He was convinced they would have to assault the place, and he suspected Odo thought the same, but how? The slopes of the pointed hill on which it stood were steep, maybe too much so to get even a decent foothold carrying ladders — they might very well need those just to ascend, and once below the walls there would be no protection from above. To attack that way was just to provide easy targets.
That left that concourse before the gate, at the top of the causeway, the only flat piece of ground from which an attack could seriously be mounted. The man set to repulse them would know that too, so there he would have his best defences: his crossbowmen, more heavy stones, perhaps boiling oil and, if there were horses inside, the ability to suddenly emerge and mount an attack on men who would, of necessity, be fighting on foot.
They could put together a rough-hewn barricade, one that protected not only their front but their heads, one that they could manoeuvre onto the concourse, perhaps using it to set fire to the wooden gate. But that, stout oak studded with bolts, probably many hundreds of years old and thoroughly seasoned, would take an age to burn and the defenders would pour over water, as well as keeping wet the interior face.
Stay too long and the roles would be reversed: fire would rain down on them and force a withdrawal. It looked as though the only hope, as some of the men had accepted, was a lengthy siege, which was galling given the very idea was what the man they had come to capture would have calculated. He would have made sure he could hold out for months in the hope that either boredom, events elsewhere, or sickness, drove his besiegers away.
Such speculations helped the time pass, and after the glass had run twice he was relieved, grateful to get out of his hauberk and helmet and rest his weary limbs, for it had been a very long day. Sleep came swiftly, even if the room, too full of humanity, was hot, and he was surrounded by the stentorian snores and endless rasping farts of his fellows; sleep in which he dreamt of things cool, of the river back home in which he had swum, engaged in water fights against his brothers. They had also fished with rod and cold tickling hands.
The yell brought him awake immediately, though for a moment he had no recollection of where he was — in Hauteville or Italy — but that kind of alarm was one he had grown up with; in uneasy times Tancred too had mounted guards, day and night, in his wooden tower, to warn of any approaching threat. All around him men were on their feet, reaching for their weapons, shouting to rouse themselves for a fight; there was no time for mail, only his sword, shield, helmet and ability.
The sky was grey, the colour of the earliest dawn, just light enough to make clear the situation. Odo might have little in the way of brains but he was a fighter, already engaged by the time the group of which William was a part joined him. He was yelling the orders to form a line and hold it, at the same time as defending himself against those trying to kill him. This was where the endless training on which Rainulf insisted paid off: there was no panic, none of Odo’s men were looking for a way to get clear or avoid their duty, only for a way to join without compromising a man already fighting.
William was with them, shield held firm, sword swinging, concentrating on his front and right, leaving the left side to the man who had taken up station next to him, all around the shouts of attackers and Normans, the ring of metal on metal and the thud as a weapon smashed at the hardened wood and leather of a shield. Even as he fought, parrying jabs from a pike before taking a mighty swing to decapitate the head, William was thinking this should have been foreseen.
The pikeman was now jabbing with the remaining wood, and with just enough light to see the fellow’s eyes, he knew he was desperate, not looking to keep contesting the ground with this giant but looking for a way to get clear and leave his opponent to another. William pulled back his sword and the fellow turned to withdraw, he had had enough. That was fataclass="underline" the sword came forward with all of William’s weight behind it and took him between the shoulder blades with such force that the sound of breaking ribs was unmistakable.
There was no time to care, there were others to take on, not least the man battling his right-hand neighbour. He ceased his activity when William’s sword cut through his mailed arm so deeply as to nearly sever it. Odo was yelling orders again, a slow rhythm that saw his Normans take one step forward, hold that gained ground, engage swords with their enemy to beat them into yielding once more, then take a second step as soon as the defending line showed the first hint of weakness. The aim, to impose themselves so thoroughly that sooner or later the resistance was bound to break.
It takes very few men seeking to save themselves to render useless the efforts of their fellows. Two or three who valued their lives more than their duty pulled back further than was prudent, creating dogleg gaps into which the mercenaries could impose themselves, taking in the side men now defenceless as they fought those before them, cutting down at their necks, jabbing swords under their raised arms, or slicing at the tendons of their legs to bring them to the ground, before a heavy sweep to smash skin and bone and finish them off.
It was hard fighting. William’s rasping breath came and went from a bone-dry mouth in which his tongue seemed to have turned to leather. But he could feel that beneath his feet they were off the flat ground and on that sloping causeway. It was a long way up to the castle gate but that must be open. If they could break through and get behind the defenders now inching back, they could bar their inevitable flight, and if they were lucky, do more and get inside the walls.
The men before the Normans knew they were losing; they too could feel the sloping ground under their heels, which would tell them how far they had so far retreated. At some point their line would have to rupture. Would the men fighting alongside William have the breath left after their exertions to get in amongst them, indeed to get ahead of them?
The need to order this fell to Odo, but there was no way fighting in a single line he could control the action, so William found himself, with great difficulty, not only fighting but trying to shout to his nearest companions what was attainable, just in case they had not seen the possibility for themselves. He had no way of knowing if they even heard, never mind saw the sense, he was too busy stabbing, parrying with his sword and thrusting with his shield. If he looked either way he would leave himself exposed to a lunge from the more than competent opponent he was now engaged in trying to beat.
The fellow had a sword arm nearly as strong as William’s own, and he had real ability with the weapon. He had got through William’s guard once and sliced through the jerkin and skin of his upper arm, but fortunately not enough to cut tendons. There was no pain, that would come later, but William knew that it was bleeding, though not how badly. With his next thrust he nearly skewered him through the belly and only a sudden and powerful drop of William’s weapon saved him. That put both hilts in contact so it became a test of strength as the two combatants swayed back and forth.
Had he been up against a man of lesser build his assailant might have prevailed, and in his eyes, now that the morning light had strengthened, William saw at first that was what he expected. But that look faded as his opponent realised he was up against a fellow who had more than enough strength to match his own, that the only hope he had was to put distance between them once more so his sword work could keep him in the fight.
If those eyes told William of his concern they also, in flickering at the wrong moment, told him the man intended to disengage, so that when he stepped back suddenly, hoping that William’s own forward pressure would make him stumble and render him defenceless, he found that the sword he had in the air ready to slice down and deliver at least a disabling wound was in the wrong place for the thrust of the one that came up under his neck, taking him at the point where his mail joined his flesh. The blade went through with such force that the helmet protecting his head lifted with the top of his skull, and what light had been in those eyes went out.