The three of them closed in around Calveley. Uriens should have intervened to defend his captain, but hesitated, and I wondered if he had been made privy to the covenant.
Murder was averted by the men on watch. They had heard the rumble of galloping horses, and ran back to camp, shouting a warning as they leaped the ditch.
All eyes turned to the east, where horsemen could be seen emerging from the forest. I counted over a score, most of them sergeants in leather jerkins and kettle hats, armed with lances. They were galloping straight for the camp, obviously hoping to catch us by surprise.
Our archers reacted quickest, snatching up their bows and rushing to the edge of the ditch. They calmly shot a hail of shafts into the deepening blue velvet sky, released another while the first volley was still in flight, and another.
The arrows fell like a cloud of angry bees among the horsemen, galling them and frightening their horses. Two went down, one with an arrow in his eye and the other thrown by his wounded horse. The rest scattered, their enthusiasm quenched, with the exception of five men-at-arms in heavy plate and mail. These ploughed straight on, ignoring the arrows that bounced harmlessly off their harness.
The ground shook under the tremor of their charge as I ran to my tent. I saw Thierry and Julien standing on the back of the wagon, throwing lances and swords down to our men, and Calveley standing with his mouth open, his long face a mask of terror.
The sound of screaming horses and the crunch of steel rang in my ears as I plucked my helm and Good-Dagger from the pile of gear inside my tent. By the time I emerged, fumbling with the straps of my helm, our men-at-arms had formed up in line on the edge of the ditch while the squires fell in behind them.
The armoured horsemen had been driven off, and I saw one of them limping away on foot. He left his horse behind, bleeding to death with a lance-head broken off in her belly.
Uriens was hopping about the rear of our line like a maddened imp. “Get in line, Page!” he screamed, waving his sword at me, and I hurried to take my place behind O Neill.
I thought we had driven the enemy off, but the horsemen were just a feint to test our mettle. Now the Archpriest threw his real strength against us.
The dark mass of the forest to the east was suddenly lit by hundreds of torches, blazing into life like a host of ghostly candles inside a darkened cathedral, and men started to pour out of the woods. First came a unit of arbalesters, heavy crossbowmen, strung out in a long line and carrying heavy pavise shields. Behind them, rank after rank of infantry, split into three divisions. The central division consisted of men-at-arms carrying shortened lances and with long axes slung about their necks. The spear and axe-men on their flanks were more lightly armed in leather and mail.
“I count three hundred,” said Courcy, who was standing to my left, “royal troops, and levies from local garrisons. Look at their banners.”
I looked, and recognised the royal arms of France and Burgundy among others I didn’t know. “What about that banner in the middle?” I asked, pointing at the advancing mass of men-at-arms, “the long white pennon with the golden crucifix. Whose is that?”
“The Archpriest’s!” someone moaned, and his doleful name rippled up and down the line, mixed with curses and prayers.
The arbalesters halted, rammed their pavises firmly into the earth, and began to laboriously wind the windlasses of their crossbows. Our war bows would easily outshoot them, but they could crouch in safety and reload behind their man-sized shields.
“Stop wasting arrows!” shouted Uriens after watching several volleys go wide or bury harmlessly in the thick wood of the pavises.
All this time I had not heard Calveley’s voice, and if I turned my head to look for him Uriens would have thrashed the skin off my back.
“Archers hold the flanks,” he shouted, “and keep an eye on those bastards behind the pavises.”
He rattled off a list of names to come out of the line and form a reserve. Ralph was one, and I just had time to clasp his hand before he was off, running with the others to the rear, where our horses were tethered.
The arbalests loosed off their bolts, and I heard Courcy scream as one of the stubby, feathered missiles sprouted from his groin. More screams and groans erupted around me. The man-at-arms to O Neill’s right was hit in the face and slumped quietly into the ditch, dropping his lance.
We might have stood there and been shot to pieces, but the Archpriest wanted blood, and lots of it. A shrill trumpet rang out, and his infantry broke into a run. The air thrummed with the sound of bowstrings as our archers desperately tried to stem the encroaching tide.
The arbalests had done terrible damage, and our wall of lances was irreparably broken. O Neill tossed his lance into the ditch and stood up, pulling out his sword and hatchet.
“No quarter, boys!” he howled, clashing his weapons on his armoured chest and breaking into some barbarous war-chant in his native Irish.
It seemed impossible that our thin line could hold against such odds. I was going to die, I knew it, and am not ashamed to admit that I lost control of my bladder. My accident went unnoticed, since Courcy was lying squirming in agony on the grass next to me, screaming and leaking blood and shit from his perforated bowel. His dying yells joined the cacophony of beating drums and shouted orders and twanging bowstrings.
“Remember, Page, I’m relying on you to keep me alive,” said O Neill, breaking off from his savage song to remind me, “watch my back, now, and smash any bastard who gets past my guard.”
I nodded, and wiped sweat from my brow. I had never been so terrified, even when standing on the scaffold at Warwick. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to get away as fast as possible. For some reason I stood my ground.
The French were almost at the ditch now, faceless iron demons, armour gleaming in the hellish glow of torches. The man carrying the Archpriest’s pennon waved it aloft to encourage them, and with a roar the demons charged.
Only the bravest of men offer to fight in the front ranks, for there is the point of greatest danger, and men who charged first into the waist-high ditch were certainly brave. They were also easy targets for O Neill and his mates, who got to work with iron-shod mauls, swords, war-hammers and axes, cracking helms and smashing iron-clad limbs.
The French fought back with desperate fury, stabbing upwards with their shortened lances. Clayton was to my left, and I saw a lance enter below his knee and thrust out through the back of his leg. He fell into the ditch, howling, to be finished off on the ground with a poniard, and I stepped forward to take his place.
This was my first opportunity to use the Good-Dagger in anger, and I made the most of it. The Frenchman who had stabbed Clayton was now trying to climb out of the ditch, so I brought the club down on his head with all my young strength. The effect was most gratifying. His steel helm crumpled like paper, the laces burst and blood spat from the eye-holes. He went limp, so I fetched him another terrific welt and knocked him back into the ditch.
“Bastard!” I shouted, and had to jump back as another man-at-arms thrust his lance at me, narrowly avoiding taking the point in my liver. O Neill stamped on the lance, tearing it out of the Frenchman’s hands, and killed him with a sword-thrust to the throat.
O Neill was thoroughly enjoying himself, and I heard him laugh wildly as he pulled his dripping blade free. “That’s another one!” he shouted at the men struggling in the ditch. “Can you not fight, then, you French? Sure, this is like butchering sheep on my uncle’s farm!”
He was drunk with war-delight, and his face under the bascinet shone with sweat and murderous joy.
Amid the noise and the confusion, the screaming of men and horses and the clatter of weapons on armour, it was difficult to tell what was happening. The darkness to my left suddenly erupted Frenchmen, and I knew their superior numbers had rolled up our flank, scattering the archers and tiny band of horse that had tried to hold it.
Uriens, that proud little man, tried to stem the tide by himsel
f. He chopped down two men before being overwhelmed, and I last saw him disappearing under a pile of bodies.
“Damn them, I’ll not run!” shouted O Neill, and went gladly to meet his death, swinging his sword and hatchet and shouting incomprehensible oaths. I followed, for my job was to protect him, and his rage had infected me.
I could easily have died there, hacked and trampled into the bloody ground beside the Loire. O Neill led me straight into the thick of the fighting, where a stubborn group of veterans were making a last stand. Clayton was one of them, and Cheyne, both slathered in gore and fighting like devils.
Three sergeants in gambesons and pot helmets rushed at O Neill, and he swiftly bludgeoned them all into pulp, his hatchet a whirling blur. I finished off one as he lay moaning with his right hand half-severed from his wrist, stamping on him and crushing his throat under my heel. A spearman jabbed at me, absurdly young and pretty under his kettle hat, and I thrust the spike of my Good-Dagger into his face, ruining his delicate good looks forever.
A strange happiness coursed through me, the euphoria that falls over some warriors in battle and causes them to laugh hysterically in the midst of terrible danger. O Neill was laughing too, hoarse wheezing noises spilling from his bruised and bloody lips, though his visor had been mangled by some terrific blow and one eye was a pulped, bloody mess.
“Die hard, boys!” were his last words, before a spear-point plunged into his mouth. He collapsed, bubbling and gasping for air, and the French jackals clubbed him to death where he lay.
He was done, as was my duty to protect him, and I could look to my own safety. There was none to be had in the middle of that cramped, desperate melee, and no chance of escape. I saw Cheyne die, wrestled to the earth by four men while a fifth drove a spear into his chest, and a thick, muscular arm gripped me about the neck. Stinking breath wafted over me, and I felt the keen edge of a knife pressed against the scarred flesh on my neck.
The French are terribly keen on throat-slitting, as anyone who has witnessed the aftermath of a French victory and survived could tell you. My brother rescued me, riding down the man who had me in his grip and leaning down to grab me as I staggered and almost fell under his horse’s hoofs.
Ralph was strong, strong enough to heave me across the back of the spare rouncey he was leading. She had no saddle or harness, so I dug my fingers into her mane and thumped her flanks with my boots, yelling wordlessly. The terrified beast tore away at a gallop and I managed to steer her after my brother, who was laying about him with a broken lance as he cleared a path to the river.
The Loire was our only hope. One or two of our men had managed to swim across to the opposite bank, but Uriens was right, the water was deep here and the current unpredictable. Many more fugitives had been dragged under or swept away. Others were caught and slaughtered in the shallows by the Archpriest’s men, including Julien, our disgraced monk. His burst-bellied carcase was floating gently in the water like a drowned cow, leaking blood from a mass of wounds.
God must have been on our side, for we made it to the bank and urged our horses into the water. They were brave beasts and splashed in up to their bellies, shuddering at the cold, but kept going. Spears rained about us, and I felt a rush of air as a crossbow-bolt flew inches past my head. I crouched low, hanging over my rouncey’s flank as she swam further into the river, her muscles bunching and surging under me as she fought against the strong current.
Ralph was just ahead, making good progress towards the reeds on the opposite bank. Two of our comrades who had made it across were standing knee-deep in the water, shouting encouragement and beckoning us towards them. One was Pasmore, and the other a tough, leathery archer named John Hobbes.
Incredibly, we reached the shallows unscathed, and I jumped into the water to drag my rouncey ashore. As I did so I glanced back and caught my first glimpse of the Archpriest.
He was a massive figure sat on a dappled grey destrier, one armoured fist planted on his hip as he watched us escape, heavy-shouldered and broad-bellied, tattered priestly vestments draped over his harness. Torch light reflected off the glistening sweat on his bald, lantern-jawed skull, and his deep-set little eyes were fastened on me.
He raised his right hand as if in greeting. I gave him a little wave in reply, and heard his deep laughter rolling across the river.
10.
My brother and I were hunted fugitives again, just as in the forests of Warwickshire, only now we had a far more terrible enemy pursuing us. The Sheriff would only hang you, but I had heard terrible stories of the Archpriest’s cruelty and his treatment of prisoners. There was no-one to ransom us, for we were common soldiers, mere peasants, and the world cared not if we lived or died.
The four of us pushed on through the woods, leading our horses on foot in case we needed them to gallop later. There was precious little talk as we slid and scrambled through the wet, difficult undergrowth, stumbling blindly through the night. Terror drove us on, and we only paused for breath when we could run no further, our lungs on fire and legs trembling with fatigue.
To my surprise, Hobbes started to laugh, a strange creaking noise out of the side of his mouth, like a rusty gate swinging on its hinges. He was a shabby, scarecrow-like character, loping along on thin heron-like legs with his long arms hanging by his sides. I had always avoided him in the past, since he stank and seldom spoke, and when he did thick bubbles of spit would appear at the corners of his greasy mouth.
“They ain’t following,” he said, cackling, “we’ve been running like hares chased by a fox, and they ain’t come after us. Listen!”
He held up one dirty finger, and we strained our ears to listen for sounds of pursuit. There was none, no sound at all save the distant hooting of an owl and the rustle of small creatures creeping about in the bushes.
“The Archpriest will want us dead, surely,” said Pasmore, panting as he mopped sweat from his forehead, “unless he’s happy with scattering the Company.”
“You saw his banners,” said Hobbes, “he’s in the pay of Burgundy and France. The Duke will want him to work fast. Left to himself, the Archpriest might enjoy himself hunting us down, but we’re not important enough.”
Ralph was frowning with his head was cocked to one side. “Be quiet, all of you,” he hissed. “There’s something out there.”
We fell silent. He was right. Someone or something was trying to move quietly through the woods, back the way we had come, and failing. I could hear twigs crackling as they snapped underfoot, and the rustle of a body moving clumsily through the undergrowth.
I glimpsed a shadow moving in the darkness. The others saw it too, and drew their daggers.
“Come out, you sneaking bugger,” shouted Hobbes, “or we’ll come in there and pull your guts out.”
The shadow darted out of sight behind a tree, and then slowly re-emerged. “If I come out,” a thin, quavering voice called out, “do I have your word you won’t hurt me?”
“He’s English, at least,” muttered Pasmore. I recognised the voice, but not the cringing tone.
“Come out, Calveley,” I said, “we won’t hurt you.”
He shambled out, all the pride and swagger knocked out of him by the Company’s shattering defeat at the river. He had lost his fine sword, his fine black breeches and tunic were torn and bedraggled, and the gleam in his remaining eye was quite extinguished, replaced by an almost animal-like fear.
“Well, well,” said Hobbes, fingering his knife, “if it isn’t our brave commander. Got away from the fight, did you, sir?”
Calveley couldn’t even face him. He looked utterly wretched and demoralised, and another man might have felt a twinge of pity for him. I didn’t, but nor did I want him murdered on the spot.
“Leave him be,” I said. “He’s had a rough time of it, as we all have.”
The other three looked at me in amazement. “A rough time?” cried Hobbes, “as rough as Uriens, who I last saw with an axe in his belly, or Cheyne, or Clayton, or all t
he rest of them? They’re dead, Page, or soon will be, and this one should be dead too.”
Pasmore nodded in agreement. “Calveley should have been with us,” he said, “but I saw him nowhere in the fight. Uriens had to take command. Where were you, then, eh?”
He spat the question at our fallen captain, who looked shame-faced and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
“To Hell with his explanations,” said Ralph, and I recognised the dangerous gleam in his eye as he stalked towards Calveley. He clearly wanted revenge for the stripes on his back, still only half-healed, and none of us were minded to stop him.
He grabbed a fistful of Calveley’s jerkin, pulled the man towards him, and drew back his other fist. I had felt the force of Ralph’s hammer blows, many a time, and knew what was coming.
After a time, when Calveley was half-conscious on the floor and bubbling blood from his ears and nostrils, I wandered up to my brother and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Enough,” I said quietly, and he stepped away, nodding in satisfaction and rubbing the fresh bruises on his knuckles.
Hobbes scratched his filthy ear as he gazed dispassionately at the remains of Will Calveley. “What do we do with him, then?” he asked, “leave him here, or carry him along with us?”
I looked to Clayton, but the older man seemed uncertain, and for the first time I felt the heavy touch of responsibility. Despite their age and experience, Clayton and Hobbes were followers rather than leaders, and always waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Ralph was cast in the same mould.
“We take him with us,” I said firmly, though privately my soul was shrinking in panic at the thought of being in command, “pathetic though he is, he is still a comrade, and Englishmen do not leave other Englishmen to be eaten by wolves or the French.”
Pasmore and Hobbes bridled at that, but I held up my hand. “Unless, of course, we have to flee for our lives,” I conceded, “in which case, we can dump the bastard.”
The Half-Hanged Man Page 6