Blood of the Innocents

by Michael Jecks

  ‘Remember what he said, men. Don’t chase after them if they appear to retreat. Listen to the orders, keep them back, hold to your lines. Is that clear enough, Imbert?’

  ‘Aye. I’ll do it.’

  Archibald was tending to his fire when the messenger arrived.

  ‘You have to pack up everything and prepare to leave.’

  Archibald looked up from blowing his embers into life and glared at the man. ‘Who in the name of all Heaven are you? I’m trying to keep this fire going so I can light my matches when I have to light my gonnes. I don’t have time to play silly games. I’ve been ordered to command this place. Who told you to come here and make a jest with me? I don’t have time for it!’

  ‘The army is to move, Master,’ the man said, and Archibald saw that his face was pale. He spoke quietly, but earnestly. ‘We cannot wait longer for the French to decide to attack. If they won’t attack us, we have to retreat and make our way to another place where we can fight them more safely.’

  Archibald gaped at him. ‘You can’t be serious, man! If we start to pack and go, the French will attack as soon as they see us riding off! We’ll be cut to pieces if we do that. No army harried in retreat has ever survived.’

  ‘Those are your orders. You are to gather your equipment and store it ready to depart,’ the man said. And in his eyes, Archibald saw the absolute certainty. He knew as well as Archibald that this could only lead to disaster.

  ‘Can you find men to help me load my gonnes, then?’

  ‘I will try, Master, but I cannot promise to succeed!’

  Archibald turned from him and looked at the English lines running down the hill behind the hawthorn hedge. ‘Dear God in Heaven, what will happen to us?’

  Ed was shaking his head. ‘We’ll be cut to pieces.’

  ‘We have one more trick,’ Archibald said, glancing down at his little ribauldequins.

  The first Berenger knew of the change in the battle plan was when he saw a number of horses brought up past him.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Dogbreath hissed, watching the beasts, and then turned to stare down the hill towards the men in the Earl of Warwick’s battle. ‘Frip, they’re mounting! They’re going!’

  ‘They can’t be,’ Berenger said, and peered down the slope, his eyes screwed tight as he attempted to make sense of the scene. He was sure that there were men mounting their horses, and then he saw the flash as lance-tips were raised. Immediately his stomach lurched. ‘Grandarse, what the fuck are they doing? It looks like they’re riding away!’

  ‘Ballocks, man, they wouldn’t be riding away!’ Grandarse glared down towards the river. ‘Aye, but the buggers look like they’re going. Clip, you get down there and see what they’re up to, man. Be quick and get back here to tell us!’

  ‘Grandarse, we won’t have much time. Look!’ Berenger said.

  There was a force of riders moving from the French army. Several hundred men-at-arms were moving forward in two groups. Even Berenger could see the size of the two companies, and from their speed he knew that they had to be horsemen.

  ‘Ach! Ballocks! Where are they going?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Grandarse! We’ll have enough on our plate in a minute. Archers! Make ready!’

  There was a clear noise of thunder in the distance now.

  Berenger peered out over the fields and hedges towards the French. He could see them more clearly. The men riding to the left were heading down towards the Earl of Warwick’s battle, to where the lances still gleamed, while the second company were riding more towards the Earl of Salisbury’s men. There was no sign that Berenger could see, yet, that the main army was moving towards them, but that was sure to be only a matter of time. Then he thought he saw the initial ripple. It was like looking at a scene over a hot field, or watching rocks beneath a flowing river.

  ‘They come!’ Robin yelled. ‘Archers, the enemy is marching to us! Prepare to receive the enemy!’

  Berenger gripped his bow more firmly. Clip was only halfway to the men of the Earl of Warwick, he thought, and then he heard the roars and cries as the French began their charge.

  It was a terrifying sight. He saw the destriers lengthening their stride. They were so close now, he could see them clearly. Some three hundred strong, the men-at-arms all couched lances and lowered their tips until they were pointing at the English. There were cries of alarm, at last, and trumpets blew, and Berenger saw the first of many flights of arrows fly, flat and true, at the French riders.

  But these were no light horsemen with boiled leather breastplates and thin mail. These were the heaviest soldiers in the French army. They had thick armour and plate on the horses’ heads and breasts. Berenger saw only two of the horses fall, although the archers kept up their efforts. The sound of steel striking steel became a regular sound now, and at last the charge was ended as the lances ripped into the men of Warwick’s battle. Men trying to wheel their mounts about suddenly found themselves stabbed by immense lances that pierced their armour and ripped their internal organs to pieces. The effect was instant and disastrous. The French had achieved a great shock and now they drew their swords or wielded war hammers as they set about the English.

  Berenger was half-inclined to take his men and run down to support the Earl’s men, but even as he called to Robin, the archer clapped his hands and pointed.

  It was hard to make out. ‘What?’ Berenger demanded.

  ‘Our archers in the marshes! They’ve moved behind the French. They’re loosing into the horses from behind. Their arrows are causing havoc.’

  Berenger could see some horses rearing, then he saw one crash to the ground, to roll on its back, legs flailing. Faintly over the clamour of metal on metal, he could hear the sound of screams, of wildly neighing beasts, of panicked men.

  ‘The French are taken in flank and from behind, Frip. They’re being slaughtered,’ Robin began gleefully, but then he grew quieter, less gleeful. ‘Some are turning back, and their mounts are trampling their own men on the ground. The brutes are pelting back to the French lines. One of them’s got a spike in its rump, and it’s trying to bite it free, it’s going mad. It’s knocked a man down, and now it’s kicking and bucking like an unbroken stallion. It’s a butcher’s scene, Frip.’

  Berenger had stopped listening to him as he felt the pounding on the ground again. This time the heavy horses were riding straight to the Earl of Salisbury’s men. He saw the flash as lances were couched. ‘Archers! With me!’

  Over on the far left, Archibald had heard the noise of battle approaching even as he took up his gonne and lashed the ropes to it. With Ed and two others, he hauled on the rope. The tripod of his makeshift hoist creaked and groaned and the rope gave off ominous little crackles, but the barrel rose, swinging. Béatrice was ready to push it into position on the wagon. Archibald heard cries and shouts, and for a moment he was distracted. A man gave a yelp as the rope moved and scraped away the flesh of his hand, and Archibald grabbed the rope more tightly at once, bellowing at the men to keep hold.

  ‘Hold hard!’ he shouted as the roars and trumpet-blasts grew louder and louder. Between the ringing of metal, he heard the French cries of ‘Saint-Denis’ and the English returns for Saint George, but he forced them from his mind.

  ‘Shit! We’ll let it down again, quickly now. Béatrice, we will set it down on the trestle once more!’

  ‘We were ordered to withdraw!’ Ed bellowed.

  ‘Fuck that! Do you want to die? If we try to now, we’ll be killed. May as well die while fighting!’ Archibald yelled back. He helped the men lower the barrel back into position while Béatrice guided it back onto its huge trestle and then he let the ropes dangle while he hurried back to hammer blocks into place to hold the gonne there.

  As he did, there was a sudden commotion, and a large group of French men-at-arms appeared. They saw Archibald and his men and started to run at them, shrieking their battle cries.

  Archibald grabbed his match and blew on the sparking, fizz
ing end, then turned the nearest three-barrelled ribauldequin around and pointed it at the men. One appeared to recognise his danger, but the rest continued without hesitation.

  ‘Loose it, Master!’ Ed cried, and Archibald touched the fire-hole. There was a fizzing, and then the first barrel gushed flame and fire, and he touched the next, sending a second great flare, although the third barrel fizzed and then went quiet. Suddenly it went off too, and a six-foot flame burst out, scorching the grass and sending the reek of brimstone all about.

  ‘Reload it,’ Archibald said to Ed, as he set about working on the great gonne again. He had already primed and filled the barrel with powder and was ramming a great stone ball into it with his ramrod, when the horses suddenly appeared.

  Archibald threw down his ramrod and tipped a little fine powder into the vent before cupping his hand over it to stop the wind taking the grains away. Then he pursed his lips and blew on his match. The great charge of horses came down the hill, and he peered along the barrel, trying to aim, but the line was not good, and even as he held the smouldering match to the vent, and the sharp hiss of burning powder sounded, he knew he would take only a few men.

  The gonne went off with a roar that shook the ground, and a flame twenty feet long reached out to the men-at-arms at their charge, seeming to lick at the horse’s hoofs, closely followed by an immense cloud of smoke. He saw one horse hit above the shoulder, and there was a filthy red splash thrown beyond as the ball continued to strike a man behind, and then the smoke mercifully hid the scene.

  Archibald scarcely noticed. To his horror, the trestle moved back two feet even with the bracing he had hammered into the ground. It was too damp here. The ground was so wet, the gonne leaped up and fell back half off its trestle. Archibald scurried to one side with his steel bar to force it back into position, almost tripping, and stared through the smoke, wiping smuts from his face, dreading to see a series of lance-points aiming straight at him, but to his astonishment, as he began to see the men and horses again, he saw that they had moved on, and were pelting down towards the archers, who redoubled their own efforts. Two horses and three men lay in the path of his gonne, one man feebly moving, and the nearer horse was waving his hind legs in the air, whinnying piteously.

  The cavalry continued down the hillside and pushed the archers further back into the thick mud of the Miosson’s marshes, but the horses couldn’t follow them. Archibald saw three of the horses in the front rising and plunging in the thick mud. Two of them panicked and tried to retreat. One threw his rider and bolted, while the other riders bypassed the archers and rode into the flank of the farthest point of the English line.

  Archibald yelled at Ed and the two dragged their little handcarts round to face the French as they approached, and then the two began to set match to powder, firing one barrel at a time, carefully conserving their fire so that the flames gushed regularly. The flames and thick, oily smoke added a new terror to the horses, but then there was more screaming, and anguish from the heavy horses. The archers were now behind them, and were sending flight after flight into the less heavily armoured rears of the men and the horses alike. Men were toppling from their beasts, while the destriers were themselves rearing and plunging with every stinging barb that slammed into their flanks and bellies.

  Archibald and Ed fired, cleaned and reloaded their gonnes, sending stones flying into the enemy until English men-at-arms rushed past them and began to hack and bludgeon the French.

  As Clip returned to tell of the carnage at the marshes, Berenger saw the Earl of Suffolk riding up and down the battle to the right. Cries of ‘Saint-Denis!’ and ‘Saint George!’ rose on all sides, and Suffolk was ordering men to fill gaps, directing the aim of archers and pointing the best targets. The Earl of Salisbury had been in the thick of the fighting, and now stood panting, resting on his sword. The whole of his arm was red with blood.

  ‘Archers!’ Suffolk bawled, pointing to Berenger, and Berenger took up a handful of arrows and ran to the aid of the Earl’s men. The riders were making for a gap in the thick hedge that protected the front, but the gap was only wide enough for five or six horses to ride abreast. Berenger made for it as fast as he could, aware of the panting of Imbert and Robin close behind him, and then they were in range.

  ‘Aim at them as they enter the gap!’ he shouted. If they could bring down two or three mounts there, it would give the rest of the French a difficult obstacle. He nocked, drew, aimed and loosed, then again, his arrows flying flat and true. He saw one arrow strike a horse’s breast and bounce back, to land quivering in the ground. A second bounced off a knight’s bascinet and whirled away out of sight.

  ‘Archers, to me!’ he bellowed, and pulled his sword free, running at the line of horsemen. The screams were deafening as he approached, and then he and his vintaine were in the thick of it. A man-at-arms was whirling his destrier, the massive iron-shod hoofs flying. An archer from the Earl of Salisbury’s company drew too close, and a hoof caught his forehead. It was crushed in an instant, and the man fell. There was a shriek from Berenger’s side, and he turned to see that another French knight had come from somewhere on his horse, and Baz had a poleaxe in his head. His eyes rolled up as Berenger cried out, and then Berenger hacked with all his strength at the knight’s forearm, and the man tried to wrestle with his weapon to extricate it from Baz’s head, but he couldn’t. Berenger saw an opening and thrust hard with his sword at the knight’s armpit. He felt his blade sink in, and the Frenchman gave a curse, letting go his poleaxe and slamming his armoured forearm at Berenger’s head. Berenger side-stepped and yanked his sword free, swinging it at the back of the man’s leg, but the horse had already moved away and his blow went wide. He saw Robin draw his bow and loose from only a matter of feet away, and this time the arrow penetrated the armour with a solid thump. Another man tried to hit him, but that arrow flew away, spinning, after bouncing from his breastplate. A third flew, and this caught the top of his breast and bounced upwards, under his gorget, and stuck there. The knight desperately fought to grab the missile, but with his great armoured gloves, he could get no purchase. He scrabbled wildly, then released his visor, and a spray of blood came from it. Another arrow flew, and hit him beside his nose. He fell from the saddle, instantly dead. Three archers hacked at his face where he fell.

  Berenger was at the hedge now. More knights and men-at-arms on heavy beasts were hacking and stabbing from their destriers, but the fight was beginning to move in favour of the English. Berenger saw with relief that a couple of the cavalrymen were turning and fleeing, while more were being dragged to the ground. He saw Imbert with a grapnel. It caught a man by the throat, and the archer and his companions hauled on it, tugging the man from his saddle, and stabbing him through his visor as he lay on the ground. Another man was slammed across the helmet with a lead maul, and tumbled out of the saddle, dazed.

  And then the battle was done. The French were dead or fleeing, and Berenger leaned on his sword and rested, panting.

  Pierre was by his side with Felix. ‘Is that it?’ the boy asked. ‘Have we won?’

  It was Robin who answered. ‘No. That was to tickle us. Now the main battle is approaching on foot.’

  ‘Archers!’ Berenger shouted. ‘To your positions, ready your bows!’

  Archibald had been busy. He had both ribauldequins loaded and pointing in the direction of the French and then, during the lull after the cavalry charge, he managed to reposition the main barrel and reload it.

  As the battle progressed, fewer and fewer French fighters came down to this area so far on the flank. The archers on his left, and the bodies before him, marked those who had been foolish enough to think they could get around him.

  ‘Where are they?’ Ed asked again.

  ‘They’ll come, never you worry,’ Archibald said calmly, but his coolness was a mask. Here, it was impossible to see when the French were coming. They could appear over the ground in front at any time, and when they did, he would have his work cut o
ut. ‘Make sure that the powder is in reach, Donkey, and get ready to serve those gonnes as fast as you can.’

  He cast an eye over his little encampment. They had not enough men. If a main force of French came rushing down here, he would have time to fire the gonnes once before they were all overrun. He had no illusions about their position.

  ‘Béatrice, I’d like you to go and find Berenger Fripper.’

  ‘Why?’ She had that mulish look on her face again.

  ‘Because, wench, I can’t protect you here. This isn’t going to be an easy battle where we have a clear field of view at all times. And I can’t fight if I’m worried about you all the time.’

  ‘And I have nowhere else to go,’ she snapped. ‘I have no family but you, no friends but you. I will stay here.’

  Berenger pulled Robin and Pierre back, shouting at Felix and Dogbreath to join him with the reserves. He had no idea of the passage of time now. It was impossible to tell how long it was since the first charge. Berenger was desperately thirsty, and he smacked his lips as if it could persuade him that he had taken a draught of ale or even water, but it brought no satisfaction. He shoved Felix after his father into the line, and turned to watch again as the French marched stolidly towards the English.

  The Prince and other leaders had stationed archers in trenches near the gaps in the hedges, and now they began to let fly in earnest. These men were less heavily armoured than the cavalry, and every arrow that found its mark caused a grievous wound. Berenger saw three men marching abreast, and all were suddenly struck by arrows almost simultaneously. They collapsed on the spot, instantly dead. Another man he saw struck by an arrow in the breast, and he stared at it dumbly before trying to follow his colleagues, but he fell after only three paces. One man was struck with two arrows at his flank and shoulder, and it seemed to send him berserk. He picked up his sword and ran full tilt into the English line ahead of his comrades, although he was hacked down before he could strike a single blow.