Vagabond

by Bernard Cornwell

  Four or five hundred men crossed the fallen palisade. Most were not trained soldiers, but townsmen who had been enraged by the enemy's missiles crashing into their houses. Their women and children had been maimed and killed by the trebuchets and the men of La Roche-Derrien wanted revenge, just as they wanted to keep the prosperity brought by the English occupation, and so they cheered as they swarmed into the enemy camp. 'Archers!' Totesham roared in a huge voice. 'Archers, to me! Archers!'

  Sixty or seventy archers ran to obey him, making a line just to the south of the platforms where the two biggest trebuchets were set. The rest of the sortie were charging at the enemy who were no longer formed in their battle line, but had scattered into small groups who were so intent on completing their victory over Sir Thomas Dagworth that they had not been watching behind them. Now they turned, alarmed, as a feral roar announced the garrison's arrival. 'Kill the bastards!' a townsman shouted in Breton.

  'Kill!' An English voice roared.

  'No prisoners!' another man bellowed, and though Totesham, fearful for lost ransoms, called out that prisoners must be taken, no one heard him in the savage roar that the attackers made.

  Charles's men-at-arms instinctively formed a line, but Totesham, ready for it, had gathered his archers and now he ordered them to shoot: the bows began their devil's music and the arrows hissed through the dark to bury themselves in mail and flesh and bone. The bowmen were few, but they shot at close range, they could not miss, and Charles's men cowered behind their shields as the missiles whipped home, but the arrows easily pierced shields and the men-at-arms broke and scattered to find shelter among the tents. 'Hunt them down! Hunt them down!' Totesham released his archers to the kill.

  Less than a hundred of Sir Thomas Dagworth's men were still fighting and most of those were the archers who had gone to ground in the wagon park. Some of the others were prisoners, many were dead, while most were trying to escape across the earthworks and palisades, but those men, hearing the great roar behind them, turned back. Charles's men were scattered: many were still hunting down the remnants of the first attack and those who had tried to resist Totesham's sortie were either dead or fleeing into shadows. Totesham's men now struck the heart of the encampment with the savagery of a tempest. The townsmen were filled with rage. There was no subtlety in their assault, just a lust for vengeance as they swarmed past the two great trebuchets. The first huts they encountered were the shelters of the Bavarian engineers who, wanting no part of the hand-to-hand slaughter that was finishing off the survivors of Sir Thomas Dagworth's assault, had stayed by their billets and now died there. The townsmen had no idea who their victims were, only that they were the enemy, and so they were chopped down with axes, mattocks and hammers. The chief engineer tried to protect his eleven-year-old son, but they died together under a frenzy of blows, and meanwhile the English and Fleming men-at-arms were streaming past.

  Thomas had shot his bow with the other archers, but now he sought Robbie whom he had last seen by the two big trebuchets. Widowmaker had been winched down ready to launch its first missile in the dawn and Thomas stumbled over a stout metal spike that protruded a yard from the beam and acted as an anchor for the sling. He cursed, because the metal had hurt his shins, then he climbed onto the trebuchet's frame and shot an arrow above the heads of the men slaughtering the Bavarians. He had been aiming at the enemy still clustered at the foot of the windmill and he saw a man fall there before the gaudy shields came up. He shot again, and realized that his wounded hands were doing what they had always done and were doing it well, and so he plucked a third arrow from the bag and drove it into a firelit shield painted with a white ermine, then the English men-at-arms and their allies were climbing the hill and obscuring his aim so he jumped down from the trebuchet and resumed his search for Robbie.

  The enemy was defending the mill stoutly and most of Totesham's men had veered away into the tents where they had more hope of finding plunder. The townsmen, their Bavarian tormentors killed, were following with bloody axes. A man in plate armour stepped from behind a tent and cut at a man with a sword, folding him at the belly, and Thomas did not think, but put an arrow on the cord, drew and loosed. The arrow went through the slit in the enemy's visor as cleanly as if Thomas had been shooting on the butts at home and moon-glossed blood, glistening like a jewel, oozed from the visor slits as the man fell backwards onto the canvas.

  Thomas ran on, stepping over bodies, edging past half-fallen tents. This was no place for a bow, everything was too cramped, and so he slung the yew stave on his shoulder and drew his sword. He ducked into a tent, stepped over a fallen bench, heard a scream and twisted, sword raised, to see a woman on the ground, half hidden by bedding, shaking her head at him. He left her there, went out into the firelit night and saw an enemy aiming a crossbow at the English men-at-arms who attacked the mill. He took two steps and stabbed the man in the small of the back so that his victim arched his wounded spine and twisted and shook. Thomas, dragging the sword free, was so appalled by the noise the dying man made that he hacked the blade down again and again, chopping at the fallen, twitching man to make him silent.

  'He's dead! Christ, man, he's dead!' Robbie shouted at him, then snatched at Thomas's sleeve and pulled him towards the mill and Thomas took the bow from his shoulder and shot two men wearing the white ermine badge on their jupons. They had been trying to escape, running down the back side of the hill. A dog streaked across the shoulder of the slope, something red and dripping in its jaws. There were two great bonfires on the hill, flanking the mill, and a man-at-arms fell backwards into one, driven there by the strike of an English arrow. Sparks exploded upwards as he fell, then he began to scream as his flesh roasted inside his armour. He tried to scramble out of the flames, but a townsman thrust him back with the butt of a spear and laughed at the man's desperate squeals. The clash of swords, shields and axes was huge, filling the night, but in the strange chaos there was a peaceful area at the back of the windmill. Robbie had seen a man duck through a small doorway there and he pulled Thomas that way. 'He's either hiding or running away!' Robbie shouted. 'He must have money!'

  Thomas was not sure what Robbie was talking about, but he followed anyway; he just had time to sling his bow again and draw the sword a second time before Robbie smashed the door down with his mail-clad shoulder and plunged into the darkness. 'Come here, you English bastard!' he shouted.

  'You want to be killed?' Thomas roared at him. 'You're fighting for the goddamn English!'

  Robbie swore at that reminder, then Thomas saw a shadow to his right, only a shadow, and he swung his sword that way. It clanged against another sword and Robbie was screaming in the dusty dark and the man was shouting at them in French and Thomas pulled back, but Robbie just slammed his sword down once, twice, and the blade chopped through bone and flesh and there was a crash as an armoured man fell onto the upper millstone. 'What the hell was he saying to me?' Robbie wanted to know.

  'He was trying to surrender.' A voice spoke from across the mill and Thomas and Robbie both spun towards the sound, their swords banging against the wooden tangle of joists, beams, cogwheels and axles, and then the unseen man called out again. 'Whoa, boys, whoa! I'm English.' There was a thump as an arrow struck the outside wall. The furled sails tugged against their tethers and made the wooden machinery squeal and shudder. More arrows thumped into the boards. I'm a prisoner,' the man said.

  'You're not now,' Thomas said.

  'I suppose not.' The man climbed over the millstones and pushed open the door and Thomas saw he was middle-aged with grey hair. 'What's happening?' the man asked.

  'We're gralloching the devils,' Robbie said.

  'Pray God you are.' The man turned and offered his hand to Robbie. 'I'm Sir Thomas Dagworth, and I thank you both.' He drew his sword and ducked out into the moonlit night, and Robbie stared at Thomas.

  'Did you hear that?'

  'He said thank you,' Thomas said.

  'Aye, but he said he was Sir Thomas
Dagworth!'

  'Then maybe he was?'

  'So what the hell was he doing in here?' Robbie asked, before taking hold of the man he had killed and, with much effort and the clank of armour against stone and timber, dragged him to the door where the fires offered light. The man had discarded his helmet and Robbie's sword had split his skull, but under the gore there was the glint of gold and Robbie dragged a chain from beneath the man's breastplate. 'He must have been an important fellow,' Robbie said, admiring the gold chain, then he grinned at Thomas. 'We'll split it later, eh?'

  'Split it?'

  'We're friends, aren't we?' Robbie asked, then pushed the gold under his haubergeon before shoving the corpse back into the mill. 'Valuable armour that,' he said. 'We'll come back when it's over and hope no bastard has stolen it.'

  There was tangled, bloody horror in the encampment now. Survivors of Sir Thomas Dagworth's attack still fought, notably the archers in the wagon park, but as the town's garrison swept through the tents they released prisoners or brought other survivors out of the dark places where they had been hiding. Charles's crossbowmen, who could have stemmed the garrison's attack, were mostly fighting against the English archers in the wagon park. The Genoese were using their huge pavises as shelters, but the new attackers came from behind and the crossbowmen had nowhere to hide as the long arrows hissed through the night. The war bows sang their devil's melody, ten arrows flying to every quarrel shot, and the crossbowmen could not endure the slaughter. They fled.

  The victorious archers, reinforced now by the men who had been among the wagons, turned back to the shelters and tents where a deadly game of hide and seek was being played in the dark avenues between the canvas walls, but then a Welsh archer discovered that the enemy could be flushed out if the tents were set on fire. Soon there were smoke and flames spewing all across the encampment and enemy soldiers were running from the fires onto the arrows and blades of the incendiarists.

  Charles of Blois had retreated from the windmill, reckoning his position on the hill made him conspicuous, and he had tried to rally some knights in front of his own sumptuous tent, but an overwhelming rush of townsmen had swept those knights underfoot and Charles watched, appalled, as butchers, coopers, wheelwrights and thatchers massacred their betters with axes, cleavers and reaping hooks. He had hastily retreated into his tent, but now one of his retainers unceremoniously pulled him towards the back entrance. This way, your grace.'

  Charles shook off the man's hand. 'Where can we go?' he asked plaintively.

  'We'll go to the southern camp, sir, and bring men back to help.'

  Charles nodded, reflecting that he should have ordered that himself and regretting his insistence that none of his men leave their encampments. Well over half his army was in the other three camps, all of them close by and all of them eager to fight and more than capable of sweeping this disorganized horde aside, yet they were obeying his orders and standing tight while his encampment was put to the sword. 'Where's my trumpeter?' he demanded.

  'Sir? I'm here, your grace! I'm here.' The trumpeter had miraculously survived the fight and stayed close to his lord.

  'Sound the seven blasts,' Charles ordered.

  'Not here!' a priest snapped and, when Charles looked offended, made a hasty explanation. 'It will attract the enemy, your grace. After two blasts they'll be onto us like hounds!'

  Charles acknowledged the wisdom of the advice with a curt nod. A dozen knights were with him now and they made a formidable force in this night of fractured battle. One of them peered from the tent and saw flames searing the sky and knew the Duke's tents would be fired soon. 'We must go, your grace,' he insisted, 'we must find our horses.'

  They left the tent, hurrying across the patch of beaten grass where the Duke's sentinels usually stood, and then an arrow flickered from the dark to glance off a breastplate. Shouts were suddenly loud and a rush of men came from the right and so Charles retreated to his left, which took him back up the slope towards the firelit windmill, and then a shout announced that he had been seen and the first arrows slashed up the hill. 'Trumpeter!' Charles shouted. 'Seven blasts! Seven blasts!'

  Charles and his men, barred from reaching their horses, now had their backs against the mill's apron, which was stuck with scores of white-feathered arrows. Another arrow spitted a man in the midriff, drilling through his mail, piercing his belly and the mail on his back to pin him to the mill's boards, then an English voice roared at the archers to stop shooting. 'It's their Duke!' the man roared, 'it's their Duke! We want him alive! Stop shooting! Bows down!'

  The news that Charles of Blois was cornered at the mill prompted a growl from the attackers. The arrows stopped flying and Charles's battered, bleeding men-at-arms who were defending the hill stared down the slope to see, just beyond the light of the mill's two fires, a mass of dark creatures prowling like wolves. 'God help us,' a priest said in a scared voice.

  Trumpeter!' Charles of Blois snapped.

  'Sir,' the trumpeter acknowledged. He had found his instrument's mouthpiece mysteriously plugged by earth. He must have fallen, though he did not remember doing so. He shook the last of the soil out of the silver mouthpiece, then put the trumpet to his mouth and the first blast sounded sweet and loud in the night. The Duke drew his sword. He only had to defend the mill long enough for his reinforcements to come from the other camps and sweep this impertinent rabble into hell. The second trumpet note rang out.

  Thomas heard the trumpet, turned and saw the flash of silver by the mill, then he saw the reflection of flame-light rippling off the instrument's bell as the trumpeter raised it to the moon for the third time. Thomas had heard no order to stop shooting arrows and so he hauled his bow's cord back, twitched his left hand up a fraction and released. The arrow whipped over the heads of the English men-at-arms and struck the trumpeter just as he took breath for the third blast and the air hissed and bubbled out of his pierced lung as he spilled sideways onto the turf. The dark prowling things at the hill's base saw the man fall and suddenly charged.

  No help came to Charles from the three remaining fortresses. They had heard two trumpet blasts, but only two, and they reckoned Charles must be winning; besides, they had his strict and constantly repeated orders to stay where they were on pain of losing out when the conquered lands were distributed among the victors. So they did stay, watching the smoke boil out of the flames and wondering what happened in the large eastern encampment.

  Chaos was happening. This fight, Thomas reckoned, was like the attack on Caen: unplanned, disordered and utterly brutal. The English and their allies had been keyed up, nervous, expecting defeat, while Charles's men had been expecting victory — indeed they had gained the early victory — but now the English nervousness was being turned into a maddened, bloody, vicious assault and the French and Bretons were being harried into terror. A ragged clash sounded as the English men-at-arms slammed into Charles's men defending the windmill. Thomas wanted to join that fight, but Robbie suddenly pulled at his mail sleeve. 'Look!' Robbie was pointing back into the burning tents.

  Robbie had seen three horsemen in plain black surcoats and with them, on foot, a Dominican. Thomas saw the white and black robes and followed Robbie through the tents, trampling over a collapsed spread of blue and white canvas, past a fallen standard, running between two fires and then across an open space that whirled with smoke and burning scraps of flying cloth. A woman with a dress half torn away screamed and ran across their path and a man scattered fire with his boots as he pursued her into a turf-roofed hut. For a moment they lost sight of the priest, then Robbie saw the black and white robes again: the Dominican was trying to mount an unsaddled horse that the men in black surcoats held for him. Thomas drew his bow, let the arrow fly and saw it bury itself up to its feathers in the horse's breast; the beast reared up, yellow hooves flailing, and the Dominican fell backwards. The men in black surcoats galloped away from the bow's threat and the priest, abandoned, turned and saw his pursuers and Thomas recognized
de Taillebourg, God's torturer. Thomas screamed a challenge and drew the bow again, but de Taillebourg ran towards some remaining tents. A Genoese crossbowman suddenly appeared, saw them, raised his weapon and Thomas let the cord go. The arrow slashed the man's throat, spilling blood down his red and green tunic. The woman screamed inside the shelter, then was abruptly silenced as Thomas followed Robbie to where the Inquisitor had disappeared among the tents. The door flap of one was still swinging and Robbie, sword drawn, thrust the canvas aside and ducked into what proved to be a chapel.

  De Taillebourg was standing at the altar with its white Easter frontal. A crucifix stood on the altar between two flickering candles. The camp outside was an uproar of screams and pain and arrows, of horses whimpering and men shouting, but it was oddly calm in the makeshift chapel.

  'You bastard,' Thomas said, drawing his sword and advancing on the Dominican, 'you goddamn stinking turd-faced piece of priestly shit.'

  Bernard de Taillebourg had one hand on the altar. He raised the other to make the sign of the cross. 'Dominus vobiscum,' he said in his deep voice. An arrow scraped over the tent's roof with a high-pitched scratching sound and another whipped through a side wall and span down behind the altar.

  'Is Vexille with you?' Thomas demanded.

  'God's blessings on you, Thomas,' de Taillebourg said. He was fierce-faced, stern, eyes hard, and he made the sign of the cross towards Thomas, then stepped back as Thomas raised the sword.

  'Is Vexille with you?' Thomas demanded again.

  'Can you see him?; the Dominican asked, peering about the chapel, then smiled. 'No, Thomas, he's not here. He's gone into the dark. He rode to fetch help and you cannot kill me.'