The Ill-Made Knight Read online

  All conversation died.

  The Prince was wearing black. He didn’t always – that’s just the sort of crap men say – but that night he wore black with his three white livery feathers embroidered in silk thread on his chest. He was the tallest man in the tent – or perhaps that’s just how I remember him. He stood.

  ‘Messieurs,’ he said. ‘If the King of France is really at Chauvigny,’ he looked around. I swear his eyes came to rest on me. He spoke in French, of course. ‘If he is at Chauvigny, then we have no choice. We must fight.’

  By God, they rose and cheered him.

  No one said, ‘Christ, they outnumber us four to one.’

  No one said, ‘Christ, they’ve cut our retreat, and if we lose, we’ll all be taken or killed.’

  But certes, I confess that every one of us thought those things.

  The next morning, we were up before the cocks. We all knew it would be a desperate battle, and the older men walked around steadying us. Master Peter came and put a hand on my shoulder and told me to fill every bottle I had with water, and that was the best advice I ever received. I had a big leather wine-sack and I filled it with watered wine; I filled four leather pottles with water, and a small cask. Then I loaded the donkey with all the vessels.

  Then I got into my brigantine and my helmet. I buckled on my sword and helped my knight arm, which took almost an hour in the dark. I wonder if he was angry at me? I hadn’t stowed all his harness well, there was rust on one greave and I got the elbows on wrong and had to take them off and do it again. All while John Hawkwood was bellowing for the Earl’s men-at-arms to form.

  My master never said a harsh word.

  Bless his soul.

  I saddled my horse, his war horse and his riding horse, then I fed and watered them. I was so flustered I had to take their bridles off to let them eat. I was doing everything out of order.

  I felt the way you young men feel before a fight.

  Terrified.

  I followed Sir Edward up onto the walls, where we watched the ground to the south and west. As the sun crested the horizon, we could see the French already moving, their army a glittering snake in the hills to the south east. Between us was a range of low hills, heavily wooded, and two good roads (rare, in France), one on our side of the river and one on theirs, with the wooded ridge between them. Look here, friends. We’re in Châtellerault. Here, at the top of the triangle. The King of France is here at Chauvigny, ten miles to the south and east, and Poitiers is at the other base of the triangle, ten miles to the south and west. See it? The King is marching on the highway from Chauvigny to Poitiers to cut our line of retreat.

  I stood on the walls looking at the terrain while the Prince laid out his plan. He staked everything on the deep woods on the ridge between the river and the road. We could move in those woods, if we were careful and our scouts were good, and the King of France wouldn’t know where we were. The Prince hoped to catch the King on his route of march – French armies are slow as honey. We’d cut his army in half and destroy it.

  Or die trying.

  We marched. For three miles we stayed in the open, on our side of the river. I think the Prince was still interested in avoiding battle, and I know that Talleyrand rode from the Prince to the King of France about the hour the bells rang for matins. At that time, we were west of the river, apparently running for the coast.

  But as soon as Talleyrand left us, and his retinue of French knights were well out of sight, our screen of mounted archers found a good ford and we crossed the Clain River. We were all mounted, and we went up the bank and onto game trails in the woods.

  The Prince’s archers were brilliant at this sort of thing. They posted men at every major junction, even in the maze of trails – apparently, this is what they did when deer hunting with the Prince, when leading him to a prime animal. Our vanguard followed them, and as soon as the van came up to one guide, he’d mount and spur back ahead to rejoin his mates, so that we had a constantly moving chain of guides. The archers had two local men – poachers – they’d taken in the town and promised a fortune. I hope they got it, because they were good guides. One of Hawkwood’s rules was always pay your spies, and always, always pay your guides.

  When the sun was high in the sky, we were deep in the woods. I was with the Earl’s men, and we were in the middle of the column, which was just one cart or two mounted men wide. Diccon, Richard and I took turns watching the baggage animals. We were sure we would fight at any moment, and we expected to emerge from the endless wood at every turn in the trail – on and on it went, and the green grew boring and frightening at the same time.

  The carts slowed us. The Gascons under the Captal were our vanguard, because they spoke the language and a few of them knew the terrain, and they crept along behind the Prince’s elite archers – crept, and yet outraced us in the main body, so that by an hour after noon we’d lost touch with the Captal’s men altogether, which made the Prince curse and Burghersh wince. I know – I was right there, handing out watered wine.

  That wood was waterless.

  If Sir Edward had been annoyed with me in the early morning darkness, he was pleased with me at the lunch halt. Most of the knights had little water, whilst I could water my horse and his, and give watered wine to a dozen men.

  We ate bread and cheese, our reins in our hands, and then we moved on. Even the Prince dismounted, now, to save the horses. Most of the knights took off their leg harnesses, to save weight and energy. Of course, under their leg harnesses they had only wool hose, so the brambles in the woods took their toll, as did the insects.

  The sun began to sink in the sky, and it was clear, even to a fifteen-year-old squire, that we were not catching the French army.

  Then we heard the cheers.

  Sound carried oddly in the woods. We heard cheers in French, and the unmistakable sound of men fighting – swords and spears. On and on.

  We tried to hurry.

  Men started to push past the carts in the centre of the column, and there was no holding the Prince – he pushed ahead, and all the knights pushed ahead with him. I was on my turn with the pack animals. I wanted to go, but I didn’t. I stayed and cursed the men from Warwick’s division, who pushed past us and slowed us still further. The sounds of fighting intensified – the cheers grew to roars.

  And then ended.

  That was the most frustrating thing. There had been a great battle and I’d missed it – I was still in the deep woods with the insects and the baggage carts, just as I had feared all campaign.

  That’s it, messieurs. The Battle of Poitiers. I was with the baggage.

  Hah!

  You know I wasn’t.

  And you know we didn’t catch the King of France napping, either.

  By the time we came up with the main body, it was almost dark, and our army was badly disorganized. The Gascons had caught the rearguard of the French Army and scattered it, capturing some nobles and killing a few hundred Frenchmen. But our Gascons and the Prince, who saw the last moments of the fight, had to retire in front of a French counter-attack, and they chose to retreat into the woods.

  Most of us simply lay down where we were and slept.

  We were tired, and the Gascons, who’d fought on horseback, were even more tired. The horses were blown, and so thirsty they called and called. There was no water in the woods, except a stream we’d passed several miles back.

  Richard, Diccon and I went back to it. It was the first thing we’d ever done together. It wasn’t an adventure – in fact, we came to the stream long before we expected, because we were moving at horse speed not cart speed. We let our horses drink, and we filled everything we had.

  Then we went back to the army. After I took care of my knight and his friends, I gave John Hawkwood a full canteen, and Master Peter another. Then I found John – Monk John. He was staring wide-eyed at the night. I gave him a canteen and he drank it dry and embraced me.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said suddenly. ‘By Christ, Will
iam, I don’t know what came over me that night.’

  We were all going to die, so it seemed a good time to restore friendships. He knelt and made his confession to me. By St Peter, he had some sins to confess. I made mine to him, and we were comrades again. I fed him some sausage and went back to the squires.

  ‘Tomorrow I’ll kill ten Frenchmen,’ said Richard Beauchamp. He went on and on, describing what cuts he’d use. You know the kind of boy he was.

  Diccon got to his feet. He was using tow with some fat and a bit of ash to make his helmet gleam. He wiped it with a cloth – he was a careful young man – and set it at his feet.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said, and we did. ‘I’m the only one of you who has done this. By tomorrow night, at least three of us will be dead.’ There were only nine of us at the little fire. ‘One of us will die foolishly – falling from his horse, perhaps.’

  I thought of the archer I’d seen die when he fell from his horse outside Issoudun.

  He looked around. ‘One of us will die trying to be a hero, taking a foolish chance to get a rich ransom.’ He smiled. ‘I almost died that way, and John Hawkwood took a blow meant for me. Of course, he took the man for ransom, too.’

  He said it with such flat confidence that we all believed him. This wasn’t male posturing. Diccon had seen the real thing.

  ‘And the third?’ I asked.

  Diccon shrugged. ‘My best friend tried to face Geoffrey de Charny last year in Normandy,’ he said.

  I’ve said that de Charny was Lancelot come to earth. He was the best knight in the world. He carried the Oriflamme, the King of France’s sacred banner. We all knew his arms, and we knew that in battle he was like some sort of moving siege engine. Men he touched, died. He had fought the Turks at Smyrna, and rescued the very cloth that touched the face of Christ. Not a word of a lie. He’d fought the heathen in Prussia. He’d fought in Italy, and had made all the great pilgrimages.

  He was the best knight in the world.

  Richard looked at Diccon in the flickering orange light. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  Diccon shut his eyes for a moment. ‘He died,’ Diccon said.

  Richard could be a child – I think I’ve already shown that. Insensitive as only a rich boy can be, he said, ‘How?’

  Diccon whirled. ‘He tried to match swords with de Charny. You want to know what happened? I was two arm’s lengths away. Before I could reach him, de Charny cut at him three times – knocked him to earth, put a foot on his chest and rammed his sword point through his mouth.’ Diccon said this in a shocking voice.

  I was afraid that Diccon, who I respected a great deal, was about to burst into tears.

  Hawkwood appeared out of the darkness. ‘Shouldn’t you boys be in your cloaks?’ he asked. He looked at Diccon. ‘Naught you could have done, Diccon.’

  ‘He died.’ Diccon was better in control now, but that voice wasn’t far away.

  ‘He died fighting the best knight in France – perhaps the world.’ Hawkwood looked around. ‘Go to sleep, you lot.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘What do we do, if that happens?’ I asked. ‘I had to fight Boucicault. He had mercy on me.’

  Hawkwood smiled. ‘So you know that, eh? You know he let you live.’

  I nodded and swallowed.

  Hawkwood nodded. ‘When one of them is on the loose, you close up with your friends, form a hedgehog of steel and try to keep the monsters at bay until someone comes and gets you.’

  ‘Someone like you?’ I asked.

  Hawkwood shook his head. ‘Oh, no, boy. Not me. Perhaps your Sir Edward in a few years. The Prince. Sir John Chandos. Sir James Audley.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps even you, Judas.’ He laughed. ‘If you survive tomorrow.’

  Morning came. I slept. I can’t say the same for everyone, but I had to be kicked awake, and my master was less than perfectly pleased.

  I fetched water again and missed a lot of arguing among the higher orders. By St George, scared men are like a pack of old crows, and they squawked and squawked.

  But when the Prince decided, we moved.

  We marched south. The Prince intended to offer battle from a carefully scouted position – one we could only reach by, in effect, sneaking round behind the French camp. But the plan showed he was as canny as Lancaster ever was, because with good guides, good scouts and superb luck, we passed through Noailles at the break of day and set out banners on the hilltop just west of the town, clear of the damned woods. In one easy march, we rested on the flank of a river full of fresh water running free over rocks – I mention this because the moment we were in battle order, all the squires and servants were sent in shifts to water the horses and men. Better yet, we’d passed south of the French, and we no longer had them between us and Bordeaux. If we were defeated, or if we chose to slip away, we could simply outmarch them to the south.

  We were saved.

  And we knew it. It was a march of supreme daring, and we were too tired even to know the risk we were running. The Prince threw the dice, and won. We occupied the ground from Noailles to the River Moisson in the south, and to the woods of Noailles to our north, and the archers on the naked slopes started to dig trenches while the archers on the southern flank cut holes in the hedges through which to loose their shafts. It was like a little fortress. We halted, formed our ranks, went for water, and sat to eat our breakfasts while the bedraggled cardinal returned to beg the Prince for a truce. The Earl had just sent me to the Prince with a small keg of water – the prince’s squires were fine gentlemen who didn’t want to get their nice iron sabatons wet – when Talleyrand rode up.

  ‘By the honour of our saviour and the Blessed Virgin Mary,’ he invoked. ‘Make peace while you can, my gracious lord.’

  ‘Speak and be quick,’ the Prince replied. He didn’t even look at the cardinal – Talleyrand was at that time only slightly less powerful than the King of France. He might have been Pope. He certainly had more money than God. I doubt he was used to being told to speak and be quick.

  I laughed.

  Talleyrand glared at me.

  The Prince was watching the crest of the hill to the north, which divided us from the King of France. Banners were starting to appear.

  ‘Give me one hour to make peace, my gracious lord. In the name of Jesus Christ.’ The Cardinal bowed.

  The Prince turned from looking at the gathering French banners, the way a shipman might turn from watching a gathering storm. He nodded. ‘One hour?’ he asked, looking at me of all people.

  ‘Just one,’ Talleyrand said.

  The Prince bowed. ‘I will hear your proposals if the King of France will do,’ he said.

  Talleyrand took a cup of wine from my hand, drank it and put his hand on my head. ‘God’s blessing on you, child, even when you are rude to your betters.’

  That’s how I met the great Cardinal, of whom John Hawkwood said, ‘He farts gold.’

  After he rode away, the Prince took wine and water from me. He looked at my boots, which were wet from riding into the stream so many times. ‘Good water?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, my Prince.’ Oh, how I remember those words. I was speaking to the Prince.

  He nodded. ‘The Cardinal may speak to his heart’s content while we water our horses and have a bite,’ he said. He looked past me to Burghersh. ‘And then, my lords, we will pick up our banners and march – away.’

  They nodded and smiled. Listen, my friends – we had loot and an intact army, and they outnumbered us four to one. While I served the Prince and his lords, I watched the far hill as they did, and we counted eighty-seven banners. King John of France had 12,000 knights. We had about 2,000 men-at-arms. Of belted knights, we had fewer than 800.

  We had our archers, and they had a veritable horde of infantrymen, but their infantrymen, with the exception of the communal militias, weren’t worth a donkey’s watery piss.

  After a few minutes, I went back to the Earl, who, with Warwick, was commanding on the left, near the marshes and the
river. The insects were fierce, but the French were far away. We watched the Prince canter his beautiful black charger across the fields towards the Cardinal, who was sitting with his his French knights under a banner of truce.

  The Earl and Warwick already knew we were going to move. Men ate hurriedly, but suddenly the whole army – at least, all the men I knew – were in tearing good spirits. We’d marched around the French, and the Black Prince, bless him, was doing the right thing: turning his backside and slipping away. We weren’t going to fight at all.

  No one was more relieved than the same men and boys who’d been counting dead Frenchmen the night before, believe me. Sound familiar, messieurs?

  Every man was standing by his fed and watered horse. Most men had at least a canteen full of water. We stood to our horses, ready to move.

  The Prince cantered back across the fields. Men started cheering.

  He was a fine sight, and we weren’t going to fight.

  We cheered, too, and he vanished into the centre of the army. An army of 6,000 men is a little less than a mile long, all formed in order, and he wasn’t so very far away.

  One of his squires galloped up to Warwick and bowed in the saddle.

  Warwick laughed and waved to Oxford, who nodded and rode along the hillside to where I sat with his men-at-arms.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘We will be leaving before the party.’

  We all smiled, and the left wing of the army began to pick their way south, led by a dozen of the Prince’s elite archers. All we needed was to get across the swamp.

  The ground to our left was a damp swamp – deeper than it should have been in early autumn. I rode with the Earl, because he was using me as a mounted messenger. I was, at least in his eyes, a squire. Squires are generally accounted among the men-at-arms and not the servants. Or so I chose to account myself.

  At any rate, I was near the head of the column as we marched off to the left. Marched is the wrong term. We slithered and slid down the steep ridge, then we squelched our way through the reeds and mud. We weren’t moving very fast.

  But I was nearly at the dry ground around the ford marked by the Prince’s archers – I could see them – when there was a great shout behind me. It was a panicked shout. We were strung out across the hillside in a loose column, four men wide, all mounted. Ahead of me I could see our baggage carts, already crossing the ford. The Prince had this one in the bag – he’d sent our baggage ahead.