Ser Giorgios nodded. ‘The better to win the fight,’ he said.
The Duke nodded. ‘Most warriors are amateurs,’ he said. ‘It should come as no surprise that they are threatened by those who make war a profession. We don’t need to be manly or brave. All we have to do is win. There is no second place, and we get paid just as well whether we lose half our men or lose no men. Thanks, Sauce.’ He nodded to the men and women in the fire-circle. ‘Go to bed. Despite my best efforts, Tom may get his wish in the afternoon.’
Gelfred’s scouts located the Gallish force by noon. Zac took both squadrons of the Vardariotes, less only a single file who guarded their remounts, and they vanished into a snow squall to the north while the army, all mounted, advanced up the coast of the unfrozen lake at a trot. The road was broad and paved in heavy stones, and even covered in snow was an easy surface for rapid travel.
They could see smoke rising in a dozen places.
By mid-afternoon, a pair of Zac’s warriors had reported that the Galles were headed for their boats. There were no Outwallers with them, and the Southern Huran who lived in the towns near the northernmost Morean post were harrying the Galles every step of the way.
The Duke endured several hours of Tom’s growing anger and then laughed aloud. ‘Very well, Tom – take your pick of the men-at-arms and go bloody the protuberant Gallish nose.’ He leaned forward. ‘If it’s not too much to ask, get some prisoners.’
Tom lit up like a lantern with fresh oil. He took a quarter of Ser Jehan’s company and a quarter of Sauce’s company – and another dozen chosen knights, including Ser Gavin, Ser Alison, Ser Michael, and Ser Alcaeus. And all the drovers.
They galloped away, headed north, behind Count Zac’s screen of light horse.
The army continued, alternating their pace between the trot and the walk. It was cold, and speed meant less caution – most of the troopers had wet feet and some were wet through from exertion and a series of creeks and streams that they’d crossed without their usual precautions.
Jehan trotted at his Captain’s side. ‘What are we after?’ he asked.
The Duke raised his eyebrows. ‘Glory? Better pay?’
‘You have that smug look of triumph,’ Jehan muttered.
‘Does it ever occur to you that in five hundred years they’ll sing songs about us?’ the Duke asked.
‘Silence for the “Chanson of the Red Knight and the Adventure of the Avoided Battle”!’ said Ser Jehan. He laughed. ‘I think that this is your best work – taking Demetrius’s baggage? Brilliant. And now – why even let Tom loose?’
The Duke nodded. The tower of Osawa was just visible on the horizon. ‘Because he could be an unmanageable brute all winter if I’m not careful. And he has taken most of the men and women of his own stripe with him, and they’ll tangle with the Gallish rearguard – Jehan, what the fuck are the Galles doing in Nova Terra?’
Jehan trotted along a few more paces. ‘Here I was thinking that you knew,’ he said. ‘Silly me. You seem so well informed.’
‘There have been reports. I wish the Emperor’s spies extended to Galle.’ The Duke nodded. ‘I wish I had my own spies, and damn it, Jehan, I mean to have them! Anyway, you asked what I want. I want to find out what’s happening – to get Gerald his furs and save our wages. And get the fuck out of the Morea, before it eats us alive.’
Bad Tom had taken a third of the best men-at-arms and their archers, and he was determined to press the Outwallers and their reputed allies as hard as he could – hard enough to provoke them to make a stand.
The Vardariotes made the first contact, north and west of him, fighting a stiff skirmish with crossbow-armed Huran and losing a man. Stefan Druse, a tall, thin man who looked like a monk and had a beard to match, saluted with his long steel mace and made a face.
‘Not for us, lord,’ he said to Bad Tom. ‘Formed infantry, big crossbows.’
Tom grinned. ‘That’s right, laddie. Just stay on our flank!’
He led the men-at-arms forward, angling to right across snow-covered Outwaller fields. The Drover and his clansmen had regular contact with this part of the world – the Green Hills were behind, them, the Wall just to their left. He’d traded cattle here, and raided for them, too. The Outwallers lived inside the Wall – but they were Southern Huran and no man’s vassals.
By his side, Ranald shook his helmeted head. ‘The Duke says there’s Galles with them – that’ll be heavy horse and drilled infantry in good armour-’
‘Stop that noise, cousin. Let’s have us a fight.’ Bad Tom was watching the distant woodline intently, aware that he’d already made a mistake in letting his mounted scouts outrun his heavy column, eager for a fight.
He saw the crossbowmen before they loosed bolts.
‘At them before they span!’ he shouted, and his horse leaped forward.
The Hurans in the treeline broke the moment his cavalry charged them. The woodline was too open to stop the horses, and it was winter. They ran into the woods, and the knights and men-at-arms pursued them.
Ranald had the archers – led by Twinter and Long Paw and with a dozen veterans in enough armour to be called men-at-arms. He shook his head.
‘Keep your visors open and watch the flanks,’ he said. ‘I mislike this.’
As they crossed the great snow-covered field, Tom and his men-at-arms vanished in the trees. The the north and south, he could see the red-clad Vardariotes trotting across the snow, watching their flanks.
All told, they had sixty men. Ranald waved his men forward faster, afraid he’d lose touch with his cousin and afraid, at the same time, of an ambush.
‘Steady!’ de Marche said.
The enemy cavalry – knights, they looked to be – were spread as thin as butter on bread, every man picking his won way through the deep woods. De Marche’s sailors were two deep behind a low barricade of fallen trees. They watched the Huran run past them.
As arranged.
‘Prepare to loose!’ de Marche called.
The leader of the enemy, a huge man on a big black gelding, made his horse rear.
‘Shoot!’ he called, and forty crossbows crouched together.
The effect on the knights was not as shattering as it should have been, but the big man went down, his horse thrashing and turning the snow red.
‘Span!’ he called.
‘Deus Veult!’ called the Black Knight, and he charged at the head of a dozen of his own men-at arms.
Bad Tom was already fully aware of his folly before he saw the felled trees. Tom’s creed didn’t include pretence – he’d been had.
He reared his horse as he saw the Galles. They looked like professionals-
Damn, I loved this horse, he thought as six quarrels struck the gelding. The horse crashed to earth, already mortally wounded.
Tom rolled clear, armour causing him more injury than the fall. He got to his feet and found his sword was still by his side.
They had cavalry.
Tom shook his head at his own foolishness even as the enemy knights shouted their war cries.
Then he grinned. It was, after all, a fight.
Francis Atcourt – easily identifiable with his red panache – rode to his rescue. The enemy men-at-arms – all appallingly well mounted for a fight in the wilderness – were coming from the left, and Atcourt joined three more company men-at-arms at a canter.
Tom watched them with solid satisfaction, as, badly outnumbered, they couched their lances and picked their men, closing from a spread pursuit formation to a compact melee formation in fifty strides of their horses.
The Galles – he assumed they were Galles – struck. They had about a dozen knights, and at the moment of impact, Ser Francis Arcourt and one of the company’s few Gallish men-at arms, Phillipe le Beause, each cleanly unhorsed a man. Chris Foliak killed his opponent’s horse and then swept his lance unsportingly sideways like a toll gate, taking another Gallish knight down. But Ser John Gage was unhorsed by a man as big as Tom himself.