The French were ebullient. Henry of England had dared to march his pathetic army from Normandy to Picardy, thinking he could shame his enemy by parading his insolent banners across French territory, and now he was trapped. Lanferelle, watching the enemy since dawn, had reckoned that there were only a thousand men-at-arms in their line, and that figure had seemed so ridiculously small that he had checked again and again by dividing the line into quarters, counting heads and multiplying by four, and each time he arrived at the same total. Maybe one thousand men-at-arms who were faced by three successive French battles, each with at least eight thousand men-at-arms, but there were also the two wings of the English.
Archers.
Thousands of archers, too many to count, though the French scouts had reported figures as various as four thousand to eight thousand. And those archers, Lanferelle knew, carried the long yew bows and had bags of steel-tipped arrows that, at close range, could slash through the best armor in Christendom. That was why all Lanferelle’s armor was shaped and curved so that the arrows would be deflected, yet even so he knew an unlucky hit could find lodgment. And so Ghillebert, the Lord of Hell, Sire of Lanferelle, did not share his compatriots’ ebullience. He did not doubt for a second that the French men-at-arms could slaughter the English men-at-arms, but to reach that paltry battle-line they would have to endure the arrows.
In the night, as other men drank, the Sire of Lanferelle had gone to an astrologer, a famous man from Paris who was reputed to see the future, and Lanferelle had joined the long line waiting to consult the seer. The man, bearded, grave, and swathed in a fur-edged black cloak, had taken Lanferelle’s gold and then, after much groaning and sighing, had declared he saw nothing but glory in the future. “You will kill, my lord,” the astrologer had said, “you will kill and kill, and gain both glory and riches.” Afterward, standing outside the astrologer’s tent in the seething rain, Lanferelle had felt hollow.
He would kill and kill, of that he was certain, but the ambition was not to slaughter the English, but to capture them, and at the very center of the enemy line, beneath the tallest banners, was the King of England. Take Henry captive and the English nation would spend years raising the ransom. Frenchmen were relishing that prospect. There were also royal dukes in the English line, and great lords, and any one of them could make a man rich beyond his wildest dream.
But between the dream and the reality were the archers.
And Ghillebert, Seigneur de Lanferelle, understood the power of the yew bow.
Which was why, when the English had begun their long, laborious advance across the plow-ruined field between Tramecourt and Agincourt, Lanferelle had called to the constable that it was time to attack. The English, as they struggled forward, had lost their cohesion. Instead of being an army in battle formation they were suddenly a mud-spattered rabble trudging across the treacherous furrows, and Lanferelle had seen the archers in disarray and had called again to Marshal Boucicault and to the constable, d’Albret. “Let the horsemen go now!”
The horsemen were on either French wing, big men on big horses, the stallions with armored faces and thick padding covering their chests, and their job was to charge into the archers on the wings and slaughter them mercilessly, but many of the horsemen had ridden away to exercise their destriers on the grassy meadows beyond the woods to keep the animals warm and the remaining horsemen merely watched the English.
“The decision isn’t mine,” Marshal Boucicault answered Lanferelle.
“Then whose is it?”
“Not mine,” Boucicault said curtly and grimly, and Lanferelle understood that Boucicault shared his fear of the archers’ abilities.
“For the love of Christ!” Lanferelle said when still no order was given for the horsemen to charge. Instead they stood their big destriers and watched as the English struggled ever closer.
“Who leads us? For Christ’s sake, who leads us?” Lanferelle asked loudly. No one had given the French a rousing speech before the battle, though Lanferelle had seen the English king ride and pause along the enemy line and he had guessed Henry was rousing his men to slaughter.
Yet who spoke for France? Neither the constable nor the marshal commanded the vast army. That honor seemed to lie with the Duke of Brabant, or perhaps it was the young Duke of Orleans who had only just arrived on the field and was now watching the English advance and doubtless counting the ransoms to be made. The duke seemed content to let the enemy struggle toward their slaughter and so no order was given to the horsemen on either French wing.
Lanferelle watched, incredulous, as the English were allowed to come within long bowshot. The French had crossbowmen, they even had a handful of men who could shoot the yew bow, and they possessed some small cannons that were ready and loaded, but the waiting horsemen masked both the guns and the bowmen. The crossbow had a longer range than the yew bow, but the crossbowmen could not shoot and so the enemy archers pounded in their stakes unmolested. Dear God, Lanferelle thought, but this was madness. The archers should have been scattered and slaughtered by now, but instead they had been allowed to come within their bows’ range and to pound their stakes into the soft ground as a deterrent to horsemen. He watched as they strung their bows, doing it all within crossbow range yet staying entirely undisturbed. “Jesus,” he said to no one in particular, “she comes in, takes off her clothes, lies on the bed, spreads her legs, and we do nothing.”
“Sire?” his squire asked.
Lanferelle ignored the question. “Visors!” he shouted at his men. He led sixteen men-at-arms and he turned to make certain they had closed their visors before pulling down his own with a metallic thud.
He was instantly engulfed in darkness. A moment before he had been able to see the enemy clearly. He had even seen the glitter of gold circling Henry of England’s helmet, but now there was a steel shutter in front of his eyes and the shutter was pierced by twenty small holes, none wide enough to admit even a bodkin arrow’s narrow point, and to see anything through those holes Lanferelle had to move his head from side to side, and even then he could make out little of what happened.
Yet he did see the lone horseman ride from the center of the English line.
And he saw the baton thrown into the air.
And he heard the words. “Now, strike!”
He lowered his head as if he struggled into a fierce wind and he heard the rising rush of arrows and he flinched, teeth grinding together, and then the missiles struck.
There was a terrible noise as thousands of steel arrowheads plunged onto steel armor, and a man called out in sudden pain, and Lanferelle felt a thumping blow on his right shoulder, and even though the arrow was deflected it lurched him to one side with the sheer force of its blow. A second arrow quivered in his lance, though he could not see it. Some fool in the rear rank had left his visor open and was making a gargling noise around an arrow that had fallen from the sky to pierce his mouth and drive down into his windpipe. The man slowly sank to his knees and coughed a stream of thick blood. Other arrows plunged into the soil, or else glanced off armor. A horse whinnied and reared to Lanferelle’s left.
“Saint Denis! Montjoie!” the French shouted and Lanferelle, jerking his head so that he could make some sense of what the small holes in his visor revealed, saw the horsemen at last start forward. Then another shout to advance came from the center of the French line, where the oriflamme flew, and all the first battle lurched toward the enemy.
“Montjoie!” they shouted, the sound of their voices huge and deafening inside their helmets, and Lanferelle could hardly move because his armored feet were stuck in the mud, but he jerked his right leg free and so began the advance. Men of mud and steel, no flesh in sight, lumbering toward the waiting English. And the English were howling hunting cries like rabid devils pursuing Christian souls.