‘It is a good name,’ he said grudgingly, raising his cup in toast. ‘It will do.’
18
The city of Rouen lay around a hundred miles south and west of Calais. In normal times, William would have counted it a stronghold. As the capital of English Normandy, it had witnessed English victories, including the execution of Joan of Arc after her rebellion. William had ridden south to the city with the army, through lands that could have been English farms in Kent or Sussex for their familiarity. He’d crossed the Seine and reached Rouen on a chilly morning three days before, with dawn frost crunching under the hooves of his mount.
The city had been a silent witness to his arrival, the great gates solidly shut. William had stared up at dozens of bodies in the breeze, hanging by their necks from the walls. Almost a hundred swung and creaked, many of them still bearing the marks of violence or stained dark brown with dried blood. William had crossed himself at the sight, saying a brief prayer for the souls of good men guilty of no crime but their place of birth.
The people of Rouen knew the French king was on the march and they had taken courage from that knowledge. Consumed by fury, William could hardly bear to think of the rape and slaughter that must have gone on within those walls. There had been hundreds of English families in Rouen. He had seen cities fall before and the memories were among the ugliest things he had ever witnessed. He thought the hanged men were the lucky ones.
Denied the resources of the city, he had been forced to open lines of supply right back to Calais, guarding the roads and losing vital men just to keep the carts coming. At least there was water. Rouen was girdled by the Seine, almost enclosed by a great curve of the river as it cut through the rich soil of the province. His army crossed the river on stone bridges, then made their camp in open fields to the south of the city. They turned their backs on Rouen and began the work of pounding sharp wooden stakes into the ground to defend the position against a cavalry charge. Still more of his men used the protection of heavy wooden mantlets to approach the silent city and spike the gates with massive beams and iron nails as long as a man’s forearm. There would be no sudden attack from the rear. William only hoped he would have the chance to visit retribution on those within for what they had done.
The scouts brought in reports every day, all worse than the ones before. William was certain the French king could not have hidden the existence of so many trained men. Half the army he would face had to be peasants drafted for the task and such men had not fared well in the past against English armies. It was a slender thread of hope, but there was not much else to raise his spirits with Rouen at his back.
The open landscape dwarfed even armies, so that it was almost a month after his arrival before William caught his first glimpse of soldiers moving in the distance. He rode closer with a dozen of his senior barons to observe the enemy. What they saw did not please any of them.
It seemed the scouts had not exaggerated. Thousands upon thousands marched north towards the city and the river. William could see blocks of cavalry and armoured knights, as well as the expected host of pikemen so favoured by the French king. From the height of a small hill, William watched them come, all the while counting and assessing, seeing how they moved. Before long, he glimpsed a second group of colourful shields and banners snapping in the breeze. The king’s party of lords had come to the front. From a distance of more than a mile, William watched as one young fool made his horse rear, the hooves kicking air. He reviewed his own position, unpleasantly aware that he had to keep the bridges open across the Seine, or his men could be trapped against the city that had left them to stand alone.
William turned in the saddle to see Baron Alton glaring across the shrinking distance.
‘What do you think, David?’ William asked.
His senior commander shrugged eloquently.
‘I think there are a lot of them,’ he replied. ‘We may run out of arrows before they’re all dead.’
William chuckled as he was expected to do, though the jest moved him not at all. He had not seen so many French soldiers since the battle of Patay twenty years before. It made him feel old to realize how much time had passed, but he could still remember that disaster — and the slaughter of English archers that had followed. He told himself he would not make the same mistakes and could not help looking back over his shoulder to where his bowmen had prepared their killing ground. Nothing alive could reach them as long as his swordsmen held the centre. He shook his head, wishing for greater confidence in his own abilities. He would fight a strong defence, because he knew how to do it. He could at least thank the French king for not halting and forcing him to attack. King Charles would be confident, but then with such numbers he had every right to be.
‘I’ve seen enough here,’ William said firmly. ‘I think we should rejoin the men. My lords, gentlemen. With me.’ As he spoke, he turned his horse and they trotted back towards the English lines. William forced himself to ride without looking back, though he felt the enemy coming up behind.
As they crossed the lines of pointed stakes, William waved two earls and half a dozen barons off to their positions. Each of them commanded hundreds of men-at-arms, hard men sheathed in heavy mail under their tunics. They had left their horses beyond the river, though William still fretted over what looked like an escape route. Such things did not sit well with the archers, he knew. They had no horses. William remembered again how mounted knights had fled at Patay, leaving the hapless bowmen to be slaughtered. He swore it would not happen again, but still, there were the horses, a great herd of thousands ready to race away if the battle went badly.
As the French army approached, William rode up and down the lines once more, exchanging a few words with senior men and commenting on their positions. In defending the river plain, there was nothing to do but wait, and William sipped water from a flask as the French came closer and closer. After a time, he took his place in the centre, one of the few mounted men there among those with swords and shields. His cavalry held the right wing, but they would not charge unless the French king himself was exposed or the French were routed. Swallowing drily at the size of the army coming to kill him, William doubted he would see such a thing, not that day.
As the distances shrank, William could see the bulk of mantlets being brought up by the French king’s crossbowmen. The heavy wooden shields took three men apiece to move them on their wheels, but they would provide shelter even against the arrow storm he could bring down. William frowned at the sight of the columns trudging onward with the mantlets at the front like an armoured helmet. He could see French lords riding alongside the columns, roaring orders. They moved with solid purpose, he thought, though he would still wager on his longbows against them. His archers had their own heavy wooden barriers that they could raise or drop to protect them from barrages of bolts or sling stones. William thanked God there were no siege engines or cannon in the French army. Everything he had heard made it unlikely, but he was still relieved. The French were moving quickly, rushing to take Normandy before the summer ended. The heavy machines of war would be coming up behind them, ready for sieges to come. Until then, the most powerful weapons on the field were English longbows.
In the French centre, their cavalry trotted together as a mass. William almost smiled to see it, as one who had ridden to battle more times than he could remember. It was easy to imagine the banter and over-loud, nervous laughter as they closed on the English position. He said a short prayer to his patron saint and the Virgin, then dropped his helmet visor down, reducing what he could see to a slit of light.
‘Ready archers!’ he bellowed across the field.
William watched as the French crossbowmen wheeled their mantlets into a staggered line, giving the best cover they could. Yet to reach the English lines, the enemy knights would have to leave their shadow. He bared his teeth, hearing his own breath sound loudly inside the helmet. He would stop the French king before Rouen. He had to.
He could hear orders shouted in the distance, thin sounds borne away on the wind. The mass of enemy pikemen came to a halt and the centre cavalry reined in. The two armies faced each other, the French force almost five times the size of his own, a veritable sea of iron and shields. William crossed himself as the crossbow ranks marched on. It was a blessing that they didn’t have the reach of his archers. To get close enough to kill, they had to come within the range of the yew bows. His archers in loose tunics and leggings were in high spirits as they waited for them to do just that.
The last two hundred yards were known as the ‘devil’s hand’ to French soldiers. William had heard the term years before and he recalled it now as the crossbowmen walked with their weapons on their shoulders, still too far
