Chapter 10
August, 1173
near Verneuil, Normandy
The afternoon was hot and dry, and Alan d’Arques found them cooling off in the shallow waters of a nearby stream overhung with willows and chattering sparrows. He wheeled his horse about and called out excitedly, “The king is marching! Hurry!”
After a moment’s surprised hesitation, William Longsword and Richard Delamere scrambled up and onto the bank grabbing hose, tunics and boots along the way and forcing wet limbs into them as Alan, who’d dismounted, held out their mail and swordbelts. A jay screamed shrilly and flapped off, its peaceful afternoon marred by the sudden activity. The men thrust their heavy swords into the belts and then they were racing away, leaving puffs of dust in their wake.
Longsword was soon galloping far ahead of his two companions, his eagerness aided by a swifter horse. Delamere and Alan rode abreast. With the wind rushing by their ears and the thundering of the horses’ hooves, Delamere had to shout to be heard when he asked Alan what had suddenly spurred the king’s action. The march had been halted less than an hour before, for a quick meal and to spare the men and horses the worst of the midday sun.
“The scouts returned with the news that Verneuil has asked for a truce,” Alan shouted back. “The king is worried that the town doesn’t know his forces are so close and may capitulate unnecessarily.”
The town of Verneuil lay precariously near to the French border and was currently under siege by Young Henry and the king of France as part of their scheme to take Rouen, the most important Norman city on the Seine River some fifty miles to the north and in whose castle King Henry was currently keeping court. The plan called for Louis and the Young King to secure all the Norman castles along the border below Rouen while their ally, the count of Flanders, moved on the city from the north. To seize Rouen, a major arsenal, would invigorate the rebels and demoralize King Henry, and would put an effective stranglehold on the heartland of Normandy.
Unfortunately for the rebels, the brother of the count of Flanders had been killed by one of Henry’s snipers and, overcome with grief, the count had retreated to his own land. The threat to Rouen from the north was gone, if only for the moment.
It was dire that Henry not permit Louis to gain the slightest foothold in Normandy; the war had been declared three months ago but there were still barons and knights whose allegiance was so far undetermined. Henry had trampled on so many of the traditional rights of his vassals that a significant number needed only the slimmest excuse to desert him and take an oath to his son, the Young King, and his allies. The empire he had painstakingly built was in danger of crashing down about him.
Truces were customarily called when the besieged realized their supplies wouldn’t hold out much longer and according to the rules of warfare lasted three days. This gave the two sides time to come to terms. It was also an indication that the besieged had concluded no rescue was imminent and that they had better make peace and salvage what they could. That Verneuil had asked for a truce, then, was a bad sign; Henry could not afford to let even this one relatively insignificant town fall to his enemies.
When Delamere and d’Arques caught up with the royal force, they saw Longsword with the king. Henry, mailed but bareheaded, sat on his warhorse and berated his son for almost being left behind. At least, that’s what Delamere supposed. As was his habit when angry or irritated, the king was gesticulating wildly and had grown quite red in the face. A stranger might have found Longsword’s calm and humble expression as the tirade swept over him curious, but Delamere knew better. He knew nothing, not even Henry’s harsh words, could mar his friend’s perfect happiness with the present state of political affairs in Normandy.
Although Henry had been warned repeatedly that the Young King was disgruntled enough with his lack of power to enter into a conspiracy with his father-in-law, he had been too blinded by affection to seriously believe it. But in May, the Young King and the French King, having collected allies from Normandy and England during the past six months, had launched an attack on one of Henry’s continental possessions and begun the war which everyone except Henry had anticipated.
Longsword couldn’t have been happier. Always disdainful of his half-brother’s character and envious of his status, Longsword was certain the rebellion would serve to harden Henry’s heart against his heir. He was maliciously looking forward to watching the Young King’s fall from grace in the weeks ahead.
The king’s force was soon marching in battle order along the road to Verneuil. Longsword had been placed over a contingent of Norman mercenaries, all mounted, which only increased his good mood. Although taciturn by nature, when Longsword was happy there was little chance of shutting him up. Delamere let him chatter on about the rebels’ chances and the superb job his mercenaries would perform at Verneuil and gave nothing more than a grunt or two in response whenever his friend paused to draw breath.
Soldiers on foot were capable of covering twenty miles a day when pressed; cavalry almost twice that distance. But Henry and his force were fewer than ten miles from their destination and the truce still held. There was plenty of time. The Norman force had merely to make an appearance before darkness fell to reassure the town by its presence not to surrender. The next move would be up to Louis. If he were foolish enough to seek a pitched battle, it would be fought the next morning. More likely than not, Henry’s counselors agreed, Louis would take one look at the array of arms against him and turn and retreat across the border. He well knew Henry was a formidable opponent.
But if Henry had scouts to report to him the latest movements of his enemies, so did the French king. The Norman vanguard, as it crested a hill overlooking the walled town, was greeted by the sight of black smoke pluming towards the sky and the stench of burning timber. Louis had broken the truce.
The French army was nowhere to be seen. The Norman horsemen rushed towards Verneuil at a suddenly frantic gallop and passed through the gaping hole where the gate had been, unmolested. The city was a frenzy of activity as its inhabitants raced to extinguish the flames which seemed to shoot from every house and shop. A helmetless knight on horseback, his mail and face begrimed by flying ash, sweat and the tension of the last few days, approached the king and bowed his head respectfully. He was the commander of Verneuil’s royal garrison. The castle, he reported, was still intact; its walls had not been breached by the French. But under the peace of the truce, the town had opened its gates to Louis and his soldiers, only to be repaid with treachery once the French king learned that Henry was threateningly close. They had even tried a last desperate assault on the castle, but to no avail, and the crossbowmen on the walls had made them pay dearly for the attempt.
Henry, his horse stepping fitfully beneath him, unnerved by the choking smoke, listened to the account without expression. His sober grey eyes took in the burning houses and the fleeing people. He asked quietly if his son had been with Louis.
“Yes, Your Grace,” the knight answered immediately. Then, as if it struck him how bitter he’d sounded, he added, “But you can be sure the treachery was Louis’ alone, Your Grace. The Young King wasn’t responsible.”
Delamere, coming up with Longsword in time to hear this last exchange, thought the man’s remark ironic considering it was because of the Young King’s rebellion that Louis dared to attack Verneuil at all. Longsword snorted derisively and very loudly, whereupon his father swung around glaring and in an angry voice ordered him to take his mercenaries and follow the road as far as the French border to make certain there weren’t any rebels still in Normandy.
Longsword didn’t have to be told twice. Grinning at Delamere, he pulled his mount’s head hard to the left, kicked its flanks and galloped out of the city. By the time Delamere had caught up with him, he’d already drawn his sword from his belt, swung his shield down from his shoulder and onto his forearm and taken off at top speed in the direction of the border, followed closely by his men. He was after blood and was prepared to v
enture into France itself in order to get it.
The hills around Verneuil seemed empty enough, Delamere thought, and quiet. The road on which they raced was obviously well-traveled, judging from the deep ruts carved out by cart wheels. Louis would have come—and gone—this way; it was the easiest route to take. Delamere cast a wary eye on the blurring countryside, but there was no forest in which the French king might have hidden a few crossbowmen, no sudden bends in the road where cavalry might be lying in wait for them. But something slightly off to the right did catch his eye and he shouted out to Longsword. “Will! Over there! Smoke, where there wasn’t any a moment ago!”
Longsword hesitated only an instant, and with a wave of his sword gestured for the column to veer off the road and onto the field. The grass was long and the horses had to slow their pace and shorten their strides to prevent stumbling. Now they all saw the smoke, eerily reminiscent of the ravage they’d left behind. Beyond a slight rise in the land was its source: a low, timbered farmhouse. And around it, slaughtering the livestock and ready to fire the outer buildings, was the cause: the rearguard of the French force. Obviously they hadn’t thought to be followed, supposing that gaining control of the burning city would keep the Normans occupied for some time. One last act of destruction, they figured, before they rejoined the army across the border.
Longsword raised his sword high over his head and let out a long roar. The French looked up with evident shock and scrambled for their horses as the two Normans and the band of mercenaries flew across the grass and fell upon them. The sun was waning now and the fray had an almost surreal quality to it in the resulting twilight. The family to whom the farm belonged huddled together near the burning building, open-mouthed. The Normans had the advantages of surprise and of being mounted, as most of the French were unable to hoist themselves into their saddles before being cut down. Longsword’s voice was the most audible amid the screams and shouts; he bellowed out a stream of colorful profanity as he swung his heavy sword at an enemy’s neck or bore down on another and trampled him beneath his horse’s crushing hooves. Delamere, undemonstrative but just as capable, smashed his metal-rimmed shield into a French face and drove the tip of his sword, with the full force of his mount behind it, directly into the chest of his next victim, breaking through his mail.
The skirmish ended quickly. Of the thirty-odd soldiers in the French rearguard, fifteen were dead or near death, ten had managed to escape into the gathering darkness pursued by some of the mercenaries and the remainder had surrendered. There was no great name among the prisoners who needed to be treated with honor because he could bring in a large ransom and Longsword ordered them all to strip down to hose and shirts and then permitted the mercenaries to take what plunder they desired from among the assortment of French mail, swords, knives and horses. He himself took nothing; the victory was enough of a prize and he had no need to garner wealth when his father could provide him with it. Delamere came away with several hauberks and four fine swords which he hoped to sell.
By the time they arrived back at Verneuil, darkness was complete. The city’s main gate, hastily fashioned and erected to replace the one Louis had destroyed, was barred against them, but after a few minutes of insistent pounding, it was opened by a pair of Henry’s soldiers who’d recognized the impatient curses of the king’s son. The king himself, Longsword was informed, was having supper at the castle.
Most of the fires had been extinguished although the pall of smoke still clogged the sky, obscuring the stars on the clear summer night, and the throat-burning stench remained heavy in the air. Longsword and Delamere walked their horses along the road leading up to the castle as the mercenaries followed, poking and prodding the bound prisoners to move faster.
“Lord, but I’m starving,” Longsword complained. “Look, Richard, we alone of the king’s men did the most work today and I’ll wager there won’t be anything left for us to eat. First the siege, then Louis’ army and now my father’s. We should have had those peasants at the farm make a meal for us. After all, we did save their lives and the damned French had already obligingly butchered the meat.”
Delamere smiled wearily. He wasn’t quite sure that they hadn’t had the easier job of chasing away a few rebels, while the bulk of the army had stripped off their battle gear and fought to bring the raging fires under control. “I think I’d rather just fall onto a pallet somewhere,” he said.
“And with someone?” Longsword looked at him slyly. “I hear the garrison commander has a very lovely daughter.”
Delamere brightened, feeling more awake. “Has he?”
“Anyway, my father ought to be well pleased with our work,” his friend said, twisting around in his saddle to glare at his prisoners. “Too bad my beloved brother isn’t among them.”
“I doubt the king would be well pleased to see his heir paraded half-naked through the streets of Verneuil,” Delamere said drily.
“My God, Richard! You can’t possibly imagine my father will allow Young Henry to remain as his heir! Not after this! And conspiring with our worst enemy, too! No, once my father’s got Young Henry back in his grasp, he’ll probably make him earl or a duke of something or other and keep him under close watch. But to permit him to ascend to the throne of England and to be duke of Normandy after what he’s done—never!”
Longsword spoke passionately, but with a confidence Delamere didn’t share. Poor Will, he thought; he’ll never give up hope. He half-envied Longsword his fervent dreams, his desperate ambitions. He himself had neither. He rarely thought about his future or what he would like out of life. Instead, he tagged along with Longsword and took each day as it came and hoped he wouldn’t be dead at the end of it. But now he stole a glance at his friend’s uptilted profile and the smile of satisfaction which curved his lips and wondered what it felt like to want something so badly—and to never once imagine not getting it.
The royal army spent only one night in Verneuil. His soldiers had put out the fires and shored up the damage to the city’s defenses and the king was loath to remain too long out of Rouen. He was indeed pleased with Longsword’s accomplishment; the prisoners were handed over to the garrison commander to await the outcome of the war. And Delamere managed to make a neat profit on his confiscated goods before he left the castle.
A messenger met them on the road back to Rouen the next day. The people of Avranches, on the western edge of Normandy, begged for royal assistance. For the past month their viscount, Earl Hugh of Chester, and another rebel, Ralph de Fougères, had been harrying the province which remained loyal to the king. De Fougères was a well-known malcontent from Brittany, one of the more troublesome duchies in Henry’s empire. Chester’s treason, however, had come as something of a surprise to the king; not because he didn’t doubt the earl believed he had sufficient reason to rebel but because he hadn’t thought Hugh possessed the backbone for it. He’d known Hugh all the younger man’s life and had always dismissed him as a rather colorless personality.
Longsword and his mercenaries were dispatched to the rescue of Avranches while the king continued to Rouen and inspected the security of his eastern border along the way.
One of the traits Longsword shared with his father was the ability to move fast. Henry, never one to remain still for too long in any case, was capable of shifting armies at a pace seldom matched by more cautious leaders. That the theater of operations in this instance was Normandy, the king’s home base, only facilitated movement. The progress of the army wasn’t hindered by the need to lumber heavily laden supply carts with it or to go at an easy walk to spare the horses. Longsword also used the long summer days to his advantage. So eager to be off that he could barely sit still as the king gave him explicit instructions (which Delamere doubted he was listening to, anyway), he declared to his men that they would be traveling hard all day, stopping long enough only to exchange mounts at royal castles along the way and to sleep when darkness made safe passage impossible.
By mid-morning of the thi
rd day, sweaty, stinking and hungry because Longsword had insisted on leaving their previous night’s accommodation at first light, they were in Pontorson. The fortress was a stone’s throw from the Breton border but had thus far been spared the devastation which Chester and de Fougères seemed intent on wreaking in the area. As they ate a hasty meal, the garrison commander, Walter fitz Hamo, told them that he had sent out small bands of soldiers during the past two weeks to confront the rebels, only to discover that they had vanished. In addition, the rebels had yet to launch an attack on any of the royal castles in the vicinity. It was evident that Chester and de Fougères were more interested in ravaging the countryside and plundering the little towns and churches than in taking castles. “If they took Avranches, they could conceivably control the western coastline and no doubt all of Brittany would be solidly behind them,” he said. “That they haven’t tried it tells me they haven’t got the manpower for a siege. But merchants fear to travel because they’ve been attacked, robbed and killed and commerce has been slowing to point where there’s few supplies going into the towns now.”
“No need to besiege a mere castle if you’ve got the whole countryside in a stranglehold,” Delamere commented. He looked unfavorably into his wine cup. Obviously the rebels had managed to intercept the latest shipment from Bordeaux.
“Not enough men!” Longsword scoffed. He dropped his cutting knife to the table with a loud thud and picked up a chunk of cold meat with his fingers. He gestured with it as he spoke. “Chester’s got to have a hundred knights and with his money he’s probably bought twice as many mercenaries. De Fougères, with all the damned Bretons queuing to commit treason against my father, must surely be able to match those figures.”
Sir Walter shrugged. “Then they don’t want to take a castle, though God alone knows why.”
“I know why,” Longsword said flatly, wiping his hands on a linen napkin and extricating himself from the bench on which he’d been sitting. Immediately, his men followed suit, hastily stuffing the rest of their breakfasts down their throats and draining their cups. “Because they know the royal castles in and around Avranches are well-defended and they could sit outside one for weeks with no progress and in a countryside which will not provision them. It would give my father time to secure the east and then leisurely make his way here to crush them and relieve the besieged. On the other hand, if they continue to harass this area and avoid open battle, they weaken the populace and disrupt trade so much so that the king has no choice but to leave Rouen and rush here to a pitched battle. They’ve got enough men for that and besides, Louis could follow from the east and then the royal troops would be trapped between two armies.”
They walked out into the glaring sunlight. Servants and soldiers of the garrison collected to gape at the king’s men, so disheveled and travel-worn that they must be on a serious errand. Being the center of attention made Longsword feel important. So this is how it felt to command men, he thought; to have your least order instantly obeyed. He liked the power. “I’ll show him,” he said to himself.
“What? Speak up; I can’t hear you,” Delamere said.
Longsword turned to his friend eagerly. “Richard, I’ll show him that I can do it!”
“Show who you can do what?”
“My father, of course! I’m going to crush the rebels. It’s perfect; his pride and joy couldn’t take one miserable town even with the French king’s help but I’ll defeat de Fougères and Chester on my own!”
Delamere put up a hand to block the sun as he squinted uncertainly at Longsword. “The king told you only to organize the available armed resources and contain the rebels…”
“Do you imagine,” Longsword scoffed, “he’ll be upset if we crush them instead?”
Delamere supposed not and upon reflection thought his friend’s scheme was natural enough. After all, it was no secret to him that Longsword felt he had something to prove to his father. Avranches was as good a proving ground as any. The only problem was that the rebels had gone inexplicably quiet. Pontorson’s scouts came back just before dusk with nothing to report. Longsword couldn’t believe the puny threat of forty mercenaries was enough to compel the rebels into hiding and thought that they were gathering strength for some murderous assault. He spent the idle hours planning his response to a variety of possible confrontations.
He came up to Delamere as the latter sat on a bench in the hall holding a young woman’s hand between his own and speaking in low tones to her as she gazed rapturously into his green eyes, and tossed a large object at his feet. It landed with a disturbing clunk.
Delamere looked up with some annoyance. Friend or no, he hated being interrupted just as he was finalizing plans for the night. “What’s this?”
Longsword grinned and nudged it with the toe of his boot. “What’s it look like?”
“I can see it’s a shield, Will,” Delamere answered patiently, “but why have you put it there?”
“Turn it over.”
With a sigh, Delamere reluctantly dropped the young woman’s hand and bent to pick up the shield. His eyebrows shot up with surprise. “Who did this for you?”
“The armorer. Nice, isn’t it? The man’s got a talent.”
Longsword had discovered that the armorer in Pontorson was something of an artist who had decorated many of the garrison knights’ shields with various devices of their choosing. He had paid the man to paint his own with the traditional emblem of the house of Anjou: three golden lions standing on their hind legs.
“I know my father prefers a red background but I had the man put the lions on blue because that’s the color my grandfather used on his shields,” he explained.
The true explanation probably had more to do with the fact that Longsword’s legitimate half-brothers also preferred red than with any purist tendency, Delamere thought but was kind enough not to point out. He held the shield up and Longsword took it and, putting his arm through the brases, struck a warlike pose.
“Wait until those damned Bretons catch sight of this gleaming in the sun,” he chortled. “They’ll know it’s blood of the royal house that’s confronting them and they’ll turn and run. I guarantee it, Richard. My first real command. I feel damned near invincible!”
The wait was ended on the fourth day when two of Pontorson’s knights galloped through the hastily thrown back gates and presented themselves with great urgency to their commander and to Longsword. They had, they breathlessly explained, been patrolling to the east of the castle when they’d run into a barefoot, dirty-faced boy who claimed to have seen a convoy of wagons a mile or two away which had just pulled off the main road to take a lesser used cart track. He had told them that he was on his way to Pontorson to inform the garrison of this phenomenon and when the knights had laughed and asked him why, he’d answered quite seriously that he doubted the convoy was on honest business because there was not one merchant among its company.
If this convoy was only a short distance away, then it couldn’t hurt to investigate the knights reasoned. The boy was prevailed upon to guide them and they set off through the forest along the main road which wound from the harbor at Avranches, to directly underneath the watchful eyes in Pontorson’s towers and then into Brittany. Surely any tradesmen on ‘honest business’ would keep to this route; it was wide, maintained and well-traveled. But the boy’s hunch proved shrewd. The trio stood in the relative protection of the trees and could plainly see teams of plodding oxen dragging a dozen wagons in a neat, slow-moving line through the fallow fields which skirted the forest. Surrounding the wagons on all sides and forward and back were soldiers; mounted knights and crossbowmen on foot.
“How many?” demanded Longsword, his expression composed but his eyes glittering, thought Delamere, with excitement.
“Sixty knights…a few more bowmen.”
“For twelve wagons? There must be quite a treasure in them! Coming from Avranches, you say?”
One of the scouts nodded. “My lord, we didn’t actually
see them on the road from Avranches but the boy said he did.”
“Either they sacked the castle or the earl has had supplies and more men shipped in,” said Sir Walter.
“Or gold with which to pay his Flemish mercenaries,” Longsword grinned. “Tell me, did you see any colors? Banners?”
“No, my lord,” replied the other man. “But we’ve no doubt the convoy was on its way to Brittany. With all the raiding that’s been going on the boy was suspicious of strangers and hid in a tree when they passed him just before they turned off the road and he said he couldn’t understand the strange tongue they used when they spoke.”
Longsword spat onto the floor. “Bretons! That’s what comes of putting a duchy into the hands of a child,” he said over his shoulder to Delamere. Henry had made his third legitimate son, Geoffrey, now fifteen years old, the duke of Brittany. He turned back to the knights. “This cart track they’re on—how far from the castle is it? And can it be seen from the towers?”
“It lies three or four miles away, my lord,” answered Sir Walter. “And if it could be seen from castle,” he added drily, “there wouldn’t be any use for it.”
Longsword digested this information. “Once they slip over the border they’re lost to us. Obviously they’re heading for Dol and there’ll be more men to meet them. We’ve got to intercept them before they reach Pontorson, then.”
“Oxen don’t travel fast,” said Delamere. “We’ve got a few hours to work with.”
“How many men can you spare us?” Longsword asked Sir Walter.
It was a tricky question. Although it was tempting to throw almost every one of his soldiers into the ambush, Sir Walter had to consider the possibility that none might come back. The strength of the castle couldn’t suffer for this conflict. “About two dozen,” he said, regretfully. “But I would like to offer myself as one of them, my lord.”
Delamere did a quick sum in his head. “That makes us sixty-odd to their 130,” he said.
“Fine,” said Longsword with a grim smile. “Our success will look even better.”
It had been cooler in the forest. The faint track they followed now baked under the bright sun, which had thankfully begun its slow descent. Sweat trickled from beneath the knights’ coifs and the heavy mail encompassing torsos all but turned them into human ovens. Even the bowmen, wrapped in thick leather shells, trudged rather than walked beside the lumbering oxen. There was another complaint: the road had been better in the forest, as well. This one was obviously used primarily by foot traffic; it was narrow and uneven, following the bumpy contours of the land, and the carts became harder to move. Their pace had slowed to less than two miles an hour. It would be like this almost the rest of the way to Dol, some twenty miles from where they now plodded. They wouldn’t reach the fortress until the next evening.
They had been warned to divert from the main road just before Pontorson. King Henry, to check the ambitions of the fractious counts of Brittany, had built the fortress smack in the middle of the road instead of throwing up, like any sane man, an artificial mound a mile or two away and creating an imposing vantage point from which the impressive symbol of his might could glare down at the comings and goings of potential malefactors…and give them a decent chance of escape. With their manpower, they had no reason to fear an outright assault by the skeleton garrison but their pace was so slow that they were easy arrow fodder for even a handful of archers in the castle towers. So they had diverted as instructed and now had to contend with nothing more serious than heatstroke and pitted track. They were relaxed and even a little bored with this job; their number was intimidating and they’d been assured that the king was currently pinned down in eastern Normandy, trapped between the count of Flanders and the king of France. They didn’t even bother to send forward scouts.
Not that it would have saved them because when the attack came, it was from their right flank, not from the front. Suddenly, where there had been only silent field before, there were archers and crossbowmen aiming their deadly weapons straight at them. Squinting against the sun, the Bretons realized that the attackers had literally been lying in wait for them, obscured by the tall grass. Now they stood in a long line which stretched almost the length of the convoy. After one split second when the whole world seemed to stand still, someone shouted and then the air was full of flying arrows.
The line of bowmen was sparse but the Bretons were unprepared and suffered heavily from the barrage. The Normans aimed mainly for the horses, the largest targets, and the foot soldiers, who were protected only by leather.
The Breton knights spurred their horses and grabbed hastily for swords and shields. The crossbowmen in the company took up defensive positions behind the wagons. They attempted to shoot back but the sun was in their eyes and thwarted their aim. The Normans restrung their bows, waited coolly for another command and unleashed a second barrage. Meanwhile, the Bretons were readying themselves for an assault on the archers but as they maneuvered their mounts, a roar sounded from behind them and to a man they turned in confusion. And horror. From nowhere there appeared a line of Norman cavalry in the east, racing across the field with deadly intent.
Delamere urged his mount to greater speed with a harsh dig of his spurs. The long grass was more difficult to wade through than had been considered when Longsword had sketched his plan for them but it was imperative that the factor of surprise was not lost. They were so outnumbered that if they didn’t reach the Breton contingent before the knights had the chance to organize and initiate a counter-attack, the ambush would quickly become a rout—against them.
His eyes never left the object of his charge. The bowmen had done their job well. Longsword had instructed them to shoot the horses first. It was more tricky to hit a man protected from the top of his head to his ankles with metal in a vulnerable spot than it was to kill his horse. And the knights who tumbled heavily to the ground as their horses collapsed beneath them were no match for the double threat of a fifteen-hundred pound animal with four powerful legs bearing down on them and the force of all that massive impetus behind the swipes of the Norman swords raised to cut off their lives.
The lazy afternoon was no longer peaceful. By virtue of his swift horse, a fierce, unfriendly creature which Delamere often suspected of being as eager to murder and maim as its owner, Longsword reached the Bretons before anyone else. He bellowed wildly with pure exhilaration, seeming to offer a challenge to every man who stood before him. He’d already sent the tip of his blade through the throat of one Breton and knocked another, senseless, to the dirt with a vicious kick to the head by the time the rest of the Normans reached the fray. The crossbowmen trapped by the wagons were the easier targets for the knights. Some crawled beneath the wagons, only to find them a precarious shelter when the oxen, snorting with fright, stepped this way and that in an attempt to shake off their burdens and escape.
Meanwhile, the Norman foot soldiers moved toward the convoy with crossbows cocked and bows strung. At close range, the arrow from a crossbow could penetrate the hauberks worn by the knights. The Bretons found themselves assailed from either side and even though there were more of them than Normans, they had been overwhelmed by surprise and were already tired out by a day spent traveling under a hot sun. Then, too, they had recognized the colors and creatures painted on the Norman leader’s shield as the emblem of the house of Anjou, which meant Henry, contrary to what they’d been told, knew exactly what they were doing. Most of them offered only a feeble resistance, expecting to be taken prisoner and later ransomed. But Longsword had ordered all the enemy slaughtered and those who put up the butts of their swords were merely cut down more easily than those who put up a fight.
The whole fracas lasted less than a quarter of an hour. The corpses of Breton soldiers lay in muddled heaps on the ground. Wounded horses whinnied and snorted. The first few teams of oxen had lumbered out of sight; the remainder bellowed anxiously. Longsword slipped down from his saddle and walked among the bodies, kicking at
legs and heads for signs of life.
Sir Walter, a happy smile on his face, rode up to him. “My lord, good work! But some men managed to escape. Will you give me permission to chase them down before they cross the border?”
“No,” Longsword answered. He stuck his stained sword into his belt, pulled his helmet off and pushed back his coif. His hair was plastered with sweat to his scalp and he ran his fingers through it several times. “I want Chester and de Fougères to know what happened.”
“But they’ll know when their convoy doesn’t show up,” Delamere pointed out. “Why lose the advantage of one or two days’ surprise? There are things we could do with that time to prepare for their attack.”
“We don’t need time!” Longsword retorted. “We don’t need to prepare for anything!” The body of a Breton bowman lay at his feet; he glanced and spat at it. “We’ve just proven we can demolish an army twice our size. I’m not going to sit back and wait for de Fougères to make his little plan and attack Pontorson, Richard. I am going to attack him.”