Conquest

‘You’re going to have twins, my Lady. You’re not as big as some, but, mark my words, you’re going to have two little creatures!’ She proceeded to run her stubby fingers across Torfida’s belly. ‘Here’s one… and there’s the other. You can always tell, the shape of the belly is different. The important thing is to get the second little mite out; the first is easy, but the second often hides.’

In the end, Adeliza’s skills were barely required and both babies popped out like peas from a pod; they were twin girls — Gunnhild and Estrith. These were happy times. Ingigerd and Martin also produced a child, called Gwyneth. Einar and Maria had a little girl they named Wulfhild, and thus the family of six became a tribe of ten.

Torfida was indeed right about Roger Guiscard.

For the next three years, Hereward, Einar and Martin campaigned with him in Sicily and throughout the heel and toe of Italy. Torfida stayed in Melfi and the surrounding area, working with the Duchess Adela in establishing hospitals and almshouses, and supporting the monasteries in their work with the poor. Hereward and Torfida saw one another at the end of each of Roger’s campaigns. During these furloughs, Torfida fulfilled her promise to teach Hereward the nuances of chess. He took to the game well, enjoying its affinity with the tactics of the battlefield.

When the men came home from their campaigns, they returned largely unscathed. Hereward put the Great Axe of Goteborg to fearsome use, and there were only minor setbacks in a year of successes, the greatest of which took place near Taranto in the summer of 1061.

Guiscard’s Normans had come across a large Byzantine column and forced it to retreat. It was the major part of a Greek theme of good quality, but was slowed by the cumbersome baggage train of the local Byzantine governor and several Greek merchants and their families. As the Normans closed in, the Greeks’ reluctance to abandon their bulky possessions put them in great peril. Either noble duty or foolish miscalculation led the Byzantine general to leave it too late before insisting that the baggage be left behind. Even then, there were acrimonious arguments and widespread confusion, and many of the merchants were still digging makeshift hiding places for their possessions when the Norman force crested the hill behind them.

Within minutes, Hereward and his companions were in the vanguard of a cavalry charge that swept into the valley below with fearsome momentum. The men of the Greek theme hastily formed a reasonable redoubt, but the Normans had too much impetus to be repulsed. The battle lasted less than an hour. The first wave of Norman cavalry easily breached the Greek lines, and it was only a matter of time before the infantrymen, exposed in isolated pockets, sought surrender.

Hereward cut an impressive figure in battle. Sitting tall in his saddle, with his golden hair flowing below the rim of his helmet, the great sweeps of his war axe cleared wide arcs of ground around him. The Normans suffered few casualties, but many in the Greek ranks were cut down, as the Norman horsemen ploughed through them.

It was Hereward himself who reached the Byzantine General first. He and a few of his bodyguards had become detached from the bulk of his theme. On seeing this, Hereward pulled up his mount and signalled his companions to halt. Faced with the choice between a valiant but futile fight, and a less than glorious surrender, the General chose the noble death of a warrior.

He summoned his guards to his side, perhaps fifteen men, and with the cry, ‘For the Emperor!’ kicked his horse into a gallop towards the Normans. Hereward immediately ordered a charge in response. As the General closed, he saw him nod to his men on either side to acknowledge their comradeship and bravery. They had attacked an overwhelming force without hesitation, just as they had been ordered to do.

Hereward felt enormous admiration for his foes. Beneath the face-guard of the General’s ornate plumed helmet, a full grey beard was plain to see. He was a soldier of many years’ experience. He would have fought many battles and killed many men; now it was his turn to die. The brutal truth was that these would be his final moments on earth. He made straight for Hereward, his eyes fixed on the Englishman.

He was dead before he hit the ground. Hereward caught him full in the chest with his great axe, catapulting him out of his saddle and over the back of his horse, leaving him spreadeagled on the ground. The weapon protruded from where it had been plunged: clean through the General’s armour and deep in the breast of a noble soldier of Byzantium.