Gulling The Kings Read online

  “Close enough do you think?” Henry asked.

  “Not yet, that lot on the far end haven’t gotten close enough, have they?” ... “Ah. There they go.” ... “Bows up except the shield men; longs and mark your man,” I shouted as I raised my arm.

  All along our seven lines the sergeants and chosen men repeated my order. In the distance I could see the German knights moving north and our horse archers beginning to move in towards the German foot. The crossbow men were continuing to move up the hill towards our lines.

  “Aim and push. Aim and Push,” I shouted as I dropped my hand.

  The sergeants and chosen men instantly repeated my call and there was immediately a great sound of men grunting and the slap of bowstrings against wrist protectors, followed by a distinctive swishing sound in the air as a great cloud of arrows lifted out of our lines and began falling on the crossbow men below us. A second great cloud followed immediately on the heels of the first, and then a third and a fourth and part of a fifth before I shouted, “Stop pushing; stop pushing.” That’s when the arrows stopped flying and our men began cheering and calling out to each other. It had taken but a few seconds.

  Most of the German crossbow men had been able to loose the quarrel they had nocked on their crossbows before they started up the hill, but not a one was able to loose a second. Most of them were very quickly dead or wounded on the ground; only a dozen or so were staggering or running back down the hill to the cheers and jeers of our men. Little wonder in that; each of the German crossbowman had just had forty or fifty arrows pushed at him by highly trained archers.

  And it wasn’t entirely one-sided, one of our men was killed when a crossbow’s hastily discharged quarrel went right through the shield of one of his mates and hit him in the eye; three were wounded, one quite seriously.

  “Form your square,” I shouted. Then I added, “First-line men forward to recover arrows.” You can never have enough, can you?

  ****** George

  My riders and I watched the German crossbow men walk up the hill as we slowly and casually rode towards the German foot massed in front of us. Our bows were strung but hanging over our shoulders and we were smiling and talking with each other—and deliberately riding as if we were a peaceful group of friendly horsemen coming in with no hostile intentions.

  To my amazement, the German foot in front of us paid us little attention as we approached them. They were too busy watching the crossbowmen walking up the gentle hillside where they themselves expected to soon be fighting. Perhaps they thought we were coming closer to get a better view of the battle about to begin on the hill or to join them when they attacked.

  The German foot’s initial lack of concern might have also been because there were so few us and so many of them; and, of course, they were all carrying weapons and shields in preparation for their attack, and we weren’t displaying ours or acting hostile.

  Whatever the reason for their lack of concern, it allowed me and my men to get within a few paces of the German foot before I pulled my bow off my shoulder. My men were watching me and ready. Within an instant we began nocking arrows and pushing them out as fast as we could into the Germans standing in front of me with their shields and weapons—and with their unprotected backs to us at first because they were looking in the wrong direction.

  Reaching for my bow and pushing out arrows was the signal for my men to pull their longbows off their shoulders and join me in pushing arrows into the Germans standing in front of us. At this range we could hardly miss.

  The result was a moment of stunned surprise followed by chaos and confusion with screaming and shouting Germans tripping over each other, holding up their shields, and trying to run away in every direction. I didn’t see a single enemy bowman, which was a good thing since we were well within easy shooting distance of anyone with a regular bow. My only concern was keeping my horse far enough away from anyone with a weapon who might still able to fight.

  In front of me, and everywhere around me, screaming and shouting Germans were either running or crouched down behind their shields and trying to hide. Others were either trying to melt away into the mass of men behind them or falling down with an arrow in them.

  The noise was loud and at some point I realized I was screaming and shouting myself, but I was so excited I didn’t really hear any of it. In the heat of the moment, we pursued those who hadn’t fallen and our horses picked their way through the German dead and wounded to get at them.

  It was a one-sided battle, but not entirely. Some of the Germans crouched behind their shields to escape our arrows and lunged out with their swords and spears when we got too close. In the hectic and chaotic minutes that followed, I saw panic-stricken wounded horses throw their riders and several of my men knocked out of their saddles as Germans who’d been playing dead suddenly lashed out with their weapons as they passed.

  Others of my men went down when brave Germans ran at them and either cut them down or pulled them off their horses. I myself took a spear in the side that would have finished me if I hadn’t been wearing chain.

  Our attack seemed to go on forever and more and more of the Germans began hiding behind their shields to avoid our arrows, and fighting back. Each of us was carrying three or four quivers, and they were initially quite full because there had been had little chance for us to use our arrows until now because of the crossbow men. We continued pushing out our arrows until our quivers were empty; then we galloped out of the killing ground and fled. Afterwards, as my men reassembled and I tried to count them, my arm was so tired and sore that I could barely lift it.

  We left eight men behind us on the ground, and three or four of the men who rode away with me were wounded. Several of our horses were wounded as well.

  ****** Lieutenant Henry

  Von Hildesheim’s plan became more and more apparent as he unrolled it and we responded. The German crossbow men had obviously been expected to remain in place while they loosed their quarrels to distract and weaken us while their knights were riding around the hill to attack the end of our seven-men-deep battle line—and then cut down the archers as they rode along and over the length of our battle line.

  At that point, the German foot would, in turn, begin its advance as soon as they saw the knights crash into the end of our battle line and begin rolling us up. It was a reasonable plan—and it cost me a coin because I thought the Germans were empty-headed and would just charge up the hill and attack our lines.

  Von Hildesheim did indeed lead his knights out and around the little hill and brought them up on the east side to where they expected to find the end of a long, thin line of English archers facing south towards the main German army and its crossbow men. What the knights found facing them when they arrived, however, was a solid wall of archers standing seven-deep in front of them—Peter had ordered the archers into a square as soon as they finished pushing their arrows at the German crossbow men.

  Facing a battle line of waiting Englishmen instead of the narrow end of a thin defensive line facing in the wrong direction didn’t matter to the knights or change their plan one whit; they were committed to destroying the English commoners who had insulted them so grievously. They paused for a moment to gather themselves into their assigned positions and get ready to charge by drawing their swords, couching their lances, and lowering their helmet visors.

  The German knights were still moving into position and getting organized when Peter gave the order for the archers on the side of our square facing the knights to nock their arrows, and then, a moment later, lowered his raised arm. There was a great shouting as our sergeants repeated Peter’s order and the first of what would prove to be a great and continuous flight of arrows rose out of our seven-men-deep lines and descended on the German knights and their horses.

  Many of our arrows, all “longs” of course, bounced off the knights’ armour or buried themselves in the knight’s shields and leather padding protecting their horses. But some did not; they found their way throu
gh still-open helmet visors and quite a few bit into the unprotected body parts of the men and horses, particularly the horses.

  Chaos ensued among the German knights and their horses, but not for long. As each of us grunted and pushed out our arrows and tried to mark our man, those of the German knights who still could, and that, unfortunately, was a goodly number of them, instinctively lurched forward and began their charge with loud shouts and the couching of their lances and waving of their swords.

  “Heavies. Use your heavies,” Peter roared and the sergeants echoed a few seconds later as the first of the on-coming knights passed the stones in the next set of range markers. The order had been expected and we switched seamlessly to our armour piercing heavy arrows.

  And then a few seconds later.

  “Pikes. Ready with your pikes.”

  Many of the knights and horses were down and some of horses didn’t have riders, but others got past our arrows and caltrops and were still coming at us when, at the last moment, all the archers in our first three lines laid down their bows and brought up their long-handled pikes with their butts firmly grounded in the butt hole each pike carrier had dug for his hand knife.

  The shouting and noise around me was so loud that I couldn’t think. So I just stayed in my position in the fourth line and kept pushing out arrows as the men in the three lines in front of me picked up their pikes and pointed them at the on-coming knights—who galloped their horses straight on to them such that some of the knights began flying through the air when their impaled horses suddenly were stopped or thrown to one side or the other and they didn’t.

  There wasn’t much else many of the charging knights could do except die; their visors were down and they could barely see where they were going through their narrow visor slits. In front of me, pike handles were being splintered by impaled horses and knights were flying through the air and knocking our men down as if they were pins on the village commons.

  As we had known to expect from our previous experiences, the knights’ horses were stopped cold and thrown either to the left or right when they were impaled by a firmly planted pike or two. It was their riders who didn’t stop.

  I watched as if time was standing still as a brown-bearded knight charging straight towards me dropped his sword as he took one of my arrows in his chest and then impaled his horse on the pikes being held by the men in the three lines in front of me. He flew through the air like a bird with his mouth open in shocked surprise and came down in the open space between me standing in our fourth line and the archer standing in front of me in our third line.

  The knight may have been still alive and screaming despite the arrow in his chest but, I’ll never know. He was soon dead even if he wasn’t already dead when he landed—one of the two archers he’d knocked down in front of me immediately leaned over and stuck his knife in the knight’s throat to make sure.

  A few of the knights got a temporary reprieve, those who’d started late and were in the rear of the charge saw the pikes come up in time to avoid charging into them. They desperately pulled their horses to the left or to the right to avoid the line of pikes in front of them, and were able to gallop past on either the left or right side of our square—and in so doing made huge targets of themselves and their horses for our archers all along the side of the square where they were riding.

  Not one knight in ten returned to Otto’s army, including Von Hildesheim. He was among the dead along with many of his knights.

  Chapter Twelve

  More Germans and a Surrender—Henry

  My men held firm. A few of the German foot, but nowhere near as many as we had expected, which we later learned was because of an attack by our horse archers, dutifully lurched forward and started up the hill when they saw the German Knights begin their charge.

  One after another, before most of them even got close enough for us to shower them with arrows, the German foot soldiers turned around when they saw their knights go down and straggled back to what was left of the German army. We stayed in our battle lines and I made sure no effort was made to follow them except for the men I sent out to pick up arrows. We watched as some of their wounded staggered and crawled back down the hill.

  A few hours later, a horn was blown at the bottom of the hill and the fat bishop and a couple of priests began waving their crosses and walking up to talk to us. Henry and I walked down to meet them and George came along to be our interpreter. Raymond did not even though he and his men had ridden in to join us; his leg had taken a nasty slice from a German sword and he was not walking very well. George was now in temporary command of the horse archers.

  The archers at the north end of our square were still stripping the dead and wounded knights of their armour and weapons as we began walking down the hill to meet the bishop and his priests. We’d finish sorting out the wounded knights and crossbow men when we returned. A few more would need mercies and several looked good for ransoms, but most of them seemed to be of little value beyond their armour and weapons. Their horses were mostly gone and useful only for eating.

  ****** George

  Peter took Henry and me with him to meet the German priests. We didn’t walk too far.

  “This is far enough,” Peter proclaimed after we gone but a few steps. “Let the stupid bastards walk up to us.”

  The portly bishop was red-faced and puffing when he finally reached us. The day wasn’t particularly warm but he and his fellow priests were sweating profusely. They were afraid and it showed. We just stood there and looked at them without saying a word.

  “We’ve come,” the bishop said after taking a moment to catch his breath, “because God wants us to stop the fighting.” He spoke in Latin.

  That was too much for me; I was outraged and responded without bothering to translate what he said for Peter and Henry.

  “God wants? God wants, you say?” I asked incredulously as I leaned forward, pointed my finger at him, and responded with a great deal of anger and disbelief in my voice. I don’t know why, but for some reason I became absolutely furious.

  “How the fuck would a child-murdering bastard like you know what God wants?”

  Peter and Henry didn’t understand a word that had been spoken because it was all in church-talk, but they picked up on my outrage and anger and their faces darkened.

  “Because I’m a priest, naturlich; we talk to God and know such things.”

  His answer made me furious, beyond furious. In a split second I stepped forward and my wrist knives came out. Before he could even blink I had their points under his jaw and my nose two inches from his.

  “Ox shite,” I roared in Latin. “God just told me that you’re a sack of shite who learned to gobble Latin and tell lies and stories in a monastery while the monks were buggering your arse. You’ve never once heard from God or talked to him in your whole life. If you even start to tell another lie to us, just one, I’m going to cut your belly open and let your guts fall out. Now, why are you here? What do you want?”

  “Peace. We want peace so we can leave and go home.” The sweat was now rolling off the bishop’s face and he was beginning to tremble.

  “Bitte, das ist wahr; das ist wahr,” he said weakly as I turned away and began telling Peter and Henry what had been said.

  Peter was quite upset; we’d suffered a number of dead and wounded archers including Joseph, his apprentice sergeant, who had gone to sleep when a knight fell on him and still hadn’t awakened.

  We talked together until Peter nodded his head and we turned back to the anxious clerics.

  “You can have peace, but we’re keeping all of the knights for ransom and revenge, including the handful who were able to get down the hill to safety, and you three priests as well.

  “The rest of your men may take your wounded and walk to St. Ives and go home on the transports we’ve left in the harbour for you to us. But every man must leave all of his weapons, armour, shields, and helmets behind. We will search each man before he starts walking for St
. Ives and immediately cut him down if we find so much as a small knife.”

  “But we’ve no food. And how will we protect ourselves if we run into danger from the farmers while we are walking and the villagers when we get there?” the bishop protested.

  “Why, there’s no need for you to worry about your men meeting the Englishmen whose women and children your men killed—didn’t you just tell me that you and your priests talk to God? Well then, you can talk to God and he will tell them exactly what your surviving men must do to save themselves from their victims and get back to their homes.” I said it with a good deal of bitterness and sarcasm in my voice.

  “But there’s no need for you to worry, bishop, you lying sack of shite; you’ll be staying with the knights who are still alive—and we won’t hang you or sell you to the Moors for a slave if you’re ransomed soon enough.”

  ****** George

  We were searching the long column of German foot one at a time, and releasing those we’d finished searching so they could begin walking towards St. Ives, when a hard-riding pair of messengers came in from Restormel with news that changed everything once again—another armada of German galleys and transports had arrived at the mouth of the Fowey. The Germans claimed to have been sent by a German prince named Frederick to buy the relics and take them to Rome.

  My father and my uncle, according to the messenger, had gone to Fowey Village to parley with the Germans whose galleys and transports were anchored in the harbour. Before they left Restormel, my father had sent the messengers to order the army to return as soon as possible in case there was a fight. I was to ride to Restormel immediately with Raymond and the horse archers. Thank God. My father was recovered enough to go down the Fowey to meet the Germans.

  More Germans? There was no time to spare.

  Peter gave the necessary orders and within the hour he was marching hard for south at the head of the archers from nine of our galleys, about six hundred men, and I was leading what was left of Raymond’s horse archers and riding as hard as possible for Restormel. Henry remained behind with the foot archers from the other five galleys, our prisoners being held for ransom, and the captured armour and weapons. He was to make sure the German foot boarded their transports and left Cornwall.