The Archer's Castle: Exciting medieval novel and historical fiction about an English archer, knights templar, and the crusades during the middle ages in England in feudal times before Thomas Cromwell (11 page)

       And here come the mounted knights of our enemy.  They are walking at the moment but they are obviously soon going to break into a trot and then charge. A great mass of infantry is walking and running in a disorganized mob behind them.  But not all are coming – several mounted men have turned their horses and are trotting away.  And some of the mob of men behind them are not walking forward.

       “Ready with the Pikes”… “Halt.” That’s what I shout as the knights get closer and break into a trot and close their helmet visors. 

       I raise my right arm but wait until I’m sure it isn’t a false charge.  It isn’t and they break into a gallop. 

       After a brief pause to let Cornwall’s knights get close enough, I shout the order.

       “Up pikes.”  … “Set pikes.” 

       It’s an impressive sight as our column halts and the pikes the men have been carrying with their left hands are suddenly elevated and revealed for the first time.  Several of the mounted men and many in the mob walking behind them are impressed when they see our disciplined ranks and our pikes come up– they pull up and stop.  It is finally beginning to dawn on them that we are not an ill-trained mob of hastily mobilized villeins as most of the knights’ men seem to be.
And, of course, once their visors come down the knights can hardly see at all.  Bad luck for them.

       The column sergeants are watching my right arm.  I drop it and keep pumping it as soon as the knights drop their visors and begin their charge.  

       All along the columns the sergeants shout “Launch.  Launch.”

       Our men give a great cheer as a great cloud of arrows reaches out towards the charging horsemen and the pikes come up – and the charging knights keep blindly coming on even though more and more of their horses go down. 

      
So far so good.  We have a lot of shafts.

       The result is what any veteran soldier would expect – even highly trained horses don’t react well to being shot with arrows so that less than half the knights reach our pikes and none get past them. Well that’s not exactly correct. 

       Charging horses always stop when they impale themselves on two or three long pikes set firmly in the ground.  It’s their riders who don’t stop - they fly through the air and knock over our files like bowling balls on the village green. 

       Once the knights are down they don’t get up.  The knights who fly off their horses and land in our ranks promptly have their throats cut and their eyes stabbed. And those on the ground in front of us don’t get up either.  Not after I give the command to resume our march and our men march past them and stab them as they go by.

       Some of what’s left of the charging mob on foot behind the knights actually get close to our pike men before they go down.  Most do not.  They either immediately turn and run or are felled by the cloud of arrows that continually rains down upon them both as they charge us and then when they turn away. 

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       Discipline falls apart after the battle.  Our sergeants lose control as our men spread out over their fallen foes to plunder them.  But I’m not there to stop them.  I’m riding for the castle with my gallopers – and only swerving off to use my sword to cut down a couple of the running men who are close enough to the path I take.

       What I see as I ride over the lowered drawbridge and through the gate are bodies everywhere.  But what see when I dash up the stairs two at a time to upper level is even worse – Dorothy and the two girls are literally hacked to pieces.

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        Henry FitzCount is not among the dead knights.  He must have held back when they charged.  And to my surprise the next day FitzCount sends two heralds.  They propose a truce and a parley
. 

       I agree.  Nothing to lose and if I can get close enough to Percy I’ll kill the bastard truce or no.

       It happens this way.  The next morning two knights appear in the big field behind Trematon with a man blowing a trumpet to announce them.

       My irate response is loud enough to be heard by my men in the formation behind me. 

       “Are you two cowardly children killers like Henry FitzCount or are you real knights?” are my first words before they can say anything. 

      
I’m goading them you see; and heating up my men while I do it. 

       “We are knights, Monsieur,” the older one answers from about twenty paces away. 

       “I am Phillip of Calais and this is Louis.  He’s from Calais also.”

       “I do not believe you.  If you were knights you would not be in front of us on behalf a cowardly killer of young girls, the children of a lord who fell fighting the Saracens with King Richard.” 

       “King Richard will cut off your balls and dingles, you know.  That’s what Richard will do when he hears that you are with that cowardly children killing scum FitzCount.” 

       I keep taunting the two knights without giving them a chance to speak; I want my men to hear what I say.

       “FitzCounts’ such a coward he abandoned his men and knights and ran from the field didn’t he?  Did you run away with him when he abandoned his men and ran?   If so, why should I parley with cowards such as you two and the disgraceful peasant you represent?”

       The two French knights are taken back.  This is not at all the reception they expected.

       “No monsieur, we are sworn to King Richard and newly arrived in England this very day.”

       “I will accept your word though I find it hard to understand.  I personally served with Richard in the Holy Land and I know he has no use for cowards who are only capable of killing children.”

       And then I add very slowly and pointedly, “or those who choose to ride with them.”

       “Sir Henry is not a coward,’ interjects the younger man.  He sent us here to challenge you to a “trial of arms” to let God settle the dispute between you.

       “He issues a challenge does he?  Well that’s good news.  Very good news even though my men will be sorely disappointed – every one of my men was taken to see the children he butchered and each and every man has sworn to kill him.  I myself and Bishop Thomas have each offered a thousand pounds for the coward’s balls and dingle.”   

       The two French knights are truly stunned as I continue. 
They still don’t realize I’m speaking to my men as well as to them.

       “So Henry FitzCount challenges me eh?  Well that means I name the place and weapons is that not so?  And no substitutes are allowed so he cannot hide?”

       “Of course,” responds the older man.

       “Good.  I name tomorrow at noon right here on this very spot.  Both of us on foot with no else within two thousand paces.  Is that acceptable to you and you will swear on your honour to have him here and not a substitute?

       “Yes, Monsieur, that is acceptable.  We swear it.”

       “Good.  And as his seconds will you swear to denounce him to King Richard as a coward and take all your men and leave his service if he refuses to pick up his weapons and fight me here at noon?”

       “Of course, Monsieur.”

       “Good.  I’ll meet him here on foot at high noon.  I’m English and he’s English so the weapons I choose will be English - daggers and English longbows.  No other weapons.  Are you agreed?” 

       The French knights are surprised by my choice of weapons but they nod their agreement.  With that I turn my horse and canter back to my men. 

      
Of course I choose the weapons I know best.  I’m not stupid you know.

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       At noon the next day my men are all assembled in their companies and ranks behind me.  They are watching as I walk out into the empty field with a couple of bows, four quivers of arrows, and a skin of water. 

       Even Thomas is watching.  He’d heard about the challenge from a galloper yesterday and damn near killed a horse to get here from Restormel.  A smaller crowd of fifty or so men is assembled and watching from some distance away on the other side of the field.  Most of them are mounted so I assume it is Henry FitzCount and the surviving knights and squires of Launceston Castle and its manors.

       After a while a man dismounts and begins walking into the field from across the way.
Hot damn the fool is coming. 
I just wait and let him come to me.  The two bows I’ve brought with me are strung and my arrows are stuck in the ground for fast access.

       He stops and waves his hand in the air.  Suddenly five or six horsemen break away from the crowd on the other side and begin galloping towards me with their swords in their hands.  A trap!

       Thomas and I’d been worried about such a betrayal because the knights that delivered FitzCount’s challenge are French. 
They have all have the pox, you know, and it affects the way they think.  It’s well known they get it because they eat disgusting things like toads and snails.
 

       I suspected treachery.  That’s why I didn’t go all the way to the middle of the field. 

       My response to their charge is to drop my bow and run for my life as fast as my feet can move.  My head is down and I’m moving my legs as fast as I can when I hear a booming English voice give a command from somewhere in front of me.

       “Nock your arrows and shoot as soon as the bastards are in range.  Keep shooting.  Rapid advance.”

      I don’t look back but I know Henry’s men are close when I hear arrows begin to fly over me and pounding hoofs behind me.   I’m totally out of breath as I literally fling myself headfirst into the frontline ranks of our pikemen. 
Safe by God.

      
Unknown hands pull me to my feet
. 
Only then do I turn around and look as I gasp and try to catch my breath. 

       Most of my assassins’ horses are on the ground along with four of their riders.  One horse is still on its feet with its rider is attempting to gallop away through the cloud of arrows coming down all around him.  And then he too goes down too.  Closer in one of my would-be assassins is struggling to get out from under his fallen horse. 

      
Didn’t know about English archers and longbows did you?

       I’m still gasping for breath when I hear the sergeants begin shouting “Cease launching …  Cease launching.”

      After a moment’s pause to catch my breath, and a heartfelt thank you and acknowledging wave of my hand to the men in the ranks around me, I begin walking out to the downed knights.  Thomas and several of the sergeants are close behind me.

       The second closest rider is still trying to get out from under his horse as I walk up to him.  “Ransom… Ransom” he is shouting anxiously. 

       I look down at him and respond “Honour…  Honour” as I lean over and stab him in the eye - and push my dagger in as far as it will go.

      My third and fourth would be knightly assassins are already dead from multiple arrow hits and broken bones.  The fifth is not.  He’s out at the far distance of arrow range so his horse undoubtedly went down in the first flight of arrows. 

       That the knight’s horse went down so quickly probably saved him when the archers turned their attention to those still on their horses who got closer to them.  This one, like the other three, appears to be French.  He is in French armor and his leg is broken. 
His armor looks to be so heavy that he probably couldn’t get up by himself even if his leg wasn’t broken.

       By now the white heat of my anger is gone and I’m tired, very tired.  Exhausted actually.  So I sit myself on the ground and watch as Thomas and a couple of sergeants question him.

       “Tell me everything.”  My priestly brother demands of the knight as he rips off the man’s helmet.  “Who gave you the orders and what have you been promised?”

       Our captive and Thomas have an interesting conversation, a very interesting conversation.  He’s French and at first he refuses to talk and babbles on about paying a ransom and pleading for mercy.  But he soon changes his mind when Thomas pulls him out from under the horse with a sweet smile and twists his leg a couple of times – his broken leg. 

       He is a French knight recently arrived at Launceston and he has surprising information.  He is desperate to tell us everything he knows and we get it all.  Then Thomas stops twisting his leg and motions for one of the sergeants to cut his dishonourable goddamn throat.

       We are alone on the field.  The mounted party at the other end of the field turns and rides away as we walk back to our men.  Behind me our men are stripping the knights of their armor.  They will make a nice trophies if we don’t sell them or melt them down.

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        What the late and unlamented French knight tells Thomas and me is quite surprising - it is the Earl Baldwin’s widow, Isabel, who is responsible for all the deaths and trouble.  It was she who demanded Baldwin evict her half-sister Lady Dorothy from Trematon and then attack it when the eviction fails.  And when her husband and his brother are killed it was she who demanded Henry FitzCount attack Trematon and kill Lady Dorothy and her children.  That was her price for her hand and Baldwin’s lands.  What he can’t tell us is why. 
Kill her own sister and her nieces?  Her own sister?