A great cry rose up from the English, and Gilbert’s head whipped around. ‘Stand firm,’ he called to the men in front of us. ‘Don’t let them through!’ He glared at us again but did not say anything more before galloping back to the rest of his knights.
Through the ranks of horsemen I could see little of the enemy, but I didn’t have to, to know that they were coming. In front of us some of the knights, over-eager for battle, raised their lances aloft and spurred their horses forward.
‘Hold the line!’ I heard Gilbert shout. But it was already too late, as all about him his knights broke ranks, and what just moments before had been an ordered battle-line descended into confusion. The screams of the dying filled the morning as English and Normans ran amongst each other.
Some of the townsmen had broken through, their weapons raised high. One came my way, his seax drawn as he screamed some battle-cry. I lifted my knife and parried his thrust, forcing the blade down as I clenched my free hand into a fist and smashed it into his jaw. His head wrenched back, his lower lip streaming with crimson, and as he struggled to regain his balance I followed through, stabbing my knife into his chest. He went down, the blood from his wound pooling and mixing with the dirt at my feet.
A spear belonging to one of the corpses lay in the mud. I snatched it up, passing my knife into my left hand as another Englishman came forward. He was as wide as he was tall, or so it seemed, but despite his size he was fast, deftly stepping to one side as I drove the spear towards his belly, before ramming his shield into my chest.
I stumbled backwards, but the weight was on my injured leg and suddenly I found myself falling. My back slammed into the hard earth and the taste of blood was in my mouth as the Englishman towered above me, raising his axe, and I knew I had to get away, but my limbs would not move. He lifted the blade above his head and I froze—
There was a flash of steel from behind him. Suddenly his eyes glazed over and the axe tumbled from his grasp as he collapsed forward. I came to my senses, rolling to the side as his large frame crashed on to the ground beside me. A bright gash decorated the back of his head where his skull had been shattered. I looked up, saw the sinewy frame of Eudo, who was grinning with the joy of battle. I did my best to smile back as I scrambled to my feet, spitting the dirt from my mouth. I knew how close that blade had come.
‘Hold the line!’ Gilbert yelled again, and this time his knights heard him, wheeling away from the slaughter to rally beneath the fox banner. We had lost perhaps a dozen men, I judged, though the enemy had lost far more. Those who faced us now had to make their way over the bodies of their fallen kinsmen first, but their anger appeared undiminished, for still they came. I gripped the hilt of my knife tightly.
From the direction of the minster I glimpsed a glint of golden thread in the noonday sun, and suddenly above the cries of all those fighting and dying came a single long note, deep but piercing, like the cry of some monstrous animal. The sound of a war-horn. A conroi came into sight, two dozen knights or perhaps even more: through the midst of so many men it was difficult to see.
‘For Normandy!’ they cried.
At their head, beneath the black and the gold that were his colours, rode the vicomte himself, his red helmet-tail flying behind him. He lowered his lance, couching it under his arm, as his horse started into a gallop and the horn blew again. Some of the enemy, realising the danger at their rear, began to turn to face them, but they were few. The rest saw their attackers coming from both sides and straightaway took to flight, making for the small alleys that branched off from the marketplace.
‘Kill them!’ Gilbert shouted to his knights as he raised his sword aloft. But the townspeople were already running and our men had little enthusiasm for the chase. Had this been the rebel army, I was sure they would not have hesitated, but it was not, and that made all the difference, since these were but peasants, and there was little glory to be had in killing them.
Corpses were strewn across the street, their shields and their weapons beside them. I was reminded of that night at Dunholm, except that this time most of the fallen were their men, not ours. Eudo wiped his blade across the tunic of a dead Englishman, smearing more blood over his back to accompany the wound that ran across his shoulders. I let the spear I had taken drop to the ground and returned my knife to its sheath.
After the rush and the noise of the battle, all was suddenly quiet, save for the bells of the minster church in the distance, their soft chimes carrying clearly to us as they rang for midday.
‘That was some fighting,’ Wace said with a grin as he placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘Especially for a man who’s hardly picked up a blade in two weeks.’