Warlord(139)

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 tales with the Westbury men and Thomas in a thicket of ash, half a mile from the castle. It was a loud, raucous and enjoyable night, the little of it I can remember.

Hungover but happy, we set off again the next day: the King was determined that this would be the campaign, this would be the season in which God would give us Gisors. That mighty fortress, key to the border, was perhaps the most powerful castle in Normandy after Château-Gaillard – surrounded as it was by a ring of four lesser castles. Gisors was the prize, Richard always insisted. To take back Gisors was, in effect, to win the war. Accordingly, we headed eastwards into the lands of the enemy, our hearts beating strongly, our heads as high as our hopes.

However, the Westbury men and I took little part in the fighting over the next few days, as Richard’s army, with a grim, mechanical skill, took possession one by one of the outlying fortresses of Dangu, Courcelles, Boury and Sérifontaine that stood guard around Gisors. Dangu had been in and out of our hands several times in the past years, and there was a certain resignation in the face of the elderly French knight who surrendered it to us without a fight, after seeing Richard with overwhelming force camped before him. Courcelles defied us, but a very swift, bloody surging attack by Mercadier’s men overran its walls, and then that was ours, too. Boury, we took by bribery; the Constable, a young, ambitious man, agreeing to open its gates to William the Marshal in exchange for a grant of lands in western Normandy and England. Four miles to the north of Gisors, the Earl of Leicester’s men broke down the front gates of Sérifontaine, and within a week the great prize itself was halfway surrounded, its defensive ring of smaller forts all in our hands.

The King based his court at Dangu, and there he paused for a day or so, resting the horses. His troops were a little scattered, some occupying the newly captured castles around Gisors, others, who had been summoned from the far corners of Normandy, still in Château-Gaillard. News arrived that his powerful siege train with its massive ‘castle-breakers’ had unfortunately become mired somewhere outside Rouen – but few of us, wrapped as we were in the glow of victory, believed that this was important. We were winning; we might all be tired, but our successes made our steps light. Nevertheless, after the exertions of the past week, we all felt we needed to regroup and rest – all of us, that is, save Richard.