Bernard Cornwell - The Grail Quest 1 - Harlequin

The crossbowmen paused at the foot of the English slope and shook themselves into line before placing their bolts into their bows" troughs. Thomas took out his first arrow and superstitiously kissed its head, which was a wedge of slightly rusted steel with a wicked point and two steep barbs. He laid the arrow over his left hand and slotted its nocked butt onto the centre of the bowstring, which was protected from fraying with a whipping of hemp. He half tensed the bow, taking comfort from the yew's resistance. The arrow lay inside the shaft, to the left of the handgrip. He released the tension, gripped the arrow with his left thumb and flexed the fingers of his right hand.

A sudden blare of trumpets made him jump. Every French drum-mer and trumpeter was working now, making a cacophony of noise that started the Genoese forward again. They were climbing the English slope, their faces white blurs framed by the grey of their helmets. The French horsemen were coming down the slope, but slowly and in fits and starts, as though they were trying to anticipate the order to charge.

God is with us!" Father Hobbe called. He was in his archer's stance, left foot far forward, and Thomas saw the priest had no shoes.

What happened to your boots, father?"

Some poor boy needed them more than I did. I'll get a French pair."

Thomas smoothed the feathers of his first arrow.

Wait!“ Will Skeat shouted. Wait!” A dog ran out of the English battleline and its owner shouted for it to come back, and in a heartbeat half the archers were calling the dog's name. Biter! Biter!

Come here, you bastard! Biter!"

Quiet!" Will Skeat roared as the dog, utterly confused, ran towards the enemy.

Off to Thomas's right the gunners were crouched by the carts, linstocks smoking. Archers stood in the wagons, weapons half braced. The Earl of Northampton had come to stand among the archers.

You shouldn't be here, my lord,“ Will Skeat said. The King makes him a knight,” the Earl said, and he thinks he can give me orders!“ The archers grinned. Don't kill all the men-at-arms, Will,” the Earl went on. Leave some for us poor swordsmen."

You'll get your chance,“ Will Skeat said grimly. Wait!” he called to the archers. Wait!“ The Genoese were shouting as they advanced, though their voices were almost drowned by the heavy drumming and the wild trumpet calls. Biter was running back to the English now and a cheer sounded when the dog at last found shelter in the battleline. Don't waste your goddamn arrows, Will Skeat called. Take proper aim, like your mothers taught you.” The Genoese were within bow range now, but not an arrow flew, and the red-and-green-coated crossbowmen still came, bending for-ward slightly as they trudged up the hill. They were not coming straight at the English, but at a slight angle, which meant that the right of the English line, where Thomas was, would be struck first. It was also the place where the slope was most gradual and Thomas, with a sinking heart, understood he was likely to be in the heart of the fight. Then the Genoese stopped, shuffled into line and began to shout their war cry.

Too soon," the Earl muttered.

The crossbows went into the shooting position. They were angled steeply upwards as the Genoese hoped to drop a thick rain of death on the English line.

Draw!" Skeat said, and Thomas could feel his heart thumping as he pulled the coarse string back to his right ear. He chose a man in the enemy line, placed the arrow tip directly between that man and his right eye, edged the bow to the right because that would compensate for the bias in the weapon's aim, then lifted his left hand and shifted it back to the left because the wind was coming from that direction. Not much wind. He had not thought about aiming the arrow, it was all instinct, but he was still nervous and a muscle was twitching in his right leg. The English line was utterly silent, the crossbowmen were shouting and the French drums and trumpets deafening. The Genoese line looked like green and red statues.

Let go, you bastards,“ a man muttered and the Genoese obeyed him. Six thousand crossbow bolts arced into the sky. Now,” Will said, surprisingly softly.

And the arrows flew.

Eleanor crouched by the wagon that held the archers" baggage. Thirty or forty other women were there, many with children, and they all flinched as they heard the trumpets, the drums and the distant shouting. Nearly all the women were French or Breton, though not one was hoping for a French victory, for it was their men who stood on the green hill.

Eleanor prayed for Thomas, for Will Skeat and for her father. The baggage park was beneath the crest of the hill so she could not see what was happening, but she heard the deep, sharp note of the English bowstrings being released, and then the rush of air across feathers that was the sound of thousands of arrows in flight. She shuddered. A dog tethered to the cart, one of the many strays that had been adopted by the archers, whimpered. She patted it. There will be meat tonight,“ she told the dog. The news had spread that the cattle captured in Le Crotoy would be reaching the army today. If there was an army left to eat them. The bows sounded again, more raggedly. The trumpets still screamed and the drumbeats were constant. She glanced up at the hill crest, half expecting to see arrows in the sky, but there was only grey cloud against which scores of horsemen were outlined. Those horsemen were part of the King's small reserve of troops and Eleanor knew that if she saw them spur forward then the main line would have been breached. The King's royal standard was flying from the topmost vane of the windmill where it stirred in the small breeze to show its gold, crim-son and blue. The vast baggage park was guarded by a mere score of sick or wounded soldiers who would not last a heartbeat if the French broke through the English line. The King's baggage, heaped on three white-painted wagons, had a dozen men-at-arms to guard the royal jewels, but otherwise there was only the host of women and children, and a handful of pageboys who were armed with short swords. The army's thousands of horses were also there, picketed close to the forest and watched by a few crippled men. Eleanor noted that most of the horses were saddled as though the men-at-arms and archers wanted the animals ready in case they had to flee. A priest had been with the royal baggage, but when the bows sounded he had hurried to the crest and Eleanor was tempted to follow. Better to see what was going on, she thought, than wait here beside the forest and fear what might be happening. She patted the dog and stood, intending to walk to the crest, but just then she saw the woman who had come to Thomas in the damp night in the forest of Crecy. The Countess of Armorica, beautifully dressed in a red gown and with her hair netted in a silver mesh, was riding a small white mare up and down beside the prince's wagons. She paused every now and then to gaze at the crest and then she would stare towards the forest of Crecy-Grange that lay to the west. A crash startled Eleanor and made her turn to the crest. Nothing explained the terrible noise that had sounded uncannily like a close clap of thunder, but there was no lightning and no rain and the mill stood unharmed. Then a seep of grey-white smoke showed above the mill's furled sails and Eleanor understood that the guns had fired. Ribalds, they were called, she remembered, and she imag-ined their rusting iron arrows slashing down the slope. She looked back to the Countess, but Jeanette was gone. She had ridden to the forest, taking her jewels with her. Eleanor saw the red gown flash in the trees, then disappear. So the Countess had fled, fearing the consequences of defeat, and Eleanor, suspecting that the Prince's woman must know more of the English prospects than the archers” women, made the sign of the cross. Then, because she could not bear the waiting any longer, she walked to the crest. If her lover died, she thought, then she wanted to be near him.