than Harald of Norway!”

Hardrada let the axe head fall through its own weight down to the grass. “Then we had best set about showing him his mistake, had we not?”