I loosened my sword in its sheath and checked de Charny’s dagger.
No one said, ‘This is insane.’
No one suggested we should stop.
‘Ready?’ Men at the barricade were pointing at us. We were so few, I assume they thought we wouldn’t attack. Indeed, militiamen were already trailing away, back into the town. Looking for breakfast, the lucky sods.
I drew de Charny’s dagger from my belt. ‘I took this from Geoffrey de Charny at Poitiers!’ I roared.
Men cheered.
‘I will give it to the first man to touch the barricades!’ I called.
They roared.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
Twenty yards into the empty field, I raised my fist, and my lances flowed forward from the right and left. A well-trained company can array itself faster than most folk can imagine. I didn’t finish the first five lines of my paternoster before they were ready.
‘Forward!’ I called. I turned to look back, and saw Sir John with Thornbury’s battle coming up on my left.
I didn’t wait. I was, I hoped, doing what I’d been told. And I thought, To hell with it. Hell was probably where I was destined.
The Germans looked half armed and asleep. All 2,000 of them.
We covered fifty paces at a fast trot. Then another fifty. Not a bolt was loosed at us. Another fifty. We were moving well — I was proud of my lances, because we were in good order and well-bunched up.
We crossed the line I’d imagined for crossbow range, and since we received no bolts, I let us go on. Every heartbeat ate another pace.
A dozen bolts came out of the barricades. I’d aligned my attack with the rising sun. I looked back — it was a red ball behind us.
Another flight of bolts, and most of them went well over me. Somewhere one struck with a nasty hollow metallic sound. A horse screamed.
The crossbowmen would be spanning.
‘Halt!’ I roared. And then, ‘Dismount!’
I swung my leg over, turned sideways, put my breastplate against my saddle and slithered to the ground.
My page emerged from behind me, slipped past me and took Pierre, who gave me a look.
The page dropped my spear at my feet. I stooped to get it, rose and looked right and left. I turned back towards Florence and began to walk the last 200 paces to the barricade.
A bolt struck my left spaulder and skidded away. It felt like a heavy punch from a strong man. There was a rattle of bolts — a dozen must have struck — but as far as I could see, all my men were still moving forward. And, of course, when you are going forward, you can’t see your dead.
I looked down at the ground beneath my feet. Green tufts were springing to life in the old cart track, and there were the remnants of a house, probably pulled down the night before.
There was another rattle of crossbow bolts and a long, joyless scream.
The crossbow bolts were coming faster now. I took one more look, right and left, and closed my visor.
I think I laughed. I was empty. Empty of need or desire. I didn’t care about my next meal or about John Hawkwood’s next plan or Emile or our saviour. I was going to touch the barricade.
The barricade was eighty paces away, a little lower than a man and lined with men in armour that lit up red in the sun.
War-bow shafts began to fall like wicked sleet on the barricade and the men behind it.
I hadn’t intended to run, but I found myself trotting, and the line trotted to keep up with me.
There were shouts ahead.
I felt. . strong. There was no reason that a frontal assault on the barricades should be going this well, and I had time to consider that it was a trap — that there was cavalry concealed to my left. But my last glance at my men had shown Thornbury’s battle coming up on my left and Thomas Biston’s on my right. If it was a trap, their Germans would need a hell of a lot of cavalry.
Baumgarten was deploying behind me.
We were as well placed as we were going to be.
I was running — in sabatons. Somewhere in my line was a man cursing his squire, but that day it was not me. Our line was fair enough, and the rising sun turned the tips of our spears to fire.
The men behind the barricades were seething. Men ran back and forth — fifty voices were calling and, as I watched, a guildsman tried to force his way to the barricade to loose his weapon and was roughly forced back by a German man-at-arms.
I looked for the pennants I wanted.
Twenty paces from the barricade, I realized that unless God and his legion of angels came down to stop us, we’d make the barricade. The crossbows had been ill-aimed and desultory, for whatever reason.
Typically, when men fight at barricades — at least in the lists — men stand on either side of a waist-high wooden wall and exchange blows. You can’t be hit below your breastplate and your opponent can’t grapple.
I’d never fought at a barricade.
But I’d stormed a few towns, and I had a different notion of how to tackle the wall. I had no intention of giving any other man de Charny’s dagger.
Five paces out, I lengthened my stride. There were half a dozen Germans waiting for me, jostling to be the one to face me across the barrier.
All or nothing.
I leaped.
I almost didn’t make it, which would have shortened this tale immensely, but I got my left foot on the barricade, my spear struck something, and then. .
Ah, and then I fought.
I landed deep in their ranks. Armour protects you from the abrasions and cuts of small blows, and for the first few cuts, it was all I could do to get my feet under me. I was close in — I had a man right against my breast, and my spear shaft was already broken — no idea how. I drew de Charny’s dagger and stabbed — one, two, three times, as fast as my hand would move. It came away bloody, then I turned and stabbed behind me. I put my left hand on the pommel of the dagger, received a great blow to my head that rang bells, and grappled close to a man. He got one hand on the dagger, but his other held his sword, and my two-handed grip overcame him. He had no visor, and my dagger went in over his nose.
I kicked out behind me on instinct, and then I had space. I stumbled and put my back against the barrier, and for three deep breaths the Germans stood back. I put the dagger back in my sheath — St George must have guided my hand — and drew my longsword.
I took the time to bow and salute them. And breathe.
And then, of course, I attacked them.
I put my sword down in one of Fiore’s guards — the boar’s tooth — and cut up at the first German’s hands. He had heavy leather gloves rather than steel gauntlets, and he sprayed fingers and screamed. My down cut stopped on his arms and I pushed it into his face.
The other two hammered blows at me, but they were thrown too fast, with too much fear. Both hit — one dented my left rebrace, and the other fell on the peak of my helmet, cut away a portion of Emile’s favour, and glanced off the overlapping plates of my right spaulder.
I cut at the second man’s head. He had a red coat over his coat of plates, and a full helmet that covered his face. My adversary swatted heavily at my blade, and I allowed his blow to turn mine and hammered his faceplate with my pommel, knocking him back a step. He raised his hands. I passed my blade over his head and kicked him in the gut while I held him, and he dropped — neck broken or unconscious. Either way, down.
Blows hit me. Many blows. A man in armour can take all the blows that don’t kill him. My armour was good.
There were voices calling in English all around me. I pushed forward, and my opponents backed away.
To their rear, I saw Rudolph von Hapsburg’s banner go up.
All around me, men were calling, ‘George! St George and England!’ and I narrowly avoided putting my point into Milady’s basinet — she, of all people, I should have known in a melee. I have no idea how she’d passed me, but I fought from behind her for as long as a man takes to mount a horse. I pinked some Florentine in the leg, stabbing down, and she slammed her sword into his head. I doubt he fell dead — I suspect he’d merely had enough.