Of his own accord, he fetched me a stool. I sat, and John Hughes put a cup of hippocras into my hand. He smiled. He was Milady’s archer again, and very happy with it.
Sam Bibbo came up. He was eating a sausage. The two of them counted over their shafts while I armed.
Edward came back with my Milanese breast and backplates.
‘Unseat the lance rest,’ I said. ‘I won’t need it today.’
That started a murmur.
‘Sir John says we’ll fight on foot. We’re to go for the barricades.’ I smiled. I felt better.
I sat and drank hippocras, and thought about May and love. And Emile. And Fra Peter, and Father Pierre Thomas. And Richard, and a lot of other things. Chivalry. Fear.
I rose and shrugged on my haubergeon, looted from Poitiers.
Edward and Sam put the breast and backplates around me and closed it like an oyster’s shell – buckled it home and fetched the arms.
The left arm went on, and was laced to the haubergeon, and then the right. I flexed each one in turn.
Three of them put my white coat over my armour.
All around me, in the growing light, all the men I liked best were doing the same things – the gradual process of arming. A young woman came with a basket of rolls, warm from an oven somewhere, like a miracle of loaves and fishes brought to the White Company camp.
‘For luck,’ she said. Just for a moment, she looked like Emile.
I ate the roll; it was delicious.
Edward came with my gauntlets and helmet.
‘Go get armed yourself,’ I said. I had the wisdom to know that the worst fear of a young man-at-arms is the fear of being late.
Sam brought me my war sword – four feet of good steel, made in Germany. He belted it around my waist and buckled it.
Arnaud appeared with de Charny’s dagger. ‘You’ll miss this, if you don’t have it,’ he said. We tied it to the sword belt, and I drew it a few times. A rondel dagger has to flow into your fist in a fight. When you want it, you have to know just where it is.
Men were pale shapes flitting like moths when I rose from my stool. I could see Sir John in his full, new harness, all steel, and the light made him a statue of molten silver, or the shape of an angel – a very incongrous shape for Sir John Hawkwood. I walked to my horse, and spent some precious spirit vaulting into the saddle. My men were watching.
Pierre, my warhorse, was eager. Edward had made him gleam. That, he was good at.
I sat on Pierre and watched my lances form. The sun was just going to crest the horizon.
They had to know we were coming.
Kenneth MacDonald sprang onto his charger. He looked very dull, in a leather jupon instead of a breastplate. He wore a great aventail as big as a cloak, hanging down from the most steeply pointed German basinet I’d ever seen. He looked like a great orange bird of prey.
Milady looked like a very small, sleek steel falcon.
Juan looked showy; he wore a red cloak pinned at his shoulder, and his lady’s favour – a little beaten about – was pinned to his shoulder. Fiore was very plain; he didn’t have a steel breast and backplate, but his white coat hid his poverty.
Pages scurried about, collecting spears we’d use if we dismounted, picking up last requests, handing out cups of wine – many men drink hard before a fight. My page was eating a winter apple with one hand while trying to manage a horse with the other.
Edward was the last man in my battle to mount his horse.
Around us, other battles were in the last stages of preparation. Thornbury had all veterans, and he was ready – his whole company sat on their mounts, mocking the latecomers. The Germans were much slower – I could see a German man-at-arms who didn’t have his breast and backplates on yet.
Sir John rode up to me. He looked over the camp and the Field of Mars – the place where we formed. As I watched, he came to a decision.
‘You decide how far you can go,’ he said. ‘This is mostly for honour. Hapsburg has too many men for us to win a real victory. I’d like a man to touch the barricades.’
It was an honour, in a chivalric fight, to have reached the enemy barricades. I knew this language.
You might ask, mon dieu, if Sir John Hawkwood was making war into a business, why should touching the enemy barricades matter.
Look you. We were an army of a few thousand men, facing a city with a population of a hundred times that, defended by an army four times our own size. Even if we obliterated our enemies, we couldn’t take Florence.
But men are not clockwork. They are flesh and blood. Taunts sting us. Insults hurt us.
‘I’ll do it,’ I said.
He tapped me on the shoulder with his steel-clad fist. ‘I imagine you will, William.’
He looked around.
An Italian priest – doubtless a Pisan – came forward with a censer, and said a prayer over us. I said a paternoster. A boy handed me a clay cup of water and smiled.
‘I want to be a knight when I grow up,’ he said in pretty fair English.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the water.’
I turned to my lance and raised my fist.
‘On me,’ I said.
We filed off, and I led the way out onto the road. A dozen exiled Florentines – gentlemen – were gathered there, and two of them left their ranks. They led us down the road almost two leagues, and then we went across farm fields for as long as it would take a nun to sing Mass.
In the distance, I could see the Florentine forces forming. I remember thinking, Sweet Virgin Mother, they’ve had all night, they know we’re coming, and they still aren’t ready. It lit a small fire of hope in me.
My gentleman guide pointed with his sword. ‘The gate of San Gallo,’ he said.
It was a great gate, big enough for ten men to ride in abreast, and in front of it were entrenchments and barricades. They were full of men – crossbowmen from the guilds and German men-at-arms. They were about 500 paces distant, and the ground was as clear as a farmer’s field from us to them. It rose steadily, too.
But the men manning those makeshift walls weren’t steady. They seethed like maggots on a wound. Some were still arming, and others . . .
Who knows why men are late?
‘Companions!’ I called out, and all the muttering behind me died away. Something was forming in my head: Anger. And hope. I raised my hand again.
‘The best way to do this is very quickly. We form a line right here on my command. We will ride to long crossbow shot and dismount, as fast as lightning, and we will go forward to the barricades without stopping to dress our line or issue challenges or any other formality.’ I looked back. ‘As soon as Sam finds the distance comfortable, the archers are to fall to the rear and loft over us – steadily.’
‘Comfortable, is it?’ Sam said.
‘All the way to the barricades,’ I said. ‘And over them, into the town.’
I had fifty lances. There were 3,000 men at the barricades.
‘All the banks in the world are here,’ I said.
That got a happy grumble.
‘Drink water!’ I ordered.
I loosened my sword in its sheath and checked de Charny’s dagger.
No one said, ‘This is insane.’
No one suggested we should stop.
‘Ready?’ Men at the barricade were pointing at us. We were so few, I assume they thought we wouldn’t attack. Indeed, militiamen were already trailing away, back into the town. Looking for breakfast, the lucky sods.
I drew de Charny’s dagger from my belt. ‘I took this from Geoffrey de Charny at Poitiers!’ I roared.
Men cheered.
‘I will give it to the first man to touch the barricades!’ I called.
They roared.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
Twenty yards into the empty field, I raised my fist, and my lances flowed forward from the right and left. A well-trained company can array itself faster than most folk can imagine. I didn’t finish th
e first five lines of my paternoster before they were ready.
‘Forward!’ I called. I turned to look back, and saw Sir John with Thornbury’s battle coming up on my left.
I didn’t wait. I was, I hoped, doing what I’d been told. And I thought, To hell with it. Hell was probably where I was destined.
The Germans looked half armed and asleep. All 2,000 of them.
We covered fifty paces at a fast trot. Then another fifty. Not a bolt was loosed at us. Another fifty. We were moving well – I was proud of my lances, because we were in good order and well-bunched up.
We crossed the line I’d imagined for crossbow range, and since we received no bolts, I let us go on. Every heartbeat ate another pace.
A dozen bolts came out of the barricades. I’d aligned my attack with the rising sun. I looked back – it was a red ball behind us.
Another flight of bolts, and most of them went well over me. Somewhere one struck with a nasty hollow metallic sound. A horse screamed.
The crossbowmen would be spanning.
‘Halt!’ I roared. And then, ‘Dismount!’
I swung my leg over, turned sideways, put my breastplate against my saddle and slithered to the ground.
My page emerged from behind me, slipped past me and took Pierre, who gave me a look.
The page dropped my spear at my feet. I stooped to get it, rose and looked right and left. I turned back towards Florence and began to walk the last 200 paces to the barricade.
A bolt struck my left spaulder and skidded away. It felt like a heavy punch from a strong man. There was a rattle of bolts – a dozen must have struck – but as far as I could see, all my men were still moving forward. And, of course, when you are going forward, you can’t see your dead.
I looked down at the ground beneath my feet. Green tufts were springing to life in the old cart track, and there were the remnants of a house, probably pulled down the night before.
There was another rattle of crossbow bolts and a long, joyless scream.
The crossbow bolts were coming faster now. I took one more look, right and left, and closed my visor.
I think I laughed. I was empty. Empty of need or desire. I didn’t care about my next meal or about John Hawkwood’s next plan or Emile or our saviour. I was going to touch the barricade.
The barricade was eighty paces away, a little lower than a man and lined with men in armour that lit up red in the sun.
War-bow shafts began to fall like wicked sleet on the barricade and the men behind it.
I hadn’t intended to run, but I found myself trotting, and the line trotted to keep up with me.
There were shouts ahead.
I felt . . . strong. There was no reason that a frontal assault on the barricades should be going this well, and I had time to consider that it was a trap – that there was cavalry concealed to my left. But my last glance at my men had shown Thornbury’s battle coming up on my left and Thomas Biston’s on my right. If it was a trap, their Germans would need a hell of a lot of cavalry.
Baumgarten was deploying behind me.
We were as well placed as we were going to be.
I was running – in sabatons. Somewhere in my line was a man cursing his squire, but that day it was not me. Our line was fair enough, and the rising sun turned the tips of our spears to fire.
The men behind the barricades were seething. Men ran back and forth – fifty voices were calling and, as I watched, a guildsman tried to force his way to the barricade to loose his weapon and was roughly forced back by a German man-at-arms.
I looked for the pennants I wanted.
Twenty paces from the barricade, I realized that unless God and his legion of angels came down to stop us, we’d make the barricade. The crossbows had been ill-aimed and desultory, for whatever reason.
Typically, when men fight at barricades – at least in the lists – men stand on either side of a waist-high wooden wall and exchange blows. You can’t be hit below your breastplate and your opponent can’t grapple.
I’d never fought at a barricade.
But I’d stormed a few towns, and I had a different notion of how to tackle the wall. I had no intention of giving any other man de Charny’s dagger.
Five paces out, I lengthened my stride. There were half a dozen Germans waiting for me, jostling to be the one to face me across the barrier.
All or nothing.
I leaped.
I almost didn’t make it, which would have shortened this tale immensely, but I got my left foot on the barricade, my spear struck something, and then . . .
Ah, and then I fought.
I landed deep in their ranks. Armour protects you from the abrasions and cuts of small blows, and for the first few cuts, it was all I could do to get my feet under me. I was close in – I had a man right against my breast, and my spear shaft was already broken – no idea how. I drew de Charny’s dagger and stabbed – one, two, three times, as fast as my hand would move. It came away bloody, then I turned and stabbed behind me. I put my left hand on the pommel of the dagger, received a great blow to my head that rang bells, and grappled close to a man. He got one hand on the dagger, but his other held his sword, and my two-handed grip overcame him. He had no visor, and my dagger went in over his nose.
I kicked out behind me on instinct, and then I had space. I stumbled and put my back against the barrier, and for three deep breaths the Germans stood back. I put the dagger back in my sheath – St George must have guided my hand – and drew my longsword.
I took the time to bow and salute them. And breathe.
And then, of course, I attacked them.
I put my sword down in one of Fiore’s guards – the boar’s tooth – and cut up at the first German’s hands. He had heavy leather gloves rather than steel gauntlets, and he sprayed fingers and screamed. My down cut stopped on his arms and I pushed it into his face.
The other two hammered blows at me, but they were thrown too fast, with too much fear. Both hit – one dented my left rebrace, and the other fell on the peak of my helmet, cut away a portion of Emile’s favour, and glanced off the overlapping plates of my right spaulder.
I cut at the second man’s head. He had a red coat over his coat of plates, and a full helmet that covered his face. My adversary swatted heavily at my blade, and I allowed his blow to turn mine and hammered his faceplate with my pommel, knocking him back a step. He raised his hands. I passed my blade over his head and kicked him in the gut while I held him, and he dropped – neck broken or unconscious. Either way, down.
Blows hit me. Many blows. A man in armour can take all the blows that don’t kill him. My armour was good.
There were voices calling in English all around me. I pushed forward, and my opponents backed away.
To their rear, I saw Rudolph von Hapsburg’s banner go up.
All around me, men were calling, ‘George! St George and England!’ and I narrowly avoided putting my point into Milady’s basinet – she, of all people, I should have known in a mêlée. I have no idea how she’d passed me, but I fought from behind her for as long as a man takes to mount a horse. I pinked some Florentine in the leg, stabbing down, and she slammed her sword into his head. I doubt he fell dead – I suspect he’d merely had enough.
I think by then my whole battle – my command – was over the barricade and in the muddy trench behind it. A few guildsmen stood, and a few local men-at-arms were ashamed to show fear in front of their ladies, who even then were on the walls behind them. But most of the local men ran for the gate, leaving the Swabians to face a rising tide of Englishmen and Germans.
Rudolph von Hapsburg may have been proud and boastful – Messire Villani says he was – but he was brave. He led his knights in person, and he charged at us. But it is harder to charge through a rout of fleeing men than it is to charge through a deluge of arrows or crossbow bolts. His men were pushed aside – they came at us in packets.
I wanted the giant. I could see him – he was a head taller than any oth
er man, his pennon was black and he had a spear and an axe – he was off to my right. I shamelessly stepped back from an opponent and left him to Edward, passed behind Fiore, got two more paces – it was like pushing through a crowd at a fair – and there he was, hammering at MacDonald with his axe. MacDonald caught all three of his heavy blows, then tripped on a corpse – all those war-bow shafts had reaped more than a few Florentines – and his fall kept him from the giant’s smashing blow.
I stepped into the gap. I remember as I stepped up, seeing a flash of gold on the helmet hard by Sir Heinrich. It had to be a gold cornet, and that meant the next knight to the left was Rudolph.
Heinrich raised his axe and cut. Big men are supposed to be slow. He wasn’t. The axe flicked back and shot forward – I cut it to the right with an underhand blow, and he turned the axe in mid air and cut back at me. I had to put my left hand on the blade of my sword to parry – a technique Fiore taught me. I made my sword a staff.
I was close to him, and I smashed my guard into his visor. It wasn’t much of a hit, but every hit counts.
He stumbled back one step, and I cut at him from the shoulder, as hard and fast as I could.
He caught it on his axe blade.
A blow caught my helmet squarely and I stumbled.
Apparently, single combat is an Anglo-French convention. Rudolph’s sword was pushing for my eye-slits, but I batted it down and my back cut only just saved me from the axe.
Rudolph’s sword licked out again and slammed my hand, but I had good gauntlets. He broke my little finger and it hurt like fuck. He punched the point at my head as my gaurd weakened, and his point went in between the base of my helmet and the chin of my aventail – suddenly my mouth was full of blood.
I had a few breaths to live, if that. He’d cut open my mouth – look, this scar right here – I still have the devil’s smile, as we call it.
I pivoted toward Rudolph, fought through the pain and cut down at his shoulder. Then I pushed in with my other foot, driving forward with my not-inconsiderable size, flinching in my head from the inevitable axe-blow. I wagered my life that I could get so far forward into Rudolph that Heinrich wouldn’t be able to hit me. I had no choice. It was all or nothing.
The Ill-Made Knight Page 54
