The Ransomed Crown

by Wayne Grant

  Gudbrand was thrilled. The horse was a natural runner and deserved better than to be harnessed to a plough. When he had ridden out of sight of the field, he reined in the animal. Sliding off its bare back to the ground, he removed the horse’s collar, leaving the reins attached.

  He had stolen a ripe apple from an orchard a mile away and offered it to the horse. The animal took it and munched contentedly. Gudbrand patted its neck, grasped its mane and swung himself back aboard the beast. He leaned forward and whispered in the horse’s ear.

  “Let’s go watch for trouble.”

  ***

  At the Goyt, an hour had passed with no movement to be seen on either side of the river. A hundred men were making their way north to find another crossing, while four hundred more gathered at the lip of the steep gorge waiting for the order to advance. Those with shields were ordered to the front. Once they had assembled, the command came to cross the ford and drive away any resistance on the other side.

  The road that ran down to the river swept back and forth in three long switchbacks until it reached the bottom of the gorge. There was room for six men abreast on the rutted road and the order had been given to widen their front once they reached the river.

  As they emerged from the woods and neared the bank of the river, men hurried forward to extend the front rank. By the time they entered the stream the front was eighteen men wide and was followed by two more ranks bearing shields. The men moved with care over the slippery rocks of the bottom. They were veterans, confident in their numbers and their tactics. The men had never failed to force a river crossing.

  Then the arrows came.

  The first found a small opening between the top of a shield and the exposed neck of its bearer. He staggered backwards but the line kept moving forward. Then a hail of longbow shafts whistled from the concealment of the trees on the opposite bank and more men fell.

  The men in the back, having no shields, crouched low and closed up on the ranks in front as arrows began to land in their midst, trying in vain to find cover there. The mercenary crossbowmen had followed the infantry until they were in range of their attackers, but there was little to see and they had no shields to protect them. They shot wildly into the trees, but a dozen of their own number went down in less than a minute. The rest fled back to the opposite bank. A command rang out and the attack was broken off. Men edged back to the east bank of the river taking care not to expose themselves to the archers on the other side. Over a score of bodies lay in the shallow river that began to turn a sickly pink.

  On the western slope of the gorge, there was little time to celebrate. Thorkell had sent a dozen men north and south along the river to watch for flanking attacks and those who had gone north now returned with the news that a large force of mercenaries were crossing the Goyt three miles downstream. They had bought a few hours delay here and it was time to fall back.

  Thorkell passed the word and men began to ease back from their hidden positions and assemble on the road leading out of the gorge. They had been fighting since dawn and had run a league since noon. They were hungry and exhausted, but there could be no rest. The sun was low in the sky as they fell into the dog trot that would eat up the miles until sunset.

  There would be no more bloodshed this day and they would march on through the night, reaching the River Deane before midnight. They would rest there and by first light be ready to bloody their pursuers again.

  ***

  Roland cursed when he saw the ford at the Deane. It was a little before midnight and the water shimmered in the bright moonlight, but the river was only knee-deep and half as wide as when he and Sir Edgar had crossed it. He splashed across and found Oren and Thorkell waiting on the opposite bank.

  “Not much of a river,” Oren observed, as Roland climbed dripping from the shrunken stream. Thorkell said nothing.

  “This ford was half again as wide and chest deep when we crossed it a fortnight ago. So I agree—bad ground to defend.”

  “The lads who crossed first found plenty of sign that the families passed this way,” Thorkell said. “Our best tracker says they stopped a little ways on to rest.”

  Roland looked back at the river. The dry weather was likely to affect all of the small rivers between here and Chester. Only the River Weaver, over twenty miles to the southwest would still have enough flow to present a problem for the infantry chasing them. He looked at Thorkell.

  The war leader of the Danes had the heart of a lion, but he was exhausted and out of his element here. The man was a master at fighting in the thick forests and steep slopes of the mountains against the Earl’s men-at-arms, but the land here was flat by comparison, with long stretches of forest cleared for farming. And the men pursuing them were not the Earl’s local soldiers. These were veteran warriors. Thorkell was a proud man, but he knew his experience was ill-matched for this fight. He looked at Roland with a plea in his eyes.

  “You’ve fought in the crusade—against men like this. Do we strike them here?”

  Roland rubbed his tired eyes.

  “The next ford that will do us any good is at the River Weaver, twenty miles from here. Twenty miles beyond that are the walls of Chester. Between here and the river, there is a lot of open ground. We will use what the land gives us—tree lines, ditches, villages if need be—to turn and strike at the mercenaries. We force the infantry to stop and form up to clear the ground. It won’t stop them, but it will slow them.”

  Roland said all this with more confidence than he felt. Sir Roger de Laval had taught him to never lead men into battle without a plan—even a flawed plan. The big Norman knight had also told him that any plan was doomed if men did not believe in it.

  Thorkell was watching him carefully, judging whether this young veteran of the crusade believed in his own plan. This was no time for doubt. Roland returned Thorkell’s searching gaze and smiled.

  “How far can your men strike effectively with their bows, Thorkell?”

  Thorkell blinked. Every Danish boy knew the range of the longbow.

  “Two hundred paces at the least,” he said, a question in his eyes.

  “Aye, that’s almost twice the range of the crossbows and short bows the mercenaries use. On Kinder Scout, you could rarely see a man further than fifty paces. But here?” he said pointing to the harvested field of winter wheat just beyond the stream bed. “Here we can actually see a man and kill him at two hundred paces and they cannot touch us.”

  Thorkell nodded now, beginning to see the running fight play out in his mind.

  “We kill them until they are one hundred paces away,” the Dane said, “then we run before they are in range with their damn crossbows. It could work…”

  “It will work,” Roland said, seeing the man’s hopes rise. Then Thorkell frowned.

  “Aye, unless the cavalry catch us.”

  Cavalry

  It was midmorning when William de Ferrers reached the farmstead high on the flanks of Kinder Scout. Word had come the night before that the Danes had been pushed out of their mountains and were fleeing to the west. He was disappointed that the mercenary foot had failed to cut them off, but they had been flushed from the hills and the cavalry had been dispatched at dawn to complete the job of exterminating the vermin.

  His own father had feared the Danes and he had his own grievance with them, but now they were gone and he wanted to see it for himself. He had climbed the mountain, surrounded by his own personal guard and led by a patrol of mercenary infantry left behind to root out any fugitives still hiding in the high country.

  The stinking little plot of overgrown ground where he stood was a place that still appeared in his dreams. Those dreams had a dreadful sameness to them. The farmer is on his knees. His men strike the man down and arrows instantly sprout from their chests. He turns to run as they fall around him, but the mountains seem to grasp at him, holding him back as footsteps draw closer. Many a night he awoke, gasping and covered with sweat from this nightmare.

  He
looked around the place. There was nothing to fear now. He saw the burned circle where the hut had been torched. Walking across the field, now rank with bracken, he saw the two graves, covered with stones. He stopped as his escort gathered around.

  William de Ferrers turned to the sergeant who commanded the mercenary patrol.

  “Dig up these graves and scatter the bones!” he ordered.

  The sergeant looked aghast. He’d happily kill his enemies, but trifling with graves was another matter.

  “My lord? Ye want us to dig up the folk buried here?”

  De Ferrers whirled on the man.

  “You heard me!” he screamed. “Dig them up and scatter them across the field.”

  “Aye, my lord,” the man said bowing his head. He ordered his men to begin removing the stones.

  Satisfied, de Ferrers turned to his own guard.

  “Damned Danes don’t deserve a proper burial, lads. Now let’s get down to the valley. We’ll be riding west. I want to see our cavalry make an end to this.”

  He headed back across the field to retrace his steps to the valley below. As soon as the Earl disappeared into the trees, the sergeant ordered the men to halt their work.

  “Let’s put ‘em back boys. We’ll not be despoilin’ Christian graves—no matter what that bastard says.”

  ***

  On a ridge overlooking the Castleton road, Gudbrand had tied up his new horse and found a good vantage point to watch to the east. He heard the trouble coming before he saw it. A low rumble to the east, out of sight around a bend, then the glint of sun on steel announced that trouble aplenty was coming his way.

  The boy gasped. He had never seen such a thing. Even at a distance, the size of the horses was startling and the men who rode them looked like death coming to call. The column of horsemen bristled with armour and lances and stretched out of sight around the curve of the road.

  He stopped counting at one hundred men. He had seen enough to know that eight score bowmen could not stop this mass of men. His fellow Danes should be somewhere south and west of the River Deane by now. Gudbrand climbed on the horse and turned its head in that direction. He gave the animal a kick in the flanks and the beast lunged down the trail and picked up speed.

  Thank God I stole a plough horse that likes to run.

  ***

  Connaught Kilbride was a veteran cavalry commander who had grown weary of the endless wars between the petty Irish kings that showed no profit and had long ago sold his sword to the highest bidder. For over a year, he’d been paid good wages by the English with little or no need to earn them. During the long siege of Nottingham the heavy cavalry had only been called upon once—to turn back a weak relief force. He did not object to easy money, but if the English decided they were not receiving value for the expense…That was another matter.

  Word had reached Castleton late in the day that the Danes had finally been rooted out of the hills and were fleeing to the west. There had been arguments about what force to send after them, but the Earl demanded that half the mounted troops take up the chase and Kilbride had been chosen to lead them. He did not object.

  This order to run down and slaughter a party of hill-country peasants would allow the cavalry to show its worth—and it would still be easy money. He’d been told there were only a few score archers able to put up any resistance, and for a force of two hundred heavy cavalry, that was no resistance at all.

  By nightfall, they had ridden out of the narrow valley that wound west from Castleton and camped with the mountains to their backs. The next morning, they rode out at dawn and none saw the boy on the hill who watched them. Well before noon, they splashed across the River Deane. It was here they began to see the bodies.

  Beyond that river, every open field along the southwest road held dead men. All of the corpses sported one or more arrows standing stiffly in the morning sun, like flags. Kilbride halted the column briefly to examine the first dead. He had seen arrows penetrate mail before, but only at extremely close range. He was surprised to find the bodies had fallen over a hundred paces from a tree line where the archers must have lain in wait.

  He had heard about the longbows these Danes used but had given it little thought until now. The dead gave Kilbride pause, but he shrugged it off. These bows might be powerful enough to kill a man through his mail at a great distance, but the infantry’s mail was of poor quality and most of his men had their vitals covered with plate armour.

  Surely no bow could penetrate that.

  The infantry had not stopped to tend the dead or to minister to the wounded. A steady trickle of casualties moved slowly along the road, back to the northeast. From these, Kilbride got a clear picture of what lay ahead. The mercenary foot had been chasing the Danes since noon the day before, but had not been able to close with them. Whenever they had to cross open ground, they were greeted with a hail of longbow shafts from archers hidden in the woods ahead.

  One grey-haired veteran, his bloody arm wrapped in a rag looked at Connaught Kilbride and his column of armoured horseman with an evil light in his eyes. He waved the Irish commander to a halt and spewed out his frustration.

  “Me brother lies dead two fields on,” he said, his voice choked with anger. “We never seen a one of the bastards!” he said grasping Kilbride’s reins for a moment. “Promise me ye’ll kill ‘em, Captain—kill ‘em all fer me.”

  Kilbride nodded to the man and spurred his horse forward.

  He would be happy to kill them all and he had no doubts his cavalry would be up to the job. And it would be easy money, indeed. He signalled the men behind him to pick up the pace. The Danes might be able to stay a step ahead of the infantry, but they could not outrun his cavalry.

  ***

  Since before dawn, the Danes had fought and fallen back, again and again, staying outside the range of the enemy crossbows and taking a toll on the men who pursued them. The day had dawned cloudless and hot. As the sun rose higher in the sky, they picked their spots and made the stubbled fields of Cheshire a killing ground. By midmorning they had fallen back across the tiny Birken Brook, the bowmen stopping to quench their thirst in the muddy water. This stream was only ten miles from the Weaver. If they could get safely across it, Chester was less than twenty miles away.

  Almost home.

  Roland took a last look across the open fields to the northeast and saw men come out of the tree line he had passed through only minutes before. If they weren’t so intent on killing him, he would have admired the tenacity of the Flemings and Irish who trailed them. As he entered the next strip of woodland, he passed through the line of archers who were already starting to loose shafts at the new targets in the field to their front.

  This strip of woods was only fifty yards wide and he followed the Chester road south to judge the ground beyond. There was a large open field there, with the grain ripe and unharvested. The crop did not catch his eye, for there was a rider galloping up the road from the south. It was Gudbrand. The boy reined the plough horse to a stop and slid off the animal’s back.

  “Thank God,” he gasped, out of breath. “I wasn’t sure I could find you.”

  “Cavalry?” Roland asked. It was the only question that really mattered.

  “Aye, sir. Over a hundred I’d say,” the boy replied, his face reddening a little. “I did not stay to count the last one.”

  “No matter. How far do you reckon?”

  “This is a good horse,” Gudbrand said proudly, patting the sweating animal’s neck. “He’s fast, a lot faster than those brutes I saw. I had to circle around the infantry, but I would guess the mounted men are two hours away.”

  Roland nodded.

  Not enough time to reach the Weaver.

  “Gudbrand, see this road you came up? It runs all the way to Chester. You ride as fast as your good horse will take you until you catch up to the families. I hope to God they have already crossed the ford at the Weaver. Find Sir Edgar Langton and give him this news.

  “Aye sir!”<
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  Without waiting for a response, Gudbrand swung back up on the plough horse’s back and headed south toward Chester.

  Too late, Roland thought.

  ***

  The guards at Chester’s Northgate saw a boy running toward them a good distance off, but paid little heed until he stumbled and fell at their feet. The lad was drenched in sweat and he fought to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head as he gasped for breath. He finally managed to speak, but between the boy’s panting and his odd accent they could not understand what he was so desperately trying to tell them. They sent for the Officer of the Watch.

  Patch had the duty that day and hurried to the Northgate. By the time he arrived, the boy had been given water and had recovered a little but continued to be agitated.

  “What is it lad? What’s the trouble.”

  The boy spoke with an accent Patch had come to know. It had familiar cadences he’d first heard from Roland Inness. This boy was a Dane.

  “I am sent by Sir Edgar Langton, sir. He is south of the Weaver with eight hundred women and children. We are pursued. He needs your help.”

  Patch needed nothing further. He turned to a gate guard and issued his order.

  “Alert Sir Declan and the Earl.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  “And call out the Invalids.”

  ***

  With the approach of the cavalry, Roland discarded all thought of slowing the infantry’s advance. It would now be a simple race to the river. If they could cross, and if the river was deep enough to slow riders, they might survive. If the mounted men reached them first, there would be no hope. He ordered the men to run. He and Thorkell stayed until the last man loosed a final arrow at the advancing foot soldiers, then fell in at the rear of the Danes as they ran for their lives.

  For the next hour they ran. Roland noticed that Svein had fallen back near the rear of the men, favouring his wounded leg. But the tough Dane managed to keep pace. They passed through a tiny group of huts clustered by the Chester road. The inhabitants, always alert to the approach of trouble, had fled.