Mercenaries Read Free

His children transgressed in that area often – as they did in many other ways – and just as often he was obliged to box their ears. Yet he let it pass this once; had he not himself felt much the same when he first became part of such a multitude and very much around the same age serving the present duke’s father? Then he had fought against the Capetian Franks, the very people to whom the Norman host was about to be allied.
    In a blink, Tancred was back in his own youth, stirrup to stirrup with his own father, his uncle of Montbray on his other side, part of a line of Norman cavalry, ahead of them a Frankish host, their shields and fighting metal glinting in a low dawn sun. He could recall clearly the mixture of thrill and fear, the need to avoid the kind of fidget that would alert his elders to his anxieties, the snorts and tossing heads of the horses, the pennants on the lances of those leading the attack fluttering in a zephyr of a breeze.
    The shouted command came eventually to have the horses move forward, slowly, holding their line, the point at which the command came to break into a trot that signified the commitment to the attack, followed by the sense of the world narrowing down tothat which lay right before you and immediately to left and right, his father raising his lance for jabbing or throwing and he doing likewise, the line of shields which looked like an unbreakable wall coming closer and closer. But break it did, faced with the charging horses of the finest mounted warriors in the known world.
    ‘I have never seen such a sight, Father!’
    Those words brought Tancred back to the present, and to the knowledge that, with God’s Good Grace, his sons would ride with him in a like contest and win their spurs, as would his vassals, who included his fiery Montbray nephew, a doughty and eager fighter, even if the lad was an ordained priest.
    ‘None of you have, but perhaps if chance favours you, you will see it often.’
    Serlo and Robert, mere boys, along as squires to their elder siblings, had kicked their donkeys to get alongside him, eager for explanation. Their brothers shared the curiosity, but affected an air of indifference, which they thought befitted their greater age, causing their father to smile at their posturing, given they were just either side of eighteen. With pointed finger, and in a voice that was inclusive to all, he identified the ducal pavilion, as well as the lesser posts of the Constable and the Master Marshall, set slightly lower on the slope.
    From there to near the riverbank stood the variouscontingents who had set out their fire pits and cloak-covered bedding around the small round tents of the lords to whom they were vassals. Close to the water’s edge and in the shade of some still-standing oaks, the blacksmith had set up a temporary forge, fire aglow, his hammer already employed. Likewise the armourer was at work with his vice and stone wheel, sparks flying as swords were sharpened, pommels roped with twine and hand guards bent in sword practice made square. Next to him the saddler toiled on the stout, newly constructed, rough wood bench, on which he would carry out repairs to harness and saddles.
    ‘The de Montfort pennant, Father,’ exclaimed Drogo, son number two, pointing to a far-off flag close to the river.
    ‘I see it, boy, but I think as cousins and relations to our Lord Duke we can present ourselves there first.’
    ‘Which will not please the Sire de Montfort,’ Drogo responded, with the kind of smirk that indicated the certainty that the response would be angry; he was not disappointed.
    ‘No, it will not,’ Tancred snapped, adding a touch of hypocrisy in the blasphemy line, ‘but he can go to the Devil.’
    Unseen by his father, Drogo exchanged an amused glance with William who, too close to the parental temper, could not respond. Count Evro de Montfort, richer by far in both land and goods, and their nearestpowerful neighbour, claimed that the de