‘For King Guillaume!’ they returned the cry, and we were racing across the field, scores of hooves trampling down the furrows, kicking up mud and stones. Beside me rode Eudo and Fulcher and Gérard, knee to knee, with three more on either flank, so that there were ten of us in that first line, leading the charge. A few on our right were beginning to draw ahead, and I shouted to them to keep formation, though how many could have heard, above the thunder of hooves and wind buffeting in their faces, I did not know.
The fleeing Normans scattered from our path. The enemy were behind them still, a tide of men rushing forth to meet us, but we drove on, and then we were among them, crashing our lances into their shields and their faces, riding over their bodies as they fell. The rest of the conroi were behind us as we tore into their ranks, beating down with our swords, and the screams of the dying filled the air.
‘Godemite,’ one of the enemy shouted, raising his spearpoint with its scarlet pennon high into the air. ‘Godemite!’
Unlike the rest who went without armour, or at best with only a leather jerkin, he wore mail. His sword-hilt was inlaid with gold, and I took him for a thegn – one of the English leaders – for he was rallying his men to him, until seemingly without any signal being given they began running at us, their spears levelled forwards. So eager were they to die, however, that they came not all at once with shields overlapping, but rather in ragged fashion.
I charged on with Eudo and Gérard and the rest beside me, cleaving, battering the enemy down, until the thegn himself stood before me. His teeth were gritted and his face was red as he aimed his spearpoint at Rollo’s neck, but I swerved right and it hammered into my shield instead, sending a shudder up through my shoulder and knocking me backwards against the cantle. I gripped Rollo tight with my legs, determined not to fall.
He drew his gilded sword and made to attack again, but before he could, Eudo had come around by his flank and was slashing across the man’s unprotected forearm, through the bone, severing the hand which remained still gripped around the sword-hilt. The man screamed and stumbled back, clutching at the bloody stump, but in doing so he brought his shield out of position, and his head was exposed.
I saw the opening and smashed my sword down into the thegn’s face. His head jerked back, his long moustache soaked in blood; the nasal-guard of his helmet had taken the brunt of the blow and still he lived, though not for long. Eudo sliced across his chest, penetrating the links of his hauberk to the flesh beneath. Gasping, the man took another step back, looking down at his breast as he pressed his one remaining hand tight against the mail. Blood spilt through his fingers; his eyes glazed over and his lips moved, but no sound came out; and then he collapsed.
No sooner had he done so than he was forgotten, for I was moving on: parrying, thrusting, carving a path through the enemy until there was space around me. I checked to see that the rest of my conroi were with me still, and most were, but not all. Several horses lay dead on the ground, their riders beside them, and among those who had fallen I saw the face of my countryman, Rualon.
I had no time for reflection, however. Over the enemy’s heads, to my left and close to the river, I glimpsed a white shield with a black hawk upon its face. Its owner, robust and barrel-chested, was fighting on foot and his free hand wielded a long spear: a spear which carried a pennon the same as mine. He had his helmet on and his ventail up, but I could just see the scar below his eye which he had borne ever since H?stinges, and I recognised him straightaway.
‘Wace!’ I called, hoping to catch his attention, but above the noise of swords clashing upon shields and mail he could not have heard me. I raised my sword aloft. ‘With me,’ I said to my men. ‘With me!’
Apart from Lord Robert himself, I knew of few men more skilled with a sword than Wace. He’d been in Robert’s employ even longer than I, had fought in the same battles, and, like me, was in charge of a full conroi of his household knights. Except that now there were but six or seven men with him. Three were knights, for they wore mail and helmets. One had lost his shield and was fighting with a spear in either hand, another with two swords. Together they were being pressed back into a tight ring as the English closed on them from all sides.
‘On! On!’