William of Normandy was lord of a tiny ridge of English soil between Caldbec and Telham hills. He surveyed the hill covered with recumbent forms—thousands of dead. They—Normans and English—were soon stripped naked for the spoils of war belonged to the living. The scavengers, the greedy, took all.

Eustace of Boulogne returned to the Duke’s council. “My Lord, we must leave this place. Let us return to the continent. We are in grave danger from these English beasts.”

“Where are your men, Eustace?”

“Murdered by those Saxon savages.”

“Why are you here?”

“I escaped after slaying ten of the animals.”

Rupert picked up a stave and took up a position behind Eustace. William questioned Rupert with his eyes. Rupert shook his head in negation.

“We must leave England or we’ll all die!”

William nodded his head and Sir Rupert swished the stave through the crisp October air. The “thwock” sound could be heard to the bottom of the hill. Eustace, the coward, went down bleeding from the nose and mouth. It was the last time he whined to William of Normandy.

“Now. Clear these bodies. Prepare graves for the Normans. Ignore the English. Get me an accurate count of the living, wounded and dead.”

“Tonight, My Lord?”

“By sun-up.”

“Will you return to Hastings tonight, My Lord?”

“No, I’ll not risk an English counter attack en route. We will defend this hill and wait for light. Robert de Mortain and Roger de Montgomery set Sir Richard and Sir Rupert to the task of clearing the hill.”

“And what of the wounded?”

“Set the healers to work. Sew up the gashes. Staunch the bleeding, Set the bones. Apply the Rouen salve. Make them as comfortable as possible. Take the more serious to houses. Commandeer them as aid stations. Have those camp followers in Hastings here in the morning with food for an army doesn’t travel without it.”

The two counts called their underlings who called their sergeants.

“Men, get the healers to work. Take any house nearby as an aid station. Save who you can. Then stack those bodies: Normans for burial, Saxons ignore.”

“But Sir, how are we going to tell. There all bloody naked.”

“Look at their hair you Idiot. Saxons don’t shave their heads!”

“Tonight?”

“Unless you want to face the Duke tomorrow at sun-up.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Olan?”

“Here, Sir.”

“Take your archers and as many infantry as you need and set up a perimeter defense of this hill. We don’t want any bloody Briton sneaking into camp with a vengeful knife.”

“Yes, Sir Rupert. The men are exhausted however. They will not be too alert.”

“Set them to no more than four hour watches. Two hours if you like, but make this hill secure.” Richard explained.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Dismissed.”

Off they went shouting orders to the darkening sky.

William Fitz Osbern suborned Will and Thomas as clerks. They would be up before the glow in the eastern sky for William of Normandy wanted the count. Where did he stand after the battle?

Corporals reported to sergeants, sergeants reported to knights as information was coming up the line. Dragging themselves from under cloaks, the boys set off to record the army of Normandy. Thomas visited the aid stations. He divided his list into probable deaths, they were high; recovery but incapacitated; minor wounds. Will rode to the battle standards. Where the flag flew and the fire provided light and warmth the soldiers congregated. If they weren’t there, they were dead, wounded or deserters; at the very least they were missing in action or darkness. Fitz Osbern managed the burial parties. Just before sun-up they had the first numbers for the Duke.

“My Lord.”

“Yes Fitz?”

“We have the early figures. These may change in the light of day, but they are the best we could gather in the dark of night with torches.

“William don’t procrastinate. Give me the damned numbers!”

“Yes, My Lord. It appears we have lost nineteen hundred and seventy-one warriors to the English axes. Another five hundred are wounded. One hundred ninety-two so seriously they are not expected to live. One hundred fifty-one are incapacitated for life and the rest need recovery time before another battle. We should have fifty-five hundred exhausted men who could be ready to fight after sleep and food, but at present we can only account for forty-nine hundred and eighty-one.”

“And the horses?”

“They were badly mauled by the English. Nearly half of our knights are unhorsed. We may capture a few chargers who escaped, but there are only sixteen hundred and two steeds left. It is small consolation, but the horses are supplying red meat for the men.”

“And what of the English?”

“They have been stacked like firewood, My Lord. Their dead are estimated at twenty-five hundred. Of course, all of their wounded were dispatched.”

William rhetorically whispered. “An army of five thousand in a hostile country with a capability of raising an army of countless thousands. No way to go ahead and No way to retreat. No food supplies to feed us and No way to replace what we’ve used.” “WELL, Advisors advise me!”

“My Lord,” began Roger de Montgomery, “We’ve scotched the snake and removed its head. We have nothing to stop us from taking London.”

“Roger, Roger, we could have lost this battle in the first half hour if the English center and left had advanced when the Breton flank folded. Note the number of dead—Two thousand and twenty-five hundred—but we killed their injured.. We won the battle, but not the war.”

“Brother Odo?”

“My Lord, the English with time could raise another army, possibly as large as twenty-five thousand men. We either have to attack while they are still in chaos or we avoid a direct confrontation, attacking only when the odds are in our favor.”

“Yes Robert?”

“My Lord, we have no idea what went on behind this English hill. The fyrd of the West County and the North Country could have been summoned while Harold was in London. They may be amassing an army anywhere between London and Dover. Five thousand men cannot take England. We must follow Brother Odo’s second suggestion. Never fight when the odds are even or reside with the enemy.”

“Fergant?”

“I am the first to admit we were in dire straits in the first exchange. The Saxons had us by the throat. Defeat stared us in the eyes. We haven’t a chance to subjugate England by frontal assault. I’d likely go home if we had transport. Our only chance seems to be Odo”s second suggestion.”

William of Telbec Hill scanned the assembled faces encircling him. To a man he noted their agreement to Odo’s plan.

“Very well. Odo, Mortain, Fergant, Beauchamp and Montgomery, devise a plan of attack. So far we have secured damn little. See to it!”

“Sir Richard, Sir Rupert?”

“Yes, My Lord,” they replied in unison.

“Was Harold’s body discovered?”

“We didn’t know you wanted it, My Lord.”

“I want that thing buried secretly in some obscure place!”

“My Lord?”

“Don’t you see? I can’t allow his grave to be the focus of an English uprising. I’ll not have pilgrims visiting some tomb.”

body might be found?”

“You might begin at the crossroads near the apple tree.”

“Who in hell could tell?” whispered Richard as they left. “I heard they beheaded him.”

“Hey Malet! Will Malet! Come here!” yelled Rupert. A sturdy yeoman separated himself from the burial duties.

“Bring a shovel.” Malet took a shovel from one of the burial detail. He was using it only to lean on.

“Yes, Sir?”

“We have a job for you. Come with us.”

Malet tossed his shovel over his shoulder and followed the two mounted knights to the apple tree. They began assorting bodies.

“What are you looking for?”

“A headless corpse.”

“You want King Harold! I’ll get a crew—“

“Be quiet, Man! The Duke may order you killed just to keep this burial a secret.”

In the stench of death the three discovered a headless disembowelled body.

“Is that it?”

“As far as I’m concerned,” and Richard retched again.

“Get it out of here, Bill. Wrap it up in anything you can find, throw it on one of those English ponies and bury it in an unmarked grave. Alone!”

“Yes, Sir Rupert.”

The two knights retired to regain their stomachs, but watched Malet about his work. Malet struggled with the body, but finally had it securely tied to an English horse.

“Rupert! Richard! I need you.” called Robert de Mortain and the two saw William Malet lead the burdened pony away.

Malet, half Norman, half English overheard Count Mortain and knew he was no longer under surveillance. He took his macabre load south until from the top of an elevation he could see the English Channel. He tied the horse to English hawthorn and thrust his shovel into the soft topsoil. It was not a deep grave, but it covered the mutilated corpse. Malet gathered rocks and covered the soft soil to prevent scavengers’ access. He told the story many years later and swore he erected a stele that read:

“By command of the Duke, you rest here a King, O Harold,

That you may be guardian still of shore and sea.”

If he could write--------?*

Back on the ridge, the five advisors led by spokesman Odo approached Duke William.

“My Lord, for our own safety we feel it necessary to return to Hastings as soon as our dead are buried. It is possible by burial to deceive the English in our numbers and discourage counter measures by their exposed dead. Our army, such as it is, must have a recuperation time and our camp at Hastings is secure.”

“And then?”

“We suggest the same tactics you used in Anjou and Maine—the same tactics used by our

Norseman ancestors—fierce wanton attacks of terror, rapine and pillage on every town in our path. We will destroy their resistance. They will accept us in fear. They will die by the sword or starvation. You cannot make a Saxon Norman so subjugate, enslave him.”

“And where?”

“We suggest securing the east below the Thames, expanding our Hastings triangle”

“Romney is going to pay for two savaged boatloads of Norman soldiers!” the Duke said through clenched teeth.

“No Doubt, My Lord.”

“Then we will make our way slowly to London, manor house by town. They will be more pleased to supply us with food and goods and we will leave them with peace, at least no warriors, and with a very warm fire.”

“Yes it is very thoughtless to leave warriors behind your back, particularly well-fed warriors.”

“Fear and self-preservation may bring them to submission before we have to face a Saxon army.”

“Do it. The army may have three days rest.”

Two boatloads of the Norman invasionary force had missed the Pevensey landing and put in at Romney. The men of Romney were better organized than their king. Only two Normans escaped the massacre to report to Duke William. A stele marks the spot to the English victory, “It was here that the Normans were repelled by the men of Romney. Some feminine wag added , “ and so was I”

On the fourth day after Hastings the Norman force engulfed the town. Anything of value was plundered, the women were raped repeatedly, all fell to the crusader sword and every building was torched. A blackened ruin remained. The force moved on, its notoriety before it. Dover stood in the Norman path. They expected a major battle with a fortified town, but cowed by the atrocious acts in Romney , Dover surrendered. They might as well have fought the Normans for the town was savaged, subjected to the same fate as Romney. The poor folk of Dover got some revenge. Either the water of Dover or the food supplies stolen by the Normans turned them ghastly ill. Twenty-five hundred had no choice, but to remain a week. William took the time to set up an escape route plan across the twenty-one mile channel.

The army made straight for Canterbury. The cathedral city capitulated and now Duke William was bed-ridden with fever, vomiting and diarrhoea. His weakness lasted nearly a month.

On they went, demons from hell, razing a village a day, feeding themselves and destroying the rest of the food supply. The English were murdered raped, or starved. The only opposition the Normans met was from London. They bypassed the city, but burned Calderwell and Southwark. They drove west, welcomed by Queen Edith Godwine, wife of King Edward, in Windsor. She was the first Saxon to support Duke William as the next king of England.

“Thomas, what is your trouble? You look like you have lost your best friend.”

“It’s not a friend I worry about. It’s a soul.”

“Quoi?”

“I was trained as a knight. I fought against equals. I killed when my life was threatened. I can’t go on with wanton murder, theft and rape. I can’t see these farmers, land holders, faced with winter starvation. I’m a builder not a destroyer. We are turning this land to devastation.”

“Listen to your little brother, Thomas. Fermez la bouche, shut up and wait for your share.”

The Normans turned north and ravaged the land almost to Oxford. Driven by fear or greed, some Saxons capitulated and swore allegiance to William of Normandy. It started as a trickle with Stigand the Archbishop of Canterbury suing for his job and life and soon the trickle became a stream. It didn’t stop the Norman barbarism or their hunger for plunder.

Where was the English opposition? Where was the great army of ferocious Saxon warriors? Had they been cowed by the genocide of the Norman horde? Was it the papal edict threatening

excommunication. Or, were the generals, the earls of England reduced to the teen-age failures like Edwin and Morcar? They had already shown themselves incapable of leadership and likely were despised by their thanes. The Church had abandoned the people to appease Rome and William’s “papal” army. The English opposition was centered in London under the leadership of Sheriff Edegar. Edegar, crippled at Hastings aroused the City to repel the invaders, but other than the brief fight in Southwark his leadership came to naught. Edegar sold out, making a deal with the head demon of Normandy and laden with devil promises and gifts, the sheriff traitorously convinced London and the Witan to surrender.