border at Gisors and on into Normandy.
Philip was on our doorstep again.
Uncharacteristically, Richard was taken by surprise by the speed of the French advance. His troops were scattered across the duchy, and when King Philip came roaring into his domain, heading due west directly for Chateau-Gaillard, the Lionheart could do nothing but retreat before him. For ten days we fought a desperate rearguard action, skirmishing hard against the French knights as they burned and pillaged through the lands that my men and I had spent the last year working so hard to repair. Robin had resumed command of the Locksley men, and while I was his senior lieutenant, I now rode out mainly with my ten-strong, red-clad Westbury troop. It was heartbreaking to see the destruction caused by the French as they ravaged the lands between Gisors and Chateau-Gaillard — orchards torched, churches looted, livestock slaughtered and left to rot — but we took our revenge when and where we could.
One warm September morning our troop came across a band of French knights pillaging an isolated farmstead near Suzay. Kit, the scout, came galloping back to the column and told me in breathless terms that there were a half-dozen French knights burning and looting with abandon not far ahead. I gave thanks to God for the gruelling training for war that I had insisted on during the long dull months of the truce. There was no need for detailed instructions: ‘Lances, then side arms,’ I said. ‘Stay together, we will not linger; we go in fast, surprise them, kill as many as we can and get out. If they flee, do not chase them — it could be a trap. Does everybody understand?’
It was no trap: we barrelled into the enemy at the gallop, our lances levelled, and two knights and two mounted men-at-arms died in moments, skewered in the first rushing assault. I took the first knight, a red-faced oaf, directly in his slack belly with my lance, the numbing shock transmitting sharply through my right arm as the steel lance head smashed through his mail links and splintered his spine. I killed a second man after a brief exchange of cuts with Fidelity, a savage backhand chop to the neck. We surprised and outnumbered them, and they died easily. I think they were fuddled with drink, for they all seemed to react rather slowly to our initial screaming charge. One mounted man-at-arms at the back of the group, perhaps more sober than the rest, hauled his horse around and galloped away immediately he saw us, and we let that coward go; another man loosed a crossbow at us, missed and then sought to escape on foot, but Ox-head rode him down within a dozen paces and dropped him with a neat axe blow to the back of the skull. None of our men was harmed. We wasted only a few moments gathering up their plunder and rounding up two of the warhorses — the other mounts having made successful bids for freedom — and leaving the bodies where they lay, we headed off again south-west towards Chateau-Gaillard, our faces aglow at this small victory against the invaders.
The next day we rode out again with the King himself — but not as rag-tag skirmishers, this time with all the armed strength we could muster. With him were Robin, the Marshal and half a dozen other barons, who had all concentrated at Chateau-Gaillard when it became clear that Philip’s main thrust was against us in Normandy, and that the Flemish assault from Baldwin in the north was being ignored. The first thing the King said to us, as we mustered in the dawn in the middle bailey of the castle — fifty grim-faced, fully armoured knights and twice that number of mounted men-at-arms — was: ‘We have held him thus far; now we push him back. Mercadier is coming up fast from the south. It’s time to show Philip our true mettle.’
We rode out of Chateau-Gaillard and formed up immediately in the attack formation, four ranks of horsemen in the vanguard, two of knights, and behind them two ranks of sergeants, including my Westbury lads. Then we set out along the main road east towards Gamaches, firmly resolved to force back Philip’s men all the way to the border or die in the attempt. On each wing were a score or so of lighter horsemen, Locksley men for the most part, whose duties included scouting, but also sweeping the scattered enemy ahead of our main column, and ensuring that none were left behind to harry our flanks and rear. Behind us came a great mass of infantry, a couple of light siege engines and the baggage train. We had not travelled three miles before we came upon a sizeable body of enemy horsemen, perhaps thirty knights and men-at-arms, cantering diagonally across our path on a field of stubble. I was in the front rank, next to Robin, and perhaps four or five places along from the King. Richard, naturally, didn’t hesitate for a moment: ‘There they go! At them,’ he shouted, lowered his lance and urged his horse forward. I clapped my spurs to Shaitan’s sides and the whole front rank of twenty-five knights thundered forward as one man.
I heard the panicked shouts of the enemy knights as they saw us coming and tried to turn their warhorses to face our attack, but their forward horsemen created chaos by stopping abruptly, then turning their beasts, while the ones behind, unaware that they were under attack, barged into the haunches of the horses in front of them. They were in utter confusion even before our galloping line smashed into them. I shouted: ‘Westbury!’ and attempted to sink my lance into the side of a knight who was half-turned away from me and struggling to control his madly kicking horse. I missed and received a hard clout on the back of my helmet from the knight’s axe as I thundered past. My lance speared into the trapper-covered rump of a horse beyond my intended victim, sank deep in the poor animal’s flesh, and was snatched out of my hands. A French knight materialized in front of me and took swing with his long sword, but I received the blow on my shield, turned Shaitan with my knees and fumbled at my waist for Goody’s mace. My enemy turned his horse too and came at me for another pass, his blade lifted high. I ducked his swipe and cracked his upper arm with a short hard blow from the mace as we pounded past each other. He howled and fell back in the saddle, as I circled him again, and I saw that the limb was clearly broken, but before I could finish him my attention was wrenched away: another Frenchman was coming at me from my right side only yards away, jabbing forward with his lance, and shouting: ‘St Denis, St Denis!’ The tip of his spear narrowly missed my belly and passed between the high front of my saddle and my groin. I leaned forward and trapped the ash shaft there, let the mace fall and dangle from the leather strap that attached it to my wrist, seized the lance with my right hand and hauled it from the astounded man’s grasp. The man, his horse now only a foot or so from mine, grasped at the handle of his scabbarded sword. I flipped the lance off my lap and away, grabbed the dangling mace and swung hard and low with the same movement, smashing its heavy ridged metallic head into his kneecap. His agonized scream was only cut short by a rider galloping past me and decapitating him with a single sweep of the sword: I caught a glimpse of Robin’s snarling battle-face under his helmet, just for an instant as he passed. And then it was over.
The French knights who had survived were running for it, and we were laughing, panting and calling out jests to old friends: the King seemed to be illuminated with animal vigour and energy, at least that is how I remember it. He truly seemed to be lit by an inner fire, like a fine beeswax candle in a horn lantern, that made his white teeth shine, his bright blue eyes sparkle and his red-gold hair glow like sunshine.
We rested for a quarter of an hour, checked our horses for wounds — Shaitan was unharmed, thank the Lord, and he seemed to be vastly enjoying the excitement of the day. We shared flasks of wine or water, mopped our brows and mounted up again. The second rank of knights now took the lead and we pressed onwards.
I fought once more that day — charging a group of men-at-arms who were looting a church, and killing one with Fidelity, then riding another down and crushing him under Shaitan’s hooves — but we were all aware, from the clouds of dust kicked up by hundreds of hooves, that a great battle was taking place a few miles ahead. Mercadier had come up from the south and had attacked the King of France and his household knights directly — he had only with difficulty been driven off. We hurried to join up with the scar-faced mercenary and his murderous ruffians, and did so some two miles later, but it was clear that the French were by now in full retreat. I felt a little queasy at the sight of King Richard embracing Mercadier — who had captured a score or so of noble prisoners by his exertions that day — when they met a mile or so outside Gamaches, and I busied myself with the welfare of the Westbury men, tutting over their scrapes and bruises — none had been killed, mercifully, or badly wounded — and congratulating them for the courage they had shown.
And we had indeed done well; the scouts had reported that Philip had been forced to retreat far to the south, probably as far as his castle at Mantes, a good fifteen miles away. His powerful thrust into Normandy had been halted and bloodily repulsed; he had been out-fought, his army mauled and sent packing — but our task was by no means finished. Richard might have expelled Philip from his lands, but our sovereign now meant to return the compliment and take the fight deep into French-controlled territory. We bivouacked in and around Gamaches that night, the King naturally staying in the castle with his senior barons and knights, but I made myself scarce and slept amongst my men. I could not stomach another royal feast in which Mercadier would be praised to the skies as the hero of the hour. Worse, I might be asked to compose a victory song in praise of his actions. I told myself that, if that were to happen, I would rather refuse and offend the King, but I did not want to put my resolve to the test. And so I spent the evening with a barrel of wine that Ox-head had ‘captured’, carousing, singing and telling bawdy
