Free The King’s Assassin by Angus Donald Page A

man-at-arms with a cut to the hamstrings.
    ‘John,’ I shouted. ‘We must get back! John!’
    Instead we went forward. With Sir Thomas on his right and myself on the big man’s left, we waded into the enemy, three men against a multitude. Chopping, hacking, slashing – killing and killing again. We ploughed into the French infantry, cutting into their ranks like an axe through a rotten tree stump. But I remember little of the details: screaming faces, the slap of blood, the jar of steel sword against iron mail. Then suddenly the press around us had melted away, and I was left panting with Little John and Sir Thomas in an empty space. The enemy, by some miracle, was pulling back. My huge friend was covered in gore and filth from head to toe, his eyes were bright as pine torches and a white line of spittle lined his gaping mouth. But he finally seemed to recognise me and to grasp what I wanted him to do. Turning his broad back on his foes, now glaring at us over their shield rims thirty feet away, he helped Thomas and me herd our living men-at-arms back to the foot of the bridge.
    The French were milling around the open ends of the streets that led into the square; summoning the courage for another charge or awaiting the order. And our bowmen were still killing them. A man or two dropping every few heartbeats.
    We got our men back, about twenty survivors, to the foot of the bridge, and I formed them huddled in a jostling mass between the wooden railings, shields up, spears forward, our archers – as yet untouched – at the rear. We were packed in tight as fish in a net, but we still held the bridge.
    The French were still denied the crossing.

Chapter Six
    The cobbles in the open space before the bridge were covered with dead, wounded and dying; French and English jumbled in the ultimate comradeship of pain and blood. The red carpet of agony writhed like a single beast, here and there an arm flailing towards the sky, or a man lurching upright and staggering a few yards before collapsing again. The unending screams and moans of beasts and men scoured the air. I felt a shaft of fear lance through my guts. But for the grace of God, that could well be me out there, sitting in a pool of my own filth, mewling for a swift merciful death. But I could not indulge my terrors while there was still a task at hand. The enemy had not departed the field and we still had a bridge to hold.
    Indeed, the French were again massing in the shadows on the far side of the square – ghostly figures through the greasy fog, their ranks massively swelled to several hundred footmen at least, by my reckoning. The tall shapes of formed bodies of horsemen behind. They feared our arrows, for sure, but it was only a matter of time before they roused themselves to charge. Then we were finished.
    Miles had a bleeding cut on his face, just below the cheekbone, but apart from that he appeared unscathed. His eyes shone blue and his whole body was thrumming with a violent, nervous energy. ‘We held them, Sir Alan, we held them.’ He was almost jabbering at me. ‘I killed him, I did it. I killed my man. He’s dead as a stone!’
    ‘Yes, lad, you did well, very well,’ I said kindly. But I could give him only half my attention. Mastin was beside me.
    ‘Well, that was most gratifying,’ he said, and grinned at me through his wiry beard, ‘but my lads are down to their last arrows. Thought you should know.’
    I nodded dumbly. And my eye was caught by movement upstream, along the riverbank that led towards the great trading town of Bruges half a dozen miles away.
    ‘When the shafts are spent,’ Mastin was saying, ‘we’ll muck in with the rest, but our swordplay isn’t much and the boys have no armour to speak of…’
    ‘No, no,’ I said, still not looking at him. ‘You’ve done enough, Mastin. And I thank you. We’ve all done enough for today.’
    My eyes were fixed on the riverbank a hundred yards downstream, where I could see a mass of