The King’s Assassin (7 page)

The word had got out by now among our men that the enemy were coming and as I jogged into the open space before the bridge, some sort of marketplace with rows of upturned carts stacked against the walls of the tall thin houses, I could see dozens of our fellows already there by the riverbank and scores more come streaming in to join them from the surrounding streets.

We formed up on the southern side of the bridge, with our flanks secured on both sides by the wide slow river. Robin appeared, as if by magic, with Hugh, both grim and grey-mailed head to toe, and between the three of us we got the men into a reasonable shield wall, two ranks thick, forty men wide, with Sir Thomas at one end and Sir Roger of Sheffield, a middle-aged knight, at the other.

‘Our scouts report the French in huge number to the south,’ Robin said to me, tersely. ‘Thousands of them. That’s the bad news. But they must have marched all night to get here from Ghent. So they will be tired. That’s the good news.’

Robin put a hand on my shoulder. I knew what he would say and I dreaded it.

‘I need some time, Alan,’ he said. ‘I need time to get all our men, Salisbury’s and the others, out of the town and back to the ships. There are hundreds of them scattered all over Damme and the harbour. And I need to use my rank to get the other knights to obey me.’ He meant that they would not heed my orders. ‘The only practical way across the river for a mile either way is at this point, this bridge,’ Robin said. ‘So Alan, my friend, can you give me an hour? Can you hold them off for me?’

I swallowed. ‘Give me the archers, and I’ll … I’ll hold them as long as I can.’

‘I’ll give you ten archers.’

‘God damn it, Robin. Give me every single one of the fucking archers or you can hold this fucking bridge yourself against the whole fucking French army!’

Robin looked at me oddly. ‘All right, Alan, you can have all the archers. And Little John, Sir Thomas and Sir Roger – and forty men-at-arms. Hold them as long as you can, then retreat – fast. Don’t get killed. Don’t do anything stupid. Keep Miles close to you. Ward him well. I’ll see there is a ship waiting for you at the harbour.’

Then he was away, running across the bridge, shouting for his squires, with a stern-faced Hugh running at his elbow, and a dozen men at his back. Miles was standing beside me. His arms drooping under the weight of his heavy shield and drawn sword. For an instant, his expression was unguarded, eyes wide with fear and hurt. He looked forlorn and abandoned. I felt the same. I looked down at my own left hand. It was shaking again – indeed, it was jumping like a leaf in a gale.

We made a tight, slightly bowed wall of men half a dozen yards from the southern side of the bridge. Two men deep; shields locked in the front, spears protruding in a bristling line of sharp steel; the shields of the second rank hard up against the backs of the first row. I grouped the archers, perhaps forty seasoned men, many of them former Nottinghamshire outlaws and men from the wild Welsh mountains, on the bridge itself. The structure rose slightly, perhaps a yard higher than the cobbles at its central point, which made it easier for the bowmen to shoot flat over the heads of their comrades. There was a space before the bridge about fifty yards wide by forty, and three roads leading in from the southern part of the town. Gusts of smoke billowed down these empty streets from the burning houses, cinders swirled in the air, and a light fog was forming that obscured sight further than sixty or so yards.

But I could hear the rattle of iron shoes on stone, and the cries of many men and neighing of horses, and I knew that the enemy cavalry was not far away.

Little John was strolling up and down the front of the shield wall. He was magnificently relaxed, the great double-headed axe propped casually on his shoulder, a thick round oaken shield held loosely in his huge left hand.

‘Not a step backwards, lads, not one step without I give the order,’ he was saying in a conversational tone. ‘I swear – by Christ’s big fat swinging cock – that I’ll chew the bollocks off any man who breaks this wall. Bite them clean off, by God, and swallow them like sweet grapes. Is that clear, you miserable pig-fuckers?’

Then he pushed himself into the centre of the line, in the second row, and rammed his shield against the back of the centre man in the first line. ‘Nice and cosy,’ he said. ‘We stay here nice and cosy and see off these nasty Frenchmen. We hold this bridge till Sir Alan gives the word. Then, it’s home to England and a life of luxury. We’re rich, boys, and once we’ve done this little bit of bloody business, it will be honey cakes, whores and hogsheads of ale for the rest of our lives.’

There was a cheer, but it was half-hearted. I could smell the fear-sweat on the handful of men in the pathetically thin line. Many, I knew, must wish themselves already in England. The enemy were coming, and in far greater numbers than we had. And our friends and comrades were even now embarking on to the ships and heading for home and safety. But we were here, and we had to hold the damn bridge.

I pulled Miles towards me, and Claes, the tall, one-eyed rogue, and three other seasoned men from the second line. ‘You are the plug,’ I said. ‘Claes, you know the drill. If the line breaks, you are to come forward and fill the gap. You’re in command of this squad. I’ll help you if I can.’

And to Miles: ‘Stay close to Claes; do exactly what he says. And keep your shield up, head down at all times. Don’t try anything foolish.’

Claes nodded his grizzled head: ‘We’ll keep ’em out, sir, don’t you worry. Right, boys, on me…’ and he led his little section away and into a huddle.

I walked the few yards up on to the bridge where the archers were stringing their bows, strapping on wrist-guards, and inspecting their shafts for warping.

‘Nice day for it,’ said Mastin, the leader of Robin’s bowmen, a sly thief from Cheshire who I’d known since I was a boy. He was a short, square, hairy man, as bald as a monk on top but furred like a monkey from his beard downwards.

I looked up at the sky. It was almost completely obscured by swirling grey smoke. The heat was monstrous. It felt as if we were baking in a vast oven.

‘Well,’ said Mastin, seeing my incredulous look, ‘it could be raining. The wet plays merry hell with my bow-cord.’

I gave a grating cough that might almost have passed for a laugh, and slapped the older man on his brawny shoulder.

‘No fancy business now, Mastin,’ I said, ‘just kill anyone who comes out of those streets and into the square, all right? We’ll hold them off and you kill them. Clear?’

But Mastin was already drawing his long, very powerful yew bow, a yard-long, wicked-tipped arrow already nocked. I jerked around and saw a score or so of men-at-arms in boiled leather armour come dashing out of the smoke from the easternmost street that fed into the space before the bridge.

The arrow whirred by my ear and over the heads of our shield wall; one of the enemy men-at-arms was instantly skewered through the chest. At that distance, no more than fifty yards, the arrow easily punched through his leather cuirass and slammed him back against the white-plastered wall of a house, pinning him there. His legs kicked as he wriggled and tugged at the wand of ash that nailed him to the wall.

His comrades faltered, hesitated, some taking a few steps forward, others stopping and beginning to edge back. Some turned, shouted incomprehensibly into the thick smoke behind them.

‘Feather ’em, lads,’ said Mastin quietly. ‘Don’t be shy.’

There was a creaking sound like an old oak door opening, as forty yew bows were drawn. A cloud of arrows fizzed over our heads like a flock of lethal birds. They lanced into the French men-at-arms; seven or eight dropped immediately, some struck several times. Another volley sped overhead, five more men dropped, and the rest of the enemy sprinted back into the smoke-filled lane behind them and disappeared.

‘That the sort of thing you were looking for, sir?’ said Mastin.

‘Just so,’ I said. And this time my laughter was genuine.

I walked down the short slope of the bridge to the shield wall and strode along behind the second rank: ‘See how it’s done, lads?’ I bellowed so that every man in the line could hear me. ‘All you have to do is hold tight. Keep the enemy off this bridge, maintain the line and let the archers do the killing for us. We’ve got the easy job. Just stand firm here for a little while and then it’s home to England and—’

I stopped abruptly as out of the smoke curtain across the eastern road entrance, a mass of horsemen erupted like steel-clad monsters belching from the mouth of Hell.

It was only a
conroi
of French knights and sergeants – about thirty men – but they seemed like a ravening horde a thousand strong. They were all in mail, mounted on big destriers, with twelve-foot steel-tipped lances couched. They came straight at us as the gallop, their iron hooves clanging against the cobbles, their war cries echoing eerily loud through the hot, close air.

‘Stand fast,’ I shouted, hauling Fidelity from its scabbard. ‘Stand fast, men.’

Over our heads the arrows were hissing again. They smacked into horse flesh and punched through mail, emptying saddles, causing the horses to rear and scream in pain and fear. A company of horses will not charge a firmly held shield wall – a truth that has been the saviour of men-at-arms on foot since our great-great-grandfathers’ day. No horse will impale himself upon a palisade of spears. Not willingly.

The arrow flocks flew, again and again, the thrumming sound beating our ears. The carnage was appalling. The French horsemen died as they charged, plucked from their saddles by the wicked missiles, their blood-splashed mounts impaled by shaft after shaft and crazed with pain and fright, bucking and kicking their lives away. But that attack was not stopped. The lead horse of the
conroi
, a grey stallion, his rider long since swept away by the arrow storm, and dying on its churning hooves, kept on coming at us, impelled by the sheer force of its own charge. Dying, dead, its chest stuck deep with a dozen shafts, the huge beast collapsed five yards away from the shield wall, tumbled over its own forelegs and carried on forward – smashing into the two-deep wall of men, snapping spears like twigs and battering through, creating utter disarray in our lines and a three-man-wide hole in our defence.

A rider directly behind the dead horse, miraculously unscathed by the barrage, put spurs to his mount and leapt the beast’s corpse – and he was in behind our wall.

The Sherwood men began to die.

The Frenchman lunged with his lance and transfixed two men, running them both through as if spitting capons. Then, urging his mount further into the press of men, he began to lay about him with a mace, smashing skulls and dropping our spearmen like alehouse skittles. Brave Sir Roger broke out from the end of the line, charging him on foot, snarling, his long sword gleaming – and died. His skull was caved in by the swinging mace like a spoon tapping a boiled egg. Another knight was coming in behind that first Frenchman, threading his horse through the bodies; now he was through, chopping down men on the right of the hole in the shieldwall, widening it with great sweeps of his sword.

The air was filled with stinging cinders and veils of grey smoke like silken drapes. I could barely make out the burning houses of the far side of the square. The two enemy horsemen towered over us, huge and immediate. I ran forward, Fidelity in both hands, swung and cut the blade deeply into the thickly muscled throat of the mace-wielding sergeant’s horse. The blood exploded, splashing like soup across my face, but even as the animal dropped, screaming and spraying, the man on his back was swiping at my skull with his weapon. By the grace of God, I ducked just in time, the mace’s sharp flange merely tinging across the dome of my helmet. But it was enough to drive me to my knees. I cuffed the hot blood from my face with my mailed sleeve, looked up at the sergeant as he loomed above me on his dying horse, his lethal mace raised at full stretch above him – and a bow shaft smacked deep into his throat, punching into the flesh, knocking him back and away.

The second rider was down, too, the horse bristling with shafts, a trio of our men hacking and stabbing at his prone body.

And suddenly there were no cavalry left to menace us – broken mailed men and bloody arrow-stuck horses were writhing, screaming, dying all across the open space before us – but our defensive line was in ruins, and Frenchmen on foot, dozens of them, were now once again pouring out of the smoke, running towards our shattered shield wall. Indeed, we had no wall left to speak of, just a few scattered dazed-looking men-at-arms and two loose clumps of terrified men huddling together – a gap of at least ten yards between the separate groups.

I heard someone cry ‘Locksley!’ and snatched a glance to my right.

Miles and Claes and the men of the plug had formed a meagre five-man wall and were marching forward in step into the gap between the clumps of survivors of the cavalry charge, their shields locked together, stepping over the corpses of men and beasts. Miles, in the centre of the plug, was shouting, ‘For Locksley, for Locksley!’ His face was as pale as whey, blue eyes glittering like wet sapphires.

The short bar of five men, as fragile as a sheep hurdle, came into position between the two loose groups of our spearmen, almost filling the gap just moments before the French footmen struck. I was bawling at the men, hauling them bodily into position, shoving them back into the wall, urging them to link up, lock shields with their comrades and brace themselves.

A huge blond figure in grey mail leapt out from the centre of our wavering wall and, howling defiance like a madman, he rushed out alone to meet the first wave of oncoming French infantry, his axe swinging, a shining smear across the smoky air.

Little John barged straight into the mass of advancing French infantry, cutting the leading man completely in half, the double-headed axe carving through guts, ribs and spine in a burst of scarlet. His back-swing decapitated a second man, the severed head leaping high over our coalescing shield wall and bouncing away and into the river. Spears jabbed at John, swords thwacked against his mail, but the big man was a whirlwind of flashing steel and gouting blood – he stopped the enemy charge against the feeble centre of the wall, stopped it dead entirely with his own heroic ferocity. His foes cowered back in fright, or went around him, and space opened up, a hole in the battle an axe-swing distant from Little John. The time he gave us with his lunatic bravery was just enough for me to re-knit the shield wall together.