LONGSWORD
By David Pilling
“Moreover all those who supported Simon in that battle were outlawed and disinherited. The greater part of the Disinherited infested the roads and streets and became robbers...a deadly struggle broke out between the king and the disinherited, in the course of which villages were burned, towns wrecked, whole stretches of land depopulated, churches pillaged, religious driven from their monasteries, clerics had money extorted from them and the common people were ruined. Nowhere was there peace, nowhere security.”
- Walter Bower, The Scotichronicon, p355
GLOSSARY
Arbalester - medieval missile weapon, often meaning the crossbow
Brigandine - a form of body armour, usually leather or padded cloth, lined with steel plates
Destrier - a warhorse ridden by knights
Flambeaux - a flaming torch, made of several wicks dipped in wax
Falchion - a one-handed, single-edged sword
Gabardine - tough fabric used for clothing
Garderobe - medieval lavatory
Haubergeon - a mail shirt, smaller version of the hauberk
Kettle hat - type of helmet made of steel in the shape of a brimmed hat
1.
Evesham, Worcestershire, 4th August 1265
A storm raged above the vale of Evesham, illuminating a scene from Hell. The slaughter, for it could hardly be called a battle, was almost done.
Simon de Montfort’s army was trapped and destroyed inside a loop of the river Avon. His loyal knights fought back-to-back against the overwhelming tide of royalists in a steadily shrinking circle, and now the rain-washed field was littered with their broken corpses.
Montfort still lived. There was a lull in the fighting, and he had time to rest on his gory sword and wipe the rain and blood from his face.
“Why, all my friends are dead,” he said, looking around at the carnage. He saw the mangled body of his eldest son, Henry, carved almost in two by a broadsword.
Montfort’s life flickered before his eyes as he gazed on the blood-drenched ruin of his son: his youth in France as the younger son of a famous father, his coming to England and steady rise to power in the court of Henry III; his break with the King, and the inevitable end, here, on a bloody battlefield.
Was it inevitable? Was his course fixed in the stars, before he was born, as the astrologers believed? Foolish, useless doubts. No man could avoid his fate. Montfort had found England rotten with corruption, and done his best to draw the poison.
Thunder rolled overhead, briefly drowning the screams. A knight burst through the tattered ranks of Montfort’s guard, helmed and hauberked, lance lowered for the kill. His surcoat, splattered with blood, bore the yellow and blue striped arms of Roger Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore.
“Old traitor!” shouted Mortimer, voice muffled inside the steel shell of his helm. “Old traitor! You shall not live a moment longer!”
His lance pierced Montfort’s chest and drove through mail, leather and flesh. Impaled, the dying man sagged to his knees.
“Thank God,” he whispered, and died.
2.
Chesterfield, Derbyshire, 15th May 1266
Hugh's heart pounded. His chest was tight, as though constricted by a band of iron, and a trickle of warm sweat ran down his spine. All around him was the stench of unwashed bodies packed too close together.
It was pitch-dark. His comrades were huddled shapes in the gloom. Their silence was broken by curses when the carriage bounced over a hole or bump in the road, and the occasional muttered prayer. Otherwise the men were under strict orders to keep quiet, on pain of flogging or mutilation.
Hugh kept his prayers to himself. His backside was numb, thanks to hours of sitting on bare boards, and his belly swilled with ale. Breakfast that morning was half a bowl of cold porridge per man, gulped down in a hurry even as the men were shoved and whipped aboard the carriages. Their commanders were in a hurry, and cared little for the comfort of poor soldiers.
To ease his pain and fear, Hugh had drank all his ale ration. He was far from alone, and the carriage rolled with terrified, half-drunk men. Occasionally one lurched over and spewed up his breakfast, adding a fresh taint to the already foul atmosphere.
At last the carriage rumbled to a halt. Hugh swallowed hard and took a firm grip of his sword-hilt. The touch of the worn leather binding reassured him. His father's sword, wielded on many a campaign in Wales and France.
He recalled one of the old man's sayings. A horse may fail me, but cold steel never shall.
The men around him shifted nervously. “Steady, boys,” a familiar West Country voice rasped in a hoarse whisper, “there's nothing to be afraid of. Remember, the buggers don't know we're here. In a moment we'll leap out and ram our swords up their bum-holes.”
Hugh smiled at the voice. Its owner, Richard Puttock, was a battered old vintenar who claimed to be afraid of nobody except his wife. A hard man and born survivor, with a reputation for preserving the lives of his men.
Silence fell. The wind buffeted at the canvas roof of the carriage. Muffled voices could be heard, men deep in conversation around their supper fires. Somewhere a lute player picked out a gentle melody. Hugh recognised it as an old Crusader song from France. He mouthed silently along to the words:
“Gentlemen, it is because of our sins,
That the Saracen’s strength increases:
the Saladin has taken Jerusalem
And it still hasn’t recovered;
Then the King of Morocco makes it known
That he’ll fight all Christian
Kings together with his wicked
Andalusians and Arabs,
Armed against the faith in Christ…”
He made the sign of the cross. Because of my sins, he thought, I am here today, on the edge of battle. Christ forgive me.
The uneasy silence was shattered by the piercing note of a horn. He leaped from his seat, even as Richard tore aside the canvas and leaped out.
“At them!” roared the vintenar. “Kill the bastards! Kill, kill!”
The carriage bounced alarmingly as men poured after him. Action at last! All the tension evaporated in a chorus of shouts and drawn steel. Hugh was among the last to jump out into the chill dawn air. As ever, he bore in mind his father's wisdom.
Never be the first into a fight, boy. Stay in the rear and you stand a better chance of keeping a whole skin. Let minstrels sing tales of dead glory-hunters, while you grow fat on the plunder they left behind.
After a moment, when the initial cries and ring of steel had died down a little, he ventured out. It was shortly after dawn, and the world a sea of mist under heavy charcoal skies. Hugh could see a few tents in the gloom, crude one-man affairs, but little else.
His comrades had scattered in all directions. Screams and yells erupted around him, the whinnies of panicked horses, clash of weapons, screeching horns, pounding drums. The lute player was silenced, probably for good.
Around him stood a row of empty wagons. Stuffed with soldiers, they had rattled up to the gates of Chesterfield disguised as a merchant convoy. The ruse had worked, and taken the rebels completely by surprise.
The Trojan horse, Hugh thought grimly as he looked around him. It still has the power to deceive.
He drew his sword and went in search of profit. A man staggered out of the mist, his face bloody, eyes wild. He spotted Hugh and charged, yellow teeth clenched in a snarl, axe raised. Hugh batted aside the wild axe-swing, stepped forward and cut sideways.
His father's sword sliced deep. The other man gaped, dropped his axe, pawed at the blade lodged in his windpipe. Blood poured from his open mouth and soaked the front of his gambeson. His legs buckled under him.
Hugh swore as he ripped h
is sword free of the dying man's flesh. He prayed the blade would not snap – not now, his first kill! After a moment's struggle he managed to tear it free and stood, panting, as the din of battle raged around him. His victim went into spasm.
Another of his father's lessons occurred to him. He sheathed his sword and knelt to search the quivering body for aught of value. A quick, fumbled search yielded a few pennies, emptied from the man's purse, and a long-bladed dagger, known as an Irish knife. Otherwise there was no time to strip the man of his boots, kettle hat and gambeson.
Hugh spared a glance at the dead man's face. He was very young, handsome in a pretty sort of way, with silvery fair hair cropped short.
There is a wife or sweetheart somewhere, thought Hugh, whose bed will be cold tonight.
A chill stole over him. He had never fought in anger before. Now, in his first real fight, he had killed a man. The purpose of a soldier was to kill: that lesson had been dinned into him since childhood. Nothing – not his father's teaching, or the endless hours of drill – had prepared him for the reality. Young life, snuffed out by a length of steel.
Hugh shook himself. Time enough to indulge his conscience later, if he lived through the day.
The sound of battle ebbed and flowed as he picked his way through the ruin of the camp. Smouldering fires, overturned spits and pans, collapsed tents, abandoned bits of gear and harness. More dead men, and human scavengers picking over the corpses. Here and there men fought savagely over thin pickings: a few pennies, a gold ring cut from a dead finger. Spat curses, whines for mercy, flash of knives in the gloom.
Rain started to fall. Hugh trudged through the mud and pools of dirty water, tainted with blood. He had little idea of where he was going, and trusted to luck and the little silver cross hung about his neck. The cross was
his mother's parting gift to him before she destroyed herself. Now she lay rotting in unconsecrated ground, lost to hellfire.
He blundered through a patch of scattered trees, drawn by the sound of distant drums. The drums grew louder, accompanied by the tramp of marching feet. A few shafts of light filtered through the grey canopy overhead, though rain continued to beat down.
Hugh emerged from the woods to find the king's army. Troop after troop of infantrymen, pikes and spears and crossbows, jogging through the mud and rain with little order and less discipline. Their banners drooped in the wet, and they stumbled along soft ground churned up by the passage of heavy horses.
The army left a trail of destruction among the neat rows of ploughed and planted fields. That year’s crop of turnips, beans and carrots, all trampled into the mire.
He caught up with the tail of the column. Drums pounded, horns screeched, red-faced vintenars bawled and clubbed their men forward.
“To the front, you dogs! Look alive! Pick up the pace, you tuppenny whores, or I'll have the skin off your backs!”
Before them, looming through the murk, rose the flinty walls and gate towers of Chesterfield. Hugh heard the sound of battle ahead, hoarse shouts and the clatter of weaponry. Taken unawares in camp, the rebels still had some fight in them. Somewhere a bugle screeched, horses galloped to and fro.
Hugh spotted some loiterers hiding among a patch of trees; nine spearmen in no hurry to be anywhere. He laughed at the sight of their vintenar, who turned to scowl at him.
“Hold your noise, Longsword,” hissed Richard Puttock. “A good soldier, a sensible soldier, who wants to earn grey hairs and grandlings, knows when to keep his trap shut.”
Hugh clapped a hand over his mouth in mock apology. “You sound just like my father,” he said cheerfully. “What's ahead of us, then?”
Richard jabbed his sword north, towards the grey silhouette of Chesterfield. “His lordship is somewhere up there,” he said, “along with all the other high-ups on their pretty horses. Fair play, the ambush worked. We've killed a fair few rebels and made a mess of their camp. They still want to make a fight of it, though. Damned fools.”
“What of Earl Ferrers?” asked Hugh. The veteran shrugged and sat down heavily with his back to a tree.
“No idea. If the man has any sense he'll run away or surrender. He's lost half his men and we outnumbered him anyway. He's rich enough to buy his way out of trouble.”
Richard folded his hands behind his head. “Thing is,” he added reflectively, “milord Ferrers doesn't have a grain of sense. Otherwise he wouldn't have started this bloody stupid rebellion. Montfort is dead, the cause is lost. He should have made his peace and spent the rest of his days in a nice castle, drinking and whoring.”
He winked at Hugh. “Hell's tits, if I was a great lord, that's what I would do. And flog the arse off any priest who dared lecture me for it. Christ, I hate priests. Canting, shaven hypocrites, who urge men to war without having to strike a blow themselves...”
This was one of the old soldier's favourite whines. Hugh interrupted before he could go into full spate. “I have a mind to see a battle,” he said.
Richard gaped at him in alarm. “See a battle? God's death, lad, whatever for?”
Hugh strained his eyes to peer through the mist. His natural caution, dinned into him by his father, was overcome by youthful excitement. For years he had heard tales of wars and battles, and longed to experience them for himself. Now was his chance.
“You were young once, old man,” he said, “don't you remember?”
He hefted his sword and jogged on, into the murk. Richard's despairing cry followed him.
“At least wait until it's over!”
3.
Hugh felt the earth shake underfoot, heard the thunder of hoofs, saw the monstrous shapes loom out of the mist. He threw himself flat on the ground and covered his head with both hands. At any moment he expected to be ridden over, a stray hoof to crush his spine. He almost wept in fear at the thought of spending the rest of his days as a helpless cripple, begging his bread.
“Away!” roared a hoarse voice, “or we’re done for!”
The voice had an unfamiliar northern tone, gruff and sharp. “What of the earl?” cried another. “Do we abandon him?”
“It cannot be helped. He may be dead already, or taken. Come! I'm for the north. Those who wish to follow, follow. The rest can surrender or go to the Devil, as they please.”
Hugh cringed as the speaker turned his horse away. The beast whinnied and splattered him with mud, but he remained unhurt. He risked lifting his head to watch the riders gallop away into the drifting tendrils of mist.
Mounted knights. Killing machines sheathed from head to toe in armour, virtually indestructible in battle. Hugh's blood ran cold when he glimpsed the arms displayed on the surcoat of the leading knight: a pattern of red and gold fleur-de-lis against a golden field with a red bar. These were the arms of Sir John d'Eyvill, one of the rebel leaders in the north. Second only to Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Derby, though his equal in cruelty. Together they had blazed a trail of fire and destruction across northern England, forcing King Henry to send an army to deal with them.
When the hoofbeats had died away, Hugh got to his feet and jogged warily towards the din of battle. The mist was parting now, dispersed by bright morning sunshine. He laboured up a bare hillside and stopped to catch his breath.
Below him a broad slope, thinly carpeted with bushes and trees, swept down to flat expanse of marshland. The walled town of Chesterfield lay beyond. Rebel banners still flew from the gatehouse, though funnels of black smoke rose from the thatched roofs of houses near the gate. Screams also rose from the town; oaths and curses and pleas for mercy, the cries of wounded and dying. The royalists had forced the gates, which lay wide open on their hinges, and the slaughter of innocents had begun.
The bog was crammed with fighting men. A few score rebels, the best or most desperate, staged a last stand around their banners. Most were on foot, bleeding scarecrow figures, the mesh of their armour hacked and torn, shields cloven. They grimly fought on, closing up as bands of royalist horse charged, wheeled and charg
ed again. Every rush left a few more rebels stretched out in the mire. Some twitched and coughed their lives out, others lay still. The shields contracted, yet still the bright banners flew. Tattered rags on sticks, gaudy lions and bears and unicorns and other fantastic beasts, stars and moons and suns in splendour.
Hugh spotted a group of knights some twenty paces to his left. They sat on their horse on the ridge, watching the fight below. Behind them, spread out along the ridge, were several companies of mercenaries. Tough-looking Gascons crossbowmen stood quietly in neat ranks. A few noticed Hugh and glared at him suspiciously.
The tallest knight, mounted on a glossy black destrier, wore the golden pards of Anjou on his crimson surcoat. A slender, well-built man, about thirty, with broad shoulders and long fair hair the colour of ripe straw. Face lean and pale, adorned by a neat moustache. His fighting helm, a steel casque with a narrow eye-slit and breathing holes bored into the metal, dangled from his saddlebow.
Lord Henry of Almaine, thought Hugh, our gallant general. I never saw him so close before. Let's see how close I can get.
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