by David Gilman
Blackstone felt the tide of the attack turn. Chandos was fighting forward towards Bertrand du Guesclin’s banner. He was a prize worth having. De Montfort had men at his shoulder who hacked their way forward, clearing fighting space for him. John Jacob covered his one side, Blackstone the other. Stride by stride they slashed, jabbed and barged men down. De Montfort did not comprehend that Blackstone and the men around him had created a space ensuring no one struck him from his blind side.
Further ahead the banner of Charles de Blois remained aloft. Now that the second and third division of men, three thousand strong, had forced themselves up the incline, Blackstone knew that the English might not hold the ground. A barrel of wine once uncorked spills its contents: now he needed men to bleed away from the battle. Blackstone’s strength forced back two noblemen. Their blazons bore the same emblem. Father and son? Cousins? Brothers? It made no difference. Blackstone rammed the one, jabbed Wolf Sword above the man’s gorget and felt the hardened steel penetrate the visor’s slit and find bone. The man’s knees buckled. Blackstone yanked free the blade, heard amid the bellowing cacophony of men determined to live and kill a cry of despair from the second knight. ‘Mon père!’ Blackstone heaved his shield up, felt it connect beneath the man’s chin, his neck held in check by his helm’s rim, forcing him to throw his arms wide trying to keep his balance. His arms flailed. Blackstone found the gap beneath his breastplate and lunged. The dead man’s son fell, mortally wounded, his weight freeing the blade. A wife and mother would mourn.
As would many others.
And then the attacking impetus faltered. There was an almost imperceptible shiver in the French ranks. Blackstone saw a body of men desert from the Breton division. It was du Guesclin’s men. They were abandoning the best fighting commander the French had. Those who saw them desert would ask themselves why.
But whatever the reason − now the tide would turn.
Will Longdon held back the archers. Armed only with buckler, sword and their archer’s knives, they needed Sir John Chandos and Killbere to hurt the enemy before they could attack. He watched, bellowing for the Welshmen in his ranks to hold fast and rein back their blood lust and desire for plunder, waiting for the moment to set them loose. As the men-at-arms fought hand to hand the archers would run in fast and hamstring the Frenchmen beneath their own men’s blades.
Then: ‘Get in and take their legs from them! Seize their axes!’ he shouted. The Frenchmen wore short-handled battleaxes on ropes around their neck or attached to their armour.
The lightly armed archers surged forward. French men-at-arms peered through their visor slits, sweat stinging their eyes, their steel helms ringing with the animal cry from more than a hundred foes who swarmed at them. Rabid dogs. Teeth bared. Fearless.
Some Frenchmen faltered but others seized the chance to kill the despised bowmen who had slain so many noblemen during the great battles. Around them, French knights continued to punish the English men-at-arms and some of Chandos’s men suffered grievous wounds, but their defiance still held back the French, many of whom felt the searing sting of an archer’s knife hamstringing them. When they fell, lame, borne down by the burly weight of an archer, those same razor-sharp blades plunged through visors as they squirmed on the ground. Heels drummed, legs bucked, but they could not escape the savage death inflicted.
Will Longdon cursed. He spat venom. Punched a spearman in the face and kicked him hard between the legs. The man vomited, spewing over Longdon. Behind him Jack Halfpenny had taken his twenty archers and followed John Chandos, whose men were cutting a path towards the French Captain of Normandy, Bertrand du Guesclin. Ransom was booty.
Knights jostled in their tight formation. Where a friend had been now was a bloodied corpse, the gap filled by another. Elbows clashed; swords were often useless. Men wrestled, grappling each other to the ground. Longdon heard Welsh curses and screams. Some of his men had gone too far forward. Defenceless against armour, shield and blade they went down, writhing. Arms severed. Legs hacked. Faces torn. Knights pulled up their visors, gasping for breath and freedom from the iron cage. Then they died under sword or knife.
Longdon caught a glimpse of Blackstone. He had cut a wedge towards Charles de Blois but the Breton’s banner stood tall. Yet the French and Breton men-at-arms had made no ground.
Blackstone bent his back, brought his shield closer to his chest and forced his legs to pump harder. Two men fell under his weight, then a third. John Jacob followed at his shoulder and slew those who went down. De Montfort was isolated. He killed an axe-bearing knight but then looked around frantically as others closed in on him. His banner wavered and then fell as the enemy pummelled the bearer’s helm. Blood spurted from the man’s nose and mouth; dazed, he slipped in gore and entrails. A roar of victory rose above the screaming men. They thought de Montfort finished. They thought Brittany was theirs.
They thought wrong. Blackstone barged de Montfort aside to safety and stepped into the breach. There was no victory cry from those he killed. De Montfort regained his balance and stood shoulder to shoulder with him. The heaving mass swayed. Ragged gaps appeared in the French divisions, rent aside like strong hands tearing an emblazoned surcoat, the material resisting and then yielding.
‘Now!’ Blackstone yelled to de Montfort but the surrounding clamour drowned out his voice. De Montfort fought with courage. He lifted his visor to suck cool air into his bursting lungs. Blackstone swiped Wolf Sword’s blade down, slamming it shut a heartbeat before a Frenchman jabbed his spear where de Montfort’s face had been. The thrust put the spearman off balance. Wolf Sword arced and cut a wound into the man’s neck so only sinew and skin held his head to his body.
Blackstone turned to John Jacob and made the command that should have been given by de Montfort. ‘Now, John!’
John Jacob rammed his sword in the dirt and raised de Montfort’s banner. He waved it back and forth as Blackstone protected him. A trumpet sounded, and then another: their notes soaring high above the noise of battle. The flag and the trumpet signal caused de Montfort to turn and look across the soldiers’ bobbing heads, dipping and rising beneath bloodied swords and axes. He saw Hugh Calveley spur on his mercenary cavalry to outflank de Blois.
John Jacob thrust the banner into the hands of the nearest man, retrieved his sword and strode the few paces to where Blackstone shielded de Montfort. A French knight struck Blackstone hard with his shield as another rained repeated blows against him. A third man had isolated de Montfort. Blackstone blocked, parried and held his ground but were it not for John Jacob coming in at the side and killing one of the attackers Blackstone would have died. The two men were now a stride ahead of de Montfort, who benefited from their killing prowess. They heard Killbere’s voice. He was twenty yards away, fighting through with Chandos. Du Guesclin’s banner wavered – and then fell. A victorious cry went up from Chandos’s men as they hoisted his flag. They had cut the heart out of the battle. Blackstone realized the most competent of the French commanders had been killed or captured and Killbere was leading the men in a flanking attack with the archers at his back, killing the fallen who had no value.
‘Blois!’ Blackstone bellowed. ‘Where is he?’
Killbere had no time to answer as men-at-arms engulfed him; he disappeared from view under raised shields. Blackstone turned towards him. ‘John!’
John Jacob and John de Montfort turned at their name. Neither hesitated but cut their way through the mêlée. As they turned so did the men behind them, determined to follow. The action shifted the weight of men in the battle and swayed the immediate outcome, fragmenting the French ranks. Hugh Calveley’s horsemen smashed into their rear.
Blackstone’s wheel towards Killbere and Chandos had cut the body of the French attack in two. Killbere was lying on the ground on his back across fallen men, knees raised to protect himself from sword points, shield tight across his body, head tucked in. He cursed every whoreson’s mother for dropping them from her belly as they struck at him
. Chandos was too far ahead to turn back. Blackstone’s savagery carved a path to Killbere, and his attackers fell, mutilated, writhing in agony from vicious wounds. John Jacob and de Montfort despatched them as Blackstone leaned down and hauled Killbere to his feet.
‘Gilbert? You’re hurt?’
Killbere snapped back his visor. Blood trickled into his beard. He shook his head. Slammed down the visor again and, without another word, fought on. The four men became a phalanx. A broadhead arrow piercing through the French division whose strength had now crumbled. A ring of Chandos’s men guarded a stocky bareheaded man with a swarthy complexion, his armour filled from his barrel chest. It was Bertrand du Guesclin, alive, captured by Chandos. He was a prize.
Chandos had veered away with his men as Will Longdon and the Welsh archers scurried across, piercing the visors of the fallen with their archer’s knives. Jack Halfpenny had held his position with his archers ready to shoot should a counter-attack come in from their blind side, a flank that spilled away across undulating ground, curving down into a broad meadow valley protected either side by forests. If Charles de Blois had reserves, then they would swarm from concealment and, like a knife wound in a man’s side, pierce the body of men. No threat appeared. Crushed and suffocated men sprawled underfoot; wounded raised an arm for mercy but none was given unless their blazon denoted rank and then they were claimed for ransom.
Blackstone and the men splashed across the ford in pursuit of the retreating French. In the distance Charles de Blois’s banner wavered and fell. It signalled the end. His army turned and ran.
Blackstone and Killbere let the men behind them chase after the survivors. Killbere pulled free his helm and cowl. A blow had cut his scalp. He snorted snot from his nose and spat, then pulled off a gauntlet and tested the wound. It was nothing. He coughed and spat again, gasping for breath like every man around him. ‘Much more of these blows to my head will scar me like animal tracks through a forest.’
‘I need a new shield,’ Blackstone said, freeing his arm from it. An axe remained embedded in it.
‘A woodpecker would make less mess,’ said Killbere. A hundred blade strikes scarred the shield.
John de Montfort bent double and vomited. He straightened. Men’s cries became more distant. Blood trickled down his hand from an arm wound. Blackstone’s open helm showed a blood-flecked face.
‘Well, my lord. You have won the day. Time to honour our dead and reward the living,’ said Blackstone.
A trumpet sounded ahead. Then another.
‘That’s Chandos. He summons you,’ said Killbere. ‘They’ve captured or killed de Blois.’
‘Go, my lord,’ said Blackstone. ‘Claim your rightful title. You are Duke of Brittany now.’
De Montfort nodded and pressed a hand on Blackstone’s arm. ‘I will do as you say, Sir Thomas. You saved me and you rescued Brittany. I will not forget what you and these men have done this day.’
John de Montfort followed the clarion call and walked up the hill to where pockets of men gathered in the distance.
Blackstone turned away with Killbere and John Jacob. Will Longdon had retrieved his bow and weaved his way towards them. Dried blood on his hands and arms told their own story. He had a dozen silver inlaid belts over his shoulder.
‘Will? How many archers did we lose?’ said Blackstone.
‘Nine or ten of the Welshmen. Halfpenny’s lads are safe.’ They splashed across the ford. The dead lay everywhere. A keening buzzard circled. Crows hopped from body to body, shooed away by looters stripping the corpses.
‘We killed far more than we lost,’ said John Jacob.
‘Aye, but I don’t know how,’ said Blackstone. He raised Arianrhod to his lips. ‘Angels at our backs.’
‘And the devil in our sword arm,’ said Killbere.
The rout continued across the distant ground. Those who had fought with Blackstone were content to let Chandos and de Montfort’s men give chase and bear down on the straggling army. The view from where Blackstone and Killbere stood showed bodies scattered across the landscape. Death entwined men in their last desperate urge to live. Blackstone sluiced water over his head as men around him stripped off their armour and splashed themselves; others lay in the shallows and let the bloodied water wash the sweat and heat from them. Pennon bearers rammed the shafts into hedges, their blazons still flying aloft in victory. Men-at-arms lay back, drinking from wineskins, spreading out before them the stripped mail and plate they had scavenged.
‘Sir Thomas!’ John Jacob pointed to the top of the hill where Meulon and his men guarded the baggage train. Black smoke rose above the treeline.
Blackstone ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Meulon had watched the battle begin as the wall of men clambered up the incline. The three divisions looked ready to swamp Blackstone and the first line of defence but the throat-cutter had stood in such ranks in the past and knew Blackstone had planned well. Armoured men would struggle up the hill, and every advantage no matter how slight would aid those who opposed them; Blackstone’s men never wore full armour.
Beyard was strong enough to walk unaided but if it came to a fight, he wouldn’t last long. Meulon moved him and the boy into a depression behind a cluster of rocks. The boy was trembling from fear and when he tried to speak he stammered so that even the Spaniard ben Josef could make no sense of his words. The boy’s comfort lay in being close to Beyard, whom he clearly considered his protector.
‘Beyard, put an arm around the lad. He needs assurance that no harm will come to him,’ said Meulon. ‘He’s shivering like an abandoned kitten in a rainstorm.’
‘He’ll be safe with me. Cover us with a shield and put a sword in my hand. If the bastard de Hayle comes, then we must all be ready.’
Meulon did as the Gascon captain requested. The rules of battle dictated a baggage train and its attendants and the pages who tended the horses should remain unmolested, but routiers paid no heed to the restrictions placed on men of honour. He ushered ben Josef to lie beneath an open cart and threw a blanket over him. Ben Josef clutched his medicine satchel to him as closely as Beyard held the boy.
Meulon used the wagons to set up a defence, placing his men between each one. He ordered the reluctant attendants to use the poles from their master’s pavilions to build a barricade. Meulon needed only to glare at anyone who dared question his command for that demand to be carried out. He doused the cooking fires, and took six of his men and concealed them in the treeline. A handful of men coming out of hiding and striking an enemy from the rear if they penetrated the camp could turn the tide. How many of the Beast’s men would come? Would de Hayle himself try to snatch Beyard? Was his ransom worth the risk? Meulon put his back against a wagon and helped the men shift it into position. His wound complained. He tested it again. He decided it would hold long enough to defend the camp in a fight.
Once the remaining twenty-five men-at-arms were in position, he waited. The roar from the fighting below meant little could be heard in the camp. Birds had fled, flying deeper into the forest. What warning would there be if de Hayle’s mercenaries struck? He could do no more than he had done to defend the camp. And if the battle ebbing and flowing below turned in favour of Lord Charles de Blois, and they defeated de Montfort and Blackstone, then concern about an attack by mercenaries would be swept away by the rushing tide surging towards them. The pageboys and baggage attendants would be spared but they would kill him and his few defenders.
He lost sight of Blackstone. On the flank he could see Killbere fighting alongside Chandos and William Ashford. Behind them Will Longdon had finished shooting. De Montfort’s banner showed him Blackstone again. He watched, rapt, the cut and thrust of the battle as men wavered and gaps opened in the battle line.
A buzzard circled high, waiting for the dead. Its piercing screech made Meulon turn and as he did so he saw a wisp of black smoke. A swarm of men was running silently around the edge of the forest that had concealed their approach long enoug
h to be within thirty paces before they raised any alarm. One of them wore a leather apron across his shoulder and neck as protection from the burning, tar-filled rundlet he carried. The tar barrel would burn long and choke those downwind once hurled into the defenders.
‘To your front!’ he bellowed.
How many? Forty? More? No. Experience told him de Hayle had underestimated the strength of Meulon’s defence. The arrogant bastard had sent barely thirty men to attack, expecting to find defenceless servants. They swarmed towards the men defending two of the wagons and the weight of their attack was enough to overpower them. Meulon knew the routiers’ intention was to draw men away from the other positions to reinforce their comrades.
‘Stand fast!’ he shouted at the others, who had begun to desert their posts to aide their comrades just as de Hayle’s men expected. ‘Six men with me!’
The barrel carrier tossed it into the wagon: the folded tents made an ideal target. Black smoke billowed. The breeze caught it, aiding de Hayle’s men as it smothered the camp. Meulon speared two attackers clambering over the low barricade. His six defenders locked shields. It made no difference. The routiers threw themselves over them. As Meulon expected, the attackers at the rear peeled away and sought out weak spots in the depleted defence. Meulon’s men retreated, re-formed, and beat the enemy back. The thunderous cries from the battle below blanketed their own voices raised in anger and fear. Pageboys and attendants ran into the trees as de Hayle’s men spilled into the camp. There was no sign of le Bête himself but his savage routiers needed no leader to show them how to kill. Three of the boys fleeing in panic fell under sword blows. Meulon’s command formed up in a line across the centre of the camp and now the attackers were at a disadvantage. As Meulon’s men from the other positions struck at them Meulon saw half a dozen routiers hold back. They peered in the wagons but didn’t seem to find what they were looking for.