Princess of Fire, page 20
“Not even a breeze,” William muttered in disgust. “And I’ve ten thousand men sitting idle on my own land, men who will ravage it at the slightest instigation. God help us! But it takes all my power just to control these men!”
“The wind has come from the north,” Alaric said. “And there has been no breeze at all. Surely, William, it must change soon. After all, aren’t we speaking of fate, here?”
“I hope it is not my fate to be mired in the muck of this river!” William swore.
Then Alaric felt it; a soft breeze that touched his cheek in the heat of the day. “William . . .”
Cries went up all around them. The wind was coming from the south at last. As soon as the tide changed, the fleet could travel out the mouth of the river and set sail for England.
* * *
On the thirteenth of September, a terrible storm broke out. As Harold and his men rode, word reached them that many of his ships, returning to London, had been lost. He accepted the news with sorrow and hastened the journey.
Two days later they passed through the Sussex forest and across London Bridge. Fallon was proud to see that the city turned out to welcome her father home.
But two days later a messenger rode in to say that Harald Hardrada and Tostig had just attacked in the north; they had burned the city of Scarborough.
* * *
The wind shifted to the west; Duke William’s ships were blown off course, and in an effort to survive, they sought any harbor. Ships, horses, and men were lost, and many of the survivors deserted. Alaric listened as William was advised to give up his quest. William demanded his advice.
Alaric smiled. “William, what matters any advice? You are determined on this course.”
“I want your opinion!”
“Well, we have always known that this is a fool’s quest, my liege.” Alaric saw the duke’s famous temper rising and he swept an arm out to indicate the ships that surrounded them. They were the fifty ships that Alaric himself had pledged to the duke from his own resources. He had nearly five hundred loyal men in his command. Of his personal force, the storm had cost Alaric two ships, twenty men, and as many horses. “William, I am, as always, with you.”
“If I quit now, I will lose all respect.”
“You know that you will not quit.”
The duke nodded. There was a great assemblage of men, and he stepped out among them and fell to his knees. “God’s grace be with us!” he called out. “I will not falter in my cause!”
Cheers began to go up. The storm had been a disaster; everything could have failed. But William had sworn that, by right, England was his. He had to prove it.
* * *
Fallon lay awake, restless and uncertain. She heard a cry in the night, and she rose, frightened. She wrapped a blanket of furs around her shoulders and ran out into the hall. She heard a second cry. It came from the king’s quarters.
She stared reproachfully at the guard as she neared the door to her father’s chambers. The guard shook his head. “Milady, he sleeps poorly. The pain in his leg bothers him this night.”
“Get the physician.”
“The physician has been here. The king ordered him back to his own bed.”
Fallon nodded and went to her father’s side. A bowl of water and a cloth lay there; she pressed the cloth against his forehead. He awakened, started, then smiled at her.
“I must ride in the morning,” he said.
“You cannot; you are ill.”
“I am the king, and I will ride.”
“You are a stubborn old man.”
“Old! I am not old. I am in my prime.” He smiled slowly again, tenderly touching her cheek. “You are a stubborn minx, much like the old man, eh?”
“Oh, Father! I love you so much!”
“And I love you, my beauty. What happiness you have brought to me, my girl.”
“Don’t!” She pressed a finger against his lips, fearful that he would speak of some omen. He shook his head and assured her that all was well. She was not sure that it was so, for it was nearly dawn, and Harold had barely slept.
Her father finally dozed. There was a soft rapping, and Fallon flew to the door. A monk waited there with the guard and Father Damien. Fallon swallowed fiercely.
“This is Elfin,” Father Damien told her. “He must see the king.”
“Why?” Her throat was dry, and she was wretchedly nervous.
Father Damien smiled with gentle understanding. “All is well, Fallon. Let him enter.”
Harold was awake again, sitting up. Elfin hurried in and told her father he was from the abbey at Waltham, which Harold himself had endowed.
“I dreamt of good King Edward. He came to me and said I must tell you that you will go to battle and you will prevail. And you will no longer be in pain.”
“Thank you for coming to me, Elfin,” Harold said.
Fallon saw her father’s slight smile and knew that he was skeptical. But after he had ushered the monk and the priest out, he turned to her, incredulous.
“Fallon, my leg pains me no longer.”
“Truly?”
“Truly.” He smiled. “See? I am not so old, my child. I am truly in my prime. And I will be victorious.”
Fallon nodded, and accepted his good-bye kiss. He did not know that she would be riding with him. She had told Delon that she felt she had to be near her father and that one way or the other, come Vikings or Normans, she would ride with Harold. Delon had brought her leather armor and a helmet and visor and even chausses and a short tunic. She would tuck her hair up beneath the helmet, and none would recognize her except Delon and his friends. “Your father will personally slay me for this,” Delon told her.
She swept her lashes sweetly over her cheeks. “I will take care, Delon. I promise, if it comes to battle, I will take cover, and my father will not discover me. Oh, love! Thank you so for helping me!” She kissed him, and he forgot his fears and doubts.
They left London on the twentieth of September. In a military feat that men would long remember, Harold marched his army north nearly two hundred miles in three and half days, traveling day and night. Fallon was exhausted, but her heart sang, too, for all through the long ride, in town after town, the fryd had come out and men had rallied to her father’s side.
In Tadcaster, ten miles south of York, they learned about the defeat the English had suffered at the hands of Tostig and Harald Hardrada. The men of York and Northumbria, led by the English earls, Morkere and Edwin, had clashed with the Vikings at Fulton. A vicious, bloody battle had ensued, and the Vikings bragged around their campfires that the rivers were dammed with the bodies of defeated Saxons. Harald Hardrada and Tostig had not taken their army into the city of York, for they planned to set up their headquarters there, and they did not want that worthy prize destroyed.
Not a man had welcomed Tostig back to his old earldom. And according to the wounded soldier who breathlessly relayed his message to the king, Tostig had promised the crown of England to Harald Hardrada.
“Your uncle has surely gone mad!” Delon whispered to Fallon. She nodded, noticing the sorrow that lined her father’s face. It was the greatest horror for him to do battle against his own brother.
“Tostig means to take hostages tomorrow at Stamford Bridge, you say?” Harold demanded. When the man nodded his anxious agreement, the king commanded that they would silently slip into York, and prepare to meet the invaders in the morning. The men who would have been hostages were to march at Harold’s side.
Fallon did not sleep that night. She lay beside Delon in the tent she shared with him and his closest friends, who were sworn to secrecy about her identity. They had joked that night, but they were all nervous about the battle to come. No man of sense met a Viking battle-ax without respect.
Morning came. The army amassed at Stamford Bridge and waited as Tostig and the Vikings approached from the village of Riccall, where they had camped. Fallon waited breathless as her father, disguised, went forward to offer peace to Tostig, if he would desert his Viking enterprise. He refused.
It was later said that Tostig recognized his brother, but gave Harald Hardrada no sign that it was the king himself. This was Tostig’s last honorable act: He did not betray his brother, nor did he betray the Viking with whom he had cast his fortune.
Horrible, blood-curdling cries filled the air. Delon whirled on Fallon. “Now! Get back! It begins!”
Horses and soldiers pressed forward, and the cries rose like a massive tidal wave. The Viking horde was upon them. Battle, hand to hand and vicious, ensued on the York side of the bridge. Fallon’s horse reared and she was thrown to the ground. She rolled to one side, barely escaping the hooves of other horses. She sat up just as a double-headed ax cleaved the skull of an English thane.
It was her first sight of bloodshed, her first taste of war. In panic she realized that her father was at the fore, that her uncles Leofwine and Gyrth were with him, that Delon and all his handsome young friends were meeting the deadly clash of steel.
Fallon heard a cry from the river, and she crept over to the source. A young man lay there with his thigh ripped and torn. She tore strips from her mantle and quickly bound the wound. Someone leaped at her, and a Viking with the eyes of a berserker was upon her, drawing a blade from a sheath at his ankle. He raised it above her, but ere the knife could fall, the Viking went rigid. The young man whose thigh she had bound had skewered the enemy through with his broadsword.
He turned to Fallon, and died.
“Mother of God!” Fallon murmured. But she did not panic. She went among the men, giving water where she could, tying up wounds. As the day dragged on, she came upon one of her father’s surgeons, and together they tended the wounded. As morning turned to afternoon, she was numbed and inured to the horror of it; she worked with single-minded desperation to save what lives she could.
“Fallon!” She had long since cast away her helmet and visor. Most of the men merely stared at her, dazed, as if she were an angel of mercy. But this was her uncle, Leofwine, looking up at her, and his disapproval was vast.
“Uncle!” She ignored the reproach in his eyes and bathed his forehead. She worked in a fury to remove his armor, tunic, and chemise, and discovered a slash across his rib cage. She felt his eyes upon her as she carefully tended the wound. When she looked at him again, she saw that his lip was caught in a wry grin. “Girl, your father will have your hide.”
“Shush, Uncle.” She paused then, and tears stung her eyes. “My father—”
“Harold was well when I left him. He crossed the bridge. I believe the battle is breaking. Harald Hardrada rushed forward like a true berserker and was slain with an arrow in the throat.” He swallowed, pained. “And my brother Tostig took up Hardrada’s standard, the Land-Ravager, but now the standard has fallen, and they say that he has died, too. The Vikings are retreating for their ships.” He closed his eyes. Fallon wiped her uncle’s brow again and felt fresh tears form in her eyes. What madness had caused this?
Dusk began to fall, and Fallon discovered that it was true—the enemy was in full retreat. But the river ran red with blood, and bodies were heaped atop one another, tangled together in death, Vikings and Englishmen.
“Fallon!”
She spun about. This time it was her father, and she did not fear his anger, for she was so glad to see him alive. With a hoarse cry, she ran to him as he dismounted and flung her arms around him. He held her for but a moment, then pushed her from him. “Fallon! What foolishness is this? You could have been slain! Delon! That young fool—”
“Nay, Father! It was my idea, and no one else is to blame. I could not let you ride alone!”
“You’re a woman—”
“And your daughter. If I were a son, I would be expected to stand beside you.”
“But you are not my son, Fallon. And something happens to a man when he must shed blood. It rests upon his heart, and it eats into him there. But a man is stronger—”
“Father, you know I am adept at arms.”
“Adept, yes, but a woman. Fallon—at any time, I could lose everything. Don’t let me fear that I should lose you, too.”
“Father, I did not risk my life. I stayed behind, and I was helpful—ask your surgeon. Perhaps I even saved lives.”
He smiled at her. “Perhaps.” Then he frowned again and demanded to know where she had been sleeping. When she told him, he was furious all over again, even though she assured him that every man in his army had been gallant. “No matter. Delon and I will certainly have words. And tonight, daughter, you will sleep in a guarded chamber in York that adjoins your father’s!”
She bowed to his command. She didn’t see Delon that night, nor could she eat when the English feasted, for the taste of blood seemed to be all about her.
In the morning, she was at her father’s side when the remaining power of the Vikings surrendered to him.
Harold had always despised slaughter. He freely pardoned Harald Hardrada’s sons and kin when they swore never to come to England again. He took no reprisals, but bade them leave.
Listening to him, Fallon smiled against the tears that rose in her eyes, and offered up a silent prayer, thanking God for his life.
Looking about her, Fallon was startled to see a familiar figure. Father Damien had traveled with them, and she had not known it. He was watching the king with an expression of abject misery; Fallon feared that he knew of some secret ill that had befallen her father.
Suddenly Father Damien looked her way, as if he had sensed her eyes on him. He stared at her a long moment, then nudged his horse and moved away. Fallon tried to follow, but he disappeared into the ranks of the army, and she could see him no more.
For nearly a week the army remained at York. Fallon and Delon were not allowed to speak to each other but Fallon did not think that her father’s temper would remain so fixed for long. She sought to earn his forgiveness by a pretense of meek and mild obedience, and she tended to the wounded as she had during the battle. Working with the surgeon, she learned a great deal·about mosses and herbs, how to cauterize wounds, and how to sew them cleanly and neatly, and even how to set a broken bone. She knew that her father watched her working, and that she had earned his grudging approval.
One afternoon she came upon a lad with a serious gash in his temple. She bathed away the blood and applied the mud poultice that the surgeon had prepared. As she bound the wound, the youth opened his eyes; they were soft blue, like a spring flower. He whispered to her, and she realized that he spoke in his native language—Norwegian.
She bit into her lip as his eyes closed. She could not bear to see anyone suffer—neither an Englishman nor an enemy. The boy was flesh and blood, just like her own brothers.
A shadow fell upon her. She looked up to see Father Damien watching her.
“You’ve a healing touch,” he told her.
She smiled weakly. “Will he live?”
“Aye, and he’ll become an Englishman. He’ll never travel homeward again.”
“You speak as if you know.”
Father Damien shrugged and turned away from her. She could not see his face. He said, “Your father plans a feast this night. Be with him. See that he is happy.”
Father Damien walked away. Fallon stared after him nervously.
It was true. Her father did plan a feast that night, and they dined in the hall at York. The young earls Morkere and Edwin were there, and at her father’s insistence, Fallon danced with them. She laughed and chatted and was careful to see that Harold’s cup was full, and that the night was fine for him.
Then suddenly the musicians ceased to play. A pall fell over the room. Fallon, on the arm of the young Earl Morkere, felt a chill seize her spine, and she trembled.
Through the dancers in the center of the hall walked a man, worn and weary, dusty from the road, and travel-stained. He pushed through them all and fell before her father.
“Water!” She heard herself call out. Then she pushed away from the young earl and ran to the fallen man. A servant supplied her with a skin of water, and she pressed it to his lips, then smoothed some of the water over his cheeks. His eyes opened, and they were wild as they stared about.
“Peace, man, what is it?” Harold asked gently, crouching down beside her. The man’s eyes fell upon his king, and he moistened his lips to speak.
“The Normans have come. William the Bastard has landed at Pevensey Harbor.”
Chapter Thirteen
Even as they prepared to ride south, another messenger arrived from the coast. Exhausted and worn from riding, he sat at a table in the palace in York, telling Harold what he had seen and heard. Fallon, sitting to a meal she could not begin to taste, felt a deep sense of dread rising within her. She had feared the Normans all her life, and now it seemed that her fears had been well founded.
The man who came to them, Derue, had served in the fryd, he told the king, but was from Pevensey himself, and so, when the fryd had dispersed to go home, he had remained on the coast. He had been among the first to see the Norman fleet out on the sea.
“They landed, and there was no one to fight them,” he said. “They came straight in, and no beast was safe, for they took unto themselves all the fine manors, and they slew cattle, sheep, and pigs. They had brought their own lumber, and they hastily set up a fort. The duke is a confident man; they say he awoke in the morning aboard his own vessel with no sight of the other ships and sat there cool as ice and ordered food. His ships were behind him, and they soon appeared. He stumbled upon the English soil when he left the Mora. Some whispered this fall to be an evil omen, but the duke was not distressed. As he fell he said that he had not taken England singlehandedly but with both his hands.
“Pevensey did not serve his purpose. He split the army, and they moved, inland and by the sea, to Hastings, There, at the Norman abbey, he has made his headquarters; he has built another fort. And everything is laid waste by his men!’
