But my little Saint George’s cross went up, and Fiore and Nerio and Miles were all mounted; we rallied together at the edge of the town.
The count was still fighting under his banner on the mud beach below the town. No one had told the Bulgarians that they’d lost, or perhaps they thought that if they killed the emerald knight, we’d fold.
Odd thoughts go through your mind in a fight. Worse when you have time to think. But that day, in that hour, what I thought was that maybe this was the last time I’d go into action with all my friends around me. I knew we were going our separate ways soon. We all knew.
And yet, in that hour, there we were – the four of us. Maybe five; Hafiz-i Abun had almost become one of us, despite being an infidel. And there we were – all mounted, all in our best, formed together. I was in the middle; Marc-Antonio was behind me with my blood red cross of Saint George, with Prince Francesco’s son right next to him on a fine bay. Nerio was on my right, and Fiore on my left; Miles was to Nerio’s right, and Cavalli on Fiore’s left.
We rode along the headland until we were just above the Bulgarians on the beach. The Savoyards had fought manfully and pushed the Bulgarians, who outnumbered them, back up the beach almost to the grass of the headland.
I remember that I looked right and left.
We were all grinning like fools.
‘Come,’ said Fiore. ‘Let us be knights.’
And we were.
I would love to tell you that the Count of Savoy loved me from that hour, but I’d be lying. Instead, I rather think he felt we stole his glory, because he has never stopped, from that day to this, telling me that he didn’t need to be rescued.
Possibly not; he’d cleared the beach.
It didn’t matter. We took Mesembria; the Bulgarian prince had been dead for over an hour, and as it proved, I was spurring his horse.
Whatever the count said, his men sacked Mesembria thoroughly, with the help of the oarsmen. I formed my men by our ships and refused to let them join the sack. I lost men that day, but some actions define you, and I also gained men. We made camp north of the headland, curried our horses, and listened to the town die.
Two days later, the count began to get his soldiers back under command. When men are let loose to be animals, it is difficult to recall them to discipline. In fact, it takes days; some men never return.
That night, I sat by a fire with my friends – Hafiz-i Abun, l’Angars and di Cavalli, and a few others. We’d set a board across two barrels and paid the men a small amount in silver to prevent mutiny. I noted that the Greeks didn’t participate in the sack, and in fact, they protected as many peasants as they could.
L’Angars shook his head. We were avoiding discussing the sack, although you could smell smoke for miles, and then he just shrugged and said it. ‘A year ago, I’d have been in the town with them,’ he said.
‘Three years ago, so would I,’ I said.
Nerio smiled grimly. ‘You are not widely admired just now, William Gold,’ he said.
I was looking at the fire and thinking of Pont-Saint-Esprit, and Janet. ‘It’s stupid and ugly,’ I said. ‘It turns soldiers into criminals. How can a man who rapes and robs pretend to be a knight?’
Fiore raised an eyebrow. ‘I have little interest in either,’ he said. ‘But killing is killing, and the dead are dead, whether you kill them finely or meanly.’
‘Perhaps the dead are dead,’ I answered. ‘But I am here, and I have to live with myself.’
Nerio, the hard man of the world, shocked me. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘Do as little evil as you can. I agree.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘Perhaps even sometimes do good.’
Fiore shook his head. ‘We killed a great many Bulgarians,’ he said. ‘They are dead. Their lives are over. They too have women, and children.’
The fire crackled. It was cold.
‘The count took more losses here,’ Nerio said. ‘And winter is close. Have you given any thought to rescuing the emperor?’
I nodded. ‘Are you all in?’ I asked. ‘I’ll wait until we are in winter quarters. But I assume that the Hungarian has him, at Vidin. Wherever that is. My first thought is to send John and his men to scout the countryside and the route.’
And when men started going to bed, Hafiz-i Abun came and took my hands.
‘You are a good man, for a Christian,’ he said. ‘And I will not pretend that my prince’s armies have not sacked cities – aye, and put a pile of skulls to mark their prowess.’ He shrugged. ‘But I will not travel with you any more. I am not a warrior like you. I will fight at need, but this was sickening. At least, after the first few moments, which were terrifying. It was … like fighting children.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll miss you,’ I said.
‘And I you, my military philosopher. Come and see me in Isfahan and I will show you some hospitality.’ He grinned.
‘How will you go home?’ I asked.
‘See the little Genoese round ship in the roadstead?’ he asked. ‘He will land me at Tanais, as it was called in the ancient world. I will ride across the steppe, and be home in four weeks. Perhaps less, inshallah.’
So we embraced, and in the morning, he was gone. I still have letters from him; indeed, I will visit him, someday.
Our next attack was at Varna. If you like political irony, Varna was the first city we attacked that was actually held by our ‘enemy’, the Bulgarian prince who had the emperor captive, although he kept his captive far to the north.
He was a much cannier warlord; no army met us on the beach, and over the next week, I learned that however excellent my count’s little army was, he was woefully short of Italian siege engineers, or even English ones. The Greeks built him two big trebuchets, and we pounded the walls for a few days, and one of the galleys unloaded a heavy gonne that threw a thirty pound ball, and it brought down a corner tower before the iron cracked; one of the Italian men-at-arms said that it was too cold for wrought-iron gonnes.
And cold it was. We camped in mud, and then the mud froze, and my compagnia spent all day, every day, gathering wood and fighting Bulgarians for it. Nor were we in recently conquered lands with Greek peasants any more; at Varna, we were in Bulgaria proper, and the people hated us. The fighting was vicious; we took losses. Mark took a wound. Fiore got an arrow through his left arm.
I watched the count’s army change.
It is difficult to describe, because if I said that they lost their courage, I’d be far too strong. But as days turned to weeks and the snow fell, men ceased to take chances – to be bold or dashing.
Little by little, our foraging grew feeble, and we were increasingly hemmed in. There was no battle; instead, the ropes gave way on our trebuchet and no one found more. The supplies of firewood and food came from down the coast, at Mesembria, and were brought up the coast by our little navy instead of being taken by our soldiers, and we were penned in our camp. It was we who were under siege.
Despite which, and with no reference to my lord the count, I sent John and his Kipchaks out to find Tarnovo and news of the emperor. One of the count’s best knights was captured, failing to take a little town down the coast. He led a punitive expedition in person and they sacked the town, which, as far as I could see, merely stiffened the resolve of our Bulgarian adversaries to hold to the very end. And Varna was big, double walled and very strong.
The count held a great council of war in his beautiful green silk pavilion with six braziers burning charcoal. We were warm, and there was much debate, but in the end, Jean de Vienne and Guillaume de Grandison, two of his best knights, were sent to summon the town to surrender and see what terms they would accept. The next morning, before our embassy went forward with a flag of truce, my friends and I went to have breakfast in our frozen trenches, mostly because it seemed like a foolish thing to do. But Marc-Antonio had produced a chicken and some wine, and we went out at dawn, bu
ilt a fire at the bottom of an icy trench, and shared our chicken with a dozen archers who were on duty. We were opposite the ruins of the tower that the gonne had collapsed before it cracked, and I raised my head a few times to look at it.
There were workmen in it; I could hear them. And whenever we raised our heads, a crossbowman with a heavy arbalest would loose at us. I took to raising a rusty helmet on a stick, because he took so long to reload; I could draw his bolt and then have a long look.
My third time, I was eating an apple; I raised the helmet and he hit it, and the heavy bolt went right through the iron helmet.
My archers cheered.
That’s how the siege was going.
My Picard was there – Pierre Lapot. ‘Any chance you could get him, when I draw his bolt?’ I asked.
‘Why?’ Pierre asked me.
‘I’m planning to have a look at the tower,’ I said. I looked at Fiore.
He got to his feet, crouching to avoid the arbalest. ‘At your service,’ he said.
‘I think they’re entrenching in the rubble,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think they have any soldiers.’
‘So?’ Nerio asked.
‘So we take the tower,’ I said.
‘We can’t hold it,’ Nerio said.
‘Of course not. We take it, hold it for a few minutes, drive off their workers and set fire to the wood scaffolding they’re building. I can smell the new wood.’ I was very sure of myself – a lord of war.
Nerio frowned. ‘And then?’ he asked.
I shrugged. ‘And then we’ve had a little exercise, covered ourselves in glory, and shown the Savoyards how to conduct a siege.’
Miles Stapleton stretched carefully. ‘You mean, so they’ll hate us even more than they hate us now?’ he said. ‘I could be home. Married. A hero of crusade. Why am I here in a frozen trench with you three?’
‘I could be killed,’ Nerio added. ‘I am very fond of me.’
Fiore gazed at him a moment. ‘I am fond of you too,’ he said. ‘But we have been quiet an entire month, since I was wounded. The count must think we are dead.’
‘Oh, fine, then,’ Nerio said.
I turned to Pierre. He was laughing to himself. ‘You …’ he said. ‘Never mind, Monseigneur. If I do not hit him, I will at least make him brown his braes.’
Fiore looked at me. ‘Perhaps that is better. What have the Bulgarians ever done to me?’
Miles Stapleton laughed bitterly. ‘I heard one of the Savoyard knights saying that they were infidels. Are the Savoyards fools?’
‘There is a certain element of myth-making to their war effort,’ I said. ‘Come. Let’s see what the Bulgarian gentlemen have to offer in the way of a fight.’
I raised the ruined helmet and drew the man’s bolt.
But as soon as he had shot his bolt, the bowmen around me pelted him. Pierre loosed first, and grunted with satisfaction, and then the others; six arrows flew, and I was up and over the end of the trench.
Another crossbow bolt almost ended my military career and rang off the frozen earth.
Just when you think you are so very clever …
A third bolt might have ended this tale, but there were only two, and then I was up and running. Frozen ground may be the devil to sleep on, but it’s not bad for wearing armour and moving; there was no actual ice, and I was in the moat before the arbalester could reload. Then Fiore dropped in by me, and Nerio was ahead of me already and starting to climb the rubble of the tower. Miles was next to me, stone for stone, and we scrambled to the edge.
The arbalester rose to loose and one of our archers got him, and then we were in. I fell; I have a tendency to go too fast, and I went down over a charred roof beam. Miles saved my life, because of course there were Bulgarian men-at-arms covering the tower. Really, I was just bored. And probably foolish.
Fiore dispatched my would-be killer, and then I got to my feet in the icy water in the base of collapsed tower, long sword against poleaxe in the hands of a voynuk. He hacked at me a few times – heavy, overhand swings – and then I cut his hands, broke some fingers, and got my sword across his throat. He had the good grace to yield, and we had the tower just like that.
Our archers came across with fire, even as the Bulgarians sent a sortie to retake the tower. We were on their out-wall; this wasn’t Gallipoli, and the tower didn’t even communicate with the inner wall, an excellent design.
I planned to burn it, but it was defensible.
The first enemy sortie came on hesitantly – perhaps twenty men-at-arms in middling armour. My archers cooled their ardour immediately by dropping their captain with a few clothyard shafts right through his coat-of-plates.
‘Get me the company banner,’ I shouted down to Marc-Antonio, who was standing around with a basket of food. He ran off down our trench. I could see now what the Bulgarians were after, working the collapsed tower; they were raising the level of the rubble so that they could loose bolts and fire down into our trenches. The bastards.
A quarter of an hour passed and they tried to drive us out again. This time they filled the wall opposite us with crossbowmen, but they could not quite clear the rubble edge, and we all cowered in the shadow of the wall with a healthy desire to preserve our own lives.
Then Rob began to pelt the walls with arrows from our trenches.
Crossbowmen are deadly in sieges because they can wait. They can cock the damned machine and watch for you to raise your head. But they cannot shoot in volume, and they are no more brave than other men.
Ten archers can outshoot forty crossbows, as our archers proceeded to demonstrate, and more archers came up all the time. Soldiers get bored. They will, at times, risk their lives merely to avoid the boredom.
The second counter-attack came along the space between the walls, and we didn’t have enough archers who could fit in the tiny safe space in the rubble to loose at them.
We had to fight.
But they had to climb the rubble, and we had the poleaxe and a spear, and after we wounded three of them, the rest stood in a huddle down in the covered way, a little too long. Two started climbing the ‘safe’ rubble wall by the inner wall; I went to wait for them.
Rob’s archers cleared the city wall above us. I don’t think they hit a single man, but the crossbowmen couldn’t stand the constant rain of shafts and scrambled off the wall. That left Pierre and his comrades free to get back up on the rubble pile, loosing almost straight down into the milling men-at-arms.
Marc-Antonio came up the outer wall with the banner and l’Angars and twenty more men-at-arms, and then we went down into the covered way and beat the Bulgarians in as sharp a mêlée as I have ever seen – man to man, harness to harness. I captured one of their boyars and we dropped a dozen of them; Fiore was almost captured because he went so deep into them, and Nerio had to cut him free.
Nor did they break. They retired step by step. By then, we had Antoine de Savoy and Visconti with us; a dozen great knights in fine harness are worth their weight in gold in such an action, and they were, for all my carping, great knights. We drove the Bulgarians down the covered way, and then crossbow bolts began falling among us, and we had outrun our support, and it was our turn to scramble back.
We didn’t take Varna. But we held that tower until darkness, and then we slipped away, leaving the tower rubble afire, and by then we’d scared the Bulgarians into making a truce. They agreed to send to their tsar, and ask for the emperor to be released. The count sent the patriarch and Jean de Vienne with a delegation from the city, and we swore to withdraw under the flag of truce in two weeks.
We received a fair amount of warm praise from some of the Green Count’s friends, but none from the great man himself.
But those weeks were very bad for us. The count did not cease military operations – he couldn’t. We had to forage for food, and we had to keep the peasant
s off us. But the men were used up, and wouldn’t go out of the camp without knights to lead them.
Listen, let me tell you a thing, Aemilie, and those of you listening who have never made war. Battles happen by day. But campaigns are about the night. If you can cow your enemies and make them sit behind fortifications and roam abroad in the darkness, then you are master of the land. Whichever side wins the night has usually already won, and there does not need to be a battle.
The fight for firewood and food was mostly fought in the darkness.
And as men grow tired and disillusioned, they are fractious. Even my little company, which was, dare I say it, well led – even they needed to have knights and men of note leading them, even on a little cattle raid by starlight.
And the count’s fine little army was worse. The Savoyards had to lead every foraging expedition; the routiers and the archers following the Green Count built fires with whatever wood they could scrounge, and were very hard to move. One evening a dozen big brutes tried to steal our firewood.
Rob saw them off.
Lord Guy de Pontailleiur, who, I confess, I thought was a fool, but who was nonetheless Marshal of Burgundy, was taken by the enemy. He was a great lord of France. His ransom was probably worth more than the town of Varna.
Tsar Stratchimir sent a courteous reply to the count, saying that we were making war on him for no reason; that the emperor was his honoured guest, and that if we quit our siege of Varna and withdrew from his lands, he would consider releasing the marshal.
The first week of November it snowed, and I led a raid, a chevauchée, out into the snow. Our horses looked like scarecrows, and everyone felt like crap, and it was difficult to get the best men to move, and the slackers lay in their blankets and pretended to be sick. Or they were. We had a lot of sick.
I took my people out into the snow after full darkness. We passed the enemy pickets, if there were any, and we went north, not south, into the fertile country behind Varna. My moonlight sweep netted us a dozen head of beef; we captured two more boyars in a simple ambush, and lost no one. That’s not true – one of the Irishmen lost some fingers to frostbite. But we moved fast, in the darkness, guided by a pair of Greeks, and I paid my guides in gold more than the beef was worth. On our way back, we pounced on the enemy sentries and cleared them off about a third of their frozen, shallow trenches, and by the time I had my beeves butchered, the Bulgarians had their entire army standing to arms. We ate hot beef and mocked them.
The Green Count Page 49