by David Gilman
Behind his thick black beard, Meulon’s teeth chattered. ‘You do the counting. My brain has been seized by a river god.’
Blackstone nodded. ‘One… two… three…’
* * *
Will Longdon crouched in the shadows with his archers as the massed horsemen rode by. Earlier he had instructed the bowmen to place stone markers every fifty paces into the path the horsemen would take and now they rode near enough the 150-yard mark. Back from the treeline the low branches hid them from the high-riding horsemen but the archers would soon move quickly to the fringe of the forest and then the element of surprise would be short-lived. He glanced along the line of bowmen. Quenell turned his head and looked, waiting for Longdon’s command. Every man clutched a fistful of arrows in one hand, his war bow in the other. More arrows were tucked into their belts. Their killing time would be brief, so they had abandoned their linen arrow bags. They could hear the men’s voices as they rode by. They were relaxed, some shouting and laughing – there was no sense of danger. The wind shifted slightly. A couple of the horses caught the men’s scent in the forest and tugged at their reins, but the riders quickly brought them under control. Will Longdon licked his lips. His mouth was drying. He wished he was with hundreds more archers. Wished they stood in sawtooth formation between the men-at-arms as bugles and drums heralded death to the French army. He pushed the memory of the great battles from his mind. The damned Bretons seemed to move at a snail’s pace. How many more, for Christ’s sake? He edged a few paces closer to the edge of the forest, extending his arm to keep the others back. He crouched again. Now he could see the broad column of men spread across the valley. Some were swinging wide of the others, finding ground to ease their horses across. A hundred yards. Getting too close. He turned. All eyes were on him. He nodded to Quenell and swept his arm forward. As one the archers moved forward quickly. Longdon was five paces ahead of them and the first to step into the open. He jabbed his fistful of arrows into the ground. Some of the riders saw him, and then shouted a warning as the line of bowmen appeared. By the time the cry of alarm went up they heard a man’s voice call out a command.
‘Nock! Draw!’ There was a brief creaking of heartwood yew being drawn back.
Seeing the archers suddenly on their flank had caused turmoil among the nearest horsemen. Riders yanked reins and spurred horses, turning them into those who rode alongside them. In the few seconds it took for Will Longdon’s cry to be heard the horsemen’s own yells of panic redoubled.
‘Loose!’ The sudden whoosh of yard-long arrows caused the riders to look up into the sky. A natural reaction to see where death might strike. And by the time those who kept their eyes skyward had blinked the dark shower fell onto them. Before the arrows had struck into the seething mass the next was already arcing high, and then another. The archers kept a steady rhythm. Nock! Draw back. Loose! Pluck an arrow. Nock! Draw back. Loose! Pluck another arrow. Nock! Loose! There had been no need for Will Longdon to command his men to mark their targets before shooting. Shooting into the packed men was already bringing down man and horse and no one had yet dared to turn their horse and charge into the ambush. Some of the riders surged forward, taking others with them. A jammed knot of men turned this way and that and anyone trapped in that mêlée died. Men bellowed in pain as arrows tore through their legs and into their saddles. Others slumped forward with a yard-long shaft sticking out of their shoulders, bodkin points ripping through heart and lungs. As each man and horse fell the chaos deepened. Horses reared and whinnied from the pain of being struck by arrows while the men lucky enough to evade the storm fell under the hooves of the panicked animals. Blood slicked riders’ saddles and horses’ flanks. And still the rhythmic whisper of death fell. As Bretons caught in the killing zone began to reorganize a flood of water seemed to appear as if from nowhere. It swirled and gurgled across the smooth boulders, raising the water level, spilling beyond the low riverbank. Horses panicked when the water began to stream through their legs. The rapidly flowing water added to the confusion. By the time Will Longdon’s men had loosed as many arrows as they could, some of the horses’ hooves had sunk deep into the muddy bog. Those riders who had survived the initial onslaught now spurred their horses from behind the dead and dying and surged, sword in hand, towards the vulnerable bowmen.
‘Now!’ shouted Will Longdon. ‘Come on, lads! Run!’
The lightly armed archers needed no further encouragement. As Longdon and his men turned and raced for the safety of the forest, dodging patches of bramble and thick undergrowth, horsemen raked their spurs, bellowing cries of revenge and death. Behind them another sound rose up: the agonizing screams of horses running into the sharpened stakes.
Longdon cursed. His lungs burned and his legs ached. The younger men he commanded were already gaining ground. Grasping his remaining arrows in one hand and his bow in the other he veered left, aiming for another narrow forester’s track, hoping the trees would slow down the horses in pursuit. Quenell was a dozen paces ahead of him. Longdon wanted to urge his men to run faster for the far side of the forest but his lungs needed the air to keep him going. He’d had no time to ease the cord from the horned nock at the tip of his bow and now it was proving unwieldy as he ran through ferns and under low branches. But then his second wind came and he felt the surge of power in his legs. He almost laughed aloud at the joy of it. He glanced back. The chasing horsemen were close. It made no difference. Once they reached the safety of the open ground on the far side of the trees they could turn and, with the fresh supply of arrows brought by Perinne, bring those riders down.
All would be well and the killing would be swift.
And then his bow cord snagged a gnarled branch and he fell.
As his head struck the ground and the rock-hard tree root, he felt the thundering vibration of the approaching horses.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Moments before the archers struck at the approaching enemy Blackstone and Meulon trod water, hanging onto the sluice-gate chain.
‘Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one…’ He peered across the low wall. Will Longdon’s men were already killing Bretons. ‘They’re close enough. Heave!’
They brought their weight and strength to bear and the chain creaked against the wheel. Immediately they felt a greater tug on their feet from the gate’s narrow gap.
‘God’s blood. It’s flowing fast,’ said Meulon, grimacing as they flexed their arm and back muscles and the sudden rising of the gate sucked them closer to the hole.
‘Hold on!’ Meulon cried. The gate was open, the chain notched as Blackstone was sucked under. Meulon reached down and grabbed his arm and hauled him above the surface but they had underestimated the force of the trapped water in the lake.
‘Ropes!’ Blackstone yelled.
The two men on the bank each took the strain of their rope but they quickly lost ground. One of them cried for help. Killbere was as close as any man and grabbed the end of one rope while John Jacob and two others quickly jumped to his aid. Three men on each rope managed to hold Blackstone and Meulon from being sucked through the sluice gate.
‘Heave!’ Killbere shouted. ‘Thomas! We cannot hold you. Pull yourself towards us. Hurry man, the Bretons will be upon us.’
Released from the restraints of the sluice gate the tongue of water roared free. Blackstone and Meulon were still out of their depth but now the pressure of the water pressed them against the stone wall. Blackstone gripped the coarse rope and tried to pull himself against the overpowering weight of fast-flowing water. Meulon was being sucked beneath the surface. He bobbed up, muscles stretched from holding on to the rope. He looked at Blackstone and shook his head. Then Blackstone went under, a great fist seizing him and tugging him down. He opened his eyes and saw the churning white water thunder through the sluice gate’s maw. They were going to drown. He hauled himself up hand over hand, shook the water from his eyes, saw that the men on the shore were being pulled ever closer to the edge. No one was strong enough to
hold them.
‘We go,’ he spluttered to Meulon. ‘Or we drown. We’ll go under and they won’t pull us up.’
Meulon immediately understood. He nodded. The freezing water and the strength needed to stay above the surface was taking its toll.
‘Let go!’ Blackstone shouted.
The men on the bank looked dumbfounded, and kept their grip despite their feet sliding ever closer to the edge, but then Killbere understood. ‘Release the ropes!’
The command was not to be contested and John Jacob and the others let go. Blackstone and Meulon disappeared beneath the surface. Killbere and the others leaned quickly forward and saw the two men spewed from the dam and tumbled down with the gush of water. Bretons were already two-thirds of the way up, forced into a tight group as they spurred their horses up to the terraces, yanking reins left and right as they found a way through the old vines and onto the terraces. They had seen Killbere and the others and believing they were so few raised their swords, drew tight their shields and charged.
‘To your front!’ bellowed Killbere. His men-at-arms dropped their hurdles and lunged with sharpened blades on ten-foot-long ash poles. Horses veered; riders fell; Killbere’s men stood ready to kill the fallen. Horses tumbled downhill, hooves kicking, legs breaking, crushing men trying to scramble upwards. Those behind faced an assault course to find a way through, but their sheer weight of numbers soon began to show. Horses bunched, men rode harder and faster towards what seemed like just a handful of men. Killbere had tried to keep sight of Blackstone and Meulon but now stood his ground with John Jacob as the Bretons began to push into them.
‘Now, Jack!’ Killbere bellowed, his voice rising over the clamouring yells and screams.
Across the other side of the dam more hurdles dropped and Jack Halfpenny’s archers loosed their arrows into the attacking men’s flanks. They died, unable to turn their horses away from the ambush and the contours of the ground and the dam’s spewing stream of water.
Killbere and John Jacob strode forward, shields high, swords slashing. Others stood at their side, men versed in inflicting violence efficiently, hacking men’s limbs in the knowledge that that would be sufficient injury to take them out of the fight and to kill them. Blood gushed from severed arms and legs; shock and pain did the rest. Without thought of the men under their feet Killbere and those with him moved steadily on. Ash lances speared more horses, causing confusion amid the riders swarming uphill, yet the Bretons persisted, every man fighting for himself, throwing himself onto the English ranks in a desperate attempt to live. But then Beyard the Gascon edged his men forward, forcing the Bretons to swerve back onto the steep ground that made the horses lose their balance, stumble and fall.
The Bretons now realized that their attack was being weakened by forcing horses into the fray and that they should abandon their mounts. They joined the unhorsed mercenaries on the lower terraces, re-formed into a fighting block of men, like a memory of the great battles that had gone before. One among them led them forward once more.
‘Hold!’ Killbere called out, making those of his men who had gone ahead to finish off the wounded, retreat back to where he held the line. Now unencumbered by their horses, the Bretons swarmed towards the English and Gascon lines. Killbere saw that the sheer weight of the attack might crush them. He turned to the man carrying Blackstone’s banner. ‘We need Sir William. Raise it!’
The flag bearer lifted the long sapling that had been cut to carry the banner and raised it high.
Alain de la Grave stood further down the line. Killbere glanced at the boy hunched behind his shield, eyes barely visible above the rim. There was no sign of enemy blood on him or the shield.
‘John! Pull him back,’ said Killbere. ‘God’s tears. One strike on the shield and he’ll have his nose smashed and then his throat cut. He was told to stay with the rearguard.’
John Jacob hesitated.
‘I know,’ said Killbere, ‘you’re not his wet-nurse but Thomas promised to keep him alive. Go!’ he shouted as the Bretons got within thirty paces. ‘Send him for Sir William! We need those men now.’
Blackstone’s squire turned and ran behind the line of men. Sweat stung his eyes, the hauberk chafed and the days of cold and wet had blistered his feet. Cursing to himself that fighting was hard enough without protecting a boy who clearly had few skills on the killing field, he reached Alain just as the routiers’ front rank clashed. He saw the boy falter; another stride and he was with him, using his shoulder to push him aside, sending him sprawling and taking his place in the line, ramming his sword low and up into the soft underbelly of a Breton.
‘Close!’ he yelled as he stepped back. The men either side immediately moved, shields tight, and closed the gap he had left. He kicked the fallen boy. ‘Up!’
The young Frenchman glared angrily as he scrambled to his feet, retrieved his fallen sword, and was about to argue when the ferocity of the assault nearly broke through the line. Anger was quickly replaced by fear. The killing was only feet away and he saw the sickening reality of blade on bone and flesh.
‘Get back to the horses. You’re needed there! Move your arse!’
The boy flinched as the men behind John Jacob gave way; one went down with a sword thrust to his throat, and the Breton shouldered aside the next. John Jacob spun, caught the attacker with an unexpected low slash that almost severed his leg below the knee. The man’s mouth gaped silently, eyes wide in terror, and then air filled his lungs and he screamed. He was already tumbling forward as the shield wall closed behind him. He sprawled, and Alain desperately shuffled backwards as John Jacob plunged his sword into the man’s neck. He looked at the stricken boy. ‘Go,’ he urged him again. ‘And tell Sir William and de Harcourt we need them now.’
Alain ran back to where the horses and the rearguard waited. The Bretons were going to break through. Felton and de Harcourt were leaving their flanking attack too late. John Jacob ran back to where Killbere stood his ground. The dead at his feet were testament to his prowess and they impeded those who had to step over them to attack him. He was hard pressed. Once John Jacob was at his side the two men pushed back their attackers again. There were so many Bretons and so few who held the ground in front of them. The mercenaries could not fail to scale the heights and win the day. And then they would teach those who defied them what it meant to die a slow and agonizing death.
‘Where the fuck is Sir William?’ Killbere complained bitterly. ‘Sir William!’ he bellowed above the din of the fighting. ‘SIR WILLIAM! God’s blood.’
At last Louis de Harcourt and Sir William’s men swept from Killbere’s left flank in a pincer, just as Blackstone had ordered, and it was the over-confident Bretons who died like netted fish as Killbere and the fighting men closed on them. They died in their hundreds. Arrows cut them down; men-at-arms hacked them to death. Their own horses trampled and crushed them. Blood-splattered, Killbere and John Jacob fought their way down onto the next contour where the terrace widened and the torn earth from the desperately scrambling horses’ hooves slowed the advancing men even more. Horse carcasses became obstacles for sweating, grunting men to clamber over and around. Survivors began to run downhill. Killbere wiped the sweat from his eyes. The stream of water still poured down into the river.
It ran with blood.
* * *
Blackstone and Meulon had barrelled downriver, the surging water sweeping them over back-scraping river boulders. Blackstone raised his head, squinting against the stinging spray, watching Meulon four lengths beyond him as the big Norman used his arms like paddles to guide his body through the rapids. As both men fought the torrent the Bretons were trying to attack the heights. The tableau of chaos and shouts of the men came and went as Blackstone was repeatedly ducked beneath the water. None of the riders seemed to notice the two bodies being swept rapidly downstream.
Blackstone saw that where the river curved ahead some of the Bretons were already trying to turn their horses away in retreat. He glimpsed
other horses too: some writhing from their wounds; others, riderless and panicked, galloping this way and that, trying to find a way out of the place of death. Men were scattered across the ground, lying beneath a field of arrows. Will Longdon and his archers had inflicted many casualties on those first riders to enter the valley, he thought, and then his back caught another river boulder. The impact made him gasp; he half rolled, threw out his arm and cupped his hand to drag his body away from the white water that tore itself across low jagged rocks. He straightened his legs and, like a fast-moving skiff, just missed the deadly, bone-crushing rocks. His eyes blinked away the whipping spray and he saw that Meulon’s rope was almost within grasp as it snaked behind him. The two men would soon reach the bend in the river where marshland had slowed the Breton advance, and now their retreat. Blackstone snatched at the twisting rope, missed, and lunged again, throwing his chest free of the water, almost blinded by the slap of water as he half ducked his head beneath the surface. His fingers touched the coarse rope. Closing his fist he felt the satisfying bite of Meulon’s weight as the rope went taut. Forcing his turned shoulder back into the water he grasped the rope with both hands and was pulled through the water like a sledge through snow. Meulon’s body slowed as Blackstone’s acted like an anchor, giving the big man a chance to aim for the riverbank before their aching and bruised bodies, pummelled by the freezing water, were plunged helplessly into the mêlée of men in the marshland.
Meulon squirmed, twisting this way and that, trying to use the current to push the weight of his body into the riverbank. They were almost on the fringe of the forest and Blackstone saw him stretch up his arms to catch an overhanging branch. It must have been rotten because it snapped under his weight. Blackstone felt the rope cutting into his hands, but he used Meulon’s weight to steer himself closer to the riverbank on the far side away from the Bretons. Then, as the river struck a bend, a gully to one side took some of the force of the water and Meulon managed to wrench his body into its muddy gap. The rope immediately slackened. Meulon stumbled, but found his feet in the waist-deep gully; he turned and hauled on the rope, pulling Blackstone towards him. Moments later he snatched at Blackstone, just before his leader was swept past the safety of the riverbank, and the two men fell into the shallow creek. At least here they were concealed from the turmoil that still raged across the river on the valley floor.