[Norman Conquest 01] Wolves in Armour (2 page)

To the west and south of the town a huge tent city was spread haphazardly across many fields, seething with activity. A thousand tents appeared to be randomly clustered around the colourful banners outside the larger pavilions of the nobles. Archers were practicing at the butts to the west of the camp. The horse-lines to the north of the town contained at least 2,000 horses with hundreds of men moving amongst them. Other men moved like a stream of ants into the woods just to the west of the town, whence the sound of axes could be heard, returning carrying armloads of wood for the hundreds of cooking-fires scattered amongst the tent city.

In one section of the encampment were tents with outdoor forges where smiths were fashioning horse-shoes and nails, and increasing the reserve supplies of arrowheads and crossbow bolts. The smoke from the various fires combined to make a pall like a cloud that drifted to the south on the breeze, making Alan’s eyes sting. Farriers were at work amongst the horse-lines. Fletchers sat in open-sided tents making arrows the length of a man’s forearm from the supply of wooden shafts provided by the duke, carefully checking that each was straight before attaching goose feathers and arrowhead and then placing each head-down in small barrels. The weather was cold and windy, with the wind from the north. Occasional showers of autumn rain swept in.

Out in the river, and in the shelter of the bay beyond, stood so many ships that Alan couldn’t count them. Hundreds were crammed together with scarcely a gap between them.

He straightened his back, shifted his sore buttocks on the saddle and ran a gloved hand through his short-cropped red hair. Alan de Gauville was a tall, thin but physically powerful young man of eighteen years with grey eyes. A smile twitched on his pale freckled face. “Looks like we’re in the right place,” he commented to the shorter and slightly older dark-haired man riding next to him.

Robert de Aumale laughed in response, reached across and struck Alan a friendly blow on the shoulder. “At least they haven't left without us!” he exclaimed. “Now all we need to do is find Hugh de Berniers and give him the letter that my father’s clerk wrote introducing us… well, introducing me.” Robert glanced back at the five men-at-arms trudging along on foot behind them leading three sum
p
ter horses and a mule, and at his servant Gillard.

The men on foot were tired from their journey but at least they were carrying nothing more than a sword and spear. Their mail shirts, steel helmets and equipment were on the pack-horses, along with the equipment of the two knights. Robert’s father, with his large and wealthy manor at Aumale, had outfitted his son handsomely, particularly considering he was the fourth son. Alan was less well equipped, but with a full mail harness in a pannier of the pack-mule that belonged to him. It was an old hauberk, patched and repaired- but the best that his family could afford to provide him.

A groom from Aumale accompanied them to take back the spare pack-horses after they arrived at their destination. Man and beast, they were all sweaty and covered in the dust of two days on the road.

“It’s a pity that Count Hugh isn’t participating in the expedition,” commented Alan.

Robert pulled a wry face. “He’s old, at least fifty, and well past campaigning. Father tells tales of Hugh in his youth when he’d have been at the forefront of the charge. He has one son. I’ve heard that Bertrand wanted to join Duke William, but Hugh wouldn’t allow it; he wants to keep him alive to become Count after him. Invasions have a high mortality rate. Why take the risk when you’re already going to be a Count? What more would he get out of joining the invasion?”

“Still, at least he could have made arrangements for his people to participate, joining all of us together into a respectable force with another Count’s men, so we don’t have to each negotiate our own inclusion,” complained Alan. “Who is this Hugh de Berniers anyway?”

“He’s a vassal of Geoffrey de Mandeville. I assume you have heard of him? He’s pledged eighty ships to the expedition,” replied Robert sarcastically.

“Where the devil did they get all the ships?” asked Alan, pointing at the bay.

“I understand there isn’t a ship between Stockholm and the Iberian border that hasn’t been spoken for,” replied Robert. “Many hundreds of others were built over the last few months, or at least thrown together since we have few shipwrights in Normandy. There are 500 or 600 ships at least. Robert of Mortain pledged 120 ships. Bishop Odo pledged 100,” replied Robert.

They continued with the stream of men, horses and wagons down the dusty winding road towards the town, past fields where the villeins and freemen of the town were at work with sickle, scythe and pitch-fork. With the harvest already gathered they were cutting and stooking the stubble and making haystacks.

It was the 20th September in the Year of Our Lord 1066.

Following the beaten track into the tent city Robert took charge of the group and sought ever more specific directions. Firstly to the Norman camp, set amongst those of Duke William’s Breton and Flemish allies and French mercenaries, then to Geoffrey de Mandeville’s encampment. There Alan and Robert dismounted and Robert gestured to his men-at-arms to unload the pack-horses. Only one pack-horse and Alan’s mule would be retained, to carry the equipment of the knights on campaign under the supervision of Gillard. Being infantry, from now on the men-at-arms would wear or carry their own equipment. Robert disappeared into the throng and returned ten minutes later accompanied by a short stocky man with dark hair cropped short, stubble on his chin and wearing a brown leather jerkin and green hose.

“Hugh de Berniers, I have the honour to introduce Alan de Gauville,” said Robert, making a theatrical gesture with his right hand. As Alan and Hugh grasped forearms in greeting Robert turned to the spare groom and said, “Allerd, I want these pack-horses back in Aumale tomorrow. Here’s a denier for you to buy food for tonight and tomorrow and to bed down in a stable with the horses tonight. Get going!” Turning to Hugh he asked “Where’s de Mandeville?”

With a smile Hugh replied, “You’d better learn proper respect! Count Geoffrey is in Abbeville with Duke William and the other mighty nobles. I’ll take you to his victualler Michel. He’s a Frenchman, but not too bad despite that. He’ll be in Count Geoffrey’s pavilion tent,” he indicated a large white tent with a nod of his head. “Come with me and I’ll introduce you now.” Hugh paused and looked affably up at Alan, taking in his six-foot height, lean frame, red hair and the well-muscled broad shoulders of a trained warrior. “And what do they call you? ‘Fire in the Thatch’, ‘Rufus’ or ‘Longshanks’?” he asked.

Alan laughed and replied, “I haven’t been important enough to acquire a by-name yet.”

“Well spoken young lad, isn’t he?” said Hugh to Robert as they strode toward the pavilion.

“That comes from him being a failed monk. The Benedictines threw him out about two years ago.”

Hugh shot a quick look at Alan, who had developed a sudden deep blush. “Their loss and our gain! I look forward to hearing the story tonight! Here we are!” He pushed a way through the crowded entrance to the tent and then forced a way towards a small, shaven-headed man who was sitting behind a table looking harassed. “Ho, Michel! My friend Thibaut de Aumale has sent two knights, including his son, and five men to join us!”

Michel barely glanced up from the papers in front of him. “Give their details to my clerk, over there. The knights can join your squadron. Do the men-at-arms have their own horses? No? Well, they can join Walter’s infantry company. Six deniers each a week, plus food and fodder for the horses.”

Michel looked past Hugh at the next in line and began to speak to him when Robert interrupted. “When do we see Count Geoffrey to swear fealty?”

Michel laughed. “Count Geoffrey doesn’t have time for that crap! We’re due to sail as soon as the wind changes fair for England. Take your places, do your duty and if you’re found worthy he can worry about that later. Next!”

Back outside in the late afternoon sunshine Alan commented, “Well, that was a bit abrupt. I didn’t think we’d exactly be greeted like the prodigal son, but I’d have thought we’d have been made more welcome than that!” Hugh flushed with embarrassment but made no comment. Clearly he was put out by the cavalier treatment he himself had just received. “Let’s get ourselves set up before it gets dark,” Alan continued.

“You have your own tent?” asked Hugh.

“Yes, a five-man tent,” replied Robert.

Hugh nodded his acknowledgment that either Alan and Robert, or more likely their fathers, knew something about campaigning and said, “There’s an open space over there where you can set up your tent. Horse-lines are down there. You’re responsible to look after your own horses. The main meal is at mid-day, of course. There’s also food provided at about dusk. Don’t rely on getting any food in the town. There’s a baker, pie-sellers and so on- but with 6,000 hungry men in camp the food in the town is poor quality, expensive and scarce. You get a pound of meat, half a pound of cheese and some fruit and vegetables a day. Err… if you’re religious, there’s no fish on Fridays, sorry. Horses get fresh-cut grass and hay twice a day. If you want them to have oats, you have to arrange that yourself. Again, it’s expensive- you can spend your whole wage just feeding your horse.”

While Gillard took the horses down to the horse-lines, rubbed them down and fed and watered them, the others set up the tent, squeezed into a vacant spot of grass, and moved the knight’s equipment inside before the men-at-arms went to report at the infantry compound. Alan took three
palliasses
to the hay store and filled the mattresses, carrying all three back at once, draped over his head and back.

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After dark Alan sat around a camp-fire with Hugh, Robert and another dozen or so men, some sitting close to the flames and others leaning back against saddles and other equipment in the semi-darkness further from the fire. The meat, a nondescript grey in colour, full of gristle and starting to turn slimy, had been boiled with vegetables. Alan was eating from a wooden bowl, having already drunk the liquid. Having given up trying to cut the meat with his knife he was gnawing patiently at the hunk of meat with his side teeth. A slice of rancid cheese lay on the grass next to him.

Alan, Hugh and Robert were the only knights in the troop, the others being common soldiers. While the talk at table at home had rarely been refined, the talk about the fire was sufficiently gross as to make Alan uncomfortable. He really wasn’t interested in hearing, thrust by thrust, of one man’s conquest of a local village slut.

“You going to eat that, boy?” demanded a man who was slouched several paces away, his voice thick with a Flemish accent. Having obtained Alan’s attention, he indicated towards the cheese with a knife which he has been using to clean his fingernails. Alan gave him a flat stare before picking up the cheese and tossing it to him. “What’s the matter, boy? Not up to your usual standards at high table? Well, queer boy, you’re going to have to get used to worse than that before the campaign is over.”

Alan sighed, put the tough meat back in the bowl and placed it on the ground next to where he was sitting. He realised he had to do something, otherwise his life was going to be made a misery for the next few months. “Maybe so,” he replied, wiping his hands on a cloth. “But I don’t have to get used to putting up with shit-for-brains like you not showing proper respect for their betters. Since you’re calling me a queer, I suspect that’s just wishful thinking on your part- not that anybody would want to have sex with a stinking deformed monkey like you.”

“Proper respect! Deformed monkey! We’ll see about that, you ponce!” snarled the Fleming in reply, starting to his feet as the others around the fire first guffawed and then fell silent in anticipation.

“No swords!” shouted Hugh, seeing Alan’s hand moving towards the sheathed sword that lay next to him. “Fists or knives!”

“Then knives it is!” said Monkey-Man in a low and dangerous tone as he circled around Alan waving his knife in the air as the latter rose to his feet and drew his own knife from a sheath in his right boot. “I’m going to cut you, boy. Cut you so bad your boyfriends will run in fright when they see you!”

Alan thought that the whole situation was ridiculous, but recognised its seriousness. He was surprised that Hugh was prepared to allow things to proceed, but knew he had to respond to the challenge and was confident despite his lack of years.

His background was an unusual in that, because he was intelligent and was a third son of a relatively poor family and with no prospects of inheritance, he’d been sent at the age of twelve to study at the Benedictine abbey at Rouen. A precocious lad, he was always in trouble, and at the age of sixteen was embarrassingly caught naked in the bed of a novice nun. That incident had caused the abbot to lose patience and expelled him. To allow Alan the opportunity to catch up for missed training time his father had called in a favour owed to him by the famous swordsman Angelo, and Alan had spent two years of intensive weapons-training at Angelo’s salle d’armes in Paris. Amongst the skills taught was ‘rough and dirty’ knife fighting. He remembered Angelo’s comments and instructions as if it were yesterday. ‘There’s no such thing as an experienced knife-fighter- everybody gets killed or badly cut after a few bouts’. ‘Fight to win- fight dirty’. ‘Keep it simple. Keep it short.’