That single arrow-strike was all it took to spread confusion amongst the Englishmen. Those already afloat were paddling furiously to get out of bowshot, leaving behind the two boat crews still on land, who seemed to be confused as to whether they should carry on dragging their vessels down to the water, or else try to make a stand against us. All the while we were bearing down upon them, no more than half a furlong away now: a mere seven men sowing fear in the hearts of a force twice that number.
And then I saw him. He leapt down from one of the craft into the water, a bow slung over one shoulder and an arrow-bag over the other, and waded through the waist-deep waters towards the shore, berating the stragglers and gesturing towards their boats. A gangly, long-limbed giant of a man, he stood half a head above the tallest of his comrades. His mail shirt gleamed as if newly polished, but he wore no helmet to protect his head, and so I could clearly see the lank black hair hanging to his shoulders. There was purpose in his every movement, and even in that brief moment I had the impression of one well used to leading.
Hereward.
It could be no other. The last of his men had finally managed to cast off from the shore, leaving him alone to face us. Around him steel rained down as Hamo’s archers continued to let fly volley after volley, but he showed no sign of fear. He lifted his own bow from his shoulder, and in what seemed like a single movement he drew and loosed a single arrow.
It flew swiftly and it flew true, sailing just above the reed-heads. He watched it all the way, without even troubling to put a second to his bowstring, as if somehow he knew that one was all he would need. At first I thought he had misjudged the angle of the flight, for it seemed it would glide well over our heads, but then the wind must have caught it, for its silver-shining head suddenly turned earthwards towards us, the point glinting wickedly with its promise of death.
‘Shields,’ I cried as I raised my own to cover my face and upper chest, praying that the others heard my warning as for a moment I charged on blindly.
A violent shriek filled the air, and I looked up in time to see Pons’s destrier go down in a writhing mess of hooves, turf, mud and horseflesh. Pons himself was on the ground, yelling for help as he struggled to free his foot, which was trapped beneath the animal as it kicked and screamed, its eyes wide and white. Serlo brought his horse to a halt and leapt down to help him, but that was all I saw, for I had other concerns.
Barely fifty paces in front of me, Hereward stood alone, yelling vehemently as he waved back some of his comrades who were jumping from the boats to come to his aid – whether out of stupidity or arrogance, I couldn’t tell, and hardly cared. I stared at him, couching my lance under my arm, levelling the point at chest-height and imagining how I would drive it deep into his heart, twisting it so as to kill him all the quicker. Victory would be ours, and we would return to the king’s camp with his head as our prize. He returned my gaze, and as he did so I saw the determination in his dark eyes. Calmly, as if he were merely enjoying an afternoon’s practice at the butts, he drew another shaft from his arrow-bag, raised the bow into position, aimed it in my direction—
When something happened that I was not expecting. Something that, even all this time later, I find myself ashamed to recount. Something that in all the time I’d travelled the sword-path had only happened once, when I stood with knife in hand facing the fishmonger in that Flemish town all those years ago. For as Hereward slowly brought the string back to his shoulder, as the feathered end brushed the skin upon his cheek and as he prepared to loose, a vision flashed through my mind. A vision that told me how that arrow would fly and where it would strike, how at this distance it would run through mail and flesh as easily as a needle through cloth.
I stared at that arrow-point and fear gripped me: a fear so powerful that I had never known its kind before. My stomach lurched; my breath caught in my chest. My blood was no longer pounding, filling my limbs with vigour, and I wondered if my heart had stopped. Like water being thrown on a fire, the battle-joy was extinguished. For the first time I could remember since that day when I was a youth, my nerve failed me in the heat of battle. I did not see victory before me now, but something else entirely.
I saw my death.
Why it happened and how it happened so quickly, I cannot say. All I know is that suddenly I was jerking sharply to one side, wheeling around, abandoning the charge, abandoning the fight, all the while expecting to feel a sudden strike between my shoulder-blades, or for Fyrheard to collapse beneath me and for me to be pitched from the saddle.
I never knew where that feathered shaft landed, or whether Hereward even loosed it at all. But I heard the jeers and laughter of the Englishmen in their boats. They taunted me in their own tongue, calling me a craven and many worse things besides, and an angry heat burnt inside me at the knowledge that they were right. I had fled from a fight, not because I was outnumbered or because sensible action had won out over blind rage, but because of fear.