Conquest

‘You make a good point, Alphonso. Every day, William gets stronger, I know that. But when we return to England, it will be a different kind of war. We will not be able to raise an army. We will have to work in small groups to pick away at the enemy like wolves stalking a bear — look for its weaknesses, prey on its nerves, weaken it, injure it and then strike. If we’re successful, we’ll attract more and more men. Our wolf pack will get larger and bolder and we can strike at bigger and bigger targets, until we confront the biggest bear of them all — the Duke.’

‘Yes, I understand. But you still haven’t explained this journey.’

‘You are a master of this kind of indirect warfare; I saw it in Sicily in our campaigns with the Normans. You told me it’s a tradition here because you had to live for hundreds of years with the Moors who conquered your lands. I have come here to learn and to listen and, if it’s true what they say about Rodrigo Diaz, we will have the perfect teacher.’ Hereward paused; he looked at Alphonso, a friend with whom he had shared many things. ‘Alphonso, as a comrade you will understand that I also need to renew myself. Much has happened since we met Harold in Rouen. Both he and Torfida are gone. England is defeated and, until Edwin brought me Torfida’s message, I was a spent force. Now I am being asked to be England’s saviour. I need this journey to find out whether I can rise to that challenge.’

Alphonso knew his friend well and understood the enormity of what was being asked of him. He did not need to say anything in reply; he merely nodded in acknowledgement, prodded his mount and moved on.

Hereward and Alphonso had sufficient status and finery to gain an audience with the Bishop of Urgel. A man of great charm, he invited them to stay with him for a couple of days to rest themselves and their horses. With Alphonso acting as translator, they told of their journeys and campaigns. The Bishop talked of Spain, the Moors and, most importantly, Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar.

His was an interesting tale, not without parallels to Hereward’s story. Ferdinand I, King of Castile, Leon and Galicia had died at Christmas 1065, almost exactly the same time as Edward had passed away in England. Unlike Edward, who had died without heirs, Ferdinand had three sons. Almost certainly well intentioned, if a little naive, he had divided his kingdom into three parts: to his eldest son, Sancho, he gave Castile; to his favourite son, Alphonso, he gave Leon; and to his youngest son, Garcia, he gave Galicia.

Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar was ‘Armiger’, or Champion, to Sancho, the strongest of the three brothers. As part of his father’s legacy to him, Sancho had inherited tributes to Castile from the Taifa fiefdom of Zaragoza. Sensing weakness after the death of Ferdinand, Zaragoza refused to pay, so Rodrigo was despatched to persuade them that their actions were less than prudent.

In a display of remarkable bravery, Rodrigo left his large force at the gates of the city, demanded entry and rode in alone. Then, in the central square of the city with all its knights, men-at-arms and citizens watching, he offered to release Zaragoza from its obligation to Castile if any man could unseat him from his horse. However, such was his reputation that no one dared accept his challenge and he left for Castile laden with all the city’s tributes packed into chests.

In the summer of 1067, Sancho of Castile had also exerted his influence over his neighbours to the east — Aragon and Navarre. In what became known as the ‘War of the Three Sanchos’, Sancho of Castile campaigned against his cousins, Sancho IV of Navarre and Sancho Ramirez of Aragon, and succeeded in expanding his territories. Rodrigo was the outstanding leader of Castile’s forces and, in a series of brilliant manoeuvres, he forced the Sanchos of Navarre and Aragon to recognize Sancho of Castile as their lord. This triumph, in addition to the mystique that already surrounded him following his many victories in jousts and hand-to-hand combats, made Rodrigo’s reputation as a legendary warrior complete. His prowess had earned him a title by which he was known throughout Spain, ‘El Cid’. It was an Arabic epithet, meaning ‘The Master’.

In November 1067, Ferdinand’s widow, the Dowager Queen Sancha, died. While she was alive, her three sons had maintained a grudging acceptance of their father’s tripartite endowment, but as soon as she died, hostility between the brothers began to grow. This culminated in a huge battle at Llantada, on the border between Castile and Leon, in July 1068, when Rodrigo once more led King Sancho II’s forces to victory. An uneasy truce had since held between the three of them, in which both Garcia of Galicia and Alphonso of Leon recognized that, with Rodrigo at his side, Sancho was the first among the triumvirate of equals.