A Flight of Arrows by A.J. MacKenzie (mobi reader android .txt) 📕

‘Never mind. Holland, Gurney, Mortimer, collect every man you can find. Then get ready to follow me.’

Mortimer gazed down at the swirling river, doubtless remembering his near drowning at Carentan, and then back at the beam, a foot wide and dripping with water. ‘We’re going to cross on that?’

‘The rest of us are,’ Despenser snapped. ‘Come with us, or stay here and soil yourself. Your choice.’

Mortimer stared at him and then turned on his heel. Gurney is right, the herald thought. They are like quarrelling children. Despenser turned away too, shouting to his vintenar, and Holland was calling for his men. More men-at-arms came running up to join them, Courcy and Gráinne among them, the bulky figure of Donnchad following. Harry Percy, Sir Richard’s brother, arrived at the run, followed by his own archers.

On the far shore, the ballistae began to shoot, each one making an audible crack as it launched its stone shot. The shot were the size of apples, black streaks rushing through the air. Two punched into the walls of the houses near the bridge, knocking holes in the timber. A third struck a man-at-arms in the head, shattering his bascinet like an eggshell.

‘Hurley!’ Northampton snapped. ‘Get that goddamned beam in place!’

‘Nearly there, my lord. A couple more Aves should do it.’ One of the carpenters spun around with a crossbow bolt in his side, toppled and fell into the river. Another ran forward to take his place on the windlass. The beam continued to rise with painful slowness. On the far side of the river, a trumpet sounded, and the French men-at-arms lowered their lances and launched forward, charging across the flat fields towards the Red Company through showers of arrows. On the south bank, the English waited. Merrivale found he was holding his breath.

The air vibrated as the French men-at-arms crashed into the Red Company. Standing at the south end of the bridge, the herald heard the shouts and screams of anger and pain, the hammer of metal on metal, the constant twang of bowstrings, and suddenly the hair stood up on the back of every neck as the Red Company began their war cry, ‘Rouge! Rooouge! Roooooouge!’ Just for a moment, he was back in Savoy, listening to the howling of wolves in the mountains; but these were men, not wolves, fighting with skill as well as fury, and one by one the French men-at-arms began to go down.

But there were too many of them, and sheer weight of numbers began forcing the Red Company back towards the river. The beam reached the level of the bridge. Harry Percy, whose brother was fighting at the far end, ran forward to help lift it into place. It spanned the gap, a foot wide and shining treacherously wet, twenty feet above the rushing waters of the river. Someone whispered a prayer. Drawing his sword, Northampton jumped onto the beam and began to run.

Encased in armour and mail, knowing that death awaited him in the river below, the constable ran lightly and easily, his arms outstretched for balance. Others followed him: Despenser, Mortimer, Gurney, Harry Percy, then Courcy and Gráinne and Donnchad and the other men-at-arms, running along the beam in single file while the stone shot continued to whip through the air around them. One man slipped and fell, hitting the water with a hard splash. Weighed down by eighty pounds of armour, he sank straight to the bottom. A trail of air bubbles marked the spot where he fell for minute or so, and then stopped.

Northampton reached the far end of the beam and charged forward into the heart of the fighting. The others followed. At first they seemed to make no impact, but as more and more English men-at-arms piled in, the impetus swung and the French began falling back. As suddenly as they had charged, they broke, the Red Company running after them and shooting them down as they fled. The crews of the ballistae tried to reload, but were cut down by arrows and crossbow bolts. Within a few minutes, the surviving French had fled, disappearing into the haze. Someone had already set their carts on fire, and flames rose pale in the dim light.

Northampton walked back across the beam, handing his bloody sword to his esquire for cleaning. ‘You may continue your work now, Master Hurley,’ he said calmly. ‘I want this bridge serviceable and ready for passage as soon as possible.’

‘Aye, my lord. We’ll do our best.’ The master carpenter said something under his breath and then turned to his men.

Hugh Despenser looked grudgingly at Mortimer. ‘I was wrong,’ he said. ‘You didn’t soil yourself.’

‘Go to hell,’ said Mortimer tiredly, and he pulled his bascinet off and stood for a moment, sweat pouring down his face and hair clinging limply to his neck, watching the smoke of the burning carts rolling across the fields.

21

Poissy, 14th of August, 1346

Morning

‘Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen,’ said the man from the West Country.

‘No,’ agreed the man from the north. ‘The French were damnably careless. They should have made certain that the bridge was completely destroyed, and ensured there was a decent guard on the north bank.’

‘That force from Amiens sent to protect it. Why were they so late?’

‘Their orders were delayed in arriving. That is all I have been told.’

They stood on the riverbank downstream from the bridge, watching the carpenters at work. ‘However, it hardly matters now,’ the man from the north said. ‘What’s done is done.’

‘I wish I had your philosophy.’

The man from the north smiled. ‘These things are sent to try us, my friend. Tribulations purify the soul, as Abelard said. Now we must decide what to do next.’

‘If all of Edward’s army escapes across the river, our entire plan is in ruins,’ said the man from the West Country. ‘They will march north to Flanders and safety, and Alençon and Hainault cannot attack Philip until Edward has been disposed of.’

The man