1356

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Hellequin! Follow me!’ he shouted. ‘Hellequin! Follow me!’

  He snatched up his arrows and ran to his left. He floundered in the mud and muck of the swampland, but he forced himself on. Get to the side, he told himself, get to the side. ‘Follow me!’ he repeated and snatched a look back to see his men obeying. ‘Run!’ he shouted, and hoped to God that no one thought they were running away.

  He went forty, perhaps fifty paces, and thrust the arrows back into the marsh, plucked up a flesh arrow, laid it on the stave, pulled the bow up and drew the cord, aiming again at the horse with the red heart on its gaudy trapper. Now he was aiming at the horse’s flank, just behind the front leg and in front of the saddle. He did not think. He looked where he wanted the arrow to go and his muscles obeyed his look and his two fingers released the string and the arrow slashed across the bog and vanished into the horse and the horse reared, and now more arrows were flying across the marsh and the arrows were biting at last and the horses were falling. The Earl of Warwick’s archers had understood. The enemy’s horses had all their armour in front and none on the

  flanks and backsides of the horses. A rider wearing a jupon

  quartered in red and yellow with a white star in one corner was shouting at the earl’s archers to join Thomas’s men. ‘Go to the flank! Go, fellows, go, go, go!’

  But the French were close. Their visors were down so their faces could not be seen, but Thomas could see where the trappers had been ripped and bloodied by their spurs. They were urging their horses on, and he loosed again and this time slapped a bodkin through the overlapping scales of a horse’s neck armour. The beast stumbled to its fore knees, and its rider, trapped by the high pommel and cantle of his saddle, desperately tried to kick his feet from the stirrups before the horse rolled. The beast was still on its back legs, tilted forward, and the rider was falling onto its neck when two arrows struck his breastplate. One crumpled, the other pierced it and the man jerked back under the impact of the blows. He started falling forward again and was hit again. Archers jeered. Back and forward he went, tormented until a man-at-arms wearing the lion of Warwick stepped forward and swung an axe that cracked through the helmet to spray blood. A horseman tried to cut the Englishman down, but the arrows were flying thick from the flank now, striking the horses’ unarmoured sides, and the rider’s horse was hit in the belly by three arrows and the horse screamed, reared and bolted.

  ‘Sweet Christ, kill them! Saint George!’ The horseman with the white star on his jupon was just behind Thomas. ‘Kill them!’

  And the archers obeyed. They had been scared by the failure of their first arrows, but now they were vengeful. They could each loose fifteen arrows in a minute, and by now there were over two hundred archers on the French flank and those French were defeated. The leading riders were all down, their horses dying or dead, and some horses had turned and fled, screaming as they tried to escape the awful pain beside the river. The Earl of Warwick’s men-at-arms were advancing into the chaos to hammer axes and maces on fallen riders. The horsemen at the rear were turning away. Two of Warwick’s men-at-arms were leading a prisoner back to the ford, and Thomas saw that the man was wearing a jupon of bright blue and white stripes. Then he looked for the red heart of Douglas and saw the horse had fallen, trapping the man, and he sent a bodkin at the rider and saw it pierce the man’s rerebrace. He shot again, driving an arrow into the man’s side, just under the armpit, but before he could loose a third arrow three men, all dismounted, seized the fallen rider and dragged him out from under his horse. Arrows slapped at them, but two of them lived, and Thomas recognised Sculley. He was wearing a visored helmet, but his long hair with its yellowing bones hung beneath its rim. Thomas drew his bow, but two wounded horses galloped between him and Sculley, who had managed to heave the fallen rider onto an unwounded and riderless horse. Sculley slapped the horse’s rump. The wounded horses galloped clear and Thomas shot, but his arrow bounced off Sculley’s backplate. The horse with the rescued man struggled out of the marsh to the shelter of the trees, followed by Sculley and four other men wearing the red heart.

  And then there was a sudden quiet, except for the eternal sound of the river and the birdsong and the screams of horses and the beat of hooves striking the ground in the animals’ death throes.

  The archers unstrung their bows so that the yew staves straightened. Prisoners, some wounded, some staggering, were being led to the ford while Englishmen were stripping dead horses of precious armour and harness and saddlery. Some put horses out of their misery by unbuckling the chamfrons and then striking them hard between the eyes with a war axe. Other men unbuckled plate armour from dead knights and hauled mail coats off corpses. An archer strapped a French knight’s sword around his waist. ‘Sam,’ Thomas shouted, ‘fetch the arrows back!’ Sam grinned and led a dozen men into the remnants of the carnage to collect arrows. It was also a chance for plunder. A wounded Frenchman tried to stand. He raised a hand to an English man-at-arms who knelt beside him. The two men spoke and then the Englishman lifted the Frenchman’s visor and stabbed him through the eye with a dagger. ‘Too poor to have a ransom, I suppose,’ the rider behind Thomas said. He watched as the man-at-arms sheathed his dagger and began to strip the corpse. ‘God, we’re cruel, but we’ve captured Marshal d’Audrehem, and isn’t that a good beginning to a bad day?’

  Thomas turned. The man’s visor was lifted to reveal a grey moustache and thoughtful blue eyes, and Thomas instinctively went to a knee. ‘My lord.’

  ‘Thomas of Hookton, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  ‘I wondered who in Christ’s name was wearing Northampton’s colours,’ the man said, speaking in French. Thomas had ordered his men to wear jupons with Northampton’s badge, a badge that most men in the English army would recognise. A few had the red cross of Saint George strapped around an upper arm, but there were not enough armlets for all his men. The horseman who spoke to Thomas wore the white star on his red and yellow jupon, while the gold chain about his neck proclaimed his rank. He was the Earl of Oxford, brother-in-law to Thomas’s lord. The earl had been at Crécy and afterwards Thomas had met him in England, and he was astonished that the earl remembered him, let alone remembered that he spoke French. He was even more astonished when the earl used his brother-in-law’s nickname. ‘It’s a pity Billy isn’t here,’ the earl said grimly, ‘we need all the good men we can get. And I think you should get your men back up the hill now.’

  ‘Up the hill, sire?’

  ‘Listen!’

  Thomas listened.

  And heard the war drums.

  The French horsemen had attacked at the ford and at the right-hand end of the English line, but as those charges went home other horsemen rode in front of the dauphin’s battle to challenge the English on their hill.

  Six men chose to ride. Each was a tournament champion of fearsome reputation. They rode superbly trained destriers, and their winnings in the lists had bought them the finest armour that could be made in Milan. They rode close to the English hedge and called out their challenge, and the English archers ignored them. Six men did not make a battle, and there was no honour and not much usefulness in killing a solitary horseman when so many other men-at-arms were approaching on foot.

  ‘Pass the word that they’re to be ignored,’ the Prince of Wales ordered.

  The challengers were part of battle’s dance. They went to taunt the English and in the hope of finding an opponent they could unhorse and kill, and so dispirit the English. They shouted their defiance. ‘Are you women? Do you know how to fight?’

  ‘Ignore them,’ the commanders growled at their men.

  But one man disobeyed. He owed no allegiance to any commander on the English side, and he knew the impudent challengers were meant to be ignored. Let them waste their breath, the real battle was not fought between champion and champion, yet still that one man mounted, took a lance from his squire, and rode out from the left of the English line.


  He wore no jupon. His armour had been scrubbed so that it shone. His horse took small steps as he restrained it. His helmet was a tournament helmet, crowned with pale blue plumes, and his small black-painted shield bore the symbol of the white rose, the rose without thorns, the flower of the Virgin Mary. Around his neck he wore a blue scarf of finest silk, a woman’s scarf, a gift from Bertille. He rode a track that twisted through the vineyard until he reached the open grassland in the valley’s shallow base, and there he turned his horse and waited for one of the six to accept his challenge.

  One man did. He was from Paris, a brutal man, quick as lightning and strong as a bull, and his armour was unpolished, his jupon a blue so dark it looked almost black. His device, embroidered on the jupon and painted on his shield, was a red crescent moon. He faced Roland de Verrec. ‘Traitor!’ he shouted.

  Roland said nothing.

  Both sides were watching. The other champions had withdrawn from the vineyard beneath the hedge and watched from behind their companion.

  ‘Traitor!’ the Parisian shouted again.

  Still Roland said nothing.

  ‘I won’t kill you!’ the Parisian called. His name was Jules Langier and his trade was fighting. He hefted his lance, sixteen feet of ash tipped with a steel head. ‘I won’t kill you! I’ll take you in chains to the king and let him kill you instead. Would you rather run away now?’

  Roland de Verrec’s only answer was to prop his lance against his right knee and close his visor. He lifted the lance again.

  ‘Jules!’ one of the other champions called. ‘Watch his lance. He likes to lift it at the last minute. Protect your head.’

  Langier nodded. ‘Hey, virgin,’ he called, ‘you can run away now! I won’t chase you!’

  Roland couched the lance. His horse took tiny skittering steps. A faint rough cart track crossed diagonally in front of him and he had noted it; he had seen where the wheels had made ruts in the soil. Not deep ruts, but enough to make a horse falter slightly. He would ride to the left of the ruts.

  He felt little emotion. Or rather he felt as though he watched himself, as if he was disembodied. The next moments were all about skill, about cold-blooded skill. He had never faced Langier in the lists, but he had watched him and he knew the Parisian liked to bend low in the saddle as he struck home. That made him a small target. Langier would bend low and use his thick shield to throw off his opponent’s lance, then turn snake-fast and use his short, heavy mace to attack from behind. It had worked many times. The mace was kept in a deep leather pocket attached to the right side of his saddle behind his knee. It could be snatched up in an eyeblink. Snatched and backswung, and all Roland would know was the sudden flare of white in his skull as the mace smashed into his helmet.

  ‘Coward!’ Langier called, trying to provoke Roland.

  Roland still said nothing. Instead he held out his left arm. He dropped his shield. He would fight without it.

  The gesture seemed to infuriate Langier who, without another word, dug in his spurs so that his destrier leaped forward. Roland responded. The two horsemen closed. They were not far enough apart for either to reach a gallop, but the horses were straining as they closed. Both horses knew their business, both knew where their riders wanted them to go. Roland steered his mount with his knees, keeping it just to the left of the rut, and he raised his lance point so that it threatened Langier’s eyes, and they were close now, their world the beat of hooves, and Langier swerved his horse slightly right and it faltered a tiny bit as a hoof hit uneven ground, and Langier was bending down, shield protecting his body as the lance was pointed plumb at the base of Roland’s breastplate, and then the lance flew up and the horse was stumbling and Langier was desperately trying to pull it right with knee pressure, but the horse was down on its knees, sliding in grass that was slicked with frothy blood and Langier saw that his opponent’s lance, instead of being aimed at his head, had pierced his horse’s chest.

  ‘This isn’t a tournament.’ Roland spoke for the first time. He had turned his horse, abandoned his lance and drawn the sword he called Durandal, and he rode back to where Langier was struggling to extricate himself from his fallen, dying horse. Langier tried to find his mace, but the horse had fallen on the weapon, and then Durandal smacked across his helm. His head was jerked violently to one side, then to the other as the sword came back to smash the helmet again.

  ‘Take your helmet off,’ Roland said.

  ‘Go and piss in your mother’s arsehole, virgin.’

  The sword swiped him again, half dazing Langier, then the point of the sword was thrust between the visor’s upper edge and the helmet’s rim. The blade bit into the bridge of Langier’s nose, and stopped. ‘If you want to live,’ Roland said calmly, ‘take the helmet off.’ He pulled the sword free.

  Langier fumbled at the buckles that held the helmet in place. The other champions watched, but made no effort to help. They were there to fight man against man, not two men against one because that would be unchivalrous, and so they just watched as Langier at last lifted the helmet clear of his lank black hair. A trickle of blood ran down his face from where Durandal had cut him.

  ‘Go back to your army,’ Roland said, ‘and tell Labrouillade that the virgin is going to kill him.’

  It was Langier’s turn to say nothing.

  Roland turned his horse away, sheathed Durandal, and kicked back his heels. He had delivered his message. He heard cheers from the Englishmen who had seen the fight through the hedge’s gap, but it meant nothing to him.

  It was all for Bertille.

  The Lord of Douglas would kill no Englishmen this day. His leg had been broken when his horse fell, his arm was pierced to the bone by an arrow, and another had broken a rib and punctured a lung so that he was breathing bubbles of blood. He was in pain, horrible pain, and he was carried to the house where the king had spent the night, and there the barber-surgeons stripped him of his armour, cut the arrow flush with his skin, leaving the head embedded in his chest, and poured honey onto the wound. ‘Find a cart and take him to Poitiers,’ one of the surgeons ordered a retainer wearing the red heart. ‘The monks of Saint Jean will care for him. Take him slowly. Imagine you’re carrying milk and don’t want it turning to butter. Go. If you want him to see Scotland again, go!’

  ‘You can take him to the bloody monks,’ Sculley said to his companions, ‘I’m going to fight. I’m going to kill.’

  More men were being carried to the house. They had charged with Marshal Clermont, attacking the archers at the right of the English line, but there the enemy had dug trenches and the horses floundered, others had broken their legs in pits, and all the while the arrows had struck, and the charge had failed as miserably as the attack in the marsh.

  But now that the champions had flaunted their defiance and Langier had been unhorsed in full view of the French army, the main assault was closing on the English hill. The dauphin led the first French battle, though he was well protected by chosen knights from his father’s Order of the Star. The dauphin’s battle was over three thousand strong and they came on foot, kicking down the chestnut stakes of the vineyard and trampling the vines as they climbed the gentle slope towards the English hill. Banners flew above them, while behind them, on the western hill, the oriflamme flew proudly from the ranks the king commanded. That flag, the long, twin-tailed banner of scarlet silk, was France’s battle-flag and so long as it flew it meant that no prisoners were to be taken. Capturing rich men for ransom was the dream of every knight, but at a battle’s beginning, when all that mattered was to break the enemy and shatter him and kill him and terrify him, there was no time for the niceties of surrender. When the flag was furled, that was when the French could look to their purses, but till then there would be no prisoners, only killing. So the oriflamme flew, waved from side to side like a ripple of red in the morning sky, and behind the dauphin’s battle his uncle’s second battle was advancing towards the valley’s shallow bottom where the nakerers beat their vast drums in
a marching rhythm to drive the dauphin’s men uphill to a famous victory.

  To the English and Gascons, at least to those who could see past the hedge, the far hill and the nearer valley were now filled with the panoply of war. With silk and steel, with plumes and blades. A mass of metal-clad men in bright surcoats of red and blue and white and green, marching beneath the proud banners of nobility. Drums hammered the morning air, trumpets seared the sky, and the advancing Frenchmen cheered, not because they had a victory yet, but to raise their spirits and frighten the enemy. ‘Montjoie Saint Denis!’ they shouted. ‘Montjoie Saint Denis and King Jean!’

  Crossbowmen were on the French flanks. Each archer had a companion who carried a great pavise, a shield large as a man behind which the crossbow could be rewound safe from the deadly English arrows. Those arrows were not flying yet. The leading men of the French advance could see the great hedge, and the wide gaps, and through those gaps were the English beneath their banners. The French visors were up and would stay up till the arrows came. The men in the foremost ranks were all in plate armour and most of those men did not carry shields; only the men who could not afford the expensive plate carried a willow shield. Some advanced with shortened lances, hoping to thrust an Englishman off balance and let another man kill the fallen enemy with axe or mace or morningstar. Few men carried swords. A sword would neither thrust nor cut through armour. An armoured man must be beaten down by lead-weighted weapons, beaten and crushed and pulped.

  The dauphin did not shout. He insisted on being in the very front rank, though he was not a strong man like his father. Prince Charles was thin, weak-limbed, long-nosed, with skin so pale it looked like bleached parchment, and with legs so short and arms so long that some courtiers called him le singe behind his back, but the ape was a clever young ape, a judicious ape, and he knew that he must lead. He must be seen to lead. He wore a suit of armour made for him in Milan and burnished with sand and vinegar until it reflected the sun in dazzling shards of light. His breastplate was covered by a blue jupon on which fleurs-de-lys were embroidered in golden threads, while in his right hand was a sword. His father had insisted he learn to fight with a sword, but he had never mastered the weapon. Squires six years younger could beat him in mock combat, which was why the knights who flanked him were men seasoned in fighting and carrying heavy shields to protect the prince’s life.