Read Crusade for Free Online Page B

seen. There was fear and loathing just beneath the surface. It was well disguised, but it was there – as wasthe deep-seated melancholy of a once proud people, now vanquished and forlorn.
    When we got to Mercia, I left my men at Peterborough and, disguised as a monk, rode to Ely to find out more about what had happened there a year earlier.
    What I found filled me with a heartfelt sorrow. The burgh of Ely, although small, was thriving. The causeway across the Fens, which King William had built to break Hereward’s resistance, was thronged with merchants and farmers. There was a considerable garrison of Normans at work on a huge motte and bailey, their work almost complete. Although all trace of the bloody encounter of thirteen months ago – which had seen England’s final capitulation to the Normans and the deaths of so many brave men – had gone, I shuddered at the thought of it.
    Few would speak about the events of 1071, and those who did merely repeated the oft-told myths and rumours. The new abbot, a man called Theodwin, was not a Benedictine monk but a secular governor, placed there by the King to keep order and oversee the garrison and the building of the fortifications. I was told that the King also intended to tear down the abbey and St Etheldreda’s Chapel to build an enormous cathedral, modelled on the ones in his homeland. The door of her chapel was still barred and had not been opened since the King ordered it to be sealed at the end of the siege. Many believed that it had become Hereward’s tomb, his body still lying where it had been left after his execution at William’s own hand.
    Outside the abbey I did find a man who would speak to me. I did not recognize him – perhaps I should havedone, as he was one of the few survivors of Ely and had campaigned with us in the North. But he was only a wretched shell of his former self.
    His name was Wolnatius. He had been blinded after being captured at the collapse of the final redoubt and had barely survived the following winter. But when a new community of monks arrived, they took him in and cared for him. He was reluctant to speak to me until I gave him details, which only I could have known, about events in York during the rising and he was able to feel the Cerdician seal on my ring.
    He had been close to Einar when he fell, had seen Martin brutally slain by the King and confirmed that Hereward had been taken alive – and flogged, he assumed, to death. Like many others, he thought his body had been buried by the Normans in a secret location to prevent it becoming a shrine to the English cause.
    ‘Like King Harold?’
    ‘Not exactly, my Lord Prince. Harold lies in an unmarked tomb in Waltham Abbey.’
    ‘How did he get there?’
    ‘Sire, it is said that Edith Swan-Neck returned to his makeshift grave on the beach near Senlac and took him to Waltham. The monks loyal to his memory keep his resting place a closely guarded secret. I am sure they will let you visit it.’
    ‘I will indeed visit him there and pray to his memory.’
    Brave Wolnatius had little more detail to add. He wished me well and promised to be at my coronation when it happened. In return, I guaranteed him a place in my honour guard on that propitious day. As I left, I gave him a littlesilver to help with his care. He grabbed my arm and buried his face in my sleeve, sobbing like a child.
    So this is what had become of one of our bravest housecarls: reduced to poverty. I resolved there and then to do all I could to help restore the pride of men like Wolnatius.
    My first act was to rejoin my men at Peterborough and make my pilgrimage to Waltham to pay my respects to Harold’s remains.
    I have never resented Harold’s decision to claim the throne. He was the right choice for England’s future security. With foes like Hardrada and William threatening our shores, my prospects as King would not have been promising. I would have been lucky to survive Stamford Bridge, let alone Senlac Ridge.
    I