Conqueror

XXIII

A vast murmur went up from the English. Godgifu saw a standard fall, on the English left. Was that Leofwine, brother of Harold? Had he fallen so soon, perhaps struck by a lucky arrow or javelin?

But on the field the fight continued. She saw that the line where the struggle was most intense was raised up, as men fought standing on the fallen bodies of their allies and enemies.

And now something changed. Trumpets pealed from the Norman side. There was a shift in the compressed crowd of warriors, shield on shield, like a wave passing through them. The Normans stepped back, all along the line, prodding and jabbing with their swords and goading the enemy. The English held their position, and gradually a gap opened up between the two lines of shields. The ground between them was churned to mud, and it was blood red, rich with flesh and bits of bone.

Sihtric stared, appalled, fascinated. 'Who would think so much blood would spill from a man? If God had meant us to fight in wars He would not have given us skin as thin as a spider's web.'

Godgifu saw the wounded struggling to get back to their lines. Some of them walked, but many were hideously maimed, with hands severed or eyes put out or blood gushing crimson from some rip in their bodies. Those who crawled were worse. The wounds were grotesque, almost comically so.

As the withdrawal continued Godgifu allowed herself a moment of hope. 'Is it over?'

There was a thunder of hooves.

'I don't think so,' said Sihtric.

The Norman cavalry came charging in from the left. They rode in units of eight or ten, men in mail and helmets standing up in their stirrups. The animals were small and stocky; they were stallions, and with their heads jerked back by cruel bits and their sides pricked by spurs they were fast. Godgifu was horrified by the huge physical presence of the horses, masses of flesh and hooves racing at the English line. The very ground shook.

But no horse would charge straight into a wall of shields. In the last moment the horses turned their heads, and their bodies slammed into the shields, scattering men like skittles. They ran along the line towards the English right, hurtling down the corridor between the facing infantry masses. The knights they carried hurled their lances, then chopped and stabbed with their swords, as the Norman infantry cheered and shook their spears in the air. But the English hacked back. The trick was to aim your axe at the horse's neck, Godgifu saw. Soon men and horses fell in the dirt.

Godgifu thought that each horse took out three or four English fighters as it fell. But the line held.

Sihtric yelled at Godgifu, 'And look!' He pointed. 'The Normans to the right! They're running!'

They were not Normans but Bretons. Alarmed by their own cavalry's assault, their orderly withdrawal turned into a rout. Worse, in their panic they started tumbling into a ditch they had crossed safely earlier.

The English who faced them, Gyrth's East Anglians, abandoned their own line and chased the Bretons, their blood high, their senses dulled by the carnage. They fell on the Bretons heaped up in the ditch, and hacked away at their squirming backs.

The English commanders remained on the ridge, screaming for the troops to come back to their positions. Godgifu recognised Gyrth from his shield, uniquely adorned, a round slab of wood with a cruel spike protruding from the boss – and then he fell too, she saw, stunned, felled by a chance javelin strike.

His housecarls clustered around his body. Two of the beautiful Godwine brothers, fallen already.

Sihtric had not seen this. He yelled, hotly excited, 'Harold must pursue! This is the moment! If he strikes now the Normans will lose their shape – their own horses will trample them down – he can drive them back to the sea!'

Godgifu asked, 'What about standing firm? That's what Harold ordered.'

'But war is about opportunities,' cried Sihtric, a skinny priest all but lost in his heavy mail coat. 'And those opportunities must be taken. At this moment Harold can win the day, and all of the future!… Come with me,' he snapped. 'Help me get to Harold. We must urge the right course on him.'

Godgifu had no choice but to follow.

She saw a unit of cavalry wheel and run towards the fleeing Bretons, as if to rally them, led by a stout man on a black charger. She marvelled at the Normans' tight control of their men and their horses. She wondered if that leader could possibly be William himself.

And in the turmoil, the cavalry leader went down.