Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Five Read online

  Hunyadi nodded. ‘We will send all the wagons to the first division,’ he said. ‘And then we go. Very fast.’

  Swan had never even seen a battle this big before. He wasn’t sure what very fast meant. But he saluted with his baton, and galloped his poor, hot riding horse for the head of his own men. Behind him, Will Kendal cursed.

  Helmet on, gauntlets on, sword loosened in scabbard.

  Swan was riding at the head of his own column. Less than a hundred paces away, the tail end of László’s troops – billmen mounted on ponies – put up a small cloud of dust.

  Swan’s mouth was very dry, and he tried to remember anything in Vegetius or any other manual that would be useful to remember on the verge of battle.

  He had a hard time making it past the dust, the thirst and the heat.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said aloud. He took off his gauntlets and then, with some fumbling, got his armet off his head and handed it back to Clemente.

  Immediately behind him, Ser Columbino bellowed for the column to halt.

  Swan had been lost in the fight with his helmet. László’s division had halted.

  Swan was still on his riding horse. He trotted the tired beast up the road a hundred paces and found László and a dozen of his knights.

  László was biting his lip.

  Swan could understand one of the knights when he spoke carefully and probably angrily.

  ‘This is not the right road,’ the man said. He had a scarlet coat over his armour and Swan wished he had some sort of coat to block the sun. He’d met the man – Pangratius in Latin – but couldn’t remember his Hungarian name.

  Swan looked east. And south. The ground all seemed perfectly flat, and farm fields, a patchwork of large and small, rolled away in every direction.

  ‘Do we have scouts out?’ Swan asked.

  László bit his lip again.

  Ser Pangratius shrugged. ‘On our flanks, yes,’ he said. ‘In front, no. If they see our light horse, they will just ride away. The Turks are very good at this game. And we are making lots of dust.’

  The horizon was a haze of indistinguishable sun, dust and heat in every direction. Swan stood briefly in his stirrups and tried to guess what the distance to the horizon was. Then he tried to calculate it.

  He was too scared. It wasn’t of dying, either. That was not his kind of fear.

  It was of failing, and he was very afraid of this kind of failure. And his mind wouldn’t work.

  And he was hot.

  Young László tried not to wilt in the face of the disapproval of two older knights. ‘I believe that this is the right road.’

  ‘We should turn back to Dolovo and find the right road. For me, I think it was by the big church.’ This was the yellow-and-black knight. He didn’t even make eye contact with Swan.

  László looked at Swan – he wanted an ally.

  Swan shrugged.

  In Latin, Swan said, ‘This road is as good as any other. It goes east, and thus around the Turks.’

  That started a new babble of argument in Hungarian. László shook his head. ‘My father placed me in command. We will go this way. Ser Suane, I wish you to go to the left at the fork. This will bring you to the causeway. No – wait. I am not done. You have the heaviest knights. If the causeway is held – it is more than a hundred paces long, through the marshes – a single charge of heavy knights might break through. They should only have light cavalry. And my father said we must be fast.’ László’s voice rose as he talked – it was clear the knights didn’t agree with anything he was saying.

  Swan wasn’t sure he liked it either. A hundred-pace-long causeway, probably built of logs, with marsh on either side – sounded like a death trap.

  But … Swan wished he knew more about war. He wished he had Ser Columbino with him for advice. He felt like a fake – a charlatan.

  I am a potboy from a tavern. I am not a lord. This is lord business.

  But …

  ‘We will do it,’ he said.

  Ser Pangratius puffed his cheeks in annoyance. Yellow-and-black knight spoke in quick Hungarian. It had the word ‘Italian’ in it.

  Damningly, László said, ‘You fool! He speaks Hungarian!’ He looked back at Swan. ‘Ser Mikal.’

  The yellow-and-black knight – who had the most magnificent saddle, armour and cloak of all László’s retinue – gave Swan a dazzling smile. ‘I am sorry,’ he said engagingly. It was difficult to tell whether he was sorry or not.

  Somehow the chaos, indecision and the annoyance of the older men all helped steady Swan. He saluted László, turned his small riding horse and had to look up at yellow-and-black knight.

  ‘I choose not to take offence,’ he said, in careful Hungarian. ‘Come and tell me this again after we fight.’

  He rode away, leaving silence behind him.

  A mile later, and Swan knew his early nerves were nothing. Now he was at the head of his column, and there was nothing in front of him on the road but sunlight and, somewhere, the Turks.

  Had he gone ‘left at the fork’? He’d taken a road so narrow it was more of a farmer’s cart track – the sort of rough trail farmers used when reaping. There had been no ‘fork.’ Nothing was easy.

  But he was committed, and the direction was good. They were now turning south. There was no obvious sparkle of weapons. The ground was hard. He thought he could make out Kovin to the south and west.

  And he could smell a marsh.

  He halted and raised his baton. He turned to Clemente – and froze.

  No trumpet. Just calling his officers to him could give the whole thing away.

  His hands were shaking.

  ‘All officers,’ he said. His voice was bad – squeaky.

  Ser Columbino was just two horse lengths behind. He rose in his stirrups.

  ‘Silence,’ Swan said.

  Ser Columbino sat back in his saddle.

  Di Vecchio appeared. He didn’t have helmet or gauntlets yet either. Then Von Nymanus came up with Ladislav, and Grazias appeared last with Willoughby. Swan’s hands shook through the entire wait, and he laid them on his saddle horn to hide the shaking.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘We are about to fight the Turks. We have been sent on a flanking march to try to keep the Turkish reserves from attacking the main body. If I have brought us to the right place …’ He tried to smile and the corners of his mouth seemed to tremble. He took a deep breath. ‘If, as I say, we are in the right place, we will come to a causeway two horses wide. I want all the men-at-arms together, and we will charge across the causeway, whether it appears defended or not. We will not scout it or take our time. Because speed is everything – so I have been told.’

  Di Vecchio spat on the parched ground. They were sitting on their horses in brilliant sunshine, and all around them, except for the barrow cart track, there was wheat – magnificent golden wheat that reflected the sun like a carpet of gold.

  ‘So – we lead with our chins,’ Di Vecchio said. ‘We attack the Turks without scouting. This is your wisdom?’

  Swan nodded. ‘Yes. All or nothing. If we delay, or they see us coming, they ride away, and there’s no fight at all.’

  Di Vecchio laughed. ‘And that’s bad?’ It wasn’t said in his insubordinate tone – just with cynical humour.

  Swan laughed. It was a very liberating laugh. ‘Messires,’ he said, ‘I am the merest amateur here. I know what I’ve been ordered to do, and it makes sense. There’s no reason that the Turks should have steady infantry or crossbowmen here to stop our charge. My understanding is that there’s no cavalry in the world that can stop the charge of Italian knights.’

  Di Vecchio smiled as if appreciating Swan’s attempt at flattery. But he said nothing.

  Ser Columbino, on the other hand, pounded his right fist into his left palm. ‘By the Virgin, that’s true, my lord,’ he said.

  Swan nodded. ‘Well then, gentlemen. Let us assume we blow through their post at the causeway. Then we must gather ourselves and not
waste our energies – and strike towards Gaj. Look for my lead and the banner. Do not become too extended. If we face heavy numbers, we will dismount and have the archers and the gunners play.’

  ‘I wish I had my cannon,’ Ladislav said bitterly. The falconet had remained with the baggage.

  Di Vecchio saluted. ‘Straight across the causeway, rally on the banner, follow you.’

  ‘If I fall, Ser Columbino takes command,’ Swan said. ‘Di Vecchio, you are third. Any questions?’

  ‘We will need water for the horses,’ Di Vecchio said. ‘And the men.’

  Swan nodded. ‘Have everyone drain their water bottles now. It’s better inside your guts.’

  Di Vecchio smiled. ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Swan nodded. ‘I realise I should give a speech,’ he said. ‘But I want to get this over with.’

  He hadn’t meant to say ‘over with’. But he had.

  Ser Columbino grinned, and so did Willoughby.

  Di Vecchio nodded amicably. ‘Well, you’ve paid us, and you seem to have the luck of the devil,’ he said. ‘I’ll follow you.’

  Every step his horse took raised Swan’s tension. He was not afraid of the Turks – in fact, as time flowed by him he would have traded a year of his life to be attacked by Turks.

  He was in the wrong place. The wrong place, the wrong place …

  The smell of the marsh steadied him to some extent, but there was no one to whom he could talk about this – no one to whom he could ask, ‘Am I on the wrong road?’

  The plain was a featureless bowl of gold, standing ripe wheat from horizon to horizon, flat as the surface of a golden anvil. He could not see the spire of a church in any direction.

  He kept moving on the track. It ran along the edge of one wheat field, separated from the next by a slight rise, a pile of stones and a little wild vegetation – nothing like a healthy English hedgerow.

  He tried to assess whether the smell of the marsh had increased. He wanted to stop his horse.

  He began to wonder at what point he would have to admit failure and turn the column.

  Then he heard what sounded like a duck – quite close by. Without conscious intent, he spurred his war horse, Ataelus.

  With Ser Columbino by his side, he saw open water and waterfowl. He could hear them, even through the padding and the steel of his helmet. He had to struggle to keep himself from letting go a long whoop of triumph. His heart beat faster.

  Five more paces of his warhorse Ataelus, and he could see the causeway.

  In three beats of his heart, his fear mostly fell away. He was where he was supposed to be.

  The rest was simple.

  Except that the causeway was only wide enough for a single rider, and it was long.

  And at the far end, he could see dust, and the flashes of sun on steel.

  But if he could see them …

  ‘Charge,’ he called. His voice was high – a little wild.

  He went first.

  Ataelus went to a trot easily, and then, as Swan leaned forward on his long stirrups, the great horse went to a dead gallop, the reins loose, the bridle without tension. He was by far the best horse Swan had ever had, and his best speed was very fast – incredible for a beast so big.

  Swan had the presence of mind to slam his visor shut. He had a medium-weight lance – more than twelve feet long – and he had no trouble couching it. His sword was where it needed to be, and so was he.

  It was hard to see from inside his closed armet. The sun was brilliant. The causeway seemed to stretch to infinity.

  Something struck his helmet. And again, against his breastplate, and he felt a series of blows as if he was riding through woods. Men were shouting. They sounded panicked in Turkish, and that was fine.

  It took him a surprisingly long time to realise that these little blows were arrows striking his armour.

  And Ataelus ran.

  Swan could suddenly see Turks.

  Most of them were riding away.

  But one man was a hero, or a lord, and he did not run. He stood his ground at the end of the causeway, and loosed arrow after arrow – and then, when Swan could see his eyes under his turbaned helmet, blue and piercing, he charged. The Turk rode straight at him. He wore fine armour that seemed molten in the sun, and he had a spiked hammer in his hand.

  He and his small horse tried to flow with incredible dexterity around Swan’s lance point. The man leaned, the horse leaned out, as if they were one creature.

  Swan put his lance into the centre of the man’s chest, and killed him instantly, ripping him from his horse and toppling the lighter horse straight off the causeway in a single pass.

  Like tilting at a ring. Swan was a little surprised at the ease of it, and then he’d lost his lance, as his dead victim dragged it to the ground and it splintered against the gravel of the road atop the causeway.

  Ataelus had not lost a stride.

  Swan ploughed into a crowd of horsemen on small steppe ponies and scattered them like a falcon among a flock of starlings. Ataelus knocked a man and the mare he rode flat, and trampled the man. Arrows flew in all directions. Swan got his left hand on his sword and drew, and relief flooded him as his long sword swept through a reverse arc and parried a blow to his head.

  They were all around him.

  He could hear them shouting in Turkish, for Allah, and men tried to seize his horse.

  They wanted his horse.

  Who would not? Ataelus was incomparable. Swan knew a moment of guilt for comparing him to the magnificent Hungarian horses, and then--

  He landed a blow – pure luck and fear-fuelled strength – a clean shot into a man’s temple and the Turk was gone. Then a flurry of blows, given and received – the Turks pressed in very close, and he was body to body with them, and a man behind him got a sword blow into his hip where the breastplate ended at the mail. The mail ought to have stopped it, but the pain was intense. Other blows rang on his backplate and his helmet. With no effect except a growing haze of fear and pain.

  Swan was in full armour. Good armour. Excellent armour – it held a shower of blows, and even retaliated. His left elbow – a steel spike – crushed a man’s nose and gouged an eye. His left hand – a steel fist – ripped down another man’s arm, tearing skin and severing tendons. His pommel – his quillons – his armoured foot to another man’s horse …

  And all the while Swan’s sword rose and fell. It was too close for skill. But his sword was long and heavy, and his blows were hard. One blow he saw go home – his opponent made a quick overhead parry with his curved blade – and the heavy sword kept going another four fingers, driving the light sword down and slamming into the man’s steel cap, knocking him unconscious or dead from the saddle.

  Then there was a trumpet …

  And then all the Turks were gone. Or that’s how it seemed.

  Swan was exhausted, the inside of his mouth was made of paper, and he was trying to wrench air in through his visor with lungs utterly starved. Ser Columbino was by him, and Ser Niccolo, and Don Juan – and Di Vecchio and a dozen others, and the Turks were running.

  Swan couldn’t speak.

  Di Vecchio pointed a bloody sword at Clemente. ‘Sound rally!’ he roared.

  Men were coming across the causeway now – fast, but not fast enough. In the middle distance, the Turkish horsemen were also rallying.

  ‘Soon they will realise how few we are,’ Ser Columbino said. ‘But that was … glorious. I have lived my whole life …’

  Swan ignored him. He let Ataelus walk down to the edge of the marsh. There was open water – indeed, it appeared to be a stream with marshy edges, not a fetid swamp. Swan let Ataelus drink. Not long – but it took force to get the horse’s head up, and then back him from the water.

  Di Vecchio was also watering his mount, even as the rest of the company began to form. The fields were flat to the south, and went on for ever.

  ‘Two ranks,’ Fortebracchio was saying. ‘Archers and new men in the back.
Stay close – Turks bite hard, but they’ll run if our ranks are tight.’

  Swan would have smiled if he’d had the energy. Clemente handed him a water bottle and he opened his visor, praising his armourer and his wonderful work, and he drank.

  ‘I think they will charge us,’ Di Vecchio said. ‘They must be new men.’

  Swan found his voice. ‘Dismount!’

  Swan was terrified by the chaos that ensued. Men close enough to hear his voice dismounted immediately – other men were coming up from the rear, and the company had not practised fighting on foot. The pages were at the very back of the column and the men-at-arms at the front had no horse holders.

  But that fickle goddess, Fortuna, had other ends in mind for the Company of St Mary Magdalene. The Turkish Akinjis hovered out of long bowshot, milling, wheeling, and forming. Swan saw only eight bodies on the ground – already being looted efficiently by English archers – but the suddenness of their onslaught had an effect.

  The company’s youngest men came across the causeway as fast as the knights had, drawn by the trumpet, and flung themselves out of their sweat-slick saddles to grab the reins from their masters. Most of the men-at-arms had already chosen the youngest and most ill-armed to hold horses – but for three of the longest minutes of Swan’s life to date, his four hundred fighting men were a useless mob of leaderless men, uncontrollable because of a babel of shouts, horse noises and spoken orders.

  At some point, Swan could no longer contain himself. Since his horse holder and his archer were both immediately present, he chose to walk out into the wheat field to the south, clear of the low vegetation along the banks of the stream. The sun beat down like another enemy, but he was clear of the mob of men and horses.

  He looked around for Will Kendal, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Swan assumed he had gone off with Willoughby. He wanted an armed man behind him.

  Again, he felt alone. He thought of Peter – Peter, who would have stood tight to his shoulder, his small beard quivering as he loosed arrow after arrow …

  Kendal appeared, trotting briskly despite half-armour and a heavy quiver of arrows. He grinned. He held out the weapon the Turkish captain had been brandishing when Swan’s lance ended his life – a lovely brass and steel war-pick, the sort of weapon that would go through the strongest armour.