Behind Hanno and Thomas rode Owain the Bowman, a short and deep-chested captain of archers – my second in command. Owain carried a banner on a tall pole: an image of a snarling wolf’s head in grey and black on a field of white. It was the standard of my lord and master the Earl of Locksley, whom I had left behind in Yorkshire to recover from a javelin wound to his left thigh, taken at the siege of Nottingham in March.
It was now May, in the Year of the Incarnation eleven hundred and ninety-four, the fifth year of the reign of King Richard, and a magnificent spring morning. The fruit trees were still adorned with the remains of their delicate lacy blossom, the grass on the verges glowed vivid green, birds called and swooped about the column, men smiled for no particular reason, the sky was a deep, innocent blue, with a scattering of plump clouds. The world seemed fresh and new and filled with possibilities; and I was on a mission of great import and no little danger for my beloved King.
Because Robin had been wounded, as had his huge right-hand man ‘Little’ John Nailor, I had been given the honour of leading a company of a hundred of Robin’s men to Normandy as part of King Richard’s army. I had never had sole command of such a force before, and I have to admit that the feeling was intoxicating: I felt like a mighty warlord of old; the leader of a band of brave men riding forth in search of honour and glory.
The bold Locksley men of my war-band were a mixed force of roughly equal numbers of men-at-arms and archers – all of them well mounted. The men-at-arms were lightly armoured but each was the master of a deadly lance twice as long as a man. In addition to his lance, each cavalryman had been issued with a protective padded jacket, known as an aketon or gambeson, a steel helmet and sword, and a thick cloak of dark green that marked them out as Robin’s men. Many of the men had additional pieces of armour that they had provided themselves: old-fashioned kite-shaped or even archaic round shields, iron-reinforced leather gauntlets, mail coifs and leggings and the like, scraps of iron, steel and leather, strapped here and there to protect their bodies in the mêlée; and many had armed themselves with extra weapons that ranged from long knives and short-handled axes to war hammers and nail-studded cudgels.
The mounted archers were mostly Welshmen who boasted that they could shoot the eye out of a starling on the wing. The bowmen had each been issued with a short sword, gambeson, helmet and green cloak, as well as a six-foot-long yew bow, and had two full arrow bags, each containing two dozen arrows, close at hand.
Under a billowing red linen surcoat emblazoned over the chest with a wild boar in black, I was clad in a full suit of mail armour – an extremely costly gift from Robin. The mail, made of inter-locking links of finely drawn iron, covered me from toe to fingertip, saddle seat to skull, in a layer that was very nearly impenetrable to a blade. I had a long, beautifully made sword, worth almost as much as the armour, hanging on my left-hand side, and a very serviceable, long triangular-bladed stabbing dagger, known as a misericorde, on the right of my belt. A short, flat-topped wood-and-leather shield that tapered to a point at the bottom was slung from my back, painted red – or gules, as the heralds would have it – and decorated in black with the same image of a walking or passant wild boar as adorned my chest, an animal I had long admired for its ferocity in battle and its enduring courage when faced with overwhelming odds. I was proud of my new device, which, since I had been knighted – by no lesser personage than King Richard himself – I was now entitled to bear, and which I had formally registered with the heralds. A conical steel cap with a heavy nose-guard and a long ash lance with a leaf-shaped blade completed my panoply.
We had sailed from Portsmouth in the middle of May, after a delay of several days due to bad weather, and landed at Barfleur to tremendous celebration from the Norman folk, overjoyed at the return of their rightful Duke. On that fine spring day, a week later, trotting south-east out of Lisieux on my tar-black stallion Shaitan, I felt the familiar lapping of excitement in my belly – I would soon be going into battle for the first time on Norman soil and taking my sword to the enemy. The King had charged me with reinforcing the garrison of the castle of Verneuil-sur-Avre, forty miles to the south-east, which was now besieged by King Philip. In truth, I had volunteered for the task: I had a very good reason for wanting to preserve one of the occupants of Verneuil from the wrath of our King’s enemies. The plan was to use surprise and speed to break through the French king’s lines to the north of the fortress. Once inside, we were ordered to bring hope and good cheer to the besieged, stiffen their defence, and to reassure them that Richard and his whole army of some three thousand men were only a matter of days behind us.