by Angus Donald
I recovered my horse and called to Robert, aiming to follow the Marshal’s men into the heart of the upper town, when I found Robin at my side.
‘Wait, Alan, wait just a moment. I want you with me – Robert, too. We have to find Miles.’
With Boot’s dust-covered form looming behind me, and my son and my lord on either side, I watched as the Marshal’s cavalry swiftly dispersed the French. In truth, after a brief moment of resistance, the enemy mostly fled before them. Driven like sheep before a shepherd’s dogs. Our horsemen halted at the junction with the high street and after a brief conference between the Marshal and his captains, a hundred mounted men surged up the street to attack the north gate once more. This time there could be no ambush, I knew; the White Count had shot his bolt. This time they would take the gate’s defenders in the rear and destroy them – and it could not be too long before the Earl of Chester’s brave men were inside the town.
‘The battle is as good as won,’ said Robin. ‘The day is ours. The French are lost – even if they do not yet know it. So now it is vital we find Miles!’
I agreed with him. Through a gap in the houses I saw Hugh with a pack of our mounted archers and men-at-arms trotting down the street on the Marshal’s heels, heading east towards the cathedral.
‘I know where to look first,’ I said.
We four made our way up the street that ran parallel with the town’s western wall until we found ourselves at the tumbledown cottage right at the end. I dismounted and Robin and I pushed back the leather flap and entered the fetid interior. It was dim in there, though full daylight outside, and the stench if anything was worse than I remembered.
There was no one there.
‘This is where he lives?’ said Robin, appalled. ‘These are the lodgings they allocated to Lord Kirkton? Sleeping in this place for even one night would have made me want to come home without the slightest encouragement at all.’
He poked with his boot at an empty wine flask on the jumble of dirty clothes and unwashed crockery on the floor.
‘He’s a very stubborn man,’ I said.
‘He’s just a boy,’ snapped Robin. ‘He’s got nothing to be stubborn about.’
I said nothing and Robin gave me a look of apology.
‘His arms and armour are gone,’ I said. ‘Helm, too.’
Robin sighed. ‘That’s not good. Not good at all. Come on, Alan, we had better rejoin the war before it’s too late.’
Gratefully, we pushed back out into the sunshine.
We followed the noise of battle, cutting east behind the mangonel, now merrily burning surrounded by a dozen corpses, and back on to the main street through Lincoln. Here and there we saw knights pursuing men on foot. I caught a glimpse of the Earl of Chester himself, resplendent in a purple-and-gold surcoat, battering at the door of a shuttered tavern, a pair of his knights hacking with axes at the window. A knight in a black cloak rode into the street ahead of us, took one look at our party and swiftly turned his horse and galloped away. As we approached the remains of the market, we saw that there was still plenty of fight in the French yet. They had retreated to the yard in front of the cathedral, perhaps sixty men, and had created a dense defensive formation known as the hedgehog, a half-ring of three ranks of spearmen, their shields locked, their long weapons pointing outwards like the spines of the animal. At the back of the half-ring, the doors of the cathedral were shut tight, barred no doubt from the inside. But no man of God would allow us to attack them from inside the House of the Lord. Behind the hedgehog, almost under the arch of the cathedral entrance itself, I saw Miles, grim-faced beneath a plain steel cap, sword drawn, standing to the right of a tall man in mail that had been so highly scoured it shone in the winter light. He wore a flat-topped tubular helmet, equally polished to a dazzling shine, that covered his whole head, with a broad horizontal slit about an inch wide to allow him to see. I caught a flash of his icy blue eyes. A long silver cloak hung from his shoulders. Three or four knights stood beside the White Count and one of them, I saw, was Lord Fitzwalter, captain-general of the Army of God, the last remnants of his grand holy army now surrounded on all sides and greatly outnumbered by his enemies.
‘Surrender yourselves,’ the Marshal was shouting in French.
‘Give yourselves up to King Henry’s mercy. There is no need for further bloodshed.’
‘Never,’ cried the White Count, his voice booming. ‘I shall die like a man – and take a dozen of you English scum with me.’
‘Cousin Thomas, be reasonable, for God’s sake,’ the Marshal was almost wheedling. ‘You cannot escape. Lay down your arms, I beg you. For the sake of your family.’
The White Count shrugged. ‘I choose death before dishonour.’
I saw that Miles was looking at us. He straightened his spine. He repeated the White Count’s words, chanting them boldly, his face as grim as winter: ‘Death before dishonour!’
‘That skin-stripping ghoul is going to get our Miles killed,’ said Robin in my ear. ‘That cannot be allowed to happen. I’m going to take out that pale bastard myself and that will be the end of it.’
Robin stepped off his horse, turned away and I saw him speaking quietly with Simeon and half a dozen archers who had gathered around him. I dismounted too, grinned at Robert, and found Thomas Blood standing at my side: ‘Alan, we have to get Miles out of there,’ he said urgently. ‘Any moment and the Marshal is going to crush them all without mercy and I cannot answer for the boy’s safety.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Robin is working on something—’
‘Then be damned to you all,’ shouted the Marshal. He made a signal with a fist clenched, pumped up and down.
A single crossbow cord twanged and then a dozen more. The deadly quarrels smashed into the packed ranks of the spearmen bravely defending their lords.
Robin whirled in surprise. ‘There, there!’ he shouted, pointing at a section of the hedgehog and I saw Simeon and six of his mates draw and loose, sending a compact cloud of arrows in an almost vertical line at the three ranks of spearmen, hammering into their shields but dropping one man and another and another one behind the last. The crossbow bolts of the Marshal’s men were flying thickly, too, pelting the hedgehog with death.
‘Again,’ shouted Robin. And Simeon and his fellows loosed once more. ‘One more time,’ shouted Robin. I saw clearly what my lord was doing: he was using the shafts to cut a channel through the hedgehog. And it seemed that he had managed to make a gap. The men either side of the stricken spearmen, stuck with a dozen arrows, were slow to link up their shields with their comrades. There was a hole, only a foot or so wide, but it was a hole in their ranks nonetheless.
‘Miles,’ bellowed Robin, ‘I’m coming, son!’
And he charged, alone, sword in one hand, shield in the other, straight into the bristling mass of his enemies.
Chapter Thirty-four
The spear is a fine weapon on the whole. Against cavalry it gives the foot soldier a long reach and evens the odds against the mailed knight high above on horseback. Packed ranks of spearmen, in a formation such as the hedgehog, can keep mounted men at bay almost indefinitely – horses will not willingly charge into a sharp hedge of steel. But there is a big drawback to using a spear in battle. A spearman can’t strike sideways, as a swordsman can, nor can he tackle an enemy in front who is only a foot or two away from him. Once his enemy is past the point, the spear-wielder is a dead man.
Robin hurled himself into the hedgehog, past the outermost spear points, into the gap created by his bowmen, trampling over fallen bodies, living and dead. Shoving his way forward, he brought his sword to bear on the men in the second and third ranks, stabbing and hacking, hammering down on helmeted heads with his pommel.
I shared a quick glance with Thomas. No words were necessary.
‘A Locksley,’ I yelled. ‘A Locksley for ever!’ and with Sir Thomas screaming the same cry at my shoulder, steel drawn, we charged after my lord and plunged deep into the ran
ks of spearmen, following his line of attack.
I stabbed Fidelity into the face of a terrified spearman and he fell screaming; I jammed the sharp cross-guard on my sword into another man’s neck and he flinched away. To my left, Thomas was doing terrible damage with short powerful strokes of his blade, piercing the ill-armoured bellies and chests of the helpless men. I flailed at the faces before me, snapping spear shafts, hacking shields apart, surging forward behind the point of my blade. With every stride forward, I was aware of the squelch of bodies beneath my feet. One man, under me, raked his knife at the chausses that protected my legs and I stamped hard on his head and felt his skull break beneath my mailed foot. I chopped into the leather-capped head of a cringing man and he dropped like a stone. Robin was through and Thomas and I were on his heels, batting men out of our way. The hedgehog disintegrated, with men hurling their weapons aside and running like hares from our blades, desperate to escape the death we offered them.
To be honest, it was not all our doing. William the Marshal’s crossbowmen had decimated their ranks and that grizzled veteran had also decided the formation was ripe for annihilation, spurring his horse into the mêlée, urging his fellow knights to join the slaughter and slaying again and again with wide pounding chops of his long blood-slicked sword.
The surviving spearmen ran – not back into the cathedral but to their left, a flood of panicked men, a herd streaming across the shattered market and out through the main gate of the upper town, down the steep hill to the lower town. The crossbows clicked and twanged, swordsmen lashed at them as they passed and men fell from gaping wounds even as they scrambled to escape our wrath.
Yet not every man ran; the knot of knights by the cathedral door stood their ground. As Robin blundered through the last rank of the spearmen, the White Count stepped forward, his blade licked out towards my lord and Robin caught it only just in time, knocking the sword aside. But he was not giving his full attention to the man in mail before him. He was shouting, ‘Miles! Miles!’ and looking wildly around, even as the White Count struck again – a swingeing sideways blow at his head. Robin caught the blade on his cross-guard and thrust it away.
There was no sign of Miles at all. Robin, ignoring his opponent, turned to me, his guard lowered: ‘Where is he, Alan?’ His voice was despairing. ‘Where has he gone?’
‘Fight me, damn you,’ said the Count in French, swinging his sword hard at Robin’s shoulder. My lord stopped the blow with his shield, but he was unprepared, wrong-footed, and the force of the strike knocked him to his knees. The White Count leaped forward, smashing his sword down at Robin’s head. By sheer chance, it caught the edge of Robin’s shield, robbing it of some of its force. But it was enough to partially stun my lord and he sprawled to the floor in a loose tangle of limbs.
The White Count stepped in, drew back his arm for a lunge to the chest that would end Robin’s life—
And I stepped over my old friend’s feebly stirring body and swiped the blade aside.
‘I’ll fight you,’ I said, moving forward, jabbing at his chest with Fidelity and forcing the White Count to take a swift pace backwards.
Behind me I was aware of Robert and Boot helping Robin to his feet. But I had not much time to think for the Count was on me like a tiger: a pounding smash at my helmet on the left side. I got my shield up just in time and felt the power of the younger man’s strike shudder right down my whole arm.
Behind me I heard Robert say: ‘Miles ran off with the others. I saw him. Down the hill. That way.’
‘I’ve got this one,’ I said to Robin without taking my eyes off the Count. ‘Go after Miles, my lord – I’m going to deal with this bastard here then I’ll be with you!’
The White Count stepped back, breathing hard.
‘Are you going to fight, you English cowards, or just talk among yourselves?’ His helmet muffled his voice but he seemed infuriated by our disregard.
‘Thank you, Alan!’ shouted Robin. I snatched a glance at him and saw him walking unsteadily across the market with Boot and Robert hovering protectively on either side.
I snapped my gaze back to the White Count, sword and shield raised, and as I did I heard Robin call out from a distance: ‘Look at his hands, Alan. Take a good long look.’
I looked at the White Count’s hands. They looked perfectly normal, clad in thick brown leather gauntlets to give some protection from sword cuts. Then I looked again. I realised with a creeping sense of horror that the gauntlets were covered in a mass of thick chestnut hairs, wiry yet too thin to be the fur of an animal.
‘You like my gloves?’ said the White Count. He lifted his right hand, gripping the blade. ‘I had them made specially out of your archer’s back. The hair makes them very warm, you know, and well-tanned human leather is much more supple than any other kind, don’t you find?’
I was almost too shocked to move. The thought of him wearing Mastin’s skin was so awful that for an instant I could not truly comprehend it.
I was aware that, to my left, Thomas was taking the surrender of a man in a blue-and-red surcoat. Another fellow, who looked vaguely familiar, was on his knees offering up his sword, his red-gold head bowed.
The White Count was alone.
The heat of battle had dissipated. The Marshal and his men were gone, chasing the mob of French men-at-arms down the hill. Robin, Robert and Boot were gone, too. There were half a dozen archers with Thomas and I sensed rather than actually heard him warning them to leave us to conclude our fight.
‘I’m going to kill you now,’ I said to the man in silvery mail standing before me.
‘I think not,’ he said. ‘I think I shall kill you. I think a greybeard like you has no place on the field. You should be tucked up in bed, old man, with a warm cup of milk.’
He sprang at me, a sweeping blow across his body that hacked down at my left shoulder, and I caught it on my shield, shrugged it aside and lunged at his belly in counter-attack. He danced back and came at me again, a sweep at my ankles – just a feint – and an upward lunge at my groin at the last instant. I twisted out of the path of his blade. He was fast, I will give him that, but he could not have been more than twenty-two. He was good, too. Well schooled. A cut at my right thigh nearly caught me – I got Fidelity down in time, but the blade banged painfully against my knee, thankfully well protected by my chausse.
I hopped back. ‘I’m going to kill you now,’ I said.
He snarled and slashed at my head. I blocked with my shield and stabbed at his chest. He jumped back. I stabbed at his right forearm, but he got it out of the line of my strike just in time. Then I bored into him, Fidelity cutting left, right, left, right, hard overhand blows that hammered at his defences and forced him back towards the cathedral. Using my weight and strength to weary him. He ducked under a heavy blow aimed at his head and circled away, keeping his distance. He was wary now, his confidence leaking away as he recognised my skill and experience. Greybeards who have survived more than a score of battlefields have often survived for a good reason.
‘I’m going to kill you now,’ I said.
‘Stop saying that!’ he shouted – and feinted at my belly, trying to turn the blow into a sweep at my knees – and I stabbed him in the top of his left shoulder, quick and hard above the shield, punching Fidelity through the mail, cloth, skin and muscle to draw a gout of red blood. The White Count stepped back, panting. His helmet was obviously restricting his breathing. Despite the burden of my years, with my conical, open-faced helm I did not have the same problem. He tugged at his right gauntlet with his left hand. I looked at his glove and felt the burning of pure anger in my belly.
‘I’m going to kill you now,’ I said.
I attacked his left side, his wounded side, and the instant I moved I saw he could not fully raise or lower his shield. He was a dead man. I stopped a hay-maker blow from his sword with my shield and in riposte cut hard at the back of his left knee. He could not get the shield down in time and my blade thwacked into th
e side of the joint. He stumbled, but kept his feet. There was blood on his leg, welling through the mail. I circled to the right, forcing him to move on the injured limb. Fidelity flicked out – a feint – and when he jumped back the left knee failed him and he tumbled to the floor. I leaped forward, my left foot landing hard on his right wrist, the gauntleted hand holding his sword. I heard the crunch of breaking bones. I kept my full weight on his broken wrist. He was making small mewling noises of pain as I stood over his prone form grinding my foot on the break. He could barely move his wounded shield arm; his chest pumped up and down desperately sucking in air, and from inside the mask of his helmet, his pale blue eyes looked up at me in terror.
He screamed: ‘I yield, I yield to you, Sir Knight.’
‘I’m going to kill you now,’ I said.
He screamed again: ‘Surrender, I surrender!’
‘I only wish I could make this more painful,’ I said, bouncing my weight on his shattered wrist. I placed Fidelity’s tip in the eye slit of his helmet. ‘But sadly I do not have the time to spare. This is for my friend Mastin,’ I said, and thrust down hard with all my strength. I felt the blade go through his eye, encounter the resistance of bone and then punch into the brain.
‘And for that poor kitten in London, too,’ I added.
But I do not think he heard me.
Chapter Thirty-five
We left the prisoners under a guard of Kirkton archers – Lord Fitzwalter, captain-general of the Army of God, was one of them, having surrendered personally to Thomas without them exchanging a single blow – and my friend and I plunged down the hill in our lord’s footsteps and in the wake of the fleeing French army. A few hundred yards into the lower town it became apparent that few of the enemy would escape. A huge mass of them had congregated at the bridge over the River Witham at the bottom of the hill, and such was the press of bodies that it was jammed solid. Only a handful were managing to make it across and out on to the southern road behind it.