XVIII

Orm’s ship was one of the first to enter English waters. The Normans were relieved that Harold’s navy did not come out to meet the fleet. Perhaps the English had been caught unawares.

They landed at a place called Pefensae, on the coast of the old kingdom of the South Saxons. It was a complicated, treacherous bit of shoreline; the still water shone in the low dawn light, and the ships glided like shadows between shallow islands. As they worked their oars silently, the soldiers peered out, many getting their first glimpse of England and the English. Hovels of reeds and sod slumped on the islands, no doubt inhabited by the poor sort of folk who made a living at the margins of seas. But there was no sign of life, not a thread of smoke or a rack of drying fish. Perhaps, Orm wondered, one of William’s local guides had tipped off his relatives that thousands of hungry Normans were about to descend on them.

And, more to the point, there was still no sign of any English resistance, not so much as a sword edge or shield boss. The spies’ testimony that Harold had had to withdraw from the south coast to face Harald Hardrada must be true. The men joked nervously that they didn’t know if they would face an army of smooth-faced English or hairy-arsed Norse when they landed.

They came at last to a peninsula, where a curtain of walls with round corner towers stood proud - Roman, that was obvious by the quality of the stonework, and the courses of red tiles embedded in the facing blocks. Orm could see now why this place had been chosen for the first landing by the Norman scouts. The harbour was big enough to accommodate William’s ships, and the fort large enough to take his troops.

William had his ship pulled up on a shingle beach at the western end of the peninsula, where it was joined by a narrow neck to the land beyond. The men laboured to unload the ships, and the first horses were led ashore, whinnying.

Orm walked into the interior of the fort, with Odo and Count Robert. They passed through the western gate of the old Roman fortifications, the stonework still intact but the woodwork rotted away or robbed. Orm could see holes in the stone where the gates’ pivots had once been placed. Inside the walls there wasn’t much to be seen. A tracery of foundations in the grassy swathe showed that there had once been stone buildings here, presumably Roman, and shapeless mounds in the earth were probably the remains of later buildings, mud-and-stick shacks sheltering within the Roman walls. Orm had his sword drawn, but he disturbed only a few seagulls that flapped away into the grey dawn light. The walls themselves, a curtain of stone that ran around this near-island, were remarkably intact.

‘Too remote for the stone to be robbed, I imagine,’ Robert murmured.

Odo said, ‘The Romans called the fort Anderida. They built it to keep out the English. They threw up this place in haste, and yet their work stands centuries later. Remarkable people, the Romans.’ He opened his arms wide and turned around. ‘And look at the scale of it! This will hold all our army and more.’

Orm knew the plan, roughly. This was a good place to land, but not to defend, for the country here was poor. The army would form up tomorrow and move along the coast to Haestingaceaster, a fortified town with a good harbour. There the army could dig in, within reach of the sea and the ships.

And they could get to work ravaging the countryside in the traditional way, both to acquire provisions for the army and also to provoke Harold into a response. Having come so late in the season, William wanted to bring Harold to battle quickly, and this land of the South Saxons was the heartland of the Godwines. ‘And we will gnaw at that heart,’ William had said darkly, ‘as a worm gnaws at an apple.’

But first things first; they had to survive the night here at Pefensae. ‘I want a ditch system across that neck of land to the west,’ Robert said briskly. ‘And I want fortifications in here as well. We don’t need all this room. Maybe we can cut off that corner,’ he said, indicating the eastern end of the wall circuit. ‘An earthwork, a palisade.’ The Normans had brought wood in prefabricated sections for just such a task. ‘Orm, see to it.’

Orm nodded.

‘And in the meantime we’ll send parties out into the country. Even in a place as poor as this, there must be something worth robbing...’

Thus the first English would soon die, Orm reflected.

The half-brothers of William walked on, speaking in their blunt Frankish tongue, scheming, plotting, as Orm went about setting up a Norman camp, in a Roman fort, under an English sky.

And beyond the fort Orm saw the sparks of fires across the darksome landscape. Signal beacons, bearing news of the landing to King Harold.