The Minstrel and the Mercenary

by David Scoles

  “I have lost many men this day in this accursed land of bogs and infidels. Not even the wealth of generations of Scottish Lords can repay the insult of taking a wound from a bed boy. Soon your King will be dead, I will open your belly and I will finally be rid of this place!” Gwilym remembered Saint Josse, the burning chateau and this man hobbling away from a wound from a crossbow.

  “I did not fire the crossbow that wounded you, although I do admit praying to Saint Agrippina, Patron Saint of Infections that the wound might fester.” With a snarl of rage Taziz slashed horizontally seeking to take Gwilym’s head off at the neck. Rather than dodge aside Gwilym ducked low and stabbed forward at the Mamluk’s stomach. Taziz twisted expertly and dodged aside slashing again. Gwilym surprised him again by rolling head over heels through the mud to safety.

  “You move like a monkey, bed boy.”

  “I have no idea what a monkey is, but so is your mother.” Gwilym quipped.

  Taziz nearly choked on his rage, but he was playing into Gwilym’s hands. Men who succumbed to their anger on the battlefield made mistakes and that led to death at the hands of clearer heads. Gwilym had, however, underestimated the Mamluk’s experience.

  Taziz drew his curved janbiya and flipped it underhanded towards Gwilym. Reflexively, Gwilym raised his saber to block it, but in doing so he took his eyes off Taziz. The Mamluk rushed forward and swung his sword, this time determined to take the minstrel’s head off. Then God decided to pay attention to his favorite Welsh minstrel again.

  Gwilym slipped on the mud and fell backwards. Taziz, unable to stop his momentum watched his blade sail through empty air and felt a pain in his ankle as he twisted too far to the left. Then he felt a far greater pain in his right side. Gwilym’s saber had been pointing upwards as he fell and found its way under Taziz’s lamellar armor impaling him through the side.

  Sputtering in pain, the Mamluk tore himself off the saber, took two steps and collapsed; his ankle was unable to support his weight. Harsh words in Arabic followed. His whole body aching, Gwilym regained his feet.

  “Curse this land! Curse it to the darkest pit!” Taziz cried. Gwilym watched in disbelief as Taziz stood once again, a hand pressed to his side.

  “Is the pain not your fault entirely for not having the good sense to die when properly stabbed?” Gwilym asked. The Mamluk’s only reply was a garbled cry of rage as he limped towards Gwilym. Gwilym waited until Taziz was just close enough so that it would seem he meant to again engage him in combat, then he spun on his heel and ran back the way he came, twisting and dodging between and around other combatants. Taziz called out a challenge, but Gwilym was more mindful of the change that he sensed coming over the battlefield.

  Taziz cried out again and Gwilym glanced over his shoulder to see the Mamluk sink to his knees. Gwilym swallowed his gorge when he saw the man’s hands were stained red and pressed to the area where Gwilym had stabbed him. It was Christian to feel sympathy, was it not?

  “I curse you to Hell. May you follow me before this day ends.” Those were the final words of Taziz the Mamluk. Gwilym slid his saber into his sheath without a backward glance at the body.

  The Nachzehrer had turned away from pursuing Gwilym, confident Taziz would end the troublesome minstrel once and for all. The Nachzehrer found his path blocked. He shook his head and chuckled.

  “Have you grown up or have you simply grown into another’s reputation? Have you enjoyed pretending to be me? A Prince pretending to be a mercenary? You should go back to Transylvania.”

  “I have not been there since I buried my mother.”

  “She should not have kept whispering in our father’s ear that you were to be the heir. I was the elder son!” The Nachzehrer swung his fokos in a quick succession of hits that drove Radu back, but this time Radu was prepared for the powerful strikes and rather than block them head on, chose to sweep them aside in deft parries. Expecting counterattacks the Nachzehrer stayed conservative in his attacks. Instead of attacking, Radu twirled the fokos in a dizzying display, ax head over shaft and over ax head again.

  “Are you trying to impress me with tricks?” the Nachzehrer angrily demanded, trying to keep his focus upon the head of his opponent’s ax. “Or is it that you realize you have no hope of winning? When you fall here it will be as the homeless bastard you sought to become whereas I shall guide ever more warriors against the oppressive dynasties of Europe. I will be forever remembered as a second Charlemagne. What I was not born to receive, I shall take with my own hands!” Radu let him rant. He kept his eyes upon the opposing fokos and the spot where the Nachzehrer placed his feet.

  “I never thought you were a bastard,” Radu finally said when he sensed it was almost time. The Nachzehrer was almost in position. “I wanted to be more like you. I took your name to be the man you should have been. To convince myself I had the strength you always possessed and I always envied. Heir or not, Father always respected you more and my mother sensed that.”

  “He killed my mother!” The Nachzehrer raved and cut a vicious downward slash that Radu just barely blocked. He fell to one knee and raised the fokos with both hands. Sparks flew when ax head met shaft.

  “And you killed mine.” Radu shoved the other fokos away and kicked out with one leg, falling into the mud as he did so. The kick caught the back of the knee Gwilym had wounded and the weight of the Nachzehrer’s armor brought him crashing to the ground. With a snarl the Nachzehrer brought the fokos arching around, but he could not reverse the blade. Instead the flat iron side of the ax smacked Radu in the side of the head, which sent him flying onto his back with a painful thud.

  Radu tasted blood in his mouth and stars danced before his eyes. His chainmail mesh dug into his flesh and he just barely kept a grip on his fokos. Through the haze, he heard the Nachzehrer’s voice coming towards him as if through a long tunnel. It went in and out as sound tried to reestablish itself in his rattled brain.

  “Damn that man. Why did he not want me? Why was I cast aside? Was I not strong enough? Was everything he said to us about true strength just a lie? I have tried only to live as he taught me to! To make the world into what he wanted! A world governed by strength!”

  The Nachzehrer, once called Radu, gazed down dispassionately at his younger brother Mircea. His brother had not only usurped his place as their father’s heir, but had also tried to take his very name! The Nachzehrer’s grip tightened upon his fokos as he watched his brother struggle to rise.

  “Remember, Mircea, the strong never die.” Radu the Black raised his fokos. “They are remembered forever for creating the world. History forgives their sins!” The fokos chopped downwards for the kill. It met only muddy earth. The Nachzehrer’s eyes widened in alarm, but it was too late. Mircea had feigned the severity of his injury and had waited until just the right moment. That moment came and now his fokos was at his brother’s exposed neck.

  “Those sins are only forgiven by a merciful God, brother,” Mircea said breathing hard, blood running from his many wounds. “It has been my experience that God has no such inclination.” Radu the Black laughed until he choked on his own blood when Mircea’s fokos opened his jugular.

  Chapter 21

  The French had pulled back in retreat. Corpses had become an impediment and several French knights were unable to navigate the maze of mud, cooling bodies and hysterical horses before they were found by Welsh misericords or English bows. Gwilym found Radu kneeling beside the corpse of the Nachzehrer.

  Gwilym wondered if he should approach. He had watched Mircea ease his dying brother onto the ground almost tenderly. The Nachzehrer had been such a terrible being these several weeks was now just one more fallen warrior upon the battlefield of Crecy. One by one their foes had fallen: Hugo the Long, Esteban of Castille, Taziz and his Mamluks and Alexander Seton.

  Seton still lived!

  “Radu,” he cried, ignoring the mercenary’s true identity for the moment. It was the name he had been using all this time after all. “Alexander Set
on was behind all of this from the very beginning. I imagine we both owe him for maltreatment. However, I feel that fight now lies beyond the domain of mercenaries and minstrels. Let us make haste to aid the King and perhaps put an end to this sad day with Dafydd ap Gwilym and… Mircea, Prince of Transylvania tipping back a skin of wine together?”

  “Aye, I should like that,” Mircea answered with a grim smile.

  Chapter 22

  Seton’s sword scraped against King Edward’s vambrace. The King followed up with a slash to Seton’s gorget, but his heart wasn’t in the fight. Recognizing his old enemy and recalling the black day he had hung young Tomas before the gates of Berwick had shot an arrow of doubt into the King’s heart.

  As if a divine hand removed the veil of indifference from before his eyes, King Edward no longer saw a battlefield littered with nameless corpses, but sons, fathers, friends and men with futures destroyed all because of him. The King in him had surrendered to the horror he was in part responsible for and only the man Edward Plantagenet remained. It was almost too much to bear and Alexander Seton exploited the advantage.

  “Just die here,” Seton giggled madly. “Just die here so my sons can find peace. God damn you to an eternity in Purgatory.” Seton threw away his shield and took his sword in both hands. He began to wield it like one would a maul. “Your son will fall here too.” A wild swing. “A son for a son.” Another swing. “And I’ll see the rest of your blood dead too. Oh, yes. The line of Edward Plantagenet will be wiped out forever!”

  “My heart sorrows for your Tomas, but you…,” Edward began.

  “Do not say his name!” Seton shrieked and his attacks increased with greater ferocity. A solid hit knocked the shield from Edward’s arm and wrenched his elbow painfully. “You do not say his name, ever!”

  Edward stayed on the defensive. This wasn’t what he had wanted. This was to have been a battle for England’s glory and his right to the French throne, but now all he felt was sorrow for his past mistakes. Mistakes that would be paid for by his son… his son!

  King Edward exploded into action. He parried Seton’s blade and now the mad Scot was on the defensive. Edward pressed harder, no longer concerned with his own safety or if he would even survive to see a new day dawn. Sweat poured from his brow and he tasted its saltiness and spat.

  “It is the providence of a King to act as he will,” King Edward snarled as he forced Seton backwards. “Beyond all reprimands and judgements save those of All-Mighty God! You can hate me, hate fate, hate the world that birthed us if it feeds your sense of worth, former Lord of Berwick.” King Edward suddenly reversed one of his swings and brought his sword whistling through the air from ground to sky and caught Seton’s sword blade near the guard. The hit was so strong that it took the weapon from Seton’s hands completely and sent it sailing through the air.

  Seton stared at his empty hands in disbelief. “You don’t deserve to wear a crown. You don’t deserve to live, none of you do. You heap your plates high only by taking from others.” Seton’s voice cracked with emotion.

  “Deserving or not, God willed it so. Just as he willed your failure and for you to be gone from my sight forever. I grant you your life for I will not be the reason your blood is wiped from this earth.”

  King Edward turned his back upon Alexander Seton, sheathing his blade as he did so. Sir Chandos and Sir Talbot, who had tensely watched the duel, still held their naked swords at the ready, unsure what to make of what they had just heard.

  “Your Highness, do we dare leave such a man alive?” Sir Talbot asked. Sir Chandos’ gaze was to the south where the French and their Bohemian allies were falling back to the forest. He did not yet know of King John’s death, but he sensed that some great event had taken place that had presented the English with a miracle.

  “Talbot,” Sir Chandos placed a reassuring hand upon his friend’s shoulder, “we have won the day. God has seen fit to grant our King and his royal son victory and it is a blessed thing to live to see another sunset and witness a mercy, even to an enemy.”

  “Aye, you are right John, though it chafes mightily that Scottish scum like this should benefit from our Lord’s mercy,” Talbot said with sidelong glance at the broken Alexander Seton who still knelt and stared at the hands he felt had betrayed him.

  “I spit on your mercy!” Seton suddenly cried out. The man stood shakily. “The world is ripe for change. It cries out for leaders of strength, not inbred pretenders. Do you hear me, Edward Plantagenet? You will never be King of France and if it be God or even the Devil himself who hears me now, may your sons never be Kings of England!”

  King Edward whirled around and Sir Richard and Sir Talbot moved to stop him, but it was too late. Alexander Seton drew a long misericord from his boot and plunged it with both hands up and into his throat. Blood spurted from the wound and coated his armor. A bloody grimace affixed his lips and his eyes glazed over as they stared upward into the heavens. Sir Chandos knelt beside Seton and leaned in close to hear what the dying man tried to say, whether it be some final word or curse.

  “Tomas…”

  Sir Chandos closed Alexander Seton’s eyes for the last time. Young Gwilym and his mercenary companion limped towards Sir Chandos and when they gathered close they all stared down at the enemy whose rage had nearly spelled the end of them all.

  “That one man could do so much harm to so many,” Gwilym whispered. Sir Chandos nodded.

  “I have no family of my own, but I can perhaps understand some of what drove him.” The knight stood and watched King Edward give orders to Sir Talbot and other knights to gather their dead for burial. Then a great cheering came from the west. Word of the victory had come from that direction and when Gwilym, Radu and Sir Chandos turned to look, they saw Prince Edward looking resplendent even in battle worn armor, leading his cohort triumphantly towards his father.

  “Everything a father does is for his son and everything a son does is to please his father.” Sir Chandos said. The men watched the Prince fall to one knee and proudly present the banner of King John of Bohemia to his father. A great cheer erupted from thousands of throats. Sir Chandos, beaming, turned to Radu. “We can all only hope to match such devotion as these two men have shown us today.” Radu nodded, but he did not return the smile. Gwilym sorrowed that his friend likely never knew such devotion from the likes of Tihomir. How would the lives of Radu and Mircea been different if they had? Radu turned about and started to walk away.

  “Where do you go, my friend?” Gwilym asked. “It is no exaggeration to say that you were instrumental in seeing this through. I should think you eager to collect what is owed?” Gwilym saw Radu’s familiar stony face momentarily crack with sorrow before it resumed its familiar unbreakable granite.

  “I go to bury him. I do not owe it to him, but he was my brother.”

  Gwilym watched Radu disappear into the crowd of cheering soldiers. The relief on the faces of so many was infectious, but even Gwilym’s smile withered in the face of so many dead. The grudge with his brother Gam that had originally forced him to leave home seemed so small and petty a thing now. Morfudd, for all her beauty, was not worth casting aside his family. It made a mockery of the families that were forever shorn by the losses of war.

  King Edward raised the banner of the Bohemian King high and the soldiers quieted their cheering.

  “Let all honor and glory of this day be heaped upon the Prince of Wales!” King Edward shouted. The soldiers erupted once more until this time Prince Edward raised his own hand for quiet.

  “Long live King Edward, King of England, Wales, Ireland and France!” The shouts grew even louder when father and son embraced and raised the banner together. Was it Gwilym’s imagination or did King Edward’s eyes briefly mist with tears? The Battle of Crecy was won.

  Epilogue

  The English army marched along an old Roman road towards Calais without any uniformity or urgency. English mingled with Irish, Welsh with Polish, even Frenchmen drove wagons laden w
ith supplies from the Count of Harcourt alongside men who had just driven off their King in defeat. The mood was generally jovial, but Dafydd ap Gwilym was uncharacteristically sober and silent as he observed the long, uneven lines of men trekking towards the distant port city.

  Gwilym’s wounds had been treated. They had been miraculously few. Those that still ached were nothing more than a minor annoyance that did little to distract from the thoughts that raced through his mind. The horse he rode upon was from the King’s own stable, part of the reward he had received for being ‘agreeable’ was what Earl Warwick had gruffly told him. In other words, it was for keeping his mouth shut about Alexander Seton.

  King Philip had survived his wounds and returned to Paris, but had vowed vengeance. The Bohemians, led by their new King Charles, had taken the body of King John back to Bohemia for burial. King Charles was in line to become the next Holy Roman Emperor and felt no compulsion to sacrifice further money or lives for France.

  The story of how Sir Boeth had been killed while valiantly fighting in defense of his King was spread amongst the men, but he was discreetly buried in a bone pit with several of the unknown Mamluks. Gwilym was certain that after a season none would even know where that burial pit might even be found. His thoughts turned to Radu, for that was the name he had known Prince Mircea as, and as such, he could not think of him otherwise.

  Radu and Gwilym had spoken little since the battle’s end. The road to Calais was a few short weeks, but already Gwilym could sense that soon he would be bidding the mercenary farewell. He was to return home to Wales. And Radu? Wherever the road led, he imagined. Wherever the road led….

  As if conjured by Gwilym’s thoughts, Radu appeared. He cantered up upon his horse and nodded his head in greeting.

  “New horse?” Radu asked.

  “Aye, a parting gift from Prince Edward.” Radu raised an eyebrow. “Aye, I have left his service to return home. My wounds will heal cleaner on the banks of the Wye.” Radu smiled.