Bernard Cornwell - 1356 (Special Edition)

And then there was a sudden quiet, except for the eternal sound of the river and the birdsong and the screams of horses and the beat of hooves striking the ground in the animals’ death throes.

The archers unstrung their bows so that the yew staves straightened. Prisoners, some wounded, some staggering, were being led to the ford while Englishmen were stripping dead horses of precious armour and harness and saddlery. Some put horses out of their misery by unbuckling the chamfrons and then striking them hard between the eyes with a war axe. Other men unbuckled plate armour from dead knights and hauled mail coats off corpses. An archer strapped a French knight’s sword around his waist. ‘Sam,’ Thomas shouted, ‘fetch the arrows back!’ Sam grinned and led a dozen men into the remnants of the carnage to collect arrows. It was also a chance for plunder. A wounded Frenchman tried to stand. He raised a hand to an English man-at-arms who knelt beside him. The two men spoke and then the Englishman lifted the Frenchman’s visor and stabbed him through the eye with a dagger. ‘Too poor to have a ransom, I suppose,’ the rider behind Thomas said. He watched as the man-at-arms sheathed his dagger and began to strip the corpse. ‘God, we’re cruel, but we’ve captured Marshal d’Audrehem, and isn’t that a good beginning to a bad day?’

Thomas turned. The man’s visor was lifted to reveal a grey moustache and thoughtful blue eyes, and Thomas instinctively went to a knee. ‘My lord.’

‘Thomas of Hookton, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘I wondered who in Christ’s name was wearing Northampton’s colours,’ the man said, speaking in French. Thomas had ordered his men to wear jupons with Northampton’s badge, a badge that most men in the English army would recognise. A few had the red cross of Saint George strapped around an upper arm, but there were not enough armlets for all his men. The horseman who spoke to Thomas wore the white star on his red and yellow jupon, while the gold chain about his neck proclaimed his rank. He was the Earl of Oxford, brother-in-law to Thomas’s lord. The earl had been at Crécy and afterwards Thomas had met him in England, and he was astonished that the earl remembered him, let alone remembered that he spoke French. He was even more astonished when the earl used his brother-in-law’s nickname. ‘It’s a pity Billy isn’t here,’ the earl said grimly, ‘we need all the good men we can get. And I think you should get your men back up the hill now.’

‘Up the hill, sire?’

‘Listen!’

Thomas listened.

And heard the war drums.

The French horsemen had attacked at the ford and at the right-hand end of the English line, but as those charges went home other horsemen rode in front of the dauphin’s battle to challenge the English on their hill.

Six men chose to ride. Each was a tournament champion of fearsome reputation. They rode superbly trained destriers, and their winnings in the lists had bought them the finest armour that could be made in Milan. They rode close to the English hedge and called out their challenge, and the English archers ignored them. Six men did not make a battle, and there was no honour and not much usefulness in killing a solitary horseman when so many other men-at-arms were approaching on foot.

‘Pass the word that they’re to be ignored,’ the Prince of Wales ordered.

The challengers were part of battle’s dance. They went to taunt the English and in the hope of finding an opponent they could unhorse and kill, and so dispirit the English. They shouted their defiance. ‘Are you women? Do you know how to fight?’

‘Ignore them,’ the commanders growled at their men.

But one man disobeyed. He owed no allegiance to any commander on the English side, and he knew the impudent challengers were meant to be ignored. Let them waste their breath, the real battle was not fought between champion and champion, yet still that one man mounted, took a lance from his squire, and rode out from the left of the English line.

He wore no jupon. His armour had been scrubbed so that it shone. His horse took small steps as he restrained it. His helmet was a tournament helmet, crowned with pale blue plumes, and his small black-painted shield bore the symbol of the white rose, the rose without thorns, the flower of the Virgin Mary. Around his neck he wore a blue scarf of finest silk, a woman’s scarf, a gift from Bertille. He rode a track that twisted through the vineyard until he reached the open grassland in the valley’s shallow base, and there he turned his horse and waited for one of the six to accept his challenge.

One man did. He was from Paris, a brutal man, quick as lightning and strong as a bull, and his armour was unpolished, his jupon a blue so dark it looked almost black. His device, embroidered on the jupon and painted on his shield, was a red crescent moon. He faced Roland de Verrec. ‘Traitor!’ he shouted.

Roland said nothing.

Both sides were watching. The other champions had withdrawn from the vineyard beneath the hedge and watched from behind their companion.

‘Traitor!’ the Parisian shouted again.

Still Roland said nothing.

‘I won’t kill you!’ the Parisian called. His name was Jules Langier and his trade was fighting. He hefted his lance, sixteen feet of ash tipped with a steel head. ‘I won’t kill you! I’ll take you in chains to the king and let him kill you instead. Would you rather run away now?’

Roland de Verrec’s only answer was to prop his lance against his right knee and close his visor. He lifted the lance again.

‘Jules!’ one of the other champions called. ‘Watch his lance. He likes to lift it at the last minute. Protect your head.’

Langier nodded. ‘Hey, virgin,’ he called, ‘you can run away now! I won’t chase you!’

Roland couched the lance. His horse took tiny skittering steps. A faint rough cart track crossed diagonally in front of him and he had noted it; he had seen where the wheels had made ruts in the soil. Not deep ruts, but enough to make a horse falter slightly. He would ride to the left of the ruts.

He felt little emotion. Or rather he felt as though he watched himself, as if he was disembodied. The next moments were all about skill, about cold-blooded skill. He had never faced Langier in the lists, but he had watched him and he knew the Parisian liked to bend low in the saddle as he struck home. That made him a small target. Langier would bend low and use his thick shield to throw off his opponent’s lance, then turn snake-fast and use his short, heavy mace to attack from behind. It had worked many times. The mace was kept in a deep leather pocket attached to the right side of his saddle behind his knee. It could be snatched up in an eyeblink. Snatched and backswung, and all Roland would know was the sudden flare of white in his skull as the mace smashed into his helmet.

‘Coward!’ Langier called, trying to provoke Roland.

Roland still said nothing. Instead he held out his left arm. He dropped his shield. He would fight without it.

The gesture seemed to infuriate Langier who, without another word, dug in his spurs so that his destrier leaped forward. Roland responded. The two horsemen closed. They were not far enough apart for either to reach a gallop, but the horses were straining as they closed. Both horses knew their business, both knew where their riders wanted them to go. Roland steered his mount with his knees, keeping it just to the left of the rut, and he raised his lance point so that it threatened Langier’s eyes, and they were close now, their world the beat of hooves, and Langier swerved his horse slightly right and it faltered a tiny bit as a hoof hit uneven ground, and Langier was bending down, shield protecting his body as the lance was pointed plumb at the base of Roland’s breastplate, and then the lance flew up and the horse was stumbling and Langier was desperately trying to pull it right with knee pressure, but the horse was down on its knees, sliding in grass that was slicked with frothy blood and Langier saw that his opponent’s lance, instead of being aimed at his head, had pierced his horse’s chest.