by Angus Donald
‘I was distracted, James,’ I replied, ‘Look yonder.’ And I pointed to the edge of the beach with my bloody poniard. The self-proclaimed Emperor of Cyprus was riding for the tree line as fast as his horse would carry him, escaping like the coward he was to the safety of the hills. Behind him followed a shamefaced group of richly caparisoned, well-armoured knights, all apparently unwounded, and in the centre of the imperial bodyguard, the Emperor’s standard of golden embroidered cloth flapped limply in the mild sea breeze.
I had expected some sort of pause after our victory on the beach, perhaps just an hour to tend to our wounds and take a drink of cool water and a bite of bread. But King Richard seemed to be in even more of a hurry than he was before the battle. He grabbed the Earl of Locksley by the shoulder as Robin came up to him on the blood-soaked strand, and said urgently: ‘There is not a minute to waste; I must have the horses; as quickly as you can, Robert, get me horses for my knights. Get them from anywhere.’
Robin turned to me: ‘You heard him Alan: horses. Take a squad of men and get up to the town; requisition any steed you can lay your hands on. Quickly.’
‘Requisition?’ I said. I knew what the word meant but I wanted to be clear about what he was ordering me to do. I didn’t want to risk being hanged as a thief. ‘Oh for God’s sake, Alan, it means steal, take, confiscate. Just go and get the King his horses, as many as you can, any way that you can. You have my permission. And saddles, too, if you can find them. We can’t let the Emperor get away.’
I rounded up a dozen archers, who were going through the clothing of the dead on the beach and slitting the throats of any enemy wounded they found, and managed to lead them - they were reluctant to follow me away from their pickings - up the beach to the dusty road that led to Limassol.
The town was almost deserted - evidently the people had seen the way the wind was blowing and had fled the place to preserve their lives and possessions, but while there was ample opportunity for plunder, I told the men that I would personally see any man who stole without my permission whipped to bloody rags. I meant it, too.
Limassol was an eerie place without any visible inhabitants, but a pretty town filled with wide sunny squares and cheerful whitewashed houses with blue-painted shutters. In front of many a house was a paved forecourt where vines hung from trellises and provided shade in the summer. And it was behind one of these pleasant dwellings, larger than the rest and with the air of a great man’s inn, that we found a corral with a dozen horses. The inn even provided five rather battered saddles and, with my permission, the men helped themselves to some food they found in the kitchen, although I banned them from sampling a barrel of wine that we found already broached in the buttery.
Mounted on the ‘requisitioned’ animals, we found it a speedy business to scour the town for horseflesh and by early evening we had two dozen or so steeds of varying quality - including carthorses, mules and one old mare that looked more than ready for a merciful death - in a loose herd being trotted towards the beach.
The battlefield had changed significantly since the noon fight; the barricade had been totally dismantled and the bay was full of ships, which had come into land as close as they could for their draft. Skiffs and snacks plied between the big ships and the shore, ferrying provisions, arms, armour and rather seasick-looking horses to the beach. The animals were frightened and confused after the long sea journey, and particularly spooked by the final stage when they had been rowed, one big horse to a tiny rocking boat, from the transport ships to the beach. They were being fed and watered by squires on the sand and walked up and down the beach to regain their nerves and equilibrium.
I delivered my herd to King Richard’s grooms and they were added to a large bunch of animals that had been gathered from the surrounding countryside; some, evidently, had been the property of rich knights until recently, their Greek owners having either perished or been captured in the battle.
I dismissed the archers and went to seek further orders from Robin. I found him with the King, and a gathering of leading knights, clerks and members of the King’s familia.
Sir Robert of Thumham, the King’s High Admiral, was speaking as I joined the group, standing behind Robin on the fringes as befitted my lowly status. The sun was sinking at the far end of the beach, setting the sea on fire, in dazzling hues of red and gold, catching the King’s bright locks and seeming to give them an effect almost like a halo. ‘Sire,’ said Sir Robert, ‘our scouts have followed their army and they tell me that the Emperor and his knights are no more than five miles away, and are preparing to spend the night.’ He cleared his throat, and continued. ‘But it seems that there are many more of them than we had imagined. The Emperor has been reinforced by knights from the north of the island, who arrived too late today to participate in the battle.’
‘How many are they?’ asked the King; he was staring up into the air watching a pair of swallows twist and turn about each other in some elegant avian game.
‘Well, sire, the scouts say,’ Sir Robert swallowed, ‘more than three thousand men in all, including servants, camp followers and the like. With more men reported to be on the way. When we have disembarked all the men and horses, we shall easily overmatch them, but that cannot be achieved until the end of the week, at the very earliest. ’ ‘
‘I will attack them now, tonight, with whatever knights can find a horse and a saddle and have the courage to follow me. I cannot wait until the end of the week. The Emperor will slip away and hide in the mountains if I do not smash him now; and then it will be months before I can take this island. No. I must strike him now.’
‘But sire, that is madness,’ said a senior clerk, a weaselly little fellow called Hugo, whom I knew slightly and heartily disliked. ‘They are more than a three thousand, and we have but fifty horses, look sire ...’ and he waved his arm towards the corral where less than three score sea-sick and mismatched animals were being fed with some rather damp, and no doubt salty, hay.
‘Sir clerk,’ said Richard frostily, and I realised with a little peep of wicked pleasure that the King had just been called a madman to his face, ‘you stick to papers and books, and leave the fighting and the chivalry to us.’ I stifled a smile to see the clerk put down, but there were more serious matters to hand. The King was attempting a night attack on an army three thousand strong with a tiny force of ill-mounted knights; and the odds against us were sixty to one. Each knight would be facing sixty enemies. Sixty! Perhaps the clerk was right - perhaps the King was mad!
Chapter Thirteen
I counted fifty-two knights, when we formed up above the beach in complete darkness, and almost in silence, for there was a sombre air about our coming endeavour; all metal accoutrements on the saddles had been muffled with cloth, lest it clink during our advance and give warning to the Emperor’s men; the knights spoke in whispers, gravely, as befitted men who were facing death, although I do not believe there was a single coward among them. Priests moved on silent feet through the horsemen, blessing weapons, sprinkling holy water on the knights and murmuring prayers. The most fortunate, including the King and the Earl of Locksley, were mounted on the destriers of captured Griffon knights; the less fortunate on assorted animals, some no better than carthorses and mules, that I had rounded up from Limassol, or on beasts that had been brought ashore from the ships that evening. I was on Ghost, who had recovered remarkably quickly from his ordeal on the wild ocean, and seemed to relish having his four feet on dry land. I caught sight of Sir Richard Malbête mounted on a thin two-year-old which looked too frail to bear his weight. He caught my look and returned it with his flat feral stare; then, holding my gaze, he ran a mailed finger down the red scar on the side of his face. I smiled at him mockingly, showing my teeth.
At a quiet signal from the King, we moved off in two files, with scouts ahead and to the sides, trying to keep in position and make as little noise as possible as we rode through the orange groves, sniffing a hint of fragrant blossom on the still air. The
May night was warm, and a big yellow half moon gave us enough light to see the man riding in front and beside us; I was feeling nervous, I admit, the ice snake slithering once again in my belly; but I was prepared to trust my King to lead us to victory as he had done so swiftly that morning.
After about an hour, the column came to a halt in an open space behind a low ridge, and with the minimum of fuss those knights with lances, about half of our pathetic force, formed a line in front, and those of us without, including myself, who had not thought to bring more than my usual sword and poniard, and my mace, formed a line behind. The knights in the front rank, each wielding a twelve-foot razor-edged spear, would be the shock troops. They would primarily use the weight of their chargers and the points of their lances to ride over and crush any formation of men that opposed them; the second wave, would mop up behind them, attacking the shattered lines of the enemy with sword and mace. That was the theory.
The King rode between the two lines, addressing us in a low carrying voice. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘You have all fought with great courage today already, and we have tasted sweet victory. But I ask you now to fight again, to show your prowess once more in our cause. They are many, and we are few; but they have been beaten once and will be beaten again. Now they sleep, warm in their blankets, thinking that we are far away, but we shall show them how this army can fight. Yes, they are many, and we are but a handful, but think how much glory we shall share between us, we few, when victory is ours.’ The King turned his horse and began to ride back down the lane between the two ranks of horsemen. He caught my eye as he passed and smiled, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
‘God is with us in this endeavour, and our cause is just,’ he said, only just audibly. I could see the knights leaning forward in their saddles to hear him. ‘Now listen close: we will ride straight for the Emperor, and make him our prisoner; nothing else matters. Shout your war cries, call on God’s blessing and ride straight for the golden standard; with that in our hands the battle is done, the enemy will melt away like snow in springtime. God be with you all.’
And he took his place in the centre of the front line.
‘Forward,’ the cry came harshly in the still night. ‘For God and King Richard,’ It was louder, far louder than the King’s words, and I realised that it was Robin’s voice, his battle voice, which could be heard for half a mile, and at the same time two trumpeters began to sound their horns, blasting out the order to charge, ta-ta-taaaa, ta-ta-taaa. It was shocking in the stillness of the orange groves to hear such a tumult, and that was its intention, to cause shock and terror in the enemy; the first line gave a great shout, each man bellowing his war cry, and the line went forward, up the slope of the hill and disappeared over the crest; I shouted ‘Westbury!’ adding my voice to those of my companions, and we in the second line put our spurs to work and followed obediently behind them.
Over the crest of the hill we charged, and down the slope into a wide grove of olive trees filled with the sleeping enemy. The field was a mass of dark tents and dotted campfires, horses that were tethered to the gnarled stunted trees, and dark, blanket-wrapped forms, which leapt to their feet as the first wave of cavalry swept into the camp. The first line thundered into the tents, trumpets squealing, men roaring their challenges, trampling the sleeping forms within and snapping guy ropes with their horses’ legs. Any man who was upright was quickly speared by a passing knight, the lance abandoned in the body as the horseman rode by, pulling out his long sword to strike at the next man-shaped shadow in the gloom. Our second line came after them, screaming our war cries and bringing our swords to bear on the bewildered enemy.
The whole camp was convulsed in panic as fifty steel-wrapped killers were set loose, to rip and slice into the half-awake, half-dressed Cypriots; their cries of terror drowning out our shouts of victory as we slashed and hacked at running shapes in the darkness. We hunted them through the sagging, drunken tents, riding level to a running shape and cutting back and down with the sword before spurring on to seek fresh victims. I was glad that I could not see clearly the results of our handiwork as we cantered between the trees, slicing into white faces with no discrimination at all. I am certain, and I pray that God will forgive me for this grave sin, that at least one or two of my victims were women, but I did not stop to count the cost to the enemy, for in the centre of the camp was a ring of torches and in the flickering firelight I could make out a large, stripped tent in gaudy green and yellow, and next to that, flaccid in the still air, guarded by two mounted knights, splashed by torchlight, was the golden standard of the Emperor himself.
I put my heels into Ghost and headed for the light. And I was not the only one; there were riders to my left and right, some very familiar, others less so, but we all had the same aim, to converge on the Emperor, and seize him before the whole camp was roused, and mounted, and fully armed - at which point thousands of swords would come to seek our lives.
A dark shape came blundering out of the darkness to my left and I smashed into its head with my mace. Another came straight at me, and I changed Ghost’s line slightly with my knees and speared him through the body with my sword. The blade stuck in his ribs and I almost lost my blade; it was only with a wrench that hurt my wrist that I got the blade free of his body before Ghost was past him.
As I approached the Imperial tent, I saw that a fierce fight had broken out around the torch-lit circle; I saw the King cut down one Greek knight with his sword, while fending off another at the same time; Robin was beside him, and Sir James de Brus, each duelling with mounted men; one of the standard bearers was punched from his saddle by a well aimed lance, driven deep by a knight I did not know and the other man, who was carrying that golden flag, reined in, turned his horse and made a break for the darkness.
I screamed ‘Westbury!’ and levelled my bloody sword, drumming my heels in to Ghost’s flanks, and the man half-turned saw me and kicked his own horse onwards. But another of Richard’s knights was there in the darkness before him; I saw no more than a flash of scarlet and blue from the surcoat of the other knight, but the standard bearer turned again, away from this new enemy, and galloped back straight at me. He lifted his sword when our horses were nose to nose, and made a great cut at my left shoulder; but I blocked with the steel shaft of the mace and at almost the same time my spearing sword took him straight in the eye.
There was a crack like a snapping twig, and a lightning strike of pain, and my sword was gone, and my right hand was canted at an awful angle. But when I turned to look at my flag-bearing opponent, I saw that he was flopping, stone dead, but still in his saddle, the sword embedded in his skull, as the animal slowed to a trot and then a walk. Wheeling round, tucking my mace into my belt and hugging my broken wrist to my chest, I came up to the dead knight’s horse and leaning over plucked the golden standard from its holder on his saddle with my left hand. I threw back my head and screamed, half in triumph and half from the pain that was shooting up my right hand with sickening intensity.
I raised the golden standard high in the sky with my left hand, and screamed again. I was alone on the battlefield, victorious, with the enemy standard, the repository of his honour in my hand; all the Griffons seemed to have fled or found hiding places in the darkness. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly saw movement. A horse was walking towards me, picking its way through the bodies, and on its back, in a blood-smeared scarlet and sky blue surcoat, was Sir Richard Malbête.
He stopped a dozen paces from me, and cocked his head on one side. We were completely alone in the dark camp, and all that could be heard were a few muffled shouts and screams away in the darkness. ‘Lost your sword, I see, singing boy,’ said Sir Richard. And he laughed, a low bubbling sound of sheer malice. ‘I think you’d better hand over that pretty little flag to me then.’
For some strange reason, I thought of Reuben, and the foreign words he had spoken in the battle at York.
‘Come and get it, you bastard,’ I said, gritting
my teeth against the pain in my wrist. But Sir Richard, it appeared, was not even listening to me - he was leaning over and fiddling with something on the far side of his horse, seemingly hauling on something, a rope or leather strap, I supposed. Then he straightened up and smirked at me, ‘I shall,’ he said. And with a great lurch of my stomach, I saw that he was holding a cocked and loaded crossbow in his two hands, and pointing the weapon straight at my body.
He shot, the bolt blurred, and a blow like the kick from a horse smacked into my right side. I was knocked sideways out of the saddle by the force of the quarrel and I was only dimly aware of my shoulders hitting the hard ground before I slipped into a deep darkness.
Part Three: Outremer
Chapter Fourteen
Dickon’s wife Sarah came to see me last night. Her swineherd husband faces the manor court of Westbury tomorrow, if I choose to bring charges against him. If I wished I could even send him to a King’s court for the felony of theft. He would receive a grim penalty if found guilty by the King’s travelling judges; and his guilt would be easily demonstrated. Half a dozen witnesses have heard him boasting that he stole my piglets, witnesses who are my tenants, men whose families I could throw out into the street if I were displeased with them.
Sarah was shown into my hall by Marie, while I was sitting alone by the fire, long past dusk, with a mug of warmed ale in my hand. It was very nearly my bedtime but I threw off my tiredness when I saw her. The tears were streaming down her old face, and she threw herself on the rush-strewn floor in front of me, startling one of my deerhounds from its slumber. The dog gave her a mournful look and then trotted away to find a more peaceful place to sleep.