‘Harness?’ Richard asked.
Hawkwood shrugged. ‘If you want to stay alive,’ he said. ‘Unless that black skin is charmed?’
Richard flushed.
An ambush — a mounted ambush — is complex to lay and complex to use, and deadly dull to wait in. Mounted men need to be well hidden by deep brush or trees, but they need to be able to ride out of their covers with ease. The ideal ambush is deep, old woods with little underbrush. France has a plentiful supply of deep, old woods, because the nobility has the peasants cowed and forces them to accept private hunting woods. They dot the landscape, and sometimes the roads run through them.
We rode for two hours, in near total darkness, with a dozen scouts ahead of us on light horses. Sam, I’ll note, went out with the prickers.
A little before midnight, we met another band. Hawkwood clasped hands with the leader, and we rode in among them in the soft moonlight. Their captain was Sir Robert Knolles, a famous knight. He had a forked black beard — that’s about all I could say about him in the dark.
Together we made about fifty men-at-arms and another fifty archers. We headed north.
‘If we catch him, we string him up,’ Knolles said. He was speaking of the French knight we were out to ambush.
Hawkwood shrugged.
‘No one will ransom him. In fact, there is no one to ransom him. The French have collapsed. The whole country is a bunch of grapes, ripe for us to pluck.’ Knolles barked a laugh. ‘Are we agreed?’
Hawkwood was watching one of his prickers, a vague form in the moonlight. ‘Sir Robert, we seem to have arrived. If you and your men will take the left side of the road, we’ll take the right.’
Sir Robert nodded. ‘Helmet!’ he called out. A pageboy brought him his heavy basinet. He looked old to me. And wicked.
We filed off into the woods. Sam came and helped Richard and me to get our horses under cover.
‘Should we dismount?’ I asked.
Sam grinned in the moonlight. He was missing a few teeth, and his smile was no maiden’s joy. ‘I would,’ he said. ‘Why be the first man into a fight?’
Where we were placed, we couldn’t see the road, or the moon, or even the sky. It was so dark that when I let go my reins to turn and piss, I almost lost my horse. When Richard needed to piss, I held his reins.
By these tiny steps does a man go from being a raw recruit to a veteran — such as knowing how to tie your hose and braes so you can piss while wearing armour. I showed a young man last year at Chioggia.
No shame to being new-minted. Often, the new-minted coin has better gold.
The waiting went on and on, and we moved too much and our horses nickered and other men snored — yes, someone went to sleep, but it wasn’t one of mine. At some point, I realized it was lighter than it had been.
I felt as if someone had poured sand behind my eyeballs.
And then I heard an owl hoot twice — the signal — and everything happened very fast.
There was a crashing sound to my left front. I got my sabatonned left foot in the stirrup of my tall, golden horse, and then he moved, damn him, with me bouncing along off the ground.
There’s good things about wearing armour. One is that if your horse bounces you through deep brush, all that happens is that you get pine-needles in your visor. I slammed a tree, ripped through a thicket, then I got my right foot over the saddle. I saw something move ahead of me and reached for my sword, all while trying to tuck my right foot into my stirrup. I got it, and stood in my stirrups — that’s how you ride a war saddle — and got my sword out of my scabbard.
My horse burst out of the trees into a clearing.
There was another man moving ahead of me on a horse as big as mine. His horse was black and his armour glittered in the moonlight. His helmet had an impossibly tall peak. He saw me, and turned his horse and spurred at me.
But of course the clearing wasn’t a clearing. It was a bog.
He went down so suddenly I thought he’d been sucked into the earth. There was a tiny rivulet running down the middle of the boggy meadow — tiny, but three feet under the level of the grass — and his poor horse stepped in it and he was thrown.
He was on his feet in a moment. I was sure he wasn’t one of ours, and I swung down at him and my sword hit his helmet solidly.
Against a good helmet, you can swing all day and not accomplish much. On the other hand, most men don’t like being hit on the head.
Goldie was a fine animal, and he backed on command and half-reared, and I cut again at the Frenchman — at least, I hoped he was a Frenchman. I connected again, this time atop his shoulder.
He stumbled and Goldie kicked him. I heard his hoof strike, a hollow sound against the French knight’s breastplate. He had one of the new ones — just two pieces — and it didn’t cave in.
He was knocked flat.
I backed Goldie.
The injured horse screamed.
I could hear fighting, sword on sword, very close by.
The French knight wasn’t moving, so I slid down from my saddle. I ran to the French knight as he tried to get to his feet, and slammed my pommel into his helmet. Down he went again, and this time I sat on him.
I opened his faceplate.
He glared at me. ‘Bah!’ he said. ‘God is against me. I am taken.’
‘Are you worth anything?’ I asked.
It is hard to shrug while an armoured man sits on you, especially when you are in a swamp. But he wriggled. ‘Not a hundred florins,’ he said. ‘Perhaps fifty? I am du Guesclin. You know the name?’
I didn’t, so I shook my head.
‘Would you do me the service of killing my horse?’ Du Guesclin said. ‘He was a fine horse. Christ only knows how I will replace him.’
Richard appeared while I cut the horse’s throat — somewhat ineptly as I was splashed in blood. My harness was already a squire’s nightmare — bogs and armour are not friends, and my sabatons collected the most remarkable amount of stinking mud.
He laughed, and then he saw the French knight.
‘You lucky bastard!’ Richard said.
‘I’ll split the ransom with you,’ I said sportingly.
Richard slapped me on the back. ‘I’ll do the same.’ He stripped his right gauntlet and held out his hand to the Frenchman. ‘Richard Musard,’ he said.
‘Bertrand du Guesclin,’ said the Frenchman.
Richard looked at me and shook his head. ‘I think we’re supposed to hang him,’ he said. ‘He’s the French brigand Sir Robert is hunting.’
‘Is that Sir Robert Knolles?’ Du Guesclin asked. He laughed. ‘That rapist is calling me a brigand? I live here. This is my country.’
Sam appeared out of the darkness. The sky was almost light, and he looked at the French knight and shrugged.
‘That’s him, right enough.’ He looked at me. ‘What do you plan to do, my lord?’
I don’t think Sam Bibbo had ever called me ‘my lord’ before.
‘If you gentlemen will release me, I’ll pay my ransom wherever you want it sent,’ du Guesclin said.
‘If you don’t inform Sir John. .’ Sam made a face. ‘He’ll know. Sooner or later.’
I sent Richard to find Sir John. I moved my prisoner across the meadow, hobbled Goldie and ate a sausage. I shared half with du Guesclin, and gave him some wine. He was my King John. He was a real knight, and I waited on him the way I thought he deserved. This was the chivalry for which I yearned.
He handed me back the leather bottle of wine. ‘You are a cut above the routiers,’ he said. ‘Could I try one more time to entice you to let me go? I will pay — and I’m not worth any more. Your Sir John will kill me.’
I shook my head. ‘No he won’t,’ I said confidently.
Half an hour passed, and then a party of horsemen came into my meadow from the north. Richard dismounted to cross the brook, and Sir John and three of his men-at-arms rode around the perimeter.