Tim Severin - The Book of Dreams

Two of Gerin’s troopers accompanied by Godomar broke away from the vanguard and went forward at a trot, presumably to scout the passage. They were gone for several minutes. When they returned and delivered their report, Gerin rose in his stirrups, turned and called back to the drovers behind him, ‘Close up! Keep moving! The road is partially blocked by a barrier of boulders at the far end. My men will clear the way for you.’

We continued forward, our little column more compact now as we reduced the distance between each cart. The narrowness of the roadway obliged the flanking cavalrymen to close in. My knee was almost touching the wooden wheel of the nearest cart.

‘Maybe we’ve reached the boundary of their territory,’ Berenger called across to me. He nodded toward the Vascons on the hillside who had been keeping pace with us. They had halted, and were standing and watching us leave.

‘Or they know that there’s a relief force on its way back from the main army,’ I said hopefully, though I did not believe it. There was something unnerving about the way the Vascons were holding themselves in check.

As Gerin and the vanguard entered the ravine, I paid close attention to the top of the low cliff to our right. I was expecting to see Vascon slingers or archers appear there at any moment.

I was looking in the wrong direction.

After the first of our carts entered the ravine, I heard a gasp. It came from a wounded trooper riding on the cart next to me. He was looking up the long, steep slope to our left. I followed his gaze. It was as if the mountainside was sloughing off its grey skin. The entire slope was alive and moving. Grey-clad men, hundreds of them, covered its surface and they were swarming down towards us. They were not hurrying, but picking their way purposefully among the boulders, converging on the roadway. They held spears and swords, and they moved with deadly earnest.

My guts turned to water as, behind us, the massed wolf-like howl we heard when the Vascons first attacked rose again. I swung round. The men who had been tracking us had now descended into the roadway. They were blocking any attempt at retreat.

‘Face left! Keep moving!’ Hroudland was bellowing. Most of us were still gaping at the sheer number of fighting men the Vascons had assembled.

Berenger was dumbfounded.

‘Some of them must be the men I saw yesterday. But where did all the others spring from?’

He had drawn his sword and now he looked down at the weapon in wonder as if he knew that it would be useless in the face of such overwhelming odds. Behind me I heard Eggihard’s voice, railing at Hroudland, shouting that he should have sent to Carolus earlier and asked for reinforcements from the main army. Even the oxen sensed that something had changed. The squealing of the wheels fell silent as they came to a gradual halt and stood meekly. We were halfway into the entrance to the ravine.

Hroudland changed his instructions.

‘Stand! Form a defensive line. Shift the carts to make a barricade!’ he roared.

But it was impossible. The road was too narrow. The drovers did not have enough space to turn and manoeuvre their beasts. The carts remained where they were, one behind the other. The Vascons had pushed us into the ravine like forcing a cork into the neck of a bottle.

Gerin squeezed his way past me.

‘It’ll take more than an hour to clear away enough boulders from their barrier,’ he reported to Hroudland.

Anselm, the count of the palace, was within earshot. He was sweating heavily, his fleshy face scarlet under his helmet and his fine chainmail covered in dust.

‘Is there enough of a gap for a rider to get through?’ he demanded savagely. His stallion, trained to battle, was tossing its head and pawing the ground nervously.

When Gerin hesitated with his reply, Anselm bawled to one of the troopers nearby.

‘You there! Change horses with me and get through to the main army. Tell them to send help!’

He slid down from his own horse, handed over the reins, and a moment later the man was galloping into the ravine on his fresh mount.

Hroudland had no time to react to this challenge to his authority. Our men were milling about in confusion. The close-packed carts were making it difficult to form up in a defensive line. He rode in among the troopers, pushing and shoving them into some sort of order. I glanced across at Berenger. He was sitting still, his eyes fixed on Hroudland, waiting to carry out his commands. I realized that Berenger would follow the count whatever happened, his faith unshakeable.

The swarm of Vascons on the mountainside merged into a single dense mass as they reached more level ground. Now they flowed towards us like a rising tide. They filled the roadway and lapped up the sides of the track until they came to a stop, some twenty paces away. There was neither semblance of discipline nor any plan of attack that I could see. Among their weapons were ugly-looking cudgels as well as their swords and short spears. A few held woodsmen’s axes. For an unhappy moment I was reminded of the homespun levies my father had assembled when our family fought and lost its last battle against King Offa and his Mercian men-at-arms. But the resemblance was false. These Vascons were hardy mountain men, not peaceful farmers, and they out-numbered us so vastly that it was clear to everyone that we had not the slightest chance of victory.

For a long, tense moment the two sides stood and faced one another. The Vascons brandished their weapons and shouted insults and threats in their outlandish language. We stood silent except for the occasional stamping of a restless horse. The wounded trooper on the cart next to me was mumbling some sort of prayer over and over again as some sort of lucky charm that would save him. The sun beat down and the heat reflected off the rocks. My head ached and I was parched with thirst. I licked my cracked lips and tasted the gritty road dust.

Vaguely I became aware of someone getting down from his horse. Then he was pushing through our front line and walking towards the enemy. It was Godomar, the veteran from Burgundy. He had taken off his brunia and his helmet and was wearing only a pair of loose trousers and a light jerkin which left his arms and shoulders bare. A strip of cloth held back his long, thick hair which was the colour of forest honey. In his right hand he held the short handled axe that usually hung from his broad leather belt. All of us, Vascons and Franks, looked on as Godomar strode out on to the open ground between us. Then, in a deep husky voice from his wounded throat, he began to recite what must have been a battle ode in some ancient tribal dialect. With each line he tossed his axe in the air so that it spun in a circle, and caught it with the opposite hand. Finally, as he declaimed the last words, his voice rose to a shout and he threw the axe, not to the other hand, but high in the air, towards the enemy. It spun round and round, and by the time it fell back, Godomar had run forward and was ready to catch its handle. He was no more than an arm’s length from the Vascon line. In a sudden blur of axe strokes he cut down three or four Vascons. Then they closed in around him, and he was gone.

His death broke the spell that had held us in our places. With a bellow of shock and anger the Vascons charged. They crashed into us, and there was pandemonium. Lances were useless at such close quarters. Troopers used their swords to hack and thrust at the men on foot surging around them. The Vascons ducked and feinted. They stooped to get in under the riders’ guard, and if close enough, they hacked and stabbed with their weapons. The bravest grabbed for the riders’ legs and tried to drag them out of the saddle.

Amid the curses and grunts, the clash of metal, the cries of anger and pain, the Vascons were badly mauled. Dozens of them died, their bodies overridden by the horses or trampled underfoot by their comrades. Yet they kept pressing forward, ignoring their losses. Charge after charge, they were like waves pounding on a rocky beach. With each attack they reduced our numbers. Our troopers went down one after another, hauled from the saddle or their horses were killed beneath them. Few survived for more than a moment if they were unhorsed. The Vascons swarmed over them and killed them. With their third headlong charge our line broke, and the Vascons were among the drovers and their oxen. With the expertise of butchers, they slit the windpipes of the cattle and brought the beasts to their knees. The drovers were massacred.