Chapter 1 #3
“Tancarville!” William roared hoarsely as he pivoted to strike at a French knight.
His adversary’s destrier shied, throwing his rider in the dust where he lay unmoving.
William seized the knight’s lance and urged the chestnut towards a knot of Flemish mercenaries who were busy looting a house.
One man had dragged a coffer into the street and was clubbing at the lock with his sword hilt.
At a warning shout from his companions, he spun round, but only to receive William’s lance through his chest. Immediately the others closed around William, furiously intent on dragging him from his mount.
William turned and manoeuvred his stallion, beating them off with sword and shield, until one of them seized a gaff resting against the house wall and attempted to hook William from his horse.
The gaff lodged in his hauberk at the shoulder, the lower claw tearing into the mail, breaking several riveted links and sinking through gambeson and tunic to spike William’s flesh.
He felt no pain for his blood was coursing with the heat of battle.
As they surrounded him, trying to grab his reins and drag him down off the horse, he pricked the chestnut’s loin with his spurs and the stallion lashed out.
There was a scream as a shod hind hoof connected with flesh and the man dropped like a stone.
William gripped the stallion’s breast strap and again used the spur, forward of the girth this time.
His mount reared, came down, and shot forward so that the soldiers gripping the reins had to let go and leap aside before they were trampled.
The mercenary wielding the hook lost his purchase and William was able to wrench free and turn on him.
Almost sobbing his lord’s battle cry, he cut downwards with his sword, saw the man fall, and forced the chestnut forwards over his body.
Free of the broil of mercenaries, he rejoined the bulk of the Tancarville knights, but his horse had a deep neck wound and the reins were slippery with its blood.
The enemy had forced the Drincourt garrison back to the edge of the bridge.
Smoke and fire had turned the suburbs into an antechamber of hell, but the town remained unbreached and the French army was still breaking on the Norman defence like surf upon granite.
Bright spots of effort and exhaustion danced before William’s eyes as he cut and hacked; there was no longer any finesse to his blows.
It was about surviving the next moment and the next…
holding firm and not giving ground. Every time William thought that he could not go on, he defied himself and found the will to raise and lower his arm one more time.
Horns blared out over the seething press of men and suddenly the tension eased.
The French knight who had been pressing William hard disengaged and pulled back.
“They’re sounding the retreat!” panted a Tancarville knight.
“God’s blood, they’re retreating! Tancarville!
Tancarville!” He spurred his destrier. The realisation that the enemy was drawing off revitalised William’s flagging limbs.
His wounded horse was tottering under him but, undaunted, he flung from the saddle and joined the pursuit on foot.
The French fled through the burning suburbs of Drincourt, harried by the burghers and inhabitants, fighting rearguard battles with the knights and soldiers of the garrison.
William finally ran out of breath and collapsed against a sheepfold on the outskirts of the town.
His throat was on fire with thirst and the blade of his sword was nicked and pitted from the numerous contacts with shields and mail and flesh.
Removing his helm, he dunked his head in the stone water trough provided for the sheep and, making a scoop of his hands, drank greedily.
Once he had slaked his thirst and recovered his breath, he wiped the bloody patina from his sword on a clump of loose wool caught in the wattle fence, sheathed the blade, and trudged back to the bridge, suddenly so weary that his shoes felt as if they were made of lead.
His chestnut was lying on its side in an ungainly way that told him—even before he knelt at its head and saw its dull eyes—it was dead.
He laid his hand to its warm neck and felt strands of the coarse mane scratch his bloodied knuckles.
It had been a gift at his knighting from the Sire de Tancarville, together with his sword, hauberk, and cloak, and although he had not had the horse long, it had been a good one—strong, spirited, and biddable.
He had expended more pride and affection on it than was wise and suddenly there was a tightening of grief in his throat.
“Won’t be the last you’ll lose,” said de Lorys gruffly, leaning down from the saddle of his own dappled stallion which had several superficial injuries but was still standing, still whole.
“Fact of war, lad.” He extended a hand that, like William’s, was bloody with the day’s work. “Here, mount up behind.”
William did so, although it was an effort to set his foot over Gadefer’s in the stirrup and swing himself across the crupper. The cuts and bruises that had gone ignored in the heat of battle now began to strike him like chords on a malevolently plucked harp, especially across his right shoulder.
“Wounded?” Gadefer asked as William caught his breath. “That’s a nasty gash in your mail.”
“It’s from a thatch gaff,” William replied. “It’s not that bad.”
De Lorys grunted. “I won’t take back the things I’ve said about you. You’re still a slugabed and a glutton, but the way you fought today…well, that makes up for everything else. Perhaps my lord Tancarville has not wasted his time in training you after all.”
That night the Sire de Tancarville held a feast to celebrate a victory that his knights had not so much snatched from the jaws of defeat, as reached down the throat of annihilation, dragged back out, and resuscitated.
Badly mauled, the French army had drawn off to lick its wounds and, for the moment at least, Drincourt was safe, even if the neighbouring county of Eu was a stripped and pillaged wasteland.
William sat in a place of honour at the high table with the senior knights who fêted him for his prowess in his first engagement.
Although exhausted, he rallied beneath their camaraderie and praise.
The squabs in wine sauce and the fragrant, steaming frumenty and apples seethed in almond milk went some way to reviving his strength, as did the sweet, potent ice-wine with which they plied him.
His wounds were mostly superficial. De Tancarville’s chirurgeon had washed and stitched the deeper one to his shoulder and dressed it with a soft linen bandage.
It was sharply sore; he was going to have the memento of a scar, but there was no lasting damage.
His hauberk was already in the armoury having the links repaired and his gambeson had gone to the keep women to be patched and refurbished.
Men kept telling him how fortunate he was.
He supposed that it must be so, for some of the company had left their lives upon the battlefield and he had only lost his horse and the virginity of his inexperience.
It didn’t feel like luck though when someone inadvertently slapped him heartily on his injured shoulder in commendation.
William de Mandeville, the young Earl of Essex, raised his cup high in toast, his dark eyes sparkling. “Holà, Marshal, give to me a gift for the sake of our friendship!” he cried so that all those on the high table could hear.
William’s head was buzzing with weariness and elation but he knew he wasn’t drunk and he had no idea why de Mandeville was grinning so broadly around the trestle. Knowing what was expected of him, however, he played along. The bestowing of gifts among peers was always a part of such feasts.
“Willingly, my lord,” he answered with a smile. “What would you have me give to you?”
“Oh, let me see.” De Mandeville made a show of rubbing his jaw and looking round at the other lords, drawing them deeper into his sport. “A crupper would do, or a decorated breast-band. Or a fine bridle perchance?”
Wide-eyed, William spread his hands. “I do not have any such items,” he said. “Everything that I own—even the clothes on my back—are mine by the great charity of my lord Tancarville.” He inclined his head to the latter who acknowledged the gesture with a sweep of his goblet and a suppressed belch.
“But I saw you gain them today, before my very eyes,” de Mandeville japed. “More than a dozen you must have had, yet you refuse me even one.”
William continued to stare in bewilderment while a collective chuckle rumbled along the dais and grew in volume at William’s expression.
“What I am saying,” de Mandeville explained, between guffaws, “is that if you had bothered to claim ransoms from the knights you disabled and downed—even a few of them—you would be a rich man tonight instead of an impoverished one. Now do you understand?”
A fresh wave of belly laughter surged at William’s expense, washing him in chagrin, but he was accustomed to being the butt of jests and knew that the worst thing he could do was sulk in a corner or lash out.
The ribbing was well meant and behind it, there was warning and good advice.
“You are right, my lord,” he agreed with de Mandeville.
The shrug he gave made him wince and brought a softer burst of laughter.
“I didn’t think. Next time I will be more heedful.
I promise you will receive your harness yet. ”
“Hah!” retorted the Earl of Essex. “You’ve to get yourself a new horse first, and they don’t come cheaply.”
On retiring to his pallet that night, William lay awake for some time despite his weariness.
His mind as well as his body felt bludgeoned.
The images of the day returned to him in vivid flashes: some, like his desperate fight with the Flemish footsoldiers, repeating over and over again; others no more than a swift dazzle like sharp sun on water, there and gone.
And through it all, running like a thread woven into a tapestry was de Mandeville’s jest that wasn’t a jest at all, but hard truth.
Fight for your lord, fight for his honour, but never forget that you were fighting for yourself too.