Condottiere: A Knight's Tale Read online

  Edward John Crockett

  CONDOTTIERE

  Revised Amazon-Kindle Edition 2011

  ©Edward John Crockett

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2006 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.

  ISBN 1 904598 71 4 / ISBN 978 1 904 598 71 8

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  Cover:

  Paolo Uccello, Equestrian Portrait of Sir John Hawkwood

  Of all able captains of whom it might have stood in fear,

  Florence was most at the discretion of this one man …

  -Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527)

  It matters not what lord one serves, it matters only

  that one serve him well and with honestie …

  John Theodore McDonald

  The White Company

  Florence 1376

  Prologue at Poitiers

  Be assured we will not part without a fight

  Maupertius-Nouaillé Field

  19 September 1356

  The day dawned dank and overcast. Skeins of low-lying fog drifted up from the reeds and grasses of the marshland on the army’s left flank near Saint-Pierre Wood and, to the right, below the hamlet of Beauvoir. The first rays of a gangrenous sun gradually warmed away the last wisps of morning mist.

  The Black Prince knelt and crossed himself, intoning a prayer of thanks that the French king had called a truce the previous day. It was not fitting to do battle on the Lord’s Day. Although nothing in the rules of engagement precluded making preparation for battle.

  The prince had used the Sunday well. On the advice of Sir John Chandos, he had deployed his forces to higher ground. His heavy cavalry of knights were arrayed with their backs to Nouaillé Wood; in the vanguard and to his right were ranged the troops of the Earl of Salisbury, and on the left flank were those under the Earl of Warwick. On the higher ground on the right and beyond Beauvoir was the small Gascon contingent commanded by Captal de Buch. The rearguard was under the command of the Earl of Suffolk. In all, some seven thousand men, many armed with longbows.

  Towards eight that morning the fog cleared. The Black Prince looked across the undulating terrain towards the massed armies of King Jean le Bon, interposed between him and the English-held city of Bordeaux. Retreat north across the Loire river was out of the question now that the French had destroyed the bridges. There was nothing else for it.

  He would stand his ground and fight.

  The French had formed for battle. In the van, two contingents of mixed cavalry and infantry, including a Scottish regiment and some three hundred German pikemen mercenaries. Behind, three successive ranks of infantry regiments led by the Dauphin, by the Duke of Orléans – King Jean’s brother – and, to the rear, by the king himself. Twenty thousand men or even more: cavalry, footsoldiers and crossbow archers.

  The Black Prince exchanged glances with Chandos. Both men knew their force was greatly outnumbered. But both were veterans of the Battle of Crécy-en-Ponthieu ten years before, when a twelve-thousand-strong French army under Philippe VI had floundered to defeat in wet marshland and been slaughtered almost to a man, caught in a withering crossfire from English longbows.

  The attack began.

  Three hundred elite mounted knights and the German pikemen advanced uphill through the narrow funnel of firm terrain, maintaining good order until the first flights of English arrows scythed into their ranks from the secure vantage points of the marshy ground on the left flank and from behind dense hedgerows on the right. The attackers continued to drive uphill but the initial impetus was soon lost. They broke formation and died or were taken captive as they reached the English lines. The first attack had failed.

  At a signal from King Jean, the Dauphin launched a second wave of two thousand footsoldiers and mounted knights. They charged the English positions, only to be cut down like those before them. Their ranks decimated by arrows and in hand-to-hand combat, they withdrew to lick their wounds and regroup. The second attack had faltered.

  On the far mound, the Duke of Orléans had witnessed the carnage. Ordered to advance, he hesitated, then thought better of it. Seeing how easily the Dauphin’s force had been routed, he departed the field.

  The Black Prince’s first instinct was to order his mounted knights to counterattack and give chase to the fleeing duke and his men. But the French king, enraged at his brother’s cowardice and desertion, immediately ordered his main force of some eight thousand to advance on the English positions. It was a brave but foolish decision: he had no cavalry or bowmen to support his attack.

  The prince did not hesitate. He deployed one unit of horse to attack King Jean’s flank and ordered the remainder to charge downhill directly into the ranks of the oncoming French. The Gascon cavalry squadron under Captal de Buch deployed right to attack from the rear. The French held ranks momentarily, then broke and fled. The king and the knights by his side fought on resolutely to the last, but were eventually overpowered and captured.

  The Black Prince had carried the day.

  A head count the following morning revealed that some two thousand French had fallen; several thousand more had been captured and would be held for ransom. The Black Prince at once sent word of the outcome to his father, King Edward III of England and claimant to the throne of France.

  It was time to count the spoils and costs of victory.

  Hawkwood

  He had done nobly in his sovereign’s war

  Poitiers

  19 September 1356

  ‘Yield, sire! Damn you to Hell, yield!’

  The French knight made no sign he had heard or understood. Instead, he swung his broadsword in a laborious arc. The blow glanced off the plate-armour epaulette on Sir John Hawkwood’s left shoulder, inflicting no damage but throwing him off balance. Hawkwood stumbled forward under the weight of his armour, grunted, steadied himself, then instinctively swept his own sword viciously upwards, striking at his adversary’s sword arm and severing it below the elbow.

  Blood spurted from the arm and the Frenchman dropped to his knees, raising his elongated kite-shaped shield above his head to ward off the coup de grâce.

  ‘Yield, I say again! Yield!’

  Hawkwood towered above his opponent, sword raised high over his head. He could feel the sweat coursing down his back under the quilted leather undergarment. His heart was pounding and he gulped for air through the tiny vents in his helmet. The metal codpiece chafed his genitals. His arms were leaden.

  It had been a long day.

  The Frenchman pitched forward on his face. Hawkwood lowered his sword and eased open his visor. To his right, he saw the pitiful remnants of the French force clustered round their king, desperately fending off the attentions of Hawkwood’s fellow knights. The dead sprawled in grotesque postures, their armour streaked with blood, their chain mail shredded, their flimsy surcoats in tatters.

  Hawkwood had killed other men that day and had taken several captives. Mercifully, this final adversary was still alive, if only just. He eased the Frenchman over onto his back and removed his coif helm. The man’s heavily bearded face was grey with shock, but he was alive and Hawkwood intended to do everything he could to keep him that way. In death, the French knight would be merely one corpse among many; alive, he was worth a fortune.

  This was no run-of-the-mill knight. Hawkwood’s reading of the man’s shield told him at once that at his feet lay none other than Gauthier, the sixth Count of Brienne, Duke of Athens and Liege Lord of Lecce. The
heraldic blazon was unmistakable: d’azur semé de billettes d’or, au lion du même brochant sur le tout – azure billetty, a lion rampant or. Two hands clutching vertical swords extended from clouds painted below the blue-gold blazon, signifying that Brienne’s rank was that of a connétable of France, entrusted with supervision of the king’s armies.

  Hawkwood beckoned over two men-at-arms and ordered them to bring a litter. They appeared moments later with a sturdy wooden board with poles lashed to the corners to serve as handles. In the meantime, Hawkwood had fashioned a crude tourniquet from a short stick and a strip of cloth torn from his own surcoat. He applied the tourniquet and secured it. The bleeding slowed but did not stop.

  Brienne, his breathing shallow, was lifted onto the board and carried back up the hill to Hawkwood’s tented quarters. Hawkwood followed as best he could, his progress impeded by the heavy plate armour he had worn since daybreak. When he reached his pavillon, the men-at-arms and his squire had already removed Brienne’s cuirass and stripped off his ailettes, byrnie and protective gambeson undergarment.

  A stubby dagger was plunged into a glowing brazier. It glinted white hot in the dim light in the tent. Hawkwood retrieved the dagger and approached Brienne, who appeared to have fainted. In one swift movement, he applied the blade to the raw stump. Then again and again, until the wound was fully cauterised. Flesh sizzled and contracted. The stench was nauseating. Brienne moaned repeatedly, but did not cry out.

  Hawkwood inspected his crude handiwork. It was adequate, he decided. He had done what he could.

  He removed his undergarment and crouched on his haunches, exhausted. He ran a massive hand through his tousled hair and rubbed the sweat from his eyes. Every muscle ached, every joint. Welts on his shoulders and chest were already beginning to discolour. Wearily, he wiped away the trickle of blood that ran down the inside of his left arm. He flexed the fingers of his left hand. Dried sweat had congealed in his beard and his mouth was dry.

  It was ever thus, he thought, ever thus as the exhilaration of combat abruptly receded and the body began its silent protest.

  He reached for a skin of wine and gulped down several mouthfuls. He glanced over at his prisoner, who lay still, his face drained of colour. Deo volente, Hawkwood told himself, God willing, Brienne would survive – must survive.

  On the stroke of noon the following day – 20 September 1356 – Gauthier, Count of Brienne, Duke of Athens, Liege Lord of Lecce and connétable of France, lapsed into a coma. He died several hours later.

  Hawkwood knew his own future was in consequence now hanging in the balance.

  Bordeaux

  3 October 1356

  Edward III of England and his retinue sailed into Bordeaux just after daybreak, and came ashore early that afternoon. The Black Prince, his distinctive ostrich-plumed helmet clasped in the crook of his left arm, stood on the quay to receive them. Behind him, close on three hundred knights of the realm formed serried ranks.

  The king drew off his gauntlet and extended his hand. His son clasped it. To a man, the assembled knights had gone down on one knee as a mark of respect for their sovereign lord, but now they came to their feet, breaking into a sustained cheer as the king embraced his son. After a full minute, the two men separated.

  The king spoke. ‘Gentlemen, you have served me and our country well and with much honour. It grieves me I was not at your side on the day of your signal victory. Yet I share with you a father’s pride in a son who once more has acquitted himself with great valour.’ The cheering started up again. The king smiled indulgently, then gestured for silence. ‘I salute you one and all. And I swear that, by God’s grace, none shall go without his just reward.’

  *

  The banquet given at the Abbey of St Andrew later that day was certainly worthy of a king, thought Hawkwood. Two kings, more like, for Jean le Bon was seated next to Edward at the table of honour.

  Hawkwood sat at a table presided over by the Black Prince, who, to the manifest approval of all present, had respectfully declined to sit with his father and Jean out of deference for their kingly rank. Captive French nobles sat at the prince’s board, including the Dauphin, Jacques de Bourbon, Jean d’Artois and the Seigneur de Tancarville.

  That captors and captives should be seated side by side was only as it should be. Although the French king had failed to carry the day, he had fought courageously to the last and, as a worthy adversary, he commanded respect. Besides, the two monarchs had much to discuss. Among other things, there was a ransom to be negotiated.

  A king’s ransom.

  Servants carried in platter after platter: civet of wild boar, spit-roasted sucking pig, whole haunches of venison, gigots of French mutton, broiled pheasant, larks’ tongues in coriander, fennel and ginger-flavoured aspic, baked swan, pheasant and blackbird, oysters from the Vendée, poached quenelles of pike from the nearby Garonne, crayfish, clams and whelks, figs, olives, grapes and assorted sweetmeats, the whole accompanied by earthenware flagons of robust red wine from the Médoc.

  Hawkwood smiled ruefully at the thought of what this sumptuously extravagant feast must have cost. Enough, perhaps, to equip a small army? But he and many of those around him knew only too well what King Edward intended by this lavish demonstration. It drove home a point which would not be lost on the French king and his lieutenants: that England still had immense wealth and resources at its disposal. More than enough, certainly, to wage a war of attrition that might last for many years.

  Nothing could have been further from the truth. England had precious few resources left. Swingeing tithes and levies imposed to underwrite the war with France had bled the country almost dry. There were insufficient funds in the nation’s coffers to carry the war through the next six months, let alone for years to come.

  Rumour had it that Edward had even pawned his crown to help pay his retainers.

  England had waged sporadic war against the French for almost two decades, ever since 1337, when Edward had first asserted his claim to the throne of France. The claim was not unwarranted – Edward was a direct descendant of Philippe IV, through his mother, Isabella of France – but it was a claim England could ill afford to enforce. True, England had carried the day at Crécy, when the Black Prince had earned his spurs at the age of only sixteen, and again here at Poitiers, where the French had been foolhardy, their battle strategy flawed and their tactics woefully outdated. But they would learn – of that, Hawkwood was certain. This war waged on foreign soil might not always go England’s way.

  Such thoughts were tantamount to treason, and Hawkwood shook his head to banish them. He speared a slice of venison and turned his attention to the conversation around him.

  The Black Prince held the floor. Somewhat unwisely, Hawkwood felt, he was reliving the battle, reviewing his tactics and extolling the decisive role of the English longbow. Not surprisingly, the French nobles proved most attentive listeners. They had survived the battle and, even in defeat, each knew he would eventually be ransomed to fight another day. Any insight into how the perfidious English deployed their forces would then prove invaluable.

  Hawkwood listened as the prince explained at some length how he had made the fullest use of the terrain and described how and under what conditions a superior force could be routed. He said nothing as the prince tactfully but forcefully suggested the French might have carried the day had they not been so hesitant.

  Hawkwood looked on as the prince aligned walnuts, figs and olives on the trestle table to represent the disposition of his troops and to illustrate the points he was intent on making.

  Hawkwood had considerable respect and affection for the Black Prince. The young man’s courage was beyond question, and Hawkwood was mindful that it had been none other than the king’s son who persuaded John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, to confer a battlefield commission on Hawkwood himself, elevating him to the rank of knight after Crécy, where the prince and Hawkwood had stood and fought side by side. The honour had been fully justified, Hawkwood
felt, when, some months later, he had saved the prince’s life during the siege of Narbonne. Curiously, the prince had since then appeared to resent Hawkwood – as one perhaps often does when placed in another’s debt as a result of dramatic circumstances. There was no bad blood between them, however, although the prince at times seemed to envy Hawkwood’s greater experience and coolness in the field.

  The prince himself was widely regarded as too impetuous and quick to anger, too inclined to nurse a grudge. Hawkwood had once committed a grave error by chiding him about his fiery temper and impetuosity. The prince had not taken the rebuke well – he was heir to the throne, when all was said and done – and their friendship was now tenuous at best. Since then, Hawkwood had been at pains to keep his own counsel and avoid offending the young man again.

  He listened and watched until he felt the prince had gone too far. Perhaps he has downed too much wine, thought Hawkwood. But this had to stop. ‘It is my belief, your Grace, that we do our French guests a disservice by reminding them why they are among us today,’ he said with a wry smile.

  The prince stopped in mid-sentence and glared at him across the table. ‘And I would remind you, Sir John, that these guests are men of noble lineage and rank who have proved worthy adversaries.’

  ‘All the more reason, sire, to be temperate in one’s discourse.’

  ‘You try my patience, Sir John.’

  ‘If so, then unwillingly.’

  To Hawkwood’s relief, Jean d’Artois spoke next. ‘As for myself, I confess I have learned little this night that I did not learn to my cost on the field of combat. I would say only this: we shall doubtless cross swords again and, God willing, the contest will be foursquare.’ He chuckled and reached across the table to where the prince had deployed his walnuts, figs and olives. ‘Until that day dawns, we shall comport ourselves as befits our rank.’