The Ill-Made Knight

by Christian Cameron

  Fortune is a fickle mistress.

  After months of hardship and failure, we arrived at the siege of Nadaillac, young Chaucer in tow, in time to present Sir John Cheverston with our damp and somewhat moth-eaten array of sauvegardes.

  He was a hard man, with a greying forked beard and heavy moustache, a broad forehead and a ferocious temper. His steward warned us before we were taken to this tent that he was in a mood.

  ‘How long were you two scamps on the road?’ he asked. ‘Chandos must have been scraping the barrel when he chose to send you. Where’s Master Hoo? He’s been sore missed by the Prince.’

  ‘Dead,’ I said. ‘Killed by the militia in Paris.’

  Sir John’s squire helped him get his aventail over his head, and his stained arming cap emerged. ‘Where in the nine hells were you two, that he was killed?’

  ‘Fighting,’ I said.

  He looked at us and shook his head. ‘And you were captured,’ he said in disgust.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ I answered humbly.

  ‘Am I allowed to know exactly why two such very young scallywags and a rogue of a notary were sent to Paris?’ he asked.

  ‘We thought you might tell us?’ I said quietly.

  Cheverston spat and took a cup of wine from his squire. ‘I’m of half a mind to send you back,’ he said. ‘The Prince ordered me to acquire a safe-conduct from the French so that I could clear the bandits from the Dordogne, but he didn’t leave me orders as to where I should get such a document.’ He sighed. ‘You boys have had a hard winter – its in your faces – and I suppose you expect to be paid?’

  What do you say to that?

  We stood silently. With our caps in our hands.

  Richard leaned forward. ‘May we . . . stay on for the siege?’ he asked.

  Cheveston shrugged. ‘If I’m paying your wages, you might as well be of some help. I don’t suppose you know anything about the Chateau of Nadaillac?

  Richard and I spoke out at about the same time. ‘We scouted it last autumn,’ we said in unison, like monks chanting.

  We showed him the spring on the hillside.

  It took me six months to accomplish nothing for my own reputation. It took one evening for me to make it.

  Richard and I took ten men-at-arms and a dozen archers in light harness, and we worked our way up the hillside in the dark. There was very little cover, and we made noise, but the siege had gone on for weeks and the garrison was lax – they expected Sir John to buy them out soon enough, and the fighting had been sporadic, to say the least, as the men inside were mostly the same kind of Gascon routiers who made up most of Sir John’s army.

  Let me tell you about lying all night on sandy soil. It’s dull. Every noise is an enemy; every rock digs into you, despite your harness. I wore my brigantine and my arm harness, and no legs, sabatons or breastplate. I couldn’t be comfortable.

  Sam Bibbo snored behind me.

  The stars crept across the sky.

  When you go out to lay an ambush, you go out full of the soundness of your plan and the excellence of your men. By the time the moon has crept halfway across the sky, the plan seems like lunacy and the men with you a paltry force to face the destined counter-ambush, or far too large and noisy for the task. The enemy is never coming.

  What I remember best was the tricks my eyes played on me and the plans I hadn’t made. Somehow I’d forgotten to tell everyone under what circumstances we’d retreat. I lay there and worried as my stomach roiled, and I farted too much.

  Ah! Command. Everyone desires it. But once you have it, it’s a fool’s game, and you are always better off having some other man, who you tell yourself is brilliant, preux, daring and sure – let him make the decisions.

  A night ambush is for a monster of self-assurance.

  I kept thinking that the sun was rising, that it was lighter. I have no explanation for this, except that as I rolled over to start telling men to withdraw – this happened at least twice – I realized that it was still black as pitch, even with moonlight.

  When I heard the clink of metal on stone, I assumed it was from one of us.

  Then a boot scraping, and then metal.

  Sabatons. A knight in full harness, walking on the road.

  I raised my head.

  In the moonlight, they were like a procession of the dead – twenty men at least, in harness, coming down the road.

  Was it a sortie?

  But they had another half a dozen men with yokes.

  They’d come for water.

  So much for my night of worries.

  I had chosen a spot below the road, with a clear view. My archers were all to my right, so they had unobstructed shooting, and my men-at-arms were on both sides of the road but a little lower down.

  I waited, my heart beating so hard that I could watch my brigantine’s plates move in the moonlight.

  The last man passed me.

  I stood up. ‘St George and England!’ I roared.

  We killed or took them all.

  It wasn’t a great feat of arms, but all the famous names were off fighting in the north with Navarre, and so Richard and I made our names. I took the Captain, Philippe de Monfer – he was the man in sabatons – sword to sword. He hacked at me overhand – most men do, to be frank – but in two years I had learned a few things about the longsword. I held mine in two hands – one hand on the hilt and one almost at the point – caught his first great blow over my head, threw my blade around his neck and threw him to the ground, using my sword as a lever. He went down with a crash, and Sam stripped him of weapons while I stood on his sword arm and fought off his squire. The squire had an axe. I cut at his hands until I broke his fingers. He gave himself up.

  Richard took four men. He was getting better, too.

  The rest threw down their weapons. These were routiers, not great knights. They weren’t worth much – in fact, Cheverston hanged a few of them – but we made a fair amount on our ransoms.

  That was all in the future, though. The taking of Nadaillac was an event, as much for the French as for us, because the ‘captain’ had preyed on both sides. Cheverston had a writ from the Black Prince to clean out every nest of robbers in the Dordogne, and with the fame of our deed behind us, Sir John sent us, as he had threatened, back into France to get him the permission he needed to make war against the brigands who preyed on both sides. He also gave me letters to Charles of Navarre, two of the King of France’s officers and the Dauphin.

  He read them over very carefully after a scribe had copied them fair. ‘Listen, Master Gold. None of us really knows who is governing France these days. We do not want to break the truce, but we do not want to offend the wrong . . . hmm. The wrong government. If you can, get me a sauvegarde from all three: the Dauphin, the King of Navarre and the King’s lieutenant. Understand?’

  I think I smiled. ‘All too well, my lord,’ I said.

  ‘Sir John Chandos says you have a good head on your shoulders,’ he nodded. ‘Governing is not all about swords, eh? Get this done for the Prince and I’ll see you are rewarded.’ He looked at me. ‘I’d have sent Master Chaucer on this mission, but he, mmm, is not available.’

  I bowed gratefully.

  A letter had come to the army from England and ordered Chaucer home for a wedding. I wasn’t that sorry to see him go, but Richard was. We gave him a fine dinner, and so did Marie, as he passed through Bordeaux.

  We rode north in spring. Our horses and gear were the worse for wear after almost ten months’ constant campaign, but we had just made our fortunes and we were cheerful. We sang. We told stories. That’s when we missed Chaucer the most, of course – he was an endless fund of stories, and that’s before he went to Italy.

  We repeated our earlier route to Tours. The same royal officer passed us, with the same courtesy – this is one of the reasons the same men are used as couriers again and again. Once you are known, passing borders and gates is much easier.

  North of Tours, we stayed within France
and rode on to Paris. We passed north through a sullen country, full of furtive people. Bibbo was on his guard. I’d learned my lesson from du Guesclin, and now we went into our cloaks as soon as we’d eaten, and we kept watch all night. My page, Rob, was growing into a man, and had a good sword from Nadaillac; the rest of them were solid enough. We were used to each other’s ways – we could halt and, in an hour, the food was cooked, the fire out, the horses curried, fed and picketed, the blanket rolls laid on firesh-cut bracken of whatever type the area allowed, whether plundered straw or pine boughs. The taking of Nadaillac had improved our kit by four small tents, simple wedges of white linen that went up easily and stowed flat in wicker panniers. We often used them to roof over other structures, byres and barns and roofless hovels, but they were better than a sky full of rain, even by themselves.

  By day, very little moved across the country. We never saw a wagon or a cart. Sam and John took to riding with their bows strung and over their shoulders, because despite the spring sun, there was an air of thunder over the whole country.

  Twice we passed manor houses with smoke coming from the chimneys, but they weren’t interested in having us, so we rode on.

  Forty miles south of Paris, at Etampes, we found the town taken and full of an English garrison. They claimed to be holding the town for the King of Navarre, but they gave us lodging, let us refill the feed bags for our horses and baggage animals, and we got wine and news.

  The news was that the Dauphin had escaped from Pairs and was raising an army.

  Word was that he was at Meaux, on the far side of the Seine. That set us a fine problem as we didn’t relish entering Paris, especially Paris controlled by Etienne Marcel and his red and blue hoods. Word was they were killing every aristocrat they could find.

  The English held the lower Seine, but it was a hundred dangerous miles round Paris to the English-held crossings.

  We discussed trying our luck.

  But the captain of Etampes told us that the Isle de France was ‘the very cockpit of war’, so we elected to go south around Paris. We decided to go straight to the King of Navarre.

  I wanted to see the trail of slime, I guess.

  We rode north first. We weren’t following a rational route, but rather jumping from English-held manor to English-held castle. It was interesting to talk to the captains – all new men, as far as I could tell, many as young as me, and some – you may laugh to hear me say this – the sweepings of English prisons. Hard men were pouring into France from England. They were here for plunder and nothing else. Most had only the vaguest idea of what side they supported in the French civil war.

  Most of the lesser men thought they were fighting for England. Even more of them thought of France as an enemy country to be mined of silver.

  To be frank, none of that bothered me unduly, but it was starting to trouble Richard. Twenty leagues west of Paris, we almost had to fight for our lives when Richard accused a tiny garrison – just six men, all drunk as lords – of being ‘thieves and rapists’. Unsurprisingly, free – born Englishmen, even when they are thieves and rapists, resent the term.

  Not that criminal behaviour was limited to Englishmen. The Gascons were unbelievably bad, and the Breton and Norman French were, if anything, worse. The whole countryside from Rennes east to Meaux had become a carpet of fire and smoke, and a generation of prosperous Frenchmen watched their carefully horded surplus destroyed in two hideous summers.

  It is my observation that beaten men do not revolt. Beaten men lie under the lash and abandon hope.

  But men who have had hope, men who have seen a way out of grinding poverty and injustice, men who have the wherewithal to own weapons and use them, they revolt.

  Our party was camping in a small hunting lodge – ruined, of course – in a patch of woods close enough to Paris that we could see the haze of smoke Paris cast into the air. Sam said that from the rooftrees he could see spires.

  We were there, of course, because Richard had made the ‘garrison’ of the local manor house so angry.

  During the middle watch of morning, I was shaken awake by Rob, my page.

  ‘Fighting, Master Will.’

  I was up and out of my cloak. I climbed the old ladder to the roof – or rather the remnants of the roof.

  The manor house was on fire. Someone like du Guesclin had just taken out an English garrison less than a mile away.

  ‘To arms,’ I said.

  Rob woke everyone. John and Sam came up, stringing their bows, both still naked from the waist down and looking like frowzled satyrs.

  The screams started almost immediately. Richard was arming, but he kept looking up at me – he wanted to ‘do something’. A man was being killed very slowly, perhaps two men.

  In the summer of 1358, raids were mostly a matter of a few men – twenty men-at-arms was a big force. Charles of Navarre’s ‘army’ never mustered more than a thousand men, and the Dauphin had about the same. I say this to justify our actions as we therefore assumed that our party would be roughly the size of any enemy we encountered.

  Perhaps we should have been warned by the screams.

  It took us an hour to arm everyone and pack the camp in the dark. We left a very scared Rob with six pack horses and all our spare gear, and the rest of us struck out cross country, which is difficult at night, and it took us another half an hour to cross the half-mile of farmland that separated us from the manor house.

  The two voices kept screaming.

  On and on.

  You don’t think a man can scream that way for long.

  He can.

  There was the first light in the sky – the so-called false dawn – when we emerged from the hedgerows to a small, ditched farm road hard by the manor house.

  It was crammed with men. Armed men. Perhaps 200 men, perhaps 500.

  ‘Back!’ I roared. The hedges must have blocked the sound.

  They were as shocked as we.

  In a glance, I saw the fields around the manor teaming with men, most of them in jacks, or mail, with helmets, but some in smocks, with farm implements. The manor house was burning, and there were two men crucified like our saviour on roof beams, being roasted alive.

  I was backing Goldie.

  For once, the mad man was Sam. He had his bow strung, and suddenly it was in his hand. He nocked an arrow, and loosed. Nocked again – now the crowd had seen us, and there were shouts, a growing wave of shouts.

  He loosed again.

  I realized he was killing the men on the crosses.

  He feathered one man in mail who was running at us, and then I had to cut down into a crowd, because I’d waited too long and they were coming out of the field to my right.

  Goldie was a war horse, and he knew his business. I gave him the touch of the spurs that told him to clear me a space, and his iron-shod hooves went into action like four immensely strong knights wielding maces. He whirled and I hung on. I hit one carl – he had a jack and a skullcap, and my blade bounced off his skullcap, but he went down like a slaughtered pig anyway.

  And then I started clearing them off Sam Bibbo, who was trying to put men down with his bowstave. He’d tried to keep loosing arrows, and he, too, had missed the tide of men coming out of the fields.

  I couldn’t leave him.

  His horse panicked. There were too many men with too many agricultural implements in the dark, and the rouncey reared.

  One of our assailants put a pitchfork into the animal, and she screamed and threw Sam – he flew a good horse’s length and hit the ground hard enough to make a noise.

  If you want a good idea of your fighting skills, try fighting an endless tide of men in the dark for possession of the unconscious body of a friend.

  You want me to talk to you of chivalry and knighthood?

  I did not run and leave my friend.

  I didn’t know just where he was, but I gave Goldie the spurs again and we leaped forward; he shot out hooves in all directions, and I cut and thrust into the mob. I
t seemed to go on for ever, but in fact took less time than saying three paternosters, according to Richard.

  Who, thanks be to Christ, now appeared, also fully armed and also on a warhorse.

  The two of us cleared the space of a small Parish churchyard. And John Hughes, bless him, came up, dismounted between us, and found Sam. Sam’s horse was down and dead. So were ten other men, or more.

  We put Sam over John’s saddle, John held my stirrup leather and we rode off into the darkness.

  We picked up Rob and our pack animals, and moved from cover to cover all day. We could see the roads full of men – armed men.

  Sam was unconscious, and for the first time, Richard and I realized how much we relied on the old archer. We both kept wanting to ask him things.

  Like, ‘Who the fuck are those men?’

  Richard watched them from a tree. He was still in all his harness. ‘If the Dauphin has this many men, why hasn’t he driven us back to Calais?’ he asked.

  I watched them too. ‘They look like Paris militia,’ I said. ‘But they are twenty miles from Paris and there isn’t a hood to be seen.’

  ‘No cavalry; no knights.’ Richard shook his head.

  We climbed a low, wooded ridge and followed it for a few miles.

  At evening, we halted. We had no idea where we were. We had moved across France by asking our way – there were no signs and the roads were appalling. Usually Sam knew the way, and when he was wrong, we didn’t comment.

  Now, on our own, all ways appeared the same.

  However, after a restless night – Richard and I never took off our harnesses – we woke to a beautiful spring day. In the distance, we could see a church tower. The bell was ringing. It was unreal.

  Richard and I left the rest with Sam, who seemed better – his colour had improved and he was muttering, whilst his eyes were moving beneath the lids. We cantered along the paths towards the steeple we could see.

  There was a town. It wasn’t a big town, but prosperous enough.

  It was, in fact, a village of the dead.

  They had died a while before – perhaps the October or November of 1357. There were corpses in the door yards, and corpses in the streets. The women mostly still had their hair, and some of the people wore the remnants of clothes. There were children.