by Dan Davis
Still, they swiftly shot down hundreds of the Genoese. The mercenary crossbowmen stood in formations that were as loose as their vast numbers would allow so that our arrows would be more likely to fall on empty ground rather than on a man. Yet they dropped, killed and wounded, faster then I had expected to see.
“Quite a harvest this year,” Hal Brampton, one of my men-at-arms, quipped. “Sizeable crop of crossbowmen we be scything down, is it not?”
“Do my eyes deceive me,” Rob Hawthorn said, “or have the Italians gone and forgotten their bloody shields?”
I squinted into the crowd for a moment. “By God, how right you are. Is there a shield amongst the lot of them?”
Rob laughed in disbelief, as did the others. And well they might, for part of the strength of the Genoese was that each man carried an enormous and quite sturdy personal shield which would protect him from return shots while reloading or marching. But these thousands of men had no shields at all.
“Why ain’t their bows reaching our lads?” Walt asked Rob. “They be in the range of them now, ain’t it so?”
“Their cords are wet,” Rob said, nodding once. “That rain fair soaked them through. Ain’t so easy to restring a crossbow as is a real bow.” He patted his own weapon like it was a faithful old hound. The hemp bow string was coated with wax but that only went so far in keeping the things dry, so archers kept them rolled away in a leather pouch on their belts, along with a spare or two. Some even kept a coil of cord under their steel helms.
“Hate this bit,” Walt complained. “When the archers just stand there and shoot at each other for bloody ages while we hang about with nothing to do.”
“Patience is a conquering virtue, Walt,” I said.
Walt sighed. “Want to get on with the real fighting, is all, sir.”
Rob and my other archers were offended on behalf of their profession. One of them, Deryk, cried out at Walt.
“Should you not be down amongst your brother Welshmen, Walter?”
“Shut your damned mouth, Deryk Crookley, or you shall find it filled with my knuckles and your own black teeth.”
Our trumpets sounded and orders were shouted and relayed by heralds and sergeants that our bowmen were to increase the pace.
Before any man could respond, a great cacophony split the air along with billowing smoke and fire, as our cannons began firing, one after another and often many at once.
The ribalds and bombards spat their fire and their iron arrows and pellets down at the Genoese. How many of them were killed by the cannon, I could not say, as the arrows began to take them apart at the same time. Italians fell all across the field, and the foremost among them began backing away into their fellows behind.
I shot a hand out to grab Thomas by the armour of his upper arm. “They are going to break.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but not them lads,” Rob said. “Genoese don’t break, don’t they say? Retreat in good order, the Genoese.”
For a while, it seemed that he was right, for the Italians steadied themselves despite the astonishing number of them that fell to English arrows. Still, they were on edge and shuffling in that way that men do before they lose heart.
“Quick charge would do for the lot of them,” I said to no one in particular. “It would be well if we had a hundred men mounted and ready for just such a moment. See them off once and for—”
The cannons sounded again. Not as many as before, perhaps merely a dozen of the squat little beasts coughed out their fire. It was impossible to tell if any of the projectiles even reached their targets but the fear of the machines was enough to do the job that a hundred charging men and horse would have done.
The Genoese broke.
Some of them at the fronts and edges of their formations backed further and further into the men behind, forcing those men to edge back themselves until some men turned and walked toward the rear, pushing past men still loading and shooting. More and more followed until the walking turned into running as fast as they were able with their large bows. Some men tripped and fell and—if they had any—their friends helped them up. All the while, the arrows fell upon them, driving them away.
A cheer went up from all the English battles as our men jeered the fleeing Italians, for it is a sight to stir the heart when your enemy breaks.
“You ain’t looking happy, sir,” Black Walt said from beside me. “You neither, Tom.”
“It was good work,” I replied. “Yet now we face the true test. See, there, how they are already making ready. Look at them, the magnificent bastards.”
The French mounted men-at-arms moved forward on their great destriers and in their bright colours and shining steel. They were so many, massing together in a curved, broken front that stretched halfway across the vale and many more ranks pushed in from the rear.
“Once the Italians get free, the true battle shall begin,” Thomas confirmed.
Instead, the French pushed into the fleeing Genoese and the mounted men’s weapons were drawn and they began laying about them. Cutting down the Genoese, who could put up no defence against the onslaught.
“What are they doing?” Rob shouted, outraged at the sight of archers falling to knights, which was a deep-rooted fear for all bowmen. “They slay their own men.”
Walt scoffed. “Shouldn’t have run, should they. Bloody cowards.” We ignored him.
“They are not their own men,” I said to Rob. “We are watching Frenchmen murdering Italians.”
It was a horror of a sight but we did not have long to ponder it, for the French had their blood up and in no time they barged through the Genoese and came charging in a chaotic mass straight across the field toward our first battle on the right.
“Here they come,” Rob said to his archers. “Now let’s see our lads do their work.”
I had loved English bowmen for over one hundred years but only in the wars against the belligerent Scots and the factions in Brittany had they begun to come into their own. Successive English armies had included more and more bowmen in their ranks to the point where we had twice as many of them as we had men-at-arms. With masses of spearmen supporting them, our archers could shoot their powerful bows into enemy horse and men at will. We had done so before in Brittany but never on such a scale.
And we had likewise never faced an enemy of the scale and quality of the French nobility, the knights and squires of the greatest nation in Christendom and perhaps of anywhere on Earth. It was impossible not to be moved to fear by the sight, even though their initial charge was as ragged as any I had seen.
As they came within range of our foremost bowmen, the orders were given to shoot. Arrows darted up in their hundreds and fell in amongst those riders.
The arrows the bows shot were murderous bloody things. A yard long and thick so that they did not snap when the massive force of the bow thrust them skyward. At their head was the small, dense bodkin point which could penetrate mail armour and force its way through visors or between sheets of plate.
Horses fell, stumbling and throwing their riders as they tumbled or sank to their knees and keeled over. Men were hit and rode on, or else veered away. Others were spilled from their saddles like the hand of God had swatted them. The fallen impeded the charge of those behind.
Our cannon fired. I jumped in fear at the sudden noise, as did many of those around me.
It terrified the charging horses and disrupted them further as they turned to flee from the appalling crashing thunder and evil stench.
And yet through it all, the courageous and the lucky reached our first battle in their dozens and then in the hundreds. All along the front line of the English battle, horses swerved and their riders hacked down on our men in a whirling storm of steel. A terrific clangour filled the air, growing louder even than the roaring cries of the men.
The first battle, on the right, was packed with great lords, their banners held high above where they stood.
In the very centre was the tallest banner.
> That of Prince Edward.
Already at sixteen, the young man himself stood a head taller than most of the other men around him and he made for an unmistakeable and irresistible target.
“Going for the Prince, ain’t they, sir?” Walt said. “Great bloody pack of the lordly bastards. Perhaps we might have a wander down there and lend a hand now, sir?”
“All is well,” I said, though it certainly seemed as though the fighting was heaviest where the Prince was. I chanced a look behind me at the King, who stood watching all impassively.
More French came from the rear, streaming in as if there was no end to them. Our arrows fell in their thousands, coming in an endless stream. Those shooting from further away on the farthest flanks aimed up so their arrows dropped from a height into the massed French and the bowmen but those closest to the men-at-arms shot at the mounted knights before them.
Small groups of riders in the dozens attempted repeated charges against the archers on the wings but the tightly packed spearmen formed a wall of points that horses would die on, while the archers picked off the charging men at will.
The French edged away from the wings and clustered further in the centre where they could engage with our men-at-arms but this only served to give our archers even more of an oblique angle to shoot from, so that even men fifty yards back from the fighting were dropping from the arrow storm while they waited their turn at the English.
Still, they were skilled and brave and they were so many, and they forced their way into the Prince’s battle right at its heart.
Right where the Prince stood, fighting for his life, for his people and for the love of glory.
The sky grew darker. Surely, many a man ventured, surely the French would have to break off soon. And yet still, they fought with a mad fury, sensing that all they needed to do was to break through the lines or to kill the Prince and they would have victory.
The Prince’s banner fell.
A great intake of breath went up all around us and a rumbling growl began from our men as the horror of it dawned on them.
“He’s fallen, by God,” Black Walter said. “There, told you so.”
“Hold your damned tongue,” I snapped. “A banner is not the man.”
Sure enough, in a few moments the banner was heaved aloft again and ten thousand Englishmen roared.
I sidled away from my men so that I was within hailing distance from the King as a knight came panting up the hill, covered in the grime of battle.
The messenger dropped to a knee in front of King Edward.
“Get up, sir, and relay your message,” said one of the King’s men.
When he stood, I saw wild fear in his eyes. “Your Grace, the Earl of Northampton begs you send the reserve to assist the Prince, who is sorely pressed. All about him, men are falling and the Prince can do only so much. Please, Your Grace. We must have more men, or the Prince is in the gravest of danger.”
King Edward barely blinked. “Is my son dead or injured? Does he lay upon the earth, felled?”
“No, Your Grace, but he is hard pressed. Hard pressed, indeed.”
The King radiated disapproval. “Hard pressed? You return to Northampton and those that sent you and you tell him to beg me for nought while my son yet lives. Tell them also that they are fighting so that my son may win his spurs and so that this victory may be his alone. Do you hear me well, sir? Then go now.”
The poor man withered and bowed as deeply as he was able, mumbling his confirmation as he backed away.
Watching carefully, I noted how the King looked out from his helm, searching for someone and I pushed my way forward to appear at his side while more celebrated knights and lords than I protested in outrage.
“Your Grace?”
“Richard,” he said, using his private voice, “I wonder if you might take your company forward a little way?”
“At once, Your Grace.”
He turned away, dismissing me, but I noted how his eyes locked onto his son’s wavering banner down below.
I pushed through the courtiers and called to my men. “We shall push forward now.” I grabbed my senior archer. “Rob, keep your men to our rear but ensure they stay with me. You will be close to the enemy but hold your shots for now. I know it will much pain them but they will not shoot near the Prince and yet keep them in place in case the bastards break through our line.”
The archers carried a variety of secondary weapons. Most of the younger lads wore cheap swords that were liable to bend or break if they struck a piece of armour at an odd angle. Older men could afford better weapons or had learned to favour a hammer or mace. Every one of them, though, wore a long dagger which was the sweetest thing there was for slipping through a man’s armour and right into his offal, or to open his veins. Even the ones who barely knew one end of a sword from the other had grown up with a dagger in his palm and by God did they like to use them.
Rob nodded. “They’ll not wander off, sir.”
“Walt,” I said, “you stay by my side and do not get carried away like last time.”
“Don’t know to what you be referring to, sir, but you can trust me, sir.”
I raised a hand to Thomas, who lifted his hilt in salute. John grinned from ear to ear as he drew his sword and kissed the base of the blade. He and Hugh clapped each other on the shoulders before closing their visors.
Leading them, I pushed down the hill toward the battle while Walt shouted out for men to make way. He had a loud voice when he needed it, uncouth as it was. In no time, we were in amongst the wounded and the exhausted who sat or lay upon the ground while their servants tended to them. Some men guzzled water or wine. Others cried out in pain. We passed a knight who was having a great dent hammered out of his breastplate while he directed his servants and swigged from a cup of wine.
“Good evening, Sir Richard,” he grinned, raising his cup to me. “Rare old fight, this one. Have at it, sir. Have at it!”
I nodded and continued on, pushing into the massed ranks of men. The sound grew until hearing a single voice in amongst the shouting and clash of arms grew impossible. Keeping my eyes fixed on the Prince’s banner, I shoved and yanked men aside, calling out that I was on the King’s business, for all the good it did.
The masses around me surged like a wave and, all of a sudden, there he was.
Prince Edward.
The sixteen-year-old prince fought like a lion fending off dogs. From afar and in his armour and similar red and blue quartered surcoat, the Prince looked exactly like his father. His magnificent harness was covered in muck and his armour much bashed about but the Prince stood tall and thrust at a horseman with a broken lance in one hand and swung a mace in his left at a French knight who rushed him on foot.
At his side, Sir Humphrey Ingham, a strong knight but a sour bastard, held the Prince’s great banner aloft with an arm wrapped around the pole while he slashed at the French with a drastically bent sword. Even as I watched, more French horsemen pushed their way into the clear space before him. But the Prince smashed his mace into the helm of the man charging on foot and a moment later stepped forward and thrust the tip of the broken lance into the groin of the mounted man with such force that it threw the man down even as it rent his loins apart. The horse reared in panic but the Prince swatted its thrashing hooves away with his mace and stepped aside to knock a lance away from his chest.
In the space he created for himself, he half turned to those men being pushed back beside him.
“Come, my lords!” The Prince shouted, breathing raggedly. “For England!”
In response, the great cry of our people went up. “Saint George!”
“Prince Edward!” I shouted as my battle cry, for my heart was greatly stirred by the young lord’s heroism and his skill. “For the Prince! Prince Edward!”
I hurled myself into the fray beside the heir to the throne and Thomas and John were with me, as was Walter, who put himself in harm’s way for me many a time, though he was but a mortal
man. Bless his black heart.
Humphrey Ingham, the Prince’s friend, fought like a lion even with the hindrance of the great banner, throwing his body before Edward’s time and again so that he became much battered.
For a time, I all but lost myself in the battle. The enemy faltered and returned, time and again. And we threw them back, time and again.
Night was almost upon us when the heat went out of the enemy. Prince Edward stepped closer and, exhausted beyond speaking, briefly placed a hand upon my shoulder. I clapped him on his arm, with a little too much enthusiasm, and he staggered away.
John grabbed me, leaned his helm against mine and shouted through the metal into my ear. “Now is the time, is it not? Now we should rush out and finish them?”
I looked to Thomas close behind us, who chopped his hand down in a signal that meant we should not act.
“Still too many,” Thomas cried to John. “How many more do they have out there? Ten thousand mounted?”
“Numbers count for nought!” I shouted. “Remember the Mongols, Thomas.”
I could tell by the set of his shoulders that he scoffed at me because he thought I was half mad with the urge to kill more men.
“King Philip holds the other side of the field,” he said. “We had the best of it today. Perhaps we shall decide this tomorrow, no?”
“They will flee, the damned—” I said, in half a growl and caught myself before I spoke an insult aimed at all Frenchmen. “Come, the Prince is safe for now. Come, all of you, come.”
I led them out of the fray, back up of the hill.
Black Walter flipped up his visor, panting next to me. “French still coming, ain’t they, sir? Should we not stay with the Prince until he be safe and well?”
“Be quiet, Walt.”
Almost to the King, I turned and looked out at the heaving to and fro of the battlefield.
It was clear to me that we had triumphed over the French. No matter how often the mounted French charged, fell back, rallied and charged again, their attacks could not break us.
We stood and watched, all of us wondering when would be the right moment to throw a good portion of our reserves into the fight on the front lines.