‘Ysgwydeu!’ one of the enemy shouted, amidst the cries of panic. I could not tell whether or not he was their leader, since from this distance they all looked the same, but the call was taken up by some of the other men, who were at last starting to rally: ‘Ysgwydeu! Ysgwydeu!’
Almost as one their women ran to their menfolk’s sides, unlooping the long straps from around their shoulders and passing them the shields before just as quickly rushing back to lead their animals out of arrow-shot. Steel continued to spit down from the sky, but the enemy did not think to form a line, to raise the shield-wall and protect their faces. Instead, driven to rage by the deaths of their comrades, they charged headlong upon Maredudd’s men, crashing through the heather and the gorse, not keeping to their ranks but simply running as fast as their legs could manage. They roared with one voice, shouting out in their tongue as they brandished their weapons high: their spears and their knives and their axes.
This was the moment I had been waiting for: the moment for which I had been longing for so many months. I gripped the brases of my tall kite shield in my left hand, wrapping my fingers around the lance-haft in my right. My heart leapt in my chest, and I could feel the blood surging through my veins, growing hotter and hotter—
A war-horn bellowed out, deep-throated and baleful like the call of some monstrous beast: the signal from Maredudd.
‘Now,’ I yelled, not just for my own knights to hear but for every other conroi that was with me too. ‘For St Ouen and Normandy, for Fitz Osbern and King Guillaume!’
The jackdaws flapped and screeched at the suddenness of the sound, rising in their dozens from the branches as all around me the answering cry came: ‘For King Guillaume!’
Raising my hawk pennon high, I spurred Nihtfeax forward, controlling him with my legs alone as we burst out from the trees on to the heath, my sword-brothers by my flanks, hooves pounding the soft ground, and it seemed that the earth itself trembled under the weight of our charge as more than a hundred horsemen rode knee to knee, and now I couched my lance under my arm, ready for the moment when we would meet the enemy. Behind me I heard Ithel raise a battle-cry in Welsh: a cry that was echoed by his spearmen who were following, but their voices were soon lost amidst the thunder of the blood in my ears.
Less than two hundred paces before us were the enemy, chasing down Maredudd’s now-fleeing archers. So lost were they in thoughts of avenging their fallen comrades that they failed to notice us bearing down upon them. Made clumsy by the shields on their arms and the weapons in their hands, they stumbled over some of the lower bushes, sprawling as they met the hidden ditches and pits that we had dug last night and covered over with branches and long grass. All the while they grew ever more spread out; Maredudd was waving to his men, sending them in all directions, and the enemy did not know which ones to chase.
Those of the womenfolk who had seen what was happening screamed warnings from further down the road, but their husbands and their brothers did not seem to hear, or else if they did, they did not heed them. Not, at least, until it was too late.
The ground disappeared beneath us as I pushed Nihtfeax into a gallop. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some of the knights at the end of the line falling a little behind and I yelled at them to keep formation. Not that I had time to see whether in fact they’d listened, since then we were upon the enemy. Some of them had awoken to the danger from their rear and were turning, but they were too few and too dispersed to make much of a stand against us. I glimpsed my first foe standing before me, eyes wide as he saw a hundred mailed horsemen and more bearing down upon him. Struck dumb with fear, he knew not whether to fight or whether to flee, and in the end he did neither. I drove my lance into his shoulder, knocking him to the ground where his body was crushed under the weight of so many hooves.
Within an instant he was forgotten; already I was moving on, keeping up the momentum of the charge. One man, seeing his death before him, hurled his spear towards me; I ducked low and it sailed past my head. Sscreaming his final words, he ran at us with knife in hand. But if he thought he might take one of us with him, he was wrong, as the point of my lance found his chest, striking ribs and puncturing his heart. Blood spurted forth, spattering my chausses, and as he toppled backwards I left the weapon lodged in his torso as I drew my sword instead.