The King’s Assassin (31 page)

A second volley from Mastin’s men scythed into the survivors, with no less awful results. It was as if a giant invisible hand had punched into the company. The first
conroi
was utterly ruined now, a lone French horseman charging into the trees, the only man left out of thirty brave knights. He was screaming, ‘
St Denis! Vive le Roi!
’ and then was abruptly silenced. I did not see how he died.

The archers were still nocking, drawing and loosing death into the second and third
conrois
with an awful humming rhythm. By the sixth or seventh volley – I had lost count by then – the French formation was no more than a collection of scattered clumps of horsemen desperately trying to control their terrified mounts, only a handful of men still coming gamely at us. The ground was slick with blood and filth, and writhing, staggering, wounded men and horses were everywhere. Screaming flooded the air.

And into this carnage, into this bloody hell on earth, the Count of Flanders and his knights made their charge.

A thick column of knights at full gallop – some two hundred men and horses, perhaps, it was difficult to tell as they went by so speedily – poured up the track through the wood, pounded past us and burst out into the fields beyond. They swept the remaining French before them like a vast broom, slaughtering those who were not swift in their escape. The knights of Flanders smashed the last clumps of resistance with ease, cutting down the enemy with sometimes as many as three knights against one. The French died – or ran. There were few who were lucky enough to surrender. And, still drunk with the joy of battle, the Flemish knights turned themselves loose on the crossbowmen. They crashed through the thicket of huge shields, slaying the footmen with great bloody sweeps of their swords, riding down others who tried to run. More than one courageous bowman turned and faced his attacker and managed to spit his mounted enemy with a swiftly loosed quarrel, before he was hacked into bloody chunks by the vengeful comrades of the bolt-struck Flemish knight.

It was soon over. And the men of Flanders roamed the field south of the bridge and the road, red blades in hand, victorious.

The Count of Flanders, wily Ferrand, was no amateur at war. His trumpets sounded the recall and, eyeing the bulk of French cavalry – untouched by this skirmish and still many thousands strong massing by the bridge for a counter-attack – his men trotted their blown horses to the treeline, where we cheered them again and again for their valour.

The wood behind me was now thick with our men. Robin was with the Earl of Salisbury, who had our infantry and the remainder of our knights. As I came up to him, I heard Longsword say: ‘Otto is coming up, Locksley, round to the east, he’s trying to find a place to ford a stream over there. But he is coming and we can beat them here. If we are quick about it.’

I looked out through the trees. The majority of the French infantry were still on the far side of the bridge, but I could see that they were turning and beginning to recross back to this side. And the French cavalry had quit the main road and were now arrayed in three neat blocks under rippling banners, south of the bridge, half a mile away, their mail and arms glittering in the bright sunlight. I looked to my left, along the treeline, and could see the first units of the Emperor’s Saxon guard appearing at the edge of the woods, with scores of magnificent German horsemen before and behind them.

Salisbury was still speaking to Robin and pointing out at the field: ‘We will make our line here, north–south, parallel to the river. The Count of Flanders and his cavalry, and the footmen of Hainaut, will form our left flank, just here, anchored on this treeline. They should be able to keep those French horsemen at bay for a while so we can form up. Otto and his Germans will take the centre – he insisted, of course – opposite the bridge and the chapel of Bouvines; and we will form the army’s right, the northern flank: the Count of Boulogne, your fellows, and mine. Get your men ready, we will curl round behind Otto and his troops, when they are in place, and take our positions up there beyond the road.’

Ferrand of Flanders had his men well in hand after their superb charge and they began to move out of the trees and form up in ranks about three hundred yards from the French cavalry. Some of them were a little bloodied from their victory over the arrow-shattered French, but they were jaunty, confident in their prowess and their numbers. They sang psalms as they walked their horses into position. And behind them came the men of Hainaut – big peasants in leather jerkins and steel caps and carrying the long pikes that made them so feared by cavalry.

Otto’s men were flooding on to the field, and I saw the famous standard of the Emperor, an eagle mounted on a dragon and borne by a golden chariot, in the midst of a knot of horsemen. The German horsemen swarmed forward to take up their positions opposite the bridge, a little untidily, perhaps – they could not match the neat ranks of the cavalry of Flanders. But they seemed eager for the fight, and I knew as well that the Saxons who formed the core of Otto’s force, coming up on the heels of the horsemen, were serious warriors who had sworn an oath to die, if necessary, for their Emperor.

Robin had most of his pike and poleaxe men out of the woods by now, as well as the cavalry we had left, and as they began to march behind the jostling masses of Otto’s troops and up towards the road, I lingered to rally our stragglers, as Robin had asked me to. I took a moment then to stand in the saddle and observe the French lines as they were coalescing to our west.

Their right wing contained the cream of their cavalry, their boldest knights. These men had formed the elite rearguard that I had seen marching on the main road – was it only an hour ago? The hot July sun, high above us told me so. It seemed like several days past. A thin haze of dust, stirred by the feet of marching men and the hooves of thousands of horses, hung in the air all across the field. But further north, in the French lines by the bridge, in the centre of their position, I could still make out the King of France himself, a tiny figure in mail with a silver helm, surrounded by no more than a hundred knights and a company of spearmen, but above him flapped the long red-gold standard, the sacred Oriflamme unfurled only in times of greatest danger.

Their centre was thin, but hundreds of their footmen were now surging back over the bridge to swell their ranks. As I rode north with my handful of stragglers, we passed the last of the Germans, still pushing and shoving each other into their places, and crossed the main road, which was now churned to a mire by the passage of hooves. I saw that the French footmen from the bridge had begun to spill out northwards from the main road and sprawl out into the fields beyond opposite our position.

The Count of Boulogne, who was out ahead of the main body of our troops with the Earl of Salisbury, began ordering our formation. He had few cavalry left – perhaps fifty knights in all – but some two thousand foot, mostly pikemen, including Robin’s poleaxe men and archers. I saw that Robin was with them, and Sir Thomas, too, and they seemed to be arguing with Boulogne and Salisbury.

I spurred my horse towards them and as I approached I saw that William Longsword was nodding his head at something Robin was saying and that Boulogne was frowning but did not seem too unhappy.

As I came nearer, I saw that something strange was happening to the troops: the infantry seemed to be fragmenting into companies of about a hundred men. Sir Thomas came up, intercepting my line before I came within a hundred yards of the commanders. He was grinning like a monkey – a most unusual expression.

‘Robin wanted to surprise you,’ he said. ‘He said it would cheer you no end. But in the event it took a little while to convince those dull-brained old stick-in-the-muds Boulogne and Salisbury. Anyway, what do you think?’

I had no idea what Thomas was talking about and so I held my tongue and looked on dumbfounded as, with only a small amount of confusion, the infantry formed itself into a gigantic square, with five separate companies on each side, north, south, east and west, coming together to make an impenetrable wall of men. The strangest thing of all was that the cavalry, which might ordinarily be on either flank of a solid block of infantry or behind it, was placed in the centre of the square, with the archers and the commanders protected on all four sides by thick ranks of pike or poleaxe-wielding footmen.

‘I thought you would be proud of him,’ Thomas said, a little smugly.

‘Robin?’ I said.

Thomas looked at me as if I were mad. ‘No, young Robert. This new formation: it’s all his idea. Well, I helped him smooth out a few wrinkles, but it’s mostly his idea. This is the hollow phalanx. He must have mentioned it to you. What do you think?’

I had no idea what to say. Robert had never said anything to me about a hollow phalanx, except to ask me to pass on that strange message to Thomas from his prison cell. But I would be damned to Hell before I admitted that my son did not talk to me.

‘It looks, ah, nice … very nice,’ I said. ‘Very efficient.’

I was still trying to digest the idea that our formation in this life-and-death struggle had been determined by a twelve-year-old boy, when Thomas broke into my thoughts.

‘Yes, efficient is exactly the right word. We have very few cavalry and they could easily be scattered by a larger force of horsemen, but now they are protected, along with the archers, within the hollow phalanx. When our cavalry wish to attack, the phalanx opens, one of the companies of infantry swings out like a door, and the cavalry make their sortie, slaughter the foe, then return to the safety of the phalanx.’

Thomas and I had reached the huge square by then, and just as he said the words, the company of Sherwood men on the southern side of the hollow phalanx did indeed swing outwards as if on a hinge, shuffling in their ranks with minimal pushing and shoving for former outlaws, to allow us to enter.

Once inside, I did feel the swellings of pride for Robert and his extraordinary idea. It was the perfect defensive position, near-impregnable, to my eye. And I realised that God had smiled on me when I had appointed Thomas as Robert’s tutor: the knight was always open to new ideas – had he not invented his own form of unarmed fighting? And when it came to military tactics, he had clearly nurtured Robert’s talent for original ways of thought.

While I was silently congratulating my son and his tutor, I rode to the front of the phalanx, the west wall, and looked out over the field of battle.

The first thing that I noticed was that the French infantry facing us across three hundred yards of empty grassy space was growing in strength. Indeed, all along the French line the numbers had swelled and I felt the first twinges of a deep unease about the hours ahead.

It seemed to me that our commanders, in their desire to fight a traditional battle, with the two sides lined up parallel with each other, had missed a vital opportunity. When we had arrived at the battlefield, more than half the French had been on the far side of the bridge. If we had attacked then, immediately, we might have fallen on the French rearguard and destroyed it and chased the rest of the French army all the way to Lille. I could clearly imagine how King Richard would have managed it: an immediate assault on the bridge and to Hell with the paucity of our numbers. But the Lionheart was dead. Now, all but a handful of the French were across the River Marque, and we were facing the full might of Philip’s forces.

I chided myself for my cowardly thoughts. We were at least a match for the French in numbers – and perhaps we even had a slight advantage. And looking behind me I could see that units of the German Emperor’s army were still straggling on to the field. I thought I could make out the flags of the burghers of Ghent a mile or two away and several others beyond them. We would soon be reinforced, I told myself. It’s just another engagement, like so many you have seen. Be a man. Do not show the world your fear.

I remembered quite suddenly that it was a Sunday. God’s holy day. I crossed myself and murmured a prayer to St Michael, begging him to come to our aid. I was sure that God would not wish his mortal creations to spill their blood on his holy day, and yet it was us who had chosen to fight here, not the French.

Far down in the south of the field a shrill trumpet sounded. Then another. I shivered despite the heat of that blazing day.

For bloody battle was upon us.

And God alone would decide who triumphed.

Ferrand, the irascible Count of Flanders, had been waiting patiently for more than an hour at the far south of our line for his allies to align themselves correctly. The Germans were still in disarray, groups of knights moving about the centre, arguing over who should have precedence; proud noblemen from Cologne and Aachen disputing with wealthy burghers from the Flemish lands.

Ferrand evidently believed he had waited long enough. Without consulting any of his allies, he unleashed his knights in a full-scale charge against the enemy lines on the southern flank.

I must admit it was a magnificent sight. More than five hundred mailed knights in gorgeous surcoats, the pennants on their lances fluttering gaily as they rode, and a similar number of mounted men-at-arms, exploded from our left flank and charged across the three hundred yards that separated them from the enemy. At the last possible moment they lowered their lances to the horizontal, gave a huge shout and crashed into the enemy lines. Standing in my stirrups, half a mile to the north, I watched in awe, the hair bristling on my nape, as these superb warriors crunched through the first line of the French, the spear-points plucking men from their saddles, their huge horses crashing into the enemy mounts and sweeping all away before them. Their charge utterly destroyed the first line and carried them right up to the lance-points of the second.

I thought for a moment that Ferrand’s men must drive the French to their destruction into the boggy ground behind them – but the French, too, were fighting men of the first water, and miraculously, it seemed, they held against the rampaging men of Flanders, absorbed the power of their charge, and sprang back to engage them in a furious mêlée. I was too far to see much of the individual combats but I received an impression of a bulging, shifting line of men and horses, rippling like a trout-filled stream, banners flapping, flashes of silvery steel, and surcoats and horse’s trappers, all the colours of the rainbow; yet I could clearly hear the clang of metal on metal and the screams and shouts of the battling sides.