Three seconds passed and then they hit the Materazzi, heads bowed to deflect the points. The five thousand arrows struck, pinged and clattered, ricocheted over the armored line, the Materazzi bent into the steel rain as if they were leaning into wind and hail. From the flanks there were the screams of horses hit. But already another five thousand arrows had struck. Ten seconds later, another. For two minutes this rain continued on the Materazzi. Few died, only a few more were wounded-IdrisPukke was right that the armor covering the Materazzi men-at-arms would do its work. But consider the noise, the endless metal clanking, the short wait, the arrows again, the screams of the horses, the cries of unlucky men hit in the eye or neck, and that none of them had ever endured such a hostile, terrifying strike. What sense did it make just to stand and take an arrow from some cowardly Holy Joe without any breeding or skill or the courage to fight hand-to-hand?
It was the cavalry on either side who broke, the left side first, unsure when two of their own bannermen fell-was it a signal?-so hard to know among the screams of wounded horses, their own steeds panicking and ready to bolt and only an eye slit through which to see the picture unfolding around them. Three horses started forward, spooked. Is it a charge? No one wanted to show their cowardice by holding back. Like athletes in a race, watching and tense when one man jumps the start, the whole line goes. Shouts from the back to hold the line are lost among the noise-and then the arrows land again.
Then suddenly the horses on the left flank move ahead-impatience, fury, fear and confusion start them off.
Narcisse, watching from the White Tent, swears as if to bust. But soon he realizes they cannot be recalled. He waves his ensigns to signal the right flank of cavalry to attack as well. Only then does the messenger arrive from Silbury Hill to warn him of the hedgehog of stakes dug in among the archers on the flanks.
Up on Silbury Hill an appalled Cale stares in disbelief as the cavalry move forward, the riders spurring their horses to form a line-swiftly they merge at three rows deep and knee to knee, three hundred yards across to match the line of archers facing them. At first they keep a speed not much faster than a man can jog, standing in their stirrups, lances under their right arms, left hands holding the reins. For two hundred yards and forty seconds they keep this pace, enduring the flight of twenty thousand arrows as they charge. Then the last fifty yards-two thousand points of man and beast and steel spurred on to ride the archers down.
The archers, still tasting the mud mixed with fear, let loose one more flight. More horses scream and fall, crushing their riders, breaking backs, taking their neighbors with them as they crash. But the line draws on. And then the shock of the clash.
No horse will willingly ride down a man or take a barricade it cannot jump. No man in his right mind will stand against a charging horse and spear. But men will choose death where a beast will not. They can be trained to die.
As the horses seemed about to break over them like a crushing wave, the archers stepped back and moved quickly into the thicket of sharpened stakes. Some slipped, some were too slow and were crushed or lanced. Horses arrived on top of the stakes too quickly and could not refuse. Impaled, their screams were like the end of the world, their riders thrown, their necks broken. As they lay in the mud and flapped like fish, Redeemers finished them with mallet blows, or another held them down as oppos stabbed between the armored joints, making the brown mud red.
Most of the horses refused. Some of them slipped, throwing their riders, others held on as the great charge stopped in a moment, turning on itself, horse crashing into horse, some flying off the sides into the woods. Men cursed, horses screamed, turned in their fear like creatures half their size and weight, and fled back toward the safety of the rear. Riders fell in their hundreds, and within a moment archers darted out from behind the stakes and battered the heads and chests of the stunned and fallen riders with crushing blows from their hammers. Three Redeemers in their muddy soutanes to every thrown Materazzi cavalryman staggering to his feet, trying to draw his sword as he was pushed and slipped and tripped and stabbed through eyeholes and joints. Farther back among the hedgehog stakes, angry and now free from fear, archers let loose at the retreating riders. More wounded horses fell, others driven into a frenzied bolt.
Worse was to come. To support the cavalry, as he was bound to do, Narcisse was forced to send the front line of his men-at-arms to back the charge. Eight thousand strong and eight men deep, they were already halfway toward the Redeemers’ ranks when the returning cavalry, the horses terrified and maddened by fear and injury, crashed into the ranks of the advancing Materazzi men-at-arms. Because they were crowded together and prevented from moving by the thick woods to either side and ranks of armored men behind, it was impossible to move aside to let the charging horses through. Desperate to avoid the killing clash as the bolting horses fled into their ranks, the soldiers shoved sideways into each other, thrusting and barging to clear a way, grabbing their neighbors, setting up waves that spread backward and to either side as each man fell and clutched at his mate to stop himself from falling.
So all around the advance was halted and broken up-men slipped in the much-churned mud and cursed and pulled each other down. The Redeemer archers, now with the time to organize themselves again, let fly with their remaining arrows. But this time, with the Materazzi standing still and barely eighty yards away, the arrow points could make their way even through the steel of armor if they struck it right.
Even though only a few hundred men were crushed by the fleeing horses or wounded by arrows, the thousands left began to bend behind each other before the sergeants and the captains, shouting and screaming, heaved them back into line and the advance began again. Though they were vexed by disorder and the walk in sixty pounds of armor on three hundred yards of muddy plowed field, the might of their attack now built. Fifty yards. Twenty. Ten, and over the last few feet they broke into a run, aiming their spears to drive the points home into their opponents’ chests.
But at the moment of the clash, the Redeemers, as if they were one, rushed back a few yards, wrongfooting the stepping thrust of their enemies. And yet again along the Materazzi line there was a staggered halt as some advanced and some held back; and so, in fits and starts, the great momentum of the charge was stalled again.
Now, though, for all the confusion of the attack, the Materazzi knew with certainty that they must win-armored, the greatest soldiers in the world and finally face-to-face and four-to-one. Convinced of victory, they pressed ahead. Now the air, besides the shouts and screams of men, was filled with the clatter of spears and the grunting heave of the Materazzi-but now further squeezed and twenty deep in places, with all of them shoving and pushing to get to the place of action and honor. But only the Materazzi at the front could fight-fewer than a thousand men could strike a blow at any given time. Fewer in number, the Redeemers had space to move in and out of the killing zone of only a dozen feet or so. Unable to advance, the Materazzi at the front were shoved and pushed by their comrades just behind and, worse, a dozen back-those at the rear knew nothing of what was happening at the front and kept on pressing forward, those in the middle likewise. The pressure began to build, one man pushing into another and another and another. As the Redeemers hacked at them, those at the front were trying to dodge and sidestep or retreat but found no room. Then the pressure from behind, impossibly strong, shoved them forward into the thrusts of spears and hammer blows. Some fell, wounded; others, unable to keep their feet in the pressure and the axle-greasy mud, slipped and caused the man behind, pushed from the rear, to fall himself-and then another and another. Wanting to get to grips, the middle Materazzi ranks tried to step over the fallen men in front. But whether they willed or not, the pushing from the back from men who couldn’t see forced them to step on their fellows-many slipped and fell themselves, falling in the mud or unable to keep a balance as they stepped on the squirming and flailing men beneath their feet. What use armor now without room to move, only an encumbrance as they tried to gain their feet or climb over the bodies two or three deep? And always the stabbing from the front and hefty blows.