Heretic Read Free

loosed, and the white-fledged arrows slammed into the destriers. The Duke of Bourbon’s stallion staggered sideways as two arrows drove through its mail and leather armor, then it fell as another two horses went down, hooves flailing. The other riders instinctively turned away, looking for easier pickings. The Duke’s squire yielded his own horse to his master, then died as a second English volley hissed from the village. The Duke, rather than waste time trying to mount his squire’s horse, lumbered away in his precious plate armor, which had protected him from the arrows. Ahead of him, around the base of Nieulay’s tower, the survivors from the English trenches had formed a shield wall that was now surrounded by vengeful Frenchmen. “No prisoners!” a French knight shouted, “No prisoners!” The Duke called for his men to help him into the saddle.
    Two of the Duke’s men-at-arms dismounted to help their master onto the new horse, and just then they heard the thunder of hooves. They turned to see a group of English knights charging from the village. “Sweet Jesus!” The Duke was half in, half out of the saddle, his sword scabbarded, and he began to fall backwards as the men helping him drew their own swords. Where the hell had these English come from? Then his other men-at-arms, desperate to protect their lord, slammed down their visors and turned to meet the challenge. The Duke, sprawling on the turf, heard the clash of armored horsemen.
    The English were the group of men the French King had seen. They had paused in the village to watch the slaughter in the entrenchments and had been about to ride back across the bridge when the Duke of Bourbon’s men had come close. Too close: a challenge that could not be ignored. So the English lord led his household knights in a charge that tore into the Duke of Bourbon’s men. The Frenchmen had not been ready for the attack, and the English came in proper array, knee to knee, and the long ash lances, carried upright as they charged, suddenly dropped to the killing position and tore through mail and leather. The English leader was wearing a blue surcoat slashed with a diagonal white band on which three red stars were blazoned. Yellow lions occupied the blue field that turned suddenly black with enemy blood as he rammed his sword up into the unprotected armpit of a French man-at-arms. The man shook with pain, tried to backswing his sword, but then another Englishman hammered a mace into his visor that crumpled under the blow and sprang blood from a dozen rents. A hamstrung horse screamed and toppled. “Stay close!” the Englishman in the gaudy surcoat was shouting at his men. “Stay close!” His horse reared up and flailed its hooves at an unhorsed Frenchman. That man went down, helmet and skull crushed by a horseshoe, and then the rider saw the Duke standing helpless beside a horse; he recognized the value of the man’s shining plate armor and so spurred at him.
    The Duke fended the sword blow with his shield, swung his own blade that jarred on the enemy’s leg armor and suddenly the horseman was gone.
    Another Englishman had pulled his leader’s horse away. A mass of French horsemen was coming down the hill. The King had sent them in hope of capturing the English lord and his men, and still more Frenchmen, unable to join the attack on the tower because too many of their fellows were assembling to help kill the garrison’s remnant, were now charging the bridge. “Back!” the English leader called, but the village street and the narrow bridge were blocked by fugitives and threatened by Frenchmen. He could cut his way through, but that would mean killing his own archers and losing some of his knights in the chaotic panic, so instead he looked across the road and saw a path running beside the river. It might lead to the beach, he thought, and there, perhaps, he could turn and ride east to rejoin the English lines.
    The English knights slashed their spurs back. The path