The Conqueror by Georgette Heyer Page A

laughed. ‘Thanks be to you, Raoul Tesson!’ he called after him, and rode back to King Henry’s side.
    ‘That was well done, by my head!’ Henry said, kindling. ‘They are fierce dogs, those men of Normandy.’
    ‘You shall soon judge of that, sire,’ the Duke promised.
    Heralds from either side rode out, and back again. The Normans, led by William in person, the Counts of Arques and Eu, and the Sieur of Gournay, were on the right wing; the French, with their King and the Count of Saint-Pol at their head, formed the left wing. Facing them, the men of Bessin followed the gonfanon of Ranulf of Bayeux; and the wild Côtentin troops chafed behind Néel de Saint-Sauveur, he whom men called Noble Chef de Faucon. Raoul saw his standard, azure and argent, gleaming blue across the plain, and marked how he bestrode a restless destrier, and how his lance glittered as it caught the light.
    He wound Verceray’s bridle about his wrist, and took a firmer grip on the gonfanon he carried. He felt breathless, as though he had been running hard, and the blood drummed unpleasantly in his ears. His lips were dry; he licked them, and prayed that he might bear himself as became the Duke’s knight, in this his first fight.
    The sharp order to charge rang out, and he saw Malet bound forward, and followed close. Suddenly he was excited, not breathless any more, and not afraid.
    The thunder of hooves was all about him; a great roan head drew abreast of him; he caught the swirl of a blue mantle, and the hard glitter of a shield, but his attention was fixed on the man who rode Malet so furiously into battle. Ahead of them the opposing troops were galloping towards them. Raoul wondered what would happen when the crash of meeting came. A shout of many voices dinned in his ears; he found that he too was yelling: ‘Dex Aie! Dex Aie!’
    The noise of hooves grew louder as charge answered charge. Borne on the wind came the cry of the men of Bessin: ‘Saint-Sever! Sire Saint-Sever!’ and the clarion call of Hamon-aux-Dents, roaring out: ‘Saint-Amant! Saint-Amant!’
    The two armies came together with a crash that brought both sides to a jarring halt. Shield clashed against shield; in a tight pack men hacked and hewed, and the maddened destriers struck out with their plunging, steel-shod hooves. There was a man down, trampled under foot; Raoul heard him scream, and gritted his teeth. His grasp was sticky on the shaft of the gonfanon, his arm fast in the enarmes of his big kite-shaped shield. He forced Verceray on after the Duke, struggling through the press. Someone cried out that the King was down; there was a scuffle ahead; the Duke drove his lance home with all his great strength, and a horse fell. Raoul saw its red distended nostrils as it sank, and the terror in the dilating eyes. Then that faded, and he was warding off a spear-thrust with his shield. Verceray reared up before a man on foot who was desperately fighting with his lance among the slain. Raoul wrenched the big horse aside, and cut downwards with his sword. Blood spurted up over his leg; he swept on, over the dead, hacking his way to the Duke’s side.
    ‘Saint-Sever! Sire Saint-Sever!’ With a howl the man who shouted slashed at the gonfanon Raoul guarded so jealously. Raoul’s sword whirled aloft and hissed down through the air in a flash of deadly blue steel. The gonfanon was safe still, and a rebel went armless. Raoul shook the sweat out of his eyes, and shouted: ‘Death! Death! Le bon temps viendra! ’
    A man drove at him in a wild charge; he flung up his shield, and saw Grimbauld de Plessis’ dark face, with a smear of blood across one cheek. Then Hubert de Harcourt’s spear took Grimbauld unawares, and knocked him out of the saddle. Hubert was shouting: ‘Dex Aie!’ and ‘Yield, yield, false knight!’ Raoul saw his brother Eudes press forward; then he himself swept on, waving the gonfanon, close beside the Duke.
    William was fighting with an energy that seemed