by Wayne Grant
Patch grabbed two of the Invalids and sent them dashing back to the island to fetch the flammable tar. The old engineer watched them return carrying a small barrel between them and motioned them toward the barricade. He called for an axe and three men offered theirs. Hefting the smallest, Blakemore cracked open the barrel.
“Smear a double fist-full every few paces along here,” he said, pointing to the rear of the growing barricade.
As men leapt to follow his instructions, Declan leaned and whispered to Roland.
“I don’t think this is Master Blakemore’s first bridge burning.”
The smell of pitch filled the air as Blakemore supervised the placement of the black tar. When it was done, the old man stepped away and nodded.
“She’ll burn like hell itself when the time comes,” he pronounced, then turned away and leaned on the railing. He ran a wrinkled hand along the rough wood.
“It was a beautiful bridge,” he murmured to himself.
***
Sir Robert Mandeville stomped over the southern span of the bridge and stopped in his tracks as he surveyed the growing barricade at the far end of the structure and the barrel of pitch being rolled slowly across the roadway, its contents spilling onto the wooden bridge.
“Merciful God!” he exclaimed as he bulled his way through dozens of men scrambling to prepare the bridge’s defences. He found Roland and Declan standing on barrels peering over the barricade into the darkness.
“O’Duinne!” he shouted.
Declan turned to look down at the man.
The castellan pointed at Roland.
“I want that man arrested!” he demanded.
“On what charge?” Declan asked with an amused grin.
“Disobeying orders!” Mandeville snarled.
Declan looked at Roland and shook his head.
“Again?”
Roland started to answer but was interrupted by a low rumble that began to grow in the darkness south of the bridge. He whirled round and squinted down the river road, trying to pierce the darkness. At first he saw nothing, then a dozen riders emerged from the gloom, reining in a hundred yards from the barricade. Wordlessly he slipped an arrow from his quiver and nocked it.
Declan looked over his shoulder at Sir Robert.
“The arrest will have to wait, my lord. I need Sir Roland here to shoot some Frenchmen for me.”
***
It took half a minute for Roland to send three riders toppling backwards over their saddles. Recognizing the danger, the remaining French scouts scattered back into the darkness to await the arrival of the main body of their army. In the sudden lull, Mandeville clambered up the side of the barricade and peered over the top, his young squire Humbert close on his heels. A riderless horse was walking back and forth fifty paces from the end of the bridge, taking care to step around the fallen French scouts. The castellan gaped at the dead men, then swung around to face Roland.
“It’s nothing more than a patrol, Inness,” he declared. “No doubt you hoped it was the entire French army to finally give some credence to your fanciful tales.”
He turned to Declan.
“And you O’Duinne! I ordered you to arrest this man. Do you refuse?”
Declan shrugged, growing tired with the man’s ranting.
“I do refuse, my lord. Now draw a sword and prepare to defend this barricade or step aside.”
Mandeville reddened. He swung his arm in an arc taking in the men who were now gathering along the top of the barricade.
“Mutineers! All of you!” he screamed.
Just then a hail of crossbow bolts leapt out of the darkness, thumping into the wood of the barricade and striking flesh as well. Young Humbert, Mandeville’s squire, was standing on tip toes to gawk at the French and took a quarrel through the neck. He staggered backwards, blood staining his tunic and a horrible gurgling sound coming from his throat.
Declan reached for the lad but missed as Humbert tumbled backwards off the barricade, landing with a thud on the bridge. Mandeville looked down at the boy in shock, then ducked as more crossbow bolts whistled past his head. Abandoning all dignity, he scrambled down from the barricade and, paying no mind to his squire, ran for the north side of the bridge.
***
King Philip eased himself down from the saddle of his charger and squatted by the road side, trying to relieve the stiffness in his loins from the long ride from Gaillon. The scout’s report he’d just received was annoying, though not entirely unexpected. He’d hoped that by a swift night march he could catch the English garrison at Château Gaillard completely unprepared for his attack, but a lone rider had been seen galloping north ahead of his army. His scouts gave chase, but could not catch the enemy horseman and total surprise had been lost.
Now there was a hasty barricade blocking the bridge. It wasn’t enough to stop an army for long, but the English commander would surely know that and would, even now, be considering what to do once the barrier was breached.
“He’ll burn the bridge,” the King said to his mercenary commander, Lambert Cadoc.
Cadoc nodded.
“Not until we make him, your grace,” the Brabançon leader said.
Philip rose slowly from his squat, his knees groaning.
“Very well. We shall make him. Send in the cavalry once they’re up,” he ordered, “but ready the men on the river.”
***
As the night drew on, the frantic activity on the bridge quieted as every barrel, crate and loose beam that could be found on the island had been piled onto the barricade that now stood ten feet high. Roland, Declan and Patch, along with Seamus Murdo and six other Invalids settled themselves where they could find good footing near the top of the barrier and peered across at the far bank.
There was a full moon rising and it cast a silvery luminescence over the waters of the Seine and the surrounding landscape. The road from Gaillon curved out of sight around a bend in the river concealing the French column from view, though sound travelled well in the still air. The men on the bridge could hear the French making ready as sharp commands, too distant to be understood, drifted across the water. A horse squealed, then another.
On the bridge behind the barricade, the Invalids lined up, ready to take the place of any man on the makeshift barrier who fell. Brother Cyril moved through the ranks, joking with some, reassuring others. He said a quick prayer with the devout Christians and another for those who professed no belief in God. One man who routinely threw up before battle, did so now, emptying his stomach into the Seine. No one jeered at him, for he was a steady man in a fight and each man had his own way of dealing with the fear that came before battle.
Roland reached over and touched Declan’s shoulder.
“Luck to you, Dec.”
“And to you, Roland.”
***
At midnight, three hundred dismounted French heavy cavalry charged the barricade at the end of the bridge. These were not hired mercenaries. They were true knights, men from the noblest families in France, eager to claim the glory of seizing Château Gaillard by storm. They were resplendent in expensive mail, wielding swords of finest Toledo steel and carrying polished shields emblazoned with proud family crests. Though high-born, they were veterans of four years of near-constant warfare against the English and hard-bitten soldiers all.
They came on with savage war cries, confident they could sweep away the few garrison troops holding the flimsy barricade at the end of the bridge. A handful fell before reaching the base of the barrier, hit by arrows from a lone archer atop the jumble of crates and beams, but that hardly stemmed the wave of muscle and steel pouring onto the bridge.
The span over the Seine was no more than twenty feet wide and as the French knights reached it they were forced into a narrow front. The confined space between the river bank and the barricade on the bridge quickly became choked with rank after rank of attackers pressing forward. Those in the front reached the barricade and scrambled upward to close on
the defenders while those in back raised their shields to fend off arrows, spears and rocks being hurled at them from atop the barrier.
In the crush, the upstream railing of the bridge gave way tumbling a half dozen knights into the dark waters. Some sank instantly to the bottom, weighed down by their mail while others managed to grasp onto the pilings supporting the bridge, only to be swept downstream by the strong current. None of this slowed the mad rush of the front ranks, eager to get at the bridge defenders.
As the French neared the top of the barrier, Roland set aside his longbow and drew his short sword. He glanced down the front rank of the Invalids. Seamus Murdo stood there placidly waiting for an unlucky Frenchman to climb within reach of his axe, outfitted now with a newly carved long handle. Sir John Blackthorne whipped his sword back and forth as though beckoning the French to come to him. Declan stood with his broadsword resting across a shoulder, watching a tall Frenchman nimbly climbing toward him.
Few of the Invalids were high-born. Their shields were of oak wrapped in iron, their swords and axes were pitted, but sharpened to a razor’s edge. They now stood atop the barricade, a solid wall of men waiting for the enemy to reach them. When the French neared the top of the barricade, they were met with a savagery born of pride and desperation.
Axes smashed polished helmets, broadswords hacked off arms, short swords found exposed necks. The first rank of French knights to reach the top of the barricade were slaughtered, tumbling back to fall among their comrades still trying to pick their way up the sides of the barrier. The second wave fared no better as the pile of bodies at the bottom of the barricade grew.
General Cadoc watched the attack from well back on the river road. Like the men on the bridge, he had expected only light resistance from local garrison troops, but was quick to recognize that the men atop the barricade knew their business. As he watched his noble cavalry cut down at the top of the barrier, he turned to his aide.
“Send up the crossbowmen,” he ordered.
***
At the top of the rise, Bertrand Dieupart reined in The Grey and cast his eyes back toward the river valley and the walled town. Even at this distance he could hear the sound of steel on steel in the quiet night and knew the battle had been joined. He reached down and patted The Grey on the neck.
“Allez, mon grand gris,” he whispered to the big gelding, “we have far to go.” He touched the horse’s flanks with his heels and The Grey leapt forward.
***
A score of Genoese crossbowmen, accompanied by an equal number of men carrying light mantlets to protect the archers moved forward and took up positions behind the mass of knights on the bridge. Soon a withering rain of crossbow bolts began to sweep across the top of the barricade. A bolt glanced off Roland’s steel helmet and disappeared over the side of the bridge.
“Shields!” he ordered, but the warning came too late for some. Patch had lunged forward to drive his sword into a Frenchman’s armpit as the crossbowmen released their quarrels. Exposed at the top of the jumble of crates and beams, a bolt struck him full in the chest. For a moment he stood there, looking down at the shaft protruding from just above his breastbone, then sank to his knees.
Roland saw Patch go down, but was hard-pressed by two Frenchmen and could not get to him. Brother Cyril, had also seen the man struck. The little monk scrambled up from the rear of the barricade and caught the one-eyed knight as he was falling backwards. Cyril looked over his shoulder and saw men rushing forward, climbing toward their fallen comrade..
“A surgeon! Fetch the surgeon!” he cried out, then turned back to Patch who lay cradled in his arms. “We’ll get you to the surgeon, Tom, just hang on a bit.”
Tom Marston shook his head and grasped the skinny chaplain’s arm. His face showed the pain, but he managed a tight smile as he looked down at the shaft in his chest.
“Surgeon can’t help this, father,” he said flatly.
Brother Cyril wanted to protest, but said nothing. Like Patch, he’d seen many wounds and knew that this one was likely beyond the surgeon’s art to repair.
“I’ve been a sinner, father,” Patch gasped and Cyril saw pink blood frothing at his mouth.
“We are all sinners, Tom—all of us,” he said gently to the fallen knight as the battle raged on around them. “But God is merciful.”
“Even to one such as I?”
“Yes, to one such as you, Tom.”
The wounded knight coughed and bright red blood filled his mouth. He turned his head to the side and spat it out, then grasped Cyril by his sleeve.
“I hope yer right, father,” he said and closed his eyes.
Tom Marston was dead.
For veterans of the company, Patch was the first leader they had known. When the wounded and maimed casualties of King Richard’s Crusade had found no welcome at home, they’d drifted to London and it had been Patch who’d welcomed them into the fraternity of outcasts that was the Invalid Company. The man had been a drunkard and a carouser in the early days, but when swords were crossed, he’d more than proven his worth as a soldier.
Many hands helped pass the body down from the barricade. Men cursed, men wept and in the rear ranks a feral howl began to grow as men watched Tom Marston’s body carried to the rear. They pressed forward, eager to make the French pay for this loss. Roland heard the curses and the weeping and knew that it meant Patch was gone. He could sense the rear ranks pressing forward and knew he should order the men to stand fast, that breaking ranks could lead to disaster, but he owed as much to Tom Marston as any of the Invalids.
And if the Invalid Company wanted blood, he would join them.
***
Over the top of the barricade they came, a howling mass of men pouring down on the startled French knights. A slash from Roland’s short sword caught an unwary Frenchman in the helmet, knocking him cold and tumbling him down the far side of the barricade. Roland slammed his shield into another man, unbalancing the knight and sending him pitching backwards. Next to him Declan performed more deliberate sword work, stepping nimbly from one narrow perch to the next, thrusting and slashing with a precision that found the small gaps in a man’s mail. Further off, Roland could hear Seamus Murdo cursing in Gaelic. He dare not turn his head to see the big man, but he saw bodies landing among the mass of Frenchmen at the bottom of the barricade, sent there by the Scotsman’s long axe.
As men tumbled backwards, some dead and some simply knocked from their unsteady perches by the furious assault descending on them, the mass of knights at the foot of the barricade braced themselves.
It did no good.
The momentum of the Invalid’s charge crashed into the crowd on the bridge driving the first ranks back into the tightly-packed mass behind. More men were forced off the side of the bridge and into the dark waters of the Seine as the Invalids drove through the centre of the French ranks. In the rear, the Genoese saw this pack of howling madmen coming toward them. In the melee there were no clear targets for them, so they prudently broke and ran, back toward the safety of the army that still waited on the river road.
General Cadoc had seen enough. He turned once more to an aide.
“Sound the recall,” he ordered as he watched the French knights begin to break under the relentless attack of the Invalids. A trumpeter blew a series of high short notes and the flower of French chivalry joined the crossbowman fleeing to the rear. As they passed by, Cadoc summoned another aide to his side.
“Dispatch the river force,” he ordered.
***
“Back! Back!” Roland shouted and Declan, seeing the thick column of infantry on the road ahead, took up the cry.
“Invalid Company, hold! Back to the barricade!”
In the grip of their battle fury, it took an effort of will to stop the pursuit of a routed enemy, but the Invalids were no ill-disciplined mob. They saw the army waiting on the road and heard Roland’s command. It brought their mad charge to a halt.
Standing in the bright moonli
ght, the Invalids shouted taunts and insults at the French knights fleeing to the safety of the massed infantry choking the road. Their quarry out of reach, the Invalids began edging slowly back toward the bridge and the barricade. It was a poor revenge for the loss of Sir Tom Marston, but it would have to do.
Somewhere behind the ranks of French infantry, a horse whinnied and Roland knew that the French knights, their pride wounded and their reputation sullied by their headlong retreat, would be mounting their chargers in hopes of riding down their English tormentors before they could once more reach the safety of the barricade on the bridge.
“Cavalry!” Roland screamed, and the Invalids broke for the bridge at a dead run.
***
Philip Augustus reined in next to Cadoc as the last of the French knights reached the safety of the massed infantry. The ground between where they stood and the bridge was littered with dead Frenchmen.
“I was told that a company of disgraced mutineers was all we would find defending the town,” the King said coldly. “Who are those men?”
Cadoc shook his head.
“I don’t know, your grace. Whoever they are, they can fight. But they appear to number hardly more than a hundred.”
“For that, at least, I’m thankful.”
“I’ve ordered the river force forward, your grace,” Cadoc said, anxious to change the subject.
“Let us hope they fare better than these,” the King said tartly, as he gestured toward the heaps of dead on the road.
***
As the Invalids reached the barrier, Roland saw Brother Cyril standing at the top waving his arms wildly.
What now? he thought.
“My lord!” the little monk called out, pointing to his left, “the river!”
Roland looked to his right and felt his gut tighten. Illuminated by the full moon, a flotilla was coming around the bend in the Seine—fifteen boats at least, their oars catching the moonlight as they swept downstream with the current. The boats were thick with men.
As he reached the top of the barricade, he saw the boats angle toward the far bank where the bridge gate of Les Andelys gaped, wide open. He cursed to himself for leading all of his men over the bridge and leaving none to watch their rear. Now, if the men in these boats reached the open gate first, the Invalids would be cut off from the town and stranded on the bridge with the French holding both banks.
