'Stand firm!' roared William FitzOsbern to the men of his command. He rose in his stirrups, his usually impassive features brimming with rage. 'Are you no better than the Bretons that you run like cowards?' He levelled his mace at a young knight. 'Do your duty to your sworn liege lord, or by God I'll kill you myself! Until you hear the command to retreat given from my own lips, you will assault that shield wall. Now get back up there and win this damned battle for Normandy!'

'Yes, my lord.' The young man's face was bone-white beneath his helm.

And then the Duke himself strode into their midst, his helm thumbed back and his ventail unfastened to show himself to his frightened men. Apart from a thin stone-cut down one cheek, he was unharmed. He was also horseless. 'You, de Brize, give me that grey,' he demanded.

Inwardly cursing, but leaping from the saddle with alacrity, Rolf presented William with Sleipnir.

'You won't go unrewarded,' said the Duke as he gained the saddle. 'I always honour my debts.' And then he was gone, smacking Sleipnir's rump with his sword blade, plunging through the melee and rallying his troops. Rolf wondered gloomily if he would ever see the grey again.

The battle continued, each foothold bitterly contested in blood. Harold's brothers Gyrth and Leofwin were killed. The English who had charged down the hill in pursuit of the Bretons were cut to pieces by William's cavalry, and the Normans were able to gain the ridge and begin eating their way to the core of the English defences. Gaps appeared in the shield wall and the less well armoured men in the ranks behind had to step forward and bear the brunt of the Norman assault. As the light began to fade towards dusk, the Duke employed his archers again, instructing them to fire high and aim for the rear of the Saxon lines where Harold's standards flew: the bold red dragon of Wessex, and the equally impressive silks of his Fighting Man banner.

Rolf, astride a third horse now, was one of the first Normans onto the ridge. His sword arm was aching, his borrowed shield was battered almost to pieces, his mind was made of wool. They were close to victory, so close, and yet it still lurked just out of their grasp, and if they had not managed to seize it by the time that dusk fell, it would never be theirs. Empty-handed except for their dead, they might as well return to their ships.

An anguished howl swelled from the rear of the Saxon line. Moments later, the determination of the shield wall wavered and contracted. The less well armed English began to flee the field. FitzOsbern's yellow banner ploughed a path through the Saxons. Rolf followed, hacking with his sword, defending with his shield. The peasants were easy meat for they wore no armour and were inexperienced with their weapons. Rolf lost count of the number he cut down. His horse stumbled on bodies, and sometimes they screamed.

Then the fighting changed and grew hard again. The peasants were gone, and in their place were heavily mailed huscarls wielding swords and axes. These were the professional backbone of Harold's army, the men who fought for a living and were fiercely loyal to the house of Godwinson.

An enormous huscarl planted himself across Rolf's path. The warrior was standing over the cloven body of one of his companions, and tears were streaming down his face. He howled words that Rolf did not understand and swung his axe in a glittering arc. For the third time that day Rolf lost a horse. The force of the fall knocked the sword from his hand and the helm from his head. He tasted mud, and the salt of his mount's blood. A spear leaned half-upright in the trampled ground beside him. Rolf rolled over, wrenched it free, and thrust it with the last of his strength into the body of the warrior swinging the axe.

He felt the point of the spear tip grinding through mail to reach the vulnerable, soft core. Above him the huscarl screamed, staggered, and toppled, the spear shaft snapping off as he crashed forwards. The deadly axe carved a long gouge in the trampled ground beside Rolf's head. Shuddering, clawing at the buried shaft, the Saxon rolled over. Utterly spent, Rolf stared into still lucid, but dying blue eyes. The huscarl had a luxuriant beard and moustache, the colour of ripe barley, but close up Rolf could see that he was scarcely out of adolescence. A boy, younger than Richard by several years. The eyes held his like a curse while death rattled in the young warrior's throat. The stare fixed upon Rolf and dried. Rolf crawled away from the corpse.

A Norman warhorse leaped over him, its rider spurring hard towards the core of the melee. Rolf covered his head with his hands, but his reactions were slow with exhaustion and pain. The tip of a hind hoof struck the side of his head, and like Thor's great hammer, the darkness smashed him down.

When he came to his senses, it was full dark and nearby someone was grunting with effort. Beside him the dead Saxon was as cold as stone. The warrior's axe head and hauberk gleamed with a dull, blue light, and his mouth was frozen open in its final death snarl. The grunting came from a figure who was bending over the corpse of another soldier next to the young huscarl. Rolf almost cried out for help, thinking it was a priest, but then he heard the tug of a knife severing a leather cord, heard the jingle of money in a pouch and realised that he was watching a looter at -work. And if the looter was English and discovered a living Norman during his search, that knife would be employed to more deadly intent than simply cutting purse strings.

Pain hammered through Rolf's head and the accompanying feeling of nausea threatened to overwhelm him. Hampered by concussion, his mind floundered. The scavenger abandoned the corpse and moved on to stand over the Saxon at Rolf's side. The looter muttered to himself as he worked, his breath an intermittent cloud of white vapour in the dank air.

Rolf wondered if he should lie very still and permit himself to be robbed, but almost immediately abandoned the thought. His body would be too warm, and it would be all too quick and easy for the looter to slit his throat. A silver cross flashed as it was ripped from around the Saxon's neck. Decorated arm bracelets were tugged off the wrists. A finger was hacked to obtain a ring. That final act finished any thoughts Rolf had still harboured about lying passive. In one movement he rolled over, grabbed the axe halfway down the haft, and swayed to his feet. His vision kept blurring, the pain in his skull was vicious, but he clung grimly to consciousness. The looter, a scrawny, pale specimen, leaped away from the huscarl, his knife brandished to defend himself, his left hand clutching the corpse's jewellery.

'Get you gone!' Rolf snarled, lifting the axe.

The looter sidled, and Rolf had to turn to keep him in sight. He could feel the strength draining from his legs, and knew that in a moment he was going to fall. Like a buzzard, the looter backed off, waiting his moment.

Over to his right, Rolf thought that he saw the glimmer of torches and heard the sound of voices speaking in French. 'Ho!' he bellowed, putting all of his failing strength into his voice. 'Help me!' He keeled to his knees. The looter darted at him. Rolf struck out, the axe held short in his hand. His adversary easily avoided the weapon, but instead of making a kill, leaped over Rolf and melted rapidly away into the night.

Breathing harshly, Rolf hung his head. The torchlight wavered nearer and soon he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder.

'My son, you are wounded,' said an anxious man in priest's robes. The light shone on his tonsure. Rolf recognised Herfast, the Duke's own chaplain. 'Can you stand?'

Groggily Rolf tried, but his legs seemed to be made of wet rope. 'No,' he said.

A litter was fetched, and as he was being laid upon it, he realised that the Duke himself was standing over him. 'You are the luckiest of men, Rolf de Brize,' William said. He had changed his mail for an embroidered tunic and rich cloak, but in the torchlight, Rolf could see the dried blood caked beneath the spatulate fingernails.

Rolf was not sure that he agreed with his liege lord. He was lucky not to be dead, he supposed, but he would not count a broken wrist and split skull as good fortune, nor the loss of his horses.

'Did we conquer?' he asked faintly. 'The last I remember is striking the wall of Harold's bodyguard.'

'The oath-breaker is dead.' William's mouth tightened into its familiar harsh line. 'He took an arrow in the face during the final assault and was ridden over and cut down in the last charge. Now we have to find his body from among all the others who died with him.' There was a hint of weariness, of distaste in William's voice.

Rolf noticed that his Duke was accompanied not only by his senior officers and priests, but by two women in Saxon dress. One of them had pure, strong features and copper-red hair that fringed her brow before being covered by her wimple. From the tales Rolf had heard, she could only be Edith Swan-neck, King Harold's handfasted wife, the woman of his heart, although for political purposes he had been married to Edith, King Edward's sister. If they needed Harold's mate to identify her lover, then God alone knew what she was going to find.

'I have tied that grey stallion of yours at FitzOsbern's horse lines,' William recalled Rolf's concussed attention as two priests made to bear him away from the battlefield. 'Never have I ridden such a fine animal'

Dizzy although he was, Rolf was not about to admit to the Duke that Sleipnir did not belong to Brize-sur-Risle, and he held to a prudent silence.

William's narrow lips curved the merest fraction. 'Breed from him for me, Rolf. I will give you English lands to sow a crop of destriers to be the envy of all the world. My pledge on it.' Tugging a ring from his finger, he placed it in Rolf's good left hand.

Through his pain and exhaustion, Rolf felt a spark of exultation, and it showed in the gleam of his eyes, even if the words of gratitude he spoke to the Duke were somewhat garbled.

William's eyebrows lifted as he saw the battle axe which lay at Rolf's side on the deerhide litter. 'What's this,' he mused, 'a souvenir?'

'A talisman, my lord,' Rolf answered. His eyes began to close, and his voice sank to an incoherent mumble. 'A reminder of how this day was won.'

CHAPTER 13

LONDON, DECEMBER 1066


'Ailith, Ailith, where are you?'

Goldwin's voice reached Ailith in the garth where she was feeding scraps to the hens. A bitter frost the night before had silvered everything with rime. The sun had risen, but it wore a misty halo and was much too weak to pierce the December cold.

'Aili, where's my cloak?'

She scattered the last handful of corn and chopped pork fat and sighing heavily returned to the house. There was a dragging ache in the small of her back. It had started last night just as she retired, and this morning it was worse. She tried to ignore it. If it was the baby coming, she would know soon enough. The pain which Goldwin still endured made her feel guilty for her own minor twinges.

'Are you going out?' Taking his cloak from the mending pile, she handed it to him.

'I thought I would go into the city and see if I could glean any news.'

'Can you walk so far?' Ailith eyed him with concern. He was still very thin, and his health was precarious. Although his injured ankle had healed rapidly, the main wound was still troublesome. Along the line of the scar, swellings would develop, becoming hard, red, and extremely painful before they burst in a welter of pus and blood. A low fever accompanied these bouts and left Goldwin querulous and weak. The last attack had been only eight days ago and Ailith knew he was not yet fully recovered.

'Alfhelm's taking his cart that way; I'll ride with him.' Goldwin set the cloak around his shoulders, wincing as the movement aggravated his wound.

Ailith winced with him, but did not offer to help. She knew how touchy he was on the matter of his independence. 'Be careful,' was all she said with anxious eyes.

'How can I be any other with this damned hole in my side?' he answered testily. 'Would to God that Norwegian axe had cleft me in twain!'

'You do not mean that!'

He sighed and walked slowly to the door. 'I wish I did not,' he said wearily.

When he had gone, Ailith sat down before the fire to spin a pile of carded fleece into yarn for making winter socks. She twirled her spindle and drew out the fleece to make an evenly textured greyish-white thread. Her back continued to ache and now and then she shifted position, trying to ease herself. Spinning wool did not require much mental effort, it was a knowledge of the hands, and once learned was very much an unconscious process. Her mind was free to probe the misery of the last two months, like a knife searching a wound for splinters.