by Jack Ludlow
In the end the matter was decided by that endemic problem, hunger. The burning had been excessive and given the crops were far from ripe this led to a dearth. Added to that they were running out of animals to slaughter. The distance from Pisa was just too great to keep supplied a besieging army of six thousand men so, after weeks of demonstrations outside the walls, Sterz decided enough had been achieved for this season and began to withdraw.
The road he chose was not one that took them straight to the coast; there were rich pickings on another route. They made their way via a town called Volterra, which having suffered in its environs paid a handsome bribe in florins to persuade the White Company to move on, keeping safe the town itself.
Thus they rode back into Pisa in seeming triumph, displaying all the spoils of their raid, for it could not be called war, a point made by Hawkwood with some vehemence: the walls of Florence were intact and the city, which drew its food from a large hinterland as well as Sicilian imports and had faced famine in the past, possessed the means to store enough grain to ride out a crisis like that which they had just faced.
If there were frustrations it was pleasing to John Hawkwood on his return to Pisa to find that his communication to King Edward’s court had evoked a response, and a positive one, no doubt composed by a scribe but surely at the royal bidding for it had appended to it the appropriate seal. The King had, according to the letter, been delighted to hear from Sir John Hawkwood, His Majesty’s most loyal and well-beloved servant, a man whose fame had broken both time and distance. His exploits were known and much admired.
There was a lot of two-way pilgrim traffic between Calais and Italy, some of it by road, but for the wealthy travel by ship was much more preferable. Ports like Pisa and Genoa were prime destinations for those wishing to see something of the country before visiting Rome as well as points of departure for those returning home. Always keen to hear of how matters progressed in England, Hawkwood was happy to welcome those passing through whichever place he was in, which meant he was never in ignorance of matters at home. Likewise it would be such voices that carried news of his activities.
The letter went on to say that should he come across any matter that he felt would impact on his liege lord, then the King would in gratitude receive news of it, knowing full well that he had the affection of a man who had rendered him and his son Edward, Prince of Wales, such sterling service in time past.
If that raised his spirits the recent actions of the White Company did not. Robert Knowles, kept in ignorance of the letter – Hawkwood saw it as a private matter between him and his sovereign – having heard his friend issue a string of curses at what he saw as a waste of time and effort, much repeated since they had departed Florence, sought to balm his anger.
‘You can make your disgust known, John. We are on our way to a council at which Sterz will have to listen.’
‘He is too full of pomp for that now, Rob, and many of our confrères are blinded by his performance, even Thornbury. Our German sees himself as quite the consul deserving of a triumph. I think he sleeps with that damned golden baton they gave him. If he does, it would be better up his arse than in his hand for all the good it does. If I was Pisa, with what we have achieved I would hold back on payment.’
‘Please say that softly, I would not wish you to be giving them any hint of such a notion.’
‘Sterz is treating them as if they are fools. Yes, they are impressed by what he has displayed as booty. No doubt they care not what we extracted as ransom for Volterra as a bribe, but the scales will fall when matters are properly assessed. How long before it occurs to them that Florence, resupplied, is as strong as it was the day we first set out?’
A look around the council of captains and the self-satisfied expressions of most of those attending and drinking, when these matters were raised, was enough to tell John Hawkwood that Sterz was not alone in his fantasy of success.
‘We have done well enough, have we not?’ Sterz insisted. ‘We have lost few men, lined our coffers, our paymasters are happy and talk of an extension tour contract while we have time to refresh ourselves before the next assault.’
‘I am glad to hear there is to be one, Captain General. When is it to be?’
‘When I …’ That brought on a pause; being singular would cause offence by implying an imperious attitude. ‘When we see it as appropriate.’
‘And the plan is?’
If John Hawkwood was unware of losing the room by his hectoring tone, a large chamber in a house given over to the company, Robert Knowles, able to observe, could sense it. The majority of their peers were flushed with success and that was layered with arrogance. Were they not the men who had so recently humbled the Visconti? Had they not made merry with Florence and seen the enemy cower within their walls? It was time to take their pleasure and enjoy the fruits of success. Hawkwood was failing in his attempt to persuade them it was nothing of the sort.
Almost alone amongst the company captains, Hawkwood was not attracted to idleness, either for himself or his men. Yes, they should be allowed time to take their pleasures and spend their share of whatever spoils had been gained, but he knew that too long inactive the discipline of his brigade, of which he was proud, would suffer. He was now looking, he surmised, at a whole six months before Sterz intended to stir again, this in a city full of temptations of the flagon and the flesh.
The men of the White Company were not saints and the Hawkwood Brigade was little different, even if the captain kept them under a firm hand. If anything, they stood as the opposite, being used to taking what they needed without bothering to ask. Too long in Pisa and the mercenaries would become a menace to the citizens not an asset and that he was not prepared to tolerate. There were still a couple of months in which they could be vigorous and he could not fathom why they were not.
‘Then if it offends no one,’ he said finally, ‘I prefer to be active rather than seek the relief others crave. Comfort your whores and your bellies if you wish but I will keep the field.’
‘Is there a woman who will have you, Hawkwood?’ joked Baldwin. ‘And is there enough in your sack to make for pleasure?’
The South German was very drunk; he had to be to make such a crass remark to John Hawkwood. Normally he would never have cared about such a slur, indeed in another’s mouth and the right circumstances he would have laughed. Not here and not now, with his evident frustration at the company’s inactivity. The sword was out of the scabbard in a blink and he was moving to close and kill a man inebriated and slow to react. What saved Baldwin was distance, Thornbury and numbers: he was far enough away from Hawkwood to allow others to check the Englishman’s progress, which was done with caution, given the look of blind fury in the eyes.
It was the voice of John Thornbury that calmed the wrath once he was restrained, a quietly repeated insistence that Baldwin was not worth the consequences, which would be severe. A captain who slew another in fury could not stay with the company, for there was a necessary stricture against such an act. Heavy breathing slowed to become even, the tension in the body relaxed and the sword was slowly replaced.
‘You take offence too easily, Hawkwood,’ Sterz growled, slapping his gilded baton in a hand. ‘You know it is forbidden to draw a weapon in such a gathering.’
‘That is true, Captain General, so perhaps it is best that I remove myself from temptation to take offence again. I seek permission to act independently as I see fit?’
The way he had spat out Sterz’s title did not go unnoticed, for it singularly lacked respect in its delivery. The German flushed angrily, waving his baton again as he nodded.
When Hawkwood rode out of Pisa he did so ahead of his brigade, taking with him only Gold and others he held as being close to him, Alard and Ivor the Axe, well aware that what he was seeking carried with it a serious risk. The Florentines, with the White Company back in Pisa, would no longer be confined. So the route he took was circuitous to avoid both them and any fighting, keeping a number of
leagues between himself and the city in a search for that which he sought. It was a long ride, with nights spent in the open under the stars, comfortable enough in late summer.
Fertile Tuscany was dotted with innumerable small towns, villages and individual fortified dwellings and it was the very first that Hawkwood reckoned he needed, something he explained to his companions.
‘If we are not to assault the walls of Florence how are we to earn our fees, which are being paid to us to subdue them so they cannot threaten Pisa?’
Alard responded, the flames of their nightly fire lighting up his ruddy features.
‘I’ve had words with some in the levies that marched to the walls with us. Not that I claim to get every word they utter, with their heathen tongue, but they reckoned to be bent on capture of the city, with enough slaughter to hold Florence till doomsday, and who’s to say our paymasters don’t see that as just reward?’
‘Pipe-dreaming,’ opined Ivor. ‘Can’t be done without siege towers.’
‘You’re right, Ivor, and we would need many more men. That only leaves hunger. To starve them out means we have to deny them this year’s harvest and don’t think what we set fire to already will serve. We have ridden through enough ripening fields on our jaunt to tell us the truth. Harvest the crops and they can last for the whole of next year and for that we would need another contract. Well I can tell you, if I was a Pisan senator I’d look with care afore doing that given what has been so far achieved. That is why we are out here.’
‘We can’t beat them on our own,’ Gold scoffed.
The reply was enigmatic, ‘We’ll see about that, for I have another notion, which as of now I will not share. Now let’s get our heads down, Alard on first watch.’
Hawkwood found what he sought ten leagues from Florence: a small town called Figline, walled, but those in poor repair. Able in such a small number to freely pass through the gates, he discovered it had several advantages, not least that a proportion of its population originated from Pisa and still held a residual loyalty to the place of their birth. More important for his purpose, Figline stood in the most fertile part of the Florentine hinterlands.
From its walls he looked out on endless fields of waving wheat nearing ripeness, groaning orchards and, on the slopes, vines laden with grapes. It lay on elevated ground in rolling, hilly countryside, yet the land was well watered, fed by endless streams from the distant mountains and under near constant sunshine. Such places were part of the bread basket that no great city could do without.
With repair, Figline would become a defendable town the enemy could not just leave in Pisan possession, for from such a base any enemy could cause massive damage. Hawkwood was calculating that it could be so vital to their future survival they would have to come out from behind their walls and fight to retake it. No need to scale walls if the enemy could be beaten in the open.
‘All ’cepting we ain’t a company, John,’ Alard pointed out, ‘or had you failed to notice? Right of this moment we is not even a brigade.’
‘Which is why Gold is saddling his horse to ride back to Pisa to fetch the rest of our men. I will ask Knowles to join with us, Thornbury too. Once we have Figline, Sterz will have to stir to hold it. Then hopefully he can bring on a proper battle when they exit to fight, as I say they must.’
Hawkwood’s own brigade responded with cheering speed, for he had both their respect and their loyalty which he was adamant came from the application of his benevolent control. Some of his fellow captains scoffed at his methods, seeming indifferent as far as their own men were concerned. As long as they fought well their leaders were happy to oversee them with a slack hand. Hawkwood insisted on more: if his being strict was carried out without much of a rod, it held nevertheless, for wit and humour were more often employed than open chastisement. Not that he eschewed more draconian punishments if they were needed; his lances knew he had the will to string up any man who transgressed enough to warrant such a fate.
As soon as the brigade arrived, just over four hundred strong, he put them to ladder building, this carried out with noisy ostentation so as to alarm the citizens of Figline. They knew that in parts of the defences no elevation would be required; boots were all that was necessary to surmount the rubble of a fallen wall. The ride around the town on the day following was made noisily and close, so those same nervous inhabitants could look at what they would face once an assault started – and none could doubt it was coming – while messengers sent to Florence, and they must have been, did not bring the relief the fearful prayed for.
It was a feint; while waiting in Figline for his men, Hawkwood had made contact with the Pisans living within and promised them the town would be theirs to rule. They now snuck out to make contact in darkness, to confirm that at an agreed hour they would throw open the town gates to allow the mercenaries entry, away from where the areas of fallen masonry were being defended.
The time was fixed halfway between Lauds and Matins, when the first grey light of morning would touch what stonework still stood, with the Hawkwood brigade moving forward in darkness and silence to lie in the cornfields and wait. Their captain was to the front, as was common, and it was his standing up, brought on by a whistle from up ahead, that had them moving forward towards a set of gates that swung open before them.
Just inside lay the bodies of men who had been set to man it, their throats cut by their Pisan-born neighbours: easy it was claimed, for they were not soldiers, just citizens set to defend their hearths, as were those guarding the gaps in the walls. What followed was a deliberate tactic; outright terror of the kind Hawkwood rarely indulged in. His men were let loose to do as they wished within Figline, which made up for being denied Pisa, the aim of their captain to force into flight those Florentines who resided there. If treachery could have Figline fall once, it could do so again and it was wise to drive such folk away.
‘Christopher, back to Pisa once more, to tell our captain general of what I have done. Advise him and gently, for he is more than proud, that he needs to fetch the host to Figline. Our Florentine friends will be forced to act when they hear it is in our hands. Let him know also, I will be out raiding and lining all of our pockets until he arrives.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
What ensued was something of a race; would Sterz move quickly enough to ward off what must come? Would the commander of the Florentine forces act with a speed that had not been evident hitherto? Hawkwood, with scouts out, was soon made aware that his enemies had left the city and were marching to cross a bridge spanning the River Arno at Incisa, just over a league distant from Figline. They could move from there to confront him at will, which had him lighting hundreds of fires at night, hoping to fool them into thinking the whole of the White Company, as well as the Pisan levies, were present.
Sense demanded he go out personally on a dawn reconnaissance to assess what he would face, which inevitably brought him and his party close enough on a hill to grant them a long look at the Florentine encampment, with enough smoke rising in the air from their fires to tell him he was seriously outnumbered and would need the rest of the White Company just to hold Figline. If battle did follow – with Sterz present, that was not for him to decide.
‘We need to know more,’ was his glum conclusion; Sterz would want as much information as could be garnered before such a choice could be made. ‘I cannot see their numbers or how they are deployed at this distance.’
‘They will scarce let us approach closer,’ Gold replied. ‘Who and what we are is too obvious.’
He was addressing a man with his chin on his chest, deep in thought. There was a ploy he had once seen used by Prince Edward in Aquitaine and he was wondering if it might be worth a try now. Within his brigade he mustered twenty bannered knights, some his fellow countrymen, come to Italy in order to both underline their status and to seek plunder and pay. Then there was the possibility of the kind of glorious exploit that would lead to the composition of a stirring tale of prowess, to be spread
far and wide by minstrels, fame in posterity of as much value to some as gold.
One such was a truly bellicose Scottish fellow, the youngest son of a Caledonian Earl of Atholl, albeit he was an experienced soldier and doughty fighter. Called Murdoch of Calvine, he had protruding blue eyes, flaming red hair and a temper to match, added to a very high opinion of himself. He might thus be suited for that which was required so Hawkwood returned to Figline to fetch him, requesting that he ride out with him fully armed, this while he and his party changed in to less conspicuously military clothing.
Calvine appeared in his plate armour, lance in hand, sword and mace swinging from his belt, only lacking his plumed helmet to be fully ready to fight. This was only to be expected from a man who always seemed in search of one and that applied to his own confrères as much as it did to the enemy. Within the White Company lines he was held to be a touchy menace. Saying nothing of what he wanted Hawkwood headed out again to a spot where the group could once more observe their enemies.
‘Sir Murdoch, yonder sit the knights of Florence. I know you to be eager for combat and renown. It would please me if you were to go forth, seek out one of their number and issue a challenge on behalf of the White Company.’
The reply was typical: Calvine displayed anger and aggression where none was necessary; Hawkwood had barely raised his voice. ‘Aye, but will they accept, the dogs? I will not be made a poltroon by denial.’
‘I suspect if you term one of them a stinking dog he will have no choice. The way to say it so they will understand is cane puzzolente. I suggest no arbitrary contest but a formal duel of the kind that makes reputations.’
The bright-blue eyes narrowed. ‘I sense I will be doing what you ask for a purpose.’
Hawkwood was not much given to the blush but he reddened now: his aim was no mystery to this fellow. ‘It is for a good cause.’
‘The cause for which I care, sir, is my own honour.’
