devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band

by richard anderton

  “A man who’s survived his own hanging is a powerful talisman and there are plenty of unsigned men in the camp who’ll flock to your banner,” the colonel insisted. Thomas protested that there’d be no guarantee he’d meet his enemy on the battlefield but Quintana reminded him of the landsknecht custom of rival captains challenging each other to single combat before battle commenced.

  “The White Rose can’t refuse such a challenge if you’re his equal in rank,” agreed Prometheus.

  “Don’t forget you’re half his age so you should beat him easily and such a victory is sure to restore your reputation at Henry’s court,” added Bos. Thomas thought for a moment and decided the others were right. King Henry could hardly refuse to pardon them all if he killed the last Yorkist prince in a chivalrous trial by combat witnessed by two armies.

  “Very well My Lord, I’ll accept your offer and I promise you this, without de la Pole and his Black Band the French can’t hold Pavia and without Pavia they can’t hold Italy,” said Thomas.

  Without further debate, Frundsberg wrote out the weberpatent which gave the Thomas the right to recruit up to four hundred unsigned men who were already in the camp or who might arrive later. It also allowed him to appoint sergeants and create his own fähnlein, the sacred battle flag of a landsknecht company. Having received his commission, Thomas had no doubt about who should serve as his subordinates or the device he should use for his banner and a few hours later he showed his new sergeants a splendid yellow flag with a pugnacious red devil in the centre.

  “So you have power to raise devils after all,” said Quintana eyeing the banner appreciatively.

  “May The Devil bring us luck,” added Prometheus and even Bos approved of the device.

  “Lucifer was the brightest of angels who was cast out of Heaven for his pride. In our sin, we too are exiles looking for a way back to God so it is fitting that we should be The Devil’s Band!” he cried.

  The four men agreed to raise their banner and begin recruiting that afternoon but first they had to discard the enemy’s black clothing they’d been wearing since their escape from de la Pole’s camp. Fortunately, Frundsberg’s sutlers were delighted to extend credit to men saved by God from the gallows and after a few hours they were all dressed in a manner more befitting landsknecht officers.

  Quintana chose a suit of contrasting red and green quarters, colours that honoured the flag of his homeland, whilst Bos favoured the blue and gold stripes used in the banner of East Frisia. Thomas chose a concoction of red and yellow, the livery of St Cuthbert patron of the old Saxon kingdom of Northumbria but Prometheus picked his red and white outfit for no other reason than he liked the colours. As well as contrasting hues, their new clothes sported the slashed sleeves, tight breeches, striped hose and outrageous codpieces that were the badge of the mercenary. Broad brimmed hats, with plumes of brightly coloured ostrich feathers and beards clipped in the square German style completed their costumes.

  For side arms Bos, Prometheus and Quintana bought short katzbalger swords, which they hung from their belts unsheathed as landsknecht custom demanded. Quintana and Bos also purchased sergeant’s halberds but Prometheus preferred to wield one of the long, zweihänder double-handed swords much favoured by the doppelsöldners who volunteered to fight in the front rank of the pike squares in return for double pay. When it came to armour, the others purchased simple iron skullcaps but Thomas, as much to show his rank as for his protection, bought a breastplate with hinged thigh guards and armed himself with a falchion. He was surprised to find a replacement for the distinctive English sword he’d lost so many months ago but he regarded its discovery as a good omen.

  Once they were properly equipped, Thomas raised his devil’s banner in the parade square and was gratified to see a queue of men quickly form. He glanced along the line of expectant recruits and felt the hairs on the back of his neck tingle with excitement. If he’d spent a year scouring the deepest dungeons in Christendom he couldn’t have assembled an uglier array of more villainous soldiery but with Bos, Prometheus and Quintana acting as his sergeants he knew he could lead these thieves and murderers to glory. Quintana was already putting his military experience to good use by examining the weapons each man had brought with him.

  Unlike the musters in Metz and Lyon, where every runaway potboy and farmhand had been made welcome, Frundsberg only employed tough, professional soldiers. Whether they fought with pike, halberd, double-handed sword or arquebus, every man had to provide himself with the tools of his trade so the Portugee set himself the task of watching for doppelgängers. These men had usually sold their weapons to pay their gaming debts, nevertheless they tried to enlist by borrowing what they needed from those who’d just signed on. By sundown, Quintana had driven a score of these rogues from the line but even without them Thomas had recruited nearly 400 men.

  The following day Thomas called for experienced men to volunteer as doppelsöldners and organised his company into platoons. These rotten consisted of ten ordinary, or six double soldiers, who’d share a tent and a cart for the duration of their contract. Once this had been accomplished, The Devil’s Band was ready to take the oath of loyalty to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

  At the appointed hour, the other companies gathered on the parade ground and when the entire army was assembled, thirty different coloured fähnleins fluttered cheerily in the breeze. Among them was the winged skull of the Todesengel, the wolf of the Kriegshund and the lightning flash of the Heiligsturm. Every one of these companies had a fearsome reputation, yet the men in their ranks looked jealously at their comrades in The Devil’s Band and wished they too were led by a hanged man who, it was whispered, also had the power to summon dragons.

  While the men waited patiently for the ceremony to begin, Frundsberg’s trabants erected a ceremonial gateway, consisting of two upright halberds, with a third tied between them to form a crossbar, in the centre of the parade ground whilst their colonel mounted a snow-white charger. Accompanied by the beating of a hundred drums Frundsberg rode along the ranks of his men acknowledging their cheers. At last the drums fell silent and for a moment the only sound was of crows arguing noisily in the leafless trees but then Frundsberg spoke.

  “The men of the Teufel’s Bande will present their arms and take the oath of loyalty to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles of Hapsburg, King of Castile and Leon, King of Aragon and Sicily, King of Naples and Rome, King of Germany and Jerusalem, Lord of the Netherlands and the Americas, Archduke of Austria…”

  It took some time to list each of their employer’s eighty-six titles, especially as every honour was greeted with more cheering, but eventually the roll was completed and Thomas stepped forward. He raised his hand and swore to ‘serve The Emperor well and obey his officers without discussion or delay’. After his men had repeated these words, Thomas led them through the yoke of halberds and they again presented their weapons for inspection. Only if Frundsberg’s trabants deemed a man fit would he be entered into the official lists and receive a chit for his first month’s pay. The trabants dismissed a dozen of Thomas’ recruits, who slunk away grumbling, but before the others could claim their wages, the drums called the army to attention and Frundsberg began to address his men.

  The colonel announced that the Count of Lannoy, the imperial commander-in-chief, had received orders to relieve Pavia immediately so the entire army would march as soon as Christmas and Epiphany had passed. Thomas listened to the impassioned but curiously empty speech and failed to understand the delay. The French had been camped in the freezing mud and rain for nearly two months and, thanks to his efforts, half the Black Band had been without tents for a fortnight. The French army would be bored, cold and vulnerable but Frundsberg and his men, for all their fearsome reputation, seemed happy to postpone the inevitable battle for as long as possible.

  Once the parade had been dismissed, and the men had drifted away to empty their newly filled purses into the hands of the camp’s whore’s and sutlers, it was Quinta
na who explained that the delay wasn’t cowardice but common sense. Mercenary commanders were paid according to how many troops they could keep in the field so if they lost men they also lost money. As most soldiers, from exalted colonels to humble pikemen, followed the drum to get rich most landsknechts were happy to avoid battle, until their employers insisted they delivered the war they’d been paid to fight.

  “So you see my brave English captain, only a witless fool would risk his neck for an emperor, a king or a pope until it’s absolutely necessary,” said the Portugee with a smile but Prometheus and Bos were outraged at the suggestion there was no honour in soldiering.

  “Love of money is the root of all evil,” said Bos but Quintana cursed him for a pious poltroon.

  “What’s wrong with fighting for cash? You were born a king but the only way a poor man like me can become rich is with a sword in my hand. I’ll happily fight Frenchmen for the German Emperor, Tartars for the Tsar of Russia or blue baboons for the King of Ethiopia, but only so long as there’s gold in their coffers,” he said.

  “An interesting philosophy but you’ve hardly become rich have you?” Prometheus remarked.

  “It’s true my weakness for pretty faces and pasteboards has emptied my purse many times, so I’m forced to return to soldiering to keep body and soul together but that’s another good reason to prefer the safety of a camp to the dangers of a battle,” admitted Quintana.

  At least the days spent in idleness weren’t wasted. Thomas was no stranger to war but the border skirmishes between English and Scots reivers were very different to the great battles of Italy and he’d much to learn. The tactics of the pike square, which the landsknechts called an igel or hedgehog, were relatively simple but took a great deal of practice to perfect.

  In battle, ten or more companies came together to form an igel with a solid block of three or four thousand pikemen at the centre and the remaining halberdiers, zweihänder swordsmen and arquebusiers massed in two or more ranks around the outside. A quarter of each pike square’s strength was made up of doppelsöldners, identified by the white plumes in their hats, who always formed the front line facing the enemy. As the situation required these men, armed with halberds and handguns as well as double-handed swords, could advance and form a screen of skirmishers or launch the suicidal charges known as the verlorene haufe, the forlorn hope.

  The rank and file arquebusiers could also leave the safety of the pike square, form ‘wings’, and fire a volley of shots before retreating behind the igel’s long spines to reload. When charged by cavalry, or another igel, the pikemen would jam the butt ends of their pikes into the ground and lower the points to create a hedge of steel that protected their comrades but, if ordered to attack, the pikes would be raised and these huge formations of infantry would roll towards the enemy like a storm cloud, drums sounding the thunder and handgunners spitting red hot balls of lightning.

  At the last moment, the men of the forlorn hope would unfurl their blood red banner, run forward and use their halberds or double handed swords to lop the heads off enemy pikes and pikemen alike. Once two igels collided the result was a melee, a murderous trial of strength where the short, round ended, katzbalger swords were used to hack away at the crush of men. During the melee, no quarter asked or given and those who fell wounded were trampled into the blood soaked earth.

  Whether deployed in attack or defence, the igel’s strength was its coherence. If its ranks became disordered, the enemy’s cavalry or doppelsöldners could penetrate the pike block and wreak havoc so the men of each fähnlein practised manoeuvring together with constant drill. Fifes, drums and sharp raps across the shins from the sergeants’ canes kept the ranks dressed and the files in line until the thousands of men could act as one giant beast without thinking.

  Bos and Quintana, who’d experienced this type of fighting before, proved to be excellent sergeants but Prometheus, who was more used to the hit-and-run warfare of the desert, preferred to lead the swashbuckling doppelsöldners. Quintana could scarcely believe that the Nubian had volunteered for such dangerous duty but Prometheus was convinced that the length of his time on earth had already been decided by God and hiding from his enemies would not persuade The Almighty to grant him a single extra minute of life.

  For his part, Thomas learned how to integrate his company into the pike square or fight in open order but his men’s successful performance on the parade ground only added fuel to their captain’s impatience. He knew that at any moment the White Rose might be carried off by a culverin ball or succumb to the camp fever that put more men in their graves than any battle, but the feasts of Christmastide passed and still Lannoy refused to budge. It wasn’t until the end of January that the imperial commander-in-chief finally obeyed his emperor and gave the order to march.

  21

  THE FIVE ABBEYS

  The 30,000 men of Lannoy’s army arrived before the city of Pavia on the 2nd of February 1525 but instead of making an immediate surprise attack on the demoralised French, Lannoy ordered his men to build a huge fortified camp around the Casa de Levrieri. This abandoned villa, which lay a mile to the north east of the city, occupied a strategic point overlooking both the Porta de Levrieri, the eastern gate into the deer park, and the five fortified monasteries that guarded the road from Pavia to Lodi. Facing Lannoy’s 24,000 German and Neapolitan landsknechts, supported by 6,000 Spanish horsemen, were 8,000 Swiss reisläufer. Of these 5,000, under the Seigneur de la Flourance, were stationed along the eastern walls of the deer park whilst 3,000, under the Duc de Montmorency, garrisoned the Five Abbeys.

  Though the imperials boasted overwhelming numbers, Lannoy did not want to waste valuable men in a bloody assault. Instead, like Caesar at Alesia, he decided to besiege the besiegers and use his guns to batter the French into submission. He therefore ordered his men to construct gun-pits, protected by ramparts, palisades, and trenches, and though the frozen earth was as hard as moneylender’s heart, the imperial siege works progressed quickly. All the while, their enemies watched the net closing around them and did nothing. Apart from a few lazy cannon shots and some easily repulsed patrols, neither Flourance or Montmorency made any serious attempt to interfere with the construction of the imperial camp.

  “Why don’t the fools attack whilst we’re busy shovelling baskets of frozen shit?” grumbled Bos as he watched a group of his men filling wicker gabions with earth and placing them in the front of the gun pit they were building.

  “The French are no fools, they know we outnumber them, so unless Francis can concentrate his entire strength against us any attack will be crushed. On the other hand, if he weakens any point in his own siege lines the imperial garrison will break out,” said Prometheus.

  “At least it’s us giving the orders for a change and I’m delighted to sit on my fat sergeant’s arse watching other people work,” said Quintana happily but as he spoke, Thomas returned from a meeting of Frundsberg’s captains with the last news the Portugee wanted to hear.

  “It seems as if the emperor’s getting fed up with paying for an army that won’t fight, he’s demanding something in return for his gold and we have been chosen to supply it,” said Thomas excitedly and he informed his sergeants that The Duke of Bourbon was going to lead three fähnleins against the fortified abbeys at dusk.

  “By the bruised thumbs of the Holy Carpenter how could you do this to me Thomas? We’ll all be shot to pieces!” groaned Quintana.

  “Cease your mewling Portugee, at least you’ll have a chance for your plunder. Papist abbeys are stuffed full of the gold paid by sinners in the hope of buying their way out of Hell,” said Bos.

  “You speak the truth Frisian, and as the pope of Rome is in schism with the true Pope of Alexandria it will no sin to loot a heretic’s church!” said Prometheus with a grin.

  “You may plunder all you want but the French are siting big nachtigall siege guns in each of the three abbeys opposite our lines and we must make sure these nightingales never sing,” said Th
omas but that was only part of the reason for the attack. Besides protecting his camp, Lannoy needed to exchange messages with the beleaguered garrison inside Pavia so the raid would be accompanied by a thirty Spanish ginetes, light horsemen skilled in irregular warfare.

  “This all well and good but does it have to be us?” complained Quintana.

  “We’ve been chosen because The Devil’s Band needs to be baptised in blood but don’t worry, have you forgotten I bear a charmed life?” said Thomas and the others laughed.

  To allow the men time to prepare for the attack, those in the raiding party were excused other duties for the rest of the day and after an afternoon spent sharpening weapons and sleeping, the entire force began to assemble in the imperial trenches closest to the Five Abbeys. Most of the men were armed with swords or halberds but each company’s captain also carried several long cloth bags tied around their waists and a pair of lighted slow matches tucked into their hat bands. Quintana asked what these were for but Thomas would only grin and insist that the Portugee be patient.

  An hour after sunset the Duke of Bourbon ordered his captains to form their men into a skirmish line that could move quickly and silently over broken ground and whilst this was being done there was a huge explosion from the direction of the Porta Levrieri. Bourbon had learned many lessons whilst leading the failed siege of Marseille and he’d arranged for a diversionary artillery barrage to bombard the deer park’s eastern gate. The detonation of the mine was the signal for a cacophony of cannon fire to erupt from the imperial gun positions, tongues of flame spat from the earthworks and the air was filled with the whine of iron shot speeding towards the enemy.