Page 11 of Unconquered

Eada wrapped her arms around herself, clutching the cloak she wore closer to her body, but that did not end her shivering.

It was not the chill October morning that made her shudder but the sight of thousands of men preparing for battle.

After a fortnight of messages between William and Harold, long enough for her to nurse a small hope that matters would be settled peacefully, the time for battle had come.

The English had arrived in the night.

She did not have to see them to know that they were prepared to fight.

She could hear them.

Their shouts of Olicrosse! and Godamite! cut through the morning mists.

The steady chant of Ut! Ut!, combined with the beating of their shields, made a frightening martial din.

She looked at Drogo and his men.

They had stood at arms for most of the night.

That had been terrifying enough, but when the priest had come to take their confessions, she had had to hide in the tent.

It would have helped no one if she had wept with helplessness and fear as she had felt inclined to.

Something she did not care to look at too closely made her sure that this was the day that the fate of England would be decided.

For a while, she had cherished the dream that the decision would be made peacefully, but she had never wavered in the belief that that decision would be made in favor of William.

Now, as she watched and listened to the preparations for battle, she could only pray that the decision was made with as little bloodletting as possible.

The cause of the fear and grief knotting her insides was twofold.

She mourned the Saxon loses to come and was terrified that someone she knew or loved would soon die.

It grieved her to watch Drogo go to battle with her people and it terrified her to think of how, in only moments, Drogo would face battle-axs, swords, and arrows.

Soon the people she loved would be doing their utmost to kill the man she loved.

She was so filled with confused emotions that she felt choked with them and her head throbbed painfully.

When Drogo walked toward her, she tried to smile, but the sad look upon his face told her that it was a poor effort.

"Perhaps you should confine yourself to my tent until this is over," he suggested as he cupped her chin in his hand and brushed a kiss over her trembling lips.

"I will still be able to hear it all," she whispered, her strained emotions stealing the strength from her voice.

"I ache to comfort you, to take the sadness from your eyes, but I know I cannot.

Even if I swore to fight no Saxon, tossing aside all honor, it would not help you."

"No, for the battle must still be fought." She reached up to touch his cheek.

"Be careful.

I know you are a strong, skilled knight, but you fight for honor and gain while my people fight to survive as a people, for their laws, their customs, and their homes."

"Do you think they know that?"

"How can they not know? William is a Norman and he will try to make England like Normandy.

One does not have to believe in omens and prophesies to know that."

Drogo nodded then gave her one short, fierce kiss and walked away.

Eada stood, unable to move or speak, as she watched him mount Faramond and ride away with his men.

She bit her tongue until it hurt to stop herself from calling after him, begging him to return.

When a pale, tight-lipped May, holding a cooing Alwyn close to her chest, stepped up beside her and took her hand, Eada clung to her tightly.

Despite the sounds of thousands of men preparing to do battle that drifted back to them, the camp was strangely quiet.

Norman and Saxon alike were subdued and tensely awaited the battle and its outcome.

If the Normans lost, they would all have to flee or fight the victorious Saxons, who would overrun the camp looking for bounty and revenge.

Eada suspected she was the only one who had no doubt about the outcome of the battle.

"Sir Drogo will be safe, mistress," May said, awkwardly patting Eada on the shoulder.

"Your words might be more of a comfort if you did not look so afraid," Eada drawled, smiling faintly at May's discomfort.

"I confess that I am not sure what I am afraid of.

The men we ride with appear to be strong, skillful knights, all the protection any woman could need.

I do not really tremble with fear for their lives, yet tremble I do." She shook her head and gave Eada a furtive, faintly embarrassed glance.

"My man is not even riding into battle."

"There is a lot to fear today, May, even if Ivo does not carry a weapon.

I, too, tremble yet I feel certain that the Normans will win.

Today is a day scribes will write about until we are all dust.

The importance of the battle may be what makes its all tremble.

This will decide who rules this land and we have never been a part of such a weighty decision before." Eada reached out to lightly pat little Alwyn's back.

"Do you have any family who may suffer on this day?"

"None that I know of.

I was left alone and taken as a bond-servant while still a child.

There may be a Saxon warrior or two who is kinsman to me, but I know him not and I doubt he knows of me.

You have family—"

"Old Edith believed that my mother, brother, and sister would survive."

"Then try to be at ease, mistress.

Ones such as we do not have the power to end the bloodshed.

We can only save ourselves.

And you have already saved others.

This sweet babe, young Godwin, and probably the babes he cares for all owe their lives to you.

Let that be enough."

Before Eada could reply, an ashen-faced Godwin rushed up and grabbed her by the arm, clutching her tightly as he said, "You must come with me, mistress."

"I am not sure I should enter Sir Guy's camp."

"He is not there.

He has left his captives alone." Godwin's brief smile was little more than a bitter twisting of his lips.

"Where can we go when we are surrounded by Normans and a battle lurks but a short walk away? Please, you must come with me."

Even as she allowed him to tug her toward Sir Guy's camp, she asked, "What do you need me for?"

"When Sir Guy left, I entered his tent to clean it and I found poor Hilde."

"Poor Hilde?" asked May as she hurried along behind Godwin and Eada.

Godwin did not reply, simply lifted the flap to Sir Guy's tent and nudged the two women inside.

Eada softly echoed May's cry of horror.

Hilde lay sprawled on the smoothed dirt floor inside the tent, staring sightlessly up at the dawn through the hole that allowed the fire's smoke out.

Her wrists had been slashed and the knife she had used lay in the pool of blood surrounding her lifeless body.

She was naked and the bruises marring her pale body revealed that her final days had not been easy to endure.

Eada was not sure which horrified her more, the sight of a woman who had committed the grave sin of suicide or that Sir Guy could be so cruel that he could push a woman to put her immortal soul at risk just to escape him.

"Has anyone else seen this?" she demanded of Godwin as she took a deep, steadying breath and warily approached the body.

"No.

Elga has not returned from the camp of the Norman who won her favors with a toss of the dice and I have kept the children away." Godwin shook his head.

"Suicide is a mortal sin.

I did not know what to do.

Shall I fetch a priest? There are plenty of them wandering about."

"Do not fetch a priest until we have Hilde cleaned and readied for burial."

"Now that I think, a priest will not attend one who died by her own hand."

“One will attend to Hilde for we are not going to let anyone know that she killed herself," Eada said as she grabbed a blanket from a pile in the far corner of the tent.

"But she cannot be buried in consecrated ground."

"Today I think only Normans who are killed in battle will rest in consecrated ground and probably not all of them.

Most of the men who die today will be hastily buried or left to rot upon the battlefield.

I do not think a priest will trouble himself to ask too many questions about one poor Saxon captive." Eada spread the blanket out on a clean part of the dirt floor then moved back to Hilde's side.

Godwin helped Eada lift Hilde off the blood-soaked dirt and lay her face-down upon the clean blanket.

"She should not be tended to by a priest, Eada," he said, "for she died by her own hand, unshriven."

"I do not see this as a suicide but as a murder."

"I really do not think that Sir Guy cut her wrists."

"He might as well have." Eada looked at Godwin.

"It was because of what Sir Guy did to her that poor Hilde did this.

She probably thought that her soul was already so steeped in sin that committing this grave one made no difference."

"But if we lie to a priest, do we not risk our own souls?" asked May.

"I do not ask you to lie," Eada replied.

"We shall clean her and wrap her in this blanket for burial, and we shall tell the priest that she died of grief.

I do not condone what she has done, only understand it, and now I wish to protect her children." She nodded when Godwin's eyes widened with sudden understanding.

"We are in the midst of a war; no one needs to know how she died.

The children do not need to bear the burden of her sin, one I feel certain she committed in blind despair.

For the children's sake, I am willing to carry this secret to the grave."

"As am I," said May.

"I will fetch what is needed to clean her and leave Alwyn with Ivo.

Do you want me to ask him to dig a grave? I think I can make myself understood about that."

"Yes, May, if he is willing.

We can do it if we must." As soon as May left, Eada turned to Godwin.

"We need to clean away this blood-soaked earth." She grimaced.

"Anyone who sees this will easily guess what has happened."

"Eada?" Godwin lightly bit his bottom lip as he hesitated, then asked, "If one of us still knows or cares for her children as they age and one day they ask about their mother, are we to lie to them?"

"That is a question I cannot answer.

It must be decided when and if the time comes and then one will have to consider if the children really want to know the truth or can accept it.

They may never even ask.

My concern is for now, and now those children have suffered enough, as has poor Hilde."

"Agreed.

Having the priest tend to her may not help though.

God knows what Hilde has done."

"True, so let us leave the forgiveness or punishment of her sins in His hands."

"One more question before we begin this work.

What if Sir Guy decides that he need not feed or tend the children now that their mother is gone?"

"She did not tend to them while she was alive, not since Sir Guy took her captive.

You have cared for them."

"I know, but I think he took little notice.

Now he may think that there is no one to care for them."

"If Sir Guy casts them out, put them into our camp.

May and I will tend to them.

May will probably gather them to her as abruptly and as tightly as she did Alwyn.

Her man Ivo also appears most happy about that and so reveals that he holds a great love for children."

"And Sir Drogo will not mind?"

Eada grimaced.

"I do not think he will be happy, for he is a poor knight, but he will not cast them aside.

Come, let us get to work before someone else stumbles by and this dark secret is out before we even have a chance to keep it."

It proved to be hard work to clear the dirt floor of all sign of the tragedy.

Godwin had to sneak buckets of bloodied dirt out of the tent and dump them in the surrounding wood then bring in clean dirt to replace it.

May had returned, cleaned Hilde, and dressed her for her burial before Eada and Godwin had repaired the floor.

Godwin then hurried away to find one of the many priests who had filled the camp at dawn, giving each Norman knight the church's blessings, taking confessions, and insuring that no knight would die unshriven upon the battlefield.

When the priest arrived, Eada found the grief she felt for the forlorn Hilde pushed aside by anger.

The priest was young and filled with self-importance.

Duty forced him to tend to Hilde, but he made it very clear that he felt such service to a Saxon was demeaning to him.

What guilt Eada felt over lying to him about how the woman had died faded quickly.

She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from reminding the young man that pride and vanity were sins.

Ivo appeared just as the priest was leaving and Eada smiled at the younger, smaller man's obvious fear.

The priest lost all of his arrogance as he warily edged around Ivo and fled the tent.

A dosing of fear and humility could only do the priest some good, Eada decided as Ivo picked up Hilde's body and they all followed him out of the tent.

She and Godwin paused only long enough to collect Hilde's two sad-eyed children.

The burial was at the far western edge of the huge camp in a spot beneath some trees that was already marked by several graves.

It was not until Eada helped the others pile some rocks on the grave that Eada realized that the sounds filling the air around them had changed.

The battle had begun.

Blindly, she took a step toward the harsh noises only to be stopped by a big hand clasping her by the arm.

She looked at Ivo in surprise for she had not heard him approach.

"You must stay here with me," Ivo said, frowning down at her.

"Yes, I know." She sighed and rubbed a hand over her face.

"I was not thinking.

I just heard the battle and moved toward it."

"If you draw too near, you will be killed," said Godwin as he brushed off his hands and took little Welcome into his arms.

"I know that, too." She smiled at young Eric, who clung tightly to the hem of Godwin's jupon.

"I do not think the children understand what has happened."

"No, but I will try to explain it to them.

It may be a blessing that their mother has shunned them for so long, too sick in her mind and her heart to tend to them.

They have turned to me."

Ivo briefly placed one of his big hands on Eric's fair head.

"If Sir Guy wants them to leave, May and I will take them.

We like children."

After Eada translated Ivo's words, Godwin smiled and nodded his gratitude, but said to Eada, "That eases my mind, yet I pray that Sir Guy will continue to be blind to them.

I have grown fond of them." He winced, briefly looking toward the battle which poisoned the air around them with the sounds of weapons and death.

"May we abide with you for a while? I think this day will be hard to endure and I would prefer not to be alone."

Eada hooked her arm through his as May took a shy Eric by the hand.

"Yes, stay with us.

If nothing else, you will be one more to help keep me from doing something foolish."

"Your man will return," Godwin said as they all walked back to Drogo's camp.

"I pray you are right.

I always dreaded Old Edith's sendings, but now, I deeply wish for your words to be a prophecy"

Drogo cursed, ripped off his helmet, and wiped the sweat from his face with the blood-spattered sleeve of his tabard.

There was a pause in the fierce fighting and he sorely needed the brief respite.

Eada had spoken a wise and sad truth when she had said that the Saxons would fight.

The battle was hard and bloody, the dead too numerous to count.

His men had survived the long hours of battle, bloodied and exhausted but unhurt, but too many other Normans had not.

What troubled Drogo was how the Norman knights had retreated again and again before the solid line of Saxons on the small rise.

The Saxons stood like a human wall that William's army hurled itself against, failing to climb it or knock it down.

Norman arrows had taken a heavy toll upon the Saxons, but the men did not waver.

Soon it would be night and the fighting would have to stop.

If something did not change soon, the day would end in neither victory nor defeat.

Harold could gather more men, but William could not.

Although Drogo knew he would welcome an end to the fighting, he dreaded the thought that all the dying and the killing done this day would lead to nothing.

"Do you think we will lose?" Tancred asked as he stepped up beside Drogo.

Drogo glanced at his friend, who was pale with exhaustion, then shrugged.

"Only God can answer that.

All I pray for now is that it ends soon, before I can no longer lift my sword."

"We have lost many of our number."

"Too many.

If we do not win the day, then, yes, I believe we will have lost the war, for we cannot replace our dead as swiftly as our enemy can."

Tancred swore and put his helmet on again.

"I did not come all this way just to run back to the sea.

I know my reasons for fighting are not as high and honorable as the Saxon's—they fight for hearth and home—but we ride beneath the Pope's banner and carry holy relics.

If we cannot win even with the Church's blessing, then so be it I will die here, sword in hand." He looked at Drogo.

"And your woman said we would win."

"She said that William will be king.

She did not say when or how.

This may not be the battle which sets the crown upon William's head." Drogo tugged Faramond closer and, after redonning his helmet, hauled himself back up into his saddle.

"Come, let us hurl ourselves back into this bloody melee before our strength is gone." As Tancred and the others mounted their horses, Drogo looked toward the ridge the Saxons defended with such ferocity.

"The enemy's numbers have lessened so that I believe we can reach the ridge this time.

It appears that the ends of the ridge can no longer be defended."

As Drogo rode toward the western edges of the Saxon line, his men close behind him, he saw Harold's banner and the tight knot of his housecarls fighting around it.

The English king had not moved from his stand at the crossing of the two roads which wound over the ridge.

Drogo had to admire the man's strength and skill in battle.

For one brief moment he had a clear view of Harold, and what happened next caused him to stop so abruptly that his men rode past him.

One of the hundreds of arrows fired by the Norman archers struck Harold in the eye.

He fell to his knees; and his valiant housecarls, the best of his army, struggled to protect their king as the Normans, scenting this chance for victory, converged upon them from all sides.

Drogo saw William and his men gallop toward the fallen king, slashing their way through his dying guard.

It was not long before Harold, blind and helpless, was left alone and unprotected.

Even though the battle still raged around them, Drogo relaxed as he waited for William to accept Harold's surrender and thus end the battle.

He gasped with shock and a strong hint of revulsion when William and his three companions killed the helpless Harold.

Only faintly aware of how, with the capture of Harold's banner and his death, the battle began to rapidly end as the English scattered and retreated into the forest, Drogo watched four Norman knights butcher a crippled man.

Harold was hacked to pieces, cut through the chest, beheaded, disembowelled, and thoroughly mutilated.

Drogo knew it would be a long time before he could forget William's part in such an ignoble deed.

"Look, Drogo, the English flee to the forests like rabbits," cried Tancred.

Although he understood Tancred's joy, for there was a part of him that shared it, Drogo looked around solemnly.

"Their king is dead.

If any of them were unfortunate enough to see how he died, they must believe that a surrender will never be accepted with mercy and honor." He heard a grunt of agreement from Serle on his left.

"You witnessed Harold's death?"

Serle nodded, only briefly breaking his close guard on the men still on the field to look at Drogo.

"1 will now work to make myself believe that William was but caught firmly by the bloodlust of a long, fierce battle."

Drogo closed his eyes for a moment, struggled with his disgust and dismay, and then nodded.

Serle was right.

William would soon be their king.

They could not let him know, by word or by deed, what they truly thought of his part in Harold's slaughter.

He, too, would try to forget the matter or, at least, find some way to excuse William's actions.

"I intend to cast aside my honor for a while," Tancred said as he turned his mount back toward the Norman battle line.

"I mean to join the others in picking over the dead.

I am too poor to stand upon my honor and watch all the loot being taken away by others."

"And the dead cannot use it," agreed Garnier as, with one last look at the fleeing Saxons, he, too, turned around, Unwin and Serle quickly doing the same.

It took Drogo a moment to quell his embarrassment and a touch of shame before he could follow his companions.

He could not allow his pride to make him forget that he was poor.

Drogo consoled himself with the knowledge that if he knew the dead man's family, he returned all valuables to them and, unlike others, he never hurried the dying of a man just to take his possessions.

As he joined his men in gathering what he could, he found himself praying that Eada would not condemn him for what he was forced to do.