The Domesday Book (No, Not That One)

The slopes of Senlac Hill were green and sparkling in the cold of an autumn afternoon. Or, at least the bits that could be seen between the bodies looked a bit green and sparkling. A lot of the place looked red, and most of it was mud, but a discerning observer could still pick out some speckles of green and sparkle if he looked hard.

True, most of the discerning observer’s attention would be focused on trying to discern a way out of this awful place. If you didn't care for the bodies of dead Saxons, this was not the spot for you. And if you cared for neither the bodies of dead Saxons nor dead Normans, you really needed to be somewhere else.

The battle had been long and it had swung back and forth, or rather it had run up and down modest hills until eventually the Normans killed the Saxons. They didn't kill all of them, but there seemed to be a point in the afternoon when those Saxons still capable of fighting realised they weren't capable of fighting the much larger number of Normans who were still capable of fighting.

And when King Harold took an arrow, they decided they had better things to do with their day. The Saxons who were still capable of fighting ran away.

No one was really sure where the arrow that took the King came from. The archery phase had appeared pretty much over when one lone shaft seemed to come out of nowhere and make straight for Harold.

The King dropped, and his men dropped with him.

Thus the Battle of a Field a Few Miles Outside Hastings was won.

Yet, after such a great victory, the tent of Duke William of Normandy did not feel very victorious. It certainly didn't sound very victorious; the air was full of the groans and grumbles of men who had suffered. Men who had suffered cuts, bruises, breaks and amputations. Amputations at the hands of wickedly blunt instruments.

The suffering would fade as the hours went by. Some would get over the shock and start the natural healing process – the first stage being to boast how utterly blood curdling their injuries had been. Others would stop suffering as the shock of their injuries reached their brains, which promptly told them to get on and die.

Of course, this tent was only for the well connected injured. The common soldiery would still be out on the field, tending their common wounds among the blood and the mud. Meanwhile, in the hastily assembled veterinary yard, injured horses were either being tended or put out of their misery. Misery out of the way, they were passed to the camp butcher to make ready for that night’s celebratory meal. There were plenty of them, which was fortunate. The Normans had worked up quite an appetite.

The groaning and moaning of field and tent was pretty much all in Norman French. Saxons capable of running away had done so, while those not capable of running away weren't capable of anything at all any more.

One or two of the better dressed Saxon wounded had been brought to the tent as prisoners, there being a good chance their families were wealthy and would pay ransom. This had been before William realised he had actually conquered the country, and so everything belonged to him anyway. The better dressed Saxon wounded swiftly became the better dressed Saxon dead.

…

The Duke himself had left his tent to examine the battle’s outcome in closer detail. He was striding up and down Senlac Hill again, taking in the moment and glorying in his power and majesty. He roared now and again, clapped Norman soldiers on the shoulders in congratulation, if they still had shoulders, and generally gloated all over the place. Whenever he came upon a groaning Saxon he despatched him with his mighty, magisterial sword, just to make the day absolutely perfect.

William was not the sort of leader to stand at the back and direct his forces. He was one of his forces and wanted to be in there, forcing things. Mainly metal things and mainly into other people.

He was not a large man, not for the time anyway, but there was a certain something about him – the sort of something that made other people look away. Even those of a naturally aggressive disposition found themselves unable to hold the Duke's eye. It wasn't that he could out-stare you: it was that he looked at you as if you were already dead.

Not that trying to out-stare William was advisable. It helped to know that he would leap into the most pointless and hideous violence at the drop of a ... well, he didn't really need anything to drop at all. He just did pointless and hideous violence when he felt like it. Which was most days.

And of course he was a Duke. His title gave him natural authority while his behaviour rammed it home, often literally.

He had a cadre of confidantes; no leader could operate alone, but William’s group was small and select. There was strategy in it, too. The men around him, particularly the ancient warmonger Le Pedvin, survived close to William because they were just like him. When he screamed that he would cut their heads off for some perceived insult, they would reply that he was welcome to try as they’d spread his guts on the floor before he’d taken a step. And if he did take a step he’d slip in his own guts, which, by the way, were putrid.

William would roar his delight at such insults, and there would be much slapping and punching, and the occasional light stabbing.

If anyone else tried this approach they'd be dead. Others had, and they were.

If the man had simply been an average mad Duke, he could have been avoided. It was his intelligence, ambition and single-mindedness that made him really scary. Years of rankling hatred between William and Harold had led to this day on Senlac Hill. If you had a really major grudge you needed bearing, William was your man. That a generous scattering of Norman and Saxon manhood now lay leaking into the soil of England was a sign that William’s grudge had been a good one.

Into the Duke’s tent, one particular leaking Saxon was being dragged on a bier. He was very well dressed indeed, and was leaking from a very specific wound. The leaking was no longer copious, though, as the Saxon heart had stopped beating some time ago.

‘Fetch the Duke,’ the ambitious young Norman in charge of one half of the bier called to some guards standing nearby.

The guards appraised the man and weighed him up: ambitious, rich, but not well connected. They ignored him and carried on talking about one another’s injuries, particularly whose had been the most blood curdling.

'All right,’ the ambitious Norman snapped, 'I'll go and tell the Duke that I have the body of King Harold, shall I? And that you couldn't be bothered to take him the news?’

The two guards left.

…

When he received the news, William's striding came to a halt. With some scowls at undespatched Saxons, he redirected it towards his tent. It was an entirely equitable stride; live, dead, Saxon, Norman… William trod on them all in his haste to get to the body of his vanquished foe.

On his way across the field of ruin he spied his old companion Le Pedvin, busy robbing the dead.

'Ho, Le Pedvin, you rat's arse. Come and see Harold's body.’

'Ha ha!' Le Pedvin roared his own roar and joined his Duke. Patting his purse to make sure the newly severed fingers with rings on them were safe, he clapped the Duke on the shoulder. 'Dead, then?’ the older man asked.

'Seems so,’ William said, with some disappointment.

If our discerning observer had loitered until this moment, he would wonder why the victorious Duke was talking to one of the corpses, and why the corpse was talking back. It was also walking pretty well for corpse.

Duke William certainly looked like a Duke. His small pieces of armour shone, the sword at his side gleamed, his helmet was close fitting and looked comfortable, and his chest bore his sigil for all to see. This was a dangerous foible for a Duke in a battle, one might imagine, but then William was largely mad.

Le Pedvin looked like the corpse. He always had. For as long as anyone could remember the man had been pale, pock-marked and as dour as the dead. As the years went by, more and more lines creased his face as if they were trying to fold him to death, and in some old battle he had lost his right eye. Where another grizzled soldier might have worn his patch with pride, Le Pedvin just used his to keep the wind out.

Both men were built of fighting muscle, though. This was clear from the way they quickly trampled over the dead to get to the tent.

At the entrance, where two poles topped with wooden bosses held up a sheet of canvas, the ambitious Norman stood. The look on the man's face was one of grim seriousness as he bowed before his Duke.

'You've got him, then?’ William asked.

'Yes, sire.’ Giles Martel, ambitious young Norman, nodded his head sharply, in that respectful but sycophantic manner William was used to. The manner that said the man wanted something in return for his service, probably a small county. There would be plenty to go round, after all.

William raised an arm indicating that Martel should lead the way. He and Le Pedvin ducked their heads through the entrance to the tent and followed.

…

‘Tent’ is a bit of an understatement for William's canvas construction – it was more like small village. Various tents had been joined together to create an accommodation befitting a Duke. There were separate spaces for cooking, for storing clothes, for dressing and for receiving audiences. William's sleeping space was grand, his resting space was comfortable and the space for his weapons was just plain large.

Most of this space was occupied by Norman nobles, groaning mightily over one injury or another. The tent was well run: as soon as anyone became a dead Norman noble, he was neatly escorted from the place. Space for the accommodation of corpses was not part of the design. In any case, the smell would soon become unpleasant.

An exception had been made for the body of Harold. His bier had been placed on the banqueting table, a 20-foot long monolith of oak which had come across the channel in its own boat. The cook had protested at this location for a corpse, but Martel had promised the decoration would be moved before the dinner began. Unless William wanted it there as a trophy.

A confidently smiling Martel led the Duke and Le Pedvin through the winding ways of the tent. They paused, momentously, on the threshold of the new mausoleum.

The body had been covered with a sheet, as befitted the remains of a king. Granted he was not a real king in William's view, but the Duke had made it clear that the remains of Harold were to be treated with due respect. His living body, people could do whatever they wanted with. Once he was dead, though, decency and decorum was the order of the day.

William knew that after winning the battle he would have to negotiate with the wretched English assembly, the Witan, if he wanted the throne. Hacking the old king's body about and using it for some healthy sport would be just the sort of thing to get some snotty English backs up. And they'd go bleating to the Pope, who'd have one of his quiet conversations with William. All agreement and nodding, but full of hatred and threat. This was where William's intelligence came in handy: he knew that stabbing a pope in the head would get him nowhere.

Once he was crowned king though, he could do what the hell he liked. Until then, he'd play it straight.

…

The anomaly of the sheet covering the body on the table was that it stuck a good two feet up in the air where the head was.

'Did no one think to take the arrow out?’ William demanded of no one in particular.

'Er,’ Martel muttered.

'For God's sake, give the man some dignity in death.’ William was clearly pained.

The look on Martel's face was that of a man whose county was getting smaller by the minute.

'Did we find who shot him?’ William asked this of Le Pedvin.

'Nope,’ the old soldier answered. 'Not one of ours. At least not one who's owned up.’ He shrugged.

William had made it perfectly clear that if anyone got the chance to finish Harold, they should pass that chance to their Duke. Anyone killing Harold themselves, either in the heat of battle, or just because they fancied a go, would find themselves joining him almost immediately. Hardly surprising that no one had owned up.

The three men stood in silent contemplation for a moment. William even bowed his head toward the body on the table. Martel followed suit, but Le Pedvin just looked through his single eye. 'Right,’ William said, his moment of respectful reverie despatched. 'Let's have a look at the bastard.’

Martel skipped forward, took hold of the sheet and swept it away in a flurry. Unfortunately the edge of it caught on the flight of the arrow lodged in Harold's head and Martel had to give a good tug to get the thing free.

The sheet fluttered to the floor. William and Le Pedvin stepped up to survey the symbol of their victory.

The body was well dressed, there was no doubt about it. Le Pedvin eyed some of the accoutrements with interest and a single raised eyebrow. Solid fighting boots clad the feet. They were covered in a lot of the blood and mud at the moment, but they'd clean up nicely.

The legs were tightly clad in brown material, overlaid with patches of leather. This might have been helpful in giving Harold the freedom to manoeuvre about the battle, but wouldn't stop an arrow or a sword. Even a well placed kick could do some damage.

Above the legs his jerkin was similarly solid and workmanlike, just of very high quality. No blazon like William's chest, but many hours of tailors’ effort had gone into this thing.

Le Pedvin reached out to feel the quality of the weave.

'Get out of it,’ William snapped and brushed Le Pedvin's hand away.

There was a bit of mutual snarling and staring, as if two dogs were about to start fighting over the body of a cat.

Le Pedvin drew his hand back, but not without a contemptuous snort towards his Duke, who appeared to have gone soft.

'Where's his armour?’ William asked. Harold would hardly fight the whole battle in so unprotected a manner.

'We left some padding and his helmet behind. It was a bit heavy,’ Martel explained.

'Oh dear,’ William said, in a very specific tone.

'But we'll go and get it,’ Martel added quickly.

William simply grunted. Which was a good sign.

Martel's sheet tugging had pulled on Harold's head so he was turned away from them. Like some shy maiden caught in bed, the ex-king looked to the wall.

Le Pedvin reached out, this time with a half-hearted check to his Duke. William nodded and the older man leaned over and gently took the flight of the arrow between his finger and thumb. He used this lever to pull the head over so the reluctant corpse would have to face its visitors. Over it rolled.

'Ah,’ Le Pedvin said.

William said nothing.

Martel looked at them both and then at the corpse. Yes, the face was a mess, but then that's what happened when an arrow went into the soft bits at some speed.

William turned to Martel, his hands on his hips. This looked bad for some reason.

'Who the hell is this?’ Duke William demanded. He brandished his arm to show which corpse he was talking about.

Martel's mouth flapped a bit. The connections from mouth to muscle had all run off to avoid the Duke's question.

'Er, King Harold?’ Martel suggested, without actually moving his lips.

'No. It isn't,’ William said, in a very matter of fact manner.

'But…' Martel began, then tailed off. He knew better than to contradict the Duke. ‘The arrow?’ he asked. 'We saw it. Everyone saw it. Harold was shot in the eye.’

'So was this bloke.’ William was contemptuous. 'In fact, a lot of people have probably been shot in the eye. They simply pull the arrow out, sometimes with the eye still attached, eh, Le Pedvin?’ William nudged the older man, who laughed. Clearly his experience of having his own eye shot out was a happy reminiscence.

'And then they get on with life.’ William continued his contempt, this time directing it at people who got shot in the eye and then made a lot of fuss about it. 'I shouldn't think you could take a short walk out there,’ he gestured towards the battlefield, 'without bumping into several people with eye problems they didn't have when the day started. With arrows falling out of the sky, it'd be quite common. Take this man, for example.’ William gestured to the corpse on the table. 'Undoubtedly he has been shot in the eye.’ The Duke leaned forward for a closer examination. He pulled the head back and forward and examined the wound at an unnecessarily close distance.

'Good penetration,’ William commented approvingly, 'low angle of entry so it went straight into the brain. When they come down from high up there's always a chance the arrow will take the eye and then hit bone.’ This was clearly a subject on which the Duke was most knowledgeable. 'Unless you're looking up, of course,’ he nodded.

Martel nodded, much more cautiously now. He seemed not to know where this was going, but was anticipating its arrival would be uncomfortable.

'But then if you're on a battlefield during an archers' attack and you look up, you must be some sort of idiot.’

Martel shifted on his feet as he felt his Duke was now talking about him. Even though it wasn’t fair as he had both eyes. For the moment.

'What we have here is a man who has most definitely been shot in the eye, eh, Le Pedvin?’

'Very little doubt, sire.’ Le Pedvin checked the arrow to confirm the diagnosis.

'What we do not have,’ William said calmly, 'is KING HAROLD.’

He did not say the name calmly. He did not reach out and grab Martel by the throat calmly, and he did not shake the man calmly until his eyeballs bounced either.

William carried on raging in a voice that could loosen the bowels of a constipated cow. 'What we have here is some well dressed Saxon stiff, and you have dragged me from the field to examine a total stranger. I want Harold.’

Martel did his best to nod agreeably – not easy as his feet had been lifted from the floor by William's throttling grip.

'Is this really the best you could manage?’ William's voice was ferocious. It contained the clear suggestion that if this was the best Martel could do, Martel could be dead very soon.

The grip softened just enough to let some words out of the man's throat.

'We searched the field, sire,’ he rasped. 'All the men with arrow wounds to the eye. This one was at the top of the hill. He was the best dressed. The rest were all common soldiers. I swear.’

'Had you ever seen Harold before today?’ William growled.

'No, sire.’

'Then go out and search again. And take someone with you who knows what he actually looks like.’ William released his crushing hold on Martel's windpipe.

'Er, yes sire,’ Martel replied, trying not to rub his throat.

'Le Pedvin here will do,’ William added.

'Excellent.’ Martel tried to sound enthusiastic instead of terrified.

'Come,’ Le Pedvin instructed, striding towards the entrance with natural assumption that Martel would follow in his wake.

William kicked Martel heartily from behind as he left. 'And if you can't find him, I'll take your eye out with an arrow. An extra long one so I can do it through your arse.’

Martel swallowed.

'Or perhaps I'll use this.’ William extracted the arrow from the corpse with a soft plop. 'Oh look, the eyeball’s come out on this one as well,’ he said as he brandished the thing towards the departing figures. Le Pedvin laughed heartily. Martel fought to keep the contents of his stomach inside his bulging cheeks.

'Come, boy,’ Le Pedvin strode off. 'Let's find Harold or we'll never hear the end of it. Well, you'll never hear the end of it because you'll be dead. I’ll hear the end of it, but I'll have to put up with it for months first.’ He grimaced.

Martel managed to swallow his day's meal again.

Chapter 2

A Treasure Hunt

The search of the field of Senlac Hill for Saxons with arrows in their eyes proved to be time consuming. Not all the defenders had been so stupid as to look up when the arrows were coming down, but a lot had. They pretty soon discovered this would be the last thing they ever saw.

The Norman tactic towards the end of the day, of deliberately firing the things up in the air to take out Saxon eyes, had met with alarming success. Arrows were sticking up all over the place, plenty of them still attached to eye sockets, but so far none belonged to the King. Corpses had to be turned and heads examined for signs of arrow damage. And there were lots and lots of corpses.

It soon became apparent that the two men would not be able to examine every body on the field, not unless they wanted to die of old age before the job was finished. So Le Pedvin and Martel narrowed their focus to the better dressed deceased, on the assumption that Harold would not have been mucking in with the common man.

At least the better dressed had kept together on one part of the slope – probably hoping to remain better dressed by keeping far enough away from the fighting. The Saxon tactic towards the end of the day, of running down the hill to chase the Normans, had proved their undoing. It helped Martel and Le Pedvin's search, however, as this meant they had all been undone in pretty much the same spot.

'Why don't we get some others to help?’ Martel suggested as the magnitude of their task became clear. The magnitude of it plus the fundamentally depressing nature of a task requiring careful examination of dead people’s faces. 'I mean most of our men are available, we could get the place covered in no time. And it'll be dark before long.’

Le Pedvin dropped the head of the latest corpse, which had come off in his hands, and stared at Martel with his disappointed eye.

'What?’ the younger man asked.

'We'll go and round up a few men and get them to help us with the search for Harold?’

'Yes.’

'Get them to join in looking for the enemy King who everyone assumes is dead?’

'That's him.’ Martel was bright with enthusiasm.

'The King whose apparent death brought the battle to an end and led to the surrender of the Saxons.’

'Of course.’

'The King whose body we seem to have mislaid? The one whose death we cannot actually display?’

'Ah.’ Martel clearly wasn't that stupid, and he saw the problem. Eventually.

'Several witnesses saw Harold fall, the story is he was shot in the eye, but, as the Duke said,’ Le Pedvin went on relentlessly, 'a lot of people were. There's no guarantee the wound was fatal anyway. If William is going to have trouble persuading the Witan to make him King when he produces Harold's pristine body, imagine the debate if he can't produce the body at all. Let alone if it turns up to dispute the claim in person.’

'And the fewer people who know we're having a bit of trouble finding him, the better,’ Martel concluded. There was a depressing logic to this. 'So we keep looking.’ Le Pedvin kicked another well presented but dead Saxon until he rolled over and showed his undamaged eyes. They were blank and staring, but didn't contain any arrows.

'What if he really isn't dead?’ Martel thought it through. 'Suppose he left the battle and is even now gathering his men?’

'I may not know much about Saxons,’ Le Pedvin speculated, 'but I do know about being shot in the eye. If Harold has survived, he will be in a fever somewhere, throwing up and howling. If he's conscious at all. Gathering his wits will be as much as he can manage, never mind his men. Chances are he didn't survive and you just got the wrong man.’ He spat. The man he spat on was lying on the ground covered in blood and didn't seem to mind. – (the body didn’t mind rather than Le Pedvin.)

'What were you doing dragging bodies around anyway?’ Le Pedvin asked, as he rolled another corpse over without success. 'I was on the left flank with my men and one them said he saw Harold fall. It was pretty quiet on the left flank and so I said we should go and get him. Present him to the Duke.’

'The left flank?’ Le Pedvin frowned. 'Old Gerard Martel's men?’

'My father,’ Martel confirmed. 'He sent me with our contingent to support the Duke.’

'I bet he did,’ said Le Pedvin with another spit, 'and I bet he said hang around on the left flank until you see who's winning and then come in on their side?’

'Not at all.’ Martel was outraged.

'Don't see why the Martel family tactics would change in 30 years.’ Le Pedvin didn't seem particularly put out by this analysis. 'At least you're somewhere your father and grandfather never got.’

'Where's that?’

'In it up to your neck.’ Le Pedvin wandered off to the next contendor for the post of dead but missing King.

Martel looked worried now, with a hint of reminiscence at the advice his father had given him about the best place to be during a battle. ‘Not too close’ summed it up pretty neatly.

'Where was it your man saw Harold hit exactly?’ Le Pedvin asked. 'And don't say in the eye', he warned.

'Definitely round here.’ Martel scanned the field and the slope up to the hill. 'The royal banner was up there and the men were coming down the hill while the arrows were going up.’

Le Pedvin stood with hands on hips as he surveyed the site. The last well-dressed dead Saxon had proved another disappointment. 'Well, he's not here.’ He sucked the dwindling afternoon air through his teeth, which sounded like it was going into the Norman against its better judgment. ‘’Course he could still be dead, and someone just took him away.’

'Took him away?’

'Make a shrine, to rally the Saxons to the sacred body of their dead King – that sort of thing.’

'Ah,’ Martel nodded sagely.

'Or he could be mashed up in the mud somewhere. If any of our lads came across him they might have got a bit carried away.’

Martel had seen some of the Norman troops get a bit carried away during a skirmish. The human body was made of many parts, all of which came off, given the right encouragement.

'Whatever's happened, there's a difficult task to be done,’ Le Pedvin said, his eye now beady as it drilled into Martel. He twitched uneasily.

'What's that?’

'We have to tell the Duke.’

Martel grimaced.

'Well, you do,’ Le Pedvin concluded, his eye rolling nastily. Martel’s spirits sank.

…

In his tent, William was enjoying a quick bite to eat before dinner. A slab of horsemeat, thrown on the fire for a couple of moments to seal in the blood, lay on a wooden plate in front of him. Or rather the remains of it lay on the plate. A large piece was clearly still in his mouth and a lot of the blood seemed to have dribbled down his front.

At least the Duke had the grace to put the sheet back over the corpse before he sat at the table to eat. He had shoved the body of not-Harold to the edge of the table though, to make room for his meal. He looked up as Le Pedvin and Martel entered his presence.

'Don't tell me you can't find him,’ William said, without waiting to swallow his mouthful.

'All right,’ Le Pedvin replied amicably, 'we won't.’

William simply stared. Although it covered both men, the stare seemed to have most of its attention on Martel.