‘After them,’ shouted Richard, waving his huge sword in the air; the long blade and his sword arm completely drenched in gore. ‘After them while the gate is open.’ And we barrelled down the hill, mingling with the running Sicilians, spurring past a victim and then hacking back into face and neck with our swords as we rode past, slicing open cheeks, cracking skulls and dropping bodies in our wake. Whoever was in command of the gate must have realised his error in letting the terrified fugitives in, for as we approached I saw men on either side of the portal, struggling to shut the heavy wooden barrier in the face of a blood-splashed tide of terrified men. They would have had more chance trying to hold back the sea. Our knights were in and among the crowd, cutting and stabbing down into the mass, churning up the horror. I saw Robin spur back, level his sword like a spear and charge at the knot of men trying to shut the left-hand gate. He half-blinded one man with a lunge that smashed into his eye socket, the ripped eyeball popping free and dangling on a bloody thread of tissue, then Robin chopped down hard with his sharp blade into another man’s bare arm, half-severing it from his body, and the other fellows pushing at the gate turned and ran, back into the muddy streets of old Messina. All resistance at the town gate ceased in a few short moments; any living Griffons took to their heels, disappearing into the warren-like streets of the town as fast as their legs would carry them.
The gates were ours, and the King finally called for a pause for breath. As the horsemen milled in the entrance to the old town, stroking the flanks of their sweat-streaked mounts and puffing and blowing from the exertion of slaughter, I looked for my friends. Robin appeared to be unhurt but Little John had a bloody cut on the side of his thigh, which he was in the process of roughly bandaging with an old shirt. I called out to him but he merely said: ‘A scratch, Alan, just a scratch. God’s hairy bollocks, I must be getting old.’ He gave me a huge lunatic grin that warmed my heart.
I looked down at my boot and there was a long deep cut in the thick leather but whatever blade had caused it had not penetrated through to my flesh. I’d need a new pair of boots when the day was over, though. Not all of us had been so lucky. There were four riderless horses in our company and two more, heads down cropping the grass, by the blood-drenched knoll where we had made our first madcap attack. The site of our first charge was marked by mounds of Griffon dead and wounded, some crawling, others lying crying and cursing in fear and pain. One horse, disembowled, with purple innards bulging and glistening on the grass, screamed incessantly until a passing knight dismounted and gave it its final ease with his dagger. Several men in the King’s company had deep cuts or stab wounds to show for our battle with the Sicilians. One knight’s arm dangled limply from a dislocated shoulder. Robert of Thumham had a bad cut across his cheekbone, but he appeared cheerful, joking with the King, Bertran de Born and Mercardier, Richard’s grim-faced mercenary captain, as he mopped at his wounded face with a silk scarf. ‘That will leave a bad scar,’ I thought to myself, and unconsciously looked for Malbete in the crowd of horsemen. I caught his flat gaze, noted that his own scar seemed to have become a deeper red; I quickly looked away. From what I could see the bastard was completely unhurt. Despite what Robin had said about waiting till we reached the Holy Land, I knew that if I had the chance, and I could be sure nobody would witness it, I would cut down Malbete and feel no more guilt than I would killing a rabid dog.
My thoughts turned unbidden to Reuben. Presumably he was at his lodging inside the old town. Was he safe? Through the open gate, I could see our reinforcements streaming down the hill, making for the knot of our horsemen at the entrance to the town. A crowd of archers on foot, lead by Owain, was hurrying towards us, and mounted men-at-arms, sergeants and spearmen, knights and their squires, all were converging on the King with savage grins of delight. With the gate in our hands, the capture of the old town was a foregone conclusion, and then would come the sack, a night of fire and blood, of women raped, men slaughtered, and valuable goods stolen or smashed for pure pleasure.
The Griffons seemed to realise their peril, as they had regrouped while we tended our horses and our wounds, and a wall of men had been formed across the main street leading into the heart of the town. The wall thickened with every passing moment, as townsmen, terrified of what our victorious troops would do if set loose in their homes, swelled the wall. Those with armour were pushed to the front, and there was a fairly credible barrier of linked shields and spears to stop our advance. The shield wall might have been almost formidable — a difficult obstacle to overcome — but for two things. We had plenty of archers, who were now grinning with pleasure at the chance of loot and mayhem and hastily stringing their bows, and King Richard was our commander.
Robin and Owain formed up our bowmen in no time at all and at a nod from the King, they began to loose volley after volley into the wall of Griffons. Waves of grey shafts fell like sheets of winter rain on the townsmen’s shield wall. The slaughter was appalling, relentless; and the Griffons had no reply. They stood bravely, bleeding and dying in defence of their homes and families. As the needle-tipped arrows slashed down again into their ranks, men screamed and dropped to the floor by the dozen at each volley, clutching at yard-long ash shafts that sprouted from their bodies before they were dragged in a gore-slicked trail to the back of the wall and nervous, unhurt men took their places. The wall began to thin, to waver under the bowmen’s onslaught, the back ranks began to fade away in ones and twos, family men slipping away into the back alleys of the town, shunning the fight to protect their children, and King Richard, seizing the moment perfectly, hauled out his blood-encrusted sword, and shouted ‘For God and the Virgin! Havoc! I say havoc!’ and he and every able-bodied man on horseback — there must have been sixty or seventy of us gathered by this time — raked our horses sides with our spurs and thundered forward in a great galloping steel-clad mass and crashed through the enfeebled shield wall like a birch broom through a pile of dry leaves. We charged into them, swords raised, punched easily through the wavering curtain of frightened men — and unleashed hell on the ancient, once-peaceful town of Messina.
Chapter Nine
The sack of a town is never a pretty sight. But this was one of the worst I have ever seen. King Richard had cried ‘Havoc!’ and this meant that his men were set free to plunder and rape and kill to their hearts’ content. No quarter would be given, everything in the town now belonged to the victorious troops. Richard was deliberately punishing the town for its insolence, for the rotten fruit thrown and the jeers when he made his magnificent entry into the harbour. As the cavalry careered through the last defences of the town, the archers and footmen came roaring after them, racing into the streets beyond, kicking down doors and charging inside private houses, killing anyone who opposed then and ransacking the interior and more often than not setting fire to the buildings for sheer spite. They were looking for wine and coin and women — but not necessarily in that order. It was as if they had all run mad, like the Christians of York, crazed with lust and cruelty and the urge to shed human blood.