Knight with Armour

by Alfred Duggan

  The army marched in high spirits.

  III. Dorylaeum 1097.

  At dawn on the 1st of July the camp was already stirring. Peter was saddling the warhorse Jack, and Roger had to get a passing crossbowman to arm him; Godric’s desertion was a great nuisance, but it was his own fault for taking a townsman to war; they never would stick it out to the end. He was stiff from sleeping on the ground, and his stomach was slightly upset. They were running short of supplies, and supper had been meagre; nearly everything they ate had to come across the straits from Europe, so harried was eastern Romania, and the cowardly Greek sutlers hung back now the pilgrims were deep in infidel territory. When he was armed he made his way to the Duke’s pavilion, and was lucky to get for breakfast a lump of twice-baked bread dipped in watered wine. There was no time to hear Mass if they were to be on the march before the heat of the day, though everyone knew the Turks were near, and this was not a good way to begin a battle. There was also a slight shortage of drinking water, chiefly because the footmen were too lazy to fetch enough of it, and though he was not exactly thirsty he felt constipated and liverish. However, he bolted his lump of biscuit, and retired behind a hillock, where his nose told him many of the other pilgrims were also getting ready for the day.

  After that he felt better, and when he had seen the pack-horse loaded, and Peter had led it to the baggage-column, he mounted and rode to the mustering place of the knights of the second rank. There were many hundreds of them, too many to count accurately, for the whole Norman contingent, from England, Normandy, Sicily and Apulia, were marching together, and they formed about half of the host. They were more or less under the leadership of the Count of Taranto, so long as their lords were inclined to obey his orders. The Frenchmen, Provençals, and Lotharingians were a few miles to the south, ostensibly for better forage, but really because everyone knew that the Count of Toulouse would not take orders from a Norman.

  Roger had heard that a battle was likely that day, and to show his eagerness he trotted up completely prepared for war, shield on arm and hauberk laced; but he noticed at once that the others had not bothered to get ready yet, and hastily he hung his shield by his left leg, his helm from the saddlebow, and threw back the hood of his hauberk on to his shoulders; then he stuck the butt of his lance in the ground and sat his horse carelessly beside it, though he would have preferred to continue muttering prayers for success and his own safety. The Duke appeared, mounted and in armour, though his shield and weapons were carried behind him by a page. He rode among them, cheerful and courteous as always, and recommended rather than ordered them to form a column. The paved highway pointed straight at the gate of deserted Dorylaeum, another ruined town in that land of ruins, completely empty and not worth plundering. So they left the road, and marched south-east across the rolling grasslands, dotted with burnt-out remains of farms, and crossed in all directions by overgrown dykes. This was once the granary and recruiting-ground of Romania, now it produced nothing but the desert grazing of the Turks. Even the grass was scanty, and dried by the summer heat, and Jack was no longer in good condition.

  They rode six abreast over the open country. Behind a screen of scouts came first the counts and barons, well-armed and well-mounted, the striking-force of the army; then the knights of the second rank, with hungry horses and unarmed legs; last of all straggled the baggage and the foot, with the clerks and women. There were also a few scouts on the flanks, but no rear-guard, for the enemy was known to be in front. Roger found himself between Ralph de Rendlesham, a knight from Suffolk, and Hugh de Dives, a Norman who was said to have been a routier in Flanders, but had made money, and now claimed to be a knight. They both seemed calm and not very interested, and Roger was comforted to think that in his first charge he would have a veteran riding at each knee. Hugh was a pleasant, well-spoken, middle-aged man, and in the long ride from Apulia Roger had found him fond of giving advice, so now he mentioned that he had never drawn a sword in earnest before.

  “Not everyone would have told me that,” said Hugh. “Half these lads would be boasting of the hundreds they had slain. I like your modesty, and I’ll keep an eye on you. Try to follow me, and do as I do, and you won’t come to much harm; it’s the young knights who want to make a name for themselves in their first battle who get killed. In the first place, don’t get ready too soon; we have scouts in front, and there will be plenty of time to put your shield on your neck when you see the enemy; some young men tire their bridle-arms before the fighting begins. Then, for the love of Our Lady, don’t try to charge on your own; the trouveres are all back with the baggage, and no one can become famous in his first battle; don’t throw away your lance in the first shock; if they stand and the fighting gets close you can pull out your sword when I do. Finally, remember it is the first duty of a knight to stand by his comrade who is on the ground. If you see me dismounted clear a space for me to get up, and if you come down yourself lie still under your shield till the hoofs have gone by, then go to the rear unless you can catch a loose horse. A knight on foot hinders his own side when we are charging.” But it was not to be that sort of battle at all.

  They had been on the march for an hour, and the column had lengthened owing to delays in crossing the ruined dykes, when they saw the scouts come galloping back, not only from the front, but all along the left flank also. The army halted in a disjointed fashion, each man pulling up in turn to avoid the horse in front, and messengers were seen riding hard from the barons in the advance to the straggling baggage-train and foot. They were in a shallow valley, with a reedy lake to their right rear, and low hills forming the skyline a few hundred yards on either hand. The scouts had been on the crests of these hills before they were alarmed. Roger saw Hugh drop his reins and begin lacing his hauberk, and hastily he also arrayed himself. His fingers fumbled with the shield-grips, his bowels seemed over-full, dancing liver-spots were in front of his eyes, and all his bones felt stiff and awkward. His hauberk rasped the week’s growth of beard on his chin, for now Godric had stayed behind there was no one to clip it, and a cold sweat formed on his forehead under the nose-guard of his helm, which itself felt insecure, at once too small and too heavy. He had never felt less like fighting. On the skyline of the left-hand ridge, only four hundred yards away, appeared several tall black objects, spaced out evenly from before the extreme front of the vanguard to beyond the hurrying clusters of foot in the rear; these objects seemed to grow suddenly taller, then below them appeared a solid line of heads and brandished weapons, and he knew them for the horse-tail standards of the Turks.

  The long column of Norman knights was jostling in a stationary haze of dust, as each man turned left where his horse stood, and then tried to push himself into the foremost line. Jack had his muzzle in the tail of Ralph’s stallion, and Roger hauled him back a pace, fearing a kick. But all the horses were well-used to crowds, after their long march across Europe, and they got into position without any casualties that he could see. He found himself in the second rank, with Hugh on his right hand, and a knight whom he only knew by sight on his left. By now the hill was crowned with the Turkish array, stretching along the skyline, its right far outflanking the pilgrims’ rear, which had become their left. The knot of counts and barons had broken up, and the leaders were galloping down the front of the line towards the baggage. He saw the Duke, his helm pushed back so that the nose-guard projected horizontally, cantering along while he shouted over the shield on his left shoulder:

  “Pilgrims, stand fast where you are! Pilgrims, don’t charge them uphill! Halt, pilgrims, and let them come down into the valley! No knight is to charge until I give the word!”

  He cantered on, taking his helm right off his head that all might see who he was, his voice breaking into a shriek from the effort of reaching the distant ranks. The Counts of Blois and Boulogne followed, and the pushing, heaving line slowed down and halted, though a trampling noise still rose from the restless horses. Jack was covered with sweat, reaching at his bit and gett
ing his back up, and Roger found it difficult to control him with the finger-ends that were all he could spare from his shield.

  “Hold him!” cried Hugh. “Hold him! Push your wrist through the shield-grips and get a hold of the reins! If you let him get away now we shall start a charge at the wrong time and lose the whole blasted battle. For God’s sake, young man, if you can’t control your horse, get off and lead him. Give the foot a chance to array themselves, or the Turks will snap up every bloody pack-horse before the fighting begins, and you won’t have a clean shirt for Antioch. Steady there, didn’t you hear what the Duke said!”

  Roger dropped his lower shield-grip completely, and though the shield banged against his forearm he got a good grip of the stout leather reins, and quieted his horse. He looked at the enemy. The Turks had halted on the crest of the swelling hill; he could see four or five ranks of them, but in such loose order that it was hard to count their numbers. Their horses were small, no more than ponies, but obviously handy from the way they weaved in and out; and they were ridden with the reins very short, their heads up and their noses poking out in an unbalanced fashion; the bridle-hands were held high and crooked, and he noticed with a shock of surprise that the riders had no shields; from their fluttering draperies it appeared that they had no armour either. In fact, they did not look to be very formidable foes, though their sudden appearance had rattled the nerves of the pilgrims.

  His breathing became easier, and he looked up and down his own battleline. He was to the left of the centre, about the middle of the Duke’s own following; on the right were the Normans of Sicily and Apulia, and on the left some of the Flemings, though most of these were with the second division of the army, somewhere in the south, which was now their rear. Beyond the Flemings he could see a fluttering like the sails of a fleet of ships in a gale; the foot were putting up their tents at the edge of the marsh, to form an obstacle to horsemen and safeguard the left flank. The sun was shining, and the increasing heat brought out the shrilling of the cicadas. Roger had expected a battlefield to look different from any other piece of ground, purged of non-essentials, but he found it hard to drag his attention from the cloud of flies that hovered over the immobile horses, and when Jack staled he had an overpowering urge to do the same thing himself.

  Suddenly there was shouting from the left, and clouds of dust with a drumming of hoofs. “Watch for it,” muttered Hugh. “They are going to charge all down the line. No, they aren’t, though; they are only attacking the camp. Stand fast and wait for our turn. They can’t gallop through those tent-ropes.”

  Word passed up the line, with all the swiftness of rumour in battle, that the Turks had caught some belated stragglers, spearmen, women, and clerks, out in the open plain, and massacred them before they could reach the shelter of the tents. But the marsh, and the solid obstacle of the camp, gave them pause, and the attack was not pushed home. Meanwhile the Turkish line on the slope opposite was growing thicker and thicker, as more horsemen rode over the brow of the hill, and already they outnumbered the battle-line of knights several times over.

  “But where are their foot?” Roger heard his left-hand neighbour say. “I don’t believe they have any. Thousands and thousands of woollen-clad ruffians on ponies, and not a knight or a spearman among them. This is the queerest army I have ever seen.”

  Now the infidels seemed to be growing individually bigger; this was because the line was advancing, though as they still came over the hill the rear of the huge array was not yet in sight. And they were advancing at a walk!

  Roger could see the upper part of one of their own leaders, he thought it was the Count of Blois, sitting his horse at right-angles to the line, with his lance held horizontal, his whole posture giving the order to stand fast. Roger was well set now, with his shield and reins held properly, and though he was sweating all over, his eyes had cleared. But he was in a dream, looking around him as far as his hauberk would allow him to turn his head, and telling himself: “This is what a battle looks like. This is my first battle. I mustn’t miss anything of it. I must get a clear picture and remember it always.” So that when the Turks reached the bottom of the hill a hundred and fifty yards away, and the Count whirled his horse round and flourished his lance, he was left half a length at the start of the charge.

  In a moment they were all galloping, with a thunder of hoofs. Roger carefully lowered his lance, till the point was level with Ralph’s right knee in front of him, and he felt the calf of his own leg jostled by the acute end of Hugh’s shield; Jack was out of control, with his ears back and his tail up. His teeth set, his toes far forward, and his eyes blazing on each side of his nose-guard, Roger waited for the shock. Nothing could withstand this impetus; the infidels on their light ponies would be swept out of the path. But there was no shock. Instead he saw the lean hindquarters of the Turkish horses labouring up the hill, and suddenly there came a shower of arrows. Two shot past his eyes before he could duck his head under his shield-rim, and one tapped his right shoulder with a breath-taking shock. “Is this my death-wound?” his mind had time to ask with inconceivable rapidity, before the arrow dropped harmlessly from his mail. There was nothing within reach of his lance, and the shafts continued to whistle by. Suddenly Ralph in front of him disappeared completely. He felt Jack leap and buck unexpectedly, banging his rider’s fork against the high pommel of the saddle, and then all the horses round him were pulling up, and so was he. They were on the crest of the hill, and he was in the front rank, while halfway down the slope in front were the Turks, facing them now, and shooting as fast as they could draw arrows from their quivers. The whole infidel army was composed of horse-archers, a form of equipment unknown in Western Europe, which even the wisest of Norman veterans had never met before.

  They could not stay where they were, an easy target on the skyline, and though a few angry men prepared to charge again, the leaders were wheeling their horses and shouting to them to get back. Luckily, the configuration of the ground had made the horses check at the crest of the hill, and they were saved from a scattering, unlimited charge, which would have left small parties on blown horses to be shot down one by one by the infidels. Roger was beginning to get frightened. Many knights had been unhorsed, not a Turk had been harmed, and there he was on top of the hill, with every hostile arrow seeming to converge on his face. Thank God the leaders wanted them to retreat, and he could get down the hillside without loss of dignity. He rode back with all the other knights at a slow trot, and the rise in the ground mercifully cut off the arrow-shower. He saw that Ralph was on his feet, stripping the saddle from his dead horse, and he pulled up beside him.

  “Do you want any help?” he called out.

  “No, thank God, I have nothing worse than bruises. Just stay by me while I carry this saddle back to our battleline. I may pick up a horse after this is over, but I shall never get a saddle that fits me as this does.”

  They went slowly back to where the knights were forming up in their original position. Roger took his place in the front rank, and the dismounted stood about in rear of the second line. His neighbours had been differently affected by the failure of the charge; most were simply in a frantic rage at the cowardly infidels who wouldn’t stand and fight, but a few were trying to think things out, and find a way of beating the enemy’s tactics; among them was Hugh de Dives, who was now behind him in the second rank.

  “Look here, Roger,” he said, “we must get to close quarters with these infidels. Can’t we make them charge us, instead of the other way about? Instead of trotting slowly down that hill we should have galloped here. A feigned flight is the oldest trick in the world, but it always works the first time you try it against strange enemies. Do your best to catch the attention of the Duke the next time he rides by, and I will suggest it to him.”

  Meanwhile the enemy had crowned the hill again, and were walking down it towards them; when they reached a line about a hundred yards away, they halted, and the front ranks began to shoot. That was evide
ntly about as far as their short horsemen’s bows would carry. Roger could see the arrows coming in time-to shelter behind his shield, and in fact they were not shot hard enough to penetrate mail, so that only his face, his lower legs, and his right hand were in danger; but the horses were completely exposed. He could hear the thud of arrows striking home, and the squeals of the warhorses. So could Jack, and he was nearly unmanageable, rearing up and staggering forward on his hind legs, screaming with rage and struggling to fight in the only way he knew.

  The Duke came riding along the line from left to right, crouched behind his shield. He also had thought of trying a feigned flight, the favourite ruse of Norman armies in a tight place.

  “Now, brave pilgrims,” he cried, “when I give the word charge as fast and as suddenly as you can, and we may catch some of their front rank. Then, when you arrive at the crest, halt, and fly back in disorder. When you reach the dismounted knights here, turn round sharp; we may lure some of them within reach. But for God’s sake keep control of your horses; no farther than the crest and no farther back than here; and keep all together. Watch my lance for your orders.”

  He rode on, and Roger heard his voice, very faint, repeating the order further to the right. Jack was still fighting his bit, and taking more out of himself at a stand than he would have done at a gallop; a wet mess of slobber from the bridle hit Roger in the face, and made it hard to keep an eye on the Duke’s lance. But at last he saw it wave in the air, and then point at the enemy. He dug in his spurs, and Jack jumped straight from a stand to a sprint.