Hereward 02 - The Devil's Army Read online

  The din of battle had moved away from the fire, but Hereward could hear it was already dying down. Norman bodies littered the edge of the bog. A few English men lay here and there, but nowhere near as many as he had expected.

  Redwald squinted to pierce the dark surrounding the remains of the battle. ‘The Normans’ strength comes from their ordered ranks. Faced with the wildness of the wolf, they cannot cope and are torn apart.’ He paused, seemingly unable to believe what he was seeing. Then he turned and looked to Hereward with bright eyes. ‘We have won.’

  ‘Not yet. Not until William de Warenne bows down before us and the Butcher’s head sits atop a spike for his sins. But this Devil’s Army has its blood up. Now let us drive the Normans before us to their end.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  FLAKES OF BLACK snowed down on the gathered warriors. Whisked up by the sour-smelling wind, the charred remnants of the burning villages settled across the wetlands far and wide in that quiet time before dawn. In the gloom, ash-streaked faces glowed, death’s-heads haunting the tattered remnants of the Norman force. Here was the fate that awaited all men, but them sooner than most.

  The English stood on the bank of the Great Ouse. On the far bank, the invaders licked their wounds. Bloody heads and gashed arms were dark against pale skin in the wavering torchlight. Hereward watched the turned-down faces and smiled with satisfaction. He could almost taste the desolation of these warriors who fought in the most feared army in all Europe, yet who had been rent apart by a rag-tag band of mud-spattered English with straw in their hair. This matter was far from done, but here was a cry that would reach all the way to the king.

  He narrowed his eyes at the hated enemy and walked to the river’s edge. Raising his sword in defiance, he said in a loud, clear voice, knowing full well that the Norman nobles and knights understood the English tongue, ‘These are the men who have put women and children to the sword, broken families, stolen food and livestock, carved up lands, and murdered loved ones. These are the men who tried to steal the very soul of the English, putting castles and stone and ledgers in its place. No more. We have whipped them like curs, and we will do so again and again until they flee these shores and return to their God-forsaken home.’ He looked around at his men, serious faces all as they hung on his every word. ‘We have been failed by our leaders, betrayed by all those who seek their own benefit from power. And I say again, no more. Now it is time for the English to fight back. All the English, together. One voice. One spear. Let us drive the invaders out.’

  The skull-faced men raised their fists and bellowed Hereward’s final exhortation.

  The Mercian turned to the grim-faced Normans across the black river. At this point, the waters moved too fast for the English to try to wade across, even where they were shallowest. ‘William de Warenne, do you hear me?’

  A long silence followed, filled only with the rushing of the river. Hereward called again.

  Finally, the Norman nobleman stepped out from among his bedraggled men. He raised his chin and attempted to show a brave face, but even in the dancing torchlight, Hereward could see his features were drawn and pale. ‘I do not answer to the baying of a dog,’ he called.

  The English laughed. ‘These hounds have run you ragged,’ Hereward mocked. ‘You will answer to us now.’ He squinted and could just discern Taillebois standing at the back of his men. The Butcher was too proud to show his face in defeat.

  ‘Gloat now,’ William de Warenne called, ‘but you will come to regret this day.’

  ‘We are men of honour here,’ Hereward said in response. ‘Knights, both. Let us end this like knights. Cross the river. Face me, man-to-man. I challenge you to a duel.’

  The nobleman laughed. ‘I should trust your word, outlaw? I see no honour in any English. You are like snakes, lying still until you bare your fangs and strike.’

  Yet as William’s false humour drained away, the Mercian saw the Norman’s troubled look. He knew he had now lost face, after the humiliation of his men’s defeat. Hereward had driven the final blow home sharply.

  With sullen demeanour, the Normans limped away. The English watched them go until the last man had shuffled off into the dark, and then they let out a cheer. ‘Run like curs,’ Hereward yelled after them. ‘Lick your wounds. You will never break the English. Tell your bastard master that.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE GREAT STONE feasting hall loomed up against the blue sky. On the pitch of the roof, high overhead, a young man balanced, his arms outstretched as if worshipping the golden orb of the midday sun. Balthar the Fox looked up at the towering building, marvelling at how quickly it had been constructed. A new palace was rising from the ashes of the squat timber-and-thatch buildings where old King Edward had held his court. And a new England too.

  He watched the mason shield his eyes against the glare and survey the sprawl of Wincestre and the green fields of Wessex beyond the walls. He seemed unconcerned by his precarious perch. Satisfied, the builder prowled back along the roof, ducking down here and there to check the last of the new tiles.

  Balthar shook his head, smiling to himself. What wonders to behold. Stone buildings, erected with such speed and expertise, like the ones the Men of Rome had constructed in summers long gone. Never would he have thought to see this day. He was not a tall man, but he was strong, though he carried more weight across the belly than he ever had in the days before the Normans came. When William had ridden into Wincestre and taken the crown near three years gone, he had feared the worst, but life had been good to him. Though the grey of forty summers streaked his hair, he no longer felt the years. His tunic was finest linen now, not harsh wool, and expertly dyed the colour of autumn leaves. He worried not from where the next meal would come. All was well.

  Content, he lowered his eyes to the swarm of activity in the sun-drenched square in front of the feasting hall. Within the palace walls – stone ones, no less, not the wooden palisades of Edward’s soon-to-be-forgotten days – the finest craftsmen from across Europe bustled. Masons shaped blocks of creamy-grey stone. Their mallets fell in steady rhythm as they chanted their songs of distant lands in strange, rolling tongues. Saws sang through timber. Strong men shouldered the trunks of oak from the wood-pile beyond the walls. Carts rattled, laden with lime for mortar. The boys who ran behind were as white as if they had been caught in a winter storm. The earthy aroma of stone-dust whipped up in the sweet-smelling woodsmoke from the fires burning the off-cuts. King William made the world his way, and for that he could only be admired.

  A young boy forced a path through the milling labourers, his unruly red hair flying. Balthar noted his determined expression and felt a jolt of excitement. Here was his meat for the day. The boy sidled up, glancing around with all the suspicion of a seasoned informant.

  ‘What have you for me, Felgild?’ Balthar murmured.

  ‘The king has guests from the east. They smile, but their eyes are worried.’

  Balthar nodded. ‘Good lad. I will have a coin for you.’

  As they walked towards the palace, Balthar slowed his step when he saw two men striding through the crowd, chins held high. One was blond-haired, lithe and strong, his hand resting easily upon the golden dragon-head hilt of his sword. The other was a horse-faced, balding man.

  ‘Who are they, and why do your eyes narrow when you see them?’ Felgild whispered.

  Balthar chuckled. ‘I have taught you well.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘They are the old world, Felgild,’ he replied with a sly smile. ‘The tall one is Edwin, Earl of Mercia, once a force to be reckoned with in the land, when you were still playing in the mud instead of scrabbling for coin. The other one, though few could tell by looking at him, is Edwin’s brother, Morcar. He was once earl of unruly Northumbria, a poisoned chalice for even a strong leader. And Morcar was far from strong.’

  He bowed his head as the two earls passed, but they looked away, pretending not to see him. Balthar chuckled again, untouched
by the slight. ‘So proud, so haughty, with no good reason to be.’

  Felgild kicked a chunk of stone in a looping arc. A cry rang out and he ducked behind the older man, keeping his head down.

  ‘If those two were braver or wiser they could unite the broken-backed English into a force to be reckoned with,’ Balthar continued. ‘And so King William keeps them close, deep in the heart of his court, trapped in a prison of fine food and whores and wine. The monarch flatters them that they still hold some value in this new England that he is building, and they bow their heads and accept his way of seeing, for to believe otherwise is unthinkable.’

  ‘They would do well to heed you,’ Felgild said with a nod. ‘You are a force to be reckoned with now.’

  Balthar could not disagree.

  Once the lad had scurried off to see to his chores, Balthar hurried into the king’s hall, cool after the heat of the day, quiet after the pandemonium of the builders’ yard. The sound of voices speaking in the Norman tongue he had worked so hard to learn echoed dimly from the recesses. He slowed his pace so his footsteps would not give him away. He was not a moment too soon. More footsteps approached, small ones and rapid, accompanied by the sound of short breaths. He pressed himself into the shadows under an arched doorway.

  A pretty, blonde-haired girl of some eighteen summers hurried past, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the Norman voices. She was scared, perhaps, that the king would find her away from her duties. Godrun was her name. Balthar smiled to himself as he recalled how she had caught his eye the day she passed through Dungate and arrived at the palace at the beginning of the hot season. She was hungry, abandoned, with dirt under nails and more besmirching her roughly made dress. Yet she had been raised up with alacrity, soon serving the table of the king himself. Balthar had not been surprised at that. Her beauty was pristine. What man would not want such an angel at their right hand? In her pale face, he thought he had seen an innocence that would need protecting amid the random cruelty and base desires of the court. It was a task he would gladly take up.

  Once she had passed, he eased out of the shadows and hastened towards the vaulted hall, still fragrant with the aroma of fresh stone and newly cut timber. Sumptuous tapestries hung on the walls, their bright colours illuminated by the hissing torches. Slipping through the open door, Balthar darted to his right and found his favourite hiding place behind a screen showing an image of the Christ ascending to heaven. He held his breath and peeked around the edge.

  William sat on his throne, leaning forward and pointing at two men who stood before him. Balthar had quickly learned that with the king appearances could not be trusted. He was enormously fat, his belly straining against any tunic made for him. Yet he was as strong as an ox, still vital for a man of some fifty summers. No warrior was powerful enough to draw his bow, it was said. Balthar himself had seen the king lift a nobleman who had angered him above his head and hurl him across the hall. And though he was quick to find good humour, his temper burned fierce. Lives were snuffed out on a whim. Many had been sent to their doom, even in the heart of the palace.

  Balthar recognized the two guests: Ivo Taillebois, a brutish man with a low brow who had been dispatched to bring order to the Fenlands, and William de Warenne, one of the nobles who had been rewarded with land in that area.

  ‘Did I not send you fresh men?’ the king was saying, his brow knit.

  ‘You did, my liege,’ the nobleman replied, with a twitching half-bow.

  ‘And horses? And gold?’

  ‘Yes, my liege.’

  Taillebois stepped forward, clasping his hands in front of him. ‘The prey we run to ground is not short of paths for flight and has a well-protected lair.’

  The king leaned back in his throne, steepling his fingers. ‘Hereward, yes? The English dog you assured me would be swinging from a gibbet before the spring waters had ebbed?’

  ‘Aye,’ the Norman commander grunted. ‘My tongue outran my wits. I should have taken my time to get the lie of the land. Then I would have seen that even a child could stay out of our grasp in that God-forsaken place.’ Balthar watched him bare his teeth in frustration. ‘It is a place of bogs and forests and floods that shift with the weather. That cur knows its moods and uses it well to hide his tracks.’

  William de Warenne held out an imploring hand. ‘With more men we could harry him at every turn. Drive him out into the open.’

  ‘Surely he has no more than a handful of men out in those empty wetlands?’ the king said. ‘How, then, can he be responsible for so many dead?’

  ‘Men join him by the day, from all parts of this land. Weak, they are, yes,’ the nobleman replied, ‘little more than scraps of meat and bone in filthy rags, but the numbers swell.’

  Peeking around the edge of the screen, Balthar studied the curve of William’s smile. It was hard, not easy. ‘And this is the Devil’s Army I have heard so much about?’

  ‘They are poorly armed, true,’ de Taillebois muttered, ‘but given time, and enough men heeding this dog’s call, they could force us back by weight of bodies alone. Our swords are sharp, but our men could not cut down those saplings fast enough.’

  The king beckoned past a helmed guard to a figure waiting in the shadows on the edge of the hall. Balthar saw it was Godrun who had at some point returned to the hall with a pitcher. She poured a wooden cup of red wine and hurried to place it into the king’s hand. William eyed her a little lasciviously, Balthar thought. She bowed her head and retreated to the shadows. The two guests remained silent as the king swigged back his drink. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sighed, ‘After three years this place still bubbles like a stew-pot too low on the flames. I would be back in Normandy now, but this business of the English will not set me free. Here, there and everywhere I am called to deal with spears raised against my rule, and fists and axes and angry voices. Even among the womenfolk and the children. I put my faith in you to bring peace to the east, a wild place, a quiet place so I am told, and yet you come here with words of failure?’

  William de Warenne flinched as if he had been struck. The Butcher remained impassive, but he lowered his eyes. ‘Not failure, no,’ Taillebois began after a moment, ‘but this drags on and with a few more men we would be done with it by the time the snows come—’

  ‘The Fox! Where is the Fox?’ William called over the other man. ‘And more wine,’ he demanded, waving his cup.

  Balthar jumped and moved swiftly towards the door, which lay out of the king’s line of sight. He sucked in three breaths in rapid succession and scrabbled his fingers through his hair to make it seem he had been hurrying. As William continued to call his name, he scurried towards the throne. ‘My lord?’ he enquired, breathless.

  ‘The Fox,’ the king boomed, throwing his arms wide and grinning. ‘How is your wife, Gertrude?’

  ‘Well, my lord.’

  ‘And your two boys?’

  ‘Both well, my lord.’

  ‘Balthar the Fox advises me in the ways of the English more wisely than any Norman ever could,’ William said to his two guests with a ghost of a smirk. ‘I named him well, for he is cunning, and slinks unseen through the shadows. Balthar is my eyes and ears among our new friends.’

  ‘You honour me, my lord,’ Balthar said with a bow.

  ‘I do, indeed.’ The king covered his smile. He waved his cup again and Godrun scampered forward from the shadows. Balthar saw her look towards him for no more than a fleeting moment, yet he felt a tingle of satisfaction at the recognition of a kindred spirit that he thought he glimpsed there.

  ‘So many times we have spoken here about the unruly nature of your kinsmen,’ William continued, showing the face of a concerned father with a lightly furrowed brow and downcast eyes.

  Balthar nodded, hiding his bitterness. He felt stung by the resistance of the English. What gain was there in fighting a lost cause? Better to welcome the many benefits William’s new rule promised. Peace, stability, a ch
ance to heal all wounds.

  ‘I thought when I had seen off that pretender to my crown, that Edgar Aetheling, there would be an end to these troubles,’ the king added, a crack in his voice despite his attempts at equanimity. ‘Now the north is demanding my attention again. And the west and …’ His left hand clenched on the arm of his throne, but he forced a tight smile. ‘And now I hear a flea in the east is continuing to bite, a flea that should have long since been crushed.’ He narrowed his eyes at his two guests. ‘Tell me, Fox, what should I do about this Hereward?’

  Balthar pressed his palms together as if praying. ‘News has reached me of the Mercian, my lord,’ he began in measured tones. ‘There is no love lost between his kinsmen Edwin and Morcar and him. I doubt they would ever rally to his banner.’

  ‘You agree that the north remains the greater threat?’

  ‘I do, my lord. Northumbria has always been a nest of vipers. The poison will spread if those snakes are not put to the spear—’

  ‘The spear, you say,’ William cut in, raising his head thoughtfully.

  Balthar felt his chest swell that the king – the king! – was hanging on his words. ‘Hereward is but one man, my lord, for all the lost souls who flock to his banner. Without his leadership, they would be nothing. One man, and by all accounts of his time at Edward’s court, a poor one at that. Scarcely more than a wild beast, baring his fangs at friend and foe alike, more red rage than wise head. In truth, my lord, he is naught but a hungry cur, not worthy of your time.’

  ‘Once again, Fox, our thoughts are in line,’ the king said. ‘Keep the English in their place. Surround yourself with men you trust. That is all I heard when I took this crown. But I knew there was much to gain by throwing the doors wide and calling wise heads such as yours to gather round the fire. A fox always watches for its next meal, does it not?’ He laughed. Balthar flushed with pride and bowed his head.

  William turned to the two Normans and said, ‘No more men for you, nor gold. I will need all I have to …’ He hesitated, smiling, ‘… put the vipers in the north to the spear. You must deal with this Hereward with what you have, and that is more than enough for a wild dog.’