[Norman Conquest 01] Wolves in Armour (40 page)

“Further,” she continued “For those in the shire who genuinely cannot pay the Heriot, Alan and myself will lend money for up to two years, as usual as a charge against your land, with no interest charged. For those, particularly smallholders and freemen, who wish to sell their land because they cannot meet the Heriot but wish to remain on their land as cheorls in
laen
, we would discuss their needs individually. As I said, what you choose to do is up to you, but please do not make what we seek to do more difficult by reporting what we have discussed to Earl Ralph, Bishop William or Engelric, or their men. Now we’ll serve the mid-day meal and you are free to use the Hall for your discussions before you leave,” concluded Anne.

“The church, the abbeys, monasteries and cathedrals, are lending money to the thegns and cheorls also, at no interest,” interjected Alfric.

Alan nodded his agreement and replied, “That is true. But the church rarely provides something for nothing. I think that such loans are a way of the church seeking to profit from the situation by lending money, and then when repayment is not made to then take possession of the manors involved. That way the church will acquire land at bargain prices!”

“What if we choose not to pay the Heriot and choose to fight?” asked Edwold.

Alan quickly interjected. “Please do not make that mistake! The Normans are here to stay. What is happening should realistically be looked at as the inevitable outcome of an invasion. The conquerors take over and run the country to their benefit. Whether that is also to the benefit of the current owners is questionable. England has been invaded successfully time after time over the last thousand years. The last was Cnut in 1016, but before him were many others from the Romans to the Saxons themselves, then the Vikings and the Danes several times.

“There has never once been a successful revolt in England. At first the tribes and now the earls have been too self-interested to successfully join together behind one man and raise the whole country. Can you see the Northmen accepting somebody from the South? What Englishman has the authority to raise the whole country? The Aetheling? Perhaps.

“Does Edgar Aetheling or any of the English earls have the capability to defeat King William? William is a brilliant general who commands an army of combined forces that some of you faced at Hastings in the most advantageous situation you could have hoped for, and he crushed the army of probably the best general England has ever had. Edwin or Morcar? They couldn’t even defeat a Norwegian army comprised solely of infantry at Fulford Gate!

“If there is a revolt, the whole land will need to rise as one behind one leader. Even Alfred the Great couldn’t get that degree of co-operation between the Englishmen. Scattered and isolated opposition will be crushed without mercy. William will bring total devastation to those areas that oppose him. I suggest you accept the successful Norman invasion as a fact, live with it and look to the long term. Now I will leave you to your discussions. If anybody wishes to speak with me further privately, as Edward said you know where my ‘castle’ is,” Alan and Anne rose, and with Alan holding her hand in a formal manner, proceeded out of the Hall, followed by his nineteen huscarles.

Several of the thegns including Aelfric, Leofstan and Leofson of Mose saw Alan and Anne privately later at the Hall, the latter two to discuss mutual co-operation with the fyrd.

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Next morning at seven Alan stood with Hugh on the practice field outside the fort. Facing them were Brand and the other 18 huscarles, all in full mail harness. Most held kite-shaped shields, but a few preferred circular shields. Alan and Hugh had kite-shaped shields similar to the others, but painted a simple dark green, hanging from their left shoulders. Alan instructed in an easy but well-projected voice that carried to everybody in the group without shouting. “Right! Select a practice sword from the pile over there and pair up. When I give each pair the order to start, I want that pair to engage one on one.”

“Why do that? We can all use a sword,” said Brand with some distain. “Anyway, my favourite weapon is that one there,” he continued, pointing at a practice battle-axe.

“Firstly, you do it because I told you to. Secondly, I need to see what I need to work on with each of you. Now do it!” ordered Alan brusquely. The men lined up and each selected one of the blunt swords, swinging the sword to get accustomed to the balance.

One by one each of the pairs took turns to engage, with Alan and Hugh watching closely and making occasional comments to each other. Several times Alan stopped a
bout
to correct a technique he found particularly deficient, usually the angle at which the sword was held. Finally, Alan picked up a sword and said to Brand, who as the odd man out, had so far not participated.

“Let’s see how you go,” said Alan as he stood apparently unready three paces away from Brand. Brand towered six inches above the tall Alan and had a significantly longer reach. Brand suddenly launched himself forward with a series of vicious sword swings, which Alan countered nonchalantly with either shield or sword, slowly giving ground before Brand’s furious attack and observing the techniques and style of the other man.

Suddenly he moved to the attack with an advance followed by a ballestra lunge, a feint followed by a lunge-proper that struck Brand hard on the right of the chest. “Use that shield properly!” snarled Alan as he took a step back with a leg cross-over and pass backwards into the en garde position again.

With his face dark with anger Brand came forward more carefully this time. Alan performed a beat on Brand’s sword, a simple preparatory motion of hitting the middle of Brand’s sword to provoke a swing to which Alan responded with a circular parry, using parry counter-six followed by a stop-cut, hitting Brand on the side of the helmet with the flat of the practice-sword. He recovered in time to parry the attack that Brand pressed, despite being ‘dead’ from the head-wound, and gave a riposte which hit him again in the chest. Alan stepped back. “Dead three times in two minutes, I suggest that you do need to work on your technique, after all! Again!”

This time as Brand swung his sword Alan stepped inside the swing and used his shield to bash hard against that of his opponent. Brand used his own shield to deflect the following overhead blow from Alan, who in turn used the momentum from the defected blow to spin. He then made a lightning-fast change of grip on the practice-sword to hold the middle of the blade in his gloved hand and struck upwards with the pommel which was pointing towards Brand’s head. Although Alan pulled the strength from the blow, Brand’s head was still rocked back. As the huscarle staggered Alan, still holding the sword by its blade, used the cross-piece of the handle to catch the top of Brand’s shield and drag it down, leaving the Saxon open to a stab to the throat delivered by the blade still held in a short-grip, which Alan stopped inches from Brand’s neck.

Brand was panting heavily and both he and his men were stunned at the speed and versatility of Alan’s swordsmanship.

“Now Hugh and I will show you how it’s done properly. The hard way, without shields.”

Alan and Hugh both discarded their shields and moved to en garde, and proceeded to put on a demonstration of swordplay and footwork for five minutes that left the English astonished. The footwork each used made the contest resemble a complex dance- although dancing rarely involved stunning kicks and the throwing of dirt in the face of the partner, as the two Normans ignored all rules of chivalry. The swords flashed as they swept back and forth, both men using both the blade and the pommel to strike at their opponent. Alan finally managed a low sweep of his reversed sword, using the cross-guard to pull one of Hugh’s feet from under him, delivered a strong kick to the ribs and placed the blade at Hugh’s throat.

Breathing slightly heavily, Alan turned to the Englishmen. “As you can see, it’s not all ‘crash and bash’. If you have technique, timing and footwork you are more likely to stay alive in a swordfight, be it on the battlefield or elsewhere.”

Just then ten of Alan’s personal horsemen called ‘The Wolves’ filed out of the gate on foot.

“That’s all very well, but I’d take you with an axe!” said Brand, smarting at his loss.

“You think so? There’s a practice two-handed axe there. Pick it up!” ordered Alan. Brand tossed down his wooden sword, picked up the huge axe with its five foot haft and ten-inch, although blunt, blade. He slipped his shield around so that it hung out of the way on his back and raised the axe in the traditional left-handed stance, ready to attack the side of the opponent not protected by a shield- although with a hit from such an axe, particularly from a man as big and strong as Brand, a shield was of virtually no protection.

Alan raised his sword in the air and an instant later an arrow a yard long, but with a blunt and padded tip, crashed into Brand’s chest, knocking the wind out of him and driving him to his knees. Some 200 paces away, near the trees, Owain lowered his bow. “Lesson number one for axe-fights,” said Alan to Brand and the other huscarles as Brand struggled to suck air into his lungs and stand upright. “If you’re fighting an enemy that has archers or cross-bowmen you are likely to be dead before you get your first swing in, because you can’t use a shield when you have two hands on the haft.”

He gave Brand a couple of minutes to recover from being hit by the practice arrow. “Now if that doesn’t happen, let’s see what the swordsman can do.” This time as Brand jumped forward with the axe raised Alan took two quick steps inside the swing of the axe, hit Brand hard under the chin with the top edge of his shield and slammed the pommel of his reversed sword into Brand’s stomach. “Of course in a battle you would have run him through the guts! And again!” he said as Brand struggled back to his feet using the axe to help him up.

This time as Brand rushed forward, Alan stepped back, keeping just out of range of the swipes of the axe blade that, even if Brand turned the handle so that the flat of the blade hit Alan, would probably break several ribs- which Alan didn’t want a few days before his wedding day. After three massive swings, when Brand started an upwards swing from near his right ankle, Alan turned the shield partly sideways, dipped at the knees and used the side of the shield, now at the bottom, to catch the haft of the axe before it had hardly started its movement and when it still had no momentum. At the same time he performed a simple lunge from a crouched position, right foot sliding forwards, torso bent slightly forward to put some weight into the blade, which at the last moment Alan diverted to graze off the side of Brand’s chain mail armour.

“Dead another three times with the axe! Brand, you’re an above-average swordsman and axe-man, but I need to teach you to think with your head and not with your right arm.” Alan paused and removed his helmet, wiping the sweat away with a band of cloth attached to his wrist.

“Now for the final demonstration about why we need to practice to fight as a group. Ten of you new men take up a position over there- not you Brand, you’ve done enough for one day, let some of the others suffer a little. Five months ago these ten Wolves of mine had never handled a sword. Since then we’ve only been able to train for about two months, and only a small part of that has been on foot. We’ve mainly been spending the time teaching them to fight on horseback. Now begin.”

The ten new huscarles moved forward towards the evenly spaced line of their opponents. As usual for the English, they fought as ten individuals, each arriving at the line at a different time and concentrating on just one opponent. Alan’s Wolves moved as a team, an efficient killing machine, providing mutual support. Several ‘killed’ the opponent of the man next to him, and all displayed discipline, footwork and technique.

After about three minutes six of the huscarles and one Wolf were ‘dead’ and Alan called it off. “With a nine to four advantage it would have taken only another minute to have finished the fight. That is why we fight in groups of ten. And that’s why I don’t have room in my formations for axe-men, unless they use the one-handed short axe. Double-handed axe-men by definition fight alone, even if they are in an army of 7,000.

“Discipline and teamwork won at Hastings, and at Wivenhoe, and will win virtually every time. I hope that you have all learned some valuable lessons today. I will see you here at seven tomorrow morning. One more thing- get those shields painted dark green today, so they’ll be dry tomorrow. Hugh will provide a pot of paint and green uniform cloaks.” Alan and Hugh walked off back through the fort gates, following the ten Wolves who had just helped with the demonstration. Nineteen very thoughtful huscarles followed them a few moments later.

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The Quarter Day of Mid-Summer’s Day, the Nativity of St John the Baptist, passed without undue incident. Mid-Summers Day this year fell on Sunday, so the usual holiday was superfluous. The peasants at Thorrington and Alan’s other manors, and those of Anne at Wivenhoe, enjoyed feasting at the expense of their lord. The villagers had begun their traditional ceremony, celebrating the pagan feast of the summer solstice the evening before with roaring bonfires to ward off evil spirits, feasting and merry-making.

Unattached maidens, wearing crowns of woven summer flowers, had sought to find husbands, often using very direct tactics. On Midsummer’s Day itself, after Mass celebrating the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Alan and Anne first rode to Wivenhoe to mingle and talk with the villagers as the pigs and oxen roasted on the cooking-spits, and then returned to Thorrington in the middle of the afternoon to do the same.