Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [153]
Lanferelle watched, incredulous, as the English were allowed to come within long bowshot. The French had crossbowmen, they even had a handful of men who could shoot the yew bow, and they possessed some small cannons that were ready and loaded, but the waiting horsemen masked both the guns and the bowmen. The crossbow had a longer range than the yew bow, but the crossbowmen could not shoot and so the enemy archers pounded in their stakes unmolested. Dear God, Lanferelle thought, but this was madness. The archers should have been scattered and slaughtered by now, but instead they had been allowed to come within their bows’ range and to pound their stakes into the soft ground as a deterrent to horsemen. He watched as they strung their bows, doing it all within crossbow range yet staying entirely undisturbed. “Jesus,” he said to no one in particular, “she comes in, takes off her clothes, lies on the bed, spreads her legs, and we do nothing.”
“Sire?” his squire asked.
Lanferelle ignored the question. “Visors!” he shouted at his men. He led sixteen men-at-arms and he turned to make certain they had closed their visors before pulling down his own with a metallic thud.
He was instantly engulfed in darkness. A moment before he had been able to see the enemy clearly. He had even seen the glitter of gold circling Henry of England’s helmet, but now there was a steel shutter in front of his eyes and the shutter was pierced by twenty small holes, none wide enough to admit even a bodkin arrow’s narrow point, and to see anything through those holes Lanferelle had to move his head from side to side, and even then he could make out little of what happened.
Yet he did see the lone horseman ride from the center of the English line.
And he saw the baton thrown into the air.
And he heard the words. “Now, strike!”
He lowered his head as if he struggled into a fierce wind and he heard the rising rush of arrows and he flinched, teeth grinding together, and then the missiles struck.
There was a terrible noise as thousands of steel arrowheads plunged onto steel armor, and a man called out in sudden pain, and Lanferelle felt a thumping blow on his right shoulder, and even though the arrow was deflected it lurched him to one side with the sheer force of its blow. A second arrow quivered in his lance, though he could not see it. Some fool in the rear rank had left his visor open and was making a gargling noise around an arrow that had fallen from the sky to pierce his mouth and drive down into his windpipe. The man slowly sank to his knees and coughed a stream of thick blood. Other arrows plunged into the soil, or else glanced off armor. A horse whinnied and reared to Lanferelle’s left.
“Saint Denis! Montjoie!” the French shouted and Lanferelle, jerking his head so that he could make some sense of what the small holes in his visor revealed, saw the horsemen at last start forward. Then another shout to advance came from the center of the French line, where the oriflamme flew, and all the first battle lurched toward the enemy.
“Montjoie!” they shouted, the sound of their voices huge and deafening inside their helmets, and Lanferelle could hardly move because his armored feet were stuck in the mud, but he jerked his right leg free and so began the advance. Men of mud and steel, no flesh in sight, lumbering toward the waiting English. And the English were howling hunting cries like rabid devils pursuing Christian souls.
And the second arrow-storm fell.
And the devil’s hail rattled and more men screamed.
As the French, at last, attacked.
The horsemen came first. Hook saw one horse rearing, saw the rider topple backward as his pennanted lance scraped a circle against the sky, and then that horse was swallowed by the charge. Knights roweled back their spurs, lowered their lances and called their battle cry, and Hook saw great clods of earth being thrown up behind the monstrous hooves. The stallions tossed their armor-weighted heads, hating the uneven ground, and the spurs struck back again and the charge took shape as the horses