by Wayne Grant
“Five more blows,” he said. He did not need to finish the thought.
Declan moved forward and poked his head in the crack. Coming face to face with a French sapper, he hurled a Gaelic curse at the startled man. In a panic, the sapper lurched backwards, throwing the rhythm of the ram off for a moment. The Irishman stepped away from the crack, having seen what he needed to. There were more than sappers inside the gatehouse. There were scores of infantry, waiting for the gate to collapse. The ram slammed into the doors again and the crack widened.
“Make ready!” Declan roared.
***
Roland parried a sword slash from the man on the ladder to his front. For a brief instant the two men’s eyes locked. The Frenchman raised his arm for another slash and Roland lunged forward, driving his short sword in under his chin His lunge dispatched one enemy and saved him from another as he felt a spearpoint rasp along the chain mail covering his back. He whirled to see a man vault over the battlement and land on the wall walk.
Before the Frenchman could raise his spear again, Roland grasped him by the jerkin and sent him tumbling headfirst into the courtyard below. The glint of sunlight on steel caught the corner of his eye and he dodged a well-placed thrust from another attacker. In the next heartbeat, Jamie Finch brought his sword down, severing the Frenchman’s sword arm at the wrist. The man sank down holding his bleeding wound and moaning.
A warning from Finch caused Roland to turn just as a Frenchman’s head appeared above the battlements next to him. He laid a blow to the man’s temple with the hilt of his sword, sending him tumbling backwards onto the men beneath him. Two lost their grip and followed the first into the moat. As they fell, Roland grasped the top rung of the ladder and summoned Finch to his side.
“Push!” he yelled. With the weight of three men gone from the top rungs, the ladder yielded and slid off to the right, where it struck men climbing the next ladder ten feet away, peeling them off their perches as cleanly as scraping scales from a fish.
Roland stepped back, breathing hard. Down the line he saw that his men were holding the wall. Only a few of the enemy had managed to make it over the battlements and on to the wall walk and these had been quickly dispatched by the Invalids. But his own men had taken losses as well. A dozen bodies lay along the top of the wall and they were not all French.
He turned back to face the next men coming up the ladders.
***
The sun was sinking low on the western horizon as the English heavy cavalry reached the high ground overlooking the valley of the Andelle A scout rode up on a lathered horse and reined in sharply before the King.
“The French hold the bridge a mile ahead, your grace,” he reported breathlessly.
Richard’s hand balled into a fist.
“God’s breath!” he cursed. He’d led his men relentlessly south since morning and now, when Les Andelys was no more than an hour away, the French were preparing to thwart him.
“You and your men, search out a ford,” he ordered, then kicked his horse back into a trot. The tired column choking the road behind him followed. As they reached the valley floor, heavy forest gave way to open fields covered with the stubble of the recent harvest. Across the flat expanse of farmland, the force of French cavalry could be seen, waiting on the far side of the arched stone bridge.
“Not many,” the King said.
Marshall saw the French at the bridge and his eyes followed the road behind them up to the bluffs on the far side of the valley. He leaned over and called back to Richard.
“May be more up there,” he said, pointing to the ridge. The lay of the land gave the Earl an uneasy feeling. It was in just such a valley near Towcester where he’d routed John’s mercenaries as they marched on London. If the French had more men on the high ground, it would be a long afternoon.
The King seemed untroubled by the possibility of more French on the high ground and spurred his great warhorse straight at the bridge. Marshall did the same and the two greatest warriors in Christendom bore down on de Dammartin’s men at a full gallop. Behind them, Earl Ranulf and the rest of the English cavalry thundered down the road.
***
On the sixth blow from the ram, one of the beams bracing up the heavy oak doors of the bastion gate splintered. For a moment, the right hand door, its buttress now gone, did not move. Then, like a great tree felled in the forest, it groaned and gave way falling backwards into the bailey with a deafening crash. A great cheer went up from the French sappers as they hauled their ram back out of the gate arch.
Across their makeshift bridge, hundreds of French infantry, held back from the assault on the walls, were ordered forward. On the wall above, Roland heard the door give way and the roar from the French. Across the moat he saw rank after rank of infantry pressing forward onto the bridge. He grabbed Finch by the arm.
“Jamie, with me!” he shouted above the din of battle and ran along the wall walk toward the stone steps leading to the courtyard. Sir John Blackthorne had just run his long blade through a man trying to swing his leg over the battlement when Roland reached him.
“Sir John, you command the wall!” he ordered as he ran past. He’d reached the top of the steps with Finch on his heels when the first wave of French infantry swarmed through the opening in the gate.
***
Twenty Invalids formed a shield wall two deep across the narrow opening left by the toppled door as the French attack came barrelling through the archway. The twenty-first of their number stood alone five paces in front of the shield wall. He carried no shield, only a two-handed axe. He’d insisted that he be given room to employ it. Now Seamus Murdo, his scarred face alight with battle fury, took on the first men through the opening, his axe sweeping in long deadly arcs as the big Scotsman cut down the French, like wheat before the scythe.
Even brave men do not go heedlessly to their death and as Murdo cleaved helmets asunder in the middle of the archway, the brave men in the front ranks of the French assault began to edge away to the right and left of the big man. Like a stream finding its way around a massive boulder, the attackers swept around the giant with the deadly axe. The Scotsman could not stop the torrent, but his presence had sapped the initial charge of its momentum.
The French who made it past Murdo charged at the shield wall in twos and threes. These piecemeal attacks made little impression on the solid wall of shields. At the centre of the line, Declan kept up a running commentary on the performance of the attackers.
“They’re not Dub Gaill, are they lads?” he shouted gleefully above the din of steel on steel.
“Nay!” a man in the line called back as he fended off a battle axe, “but there’s a lot more of ‘em!”
Declan was about to reply when he saw Murdo take a crossbow bolt in his shoulder. It seemed to enrage the big man, who yanked it out and waded into the onrushing stream of French attackers.
“Seamus! Back!” he screamed, but the big Scot ignored him as he bulled his way forward. No longer silently wielding his axe, Murdo howled like a wounded beast. Men shrank back from him as he fought his way into the gate’s archway. Declan could not let the man face the French assault alone.
“Invalids, forward!” he screamed and the shield wall edged forward, a step at a time, trying to close up on the wounded Scotsman. Ahead of them, Murdo raised his axe like an executioner, but it did not fall. The big man stiffened as another quarrel struck him in the thigh. He tried to put weight on the limb, but it buckled under him. A cheer rose from the French as they saw the giant topple to the ground, but their relief was short-lived as the Invalids, seeing Murdo fall, abandoned their careful advance and counter-charged, fighting desperately to reach their fallen comrade.
The attackers reeled further back into the archway as the English defenders hacked their way forward. When they reached the Scotsman, men grasped the giant by the shoulders and dragged him back through the gate arch and into the courtyard. He was still alive, but bleeding badly. Roland arrived in time t
o see him laid gently down as the Invalids reformed their shield wall.
He looked up at the wall.
“Brother Cyril!” he shouted. Somehow the little monk heard his name called above the din atop the wall. He turned and saw the man laid out behind the shield wall. There was no mistaking who it was. He ran for the stone steps and raced over to minister to the wounded man. When he reached Murdo he saw the shaft imbedded deep in the man’s thigh and considerable blood seeping through his mail coat. This would be a grave test of the little monk’s limited medical skills.
“Seamus, ye damned fool,” he wailed. “What have ye done?”
Murdo opened his eyes and grimaced with the pain.
“My duty,” he croaked.
Cyril rolled Seamus on his side to undo the bindings of his mail coat. He was no surgeon, but he hoped God would guide his hands so that he could stop the bleeding until a leech could be found. Beyond the shield wall that had reformed to his front, the French were gathering for another attack on the gate. As their war cries echoed through the gate arch, Cyril lifted his eyes to heaven. He would not pray for victory, for he was convinced that God would be offended by such a plea, but he could beg for deliverance for Murdo and all the Invalids.
“Save us, Lord,” he whispered to the Almighty.
***
The charge of the English heavy cavalry rumbled over the bridge and struck the French knights like a hammer blow. King Richard, heedless of his own safety, led the charge. As his great warhorse ploughed into the enemy, Richard rose up in his stirrups, slashing viciously to the left and right with his broadsword. Close beside him, William Marshall matched the King stroke for stroke. Any man near the bridge who might have questioned the stories of Richard’s ferocity or Marshall’s skill at arms questioned no more. The two fought with a savagery that drove all before them. Behind them four hundred men of the English cavalry pressed forward, eager to display their valour before the King.
For their part, the French fought desperately to hold the bridge over the River Andelle. Their own reputations sullied by their failure at Les Andelys, the French knights did not shrink from crossing swords with the Lionheart and Marshall. For a time, they kept the English in check, but then a rider galloped up from the ford to warn that the enemy had found the downstream crossing. The Vicomte de Dammartin shouted a command and the French knights, those that had survived the English onslaught, turned and fled up the hill.
Marshall sensed what they would find at the top of that ridge, but knew the King’s blood was up. There could be no stopping the man at such a time and the English knights urged their tired mounts up the hill behind their monarch. Near the top, Marshall saw the fleeing French rein in and whirl their mounts around, blocking the road once more. More riders now appeared along the ridgeline and his heart sank.
They would never reach Les Andelys before nightfall.
***
The French attack on the south bastion was relentless and while their casualties were appalling, they continued to press forward, surging up the scaling ladders and through the gate arch. The eyes of their King were on them. On both sides, men hacked and slashed and cursed and clawed at each other as the sun fell below the western curtain wall.
Inevitably the attackers’ sheer weight of numbers began to tell. As the French charged again and again into the solid line of shields, the English line gave ground an inch at a time. The Invalids were driven back from the narrow archway into the open space of the courtyard, forcing them to extend their thin line to either side. From atop the curtain wall, Sir John Blackthorne saw the thick mass of men pushing across the bridge and did not wait for orders.
“Invalids!” he cried. “Rally to the shield wall!”
The men on the wall walk delivered parting blows to any Frenchman near the top of a ladder, then turned and followed the one-armed knight down the steps to join the fight below. The new arrivals thickened the English lines and the slow advance of the French stalled half way across the open square. On the abandoned wall, the French infantry were beginning to spill over the parapet and gather on the wall walk. Some with crossbows, began to seek out targets below. More men from the Invalid Company and an appalling number of Blakemore’s craftsmen fell to the hail of bolts.
As the French gathered for another rush, Declan turned to Roland.
“Next time we stay in England,” he said.
“Next time,” Roland agreed as the French surged forward once more.
An Unexpected Quarter
Baldwin of Bethune, Count of Aumale, could see a thin column of smoke rising from Château Gaillard as he gazed across the river. He’d reined in his horse on the low bluff overlooking the Seine as his hastily-assembled army marched by on the road below. He could not see what was happening on the backside of the fortress on the bluffs across the river, but the thick column of French troops gathered on the switchback road gave him hope that the castle had not yet fallen. There was a savage gleam in his eyes as he looked down on the unsuspecting French.
Six weeks ago he’d been dragged in chains from his own fortress of Aumale. He’d been paraded before the French King and spat upon by Philip’s mercenaries on that dark day. He’d been forced to look on as many of his loyal men were butchered while Philip’s courtiers jeered him. For three weeks thereafter, he’d languished in a damp cell in Paris, until the King of England bought him back from the King of France.
Baldwin never doubted that Richard would ransom him. Together they’d shared the perils and the bitter disappointment of the Third Crusade and together they’d been imprisoned by the Duke of Vienna as they sought desperately to find a way back to England from the Holy Land. Between Richard the Lionheart and Baldwin of Bethune there was an unbreakable bond.
On his release from captivity, Baldwin had been eager to strike a blow at the men who had so humbled him, but when he’d greeted the King, Richard had burst into tears at the sight of him. He’d begged Baldwin’s forgiveness for failing to save Aumale, but turned a deaf ear when the Count had requested a command for the coming campaign in the north. They’d argued heatedly, but Richard was unmoved.
He ordered Baldwin to Evreux to take up the post of castellan, an important responsibility, but one very likely to keep him out of harm’s way. The assignment had rankled him, but ever-loyal to Richard, he’d reluctantly accepted the post. For a week he’d inspected his new fortress, noting its weaknesses and had drilled the rather complacent garrison troops.
Then the Queen had sent for him.
He’d paid a courtesy call on the aging Queen as soon as he learned she was ensconced at the Abbey of Saint Taurinus and had not expected to hear more from her. Eleanor of Aquitaine came and went as she pleased, often unannounced. But then, two days later, he’d been summoned back to the Abbey.
The Queen was sitting in the cloister enjoying the mild morning air when he arrived. Beside her was a young man, hardly more than a boy, who looked dead on his feet. Baldwin bowed to the Queen.
“Your grace, I’m honoured to see you again,” he said.
Eleanor waved an impatient hand at him and turned to the boy.
“Tell him what you saw, André.”
The boy told what he’d seen on the river road east of Gaillon. The lad’s description was precise and detailed and Baldwin asked few questions. When André finished his report he looked to the Queen.
“What do you make of that, my lord?” she asked.
“He’s going to take Château Gaillard,” Baldwin answered without hesitation.
“Exactly my conclusion.”
“It would break the King’s heart,” Baldwin said.
“It would,” the old Queen said. “and Philip knows that. He also knows that taking Gaillard opens the door to Rouen and against that, my son’s broken heart is of little consequence.”
“We lose Rouen and we lose Normandy,” Baldwin said.
“And with Normandy gone, the rest will follow. I cannot allow that, Sir Baldwin.”
Ba
ldwin nodded.
“What are your orders, your grace?”
***
He stripped the garrison of Evreux bare and marched out of the city within two hours of his meeting with the Queen. Eleanor dispatched young André Noyer on a fast horse bearing a message for the castellan of the English garrison at Vaudreuil. It ordered him to march with his entire force to join Baldwin on the road to Les Andelys. Between the two garrisons, Baldwin commanded five hundred men, eighty of them mounted. They were not the most seasoned soldiers in the English army, but for his purposes they would do.
André Noyer had made a careful count, and the French had come to take Château Gaillard with three times Baldwin’s numbers, but now, as the Count gazed across the river, he could see that Philip’s troops had not had an easy time of it. The southern span of the bridge had clearly been damaged by fire and hastily repaired. And along the near bank, men were piling up dead bodies in a heap for later identification, should any of the fallen be men of note. Sir Baldwin turned to the rider beside him.
“Unfurl my banner,” he ordered and the rider slipped the cloth casing from the rolled up flag at the end of a long staff. He shook it out and raised it overhead. A breeze off the river caught the folds of the banner, the blue and orange stripes of the Lords of Bethune rippling in the late afternoon sunshine. Baldwin looked down once more on the unwary French and smiled. Whoever had defended the town had evened the odds for him, but more importantly, the French did not know he was in their rear.
They were about to find out.
***
Inside the southern bastion of the castle, the Invalids and Blakemore’s men were being forced back into one corner of the courtyard as French infantry continued to surge through the gate. The sun was sinking fast and, in the shield wall, mail coats hung heavy on arms weary from striking hundreds of blows. As the French pressed forward, the Invalids tried to find purchase on the cobbles of the courtyard, grunting and swearing as they pushed back against the onrushing tide of enemy infantry. The French fought over heaps of their own dead and no man who fought with the English that day doubted the courage of their foe.