William Marshall.
There are moments in every battle that men write songs about.
This was not one of them.
No bard has ever stood before a roaring fire and sung:
"And then the knights waited... awkwardly..."
Yet that is how most battles begin.
With waiting.
Waiting for some nobleman who has never sat astride a frightened horse to decide that enough other men have already died today.
The year was 1166.
The Counts of Boulogne had decided that today was an excellent day to settle matters by encouraging several hundred armed men to gallop at one another whilst shouting about honour.
I had often wondered whether honour had legs, because it was forever running away whenever the arrows started falling.
My destrier, Bastard, shifted beneath me.
He could smell what was coming.
Horses always know.
God gives them enough sense not to enjoy war.
The line of knights stretched away on either side of me, a forest of lances pointing accusingly at the grey sky.
No one spoke.
Some prayed.
Some vomited discreetly into the grass.
I could smell shit, and it was not the sweet smell of horse manure.
That was person shit.
One man appeared to be having an argument with his saddle.
I considered joining him.
Across the field, the enemy cavalry were assembling into their own line.
So many banners.
So many polished helms.
So many people I sincerely hoped not to meet personally.
The waiting is always the worst part.
People think courage is riding into battle.
It is not.
Courage is surviving the dreadful minutes beforehand, when your imagination insists upon inventing inventive new ways for you to die.
A lance through the eye.
A horse falling upon you.
Being trampled.
Being remembered as 'that young fellow who screamed quite loudly.'
I disliked the waiting with all my heart, I did.
‘First battle?’
The voice came from my left.
I looked across.
The knight beside me was older than I was by perhaps ten years. Broad-shouldered.
Broken nose.
A beard that appeared to have lost several arguments with fire.
His shield bore no device I recognised, and his mail looked as though it had survived more campaigns than some kingdoms.
He grinned.
Not because he was happy.
Because if he stopped grinning, he might start screaming.
‘No, not my first, but I never get used to them?’ I asked.
‘Ah, you’re just shitting yourself then.’
I looked at him.
A hard stare I gave him.
We both froze as we held each other's gaze.
Was he impugning my bravery?
He smirked, breaking the uncomfortable moment.
‘Yes,’ I laughed.
‘I’m glad because I am too.’ He said before drinking from a wine skin.
There was a quiet moment.
‘What gave it away?’ I asked.
‘The fact you've checked your saddle strap six times.’
‘I have?’
‘You've just made it seven.’
I looked down.
I had.
‘Oh.’
He nodded sagely.
‘I lick my lips and drink excessively.’
‘What?’
‘Before every charge.’
He raised the skin again for another glug.
‘I noticed the drinking.’
‘I hadn't noticed the lip thing.’ I told him.
‘I hide the lip thing. I do it inside my mouth.’
He demonstrated.
It was, somehow, even more unsettling.
‘I hate this bit,’ he admitted.
The words were spoken quietly.
Almost reverently.
I stared at him.
‘So do I.’
He looked genuinely relieved.
‘Oh, thank God.’
‘You thought it was just you?’
‘I was beginning to think everyone else had been born without the good sense to be frightened.’
I laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough for the fear to move somewhere else for a moment.
He leaned closer in the saddle.
‘Between you and me...’
He glanced left.
Then right.
‘...I would much rather we skipped all this charging nonsense and agreed we'd had a very spirited fight.’
‘I would happily sign such an agreement.’
‘We could all go home.’
‘A splendid idea.’
‘Perhaps meet again next month and have another conversation about almost fighting.’
‘I should like that.’
He sighed.
‘No one ever asks us.’
A horn sounded somewhere behind us.
Both of us jumped.
‘I hate horns,’ he muttered.
‘They're very loud.’
‘They always mean something unpleasant.’
He reached beneath his cloak and produced another battered wineskin as he threw the other, now empty one to one side.
‘Would you care for some courage?’
‘I thought we took courage from our God?’
He looked up at the sky.
He looked down at the skin and shook his head.
‘This courage comes from a vineyard.’
‘It will suffice until God grants me some.’
He tossed it to me.
I caught it instinctively.
Then, before I could think better of it, I pulled the stopper free and drank.
And drank.
And drank.
The wine was astonishingly good.
Deep.
Rich.
Warm enough to remind me that life occasionally had pleasant moments.
When I lowered the skin, there was a profound silence.
The knight was staring at me.
‘What?’
‘...Were you born in a desert?’
I looked at the empty wineskin.
‘Oh.’
‘'Oh,’' he says.’
‘I may have been somewhat... enthusiastic to gain some courage.’
‘You have drunk enough wine to bankrupt a monastery.’
‘I apologise.’
‘You should.’
He looked genuinely hurt.
‘I shall buy you another or six’, I tried to reassure the devastated man.
‘Youthful optimism.’
‘If we survive today.’
He folded his arms.
‘Now there's the interesting part.’
‘I give you my word.’
He looked me up and down.
‘You don't have much money, do you?’
‘I have... some.’
‘You've got the look of a man whose purse whistles when he opens it.’
‘I have my horse.’
‘You are not buying me a horse full of wine.’
‘I meant I also own a horse.’
He rubbed his beard thoughtfully.
‘I suppose I shall now have to keep you alive.’
‘Out of Christian charity?’
‘No.’
He picked up his lance.
‘I've become rather attached to the idea of collecting the drink you owe me.’
I found myself smiling despite everything.
‘My name is William.’
‘Gervais.’
We clasped forearms.
The grip lasted only a second.
Long enough.
Long enough that years later, I would remember it did not feel like meeting a stranger.
It felt like recognising an old friend I had not yet had the privilege of knowing.
The trumpet sounded again.
This time, neither of us jumped.
Gervais lowered his helm.
‘If we die...’
‘Aye?’
‘...I'm haunting you until you buy me that drink.’
‘I should hope Hell has a decent tavern.’
He laughed.
‘I like you already, William.’
Then the order ran down the line.
‘LANCES!’
And the world began to move.
William Marshall.
The trumpet did not sound like music.
It sounded like judgment.
The line lurched forward.
Not elegantly.
Not heroically.
Thousands of pounds of horseflesh do not leap into battle like dancers.
They stumble first, snorting and stamping, until suddenly every animal remembers what it was born to do.
Bastard surged beneath me.
The earth began to tremble.
There is a peculiar moment during every cavalry charge when the world becomes very small.
The armies disappear.
The banners vanish.
The shouting fades.
There is only the thunder beneath your legs, the ash shaft of your lance in your hand and one man somewhere ahead who is coming to kill you with precisely the same determination.
I heard Gervais somewhere beside me.
‘I've decided I don't like this plan!’
‘You've left it a little late!’
‘I've always been a slow thinker!’
The distance vanished.
The two lines met with a sound that no language has ever truly managed to describe.
Not a crash.
Not a bang.
It was as though the world itself had broken.
My lance struck a shield.
The ash wood exploded in my hands.
The man behind the shield disappeared beneath his own horse as Bastard tore through the gap we'd made.
Something smashed against my helmet.
Light exploded behind my eyes.
Someone screamed.
I sincerely hoped it was not me.
Bastard was still running.
Good horse.
Good bastard.
He kicked, stomped and bit, fighting harder than I did in that moment.
Very good, Bastard.
I drew my sword.
Everything afterwards became fragments.
Steel.
Mud.
Blood.
Another rider.
A slash.
His cheek opened.
Another horse.
Someone falling.
A spear thrust.
I knocked it aside.
The spear found someone behind me instead.
The scream followed us.
‘Gervais!’
‘I'm still alive!’
‘I think.’
‘Excellent!’
‘For now!’
‘That is.’
He appeared beside me, his sword already red.
A knight bearing a blue shield charged straight at him.
Too fast.
Too close.
His spear was already lowering.
‘Gervais!’
He turned too late.
I drove Bastard between them.
The spear struck my shield with such force that my arm went numb.
Wood burst apart.
The knight had no time to recover.
I caught him beneath the jaw.
He toppled backwards from the saddle like a sack of grain.
‘You owe me wine!’ Gervais shouted.
‘You haven't collected the first lot!’
‘I like securing investments!’
We now burst deeper into the melee.
The charge had dissolved into chaos.
Horses collided.
Men hacked at one another from arm's length.
Others fought on foot amongst the fallen beasts, where screaming animals kicked as wildly as dying men.
There is nothing glorious about battle once the charge is over.
It becomes work.
Terrible, bloody wet work.
Fenrir, my accompanying wolf soul, was silent.
He always became quiet when killing began.
Not because he disliked it.
Quite the opposite.
He enjoyed the fight far too much to waste words.
Another knight came for me.
A heavy man with a black beard and a sword broad enough to split firewood.
He swung from high over his shoulder.
I caught the blow.
Our blades locked.
His horse crashed against Bastard.
The world lurched.
He smiled through broken teeth.
Then Gervais arrived.
‘I object!’ he shouted cheerfully.
His sword struck the man behind the ear.
The smile disappeared forever.
‘You really are protecting your investment.’
‘I told you.’
Before I could thank him, something hit me from the right.
Not a sword.
A horse.
Its shoulder slammed into Bastard, bastarding hard.
Both animals screamed.
I was thrown sideways.
My foot caught in the stirrup.
The world became sky.
Ground.
Sky.
Mud.
Then stillness.
The breath had left me.
I rolled.
Just in time.
A sword punched into the earth where my face had been.
The knight wrenched it free.
He was on foot now.
So was I.
He came again.
Our blades met.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
He was stronger.
Older.
Better.
His pommel smashed into my mouth.
Blood filled it.
I staggered.
He smiled.
He thought it finished.
The sword came straight for my middle.
There was no stopping it.
Steel slid through mail.
Through gambeson.
Into flesh.
Hot.
Cold.
Then nothing.
I looked down.
His blade had gone clean through me.
For a heartbeat, we simply stared at one another.
He looked almost apologetic.
Then Gervais hit him.
He came roaring from nowhere like an angry tavern with legs.
His sword buried itself in the man's neck.
The knight collapsed.
I sank beside him.
The pain arrived all at once.
The world narrowed.
‘Gervais...’
He was already kneeling beside me.
‘No.’
It was barely a whisper.
‘No, William.’
His hands were shaking.
He looked at the sword protruding from my belly.
Then into my eyes.
‘I've only just met you.’
He sounded offended.
‘You still owe me a drink.’
He gripped the hilt.
‘This is going to hurt.’
‘It already does.’
He nodded.
‘Fair point.’
‘On three.’
He counted.
‘One...’
‘Two...’
The bastard pulled on two.
Every star in God's Heaven exploded behind my eyes.
I shouted.
No.
I roared.
Blood poured down my legs.
I collapsed backwards into the mud and trampled grass.
Gervais pressed both hands against the wound.
His face had gone white.
‘Stay with me.’
‘I... intend...’
‘Don't joke.’
‘I wasn't...’
He looked ready to weep.
‘Shit, William…I've seen too many wounds like this before.’
His voice cracked.
‘No one walks away from this.’
Fenrir's voice came quietly into my thoughts.
‘I dislike being stabbed.’
‘I had noticed.’
‘Give me a moment.’
Warmth spread beneath Gervais's hands.
Not heat.
Life.
Like standing in spring sunshine after a cruel winter.
I felt flesh knitting.
Muscle drawing together.
The pain receded.
My strength returned in impossible waves.
Gervais frowned.
He looked down.
Then back at me.
Then down again.
His hands slowly lifted.
The mail shirt was torn.
The gambeson beneath it was soaked crimson.
But beneath the blood...
There was no wound.
He blinked.
Then blinked again.
He looked at his own hands as though they had betrayed him.
‘I...’
He poked my stomach.
I winced.
‘That still hurts.’
‘There should be… bits… hanging out!"
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your insides!’
‘They should be your outsides.’
‘They're now quite private."
He stared.
‘William...’
‘Aye?’
‘We are definitely having a conversation about this... This erm…’
He pointed at the non-wound.
‘I was hoping we wouldn't.’
‘You were dead.’
‘I felt rather dead.’
‘I watched you become dead.’
‘It was unpleasant.’
‘You are no longer dead.’
‘I've noticed.’
He shook his head.
‘Right.’
He stood.
‘We'll discuss your impossible stomach later.’
‘Over the drinks you owe me.’
A horn echoed across the battlefield.
Once.
Twice.
Then again.
The fighting faltered.
Men lowered swords.
Some from exhaustion.
Some because there was simply no one left to kill.
The battle had ended.
Gervais looked around the field.
Broken lances.
Dead horses.
Bodies.
Mud.
Silence slowly replaced screams.
He sighed.
‘Well...’
‘Aye.’
‘I suppose we'd better find our horses.’
I looked at Bastard, cropping blood-soaked grass as though nothing extraordinary had happened.
Gervais pointed across the field.
‘My horse and yours have become friends.’
The two animals were entirely ignoring the remains of the battle and were behaving like a pair in a farm field.
Gervais laughed first.
I joined him.
It seemed the only sensible thing to do.
It was the first time we had laughed without fear.
It would not be the last.
‘Right, let’s find some wine you must stand me the night.’