The Bow (3 page)

With a gasp James snatched up the clout-head, and bent
his back, but he knew that the lance would be through his chest
before he could draw bow.

Chiswick whirled before him. Hettie, dear Hettie,
standing smiling in the sunlit doorway, goose stick over one
shoulder, and the shawl she knitted seven summers ago loose across
her arms.The face of his father, his mother too. The mill, the
stream, the old cow yard at Simkin’s byre. And practice by the
glebe after Sunday church, sharpening the arrow-heads on the
flintstones at the priest’s porch. Sun on his back in harvest
fields, and the welcome breeze of a Summer evening as he lay among
the lupins.

Something struck him hard on his left side. He fell to
his knees, then sprawled forwards, clinging to his bow. He tried to
look up, but another blow caught him on the back of his head, driving
him against the turf.

There was pain, someone shouting, and hooves thudding
against the clash of steel. Then silence. And the smell of mud.

He blinked. He was alive. A tiny pool of muddy water
glistened in front of him. Three blades of grass; no more than that,
but all pressed into the mud. He was very tired. So very tired. It
would be good to just lie here . .

‘
Here’s up with you now, lad!’ There was a hand on
his shoulder. He rose into the air. ‘Ah, let’s be lookin’ at
ye! . . . Man, you’re a sight all right, but there’s more blood
than breath in ye. Breath deep, breath deep, aye that’s it.’

James found himself looking unsteadily into the
twinkling eyes of a broad, bluff man-at-arms, with square,
black-stubbled jaw and large mailed fists. ‘Are ye all right, lad?’
James nodded, and put his hand to his head.

'Aye, just so,’ laughed the man-at-arms. ‘The butt
of my poleaxe caught ye, as I was scrapping with Frenchie there.’
He pointed at body of a knight, pinned beneath his horse. ‘Had to
knock you to one side to get at him. No time for niceties.’ He
laughed again. ‘He’d a pinned ye like a jackrabbit.’

Slowly, uncertainly, James looked around. His head still
hurt. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said.

The man-at-arms brushed some mud off his breastplate.
‘Aye, they have. Leastways, that lot have. There’s more to come
though. That was just for openers. Look!’

Away across the field, where it narrowed between the
woods of Azincourt, James could just make out a large formation of
knights coming towards them. They were on foot, huddled behind
shields and pavisses, dark blues and greys against the farmscape.
Here and there the pale sunlight caught helmet, blade and spear
point, but it was too far away to see all the colours of their coats
and banners. There were thousands of them.

Instinctively, James turned round. He sighed with
relief. The arrows were there: fresh sheaves brought up by the wagon
boys, and laid out every few yards. Then he remembered his debt: ‘My
thanks ta ye,’ he said to the man-at-arms.

The man shrugged. ‘No thanks needed,’ he said. ‘Just
sorry I had to knock you down. Still all’s well, eh?’

Yevan ap Griffiths came up. He had a rag bandage tied
around his head, and he was grinning: ‘You’re on your feet,
James? Good! I thought that great big Frenchman had you for sure. We
all saw it. Eric here brought him down with that stick of his. And
Jankyn put a shaft through the horse.

Pity.’

‘
Pity?’

‘
Aye.’ He grinned again. ‘There’s no ransom in a
dead knight, and this horse is good for nothing but meat.’

The captain in the red brigandine shouted a warning, and
they all looked to their weapons. The French ‘battle’ was coming
on apace now, and they could hear the distant cries of command as
nobles and knights struggled to keep order in their ranks.

‘
If we don’t split them, they’ll split us, that’s
for sure’,’said Yevan. He chose eight war arrows and placed them
at his feet. ‘Mind if I keep you company?’

James shook his head slowly. The pain was easing. ‘No
Yevan, you’re welcome. I’m a bit fuddled in the head still.’

‘
Aye, well!’ The Welshman laughed out loud. ‘Just
make sure you shoot ahead o’ ye, boyo, and not back’ards.’

All along the French ‘battle’ trumpets sounded.
After that, came the drums, their harsh, rattling beat urging the
knights on.

The archers watched them come, ignoring the anxious
advice of the men-at-arms who crowded at their backs.

‘
We’ll wait till they cross one twenty paces,’
called William of Yeovil, and all the other master bowmen shouted the
same. The French, still some distance away, pushed forward across the
muddy field, hemmed in by the woods and jostling one another, but
nonetheless presenting a formidable hedge of jagged steel: pikes,
pole-axes, spears and flanged maces, short-hafted axes and heavy
bladed falchions, as well as two-edged swords. James had never seen
the like before, not even at Harfleurs or Blanchetaque.

'They mean to have us for dinner,’ Yevan muttered, but
his voice was low, and he was no longer grinning.

'And suck on our bones for supper’, replied Eric.
‘When will ye send a flight at them?’

'When we’re told to,’ the Welshman replied. He
glanced toward his left, then leant forward and brushed the
fletchings of an arrow with the back of his hand, as though testing
the distance.

'Wait on my mark,’ said William Bretoun quietly. ‘That
oak there. See the old one, leaning out with the bark-stripped bough.
We’ll wait till they reach that.’

James studied the oak. What had taken that bark? A
lightning strike? Or deer? Or perhaps village kids just fooling
around. There was an oak just like it back home, by the river. It was
owned by the Bishop of Southwark.

The first of the French neared the tree, turning
slightly to straighten the line, and then trudging on once more. It
seemed that the entire ‘battle’ was made up of knights, all in
fine plate armour and brightly coloured tabards. Every one of them
was a master of the sword, every one a chevalier par excellence, all
of them with visors firmly closed and bascinets lowered to meet the
coming storm of arrows.

'They’ve got guts, I’ll say that for them,’
someone said.

'They’ll have your guts, and spread ‘em all over
this field if you don’t watch yourself,’ snapped the master
bowman. ‘Now, on my call . . .’

The archers tensed.

'On my mark, on my mark. . .Knee! . . .Stretch! . . .
Strike!’

The bows sang and the arrows flew like starlings against
the lightening sky. There was another flight in the air before the
first struck. And another. The ranks of French knights staggered and
buckled, but did not give way. On they came, heads lowered, shields
raised, shouting out with anger and alarm as the bodkin shafts drove
in among them. Men were falling everywhere: some wounded, many
killed, and all trampled by the feet of the knights who were hurrying
up behind them. Banners went down, only to be snatched up, and then
moments later go down again. The trumpets blared desperately, and
even from the English lines French captains could be seen urging
their men on, helmets cast aside and shields lowered to show they
felt no fear.

Soon, despite the losses, and despite the mud, the
battle had advanced well beyond the bark-stripped oak and was closing
to within eighty paces of the English stakes.

'They die well!’ shouted Morgaunt Filkyn as he sent
another war arrow arching and dipping towards the mass of knights.

'They kill better!’ replied Lewis the Hunte. ‘If we
don’t stop them soon, they’ll be in among us like scythes in a
harvest.’

With a shudder James loosed another arrow. He knew how
dangerous the French were at close quarters. Only a few days ago, a
company of archers were caught unawares near the Somme by a French
patrol. They were all but wiped out: two hundred men. The French
commander sent the only two survivors back to the English army: the
oldest and the youngest of the company, stripped to their breeches,
and with their bow fingers cut.

Again James loosed, bending and straightening in unison
with the rest of his comrades. The field ahead of him was strewn with
bodies, but still the French came on. How could they? Arrows sleeted
down on them in showers of black and grey, sweeping over their
melting ranks and throwing all into bloody disorder. But every time
James looked up between the constant flights, he saw huddled groups
of knights pressing forward. Soon, very soon, he would have to throw
down his bow and unsheathe the broadsword that hung at his belt.

At his feet were the last of his own arrows. One of them
had been smashed and snapped by the rearing destrier which now lay
dead in front of him: a protecting bank of muscle and bone.

Beside him Yevan ap Griffiths continued to loose arrow
after arrow, silent save for a grunt of satisfaction or a stifled
curse as he glanced to see a shaft to its target.

There came a familiar clatter behind him: good! More war
arrows. Perhaps there would be time for a few last flights.

He was now firing directly into the faces of the
oncoming knights. No longer were they simply targets, random parts of
an advancing mass. They were men. Men with their own shields, their
own devices painted on them. Men who gasped and panted as they
charged, so that their breath steamed in clouds about their visors
and helms.

James could pick the gaps in the armour now: those
chinks and fatal, dark lines that leather straps and rivets could not
conceal. Bodkin arrows were no longer needed; war arrows from the
king’s ordnance were sufficient to find the parting of the plates,
where neck meets shoulder, and chest meets throat. It was there that
the broad-barbed arrow-heads smashed easily through mail, and
gambeson, and flesh beneath.

A man-at arms appeared at his right hand, and another on
his left. The one on his left was Eric. He winked: ‘Here we go
again!’

James nodded, and shot one last arrow that took a knight
from Amiens in the shoulder and spun him to the ground. Then, almost
without thinking he unstrung his bow, dropped the stave at his feet
and drew the broadsword.

'Know how to use that thing?’ asked Eric.

'I can swing it well enough.’ He trembled as he spoke.

Eric grimaced and shook his head. ‘Well keep your
guard high, and whatever you do, don’t parry. Not against these
fellows.’ (The French, no more than a dozen paces away, were
struggling towards them, swords and spears levelled.) ‘Just duck
the cut,’ he went on, ‘and sway inside the thrust. It’s your
only chance.’ He took a step forward and raised his poleaxe. ‘See
that big ‘un? Leave him to me!’

A trumpet sounded away to their left, where the English
banners of St George and the Lions Royal stood. The whole line gave a
great cry and surged forward, led by the lion banner of that old
warhorse, Sir John Cornwall, and the golden cinqfoil of Gilbert
Umfraville, knight of the King’s Chamber. James hesitated, got a
blow on the back, and stumbled into the advance with the others.

They were on the French in an instant. Swords clashed.
Steel rang on steel. Shouts and curses, and men sprawling bloodied in
the mud. A knight in plate and mail, but with his helmet gone, came
straight at James.

He was young, fresh faced, with dark eyes and
russet-brown hair cropped in the chevalier style. He fought with his
sword in both hands, sweeping aside James’ over-stepped lunge then
making a back-cut that missed his throat by a hair’s breadth.

James danced back, as the sword came at him again, this
time slashing through his quilted jack where belly meets rib cage.
There was sudden pain, and a wave of nausea that made him stagger,
but he stayed on his feet, his own sword held up at guard, waiting
for the death-blow.

As the French sword came down, it rang against the metal
head of a poleaxe. James flinched, looked up and saw Eric grinning
down at him. Then the pommel of a sword came out of nowhere, and Eric
reeled backwards spitting blood and teeth: the young French knight
had struck him on the reverse parry, then turned to deliver the final
cut. Despite the mud that closed about sollerets and greaves, he
moved with a grace and strength that made him a leopard among lambs.
He felled Eric with a stroke that took the man-at-arms across his
shoulder, shearing the mail links and smashing the collar bone
beneath his quilted gambeson.

He did not pause as Eric sank to his knees, but thrust a
captain through who had come at him from his blind quarter.

Holding his stomach, wet to the touch, James lurched
forward, half falling, and hacked down with his sword. It was an
awkward, poorly weighted blow, which lacked everything but
desperation – but it was enough. It struck the young Frenchman on
his backplate, knocking him off balance. With a cry James lashed out
again. This time the blow was parried, but the swirl of battle moved
about them and in a moment the knight was gone.

More men at arms closed about James, their pikes and
poleaxes driving forward against the press of advancing knights.
Someone took him by the shoulder and dragged him back. It was old
Lewis, the greybeard of the company.

'Hey, lad, here’s a pickle! Eric down and you all
bloodied.’