Free [Norman Conquest 01] Wolves in Armour by Iain Campbell

and shouted back “The English are attacking the king in the Hall! They’re rioting here! We’re creating a distraction to save him!”
    By then Alan and Robert had reached the group of men, who were now standing watching the exchange. “Fool!” shouted Robert “We’ve just come from the Hall. There is no attack. The shouting was part of the ceremony.”
    “You men, put out those torches and organise a bucket brigade to put out those fires!” ordered Alan. By now a considerable number of Englishmen had gathered. Most were watching the Normans with ill-concealed animosity- not surprising given that they had just started to burn down houses. A few of those who were quicker of wit were already running up with buckets of water and dashing them against the flames of those houses that were alight.
    “I don’t speak the language of these animals and anyway I don’t take orders from fancy-dressed bastards like you!” snarled the sergeant in reply.
    In a blur of movement Alan’s sword rasped out of its scabbard and he struck in one continuous motion. The head of the Sergeant bounced against a whitewashed wall in a spray of blood. There was a murmur of approval from the crowd. “Does anybody else want to challenge my authority?” demanded Alan. “No? Then move your arses and get those fires put out now!” Alan shouted instructions to the crowd and soon a chain of eighty or so men were passing buckets between a nearby well and the fires. After about half an hour the fires were under control and nearly out. Alan and Robert went to return back to the Coronation ceremony, but were just in time to see the prelates and newly-crowned king filing out of the abbey.
    Despite the festive season Alan was able to find a tailor and a cordwainer, both on Cordwainer Street, to make him a new tunic and hose and a new pair of boots. His clothing and boots had been poor enough quality previously and had been worn out by heavy service over the last few months. With London packed for the coronation Alan and Robert were sharing a room in a shabby inn on Threadneedle Street at Alan’s expense, using the money that he had recently obtained. Gillard slept in the hayloft above where the three horses and the mule were stabled at the rear of the inn.
    With Hugh de Berniers gone and the remains of his squadron split up to make up losses in the other cavalry squadrons of Geoffrey de Mandeville, no fighting was on immediate offer. With little booty as yet handed out to the Barons, de Mandeville’s victualler the Frenchman Michel de Boulogne had, if anything, become even more mean and irregular in his payment of wages.
    Alan had also used the time spent on London to have the gold jewellery he had looted melted down into four-ounce ingots by a goldsmith in Wood Street and sold the rings and jewels to a pawnbroker in a side street just east of the Chepe Market.
    While the newly-crowned king’s castle was being raised on the south-eastern edge of the city next to the River Thames, with a large number of houses and other buildings demolished to make space, William was residing outside the city at nearby Barking, in a manor now vacant as the thegn who had previously held it had died in one or another of Harold’s battles.
    Two other fortified places were being raised by barons in the south-west corner of the city close to the river, Baynards’s castle and Montfitchet Tower. William recognised the importance of the city and its large and traditionally bellicose population. He was determined to keep it under control. Unfortunately, the forced demolition of many houses and other buildings to create the three fortifications did little to improve the mood of the city’s people.
    William often held court at the abbey and Old Palace complex at Westminster. It was there on the 29th December that Alan, resplendent in new clothes of fine burgundy-coloured wool, presented himself to Corbett, William’s steward to remind him of William’s promise. Corbett