The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic

by Bernard Cornwell

  'This time you'll die,' Sir Simon said, and he lunged with the blade, thrusting with killing force on Thomas's mail-clad chest, but Thomas had tripped on a corpse and was already falling backwards. The lunge pushed him down faster and he sprawled on his back, his head spinning from the blow to his helmet. There was no one to help him any more, for he had dashed away from Skeat's group that was defending itself against a new rush of horsemen. Thomas tried to stand, but a pain ripped at his head and he was winded by the blow to his chest. Then Sir Simon was leaning down from his saddle and his long sword was seeking Thomas's unprotected face. 'Goddamn bastard,' Sir Simon said, then opened his mouth wide as though he was yawning. He stared at Thomas, then spewed a stream of blood that spattered Thomas's face. A lance had gone clean through Sir Simon's side and Thomas, shaking the blood from his eyes, saw that a Frenchman had thrust the blue and yellow lance. A horseman? Only the French were mounted, but Thomas had seen the horseman let go of the lance that was hanging from Sir Simon's side and now the Englishman, eyes rolling, was swaying in his saddle, choking and dying. Then Thomas saw the trappers of the horsemen who had swept past him. They showed yellow hawks on a blue field.

  Thomas staggered to his feet. Sweet Christ, he thought, but he had to learn how to fight with a sword. A bow was not enough. Sir Guillaume's men were past him now, cutting into the Vexille conroi. Will Skeat shouted at Thomas to come back, but he stubbornly followed Sir Guillaume's men. Frenchman was fighting Frenchman! The Vexilles had almost broken the English line, but now they had to defend their backs while English men-at-arms tried to haul them from their saddles.

  'Vexille! Vexille!' Sir Guillaume shouted, not knowing which visored man was his enemy. He beat again and again on a man's shield, bending him back in his saddle, then he chopped the sword down on the horse's neck and the beast dropped, and an Englishman, a priest, was slashing the fallen knight's head with a falchion.

  A flash of rearing colour made Sir Guillaume look to his right. The Prince of Wales's banner had been rescued and raised. He looked back to find Vexille, but saw only a half-dozen horsemen with white crosses on their black shields. He spurred towards them, raised his own shield to fend off an axe blow and lunged his sword into a man's thigh, twisted it clear, felt a blow on his back, turned the horse with his knee and parried a high sword blow. Men were shouting at him, demanding to know why he fought his own side, then the Vexille's standard-bearer began to topple as his horse was hamstrung. Two archers were slashing at the beast's legs and the silver yale fell into the mêlée as Henry Colley let go of the old lance to draw his sword.

  'Bastards!' he shouted at the men who had hamstrung his horse. 'Bastards!' He slashed the blade down, hacking into a man's mailed shoulder, then a great roar made him turn to see a heavy man in plate and mail and with a crucifix about his neck, wielding a mace. Colley, still on his collapsing horse, swung at the bishop, who hammered the sword away with his shield and then slammed the mace down onto Colley's helmet. 'In the name of God!' the bishop roared as he dragged the spikes free of the mangled helmet. Colley was dead, his skull crushed, and the bishop swung the bloody mace at a horse with a yellow and blue trapper, but the rider swerved at the last instant.

  Sir Guillaume never saw the bishop with his mace. Instead he had seen that one of the Vexille conroi had finer armour than the others and he raked back his spurs to reach that man, but felt his own horse faltering and he looked behind to glimpse, through the constricting slits in his visor, that Englishmen were hacking at his horse's rear legs. He beat the swords back, but the animal was sinking down and a huge voice was shouting, 'Clear my way! I want to kill the bastard. In the name of Christ, out of the way!' Sir Guillaume did not understand the words, but suddenly an arm was around his neck and he was being hauled out of the saddle. He shouted in anger, then had the breath driven from him as he thumped onto the ground. A man was holding him down and Sir Guillaume tried to hit him with his sword, but his wounded horse was thrashing beside him, threatening to roll on him and Sir Guillaume's assailant dragged him free, then twisted the Frenchman's sword away. 'Just lie there!' A voice shouted at Sir Guillaume.

  'Is the goddamned bastard dead?' the bishop roared.

  'He's dead!' Thomas shouted.

  'Praise God! On! On! Kill!'

  'Thomas?' Sir Guillaume squirmed.

  'Don't move!' Thomas said.

  'I want Vexille!'

  'They've gone!' Thomas shouted. 'They've gone! Lie still!'

  Guy Vexille, assailed from two sides and with his red banner fallen, had pulled his three remaining men back, but only to join the last of the French horsemen. The King himself, with his friend the King of Bohemia, was entering the mêlée. Although John of Bohemia was blind, he had insisted on fighting and so his bodyguard had tied their horses' reins together and put the King's destrier in their centre so that he could not lose them. 'Prague!' They shouted their war cry. 'Prague!' The King's son, Prince Charles, was also tied into the group. 'Prague!' he shouted as the Bohemian knights led the last charge, except it was not a charge, but a blundering advance through a tangle of corpses and thrashing bodies and terrified horses.

  The Prince of Wales still lived. The gold fillet had been half cut from his helmet and the top edge of his shield had been split in a half-dozen places, but now he led the countercharge and a hundred men went with him, snarling and screaming, wanting nothing else but to maul this last enemy who came in the dying light to the killing place where so many Frenchmen had died. The Earl of Northampton, who had been mustering the rearward ranks of the prince's battle to keep them in line, sensed that the battle had turned. The vast pressure against the English men-at-arms had weakened and though the French were trying again their best men were bloodied or dead, and the new ones were coming too slowly and so he shouted at his footmen to follow him.

  'Just kill them!' he shouted. 'Just kill them!' Archers, men-at-arms, and even hobelars, who had come from their place inside the wagon circles that protected the guns on the flanks of the line, swarmed at the French. To Thomas, crouching beside Sir Guillaume, it was like the mindless rage at the bridge of Caen all over again. This was madness released, a blood-crazed madness, but the French would suffer for it. The English had endured deep into the long summer evening and they wanted revenge for the terror of watching the big horses come at them, and so they clawed and beat and slashed at the royal horsemen. The Prince of Wales led them, fighting beside archers and men-at-arms, hacking down horses and butchering their riders in a frenzy of blood. The King of Majorca died and the Count of St Pol and the Duke of Lorraine and the Count of Flanders. Then Bohemia's flag with its three white feathers fell, and the blind King was dragged down to be butchered by axes, maces and swords. A king's ransom died with the King, and his son bled to death on his father's body, as his bodyguard, hampered by the dead horses that were still tied to the living beasts, were slaughtered one after the other by Englishmen no longer shouting a war cry but screaming in a howling frenzy like lost souls. They were streaked with blood, stained and spattered and soaked in it, but the blood was French. The Prince of Wales cursed the dying Bohemians, blaming them for barring his approach to the French King, whose blue and gold banner still flew. Two English men-at-arms were hacking at the King's horse, the royal bodyguard was spurring to kill them, more men in English livery were running to bring Philip down and the Prince wanted to be there, to be the man who took the enemy King captive, but one of the Bohemian horses, dying, lurched on its side and the Prince was still wearing his spurs and one of them became caught in the dying horse's trapper. The Prince lurched, was trapped, and it was then that Guy Vexille saw the black armour and the royal surcoat and the broken fillet of gold and saw, too, that the Prince was unbalanced amidst the dying horses.

  So Guy Vexille turned and charged.

  Thomas saw Vexille turn. He could not reach the charging horseman with his sword, for that would mean clambering over the same horses where the Prince was trapped, but under his right h
and was a black ash shaft tipped with silver, and he snatched up the lance and ran at the charging man. Skeat was there too, scrambling over the Bohemian horses with his old sword.

  The lance of St George struck Guy Vexille on the chest. The silver blade crumpled and tangled with the crimson banner, but the old ash shaft had just enough strength to knock the horseman back and keep his sword from the Prince, who was being pulled free by two of his men-at-arms. Vexille hacked again, reaching far from his saddle and Will Skeat bellowed at him and thrust his sword hard up at Vexille's waist, but the black shield deflected the lunge and Vexille's trained horse instinctively turned into the attack and the rider slashed down hard.

  'No!' Thomas shouted. He thrust the lance again, but it was a feeble weapon and the dry ash splintered against Vexille's shield. Will Skeat was sinking, blood showing at the ragged gash in his helmet. Vexille raised his sword to strike at Skeat a second time as Thomas stumbled forward. The sword fell, slicing into Skeat's head, then the blank mask of Vexille's dark visor swung towards Thomas. Will Skeat was on the ground, not moving. Vexille's horse turned to bring its master to where he could kill most efficiently and Thomas saw death in the Frenchman's bright sword, but then, in panicked desperation, he rammed the broken end of the black lance into the destrier's open mouth and gouged the ragged wood deep into the animal's tongue. The stallion sheered away, screaming and rearing and Vexille was thrown hard against his saddle's cantle.

  The horse, eyes white behind its chanfron and mouth dripping blood, turned back to Thomas, but the Prince of Wales had been freed from the dying horse and he brought two men-at-arms to attack Vexille's other flank and the horseman parried the Prince's sword blow, then saw he must be overwhelmed and so drove back his spurs to take his horse through the mêlée and away from danger.

  'Calix mens inebrians!' Thomas shouted. He did not know why. The words just came to him, his father's dying words, but they made Vexille look back. He stared through the eye slits, saw the dark-haired man who was holding his own banner, then a new surge of vengeful Englishmen spilled down the slope and he pricked his horse through the carnage and the dying men and the broken dreams of France.

  A cheer sounded from the English hilltop. The King had ordered his mounted reserve of knights to charge the French and as those men lowered their lances still more horses were being hurried from the baggage park so that more men could mount and pursue the beaten enemy.

  John of Hainault, Lord of Beaumont, took the French King's reins and dragged Philip away from the mêlée. The horse was a remount, for one royal horse had already been killed, while the King himself had taken a wound in the face because he had insisted on fighting with his visor up so that his men would know he was on the field.

  'It is time go, sire,' the Lord of Beaumont said gently.

  Is it over?' Philip asked. There were tears in his eyes and incredulity in his voice.

  'It's over, sire,' the Lord of Beaumont said. The English were howling like dogs and the chivalry of France was twitching and bleeding on a hillside. John of Hainault did not know how it had happened, only that the battle, the oriflamme and the pride of France were all lost. 'Come, sire,' he said, and dragged the King's horse away. Groups of French knights, their horses' trappers rattling with arrows, were crossing the valley to the far woods that were dark with the coming night.

  'That astrologer, John,' the French King said.

  'Sire?'

  'Have him put to death. Bloodily. You hear me? Bloodily!' The King was weeping as, with the handful of his bodyguard that was left, he rode away.

  More and more Frenchmen were fleeing to seek safety in the gathering dark and their retreat turned into a gallop as the first English horsemen of the battle burst through the remnants of their battered line to begin the pursuit.

  The English slope seemed to twitch as the men at arms wandered among the wounded and dead. The twitching was the jerking of the dying men and horses. The valley floor was scattered with the Genoese who had been killed by their own paymasters. It was suddenly very quiet. There was no clang of steel, no hoarse shouts and no drums. There were moans and weeping and sometimes a gasp, but it seemed quiet. The wind stirred the fallen banners and flickered the white feathers of the fallen arrows that had reminded Sir Guillaume of a spread of flowers.

  And it was over.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  Sir William Skeat lived. He could not speak, there was no life in his eyes and he seemed deaf. He could not walk, though he seemed to try when Thomas lifted him, but then his legs crumpled and he sagged to the bloody ground.

  Father Hobbe lifted Skeat's helmet away, doing it with an extraordinary gentleness. Blood poured from Skeat's grey hair and Thomas gagged when he saw the sword cut in the scalp. There were scraps of skull, strands of hair and Skeat's brain all open to the air.

  'Will?' Thomas knelt in front of him. 'Will?'

  Skeat looked at him, but did not seem to see him. He had a half smile and empty eyes.

  'Will!' Thomas said.

  'He's going to die, Thomas,' Father Hobbe said softly.

  'He is not! Goddamn it, he is not! You hear me? He will live. You bloody pray for him!'

  'I will pray, God knows how I will pray,' Father Hobbe soothed Thomas, 'but first we must doctor him.'

  Eleanor helped. She washed Will Skeat's scalp, then she and Father Hobbe laid scraps of broken skull like pieces of shattered tile. Afterwards Eleanor tore a strip of cloth from her blue dress and gently bound the strip about Will Skeat's skull, tying it beneath his chin so that when it was done he looked like an old woman in a scarf. He had said nothing as Eleanor and the priest bandaged him, and if he had felt any pain it did not show on his face.

  'Drink, Will,' Thomas said, and held out a water bottle taken from a dead Frenchman, but Skeat ignored the offer. Eleanor took the bottle and held it to his mouth, but the water just spilled down his chin. It was dark by then. Sam and Jake had made a fire, using a battle-axe to chop French lances for fuel. Will Skeat just sat by the flames. He breathed, but nothing else.

  'I have seen it before,' Sir Guillaume told Thomas. He had hardly spoken since the battle, but now sat beside Thomas. He had watched his daughter tend Skeat and he had accepted food and drink from her, but he had shrugged away her conversation.

  'Will he recover?' Thomas asked.

  Sir Guillaume shrugged. 'I saw a man cut through the skull. He lived another four years, but only because the sisters in the abbaye looked after him.'

  'He will live!' Thomas said.

  Sir Guillaume lifted one of Skeat's hands, held it for a few seconds, then let it drop. 'Maybe,' he sounded sceptical. 'You were fond of him?'

  'He's like a father,' Thomas said.

  'Fathers die,' Sir Guillaume said bleakly. He looked drained, like a man who had turned his sword against his own king and failed in his duty.

  'He will live,' Thomas said stubbornly.

  'Sleep,' Sir Guillaume said, 'I will watch him.'

  Thomas slept among the dead, in the battle line where the wounded moaned and the night wind stirred the white feathers flecking the valley. Will Skeat was no different in the morning. He just sat, eyes vacant, gazing at nothing and stinking because he had fouled himself.

  'I shall find the Earl,' Father Hobbe said, 'and have him send Will back to England.'

  The army stirred itself sluggishly. Forty English men-at-arms and as many archers were buried in Crécy's church yard, but the hundreds of French corpses, all but for the great princes and noblest lords, were left on the hill. The folk of Crécy could bury them if they wished, Edward of England did not care.

  Father Hobbe looked for the Earl of Northampton, but two thousand French infantry had arrived just after dawn, coming to reinforce an army that had already been broken, and in the misty light they had thought the mounted men who greeted them were friends and then the horsemen dropped their visors, couched their lances and put back their spurs. The Earl led them.

  Most of the E
nglish knights had been denied a chance to fight on horseback in the previous day's battle, but now, this Sunday morning, they'd been given their moment and the great destriers had torn bloody gaps in the marching ranks, then wheeled to cut the survivors into ragged terror. The French had fled, pursued by the implacable horsemen, who had cut and thrust until their arms were weary with the killing.

  Back on the hill between Crécy and Wadicourt a pile of enemy banners was gathered. The flags were torn and some were still damp with blood. The oriflamme was carried to Edward who folded it and ordered the priests to give thanks. His son lived, the battle was won and all Christendom would know how God favoured the English cause. He declared he would spend this one day on the field to mark the victory, then march on. His army was still tired, but it had boots now and it would be fed. Cattle were roaring as archers slaughtered them and more archers were bringing food from the hill where the French army had abandoned its supplies. Other men were plucking arrows from the field and tying them into sheaves while their women plundered the dead.

  The Earl of Northampton came back to Crécy's hill roaring and grinning. 'Like slaughtering sheep!' he exulted, then roamed up and down the line trying to relive the excitements of the last two days. He stopped by Thomas and grinned at the archers and their women.

  'You look different, young Thomas!' he said happily, but then looked down and saw Will Skeat sitting like a child with his head bound by the blue scarf. 'Will?' the Earl said in puzzlement. 'Sir William?'

  Skeat just sat.

  'He was cut through the skull, my lord,' Thomas said.

  The Earl's bombast fled like air from a pricked bladder. He slumped in his saddle, shaking his head. 'No,' he protested, 'no. Not Will!' He still had a bloody sword in his hand, but now he wiped the blade through the mane of his horse and pushed it into the scabbard. 'I was going to send him back to Brittany,' he said. 'Will he live?'

  No one answered.