Bernard Cornwell - Grail Quest 3 - Heretic

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Heretic
by Bernard cornwell
PROLOGUE
Calais, 1347
The road came from the southern hills and crossed the marshes
by the sea. It was a bad road. A summer's persistent rain had left
it a strip of glutinous mud that baked hard when the sun came
out, but it was the only road that led from the heights of Sangatte
to the harbours of Calais and Gravelines. At Nifulay, a hamlet of
no distinction whatever, it crossed the River Ham on a stone bridge.
The Ham was scarcely worth the title of river. It was a slow stream
that oozed through fever-ridden marshlands until it vanished
among the coastal mudflats. It was so short that a man could wade
from its source to the sea in little more than an hour, and it was
so shallow that a man could cross it at low tide without getting
his waist wet. It drained the swamps where reeds grew thick and
herons hunted frogs among the marsh grass, and it was fed by a
maze of smaller streams where the villagers from Nifulay and
Hammes and Guimes set their wicker eel traps.
Nifulay and its stone bridge might have expected to slumber
through history, except that the town of Calais lay just two miles
to the north and, in the summer of 1347, an army of thirty thousand Englishmen
was laying siege to the port and their encampment lay thick between the town's
formidable walls and the
marshes. The road which came from the heights and crossed the
Ham at Nifulay was the only route a French relief force might use
and in the height of the summer, when the inhabitants of Calais
were close to starvation, Philip of Valois, King of France, brought
his army to Sangatte.
Twenty thousand Frenchmen lined the heights, their banners
thick in the wind blowing from the sea. The oriflamme was there,
the sacred war pennant of France. It was a long flag with three
pointed tails, a blood-red ripple of precious silk, and if the flag
looked bright that was because it was new. The old oriflamme
was in England, a trophy taken on the wide green hill between
Wadicourt and Crecy the previous summer. But the new flag was
as sacred as the old, and about it flew the standards of France's
great lords: the banners of Bourbon, of Montmorency and of the
Count of Armagnac. Lesser flags were visible among the noble
standards, but all proclaimed that the greatest warriors of Philip's
kingdom were come to give battle to the English. Yet between
them and the enemy were the River Ham and the bridge at Nifulay
that was defended by a stone tower around which the English
had dug trenches. These they had filled with archers and men
at-arms. Beyond that force was the river, then the marshes, and
on the higher ground close to Calais's high wall and its double
moat was a makeshift town of houses and tents where the English
army lived. And such an army as had never been seen in France.
The besiegers" encampment was bigger than Calais itself. As far
as the eye could see were streets lined with canvas, with timber
houses, with paddocks for horses, and between them were men
at-arms and archers. The oriflamme might as well have stayed
unfurled.
We can take the tower, sire." Sir Geoffrey de Charny, as hard
a soldier as any in Philip's army, gestured down the hill to where
the English garrison of Nifulay was isolated on the French side of
the river.
To what end?" Philip asked. He was a weak man, hesitant in
battle, but his question was pertinent. If the tower did fall and the
bridge of Nifulay was thus delivered into his hands, what would
it serve? The bridge merely led to an even greater English army,
which was already arraying itself on the firm ground at the edge
of its encampment.
The citizens of Calais, starved and despairing, had seen the
French banners on the southern crest and they had responded by
hanging their own flags from their ramparts. They displayed images
of the Virgin, pictures of Saint Denis of France and, high on the
citadel, the blue and yellow royal standard to tell Philip that his
subjects still lived, still fought. Yet the brave display could not hide
that they had been besieged for eleven months. They needed help.
Take the tower, sire/ Sir Geoffrey urged, and then attack across
the bridge! Good Christ, if the Goddamns see us win one victory
they might lose heart!" A growl of agreement came from the assembled lords.
The King was less optimistic. It was true that Calais's garrison
still held out, and that the English had hardly damaged its walls,
let alone found a way to cross the twin moats, but nor had the
French been able to carry any supplies to the beleaguered town.
The people there did not need encouragement, they needed food.
A puff of smoke showed beyond the encampment and a few heart
beats later the sound of a cannon rolled across the marshes. The
missile must have struck the wall, but Philip was too far away to
see its effect.
A victory here will encourage the garrison," the Lord of
Montmorency urged, and put despair in the English hearts."
But why should the English lose heart if the tower of Nifulay
fell? Philip thought it would merely fill them with a resolve to
defend the road on the far side of the bridge, but he also under
stood that he could not keep his rough hounds leashed when a
hated enemy was in sight and so he gave his permission. Take
the tower/ he instructed, and God give you victory."
The King stayed where he was as the lords gathered men and
armed themselves. The wind from the sea brought the smell of
salt, but also a scent of decay which probably came from rotting
weed on the long tidal flats. It made Philip melancholy. His new
astrologer had refused to attend the King for weeks, pleading that
he had a fever, but Philip had learned that the man was in fine
health, which meant that he must have seen some great disaster
in the stars and simply feared to tell the King. Gulls cried beneath
the clouds. Far out to sea a grubby sail bellied towards England,
while another ship was anchoring off the English-held beaches
and ferrying men ashore in small boats to swell the enemy ranks.
Philip looked back to the road and saw a group of around forty
or fifty English knights riding towards the bridge. He made the
sign of the cross, praying that the knights would be trapped by his
attack. He hated the English. Hated them.
The Duke of Bourbon had delegated the organization of the
assault to Sir Geoffrey de Charny and Edouard de Beaujeu, and
that was good. The King trusted both men to be sensible. He did
not doubt they could carry the tower, though he still did not know
what good it would do; but he supposed it was better than letting
his wilder noblemen carry their lances in a wild charge across the
bridge to utter defeat in the marshlands. He knew they would love
nothing better than to make such an attack. They thought war
was a game and every defeat only made them more eager to play.
Fools, he thought, and he made the sign of the cross again,
wondering what dire prophecy the astrologer was hiding from him.
What we need, he thought, is a miracle. Some great sign from
God. Then he twitched in alarm because a nakerer had just beaten
his great kettledrum. A trumpet sounded.
The music did not presage the advance. Rather the musicians
were warming their instruments, ready for the attack. Edouard de
Beaujeu was on the right, where he had assembled over a thousand crossbowmen
and as many men-at-arms, and he plainly
intended to assault the English from one flank while Sir Geoffrey
de Charny and at least five hundred men-at-arms charged straight
down the hill at the English entrenchments. Sir Geoffrey was
striding along the line shouting at the knights and men-at-arms
to dismount. They did so reluctantly. They believed that the essence
of war was the cavalry charge, but Sir Geoffrey knew that horses
were no use against a stone tower protected by entrenchments
and so he was insisting they fought on foot. Shields and swords,"
he told them, no lances! On foot! On foot!" Sir Geoffrey had
learned the hard way that horses were pitiably vulnerable to
English arrows, while men on foot could advance at the crouch
behind stout shields. Some of the higher-born men were refusing
to dismount, but he ignored them. Even more French men-at
arms were hurrying to join the charge.
The small band of English knights had crossed the bridge now
and looked as if they intended to ride straight up the road to challenge the
whole French battle line, but instead they checked their
horses and gazed up at the horde on the ridge. The King, watching
them, saw that they were led by a great lord. He could tell that
by the size of the man's banner, while at least a dozen of the other
knights carried the square flags of bannerets on their lances. A
rich group, he thought, worth a small fortune in ransoms. He
hoped they would ride to the tower and so trap themselves.
The Duke of Bourbon trotted his horse back to Philip. The Duke
was in plate armour that had been scoured with sand, vinegar and
wire until it shone white. His helmet, still hanging from his saddle's
pommel, was crested with feathers dyed blue. He had refused to
dismount from his destrier, which had a steel chanfron to protect
its face and a trapper of gleaming mail to shield its body from the
English archers who were no doubt stringing their bows in the
entrenchments. The oriflamme, sire," the Duke said. It was
supposed to be a request, but somehow sounded like an order.
The oriflamme?" The King pretended not to understand.
May I have the honour, sire, of carrying it to battle?"
The King sighed. You outnumber the enemy ten to one," he
said, you hardly need the oriflamme. Let it stay here. The enemy
will have seen it." And the enemy would know what the unfurled
oriflamme meant. It instructed the French to take no prisoners, to
kill everyone, though doubtless any wealthy English knight would
still be captured rather than killed, for a corpse yielded no ransom.
Still, the unfurled triple-tongued flag should put terror into English
hearts. It will remain here/ the King insisted.
The Duke began to protest, but just then a trumpet sounded and
the crossbowmen started down the hill. They were in green and red
tunics with the grail badge of Genoa on their left arms, and each
was accompanied by a foot soldier holding a pavise, a huge shield
that would protect the crossbowman while he reloaded his clumsy
weapon. A half-mile away, beside the river, Englishmen were
running from the tower to the earth entrenchments that had been
dug so many months before that they were now thickly covered
with grass and weeds. You will miss your battle," the King said to
the Duke who, forgetting the scarlet banner, wheeled his great
armoured warhorse towards Sir Geoffrey's men.
Montjoie Saint Denis!" The Duke shouted France's war cry and the
nakerers thumped their big drums and a dozen trumpeters blared
their challenge at the sky. There were clicks as helmet visors were
lowered. The crossbowmen were already at the foot of the slope,
spreading right to envelop the English flank. Then the first arrows
flew: English arrows, white-feathered, fluttering across the green
land, and the King, leaning forward in his saddle, saw that there
were too few archers on the enemy side. Usually, whenever the
damned English gave battle, their archers outnumbered their
knights and men-at-arms by at least three to one, but the outpost
of Nifulay seemed mostly to be garrisoned by men-at-arms. God
speed you!" the King called to his soldiers. He was suddenly
enthused because he could scent victory.
The trumpets sounded again and now the grey metallic tide of
men-at-arms swept down the slope. They roared their war cry and
the sound was rivalled by the drummers who were hammering
their taut goatskins and the trumpeters who were playing as if
they could defeat the English with sound alone. God and Saint Denis!"
the King shouted.
The crossbow quarrels were flying now. Each short iron bolt
was fitted with leather vanes and they made a hiss as they streaked
towards the earthworks. Hundreds of bolts flew, then the Genoese
stepped behind the huge shields to work the ratchets that bent
back their steel-reinforced bows. Some English arrows thumped
into the pavises, but then the archers turned towards Sir Geoffrey's
attack. They put bodkin-headed arrows on their strings, arrows
that were tipped with three or four inches of narrow-shafted steel
that could pierce mail as if it were linen. They drew and shot,
drew and shot, and the arrows thumped into shields and the
French closed ranks. One man was pierced in the thigh and stumbled and the
men-at-arms flowed around him and closed up again.
An English archer, standing to loose his bow, was hit in the
shoulder by a crossbow bolt and his arrow flew crazily into the
air.
Montjoie Saint Denis!" The men-at-arms bellowed their challenge as
the charge reached the flat ground at the foot of the slope. The
arrows hammered into shields with sickening force, but the French
held their tight formation, shield overlapping shield, and the cross
bowmen edged closer to aim at the English archers who were
forced to stand high in their trenches to loose their weapons. A
bolt went clean through an iron sallet to pierce an English skull.
The man toppled sideways, blood spilling down his face. A volley
of arrows whipped from the tower's top and the answering
crossbow bolts rattled on the stones as the English men-at-arms,
seeing that their arrows had not checked the enemy, stood with
unsheathed swords to meet the charge.
Saint George!" they shouted, then the French attackers were at
the first entrenchment and stabbing down at the English beneath
them. Some Frenchmen found narrow causeways piercing the
trench and they streamed through to attack the defenders from
the rear. Archers in the two rearmost trenches had easy targets,
but so did the Genoese crossbowmen who stepped from behind
their pavises to rain iron on the enemy. Some of the English,
sensing the slaughter to come, were leaving their entrenchments
to run towards the Ham. Edward de Beaujeu, leading the cross
bowmen, saw the fugitives and shouted at the Genoese to drop
their crossbows and join the attack. They drew swords or axes and
swarmed at the enemy. Kill!" Edward de Beaujeu shouted. He was
mounted on a destrier and, his sword drawn, he spurred the big
stallion forward. Kill!"
The Englishmen in the forward trench were doomed. They struggled to protect
themselves from the mass of French men-at-arms,
but the swords, axes and spears slashed down. Some men tried to
yield, but the oriflamme was flying and that meant no prisoners
so the French swamped the slick mud at the trench's bottom with
English blood. The defenders from the rearward trenches were all
running now, but the handful of French horsemen, those too proud
to fight on foot, spurred across the narrow causeways, shoved
through their own men-at-arms and screamed the war cry as they
drove their big horses into the fugitives beside the river. Stallions
wheeled as swords chopped. An archer lost his head beside the
river that turned sudden red. A man-at-arms screamed as he was
trampled by a destrier, then stabbed with a lance. An English knight
held his hands in the air, offering a gauntlet as a token of surrender,
and he was ridden down from behind, his spine pierced with a
sword, then another horseman cut an axe into his face. Kill them!"
the Duke of Bourbon shouted, his sword wet, kill them all!" He
saw a group of archers escaping towards the bridge and shouted
at his followers, With me! With me! Montjoie Saint Denisl'
The archers, nearly thirty of them, had fled towards the bridge,
but when they reached the straggle of reed-thatched houses beside
the river they heard the hoofbeats and turned in alarm. For a
heartbeat it seemed they would panic again, but one man checked
them. Shoot the horses, boys," he said, and the bowmen hauled
on their cords, 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 armour, 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 armour, which had protected him from the
arrows. Ahead of him, around the base of Nifulay'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 armoured 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 armour
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 armour
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 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
摘要：

HereticbyBernardcornwellPROLOGUECalais,1347Theroadcamefromthesouthernhillsandcrossedthemarshesbythesea.Itwasabadroad.Asummer'spersistentrainhadleftitastripofglutinousmudthatbakedhardwhenthesuncameout,butitwastheonlyroadthatledfromtheheightsofSangattetotheharboursofCalaisandGravelines.AtNifulay,ahaml...

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