The Conqueror by Georgette Heyer Page B

untiring. Foam from Malet’s mouth spattered his person; his helmet was dented from some glancing thrust, but under it his eyes were sparkling. He had thrown away his lance and fought now with his sword, hand to hand with Hardrez, the finest warrior of Bayeux. The veteran’s sword clanged against his; he yelled out his lord’s battle-cry of ‘Saint-Amant!’ and as he shouted the Duke’s blade beat his down, and the point was driven home to his unprotected throat. Blood gushed over his tunic; he fell with no more than a gurgle, and a riderless horse plunged desperately in the mêlée.
    For how long the skirmish lasted Raoul did not know. He kept beside the Duke with a kind of bloodthirsty tenacity, snarling between his clenched teeth as he guarded the gonfanon from the many attacks made upon it. It was bloodstained and foam-flecked and the shaft was greasy in his hand, but it waved still over the Duke’s head.
    Absurd words thrummed in Raoul’s brain: ‘Redder yet, God wot! Redder yet!’ The shifting mass of riders passed like phantoms before his eyes. Sometimes one phantom would come close, and he struck it mechanically. Once he saw Guy of Burgundy’s face in the thinning press; it was livid, and the eyes glared, but it vanished, and new faces swam before his vision, always changing, as faces change in uneasy dreams. Now and then the shrill scream of a wounded horse rose high above the uproar; sometimes one voice rang out in a rallying call.
    The men of Cingueliz, holding off until the first jarring charge was over, had spurred forward at a well chosen moment, and fallen upon the rebels’ flank. They were mingled with the Duke’s troops now, and ever and again that ferocious yell of ‘Turie!’ sounded above the cries of ‘Dex Aie!’ and the deep ‘Montjoie!’ that came from the French lines.
    Ranulf, the Viscount of Bessin, was the first to leave the field. As the heap of slain that littered the field grew, and the ducal troops pressed on, mowing down the rebels, he lost heart. William’s dark face seemed to trouble his over-wrought mind. He fought on doggedly, but when Hardrez, his beloved vassal, fell before the Duke, terror seemed to possess him. With a dreadful cry he cast his shield and lance from him, and rode away like a madman, bending low on his horse’s neck, urging him faster, and faster still across the reeking plain.
    Beside Raoul, withdrawn from the now desultory fighting, the Duke laughed suddenly. Raoul started: the sound of the Duke’s laugh seemed to recall him to himself. He drew a shuddering sigh; the red glare went out of his eyes; he looked with a touch of horror at the man who could laugh in the middle of such carnage.
    The Duke was pointing with his wet sword towards the flying figure of Ranulf. ‘God on the Cross! – like a goose with neck outstretched!’ he said. He glanced at Raoul, amusement gleaming in his eyes.
    Reaction all at once came to Raoul; he began to laugh in helpless gusts. He pulled himself together as the Duke’s horse moved forward, and rode after, biting his lip. He found that he was shaking like a man in the grip of an ague. For the first time, now that he had done with fighting, he became aware of the smell of blood, and was seized by a fit of retching.
    Guy of Burgundy followed Ranulf next, riding with the remnant of his men, and trying as he went to twist his scarf round his blood-boltered arm.
    Néel de Saint-Sauveur alone of the rebel chiefs fought on with a kind of grim desperation. Hamon-aux-Dents lay dead on the field, spread-eagled where he had fallen. He it was who had killed his second horse under the King, but even as Henry sprang clear Hamon went down before the lance of a Norman knight.
    ‘Splendour of God, I have a place about me for such a man as that!’ the Duke cried, watching with kindling eyes the invincible figure that fought on under the azure gonfanon.
    The Méance was already swollen with the corpses that drifted down its current.