"No, he isn't," said Ned. "He had better take Gyrth's advice. He is risking too much upon one battle. He hath not men enough here to beat the Normans."
"King Harold knoweth best," said Father Brian. "His men would not fight as well under anybody else. His absence might dishearten them. Now, I tell thee: they say that the Norman duke hath sixty thousand men, but that the most of them are of all sorts, taken as they came. Harold of England hath only a quarter as many, indeed, but the main body of them consists of picked and chosen warriors, well-disciplined veterans. There is a great strength in that."
"Thou meanest," said Ned, "that no common men are fit to face the house-carles? The duke should have seen them at Stamford."
"He knoweth them, I suppose," said Father Brian. "It maketh him slow and cautious. The thingmen will all die where they stand, and I think that many other men will die when they do. It is a pity that they were at the north and not here when the fleet of William came to Pevensey. Had they been at hand, the Normans would not have gotten ashore at all. Harold would have slaughtered them at the water's edge."
"All of that is Tostig's work," said Ned, angrily. "He stirred up Hardrada to come with his Vikings, just at the worst time."
"He hath paid for it with his life," replied Father Brian, "and it is a heavy load for any man to put upon his soul. One bad, ambitious, selfish plotter may sometimes do a vast amount of bloody mischief."
All that was of the past, and there was no help for it. Everybody was well aware, moreover, that there had been an exchange of embassies, day after day, between the king and Duke William. Terms of settlement had been offered and rejected, for neither of them would give up the main point of dispute, the right to the crown of England. Therefore there could be no compromise, and the sword must decide.
While the two friends had been talking, their horses had been brought out. They mounted now, and rode out together through one of the southerly gates.
"These walls and the forts are quite strong," remarked Father Brian. "The best work on them was done long ago by the Romans. I have thought that if I were Harold I would wait for the Normans at this place."