‘Hey,’ one said. ‘Get back here!’
It took me a moment to realise what had happened. While the men guarding him had been distracted, Haerarddur, the Welshman we had captured at Caerswys, had managed to get away from them. Now he was crashing through nettles and branches, half stumbling over exposed roots, making for the open ground beyond the woods.
Swearing, I shook off the hands of Pons and Wace. ‘Fetch me Nihtfeax!’ I said, in an instant forgetting about Berengar.
Already Haerarddur had reached the fields that lay between the copse and the mill, and now he began waving his arms wildly, shouting something in Welsh. A warning, I guessed, for through the leaves and the branches suddenly I spied movement by the ruined mill as men came to see what was going on. So much for our surprise attack, I thought.
My destrier was brought to me by Snocca. I took the reins and a javelin from Cnebba as I worked my feet through the stirrups and gripped the crossed straps of my shield in my palm.
‘Go! Go now!’ I shouted to my conroi and to all the other lords. ‘Ride!’
We burst out from the trees in pursuit of the Welshman, who for all his years was a fast runner. The enemy had been slow to react, at first seemingly bemused at the sight of one of their countrymen flailing down the hill, but suddenly they understood. They rushed to their horses, mounting up and hacking with knives and swords at the ropes that tethered them. They had seen our numbers, and none among them wished to fight.
Behind me our war-horn blasted out. At its bellow Haerarddur risked a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder. He saw us bearing down on him but he did not stop running; in fact if anything it seemed to spur him on, though he must have known that he could not hope to outpace us.
I hefted my javelin tightly, drew it back, then hurled it at his exposed back. It sailed through the air, wobbling in the air as it descended before striking home. The steel point drove through his ribs and out the other side. He sank to his knees, gasping for breath that would not come, clutching in vain at the spearhead protruding from his chest. Eudo was not far behind. He swerved to the left to give his sword-arm room, and then it was just as if he were practising against cabbages at the stakes in the training yard. He swung the blade down; the edge sliced through the Welshman’s neck, in one blow severing the head with its lank hair and gaping mouth, sending it flying. It landed amidst the long grass at the same time as the rest of the corpse collapsed forward.
Ahead of us stood the low stone wall, and beyond that the mill and the river. The last few enemy horsemen were making their escape, and in their hurry to get away they left behind their carts and their oxen. The animals had been spooked by the sound of the horn and the sight of us riding hard towards them, and now they were scattering in all directions, lolloping in ungainly fashion.
The enemy had a couple of hundred paces on us, but as long as Ithel and Maredudd were ready for them that should not matter. We would drive the enemy into range of the Welshmen’s bows. Between the two halves of our host they would find themselves trapped with no place to go.
Blood pounded through my skull as I yelled out, ‘On, on, on; for Normandy!’
The cry was passed down the line as we spurred on across the meadows. A few pulled ahead of me, their mounts enjoying the feeling of open ground beneath their hooves. Normally I would have called on them to keep formation, but the only thing that mattered now was speed. Most of the enemy were not burdened by hauberks and chausses as we were, which meant that even though their horses were smaller than ours, they were beginning to open the distance. Already they had almost reached the bottom of the rise where I had sent Maredudd and Ithel with their men. I hoped they were in place; any moment now a flurry of arrows should be let loose from out of those trees, the spearmen would march out from their hiding place and form a shield-wall to block off the valley floor, and we would fall upon the enemy from behind.
Except that the arrows did not come. Nor was there any sign of the spearmen, and still the enemy were drawing away from us.
‘Faster!’ I shouted, for all the good that it would do. ‘Faster! Ride harder!’
The enemy passed beneath the rise, not one hundred paces from the thicket where our Welsh allies were supposed to be waiting. I gripped the straps of my shield in one hand, the reins in the other, as silently I prayed to God and all the saints: let the arrows fly. But still they did not. Where were they? Unless they had found a better position further ahead, though I couldn’t work out where. Beyond that thicket, the valley broadened out and the only cover was provided by the thorny briar patches beside the riverbank.
Hooves thudded upon the soft ground, kicking up turf and stones. Nihtfeax’s mane whipped in the wind; my cheeks were wet from the drizzle blowing in my face. I dug my heels in, drawing every last ounce of strength that I could from his legs.
‘For Normandy,’ someone shouted close by my flank. I risked a glance and saw that it was Eudo, his eyes filled with the battle-joy and the thrill of the charge, fixed on the horsemen ahead of us. ‘For King Guillaume!’
And that was when it happened, so quickly that at first I could not quite comprehend it. A cluster of black lines shot out from the thicket, their silver points bearing down not upon the enemy but upon us. There was a sharp whistle of air as one passed no more than a hand’s span by my helmet, another dropped just in front of Nihtfeax’s hooves, and then they were everywhere, raining down in their dozens and their scores.
‘Shields!’ I heard someone cry, and it might even have been me except that it sounded somehow distant, and I couldn’t remember having willed myself to speak.
After that all was confusion. Even when it was all over, still I struggled to recall exactly the order of things. Whoever gave the warning, it came too late. Horses shrieked as steel pierced their flanks and their riders were thrown from the saddle. Some of the knights had slowed, uncertain what to do, but that only made them easier targets. Others tried to turn their mounts too quickly; the beasts went down in a writhing mess of hooves and grass, earth and blood, falling upon their masters and crushing them. Not ten paces ahead of me, one of Wace’s men caught an arrow in the neck, the point piercing his ventail. He tumbled backwards across his horse’s flank, dead even before he hit the ground.
‘Retreat,’ Wace was shouting, ‘Retreat!’
Another volley of arrows shot out from the trees, arcing over the meadows that sloped down from the rise. From out of the clump emerged spearmen in their scores, beating their spear-hafts and their sword-hilts upon the rims of their shields, raising the battle-thunder as they marched to meet us.
My first thought was that Berengar had been right: that the princes had indeed betrayed us. After everything, I ought to have listened to him. A furious heat rose up inside me: at the brothers for having deceived us for so long; at myself for having failed to see it.
‘Back,’ I called, waving to catch the attention of my knights. Some dozen or so lay on the ground, blood coursing from wounds that would not be healed. ‘Conroi with me!’
On either side of me shafts thudded into the sodden turf. Nihtfeax wheeled about and then we were galloping back in the direction we had come, towards the mill, where the rest of our host were now rallying, drawing up in their ranks and their conrois.
That was when I saw Ithel and Maredudd together with their teulu galloping down from the ridge: forty or fifty men on horseback with pennons of gold and green on their lances. Behind them, running and stumbling over the tussocks, came an assortment of foot-soldiers with leather jerkins, bows in hand or else slung over their shoulders, and a few with bucklers strapped to their arms.