I Am the Chosen King (60 page)

Although he would not let Tostig see, Hardrada was angry. Harold Godwinesson had made a fool of him—but then who would have expected the cursed man to march so quickly from the south? How had he done it? God’s justice, but that had taken some doing! Angry, also, that he had not heeded his own instincts. What had happened to Tostig’s “loyal” Northumbrian men? Those men who were supposedly so keen to serve him once again? Either dead or had altered allegiance to Harold—not one had ridden with news of the English.

This was not a good situation: caught unawares, poorly armed and with only half his full strength. As he issued orders to deploy the men he had, Hardrada sent two riders, at the gallop, to fetch up those from Riccall; all who could run and hold a sword. “Tell them Harold of the English holds the route from Gate Helmsley—they are to ford the river at Kexby.” It was a longer route, rougher going, but there was no choice. “And for your love of me and your God,” Hardrada called as they mounted, “tell them to hurry!”

The English were advancing, mounted men in the centre, the infantry—formed of the fyrd of Northumbria and Humberside, those who had survived that first battle—to right and left. Harold had decided not to dismount, but to make use of cavalry in this open country, presuming correctly that Hardrada would employ the obvious tactics of the solid line of a shield wall. The most important thing was to delay. The longer the English could be held, the more chance of their reinforcements coming to their aid. The best course was to keep Harold on the far side of the river; he would not be able to swim either man or horse across without casualties. Hardrada’s first priority was, therefore, the bridge.

His men were brave and strong warriors; those dispatched to hold the wooden structure of the bridge fought long and well, but the English force of numbers was overwhelming and, within the hour, Harold was across, his housecarls thundering over the planking on their sturdy warhorses, man and beast as fresh as if they had been out on naught but a summer stroll, rather than a forced march of more than 200 miles in six days.

The Viking line was drawn up 300 or so yards behind the river, on rising ground, a wall of shields, glinting axes and death-bearing swords. Banners flew proud, voices bellowed the war cry—and the clash of battle joined rang through the valley. Determined, their bloodlust raised, the English hammered forward at the gallop time after time,the mane-tossing, foam-flecked, sweat-drenched horses charging and reining away to re-form and return, again and yet again. The infantry, fighting for their own land, for their personal freedom, struck with savage vehemence at right and left flank, archers sending their flights of arrows singing into the ranks to maim and kill, to make the shields drop.

Hardrada bellowed at his men, cheering them on, bullying, entreating and intimidating. He urged those in the rear forward as men in the front fell or dropped back from exhaustion—and then his booming voice fell suddenly silent. Nothing but a choking gurgle issued from his mouth as he staggered backwards, his hands clawing at Tostig, who stood, open-mouthed in horror. The arrow shaft thrusting from the giant’s throat quivered, dark blood oozed, Hardrada sank, slow and ponderous, to his knees. Fell on to his back, eyes open. Dead.

The noise continued, swooping and tumbling: horses screaming in anger and pain; the crash of metal upon metal or wooden shield; the sobs of the mortally wounded, the exultant cheering of the successful. Tostig heard none of it. Saw none of it. Stood in disbelief, staring at the body of Harald Hardrada at his feet. Exiled by Cnut from Norway, he had sought service as a mercenary in Bulgaria and Sicily, become the champion of the Varangian bodyguard of the Eastern Emperor, been rewarded with titles and rank, had accumulated a wealth of booty and experience in battle. After the death of Magnus of Norway he had fought and bullied and bribed his way to becoming king in his place. Harald Hardrada, the Thunderbolt of the North. Dead. Killed by an English arrow lodged in his throat.

Word was spreading. “Hardrada is dead!” The solid line began to waver—several horses burst through, their riders screaming triumph, swords cutting, axes splitting through bone and sinew…Tostig came to life. He would not admit defeat, would not lose his earldom! He sprang across Hardrada’s stiffening body, seized the Norwegian banner and ran forward, his own housecarls and those of Hardrada running with him.

“To me!” he shouted. “All men to me! We shall avenge his death! We shall avenge!” He thrust the banner into the standard-bearer’s hands, lifted his sword and joined the mêlée of warriors hacking at the cavalry riders who had broken through the line, beating them back, stabbing, slaying and wounding. Horses fell to their knees, hamstrung, blood rushing from opened veins, slashed bellies or cut throats. Dead men, dying horses. Where there had been grass and a scattering of late summer flowers, there was now nothing except churned, bloodied mud and death.

A stir on the left flank, a flurry of activity. Renewed, fiercer savagery of fighting. Word running from mouth to mouth…

“Eystein Orre has come! The men from Riccall are here!”

It was a brave attempt, but most of those men had been left behind in camp at Riccall because they were not fit for fighting: had received injuries at that other day’s battle, were exhausted from their frenzied march to help their beleaguered comrades. “Orre’s Storm” the final onslaught was later to be called, but it was no use to Tostig Godwinesson, for it came too late.

Tostig never felt the axe blade that took his head from his shoulders.

Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme

Mathilda stood at the river edge, heedless of the mud that was sliming her boots, and the cold of the evening penetrating her thin cloak and dress. With the dawning of this day, the twenty-seventh of September, the wind had swung lazily to the south and the rainclouds had miraculously evaporated. The sun shone with warm strength.

Embarkation of men and horses had been swift and organised; stores and weaponry, armour and the timber for the construction of wooden fortifications were already aboard. Before the evening tide turned and the ebb began to empty the Somme estuary, leaving the sandbanks exposed, the fleet was assembled offshore, making ready to sail. The Duchess watched the oars of her husband’s ship swing out and dip into the red-gold sunset-reflecting water. The sail would not be unfurled, not until the rest of the flotilla were at sea.

With that last disaster, she had come to hope that this year of madness was ended. Morning and night had she prayed that her husband would abandon this cursed attempt at crossing the sea to invade England. But these last weeks he had pursued it with a frenzy of determination; had alternately raged like a bull or wept like a child; pleaded, cajoled, threatened and sworn at the men who had tried to dissuade him from pursuing this obsession. He would have none of it.

Somehow—in God’s good name from where did he find the strength?—William had marshalled the scattered ships, the disappointed and disillusioned men, to the estuary of the Somme river, to here at Saint-Valéry. Had revived their enthusiasm, had convinced them that they could succeed, that England could become Normandy.

The lantern suddenly blazed yellow from the masthead of her husband’s ship. The
Mora
. Mathilda had been proud to present him with that gift, but resented her generosity now.
Merde
, but that was childish! With or without that ship, William would be going across the sea this night. With or without his wife’s blessing.

Winding her fingers together, the Duchess strained her eyes to see the figures on board, but could make out nothing, for the distance was too great. Men had died on that first unsuccessful crossing. Ships had sunk, been rammed and burnt at the hands of the English scyp fyrd. And that was just at sea. What would happen when—if—they reached the English coast in one piece? Perhaps the menfolk, because of their stupid pride, would not admit it, but Mathilda knew!
Assurément
, Duke William’s wife knew all too well. The English fyrd, with Harold as their king, would cut the Normans to pieces, would slaughter them as they struggled over the shingle and the sand.

She had said nothing of her fears to William. Had hidden her trembling under pretended enthusiasm, had given her support as, in a matter of days, not more than a week, he and his advisers had assessed the damage from that encounter at sea, made repairs to the ships that had come into the harbour and rekindled the affection and determination of his men. Those drowned bodies that were washed ashore were buried in secret along the beaches; the loss of ship—either wrecked, burnt, sunk or deserted—accounted for by the unpredictable nature of the wind. A wind that William had waited, with such uncharacteristic patience, to change. He had pretended that all was well—and got away with it.

With the sun set, the vibrant colours began to fade. Many lights were bobbing at stern, bow or mast; the sea was turning blacker than the panorama of the sky. Mathilda gasped as the trumpets suddenly sounded. Voices, every word clear, drifted in with the lazy lap of the waves, the creak and groan of rope and oar, the flap and crackle of sail.

They moved slowly at first, so many of them that it was difficult to see how they could all make way together. Only when she realised she could no longer distinguish the distinctive shape of the
Mora
’s prow, or the lantern at the mast, did she understand that William had gone and that this time, this time, unless he conquered England he would not be coming back.

***

At the first misting of daylight William found himself alone out on the sea.
Mora
, unladen by cargo, troops or horses, had outpaced the fleet during the night. Around the Duke was nothing to be seen except mist, sea and sky, and a lone gull, gliding solitary on the wind. Unperturbed, putting his trust in God, William ordered his breakfast brought to him, and sat on the afterdeck, enjoying a meal of cheese, bread, honey and fine wine.

Like ghosts, the foremost keels slid from the blanketing mist, ship after ship emerging into the daylight one mile from the coast of England. Together as a fleet and unopposed, the Normans beached at the place called Pevensey, running their flat-bottomed keels into the shallows. William stumbled as he leapt from his craft, going down on to his knees in the white churn of surf, his hand stretching out to break his fall. He winced as a stone cut into his palm. From those on board the ships nearby a disconcerted murmur rippled—a bad omen? The murmuring swelled into a babble; soon word would run from ship to ship, panic spreading among those whose nerves were already jumping as if riddled by fleas.

William fitz Osbern ran to his Duke’s side, dropped to his own knees and raised his hands in prayer. “May God be our witness! My Lord Duke William grasps hold of England with his hand—is it not ours for the taking?”

A cheer swept up. William hauled himself to his feet, using his good friend as a support. Grinned. That was quick thinking, Will. I thank you and vow that you shall be well rewarded—soon. As soon as may be.”

Fitz Osbern inclined his head. He wished that he could answer that he sought no reward, but it would not be the truth. If they had not come to take land and riches, then why had they come at all?

Pevensey, however, was not where William had intended to make landfall. They were too far west, but no matter. Scouts secured their immediate safety; the masts were unstepped, horses unloaded and a portable fortress erected in a matter of hours within the compound of the old Roman defences. On the following day, as dawn crested the eastern sky, the Norman army moved, by ship and land, to the more suitable harbour of Hastings.

One thing concerned them. Where were the English? The men of the fyrd?

York

They buried Tostig within the York Minster, his coffin laid a discreet distance from the altar, a granite slab covering his resting place. Some grumbled at the honour granted him, murmuring that he was a traitor and a murderer, but most were filled with the exultation of victory and paid little heed to those less benevolent. In death, the man could do no further harm and he was, after all, brother to the King.

The victory had been great—worthy of a tale-teller’s saga. The march north to surprise the unsuspecting enemies; Hardrada and Tostig killed; substantial casualties for their luckless army. Among the English, a few noble and good men were killed, others wounded, but a mere handful only in comparison. Among them, though, were Harold’s own sons: Goddwin had received a sword slash to his right arm, which would most assuredly ache on a winter’s night, and Edmund had a fractured leg, but a clean break that would mend with rest and time.

Swinging with confident strides back along the road to York, yodelling their victory songs, the English proclaimed Harold a great warlord and a worthy king. Harold accepted the flattery with good grace, but nonetheless remembered the truth of Stamford Bridge.

Hardrada had been careless. He ought never have marched with so few men in hostile country, and certainly not without taking armour or proper precautions. Tostig too was responsible. Undoubtedly, a part of their failure had been due to his arrogant assumption that Northumbria would bend its humbled knee to him without question and that men who had professed loyalty to him would prefer a Norwegian foreigner over an anointed, English-born king.

The rout that had followed Tostig’s death had been complete. Those who had not died trying to swim the river had been slaughtered or captured. Three hundred longships had made their hostile way up the Ouse; only enough men to sail four and twenty of them survived to return to Norway. Fewer than one thousand men. The keening of the widows would darken the coming winter with the song of sorrow. The rest of the fleet, Harold kept for himself as spoils of victory.

Magnanimously, he allowed those men captured to leave England with their comrades, Olaf, son of Hardrada, among them. Eadwine and Morkere, come from their place of safety, were all for beheading him, but Harold was wiser. It was unlikely that Norway would try for England again; Olaf was no Hardrada. Better to receive his homage and agreement of peace, and allow him to return home—he would be fully occupied these next few years with consolidating his own inherited kingship.

Come the fourth day of the October month, the feasting and merry-making was ended, the men of the fyrd returning to their homes, the noblemen picking up the abruptly severed threads of government. Wounds were healing, life returning to normality. Winter would soon be coming, and there was always much for a man to be doing to ensure the well-being of house place and livestock before the first snows fell.

For himself, Harold had felt little joy in the victory. How could he take pleasure in the slaying of his own brother? A brother who had been fighting in fury against him? He stood in the quiet solitude of the minster, looking down at the tomb. Aye, he was pleased at the splendid achievement of the men who had marched north so quickly, who had fought with exceptional bravery—what king would not be justifiably proud of such heroes? But the fight, for his own heart, was tainted by too much sorrow.

“I trust you are satisfied. Now that you have no one to stand against you.”

Harold raised his head. His sister Edith was standing on the opposite side of the graveplace, her expression one of cool contempt. Her face had thinned, these last months; she looked pinched and hag-bound, like a frustrated, mean-spirited spinster. An unfulfilled woman who had never found happiness, nor was ever likely to. He ought to feel sorrow for her, but there was no room left within him for anything beyond loathing.

He had not seen Edith since the funeral day—his coronation day—when she had swept from Westminster, taking all she could carry with her to Winchester, the Queen’s city. By right, Winchester ought be Alditha’s, but Harold had not had the opportunity to claim it from his sister. And he knew, were he to do so, he would have another spiteful fight on his hands, the possible spilling of yet more English blood. Edith would never, willingly, give up her dower land to the woman who had replaced her. Regarding her sour, condemning expression, Harold realised, all these years later, why Edward had so hated his mother for her refusal to give up and retire quietly.

“There is no point in my saying that this saddens me,” he answered, gesturing to the grave. “You would not believe me.”

Edith had arrived two days previously, her entourage of 500 men sweeping into York, demanding hospitality for the lady within the palace. Morkere, his wounds paining him, his mind occupied with settling the trouble Tostig had stirred, would rather have kicked her backside over the sea with those humiliated Norwegians, but she had been queen to King Edward, and therefore required respect.

She must have been on the road well before the twenty-fifth, the day of battle. Prudently—in case she answered with something he would prefer not to hear—Harold had not asked how she came to be riding to where she expected their brother to be residing. And with her so many men bearing arms and armour. That she had come to aid Tostig did not need to be asked. She had been about to commit treason, but it mattered for naught now. Tostig was dead and she had no champion. Her cause was ended and already beginning to moulder beneath this granite slab.

“He was never a favourite brother, Edith, but for all that, he was my brother. Our mother’s son. I had no wish for this. It was not of my doing. His own greed caused it. Not me.”

Edith’s response was to step around the grave and slap Harold’s cheek, the sharp, bare sound ricocheting from the stone walls, echoing across the nave and chancel. Monks gathered in a western chapel glanced up, concerned.

“You did nothing for him!” she spat. “You betrayed him by making no attempt to regain his earldom, to help him salvage his dignity! And then you pushed him down to his knees by setting Edward’s crown upon your own head—and still you made no effort to help him!” Again she slapped him, the force of her anger and grief thrusting behind the blow. Harold’s head reeled, a bruise instantly reddening from eye to jaw, but he did not move, said only, with such great sorrow, “He could have had anything he wanted, Edith, had he only asked. Anything, except for Northumbria.”

She spat at him, a globule of saliva that landed on his cheek and dribbled into the trail of his moustache. Turning on her heel, she stalked from the minster, her boot heels tap-tapping in her haste. Outside, the sun was shining as if it were midsummer; the weather was most assuredly turned inside out this year. Irritably she called for her mare and was preparing to be boosted into the saddle when the clatter of hooves, coming fast along the road that ran towards the London gate, halted her movement. Edith’s guard, monks, the minster folk, men and women of York, housecarls and soldiers all turned to watch the rider come galloping through the wide-flung gateway, sparks flying from the shoes of his horse as he hauled at the reins. The lathered, sweat-dripping animal came down on one knee; blood oozed from his flanks where the spurs had driven him. The rider flung himself from the saddle and, pausing merely to ask the whereabouts of the King, took the steps in one stride and ran into the minster.

Curious, Edith followed him into the shadowed coolness. She watched him run the length of the aisle and stumble to his knees in front of Harold, his lips moving before the King had barely registered his presence. Standing within the doorway, her back to the sunlight, Edith saw Harold’s face drain chalk pale, his hand go to his sword, the fingers clutch, tight, around it. He asked a few brief questions, which were answered with equal despatch.

The King nodded his head, once, and headed for the doorway. He brushed past Edith without seeing her, shouting for his horse. He mounted by vaulting into the saddle and heeled straight into a canter, giving simultaneous command that the officers of his housecarls were to be summoned.

“What is it?” men were asking, perplexed, a little fearful. “What is wrong?”

Ealdred, Archbishop of York, came hurrying, his vestments gathered into his fists so that he might run the faster. He put his hand out to signal Harold to stop. “What has happened, my Lord? What tragedy? What is wrong?”

“We are in dire need of your prayers, my Lord Archbishop,” Harold said quickly, as he hauled the beast to halt. “I must ride south immediately. Duke William has landed his fleet at Pevensey.”