Bernard Cornwell - 1356 (Special Edition)

‘Of course, Your Eminence.’

And to the cardinal’s surprise the recollection of Saint Peter’s sword gave him a sudden surge of hope. He, above all men, knew the tawdry nature of most relics and the deceit that such things played on the credulous. Any scrap of old bone, whether from a goat, a bullock, or an executed thief, could be palmed off as the knuckle of a martyr, yet despite his scepticism he felt a certainty that la Malice was indeed the sword of the fisherman. It could not fail. The angels themselves would fight for France, and victory would propel Louis Bessières onto the throne of Saint Peter.

‘Now go!’ the cardinal called to the men in front, though they were too far away to hear him.

And the French charged. ‘Montjoie Saint Denis!’

Thomas rode north along the English line. He could hear the French approaching, their big drums pounding the air, and he was curious to discover what was happening. So far his battle had been the short, vicious repulse of the horsemen by the ford, and then the equally short and savage battle inside the hedge. What had happened on the rest of the field was a mystery, and so he rode to find out and he saw, through the widest gap in the hedge, another French attack surging forward. What was strange was that there were no more Frenchmen on the distant skyline, except for a scatter of horsemen who appeared, like him, to be watching the battle.

He was about to turn back to tell his men what he had discovered and to warn them to be ready for another fight along the hedge when a voice shouted. ‘Are you an archer?’

Thomas assumed the question was directed at someone else and ignored it, then it struck him as strange that the question should have been asked in French. He turned and saw a man in black livery on which a yellow shield was decorated with silver scallops. The man was staring straight at Thomas.

‘I’m an archer,’ Thomas called back.

‘I need mounted archers!’ The man was young, but had an unmistakable air of confidence and authority. ‘Bring hand weapons!’

‘I can give you at least sixty archers,’ Thomas called back.

‘Be quick!’

The French came through the gap, screaming their war cry and, just as before, they crashed into the English line and, just as before, steel met steel. ‘Hold fast!’ a man bellowed in English. ‘Hold the line!’ Trumpets raked the sky with noise, the drummers hammered their skins, the war cries were shouted, and Thomas rode, only stopping when he reached the southern end of the line, which was still unengaged. ‘Karyl! It’ll be the same fight as before! Just hold them! Sam! I want every archer on his horse. Bring axes, swords, maces, anything that kills, and hurry!’

Thomas wondered who the man in the black jupon was or what in God’s name he had just agreed to do. His men were running to the tree line where Keane had picketed the horses. ‘Keane,’ Thomas shouted, ‘give me a poleaxe!’

The Irishman brought a poleaxe, then mounted his own horse. ‘I’m coming. Where are we going?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘A mystery ride, is it? We used to do that at home. Just ride off and see where we ended. Usually an alehouse.’

‘I doubt that’s our destination,’ Thomas said, then raised his voice. ‘Come with me!’ He kicked the horse back north. To his left the battle was loud. The English line was four men deep and it was holding. The men in the rear ranks were bracing the front rank, or thrusting with shortened lances between their comrades’ bodies, while behind the line two horsemen were jabbing lances at any enemy whose visor was lifted. There was a mass of Frenchmen in the hedge’s gap where banners waved, but most were still beyond the hedge, waiting for their leading men to hack out a space they could fill.

‘Follow me!’ the man in the black jupon shouted. He had sixty or so men wearing his black and yellow colours, and Thomas and his archers followed them into the trees. More archers joined, all following the man in black northwards. Thomas saw Robbie and Roland riding together and he kicked his horse to catch up with them.

‘What are we doing?’

‘Attacking from behind,’ Robbie said. He grinned.

‘Who’s leading?’

‘The Captal de Buch,’ Roland said.

‘Captal?’

‘A Gascon title. He has reputation.’

My God, Thomas thought, but he needs to be good. As far as he could see the captal had fewer than two hundred men and he planned to assault the French army? And most of those men were mounted archers, not trained men-at-arms, but if the captal felt any trepidation he did not betray it. He led the men down the hill, staying in the woods and going far behind the Earl of Salisbury’s battle that defended the right-hand end of the English line. The fighting was fierce there. Much of the earl’s position was beyond the hedge, and the slope leading to the English line was gentle, and so the French assailed around the hedge’s northern end to be met by men-at-arms and archers. Trenches trapped some Frenchmen. Archers fought with hand weapons, using their bow-given strength to batter armoured men. Thomas had a glimpse of that fight, then he was in the trees again. Acorns crunched under the hooves of his horse. Men ducked beneath the branches of oak and chestnuts. A handful of the men-at-arms carried long lances that had to be steered carefully between the thick trees, but they were not going fast. The strength of the horses needed to be conserved and so the captal led them at a trot, confident that he was hidden from the enemy. The sound of battle faded as they rode farther north.

They rode into a valley, crossed a trickle of a stream and climbed the further slope that was a field of stubble. Trees screened the northern and western skylines. Just before they reached the northern trees, the captal turned his horse to the left and rode into a thicket of oak that crowned a hill. When Thomas ducked into the trees he could see that the low hills to the north were covered with retreating men. Why? Had the French suffered a defeat that had escaped his notice? Yet there they were, hundreds and hundreds of men going northwards while the battle was still being fought on the English hill.

A small lizard skittered across Thomas’s path. Was that a good omen or a bad? He wished he still had the dried dog paw he used to wear as a talisman about his neck, a paw he had boasted to be a relic of Saint Guinefort, a dog that had been declared a saint. How could a dog be a saint? He made the sign of the cross, remembering that he had not confessed before this battle and he had not received any absolution. If he was killed, he thought, he would go to hell. He touched the paw again and curbed his horse. All the horses were standing now, pawing the ground and tossing their heads.

‘Standard bearer!’ the captal called.

‘Sire?’

‘The English flag.’

The standard bearer unfurled the white flag with the bold red cross of Saint George.

‘Weapons, gentlemen,’ the captal said in heavily accented English. He grinned and his teeth looked very white against his sun-darkened skin, which was shadowed by his helmet. ‘Now let’s destroy them!’

With those words he spurred his horse out of the trees. The men-at-arms and archers followed and as Thomas rode into the sunlight he suddenly saw the French army crowded at the hedge, and he saw that the captal had led them in a wide circle so that they were now riding at the French from the rear. The men-at-arms with lances held the weapons upright. All the long lances bore a black and yellow pennant: the captal’s colours. There was a small hedge in front of them, but there were gaps, and the horsemen streamed through, re-forming on the far side as the captal spurred into a canter. Thomas’s world was the thud of hooves, a devil’s thud counterpointing the drums of the French, who seemed oblivious of the horsemen coming from behind.