The Ill-Made Knight (9 page)

Let me note that while my wound and broken ribs had healed, I had no armour, no helmet and a cheap, badly made sword.

An hour after the sun was at its height, or perhaps two, our men started storming the town. They made ladders or stole them from farms, and tried them against the walls, but they were all too short. There was no order at all, and groups of men – ten or twelve strong – rode up to different points along the walls and had a go. The walls looked low, but close up they were too steep, recently refaced. The garrison was shit – too small, and cowardly. I could have held the place with fifty men today, but the French were on the defensive, and I’ll wager the castellan didn’t think we were serious. Later we heard the Count of Poitiers had stripped the garrison of all its best men for the field army.

We were serious, though.

Abelard and Master Peter met on the road, held a brief conference without the Earl, and suddenly we were galloping to the east, back out into the countryside. It made no sense to me, but as a new boy, nothing ever did, and I was wise enough to put my head down, my heels to my mount and follow them.

We tore down a narrow road, perhaps thirty of us, and ended up in a farmyard. Peter cursed, and we went through a gate and were moving across the fields; I could see the town wall a bowshot away to my left, and I realized what we were doing.

We rode hard. I remember that an archer fell from his horse in a lane, struck his head and was killed.

The rest of us left him and rode on. On and on, around the
faubourg
(the suburbs), then Abelard stiffened like a hunting dog, turned his horse’s head and rode for the wall.

There was an apple tree growing in the shade of the town wall, and someone – lazy, or proud of his tree – had left it like a living ladder, right under the wall.

Now when someone has to climb an apple tree in broad daylight to see if the wall above it is occupied, guess who gets that duty?

I went, and so did my bitter enemy Tom Amble, as we were the smallest and lightest.

Abelard shifted my scabbard all the way round so my sword hung like a tail, out of my way for climbing – something any hardened man knows, but I didn’t. Nevertheless, I was first up the tree, and I swayed a branch over to the wall and, without thinking too much about it, jumped.

I landed on the wall’s catwalk, and it was then I discovered the wall was manned.

Everything seemed to slow to a crawl. Climbing the tree had been a lark – I was going to be first into the town, or perhaps Amble was. Even the jump – a jump that would have terrified me in London – seemed like an adventure. But once my feet were on the wall, it was too far to jump down and a dozen French sergeants were running at me, I had a great deal of time to consider my own mortality and foolishness – and to wonder where Amble had got to.

I drew my sword and got my buckler on my left fist.

Then I had a notion, and I put it into immediate effect. I retreated away from them, all the way to the next tower. That covered my back and caused all of them to pursue me down the catwalk, leaving the area by the apple tree empty.

Even as the first man – they were in no particular order – ran at me, and his sword slammed into my buckler – the first blow aimed at me in earnest during my whole career as a soldier – I saw Amble, hardly a close friend but in that moment the sweetest sight in all the world, leap onto the wall.

Then I was fighting for my life. For the first time.

It never crossed my mind to try and kill any of them. I fought purely defensively for long heartbeats. The wall was only really wide enough for two men, and my back was covered. And from the first, they were looking over their shoulders, because Abelard was the next man on the wall after Amble, and Master Peter followed.

I did well enough, if I may say so. After a long ten heartbeats or so, I chanced a counter-cut at the bolder of my two adversaries. I stepped back and avoided his blow easily, but suddenly I was in the fight, not just defending myself. Remember, I was big – bigger than these men.

I slammed my buckler into the smaller Frenchman’s shield, and I probably broke his hand. It’s not in the books, but it’s a very effective blow, as any London boy knows.

He dropped his guard, and my back-cut caught him in the jaw.

Christ, how he screamed. I was appalled. He seemed to come apart under my blade.

The other man looked over his shoulder, then back at me. He wasn’t being backed up by his mates – they were all throwing down their weapons, because Peter, the master archer, had put three feet of ash through one of them with his great war bow, and that was the end of them. My fellow flopped about a bit – I had severed most of his lower jaw.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He screamed and tried to put his jaw back with his good hand.

Ever seen a kitten dying in the street? Abandoned by its mother, mewing and mewing its pitiful way to death? Why is that so heartbreaking, when a jawless man you’ve cut down yourself is just a wretched sight?

I didn’t wait for help. I cut his throat, and only then discovered I’d bent my worthless sword.

That was all right, though, because now I had a dozen French swords to choose from.

And a town to sack.

We took so much coin out of that town that some of the professional soldiers openly suggested we turn about and march home. I got almost a hundred ecus. For a boy who’d never had three silver coins, it was a staggering amount.

I was, by all accounts, the first man into the town. The Earl came and gave me his hand as a token of esteem. From that sack, I got two suits of clothes, a fine helmet and a French brigantine that was far better than John’s. It fit, too. So when I clasped arms with the Earl, I looked like a man-at-arms for the first time.

Of course, I wasn’t. I was a cook’s boy. But in my mind, I was a great knight. I took several shifts and a fine kirtle for my whore, and she was pleasantly thankful to receive from me the looted goods of another French family, because that’s how it was in France that summer. I had good shoes, handsome ones that fit, which I lifted off the corpse of a baker that Abelard killed in the door of his shop. I should have been warned by that incident. The man was protesting – and not very hard – as Abelard stripped him of white flour and fresh bread, so Abelard just cut him down rather than listen to him – if you take my meaning.

Anyway, I took his shoes.

The next day we rode hard, and then we sacked another town. Now men were dropping loot they’d taken earlier to carry better loot.

Peter, my master archer, gave me the best advice of my professional life at Vierzon. We’d just broken into the town – abandoned by the populace, who were cowering in the nearby royal fortress. I had a feather mattress on my back and I was eyeing an ivory inlaid chair I’d just dragged down from the second floor of a burgher’s house.

Peter laughed. ‘Listen to me, Judas,’ he said.

Christ, I hated that name.

I paused. ‘Yes, Master?’

‘Coin. Only take coin. Best of all, gold. Nothing else is worth carrying.’ He smiled.

I went back into the house and found a gold cross, a small gold cup and six more silver ecus. I left the rest.

Listen, some men have fine memories for fights. I myself can remember most of my best passages of arms, and I’ll make the rest up if you keep the wine coming – hah! But I remember loot. I remember the Book of Hours I had at the taking of Sienna—

Ah, you fine gentlemen don’t care about filthy loot.

But looting is what we do. That, and feats of arms. Listen. If you are born a rich man, you can perform your feats of arms on your family’s money. But if you are born poor –and I started my career of arms with no more than the clothes on my back – war can enrich you. Let us not mince words.

At any rate, after Vierzon, we knew the French royal army was close, and we were racing for the crossings of the Loire. My hero, Sir John Chandos, and another captain, Sir James Audley, made a dash for the bridge at Aubigny and met with a detachment of French troops. They won the fight, but lost the race for the bridge. It was a great fight, or so I’m told. A passage of arms. But, militarily, it got us nothing.

The next day we turned east, heading for the coast and a rendezvous with the Duke of Lancaster, or so we hoped, because the new rumour was that the King of France had 15,000 men.

The following day – perhaps two – we made good progress, then a brave French captain threw a garrison into a small castle right on our marching route, forcing us to take it. The man who commanded the enemy was a famous knight, Boucicault, and he had seventy more knights and 400 professional infantry, so we couldn’t march around. Mind you, I didn’t know that then, although I suppose I parroted the phrase. We couldn’t leave them behind us because they’d have devastated our line of march and killed our stragglers and wounded, stopping us from robbing and burning.

They were the first organized opposition we’d met, and suddenly we became an army, rather than a horde of locusts. Within hours, every man was in the ranks with his own retinue, under the banner of his lord. The Prince formed us in a tight array, and we stormed the town – not in disorganized drabbles, the way we’d taken the last town, but in one overwhelming rush. The walls of Romorantin were in poor repair, and they fell at the first assault, but Boucicault, who wasn’t much older than me and had been a fighting knight since he was fourteen, gathered his men into the citadel.

I cooked.

I mention this because I went up a ladder with Master Peter. I don’t think I fought anyone, although I remember being afraid when the crossbow bolts started to hit men around me, and fear is very tiring. But after the assault, I got a good ivory, and then Abelard found me and ordered me to go get the fires lit.

Cooking on a hot day in the Loire Valley when insects fill the air, after storming a wall and looting, is truly miserable. And we failed to take the citadel, so that the men who came to eat the food I’d prepared – mutton, a whole pig and a pair of chickens for my lord de Vere – were surly. Several were wounded. The French were no cowards.

I was cursed for undercooked meat and for not having enough wine. Probably for having red hair, as well. Fatigue is the greatest cause of men’s anger – fatigue and fear – and any captain knows that the two are the same.

That was a bad night. John came and ate – I’d saved the best for him, and he sneered at it. I even gave him my wine – I saw him as my mentor.

After he’d eaten, he pointed at Mary. ‘Bring her here,’ he said. ‘I want a ride.’

I thought I must have misheard. ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Give me your woman,’ he said. ‘She’s too handsome for you. You’re just a boy; she wants a man.’

Mary didn’t speak any English, but she backed away. It had taken a week for her to start showing herself in camp at all.

The Gascon archer from the affair at the farmyard, a snaggle-tooth villain named Markus, grabbed her. He gave her a squeeze. ‘Plenty here for all of us, boy,’ he said.

I couldn’t think.

I looked around for Abelard.

He wasn’t there.

John walked over, grabbed her skirts and hiked them over her hips in one movement, exposing her.

It hit me then.

A few of you know what I mean. For those that don’t, you have choices sometimes. Once you make them, they are made. If I let them rape her – fifteen or so men – that was a decision. If I didn’t let them, that was another.

I’d like to say to a priest that I couldn’t let her be hurt again, but that’s not it at all.

The reason was that I wanted to be a knight, not a looter.

And the other reason was that she was mine, not theirs.

I turned, made my decision and acted. I wore my sword, even to cook – think about all the boys you’ve known. Of
course
I wore my sword to cook.

I didn’t go for John. I went for Markus, who didn’t expect me.

I drew it back and slammed the round-wheeled pommel into Markus’s mouth as hard as I could, which was pretty hard even then.

I made him spit at least four teeth.

He fell to his knees, and I kicked him as hard as I could.

I’d finished the sergeant in Vierzon. My uncle had left me pretty hard. Perhaps not hard enough to let a fourteen-year-old French whore get gang-raped to death, but hard enough for this.

Markus went down and was silent, and Mary got behind me.

John was looking at the point of my sword.

‘Walk away,’ I said.

And he did.

I was fifteen and he was twenty-five, and we were no longer friends. Nor was he my mentor any more.

And we both knew which one of us was the cock of the yard, and which one had backed down.

That was a bad night. The next day was worse. The Earl came and asked for volunteers to storm the keep. I volunteered and he turned me down. They went up the ladders three times and failed. We lost good men that day. Our archers swept the walls with their longbows, and the French – brave men, every one of them – came out just as our men reached the tops of the ladders, and threw rocks, shot crossbows and swept the walls clear with partisans and poleaxes.

Abelard was back from wherever he’d been. I told him the tale of the night before and he snorted.

‘Listen, boy. These are
soldiers.
If you keep a pretty piece like that in camp . . .’ He shrugged. ‘If you like her so much, let her go.’ He looked away. ‘If the Earl had taken you to the tower today, they’d have done her while you were gone. Eh
bien
?’

‘She’ll be done in ten steps if I let her go!’ I protested.

He smiled a nasty smile. He looked away and started unloading the two mules he’d acquired, full of sausages and hams and bread. ‘If we don’t take that keep today,’ he said, ‘it’ll be worse tonight. The boys don’t exactly love you, Judas. Why are you making your life so difficult?’

That’s not what I wanted Abelard to say, but the truth was that now that we were in France, he was like a different man – a much more dangerous, criminal man. Indeed, I had begun to think of France as a different world, like purgatory, or hell. The world of war.