Mercenaries

CHAPTER FOUR

A week of manoeuvre had come to an end; the field of battle had been set. The Norman host rose stiff from their slumbers to a damp, grey dawn mist, and before they fed themselves, on a morning of expected conflict, more prayers were said, each fighting man using his sword to represent the Cross on which their Lord Jesus had died so that they may be saved. Murmuring the Stations of that Cross they entreated the Almighty that their sins might be forgiven, their fears evaporate, their deeds be courageous and if they should fall that their souls be granted entry into paradise.

Prayers done, their fast could be broken; some, as they ate, made loud jokes to hide their concerns, others laughed at those sallies with too much mirth, but most were silent, concentrating on being sure that everything about their equipment was in perfect order: that their sword could not be sharper, nor less so the blades of their knives and the points of their lance. Many spoke to their horses as if they were still speaking to God, for in battle, their mounts would be as great an aid to survival as their faith.

The destriers they would ride — tough horses bred not for speed but for steadiness and fearlessness — picked up the mood and those inclined to be restless anyway became hard to control as they were saddled and caparisoned, with many a knight or squire required to be swift on his feet to avoid a flashing hoof or a quick nervous bite.

For the first time, the de Hautevilles unpacked their surcoats, new and bright, woven, sown and dyed especially for this day, bearing the same blue and white chequer as their painted shields. Each knight attended upon another, making sure that belts and straps on waist, knee and forehead were tight, that the girths on the horses were not frayed or loose, that the stirrups were of the right length to bear easily the weight of a standing rider.

If Tancred de Hauteville was fussier than most, intent on ensuring that his whole convoy was in perfect condition, that was part habit, but more that he was leading his sons into battle for the first time. It never occurred to him that they would disgrace him, or fail to fight as hard as any man in the duke’s army, but over and over again he repeated the mantras that they had heard from his lips all their lives about how to handle their mounts, how to pay attention to commands, which way to hold and use their lance while ensuring that their shields protected them from the counter-thrusts of those they would be attacking. If he noticed that the murmured agreement from the lips of his sons and their like-age companions sounded bored, it did nothing to dent his insistence.

William was doing much the same as an elder brother, acting as if he had battle experience when he had only participated in local skirmishes, and annoying his siblings mightily. But they no more rejected advice from him than they did from their father, for in truth they knew the elder brother to be using his concern to allay his own nervous anticipation. And all were prey to the same thought: they had sought this day since they were children contesting with wooden swords, dreamt of it when as youths they first rode and sought to control, with nothing but their knees, a fighting horse. Now it was upon them, it did not seem so splendid as it had in anticipation.

The anxious tics evaporated when the horns blew to assemble. It was like a signal, for the mist lifted as the rising sun began to burn it off, and the men of the Norman cavalry were greeted with the first sight of the Franks they would fight alongside, a footborne host marching in its own cloud of dust, heading in straggling columns towards the nearby field of combat, men whose heads seemed to be bowed already with weariness. The sound of a beating drum drifted on the air, the steady beat in time with those hundreds of silent feet.

‘They look sapped already,’ said William.

‘Beaten,’ Drogo added, ‘though they’re not yet running.’

‘Then be glad you have a horse to carry you,’ growled Tancred. ‘Now get your helmets on and mount up.’

The move to do so was carried out with a degree of inflexibility, for even young and strong as his boys were they were hampered in their movement by the weight of their mail hauberks, indeed Geoffrey de Montbray, a small cross of the crucified Christ swinging on his chest, had to have a leg-up to mount, which earned him a few remarks about the diminishing power of the deity he represented.

‘As long as I feel his power in my sword arm, cousins, that will suffice, though I will pray for the souls of those I smite.’

They were horsed by the time the duke rode round the camp to take a salute from his troops. Mounted on a magnificent grey animal and wearing mail finer than those of his vassals, he exuded confidence and William de Hauteville, for one, wondered if he felt as he did: that whatever rank they held, whatever other matters impinged on their lives, this was the high point of their existence. Nothing mattered more to a Norman of noble birth than the ability and willingness to engage in battle; nothing had greater importance in their society than the ability to wield a sword and win a fight. Let others till the soil and harvest the crops, let others tend the sheep, the cattle, the chickens and the goats. A knight had but one true purpose.

Behind Robert rode the Constable of the host and the Master Marshall, as well as that high-ranking prelate William had seen in the ducal pavilion. He was not in clerical garb now: like cousin Geoffrey he was equipped for battle, albeit his mail was covered by a more priestly surplice, for he alone had the right to wear proud on his breast the sign of the Cross. Before each assembled battaile he stopped, bowed his head, uttered a short prayer, then blessed them with two swift strokes of his right hand.

Inspection complete, Robert, Duke of Normandy, stood in his stirrups and addressed his knights, his voice strong and carrying. ‘This day, we must help the Lord to whom I am a vassal, the King of the Franks, assert his right. Base is the brother that seeks to usurp the power of a rightful king.’

The slight ripple of noise that ran through the army was quickly suppressed; how many listening wondered at their duke’s use of those words?

‘My Lord of France has an army, but he does not have what I can bring to him, which is the best and most puissant mounted host in Christendom. You are Normans!’ They jabbed their lances and cheered, which Duke Robert killed off with a raised hand. ‘I have no doubt today will bring victory to our arms, and I have sworn before my Lord Bishop of Fecamp that in thanks for this I will undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. My life and soul I commend to God this day, as I commend yours, and since my being is in his hands, I will not shrink from the loss of it, if the Almighty so wills it.’

That brought forth a cry of emotion, a denial of the obvious fact that no man in a fight could say what his fate would be.

‘I ask only the same of you all. Should I fall…’

That needed another ducal hand to silence disagreement. As that was imposed, a gap opened behind Duke Robert, to admit a small boy, perhaps no more than five years old, sat on a white palfrey; dark haired, pale of complexion and slight of build he came to take station beside the duke, significantly by his right hand.

‘Should I fall, I commend to you my son, William of Falaise, may God preserve and keep him. He is my true heir, and you, my vassals, must serve him as you would serve me.’

With that Robert bent from his mount, low, to kiss his son. He indicated that his ducal gonfalon was to be brought forward, and the boy was obliged to kiss that, and loud was the subsequent cheer for the universal sign of inheritance. It would have taken a keen eye and ear to note that not all were joining in the acclaim, to note that in some quarters there was not only silence, but a look of doubt, if not anger. If they had been close enough to Tancred de Hauteville, as his eldest son was, they would have heard him grinding his teeth.

The horns blew on the Constable’s signal and Robert swung his horse to lead his men to the field of battle under the fluttering banner of those two recumbent golden lions on a bright-red background that was the standard of his house.

Naturally, being cavalry the duke sought the high ground, an aid to any mounted attack. On this elevated position the sun-dappled battlefield lay before the men in the front rank, which included the de Hautevilles, like some kind of yet-to-be-sewn tapestry. The king’s rebellious brother had drawn up his army with its left fixed on a river, with a force of cavalry on a mound to his right, protecting the mass of his infantry and ensuring they could not be outflanked there. The ground, from the river, rose to where the cavalry sat, not much, but it indicated to at least one keen eye that the line of attack for the king’s infantry was on the flatter ground, where the river would offer protection to their right as well.

‘I wonder if that river is fordable?’ William asked.

‘You think to surprise them, brother?’ asked Drogo, sat on William’s right.

‘I fear more they may surprise us. Those horsemen on the right might not be the whole force pitted against us. What if they have pushed another battaile to cross further downstream and come upon us behind this position?’

‘We would see them.’

William pointed to the rolling hills on the opposite bank. ‘Not if they are in the folds of those.’

‘The duke would turn and destroy them,’ insisted Tancred. ‘Man for man we are ten times any Frank, be he horsed or not.’

‘Which would,’ William responded, ‘draw us off and if that happened at the right time…’

‘You’re imagining things,’ his brother insisted.

‘Probably, but they hold the ground, Drogo, forcing us to come to them and our friend yonder is definitely intent on a defensive battle…’

‘How can you know that?’

‘He is standing his ground, which means he is waiting to be attacked.’

‘Though you forget to add it matters not what he does,’ his father said.

‘I’m just speculating.’

‘Anyone would think you were in command.’

There was no rancour in that remark, more a touch of humour.

‘I’m just thinking what I would do if I was, or even more, what I would do if I was the enemy, which I cannot but believe is a good notion.’

‘Can’t you see it?’ Tancred interrupted. ‘The King of the Franks hopes to do this without help. The last thing he wants is for Duke Robert to win his battle. If he did he would have used us first to seek to break the enemy line. But he has not, and I can tell you if he can win on his own, with just his milites, he will do so, which might just allow him to repudiate whatever promises he had made for our support.’

‘So we could have come all this way for no purpose, money service aside.’

The eyes on either side of his father’s nose guard were not pleased at that reference, so William decided on silence, but he could not help but let his mind speculate on all the possible ways in which this battle could be played out. The king’s foot soldiers would, even if they tried to attack across the whole front of the enemy line, naturally trend towards the flat ground and once they were engaged the enemy cavalry, using the slope before them, might try to drive them towards the river.

It was not necessary to beat them, merely to crowd them into a smaller frontage and so reduce the power of the assault. Draw off the Normans then, and their allies would be in trouble, but such a tactic only worked if the rebellious brother had enough mounted men to split his force, and Drogo was right; there was no evidence of that.

Henry Capet had started his attack. Pikemen at the front, they were moving forward in a line getting more ragged as the uneven ground broke the cohesion of their formation. William could see his notion had been right; the men on the far left were veering right towards the river, they could not help it: the slope dictated they do so. Whoever led them had seen the problem and called a halt to redress the line.

‘Crossbowmen,’ said Drogo.

‘He is using them to keep his enemy in place,’ said Tancred.

‘His enemy, Father, is happy to stay where he is. Those bolts are doing little damage at the range they’re firing. They would be better kept until the range is right.’

‘God in heaven, I have bred a Caesar?’

William threw back his head and laughed, loud enough to make his horse skittish. ‘You might have, Father, but it is as likely to be a Nero as a Julius.’

Silence descended, apart from the snorting of the horses, a thudding hoof and the occasional loud fart before they voided their bowels. Redressed, the attacking line began to move again, but the one thing the commanders had not done was to rectify the way the force was still compacting. There was an ethereal quality to what they were observing. Barring the occasional trumpet, no sound could be heard, though there must have been a mass of shouting as the leaders exhorted their men and those men yelled to give themselves courage.

The two lines converged until they were only twenty paces apart and suddenly that silence was ruptured, as the attackers broke into a charge, the yelling that came in one bellow from several thousand throats rolling up the hill, the clash of metal on metal added to that as the armies clashed. To William what happened next was like watching the tide, a gentle one that lapped the sandy beaches not far from home. The join where men were fighting, being pressed to stay engaged by the masses behind them, wavered this way and that, like wavelets running up and receding on a beach, and for an age it seemed there was no advantage either way. Then the defenders slowly but surely seemed to give, and William noticed the enemy cavalry stirring.

‘Do you think we are close enough?’ he asked.

‘How would I know?’ his father responded.

‘Well I just thought…’

‘Don’t think, William,’ Tancred replied sharply.

‘Take the word of one who has been in this before. Thinking in a battle will drive you to forget what you should be doing, which is what others have decided. You’re here to fight, let others do the calculating.’

William de Hauteville was not about to say so, but such a notion induced a feeling of deep disquiet. He wanted to say the time had come for them to attack. The enemy cavalry would fall upon the disorganised flank of the King’s foot soldiers and if there was no one there to rally them to face the onslaught that part of the host could be rolled up and thrown back on the centre, which might panic and crumble.

Asked how he knew this, he would have been unable to say, but he felt sure of his conclusion. He had been raised in a warrior household, had heard his father describe every battle he had been engaged in, and not just him but every fellow knight who was a visiting friend. There was, in each contest, they had said, a moment of decision, and for William, that moment was right now.

‘Why is the duke waiting?’ he demanded, unable to stay silent.

Tancred de Hauteville sighed. ‘For the same reason as his ally hesitated to let us open the fight. He wants the King of the Franks deeply troubled before we intervene. For our liege lord, this has to be his victory.’

‘So when?’

‘Soon.’

The enemy cavalry had moved, though they had no discipline, but little was needed for what they were obviously trying to do and they charged off their raised ground, using the slope to gain momentum. As soon as the cavalry charged, the enemy front solidified, no longer being pressed back but instead holding and in some places pressing forward. Frustrated at what he was witnessing, William was suddenly aware that the duke was to the fore, a convoy of his familia knights bearing his banner and ducal gonfalon, raised high, alongside him.

‘I told you,’ he heard his father say.

Then the arm dropped and the gonfalon dipped, and as one, the whole Norman front line, a hundred lances, moved forward. When their horses had gone ten paces, the second line began to move. Though none of the de Hautevilles could see it, their eyes being fixed on the task ahead, the rest followed in unison, five lines of warriors. Humphrey’s horse, always more excitable than those of the rest of his family, wanted to do what all horses do, race his fellows; it took a strong hand on the reins to bring his head in and slow him down.

‘Hold your line,’ Tancred ordered, long after it was necessary.

All eyes were on Evro de Montfort’s banner, for that set the pace, which increased to a canter as the slope before them increased. Each man’s world had narrowed to those on either side and what he saw before him. The commander of the enemy cavalry had slipped half his force sideways — clearly he had anticipated the Norman move — while the others were still engaged in pressing back the now disordered infantry. They had turned to face and charge the oncoming Normans. Unbeknown to the men in the front line, those to the rear had, under their own commanders, slowed their pace back to a trot.

For the front line, a horn blew three high notes, and the Normans stood in their stirrups, shortened and looped their reins, to be gripped by the hand below their forearm shield straps. They then dropped their lances to couch them, a solid line of points facing the oncoming enemy, who by now, in their wild charge, were a disordered, galloping throng. The Normans did not gallop; they held their pace and their cohesion, though the speed increased to meet the oncoming threat. Beside him, William could hear his father calling on every saint in the canon, but he could not look at him; like every knight in the line he had picked the man with whom he was about to collide and all his concentration was on ensuring that the fellow would take the point of his lance.

What told, as it always did, was that Norman discipline. Their line was solid, so that each charging enemy, seeking to avoid an oncoming lance, might pull his horse to right or left, only to find himself faced with exactly the same danger from another. It takes, not a brave man, but a fool to maintain his charge in the face of near certain death, so it was no surprise that the enemy cavalry sought to slow their mounts and to seek a chance to defend themselves. Their swords and axes swung at the lance points, but for every one that was fractured or sliced off, another took the rider or his horse.

Men went down on both sides; it could not be otherwise, but the Norman lances pressed forward still with great solidity, men and horses falling before them. Those like William whose lances were lost had out their broadswords and were hacking away at the enemy, still stood in their stirrups, swinging their shields to deflect return blows. One swipe of William’s sword took an opponent at the join of neck and shoulder with such force that it split him to the lower chest, covering his attacker in a fount of bright, warm blood.

As soon as discipline became fractured, the second telling feature of Norman warfare was exercised: the quality of their battlefield leadership. Evro de Montfort might be a tubby and self-important little pouter pigeon, but he was a proper commander and his yelling voice was calling for his battaile to disengage. This they did and followed him to the left, beating off those of their opponents still fighting. If the enemy cavalry thought they had scored a victory they were soon disabused, for the lances of the next battaile, led by an on-fire Bishop of Fecamp, were on them before they could spur their mounts into motion.

Hit by repeated waves of Norman lances the number of bodies on the ground rose as they took the now stationary or retreating enemy. They were a beaten foe, looking for a way to flee and in doing so they would leave their footbound brothers to face certain defeat. De Montfort had led his men to take station behind the as yet unengaged Duke, yelling that they should reform. Only then did Tancred realise two of his convoy were missing.

‘Drogo, Montbray.’

‘Will have to rely on God,’ William shouted back, wondering why his mouth was so dry.

Suddenly, with the enemy cavalry in flight, there before the Norman host lay the exposed mass of the still-fighting rebel milites, and it was clear that the Norman horse had the power of decision over men on foot, which they moved to execute. Behind the front line panic took over as, pressed on the flank by slashing horsemen and to their front by jabbing pikemen, the rebel force broke as each man sought to save himself.

They found Drogo standing over a recumbent enemy, who by his attire was a wealthy individual, to be informed the fellow had sought mercy for ransom. Montbray was on his knees, the cross he wore in his hand, his surcoat bloody, praying for the souls of those deceased who had fallen to his own lance and sword. There were dead horses too, and many more wounded, some with injuries that would mean they would need to be quickly despatched. Better that than a lingering death.

On the mound once occupied by the enemy cavalry, Duke Robert met the King of the Franks and they embraced with the kind of ceremony of two men whose trust for each other is limited. All over the field of battle below them and their colourful retinues the dead were being stripped of their arms and what they wore, while some of those too wounded to survive were being despatched by the foot soldiers of the Frankish King. The rebellious brother had fled the field as soon as he saw that his cause was doomed, not pursued for there was no need. Where would he go? Few would offer him sanctuary.

‘It’s the oubliette for him,’ said Tancred, to his men, all of whom had taken possession of enemy horses and weapons. The old man had hoped to get to the baggage train of their foes but it was clear that had been plundered by the household knights of the Capetian King, none of whom had deigned to take part in the fighting, leaving that to the Normans.

They were on their way back to the encampment, surrounded by equally weary fellow confreres, when they came across Serlo and Robert, leading half a dozen heavily laden packhorses. The boys grinned at their sire, only to cease to do so when his voice thundered out to ask them what they were about.

‘Can you not see, Father?’ said William. ‘Our two little robber barons have beaten the Franks to some booty.’

‘They were supposed to stay out of harm’s way.’

William laughed. ‘They are your sons, sir. They do not know how.’

‘I’ll tan their hides.’

‘Only after we tot up what they have managed to steal.’

The de Hautevilles did not linger, not from fear of Duke Robert’s anger, but because, once they had been paid for their service, the cost of maintenance fell on them and that was cheaper at home than loitering here. They sold or traded what they had taken from the field of battle, as well as most of the contents of Serlo and Robert’s enterprise. Drogo even sold his ransom at a heavy discount to the Constable, given it would be easier for a high official to collect on a prisoner housed in Duke Robert’s castle of Moulineux.

On the first night they camped back on Norman soil, and after all had been seen to with horses and food, Tancred sat down his boys round a fire to tell them what they already knew: there would be no service in the ducal household, no chance to raise themselves in that service. There were other things of which they were aware, whatever their age: that this had dashed their father’s long-held hopes and the reason — the property on which they had been raised was too small to support them all.

‘I had hoped, as you know, that you would win your own advancement. We fought today, and fought well, but who can say what the future will hold?’

It was William who underlined what his father was driving at. ‘With Duke Robert allied to the King of the Franks, there is little prospect of war service…’

‘I have no desire to arm myself with a plough,’ Drogo insisted.

There was a weariness in Tancred’s voice as he responded to that. ‘I raised you to do what I did, and that is fight. That you can do, but William has the right of it.’

‘The duke might fall out with the Franks,’ said Geoffrey de Hauteville. ‘They are not natural bedfellows.’

‘How long will that be?’ Tancred replied. ‘One year, two years, ten? The Bretons were our allies today, as well. As for the Angevins, they too are supine. For the first time in my life the borderlands are at peace.’

‘Which is why our Duke Robert can go on pilgrimage.’

That opinion came from his namesake, really too immature to be taking part. It was a measure of Tancred’s gloom that he did not remind the youngest son present of the fact. ‘Jerusalem? He will be gone a year at least, possibly two.’

‘He may well come back a monk,’ Drogo scoffed.

‘Would that be so bad?’ asked Montbray.

A period of silent reflection followed, as each son contemplated a life of peaceful husbandry, albeit such an existence would be punctuated by the kind of local conflicts endemic to the Contentin, not one of which would ever advance them in any way. They were no more farmers than their sire, and so it seemed to the eldest they must do what he had done when a young man.

‘We too should seek the solution elsewhere,’ said William.

‘A pilgrimage?’ Drogo demanded, in a voice that showed what he thought of that idea.

‘Your soul is beyond redemption, brother,’ William replied, grinning, ‘and you know that is not what I meant.’

‘The work of God is being pressed east of the Elbe, converting the Slav barbarians.’

William looked at Montbray. ‘That is your work, cousin, not ours. We need to fight for recompense, not to spread the faith.’

‘Which means Spain to fight the Moors, or Italy?’ Tancred said, without enthusiasm.

William nodded. ‘Those who have returned from Italy seem to have done well.’

‘Which is a tenth of the number whose bones are still there.’

‘Show me an alternative.’

‘I could try to speak with Duke Robert again,’ his father responded, but in a voice that held out little hope.

‘Beg!’ William exclaimed. ‘Not even to a duke would I have you do that and I cannot ever see myself bending my knee to a man who denies consideration to a blood relation in the way he has so clearly done.’

‘Let me think on it.’

William de Hauteville was quite brusque with a parent to whom he normally showed great respect. ‘It is not yours to decide, Father, it is up to each one of us who is of age to make that choice for ourselves.’

In the firelight, all of Tancred’s sons could see the disappointment in his face, looking more lined in the flickering fire than it truly was. From oldest to youngest, they all knew the hopes he had entertained for his house, hopes that through his sons the name of de Hauteville would stand high in the annals of Normandy, hopes held over many years that had been dashed in the last week.

He had said many times how they would rise in the service of their liege, had said the death of Duke Richard made no difference, his brother would inherit the title and the obligation to the sons of his sister, and that, given the way he had raised and trained them to be warriors, they could be so assured of advancement. Their half-siblings too would prosper in the same way, on the backs of their established brothers.

He had put aside their doubts when his repeated requests to the court, written for him by his nephew of Montbray, received no reply. He had kept them training, and saw them use their skills in various local quarrels. His boys were not just good: they were, as fighters, exceptional, so much so that in the part of the Contentin in which they lived few dared to dispute with the family now so many were grown to a good age. A de Montfort would because he commanded enough lances; no one of the same rank as Tancred dared.

On the journey home to the demesne, in which every avenue was discussed, what was a notion became a decision. Money constrained them, even with what they had just acquired; only two could make the journey, but they, if they were successful, could send for the others. William claimed the right to be first, which naturally meant Drogo asserted that he should be the other. Humphrey and fourth son Geoffrey would follow, while their cousin of the same name declined to even consider a move to Italy. His ambitions lay in the Church and Normandy.

No one even mentioned Serlo or Robert, which had no effect on the first and genuinely annoyed his half-brother, who saw it as a slight for his not sharing the same mother.