Knights of the Hawk

Eleven

Like me, the foemen surrounding us were slow to understand what was happening. When they did, however, the collapse was as complete as it was sudden. No matter how many times I have seen it, it never ceases to surprise me how quickly a battle-line will crumble when fear and uncertainty take hold, and so it was then. One instant they were pressing at us, their war-cries filling my ears, drowning out my thoughts, and the next they were abandoning the struggle, running in all directions: towards the ramparts, towards the shore, towards the copses of alder and willow, towards anywhere they might find shelter. They didn’t realise that between our forces and those of their erstwhile ally, Morcar, they had nowhere to go.

Chaos reigned. Bands of Englishmen who only a few moments ago had been friends, united by a common cause and by their hatred of us, suddenly found themselves on opposite sides and unable to tell each other apart. In their panic some of the enemy mistook their own comrades for Morcar’s troops, and set about one another. All the while the men beneath the stag banner drove on, as relentless as they were disciplined. At the same time the main part of our host was beginning to advance once more, not just the knights but also the spearmen, all led by King Guillaume himself, his helmet-tails flying behind him. Beside him rode his standard-bearer, raising the lion of Normandy for all to see. The golden threads glinted in the morning light, and to the east the sun shone with the promise of victory.

And so the rout began.

‘Kill them!’ I heard Wace shouting, and the order was echoed throughout the conroi, passed on from man to man down the line. For the second time that morning we charged down the fleeing foemen, slicing our blade-points across their necks, slashing at the backs of their legs to fell them, only on this occasion there were none of their friends waiting to surprise us from their hiding places, to halt our charge.

Crumpled bodies of the wounded and the dead lay all about, their leather and mail pierced by sword and knife and spear, their clothes matted to their flesh, their weapons and shields beside them, their eyes open but unseeing. Blood ran in rivulets, pooling in the hollows and running into the ditches and pits the enemy had dug, while elsewhere the ground, trampled and torn up by so many hundreds of feet and hooves, had turned into a sucking quagmire. Through it all we rode to the sound of the victory horn and with roars of sword-joy all around. After the heat of the fray, the battle-calm had descended upon me. Nothing mattered but finding the next man whose lifeblood would foul my gleaming blade. I gave myself over to instinct; each thrust and cut, each parry and drive, came without thinking. Long years of training in the yard and at the quintain had ingrained those movements in my limbs. All I had to do was lose myself to the will of my sword-arm, to let it guide me.

What I do remember is glimpsing a blue, mud-spattered banner ahead of us. Beneath it a thegn and his hearth-troops, his huscarlas, stood amidst the screams and the chants and the roars and the howls, bellowing instructions that went unheard, desperately trying to rally the panicked hordes, but all their efforts were in vain. This must be one of the rebel leaders, I thought. He was the wrong build to be Hereward, for he was possessed of a stocky frame and hunched stance, and was fair-haired besides, but nevertheless I reckoned he must be someone of importance.

‘Take him,’ I yelled to my knights and everyone else who happened to be with me. ‘Kill the rest, but take him alive!’

No sooner had the words left my lips than the thegn spotted us coming. His huscarls, the ten or so that remained, closed ranks around him, presenting their scratched shield-faces and their gleaming axe-blades, sharp enough to take a horse’s head from its neck in a single blow. But they were few, while we had the might of an entire army behind us, and he must have sensed that to fight on was useless. He let his sword fall to the ground and raised his hands aloft.

‘Gehyldath eowre wæpnu!’ he bellowed at his retainers, but they did not seem to be paying him any heed. Obviously they preferred to meet death with steel in their hands rather than suffer the shame of giving themselves up to the mercy of their enemies.

I would have granted them their wish, but we were still some thirty paces away when their lord barged his way through their lines and wrested the axe-haft from the grasp of the huscarl to his left, tossing it down.

‘Gehyldath eowre wæpnu,’ he repeated, gesturing towards the others’ axes and spears and seaxes.

One by one, not daring to take their eyes off us even for an instant, his men lowered their weapons and dropped them to the ground with a clatter of steel. Their nasal-guards and cheek-plates made it difficult to see their faces, but even so I could clearly see the scowls they wore, and the hardness in their eyes. Even in defeat, there was much pride there.

I reined Fyrheard in, halting before them, and Wace drew up alongside me. The rest of the conroi did not need any instruction from me, but straightaway formed a circle around the band of Englishmen, just in case they tried to make an escape, though I didn’t think they would.

I fixed my eyes upon the thegn, their leader. He unlaced his chin-strap, letting his helmet fall by his feet. Unkempt hair fell across his brow and he swept it back from his face before staring, unspeaking back at me. His eyes were as blue as the midday sky, his chin raised in defiance.

‘Ic eom Thurcytel,’ he said flatly. I am Thurcytel.

I recognised the name. He was, or had been, among Hereward’s oathmen, if I remembered rightly what Godric had said: one of those who had supported him only to later shift their allegiance to Morcar.

‘My name is Tancred of Earnford,’ I said, just as flatly. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of me.’

‘Should I have?’

I moved closer. My sword was still in my hand, and I pointed it at his breast. ‘Don’t try my patience. Not unless you want me to bury my steel in your heart.’

‘You won’t kill us,’ said Thurcytel.

Wace gave a snort. ‘Why not?’

‘Your king is, at heart, an honourable man. Were he to learn that you received our submission only then to kill us, I think he would not be best pleased.’

Wace laughed. ‘Do you think that he cares whether you live or die? After he’s spent this long trying to capture the Isle? After all the trouble you and your countrymen have caused?’

Thurcytel didn’t answer, which was probably for the best.

‘I’ll see that your life and those of your men are spared,’ I said, ‘provided that you do two things for me. First, I want your sword and your scabbard.’

He spat, and grudgingly unbuckled his belt, letting it fall next to his sword. His scabbard was decorated with copper bands inlaid with gold, while in the middle lobe of the pommel was a single emerald. I nodded to Serlo, who dismounted and collected them from where they lay at Thurcytel’s feet and passed me first the sheath — though the thegn was wider around the waist than me and I had to pull the belt-strap tight to fasten it — and then the blade. The cord wrapped around the hilt was stained red and blood was congealing in the fuller, but otherwise it seemed in good condition, with few nicks along its edge. It was balanced a little more towards the point than I would have preferred, but otherwise it was a weapon befitting a knight.

I slid it back into the scabbard. ‘A fine blade,’ I said to Thurcytel, who merely sneered. ‘Now, the second thing. Tell us where Hereward is.’

His expression changed, from defiance to something like disgust. ‘Hereward?’

‘Is he here, on this field?’

The reward for capturing someone like Thurcytel would be reasonable enough, but the prize for bringing Hereward before the king would be far greater. From everything I had heard of him, he seemed the kind of man to lead from the front, rather than skulk in the ranks. Except that there had been no sign of him during the battle, and that was beginning to worry me.

Thurcytel made a sound that was neither a laugh nor a snort, but something in between. He spat upon the ground. ‘Hereward will not so much as talk to Morcar, let alone fight in the same shield-wall. Always he must do his own thing-’

‘Just tell us where I can find him.’

The battle-anger still simmered inside me, and I was fast losing patience with this Thurcytel.

‘The last I heard, he was still at Elyg, praying at the shrine of St Æthelthryth for her to grant him her favour and help him to bring us victory.’

‘How many men does he have with him?’ Wace asked.

‘A hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred. No more than that.’

‘Dead, all of them,’ someone called, and at once I recognised the voice, which was deep and harsh and rich in arrogance. ‘Or, at least, they will be shortly.’

Morcar strode towards us, a wide grin upon his face, which was flushed with triumph. He was dressed in a leather jerkin reinforced with iron studs, but there was not a speck of blood or dirt on him anywhere, and I wondered whether he had dared enter the fray, or so much as unsheathed his blade during the battle.

He clapped a hand upon Thurcytel’s shoulder. ‘Alas, my friend,’ he said. ‘Fortune did not favour you this day.’

‘You bastard,’ said Thurcytel, shrugging off the other man’s hand. ‘We gave you our allegiance and you betrayed us!’

‘Temper,’ Morcar said in a soothing voice, as if trying to still a querulous child.

For a moment the thegn tensed, as if ready to hurl himself at Morcar, but that moment quickly passed. The earl was accompanied by some dozen of his own spearmen, and Thurcytel must have realised that any attempt he made would not go well for him. He contented himself with spitting at the other’s feet. Morcar only smiled, clearly relishing in his success.

‘How do you know they’re dead?’ I asked him.

Morcar turned and fixed me with a stern look. ‘I recognise you. You’re Robert’s man.’

I was not to be deterred. ‘How do you know they’re dead?’

‘Because I ordered it,’ he retorted. ‘As soon I glimpsed your boats arriving upon the shore, I sent my swiftest rider to Elyg with instructions to my hearth-troops there to kill Hereward and all his followers.’

Even presuming he was telling the truth, that could have been around an hour ago at most, by my reckoning, which meant that Morcar’s messenger had probably only recently arrived.

‘And how can you be sure that all your hearth-troops won’t themselves end up killed by Hereward and his band?’

Morcar drew himself up to his full height and inspected me closely, as if I were some manure he had trodden in, but I was not about to back down. He might consider himself an earl, but we both knew it was a title acquired through treachery and only then by the king’s grace. Whatever noble blood he’d once possessed had soured in his veins long ago. The man who stood before me knew nothing of honour, and he was mistaken if he thought himself worthy of my respect.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could speak something else caught his attention. His eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond my shoulder, and then he and Thurcytel and all their retainers were bending their knees and bowing their heads. I glanced behind me and saw the king riding hard towards us, flanked as he always was by his household knights.

Hurriedly I sheathed my sword. The king paid no attention to us, though, nor indeed to our captives. He was interested only in Morcar.

‘Where were you?’ he barked without so much as a greeting. ‘Where were you?’

‘My lord,’ Morcar began. ‘I don’t-’

‘The moment we arrived upon the Isle. That’s when you were supposed to begin your attack.’

‘Have I not given you victory, my king?’ he protested. ‘Have I not given you the Isle, as I promised? Is that not enough?’

Suddenly I understood why Morcar had waited so long before committing his forces. He’d wanted to see which way the battle would turn before deciding whether to hold to his promise. Only when he could be sure of being on the winning side had he finally marched to help us.

No doubt the king realised this too, since he regarded Morcar for what seemed like an eternity. In his eyes burnt a fire more intense than I had ever seen, and I think that, were it not for the fact that several hundred of the Englishman’s sworn followers were watching, he might have struck him down there and then.

‘You have given me nothing yet,’ the king snarled as he turned away.

‘What about my nephew, lord?’ Morcar shouted to his back. ‘It was agreed that he would be returned to me.’

The king curbed his horse, no doubt startled, as were the rest of us, by such effrontery. ‘What makes you think I haven’t already ordered him killed?’

‘If you have, then our agreement is finished,’ Morcar replied, but though his words suggested defiance, his tone betrayed his lack of confidence. Having wormed his way into the king’s favour and allowed our army on to the Isle, he would be foolish indeed to risk losing everything by fighting us now, especially over such a small point.

The king smiled and raised an eyebrow in amusement. ‘It is as well, then, that young Godric lives. You entertain me, Earl Morcar, and for that I will see that your nephew is brought to you.’ He turned towards one of his household guards, a dark-featured man with a broken nose and a scar upon his lip. ‘Fetch the boy from Alrehetha.’

‘Yes, lord king,’ Scar-lip replied, and broke off from the conroi, making back towards the bridge.

‘In the meantime,’ the king said to Morcar, ‘you’ll come with me.’ He turned his gaze upon myself and Wace, although his expression showed no sign of recognition. ‘You too. Bring every man you can muster.’

‘Where are we going, lord?’ I asked.

‘To Elyg!’ he shouted over his shoulder as he galloped away. His household guards fell into close formation around him, and they made towards the head of the main part of our host, which was once more forming up in its ranks and columns. Frenchmen cheered as he passed, showing their respect for the man whose vision and unfailing resolve had, despite the months of setbacks and frustrations, despite the misgivings of almost every man in his army, despite the fact that the odds had not favoured us, led us to this victory.

Except that it was not won yet. There remained Elyg and Hereward. For all Morcar’s conviction that he was as good as dead, I would believe it only when I saw it with my own eyes. Indeed if I’d learnt but one thing of Hereward in recent weeks, it was that he was not a man to be underestimated.

Morcar, red-faced, was calling for someone to fetch him a horse. When a servant-boy finally brought one to him, he was rewarded for his trouble with a clout around the ear that sent him sprawling. The earl noticed me watching him and scowled, as if I were somehow responsible for having brought the king’s wrath upon him.

‘Come on,’ I said to Pons and Serlo, gesturing for them to follow as I mounted up. ‘Let’s go.’

‘What about them?’ Pons asked, meaning Thurcytel and his men. ‘We’re not going to leave them, are we?’

The disappointment on his face was clear. The capture of one of the rebel leaders would bring us not just glory but riches too, and I was as reluctant as he to give those things up. But the king had spoken. Once the Isle belonged fully to us, then we could begin to think about prisoners, but not before. Not while there was still work to be done.

‘We have no choice,’ I said. ‘Now, with me!’

We were in danger of being left behind. The king’s banner was already on the move, striking out across the flat country to the north and east, in the direction of Elyg. I searched among the assembled banners for the black and gold, and found it towards the middle of the column. Robert was there, together with his knights, most of whom seemed unhurt save for some small scratches and cuts, although as we grew closer I could see that our numbers were decidedly thinner than they had been.

Only then did I realise that one of us was missing.

Robert saw us then, and came over to greet us, but before he could say anything I asked him, ‘Where’s Eudo?’

He glanced first at myself and then at Wace, frowning as if not quite understanding. ‘I thought he was with you.’

‘He was,’ Wace said. ‘And now he isn’t.’

I turned to Serlo and Pons. ‘You were close to him in the fray, when the English had us surrounded,’ I said. ‘Did you see what happened to him?’

‘No, lord,’ said Serlo, while Pons merely shook his head.

I swore under my breath, at the same time trying to think when and where I had last seen him. I didn’t recall having spotted him fall, but that meant nothing, for in the heat of battle one’s world becomes narrowed, and there are many things that one cannot hope to notice amidst the din of steel on steel, screaming horseflesh and the glittering blades of the enemy.

‘He’ll be all right,’ Robert said, laying a hand upon my arm in reassurance. ‘He can take care of himself.’

‘His knights were with him,’ Wace pointed out. ‘They’ll have seen him to safety, I’m sure.’

I hoped Wace was right, and silently prayed that the cost of victory here today did not turn out to be Eudo’s life. If it were, I would never forgive myself.

We arrived outside Elyg a little more than an hour later. The skies were ablaze with pinks and oranges and the sun was rising, steadily burning away the remaining tendrils of marsh-mist, and glaring so brightly off the still fens that we had to shield our eyes.

Exactly as Godric had told us, the rebels had fortified the place in preparation for a siege, strengthening the gatehouse and throwing up a stockade around the monastery. Instead of shutting themselves away inside those defences, however, men and women were flocking in their scores and hundreds away from the stronghold, herding their children and carrying the smaller ones in their arms, even as others drove swine and sheep from the pens and the fields towards the woods and the marsh. Others followed, with wagons and pack animals, but they were so laden with goods that they were in danger of being left behind. On first sight of our approaching army they abandoned their goods, instead taking flight as fast as their legs could carry them. No sooner had they done so than the plunder began, as groups of riders split off from the main part of the army, raiding those same wagons and spilling the contents of the packs on to the ground in search of silver and gold and anything else that might be valuable. They would be lucky to discover much of value among the possessions of mere peasants, however. The monastery was where the greater riches were to found.

Or so I thought at first. We soon learnt that when Morcar’s order had reached his men in Elyg, they had taken it not just as the sign to attack Hereward and his band, but also as an invitation to begin looting, perhaps thinking that anything they didn’t quickly lay claim to would shortly be seized by us Normans. Breaking into the abbey’s treasure house, they had filled sacks with coin and gilded candlesticks and anything else they could lay their hands upon, before crossing the cloister to the church where the service of prime was then in progress. There they had drawn weapons and driven the monks out, seized jewel-inlaid crosses, torn down tapestries bearing images of the Passion, stripped altars of their expensive cloths and even stolen the strongbox containing the monies that had been given as alms.

This news was brought to us by one of the king’s messengers, who in turn had heard it from Elyg’s abbot, an Englishman named Thurstan, who, together with the rest of the monks, had met the king at a small village named Wiceford a few miles from the monastery, having had no choice but to leave Elyg to the ravages of Morcar’s hearth-troops. On hearing that our army was approaching, he had come seeking his liege-lord’s protection, as well as his forgiveness for having harboured his enemies for so long, a circumstance which he claimed had been imposed upon them against their will.

‘What of Hereward?’ I asked the messenger. He was built like a bear, and was almost as hairy as one, too.

‘Gone,’ he said.

‘Gone?’

He nodded grimly. ‘The king is less than pleased. From the sounds of it, Morcar’s men were less interested in risking their lives than they were in claiming booty. There was some fighting in and around the cloister, but it seems Hereward and his band had received forewarning that they’d been betrayed and had already started to make preparations to quit Elyg. They were ready when Morcar’s hearth-troops came for them, and managed to overpower them and break their way out.’

‘They escaped?’ I asked.

‘Not all of them. Morcar’s men killed a good few, and even managed to wound Hereward before his companions could pull him from the fray. So the abbot says, anyway.’

Somehow I’d known this would happen. Not only had Morcar failed to keep to the strategy he’d agreed with us, but he had also allowed Hereward to slip through his fingers.

Wace shook his head in disbelief. ‘After everything, who would have thought that the feared Hereward lacked the stomach for a fight? That he would turn out to be such a coward?’

‘He’s no coward,’ I assured him. Wace would have known that if he had crossed paths with him as we had. I turned to the bear-man. ‘Where did they go?’

‘Out into the marshes to the north of here, by way of the secret paths.’

‘And Abbot Thurstan saw all this happen?’

‘With his own eyes. He is a broken man. Three of the monks under his protection were killed in the confusion as they tried to flee. He blames himself for their deaths.’

So he should, I thought, for nothing good ever came to those who threw in their lot with King Guillaume’s enemies. But that, at this moment, was not what was most important.

‘We need to get after them,’ I said to the others. ‘We can’t let Hereward get away.’

‘What does it matter?’ Wace asked. ‘If he’s gone, the Isle is ours.’

He was right, I supposed. And yet as long as Hereward remained out there, it seemed to me that our task remained unfinished. I’d been readying ourselves for one last battle, expecting either that he would make a stand within Elyg’s walls, defying us to the end, or else that we would arrive to find the struggle between him and Morcar’s forces still ongoing. In a strange sort of way, I was disappointed. I’d wanted the chance to free my sword-arm once more, to make Hereward pay for all the injury he and his band of followers had caused, and for the humiliation he had inflicted upon me. Instead, after everything, the rebels had crumbled like a house whose timbers were rotten, shearing into so many splinters.

Of all those splinters, though, the most dangerous was Hereward. He had raised a rebellion against us once already, and would surely do it again if given the chance, if not this year then when the next campaigning season came around in the spring. That was why we couldn’t let him get away.

And I hadn’t forgotten, either, the promise I’d made: a promise given to a dying man, a man of God, though I hadn’t even learnt his name; a promise that so far remained unfulfilled. Anyone who knew me well would attest that I never made such oaths lightly. Whether I liked it or not, I was bound to that promise, and unless I made good on it and brought Hereward to justice, I would have perjured myself before God.

‘Which way did he go?’ I shouted after the messenger who’d brought us this information. Already he was heading on down the column to spread the news.

‘Hereward?’ he asked. ‘He’s at least an hour gone. You’ll never catch up with him now.’

He had a point. There was no way of knowing which of the many routes Hereward had taken through the marshes, or where exactly he might be headed.

A cheer rose up from the direction of Elyg’s gates. I turned around to find them opening, and a contingent of men whom I presumed must be Morcar’s huscarls marching forth to greet the king. Elsewhere fighting was breaking out over some slight I hadn’t witnessed. Frenchmen were attacking Frenchmen, wrestling one another to the ground even as their friends tried to prise them apart, striking out with knife and sword, and some were staggering, wounded, clutching at their sides, their arms and their faces. Now that the battle was over, all their rage came pouring out. I had seen it happen before, and once witnessed it is a difficult thing to forget. It is as if a madness, a sickness of the mind, takes hold. Reason and restraint are forgotten, and those who in other circumstances one might count among the most even-tempered of men become wild creatures.

Robert was bellowing instructions to his troops, trying desperately to keep some measure of control. Other barons, not wishing to let slip the chance of plunder, or to let their rivals claim it before they did, were leading their conrois towards the monastery, their banners raised high, kicking up clods of turf and mud as they went.

That was when I saw Godric. He rode a grey palfrey, and was being escorted by three knights, one of whom was King Guillaume’s man, the one with the broken nose and the scarred lip. Suddenly an idea came to me.

Waving to attract their attention, I rode to intercept them. ‘Where are you taking the boy?’ I asked.

‘To the king,’ answered Scar-lip, drawing himself up self-importantly. I thought he recognised me from earlier, but couldn’t be sure. ‘What business is it of yours?’

‘There’s been a change of plan,’ I said, aware that to lie to the king’s men in such a way was to commit a grave perfidy. I would worry about that later, and if need be suffer the consequences. ‘The king wants to keep him hostage until he has received formal submission from all the rebels. Only then will he return him to his uncle. Until then he wants him taken back to Alrehetha.’

‘Back to Alrehetha? We’ve just ridden there and back!’

‘I realise that,’ I said. ‘If you prefer, I’ll escort him back there for you.’

He eyed me doubtfully, but evidently he could think of no reason to distrust me. ‘If you wish,’ he said with a sigh. ‘He’s yours,’ he said, and signalled to the other two.

I watched them go, making sure that they were out of earshot, then turned to Godric.

‘What’s going on, lord?’ he asked. ‘I thought I was being taken-’

‘You were,’ I said, ‘but now there’s something I would have you do for me first. Hereward has fled into the marshes. I thought you might tell me where he’s gone.’

‘Me, lord? How would I know?’

‘If you were him and looking to escape, where would you go?’

Godric shrugged. ‘To the ships, I suppose.’

‘The ships?’

‘The ones that we’ve been using to provision the Isle.’

Of course. The king had been trying to find them and destroy them for the better part of three months, without any success.

‘And where are they?’

‘Some miles to the north of here, deep in the fen country, on the mere near Utwella, where the rivers meet.’

If he had only thought to tell us this a few days ago, I thought with not a little irritation, we might have tried to stage an attack on them. But then I remembered how he had spoken of the lavish feasts that the rebels had been holding. If they were already that well provisioned, what difference would it have made even if we had been able to cut off their supplies? It would not have prevented King Guillaume with pressing ahead with the assault, nor would it have made our task any easier.

‘Could you show us the way?’ I asked. ‘And answer honestly. The last thing I want is for us all to end up cut off and drowned when the tide rises.’

‘I think so, lord.’

That was good enough for me. It would have to be, for who else was there that I could rely upon? Who else knew the ways? Strange though it seemed, I had come to trust Godric.

‘Very well,’ I told him. ‘We don’t have a moment to spare.’

As it was, we would be hard pressed to catch them. Our quarry had a good lead on us already, and even though we were mounted, whereas it sounded as though they were travelling on foot, this was difficult country for horses. Still, I would rather make the attempt and fail than not try at all.

I searched about for the black-and-gold banner and Lord Robert, but couldn’t find him anywhere. Bands of men on horseback and on foot rushed past on both sides, most making for the monastery, while a few were tearing thatch from nearby hovels in search of treasures that the folk who lived there might have hidden before they took flight. All was disorder, as our proud and noble army dissolved into packs of wolves.

I saw Wace with the Gascon and Tor, and called to them, waving for them to follow me. ‘Wace!’

‘Where are you going?’ Wace shouted back.

‘After Hereward!’

He looked at me as if I had lost my wits, and perhaps I had, although the wildness that possessed me was of a different sort to that which had seized the rest of our army. A confidence burnt inside me that I could not account for. Suddenly anything seemed possible.

‘You’re going after Hereward?’ he asked, and wiped another trickle of blood from his cheek.

‘Why not?’ I replied.

To him this no doubt sounded like a fool’s errand, but I knew otherwise. For I wasn’t only thinking of the oath I had sworn. I was also thinking that here was our chance to do something worthy of the king’s attention, something that the chroniclers would write of when, in years to come, they came to lay quill to parchment about the battle for the Isle. Whether they admitted it or not, fame was what all those who made their living by the sword craved, more than silver or gold or fine-wrought blades or horses with jewel-studded harnesses or land or power. I was no different. I longed to restore my dwindling reputation, and I saw in Wace’s eyes that he had the same hunger.

‘Why not, indeed?’ he said with a smile, and I grinned too, because I’d known he wouldn’t refuse.

‘Do you really think we can catch them, lord?’ asked Pons.

‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘But we can try.’

No one noticed as, led by young Godric, we slipped away from the rest of King Guillaume’s host, leaving behind us the clash of steel, the shouts of triumph and of pain, as we rode in pursuit of Hereward.

And glory.