Joanna (57 page)
Tostig, just behind and to the left of his master, lowered his own lance and turned his head toward Roger, the castellan of Hemel who was beside him, to Geoffrey’s right. “I hope your spurs are well sharpened,” he said wryly. “Do you see our lord straining at the leash? Be ready. As soon as Salisbury moves, he will charge. If you are not quick, you will be left behind.”
“I have” the castellan began, but in that moment the squire reached Salisbury and the earl fewtered his own lance and called aloud.
On the sound, Geoffrey clapped spurs to Orage, eased his hold on the slack of the reins, which were tied to the saddle pommel, and bellowed, “Forward!”
The horse, fretting as it was under the tight rein while it sensed the excitement of its rider, leapt forward eagerly. The French seeing them come up over the little rise, also kicked their horses into action. Geoffrey had no idea of whom, among Philip’s noblemen, he would face, and he did not care. He had had little contact with the French court beyond being polite to an envoy now and again and had no friends among Philip’s men. In any case, the violence that invariably seized him when combat was offered had a firm grip on him. Somewhere deep inside, old wounds opened, spilling out the encysted bitterness of a rather frail, proud boy who had perforce swallowed the taunts and insults he could not silence.
Geoffrey was light for a full-armed man. His destrier, interbred with the mighty grays of the Roselynde line, was strong and swift. In ten strides Orage had outdistanced Geoffrey’s group, although Tostig and Roger of Hemel, spurring their horses like mad, were not far behind. Still, Geoffrey had room to maneuver, which was greatly limited for the more solid line of men opposing him. He did not seem to notice this at first, riding straight as a well-launched arrow toward the man exactly opposite. This was a deception. Whatever the old rage that sprang up in him, lending strength to his arms and ferocity to his movements, Geoffrey was no berserker. He had been well schooled, even overelaborately, because Ian knew Geoffrey’s slender body did not have the brute force to batter a path without skill and subtlety.
At the last moment possible, Geoffrey jammed his knee into the destrier’s shoulder, sending the well-trained animal off at an angle. In the same instant, he threw himself forward into the lance thrust, taking the man to his right by surprise. Geoffrey’s spear slid in under the Frenchman’s, and, even though the man turned his own lance when he realized what had happened, there was little force in it because he had not been quite ready. Until Geoffrey’s swift maneuver startled him, the Frenchman’s attention had been fixed on the castellan of Hemel, whom he had expected to encounter.
The shock of the blow, the Frenchman’s shriek as the point penetrated his armor, only whetted Geoffrey’s appetite. So many times had the boy Geoffrey struck back when he was physically assaulted and heard laughter from his larger, older tormentors that he still dreamed of pain-filled cries in response to his blows. He wrenched the lance back brutally as his opponent fell and was rewarded with another shriek. That man would fight no more this day, and likely not on any other either. But Geoffrey did not think of that, nor would it have gladdened him if he had initially been riding toward, pulling his own into position again, and spurring his horse to make it regain the speed the encounter had slowed.
To his left, a little behind the first wave, Geoffrey found another opponent. That one, either inexperienced or a fool, had lifted his head a trifle too far over his shield’s edge. Geoffrey caught him in the face. Whether the lance point tore through the metal visor. Geoffrey did not know. His opponent this time did not cry out, but Geoffrey heard, even over the shouts of the men engaging behind him, the sharp cracklike a dry branch snapping beneath the heelof a broken neck. The lance point was caught in the visor and the man was a total dead weight. Geoffrey pulled and lifted, but the weapon did not come free. The shaft snapped, some two or three feet from the head.
Again, Geoffrey set spurs to Orage, turning him right once more and using the broken shaft to strike aside a lance aimed at him. In the same motion, he released the useless shaft and drew his sword. He was in time for a single blow at the man whose lance he had avoided, but it fell on the shield and did no harm, and the impetus of both destricrs carried the combatants past each other. However, there no lack of opponents; Geoffrey was engaged before he could turn his horse to finish with the man at whom he had struck.
By now the charge was over. The French line was broken, but the knights, led by the warlike bishop of Beauvais, who had fought beside King Richard on the Crusade and against him in the French wars with equal joy and ferocity, were by no means beaten. French and English spread over the field in small groups, each fighting its own battle, each victorious group leaving its dead and wounded where they fell, mingled with the dead and wounded of their enemies, to take on another group. There was little difference in numbers on this wing of the battle, none at all in skill, courage, or determination. Within the first half hour, Geoffrey knew that there would be no quick conclusion. The French would not panic and run, and neither would the English. Both sides would fight until exhaustion or night ended the battle unless one was truly overwhelmed.
Once his initial impetus was halted, Geoffrey’s men had a chance to catch up with him. Richard of Elsfield’s left side was red with blood, and Tostig had lost his sword because his right arm was broken and cut to the bone. In addition, two English men-at-arms were dead or out of action when that little fracas was over. Geoffrey drew enormous breaths and eased his aching sword arm. Miraculously, he was as yet untouched. His eyes checked his men as his ears checked the battle in general. From the latter source he could not gain much information beyond the fact that both armies were completely engaged. The roar made up of shouts of encouragement, cries of pain and surprise, and battle calls combined with the clang of metal upon metal and the thud of weapons upon wood and leather seemed general.
“Testig, go back to camp,” Geoffrey ordered. “No, do not argue. You are useless to me, with your arm broken and so cut, and you will be a danger to me because I will forever be trying to protect you. Go! Now! While we have time to breathe.”
Geoffrey’s voice checked. Far away, very faintly through the other sounds of battle, there was a howling. No matter how dim or distant, the sound was unmistakable in its slow swelling. It was the wail of panic, the lament of men brokennot one man or a few, whose voices would be lostthousands of them. Geoffrey’s eyes blazed golden. He could not yet know which side was fleeing away, but from the distance of the sound it was Ferrand’s Belgians or the army of the counts of Champagne, Perche, and St. Paul, who were opposed to him. No matter who had failed, however, it would mean even more intense action either in pursuit or defense.
‘‘Now!” Geoffrey ordered more sharply, “Go now!”
He was eager for action again and wished to be rid of his liabilities. Tostig, grimacing with pain, turned away as he was bidden, but his heart was lighter. While Geoffrey had been speaking to Richard of Elsfield, he had time for a few words with Roger of Hemel, who had promised to guard his master without permitting any other concern to distract him. The diminished group drew together. The little time of peace they had, which perhaps had been lengthened by the carnage surrounding them, making others somewhat chary of attack, was over. Even if he could have stretched the time, Geoffrey had no inclination to do so. Nonetheless, his exertions had taken the edge off his first wild fury. A sense of responsibility as well as eagerness now moved him. He scanned the field, spotted his father’s battle banner, and pointed at it with his sword.
“Forward!”
At first, there seemed little effect from whatever had occurred on the left flank of the battle. They were engaged with two more groups before they came much nearer Salisbury’s standard. After they had beaten off the second group and found another moment to breathe, it seemed that the noise of fighting in the center was more intense. Geoffrey said nothing, merely pointing the direction in which they were to make their next attack.
Through the haze that fatigue was building up in his mind, it began to dawn upon Geoffrey that it was a bad sign. If Ferrand had broken the French, Otto’s army would have spread out, filling the ground where Ferrand’s people had left a vacuum as they pursued their fleeing enemies. Thus, the battle noise should have diminished. The increase in intensity must mean that the French had broken through the left wing and were pressing in on Otto from that side as well as from the front.
All too soon the vague concern grew to a troubled conviction. The numbers of those opposing them were decidedly augmented. Nonetheless, there was no cause for real worry, Geoffrey told himself. The English wing was still advancing. The driving spearhead of their attack was Salisbury. The earl was fighting like a demon, as if he had cast off twenty or thirty years. He struck and slashed, seemingly tireless, and his blows were so powerful that no man could withstand him. Behind and around him, his vassals kept pace, completely caught up in the heat of what seemed a tide running strongly toward the haven of victory. All they saw was that the men facing them were fewer, that they moved forward slowly but surely and the French fell back before them.
Geoffrey’s party was still separated from his father’s, but not by much. So intense was his intention of combining their groups that he gave no mind to the general situation. It was, after all, his father’s responsibility to consider the army as a whole; Geoffrey’s duty was only to follow where Salisbury led. In the heat of the fighting, Geoffrey had forgotten that he was more than twenty years younger than his father, that if his body ached with effort Salisbury’s condition must be worse. The glimpses Geoffrey caught of his father between blows given and received were so heroic that he slipped back to boyhood when Salisbury was a kind and invincible giant a thousand feet tall, never weak, worried, or tired.
Roger of Hemel was not so caught up in the fever of advancing. However, he needed to give all his attention to the immediate situation. As Lord Geoffrey grew fatigued, he tended to guard himself less efficiently, although he did not abate a whit of his ferocity. The castellan of Hemel had all he could do to protect his lord and himself without concerning himself with what others were doing. What he saw when he did look gave Sir Roger very serious concern. The battle still was being fought in separate little groups, which was natural enough, but instead of being evenly distributed over a roughly rectangular or spherical area or even spread out in a long line, the groups were drawn into what approximated a broad arrowhead. This in itself was not an emergency. It often happened when a strong and eager leader drove forward, pulling his whole army behind him, as it were. What alarmed Roger of Hemel was that each time he found time to glance around, the point of the arrowhead seemed sharper. Salisbury, with Geoffrey’s group to the left and one or two others was outpacing the rest of the force. Another glance around, as Geoffrey struck down the man who was opposing him and gave Sir Roger time to breathe, confirmed this fear and added another. There seemed to be more French coming from the left. If they continued as they were, it was entirely possible that the spearhead would be cut off.
“My lord,” the castellan gasped, “my lord, look what we are about.”
Whether Geoffrey heard was impossible for Roger of Hemel to know because in that moment a group of men charged them with set lances. They were far too busy to be in the least concerned with anything other than the preservation of their own lives. Sir Roger warded off one spear with his shield and beat another down with his sword blade. That maneuver was not completely successful, for the point, passing over his thigh, ran into his horse’s back. The animal reared and screamed, plunging sideways away from the source of the hurt. As he went down, Sir Roger had one last glimpse of Geoffrey, still horsed, beating one lance blade aside and twisting desperately to avoid another which he could not reach with sword or shield.
If it had not been for that charge, Geoffrey might not have permitted Roger of Hemel’s words to make any impression upon him. The coincidence of his castellan’s warning and the onset of what must be men who were either fresh or had had time to rest and return to the sidelines for new arms fixed the warning in his mind. One did not carry extra lances onto a battlefield. Therefore, men with lances meant that Philip was doing well enough elsewhere to commit reserves to the right wing. Originally, the numbers of English and French had been roughly equal. That would no longer be true.
For a few minutes, Geoffrey was not aware that he had lost Sir Roger. He managed not only to cast aside the spear of one opponent but to carry the upward blow forward in a thrust that pierced the hood of the man and cut the big vessels in the neck under the ear. Bright red spurted far and ran down his sword blade before he could withdraw it. It added nothing to the color of the weapon, which was already so dyed with blood that, in the bright light of midday, it seemed as if Geoffrey was fighting with a long, perfect ruby.
The successful move was not without cost. Although the forward lunge and twist saved Geoffrey from being spitted through the belly by the second Frenchman’s spear, it also precluded him from drawing his shield far enough forward to slat off the lance. The weapon caught in his mail, just where it folded in at the meeting of leg and body. Before the point tore open his groin, Geoffrey twisted further in his saddle and slashed so violently at the lance-wielder that he jerked back. To reach his opponent over the length of the lance, Geoffrey had to lean sharply forward. He connected, heard a cry as the well-sharpened point drove into the exposed right shoulder of his opponent.
The Frenchman’s hand lost its grip on his lance, but it was a trifle too late to save Geoffrey completely. In his heedless violence, he had driven the point of the weapon into the flesh of his hip. Reigardless of the fact that the weight of the shaft was twisting the lance point upward, tearing his body further, Geoffrey struck again and again, finally wounding his now-weaponless opponent severely enough so that he slid from his horse. Releasing the hand grip of his shield and letting it hang from the arm strap, Geoffrey grabbed the haft of the lance just above the head and tore it free. It was then that he became aware that Roger of Hemel was gone. He was struck from behind, which could never have happened if Sir Roger had been with him.