The summit of the ridge filled with rank after rank of horsemen. Where had they come from? For one insane moment, I wondered if the French had employed a magician to raise soldiers from the earth.
The answer was simple enough. Salisbury had cursed the Earl of Buchan, the Franco-Scots commander, for knowing his business too well, and so he did. While Clarence blundered over the bridge and wasted his best men in a futile attack against the Scottish foot, Buchan kept half his army in reserve, concealed behind the ridge. Perhaps the speed of Clarence’s advance had taken them by surprise, hence the presence of French soldiers in the church.
Now, with the duke’s company embroiled on the northern bank, and our archers divided, Buchan threw his reserve into the fray.
“Mount,” I yelled at my men, as though they needed telling, “retreat, back to the earl!”
The ominous thunder rolled closer as I fumbled with the reins of my destrier, tied to a tree on the fringes of the orchard. Odo shied away and tossed his huge head, panicked by the noise, and I had the devil’s own job to calm him.
Men fled past, desperate to get to their horses before the enemy reached the village. There was no question of making a stand. Without the protection of stakes and men-at-arms, our archers were helpless against the armoured giants on horseback bearing down on them.
Some credit must go to de Lafayette, the Constable of France. He commanded the reserve, and led them in an irresistible storm-charge down the steep rise. The horsemen flooded into the narrow lanes and encircled the village.
I finally managed to get Odo under control, and had one leg hooked over the saddle when a scream of agony made him rear and hurl me to the ground. I landed heavily on my side, and was about to curse Odo for the witless son of a carthorse when another scream erupted behind me.
“My lord! My lord, in God’s name, help me!”
Ralf’s voice. I twisted onto my front and saw him engaged with two Scottish men-at-arms. He crouched behind his shield as they hacked and battered at him and tried to rip the wolf banner from his grasp.
Stung into action, I forgot Odo and scrambled towards the fight. The attention of the Scots was on Ralf, and they didn’t see me until I was upon them.
I aimed a two-handed cut at the nearest Scotsman’s leg. My blade sheared through a gap in his leg-armour and the mail beneath. Hot red blood spurted from the wound, and his yell of pain was muffled inside the heavy steel cask of a closed bascinet.
His mace, which he had raised to smash in Ralf’s skull, fell from his hand and missed my head by inches. I sidestepped and hacked again at his leg. More blood spat forth and he keeled over in the saddle, clinging with both hands to the reins. His horse staggered and whinnied in fright, while his comrade tried to ride around him to get at me.
He had forgotten Ralf. My groom wasn’t much of a fighter, but had enough presence of mind to draw his dagger and stab at the Scotsman’s visor.
His clumsy thrust scraped harmlessly against the steel. It was enough to distract his target, and give me time to duck under the wounded man’s horse. While I cowered under its belly, the other Scot swung at Ralf with his axe.
Ralf caught the blow on his shield, but the heavy blade split the wood and bowled him clean out of the saddle. My precious banner spiralled to earth. Enraged, I rushed at the Scot and stabbed at his horse’s eyes, heedless of the laws of chivalry.
He chose the wiser part of valour, wheeled his mount and galloped away. His injured comrade also fled, blood pouring from the gash I had opened in his leg.
There was no time to catch my breath. The enemy were everywhere, steel-clad riders hunting our fugitive archers through the village and the orchard.
I plunged my sword back into its sheath and dragged Ralf to his feet. “Can you ride?” I yelled into his ear. He looked at me with mazed eyes, blinked, and gave a brief nod.
Ralf’s rouncy had bolted, but Odo stood nearby, quietly nuzzling at the grass, oblivious to the noise and bloodshed. He was strong enough to carry the weight of two men, so I grabbed my standard and pushed Ralf towards him.
Thanks to de Lafayette, we made good our escape from the village. The Constable was solely concerned with Clarence, and recalled his men from their pursuit of the archers. They turned away and rode in force to the southern end of the bridge, sealing off the duke’s only means of escape.
From my vantage point on the hill above the village, I watched the slow death of our vanguard. Clarence and his nobles fought back-to-back in a steadily dwindling circle around their banners, with the duke’s standard planted firmly in the centre.
Salisbury’s banner moved away from field, back down the highway towards Beaufort. He had given up the battle for lost, and would not stay to witness his friends die.
“God aid them,” said Ralf, who had slid down from Odo’s broad back, “they make a brave end.”
Tears streamed down our faces. We and the rest of the little band of survivors on the hill could do nothing to help the doomed Englishmen beyond the bridge. That knowledge made us weep, along with the stark, hopeless courage of their last stand.
Long after the battle was done, several Scottish nobles claimed the honour of slaying Clarence. I was too far away to see who finally struck him down, but did see the ducal coronet, wet with royal blood, raised in triumph on the end of a Scottish pike.
It was swiftly joined by his severed head, impaled on a second pike. The jeers and hoots of the enemy drifted across the field, while we cursed and shook our fists in vain at them.
After decades of defeat and humiliation at English hands, the Franco-Scots were in the mood for revenge. All but a handful of our men were cut down, still fighting, and the names of Lord Roos, Sir Gilbert Umfraville and the Count de Tancarville among the roll-call of our slain. The earls of Huntingdon and Somerset, as well as a few others, were disarmed and led away as prisoners.
Baugé was a black day for England, possibly the worst defeat we ever suffered in France. Like most disasters in war, it could have been easily avoided, had Clarence listened to the advice of better men. Pride, envy and the childish rivalry with his eldest brother compelled him to his doom.
“What now, my lord?” asked Ralf when the slaughter was done.
It was near dusk by now. Grim shadows slanted across the land. The sound of singing could be heard from the direction of Baugé, where our enemies rejoiced in their unexpected victory.
Most of our hobelars had fled south to rejoin Salisbury. Only the survivors of my company, and a few other stragglers, remained on the hill.
Twelve of my men still lived. The others were slain in the village when de Lafayette sprang his ambush.
I had a choice. Rejoin Salisbury, who would probably try and make his way back to the capital, and take refuge behind its walls until King Henry returned to France with reinforcements. Or I could forget my duty, break my indenture, and ride away in search of a greater destiny. In the wake of the defeat at Baugé, with our army dispersed and in full retreat, I would seldom have a better opportunity.
It would mean starting again, with no money. My war-chest was still in Paris, guarded by six mercenaries I had hired for the task.
I thought quickly, and came to a decision.
“Follow me, if you wish,” I told my men, “or else go where you will. I leave it to your conscience.”
“What of you, my lord?” asked Ralf.
“Follow,” I replied, “and find out.”
With that, I put spurs to Odo’s flanks and rode away.
A tremendous sense of freedom washed over me as I set my face, not towards Paris or Normandy, but the distant east.
***
Phrantzes laid down his pen, yawned, and knuckled his eyes.
“Is that the end?” he croaked, reaching for the cup of watered wine at his elbow.
John Page sat with his back to the wall, arms folded, staring out of the window at the turrets and roofs of Constantinople. He had barely moved from this spot, save to stretch his limbs
and relieve himself, for the past three days.
He massaged his throat. “For now,” he replied, his voice no less hoarse, “I have little more to say of my time in France.”
For three days he had recited his tale, and talked for long hours while Phrantzes scribbled. The stack of parchment on the table, covered in the former imperial courtier’s neat, precise hand, was the fruit of their labours.
All that remained was to deliver their work to the Sultan, and pray he was sufficiently entertained by it to spare their lives.
“How long?” said Phrantzes after he had drank two cupfuls of wine, “even if he doesn’t kill us this time, how long will he suffer us to live?”
He propped his head in his hands and started to weep. “I have to see my wife again, and my little ones. God in Heaven, what torments are they being exposed to?”
“Your wife is very beautiful,” said Page, “so I expect the Sultan will put her in his harem. Have no fear. She will come to no harm there. Nothing fatal, at any rate.”
His brutal tone shocked Phrantzes out of his tears, as it was meant to. The little man trembled with rage, and might have launched himself at Page if footsteps hadn’t sounded in the corridor outside.
Both men fell silent as the door glided open, and the same stocky, middle-aged Sipahi officer of three days ago stood framed in the entrance.
He waited for a moment, fists planted on his hips, his eyes carefully scrutinising the prisoners.
“You are done?” he asked Phrantzes in Greek.
Phrantzes laid his hand flat on top of the stack of parchment. “Yes...sir,” he replied carefully, “my companion has given an account of the French wars. We hope your master finds it to his taste.”
The officer smirked. “Of course you do, Master Phrantzes. If he does not, your heads will decorate the city walls.”
He snapped his fingers, and the same mousy clerk in the skull-cap and black robe crept under his arm into the cell. Without looking at either prisoner, the clerk gathered up the documents and scuttled out.
Phrantzes resumed his tears when the prison door slammed shut. Page closed his eyes and whistled another marching song of his youth.
They were left alone for an entire week. In that time they saw no-one save the Turkish guards who pushed their meals through the door twice a day and emptied their waste bucket.
Two men, living in close confinement with the shadow of the executioner’s blade hanging over them, are like to run mad. Phrantzes might have done so, but for John Page’s quiet composure.
“We live in the moment,” he said, “one moment at a time. There is no past, no future. Such things are myths, created by men to feed our delusions of importance.”
“Spare me your halfwit philosophy,” Phrantzes said bitterly, “I wish to pray. Only in prayer do I find any comfort.”
Page shrugged. “Pray, then, if it helps. Pray all you like.”
After seven days of increasingly strained conversation and ever-longer silences, the Sipahi returned.
Phrantzes quailed when he saw the cluster of armed men at the officer’s back, and the broad tulwar hanging from his belt.
“His Sacred and Imperial Majesty,” the Sipahi announced, “Emperor, Sultan of Sultans, Khan of Khans, Commander of the Faithful, Successor of the Prophet and Lord of the Universe, has listened to the tale of the infidel Sir John Page, knight of England.”
There was a look of sulky disappointment on the officer’s jowly features. “The Sultan was intrigued by it. At times delighted, at others repelled. After much thought, he has decided on a stay of execution.”
Phrantzes went limp with relief, and even Page seemed to relax slightly.
“His Imperial Majesty grants you another three days,” said the officer, “three more days to save your lives.”
END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
John Page, author of The Siege of Rouen, was a real person. Other than his poem, which survives in a single manuscript partially incorporated into a fifteenth century chronicle, we know very little about him. In the poem he claims to have been an eye-witness to the siege of Rouen (1418-19), but gives no other clue to his identity. There was a Prior of Bernewell named John Page alive during this era, though it is unclear why he should have been present at a siege in France. Several English soldiers of the same name are listed on the surviving muster rolls of Henry V’s army for the Normandy campaign, and it is possible the poet was one of these men.
The John Page who gave the account of his life to George Phrantzes, former secretary and confidante to the doomed Emperor Constantine XI, makes two claims: one, to have penned The Siege of Rouen, and secondly, to be the bastard son of Thomas Page, a mercenary captain who enjoyed some brief fame in the latter years of Edward III’s reign.
The outlaw chaplain of Lindfield, Robert Stafford alias Frere Tuk or Tuck, was also real. He is named in the court records for the years 1417 and 1429, where the clerk records that Stafford took the ‘unusual name’ of Frere Tuk as an alias. It is unclear whether he invented the name for himself, or was inspired by the character of Friar Tuck in the Robin Hood ballads. He and his band of outlaws appear to have had some grudge against the foresters of Surrey and Sussex, and committed a great number of forest offences, much as described in Page’s account. Stafford/Tuk was still alive in 1429, and there is no record of him ever being punished for his crimes.
Page evidently had a vivid imagination, and it is down to the reader how much of his account should be believed. For instance, there is no record of a failed attempt by the English to undermine the walls of Rouen, or of Henry engaging a French knight in single combat in the mines (though he did so later, at the siege of Meulan). Either these incidents went unrecorded, or Page was indulging in a little artistic licence to strengthen his personal association with the King. Neither is there any proof that Henry had a part in the murder of the Duke of Burgundy, though Burgundy’s removal certainly helped the English cause in France.
Whatever lies or half-truths he chose to tell, Page’s description of Henry V, the famous victor of Agincourt, has the ring of truth. Far from the attractive hero of Shakespeare, Henry was in reality a ruthless pragmatist who justified the most extreme actions on the grounds of doing God’s work. The account of his massacre of male citizens at Caen is only mentioned in one other source, a Venetian chronicle, but Henry was perfectly capable of such an act: we know he ordered similar massacres at Agincourt and Montereau. The scourge of God, as he called himself, was a stranger to mercy. He was also one of the ablest soldier-kings England ever produced, and Page is clearly torn between admiration of Henry’s military prowess, and repugnance at his cruelty.
It should be remembered that, at the time of writing, Page was in fear of his life. His task was to keep the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed the Conqueror, entertained for as long as possible. The moment he failed, his neck was forfeit. The same fate would befall his fellow prisoner, George Phrantzes. In such circumstances, a little exaggeration of the truth is perhaps to be expected.
It is known that Phrantzes was eventually ransomed and retired to the monastery of Tarchaneiotes in Corfu. He makes no mention of John Page in his writings - possibly he wanted to forget his association with such a dubious character. The details of Page’s career are unrecorded in any other source.
The next volume of Page’s memoirs, written under duress in the days after the sack of Constantinople in 1453, deal with his service in the heretical armies of the Hussites, and their wars against the Holy Roman Emperor...
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The Wolf Cub Page 26
