The Fatal Child (50 page)

‘They’d do better on foot, maybe,’ he muttered. ‘Depending on what’s waiting at the stream.’

‘A horse can ford where a man cannot,’ said Padry hopefully.

‘That’s true. All the same …’

Peering ahead, Padry could see another mass of men and horses forming between him and the stand of oaks. That was Develin’s men-at-arms. He could see the chequered banner of the lady, the red squares just dark and colourless in this wretched light. They, too, were mounting. He wondered where the lady herself was. The lady, and the King, and somewhere away in the mist, Gueronius, too. All old pupils of his.
Not much luck, these pupils of yours, have they?
And a kingdom in play between them.

Hawskill, too, was looking ahead of him, eyeing the gap between Pemini and Develin.

‘We’ll have to close up,’ he said. ‘Forward, Pemini.’

And ‘Steady there!’ as the armed townsmen began to surge forward like eager hounds. ‘Keep formation, damn it!’

In two great masses, bristling with pikes, they began to trudge along the ridge. The crossbowmen accompanied them, scattered left and right in no order at all.

‘Where’s Watermane?’ asked Padry.

‘Oh, they’ll come along in their own good time,’ said Hawskill.

There must be some instinct that forbade a commander from looking behind him, thought Padry. Look round and all your men will look over their
shoulders, too. And once they do that, they’ll be a moment away from running themselves. But he could not stop himself from glancing back. Others were doing so as well.

‘They’re coming,’ said someone.

Beyond the heads and pikes of the second Pemini company, another mass of figures was moving towards them along the ridge. Distrustfully Padry kept looking until he could make sure of the banner of the Leaping Fish, Watermane’s emblem, wavering over the men behind. Then he fixed his eyes forward.

It was as good as it could be, he told himself. There were two well-armoured battles ahead, between him and the enemy. And there were two more packs of stout lads behind, in case Gueronius suddenly came charging out of the mist and fell on their rear. The lake lay to his right, guarding him from that direction. He had mail on his back, a helmet on his head and a mace in his hand. Now, come all or come nothing, he must make himself ready.

‘Halt,’ called Hawskill. ‘Crossbows, to the
left of
the battle, there.’

‘What’s the delay?’ said a voice.

What was the delay? Twice in the next hour the column ahead – the knights of Develin – started forward, and twice they halted. Thinly through the mist the Pemini men heard the voices of hundreds of men and horses, crying aloud. They could see nothing. They could not hear the clash of steel or the splash of mud and water as the knights of the north fought to cross the stream. They could only hear the shouting, on and on,
as though some giant cock-fighting pit had opened down in that dip below the grove of oaks.

It faded.

Later, after another march of fifty yards, it began again. They strained their ears, listening, trying to guess from the sounds whether the King’s battle was surging up the far slope towards the castle walls or was still struggling in the mud and drowning in the shallow water before the unbroken spears of their enemies. Padry thought of the King, and also of the young knight of Delverdis. He muttered a prayer for both of them. He wondered if it would be in time for either.

‘What’s that?’ said someone.

‘Something’s happening. They’re dismounting, look.’

Ahead of them, on the end of the ridge, the mass of Develin men-at-arms was changing shape. Men and horses were milling. Attendants were leading horses away. The men-at-arms were gathering into a tight, well-armoured battle under a small forest of spears.

‘They’re going to fight on foot,’ grunted Hawskill. ‘So. Either the King’s calling them forward, or—’

‘Captain!’

To the left, and slightly downhill, the crossbowmen of Pemini were calling, pointing away into the mist. A dozen voices broke out at once.

‘Quiet! Quiet all!’

Padry held his breath, listening. Ahead, the sounds of the fighting had died again. (What had happened
down there?) The battle of Develin was facing left now. And from the left…

‘Did you hear that?’

‘Quiet, damn it!’

A clinking noise, as of many little pieces of metal stirred by the wind. Unmistakable. A column of armed men was moving to the left of them. Padry could not tell if it was approaching or marching parallel to the line of the King’s army. He waited for it to become clearer. Long moments passed and it did not. He swore under his breath.

They must be enemy. They could only be Gueronius’s men. Padry felt a sudden hollowness in his stomach. He gulped.

‘Face to the left, Pemini,’ called Hawskill. ‘Pikes to the fore!’

For a moment all was chaos. Padry stood still, not knowing what was required of him. Men scurried and shoved past him. The pikemen, who had massed at the head of the column, hurried round to the left flank and spread themselves along the face of the reordered battle. Hawskill yelled and yelled at his men, pushing the crossbowmen off to left and right of the main body. Armoured figures clutched their maces and axes nervously, staring down the long green slope into the mist. And …

‘There!’

A stir among the ranks, as though of a vast beast hackling up at the sight of a challenger. Down in the valley bottom, men were moving. They were spread thinly, almost like a party of landsmen innocently
gathering wood. But those things in their hands were crossbows, not sticks. And beyond them a denser mass was coming into view: a column of armed men under pikes and banners. Further off were horsemen – knights, from the size and weight of the shadows in that mist. And appearing to Padry’s right was another body of foot, pressing down the line of the stream to find the King’s flank as he contested the crossings.

Padry pulled at Hawskill’s arm. Inspiration had seized him. For a moment he, Thomas Padry, was master of the day.

‘There will be a gap,’ he gabbled. ‘If they keep to those lines of march, a gap will open for us in the middle! We could—’

‘They won’t,’ said Hawskill.

Even as he said it the column below them halted. They had seen the King’s army on the ridge. The crossbowmen swung towards them, some running to space themselves out to the best advantage. Beyond them the main column struggled to order itself. Hawskill eyed it coolly.

‘Green, I’d say,’ he said. ‘Green, but eager. We’ll see.’

The enemy mass was still ordering itself, seething and wobbling as it stretched to match the line of Pemini. Padry tried to guess their numbers. Fifteen hundred? Two thousand? He gave up. He tried to pick out the banners but they were obscure in the mist. He set his teeth and shivered, cursing the enemy for being so slow.

He badly wanted to empty his bladder again.

They were coming at last. It was most obvious with the crossbowmen, because he could see them singly. The massed column behind them seemed only to shiver at its edges with the movement of many legs. But it, too, was creeping forward across the short flat ground at the bottom of the valley. It was beginning to climb.

Thunk!
went a crossbow a few paces to his left. And then
thunk-thunk-thunk!
as other Pemini bows tried the range. It was just like the first few drops of rain, heavy and threatening before the deluge. His eye could not follow the bolts. They flitted darkly and were lost in the mist. Was that a man down already? Or had he only slipped? The enemy bowmen were still coming on. They could not reply yet – the slope was against them. But very soon they would. Behind them the main enemy battle was crawling closer. How long now? Only a few minutes. Yet it already seemed an age that he had been standing here, watching them come. Why couldn’t they be quicker?

Another man had fallen. That was good shooting. The enemy were raising their bows now …

‘Heads down, boys,’ said Hawskill.

And now there was nothing for it but to look at his feet, hunch his shoulders, point his helmet to the bitter sky. Now the bolts were falling among the Pemini men. The air hissed. He heard the rattle of points on metal. Green the enemy might be, but those crossbowmen knew their job. With the Pemini bowmen picking them off one by one, they still aimed their shafts into the mass of pikemen on the
ridge, trying to loosen it, unsettle in, goad it into movement, so that it would be soft and disordered when their own pikemen charged into it. And Padry could do nothing but lean into the flight of arrows, one foot forward, staring at the ground and trying to make himself as small as possible under his helmet. Something clanged off a man to his right and bounced against his mailed elbow. Both men swore. A bolt should not pierce iron. But an exposed face, a shoulder-joint or foot … Leather was no help at close range. And the range was closing. The bolts were coming in more levelly. Someone barked with pain.

‘Steady, Pemini,’ called Hawskill. ‘Wait for it.’

‘Pemini for the King!’ cried Padry, still hunching his shoulders. ‘Give a cheer, boys, for the King!’

‘The King! The King!’ they roared. He could feel them stirring around him like hounds on a leash. Instinct screamed at them to hurl themselves down the slope. Training demanded that they lock in their places until the last moment. Away to the right there was a sudden surge of shouting as the battle of Develin closed with its enemies.

‘The King! The King!’ bellowed Padry.

He was looking up now. He could not help it. Over the shoulders of the front rank he saw the crossbowmen firing their bolts at one another at close range. Beyond were the real enemy, the massed pikemen and axemen under their banners – he saw the lion of Seguin waving over their heads, and other banners he knew from the lands around Tuscolo. He could see the faces, the eyes and bared teeth under
their iron caps. And as they came on, they too cried: ‘The King! Gueronius! The King!’

The voices blended into a roar. The enemy pikemen had picked up their pace. They were running forward. The crossbowmen, friend and foe, were scattering before them. The banners waved wildly over their heads.

‘Steady, Pemini!’ shouted Hawskill. ‘Stand fast!’

On they came, bellowing like animals, the front rank beginning to scatter with the rush. Surely, thought Padry, now we must charge. He hefted his mace.

‘Stand, Pemini!’

The tossing faces, mad-eyed, coming at him. It would be
that
one there, with the blond hair escaping under his helmet and his mouth so wide that Padry could see his tongue. He had a pike. It was feet away!

‘Haah
.’ roared Hawskill.

‘Ha-argh
.’ screamed the men around him, surging forward to the impact. And then it was chaos. Padry lost sight at once of the man he had marked. He beat wildly at a pike that came lancing past the man in front of him, stumbled, found his feet. He marked another man but the fellow went down at once, smashed by a mace that had come from somewhere. Michael – how little he could see! It was all tossing limbs and helmets and weapons, and he could only tell friend from enemy by the way they were facing. He seemed to be dancing on the spot, trying to keep his feet while the men around him jostled and stumbled in the fight. Someone was down. But he still had room
to move and swing. There! He reached over the shoulder of the man ahead of him and rammed his mace like a lance at the face of an armoured figure. He felt the impact. His enemy stumbled into both of them and they tottered all three together, but another mace came from somewhere and smashed the fellow down. Padry jumped clumsily over him.

Forward now. Two paces. There were half a dozen Pemini around him but he still had space. He saw another man fall. He beat at a hand holding a sword and at a face masked by a helm and nose-piece. He stumbled and struck in a panic at an enemy which broke through the ring around him. The man slipped and fell. Padry smashed again and again at his head and neck as he lay on the ground. Each blow jarred his arms and elbows and yet seemed to do no good, for the metal clanged uselessly on the helm and neckpiece and the man seemed to notice it no more than he might notice raindrops as he climbed painfully to his knees in the mud. Still Padry beat at him, gasping with rage and terror, and still the man struggled to rise. And then another man was kneeling beyond him, knife in hand, waving Padry back. As Padry checked his stroke the knifeman jabbed in under the rim of the enemy’s helmet, and the fellow buckled all at once. Not yet satisfied, the knifeman deliberately slid his bloodied point under the fallen man’s chin and drew the blade across the throat. Blood soaked his hilt and gauntlet and wrist.

‘That’s how you do it, fatty,’ said the knifeman, getting to his feet.

Padry nodded, gasping. His head rang with the cheers and jeers of the Pemini men, waving their weapons and hooting as Seguin’s landsmen drew off from them down the slope. He could hear Hawskill, some way off to his left, yelling for his men to re-form. And yet more clearly than either, it seemed, he could hear still the cry of the dead man as he lay helpless and the knife had slipped into his throat. The man had cried for his mother.

There were other bodies lying scattered around them. Some were still living. He saw Pemini men bending over them with knives. He looked away. Someone screamed.

How many sons? he thought. How many here, and how many more at the streamside?

‘Re-form,’ Hawskill was saying. ‘Back up on the ridge. Let’s get ourselves clear of this lot.’

‘But – should we not pursue them?’ said Padry.

Hawskill looked at him. ‘You think it’s over, do you?’ he puffed. ‘It isn’t. That – was just eagerness. They’ll come at us harder next. And when they get up here they’ll mean it.’

With a heavy, sinking feeling Padry looked around. Down in the valley below, Seguin’s battle was re-forming. They were a milling, uncertain mob. If Pemini advanced now, they might yet take to their heels. But…

To the left, the mounted knights facing Watermane had drawn off. They had left dead men and horses under Watermane’s spears but still moved as a body. To his right the enemy had also disengaged from
Develin and had fallen back down the slope. They were in good order, with crossbowmen coming forward to cover them. It was not over yet.