Masters of Medieval Romance: Series Starters Volume 1 Read online

  Kristoph was already working on it. De Lara had already broken through the lines and Kristoph sent a man for Denis de Winter, who was the closest by location to them. Between de Winter and Kristoph, they managed to rally several hundred men, now pushing through the weakened flank like a great and unstoppable tide.

  But Gaetan had already broken through, charging through the Anglo-Saxon lines, swinging his massive sword and slicing through anything that moved. If what Kristoph told him was true and Harold was dead, then Gaetan wanted the body. He wanted the prize to present to the Duke of Normandy, the greatest prize of all, like the Holy Grail of battle. It was what they’d all been fighting for and dying for.

  He began to suspect that the rumor might be true when he was suddenly attacked head-on by a swarm of infantry, men rushing him with their spears and short swords. The charge slowed Gaetan down but it didn’t stop him completely. He grabbed a particularly well-armed soldier and yanked him up onto his horse, using him as a shield against others who were trying to impale him.

  “Where is your king?” Gaetan bellowed, his hand on the back of the man’s head, entwined in his hair painfully. “Take me to your king!”

  The Anglo-Saxon soldier resisted but, suddenly, Normans were everywhere, like locusts, and the Anglo-Saxon line began to crumble. Men were beaten back as more knights swarmed and Gaetan could see that de Winter and Kristoph were joined by de Moray, Wellesbourne, and several other lesser knights sworn to Normandy. The Angels of War had arrived and the tide of Normans pushed onward, towards the rear of the Anglo-Saxon army, only to be confronted by the encampment beyond and scores of Anglo-Saxon wounded.

  They’d reached Harold’s rear.

  This was where Gaetan had limited patience. He yanked on the hair of the soldier he still held. “Tell me where your king is,” he snarled. “Your lines are broken and my men will soon be destroying your wounded. We will destroy everything if you do not tell me where your king is. Tell me now!”

  Gaetan spoke in the Anglo-Saxon’s language, something his bedslave, an Anglo-Saxon woman he’d purchased several years ago, had taught him. He was rather fluent in it so he knew the soldier could understand him. But the soldier struggled against him, quite literally fighting for his life.

  “I do not know!” the soldier insisted.

  It was the wrong answer. Gaetan’s grip on the man tightened. “Tell me or I will slit your silly throat and find someone else who will tell me what I wish to know,” he said. “Where is your king?”

  The man didn’t answer him. In fact, he was trying to hurt Gaetan’s horse by kicking the animal in the knees as his legs dangled off the ground. Using that sharp dagger again, Gaetan held true to his promise and the dead soldier slithered to the ground with a mortal knife wound in his neck. Now, Gaetan needed another victim and he quickly spied one nearby.

  This victim was smaller, lining up a bow and arrow on one of Gaetan’s knights. Before the arrow could fly, however, Gaetan grabbed the archer from behind and hauled him onto his horse.

  “Tell me where your king is,” Gaetan demanded. “If you do not, you will end up dead like many of your comrades. Tell me quickly!”

  He had the archer by the throat but the sound that came forth from his captive wasn’t that of a man. It was a female, now gasping in fear and anger as a Norman had her by the throat. She started to swing her fists.

  “Let me go!” she demanded. “Release me or I will kill you!”

  Frankly, Gaetan was shocked that a woman had been in the midst of the battle. It was enough of a shock that he stopped trying to squeeze her throat. “A female?” he said, sounding somewhat incredulous. “What foolish commander allows women to fight?”

  She twisted violently and he caught a glimpse of her face; dressed as an archer as she was, including a cap, at a distance she could very easily be mistaken for a boy but now that he was close to her, he could see that she was no boy. In fact, her features were quite exquisite.

  “I can kill you just as easily as a man can,” she hissed. “Let me go and I will give you a fair fight, poubelle.”

  She’d called him rubbish in his own language, which was definitely an insult. She wanted to anger him. The trouble was that he found her challenge rather humorous.

  “It would be a two-hit fight,” he told her drolly. “I would hit you and you would hit the ground. Now, where is your king? Tell me and I shall show mercy.”

  “I will tell you nothing!”

  “You are brave for a skinny little mouse.”

  That comment seemed to infuriate her, which amused him. She was in a frantic state between terror and rage, but Gaetan had her over his saddle so that she couldn’t move very well and couldn’t get to any weapons she might have on her body. Every time she tried to rise, he would slam her head down again. The second time, he’d hit her rather hard and stars had danced before her eyes. The third time, he’d slapped her on the arse and she’d bellowed unhappily. Then came de Lara aboard his bloodied charger.

  “Gate!” he shouted. “With me!”

  A command from Luc de Lara wasn’t meant to be questioned. Gaetan tossed the woman over the side of his horse, listening to her grunt as she landed in a heap.

  “Not this time, little mouse,” he told her, perhaps with a bit of taunt in his tone. “This time, you are spared. Remember Norman mercy the next time you intend to do one of us harm.”

  As she sat up, rubbing her shoulder where she’d hit the ground, Gaetan spun his horse around and took off after Luc. Quickly, he reached the man’s side.

  “Kristoph said that Harold has been killed,” Gaetan said. “Is there truth in this?”

  Luc simply motioned to Gaetan to follow and the two of them skirted part of the Anglo-Saxon encampment to where a contingent of Normans stood in a cluster, fighting off Anglo-Saxon soldiers who were trying to get through them. It was clear that they were guarding something and Gaetan followed Luc as the man pushed through the soldiers only to be confronted by a man on the ground and several others standing over him. Luc dismounted swiftly, followed by Gaetan, and they pushed through the crowd.

  “There,” Luc said, pointing to the man on the ground. “This has been identified as Harold Godwinson.”

  Gaetan could only see the legs at that point. “By whom?” he asked.

  Luc looked at the Anglo-Saxon soldiers who were trying to fight through the Normans to get to the corpse. “An Anglo-Saxon knight identified him to me right before he took his own life. I am not sure if he was a personal guard to Harold and failed at his duty to protect the man, but it is evident that he no longer wished to live in light of his king’s death.”

  Extreme if not understandable behavior, Gaetan thought, but he wasn’t entirely convinced. He shifted positions so he could gain a better look at the body. It was of an older man, well-dressed and well-fed, but that was where any semblance of identification ended. There was nothing on the man that would give an indication as to who he was, no belts or vests or colors.

  The corpse had an arrow shaft sticking out of the left eye and the face was battered in general, muddied and grossly swollen. The body looked as if it had been tossed onto the ground because it was lying in a strange position. All around it, men were still fighting. As Gaetan watched, someone even kicked the corpse in the head.

  Enraged, Gaetan pushed in to stand guard over the body, broadsword in hand as he leveled it at some of the Anglo-Saxons who were trying to push through his men. But that action didn’t seem to do much because men were still struggling against him. So he reached out a long arm, grabbing the first enemy soldier who came near him. Snatching the man by the hair, he dragged him into the center of the circle of tussling men, pointing his sword to the battered corpse.

  “Who is this?” he demanded to the man in his language. “Do you fight to regain your king?”

  The Anglo-Saxon soldier was torn between panic and defiance. “He is not meant for you,” he said, spittle dripping from his lips. “Have you not done enough?
Give him to us so that we may properly bury him.”

  “Who is this?”

  The soldier faltered, terrified. “Please….”

  “Answer me!”

  The soldier tried to speak but he vomited instead. Something spewed from his mouth, but Gaetan didn’t let go. His eyes narrowed. “I will ask you one question. If you do not give me a truthful answer, then I will kill you. Is this Harold?”

  The man closed his eyes, trying not to look at the corpse, but Gaetan had him by the hair. When he yanked, the soldier seemed to lose whatever resistance he had left in his body. More vomit leaked from his mouth, so much so that Gaetan hardly heard his answer.

  “Aye.”

  That was all Gaetan needed to hear. He had the confirmation that he sought and he let the man go, watching him as he stumbled away. There was something triumphant in that softly uttered reply, that painfully spoken word. As Gaetan stood there with de Lara and de Winter, a great cry rose up as a charge of men suddenly swarmed around them, cavalry on horseback led by de Russe, Wellesbourne, St. Hèver, and de Moray.

  It was clear that the Normans had broken through the shield wall. There were hundreds of foot soldiers with them as well as hundreds of men on horseback, all of them yelling and hacking and killing anything that wasn’t Norman. The wounded were being slaughtered and a hastily-erected encampment, set up when the Anglo-Saxon army arrived for the battle, was being demolished. The end of the battle was near and Normans, fed by exhaustion, could smell victory in the air, a mixture of blood and rot and the very earth they stood upon.

  The earth of the country that would soon belong to them.

  Gaetan could smell the victory, too. He watched the madness as the Normans swarmed and he could see many Anglo-Saxons fleeing angry Norman swords. The sense of triumph he felt was so great that it nearly weakened him, a complete sense of victory encompassing every bone in his body with relief and delight. Even the Anglo-Saxons who had been struggling around their dead king’s body in an attempt to claim it were running off, terrified they were about to be cut down. All around him, the army of England was fracturing.

  “Victory, my lord,” Luc said quietly, watching the same retreat that Gaetan was watching. “This battle is over.”

  Gaetan nodded his head slowly, his focus on the Anglo-Saxon withdrawal. “God was with us this day,” he said. Then, his gaze moved to the body at his feet. “And Harold is ours. God’s Bones, I’d hoped for this ending but did not truly expect it. Yet, the reality is before me. Where is Normandy?”

  Denis de Winter was standing on his other side. “The last I saw the duke, he was fighting on the far right flank with du Reims,” he said. “I do not know where he is now.”

  “Find him,” Gaetan commanded quietly.

  As Denis headed off, Lance de Reyne suddenly emerged through the crowds of dying and surrendering men. He was leading his horse, who had a terrible gash on his left foreleg. De Reyne had been part of the charge that had broken through the shield wall and his horse showed the evidence of the difficult fight. Wearily, Lance came to a pause, pulling his helm off and raking a gloved hand through his dark hair. Exhaustion radiated off of him but, like a true professional, he refused to give in to it. He would remain strong until it was no longer needed.

  “There are more nobles dead, Gate,” he said. “Two captured soldiers have identified them as Gyrth and Leofwine, brothers to Harold.”

  Gaetan’s sense of satisfaction grew. “Where are they?”

  Lance threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Not far from here,” he said. “They were among the wounded.”

  “Executed by our men?”

  “Trampled.”

  Gaetan felt no remorse. Such were the perils of war. “Excellent,” he said. “Then there will be no brothers left to avenge the king and contest the duke’s throne. With Harold dead, William is now the King of England. We have accomplished our goal, good lords. Take satisfaction in your success.”

  It was a simple statement but one of great impact. The first true battle that Normans had faced against Harold Godwinson on English soil had resulted in what they’d hoped for but hadn’t truly expected. Such a complete victory could have only been supported by God. At least, that’s the way Gaetan looked at it.

  Even so, he knew there was much more to do before the battle was officially over and the prize at his feet was something that needed to be protected. He motioned to Luc and Lance.

  “Wrap him up and return him to camp,” he said. “I want one of you to remain with the body. It is too important to leave unguarded. Meanwhile, I will find Normandy and tell him of our great prize.”

  Luc and Lance nodded and began to tend to the body, looking for some section of cloth or tunic left upon the field of battle to wrap him up in. Luc, seeing the squires and priests hovering over near the edge of the battlefield to the east, sent a soldier running for one of the priests that had been following the Anges de Guerre, a fighting priest known as Jathan. He was a big man, with a crown of red hair, and he managed de Wolfe’s squires and pages as well as served in a religious capacity to all of de Wolfe’s knights. These days, men accomplished many tasks in the service of Warwolfe and Jathan had proven himself a valuable asset.

  Gaetan noted that his priest and two squires, including le Mon, were heading in his direction but he was more interested in mounting his horse and finding the duke. As he swung himself up into the saddle, he began to look around, making note of his men as he could see them. Although the battlefield was a vast place, it was his usual habit to take a head count of his men to ensure they were all whole and sound. They had all attended many battles together and, by the grace of God, had emerged unscathed. Gaetan, a particularly religious man, said many a prayer for such blessings.

  De Lara, de Winter, and de Reyne were accounted for. He had seen de Moray, Wellesbourne, St. Hèver, and de Russe as they continued to move through the destroyed Anglo-Saxon lines, subduing pockets of fighting. Du Reims was the only one he hadn’t seen because he was somewhere off to the west with the duke, so Gaetan didn’t worry over him. He knew he would see Téo soon enough. He’d seen de Lohr earlier, as well, and but a perusal of the area showed that Kristoph was nowhere to be found. Before Gaetan spurred his horse off to the west, he turned to Luc and Lance.

  “Where is Kristoph?” he asked. “He was right behind me when we broke through the eastern flank. Where has he gone?”

  Luc and Lance were in the process of wrapping up Harold’s body with a cloak that Jathan had been wearing. It was the priest who spoke.

  “I have not seen him, Gaetan,” he said, looking around as the knights handled the battered body.

  Gaetan was looking off to the south where part of the Norman army still lingered and the encampment beyond. “You did not see him ride away?”

  Jathan shook his head, his fat jowls trembling. “Nay, I did not. Shall I send a man for him?”

  Gaetan’s gaze moved over the field of battle for a moment longer before shaking his head. “Nay,” he replied. “He is around here, somewhere.”

  Jathan simply nodded his head and bent over to help the knights with the corpse. Gaetan, with thoughts of de Lohr quickly fading, headed off to the west where William, the Duke of Normandy, would be told that Harold was dead and that he was now king.

  Normandy wasn’t difficult to find, in fact. He and Téo were found deep in the Anglo-Saxon encampment rounding up prisoners, a task that Gaetan helped with after he delivered his important news. Oddly enough, the duke wasn’t willing to believe his Warwolfe until he saw Harold’s body, which was much later in the evening when the battle had ended for the most part and the Norman army trickled back to camp.

  It was almost a ceremonial event, this viewing of Harold’s body. It took place in a dim tent belonging to de Winter, a body wrapped in Normandy’s colors that, when unwrapped, revealed a gruesome sight. As the Anges de Guerre and the duke’s Companions gathered around in the cold dark tent, William grimly viewed the body of Harold Go
dwinson and, as such, declared himself king on that very night. It was a night for celebration, for rest and reflection, but for Gaetan, it became a night that would change the course of his life.

  Kristoph de Lohr did not return to camp that night. When morning came and he’d still not returned, it became apparent that he was either dead or otherwise missing. The dreadful news began to spread over the duke’s camp, the news that no fighting man wanted to hear. They’d brought ten great knights with them to England, men who were the greatest warriors of them all, but now only nine were accounted for.

  One Anges de Guerre had been lost.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‡

  I Met My End Bravely

  They’d beaten the Norman knight fairly severely, so much so that she ended up covering the man with her body and chasing away those who were trying to kill him. Although she never thought she would have protected a Norman knight, there was something in her that simply couldn’t stand by and watch it happen. When some of her brethren began aiming clubs at the knight’s head, she covered his bare head with her arms.

  “Enough!” the woman ordered. “You will not kill him!”

  She had to fight off those who refused to listen to her, but men who knew and respected her called off those unwilling to obey her command. Slowly, the violence eased and they all stood around, looking at her as she literally lay upon the injured Norman knight to protect him. But still, the men were edgy. It was the end of a most important day and they were all still riding high on the scent of battle.

  It had only been a few hours earlier in the battle against the Normans when the rumor began to spread quickly through the Anglo-Saxon ranks that Harold had been killed by a Norman arrow. He’d been close to the lines at the time and when he fell, wounded, he’d been trampled by his own men. It had been a chaotic scene as some of his advisors tried to carry him away, shielding him from the soldiers because they knew that once it was known that Harold had been killed, the Anglo-Saxon army would lose faith and fracture.