“See this insolent fellow who bears three martlets upon a field gules!” cried Sir Maurice Berkeley. “He stands betwixt the two armies as though he had no dread of us.”
“I pray you, sir, that I may ride out to him, since he seems ready to attempt some small deed,” pleaded Nigel.
“Nay, fair sirs, it is an evil thing that we should break our line, seeing that we still have much to do,” said the prince. “See! he rides away, and so the matter is settled.”
“Nay, fair prince,” said the young knight who had spoken first. “My gray horse, Lebryte, could run him down ere he could reach shelter. Never since I left Severn side have I seen steed so fleet as mine. Shall I not show you?” In an instant he had spurred the charger and was speeding across the plain.
The Frenchman, John de Helennes, a squire of Picardy, had waited with a burning heart, his soul sick at the flight of the division in which he had ridden. In the hope of doing some redeeming exploit, or of meeting his own death, he had loitered between the armies, but no movement had come from the English lines. Now he had turned his horse’s head to join the king’s array, when the low drumming of hoofs sounded behind him, and he turned to find a horseman hard upon his heels. Each had drawn his sword, and the two armies paused to view the fight. In the first bout Sir Maurice Berkeley’s lance was struck from his hand, and as he sprang down to recover it the Frenchman ran him through the thigh, dismounted from his horse, and received his surrender. As the unfortunate Englishman hobbled away at the side of his captor a roar of laughter burst from both armies at the spectacle.
“By my ten finger-bones!” cried Aylward, chuckling behind the remains of his bush, “he found more on his distaff that time than he knew how to spin. Who was the knight?”
“By his arms,” said old Wat, “he should either be a Berkeley of the West or a Popham of Kent.”
“I call to mind that I shot a match of six ends once with a Kentish woldsman—” began the fat bowyer.
“Nay, nay, stint thy talk, Bartholomew!” cried old Wat. “Here is poor Ned with his head cloven, and it would be more fitting if you were saying aves for his soul, instead of all this bobance and boasting. Now, now, Tom of Beverley?”
“We have suffered sorely in this last bout, Wat. There are forty of our men upon their backs, and the Dean foresters on the right are in worse case still.”
“Talking will not mend it, Tom, and if all but one were on their backs he must still hold his ground.”
While the archers were chatting, the leaders of the army were in solemn conclave just behind them. Two divisions of the French had been repulsed, and yet there was many an anxious face as the older knights looked across the plain at the unbroken array of the French king moving slowly toward them. The line of the archers was much thinned and shredded. Many knights and squires had been disabled in the long and fierce combat at the hedge. Others, exhausted by want of food, had no strength left and were stretched panting upon the ground. Some were engaged in carrying the wounded to the rear and laying them under the shelter of the trees, while others were replacing their broken swords or lances from the weapons of the slain. The Captal de Buch, brave and experienced as he was, frowned darkly and whispered his misgivings to Chandos.
But the prince’s courage flamed the higher as the shadow fell, while his dark eyes gleamed with a soldier’s pride as he glanced round him at his weary comrades, and then at the dense masses of the king’s battle which now, with a hundred trumpets blaring and a thousand pennons waving, rolled slowly over the plain. “Come what may, John, this has been a most noble meeting,” said he. “They will not be ashamed of us in England. Take heart, my friends, for if we conquer we shall carry the glory ever with us; but if we be slain then we die most worshipfully and in high honour, as we have ever prayed that we might die, and we leave behind us our brothers and kinsmen who will assuredly avenge us. It is but one more effort, and all will be well. Warwick, Oxford, Salisbury, Suffolk, every man to the front! My banner to the front also! Your horses, fair sirs! The archers are spent, and our own good lances must win the field this day. Advance, Walter, and may God and Saint George be with England!”
Sir Walter Woodland, riding a high black horse, took station by the prince, with the royal banner resting in a socket by his saddle. From all sides the knights and squires crowded in upon it, until they formed a great squadron containing the survivors of the battalions of Warwick and Salisbury, as well as those of the prince. Four hundred men-at-arms who had been held in reserve were brought up and thickened the array, but even so Chandos’s face was grave as he scanned it, and then turned his eyes upon the masses of the Frenchmen.
“I like it not, fair sir. The weight is overgreat,” he whispered to the prince.
“How would you order it, John? Speak what is in your mind.”
“We should attempt something upon their flank whilst we hold them in front. How say you, Jean?”
He turned to the Captal de Buch, whose dark, resolute face reflected the same misgivings.
“Indeed, John, I think as you do,” said he. “The French king is a very valiant man, and so are those who are about him, and I know not how we may drive them back unless we can
