I think by then my whole battle — my command — was over the barricade and in the muddy trench behind it. A few guildsmen stood, and a few local men-at-arms were ashamed to show fear in front of their ladies, who even then were on the walls behind them. But most of the local men ran for the gate, leaving the Swabians to face a rising tide of Englishmen and Germans.
Rudolph von Hapsburg may have been proud and boastful — Messire Villani says he was — but he was brave. He led his knights in person, and he charged at us. But it is harder to charge through a rout of fleeing men than it is to charge through a deluge of arrows or crossbow bolts. His men were pushed aside — they came at us in packets.
I wanted the giant. I could see him — he was a head taller than any other man, his pennon was black and he had a spear and an axe — he was off to my right. I shamelessly stepped back from an opponent and left him to Edward, passed behind Fiore, got two more paces — it was like pushing through a crowd at a fair — and there he was, hammering at MacDonald with his axe. MacDonald caught all three of his heavy blows, then tripped on a corpse — all those war-bow shafts had reaped more than a few Florentines — and his fall kept him from the giant’s smashing blow.
I stepped into the gap. I remember as I stepped up, seeing a flash of gold on the helmet hard by Sir Heinrich. It had to be a gold cornet, and that meant the next knight to the left was Rudolph.
Heinrich raised his axe and cut. Big men are supposed to be slow. He wasn’t. The axe flicked back and shot forward — I cut it to the right with an underhand blow, and he turned the axe in mid air and cut back at me. I had to put my left hand on the blade of my sword to parry — a technique Fiore taught me. I made my sword a staff.
I was close to him, and I smashed my guard into his visor. It wasn’t much of a hit, but every hit counts.
He stumbled back one step, and I cut at him from the shoulder, as hard and fast as I could.
He caught it on his axe blade.
A blow caught my helmet squarely and I stumbled.
Apparently, single combat is an Anglo-French convention. Rudolph’s sword was pushing for my eye-slits, but I batted it down and my back cut only just saved me from the axe.
Rudolph’s sword licked out again and slammed my hand, but I had good gauntlets. He broke my little finger and it hurt like fuck. He punched the point at my head as my gaurd weakened, and his point went in between the base of my helmet and the chin of my aventail — suddenly my mouth was full of blood.
I had a few breaths to live, if that. He’d cut open my mouth — look, this scar right here — I still have the devil’s smile, as we call it.
I pivoted toward Rudolph, fought through the pain and cut down at his shoulder. Then I pushed in with my other foot, driving forward with my not-inconsiderable size, flinching in my head from the inevitable axe-blow. I wagered my life that I could get so far forward into Rudolph that Heinrich wouldn’t be able to hit me. I had no choice. It was all or nothing.
I was mostly right, and the staff of the axe slammed into my shoulder plates as my blow deceived Rudolph and hit his arm just below his shoulder armour — it landed on mail, but it broke the arm. Heinrich’s hit on my shoulder landed on my pauldrons. That hurt, but pain was just pain.
I thrust for Rudolph’s face — my best blow. Halfway to the target, I dropped my point the width of his sword and changed the direction subtly, so his parry moved nothing but the wind. My point missed his face but got into the chain aventail at his neck, bit deep, through chain and padding, and came away red.
I caught that at the edge of my vision, because I was already turning to parry the axe. The giant cut, and I counter-cut at his hands. I hit first. I hit his hands so hard he voided his blow.
Kenneth MacDonald got to his feet. He, too, had an axe, and he raised it.
Heinrich rotated fully to face me. I’d cut away a finger and he bellowed like a bull, while MacDonald’s axe slammed into his chest. It didn’t cut through the heavy iron plates of his coat, but it must have broken ribs, and he sat down, falling back across his Prince.
A trumpet was sounding the recall.
I was breathing so hard I could hardly keep my point in line.
Heinrich bounced to his feet again, blood pouring from his left gauntlet.
I cut up from the boar’s tooth again, and took off the giant’s thumb. MacDonald passed behind me and cut at yet another man, probably saving my life, but that’s a melee. I was utterly focused on my giant.
He had killed Perkin.
He leaped forward off Rudolph von Hapsburg and I cut down, into his exposed thigh. He pushed through it and kept his feet a heartbeat, but the leg wouldn’t hold him, and I was reversing my sword, holding it with one hand on the hilt and the other at the point, as if it was a very short spear, or a shovel for digging.
As he tried to get his balance, I slammed it into his faceplate. The visor held.
The man fell back.
The Germans were retreating, but they were also just realizing that their lord was lying on the ground at my feet. Heinrich had fallen across him as he tried to rise, crushing him to the ground. He fell with his arms spread — he’d lost fingers on both hands, and there was blood coming from under his helmet.
I stepped on his right hand, pinning the axe hand to the ground. I could see his eyes. Not mad, or filled with hate.
Just blue.
I put the tip of my war sword against his throat, where the skin showed. He’d fallen with his head back, so his aventail didn’t quite cover his chin.
I won’t say the battle stopped, just that I could hear men screaming in Italian and German, but very few men moving and everyone watching me.
I put the slightest pressure on the pommel of my sword.
So he’d know that I was the better man.
‘Yield!’ I said. Like a knight.
‘Ja!’ he said.
They let us go from the barriers. For one terrifying moment, they thought I was going to kill their Prince, and when I accepted Heinrich’s surrender, Rudolph ‘graciously’ allowed us to retire.
That’s what knights do.
When they’re badly beaten.
I had to have help to get over the barricades. With 15,000 people watching me from the walls and from our lines, I could barely walk without limping, because my left leg-harness had slipped a fraction and every step hurt.
I forced myself to walk like a gentleman, with all the time in the world. I had to get my visor up to spit blood — my mouth was full of it and my white coat was covered.
Baumgarten’s knights were cheering like heroes. They’d covered the barricade behind us, and many of them had fought, so no discredit to them. They walked back with us, slapping us on our backplates and calling things, which Fiore, who was all but glowing, refused to translate.
‘That was. .’ he said. He said it twice.
Baumgarten himself came forward, which seemed odd, since we were retreating. We’d made our point. In fact, we’d scared the piss out of Florence. Juan, Milady and Grice were apparently able to touch the gate before we retired.
The archers were yelling, ‘George and England.’
Baumgarten headed straight for me. His armour sparkled, and he wore the gold belt of a Knight of the Empire. He looked like a king.
He opened his visor.
A few paces from me, he stopped and handed his squire the baton he carried.
‘William Gold!’ he roared, so that they could hear him in the squares of Florence.
I stopped in front of him, so utterly exhausted that I had lost the power of speech.
Sir John came up — he was all but running — and men-at-arms crowded in.
‘William Gold,’ Buamgarten said again. ‘Kneel!’
Kneel?
Sweet saviour of man, I might never get up.