The Grail Quest 2 - Vagabond tgq-2

by Bernard Cornwell

  Not all of you. We're trying to make them believe we're short of arrows and if you didn't have arrows you wouldn't be standing out in front, now would you? Hold the horses where they are!' He shouted this last order to the squires, pages and servants who had brought up the destriers. The men-at-arms were not to mount yet, the horses were simply being held at the back of the line, just behind the place where half the archers now formed. The enemy, seeing the horses, must conclude that the English, short of arrows, were contemplating flight.

  And so the simple trap was baited.

  A silence fell on the battlefield, except that the wounded were moaning, ravens calling and some women crying. The monks began to chant again, but they were still on the English left and to Thomas, now on the right, the sound was faint. A bell rang in the city.

  'I do fear we're being too clever,' Outhwaite re-marked to Thomas. His lordship was not a man who could keep silent and there was no one else in the right-hand division convenient for conversation and so he selected Thomas. He sighed. 'It doesn't always work, being clever.'

  'It worked for us in Brittany, my lord.'

  'You were in Brittany as well as Picardy?' Lord Outhwaite asked. He was still mounted and was gazing over the men-at-arms towards the Scots.

  'I served a clever man there, my lord.'

  'And who was that?' Lord Outhwaite was pretending to be interested, perhaps regretting that he had even begun the conversation.

  'Will Skeat, my lord, only he's Sir William now. The King knighted him at the battle.'

  'Will Skeat?' Lord Outhwaite was engaged now. 'You served Will? By the good Lord, you did? Dear William. I haven't heard that name in many a year. How is he?'

  'Not well, my lord,' Thomas said, and he told how Will Skeat, a commoner who had become the leader of a band of archers and men-at-arms 'vho were feared wherever men spoke French, had been grievously wounded at the battle in Picardy. 'He was taken to Caen, my lord.'

  Lord Outhwaite frowned. 'That's back in French hands, surely?'

  'A Frenchman took him there, my lord,' Thomas explained, 'a friend, because there's a doctor in the city who can work miracles.' At the end of the battle, when men could at last think they had lived through the horror, Skeat's skull had been opened to the sky and when Thomas had last seen him Skeat had been dumb, blind and powerless.

  'I don't know why the French make better physicians,' Lord Outhwaite said in mild annoyance, 'but it seems they do. My father always said they did, and he had much trouble with his phlegm.'

  'This man's Jewish, my lord.'

  'And with his shoulders. Jewish! Did you say Jewish?' Lord Outhwaite sounded alarmed. 'I have nothing against Jews,' he vvent on, though without conviction, 'but I can think of a dozen good reasons why one should never resort to a Jewish physician.'

  'Truly, my lord?'

  'My dear fellow, how can they harness the power of the saints? Or the healing properties of relics? Or the efficacy of holy water? Even prayer is a mystery to them. My mother, rest her soul, had great pain in her knees. Too much praying, I always thought, but her physician ordered her to wrap her legs in cloths that had been placed on the grave of St Cuthbert and to pray thrice a day to St Gregory of Nazianzus and it worked! It worked! But no Jew could prescribe such a cure, could he? And if he did it would be blasphemous and bound to fail. I must say I think it most ill advised to have placed poor Will into a Jew's hands. He deserves better, indeed he does.' He shook his head reprovingly. 'Will served my father for a time, but was too smart a fellow to stay cooped up on the Scottish border. Not enough plunder, you see? Went off on his own, he did. Poor Will.'

  'The Jewish doctor,' Thomas said stubbornly, 'cured me.'

  'We can only pray.' Lord Outhwaite ignored Thomas's claim and spoke in a tone which suggested that prayer, though needful, would almost certainly prove useless. Then he cheered up suddenly. 'Ah! I think our friends are stirring!' The Scottish drums had begun to beat and all along the enemy's line men were hitching up shields, dropping visors or hefting swords. They could see that the English had brought their horses closer, presumably to aid their retreat, and that the enemy line was apparently stripped of half its archers, so they must have believed that those bowmen were perilously short of missiles, yet the Scots still chose to advance on foot, knowing that even a handful of arrows could madden their horses and throw a mounted charge into chaos. They shouted as they advanced, as much to hearten themselves as put fear in the English, but they became more confident when they reached the place where the bodies lay from their last charge and still no arrows flew.

  'Not yet, lads, not yet.' Lord Outhwaite had taken command of the archers on the right wing. The Lords Percy and Neville commanded here, yet both were con-tent to allow the older man give orders to the bow-men while they waited with their men-at-arms. Lord Outhwaite glanced constantly across the field to where the Scots advanced on the English left wing, where his own men were, but he was satisfied that the hollow of ground would go on protecting them just as the stone wall shielded the centre. It was here on the side of the ridge closest to Durham where the Scots were strongest and the English most vulnerable. 'Let them get closer,' he warned the archers. 'We want to finish them off once and for all, poor fellows.' He began tapping his fingers on his saddle's pommel, keeping time with the few remaining big Scottish drums and waiting until the front rank of Scots was only a hundred paces away. 'Foremost archers,' he called when he judged the enemy was close enough, 'that's you fellows in front of the line! Start shooting!'

  About half the archers were in plain sight in the army's front and they now drew their bows, cocked the arrows up into the air and loosed. The Scots, seeing the volley coming, began to run, hoping to close the range quickly so that only a handful of the arrows would hurt.

  'All archers!' Lord Outhwaite boomed, fearing he had waited too long, and the archers who had been concealed behind the men-at-arms began to shoot over the heads of the troops in front. The Scots were close now, close enough so that even the worst archer could not fail to hit his mark, so close that the arrows were again piercing through mail and bodies, and strewing the ground with more wounded and dying men. Thomas could hear the arrows striking home. Some clanged off armour, some thumped into shields, but many made a sound like a butcher's axe when it slaughtered cattle at winter's coming. He aimed at a big man whose visor was raised and sent an arrow down his throat. Another arrow into a tribesman whose face was contorted with hate. Then an arrow's pock split on him, spinning the broken missile away when he released the string. He plucked the feathered scraps from the string, took a new arrow and drove it into another bearded tribesman who was all fury and hair. A mounted Scotsman was encouraging his men forward and then he was flailing in the saddle, struck by three arrows and Thomas loosed another shaft, striking a man-at-arms clean in the chest so that the point ripped through mail, leather, bone and flesh. His next arrow sank into a shield. The Scots were floundering, trying to force themselves into the rain of death. 'Steady, boys, steady!' an archer called to his fellows, fearing they were snatching at the strings and thus not using the full force of their bows.

  'Keep shooting!' Lord Outhwaite called. His fingers still tapped the pommel of his saddle, though the Scottish drums were faltering. 'Lovely work! Lovely work!'

  'Horses!' Lord Percy ordered. He could see that the Scots were on the edge of despair for the English archers were not after all short of arrows. 'Horses!' he bellowed again, and his men-at-arms ran back to haul themselves into saddles. Pages and squires handed up the big heavy lances as men fiddled armoured feet into stirrups, glanced at the suffering enemy and then snapped down their visors.

  'Shoot! Shoot!' Lord Outhwaite called. 'That's the way, lads!' The arrows were pitiless. The Scottish wounded cried to God, called for their mothers and still the feathered death hammered home. One man, wearing the lion of Stewart, spewed a pink mist of blood and spittle. He was on his knees, but managed to stand, took a step, fell to his knees again, shuffled
forward, blew more blood-stained bubbles and then an arrow buried itself in his eye and went through his brain to scrape against the back of his skull and he went backwards as though hit by a thunderbolt. Then the great horses came.

  'For England, Edward and St George!' Lord Percy called and a trumpeter took up the challenge as the great destriers charged. They unceremoniously thrust the archers aside as the lances dropped.

  The turf shook. Only a few horsemen were attacking, but the shock of their charge struck the enemy with stunning force and the Scots reeled back. Lances were relin-quished in men's bodies as the knights drew swords and hacked down at frightened, cowering men who could not run because the press of bodies was too great. More horsemen were mounting up and those men-at-arms who did not want to wait for their stallions were running fonvard to join the carnage. The archers joined them, drawing swords or swinging axes. The drums were at last silent and the slaughter had begun. Thomas had seen it happen before. He had seen how, in an egeblink, a battle could change. The Scots had been pressing all day, they had so nearly shattered the English, they were rampant and winning, yet now they were beaten and the men of the Scottish left, who had come so close to giving their King his victory, were the ones who broke. The English warhorses galloped into their ranks to make bloody lanes and the riders swung swords, axes, clubs and morningstars at panicked men. The English archers joined in, mobbing the slower Scots like packs of hounds leaping onto deer. 'Prisoners!'

  Lord Percy shouted at his retainers. 'I want prisoners!' A Scotsman swung an axe at his horse, missed and was chopped down by his lordship's sword, an archer finished the job with a knife and then slit the man's padded jerkin to search for coins. Two carpenters from Durham hacked with woodworker's adzes at a struggling man-at-arms, bludgeoning his skull, killing him slowly. An archer reeled back, gasping, his belly cut open and a Scot followed him, screaming in rage, but then was tripped by a bowstave and went down under a swarm of men. The trappers of the English horses were dripping with blood as their riders turned to cut their way back through the Scottish host. They had ridden clean through and now spurred back to meet the next wave of English men-at-arms who fought with visors open for the panicking enemy was not offering any real resistance. Yet the Scottish right and centre were intact.

  The right had again been pushed into the low ground, but now, instead of archers fighting them from the rim, they faced the English men-at-arms who were foolish enough to go down into the hollow to meet the Scottish charge. Mailed men clashed over the bodies of the Scottish dead, clambering awkwardly in their metal suits to swing swords and axes against shields and skulls. Men grunted as they killed. They snarled, attacked and died in the muddy bracken, yet the fight was futile for if either side gained an advantage they only pressed their enemy back up the slope and immediately the losing side had the ground as their ally and they would press back downhill and more dead joined the corpses in the hollow's bottom and so the fight surged forward and back, each great swing leaving men weeping and dying, calling on Jesus, cursing their enemy, bleeding.

  Beggar was there, a great rock of a man who stood astride the corpse of the Earl of Moray, mocking the Scots and inviting them to fight, and half a dozen came and were killed before a pack of Highland clansmen came screaming to kill him and he roared at them, swinging his huge spiked mace, and to the Scarecrow, watching from above, he looked like a great shaggy bear assailed by mastiffs. Sir William Douglas, too canny to be caught a second time in the low ground, also watched from the opposing rim and was amazed that men would go willingly down to the slaughter. Then, knowing that the battle would neither be won nor lost in that pit of death, he turned back to the centre where the King's sheltron still had a chance of gaining a great victory despite the disaster on the Scottish left.

  For the King's men had got past the stone wall. In places they had pulled it down and in others it had at last collapsed before the press of men, and though the fallen stones still presented a formidable obstacle to soldiers cumbered by heavy shields and coats of mail they were clambering across and thrusting back the English centre. The Scots had charged into the arrows, endured them and even trapped a score of archers whom they slaughtered gleefully and now they hacked and stabbed their way towards the Archbishop's great banner. The King, his visor sticky with blood from his wounded cheek, was in the forefront of the sheltron. The King's chaplain was beside his master, wielding a spiked club, and Sir William and his nephew joined the attack. Sir William was suddenly ashamed of the premonition that had made him advise a retreat. This was how Scotsmen fought! With passion and savagery. The English centre was reeling back, scarce holding its ranks. Sir William saw that the enemy had fetched their horses close up to the battle line and he surmised they were readying themselves to flee and so he redoubled his efforts. 'Kill them!' he roared. If the Scots could break the line then the English would be in chaos, unable to reach their horses, and mere meat for the butchers.

  'Kill! Kill!' the King, conspicuous on horseback, shouted at his men.

  'Prisoners!' the Earl of Monteith, more sensible, called. 'Take prisoners!'

  'Break them! Break them now!' Sir William roared. He slammed his shield forward to receive a sword stroke, stabbed beneath it and felt his blade pierce a mail coat. He turned the sword and jerked it free before the flesh could grip the steel. He pushed with his shield, unable to see over its top rim, felt the enemy stagger back, lowered the shield in anticipation of a lunge underneath, then rammed it forward again, throwing the enemy back. He stumbled forward, almost losing his footing by tripping on the man he had wounded, but he caught his weight by dropping the bottom edge of the shield on the ground, pushed himself upright and thrust the sword into a bearded face. The blade glanced off the cheekbone, taking an eye, and that man fell backwards, mouth agape, abandoning the fight. Sir William half ducked to avoid an axe blow, caught another sword on his shield and stabbed wildly towards the two men attacking him. Robbie, swearing and cursing, killed the axeman, then kicked a fallen man-at-arms in the face. Sir William lunged underhand and felt his sword scrape on broken mail and he twisted to stop the blade being trapped and yanked it back so that a gush of blood spilled through the metal rings of the wounded man's armour. That man fell, gasping and twitching, and more Englishmen came from the right, desperate to stop the Scottish attack that threatened to pierce clean through the Archbishop's line. 'Douglas!' Sir William roared. 'Douglas!' He was calling on his followers to come and support him, to shove and to gouge and to hack the last enemy down. He and his nephew had carved a bloody path deep into the Archbishop's ranks and it would take only a moment's fierce fighting to break the English centre and then the real slaughter could begin.

  Sir William ducked as another axe flailed at him. Robbie killed that man, driving his sword through the axeman's throat, but Robbie immediately had to parry a spear thrust and in doing it he staggered back against his uncle. Sir William shoved his nephew upright and hammered his shield into an enemy's face. Where the hell were his men?

  'Douglas!' Sir William thundered again. 'Douglas!'

  And just then a sword or spear tangled his feet and he fell and instinctively he covered himself with the shield. Men pounded past him and he prayed that they were his followers who were breaking the last English resistance and he waited for the enemy's screaming to begin, but instead there was an insistent tap on his helmet. The tapping stopped, then started again. 'Sir William?' a gentle voice enquired.

  The screaming had begun so Sir William could scarcely hear, but the gentle tapping on the crown of his helmet persuaded him it was safe to lower his shield. It took him a moment to see what was happening for his helmet had been wrenched askew when he fell and he had to pull it round. 'God's teeth,' he said when the world came into view.

  'Dear Sir William,' the kindly voice said, 'I assume you yield? Of course you do. And is that young Robbie? My, how you've grown, young man! I remember you as a pup.'

  'Oh, God's teeth,' Sir William said again,
looking up at Lord Outhwaite.

  'Can I give you a hand?' Lord Outhwaite asked solicitously, reaching down from his saddle. 'And then we can talk ransoms.'

  'Jesus,' Sir William said, 'God damn it!' for he understood now that the feet pounding past had been English feet and that the screaming was coming from the Scots. The English centre had held after all, and for the Scots the battle had turned to utter disaster. It was the archers again. The Scots had lost men all day and still they outnumbered their enemy, but they had no answer to the arrows and when the Scottish centre broke down the wall and surged across its remains, so the Scottish left had retreated and exposed the flank of the King's sheltron to the English arrows.

  It took a few moments for the bowmen to realize their advantage. They had joined the pursuit of the broken Scottish left and were unaware how close to victory was the Scottish centre, but then one of Lord Neville's men understood the danger. 'Archers!' His roar could be heard clear across the Wear in Durham. 'Archers!' Men broke off their plundering and pulled arrows from the bags. The bows began sounding again, each deep harp note driving an arrow into the flank of the rampaging Scots. David's sheltron had forced the central English battle back across a pasture, they had stretched it thin and they were closing on the Archbishop's great banner, and then the arrows began to bite and after the arrows came the men-atarms from the English right wing, the retainers of Lord Percy and of Lord Neville, and some were already mounted on their big horses that were trained to bite, rear and kick with their iron-shod hooves. The archers, discarding their bows yet again, followed the horsemen with axes and swords, and this time their women came as well with knives unsheathed.