Conqueror

But she had a knife in her belt.

With a mighty effort she got her hands under her chest and lifted herself up. She heard a body hit the mud, and a winded grunt. She found her knife and held it before her, coming to a crouch.

Sihtric lay on his back in the dirt. 'It's me! Your brother! For the love of God-'

'Sihtric?' She had not seen him since Westmynster. 'What are you doing here?'

'Looking for you. I knew you wouldn't be far from the action. Perhaps you could help me up. I seem to be stuck in this mud…'

XVI

Harold Godwineson entered Jorvik.

Harold took over the great minster cathedral, which had blossomed out of the foundations of the old Roman legionary headquarters on the site of King Edwin's tiny chapel. Here he mounted a feast for his housecarls, thegns and fyrdmen, a celebration of services and prayers, songs and banqueting that threatened to go on all through the night. The leading citizens, who yesterday had been ready to crown Harald Hardrada, came to welcome the victor of the battle of Stamfordbrycg, and begged him to bring home the hundreds of hostages taken by the Ruthless one.

Under Sihtric's wing Godgifu was brought to the feast. She had nowhere else to go, but, scared that somebody might recognise her as an ally of Tostig, she sat in a corner with Sihtric, and ate sparingly and drank less. Amid the feasting Harold and Gyrth, the Godwines, looked dark. After all they had been responsible for the death of their brother. Tostig's body, Sihtric told her, had been found on the field, had been decently wrapped, and would be buried here at the minster.

Sihtric the priest marvelled at the capabilities of Harold the soldier. 'Harold was in Lunden when word came of the Norse landing. You have to understand the position. Harold had had to disperse the fyrd from the south coast. But it was already autumn, and the threat from the Normans had surely receded for this year. Harold thought he could see his way to the end of a difficult first year on the throne. And now, this – the news of an invasion not from the south but from the north.

'And yet he didn't hesitate. He immediately formed up his housecarls and marched north. We came up that Roman road like a storm, sixteen riders abreast. And he sent riders ahead, calling out the fyrd for a third time this year. So we rode on, a gathering crowd of us, like pilgrims converging on Rome. It was marvellous to be a part of it, even though I knew I wouldn't have to fight.

'And even as we marched Harold sent envoys and spies ahead of the column. That was when he heard of the disaster that befell the northern earls.'

'The battle at the Foul Ford – I was nearby.'

'That doesn't surprise me,' Sihtric said dryly. 'Actually Harold believed the earls had been right to try to contain the Norse before they took Jorvik, and at least Hardrada had been held up. At the news of their failure Harold marched on, undaunted.

'And so we came to Stamfordbrycg. We had marched since dawn, and I thought the English might rest. But Harold fell on the enemy immediately. Surprise, and the decisiveness to make use of it: those are his strengths. And there at Stamfordbrycg, as the day wore on – well, you know the rest; you saw it. The Norse were exhausted. You can win one battle; it's hard to win two.

'And Harold saw Tostig cut down. I believe it broke his heart. But he would do it again,' Sihtric whispered. 'Yes, he would do it again.'

Impulsively Godgifu touched his arm. 'Don't get too bound up in the glamour of war, Sihtric. Remember you're the King's priest, not his housecarl.'

Sihtric smiled. 'Perhaps I am becoming addicted to the stink of blood. What sport, though! When you get close enough to it you can see why men will always wage war.'

'And what of the prophecy?' she asked. 'After all that has happened, is the Aryan empire still achievable?'

'I think so,' Sihtric muttered, and his eyes glazed as he receded into a private world of calculation. 'I think so, yes. Tostig was a rogue element. Harold should have cut him down when the Northumbrians rebelled. If Tostig had not lived, he would not have stirred Hardrada to mount his opportunistic invasion. And then Harold and his forces would not have had to endure this battle, win this victory. Indeed if Harold had been able to make his alliance with the Norse, as I urged him, his own forces would be stronger, untested – and he might, conceivably, have Hardrada's Norse at his side, rather than lying slain over muddy Northumbrian fields…'

'If, if, if.'

'Yes. There's nothing to be done about it now.'

Messengers came into the hall. They whispered to the housecarls, who urgently spoke to the King. Harold stood, his face thunderous, and stormed out of the hall.

Sihtric was slightly drunk, and was confused. 'What's going on?'

'Can you not hear what is being said? A message has come from Harold's brother Leofwine, in Lunden. William has sailed.'

Sihtric was wide-eyed. 'It is October. I thought we were safe for the year-'

'Evidently not.'

'Then Harold will go south again – and so must I.'

Sihtric joined the crush to leave the hall, and Godgifu hurried after him.

XVII

On the day of the crossing, Orm had woken to a murmur of excitement outside his tent. Hastily pulling on his tunic and leggings, he went outside to find a clear blue sky, air unseasonably warm for October – and the breeze, though soft, blew from the south, at last.

Already the horns blew, summoning the Christian warriors to mass.

Orm hurried to find his lord, Robert Count of Mortain, who was tense, excited, relieved. 'God has granted us the weather,' he told Orm and his men, 'and a moonless night to boot.'

'So we go,' murmured Orm.

'William has willed it; God has permitted it.'

And they shouted together, 'We go!'

The intention was to sail at night, but embarking in the dark would have caused chaos. So William's plan was to launch at high tide that afternoon, form up his fleet off the coast, and sail for England overnight.

The morning was one of frantic loading. In long chains the men passed bales of clothing, weaponry and provisions to the ships. It took two men to carry a hauberk, a heavy mail coat, strung on a pole. The horses were tricky, and every last one of them had to be soothed, coaxed, bribed and bullied to climb the timber ramps to the ships and settle down in its covered stall. At last, as high tide approached, the men clambered aboard. They hung their leaf-shaped shields along the gunwales as the Normans' Viking forebears had always done.

To cries from the captains, a clanging of bells, a blowing of horns, and blessings from the priests, the ships pulled away. Oars splashed, their blades glittering as they cut in their ancient rhythms into the water, and the sails, brightly coloured, billowed as they caught the soft southerly breeze.

The dragon ships spread out over the flat water, mist-drenched, like images in a painting. Each of them bore a snarling animal's head at its prow. William's own ship, a gift from his wife, was called Mora, and at its prow was a finely carved figure of a child with a bow, and an effigy of his son Robert. Orm had sailed all his life but never as part of such a fleet as this. After so many weeks stuck on the Frankish shore, Orm relished the swell of the ship on the sea, the fresh salt of the breeze. Even the earthy stink of the horses was blown away.

The ships were rowed to their muster point not far from the coast, where the water was shallow enough for anchoring. As the dark gathered the crews lit lanterns in their ships' mastheads, one by one, and the fleet became an archipelago of yellow lights, stretching as far as the eye could see. Orm lay down under his cloak, his head resting on his helmet, his stiff mail coat at his side. Listening to the lapping of the water against the clinker-built hull and to the voices of the crews as they taunted each other in the dark, he imagined he was a child, safe in his father's ship, on the way to Vinland.