Free Mercenaries by Jack Ludlow

position?’
    ‘We would see them.’
    William pointed to the rolling hills on the opposite bank. ‘Not if they are in the folds of those.’
    ‘The duke would turn and destroy them,’ insisted Tancred. ‘Man for man we are ten times any Frank, be he horsed or not.’
    ‘Which would,’ William responded, ‘draw us off and if that happened at the right time…’
    ‘You’re imagining things,’ his brother insisted.
    ‘Probably, but they hold the ground, Drogo, forcing us to come to them and our friend yonder is definitely intent on a defensive battle…’
    ‘How can you know that?’
    ‘He is standing his ground, which means he is waiting to be attacked.’
    ‘Though you forget to add it matters not what he does,’ his father said.
    ‘I’m just speculating.’
    ‘Anyone would think you were in command.’
    There was no rancour in that remark, more a touch of humour.
    ‘I’m just thinking what I would do if I was, or even more, what I would do if I was the enemy, which I cannot but believe is a good notion.’
    ‘Can’t you see it?’ Tancred interrupted. ‘The King of the Franks hopes to do this without help. The last thing he wants is for Duke Robert to win his battle. If he did he would have used us first to seek to break the enemy line. But he has not, and I can tell you if he can win on his own, with just his milites, he will do so, which might just allow him to repudiate whatever promises he had made for our support.’
    ‘So we could have come all this way for no purpose, money service aside.’
    The eyes on either side of his father’s nose guard were not pleased at that reference, so William decided on silence, but he could not help but let his mind speculate on all the possible ways in which this battle could be played out. The king’s foot soldiers would, even if they tried to attack across the whole front of the enemy line, naturally trend towards the flat ground and once they were engaged the enemy cavalry, using the slope before them, might try to drive them towards the river.
    It was not necessary to beat them, merely to crowdthem into a smaller frontage and so reduce the power of the assault. Draw off the Normans then, and their allies would be in trouble, but such a tactic only worked if the rebellious brother had enough mounted men to split his force, and Drogo was right; there was no evidence of that.
    Henry Capet had started his attack. Pikemen at the front, they were moving forward in a line getting more ragged as the uneven ground broke the cohesion of their formation. William could see his notion had been right; the men on the far left were veering right towards the river, they could not help it: the slope dictated they do so. Whoever led them had seen the problem and called a halt to redress the line.
    ‘Crossbowmen,’ said Drogo.
    ‘He is using them to keep his enemy in place,’ said Tancred.
    ‘His enemy, Father, is happy to stay where he is. Those bolts are doing little damage at the range they’re firing. They would be better kept until the range is right.’
    ‘God in heaven, I have bred a Caesar?’
    William threw back his head and laughed, loud enough to make his horse skittish. ‘You might have, Father, but it is as likely to be a Nero as a Julius.’
    Silence descended, apart from the snorting of the horses, a thudding hoof and the occasional loudfart before they voided their bowels. Redressed, the attacking line began to move again, but the one thing the commanders had not done was to rectify the way the force was still compacting. There was an ethereal quality to what they were observing. Barring the occasional trumpet, no sound could be heard, though there must have been a mass of shouting as the leaders exhorted their men and those men yelled to give themselves courage.
    The two lines converged until they were only twenty paces apart and suddenly that silence was ruptured, as the attackers broke into a charge, the yelling that came in one bellow from