‘Should I fall, I commend to you my son, William of Falaise, may God preserve and keep him. He is my true heir, and you, my vassals, must serve him as you would serve me.’
With that Robert bent from his mount, low, to kiss his son. He indicated that his ducal gonfalon was to be brought forward, and the boy was obliged to kiss that, and loud was the subsequent cheer for the universal sign of inheritance. It would have taken a keen eye and ear to note that not all were joining in the acclaim, to note that in some quarters there was not only silence, but a look of doubt, if not anger. If they had been close enough to Tancred de Hauteville, as his eldest son was, they would have heard him grinding his teeth.
The horns blew on the Constable’s signal and Robert swung his horse to lead his men to the field of battle under the fluttering banner of those two recumbent golden lions on a bright-red background that was the standard of his house.
Naturally, being cavalry the duke sought the high ground, an aid to any mounted attack. On this elevated position the sun-dappled battlefield lay before the men in the front rank, which included the de Hautevilles, like some kind of yet-to-be-sewn tapestry. The king’s rebellious brother had drawn up his army with its left fixed on a river, with a force of cavalry on a mound to his right, protecting the mass of his infantry and ensuring they could not be outflanked there. The ground, from the river, rose to where the cavalry sat, not much, but it indicated to at least one keen eye that the line of attack for the king’s infantry was on the flatter ground, where the river would offer protection to their right as well.
‘I wonder if that river is fordable?’ William asked.
‘You think to surprise them, brother?’ asked Drogo, sat on William’s right.
‘I fear more they may surprise us. Those horsemen on the right might not be the whole force pitted against us. What if they have pushed another battaile to cross further downstream and come upon us behind this position?’
‘We would see them.’
William pointed to the rolling hills on the opposite bank. ‘Not if they are in the folds of those.’
‘The duke would turn and destroy them,’ insisted Tancred. ‘Man for man we are ten times any Frank, be he horsed or not.’
‘Which would,’ William responded, ‘draw us off and if that happened at the right time…’
‘You’re imagining things,’ his brother insisted.
‘Probably, but they hold the ground, Drogo, forcing us to come to them and our friend yonder is definitely intent on a defensive battle…’
‘How can you know that?’
‘He is standing his ground, which means he is waiting to be attacked.’
‘Though you forget to add it matters not what he does,’ his father said.
‘I’m just speculating.’
‘Anyone would think you were in command.’
There was no rancour in that remark, more a touch of humour.
‘I’m just thinking what I would do if I was, or even more, what I would do if I was the enemy, which I cannot but believe is a good notion.’
‘Can’t you see it?’ Tancred interrupted. ‘The King of the Franks hopes to do this without help. The last thing he wants is for Duke Robert to win his battle. If he did he would have used us first to seek to break the enemy line. But he has not, and I can tell you if he can win on his own, with just his milites, he will do so, which might just allow him to repudiate whatever promises he had made for our support.’
‘So we could have come all this way for no purpose, money service aside.’
The eyes on either side of his father’s nose guard were not pleased at that reference, so William decided on silence, but he could not help but let his mind speculate on all the possible ways in which this battle could be played out. The king’s foot soldiers would, even if they tried to attack across the whole front of the enemy line, naturally trend towards the flat ground and once they were engaged the enemy cavalry, using the slope before them, might try to drive them towards the river.
It was not necessary to beat them, merely to crowd them into a smaller frontage and so reduce the power of the assault. Draw off the Normans then, and their allies would be in trouble, but such a tactic only worked if the rebellious brother had enough mounted men to split his force, and Drogo was right; there was no evidence of that.
Henry Capet had started his attack. Pikemen at the front, they were moving forward in a line getting more ragged as the uneven ground broke the cohesion of their formation. William could see his notion had been right; the men on the far left were veering right towards the river, they could not help it: the slope dictated they do so. Whoever led them had seen the problem and called a halt to redress the line.
‘Crossbowmen,’ said Drogo.
‘He is using them to keep his enemy in place,’ said Tancred.
‘His enemy, Father, is happy to stay where he is. Those bolts are doing little damage at the range they’re firing. They would be better kept until the range is right.’
‘God in heaven, I have bred a Caesar?’
William threw back his head and laughed, loud enough to make his horse skittish. ‘You might have, Father, but it is as likely to be a Nero as a Julius.’
Silence descended, apart from the snorting of the horses, a thudding hoof and the occasional loud fart before they voided their bowels. Redressed, the attacking line began to move again, but the one thing the commanders had not done was to rectify the way the force was still compacting. There was an ethereal quality to what they were observing. Barring the occasional trumpet, no sound could be heard, though there must have been a mass of shouting as the leaders exhorted their men and those men yelled to give themselves courage.
The two lines converged until they were only twenty paces apart and suddenly that silence was ruptured, as the attackers broke into a charge, the yelling that came in one bellow from several thousand throats rolling up the hill, the clash of metal on metal added to that as the armies clashed. To William what happened next was like watching the tide, a gentle one that lapped the sandy beaches not far from home. The join where men were fighting, being pressed to stay engaged by the masses behind them, wavered this way and that, like wavelets running up and receding on a beach, and for an age it seemed there was no advantage either way. Then the defenders slowly but surely seemed to give, and William noticed the enemy cavalry stirring.
‘Do you think we are close enough?’ he asked.
‘How would I know?’ his father responded.
‘Well I just thought…’
‘Don’t think, William,’ Tancred replied sharply.
‘Take the word of one who has been in this before. Thinking in a battle will drive you to forget what you should be doing, which is what others have decided. You’re here to fight, let others do the calculating.’
William de Hauteville was not about to say so, but such a notion induced a feeling of deep disquiet. He wanted to say the time had come for them to attack. The enemy cavalry would fall upon the disorganised flank of the King’s foot soldiers and if there was no one there to rally them to face the onslaught that part of the host could be rolled up and thrown back on the centre, which might panic and crumble.
Asked how he knew this, he would have been unable to say, but he felt sure of his conclusion. He had been raised in a warrior household, had heard his father describe every battle he had been engaged in, and not just him but every fellow knight who was a visiting friend. There was, in each contest, they had said, a moment of decision, and for William, that moment was right now.
‘Why is the duke waiting?’ he demanded, unable to stay silent.
Tancred de Hauteville sighed. ‘For the same reason as his ally hesitated to let us open the fight. He wants the King of the Franks deeply troubled before we intervene. For our liege lord, this has to be his victory.’
‘So when?’