Fulk nodded. All his will was dragging him down the road, after Thierry, and his excitement drowned the pain in his arm and made his voice more clipped than usual. The archers caught it; they started off before Fulk gave them an order, but he let them go.
The knights called to him, and he drew off to one side and waved them on past him. “We’ll be fighting soon—get ready. Go on.” He saw how they laughed at that, and his heart jumped. Oh, yes, fighting is what we’re made for. With Morgan beside him he waited until they passed. A horse galloping toward him from the rear of the column, a steady, rising pound of hoofs, made him look around, and he saw Roger. The other knights were already trotting off into the west. Fulk reined his horse around before Roger reached him and loped after them.
Overhead, the sky turned pink and orange and darkened to violet. Before the sun set Fulk and Roger had shouted and shoved the knights into a tight double column; they kept their horses to a short lope, one horse’s length between each, up and down the rocky slopes. Thierry’s dust trace had vanished into the darkness, and they had to follow his trail, cut deep and wide into the hillsides. The darkness closed down around them like a forest. The archers had fallen back, but the horses could not keep this pace for long, and they could catch up later.
“What do you think happened?” Roger shouted, riding up beside him. “Have they attacked yet?”
Fulk shook his head. He hadn’t seen the other dust cloud but he was sure they would have heard something.
Morgan said, “My lord, can you use a shield and a sword both?”
“No.”
They rode into the thickening darkness. The twilight was a resonant blue, strange and confusing. It was hard to see. His ears began to hurt from listening so hard, and he tried to stop, but a moment later caught himself struggling to hear. Bird calls, the sound of the wind. Somewhere a dog or a wolf howled. The road pitched down a steep slope into a well of black dark. In the cloudless sky stars were shining.
“Listen,” Roger said.
He could hear nothing. The noises of the galloping column drowned all other sound. Am I to miss all the—He sucked in his breath.
Out of the darkness ahead of them came the muffled sounds of fighting, the neighing and squealing of horses, the clank of swords, and the cries of the knights. They could see nothing but the sounds were so near, right in front of them, that the men around him drew their swords. An instant later the noise faded to a distant mutter. A trick of the wind, bringing it so close. Fulk thrust his feet deep into his stirrups and shortened his reins.
“On, on,” Roger shouted, in a voice like a young man’s.
The knights shrieked. Their horses lengthened stride, vaulting over obstacles before them only half-sensed in the dark, straight into the black glen ahead of them.
“Bruyère, Bruyère,” a voice cried, ahead of them, and the knights bellowed in answer. That was Thierry’s voice. Fulk reached down to unhook his shield from his saddle, realized he would never be able to put it on, and took his reins out of the tips of his right fingers. His horse carried him over rocks and through trees, careening down the hillside in the dark.
A shield on his arm, Morgan was riding beside him on his light mare, keeping pace with Fulk’s horse. The sounds of fighting crashed on his ears again—shrill cries and screams and the hacking of blades on metal. A horse with an empty saddle galloped up beside Roger, foam streaming from its mouth. Fulk whispered a prayer. His horse braced itself. With Morgan beside him shielding them both, he hurtled forward into the midst of the fighting.
In the dark, no one could see anything—they were fighting across a stream and up a slope, and the brush and stubby trees entangled them. They fought galloping, headed straight up the slope. No one could tell who was the friend and the enemy. A man loomed up before Fulk, headed straight for him. He saw the glint of the horse’s mad eyes and the man’s eyes behind the nosepiece of his helmet and ser himself, filled his lungs, and shouted, “Bruyère, Bruyère.” Abruptly the man before him veered off—one of his other knights. He could not see the bodies surging all around him—he heard them, he smelled them. He ran his horse into another from behind and knocked it down, and with Morgan close on his right side turned to go back.
“Keep going,” Roger shouted. “Keep going—follow me!”
Fulk aimed for his voice. His horse stumbled on something and wrenched itself up onto its feet again and stepped on something that screamed. Horsemen were racing away from them, toward Sulwick, in little packs; he saw them against the sky when they topped the hill. He needed a weapon, but he knew he could not hold a lance. A horn sounded to his left, and he felt his horse shudder at the sound and his own blood tingle at it.
“Bruyère, Bruyère, over here.”
He reined in, almost at the crest of the slope, and looked back. The moon was finally rising, and in its first light he could see masses of men riding back and forth over the slope, among the bushes. Roger, just behind Fulk, sounded his horn again, and the knights turned and rode up toward him. Across their saddles, they carried bodies, but only a few—in the confusion no one had killed very well. Fulk let out his breath; he did not see Thierry or any of Thierry’s men.
“Make a column again,” he said to Roger. “With the moon up we can see well enough.”
“Where is Thierry?” Roger said.
“Ahead of us, somewhere. They all fled when we attacked.” He turned to Morgan. “Carry my sword. “Let’s give this arm some exercise, in case the other comes out bent.”
The moon rose higher, nearly full, and they rose through its pale light toward Sulwick. After the confused fighting, the knights were excited and talkative. They kept the column tight and held their horses to an even trot. Fulk left his place in the middle of the line and rode forward, looking over the men he passed. They waved to him, smiling; they were all eager to fight again.
“My lord,” somebody shouted, up in front of him. “Send for the lord—look.”
Fulk stood in his stirrups to see. The column broke apart, up where the man had shouted, and some of them stopped, blocking the way for those behind. High shouts rose. He galloped forward, toward the milling knights, who were watching something on the ground. Their mail glinted in the moonlight, and when they wheeled aside to let him through, the moonlight glinted on the mail of the man lying there in the grass.
“Is he ours?” a knight shouted. “Where is my lord?”
“Here,” Fulk called. “Let me see.”
Another knight said, “Whoever he is, he’s dead.”
Fulk stopped his horse and dismounted. His legs were sore and cramped from so much riding. Kneeling beside the body, he turned it over. In the vague moonlight he saw fair hair, a young, white face, wild eyes staring up past him into the sky. Not stiff yet. He had just died. In the young man’s chest and side there was a great wound, the links of his chain mail driven into the flesh and blood below.
“He isn’t ours,” Fulk said. “Where’s his horse?”
Nobody had seen the horse.
“Leave him here. De Brise can bring him in the wagons, when he finds him.” If he finds him. He stood up, groaning at the ache in his leg muscles. “Come along, now, straighten out this line. Get back in line and move on. You’re holding us all up.”
They swung their horses away, and the column trotted past, each man craning his neck to see the dead boy in the grass. Fulk gathered his reins and hauled himself stiffly into his saddle.
Roger said, “Who was he?”
“Sulwick’s man.”
They moved back into the column. A little way on, Fulk turned to look back. He could not see the body, but he knew where it was. The column had left it behind, and from a copse of yew nearby a long shadow slunk down toward the dead knight.
The wolves will eat him before de Brise finds him. I should have brought him with us, or stopped to bury him. His uneasy guilt at that startled him: he realized he was tired.
There was no wind. The smells of horses and men
smothered the ordinary scents of the open fields; Fulk began to feel stale and filthy, encased in dirt like armor. Morgan was dozing in his saddle. Roger and Fulk passed a wineskin back and forth in silence.
“Look, over there,” a man shouted, in the column in front of them.
“Another,” Fulk said. He pulled his horse out of the column and galloped forward again, toward where the knights were gathering around another lump in the grass.
This lump was alive. When he reached the knights, they were laughing and holding out jugs of wine to a man who sat on the ground with his back against a tree and laughed feebly back at them. Fulk rode into their midst.
“Well, Rabel,” he said. “Are you taking your leave?”
Rabel lifted his head. “My lord, I would not, but I can’t find my comrades.”
Fulk looked around him. “Get back in line and keep moving. Bring me a spare horse.”
Reluctantly, the knights dragged their horses around and moved off. Fulk dismounted and sat down heavily beside Rabel. He still had the wineskin, and he held it out.
“No, I’ve had enough—it only makes me thirsty.” He was pressing his hand against his leg, and when he moved it, blood, black as oil, oozed down his thigh.
“What happened?” Fulk said.
“I don’t know. They attacked us. We were marching in our column and suddenly they attacked us, from all sides. We were spread out too much. We fought, I couldn’t tell who I was fighting, and another band of them attacked, and we all fled—I rode away with some of the Sulwick men, I thought they were my own.”
“The second band was mine,” Fulk said. “Why didn’t you stop and join us?”
Rabel shook his head. “He will not stop.”
“Does Thierry know where he’s going?”
The knight gave a hoarse laugh. “To Sulwick.”
“Where is Simon? Simon d’Ivry.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since sundown. They attacked us at sundown. Maybe he’s dead. He was with Thierry. William is dead, I think, and Miles.” He shut his eyes. “Leave me here. I can find my way.”
“There are wolves all through these fields. Here’s a horse.” Fulk stood and took the reins of a led horse from Roger. “Help me get him into the saddle.”
Roger dismounted, and he and Rabel spoke softly. Fulk led his horse back into the track of the knights. They were already far ahead—he could see them riding along a ridge to the west. Walking back toward Rabel, he held the horse’s bridle while Roger boosted the wounded man up onto its bare back. At the smell of blood the horse skittered nervously sideways.
“Go back the way we came,” Fulk said. “De Brise is coming with the wagons. Tell him to try to catch up with us. Don’t—”
He lifted his head, looking back along the trail, and the distant shout came again. “That’s Godric and his archers. Good. Don’t go too fast, Rabel, or you’ll kill yourself. Give them warning that you’re one of us. Roger, come on.”
“Watch out,” Rabel called. “There are Sulwick men everywhere.”
Fulk and Roger mounted, and the wounded knight started back the way they had come. In tight, neat ranks, Godric’s bowmen were jogging through the light brush down the last hillside. Roger said, “Did he tell you what happened to the vanguard?”
“The Sulwick men attacked them. Thierry’s lost control. We’ll have to gallop to catch up. Let’s go.”
Single file, they raced after the column of knights. In the moonlight the beaten track of the knights showed like a long bruise on the fields. The even rhythm of the horses’ hoofs seemed loud as thunder. They rode up onto the ridge where Fulk had seen the column riding, and the land changed from fallow fields to plowed ground, soft and ridged to catch the horses’ hoofs and trip them. Ahead, the column had stopped again.
“God of angels,” Roger said. “We could follow the trail of bodies. How far are we from Sulwick?”
“Close,” Fulk answered. He spurred his horse into a flat run the last hundred yards. The knights had seen them coming and wheeled, shouting and waving, to welcome them back. Fulk reined in hard and stopped his horse in their midst. Three dead men lay on the ground before him.
“Ours,” a knight said. “Miles of Bâle, Gilbert de Brémule, and Roger Surmelch.”
Fulk licked his lips. We should bury them. We can’t leave them here. He looked around at the knights and saw them watching him expectantly. They were sure he would do what was right. Leave them from de Brise to find. We have to bury them.
Morgan rode up beside him. “My lord, are you—”
Fulk grabbed his arm to keep him quiet. "Listen! Ahead.”
He let go of Morgan; the knights were swinging their horses toward the sound of fighting. “You and you,” Fulk said. “Bring these bodies. The rest of you shall follow me.”
He pushed forward, and they held off so that he could go to the head of the column. Ahead of them, someone was screaming, “Bruyère, Bruyère,” and the knights around Fulk suddenly shouted, “Bruyère,” and plunged forward.
“Roger,” Fulk called. “Take half and go down there.” He waved his arm at the fields at the foot of the long ridge. No sense waiting to see if Roger had heard. Morgan was beside him with his shield, holding his sheathed sword in he crook of one arm, and he reached out with his left hand and drew it awkwardly and sent his horse bolting along the crest of the ridge toward the rising sounds of fighting. With yells and shouted prayers, his army flooded down the slopes around him.
The ridge fell off suddenly into a long steep slope down to a meadow along a stream; Fulk braced himself and gave his horse its head, and the horse skidded down the slope on its hocks, bouncing pebbles and dirt along with it. In the meadow, a great ring of knights was charging a knot of men backed up against the stream’s edge. Those were Thierry’s men, that knot. He saw Thierry among them, waving his sword over this head. The Sulwick knights charged in, and the two groups of horsemen merged into a single black clump of bodies. “God is just!”
The Sulwick men shouted that. Fulk was holding his sword and his reins both in this left hand, the heavy sword braced on his thigh. He shouted, “Bruyère, Bruyère, follow me.” He felt his horse shift its balance, reaching flat ground, and ahead of him, the Sulwick men peeled away from the fighting, warned.
“Bruyère,” Thierry’s men cried. There were outnumbered; Thierry had less than half the men he had started with. They threw themselves on the Sulwick men, and the knights behind Fulk hit the level ground and charged, roaring. The neighing of the horses and the clash of metal swelled into a din so loud Fulk could hear nothing. Beside him, Morgan kept his mare shoulder to shoulder with Fulk’s bay, his shield raised to cover them both. Fulk headed toward the nearest group of Sulwick men and dropped his reins.
Two knights leaped forward to meet him. “God is just!”
One headed for Morgan and the other for him, and he swerved his horse hard to the right. The quick turn caught him in the side and felled him. He looked around behind him and pressed his leg to the horse’s side, and this time the big bay turned, and Morgan appeared on Fulk’s right, white-faced behind the kite shape of the shield.
“Fall back,” someone was screaming, close by. “Fall back, they are by the river, fall back!”
“On,” Fulk cried; his throat was caked with dust, and he croaked, his voice no stronger than an old woman’s. “On, on.” There was a knight behind Morgan, but he was answering the order to fall back, wheeling toward the river, where Roger and his men were riding at a gallop to cut him off. All the knights around Fulk were turning toward the river. They were getting away. He spurred his horse, calling to his men, his voice pleading. Morgan could not keep up and the bay horse would not slow. He chased a knight on a cream-colored horse; the knight reined down to let him draw even, and they hacked and clubbed at each other, side by side, while the horses ran blindly over the meadow.
The knight on the cream-colored horse screamed, “God is just!” and struck at Fulk’s hea
d. The weight of the sword was dragging Fulk’s arm down; he could barely lift it, and every great blow hurt his arm to the shoulder. The bay was too wild to control with his legs. He felt sick to his stomach. He could see nothing but flashes of light. Abruptly the blows ended. His legs were cold. His horse slowed and stopped, and he bent over its neck and retched painfully.
“Here,” Morgan said. “Let me have it. Let me have it, my lord.”
Fulk loosened his fingers so that Morgan could take the sword from him, and with that hand pushed himself upright. His eyes cleared; the air felt wonderfully cool. His horse was standing to its belly in the rushing waters of the stream.
“You murderous man,” Thierry said calmly. “Did you think you could run them down by yourself?”
“I thought I would have from help from you.”
“You got ahead of us,” Roger said. “If you hadn’t stopped you would have ridden off with them.”
Fulk shook his head. Morgan was washing the shoulders of his horse. “They’ll go straight to Sulwick and we’ll have to fight them there.” He backed his horse out of the stream.
“How far is Sulwick?” Thierry said. He looked as strong and cheerful as ever. Fulk’s stomach knotted itself into a huge cramp.
“I’ll show you. Where are your men?”
Thierry said, “They attacked us all night long, we’ve been fighting since—”
“Where are the knights I gave you?” Fulk looked at Simon, behind Thierry. “Where are they?”
“Scattered,” Simon said. He had a lump on his jaw, and his red hair had been plastered down by his helmet, which he held in the crook of his arm. “I don’t think many are dead.”
“Miles is dead,” Fulk said. “We passed him, coming here. What happened? Thierry, which of them disobeyed you?”
“We obeyed him.” Simon leaned forward.
“How did you lose so many?” Fulk said. “Even at night—”
“They attacked us constantly,” Thierry said. “I tell you, there was nothing I could have done—”
“You gave them no chance—why didn’t you keep them together?”
THE EARL (A HAMMER FOR PRINCES) Page 14