Sworn Sword

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  List of Place-Names

  Map

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  January, 1069. Less than three years have passed since Hastings and the death of the usurper, Harold Godwineson. In the depths of winter, two thousand Normans march to subdue the troublesome province of Northumbria. Tancred a Dinant, an ambitious and oath-sworn knight and a proud leader of men, is among them, hungry for battle, for silver and for land.

  But at Durham the Normans are ambushed in the streets by English rebels. In the battle that ensues, their army is slaughtered almost to a man. Badly wounded, Tancred barely escapes with his life. His lord is among those slain.

  Soon the enemy are on the march, led by the dispossessed prince Eadgar, the last of the ancient Saxon line, who is determined to seize the realm he believes is his. Yet even as Tancred seeks vengeance for his lord’s murder, he finds himself caught up in secret dealings between a powerful Norman magnate and a shadow from the past.

  As the Norman and English armies prepare to clash, Tancred begins to uncover a plot which harks back to the day of Hastings itself. A plot which, if allowed to succeed, threatens to undermine the entire Conquest.

  The fate of the kingdom hangs in the balance …

  About the Author

  James Aitcheson was born in Wiltshire in 1985 and studied History at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where began his fascination with the medieval period and the Norman Conquest in particular. Sworn Sword is his first novel.

  Sworn Sword

  JAMES AITCHESON

  To my parents

  List of Place-Names

  TO ADD TO the historical authenticity of the setting, I have chosen throughout the novel to use contemporary names for the locations involved, as recorded in charters, chronicles and Domesday Book (1086). For British locations my main sources have been A Dictionary of British Place-Names (OUP: Oxford, 2003) and A Dictionary of London Place-Names (OUP: Oxford, 2004), both compiled by A. D. Mills.

  Alchebarge Alkborough, Lincolnshire

  Alclit Bishop Auckland, County Durham

  Aldwic Aldwych, Greater London

  Aleth Saint-Malo, France

  Bebbanburh Bamburgh, Northumberland

  Bisceopesgeat Bishopsgate, Greater London

  Cadum Caen, France

  Ceap Cheapside, Greater London

  Commines Comines, France/Belgium

  Cosnonis River Couesnon, France

  Dinant Dinan, France

  Drachs Drax, North Yorkshire

  Dunholm Durham

  Earninga stræt Ermine Street

  Eoferwic York

  Execestre Exeter, Devon

  Gand Ghent, Belgium

  Haltland Shetland

  Hæstinges Hastings, East Sussex

  Humbre Humber Estuary

  Kopparigat Coppergate, York

  Lincolia Lincoln

  Lincoliascir Lincolnshire

  Lundene London

  Orkaneya Orkney

  Ovretune Overton, Hampshire

  Oxeneford Oxford

  Reddinges Reading, Berkshire

  Rudum Rouen, France

  Searobyrg Old Sarum, Wiltshire

  Silcestre Silchester, Hampshire

  Stanes Staines, Surrey

  Stanford Stamford, Lincolnshire

  Stybbanhythe Stepney, Greater London

  Sudwerca Southwark, Greater London

  Suthferebi South Ferriby, Lincolnshire

  Temes River Thames

  Trente River Trent

  Use River Ouse

  Walebroc Walbrook, Greater London

  Waltham Waltham Abbey, Essex

  Wæclinga stræt Watling Street, Greater London

  Wærwic Warwick

  Westmynstre Westminster, Greater London

  Wiire River Wear

  Wiltune Wilton, Wiltshire

  Wincestre Winchester, Hampshire

  One

  THE FIRST DROPS of rain began to fall, as hard as hammers and as cold as steel against my cheek. My mail hung heavily upon my shoulders, and my back and arse were aching. We had risen at first light and had spent much of the day in the saddle, and now night lay once more like a blanket across the wooded hills.

  Our mounts’ hooves made hardly a sound against the damp earth as we pressed on up the slope. The path we followed was narrow, little more than a deer track, and so we rode in single file with the trees close on either side. Leafless branches brushed against my arm; some I had to fend away from my face. Above, the slender crescent of the moon struggled to make itself shown, casting its cold light down upon us. The clouds were rolling in and the rain began to come down more heavily, pattering upon the ground. I pulled the hood of my cloak up over my head.

  There were five of us that night: all of us men who had served our lord for several years, oath-sworn and loyal knights of his own household. These were men I knew well, alongside whom I had fought more times than I cared to remember. These were men who had been there in the great battle at Hæstinges, and who had survived.

  And I was the one who led them. I, Tancred a Dinant.

  It was the twenty-eighth day of the month of January, in the one thousand and sixty-ninth year since our Lord’s Incarnation. And this was the third winter to have passed since the invasion: since we had first mustered on the other side of the Narrow Sea, boarded ships and made the crossing on the autumn tide. The third winter since Duke Guillaume had led our army to victory over the oath-breaker and usurper, Harold son of Godwine, at Hæstinges, and was received into Westmynstre church and crowned as rightful king of the English.

  And now we were at Dunholm, and further north than any of us had been before: in Northumbria, of all the provinces of the kingdom of England the only one which after two years and more still refused to submit.

  I glanced back over my shoulder, making sure that none were lagging behind, casting my gaze over each one of them in turn. In my tracks rode Fulcher fitz Jean, heavy-set and broad of shoulder. Following him was Ivo de Sartilly, a man as quick with his tongue as he was with his sword, then Gérard de Tillières, reticent yet always reliable. And bringing up the very end of the line, almost lost in the shadow of the night, the tall and rangy figure of Eudo de Ryes, whom I had known longer and trusted more than any other in Lord Robert’s household.

 
; Beneath their cloaks their shoulders hung low. They all held lances, but rather than pointing to the sky as they should have been, ready to couch under the arm for the charge, they were turned down towards the ground. None of them, I knew, wanted to be out on such a night. Each would rather have been indoors by the blazing hearth-fire with his pitcher of ale or wine, or down in the town with the rest of the army, joining in the plunder. As too would I.

  ‘Tancred?’ Eudo called.

  I turned my mount slowly around to face him, bringing the rest of the knights to a halt. ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ve been searching since nightfall and seen no one. How long are we to stay out?’

  ‘Until our balls freeze,’ Fulcher muttered behind me.

  I ignored him. ‘Until daybreak if we have to,’ I replied.

  ‘They won’t come,’ Eudo said. ‘The Northumbrians are cowards. They haven’t fought us yet and they won’t fight us now.’

  They had not; that much at least was true. Word of our advance had clearly gone before us, for everywhere we had marched north of Eoferwic we had seen villages and farms deserted, people fleeing with their livestock, driving them up into the hills and the woods. When finally we reached Dunholm and passed through its gates just before sunset earlier that night, we had found the town all but empty. Only the bishop of the town and his staff had been left, guarding the relics of their saint, Cuthbert, who resided in the church. The townsmen, they said, had fled into the woods.

  And yet there was something about the ease of our victory that had made Lord Robert uncertain, and that was why he had sent the five of us, as he had sent others, to search for any sign of the enemy nearby.

  ‘We keep looking,’ I said firmly. ‘Whether or not our balls freeze.’

  In truth I didn’t think we would find anyone tonight, for these were people who would never before have seen a Norman army. Naturally they would have heard of how we had crushed the usurper at Hæstinges, but they could not have witnessed it themselves. They had not felt the might of the mounted charge which had won us that battle and so many others since. But now at last we had come in force: a host of two thousand men come to claim what was the king’s by right. They would have seen our banners, our horses, our mail glinting in the low winter sun, and they would have known that there was no hope of standing against us. And so they had fled, leaving us the town.

  So it seemed to me, at least. But what I thought didn’t matter, for the decision was not mine to make. Rather it belonged to our lord, Robert de Commines, by the king’s edict the new Earl of Northumbria, and the man charged with subduing this quarrelsome province. Of course Eudo and the others knew this, but they were tired and all they wanted was to rest. We had been on the road so long: it was nearly two weeks since we had left Lundene. Two weeks which we had spent riding and marching through rain and sleet and snow, over unfamiliar country, across marshes and hills that seemed to go on without end.

  We carried on up the slope until we had come to its brow and could look down upon the land in every direction: upon the wooded hills to the north and the open fields to the south. The moon was partly hidden behind a cloud and I could see almost nothing but the rise and fall of the earth. Certainly there was no hint of firelight or spearpoints, or anything else that would have betrayed the enemy. The wind buffeted at my cheeks and the rain continued to fall, though far to the north and east, near to where the land met the German Sea, I saw clear skies glittering with stars and I hoped that the weather would soon ease.

  I checked Rollo, my horse, and swung down from the saddle, patting him on the neck.

  ‘We’ll rest here awhile,’ I said. I thrust the end of my lance into the sodden ground, leaving the head to point towards the sky, while beneath it the damp pennon limply displayed the hawk that was Lord Robert’s device. I lifted my shield from where it hung by its long guige strap across my back, and rested it against the trunk of a tree. It bore the same emblem: a black symbol upon a white field; the bird in flight with talons extended, as if descending for the kill.

  There was not much forage to be had here, and so I dug a brace of carrots out from my saddlebag to give to Rollo. He had kept going without complaint all day, and I would have liked to have offered him more, but for now it was all I had.

  The others said nothing as they too dismounted and began to pace about, feeling the use of their legs once more. Eudo rubbed at the lower part of his back, doubtless nursing some twinge from spending so long in the saddle.

  To the east the clouds were beginning to break, and I could spy the silver-flecked ribbon of the river Wiire as it wove about the town of Dunholm. A narrow promontory jutted out to the south, atop which stood the fastness: a palisade surrounding a small huddle of buildings; shadows against the half-lit clouds. The promontory was sided by steep bluffs and the river coiled about them, enclosing the fastness on three sides. Thin spires of smoke rose gently from the thatch of the mead-hall there: threads of white lit by the moon.

  Below the fastness lay the town. There the rest of our army would be out in the streets: half a thousand knights like ourselves, the household warriors of the lords heading this expedition; seven hundred spearmen; and another three hundred archers. And of course there were the scores upon scores of others who attended on such an army: armourers, swordsmiths, leech-doctors and others. Many of those would be there too: close to two thousand men revelling in the spoils of war, the capture of Dunholm, the conquest of Northumbria.

  It was perhaps something of a risk to allow those men to go plundering when there was a chance that the enemy still lurked, but the truth was that they had been waiting the whole march for the promise of booty. It mattered less for knights like ourselves, for we were paid well enough by our lord, but the spearmen fought out of obligation: most were drawn from the fields of their lords’ estates and so this was their only hope of reward. For Robert to deny them it now would be to turn them against him, and that he could not afford to do. Already there was discontent amongst the other nobles, some of whom were reckoned to have felt (though none had said openly) that they were more deserving and that the honour of the earldom should have gone to them, to a Norman rather than a Fleming, as Robert was. But many were the men who had come over in the last two years who were Normans only by allegiance, rather than by birth. I myself hailed from the town of Dinant in Brittany, though it was some years since I was last there; Fulcher was Burgundian, while others came from Anjou or even Aquitaine. But in England that should not have mattered, for in England we were all Frenchmen, bound together by oaths and by a common tongue.

  Besides, Lord Robert was one of the men closest to King Guillaume, having served him for more than ten years, since the battle at Varaville. I found it odd to say the least that a man who had served loyally and for so long should be resented so vehemently. On the other hand these times were not as settled as once they had been, and there were many, I knew, who would look only for their own advancement rather than the good of the realm.

  ‘It was on a night like this that we took Mayenne five years ago,’ Gérard said suddenly. ‘Do you remember?’

  I had fought in so many battles that most of them had blurred in my memory, but I recalled that campaign. It had been a protracted one, extending late into the autumn, perhaps even into the early part of the winter. I knew because I could picture the sacks of newly harvested grain we had captured on our raids, and I could see the leaves turning brown and falling from the trees in the countryside all about. Yet, strangely, of the battle for the town itself no images came to mind.

  ‘I remember,’ Eudo said. ‘It was in November; the last town to fall on that campaign. The rebels had retreated and were holding out within its walls.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Gérard. ‘They expected a long siege, but Duke Guillaume knew they were well supplied.’ He took a bite from his loaf, then wiped a grimy sleeve across his mouth. ‘We on the other hand had over four thousand mouths to feed, but it was nearing winter and the cou
ntryside lay barren—’

  ‘And so we had no choice but to attack,’ Eudo said. A smile broke out across his thin face. ‘Yes, I remember. We attacked that night, so quickly that we had overrun the town even before their lord had dressed for battle.’ He laughed and looked up at the rest of us.

  I shook my head; five years was a long time. Back then I would have been but twenty summers old and, like all youths, my head was probably full of ideas of glory and plunder. I had craved the kill; not once had I paused to consider the details of who we fought or why, only that it had to be done.

  Beside me, Fulcher yawned and shrugged his shoulders inside his cloak. ‘What I’d give to be with my woman right now.’

  ‘I thought you left her back in Lundene,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ he replied. He took a draught from his waterskin. ‘I say let the Northumbrians keep their worthless corner of the country. There’s nothing in this land but hills and trees and sheep.’ He gave a laugh, but it seemed to me that there was little humour in it. ‘And rain.’

  ‘It’s King Guillaume’s by right,’ I reminded him. ‘And Lord Robert’s, too, now that he’s been made earl.’

  ‘Which means we’ll never be rid of the place.’

  ‘You’ll see your woman soon enough,’ I said, growing tired of these complaints.

  ‘That’s easy enough to say, when your Oswynn is waiting for you back in Dunholm,’ Ivo put in.

  ‘If there isn’t another man taking care of her instead,’ Eudo added, smirking.

  Had I been more awake I might have been able to think of some retort, but instead I simply glared at him. I was not young or foolish enough to think that I loved Oswynn, or that she loved me; she was English and knew hardly a word of French or Breton, and I was French and knew almost none of English. But she was my woman all the same and I prayed to God that she was safe. Perhaps Eudo had been speaking in jest, but on a night such as this, when wine and mead flowed freely, I knew how high men’s spirits could run, how hard it was for them to control their lusts. There were few enough women to be had as it was: only those who had come northwards with the army. Soldiers’ wives and camp-followers. Women like Oswynn.