Horn-blasts from both sides. Floundering through the mud, Charles tensed, expecting the counterattack, the desperate last charge. Instead his enemies turned suddenly, all together, and ran. Ran unashamedly, like hares or leverets. Leaving their machines to the conqueror.
Gasping with exertion, Charles realized there was no way to carry the things off. Nor to burn them. “Cut them up,” he ordered. An archer looked doubtfully at the heavy timbers. “Cut the ropes! Do something to them.”
“They lost a few,” said one of his counts. “And they ran like cowards. Left their weapons behind.”
“We lost many,” said the king. “And how many swords and mail-shirts have we left behind us today? Give me my horse. If we reach base with half the strength we started, we’ll be lucky.”
Yes, he thought. But we’re through. Through all the traps. And half, behind a safe stockade, may be enough another day.
As if to encourage him, the rain began to ease.
Guthmund the Greedy, sweeping down the Channel under oars alone, ignored the rain and welcomed the poor visibility it brought. If he was going to go ashore he would much prefer it to come as a surprise. Also, in rain or fog, there was a chance of snapping up information. In the prow of the leading ship, he pointed off to starboard, called an order to increase the stroke. In moments the longship was alongside the six-oar fishing-boat, its crew looking up in fear. Guthmund pulled the hammer-pendant from round his neck and showed it, noted the expressions fading from fear to wariness.
“We are here to fight the Franks,” he called, using the half-English pidgin of the Wayman camp. The expressions relaxed another degree as the men realized they could understand him, took in what he said.
“You’re too late,” a fisherman called back. “They fight today.”
“You’d better come aboard,” replied Guthmund.
As he took in the sense of what the fishermen told him, his pulse began to beat stronger. If there was one principle of successful piracy, it was to land where the defenses were down. He checked again and again: the Frankish army had been seen marching out that morning. It had left camp-guards and ship-guards. The loot of the countryside, Canterbury included, was in the lightly guarded camp. The fishermen had no hope that the Franks would find anything but victory. Still, Guthmund told himself, if his friend and jarl was defeated, it could do no harm to rob the conqueror. And a stroke in the rear might be a vital distraction. He turned to the fishermen again with another string of questions: The fleet drawn up in a bay? The stockaded camp on a hill? The nearest inlet to it? Steep sides but a path?
In the drenching rain the Wayman fleet, rowed now by chained Ragnarsson survivors, pulled one by one into the narrow mouth of the stream below Hastings and its camp.
“Do you mean to climb the walls with ladders?” asked one of the fishermen doubtfully. “They are ten feet high.”
“That’s what those are for,” said Guthmund, waving cheerfully at the six onagers being slung over the side by derricks.
“Too heavy for the path,” said the fisherman, eyeing the way the boats heeled.
“I have plenty of carriers,” replied Guthmund, watching keenly as his men, weapons poised, unshackled the dangerous Ragnarsson galley-slaves a few at a time and made them fast again to the onagers’ frames and carry-bars.
As the narrow inlet filled with men, Guthmund decided to make a short speech of encouragement.
“Loot,” he said, “lots of it. Stolen from the Christian Church, so we’ll never have to give any back. Maybe we have to share it with the jarl, if he wins today. Maybe not. Let’s go.”
“What about us?” said one of the chained men.
Guthmund looked at him attentively. Ogvind the Swede: a very hard man. Threats no good. And he needed these men to use their full strength up the steep hillside.
“This is how it is,” he said. “If we win, I’ll let you go. If we lose, I’ll leave you chained to the machines. Maybe the Christians will be merciful to you. Fair?”