Stormbird

18

The city of Rouen lay around a hundred miles south and west of Calais. In normal times, William would have counted it a stronghold. As the capital of English Normandy, it had witnessed English victories, including the execution of Joan of Arc after her rebellion. William had ridden south to the city with the army, through lands that could have been English farms in Kent or Sussex for their familiarity. He’d crossed the Seine and reached Rouen on a chilly morning three days before, with dawn frost crunching under the hooves of his mount.

The city had been a silent witness to his arrival, the great gates solidly shut. William had stared up at dozens of bodies in the breeze, hanging by their necks from the walls. Almost a hundred swung and creaked, many of them still bearing the marks of violence or stained dark brown with dried blood. William had crossed himself at the sight, saying a brief prayer for the souls of good men guilty of no crime but their place of birth.

The people of Rouen knew the French king was on the march and they had taken courage from that knowledge. Consumed by fury, William could hardly bear to think of the rape and slaughter that must have gone on within those walls. There had been hundreds of English families in Rouen. He had seen cities fall before and the memories were among the ugliest things he had ever witnessed. He thought the hanged men were the lucky ones.

Denied the resources of the city, he had been forced to open lines of supply right back to Calais, guarding the roads and losing vital men just to keep the carts coming. At least there was water. Rouen was girdled by the Seine, almost enclosed by a great curve of the river as it cut through the rich soil of the province. His army crossed the river on stone bridges, then made their camp in open fields to the south of the city. They turned their backs on Rouen and began the work of pounding sharp wooden stakes into the ground to defend the position against a cavalry charge. Still more of his men used the protection of heavy wooden mantlets to approach the silent city and spike the gates with massive beams and iron nails as long as a man’s forearm. There would be no sudden attack from the rear. William only hoped he would have the chance to visit retribution on those within for what they had done.

The scouts brought in reports every day, all worse than the ones before. William was certain the French king could not have hidden the existence of so many trained men. Half the army he would face had to be peasants drafted for the task and such men had not fared well in the past against English armies. It was a slender thread of hope, but there was not much else to raise his spirits with Rouen at his back.

The open landscape dwarfed even armies, so that it was almost a month after his arrival before William caught his first glimpse of soldiers moving in the distance. He rode closer with a dozen of his senior barons to observe the enemy. What they saw did not please any of them.

It seemed the scouts had not exaggerated. Thousands upon thousands marched north towards the city and the river. William could see blocks of cavalry and armoured knights, as well as the expected host of pikemen so favoured by the French king. From the height of a small hill, William watched them come, all the while counting and assessing, seeing how they moved. Before long, he glimpsed a second group of colourful shields and banners snapping in the breeze. The king’s party of lords had come to the front. From a distance of more than a mile, William watched as one young fool made his horse rear, the hooves kicking air. He reviewed his own position, unpleasantly aware that he had to keep the bridges open across the Seine, or his men could be trapped against the city that had left them to stand alone.

William turned in the saddle to see Baron Alton glaring across the shrinking distance.

‘What do you think, David?’ William asked.

His senior commander shrugged eloquently.

‘I think there are a lot of them,’ he replied. ‘We may run out of arrows before they’re all dead.’

William chuckled as he was expected to do, though the jest moved him not at all. He had not seen so many French soldiers since the battle of Patay twenty years before. It made him feel old to realize how much time had passed, but he could still remember that disaster — and the slaughter of English archers that had followed. He told himself he would not make the same mistakes and could not help looking back over his shoulder to where his bowmen had prepared their killing ground. Nothing alive could reach them as long as his swordsmen held the centre. He shook his head, wishing for greater confidence in his own abilities. He would fight a strong defence, because he knew how to do it. He could at least thank the French king for not halting and forcing him to attack. King Charles would be confident, but then with such numbers he had every right to be.

‘I’ve seen enough here,’ William said firmly. ‘I think we should rejoin the men. My lords, gentlemen. With me.’ As he spoke, he turned his horse and they trotted back towards the English lines. William forced himself to ride without looking back, though he felt the enemy coming up behind.

As they crossed the lines of pointed stakes, William waved two earls and half a dozen barons off to their positions. Each of them commanded hundreds of men-at-arms, hard men sheathed in heavy mail under their tunics. They had left their horses beyond the river, though William still fretted over what looked like an escape route. Such things did not sit well with the archers, he knew. They had no horses. William remembered again how mounted knights had fled at Patay, leaving the hapless bowmen to be slaughtered. He swore it would not happen again, but still, there were the horses, a great herd of thousands ready to race away if the battle went badly.

As the French army approached, William rode up and down the lines once more, exchanging a few words with senior men and commenting on their positions. In defending the river plain, there was nothing to do but wait, and William sipped water from a flask as the French came closer and closer. After a time, he took his place in the centre, one of the few mounted men there among those with swords and shields. His cavalry held the right wing, but they would not charge unless the French king himself was exposed or the French were routed. Swallowing drily at the size of the army coming to kill him, William doubted he would see such a thing, not that day.

As the distances shrank, William could see the bulk of mantlets being brought up by the French king’s crossbowmen. The heavy wooden shields took three men apiece to move them on their wheels, but they would provide shelter even against the arrow storm he could bring down. William frowned at the sight of the columns trudging onward with the mantlets at the front like an armoured helmet. He could see French lords riding alongside the columns, roaring orders. They moved with solid purpose, he thought, though he would still wager on his longbows against them. His archers had their own heavy wooden barriers that they could raise or drop to protect them from barrages of bolts or sling stones. William thanked God there were no siege engines or cannon in the French army. Everything he had heard made it unlikely, but he was still relieved. The French were moving quickly, rushing to take Normandy before the summer ended. The heavy machines of war would be coming up behind them, ready for sieges to come. Until then, the most powerful weapons on the field were English longbows.

In the French centre, their cavalry trotted together as a mass. William almost smiled to see it, as one who had ridden to battle more times than he could remember. It was easy to imagine the banter and over-loud, nervous laughter as they closed on the English position. He said a short prayer to his patron saint and the Virgin, then dropped his helmet visor down, reducing what he could see to a slit of light.

‘Ready archers!’ he bellowed across the field.

William watched as the French crossbowmen wheeled their mantlets into a staggered line, giving the best cover they could. Yet to reach the English lines, the enemy knights would have to leave their shadow. He bared his teeth, hearing his own breath sound loudly inside the helmet. He would stop the French king before Rouen. He had to.

He could hear orders shouted in the distance, thin sounds borne away on the wind. The mass of enemy pikemen came to a halt and the centre cavalry reined in. The two armies faced each other, the French force almost five times the size of his own, a veritable sea of iron and shields. William crossed himself as the crossbow ranks marched on. It was a blessing that they didn’t have the reach of his archers. To get close enough to kill, they had to come within the range of the yew bows. His archers in loose tunics and leggings were in high spirits as they waited for them to do just that.

The last two hundred yards were known as the ‘devil’s hand’ to French soldiers. William had heard the term years before and he recalled it now as the crossbowmen walked with their weapons on their shoulders, still too far off to reach the English lines. They could not run, with the heavy mantlets being wheeled along with them. Those who rushed in had paid for it in battles of the past. Instead, they had to walk the last eighth of a mile, knowing all the time that they were in range.

William raised his hand and dropped it suddenly, answered by thousands of arrows soaring out as one, then again and again. He had never lost his awe at the accuracy of men who trained for twenty years at their craft. He knew they were despised by his armoured knights, seen as men who killed like cowards. Yet those bowmen gave as much of their lives to building skill and strength as any professional soldier. Welsh and English in the main, with a few Scots and Irish sprinkled among them, they could aim and strike a man down at four hundred yards. There was nothing in the world like them and William felt a rush of joy as the crossbowmen began to fall.

The mantlets protected many of the enemy, creeping ever closer in their columns. The longbows shot over the wooden shields, letting their arrows drop on to the bunched men behind, a hundred shafts at a time, spearing into the packed ranks. William could hear screaming and he saw a ripple go through the French cavalry. There were proud men there, knights and noble lords unwilling to see the hated English archers wreaking havoc.

‘Let them charge,’ William whispered to himself. He had seen it before, as knights driven to frenzy tried to face down the arrow storm. They knew fear against the rushing, whining shafts — and they were men who reacted to fear with rage.

‘Please,’ William whispered again. ‘Jesus and St Sebastian, let them charge.’

The devil’s hand had been passed and the crossbowmen had forced their mantlets close enough to form up and reply. For the first time, the air filled with black bolts, no longer than a man’s finger but deadly. All along the English line, shields were raised and locked together. The sound of the bolts striking was like hail, a roaring rattle that claimed men in the gaps, so that they cried out.

William raised his own shield, though he knew the iron bolts would not pierce his armour beyond the luckiest of shots. He had seen battles where the exchange of bolts and arrows could go on for days before the armies met, but he was counting on the French confidence in superior numbers. He was sure there were already voices calling for a sudden attack, beseeching the French king to let them catch his archers by surprise. He had planned for it.

White, goose-feathered shafts stood out like a mat of some strange weed around the French mantlets. The crossbowmen had suffered for their lack of accuracy and power. Hundreds of them were down, or limping back through their lines with terrible wounds. William saw the ripple pass through the French knights yet again as they shuffled forward, the horses stamping and snorting.

He shouted the order he had discussed with Baron Alton. It was passed on to the archers, who looked predictably scornful. Some of them spat on the ground in his direction, but William didn’t care what they thought of the tactic, as long as they obeyed.

As the next volley of iron bolts came over, hundreds of archers dropped flat, as if they had been struck. A great cheer went up from the crossbowmen and it was answered by their centre. William’s heart raced as he saw the knights kick in and canter down the middle, ignoring all orders to halt in their delight at seeing archers in disarray. They had a vast and overwhelming advantage in numbers and they fought with their king on the field, determined to impress him and make their names.

William waited as they came in, waited while his heart thumped, until they were fully committed and within the range of the bows. Despite their misgivings, his archers were enjoying the subterfuge, sending a few desultory arrows out as if the great storm had been reduced to nothing.

‘Wait! Hold!’ William roared.

The men lying on the ground were smiling like idiots, he could see them. Baron Alton wore a savage expression, his eyes wide as he watched William for the order.

‘Up! Archers up!’ William shouted.

He watched as the ‘dead’ men leaped to their feet and slotted new arrows on to the bows. The French charge could not turn by then. It could not halt. The knights had passed the mantlets, streaming around them in their desire to close and slaughter the enemy. They had swallowed up their own crossbow positions, just as they had once done at Crécy. William clenched his mailed fist, making the metal and leather creak.

The charging knights were staring ahead at the massed swordsmen facing them. Those men-at-arms raised their weapons, jeering and gesturing for them to come on. With a rippling crack, hundreds of arrows were loosed from the wing, cutting through the French with buzzing terror.

The first few ranks crumpled, collapsing as the closest men and horses were struck over and over. It was as if a blackened twine had been stretched across a lonely road, with the French knights the ones who caught it in the throat. They died in droves until the rising mass of broken men and corpses forced the charge to a furious halt.

William called an order and the entire centre of his army moved in. He rode with the sword and axemen, weapons raised to kill as they ran as fast as they could. They reached the lines of the dead in a hundred heartbeats, clambering over still-kicking horses and into the crush of mounted knights behind them. All the time, the arrows soared over their heads, killing men who never even saw what hit them.

William watched as a group of burly English axemen cut their way into a dozen knights, hammering them from their saddles. The great advantage of a horse was its speed and agility, but the lines had compressed and the French knights could hardly move to fight back.

William saw lances thrown away in disgust and swords drawn to hack down as the roaring English butchers killed their way deeper into the French lines. He exulted at the damage they were doing, but from the height of his own saddle, he could see further than the men on the ground. As he looked up, his heart sank. The brutal action had not touched the bulk of the French army. They were shifting and moving under new orders to come round and hit his flanks. There were so many of them! It made his triumphant ruse and sudden attack look no more dangerous than a minor skirmish.

He turned to the messengers running at his side.

‘Find Baron Alton and give him my regards. Tell him I would appreciate our mounted knights being used to prevent the enemy horse flanking us.’

One of them raced off and time seemed to stand still for William while his men hacked and killed for him. He waited for Alton to respond. The French cavalry were pulling back at last from the impossible crush of the centre. William could see fresh pike regiments marching stolidly in to where the killing was going on. It was an impressive manoeuvre under pressure and he assumed the order for it had come from the king himself, the only man on that field with the authority to order his knights to withdraw.

The English sword line surged forward, killing anyone they could reach. They’d gone too far for support from the archers by then and it was that which made William hesitate. His men-at-arms had pushed on into a long column of their own while pursuing the enemy. They were not only exposed along the flanks, but in real danger of being cut off. He looked into the distance again and shook his head at the numbers still untouched by the battle. He had hoped against hope for a rout, to fold the French lines into themselves in the sudden terror of the attack. It had not happened and he knew he should fall back. Yet Alton’s heavy cavalry was moving up on the wings, and when he glanced behind, he saw hundreds of archers stalking forward, trying to keep up with the moving battlefront, where they could still do damage.

William found himself sweating. He was still vastly outnumbered, but moving forward at a good pace against enemy pike regiments. Those cruel weapons were nearly impossible to charge with cavalry, but his sword and axemen would literally go through them, dodging past the outer points and then wreaking havoc on the untrained men holding the long weapons. He knew he should pull back in good order, but not yet, not quite yet.

The ranks of pikemen lowered the heavy iron heads and broke into a charge of their own, a line of sharp metal and pounding feet that was terrifying to stand against. The English men-at-arms readied their shields, knowing they had to turn the closest pike-head with a blade and then slip in with a straight thrust to kill the wielder. It was a difficult move to pull off with hearts racing and hands slippery from sweat and blood. Many of them missed the deft touch and were impaled, the heavy pikes driven as much by the running men behind as those who held them. Hundreds more slipped the pikes and stabbed past, but the rush and press was so great that they too were swallowed, knocked off their feet by the weight of the charge. William cursed aloud, calling for his men to fall back and re-form. He turned his mount and trotted a hundred paces to the rear before facing the enemy again. Still they came on, roaring in excitement despite their losses.

‘Archers!’ William shouted, hoping to God that they could hear him over the noise of the battle.

He heard the snap of bows release behind him and holes appeared in the line of pikes. Those men needed both hands to balance the heavy poles. The peasants carried no shields and boiled leather jackets were no protection at all against the shafts that tore into them. The foot charge wavered as yew bows punched out volley after volley.

Despite the carnage of the assault, it was the sight of the hated archers that kept the French pikemen coming. Standing in wide-spaced rows, wearing simple brown cloth like farmers, the archers were the monsters of a thousand tales and disasters. The pike ranks pushed on, desperate to reach the men calmly killing their friends. It was all they knew — the one weakness of a bowman. If he could be rushed, he could be killed.

William was forced to retreat once more. His ranks of swordsmen came back with him as the pike lines re-formed and left their dead behind. Step by step, the English forces lost the ground they had gained in the first advance, until they were back in their original positions. There, they dug in and stood with raised swords and shields, panting and waiting.

Some of the archers had been too slow to retreat with them, so that they vanished in a moving tide of men and rage. Yet around eight hundred made it back to their own mantlets and stakes. They turned once more with blood in their eyes for the pikemen.

Those volleys of arrows did not soar. As the pike regiments continued to charge, the shafts punched out in short, chopping blows, cutting off battle cries and sending men to their knees. Gaping holes appeared in the lines and pikes dropped or wavered upwards to the sky. The entire French line tried to slow down rather than rush into withering fire. Those behind compressed, their pikes as dense as spines on a hedge-pig, a forest of wood and iron.

The pikemen came to a staggering, bloodied halt and the archers took fresh quivers from arrow baskets and shot until their hands were bloody and their shoulders and backs ached and tore with every shaft sent out. Against a standing enemy, it was a savage slaughter and they delighted in it.

The French regiments retreated at last, unable to force themselves any closer. They jogged away, turning their backs and then feeling the surge of terror that lent wings to their feet. Behind them, archers cheered and howled like wolves.

William felt a surge of pleasure that lasted as long as it took him to look over his forces. He’d lost a great number of men in just the first action, perhaps six hundred or a little more. He closed his eyes, suddenly feeling sick. Ahead of him, French knights were massing again and their king had even sent small groups forward to manhandle the mantlets into better positions. His archers responded with a dozen boys who sprinted out and gathered arrows into their arms, plucking them from the ground into great sheaves. As William watched, a lone crossbowman took careful aim and shot one of the boys as he turned to come back. He fell with his arrows spilling like a white wing and the archers roared in anger.

The French were going to charge again, William was certain. He could see more than eight thousand of the enemy who had not yet fought that day. His soldiers had wreaked bloody destruction, but the cost had been high and there were simply too many of the enemy still fresh and ready to attack.

‘Second charge coming, Alton!’ William bellowed across the field.

As he spoke, his horse made a huffing sound and sank to its knees, almost sending him over the animal’s head. In his heavy armour, William dismounted slowly and clumsily. He found two bloody holes in the horse’s chest, where it had been struck by bolts. He could see red droplets around the muzzle and he patted the powerful neck in distress, already looking for another mount to carry him.

‘A horse here!’ he called, standing patiently while his messengers found one of the reserve mounts and brought it to him. It was the first time that morning that he had seen the battlefield from the height of his men-at-arms and he drooped at the width of the ranks still facing him. The French had lost a crippling number, perhaps two thousand against hundreds of his own. In any other circumstances, the victory would be his. Yet the king still lived and he would only have grown in fury and bile.

‘One more charge,’ William muttered as he was helped to mount. In the privacy of his own thoughts, he knew he would surely have to retreat after that. He’d tell the surviving archers to run for the bridges, while his knights and men-at-arms fought the rear. He could do that much, he told himself, redeem that much honour. Until then, he had to survive another massed charge by an enemy who sensed their weakness.

‘Ready archers!’ he bellowed.

Few of the crossbowmen had survived the mêlée around the mantlets. If the French wanted a victory that day, they were damn well going to have to charge the yew bows they hated. With an effort, William pulled off his helmet, wanting to breathe and see clearly. They were coming and the archers were already bending their bows, waiting for them. He kept a spark of hope alive because of those men — and those men alone.