by Jack Whyte
“Aye …” St. Clair rose to his feet and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Sir Gautier simply waited, giving him time to think, and at last St. Clair said, “I am no king. I will, however, stand in your support of your views from this time on.” He then crossed the deck to the starboard rail, where he stood with his back to Montdidier, staring quietly out at the distant horizon.
The Hospitaller hovered where he was for a moment, looking at St. Clair’s back and the set of his shoulders, then walked away.
“GOD’S WOUNDS, Henry, tell me straight! If I wanted veiled hints and mysteries I’d call in a priest. You are my Master-at-Arms, so what I require from you is straight talk, with no muttered nonsense. You’ve seen this morning how we intend to transport our army to Outremer, but to this point you have said nothing, not a single word, about how we are to conduct ourselves when we finally arrive there and confront Saladin and his Mussulmen. How are we to approach this task, to come at them anew without suffering the same fate as Guy de Lusignan and the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem? Damnation, man, I need guidance in this, before I speak to the others. Philip of France will scream outrage if he even begins to suspect that I have not yet found an answer to that.”
Richard was right, of course. As Duke of Aquitaine, King of England, and co-leader of the new expedition to win back the Holy Land, Richard expected and needed some straightforward, unequivocal advice from his recently appointed Master-at-Arms. More accurately, he needed to know exactly what original and innovative tactics St. Clair was developing in order to offer his armies some hope of victory against Saladin’s hordes. Henry had been riding around with his Duke for three days now, waiting for an opportunity to present his findings and proposals without the threat of being interrupted. Richard was increasingly preoccupied with the preliminary logistical arrangements for the sea voyage to Outremer. The great fleet would not begin to assemble for at least another two months, but the Fleet Master, Robert de Sablé, had already been planning with his quartermasters and subordinates for months, and shipping and supplies were being assembled in more than a score of major ports. That morning, Henry and Richard had ridden together, inspecting troops and reviewing plans. The time had passed quickly, and their work had been productive, with Richard seizing the opportunity to propose several pragmatic suggestions to de Sablé regarding the allocation of space aboard ships for horses, saddlery, and weapons, including their massive siege engines, broken down to be shipped piecemeal.
“Well, sir? Have you an answer for me?”
Seeing his opportunity arise at last, St. Clair spoke up quickly. “Aye, my liege, I have an answer. But I will need at least a full hour of your time to explain my thinking in this matter, and after that you yourself will probably wish to spend a day or two examining the idea.”
They had just left the southern English coastal town of Plymouth, one of the main assembly ports for the King’s Fleet, and were riding through a spacious meadow dominated by solitary trees, mature oak, elm, and beech, with a wide and pleasant stream meandering among them. Richard looked about him and tugged at his horse’s reins, making the animal veer right, towards the point where the stream came closest to them.
“Come, then, if it is going to need a full day of thought from me, we will take the time now to sit alone over there on the bank of the stream and talk about it.” He looked over his shoulder to where his constant bodyguard and companion, the taciturn but fiercely loyal Angevin knight called Baldwin of Bethune, rode in his accustomed place, four horse lengths behind his Duke. “Baldwin, do we have food and drink?”
“Aye, lord.”
“Good, then we will stop here and eat by the stream, when you are ready.”
Richard Plantagenet ate in the same manner as he did most things—with total concentration and impatient speed. Watching the Duke consume the fowl grasped in his hand, ripping at it with eager teeth and consuming tiny bones and all, his beard and chin slick with grease, Henry wanted to warn him to slow down and take time to savor the meat, but he knew better than to say anything. A need to eat had come between Richard and what he wanted to do next—it was a nuisance that had to be attended to, and enjoyment had no part in it. When Richard finally finished, throwing the remnants of the carcass into the stream and scrubbing the grease and fat from his fingers with a handful of grass torn from the ground beside him, Henry calmly set aside his own meal, unfinished, and prepared to deal with whatever the Duke might throw at him. He did not have to wait long.
“Montdidier tells me you and he spent much time conversing, and he says you grasped the import of his views more quickly than anyone else he has met, other than myself, of course. So, what have you to tell me?”
“No more than what you will have already determined, my lord: we need to make radical changes to the way we do things on this coming campaign, and we need to begin immediately. Truth be told, we should have started months ago, when the Hospitaller first arrived and began speaking the truth about what happened at Hattin. But at that time, apparently, few among your own people or your allies believed him. I admit I found it hard myself, at first, to believe that his has been the sole voice of warning and discontent to return from Outremer.”
“Ah, but here’s the difference. Montdidier is a man of principle, unafraid to speak the truth. Doesn’t care what others think of him. That makes him rare. As for those who came back with different stories, I have no doubt at all that some of them did so to escape punishment for their own craven behavior, while others probably wished to make their deeds and their survival appear to be more heroic than they were. And the priests, of course, have their own explanations for everything. They seek to keep us all transfixed with guilt so that we will return as quickly as may be to redeem ourselves and expiate our sins. They tell us of our faults and sins, but they are priests, so they can tell us nothing of how to fight and win a war. But none of that matters, now, for we have the truth from a man we may trust.” He paused for a moment. “So, what would you have me do? What changes have you in mind for our line of battle?”
“Stability, and consolidation.” As he always did when they were alone and talking strategy, St. Clair spoke to Richard without honorifics, although he himself was unaware of doing so.
Richard blinked. “Explain that.”
“Gladly. The army destroyed at Hattin was too mobile by far, and fatally vulnerable to the tactics Saladin used against them. I have become persuaded that what discipline there was among the Franks was splintered— too many factions among the army and all of them working against one another. King Guy’s knights were jealous of the Templars, and despite their common cause, there was little love lost between the Templars and the Hospitallers. Then King Guy himself, because of his own weakness, was afraid of being browbeaten in public by de Ridefort and de Chatillon as he had been before, on several occasions. The Count of Tripoli, Raymond, along with his followers, presented the voice of reason, but they were disregarded by everyone because of Raymond’s former truce with Saladin. And everyone was reaching out for personal glory, riding in disorganized sorties to engage the enemy and playing right into the hands of Saladin, who did everything to encourage them, then avoided their charges and wiped them out from a distance. Did Montdidier tell you about the extra arrows?”
“Seventy camel loads, aye he did. I am not sure I believe that. Too much margin for exaggeration.”
St. Clair raised a hand in demurral. “Believe it, and learn from it. I have been thinking of little else since first I heard of it, and I am now convinced that the Hospitaller is right. It is an astonishing insight into an enemy we have yet to meet—a measure of how forward-thinking and original this Sultan is. He planned it months, perhaps years, in advance and had his people make those arrows a-purpose. That tells me he has great confidence in himself and in his people, and it tells me, too, that he has little regard for us, Franks of any description, as warriors. He took those steps and made those arrows purely because he saw how predictable the Franks wou
ld be when they finally came to battle, and then he used that predictability to destroy them.”
“So we must become unpredictable.”
St. Clair dipped his head to one side. “No, not unpredictable, that would be suicidal. Merely less predictable. We will have to make Saladin and his emirs—that’s what he calls his generals, I believe—we have to make them see, and believe, that we will no longer be enticed into chasing wildly after his formations. They will have to come to us this time around, and when they do they will find us ready for them.”
Richard nodded again, still speaking quietly, his tone almost musing. “That appears to make sense. But in truth, Henry, how ready can we be, against such numbers? Mind you, there will be more of us this time than Guy and his unfortunate crew were able to field at Hattin. They barely had thirty thousand, and once we meet up with Barbarossa, our combined army will number three hundred thousand. But there may also be more of the infidel ranged against us, for Saladin’s territories are vast. Only time will tell us that. But should they repeat their performance with hailstorms of arrows—and I cannot imagine why they would fail to do it—our men will have no defense against them. We will be shot down in droves.”
“Perhaps, but only if we permit the enemy to come close enough to reach us.”
Richard’s head came up and his eyes narrowed. “Very well then, tell me. How do we keep them safely at a distance?”
“By out-shooting them. Your English longbows and your Angevin arbalests. Both will easily outreach the bows used by the Saracens. Their bows are puny by comparison. We will teach them to dread our arbalests.”
“And so they should. They should dread them. But we have nowhere near enough of them—not even ordinary crossbows, let alone arbalests. And mine are the only ones in all of Christendom, so we can expect no help there from any of our allies.”
St. Clair merely nodded, unimpressed. “We need no help. I have already taken it upon myself to presuppose your agreement and to requisition new supplies from your armorers, both here and at home.”
“Have you, by God’s holy, nodding head?” Far from showing displeasure, Richard quirked an eyebrow in amusement at St. Clair’s effrontery. “When did you so, and how many did you ask for?”
“As many as can be made before we set sail. I asked for an initial five hundred, and more if time permits. And I did it a week ago, sending word home to Poitiers by a fast ship, since that is the only place the arbalest can be made today. Of course, not all of those will be the steel-bow type—I understand they are extremely difficult to make—so I have called for the next strongest kind, the heavy, layered bows of wood and horn. I also sent word to the secondary manufactory, in Tours, requesting five hundred lesser crossbows, of wood and sinew. And I required your English bowyers to increase their production, although I have since been told that they are already working at capacity.”
Richard inhaled deeply. “So be it,” he said. “You did well. Now, how do we train our men in their use before we have the weapons in our possession? That will not be simple, Henry, for none of the recruits we choose will have any familiarity with the weapons.”
“True, but you have already set my son, André, to training trainers, and we can use the men he has already trained to teach the newcomers. How many arbalesters have you under command in Aquitaine?”
“In Aquitaine? Not many. I have more in Anjou, and others in Poitou …” Richard pursed his lips, calculating. “Aquitainians, perhaps five hundred remaining, perhaps six. I brought two hundred of them here with me to England—twenty ten-man squads.
“And what of lesser weapons, other crossbows?”
“The same, I would think, if you are still speaking of Aquitaine. Perhaps a hundred or two more … say, close to a thousand. But again, I have more in Anjou and in Poitou. And before you ask, I have a thousand English longbows in my train and will add at least a thousand more before we quit England.”
Richard now settled his shoulders against the tree at his back and sat staring into the distance, reviewing the numbers he had quoted. Overall, they made up a very small percentage of the hundred-housand-strong army he was raising against Saladin with the French king and their other, lesser allies, but he realized that it was due to him alone, and he reluctantly added credit to his father, too, that they had even that many. His spies had brought word that Frederic Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, was rumored to be raising an army of two and a half hundred thousand from his German territories as his contribution to the Pope’s new war, but Richard had had his spies at work and he now thought it unlikely that the German emperor’s battalions would contain many bowmen of any kind.
Richard’s gaze focused again and he looked back at St. Clair. “Have you given any thought at all to how we should deploy these new forces you have dreamed up?”
“Aye, I have. The strategy is easily enough explained, but I have not yet worked out the precise tactical details. Now that I have your concurrence on the need to proceed, I will spend more time on that.”
“And this is what you meant by stability and consolidation?”
“Aye, it is. As I said, the small moves are still unclear—they have not yet crystallized in my mind— but I know that we must use the new weaponry in tactical blocks, mobile but capable of standing in place and repulsing an attack in strength, and we must use them in support of our chivalry.”
“And what of our infantry?”
“Again, to be used in blocks, in the manner of the ancients, where each man relied upon the support and strength of his neighbor.”
Richard nodded with slow deliberation. “The ancients … You mean the ancient Roman legions?”
“Aye, exactly. Solid, unyielding, hard hitting, selfreliant, tightly disciplined, and virtually indestructible.”
“I see. That is quite a list of attributes.”
“Aye, but it’s achievable. And necessary, if we are to go against the legions Saladin will throw at us. We can do it, but we have no time to waste.”
“What about these hailstorms of arrows?”
St. Clair shrugged. “If needs must, we will reinvent the Roman tortoise and cover our soldiers with shells of solid steel shields.”
Richard contemplated the older man for long moments, then nodded. “Very well, do it. Is there anything more in your mind?”
“Aye, there is. The Saracen captured all the Frankish fortifications and cities in Outremer, and that means we will have to take them back by siege. I had thought to inform you of the need for siege engines for that, but we discussed that this morning and it seems well in hand.”
“Aye. What we really need is training and trainers, both for infantry and bowmen. So here is what we will do. You will spend this night with me—all night, if necessary—and we will work on the principles and the logistics of these new ideas of yours until I am familiar with all that we will need. After that, I will attend to the rest of it myself and ensure that the right men are chosen and charged as a cadre to put those principles into practice. You, in the meantime, will return home as soon as may be and start training a new, greatly expanded corps of men to use these crossbow weapons—all of them. Use volunteers at first, since they are most likely to learn quickly, but raise others as you need them, from whatever source you deem suitable. I will give you carte blanche on that. I suspect that our French allies, and perhaps even several of the others, will wish to send some of their men to you for training, now that we can openly use these weapons against the Muslim. But what they should do first is send their best smiths to our armories in Anjou and Aquitaine, to learn the making of an arbalest.” He checked himself, noticing the expression on St. Clair’s face. “What is it, man?”
Sir Henry looked puzzled. “Your pardon, but do you mean me to go home before your coronation, or after it?”
“Are you mad, Henry? Before it, of course. This new need is far too important to put off for an entire month, especially over religious mummery. I want to see you gone within the week. I’ll tell y
ou all about the coronation when next we meet, you and I. Now, let us be up and away, for we have several miles to go and I want to start work on these plans tonight.” He twisted his body to look at Baldwin of Bethune, who was sitting some distance aside from them, waiting to be summoned. “Baldwin, we are leaving now. Gather up what needs to be gathered and follow us, quickly as you can.”
As Baldwin rose smoothly to his feet, Richard did the same, then reached down his hand to Sir Henry and pulled him up. “You have done well, Henry … justified my faith in you. Don’t ever stop thinking the way you do. Now, mount up.”
FIVE
Sir Henry St. Clair sat spear-straight on his horse, looking down from a reviewing stand at the top of a high, sloping ramp. In front of him, stretching away on both sides, lay an enormous drilling field, its edges lost in distance. At his back, beyond the width of its protective moat, the high walls of the Castle of Baudelaire towered above him, cloaking him in a late-afternoon shadow that stretched far ahead of where he sat. The entire area to his right was given over to horses and horsemen, groups of knights and formations of mounted men-at-arms riding hither and yon, all of them deeply involved in their exercises. Henry was content to leave them to themselves. He was far more interested in what was happening in the left half of the field, where seemingly endless rows of crossbowmen, the closest of them almost directly below his reviewing stand, shot in aimed volleys at ranked targets far ahead of them. Farther away, beyond the concentrations of crossbowmen, he knew Richard’s English yeomen were working with their deadly longbows, but they were so far distant that St. Clair could barely see them and could only guess at their activities. Like the horsemen that afternoon, they claimed but little of his attention, for his focus was concentrated upon the crossbowmen, the sole reason for his unexpected return to Aquitaine in mid-August of the previous year. It was now the middle of June in the year of Our Lord 1190, and ten months had passed him by like a headlong, badly fractured dream.