Knights of the Hawk (6 page)

Barely fifty paces in front of me, Hereward stood alone, yelling vehemently as he waved back some of his comrades who were jumping from the boats to come to his aid – whether out of stupidity or arrogance, I couldn’t tell, and hardly cared. I stared at him, couching my lance under my arm, levelling the point at chest-height and imagining how I would drive it deep into his heart, twisting it so as to kill him all the quicker. Victory would be ours, and we would return to the king’s camp with his head as our prize. He returned my gaze, and as he did so I saw the determination in his dark eyes. Calmly, as if he were merely enjoying an afternoon’s practice at the butts, he drew another shaft from his arrow-bag, raised the bow into position, aimed it in my direction—

When something happened that I was not expecting. Something that, even all this time later, I find myself ashamed to recount. Something that in all the time I’d travelled the sword-path had only happened once, when I stood with knife in hand facing the fishmonger in that Flemish town all those years ago. For as Hereward slowly brought the string back to his shoulder, as the feathered end brushed the skin upon his cheek and as he prepared to loose, a vision flashed through my mind. A vision that told me how that arrow would fly and where it would strike, how at this distance it would run through mail and flesh as easily as a needle through cloth.

I stared at that arrow-point and fear gripped me: a fear so powerful that I had never known its kind before. My stomach lurched; my breath caught in my chest. My blood was no longer pounding, filling my limbs with vigour, and I wondered if my heart had stopped. Like water being thrown on a fire, the battle-joy was extinguished. For the first time I could remember since that day when I was a youth, my nerve failed me in the heat of battle. I did not see victory before me now, but something else entirely.

I saw my death.

Why it happened and how it happened so quickly, I cannot say. All I know is that suddenly I was jerking sharply to one side, wheeling around, abandoning the charge, abandoning the fight, all the while expecting to feel a sudden strike between my shoulder-blades, or for Fyrheard to collapse beneath me and for me to be pitched from the saddle.

I never knew where that feathered shaft landed, or whether Hereward even loosed it at all. But I heard the jeers and laughter of the Englishmen in their boats. They taunted me in their own tongue, calling me a craven and many worse things besides, and an angry heat burnt inside me at the knowledge that they were right. I had fled from a fight, not because I was outnumbered or because sensible action had won out over blind rage, but because of fear.

Fear at the challenge. Fear for my life.

Floods of sweat rolled off my brow, stinging my eyes. By the time I had blinked the moisture away, wiped a sleeve across my face and turned to face the enemy again, it was too late to do anything. Hereward was wading back once more through the silt-brown marsh-waters to the cheers of his companions. Several of them helped to haul his mailed form aboard one of the boats, where he proceeded to stand up and grin at us, lifting his arms aloft and spreading them wide.

‘Hereward!’ his men cried as one. ‘Hereward!’

A few of them broke into song, raised their fists in the air or bared their pale arses at us, waggling them from side to side. Most, however, had picked up oars and were anxiously rowing as fast as possible. Hamo’s men continued to rain steel upon them, riding down right to the edge of the marsh so that they could get closer. One arrow struck a green-painted shield, but that was the closest any of their attempts came, the rest all dropping with splashes into the murky depths. Still they kept sending volley after volley up into the evening sky, although more in hope than in expectation, I sensed. All too soon the boats were beyond the range of even the most skilled archer in Christendom, and not long after that they had disappeared entirely into the marsh-mist.

Our chance was gone. We had let Hereward escape, and a single paltry kill was all we had to show for our efforts.

One kill, and one fallen horse. Whilst I had been watching the enemy vanish across the water, Pons, with Serlo’s help, had managed to free his trapped leg from beneath his mount, which lay quiet and almost still now as its bright lifeblood slipped away on to the grass. Apart from bruises and some scratches to his face, Pons himself was unharmed, but Hereward’s arrow had driven deep into the animal’s belly, puncturing its lung, I didn’t wonder, and so taking it beyond the ability of any of us to do anything. As Pons’s lord it would fall to me to find him a replacement, but the cost was not what was foremost in my mind then. A knight’s destrier was one of his closest and most trusted friends, and every bit as valiant a warrior. The beasts lived and fought and travelled with us, and while good horseflesh was valuable and prized above even swords and mail, their companionship and loyalty could not be measured in terms of weight of silver or gold. Pons had owned him for as long as he’d been sworn to me, which was to say a little over two years, and there was a tear in his eye as he crouched by the animal’s side. He stayed with it, rubbing its muzzle until it moved no longer and we knew it had passed.

‘I don’t blame you, lord,’ Pons said some time later while we were returning to Hamo and the carts. ‘We did what we had to.’

But the truth was that I should have known better. I had been foolish. Thinking only of the rewards and not of the dangers, I had rushed into battle, and though some might say that I had paid for that folly, the truth was it could have been far worse. We were lucky that the price hadn’t been higher, that more Norman blood hadn’t been spilt and more lives wasted.

At that thought a shiver ran through me, for I knew full well that some of that blood could easily have been my own.

We arrived at Brandune later that evening, just as darkness was falling and the stars were beginning to emerge. As expected, the clerks were waiting for us when we reached the king’s hall. No sooner had I announced our names and our business to the sentries on duty at the gate and we had led the oxen and carts into the courtyard than they began pressing me with their questions. Where had these goods come from, and how had they been paid for? How many barrels of such a thing had we brought; what weight of this and what length of that? Answers to all these questions and others besides were recorded by a squinting monk whom I recognised, Atselin by name. I had crossed paths with him before and understood him to be chief amongst the clerks. He worked by light of a lantern at a writing-desk set up in one corner of the yard, close to the grain-sheds and the storehouses.

‘You’re late,’ Atselin said when I approached. He didn’t deign to look at me but continued to scrawl even as he spoke, his head down so that his tonsured pate reflected the orange lantern-glow. From the set of his wiry eyebrows I could tell there was a scowl upon his face.

‘We saw another hall-burning,’ I replied. ‘I took it upon myself to go and see what had happened.’

He gave a snort of derision. ‘The rebels are always raiding. Every day we hear of yet more manors that have been razed to the ground. You wasted your time and ours for that?’

‘This one was Hereward’s doing.’

My words had the desired effect. His hand stopped mid-scribble; the furrows upon his brow deepened. He looked up sharply.

‘Hereward?’ he echoed.

Finally I had his attention, although I resisted the urge to smile at that small victory. ‘We saw him. He’d come by boat, at the head of a war-band numbering around fifteen men.’

‘How do you know it was him?’

‘It was him,’ I said firmly, meeting Atselin’s hard eyes. I had nothing to prove to this man.

He seemed to consider my answer for a few moments. Though much had been spoken of him of late, no Frenchman had so much as laid eyes upon Hereward in several weeks. Until now.

‘I suppose, then,’ said Atselin, raising an eyebrow, ‘that you were able to put an end to their pillaging?’

I sensed a barb hidden in his words, but I was determined not to let him provoke me. ‘We arrived too late for that. But we pursued them to the edge of the fens where they had their boats, and there we fought them.’

‘And killed a great many, I hope.’

To that I made no reply. Atselin gazed expectantly at me for a few moments longer, but when it became clear that I had no answer to offer him he turned his attention back to his quill and the sheet of parchment before him, at the same time dismissing me with an absent flick of his hand. But I was not about to be summoned and sent away so readily, like some trained dog performing tricks upon command.

‘You don’t believe me,’ I said.

He dipped the end of the goose feather into a pot of ink, and then resumed scratching his spindly letters upon the vellum, as if he hadn’t heard.

I brought my fist down upon the top of the monk’s desk. It shuddered under the impact. ‘It was Hereward. We saw him.’

Atselin did not so much as blink. ‘Did you cross swords with him?’ he asked. ‘Did you fight him in single combat? Perhaps you even managed to wound him, as they say you wounded Eadgar Ætheling.’

At that I recoiled slightly. I hadn’t thought a mere monk would be so well informed about who I was or about my reputation, such as it was in those days. Eadgar was the man I had sworn to kill, the leader of the Northumbrians who had twice risen against us and twice been routed. The man responsible for the murder of my former lord and of many of my closest comrades on that bitter winter’s night. In return I’d laid a scar upon his cheek that he still bore to this day, though it was scant vengeance.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, frowning.

Atselin shrugged. From my dealings with him I knew he was a man of little humour, who rarely showed even the hint of a smile, but even so I sensed he was enjoying this sparring, and enjoying my discomfort too.

‘If you had captured Hereward and brought him here in chains, then as I see it you would have accomplished something of value. But since I don’t see him here, I assume he managed to escape. Just as the ætheling managed to escape at Eoferwic, and again at Beferlic last autumn.’

Few people were aware that I had been in the battle at Beferlic. Again his knowledge surprised me, although when I came to reflect upon it, perhaps it shouldn’t have. Working within the royal household, he would have many opportunities to overhear scraps of knowledge and glean important details to keep for later use, just as all the records he made at this writing-desk were stored away in the chancery.

‘It isn’t my fault that Eadgar still lives,’ I said. ‘Neither of those battles would have been won were it not for me.’

‘Is that so?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps a better warrior would have seen that he finished his task.’

Anger swelled inside me and I had to clench my teeth to hold my tongue.

‘Besides,’ Atselin went on, ‘what proof do I have that you did these things that you claim, and which others say of you? Why should I believe that it was you who fought Eadgar upon the bridge at Eoferwic, that you were the one who turned the tide of battle against the enemy? For that matter, how can I believe that you faced Hereward this day?’

‘You can believe it because it is the truth,’ I said, unable to hold my temper any longer. ‘I was there.’

‘So says every man with such a yarn to spin.’

I leant over his desk and lowered my voice. ‘Don’t try my patience, monk. I could run my sword through your belly and gut you in an instant if I so wished.’

‘You would kill a man of God and choose eternal damnation?’

‘He would thank me for ridding the world of such a worthless rodent.’

Atselin sighed, and it was a deep, weary sigh, as though he had heard many such threats in his time and was no longer troubled by them. He pointed at me with the feathered end of his quill. ‘I have met men like you before, Tancred of Earnford. I know your kind. Hot-tempered and wedded to your swords, you brag of your feats and wish others to praise you, to shower you in gold and write down songs of your brutish deeds so that they may pass into legend. It may surprise you to learn, then, that I have no interest in your boasts. I do not write songs. I am interested only in keeping the records for our lord king. So unless you have something truly important to tell me, trouble me no more with your wild tales.’

My blood boiled in my veins, but I sensed that this was not a battle I was likely to win. Without a further word I stalked off, leaving him to his parchments and returning to Pons and Serlo, who were waiting while other officials from the king’s household, helped by a pair of stout knights, searched the carts. For each item on their list they counted out the number we had brought to make sure that it tallied with the number expected, that we had not been cheated in our purchases or that we ourselves had not taken the liberty of helping ourselves to any of the supplies. Goods were forever going missing in the camp, and while most men could be trusted, there were always some who wouldn’t hesitate to steal if they thought they could get away with it. And so we were forced to stand patiently and submit to their questions, in case they discovered something that required further explanation.

Whenever my back was turned I felt Atselin’s eyes upon me. What right did he, a mere scribe and a keeper of rolls, have to question my sincerity? What right did he have to pour scorn upon my deeds, when without me the kingdom might have fallen to the enemy? After all, without a king to serve and chancery records to write, he was nothing. He owed me more than he could possibly realise.

And yet the truth was that by that September, in the year one thousand and seventy-one, my standing was not as great as once it had been. After our victory in the great battle at Eoferwic I had been rewarded with a manor of my own, with enough wealth to attract men to my banner, and a reputation that had travelled before me. Now, however, I found myself all but destitute. My hard-earned silver was mostly spent, while my once-rich manor at Earnford had been burnt by the Welsh and half the folk who had lived there slain by their hands. We had done our best to rebuild it in the months since, but the winter had been hard and many more had perished through starvation or sickness, and the spring had brought unrelenting rains that led the river to overspill its banks and flood the pastures, and caused many of the newly built houses and barns to collapse. Now it was a place of sadness, where those who had survived toiled hard to produce enough food to keep themselves and their families fed, all the while surrounded by the memories of what had happened and of their fallen kinsfolk.