A white-haired fellow smiled and handed Heinrich a weapon. It was a glaive, a long-handled lance of sorts, with a sharp blade-edge on one side and a hook on the other. He was told the hook could be used to unseat a rider and the blade could be wielded “like a sword tied on a pole.”
Heinrich grasped his glaive in both hands and stared at it for a moment. Suddenly, rough words directed him to his new company where his commander placed him in the center of a tight knot of militiamen.
A hard-faced youth instructed Heinrich how companies of tithings would stand in the open field in close formations, separated by large spaces. “Their cavalry either attacks one of our clusters with its whole, or it spreads to get us all. Either way, we get an advantage.” The lad had barely finished speaking when a rider came charging from the west. “They’re coming,” he roared.
The peasant militia numbered about seven score. The yeomen stood at the ready and Lars asked the priests to pray for howling winds that might blow aside the enemy’s arrows. “There!” he cried. A column of horsemen and infantry could be seen advancing rapidly. Even from a distance their arrogant posture could be spotted, and the simple freemen hated them for it. Emotions stirred. “Easy, men,” ordered the captains. A chant began to rise, louder and louder. “Vrijheid altijd, Vrijheid altijd!”
The surprised knights from Oldenburg’s castle reined their mounts and stood in their stirrups to survey the motley lot grouped oddly before them. “Someone warned them!” groused one.
“Good, m’sword needs to be wet again!”
They studied the landscape and noticed a few waterbirds flying from the ditches to their right. The heavy drops dripping from their legs convinced the knights they would be clever to avoid the muck and mire of a likely swamp on that side. To their left the ground appeared firm, but the knights were unsure. “We needs keep tight to the roadway,” stated one.
“Aye. We’ve thirty-six mounted men. We ought drive nine wide and four rows deep … each row with two knights. We go straight down their center and scatter ‘em wide. We’ll seize the fort with our footmen and give chase on solid ground. Once they’ve dispersed, well loot the town and be back in Oldenburg by nones!”
Heinrich was set in the middle of a tithing in the center of the road. The position was one of honor, Lars had said. The poor baker wasn’t so sure. He stared breathlessly at the sight before him. Under colorful banners and atop impressive steeds, a steely line of mail-clad knights prepared to unleash their fury on an unkempt army of wool-clad yeomen. Their trumpeters sounded and cheers were lifted. Armored stallions snorted and tossed their heads as they pawed the earth. Heinrich closed his eyes. The order that was arrayed before him was his order. The pennants that rolled so easily in the morning’s air were the same that shadowed the world from which he came. He fixed his eyes on that which was about to strike, and he wondered.
The earth began to shake and the wind carried the sound of a thousand tumbling boulders as the cavalry charged. Closer and closer it roared, and behind it came a host of spinning legs bearing a forest of lances, axes, forks, and pikes. Heinrich’s heart pounded, his body chilled.
Slowly, ever so slowly, yet with earnest confidence and unyielding resolution, a defiant cry rose up from the Stedingers. It grew louder and louder until it roared like a great and wondrous bellow from the Lion of Judah Himself. It was hosanna; it was liberty’s reply. These free men would not run!
Heinrich clenched his jaw and gripped his glaive, and when the first wave crashed atop him he did not yield. He leapt into the battle like a man gone mad. He thrust and jabbed, swiped and yanked his glaive in, at, from, and through knights’ flesh and horse with no more thought to reason or to cause. He lunged about the tempest as time fell still, and as suddenly as it had begun, it ended.
The gasping baker stared at the heaps of groaning men strewn across the once green grass. He could hardly hear his commander put his ranks into a new formation, and he took his position while gazing numbly at his blood-smeared glaive. In the pause his mind suddenly flew to Weyer and his boys. He could see their faces in the shine of the steel and the memory jolted him. He bade them farewell.
The astonished knights retreated in humiliation. They had not expected either courage or skill-at-arms and were dismayed at the ardor of their foe. They suffered damaging losses to both mount and rider, and their footmen had received enormous casualties from a surprise flank attack. The furious lords hastened to salvage both their pride and their army’s resolve as they regrouped to lead with cavalry once more. The knights hunched forward in their saddles enraged and determined. They would form a column and drive forward like an iron lance.