Master of War (23 page)

Blackstone could see only the powerful horses relentlessly com­ing on. The ground shuddered, clods of mud flew from their hooves; lances tilted, sword arms were held high, shields were feathered with arrows. How could men see through the narrow slits of the dog-faced bascinets? he wondered as he levelled a shaft at a knight wearing a surcoat of a red cross on a dark green background. They were shooting on a flatter trajectory now and the bodkins slammed through plate armour with a punch that knocked men out of their high-pommelled saddles. Some­where in a place of safety, clerks would record the battle and they would write that in the minute it took the Duke of Alençon and his knights to charge up the hill, more than sixteen thousand arrows fell on them. The French King’s brother did not survive to the summit.

Yet, still they did not falter.

Was this the courage and glory Sir Gilbert spoke of?

Blackstone watched as the survivors turned back to gather at the base of the hill. Behind them more French horsemen gathered. The survivors re-armed themselves, determined to return and seek the victory they confidently expected. Blackstone hawked and spat to try to rid his throat of the foul taste from the stench of disembowelled horses and men. He looked to his company of haggard men, the fear and strain of battle etched into their faces as if by a stonemason’s hand.

‘We bought the King this piece of France today, lads. Let’s keep it for him a while longer,’ he told them. He unstrung his bow and fitted another, not wanting to risk a loss of power from a weakened cord.

John Weston cupped a handful of water from the bucket before the boy ran down the line. ‘All I want is one rich-bastard knight to beg for surrender and his ransom’d buy the King as much bloody land as he wants. Then I wouldn’t have to be losing skin off my draw fingers. Look at that,’ he said, showing everyone his hand, ‘even skinned off the calluses.’

‘That’s ’cause you’ve spent half the fight scratching your arse,’ Will Longdon gibed.

The men laughed, glad of the distraction. Weston posed a pained expression. ‘Were it you what had a saddle-cracked arse like mine you’d soon moan,’ he said.

From across the valley evening mist crept slowly across the belly of the land. This late in August, nights brought a dampness and a chill that the soldiers would welcome from the day’s exertions and heat. Those who lived.

Blackstone looked to his brother. The boy lay on the wet ground sucking a piece of grass as if he were at home in the hay fields watching a rising meadow lark. Blackstone knelt by him.

‘What do you see?’ Blackstone asked gently, as he looked into the pink-streaked clouds. Soon it would be dark and then the fighting would make it even more difficult to separate friend from foe in close-quarter battle.

Richard looked back at him, unable to grasp what had been said, as Blackstone knew he wouldn’t. He shook his head when Richard grunted his lack of understanding. Blackstone knew he would never find that place again in his heart where his brother had once resided. He patted Richard’s shoulder and gestured him to his feet.

There was no time for further respite. An exultant fanfare floated across the valley. The kettledrums started their rousing tattoo once more.

Blackstone gazed across the broken bodies of men and horses, a pauper’s graveyard with bristling arrows for headstones. The English beheld a sight that caught their breath. Massed ranks of knights gathered. King Edward’s defence, four lines deep across nearly a thousand yards of hillside, was puny compared to the body of horsemen that now started their slow, determined walk. New blood had joined those who had already thrown themselves against the English. Banners fluttered, lifted by the evening’s breeze, and the colourful blaze of surcoats, shields and flags put the setting sun to shame.

‘Dear Christ,’ Will Longdon said and crossed himself.

‘We need more than arrows, Thomas,’ John Weston said. ‘We need a bloody miracle, and the Church and me have been strangers for as long as I can remember.’

Blackstone scanned the pennons. Over the weeks he had learnt to recognize some of the heraldic devices of the noble French houses. But he did not need to be an expert to notice de Harcourt’s coat of arms. Sir Godfrey’s brother and nephew were riding in the third wave. Blackstone glanced down the line to where the Prince’s retinue made themselves ready. The Prince pulled back a handful of his fair hair and settled the dark metalled helm on his head. He swung his sword arm, left and right, stretching out the muscles again from the momentary stiffness. As he turned to say something to the others his smile was plain to see for those watching. He was enjoying himself.

A few paces back from Richard FitzSimon, who held the Prince’s banner firmly with both hands, Godfrey de Harcourt stood stoically in a bloodstained surcoat next to Sir Reginald Cobham. The old fighter pressed a finger to his nostril and blew grimy snot onto the ground, then waited patiently for those who survived the impend­ing hail of arrows. Killing was not something that tugged at his emotions. Feelings such as those he would leave to women. He knew that members of de Harcourt’s family were approaching to do battle. He felt no sympathy on behalf of the army’s marshal. The enemy needed to be killed as efficiently as possible – family or not.

‘All right, lads, form up,’ Blackstone told them, placing himself at the centre of his company. He put his arm on Richard’s shoulder and had him stand at his side. The boy smiled and then turned away. Blackstone almost called his name, but instead reached out with his bow and touched the boy’s back. ‘Here,’ he said, pointing at the ground next to his shoulder.

Richard shook his head. The guttural response and the gestures told Blackstone that his brother now thought himself a man and that he would fight with other men. Blackstone could have stopped him. Should have stopped him. But perhaps this was the time he had to let him go. Had not the King placed his son in harm’s way and expected him to do his duty?

Blackstone nodded, and the boy turned away to join the end of the archers’ defensive line. The others each raised an arm to touch his shoulder as he passed. It was a gesture of comradeship – or perhaps they did, after all, think him their talisman. As Blackstone turned his attention to the rising tide of French horse­men moving ever closer up the hill, he realized Sir Gilbert had been watching.

‘That’s the way it has to be, Thomas,’ he said. He tightened the blood knot on his sword and raised it above his head, then stepped in front of the army and faced the enemy. ‘Saint George!’ he bellowed.

The ranks roared, ‘Saint George!’ Then the cry flew along the lines and Blackstone saw the Prince and his nobles raise their swords.
Saint George! Saint George!
The mighty war cry swelled English hearts.

The front rank took a pace forward to stand level with Sir Gilbert.

There was no clearer message for the French King.

The English would not retreat.

There was no hot-blooded charge from the French knights this time, no death or glory gallop. Rows of horsemen gripped shields and lances, their knees touching those of the men next to them. A woman’s veil could not flutter through these formations without being impaled.

When they coolly urged their horses into the archers’ range, they lifted their shields to absorb the splattering hail. It was not enough. Arrows found their way through armour and horses’ flanks. Raised shields presented soft underarm targets. Plate arm­our could deflect an arrow but chain mail was pierced as if it were bare flesh. Rank upon rank kept coming, and once again the King’s beloved archers, the common men of England, slaughtered the great and good of European nobility. As man and horse fell, another from the following ranks took their place. This time the French could not be stopped. When the pain and heat for revenge took hold this time they pressed ahead with a surge of horse and armour.

And when they closed the front ranks it was Blackstone’s com­pany’s turn to halt them. He yelled his commands. ‘Fifty paces! Thirty! Steady… nock… draw…’ He waited for another ten yards: ‘Loose!’

The whisper of sound fluttered the air followed by the crash of metal beating metal. Momentum carried the wounded war horses forward, as knights slumped, some trying to wrench the bodkin-pointed arrows from their armour. But ripped muscle, ligaments and shattered bone caused them to topple in agony. Within paces of the English line, the spearmen and men-at-arms stepped forward and began their killing. Hamstrung horses crumpled, their riders defenceless. Destriers rolled and crushed men, and the English did as their King had commanded. They gave no mercy.

And then, feet away from Blackstone, they almost broke through. The line caved in on itself, but, bolstered by men bravely push­ing themselves forward, it held again. The few yards gained were seized back. Grunting men flung themselves at each other, trading blows until one gave way from fatigue or injury. They fought to the death. There was no question of yielding. The French knew they would live or die in this place because they could not retreat across the open ground and suffer again the archers’ lethal skill.

‘Stand your ground!’ Blackstone yelled to his men who had scurried back into the shelter of the Welsh spearmen who advanced into the mêlée. ‘Find a target! No matter how close!’ He loosed two arrows in quick succession, one taking a knight in the throat as Gruffydd ap Madoc speared the man’s horse. The falling creature’s weight yanked the spear from his hands and in the moment before he could pick up another, a second arrow had whispered past his ear into a knight swinging a two-handed battleaxe. The wild-eyed Welshman turned over his shoulder enough to see that it was Blackstone who had done the killing, then he lurched back into the fury. Polehammers smashed at the mounted knights, catching them across the shoulders or back of their heads, forcing their bodies forward in the saddle, exposing the unarmoured parts of thighs and buttocks. Then halberd spikes and spearheads were rammed into soft tissue, crippling the rider, leaving him to die beneath the sword strokes.

Knights and men-at-arms stood shoulder to shoulder. The shield wall for defence had changed little since Roman times. Edward, who had studied the battle lore of the fourth-century military author Vegetius, had used it often. But every wall can be broken, and now the sheer weight of those horsemen who survived the pit-traps and the arrows hammered at those who crouched below them.

‘Sword and spear! Together!’ Sir Gilbert’s command was heard down the line. His tireless fighting ability, despite old wounds, drew men to him, eager to fight at his side, knowing that they were next to a great soldier. As the knights came onto the line spearmen jabbed and probed at the stallions’ padded trappers, searching for the weak spots on the animals’ chests and flanks, pushing blades through the trappings until flesh gave and the beast reared in terror and pain. Then the swordsmen hacked and probed the Frenchmen’s armour. Crushing, piercing, blinding. Great men of power lay on the torn-up grass, squirming like stuck boars at a hunt.

The Prince was under heavy and bloody attack. Knights and infantry­men were down, men-at-arms hacked a pocket of resistance around him and the Prince wielded his sword with a dogged persistence that slaughtered those who threatened him. The Prince took the fight to his father’s enemies. Step by bloody step he moved a yard and then another as he wielded his sword against his attackers. Like most of the English knights he fought with his face-piece open, wanting to see the enemy clearly and to gasp the air so desperately needed. The threat from the crossbowmen had long been trampled beneath iron hooves. The dragon banner of the Prince’s own principality fluttered next to him as his standard bearer FitzSimon held fast against the surging attack. His was the more dangerous position. Next to the Prince he was unable to defend himself. The Welsh dragon must be kept aloft. The Prince was the prize and the French knew it. A surge of French knights on foot, tightly packed, fighting as a disciplined unit, cut their way closer to him.

Sir Gilbert saw it and led a flanking attack, taking a dozen men with him, fighting across crazed horses and slashing swords. The French nobles’ lives of privilege were being redeemed on that bloodied hill. Howling men fought with animal savagery. Cries of
Montjoie! Saint Denis!
rallied the French.

The line broke, re-formed and then broke again. Archers were down. In the mayhem Blackstone saw John Weston grappling with a French man-at-arms. Despite the man’s strength and the weight of his armour he struggled against the broad-shouldered archer, but Weston had nothing to grasp. His hands slithered on armour slippery with blood. He heard Weston scream as he went down.

‘Help me! Dear Christ! No!’

Blackstone had two arrows left and he fired into the attacking man without needing to aim. The arrow punched beneath the man’s raised sword arm. Weston rolled clear and scrambled on all fours trying to escape, but a second man rammed his sword into his back. John Weston spasmed, choking blood gushed, his arms twitched like a pinned insect. Blackstone had no chance to save him. There had been no clear shot. His men were dying.
Dear God help us!
he cried to himself.

‘Archers! Form up! Form up! Back! Back!’ He wanted them further up the hill so they could fire down into the French. Some heard his voice, turned, saw him signal them away from the mar­aud­ing French, but it was too late. The unarmoured archers were already fighting. Arrows spent, it was knives and swords against plate armour.

Blackstone’s final arrow was nocked when he saw a moment of bewildering beauty. A swallow on the wing flew above the blood-sluiced men, lifting itself into the twilight’s haze to feed on insects, swooping across the pain and misery in its own uncaring beauty. In that moment Blackstone knew where he had seen such a bird before. It was not only embroidered on Christiana’s keepsake; it had been the emblem on the surcoat of the knight he had killed at the crossroads all those weeks ago. He had slain someone belonging to Christiana.

The realization was swept away as the bedlam of fighting rang in his ears. He loosed the arrow, which could not fail to find a target, but his men were scattered. Sir Gilbert was still fighting forward. Confusion swirled about him – but then Blackstone saw Richard.