Bernard Cornwell - 1356 (Special Edition)

‘He’s dead!’ Sculley shouted. ‘The traitor’s dead! And it’s your turn now.’ He was carrying la Malice , the blade looking pathetically rusted and weak, but it was also discoloured by blood. ‘It looks like shit,’ Sculley said, ‘but it’s a canny weapon.’ He had lost his helmet, and his long, lank hair rattled with bones. ‘I took wee Robbie’s head off,’ Sculley said. ‘One cut of the magic sword and wee Robbie went to hell. See?’ He grinned and pointed to his saddle where Thomas saw Robbie’s bloody head was hanging by its hair. ‘I like a wee keepsake from a fight, and the sight

of that will make his uncle happy.’ He laughed at Thomas’s expression. No one was attacking the Scotsman because any Englishman or Gascon assumed a horseman who was not fleeing northwards must be on their side even if, like Sculley, he did not wear a red cross of Saint George. Now Sculley curbed his stolen horse. ‘Would you rather just surrender to me?’ he asked, then suddenly rowelled his spurs so that the destrier charged straight at Thomas, who, taken by surprise, could only thrust his poleaxe at the Scotsman, who easily avoided the clumsy blow and swept the ancient blade hard at Thomas’s neck, trying to take his head as he had taken Robbie’s.

Thomas jerked the axe back and upwards and somehow managed to parry the blow. The two weapons met with violent force and Thomas thought the old sword must break, but la Malice was still in one piece and Sculley backswung it with malevolent speed. Thomas ducked. La Malice ’s blade hit his bascinet and scraped across the crown, and Thomas instinctively wrenched his horse to the left and saw the sword coming back, snake-fast, in a cut aimed at his face. He somehow leaned out of the way, aware of the broad tip of the sword flashing perilously close. He tried to lunge the poleaxe’s spiked tip at the Scotsman, but Sculley just parried the heavy blade and struck again, this time slamming la Malice hard down, and the blade clashed onto Thomas’s helmet so fiercely that he was half stunned, his ears ringing, but the bascinet’s steel resisted the blade even though he was slumping in the saddle, grunting, trying to gather his wits and make room to swing his poleaxe.

‘Christ’s bowels, but you’re feeble,’ Sculley taunted. He grinned, prodded Thomas with the sword and laughed when Thomas swayed in the saddle. ‘Time to say hello to the devil, Englishman,’ Sculley said, and drew la Malice back for the killing blow, and Thomas dropped the axe, kicked his left foot free of the stirrup and lunged at the Scotsman. He threw his arms around Sculley’s chest and held on, gripping him, tearing Sculley out of the saddle so that they both thumped onto the ground, and Thomas was on top. He used his archer’s strength to punch Sculley in the face, his iron-clad gauntlet shattering a cheekbone and nose. He hit him again, and Sculley tried to bite him and Thomas drove his gauntlet down again, but this time with out-thrust rigid fingers that drove into Sculley’s left eyeball. The Scotsman gave a gurgling scream as the eye collapsed, then Thomas headbutted him with his helmet, and rolled off. He seized Sculley’s right arm and wrenched the sword free. ‘Bastard,’ he said, and he held the sword in both hands, left hand on the hilt, right on the backblade, and he drove the fore-edge into Sculley’s throat and sawed it hard so that he cut through gullet and blood vessels and sinew and muscle and Sculley still gurgled and blood jetted onto Thomas’s face and he went on pushing as the blood pulsed warm and the pulses slowly slackened and still Thomas sawed and pushed until the old blade met bone.

And Sculley was dead.

‘Jesus,’ Thomas said, ‘sweet Jesus.’ He was on his knees, shaking. He stared at the sword. A miracle? He saw that someone had made a new wooden hilt for the ancient blade, and that hilt was slick with blood.

He stood. Robbie’s horse was beside him and, in a spasm of anger, he cut the hair that held Robbie’s head. It thumped on the ground. He would have to find the rest of his old friend and dig a grave, but before he could think how he might do that he saw Roland de Verrec standing helpless in front of a fat man in armour. The fat man had a green and white jupon and, as Thomas watched, he drew his sword and held it towards Roland. It was the Count of Labrouillade. There was shit dribbling down the back of his armoured legs. ‘I am your prisoner!’ he announced loudly.

Thomas walked towards the two men. Sam and a half-dozen archers had seen Thomas and they now rode towards him, bringing Thomas’s horse with them.

‘He surrendered,’ Roland called to Thomas.

Thomas said nothing. Kept walking.

‘I have yielded,’ the count said loudly, ‘and will pay a ransom.’

‘Kill the fat bastard!’ Sam called.

‘No!’ Roland de Verrec held up his hand. ‘You cannot kill him. That is dishonourable.’ He stumbled over the English word.

‘Dishonourable?’ Sam asked, incredulous.

‘Sir Thomas,’ Roland looked desperately unhappy, ‘a man who has surrendered is safe, is he not?’

Thomas ignored Roland, seemed not even to see him. He still said nothing. He walked up to the count, who was holding his sword out in surrender.

‘Chivalry dictates that he must be kept alive,’ Roland said. ‘Is that not so, Sir Thomas?’

Thomas had not even looked at Roland. He just gazed at the count and then, almost as fast as Sculley, he backswung la Malice so that the blade chopped into the count’s neck. The sword sliced beneath the helmet’s rim, cutting through the aventail to bite deep into the fat neck, and Thomas sawed it back, thrust it forward with an archer’s strength and was hit by even more blood as the Count of Labrouillade sank to his knees, and Thomas gouged the blade deeper and deeper until the life went from Labrouillade’s eyes and he fell hard onto the grass.

‘Sir Thomas!’ Roland said in outrage.

Thomas turned wide-eyed on Roland. ‘Did you say something?’

‘He had surrendered!’ Roland protested.

‘I’m deaf,’ Thomas said. ‘I was hit on the head and I can’t hear a thing. What are you telling me?’

‘He had surrendered!’

‘I can’t hear what you’re saying,’ Thomas said. He turned away and winked at Sam.

Fifty yards away men were fighting around the King of France. His standard had fallen, the standard bearer was dead, and his son was trying to help his father. ‘Look left, Father! To the right! Watch out!’ The king was fighting with an axe, though no one was trying to kill him, just to capture him. The decoys who had worn his colours were dead or had fled, but everyone knew this was the real king because his helmet was surmounted by a golden crown, and men wanted to take him alive because his ransom would be unimaginably huge. Men grabbed at the king, fought each other to get close to him, and the king shouted that he could make them all rich, but then two horsemen forced their great destriers into the crowd and bellowed at all the men to step back on pain of death.

The Earl of Warwick and Sir Reginald Cobham confronted King Jean and Prince Philippe. Both men dismounted and both men bowed low. ‘Your Majesty,’ the earl said.

‘I am a prisoner,’ the King of France said.

‘Alas, Your Highness,’ Sir Reginald said, ‘it is the fate of battle.’

The king was taken.

One of the archers played pipes made from oat straw, the tune wistful and thin. A campfire burned, throwing twisting red light onto the branches of the oaks. A man sang; other men laughed.

The King of France was being feasted by the Prince of Wales, while on the flat hilltop where the battle had ended the birds and beasts gorged themselves on the dead. The dead went all the way to the gates of Poitiers because the English and Gascons had pursued the enemy that far, and the citizens of Poitiers, fearing an English invasion, had refused to open their gates and so the fugitives had been trapped under the walls and there the last of them had died. The old Roman road that ran to the city was littered with the dead, but now the living sat around fires and ate food they had plundered from the enemy’s abandoned camp.