by Griff Hosker
The Earl became impatient with his father and they had words. I wondered if his father feared that he would not be as successful as his son. Certainly, our victory had made everyone take notice of the Earl. He was a general!
It was a month after we arrived that we finally headed south. My men formed a protective layer around the Earl and we rode just behind King John of Castile. The Bishop in the cathedral had anointed John of Gaunt. There were two Kings of Castile and Leon. Of course, the other King John ruled far more of the land than did the Earl’s father but we now had legitimacy as we headed south. We also had Galicians in our host. The Earl was unhappy about that as it meant there were more potential killers.
When we reached Ourense, it became clear that we had reached the limit of John of Gaunt’s ambitions. He set up court there and Galician nobles flocked from all over the land to pay homage to what they saw as their saviour. The Earl became despondent. As we waited in idleness he fretted about missing opportunities to gather more gold and victories. He began to confide in me. He no longer trusted his own household knights and they resented me. It was as if they blamed me for the Earl’s attitude. The Earl opened up his heart to me. We had good rooms and life was good but he was unhappy. “Come, Will. Bring your men and we will ride. I need to get away from this stifling court and false courtiers.” I knew what he meant. I could see that the Galician nobles were merely using the English King of Castile to their own ends but John of Gaunt seemed to enjoy the flattery.
“This is not what I wanted, William. I thought we would defeat the enemies of my father and my men would become skilled in war. We have fought one battle and my men now grow fat and lazy.”
“Lord, why do you need an army? Are you going on crusade?”
“I may do but not just yet. I need men who are all like yours. This is costing me money to pay for an army which does nothing.”
“Then ask your father for coin to pay your men. The cost should be borne by him for this is his country and not yours.” He looked at me. I saw the question in his eyes. “You would not be King of Castile would you, lord?”
“King of this fly ridden land? Never! When I am king it will be King of England.”
“Which cannot be yet for King Richard lives. Perhaps you could take your men to Aquitaine or Gascony. King Richard might like someone to regain his lost lands.”
“He might do but I will not get them for him.”
“Then the only alternative is a chevauchée. The lands to the south of us are not Galicia. They are Castile. Ask your father for payment and then let us raid. The weather is cooler and I have seen nothing to fear in these Spanish armies.”
“Go on, elaborate.”
I told him how we had raided when serving with the free Companies. I told him all; the good and the bad.
He liked the idea and we rode back to the palace. The Earl was a clever man and he sought information from some of the Galician lords. He thought it amusing that he used them much as they used his father. After a few days he was ready. He asked me to come with him when he spoke with John of Gaunt. I knew why. I had fought alongside the Black Prince. I was respected.
“Father I would have you pay my men. This is your land we defend and I am spending English money to do so.”
Surprisingly his father nodded. “That is a sound suggestion. Give your account to my chancellor, the Count of Ourense. It will all be paid.”
“And I would like to raid east of here. I have spoken with some Galician lords and they say that there is a town called El Bierzo. Although it is in the Kingdom of Leon it is ruled by a Castilian lord. From what I hear he is a cruel and unpopular man. If we raid him it will endear you to the people.”
“How far away is it?”
“More than a hundred miles. My small battle might just be able to sneak through this land and raid before anyone knows.”
I saw King John weighing up the advantages against the possible problems. A hundred miles away meant that he would not be risking annoying a wasps’ nest. He nodded. “Then do it but be careful, my son. There may be more assassins out there.”
“Until the Earl of Oxford lies dead that is a certainty, father, but I have Will Strongstaff. I will be safe.”
As we left I asked, “Have you ever been on a such a raid, lord?”
He shook his head. “It cannot be difficult.”
“There are corpses lying yet unburied in both France and Spain which will argue with that. You have to travel light. You do not use your war horse. You need a hackney or palfrey. You do not take servants. You do not take tents. You make hovels. It is one hundred miles to El Bierzo, we need to reach that in two days. To do so we do not travel in the heat of the day. We leave well before dawn and we continue to travel in the cool of night. We use scouts and they must be the best of scouts too. If we can reach El Bierzo unseen then we have a chance. If they are forewarned and close their gates then we lose. It is as simple as that.”
“Do I take all of my men?”
“You take the best, lord. How many knights are there in El Bierzo?”
“No more than thirty.”
“Then we take your best fifty. We take all of the archers, lord and the fittest men at arms. We lost some in the battle in the north. There are wounded men. We take the best. Two hundred and fifty men is almost too big a force.”
“And what of the plunder? How do we get that back?”
“That is the easy part. If we win then we have the town and we use hostages to drive wagons back. That way it is unlikely that we will suffer retribution. Besides this town is many miles from Valladolid. It would take three days for word to reach there that we had attacked and by then we should be safely back here.”
“Then I will choose the men.”
My squire Henry was delighted at the prospect of action until Peter explained what a hovel was. “You mean I sleep beneath a shelter of twigs and leaves?” Peter nodded. “On the ground?”
“Aye master. The Captain and I have done this in England where it is cold. It will not be so bad here in a hot clime. Of course, the spiders, insects and snakes may cause a problem but we will make coin.”
I smiled at the crestfallen look on his face.
Those who were not chosen felt slighted. I wondered if the Earl was storing problems for the future. We had already unearthed one killer. What if the Earl created more malcontents? I began to study his knights more carefully. I now knew that if there was another killer then he was amongst the household knights of the Earl. De Ufford had shown us how easy it was to get close to the Earl. A household knight would be able to judge the time to kill to perfection. Now that we knew of poisoned blades we were looking for a knight who had travelled. The poison had been from the east. There were ten knights who had either been on Crusade or pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Those ten were the suspects. Six would be on the chevauchée. I confided in no one. I did not want to risk my men. I would watch them and, if they tried to strike, then I would stop them. When I had enough evidence, I would present it to the Earl. I knew that despite his words he could not believe that one of his household knights was a traitor.
We left in the middle of the night for the sun during the day still burned. All knew that we would be raiding but the Earl and myself had told no one where. I had my ten archers as the scouts. The fact that they could not speak much Spanish was irrelevant. They were seeking enemies. Enemies were armed and mailed men. We would ignore the ordinary folk. Most were Galicians anyway. So long as we did not bother them they would ignore us. We made thirty miles before the sun became too hot to ride. My men had found a small village with water and shade. I had persuaded the Earl to use coin to ease our passage. We paid for the food we consumed and the water our horses drank. I did as the Spanish did. I slept beneath the shade of my cloak. When we left, in the middle of the afternoon, we were both refreshed and cooler. We made another sixty miles. When we stopped there was no village but there was a stream. We had food and we had oats for the horses. It was not the
perfect diet but it would do.
We set guards and hobbled our horses. We were less than forty miles from our objective. The Earl was being guided by me. My plan was simple. We would reach the town after dark. The Earl had envisioned a charge on horses through the town. I planned to scale the walls, kill the guards and take the town while folk slept.
Once again, we made thirty miles before we stopped and I advised the Earl to take a longer break. We had but ten miles to go. The August days were so hot that Roger of Chester swore that an egg dropped on a rock would cook. All the way east the Earl and his squires had been surrounded by my men. As we rested before the last ten miles I said, “Do you wish this raid to be a complete success, lord?”
He nodded, “Of course.”
“Then when we reach town I must go with ten chosen men to gain entry to the town. That means leaving you to be guarded by Henry and the rest of my men.”
His face fell. “But why you?”
“Because I have done this before and I know what needs to be done. My men are good warriors and I trust them implicitly but this requires decisions to be made which are not in their experience. If you had a good knight then he could do it.”
He nodded, sadly, “But I have not!”
“Then do you want victory and will you trust my men?”
He looked into my eyes. His eyes were not the eyes of a callow nineteen-year-old. They had wisdom beyond their years. “Aye I will.” He smiled at Henry. “Tonight, squire, you hold the life of a future King of England in your hands. Guard it well!”
We reached the outskirts of the town an hour after sunset. The watch would be set. There was a wall around the town but it was not a substantial obstacle. Stephen the Tracker and Lol son of Wilson had ridden ahead and spied it out before dark. I knew what the town would be like. We walked our horses to within half a mile of the wall. I spoke to Roger of Chester as well as the Earl. “We will move quickly to the walls. The rest will lead their horses slowly until you are within four hundred paces of the wall. When we have secured the gates, we will open them. I will signal with a light. You will ride as though the devil is at your heels.”
“You make it sound simple, Captain.”
“It will be far from simple but if I did not have the men I have then it would be impossible.”
“From what I heard a chevauchée was a raid deep into enemy territory by mounted men.”
“And that is what this will be, Earl. The difference will be that we will attack at night. They will not expect it. Spies will have told Castilians that you were going to raid. They will be watching for a column of mounted men. If they see us during the day they will bar their gates and then send men to deal with us. We can do this once. I do not think anyone has tried this for many years. For that reason alone, it stands a chance of success.”
I left my shield and helmet on the cantle of Jack. Peter would lead my horse. I would fight bareheaded. I had chosen the tallest of my men. We hurried down the road but we kept to the shrub covered side. There was no moon and we would be shadows only. I wore my buskins. They were silent on the cobbled road. When we were just two hundred paces from the gate we stopped and Stephen the Tracker led us through the scrubby undergrowth. The town had a grazing area for animals. I saw the stakes they employed to tether the beasts. There was a trough of water too. The ground was flattened and, as it was August, there was little grazing left. We watched for sentries. They appeared to have them just on the gatehouse. We saw the glow from their brazier and heard their conversation. It was a dull buzz in the distance. We crossed it and reached the ditch. The ditch was not well maintained. This was northern Spain and this was not the wet season. The ditch was dry. Stephen had noticed that the stone walls had been made with large pieces of stone. It was common in Spain. Peter the Priest had told me that the Romans had used the stones for their forts. The people who came afterwards simply reused them. The mortar was old and had crumbled. It afforded places we could use to climb.
Natty Longjack and I stood with our backs to the wall and cupped our hands. Stephen the Tracker and Silent David used the four paces between the ditch and the wall to get enough speed to launch themselves up the wall. Stephen managed to grab hold of the crenulations. Silent David put his foot on Natty’s head and he too reached the top of the wall. The next two were not as agile as Stephen and they used Silent David’s technique. I wished I had worn my arming cap. When the last men had scaled the walls Natty and I drew our swords and ran around the outside of the wall to the gate. Above us my nine men would be creeping along to eliminate the watch and open the gates.
We could hear nothing. I took that to be a good sign. Something clattered to the fighting platform and then I heard the bar on the gate being removed. The gate opened. Lol handed me a lighted brand. I waved it from side to side and then laid it next to the gate. Stephen took his archers back up the stairs to the fighting platform. The four of them would use their bows to protect the Earl and the rest of our men as they galloped through. I led my six men through the town. There was another gate large enough to be used by wagons at the far side of the town and we had to secure that one.
The town was asleep as we raced through but behind me I heard the thunder of hooves. There would be a captain of the watch and he would hear it. There was a glow from a building close to the town square. Someone was on watch. We sped through the square. The noise behind us grew and I knew that it must have been heard. Sure enough, when we were just thirty paces from the far gate, I heard the sound of a bell. The alarm had been given. Then I heard a clash of steel and cries from the gate we had already captured.
“Now we run even faster!” My tall men all had long legs and we reached the gate even as the two watch men appeared. They had seen us and had pikes. There was a small guardhouse next to it and men began to spill sleepily out. I used my left hand to fend off the pike and I punched the hilt of my sword into the face of the watch man. He dropped like a stone. I still held the shaft of the pike and I threw it towards the men racing from the guard room. They were half asleep and they raised their hands as the pike sailed towards them. My men all had a sword and a dagger. One of the watch had descended and he was both mailed and armed. He ran at me. I pulled my ballock dagger from my belt and used it to block his sword strike. I swung my sword in an arc and it connected with his mail. We were too close for me to generate enough power to hurt him. He pulled his own dagger and, with incredibly quick hands, lunged at my eye. I barely managed to move my head out of the way. I stepped closer to him and ripped my dagger across the back of his hand. He wore no gauntlets and blood spurted. He pulled his helmeted head back to head butt me. Red Ralph had taught me that trick. Without a helmet I would stand no chance. I pushed off from him and prepared to end the combat.
Behind me I heard the sound of screams and cries as the Earl led our men into the town. Unless we could secure this gate then the townsfolk would open it and escape. We needed them penned. The sergeant at arms I fought had a bleeding right hand and I used that weakness. I swung my sword backhanded and he was forced to block it with his sword. I used my dagger to thrust at his eye. My blade scraped off the nasal of his helmet and missed his eye. I scored a long wound beneath it. He had to step back. I feinted with my sword for another back-hand sweep and as he brought up his own sword, switched to a strike from above. I hit his helmet. It stunned him and I took the opportunity to bring my dagger up under his right arm and into his body. He fell and I knew he would not rise.
Whipping my head around I saw that people were running towards us. I sheathed my weapons and picked up a discarded pike. I swung it before me. The people stopped. As Natty slew the last of the watch I shouted, “Stop! We have the town! If you wish to live drop to your knees.” The time we had spent in Ourense had improved my Spanish. My men all took a step forward as I spoke and that had the desired effect. The ten people dropped to their knees. More people ran towards what they saw as an escape to freedom. I waved the pike and they too dropped to their kne
es. I could hear fighting in the town square. This would be a test of the Earl and his men. The sun began to edge over the eastern walls before the sounds of fighting died down. Henry and Peter rode towards us leading my horse, Jack. I saw that my squire’s sword was bloody. I frowned. I had instructed him to stay at the rear. The people squatting before us parted and my squire and his servant dismounted.
“The Earl sent me lord. The town is ours. There was hard fighting in the square and he lost some knights but all is ours.”
“And what of my instructions to you, young Henry?”
Peter dismounted and came to hand me my reins, “Captain, he did but two fellows came from the shadows to try to attack us and take the three horses. I fought one but Master Henry had to defend himself.”
I looked at my squire. I could detect a change in him. “You killed a man?”
“I had no choice. He tried to kill me.”
“Then you have learned a valuable lesson. The next time you fight you will find it easier to kill but I hope that you have more skills when that day dawns.” I mounted my horse. “Natty, take charge here. There should be food and drink in the guardhouse. Henry, Peter you can remain here too. I will find the Earl.”
Already men were searching buildings and fetching forth the treasures from within. When I reached the square, I saw the scenes of fighting. There were scattered bodies. I saw four men at arms from Captain Thomas’ company and two dead household knights. The defenders had fought hard. The intensity of the fighting could be seen when I met the Earl. His surcoat was spattered with blood and his sword was notched. He managed a wan smile. “They fought hard, Captain, but we prevailed. I have my men searching for wagons and horses. I have the family of the dead lord under guard. I thought we might use those as hostages for good behaviour.”