But their shields had been on their backs when the first arrows struck, and there were a lot of dead and screaming men on the road.
Cully took three more steps forward. In a moment, he and Long Paw both drew, their hands coming all the way back to the edges of their mouths like they were matched automatons. They-and the Gallish routiers-were framed by two vast old trees against the brilliant sunlight of the fields beyond.
There were screams, and grunts. The company archers were loosing from so close that the shafts sometimes penetrated a shield. When they struck armoured flesh, the needle points went home with a horrible meaty sound, like a butcher making tough meat tender.
The routiers broke. They turned and ran into the field on the far side of the road. Most of them fell into the deep ditch at the road side and some few never rose again.
Ahead of them, Du Corse’s three hundred lances-six hundred armoured horsemen-took a few arrows, lost some horses, and charged the woods like the professionals they were.
By that time, most of the rest of the company was at the road edge or on it.
“Whose is the banner?” the captain asked. “Is that Du Corse?”
Away to the south, brazen trumpets were roaring.
Gavin stood in his stirrups to look.
“Gelfred’s killed all the baggage animals, and now their wagons are blocking the road,” Gabriel said. “The problem is: we don’t have the lances to finish off Du Corse.”
The Gallish routiers had discovered that there were archers in the hedgerows of the town. They were caught in the open fields, in spring, with no cover. The archers began to flay them. There were fewer than a hundred archers all told, but their arrows were fearfully accurate.
“Sound recall,” Gabriel said crisply.
“Du Corse is in the woods,” Gavin said.
His brother shook his head. “Let’s go. It’ll take de Vrailly a day to unfuck this.”
Ganfroy sounded the call. Immediately archers to the west of the road came out of their cover. Many of them had horses to hand. Others simply ran-across the road, over the ditch, and up the hill.
A few terrified routiers ran around the end of the line of archers and went south to safety. More of them died as they were run down by mounted archers.
To Gavin’s left, a dozen Galles re-emerged onto the road. And then suddenly there were fifty lances-more, perhaps.
“Oh well,” the captain said as he closed his visor. Nell put his horse’s reins in his hand and took his ghiavarina.
He swung a leg over Ataelus. Gavin got up on his Bohemund. A dozen more knights closed in around them, coming from the south.
“Up the lane,” Gabriel ordered through his visor.
The Gallish men-at-arms were forming for a charge. They were being hit with occasional arrows-a torment of shafts, but not a torrent, and not an immediate danger. Here, a shaft found a horse-there, a man whose mail didn’t fit under his arm.
The company knights-some of them, anyway-rode into the village lane and a short distance up the hill, and then turned to face their pursuers.
The Galles halted when they began to pack into the lane.
“Come on,” muttered the Red Knight.
But the Galles hung back.
“They’re moving into the field beyond the hedge,” Ser Danved shouted.
“Back,” the Red Knight called. Ganfroy sounded the retreat again. They had twenty lances by then-all the picked jousters in the company, the men who had intended to fight at the tournament.
Except Michael and Bad Tom.
They reached a point almost halfway up the hedge-lined lane.
Finally, the Galles at the foot of the hill followed them. There were no more arrows flying. The horns from the direction of Second Bridge were closer.
“Let’s break a lance,” the captain said. “For the Queen.”
“The Queen!” his knights called.
Gabriel opened his visor and smiled at his brother. “This is the way war is supposed to work, isn’t it?” he said. “We’re hideously outnumbered, and we charge them. Two at a time. Care to join me?”
Gavin laughed. “You’re mad,” he said. “Of course.”
“See the little bend?” Gabriel said. “See the path into the field?”
Even as he spoke, the lead Galles passed it.
But Gavin was an old hand at jousting, if not at this kind of war. “See you in the fields,” he said, and pulled his visor down again.
He put spurs to his horse before Gabriel had his visor shut, and he was alone, flying down the narrow, cool lane. His war horse’s hooves struck sparks off the white gravel of the road.
The men at the front of the Gallish column should have been ready, but they were far more concerned with the arrows that came through the hedge from time to time and had killed a valuable war horse.
He got his spear in the rest in good time, and he caught his first man almost at a stand. The blow from his lance snapped his neck inside his helmet and he fell like a man who had been hanged, his head lolling horribly.
The impact didn’t break Gavin’s lance, so he went on, unhorsing the second man on the right, and then Bohemund was savaging another horse and it was all a tangle, a swirling dog fight. The Galles were all as big as Gavin and as well-armoured. But Bohemund took him past the third and fourth man-
He knew from the sound that his brother had struck behind him. Something hit his helmet so hard his ears rang-he lost his sword, plucked out his dagger and rammed it into a man’s armpit under his raised arm and then-no thanks to any planning-Bohemund plunged through the narrow gap in the hedge and out into the newly planted cornfield. The young maize was already tall enough to carpet the ground, and not yet tall enough to give any cover.
An arrow slammed into his back plate and he cursed. But he pointed his horse up the slope and crouched low on his saddle, hoping that the archers would see his arms on his surcoat.
Gabriel went through the Galles like a threaded needle where an awl has already passed. He unhorsed men on either side as if it was a tilting game-rings-and not a blow landed on him. He watched Gavin pass the gap in the hedge and he touched his spurs to Ataelus and they were through-he just managed to get his lance tip up and not unhorse himself on the hedge, which would have been embarrassing. As he passed the hedge, he had a flash of Ser Danved and Angelo di Laternum running their courses.
The open field was like a different world. They had emerged on the south side of the hedge, so none of Du Corse’s men-at-arms were there. But new banners were flooding into the field from the south. The leading banner was the Earl of Towbray’s.
Ser Bertran, Le Shakle and di Laternum all emerged from the hedge with Ser Danved at their heels, a heavy mace in his hand. He was roaring his war cry.
There was nowhere to rally in the patchwork of planted fields. Nor did Gabriel want another go. He pointed uphill with his lance. “Go!” he shouted. “Follow Gavin!”
In the fields below him, the Earl of Towbray’s knights hooted and began to cross the first ditch. Gabriel watched them. On the road, a man took aim with a crossbow and loosed, and Gabriel had a moment’s deep fear, and then the bolt sailed into the ground well short.
A heavy rider burst out of the hedge. He saluted as he rode past. “I’m the last, Monsieur!” called Jean, Ser Bertran’s squire.
The Earl of Towbray’s knights-fifty lances or more-crossed the ditch in good order and started up the hill. There were more men behind them-Albans and Galles, most not as well armoured as Towbray’s professionals.
The Red Knight turned Ataelus and rode up the hill. The ploughed earth was hard going, and Ataelus was having a hard day-three fights in two days. He was impatient to get to the top-but he did not want to kill this horse.
Towbray’s men were having a hard time, too.