‘Should we stop and wait for the French?’ I asked Robin. I knew what he would say before I even finished the question.
‘We have our orders,’ said Robin tersely.
I twisted in the saddle and looked behind me again. The third division was composed of a little more than a thousand mounted knights, mostly French but also with a few hundred renowned Italian noblemen from Pisa, Ravanna and Verona. They were accompanied by more than five thousand spearmen and crossbowmen, unhorsed men-at-arms, servants, muleteers, ox-cart drivers and assorted hangers-on. Despite King Richard’s clear orders, they even seemed to have brought along all their women. In the vanguard of the division, in two glittering ranks, rode five hundred French knights, splendid in bright surcoats and riding under gaily fluttering pennants. Behind them trundled the ox-carts and the mule trains, guarded on either side by the footmen: tall spearmen in leather armour and skilled Italian crossbowmen, their bows over their shoulders, singing as they marched. In the rear was another double row of knights. The formation was a good one, designed as it was for the defence of the supplies in the wagons, or it would have been but for the yawning space between the third division and the rest of the army. There seemed to be no sense of urgency, but I could see that the real problem was the ox-carts, which moved along too slowly. Even moving at a walking pace, the double row of knights at the front was constantly having to rein in and wait for the big wagons to catch them up. And every time they did this, the space in our column gaped a little wider.
‘Alan,’ said Robin, ‘ride up to the King and inform him of the situation; tell him we are in grave danger of leaving the French behind, and that we must slow the march. Go on, quickly. I don’t like the look of those Saracen horsemen.’
I guided Ghost between two of Little John’s walking spearmen and put my spurs into her sides. As I galloped up the left-hand side of the army, I looked over to the East and I could see what Robin was concerned about. A river of horsemen, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, was spilling out into the coastal plain roughly opposite Robin’s force — but they were heading towards the gap in the column. If they got between the main body of our army and the French they could surround the wagon train and cut it up at their leisure. I put my head down and raced Ghost as fast as I could towards the royal standard, a rippling splash of wind-tossed gold and red that fluttered half a mile ahead; and, in what seemed like only a few moments, breathless, sweating like a slave, I was calling out to the household knights to let me pass and, suddenly, I was in the presence of the King. He looked older than when I had last seen him this close to, on the beach in Cyprus, and more careworn, and I knew I was about to add to his worries.
‘Greetings, sire, from the Earl of Locksley, and he says that the French and the baggage-train are being left behind and we must slow the march or abandon them. Also, it looks as if a large body of Saracen horse is on the verge of getting between us and that same division.’
‘Are they, by God! William, Roger, Hugh, you three come with me; the rest of you keep the column going. Blondel,’ I smiled with pleasure at the King’s use of his personal nickname for me, ‘how many cavalry does Locksley have, about four score, isn’t it?’ I nodded in agreement. ‘Right, let’s see if they are any good.’
As we cantered back down the column, the King, his three bravest knights and myself all riding abreast, I saw that we were already too late. Three or four hundred Saracens in loose formation were galloping their scrubby little horses straight at the leading knights of the French division. All had their short bows in their hands, and as we watched, they let fly a cloud of arrows, which sailed high, came down, and rattled against the knight’s shields and chainmail coats. Without slowing their horses, the Saracens plucked fresh arrows from quivers on their saddles, nocked and loosed again; and again; and again. I was astounded, their rate of fire was faster even than our own Sherwood bowmen, and they were accomplishing this from the back of a galloping horse! Just as the Saracens must surely smash into the ranks of the French knights, who had levelled their lances, and were trotting forward ready to receive them, the Saracens swerved away from the line of knights, rode swiftly along the face of the division shooting another shower of arrows, skewering horses and men at close range, and then curved away back the way they had come, turning in their saddles to give the French one last parting volley from their short bows. It was an amazing display, and I doubted if anyone in our army could match their skill on the back of a galloping horse.
As they rode away from the knights, I noticed something strange: although many of the Frenchmen were stuck with arrows, some even had three or four shafts jutting from their mail, there were only a handful of empty saddles; far too few for the volume of arrows loosed at them. And then it dawned: the arrows might come thick and fast, but they had little power to penetrate proper armour, unless the horsemen were close. Certainly their weapons did not have the immense power of a Christian war bow, which could smash an arrow head through the interlocking steel rings of a hauberk, through the felt padding underneath and on deep into the body of a knight.
The King was now very close to Robin’s men, and we were still a good half a mile from the French division, but I swear I heard the roar that the French knights gave as they dug their spurs into their horses flanks and began to enthusiastically pursue the fleeing Saracen cavalry.
The King shouted: ‘No, you fools, no!’ And we pulled up, panting, next to Robin and his marching men, as five hundred of the finest knights in France galloped madly across the field in front of us, the giant destriers bearing heavy, fully armoured knights, chasing the bouncy little ponies that skipped away into broken scrub-land to the east. The knights charged in a compact mass, but on reaching the broken ground they split up into knots of twos and threes, chasing after Saracens like a pack of terriers dropped into a rat-infested barn. And worse than this — no sooner had the knights charged than another smaller force of Saracens, perhaps two hundred or so warriors, emerged from behind a low ridge and headed straight for the now-unguarded, open face of the wagon train. With stunning speed, they charged straight through the gaggle of crossbowmen who had hastily assemble to bar their way, cutting down men with their scimitars and shouldering the footmen aside with their ponies, and began slaughtering the unarmed drivers of the ox-carts with their blades, and leaning low in the saddle to hamstring the draught beasts. Within a dozen heartbeats, the whole baggage train had been brought to a standstill. The French knights at the other end of the third division were too far away to help, and although a handful of unhorsed men-at-arms and spearmen fought valiantly, they were no match for fast-moving men on horseback. In front of our eyes, the Saracens butchered the foot soldiers, slicing unprotected into faces and warding hands with their cruel curved swords, and begin to loot the wagon train. It was sheer carnage, footmen reeling back, blood jetting from terrible face wounds, others simply running to the rear, oxen bellowing in pain, drivers trying to hide beneath the heavy carts to escape the fury of the marauders — and the Saracens, almost unchallenged, helping themselves to goods, clothes, valuables, food and trotting away at their leisure with their plunder hanging heavy from their saddles.