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By Root 1338 0

move. Each step was a fight against the soil’s suction. In places he sank to mid-calf and could find no purchase to drag his feet free, yet step by step he managed to keep going, sometimes leaning on his neighbor so he could wrench an armored foot out of the clinging earth. He tried to step in the furrows where water lay, because those furrows had the firmest bottoms, but he could scarce see the ground through the tight holes of his closed visor. Nor did he dare open the helmet, because the arrows were clattering and clashing and banging all around him. He was hit on the forehead by a bodkin that snapped his head back and almost toppled him, except that one of his men pushed him upright. Another arrow struck his breastplate, tearing a long rip in his jupon and scraping across the steel with a high-pitched squeal. His armor resisted both blows, though other men were not so fortunate. Every few heartbeats, in the middle of the metallic rain of arrows, a man would gasp or scream or call for help. Lanferelle did not see them fall, only hear them, and he was aware that the attack was losing its cohesion because men were crushing in from his left where most of the arrows came from, and those men squeezed the formation. Armor plate clanged against armor plate. Lanferelle himself was pushed so tight against his right-hand neighbor that he could not move his arm holding the lance and he bellowed a protest and made a huge effort to get a step ahead of the man. He was sweeping his head from side to side, trying to make sense of the blur of gray ahead. The English, he noticed, had their visors raised. They were not threatened by arrows and so could see to kill, but Lanferelle dared not lift his own visor because a handful of archers were posted between the English battles straight ahead and those men would thank God for the target of an unvisored French face.

His breathing was hoarse inside the helmet. He reckoned himself to be a strong man, yet he was gasping as he waded through the thick soil. Sweat streamed down his face. His left foot slipped in a patch of slick mud and he sank to his right knee, but managed to heave himself upright and stagger onward. Then he tripped on something and sprawled again, this time falling beside the corpse of an unhorsed man-at-arms. Two of his men pulled him to his feet. He was sheeted in mud now. Some of the holes in his visor were blocked by mud and he pawed at them with his left hand, but the armored gauntlet could not clear the thick wet earth. Just get close, he told himself, just get close and the killing could start and Lanferelle was confident of his ability to kill. He might not be a mud-wader, but he was a killer, and so he made another huge effort, trying to get ahead of the crush so he would have room to use his weapons. He turned his head again, scanning through the visor’s remaining holes, and saw, straight ahead, a great banner showing the royal arms of England with their impudent appropriation of the French lily. The royal arms on the flag were defaced with three white bars, each bar with three red balls, and he recognized the badge as that of Edward, Duke of York. He would serve as a prisoner, Lanferelle thought. The ransom for an English royal duke would make Lanferelle rich, and that prospect seemed to give his tired legs a new strength. He was growling now, though quite unaware of it. The English line was close. “Are you with me, Jean?” he shouted, and his squire shouted yes. Lanferelle intended to strike the English line with his lance and then, as the enemy recoiled from that blow, drop the cumbersome weapon and use the mace that was slung on his shoulder, and if the mace broke he would take one of the spare weapons carried by his squire. Lanferelle felt a sudden elation. He had lived this long, he had survived the arrow-storm and he was taking his lance to the enemy, but just then a bodkin point ripped from the flank and struck plumb in one of the visor’s holes and sudden light flooded Lanferelle’s eyes as the arrow peeled back the steel and sliced a savage cut in the bridge