I drew back from the fray, circling Shaitan away from the enemy lines. We had so few men still in the saddle, and there was no sign of Robin. Green-clad bodies littered the weedy fallow field; forlorn horses nuzzling their dead owners. I saw, a dozen yards away, King Richard, also momentarily disengaged from the battle; he was leaning over his saddle, panting, a young knight on foot was speaking to him with a concerned expression. King Philip was still surrounded by a knot of a score or so knights; not a gleaming, multicoloured wall as before, more ragged, and smaller, their numbers fewer too, and milling about uneasily as the King’s closest personal knights watched the fight below them, restrained from joining it by their master. But they were still a formidable force.
For all our valour, we had failed to break through to the heart of the enemy position, and very soon the French King, safe behind his household knights, would rally his surviving men, summon his militia and his mercenaries to him, gather his full overwhelming strength and come down from that hill and destroy our remaining scattered, wounded men on their exhausted horses. Soon, all would be lost. Or so I believed then. Of course, Richard had known better. For at that very moment, William the Marshal, the knight ‘sans peur et sans reproche’ threw his fresh men into battle.
The Marshal had brought no more than forty knights with him, and yet they were some of the hardest fighting-men in our army. First, he attacked the southern portion of what had been the French line of march, slicing through a mass of militiamen on foot, a hundred spearmen at least, dispersing them like a pack of wolves descending on a flock of sheep. The militia broke apart and fled for their lives, but the Marshal’s men did not waste their time killing the fugitives; the knights quickly reformed again like the superb troops they were, making neat, close lines, many riders with unbroken lances, others holding their bright swords aloft, and on they came, trotting up the hill towards us.
King Richard had recovered himself, perhaps at the brave sight of the Marshal’s charge, and he was shouting to his knights, dispersed all over the field, urging them to come to him and reform. Then he saw me, and shouted: ‘To me, Sir Alan, to me. One more time, one more time and we shall have them. One last charge for victory!’
I turned my head and saw Thomas at my side; I was a little surprised for I had seen nothing of him in the battle and had feared that he might be among the fallen – but my squire was whole except for a long, shallow cut just below the ear and, and miracle of miracles, he was offering me a fresh lance. Beyond him I saw Ox-head and Kit, both apparently unwounded, and still looking eager for the fight, and another two Westbury men. I grinned at them all, wordless. And so the six of us trotted over to join the King.
There was no time to waste: William the Marshal was coming up fast, and the King had gathered some twenty knights and sergeants around him. ‘One more charge!’ the King kept repeating, he was laughing wildly again, white teeth gleaming in the gore-flecked gold of his beard, supremely happy in that moment. ‘We’ve got him, we’ve got the wretched thief!’ And then he bellowed: ‘For God and my right!’ and we charged up that incline together, all of us, King Richard, Robin, Little John, Thomas, a dozen living Locksley and Westbury men, a handful of household knights – with William the Marshal’s fresh troop of forty knights drumming the earth hard on our heels. We charged up that slope, filthy, bloody, our bodies wrenched by fatigue, we threw ourselves heedlessly once more into the milling, pristine ranks of the enemy.
And they fled.
Chapter Twenty-seven
We chased them; how we chased them, and the slower ones we killed. They were slaughtered in their saddles or ridden down, but if they had the sense to surrender, and managed to communicate this desire to our knights through the mayhem and gore-madness of battle, we made them captive. However, God in his wisdom did not see fit to deliver the French King unto us that day. The Almighty did, however, deign to humble that haughty monarch more than a little.
When our ragged band of exhausted men charged that loose group of French household knights gathered around the fleur-delys, I thought for a moment that we might even break through and reach the King himself. I killed two knights in that last blood-crazed, howling assault, and I truly believe we might well have made Philip a captive that day, such was our lust for victory – and that would have ended the war at a stroke – but the French King decided that his life and freedom were worth more than his honour, and he ran away, like the cowardly dog that he was. I knew nothing of this at the time, having received something of a shock. I had found myself exchanging vicious sword blows in that last desperate charge with a young blond knight with a long handsome face, although it was disfigured by a battle-grimace and a curious red, shiny mark on the left-hand side of his face, the mark of a healed burn. He cut hard at me and I blocked him; I returned the blow, but uncertainly, and then we both drew back at almost exactly the same time, reining our destriers in. ‘Greetings, Cousin,’ I said, breathing hard.