Men fell like trees. Holes began to open up that could not be filled. With roars of exultation and triumph, the Normans forced their horses through, trampling men too exhausted to crawl away. The foot soldiers followed. For a few minutes, the whole thing was just a massive mêlée and then, suddenly, the famous shield wall disintegrated. Odd pockets of resistance lingered, but the Normans had the scent of victory now. They were unstoppable.
We could barely make out what was happening and in this strange half-light our night vision wasn’t much help.
I was simmering with frustration. Somehow, we’d missed Harold falling. I’d had every camera trained on that small area around the Fighting Man. If Sykes had got any closer she’d have been on the other side of the screen, but we’d missed it. And certainly no one was staggering around with an arrow poking out of their eye. Dusk was falling fast and there were just so many indistinguishable people – everyone was red with blood. All this time and effort and we were no nearer to establishing the cause of Harold’s death. I could only hope that once we got all this lot downloaded and had a chance to go through it, frame by frame, that we would be able to establish, once and for all, how Harold died at Hastings.
The Fighting Man banner went first, slowly toppling sideways until it disappeared, never to rise again. A moment later, the Red Dragon of Wessex swayed violently as a group of knights hacked at it, and then it was cut down and lost.
His thegns fought. Dear God, did they fight. They grouped themselves into a tight bunch and fought like madmen. One by one they fell, gushing blood, limbs missing, pierced by many wounds. The survivors simply closed up, gritted their teeth and fought on.
They were massacred, almost to a man. None made any effort to flee. They were Harold’s men and their king had fallen – they saw no point in surviving him. Did they have some idea what was to happen to their nation? If they had fled and regrouped later, could they have mounted an effective resistance? Could they have tempered, somehow, William’s brutal obliteration of Saxon culture? Useless to speculate. We could only watch as the Golden Lions of Normandy were raised up. Ten thousand Norman throats bellowed their victory.
We sat back in silence.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Bashford.
Lights sprang up as fires were lit. People took torches and began to move around the battlefield. I suspected Norman and Saxon alike were looking for Harold’s body.
The whole area was a wreck. In some places, the bodies were piled three or four deep. Occasionally there was a movement as someone attempted to extricate themselves from underneath a corpse. Men tried to drag themselves away to safety, inching their way along on bleeding stumps. Horses stood among the corpses, heads down, exhausted or too injured to move.
The Norman wounded were being tended. Someone had put up a row of tents for William and his nobles. Someone somewhere was cooking something. I remembered William was famous for his hearty appetite.
Sykes put the kettle on and we sat down with a cup of tea. I called up the others. Their pod was closer to the battlefield than ours and I wanted to make sure there weren’t any Normans trying to batter their way inside.
‘We’re fine,’ reported North.
‘Did you see Harold fall?’
‘No – didn’t you?’ she said, with more than a hint of criticism. Sykes stiffened.
‘Probably,’ I said, loyal to my team. ‘We covered everything, so yes, almost certainly.’
I heard a muffled voice in the background and then she said, ‘We have to go, Max – there’s a procession of civilians arriving and there are women amongst them. I think this might be Harold’s wife and mother, come to claim his body.’
These were the two most important women in the realm. Harold’s mother, Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, would offer William Harold’s own weight in gold in exchange for the body of her son. An offer William would refuse.
His handfasted wife, Edith the Swan Neck, or Edith Swanneschals, would identify Harold’s body by certain marks apparently known only to her, and request permission to take the body away. Again, William would refuse. Wisely, I think. He wouldn’t want Harold’s resting place becoming a centre of resistance, although the legend persists that Harold received a Christian burial by the monks of Waltham Abbey.
This was an important moment. We might yet catch a glimpse of Harold’s body and learn how he died.
I called up North. ‘Can you see what’s happening?’
‘Of course not,’ she said irritably. ‘William’s receiving them in his tent. Wait no, they’re coming out. Hell and damnation!’
‘What? What?’
‘They’re bringing up a body. It must be Harold. They’ve laid it on a bier. There’s torches everywhere, but it’s wrapped in a cloak and I can’t see. I think the tall woman must be Edith. She’s identifying the body and we can’t bloody see it for everyone clustered around.’
Just for a moment, she sounded nearly human. And exactly like a frustrated historian. I knew how she felt.
‘What’s happening? Tell me.’
‘Well, he’s treating both women with great respect. They don’t seem to be subjected to any … jostling … They have an escort. Norman knights obviously. They seem to have been granted safe passage. They’re talking. She’s leaving now. Without the body. No – we’ve lost her in the crowd.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. We’ll sort it all out when we get back. That’s it people – start shutting things down. We’ll jump back in thirty minutes.’
I sat back in my seat. This assignment hadn’t been a complete success. Yes, we’d got the battle. We had some really good footage. Thirsk would be pleased. But unless we could identify Harold, we were no nearer to solving the mystery of his death. On the other hand, North had some shots of his mistress come to identify and claim the body, even if we didn’t have any of the body itself.
I shifted my position and became aware my back was hot and sweaty. I realised we could really, really do with some fresh air.
I switched the internal lights to night mode and said to Evans, ‘Can you cover the door?’
He nodded, took out a stun gun and took up position by the open door. Cool, damp air flooded in and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
It wasn’t quiet out there. Apart from the ordinary noise made by thousands of men moving around or talking, we could still hear the cries of the wounded. A horse would neigh occasionally. Someone would shout an order or there would be a burst of laughter. I suspected the wine was going around.
I stepped to the door to look outside. It still wasn’t completely dark. A glow of lighter sky hung over the horizon. I took a moment to take it all in. I was at Hastings. The Battle of Hastings had just been played out in front of us and we’d been there. We’d seen it. All of it. Except for Harold, of course. I was suddenly impatient to get back to St Mary’s to view the footage and work out what was what.
I turned to step back into the pod and at the same moment, a proximity alert pinged and Evans pulled me inside.
Bashford said, ‘Door,’ because they were either fleeing Saxons who wouldn’t let anyone or anything get in the way of their escape, or they were Normans, despatched to dispose of any survivors. Neither would be good for us.
‘Two or three people,’ said Bashford, studying the readouts. ‘No, four or five. Maybe more. It’s hard to say. They’re not moving very quickly.’
‘Men searching for cover? Looking to hide somewhere?’
‘Even slower than that. I don’t know.’
‘Are they within range?’
‘I think so. Just a minute.’ He angled a camera.
I saw dark figures, perhaps six or seven of them. One man led a horse which appeared to be dragging some sort of litter. They were moving very slowly. Because the litter carried a wounded man. And one of the figures was a woman.
Every historian in the pod stiffened. Like a collection of gun dogs pointing at their quarry. All quivering noses, pricked ears and outstretched tails.
‘No,’ said Evans in alarm, moving in front of the door and blocking our way.
‘It’s only for a moment.’
‘Out of the question.’
‘It’s our job.’
‘And this is mine.’
I yanked open a locker and pulled out a blanket, tying it around me like a cloak.