by Angus Donald
I was puzzled by King Philip’s apparent cowardice. Why, I asked Robin — at one of these brief pauses, when we were about six or seven miles north-east of Vendome near the hamlet of Freteval — would Philip bring his army all this way south to confront Richard, then run away with his tail between his legs after only a brief skirmish with the Marshal?
‘I believe he was trying to intimidate us,’ said Robin, wiping his sweating face with a linen cloth, and taking a swallow of water from a leather bag. We were all dismounted and gathered in a clearing in the forest at the side of the road, the empty thoroughfare winding on before and behind us. ‘A big battle is a very uncertain affair,’ my lord continued. ‘It should be the very last resort of any commander to commit his men to the hazards of a full-pitched conflict — it’s like rolling the dice to determine whether you live or die, not something anyone who has any other option would choose to do. I know you would prefer to believe that warfare is all about glory, valour, great deeds, and the thunder of charging horsemen, but, Alan, nobody wants to get killed or maimed, or captured and made a pauper with a crippling ransom. In war, you manoeuvre; look for advantage; try to find a situation in which you have the upper hand. And if you are wise, you avoid battle altogether, unless you are absolutely certain to win.’
‘I know all that,’ I said irritably, wiping Ghost’s sides with a damp cloth to cool him. ‘But why did Philip come all the way down here with his army, seeming to seek battle with us, and then run like a craven after one skirmish?’
‘Philip had to come down here. Richard has been winning too consistently in Maine, Touraine and Aquitaine for him to stay away. He has to keep the rebellion in the south alive — otherwise Richard will close down the southern front, having utterly destroyed the rebels, and then our victorious King would be free to turn all his forces loose on the north, on Normandy. Philip’s army coming here was a threat — and it partially worked. Richard came north to face him, leaving several castles in Aquitaine still in rebel hands. I also believe Philip hoped to trap Richard between a rock and a hard place; between a strong Vendome garrison loyal to Philip, and the French royal army itself. But the citizens of Vendome believe Richard will win, ultimately; and Richard is not easily intimidated. So when Richard did not retreat south, as Philip expected him to do, but instead decided to confront the French head-on, Philip panicked and withdrew. It was the sensible move, I think. Richard would probably have beaten him here, and Philip can’t afford a defeat. I suspect the French King will try to arrange a truce — and I think Richard may grant it him.’
‘Why would Richard agree to a truce, if we are winning?’ I said.
‘Oh, it would be in his interest, too. He needs to rebuild the castles he has captured; give his men time to rest and heal their wounds; perhaps recruit a few more knights to his side. This war will not be one giant pitched battle; it will stop and start, truce and war, a castle captured here, and lost there. We will win eventually, I believe; we will push the French back and reclaim Richard’s lands, but it will not be swift.’
I pondered Robin’s words as we mounted up and set off again, thinking what I might attempt to do if a truce were declared. But I soon drowned my thoughts in the rhythm of the chase, pounding up the dusty road at a canter with thick forest forming a cool green curtain on either side. Then we rounded a bend, and at a hand-command from Robin we all drew rein and slid to an abrupt halt, with much snorting and cursing and one beast barging into another. Ahead of us, perhaps fifty paces away, was a thin line of mounted French knights, barely a score of them, drawn up knee to knee across the road as a fragile barrier.
Clearly they had heard us coming, and what they were attempting to protect was a massive train of wagons and carts, pulled by oxen and heavy horses and stretched out along the road for almost a quarter of a mile — gigantic, lumbering wagons piled high with goods, weapons, sacks of grain, barrels of wine. Round-topped carriages rumbled along carrying women — a knight’s mistress and her maids, perhaps, or a travelling brothel, or a contingent of nuns; light donkey carts carried horse fodder, great mountains of hay packed tight under ropes but still towering ten foot in the air; strings of pack mules ambled along carrying chests of coin or bales of fine cloth, and every kind of transport imaginable filled the road ahead in a long river of beasts and men — and plunder. We had come up unexpectedly on what appeared to be the entire French royal baggage train — which was now defended by only a handful of knights.
‘God in Heaven!’ said Hanno from my right shoulder. To my left, Robin turned to me, a look of savage delight on his handsome face, like a starving peasant presented with a dripping roast on a silver platter. ‘Oh, Alan,’ he said, ‘your God — or whomever it is sitting on that cloud up there — he truly loves me! Be so good as to sound the charge!’
I was pleased to see Robin happy, though a little alarmed that he should choose this moment, just as we were to go into battle, to make a jest about Almighty God, the Lord of Hosts. Nevertheless, I unhooked the twisted horn from my pommel, put it to my lips, and gave two short blasts and then a long one; repeated twice. The signal to charge: ta-ta-taaaa, ta-ta-taaaa.
I lowered my lance, slammed my heels into Ghost’s grey sides and rocketed forward — and Robin’s entire force of more than five score loot-hungry outlaws-turned-lancers charged forward with me and poured down on to the thin line of enemy knights like an avalanche.
We swept them away in a matter of moments. I lunged at a knight directly to my front with my lance, aiming for the killing blow to his belly, but his warhorse took a sideways step at the last moment and I missed. My lance smacked into the high wooden cantle at the rear of his saddle and snapped in two. Suddenly he was on me with his sword swinging at my head. I blocked his first strike with my shield, simultaneously dropping my shattered lance and groping for Goody’s mace, which was slung from the pommel of my saddle. He hacked at me again and I caught it again on my red shield, returning his blow with a hard overhand chop with the mace, which crunched sickeningly into his left shoulder joint. The knight dropped his shield — marked, I noticed, with a strange device: a light blue cross on a white background, with a black border around it — used his spurs and made off up the road, his left arm loose and useless, and I was content to let him live. The rest of the enemy knights had either been cut down or had run from the field, except for one Frenchman who had been knocked off his horse, half-stunned, and had managed to surrender himself to a delighted Little John. A few footmen, men-at-arms, crossbowmen, and the drovers and carters were running from the wagon train in all directions, heading for the cover of the trees on either side of the road.
But Robin’s troop were oblivious to their fleeing foes; they had already begun to loot the baggage train with a gleeful lack of restraint that reminded me of a pack of wild dogs on a fresh sheep carcass. That dusty stretch of forest-hemmed road rang with the joyful shouts of men-at-arms, the crunch of axes as they knocked the locks from money chests and opened wide holes in the heads of wine barrels. Handfuls of bright coins were thrown through the air — causing a scramble wherever they landed. Blood-red wine was guzzled like water. Precious silks and gold-embroidered cloths flapped in the light breeze, the men wrapping themselves in priceless materials and parading and prancing for the amusement of their friends. Gold and silver vessels were grabbed, examined, briefly admired and then used to scoop more dark wine from the opened barrels. There were snatches of singing and bawdy jests — some men had found stores of food and were cramming choice morsels, preserved fruits, fine cheeses, pickled vegetables into their mouths; some men already seemed to be drunk. From time to time I heard a woman’s scream, and tried to close my ears. It reminded me of the last day of a raucous county fair at the end of summer, with food and wine abundant, the smell of sweat and animal dung and easy money in the air, and brightly coloured, fabulous trade goods that tugged the eye wherever you looked. Every Locksley man seemed madly happy, seeing himself rich and carefree for the rest of his days.
And that included Robin himself.
‘My lord,’ I said, ‘what about the French army?’
‘Hmm? What about it?’ My master was distracted. He suddenly bellowed: ‘I want piles here and here of all the gold and silver items, silks too — any item worth more than… oh, I don’t know, one shilling, is to be collected over there; and any bastard who steals from it will be flayed alive; I swear it. John, get them organized will you. The rest of the damned army will be here before long. We must hurry.’
‘My lord, the French.’
‘What about the damn French?’ Robin rounded on me.
‘We should be pursuing them, my lord. We have our orders: to harry them, to chase them and to stop for nothing. We must leave this wagon train until later, and keep on pressing the French.’
‘Are you mad?’ Robin rarely raised his voice in anger but his bull-bellow at my quiet words nearly lifted me off my feet. ‘Leave all this? Abandon the spoils to Mercadier’s scum? Have you taken leave of your senses?’
‘My lord, we have our orders. It is our sacred duty to the King.’ I did not care to be shouted at, and my own tone to the Earl of Locksley had become cold and formal.
Robin controlled himself: his silver eyes glittered at me dangerously. ‘Do not seek to instruct me in my duty, Sir Alan. I command this battle of men. Not you. And you will remember that. If you wish to go chasing off across country after the fleeing French — I will wish you Godspeed, otherwise you will hold your tongue — and learn to obey my orders. Do you hear me? I have had quite enough of your schoolboy morality, your endless talk of right and wrong. Of my damned duty. From now on you will be silent.’
The sensible thing to have done would have been to have held my tongue. But, of course, young and reckless as I was, I did not do that. My eyes clouded with rage, I said: ‘I, at least, am obedient to my King. I am his loyal man, even if you are not!’ And with that I turned Ghost and began to walk him up the line of the wagons, past the drunken, joyful Locksley men who were happily wallowing in their extraordinary good fortune. I came across Hanno by a huge barrel of ale: he had smashed in the top with his fighting axe and was downing huge draughts of the brown liquid from a golden, jewel-encrusted chalice.
‘Come, Hanno; we have our orders from the King,’ I said pompously. ‘We must pursue the French.’ Hanno stared at me with sheer disbelief. His stubbled jaw fell agape, exposing the yellow-grey wreckage of his teeth, the golden cup held loosely in his hand. Then he tilted his head on one side, and looked down at the ale barrel, and then at the magnificent jewelled vessel in his hands.
‘Come, Hanno, we must be quick,’ I said. A large part of me recognized my unbelievable stupidity — there was a small fortune in silver coins alone scattered about Ghost’s hooves — and yet I could not stop myself. It was utterly foolish for two men to chase after an entire army. What if we caught up with them? What then? But I was set on my course and my pride meant that I could not deviate from it.
I have never felt quite so much love for Hanno as I did in that next moment: he swilled down the last of the ale in the gorgeous cup, tossed it casually over his shoulder, as if it were no more than a gnawed old chicken bone, walked to his horse and mounted smoothly. And with that ugly old Bavarian murderer at my shoulder, I galloped up the line of the wagons and on to the empty road ahead.
After a mile or two, I began to calm down, and reflect soberly on my conversation with Robin. I had in truth behaved absurdly, like a spoiled little boy: it was a foolish burst of temper and I deeply regretted it. But there was something about the glee with which Robin and his men had ripped into that royal baggage train that set my teeth on edge. It was undoubtedly a rich prize — the personal possessions of the King of France; his treasury, all the silver he needed to fund his war against King Richard. It was a prize of staggering magnitude, and any sane man would want to partake of it. So why had I reacted the way I did? Sheer bone-headed stupidity; but it stemmed, I knew, from my relationship with Robin. I so badly wanted him to be the shining Christian knight; the preux chevalier — noble, honest, devout, courtly — and when he revealed to me the man he truly was, as tempted as any other man by the glittering lure of Mammon, I found myself reacting badly. What I needed to do, I told myself, was halt the horses, turn around and ride back to Robin and beg his pardon. And help myself to a share of the spoils. Another mile passed, and another, and I was just about to give the order to Hanno when my Bavarian friend put a hand on my arm, and we both reined in.
‘Listen,’ said Hanno. And, over the jingling of our horses’ accoutrements as we slowed to a walk, and our own heavy breathing, I heard what Hanno had made out: the pounding thuds of cantering horsemen on the road ahead. And they were coming closer.
Perhaps if we had immediately turned our horses’ heads and galloped back down the road, we might have escaped; perhaps. But it is hard for a fighting man to run without even having glimpsed his enemy. So we stayed there in the centre of the road for another twenty heartbeats — while I was rendered immobile with indecision. It was Hanno who broke the spell: ‘They are too many,’ he said. ‘We must go.’
And, at that moment, a mass of enemy cavalry, a conroi of perhaps twenty riders, came into view around a shallow bend in the road.
‘Come, Alan, we must go — now!’ said Hanno again, more urgently. The enemy knights were less than fifty paces away. They saw us, and at a gleeful shout from their leader, they began their charge.
Chapter Ten
Their horses were fresh, and ours were not. We were two men, they were a force of twenty. It was as simple as that. We ran. We put our heels into our horses’ sides and ran for our lives. But after a bare quarter of a mile at a full gallop, I knew that Ghost was tiring, and glancing over my shoulder I could see the enemy knights closing on us fast. I noticed one other strange thing too; all of the knights bore the same device as the man I had fought at the baggage train — a blue cross on a white field with a black border.
It was not the blazon of a northern French noble, of that I was reasonably certain — I was as familiar as most knights were with the great barons on either side of this conflict — but this blue cross was new to me. And yet there seemed to be so many men bearing these arms that they had to belong to a powerful man, an earl or count or even duke.
As Hanno and I pounded along that dusty road, leaning over our horses’ necks and trying to urge the maximum speed from our tired mounts, I could imagine the points of the knights’ lances almost tickling my back. I snatched a quick glance over my shoulder, and saw that the leading knight was only a few yards behind. Hanno was slightly ahead of me, and I could sense Ghost beginning to founder, his smooth galloping gait suddenly changing, the horse stumbling with exhaustion for a pace or two, and then regaining its rhythm. He was a valiant beast, my Ghost, but I knew he was near the end of his strength. We were only a mile or two from the baggage train and I realized that I was leading this pack of galloping enemy knights straight to Robin’s men. Unhorsed, scattered, every man probably as drunk as a bishop by now — our troops would be easy prey. These mail-clad killers on my tail could cut the Locksley men to shreds if they came on them unexpectedly. By leading the knights directly to Robin’s force I would be responsible for the deaths of many of my friends.
That thought was unbearable; I had to warn them. I plucked the twisted horn from where it had been bouncing on the pommel of my saddle, managed to get it to my lips without slowing Ghost’s thundering pace, and sounded it, once — twice — three times. The leading knight of the blue cross was right on top of us by now; from the corner of my eye I saw him draw his lance for a strike, and lunge forward, the needle-pointed blade licking out towards my lower back on the left-hand side. I saw the strike coming over my shoulder, and swung in the saddle and dropped my shield to take the blow. I felt a jarring smack, and looked down in horror to see that the lance had been deflected by my shield — and had plunged deep into Ghost’s pale belly.
The knight had
released the shaft of his spear, now wedged deep in my poor mount’s entrails, the shaft drooping and tangling with Ghost’s hind legs, and the next thing I knew I was sailing high in the air, over Ghost’s neck and head, and landing with a crash on my back in the ashy dust of the road.
Stunned, winded, but with, as far as I could tell, nothing broken, I lifted my head and saw that Hanno had halted his headlong flight and turned to protect me, God love him. He was engaging the leading blue cross knight with axe and sword. There was a flurry of blows, a hack, a crunch, and the knight slumped, boneless, lolling in his saddle. Hanno turned again and was shouting something at me, but in my fuddled state I could not comprehend him. He leaned down in the saddle and reached out a hand to me, urging me to rise and mount up behind him. His mouth was moving; I could see his awful teeth and the lips curling to form sounds, and yet I could make nothing of his speech. I got to my knees and reached out an arm towards him and suddenly his horse lurched a step forward, struck by a massive blow, and I saw Hanno look behind him. There were knights all around, tall shadows in the sunlight, and horses too; kicked dust swirled in the air and the shouts of angry men flew above me — and Hanno was slipping off his horse as it collapsed under him, lanced in the belly like my poor Ghost; then he was beside me, lifting me, helping me to my feet, his face concerned. A knight on horseback loomed over us, I saw the glitter of his sword raised to strike, and Hanno was pushing me on my stumbling feet under the horse’s neck. The sword whistled down inches from my shoulder — and with a sudden rush my senses came back to me fully.