The King's Dogge (19 page)

Haldi stumbled on the word and looked to me for clarification.

‘Pavises are big wooden shields that archers use for protection.'

There were chuckles at this news. Clearly both the Burgundian nobles and German officers found it amusing to think of the cowardly French crossbowmen cowering behind their shields, as they harassed the flanks of advancing Burgundian columns. No matter how many of these pavises they bought, such craven-heartedness would not help them avoid defeat.

Maximilian's voice cut through the mocking laughter and Haldi quickly translated.

‘He says we have practised the order of the battle. The Count of Romount,' he indicated a small dark-haired man, ‘will lead the right flank column and the Count of Nassau,' a tall silent aristocrat, ‘the left. As has already been agreed, the others nobles and he will take up pikes and personally lead the columns. The three remaining cannons, and the few horsemen we have, will guard the flank of the Count of Nassau, and the English will guard the right flank and advance in front of it.'

Haldi paused to listen.

‘He says that he is disappointed that the cities of the duchy have not seen fit to send him reinforcements, but he will force them to submit to his will after he has defeated the French.'

The Burgundian nobles all seemed to be behind this plan. Maximilian rubbed his brow and spoke again.

‘He proposes to break camp tomorrow and force battle on the French. He says that he is totally confident of victory and invites any questions before the army marches.'

Haldi finished, out of breath.

Maximilian looked at me quizzically.

‘Any questions, Lord Lovell?' he said in English. I found out later he spoke six or seven languages.

‘He says…' said Haldi and then blushed realising his mistake.

I looked at Broughton and Thomas David who both shook their heads, and so I took a deep breath and looked at Maximilian.

‘Your Highness, I don't know how it is being done, but I think the French are creating a trap for your army.'

He looked at me sharply with an arrogant expression.

‘Why do you say that?' he snapped.

Hesitantly, I explained my misgivings. Would the French be stupid enough to attack pikemen using only conventional weapons? Particularly – I added tactlessly – after what had happened to the Burgundian Armies recently. Why had they not trained pikemen of their own order to take advantage of this new development in warfare? Surely, the only possible conclusion was that they had devised a method of beating columns of pikemen? In light of all this, I feared a trap.

There was a loud murmur of dissent from the Burgundians and the Germans. Broughton stepped forward loyally to stand by my shoulder, but Thomas David looked uncomfortable. Maximilan sat silently for a moment.

‘I very much doubt that you are correct,' he commented dryly, ‘and I am certain that none of my officers share your opinion.'

Ignoring the angry mutterings and hostile stares, I held Maximilian's gaze.

‘I am convinced that we are walking into a trap,' I repeated.

Maximilian narrowed his eyes.

‘Very well. I do not agree, but it behoves me to accept the opinion of an ally.'

He turned to Strolheim and spoke to him as Haldi rapidly translated.

‘He says that the army will remain here for two days and, at the end of that time, you will present yourself to the assembled leaders of the army and demonstrate the nature of the trap and your plan to counter it.'

With a swift chopping movement of his hand, Maximilian signalled the end of the meeting and his officers and nobles began to drift out of the tent, ignoring me completely. I shrugged my shoulders, indifferent to their discourtesy. That I was correct, I was certain. The problem I faced was that I had no idea why this was the case or what to do about it.

C
HAPTER
9

‘
I
t's funny how everyone hates us so much,' Broughton mused. ‘You would have thought that the rest of the army would be grateful to us for trying to save their lives. Instead they just seem to regard us as the reason that they are getting less food.'

I shifted uncomfortably on the prickly stubble. By allowing us two days to find a solution, Maximilian had placed an even greater strain on the Burgundian Army's rapidly diminishing food stocks. Rations, already low, had been halved, and men spat on my shadow as I passed them in camp.

‘We are going to be even less popular tomorrow evening when we tell Maximilian that we have not got the slightest idea what the French plan is,' I said irritably.

‘Let alone how to counter it.' Broughton agreed unhappily.

He subsided into silence, as we brooded on tomorrow's meeting. At best, we were going to be made to look extremely foolish.

‘Lord Lovell?' Surprised, I glanced up and saw Haldi together with an unfamiliar young man. Haldi gestured to him. ‘This one is in the service of Maximilian.'

I swallowed uneasily.

‘What does he want?'

‘He wishes to know whether you have discovered the French tactics.'

I glanced up in surprise at the young man, who had crouched down next to us. He looked too frail to be a soldier. His high forehead and slender hands gave him the appearance of a scholar or a priest.

Broughton looked at the youth suspiciously.

‘We report directly to Maximilian,' he grunted. ‘What's his interest in us?'

A slight smile lit up the young man's features as this was put to him.

‘He says that he can help you, provided you assist him,' Haldi replied. ‘He has calculated how the French will defeat the Burgundian Army.'

Broughton snorted contemptuously and turned to me.

‘Francis, we are in enough trouble already without wasting time listening to the theories of a beardless youth. Don't waste your time on him; he has probably not even fought a battle in his life.'

Broughton was right, so I turned to Haldi.

‘Ask the young man why he has not advised his superior officers of the French plan. In any army, you have a duty to talk to those who command you before approaching strangers.'

The young man's face became flushed.

‘He tried, but they did not believe him,' Haldi explained.

The young man said something. Haldi listened carefully before turning back to Thomas and me.

‘He says his superiors are boneheaded idiots. They are afraid to be shown up for the fools that they are. Strolheim is the worst; he told this one here to come back and talk to him about warfare when he was not drinking his mother's milk any longer.'

Tactfully, I ignored Broughton's poorly suppressed snigger.

‘Tell him that he is too inexperienced to help us,' I said shortly. ‘Knowledge of warfare comes from practice and experience.'

I expected the stranger to depart, but, to my astonishment, he spoke long and earnestly to Haldi. Haldi appeared to try to argue with him, but the young man protested passionately. At last reluctantly, Haldi turned back to us.

‘He says that through study he probably knows more about warfare than you will ever know, Lord Lovell,' he began apologetically. ‘He has pointed out that neither of you have guessed the French plan, which he has. Therefore, he proposes a bargain. He will explain the plan to you. If both of you believe it, you will publicly endorse him when he explains it to the others in Maximilian's tent tomorrow.'

The young man spoke again.

‘He says that you would all benefit from the arrangement because, while he knows the French plan, he does not believe there is a way to counter it. By working together, you could come up with a solution. He asks whether you agree to his proposal.'

Instinctively, I glanced at Broughton, who nodded slowly.

‘We have nothing to lose, Francis.'

‘All right we agree,' I told Haldi. ‘But I will only endorse him if I think he is right.'

Haldi conveyed this message to the stranger who was already sketching some form of diagram in the dust.

‘He understands, my lord.'

‘Good. Now ask him his name.'

There was a rapid exchange between the two of them.

‘His name is Swartz, my lord – Martin Swartz. He asks you both to concentrate as the key to the French strategy is the manner in which they use their large wooden shields or pavises, as they are called.

‘He says it is obvious how the French will use the pavises. He would now like to explain to you the French plan to stop our columns and annihilate the Burgundian Army.'

We all squatted and looked at Swartz's dust drawings.

‘Normally, when faced by attacking columns of pikemen, you would spread your crossbowmen out over your whole front. But then the enemy's archers or crossbowmen shoot at your own, so there is no significant gain for either side. Equally, you would, under normal circumstances, use your archers with cavalry to harry the flanks of the advancing column. These, however, are not the tactics that the French will use.'

Swartz gave a small smile and continued to talk to Haldi.

‘He says what he would do – if he was the French – is try and separate out our two columns. He would do everything he could to slow down the smaller column of the Count of Nassau, but he would allow our own column to advance completely unopposed.'

Haldi gestured to the dust drawings.

‘He says he would concentrate all of his crossbowmen behind the pavises, which he would lay out in a long line to face the bigger column of the Count of Romout. He would place the majority of crossbowmen behind the pavises and the others would go at either end.'

His finger traced the line of pavises in the dust.

‘Now, while a crossbow is accurate at seventy paces, it has a range of 300 paces. He wonders how accurate you need to be to hit a target of 6,000 men all bunched together. He also points out that crossbow bolts can penetrate armour.'

Broughton and I stared at the dust. It was beginning to sound plausible.

‘He would fire off the first volley of bolts – probably 1,000 – at a distance of 200 or 300 paces. The next 1,000 crossbowmen fire immediately afterwards. While they reload, the next 1,000 men fire. He estimates that at least two out of three bolts would find a target. In the confusion, there would be time to fire off at least two more volleys.'

Swartz smiled sadly and demonstrated the length of the line of pavises with a gesture; Haldi listened and turned to us.

‘He notes that the cleverness of the French plan is that their line of crossbowmen is much longer than the width of the advancing column. Consequently, they are able to hit the front and sides of the column simultaneously. Additionally, their men are safe from the archers, since they are behind the pavises. It would require three volleys to reduce the column to a complete ruin. But they will probably use five or six before they send in the cavalry and men-at-arms to finish off what is left of it. Having destroyed the larger column, the crossbowmen would wheel to their right and fire at the flank of the Count of Nassau's column, which, of course, has been slowed down. Again, 3,000 bolts firing into tightly packed troops would cause havoc. The second and third volleys would destroy them completely.'

It sounded devastating but convincing.

‘How can we use our archers to counter these pavises?' I asked Thomas David, who I had sent for. He looked despondent.

‘Arrows will not penetrate the pavises, except at point-blank range. We could try firing over the top of them, but we would lose accuracy and most likely the French would have helmets and some form of upper-body armour.'

I turned to Haldi.

‘Ask Martin Swartz whether he believes we could use the archers to make a flank attack. It would be hard for the crossbowmen to concentrate on what was in front of them if they were being shot at from the side.'

He considered the question for a few moments.

‘It is a possibility, but with the French being superior in numbers, it is likely they will put a very strong guard on either end of their line: archers, crossbowmen, men-at-arms, possibly cavalry. He fears that your flank attack would not stop the columns being defeated.'

Broughton, who had been studying the dust drawings, rose up stiffly.

‘There is no doubt he's right, Francis. It makes perfect sense to separate out the two columns, destroy the bigger one and then turn on the second, smaller one.'

Thomas Davis looked at him gloomily.

‘And there is not much that we archers can do to prevent it.'

Without doubt, Swartz's analysis of the French battle tactics was totally correct. Safely protected behind their row of pavises, the French crossbowmen could wait for the huge column to come into range and then pulverise it with volley after volley of armour-piercing crossbow bolts. Packed tightly together in pike formation, it would be hard to miss and the moment the column began to disintegrate the French cavalry would complete the slaughter.

I stood up and gestured to Haldi.

‘Tell Swartz that we believe he is totally accurate in his thinking.

‘So now all we have to do is to think of a way of defeating the French.'

Broughton plucked at his beard, a sure sign that he was thinking, Swartz began to draw more lines in the dust, talking to Haldi as he did so.

I too began to think, but after a while I turned to Broughton.

‘Well?'

‘I can't honestly say that anything springs to mind instantly,' he admitted. ‘It seems to me that not only do the French outnumber us, but they have useful things like cannon and cavalry that we don't.'

‘Well, we have three cannon and then there are our archers.'

‘Which will be rendered useless by the French pavises,' he pointed out.

We fell silent, but then Broughton gestured to Swartz who was still imparting information to Haldi.

‘Judging by the way he's ticking the points off by using his fingers, I reckon that he has thought of something.'