The Red Knight

Hawthor Veney made it to the top of the ridge on pride alone. It was his first fight, and he was a King’s Guardsman. His red surcote shouted his allegiance, and the Jacks were his enemies, and he pursued them ruthlessly. He caught one and hewed him from behind, a clumsy stroke that buried his point in the man’s neck, but the man fell hard, blood burst from the wound, and he ran on, wrenching the sword from the man’s corpse.

The next one he caught fell to his knees and begged for mercy. He was perhaps fourteen years old.

Hawthor paused, and an older guardsman beheaded the boy. ‘Nits make lice,’ he said, as he swept by, and Hawthor hardened his heart and ran on. Running in armour was hard. Running up a ridge with soft footing and tangled spring undergrowth was worse. His lungs began to labour and, as the Jacks rallied and rallied again, whipping deadly shafts at the guardsmen, Hawthor had to fight the temptation to open his visor.

He began to pass men when he could see the light through the trees that meant the crest of the ridge was coming. There was shouting to the right – he turned to look, and he heard the sound of steel on steel. He looked back and forth – it was closer, and with his faceplate closed, he couldn’t see where. There was a flicker of motion to the front – he looked, ran a few steps, stopped, and looked again.

Heard the scrape of blades. A voice called ‘Sauve Qui Peut!’

He was breathing like a horse after a race. He was afraid – he was afraid they were behind him. He popped his visor, turned his head-

And died.

Near Lissen Carak – Bill Redmede

Bill got another shaft on his bow after putting one through the knight’s face – felt better for doing it – but two more of his men were down and he knew better than to join the hand to hand fight. He ran.

They crossed the ridge, and started down the far side towards their boats. A handful of knights from the vanguard tried to stop them, and the Jacks just ran around them – exhausted men without armour have an advantage over exhausted men in armour.

Bill saw the Count of the Borders, close enough to touch, and he cursed his fate, that he should be so close to a mortal foe and be able to do nothing.

But he ran past the man, down the steep berm, into a broad field – ploughed, until recently. Nat Tyler came out of the trees to his left, and dozens more – a handful, compared to their numbers three weeks ago. But enough to start again.

Up the last dyke, and there were the boats. Fifty light bark boats – it had taken them three careful trips to get everyone over, night before last, and now . . .

Now they’d all fit in one go.

He tossed his bow into the bottom of the light boat, pushed it into the water, and stepped in, running lightly down the length of the boat to kneel in the bow. Then he rocked the stern off the muddy beach, and held his position in the current with his paddle until a young blond man in dirty white tossed his own bow into the boat and stepped clumsily into the stern. He almost swamped the light boat, and they were away into the current.

Twenty other boats were putting off behind him – the better boatmen got the boats moving. The less competent men started to die, as the Royal Guard began to close on them.

A few last Jacks dived into the water, abandoning packs and bows, quivers of invaluable arrows, but a few men had had the presence of mind to drag the rest of the boats off the mud and tow them and, safe in the current, they got the swimmers into boats.

More than a hundred Jacks had been saved from the disaster.

They began to paddle out into the centre. It was obvious from here that Bridge Castle was still in the hands of the sell-swords – an arbalest bolt skipped across the water to put a hole in one boat.

Tyler waved, pointed downstream, waved again, and paddled frantically to turn his boat.

Jack looked into the rising sun and it’s brilliant reflection on the broad river – and saw flashes. Rhythmic flashes – banks of oars on heavy bateaux, rowing upstream. He counted twenty – counted a second twenty-

Disaster. Disaster after disaster.

He turned his head. ‘Less power and more finesse, comrade. We have to turn this boat and paddle upstream – all your power will serve us well, then.’

A pair of crossbow bolts, like swallows feeding on insects, skipped by, passing within an arm’s length of their boat before sinking out of sight.

The man in the stern shook his head. ‘I’m no boatsman, brother,’ he admitted.

‘Never mind, lad. Drag your paddle on the left – just there. And we’re around.’ Bill hadn’t risen to leadership for nothing; he was patient, even when everything was at stake.