Stormbird wotr-1

by Conn Iggulden

  William saw lances thrown away in disgust and swords drawn to hack down as the roaring English butchers killed their way deeper into the French lines. He exulted at the damage they were doing, but from the height of his own saddle, he could see further than the men on the ground. As he looked up, his heart sank. The brutal action had not touched the bulk of the French army. They were shifting and moving under new orders to come round and hit his flanks. There were so many of them! It made his triumphant ruse and sudden attack look no more dangerous than a minor skirmish.

  He turned to the messengers running at his side.

  ‘Find Baron Alton and give him my regards. Tell him I would appreciate our mounted knights being used to prevent the enemy horse flanking us.’

  One of them raced off and time seemed to stand still for William while his men hacked and killed for him. He waited for Alton to respond. The French cavalry were pulling back at last from the impossible crush of the centre. William could see fresh pike regiments marching stolidly in to where the killing was going on. It was an impressive manoeuvre under pressure and he assumed the order for it had come from the king himself, the only man on that field with the authority to order his knights to withdraw.

  The English sword line surged forward, killing anyone they could reach. They’d gone too far for support from the archers by then and it was that which made William hesitate. His men-at-arms had pushed on into a long column of their own while pursuing the enemy. They were not only exposed along the flanks, but in real danger of being cut off. He looked into the distance again and shook his head at the numbers still untouched by the battle. He had hoped against hope for a rout, to fold the French lines into themselves in the sudden terror of the attack. It had not happened and he knew he should fall back. Yet Alton’s heavy cavalry was moving up on the wings, and when he glanced behind, he saw hundreds of archers stalking forward, trying to keep up with the moving battlefront, where they could still do damage.

  William found himself sweating. He was still vastly outnumbered, but moving forward at a good pace against enemy pike regiments. Those cruel weapons were nearly impossible to charge with cavalry, but his sword and axemen would literally go through them, dodging past the outer points and then wreaking havoc on the untrained men holding the long weapons. He knew he should pull back in good order, but not yet, not quite yet.

  The ranks of pikemen lowered the heavy iron heads and broke into a charge of their own, a line of sharp metal and pounding feet that was terrifying to stand against. The English men-at-arms readied their shields, knowing they had to turn the closest pike-head with a blade and then slip in with a straight thrust to kill the wielder. It was a difficult move to pull off with hearts racing and hands slippery from sweat and blood. Many of them missed the deft touch and were impaled, the heavy pikes driven as much by the running men behind as those who held them. Hundreds more slipped the pikes and stabbed past, but the rush and press was so great that they too were swallowed, knocked off their feet by the weight of the charge. William cursed aloud, calling for his men to fall back and re-form. He turned his mount and trotted a hundred paces to the rear before facing the enemy again. Still they came on, roaring in excitement despite their losses.

  ‘Archers!’ William shouted, hoping to God that they could hear him over the noise of the battle.

  He heard the snap of bows release behind him and holes appeared in the line of pikes. Those men needed both hands to balance the heavy poles. The peasants carried no shields and boiled leather jackets were no protection at all against the shafts that tore into them. The foot charge wavered as yew bows punched out volley after volley.

  Despite the carnage of the assault, it was the sight of the hated archers that kept the French pikemen coming. Standing in wide-spaced rows, wearing simple brown cloth like farmers, the archers were the monsters of a thousand tales and disasters. The pike ranks pushed on, desperate to reach the men calmly killing their friends. It was all they knew — the one weakness of a bowman. If he could be rushed, he could be killed.

  William was forced to retreat once more. His ranks of swordsmen came back with him as the pike lines re-formed and left their dead behind. Step by step, the English forces lost the ground they had gained in the first advance, until they were back in their original positions. There, they dug in and stood with raised swords and shields, panting and waiting.

  Some of the archers had been too slow to retreat with them, so that they vanished in a moving tide of men and rage. Yet around eight hundred made it back to their own mantlets and stakes. They turned once more with blood in their eyes for the pikemen.

  Those volleys of arrows did not soar. As the pike regiments continued to charge, the shafts punched out in short, chopping blows, cutting off battle cries and sending men to their knees. Gaping holes appeared in the lines and pikes dropped or wavered upwards to the sky. The entire French line tried to slow down rather than rush into withering fire. Those behind compressed, their pikes as dense as spines on a hedge-pig, a forest of wood and iron.

  The pikemen came to a staggering, bloodied halt and the archers took fresh quivers from arrow baskets and shot until their hands were bloody and their shoulders and backs ached and tore with every shaft sent out. Against a standing enemy, it was a savage slaughter and they delighted in it.

  The French regiments retreated at last, unable to force themselves any closer. They jogged away, turning their backs and then feeling the surge of terror that lent wings to their feet. Behind them, archers cheered and howled like wolves.

  William felt a surge of pleasure that lasted as long as it took him to look over his forces. He’d lost a great number of men in just the first action, perhaps six hundred or a little more. He closed his eyes, suddenly feeling sick. Ahead of him, French knights were massing again and their king had even sent small groups forward to manhandle the mantlets into better positions. His archers responded with a dozen boys who sprinted out and gathered arrows into their arms, plucking them from the ground into great sheaves. As William watched, a lone crossbowman took careful aim and shot one of the boys as he turned to come back. He fell with his arrows spilling like a white wing and the archers roared in anger.

  The French were going to charge again, William was certain. He could see more than eight thousand of the enemy who had not yet fought that day. His soldiers had wreaked bloody destruction, but the cost had been high and there were simply too many of the enemy still fresh and ready to attack.

  ‘Second charge coming, Alton!’ William bellowed across the field.

  As he spoke, his horse made a huffing sound and sank to its knees, almost sending him over the animal’s head. In his heavy armour, William dismounted slowly and clumsily. He found two bloody holes in the horse’s chest, where it had been struck by bolts. He could see red droplets around the muzzle and he patted the powerful neck in distress, already looking for another mount to carry him.

  ‘A horse here!’ he called, standing patiently while his messengers found one of the reserve mounts and brought it to him. It was the first time that morning that he had seen the battlefield from the height of his men-at-arms and he drooped at the width of the ranks still facing him. The French had lost a crippling number, perhaps two thousand against hundreds of his own. In any other circumstances, the victory would be his. Yet the king still lived and he would only have grown in fury and bile.

  ‘One more charge,’ William muttered as he was helped to mount. In the privacy of his own thoughts, he knew he would surely have to retreat after that. He’d tell the surviving archers to run for the bridges, while his knights and men-at-arms fought the rear. He could do that much, he told himself, redeem that much honour. Until then, he had to survive another massed charge by an enemy who sensed their weakness.

  ‘Ready archers!’ he bellowed.

  Few of the crossbowmen had survived the mêlée around the mantlets. If the French wanted a victory that day, they were damn well going to have to charge the yew bows they hated. With an e
ffort, William pulled off his helmet, wanting to breathe and see clearly. They were coming and the archers were already bending their bows, waiting for them. He kept a spark of hope alive because of those men — and those men alone.

  19

  ‘I don’t understand what you are saying!’ Margaret retorted, driven to fury. ‘Why this talk of degrees and arcs and shadows? Is it illness or not? Listen to me. There are times when Henry speaks clearly, as if there is nothing wrong. There are other times when he talks without sense, like a child. Then something changes and his eyes grow dull. Do you understand? It lasts for minutes, or hours, or even days, then he revives and my husband looks back at me! Those are your symptoms, Master Allworthy! What herb do you have in your bag for those? This talk of fluxes and the … planets does you no credit at all. Should I have my husband moved from London, if the air carries such a taint here? Can you answer that at least, if you can’t treat whatever ails him?’

  The king’s physician had drawn himself up, his face reddening further with every word she spoke.

  ‘Your Royal Highness,’ Master Allworthy began stiffly. ‘I have dosed and purged the king. I have administered sulphur and a tincture of opium in alcohol I have found to be most effective. I have bled His Grace repeatedly and applied my best leeches to his tongue. Yet his humours remain out of balance! I was trying to explain that I have feared the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter for days, knowing what it might bring. It is an evil time, my lady. His Grace suffers as the representative of his people, do you follow?’ The doctor rubbed the small beard he allowed himself, winding his fingers into the knots of hair as he thought. ‘It may even be his nobility, his holiness, that is his undoing. Royal blood is not as that of other men, my lady. It is a beacon in the darkness, a bonfire on a hill that calls to dark forces. In such a time of unrest and chaos in the heavens, well … if God is ready to clasp His Royal Highness to His embrace, no mere man can stand in the way of that divine will.’

  ‘Oh, stand aside then, Master Allworthy,’ Margaret said, ‘if that is all you have to say. I will not listen to your mealy-mouthed talk of planets any longer, while my husband is in such distress. Stay here and consider your precious Mars and Jupiter. I wish you joy of them.’

  The doctor opened his mouth, growing even redder. Whatever he might have replied was lost as Margaret pushed past him and entered the king’s chambers.

  Henry was sitting up in bed as she entered. The room was gloomy and, as she crossed to him, Margaret’s foot caught on some part of the learned doctor’s equipment. It fell with a crash and made her stumble, then kick out in a temper. A complex contraption of brass, iron and glass went spinning across the floor. In her fury with the doctor, she was tempted to follow it like a fleeing rat and stamp it to pieces.

  Her husband turned his head slowly at the clatter, blinking. He held up bandaged hands and Margaret swallowed as she saw fresh blood on the bindings. She had cleaned and dressed them many times, but she knew he bit at the wounds whenever he was left alone, worrying at them like a child.

  With care, she sat on the bed, looking deeply into her husband’s eyes and seeing only grief and pain reflected. There were scabs on her husband’s bare arms, where the doctor’s narrow knives had opened his veins. He looked thin, with dark circles under his eyes and blue lines showing on his pale skin.

  ‘Are you well, Henry?’ she said. ‘Can you rise? I think this place carries illness on the very air. Would you prefer to be moved along the river to Windsor, perhaps? The air is sweeter there, away from the stinks of London. You can ride to the hunt, eat good red meat and grow strong.’

  To her dismay, her husband began to weep, fighting it, his face crumpling. As she moved to embrace him, he held up his hands between them, as if warding her off. His fingers shook as if he had an ague, a chill, though the room was hot and sweat shone on his face.

  ‘The soups and doses make my senses swim, Margaret, yet I cannot sleep! I have been awake now for … for longer than I can recall. I must not rest until I am certain the kingdom is safe.’

  ‘It is safe!’ Margaret said, desperate to reassure him.

  Henry shook his head in sad reproof.

  ‘My people stir restlessly, knowing not what I do for them. They have taken arms against anointed men and murdered them! Has my army remained? Can you tell me that, or will you bring me news I cannot bear to hear? Have they all deserted me, Margaret?’

  ‘No one has deserted you! No one, do you understand? Your soldiers would stand at your side on the Day of Judgement if you asked them to. London is safe, Henry, I swear it. England is safe. Be at peace and please, please try to sleep.’

  ‘I cannot, Margaret. Even if I wished it, I go on, I go on, burning down like a candle until the snuffer comes.’ He looked vaguely around the shadowed room. ‘Where are my clothes? I should dress and be about my duties.’

  He began to rise and Margaret pressed a hand to his chest, almost recoiling from the heat of his skin as her bare palm touched him. She felt a different ache then, for the man she had married but who had not yet pressed her down. He didn’t struggle against her touch and she caressed his face, soothing him even as it stoked fires inside her. He closed his eyes and lay back against the bolsters and pillows. She grew bolder, uncaring that his doctor still stood outside.

  Margaret leaned forward and kissed her husband on the neck, where his throat was revealed by the open nightshirt. His chest was white and hairless like a boy’s, the arms slender. He smelled of pungent powders, of sulphur and bitter lime. His skin seemed hot to her lips, almost as if she had taken a burn.

  Holding her breath, she let her hand fall to his lap and shifted closer on the bed, so that she leaned over him and was able to kiss him more firmly on the mouth. She felt his lips tremble and his eyes opened, staring into hers with wonder. He gasped into her mouth as she stroked him. She saw muscles twitch and she gentled them with her hands.

  ‘Lie still and let me tend you,’ Margaret whispered into his ear. ‘Let me bring what peace I can.’

  She felt her voice grow hoarse as her throat tightened and a flush stole its way across her face and neck. Her touch seemed to bring him calm, so that she dared not step away to undress. Instead, she kept her lips on his as her hands worried at ties and fastenings, yanking cloth away from her shoulders, baring them. It was impossible. She was terrified he would speak to forbid her, or rise and throw her off. Yet her dress would not come undone! She pressed her head against his neck as she wrestled with it, so that her hair draped across his face.

  ‘I …’ he began, the word smothered instantly as she kissed him again. She could taste the blood that rimed his lips from the leech wounds, like iron in her mouth.

  With one hand she pulled her dress up and tore at the cloth beneath, so that her buttocks were revealed. A stray thought came to her mind of the learned doctor opening the door at that moment and she stifled a giggle as she put one bare leg across her husband and tried to bring about a joining beneath the mass of garments. When she dared to look at Henry, he had his eyes closed once again, but she could feel the proof that his body at least was willing. By God, she’d seen enough animals do this small thing over the years! The ludicrousness of her situation made her want to laugh as she shifted and pressed down, trying to find a position that would work.

  It happened suddenly and unexpectedly, so that they both gasped and Henry’s eyes snapped open. He seemed vague even then, as if he thought it was a dream. Margaret found herself panting as she held his head in her hands and felt his hand reach down to grasp her bare thigh. She could feel the roughness of the bandages touch her skin, making her shudder. She closed her eyes and blushed as an image of William surged into her mind. William who was so very old! She tried to banish the picture, but she could see him in the yard at Saumur, strong and laughing, his hands rough and powerful.

  With her eyes tight shut, she moved on her husband as Yolande had described in the garden of Wetherby House, sharing breath and heat and sweat
and forgetting about the doctor’s impatience behind the door. When Henry cried out, Margaret felt her body shiver in response, thin tremors of pleasure amidst the discomfort that somehow promised much more. She felt her husband rise away from the pillows, his arms and back growing hard as he held her, then going suddenly limp, so that he fell back like a dead man. He breathed shallowly as he lay there and Margaret felt warmth flood her loins.

  She rested her head on her husband’s chest until her breathing eased and she felt the soreness that was no worse than she had expected. The frantic images of William faded with vague stirrings of guilt.

  She smiled as she heard Henry begin to snore lightly and when the door opened and the doctor looked in, she did not open her eyes until he went away, not even to see his appalled expression.

  Jack Cade looked around at the men who waited on his orders. Paddy and Rob Ecclestone were there, of course, his trusted lieutenants who could hardly hide their delight at the way things were going. He’d realized early on that a mere rabble of angry farmers would have no chance at all when the sheriff of Kent sent out professional soldiers. The answer had been to train the refugees from France until they could stand and kill in a line, and march, and do as they were damn well told by those who knew.

  ‘Will someone fetch me a flagon of black, or do I have to talk dry?’ Jack said.

  He’d learned it was a good idea to get his drink early in the taverns they used each night. His men had a thirst and the barrels were always dry by the time they moved on. Every morning had them groaning and complaining about their splitting skulls, but Jack didn’t mind that. If he’d learned anything fighting in France years before, it was that Kentish men fight better with a little ale inside them — better still with a skinful.

  The widow behind the bar was not at all happy about men drinking for free. Flora kept a good house, Jack had to admit. There were clean rushes on the floor and the planks and barrels were worn smooth with years of scrubbing. It was true she was no kind of beauty, yet she had the sort of square-jawed stubbornness Jack had always liked. In happier times, he might even have considered courting her. After all, she hadn’t run, not even when two thousand men came marching up the road towards her tavern. That was Kentish, right there. Jack waited patiently while she filled a pewter cup and passed it to him to blow off the froth.