Part 27 (2/2)

The Count of Alencon, brother to the King, had begun the crazed charge that had left so many Frenchmen dead on the far slope, but the Count was also dead, his leg broken by his falling horse and his skull crushed by an English axe. The men he had led, those that still lived, were dazed, arrow stung, sweat-blinded and weary, but they fought on, turning their tired horses to thrash swords, maces and axes at men-at-arms, who fended the blows with s.h.i.+elds and raked their swords across the horses' legs. Then a new trumpet called much closer to the melee. The notes fell in urgent triplets that followed one after the other, and some of the hors.e.m.e.n registered the call and understood they were being ordered to withdraw. Not to retreat, but to make way, for the biggest attack was yet to come.

'G.o.d save the King,' Will Skeat said dourly, for he had ten arrows left and half France was coming at him.

Thomas was noticing the strange rhythm of battle, the odd lulls in the violence and the sudden resurrection of horror. Men fought like demons and seemed invincible and then, when the hors.e.m.e.n withdrew to regroup, they would lean on their s.h.i.+elds and swords and look like men close to death. The horses would stir again, English voices would shout warnings, and the men-at-arms would straighten and lift their dented blades. The noise on the hill was overwhelming: the occasional crack of the guns that did little except make the battlefield reek with h.e.l.l's dark stench, the screams of horses, the blacksmiths' clangour of weapons, men panting, shouting and moaning. Dying horses bared their teeth and thrashed the turf. Thomas blinked sweat from his eyes and stared at the long slope that was thick with dead horses, scores of them, hundreds maybe, and beyond them, approaching the bodies of the Genoese who had died under the arrows' lash, even more hors.e.m.e.n were coming beneath a new spread of bright flags. Sir Guillaume? Where was he? Did he live? Then Thomas realized that the terrible opening charge, when the arrows had felled so many horses and men, had been just that, an opening. The real battle was starting now.

'Will! Will!' Father Hobbe's voice called from somewhere behind the men-at-arms. 'Sir William!'

'Here, father!'

The men-at-arms made way for the priest, who was carrying an armload of arrow sheaves and leading a small-frightened boy who carried still more. 'A gift from the royal archers,' Father Hobbe said, and he spilled the sheaves onto the gra.s.s. Thomas saw the arrows had the red-dyed feathers of the King's own bowmen. He drew his knife, cut a binding lace, and stuffed the new arrows into his bag.

'Into line! Into line!' the Earl of Northampton shouted hoa.r.s.ely. His helmet was deeply dented over his right temple and his surcoat was spotted with blood. The Prince of Wales was shouting insults at the French, who were wheeling their horses away, going back through the tangled sprawl of dead and wounded. 'Archers!' The Earl called, then pulled the Prince back into the men-at-arms who were slowly lining themselves into formation. Two men were picking up fallen enemy lances to re-arm the front rank. 'Archers!' the Earl called again.

Will Skeat took his men back into their old position in front of the Earl. 'We're here, my lord.'

'You have arrows?'

'Some.'

'Enough?'

'Some,' Skeat stubbornly answered.

Thomas kicked a broken sword from under his feet. Two or three paces in front of him was a dead horse with flies crawling on its wide white eyes and over the glistening blood on its black nose. Its trapper was white and yellow, and the knight who had ridden the horse was pinned under the body. The man's visor was lifted. Many of the French and nearly all of the English men-at-arms fought with open visors and this dead man's eyes stared straight at Thomas, then suddenly blinked.

'Sweet Jesus,' Thomas swore, as if he had seen a ghost.

'Have pity,' the man whispered in French. 'For Christ's sake, have pity.'

Thomas could not hear him, for the air was filled with the drumbeat of hooves and the bray of trumpets. 'Leave them! They're beat!' Will Skeat bawled, for some of his men were about to draw their bows against those hors.e.m.e.n who had survived the first charge and had withdrawn to realign their ranks well within bowshot range. 'Wait!' Skeat shouted. 'Wait!'

Thomas looked to his left. There were dead men and horses for a mile along the slope, but it seemed the French had only broken through to the English line where he stood. Now they came again and he blinked away sweat and watched the charge come up the slope. They came slowly this time, keeping their discipline. One knight in the French front rank was wearing extravagant white and yellow plumes on his helmet, just as if he were in a tournament. That was a dead man, Thomas thought, for no archer could resist such a flamboyant target.

Thomas looked back at the carnage in front. Were there any English among the dead? It seemed impossible that there should not be, but he could see none. A Frenchman, an arrow deep in his thigh, was staggering in a circle among the corpses, then slumped to his knees. His mail was torn at his waist and his helmet's visor was hanging by a single rivet. For a moment, with his hands clasped over his sword's pommel, he looked just like a man at prayer, then he slowly fell forward. A wounded horse whinnied. A man tried to rise and Thomas saw the red cross of St George on his arm, and the red and yellow quarters of the Earl of Oxford on his jupon. So there were English casualties after all.

'Wait!' Will Skeat shouted, and Thomas looked up to see that the hors.e.m.e.n were closer, much closer. He drew the black bow. He had shot so many arrows that the two calloused string fingers of his right hand were actually sore, while the edge of his left hand had been rubbed raw by the flick of the goose feathers whipping across its skin. The long muscles of his back and arms were sore. He was thirsty. 'Wait!' Skeat shouted again, and Thomas relaxed the string a few inches. The close order of the second charge had been broken by the bodies of the crossbowmen, but the hors.e.m.e.n were re-forming now and were well within bow range. But Will Skeat, knowing how few arrows he had, wanted them all to count. 'Aim true, boys,' he called. 'We've no steel to waste now, so aim true! Kill the d.a.m.ned horses.' The bows stretched to their full extent and the string bit like fire into Thomas's sore fingers.

'Now!' Skeat shouted and a new flight of arrows skimmed the slope, this time with red feathers among the white. Jake's bowstring snapped and he cursed as he fumbled for a replacement. A second flight whipped away, its feathers hissing in the air, and then the third arrows were on the string as the first flight struck. Horses screamed and reared. The riders flinched and then drove back spurs as if they understood that the quickest way to escape the arrows was to ride down the archers. Thomas shot again and again, not thinking now, just looking for a horse, leading it with the steel arrowhead, then releasing. He drew out a white-feathered arrow and saw blood on the quills and knew his bow fingers were bleeding for the first time since he had been a child. He shot again and again until his fingers were raw flesh and he was almost weeping from the pain, but the second charge had lost all its cohesion as the barbed points tortured the horses and the riders encountered the corpses left by the first attack. The French were stalled, unable to ride into the arrow flail, but unwilling to retreat. Horses and men fell, the drums beat on and the rearward hors.e.m.e.n were pus.h.i.+ng the front ranks into the b.l.o.o.d.y ground where the pits waited and the arrows stung. Thomas shot another arrow, watched the red feathers whip into a horse's breast, then fumbled in the arrow bag to find just one shaft left. He swore.

'Arrows?' Sam called, but no one had any to spare.

Thomas shot his last, then turned to find a gap in the men-at-arms that would let him escape the hors.e.m.e.n who would surely come now the arrows had run out, but there were no gaps.

He felt a heartbeat of pure terror. There was no escape and the French were coming. Then, almost without thinking, he put his right hand under the horn tip of the bow and launched it high over the English men-at-arms so it would fall behind them. The bow was an enc.u.mbrance now, so he would be rid of it, and he picked up a fallen s.h.i.+eld, hoping to G.o.d it showed an English insignia, and pushed his left forearm into the tight loops. He drew his sword and stepped back between two of the lances held by the men-at-arms. Other archers were doing the same.

'Let the archers in!' the Earl of Northampton shouted. 'Let them in!' But the men-at-arms were too fearful of the rapidly approaching French to open their files.

'Ready!' a man shouted. 'Ready!' There was a note of hysteria in his voice. The French hors.e.m.e.n, now that the arrows were exhausted, were streaming up the slope between the corpses and the pits. Their lances were lowered and their spurs raked back as they demanded a last spurt from the horses before they struck the enemy. The trappers were flecked with mud and hung with arrows. Thomas watched a lance, held the unfamiliar s.h.i.+eld high and thought how monstrous the enemy's steel faces looked.

'You'll be all right, lad.' A quiet voice spoke behind him. 'Hold the s.h.i.+eld high and go for the horse.'

Thomas s.n.a.t.c.hed a look and saw it was the grey-haired Reginald Cobham, the old champion himself, standing in the front rank.

'Brace yourselves!' Cobham shouted.

The horses were on top of them, vast and high, lances reaching, the noise of the hooves and the rattle of mail overwhelming. Frenchmen were shouting victory as they leaned into the lunge.

'Now kill them!' Cobham shouted.

The lances struck the s.h.i.+elds and Thomas was hurled back and a hoof thumped his shoulder, but a man behind pushed him upright so he was forced hard against the enemy horse. He had no room to use the sword and the s.h.i.+eld was crushed against his side. There was the stench of horse sweat and blood in his nostrils. Something struck his helmet, making his skull ring and vision darken, then miraculously the pressure was gone and he glimpsed a patch of daylight and staggered into it, swinging the sword to where he thought the enemy was. 's.h.i.+eld up!' a voice screamed and he instinctively obeyed, only to have the s.h.i.+eld battered down, but his dazed vision was sharpening and he could see a bright-coloured trapper and a mailed foot in a big leather stirrup close to his left. He rammed his sword through the trapper and into the horse's guts and the beast twisted away. Thomas was dragged along by the trapped blade, but managed to give it a violent tug that jerked it free so sharply that its recoil struck an English s.h.i.+eld.

The charge had not broken the line, but had broken against it like a sea wave striking a cliff. The horses recoiled and the English men-at-arms advanced to hack at the hors.e.m.e.n who were relinquis.h.i.+ng lances to draw their swords. Thomas was pushed aside by the men-at-arms. He was panting, dazed and sweat-blinded. His head was a blur of pain. An archer was lying dead in front of him, head crushed by a hoof. Why had the man no helmet? Then the men-at-arms were reeling back as more hors.e.m.e.n filed through the dead to thicken the fight, all of them pus.h.i.+ng towards the Prince of Wales's high banner. Thomas banged his s.h.i.+eld hard into a horse's face, felt a glancing blow on his sword and skewered the blade down the horse's flank. The rider was fighting a man on the other side of his horse and Thomas saw a small gap between the saddle's high pommel and the man's mail skirt, and he shoved the sword up into the Frenchman's belly, heard the man's angry roar turn into a shriek, then saw the horse was falling towards him. He scrambled clear, pus.h.i.+ng a man out of his path before the horse collapsed in a crash of armour and beating hooves. English men-at-arms swarmed over the dying beast, going to meet the next enemy. A horse with an iron garro deep in its haunch was rearing and striking with its hooves. Another horse tried to bite Thomas and he struck it with the s.h.i.+eld, then flailed at its rider with his sword, but the man wheeled away and Thomas looked desperately for the next enemy.

'No prisoners!' the Earl screamed, seeing a man trying to lead a Frenchman out of the melee. The Earl had discarded his s.h.i.+eld and was wielding his sword with both hands, hacking it like a woodman's axe and daring any Frenchman to come and challenge him. They dared. More and more hors.e.m.e.n pushed into the horror; there seemed no end of them. The sky was bright with flags and streaked with steel, the gra.s.s was gouged by iron and slick with blood. A Frenchman rammed the bottom edge of his s.h.i.+eld down onto an Englishman's helmet, wheeled the horse, lunged a sword into an archer's back, wheeled again and struck down at the man still dazed by the s.h.i.+eld blow. 'Montjoie St Denis! 'Montjoie St Denis!' he shouted.

'St George!' The Earl of Northampton, visor up and face streaked with blood, rammed his sword through a gap in a chanfron to take a horse's eye. The beast reared and its rider fell to be trampled by a horse behind. The Earl looked for the Prince and could not see him, then could not search more, for a fresh conroi with white crosses on black s.h.i.+elds was forging through the melee, pus.h.i.+ng friend and foe alike from their path as they carried their lances towards the Prince's standard.

Thomas saw a baffled lance coming at him and he threw himself to the ground where he curled into a ball and let the heavy horses crash by.

'Montjoie St Denis! ' the voices yelled above him as the Count of Astarac's conroi struck home. ' the voices yelled above him as the Count of Astarac's conroi struck home.

Sir Guillaume d'Evecque had seen nothing like it. He hoped he never saw it again. He saw a great army breaking itself against a line of men on foot.

It was true that the battle was not lost and Sir Guillaume had convinced himself it could yet be won, but he was also aware of an unnatural sluggishness in himself. He liked war. He loved the release of battle, he relished imposing his will on an enemy and he had ever profited from combat, yet he suddenly knew he did not want to charge up the hill. There was a doom in this place, and he pushed that thought away and kicked his spurs back. 'Montjoie St Denis!' 'Montjoie St Denis!' he shouted, but knew he was just pretending the enthusiasm. No one else in the charge seemed afflicted by doubts. The knights were beginning to jostle each other as they strove to aim their lances at the English line. Very few arrows were flying now, and none at all were coming from the chaos ahead where the Prince of Wales's banner flew so high. Hors.e.m.e.n were now charging home all along the line, hacking at the English ranks with swords and axe, but more and more men were angling across the slope to join the fury on the English right. It was there, Sir Guillaume told himself, that the battle would be won and the English broken. It would be hard work, of course, and b.l.o.o.d.y work, hacking through the prince's troops, but once the French hors.e.m.e.n were in the rear of the English line it would collapse like rotted wood, and no amount of reinforcements from the top of the hill could stop that panicked rout. So fight, he told himself, fight, but there was still the nagging fear that he was riding into disaster. He had never felt anything like it and he hated it, cursing himself for being a coward! he shouted, but knew he was just pretending the enthusiasm. No one else in the charge seemed afflicted by doubts. The knights were beginning to jostle each other as they strove to aim their lances at the English line. Very few arrows were flying now, and none at all were coming from the chaos ahead where the Prince of Wales's banner flew so high. Hors.e.m.e.n were now charging home all along the line, hacking at the English ranks with swords and axe, but more and more men were angling across the slope to join the fury on the English right. It was there, Sir Guillaume told himself, that the battle would be won and the English broken. It would be hard work, of course, and b.l.o.o.d.y work, hacking through the prince's troops, but once the French hors.e.m.e.n were in the rear of the English line it would collapse like rotted wood, and no amount of reinforcements from the top of the hill could stop that panicked rout. So fight, he told himself, fight, but there was still the nagging fear that he was riding into disaster. He had never felt anything like it and he hated it, cursing himself for being a coward!

A dismounted French knight, his helmet's face-piece torn away and blood dripping from a hand holding a broken sword, while his other hand gripped the remnants of a s.h.i.+eld that had been split into two, staggered down the hill, then dropped to his knees and vomited. A riderless horse, stirrups flapping, galloped white-eyed across the line of the charge with its torn trapper trailing in the gra.s.s. The turf here was flecked by the white feathers of fallen arrows that looked like a field of flowers.

'Go! Go! Go!' Sir Guillaume shouted at his men, and knew he was shouting at himself. He would never tell men to go on a battlefield, but to come, to follow, and he cursed himself for using the word and stared ahead, looking for a victim for his lance, and he watched for the pits and tried to ignore the melee that was just to his right. He planned to widen the melee by boring into the English line where it was still lightly engaged. Die a hero, he told himself, carry the d.a.m.ned lance right up the hill and let no man ever say that Sir Guillaume d'Evecque was a coward.

Then a great cheer sounded from his right and he dared look there, away from the pits. He saw the Prince of Wales's great banner was toppling into the struggling men. The French were cheering and Sir Guillaume's gloom lifted magically for it was a French banner that pressed ahead, going over the place where the Prince's flag had flown, and then Sir Guillaume saw the banner. He saw it and stared at it. He saw a yale holding a cup and he pressed his knee to turn his horse and shouted at his men to follow him. 'To war!' he shouted. To kill. And there was no more sluggishness and no more doubts. For Sir Guillaume had found his enemy.

The King saw the enemy knights with the white-crossed s.h.i.+elds pierce his son's battle and then he watched his son's banner fall. He could not see his son's black armour. Nothing showed on his face.

'Let me go!' the Bishop of Durham demanded.

The King brushed a horsefly from his horse's neck. 'Pray for him,' he instructed the bishop.

'What the h.e.l.l use will prayer be?' the bishop demanded, and hefted his fearful mace. 'Let me go, sire!'

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