Condottiere: A Knight's Tale
Page 25
Giancarlo Boninsegna came out from behind his cedarwood desk and walked forward to meet him, both hands extended in greeting. ‘Welcome, John. It is good to have you back safe with us once more.’
‘It is good to be back, Giancarlo. Many are the times I have longed for civilised company and a warm bed.’
Surveying Hawkwood’s haggard face, Boninsegna realised that Florence’s supreme commander was at the end of his tether. His eyes had dulled and his movements were perceptibly slower. How old was he now? Sixty-three? Sixty-five, more like. And looking his age.
‘You look well, John.’
Hawkwood smiled. ‘As do you, Giancarlo.’
‘In faith, neither of us is in the first flush of youth.’
‘My creaking bones remind me constantly.’
Hawkwood drew up a chair and settled down to report in detail on his movements over the previous several months.
‘Inconclusive, then?’ asked Boninsegna when he had finished.
‘Inconclusive,’ replied Hawkwood. ‘The word is well chosen.’
The two men sat in silence, neither wishing to voice the unspoken thought that lay between them.
It was Hawkwood who eventually spoke first. ‘My men must rest, Giancarlo. They have spent too many years in the field. As for myself—’
‘As for yourself, you also deserve rest. You have served us well, John Hawkwood. Florence owes you and your Company a great debt.’
‘It is time, I fear, to collect on that debt,’ said Hawkwood.
Boninsegna nodded. ‘Then pray make your wishes known.’
‘I fear my value to you and Florence is no longer at the head of my Company but, instead, here in the city. I can command and direct, but my fighting days are at an end.’
Boninsegna had long since come to the same conclusion. ‘Your value to Florence – and to myself – remains beyond measure, John. That your name is spoken in the same breath as that of Florence is more than value enough. You have kept faith with your Company and with us. And you are right: we must now seek to use you more wisely. You are an asset we cherish and can ill afford to lose.’
Hawkwood was surprised that Boninsegna had so readily accepted the situation. ‘Then I shall without delay assume full responsibility for the disposition and deployment of the armies of Florence.’
‘Agreed. You have commanded from the front long enough. The moment has come for you to command from the rear.’
‘An unaccustomed privilege,’ said an unsmiling Hawkwood.
‘The privilege of rank, John – and a privilege you have undoubtedly earned.’
The two men shook hands again as Hawkwood stood to take his leave. There was a new lightness in his step as he mounted his palfrey and urged it towards San Donato where Donnina would be waiting.
Waiting there with their son, John, and a new-born daughter.
San Donato
8 May 1385
‘John!’
Hawkwood took her in his arms and stroked her hair, reassuring her, as he had so often done in the past, that he had indeed returned safely.
Donnina’s delight at his homecoming was doubled by the news that he had reached an accommodation with Boninsegna. She had waited so many years for the moment when her husband would be relieved of day-to-day field command and removed from harm’s way. Like the wives of soldiers everywhere, she had lived in a state of almost permanent anxiety and insecurity, uncertain whether her husband would return unscathed from the wars.
Each homecoming had been bliss, each departure a cruel torture.
Hawkwood revelled in their property in San Donato. It was modest by comparison with some of the lands he had been gifted elsewhere over the years, for the most part as payment in lieu of services rendered. Those that lay to the south – and closer to Rome – were veritable strongholds in their own right, and the monies he disbursed on their upkeep were considerable. He could only hope that one day, when these futile papal wars were over, he could divest himself of them at a profit. Until then, they were little more than a drain on his purse.
No matter. He would always have San Donato, a beautiful domain set amid the verdant hills of Tuscany. This was home; and he was never happier than when he was able to spend a week or so here, riding to the hunt, playing childhood games with his son and spending quiet evenings with Donnina.
His second daughter – Catherine – had been born a few weeks previously. Hawkwood felt a twinge of shame that he had not even known Donnina was once again with child. He vowed he would never again spend months in the field away from her side. Catherine’s eyes were those of her mother, her wisps of chestnut hair a foretaste of Donnina’s proud mane. He held the infant in his arms and mouthed the absurd terms of endearment that a doting father reserves for his offspring.
These peaceful pursuits were interrupted by the arrival of a messenger from Florence, bringing news of Bernabò Visconti’s fate at the hands of his nephew. Donnina was beside herself with worry, convinced it would be only a matter of days before Gian Galeazzo conveniently and clandestinely arranged for her father’s death. Hawkwood did his best to console her – ‘We shall negotiate for his return,’ he said repeatedly – but Donnina was not convinced.
She also had some difficulty concealing her disappointment that her husband, the celebrated condottiere John Hawkwood, had not immediately volunteered to ride to her father’s rescue.
‘I have never meddled in your affairs,’ she said, ‘but I ask this of you: that you do whatever lies in your power to secure my father’s release.’
‘We shall negotiate, have no fear. Your father is in no immediate danger. Gian Galeazzo will not put his reputation at risk by sanctioning the murder of his own uncle. Be patient. We shall negotiate. All will be well.’
Donnina feared otherwise. On seizing her father, Gian Galeazzo had promptly declared her father’s belated marriage null and void, thereby declaring Donnina illegitimate again. She had little doubt that Gian Galeazzo’s next move would be to confiscate her mother’s property, effectively disinheriting Donnina and, in the process, seizing that which would have one day devolved to her and her husband.
To Donnina’s mind, Hawkwood should act at once. ‘You must do something,’ she said over and over again.
Hawkwood continued to reassure her as best he could, but he knew there was precious little he could do. He could not place so personal a matter before his professional obligations to Florence. What was more, he did not have the men at his own immediate disposal to contemplate a full-scale campaign against Gian Galeazzo. Besides, Florence and Milan were still parties to an alliance. To Donnina’s dismay, he felt his hands were tied, for the moment at least.
‘Gian Galeazzo will be brought to heel, on that you have my word,’ he told Donnina.
How and when remained an open question.
Parthian Shots
There comes at last an end to every deed
Near Verona
10 March 1386
A disconsolate Dino Scarlatti perched on a grassy knoll in the hills overlooking the graceful arc of the Adige river that fringed Verona.
His goats were gone. All nine of them. He had tried to stop the soldiers, but they had carelessly shrugged aside the twelve-year-old’s frantic efforts to protect his tiny herd. A burly sergeant-at-arms had laughed and given him a playful slap. Dino’s ears were still ringing from the blow. The soldiers had roped his goats together and led them off down the hill. Dino put his head in his hands and wept bitter tears of frustration.
On the plain below, the armies of Padua and Florence were encamped before Verona. They had been there for many weeks and Dino had tended his goats and watched as sporadic attempts were made to breach the city walls and batter down the Arco dei Gravi portal. Each assault had been beaten back. There had been no attacks for several days now.
Dino wiped his reddened eyes, blew his nose on his sleeve and gathered up his few possessions. There was nothing for it: he would have to go home and face his father’s wrath.
Dino’s could only wish his precious goats had done likewise.
Verona
10 March 1386
Hawkwood was in his element once more. He was in the field again. One last time, perhaps?
Siege warfare had never been to his taste. He had always thrived on the quick and decisive thrust of pitched battle rather than the protracted and wearisome process of attrition. It was clear to him that the Veronesi might contrive to hold out indefinitely behind their towering ramparts; if not indefinitely, certainly until such time as a relieving force could arrive from Venice. Hawkwood’s supplies were running dangerously low, and the seven-thousand-strong force of Paduans and Florentines under his command had been forced to forage daily through a surrounding countryside already stripped bare of crops and victuals.
Francesco de Carrara, Lord of Padua, had petitioned his Florentine allies to release Hawkwood temporarily into his service in order to prosecute Padua’s drawn-out conflict against Verona and its powerful ally to the east, the city state of Venice. Florence had been more than willing to oblige, not least since the papal wars were at a stalemate. Besides, Florence had demanded and received generous payment for Hawkwood’s secondment and the deployment of the remnants of Hawkwood’s White Company together with a large contingent of battle-hardened Florentine troops. Francesco de Carrara had duly appointed Hawkwood to sole command of his armies, issuing unequivocal orders that a first priority was to engage and defeat the Veronese.
At whatever cost.
Hawkwood decided it was time to make his move. He ordered his men to strike camp and to withdraw in ragged formation as far as their supply train to the rear. He was certain that, once the siege had been lifted, the Veronese would rush out to pursue him, eager to inflict such losses as they could on an enemy in evident disarray. He would feign retreat, then attack from a defensive posture: like the Parthians of old, who dispersed on horseback only to turn in the saddle and empty their quivers into the ranks of their pursuers. The ruse had served Hawkwood well in similar – albeit lesser – confrontations and it would serve him well again, of that he was convinced. It was only a question of scale.
The retreating Paduan army had barely crested the hill when the gates of Verona creaked open and the Veronese flooded out. Hawkwood’s stratagem had worked.
He force-marched his men back as far as their supply lines, then ordered them to eat and rest. Hawkwood had scouted the terrain and found himself on familiar ground – in every sense. To his front lay a narrow irrigation ditch, to his right a broad river, to his left a large swathe of marshland. He decided he would deploy his army into two contingents of dismounted men-at-arms, with himself at the head of two detachments of mounted cavalry held in reserve at the rear.
They would wait.
Castagnaro
11 March 1386
Try as they might, the Veronese forces could not match the pace set by Hawkwood’s Englishmen, Paduans and Florentines. The Veronese captain-general, Giovanni dei Ordelaffi, urged his men on and they responded as best they could. Anxious not to exhaust them, however, he ordered them to make camp for the night. He suspected that Hawkwood would retreat only as far as his supply lines and then, and only then, make a stand.
It was not until late the next morning that Ordelaffi and his Veronese finally breasted the rise and looked down on the small village of Castagnaro. By noon, Ordelaffi had formed his troops into provisional battle order. He had noted that the majority of Hawkwood’s forces were deployed to protect the area beyond what appeared to be a long irrigation ditch. Ordelaffi at once recognised this as a crucial position which, if taken, would leave Hawkwood with no line of retreat. The Paduans would be forced to submit.
There was a problem, however. The ditch was not wide, but it was wide enough to prevent the Veronese leaping it on foot and in full armour. Ordelaffi ordered his men to collect faggots and reeds and bind them into fascines, bundles which could be thrown into the ditch to provide his men-at-arms with some semblance of a foothold.
By late afternoon, the fascines were ready. A driving rain now swept over the two armies and the earth underfoot rapidly churned into a muddy quagmire. Ordelaffi ordered his cavalry to dismount. They would fight on foot.
Hawkwood’s pikemen held station on the Paduan side of the ditch, their long spears at the ready as the Veronese advanced and hurled fascine after fascine into the ditch at regular intervals. A first wave of Veronese swept forward, struggling to keep their balance on the improvised bridges. Three paces on, they came within range of the pikemen, who jabbed their lances into the faces and breastplates of the attackers. The first wave checked momentarily, but those behind pressed forward, stepping on and over the bodies of their dead and wounded comrades.
Hawkwood’s defensive line was not penetrated, but it inched back as more and more Veronese crossed the ditch. An impatient Ordelaffi concluded that his men were gaining the upper hand and at once committed additional troops to reinforce the attack.
Hawkwood waited.
The Paduans were gradually forced back as more and more Veronese triumphantly crossed the ditch and pressed home their dearly bought advantage.
Hawkwood waited.
A section of the Paduan line gave way and a number of Veronese broke through, swinging round to attack from the rear. They were quickly despatched by Hawkwood’s second line of defenders, but the first line was now yielding ground rapidly.
And still Hawkwood waited.
Giovanni dei Ordelaffi’s pulse raced. The scent of victory was in his nostrils. He decided to delay no longer. He ordered the full force of his reserves into the fray.
This was the moment Hawkwood had been waiting for. At his signal, the first detachment of cavalry veered right towards the river and plunged in where it was at its shallowest. Within seconds, they were on the far bank, wheeling left to attack the enemy from the flank and rear. A second detachment galloped straight downhill. The pikemen opened ranks to allow them through and they ploughed into the Veronese footsoldiers who had crossed the ditch.
The cavalrymen were also skilled with short bows. They loosed shaft after shaft into the Veronese ranks. Ordelaffi saw too late that he had been caught in a pincer movement. Hawkwood’s bowmen, anxious not to hit their own men, dismounted, cast their bows aside, drew their swords and charged. The Veronese were trapped. They fought back in desperation, but their position was hopeless. They fell in droves.
Ordelaffi attempted to respond by ordering his immediate bodyguard to essay a counter-attack. It came to nothing. The battle was already lost. Ordelaffi and his men were soon surrounded and compelled to lay down their arms.
Victory was total.
The loyal remnants of Hawkwood’s White Company had, with the Paduans and Florentines, defeated a Veronese army which far outnumbered them. An initial count established that over four thousand Veronese had perished. A further five thousand had been taken prisoner; together with an invaluable cache of weapons and equipment.
Hawkwood was elated.
He had not felt like this since the battle of Poitiers those many, many years ago.
Nemesis
A short conclusion, yet it shall stand
Florence
17 March 1394
In Florence and throughout Italy, Hawkwood’s crushing victory at Castagnaro was widely regarded as the crowning achievement in a military career which now stretched back over five decades. There were those who disagreed, arguing that his command of the Florentine army during the campaign against Gian Galeazzo’s Milan in 1390 and 1391 was even more remarkable – not least by virtue of the skill he had shown in coordinating the safe retreat of Florentine forces from the Adige in
1391.
Hawkwood himself did not share the latter view. In his eyes, the struggle against Milan had been at best inconclusive. Neither side could justifiably claim to have won outright victory although, admittedly, it had been Gian Galeazzo who eventually sued for peace and paid an exorbitant sum in restitution.
It grieved Hawkwood that there had been no such settlement for Donnina. Her grievance against Gian Galeazzo had not been resolved and, to this day, she was convinced that Gian Galeazzo had not only usurped her father’s rule but had been directly responsible for his death in December 1385, allegedly of poisoning. In truth, Hawkwood now harboured a measure of respect for Gian Galeazzo, who had emerged on the whole as a capable and forward-thinking ruler of Milan.
He never dared confide as much to Donnina.
The most recent peace concluded between Florence and Milan had effectively marked the end of Hawkwood’s stewardship of the former’s armies. His standing in the Florentine community had changed beyond all measure. He was no longer a hireling but a statesman and diplomat in his own right. Hawkwood particularly relished the fact that none other than King Richard II of England had prevailed upon him to act as his ad hoc plenipotentiary in negotiations with Italy’s city states.
Times had most certainly changed.
Now, in his seventy-fourth year, John Hawkwood was at last a man of leisure. He and Donnina spent most of their time at San Donato, where he delighted in the company of his son and three daughters. He devoted his leisure time to the arts, reading and re-reading Dante, belatedly developing a genuine taste for Petrarch, marvelling at the timeless frescoes of Giotto di Bondone in the Guigni Chapel in Santa Croce, and walking in the architectural splendour of his adoptive Florence.
There was much in his life that he regretted, but many memories remained to be cherished. He was at peace now, with the world and with himself. At one point, his financial problems had weighed heavily but, through the good offices of his friend Giancarlo Boninsegna, he had weathered the storm: unwanted properties had been disposed of and annuities arranged. He was emotionally and financially secure.