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Hereward could see his features were drawn and pale. ‘I do not answer to the baying of a dog,’ he called.
    The English laughed. ‘These hounds have run you ragged,’ Hereward mocked. ‘You will answer to us now.’ He squinted and could just discern Taillebois standing at the back of his men. The Butcher was too proud to show his face in defeat.
    ‘Gloat now,’ William de Warenne called, ‘but you will come to regret this day.’
    ‘We are men of honour here,’ Hereward said in response. ‘Knights, both. Let us end this like knights. Cross the river. Face me, man-to-man. I challenge you to a duel.’
    The nobleman laughed. ‘I should trust your word, outlaw? I see no honour in any English. You are like snakes, lying still until you bare your fangs and strike.’
    Yet as William’s false humour drained away, the Mercian saw the Norman’s troubled look. He knew he had now lost face, after the humiliation of his men’s defeat. Hereward had driven the final blow home sharply.
    With sullen demeanour, the Normans limped away. The English watched them go until the last man had shuffled off into the dark, and then they let out a cheer. ‘Run like curs,’ Hereward yelled after them. ‘Lick your wounds. You will never break the English. Tell your bastard master that.’

C HAPTER S EVEN
    THE GREAT STONE feasting hall loomed up against the blue sky. On the pitch of the roof, high overhead, a young man balanced, his arms outstretched as if worshipping the golden orb of the midday sun. Balthar the Fox looked up at the towering building, marvelling at how quickly it had been constructed. A new palace was rising from the ashes of the squat timber-and-thatch buildings where old King Edward had held his court. And a new England too.
    He watched the mason shield his eyes against the glare and survey the sprawl of Wincestre and the green fields of Wessex beyond the walls. He seemed unconcerned by his precarious perch. Satisfied, the builder prowled back along the roof, ducking down here and there to check the last of the new tiles.
    Balthar shook his head, smiling to himself. What wonders to behold. Stone buildings, erected with such speed and expertise, like the ones the Men of Rome had constructed in summers long gone. Never would he have thought to see this day. He was not a tall man, but he was strong, though he carried more weight across the belly than he ever had in the days before the Normans came. When William had ridden into Wincestre and taken the crown near three years gone, he had feared theworst, but life had been good to him. Though the grey of forty summers streaked his hair, he no longer felt the years. His tunic was finest linen now, not harsh wool, and expertly dyed the colour of autumn leaves. He worried not from where the next meal would come. All was well.
    Content, he lowered his eyes to the swarm of activity in the sun-drenched square in front of the feasting hall. Within the palace walls – stone ones, no less, not the wooden palisades of Edward’s soon-to-be-forgotten days – the finest craftsmen from across Europe bustled. Masons shaped blocks of creamy-grey stone. Their mallets fell in steady rhythm as they chanted their songs of distant lands in strange, rolling tongues. Saws sang through timber. Strong men shouldered the trunks of oak from the wood-pile beyond the walls. Carts rattled, laden with lime for mortar. The boys who ran behind were as white as if they had been caught in a winter storm. The earthy aroma of stone-dust whipped up in the sweet-smelling woodsmoke from the fires burning the off-cuts. King William made the world his way, and for that he could only be admired.
    A young boy forced a path through the milling labourers, his unruly red hair flying. Balthar noted his determined expression and felt a jolt of excitement. Here was his meat for the day. The boy sidled up, glancing around with all the suspicion of a seasoned informant.
    ‘What have you for me, Felgild?’ Balthar