Warlord(10)

It was a battle we could only lose.

To my right I could see Owain at the centre of a swarm of enemy knights, and men on foot, too, stabbing up with long lethal pole arms from a distance. They were attracted like wasps to wine by the black-and-white wolf’s head banner that he bore: Robin’s banner. Though the powerful bowman was laying about mightily with his short sword, and knocking men back with each stroke, they were too many. Before I could get close I saw him take a deep spear thrust to the small of the back from a French pikeman, and watched helplessly as a knight rode in and sliced deeply into the meat of his shoulder with a backhand blow from his long sword. The air was thick with the screams of dying men, the crack of metal on wood, the wild shouts and oaths of the combatants, and flying clods kicked up by the circling horses’ hooves. A stench of fresh blood, horse dung and spilled guts filled my nose.

I shouted: ‘Men of Locksley! To me, to me!’ I swung my blade hard at a mounted foeman but he jerked his horse aside just in time. My path cleared for one instant and I dug my spurs in Shaitan’s side and launched myself through the gap towards Owain and the battle standard. Shaitan knocked a footman flying and I chopped into the arm of a passing half-armoured knight, and he reeled away, swaying in his seat, fountaining blood and screaming the Blessed Virgin’s name. Then I was knee to knee with Owain; my friend was sliding from me, his body limp in the saddle, and I reached out a hand and hauled him back into his place – but I could see life ebbing fast. His eyes were fluttering and his face was as white as a field of fresh snow. But he had the strength to rise, reach over and push the staff of the wolf’s head flag into my shield hand before slumping back in the saddle.

I let the shield hang loose by its loops on my left forearm, lifted the standard high in the air, and screamed: ‘A Locksley! A Locksley – to the gates. To the gates!’ I looked round and was relieved to see that a score or so of my men were forcing their way through the murderous crush towards me. When I glanced back at Owain I saw that his saddle was empty. There was no time to gather his body or even to mourn: I gave a signal to Shaitan, putting a mailed toe hard into his flank behind the off-side foreleg. My huge stallion reared up on his haunches, the forelegs windmilling in front of his long black nose, cracking an enemy footman’s skull and clearing a small space immediately in front of us. I spurred my mount into that space, swung Fidelity at the helmet of an enemy knight, drove the spiked butt-end of the standard into another man’s face, and urged Shaitan forward once more. I bellowed: ‘Come on, come on. A Locksley – to the gates! Follow me to the gates!’ And my men were coming towards me, pushing their horses through the struggling crowds of enemy. With the battle standard in my left hand and my sword in my right, I charged straight into a milling knot of enemy horsemen, guiding Shaitan with only my knees and killing with a desperate ferocity; dropping one man with a blow to the back of the neck, hacking deep into another’s face, ducking a sword stroke that whistled over my helmet, and cutting down another man-at-arms with a savage backhand across the spine as I passed him: but with Shaitan’s weight and a pack of yelling Locksley men pressing close behind me, we burst through the cloud of enemy cavalry and suddenly we were free and clear, with only two hundred yards to go before the castle gates, which were black and forbidding and closed tight ahead of us. The scurrilous chalk-drawn image of King Philip seemed to beckon us on with his phallic mace as we all barrelled forward at a frantic, pounding, heart-in-mouth gallop towards the castle gates.

An evil thought struck me: what if the defenders refused to open for us? Had they received our message: a note tied to an arrow and shot into the castle the night before by Owain? Did they know that we were friends and this was not some lunatic cavalry assault on their unbroken walls?

We were clear of the French horsemen now, with only a hundred yards to go, the rattling drumbeat of hundreds of hooves filling my ears, and looking behind I could see at least a good sixty or perhaps seventy so of our men, mostly archers but some lancers, too – including little Thomas, galloping on his brown mount, half-crouched in the saddle and still leading the packhorses, his mouth a grim line of determination. Hanno was on my left shoulder, urging his horse to greater speed with smacks from the flat of his sword. We thundered forward – and the gates remained firmly shut before us. The French were re-grouping; I could hear shrill trumpets sounding above the thunder of our pounding steeds. I called upon St Michael, the warrior archangel – ‘Oh holy one, let them open the gates! I beg you, let them open the gates!’ But I knew in my heart that the defenders had not received our message: we’d be pinned between the stout portal of the castle and the might of King Philip’s whole army and be crushed like a beetle under a workman’s boot.