Heretic Read Free Page A

was narrow, only two horsemen could ride abreast; on one side was the River Ham and on the other a stretch of boggy swamp, but the path itself was firm and the English rode it until they reached a stretch of higher ground where they could assemble. But they could not escape. The small piece of higher ground was almost an island, reachable only by the path and surrounded by a morass of reeds and mud. They were trapped.
    A hundred French horsemen were ready to follow along the path, but the English had dismounted and made a shield wall, and the thought of hacking their way through that steel barrier persuaded the French to turn back to the tower where the enemy was more vulnerable. Archers were still shooting from its ramparts, but the Genoese crossbowmen were replying, and now the French slammed into the English men-at-arms drawn up at the tower’s foot.
    The French attacked on foot. The ground was slippery because of the summer’s rain and the mailed feet churned it to mud as the leading men-at-arms bellowed their war cry and threw themselves onto the outnumbered English. Those English had locked their shields and they thrust them forward to meet the charge. There was a clash of steel on wood, a scream as a blade slid under a shield’s edge and found flesh. The men in the second English rank, the rear rank, flailed with maces and swords over their comrades’ heads. “St. George!” a shout went up, “St. George!” and the men-at-arms heaved forward to throw the dead and dying off their shields. “Kill the bastards!”
    “Kill them!” Sir Geoffrey de Charny yelled in return and the French came back, stumbling in their mail and plate across the wounded and dead, and this time the English shields were not touching rim to rim and the French found gaps. Swords crashed onto plate armor, thrust through mail, beat in helmets. A few last defenders were trying to escape across the river, but the Genoese crossbowmen pursued them and it was a simple matter to hold an armored man down in the water until he drowned, then pillage his body. A few English fugitives stumbled away on the farther bank, going to where an English battle line of archers and men-at-arms was forming to repel any attack across the Ham.
    Back at the tower a Frenchman with a battle-axe swung repeatedly at an Englishman, cracking open the espalier that protected his right shoulder, slashing through the mail beneath, beating the man down to a crouch, and still the blows came until the axe had laid open the enemy’s chest and there was a splay of white ribs among the mangled flesh and torn armor. Blood and mud made a paste underfoot. For every Englishman there were three enemies, and the tower door had been left unlocked to give the men outside a place where they could retreat, but instead it was the French who forced their way inside. The last defenders outside the tower were cut down and killed, while inside the attackers began fighting up the stairs.
    The steps turned to the right as they climbed. That meant the defenders could use their right arms without much encumbrance while the attackers were forever balked by the big central pillar of the stairs, but a French knight with a short spear made the first rush and he disemboweled an Englishman with the blade before another defender killed him with a sword thrust over the dying man’s head. Visors were up here, for it was dark in the tower, and a man could not see with his eyes half covered with steel. And so the English stabbed at French eyes. Men-at-arms pulled the dead off the steps, leaving a trail of guts behind, and then two more men charged up, slipping on offal. They parried English blows, thrust their swords up into groins, and still more Frenchmen pushed into the tower. A terrible scream filled the stairwell, then another bloodied body was hauled down and out of the way: another three steps were clear and the French shoved on up again. “Montjoie St. Denis!”
    An Englishman with a blacksmith’s