by Dan Davis
“Where are they?” men asked each other.
“Do not ask,” others said. “Make yourself rich while you can.”
All the men knew that the French could easily outnumber our small army by two or three or more times and not even our veteran soldiers thought we could stand against that so deep into French territory. We were in the heart of France and could not run for the sea like we had always had before in Normandy and Brittany.
The army destroyed the town of Issoudun so thoroughly that much of it remained uninhabited for years after we were done with it. The small garrison sat in the keep and watched us from the walls. We did not bother them and they left us to it.
“They are cowards,” Hugh said, with uncharacteristic venom. “They should come out and fight.”
“They would die,” Rob said, gesturing at the men on the walls. “And for what? For this little town?”
“Even so,” Hugh said. “It would be the honourable thing to do.”
“They are not knights, Hugh,” Thomas said, softly.
“Even if they were,” Walt said. “It’d be a stupid bloody knight who charges into this lot. That be a glorious death, Hugh? To be hacked apart by the sons of tanners and labourers?”
What could Hugh say? His sense of honour was offended every day by the sight of so many Englishmen destroying his beloved country. It was hard on both Hugh and Thomas but the older man had the strength of character to find some level of personal accommodation with the world as it was.
The French had received a fleet of galleys from Aragon and so King Edward found himself suddenly unable to cross to France and join up with the Prince. Instead, Lancaster was ordered to take his two thousand veterans south from Normandy to meet us in September.
Joining the two armies together was critical and yet it seemed to many of us to be impossible.
“Do you truly believe,” Thomas asked me, “that Lancaster can lead so many men across two hundred miles of hostile country and make a rendezvous without being trapped and destroyed?”
“Only time will tell,” I said, though I doubted it also.
We were watched and followed, day and night, by French scouts. The mounted men were always watching from every horizon, relaying our movements and actions back to the French.
“Want us to kill them, sir?” Walt asked.
“Good God, no.
“They’ll tell old King John where we be at.”
I pinched my eyes and cursed the stupidity of the common man.
“We want them to see us, Walt. We want them to see how few we are, how spread out we are, how much loot we are weighted down with. We want the French to come. We need the King to bring the Dauphin and the other great lords so that the black knight comes with them.”
“Right you are, sir.” Walt lifted a hand and gave them a friendly wave.
They turned and galloped away in panic.
The local lords assembled their forces but still they kept away from us, preferring to hide on the other side of the Loire and wait for King John to bring enough proper soldiers from the rest of his lands to crush us.
And, finally, praise God, he was coming.
Our men reached the River Cher and put every building to the torch for a distance of twenty miles in all directions. The country burned.
Chandos and Ingham took a force to Aubigny where they clashed with a group of eighty French men-at-arms. The fighting was hard but the French were defeated, many captured and the rest driven off. Irritatingly, Humphrey Ingham won great plaudits from his skill and bravery in the sordid little scrap.
The Loire thereabouts was flat and boggy and the trees were of willow and alder on the higher patches of land among the endless reedbeds. After all the rain that summer the river was enormous. It was wide, deep and fast flowing and could not be forded.
We found that there was no way across.
The main body of our army came up behind the advance companies and occupied the burning towns and country.
“Where are the bloody French?” I asked Thomas, for the hundredth time. “Can they not see what we are doing to the heart of France? How can any king allow this to happen to his country? To his people?”
“Perhaps we should ride north,” Thomas said, “and ask them?”
I nodded. “A fine notion. But we need not ride north. There are Frenchmen hereabouts, are there not?” I sat up in my saddle and turned to find the man who was my shadow. “Walt? Take Rob and bring us back a few French scouts, will you?”
Walt looked exasperated. “I thought you said we was to ignore them, sir?”
“Just bring me a damned Frenchman.”
Before sundown, my company dragged three men back to us. They had ropes about their necks and all three had been beaten roughly about the face.
“Where is your king?” I asked them.
“We will tell you nothing,” one of them said, his face rigid with fury and contempt. “Nothing.”
“Very well,” I said.
I sliced my dagger across his throat, lifted him and drank the blood from his neck while the other two men cowered and sobbed in horror. Before his heart stopped, I tossed him to my soldiers, who grabbed him and supped from the wound, passing him around like a wine skin.
“Now, sirs? What can you tell me about the location and the intentions of King John?”
They died the same way as their fellow scout but before their blood fed my company they admitted that the French would confront our army on the road to Tours.
“How far does that be, sir?” Rob asked.
“Tours? It is merely sixty or seventy miles west.”
“That mean there’s going to be a battle this week, sir?”
“It depends on the courage of the French.”
Thomas and Hugh took no part in such brutality and though they rarely gave voice to it, their behaviour spoke loudly enough. I did not like disappointing Thomas but I needed victory, not honourable failure.
Sixty French men-at-arms and a few hundred infantry guarded the crossing of the Sauldre at Romorantin. The Prince decided that he had to drive them away and so ordered the taking of the walled town and its ancient keep.
“Why get bogged down with this bloody lot?” Walt asked while we watched the army assembling for the assault. “We always leave big towns or garrisons what burrow in to keeps like tics. Waste time here and the French army will cut us off.”
“With any luck,” I said, brightly.
Thomas answered Walt’s questions properly. “We cannot allow a force made up of hundreds of men at our rear as we advance on Tours. If the French do stop us on the road we will have those men in that town attacking us from behind.”
Rob nodded. “Still a risk to stay in place for so long. What if they hold out in there? Look at the size of the bloody walls, Tom.”
“It certainly appears to be a tough place but it is old and will fall, in time. Perhaps this will be where the French catch us. This is what we want, is it not? Then we shall find the men we seek.”
“He is right,” I said. “We must have the heart of the black knight and then we shall rejoice, even if the cost is the destruction of our entire army and the death of every Englishman in France.”
My men were appalled but I cared nothing for that. My enemy was so close now, I could almost taste him.
“While we’re here,” some of my men said, “perhaps we might get involved, Sir Richard? Lots of gold in that town. Women, too.”
“And we would be of great help to our soldiers,” Hugh said, eagerly.
“No,” I snapped. “I need you all alive and well for the coming battle. I will not lose any of you in some pointless siege. Let the mortals spend their lives.”
Thomas glanced at me and I was ready to tell him to take his chivalry and shove it up his arse but he simply turned away in silence.
In the end, it was a brutal assault on the little town. Our men stormed the walls and the garrison retreated into the citadel. Three long days of struggle, the Pr
ince’s army tried to winkle out those men inside. Our miners undermined the walls while our siege engineers threw up three moveable assault towers and the soldiers launched repeated attacks on the keep from every direction at once.
The men were exhausted but the Prince urged them all on. He swore that it had to be done swiftly or it would be the end of the army.
All the while I prayed to see the blue and yellow banner of the King of France appear on the distant horizon. But no one came to save the town and the assaults continued until the keep was set on fire. It burned all through the night and in the morning the garrison surrendered.
We headed for Tours.
The delay had cost us. The French were coming, out of sight somewhere to the north, every man knew it now. But where would they catch us? I considered sending a message north to let King John know where we were but that would have been treasonous and besides, it was hardly necessary.
Every mile on the road to Tours, with the River Cher on our left, I expected scouts to report that the way was blocked.
And yet we reached Tours unopposed.
“Perhaps I should send word,” I muttered to Thomas. “Clearly, King John is a coward or utterly incompetent. Perhaps if he knew how tired we are, he would take heart and come to meet us in the open field?”
“Anything you did or said would be mistrusted by the French,” Thomas replied. “They would certainly think you had been sent by the Prince and suspect a trap. It may even drive them away from us.”
“God damn his cowardice.”
Lancaster was on the other side of the Loire with his two thousand men but he could not cross to us and we could not cross to him, for the French had broken every damned bridge across the great river from Tours to Blois. It was a serious setback. Our armies were suddenly more likely than ever to be destroyed one by one, despite being so close as the crow flies.
The Prince, bold as a lion, decided to take the city.
Tours was big. It was well defended by the river and by walls and towers enclosing the city and the castle. The citizens had dug ditches and raised ramparts and palisades. We wanted to burn them out but the endless rain did not allow it. Men experienced with assaulting towns were thrown at the walls but they fell back every time.
And then the French came.
Finally, the combined French army crossed the Loire just thirty miles upstream at Blois and came charging down at us. We were suddenly at great risk of being caught tween Tours and the enormous army of the King and so the Prince did the only sensible thing he could.
He ordered us to flee.
The army abandoned everything that we did not need and charged south, crossing two small tributaries and making ten miles before dark caught us.
In the morning, we found that the French had sent envoys.
They wanted peace.
“Bloody cowards,” I said. “We cannot have that.”
“But we do not need a battle,” Thomas pointed out. “We wished for the French army to come within close proximity so we could seek the black knight.”
“Yes, yes,” I said, irritated. “But how do we now find him if there are twenty thousand enemies spread across miles of country? I need to see his black banner held aloft, Thomas.”
“There’s truly more of them than us?” Walt asked.
“Twice as many, at least,” Rob replied. “So the scouts are saying.”
“That is what they always say,” Hugh pointed out.
“I think this time it is true,” I said.
“And every one of them a man-at-arms on fresh horses?” Walt frowned. “While we’re saddle sore, injured, and wet to the bone? What are they afraid of?”
Rob and his archers laughed. “This,” Rob said, stroking his bow stave.
Walt shook his head. “When will they bloody learn?”
“Learn what?” Rob said, offended. “How would you fight us?”
Walt shrugged. “Either do it or don’t do it. But farting around it don’t do nothing.”
The envoys spoke at length to the Prince about truces and treaties. But the Prince replied that there would be no peace. The King of France was here with an army and if he wanted peace, he would have to fight for it.
It was a very fine sentiment, somewhat undermined by the fact that we immediately turned and ran south once more. King John had the local forces in addition to his own army of mounted men and also the young Dauphin had arrived with another thousand men-at-arms. The black knight had to be amongst them.
Our lords were desperate to join up with Lancaster’s army in the west while King John attempted to get around us to the east and cut off our retreat. He was so close on our heels that his men reached our nightly stopping point just hours after we left it. And our brave Prince made a difficult decision.
He waited.
The Prince held his army at Chatellerault, in the hope that Lancaster could reach us there and cross while we held the bridge.
French scouts watched us and ours watched them. The great French army was somewhere to the northeast and heralds gathered between our armies as the inevitability of battle grew.
“Surely,” I said to Thomas. “Surely, this is it. I cannot stand it any longer.”
“You know how it goes,” Thomas said. “There has to be the will to fight from both armies. We are getting tired, now. If Lancaster does not come? We will try to run. And King John? Will he have the courage of his ancestors? His kingdom is not a happy one.”
“There will be no avoiding it now,” I muttered. “Surely.”
Yet his words concerned me. What if the French pulled away again and my enemy disappeared once more? “But let us find him now, Thomas. Let us go to the French. Find the black banner amongst them. And slay him there.”
“You have been patient for years,” Thomas said. “You can wait a few days longer.”
“What if he flees, Thomas?” I said, almost pleadingly. “We could charge into the enemy now. Right now, Thomas. We could do it.”
Thomas, God love him, nodded slowly. “Perhaps. He will likely be with the Dauphin. Deep within the army. Imagine it. The press of men and horse. Even our strength could not throw down thousands of horses and men. Our company will certainly be stopped before we can reach him. No, no. It cannot be done. You must wait, Richard. Take heart. Have patience, sir. Take the time to pray.”
I scoffed in his face. “I will go alone, then. One man on a horse is nothing to them. I will call myself a Frenchman. There will be so many of them, they will not know the truth of it until I am in striking distance.”
“You would assassinate him, and kill his men also? Even if you could achieve such a thing, you would give yourself away in doing the deed and the French would tear you apart.”
“Possibly.”
“Certainly.”
“Then so be it! If he never leaves the side of the Dauphin, how can I hope to kill him?”
Thomas stroked his chin. He needed to shave. “You shall have to wait for the battle.”
I hung my head. “You said there may be no battle.”
“Eventually, there will always be a battle.”
Thinking of Priskos, I imagined what Alexander would do. What would Caesar do? Would they act? They had commanded armies and I had one company. Patience and steadiness were virtues but I could wait no longer.
“I must make an attempt,” I said. “If they are too strong, I shall return. But I must see the banner, Thomas. I need to see it. If I can reach it, I will.”
“Take Walt with you.”
“He will give me away with his presence. Even a fool can see that Walt is an Englishman. Look at his features, Thomas. Despite his colouring, he is the most English thing you ever saw, is he not? Or Welsh, perhaps, I will allow. But I am stronger now than I have ever been and need no man’s help. I shall do it alone.”
“You need a good man to watch your back.”
“Perhaps you should come with me?”
He thought about it. “Without me, the comp
any will turn feral. Even Rob cannot control them now.”
I left them in the dark of the first night. I took Walt with me.
Leaving my men was a mistake.
In my wrath and my haste, I was throwing away the steady work I had done over the previous years to uncover as much as I had. Because I was so close, I could not temper my frustration but still I believed that I could not fail. Thinking of my immortal ancestors made me feel as invincible as Priskos, as vigorous as Caesar, and as mighty as Alexander.
Patience is a conquering virtue. And vanity is the deadliest sin.
21. Deception
By morning, I was close enough to smell them. The French were moving around us along the roads to the east. Moving in their thousands, spread out over many miles. I rode into them and simply asked.
“Where is the knight of the black banner? Have you seen the Dauphin’s mystery knight? You, sir? Do you know of the knight of the black banner? Where is he, sir?”
I asked a dozen, a score, a hundred, as I rode back along their lines. Some men were angry, calling me a dog, a swine, or an Englishman. From most of these, I simply rode on, calling out cheerfully and with encouraging words, before asking my questions again.
“Who has seen the Dauphin’s black knight? Where is he?”
“With the damned Dauphin, you fool!” one man shouted, to much laughter.
“Where is the Dauphin?”
A series of shouts came back to me from knights, squires and pages.
“With the King.”
“At home with your wife!”
“Up your arse!”
Their laughter filled the air as I rode on, trying to get deeper into the masses of riders coming the other way. We were cursed and damned for going in the wrong direction but I kept claiming that I had a message. Everywhere I looked it was more knights, lances and pennants, banners, and shining steel. The whole day passed in that way and by evening I was cursing myself for wasting my time.
“We’ll go back home to the lads now, will we, sir?” Walt asked, speaking softly.