Hawkwood

by Jack Ludlow

  Observing the army of Louis of Anjou he realised they were preparing to besiege the city but as yet in a state of disorder, so without consulting Durazzo he sortied out as the head of the White Company and launched a furious attack. Not for the first time in his career surprise was his ally. The shocked French broke ranks and fled but not before several of their leading nobles had been captured.

  Louis was then faced with the whole of Durazzo’s at times formidable army, superior in quality if not in numbers and forced away from Naples. The Frenchman was chased into southern Calabria where his army, short on food and losing men and horses to the climate and disease, ceased to be a force able to give battle. Was it despair that took Louis to meet his maker or illness? It mattered not: without him the men he had led now sought nothing more than a way to get home.

  His duty to Florence and Urban completed, and with no great regard for what he had seen of Charles of Durazzo, Hawkwood was free to search for other opportunities. Several bands had begun to coalesce into a huge Company of the Rose, which he joined, and the lands of Campania and the Abruzzi were exposed to the kind of ravages that had so afflicted Tuscany.

  As they went on their plundering sprees, John Hawkwood and his fellow captains heard of the trials and tribulations of Urban VI, for there were no triumphs. Durazzo naturally declined to meet his bargain with the papal nephew and Urban decided he alone could chastise his one-time protégé. Coming south to Naples all he achieved was to create a foul stew of his own making. Reckoned now to be completely mad, he ended up torturing and killing six of his own cardinals for a supposed conspiracy to drag him back to Rome and burn him as a heretic.

  He also tried to make war on Durazzo, who besieged him so closely that Urban had to be smuggled out of his stronghold to escape back to Genoa by sea. It was there that Hawkwood met him for the very first time, a wild-eyed zealot who saw conspiracy and deceit everywhere while at times frothing enough at the mouth to bite his own lips till they bled.

  Yet it was essential that he treat him with the respect due to his office; Hawkwood had been appointed by King Richard as an Ambassador to the Holy See, this time paid, his services seen to be vital to his sovereign’s needs. England and Rome had a community of interest in opposing France, plus Avignon and Clement, which outweighed the fact that the man they were relying on was feeble in the head, given to uncontrollable rages and the least sanctified person the new ambassador had ever met.

  Such a duty did not drag him from his main occupation, which was plunder. He freely moved between Florence and the provinces of central Italy, sometimes operating on his own, at others with the Company of the Rose, a truly international body made of Englishmen, Italians and Bretons.

  Permanently in the saddle he was able to acquire a great deal of money which, not being really safe as specie in coffers, was invested in properties all over the country to join those which came to him from ransoms, all administered in his absence by attorneys.

  Sir John Hawkwood was at the height of his standing, the most famous fighter in Italy. He had lived well beyond the allotted span of most of his contemporaries and was happy and fulfilled in his private life, only saddened by the fact that he had lost some close confidantes. Alard the Radish had died of a fever, Ivor the Axe and Christopher Gold had returned to England with the embassy sent by King Richard to Genoa, but with Donnina to support him and growing daughters to tease him he felt the need for male companionship less.

  As well as being Captain General of Florence he was the acknowledged envoy of King Richard II, had been gifted a papal standard and given by Urban the title of Duke in Spoleto. His fiefs were now extensive enough to include two important castles held by castellans on his behalf, from which he drew rents and revenues. In addition he still had rights in those properties given to Donnina by her father, for if Bernabò Visconti had fallen out with his son-in-law, he had taken no steps to punish his daughter because of it.

  Lombardy was naturally an area of interest, yet it was seen as a distant one. The Lord of Milan was quiet, while he had been in power so long it seemed inconceivable that it should not continue. Yet Bernabò was now in his seventies and such a great age of necessity diminished his abilities. Again it was letters from old friends that kept the Hawkwood household, now home to three daughters and the much longed for infant son, abreast of matters in Milan and Pavia.

  Yet the situation was hard to fathom; one set of correspondents warned of a danger to Donnina’s father from Giangaleazzo. They insisted the ruler of Pavia was recruiting a large army, binding mercenary captains to his service for years, not months, and in numbers that could only be a threat to all of his neighbours and the nearby provinces of which the closest was Milan.

  Others continued to report on his obvious piety and love of peace, calling him the Count of Virtue, the soubriquet by which he was now known. The two different points of view did not make sense. Then Beatrice died and her husband lost the only person who could give him advice, which might have been to guard against his nephew. In any case Bernabò married Donnina’s mother not long after, thus making her legitimate in the eyes of the Church.

  ‘Giangaleazzo’s as slimy as a slug,’ was Hawkwood’s opinion, expressed to his wife. ‘Bernabò would be a fool to trust him. If it were me I’d cut his gizzard at the first chance I was given. If he’s recruiting it can only have one purpose and it’s not display.’

  ‘How can you say that when you have read of his deep piety and acts of charity? Besides, you named him a dolt as a soldier and even worse in command, so what is to fear?’

  ‘Donnina, he does not have to be good at soldiering: he only has to employ those who are.’

  She sat in his lap and patted his cheek, an indication that she did not agree with him but was not going to take it to an argument. ‘So we should expect a begging missive from my father asking you to hurry to his side?’

  ‘Pigs might fly to kiss the moon.’

  ‘Would you not accept to please me?’

  ‘I know you still have love for him, but no.’

  ‘If you had ever seen his kindness you might speak differently.’

  The growl was manufactured. ‘Bernabò and kindness are two words that seem odd in the same sentence.’

  In truth the word that would have applied was dupe. It seemed to those who knew Bernabò well that he had taken no precautions to guard against ambition in his brother’s son and it was an indication of his failing powers that he was toppled with such ease. Giangaleazzo arranged to meet him just outside Milan, declining to enter the city yet bringing with him a strong escort, which was as good an indication as any that he had no trust in his uncle.

  Bernabò had no designs on Pavia and was quite content with Milan, which he intended one of his bastard sons to rule after his passing. That this did not please Giangaleazzo was hardly surprising but his opposition had been kept completely hidden until he was ready to strike, this with his warm words and false religious posture. At the meeting a poorly protected Bernabò was seized and bundled into a nearby tower as the city was quickly overrun by Giangaleazzo’s huge escort.

  That Bernabò died so soon afterwards was put down to poisoning, yet such a view, given his age and the shock of his usurpation, could only be speculation. It was rendered more suspicious when his one-time mistress and favourite Donnina de’ Porri also died in the custody of Giangaleazzo’s guardians. The coincidence was too great.

  Giangaleazzo then went after his cousins and that, to John Hawkwood, made sense, though it did not to the woman who had grown up in their company and had lost her mother. The offspring of Donnina senior, no longer bastards, would want only one thing: to avenge their father. Within days a letter arrived from one of them seeking Hawkwood’s aid in doing so.

  That required calculation; Carlo Visconti had no soldiers and Giangaleazzo had thousands. Much as he was pressed by his wife he had to conclude that to go up against a man so well prepared and with so many armed men at his beck and call was beyond unwis
e. He could not risk all he had as well as his family on such a tenuous connection; besides there were property matters requiring clarification and the only person who could provide that was the new Lord of Milan.

  So it was incumbent upon him to write to Giangaleazzo expressing flowery affection – which would not be believed – and to ask about the continued security of Donnina’s dowry possessions. If it stuck in his craw to address this Visconti in an obsequious fashion no other way would serve, just as it was unpleasant and a cause of much domestic disharmony that he found it prudent to pledge fidelity and offered to serve Giangaleazzo for a sum well below that which he would charge any other lord.

  ‘Property is worth more than honour, it seems,’ was Donnina’s scathing response.

  In an atmosphere of domestic chill it was as well the call came from Florence; they wanted the services of their captain general. The Signoria had designs on their troubled neighbour Siena. Having never employed mercenaries, that commune too often found itself at the mercy of others, with their less scrupulous neighbours keeping a keen eye on their fractured polity waiting for an opportunity to exploit any differences; this was happening now.

  As usual they were virtually defenceless but without the gift of learning from past errors. The amount of produce Hawkwood garnered – virtually everything the land produced, and he even demanded of them carts with which to transport it – eventually forced them to attempt to drive him away by arms. They enjoyed the same lack of success as on previous occasions, left only with the option of ransoming their own captured captains and paying a money indemnity.

  While that heartened his hopes for the retention of his wife’s possessions, Milan had turned those to dust. Giangaleazzo had seized all of Donnina’s properties in Lombardy. Worse, he had declared the marriage of her mother to Bernabò illegal, due to his having had carnal relations with her sister – and it was true, no woman was safe from the old satyr’s attentions. Nevertheless, that returned Donnina to a state of illegitimacy. While Hawkwood expected time to produce forgiveness this was nevertheless a setback, so he was glad that another city state called upon his services. Anything was better than the atmosphere in San Donato.

  The commission came from Padua asking him to fight on their behalf against Verona and the fee was attractive. This was a conflict between two deeply antagonistic polities that had been at each other’s throats for decades and only the destruction of one, it seemed, would bring resolution. Hawkwood, as any mercenary would, waited to see if the terms he had been offered by Francesco Novello, the Lord of Padua, would be bettered by their Veronese enemies. When they were not the contracts were drawn up.

  Marching north-east Hawkwood came to Padua with a complement of three hundred archers and six hundred mounted lances, to find waiting for him a force of eight thousand fighting men made up of the Paduan levies plus various smaller mercenary companies. Given what they expected to face it was a formidable force and it departed the city to the roars of the populace, with their lord and Hawkwood in the lead, to move with surprising but pleasant ease in the territory of the enemy.

  Destruction was, as usual, the primary tactic so the host burnt and destroyed as it made its way eastwards, meeting no resistance, while the scouts were able to report no forces ahead. This led to the obvious conclusion, this agreed at every meeting, that the Veronese were not going to meet them in battle but were content to rely on their city walls to thwart the offensive.

  The analysis was wrong. If they burnt as they went the Paduan army was leaving behind a desert in terms of supply. Then they entered one created by their enemies, who had destroyed their own crops and removed all livestock from the line of Hawkwood’s march. Worse, the Veronese forces had let them pass to then swing behind them. This cut the Paduans off from any supply from their own city or region.

  Refusing to panic, Hawkwood called a halt, hoping his foes would seek battle. He waited, but in vain. Like any army on the move, what they carried with them was soon consumed, while the horses began to suffer from a lack of fodder. In addition, the wells had been poisoned and a shortage of that for equines was fatal so they began to expire, which at least provided some meat to make up for an utter lack of any other.

  ‘We must fall back and work our way round the enemy.’

  Hawkwood’s words, which he had cleared with Novello well before, reduced some of the Paduan captains to tears; the mercenaries were more stoic, one asking if there was a plan to go with the captain general’s opinion.

  ‘First we must regain our strength and that means eat properly. Therefore my aim is to make our way southwards for the border fortress of Castelbaldo, where we have enough supplies. Once there, we can assess what will serve next.’

  ‘Not all the way to Padua, then?’ was the question of Franceso Novello, who had accompanied his host but never interfered in the way it was commanded.

  Hawkwood smiled in appreciation of what was clear support, but addressed the room. ‘We are heading in a strange direction to get there, My Lord. We have been outmanoeuvred but we are not yet beaten. If the Veronese follow we can give them battle; if not we can possibly resume our advance with a good line of supply, for we will not fall for their stratagems twice.’

  It was, of necessity, a forced march and one in which if a man fell behind he was left to fend for himself and that could only be achieved by hiding out and hoping to find food, while escaping the attention of the enemy. For some this was far from an option; they fell from exhaustion and were left to die, and the enemy, in pursuit and too close for comfort, were soon abusing the bodies.

  Hawkwood drove his soldiers hard; there was no respite, the only alternative death and a painful one, but at least they got into lands where there was ample water, if few crops. By the time they made Castelbaldo, on the northern bank of the Adige River, it was as a weary army which, if it could eat, found it had little time to decide what was to be done next. The enemy was closing in and in superior numbers.

  ‘We cannot fight here,’ Hawkwood pronounced. ‘To slow the Veronese down we must take our supplies and cross the Adige, which will force them to detour to do likewise. Once over it is my view we must stand and fight.’

  ‘According to reports,’ Novello said softly, ‘we are outnumbered near two to one, thanks to what we have lost. I merely say this because once across the river we are going away from any chance of safety.’

  ‘So we invite an attack and at a place we shall choose. To do otherwise is to fail completely.’

  The look around the assembly was a hard one; he was asking these men to trust his reputation. Before them they observed a fighting soldier well past his prime, his hair white and his skin sagging on a full, ruddy face. Yet in the eyes was the fierce determination that had got him to his present military eminence.

  ‘Get your soldiers and horses fed and put them to filling the waggons, while I cross the river and reconnoitre the area.’

  ‘You too should eat, Captain General.’

  Hawkwood smiled at the Lord of Padua and patted what was a reasonable paunch. ‘I carry enough to keep me going for a while yet.’

  He found the site he wanted almost directly on the opposite bank of the Adige, near a small village called Castagnaro, which had the virtue of marshes as well as irrigation channels he could employ to tunnel the enemy attack. By reducing the fighting frontage he reduced the effect of their superior numbers. There was little chance for rest – everything had to be fetched over the river by one narrow bridge – and as soon as he had the numbers they were set to dig a ditch across his frontage that would slow any cavalry charge; only then were they permitted to rest.

  It was obvious to the densest brain that should they be broken there was nowhere to run and Hawkwood wanted it that way. Let the men he led see that only by standing firm could they prevail. Yet he was not going to rely on them merely being stalwart; he had plans to formulate, well aware that they would only succeed if his enemy reacted to them as he hoped.

  After morn
ing Mass the battalions were ordered to eat and drink then arranged to fill the front, longbowmen on one flank, crossbowmen on the other. He had them stood to as soon as the enemy appeared, drums beating and banners waving, their confidence seeming to sweep across the ground to unnerve the defenders. A reserve of fifteen hundred horse was set to the rear next to the priestly cart, a high-wheeled chariot centrally located and easily seen, to which men who were sure they were dying could seek the last rites.

  Hawkwood took up his position in the front line where he could be seen by all. His motives were not to boost faith but to control the battle in his own way. As soon as the Veronese were deployed he sent out skirmishers to draw them into a tiring fight. As the enemy pressed, these skirmishers fell back as they had been commanded, drawing on a force that had marched even harder and longer than the Paduans. This brought them to the ditch, which, mounted or on foot, they struggled to cross in proper order.

  With the Paduan front still backing away they were drawn on as a mass, pushing toward the centre of the Paduan line until they were exposed to the twin pincers of the bowmen who began what could only be described as an execution. As they fell in on their own comrades to avoid being skewered they turned from disciplined attackers to a rabble.

  At that point Hawkwood raised his baton high and called for a general advance of his central battalions, cutting across the front to the left flank and, that collapsing, completely broke any cohesion in the whole Veronese force. Slaughter ensued and within two hours the field was Hawkwood’s, if you ignored the piles of dead and twitching wounded.

  In the Veronese camp they found the enemy had possessed cannon, new on the battlefield but deadly if they could have been employed. The ground was too soft near the riverbank; indeed it was a wonder they had got them this far, for it must have been exhausting to do so.