It is by the sweat of our brows that they maintain their high state. We are called serfs, and we are beaten if we do not perform our task.
The siege dragged on and on without an end in sight, and Nat Miller was beginning to miss Italy. It was warm there, and the fighting was easier. Here was cold. The food was bad. And the heathens seemed determined to fight to the end, no matter how many of them died of the plague.
Italy was nice. So was Gascony. Even Wales and Scotland were better than here.
Hell, give it another month and Nat might've even started to miss his mother's brothel in Cheapside. Maybe she'd even recognize him after all these years. If she was still alive.
But Harfleur was cold and dreary. It was decisively winter now; Christmas had come and gone. Old homes were being torn down to supply firewood, and men haggled over good cloaks. The food was bad, mostly brown bread and thin soup. No one went hungry, but everyone yearned for more. Men passed the day by grumbling.
And the heathens were making progress. God damn them. They'd smashed the outer wall then smashed the one behind it. King Henry ordered new walls built, and they smashed those too. For now the English were a step ahead of the heathens, but who knew how long that would last. The heathens would get through eventually.
Until then, the English archers passed the time rotating in and out of the destroyed section of wall.
Nat led his detachment, a hundred longbowmen he could trust to fight even in the cold, through the rubble of destroyed homes. The wreckage of Harfleur was all around them. Houses were missing entire sections of wall. Shops had been reduced to their foundations. Every time a Saderan siege engine missed the walls, its boulder tended to demolish whatever unfortunate building it landed on. And they missed a lot.
Fortunately there weren't many townspeople to mourn their lost homes. King Henry had expelled most residents from Harfleur months ago, for being French in what was now an English town.
Maybe, when the heathens finally beat them, they'd drive out whoever managed to survive the siege. For being English in a heathen town, of course.
Ah well. That was war.
Nat's men scurried over pulverized street stones towards the outer wall. It was dark which meant that if a man was careless he'd all too easily turn his ankle on the loose rubble. But moving in the dark was better than the alternative. No one wanted to move out when the heathens were using their engines.
They came up to a lone tavern surrounded by crushed shopfronts. The roof was missing; a boulder had smashed it in and then enterprising Englishmen had stripped what was left for firewood. The roofless tavern made for a good landmark when navigating by moonlight.
Nat went past the tavern with his men then took a left, stepped through an abandoned house, crept along what had been an alleyway, and emerged to see the massive breach in Harfleur's outer wall.
Through the breach, he could see lights in the heathen camp. And he could hear men working.
"The King and Saint George," a voice suddenly whispered from ahead.
"Saint George and England," Nat countersigned.
An archer stepped into the moonlight from his hiding place beneath a partially collapsed roofbeam. The archer was at least a head taller than Nat. He looked Nat up and down then at the men behind him.
"Relief?" he asked, a tinge of eagerness in his voice.
"Aye," Nat said. "Who's your officer?"
"Wilkins took a heathen arrow a few hours back, so I guess that'd be me now." The man extended his hand, and Nat clasped it. "William Tucket, but most call me Tall Bill."
"Nat Miller. How's the night looking? We're supposed to be here until dawn."
Tall Bill looked over his shoulder at the breach. "The heathens came at us twice already. Both times were just skirmishers looking for a fight. Watch for their crossbows. Their slingers and archers are crap, but the heathens with crossbows will put a quarrel in you the second you stick your head up."
"Noted. Do we have any men-at-arms?"
"You think they're out in the dark with us?" Tall Bill scoffed. "There's a hundred or so of them sitting in an inn as our reserve. Led by a Sir Edward Something, Lord of Whothefuckknows. We're to alert them if the heathens make a real assault, but otherwise they'll be sipping wine by a fire all night."
"Fucking aristocrats," Nat spat.
"Ain't it so," Tall Bill agreed.
Nat sighed, "Well, you're relieved. Enjoy the sleep for us."
"With pleasure," Tall Bill chuckled. He walked toward the breach and began telling his men the good news. They began emerging from various nooks and crannies in the rubble.
Nat's men went forward to take their spots. They set down their longbows and dropped bags of arrows on the ground before settling in themselves.
A few men went forward to act as sentries near the outer wall. Nat's contingent was between the breached outer wall and the newly built inner walls. Their whole job was to screen the inner walls so that the heathens couldn't harass the men building them. The men at the front had a good view of the heathen siege lines. It was going to be a long night.
Nat found a good spot a little ways back from the outer wall. There was a collapsed roof beam which he could lean against, and half of a stone wall was still standing which blocked the wind. He settled in with his cloak wrapped around him.
Oliver Shields and Richard Glover joined him, eager to be away from the bitter winter wind.
"Damn nobility, eh?" Oliver Shields said, rubbing his hands together. "We get to sit out here all night, but when the fighting starts they get to come out and claim all the glory."
"Save your fucking glory. I'd trade all that glory for a hot cup of spiced wine," Richard Glover muttered beneath his cloak.
"That does sound good," Oliver Shields admitted. He looked at Nat. "How about we start a fire, boss? No use sitting in the cold."
Nat shook his head. "No fires. The heathens would see it, and then we'd get shot up by their skirmishers."
Oliver Shields sighed. "Fuck. Why do the nobles get to stay inside?"
"Because they're nobles, you dumb shit," Richard Glover murmured. "Their blood's all high and pure. They're lords, and you're a peasant from some village nobody cares about."
"My father was a tradesman, not a peasant," Oliver Shields said defensively.
"So was mine, but now I'm an archer. Just like you. Maybe if we're lucky we'll loot enough French towns to buy a good inn in London and live an easy life for however long we've got left, but that's the highest we'll ever get. Understand?"
"Plenty of archers have become men-at-arms," Oliver Shields protested. "You know Greg Tyler? He became a man-at-arms, and he was knighted by the King himself."
"One in a thousand," Richard Glover scoffed. "And Greg Tyler might be a knight, but he'll never be noble. He'll be looked down on for the rest of his life because of his birth."
Oliver Shields sat back and was silent for a moment. "Not fucking fair," he eventually muttered under his breath.
"Yeah," Richard Glover sighed, "but that's what it is. It's how it's always been."
"It doesn't have to be like that," Nat, who'd been content to sit in silence, finally said.
"What's that?" Richard Glover asked.
Nat shifted forward and said again, "It doesn't have to be like that." He looked between Oliver and Richard before saying, "Either of you heard of Wat Tyler?"
Oliver was quiet, but Richard Glover spat on the ground. "Wat Tyler was a traitor," he said.
Nat shook his head. "Nah, that's crap; Wat Tyler was a hero. The nobles were forcing the King to raise a tax on poor fellows like us, and Wat Tyler stood against it. He led a host of common folk with John Ball and Jack Straw to show the King their displeasure. Everywhere they went, men and women cheered them. They marched into London unopposed while the aristocrats cowered before them."
"Where they proceeded to sack it," Richard said.
"They only touched property belonging to the damned nobles," Nat snapped. "And they didn't steal anything, either. They destroyed the nobility's luxuries but took nothing for themselves."
Richard looked away. "They murdered Archbishop Sudbury and Robert Hales."
"Tyrants both," Nat declared. He looked to Oliver Shields. "Wat Tyler's boys took off their heads, and England was better for it. They stormed the Tower of London and forced the nobles to listen. The King agreed to meet Wat Tyler personally, man to man."
"What happened then?" Oliver Shields asked.
Nat gave a mournful smile. "The noble bastards killed him. They butchered Wat Tyler with swords in front of the King then set their knights to hunt down Jack Straw and John Ball. Had them hanged, drawn, and quartered while the good people of England were cowed into submission by knights in armor. That's why they still rule us."
Oliver's eyes were wide.
"You're speaking treason," Richard Glover said. "Wat Tyler and Jack Straw sought nothing but their own gain, and John Ball was a mad heretic."
Nat shook his head slightly. "Believe as you like. But mark my words, if Wat Tyler had lived the nobility wouldn't abuse us as they do now. And the men-at-arms would be out here with us, sharing the burden."
Richard Glover sighed. He was clearly about to say some retort, but then the sound of someone moving filled the air. It was a quiet night, and whoever it was had just stumbled over the rubble.
"The King and Saint George," an English archer challenged immediately.
"Quid est?"
"Alarm!" the archer shouted.
Nat was already on his feet, bow in hand with an arrow nocked. He stepped out from the stone wall and saw movement ahead in the dark. He couldn't tell if it was an Englishman or not.
The sound of a longbow being loosed rang out clearly.
Heathens began shouting in Latin.
"With me!" he ordered Oliver Shields and Richard Glover. "We can't shoot shit from here."
They followed him forward without hesitation.
Around them, English archers were stirring from their cloaks. The moon was just bright enough to make out their figures amidst the rubble.
A sling stone whistled over Nat's head.
Nat stopped when a scattering of figures came into view. He couldn't discern any details in the dark, but they were too far forward to be English. Someone was screaming with an arrow in his stomach. A few figures saw him and stopped.
The air was very cold. Nat drew back on his longbow and wondered if the wood would crack. A crossbow bolt flew past his side.
He loosed then nocked and loosed again. Nat didn't bother waiting to see if he hit; it was too dark. He drew and loosed at whatever flashed in the moonlight.
Richard Glover came up on his right and began shooting. He shot his first arrow just as Nat was on his fourth.
A shadowy figure crumpled to the ground.
Oliver Shields arrived on the left and sent a shaft into the darkness. Someone maybe twenty yards out grunted.
Nat, Richard, and Oliver all shot together. For thirty precious seconds, they were invincible, sending arrows at a panicked enemy that had trouble retaliating. Heathens died with shafts stuck deep in them, crumpling over like dropped puppets in the shadowy dark.
But then the heathens rallied. Men started to fight back, and a hail of arrows, bolts, and sling stones were shot at them. An arrow flew past his shoulder then Nat dove behind a chunk of what had been the outer wall. Richard Glover and Oliver Shields found cover behind the ruined remains of a crenellation. A crossbow bolt shattered as it slammed into the stone Nat was hiding behind.
He still could only see the distant shadows of the men shooting at him.
More English archers started to trickle in from the back. A few went down to heathen arrows and that spurred the rest to seek cover in the rubble.
Nat peaked out over his chunk of wall, nocked an arrow on his bow, then took a deep breath. He rose from cover and loosed the arrow a heartbeat after. Immediately he ducked down behind cover again.
An arrow shot through the space he'd stood in a mere moment ago. Two more struck the chunk of wall seconds later.
He had no idea if he'd hit anyone. There was screaming everywhere.
Elsewhere, Richard Glover peaked from his crenellation and shot into the dark. Oliver Shields grunted as he loosed at a glint of steel in the moonlight. All around, the English longbowmen rose from cover and sent arrows into the darkness.
Men on both sides died.
But then, as fast as it all started, the heathens slinked away into the night and disappeared. Men continued loosing into the dark, because they'd never really been able to see the heathens in the first place, but there was a sudden drop off in incoming projectiles
Nat stood. He didn't get a bolt to the chest. He didn't have a sling stone cave in his helmet. He didn't die from a heathen arrow.
"Halt!" he shouted. "Stop shooting! They've gone!"
It took some time, but the English longbowmen did eventually stop shooting. They stood in the darkness, watching and listening for any signs of the heathens. When there were none, men began to relax and walk forward to loot the corpses.
Nat went forward as well. The heathens had gotten far closer than he had expected. Some of the corpses were only a dozen yards away.
Richard Glover whistled. "That's a bit close for comfort," he said. "Any nearer and they could've just slit our throats."
"Mmmm…" Nat murmured in agreement. "One of them tripped. If it weren't for that, they'd have been right in with us."
"Lucky us then," Richard chuckled.
Nat bit his lip. "If they can do this, so can we." He looked out through the breach in the wall to the distant heathen camp. "I think I've got a plan."
Before leaving Paris, Perrin and his companions went to pawn off de Heilly's armor and purchase supplies for the journey to Constance.
They went to the armorer's quarter at first light, much to the groans of Marcel and Daniel. The two of them had drank too much wine the night before and had heavy heads come morning. Really it was Perrin's fault for not limiting them, but he'd been distracted that night.
Perrin, in stark contrast to his page and squire, felt invigorated. He'd had a cup of good wine, woke in a clean bed, and he could've sworn he'd caught Claire looking at him twice now.
She was out front leading them, because Perrin had very limited experience navigating the Parisian streets. Marcel and Daniel were carrying de Heilly's armor in baskets while Perrin walked beside them, unarmored and dressed as a gentleman. He found his eyes settling on Claire.
She looked back, and Perrin took a sudden interest in the butcher's shop to his right.
"Should be just this way," Claire called to them. She looked around. "God's mercy, there aren't usually this many people in the streets."
Perrin had been too distracted to notice, but there was indeed quite a large crowd around them. Men walked with purpose in various directions hauling sacks of grain, rolling cart wheels, and haggling with merchants. The crowd was almost entirely men, and many of them were carrying weapons.
Regardless, they pushed their way through the crowd and into the armorer's quarter. There it seemed the number of people only seemed to grow. Almost every shop was overwhelmed by eager buyers.
Claire found them a shop that wasn't quite so overwhelmed. The master armorer had just turned away a man while his apprentices worked hard at the forge.
"We're out of stock, my lord," the master armorer said the moment he saw Perrin. "If you want a harness, you'll have to wait at least a month for it."
Perrin tilted his head. "I'm not here to-"
"What's the cause of all this commotion?" Claire interrupted. "There seem to be a million men in the streets, and now you say there is no armor?"
The master armorer eyed her up, trying to determine her social standing. Perrin was obviously noble, but Claire still wore the clothes of a merchant's daughter. Yet she'd also interrupted Perrin which complicated things. And her cloak had some fine embroidery on it.
"My lady," the master armorer said, choosing the safer option, "have you not heard the news? The King has named the Count of Armagnac as Constable of France to replace d'Albret. Armagnac's first act as Constable was to call the arrière-ban to defend France from the heathens, the English, and the Burgundians."
"Hence a sudden demand for weapons and armor," Claire caught on immediately.
The master armorer nodded deeply. "Yes, my lady. Paris alone was ordered to raise twenty thousand men. The guilds have authorized exceeding our typical working hours, but there's just too many men to equip. So please accept my apologies that I cannot provide your lord a harness."
Perrin smiled and began, "Fortunately, I am-"
"How much," Claire interrupted again, "would a full harness cost in such trying times?"
"Two thousand livre tournois give or take," the master armored said. He bit his lip. "But my lady, I must insist it would take at least a month to provide it."
Claire gave her brilliant smile. It was the same smile she made when beating Perrin at Ronfle. "My brother here has a spare harness he is interested in selling. Given the sudden demand, I presume you would be interested?" she asked.
The master armorer's eyes narrowed slightly. "I would need to see the condition of the armor," he said slowly.
"Ah, fortunately we have it here with us." Claire snapped her fingers, and Marcel and Daniel brought forward their baskets. They placed them before the armorer and revealed de Heilly's plate harness. "My brother can attest that it is undamaged except for a small puncture in the mail under one armpit."
The master armorer crouched to poke through the basket before standing and saying, "One thousand, five hundred livre tournois for it."
That sounded just fine to Perrin. It was more than he'd paid for his own harness.
Claire's smile never faltered. "I believe you said two thousand was the going rate for a full harness."
"Give or take," the master armorer grunted. "But I'll have to size this to fit my next client, and repair the mail. Since you've such sharp wits, I'll raise it to one thousand, six hundred."
"Ah," Claire said, "but you claimed it would take a month to provide a harness for two thousand livre tournois. Surely the fact that this one has no such waiting period is worth something."
The master armorer looked toward his apprentices at the forge for a single moment. "One thousand, nine hundred livre tournois," he sighed.
Claire gave a sharp nod. "It's a deal if you can pay half in Rhenish gulden."
"What do you need Rhenish gulden for?" he asked.
Claire shrugged. "We are traveling to Constance."
"You don't look like a nun to me," the master armorer said, but then he shook his head. "Apologies, my lady, it has been a long day. I have few gulden, but I can pay you half in livre tournois and half in florins. I assure you, they will accept florins in Constance."
"Done," Claire said.
The armorer went into his shop to gather his coins while Marcel and Daniel moved de Heilly's harness inside. Perrin was left outside with Claire.
"What is it?" she suddenly asked, and Perrin became aware he'd been staring.
"Nothing," he muttered quickly. Then he blinked and said, "Well done with that."
Claire just grinned at him.
An hour later, they were on the road to Constance.
They were well mounted, courtesy of de Heilly's horses, and so made good time on the road. Every so often, Perrin had them change mounts to keep the horses fresh, and that meant they could ride the whole day without stopping. They moved fast, made small camps off the road at night, and saw almost nothing of note. This wasn't Normandy; it was the very heart of France. There weren't roving bands of heathens to impede them. The worst they could find were brigands, and Perrin was too well armored for them to pick on.
That didn't mean the land was peaceful, though. They were traveling right through the dividing ground between Burgundians and Armagnacs. There was an Armagnac garrison in every castle they rode past until Champagne. Several times they were stopped and questioned by local knights.
At Troyes, they were stopped by a castellan at the gate. He wrinkled his nose at them and brought two armored men out to meet them.
"Burgundian or Armagnac?" he demanded.
Perrin was getting tired of that question. "I am on a mission to Constance at the behest of Jean le Maingre," he snapped.
The castellan was unconvinced. "Do you have a writ of safe conduct?" he asked.
"To ride through France as one of the King's sworn knights?" Perrin questioned. "Of course not."
The castellan was still hesitant, and there was a great deal of back and forth. Eventually, Perrin was able to assert that the castellan had no legal authority to halt him for not having a writ of safe passage, and the castellan figured out that Perrin truly was neither a Burgundian nor an Armagnac. By the time he let them in, it had been over an hour.
As they were leaving the next morning, Perrin learned from an innkeeper that the castellan held Burgundian sympathies and had hanged an Armagnac man-at-arms just three weeks ago for 'banditry'. The castellan gave him a nod as Perrin rode through the gate.
Regardless, Champagne was beautiful. It had none of the burnt out villages or massacred peasants that Normandy was accustomed to. War here was, for now, purely theoretical.
Claire, being a wine merchant's daughter, had been through Champagne several times and loved to pass the time by explaining everything she knew about the region. Marcel rolled his eyes whenever she started on a tangent while Daniel looked generally bored.
Perrin listened with rapt attention each time.
After Champagne, they passed into Burgundy, the home of the Count of Armagnac's archrival John the Fearless. Now, every castle and town of note had a Burgundian garrison. Having come from Paris, Perrin was immediately suspect to the local lords who questioned him relentlessly at every major stop. He was happy to tell them all he knew about the heathen invaders and the disaster at Audrehem. Perrin tried his best to impart the need for unity against the heathens.
Mostly, however, the lords were interested in the Count of Armagnac's appointment as Constable and his decision to raise an army using the arrière-ban.
"He's desperate," one lord declared twenty miles east of Dijon. "All the Armagnac knights and men-at-arms died at Agincourt and Audrehem. Now he raises an army of peasants as if that will save him." The lord gave an eager grin. "John the Fearless will have Paris by spring."
Perrin made a face. "I was one of those knights at Agincourt and Audrehem. And what of the heathen armies?"
"Bah," the lord spat. "No different from the English. No doubt they can be negotiated with. Bernard of Armagnac on the other hand…"
That interaction darkened Perrin's mood for the rest of the week. He rode out of Burgundy angry and bitter.
But for all that the civil war in France was ruining Perrin's mood, Claire's company was constantly fighting to improve it. She never allowed pessimism to overtake her. Even when Perrin was silent and angry, Claire filled the air with stories of where she'd traveled and the things she'd seen. Her mood rarely faltered. Only when she was reminded of her father did her smile drop, and Perrin learned to avoid bringing it up.
At some point, Perrin couldn't quite tell when exactly, their little party passed out of France and into the Holy Roman Empire. It seemed to happen out of nowhere that the villages they stopped at spoke German instead of French and the merchants preferred gulden to livre tournois. Perhaps the transition had happened after they'd left France's political borders. Or perhaps it had happened before that.
Nonetheless, the local German lords didn't seem to mind their travel, and so, unlike in France, Perrin was rarely stopped.
They stayed at a town with a name Perrin couldn't pronounce and purchased new provisions for the rest of the way to Constance. Perrin didn't know any German, but Claire knew a little and the locals knew some French, so they muddled their way through. They were more than happy to accept payment in florins which were, as far as Perrin could tell, much less prone to devaluation than livre tournois. War and political instability apparently did not make for good commerce.
A week later, Perrin was invited for dinner at a Swabian lord's castle, having been informed that they were now only a day's ride from Constance. The lord's name was Rudolph, and he was the graf of some minor county which Perrin never got the name of. He had a small castle, really just a tower and a palisade wall, and he spoke French, which was a relief to Perrin.
Marcel and Daniel were sent to assist Rudolph's fairly modest serving staff. Claire came with Perrin to the dinner, and Perrin introduced her to Rudolph as his sister.
After the servants set down their meals, Rudolph clasped his hands together and leaned toward Perrin. He'd already finished two cups of wine, and he was on his way to his third.
Rudolph smirked. He opened his mouth and asked, "So, my good French knight, how goes the war with England?"
"Poorly," Perrin said. "You've heard of the heathen army that appeared at Agincourt?"
Rudolph snorted and sat back in his chair. "It's real? How did the Moors get an army so far into France?"
"They are not Moors, my lord," Claire corrected. "They are heathens, not infidels as the Moors are."
Perrin nodded. "They appeared by Satanic magic with endless numbers and monsters to do their bidding. Dragons and trolls. Figures with the bodies of men and the heads of pigs."
"Dragons?" Rudolph asked, eyes glimmering. "They exist?"
"I saw one with my own eyes," Perrin confirmed.
"The rumors we've gotten here haven't done it any justice. I assumed it was just some Moorish pirates sailing up the coast, if they were even real. God what I would give to slay a dragon," Rudolph breathed.
"France would welcome any assistance," Perrin said. "There is no shortage of glory to be won."
Rudolph nodded quickly. "Been too long since I've had any action. I need something good to drive my lance into. You think a lance would kill a dragon?"
"I saw a dragon shot from the air by English archers," Perrin allowed.
"Good… good." Rudolph was rubbing his knuckles. "Christ, it's been a while. I'll need to see if my armor still fits. Need a new squire as well. And a new horse." He looked at Perrin. "When will you be heading to face these heathens and their dragons?"
Claire answered quicker than Perrin. "We intend to plead our cause to the Council of Constance tomorrow," she said. Her eyes met Perrin's, and she smiled. "It is our hope that they will see it fit to call a crusade."
"A crusade!" Rudolph barked. "God I can see it now! A hundred thousand knights riding against the heathens. The whole martial might of Christendom. Nothing would stand before us!"
Perrin smiled. "We'll set out first thing tomorrow. You may join us, if you'd like, when we make our return journey to France.
"Gladly!" Rudolph laughed. He struck the table with his fist. "Let's make these heathens bleed!"
They drank to it. The next morning, Perrin and his companions set out to Constance.
Three days after Nat Miller's boys had been relieved from their posts holding the ruins of the outer wall, Nat was ready to enact his plan.
It was all based around a few simple observations. Every morning, the heathen engineers would push forward their great stone throwing machines to where they'd constructed a series of earthworks within range of Harfleur's walls. Every morning, they threw rocks at the wall relentlessly. But every night, they withdrew from the earthworks to rebuild what they'd lost.
A simple observation, really. Every boy in Harfleur knew that when the sun rose the rocks would start flying and when night fell it was over until morning.
Well there was another simple observation Nat had made. The heathen legionaries didn't like to stand by the engines when they were shooting. Because English gunners were good and loved to pick off juicy targets. The legionaries stayed back while the men at the engines worked. And the men at the engines didn't wear armor. It was too heavy for the labor they were doing.
Simple, really.
So one night, Nat got together thirty good men who he knew were competent enough for what he had in mind. Richard Glover was one of them. So was Oliver Shields. He asked Milton Lister but the old man told him to fuck off. He asked Tall Bill, and he grumbled but agreed to come along.
He hadn't told any of the nobles his plan. They were useless fucks, and he wasn't interested in getting their permission.
The thirty of them waited until the sun had fully set before starting. They crept out from Harfleur's broken wall with their skin and armor blackened with charcoal. Every possible source of noise had been silenced. Archers never wore much armor anyway, but what little they did was now padded to keep it quiet. They brought their canteens either completely full or completely empty. Talking was strictly forbidden.
Nat led his men over the no man's land between the siegeworks and Harfleur's walls. There was a light dusting of snow all around. They crept as low to the ground as they could, fearing they'd stand out in the moonlight. He knew he could get at least within spitting range of the heathens, because that was exactly what the heathens had done to them three nights ago.
No one had a longbow. They were bringing sidearms only. Nat wasn't interested in sticking around to trade arrows.
The air was cold. It always was.
They crept forward unseen.
A hundred yards from their target, Nat raised his fist and all his men went still. There were three legionaries on watch at the earthworks. Nat could see their armor glinting in the moonlight. Two of them were asleep on duty, a crime punishable by death for the English. One was awake, trying desperately to stave off sleep.
The English hadn't launched a sortie since they'd discovered there was plague in the heathen camp. It seemed the heathens had gotten lazy in that time.
Good.
Nat moved forward alone. If they all went forward, they'd be spotted in an instant. He got as low as he could and tried to make as little noise as possible.
The heathen sentry was looking at the stars, thank God. He didn't see Nat creeping ever closer.
Nat had his sword in hand. He hadn't brought his scabbard because it had a habit of rattling at important moments like this. The heathen was so close he could see his breath in the cold air.
He very carefully crawled into the ditch at the base of the earthworks. Then he started climbing up the slope leading to the top. The heathen was still stargazing..
Nat's foot suddenly slipped. Someone hadn't done their job right, and a pile of loose dirt slid into the ditch.
"Quis es?" the sentry called.
Nat had half a heartbeat to consider replying, before he decided that was a stupid idea. He'd learned in Wales that, when planning failed, aggression could make all the difference. And the sentry hadn't quite seen him yet.
He thrust his sword at the heathen's face, scrambling up the earthwork to cover the distance. His sword just nicked the heathen on the cheek.
The heathen let out a small yelp and stumbled backward onto his ass.
One of the sleeping heathens opened his eyes.
Nat charged forward and put his sword into the one who'd stumbled over. He stuck it into his collarbone, just above where the heathen's breastplate ended.
The heathen choked on his blood, unable to scream.
The other heathen was on his feet and he swung at Nat with a short sword as Nat was ripping his own sword free. But it was dark, and the heathen had just woken up. He was out of measure, and Nat was able to hurry backward. The short sword cut through air.
Nat got his own sword free. He made a cut to test the heathen which was parried on the heathen's short sword.
The heathen was used to fighting with a big shield, and it showed, even in the dark. He made a thrust that left his arm completely exposed. Nat parried with his bloodied sword then cut at the heathen's hand. It wouldn't have been possible if the heathen had had a shield. Instead, the blade severed his hand at the wrist.
The heathen tried to scream, but Nat made another cut at his neck which silenced him before it could come out.
Nat gave himself a moment to breathe. The third heathen was just stirring, his eyes still firmly shut. Nat clamped his left hand over the heathen's mouth then slit his throat.
Nat waited to see if anyone else had heard the scuffle. These earthworks were a good distance from the main heathen siege lines. The heathens' engines needed to be within range of the wall each morning after all. But the night was quiet, and he didn't know how well the sound traveled out here.
He listened carefully. His eyes scanned the distant siege lines.
Nothing.
With a sigh of relief, Nat leaned out from the earthworks and signaled for his men to come forward.
They dumped the heathen bodies into the ditch and did their best to cover the blood with dirt and snow. Then they settled into the ditch themselves, all thirty of them.
Men huddled into cloaks as they laid against the frozen earth. In the ditch, they were hidden from sight so long as no one looked directly down into it. But it was going to be a long night.
Nat had laid a few ambushes in his career as a soldier. Some of those were successful. Some weren't. But there was a golden truth to all of them: the hours before the ambush were always worse than the ambush.
It was cold as hell and dark as pitch. Every noise was an enemy coming to slit their throats. Every shiver was the sound that would give them away. Nat was wearing a good wool cloak over a gambeson with twenty layers of linen, and he still couldn't get warm. His joints ached.
Beside him, Richard Glover and Oliver Shields rubbed their hands together for warmth. To his left, Tall Bill had somehow managed to fall asleep. A little further over, the heathen bodies had begun to freeze.
The stars moved ever so slightly across the sky.
Darkness could do remarkable things to a man's confidence. For three days, Nat had hammered out his plan until he was certain it was the best he could make it. But by the time the moon had passed halfway across the sky, it all seemed insane. It was lunacy to make a sortie with only thirty men. Or perhaps it was too many men, and they'd be discovered. Maybe they'd already been discovered. Maybe he hadn't killed the sentries as quietly as he'd thought. Maybe they were preparing a counter ambush.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
The dark played tricks on his eyes as well. Sometimes he thought he saw movement in the dark only to blink and see nothing. Other times it seemed as if he was being watched.
He fiddled with his sword. It wasn't as sharp as he'd like it, and somehow it seemed certain that his laziness would result in his early death. There was a bit of rust on the pommel which he swore he would polish off later.
Then he heard a noise. Wood creaking in the morning air. And men grunting.
Nat blinked. The sun was just peaking over the horizon, and he could see more clearly now.
When had that happened?
Nat peaked his head over the earthworks for just a moment. There were at least twenty heathens coming down the path to the earthworks.
Nat's mind screamed that it was a counter ambush. They'd been found out. They needed to flee.
But none of the men wore armor. And they were pushing forward a dozen newly rebuilt siege engines.
These were catapult crews.
Nat waited, his heart pounding in his chest. The heathens dragged their machines forward. One of them called out, presumably because the sentries who were supposed to be on duty were nowhere to be found. But that didn't stop them, and they kept moving their engines.
The heathens finally got the engines into place.
Nat stood up, sword raised. "At them, boys!" he roared.
It was a massacre.
The heathens had no weapons and no armor. They had no legionaries to guard them, not even a few boys to stand watch while they worked. It was better than Nat had ever dreamed. He'd expected at least some resistance to his plan. Nat's only explanation was that the heathens had either gotten very lazy, or they were short on manpower.
Regardless, Nat's boys charged over the earthworks and began hacking apart the catapult crews. One tried to resist with a shovel. He shouted something that sounded fierce and swung it at Nat like an axe. But Nat had fought too long to die to a shovel. He retreated slightly then cut away three of the man's fingers from the shovel handle. The heathen screamed, and Nat gutted him while the other heathens tried to run.
Tall Bill and five others ran them down. Richard Glover managed to light a torch with his flint and steel. He put it to one of the engines, and the thing erupted into flames. The wood and rope was covered in pitch to waterproof it.
As Richard Glover led men to burn down the rest of the engines, Nat spotted one of the heathens on the ground. He was playing dead, surrounded by the corpses of his comrades, but the mist of his breath in the cold air gave him away.
Nat stepped on the heathen and raised his sword.
"Wait!" the heathen shouted in Norman French. "Do not! Important!"
"Where'd you learn to speak French, heathen?" Nat asked.
"Speak with peasant. Important for supply." The heathen had a gruff look about him, and he had a big gap in his front teeth which meant he probably wasn't a heathen aristocrat, if the heathens even had aristocrats.
Nat grinned. "Why're you so important that I shouldn't kill you like your friends?"
"Engineer," the gruff heathen said, "Useful to siege. No kill. Bring to king. He want speak with me."
In the distance, a bell started ringing in the heathen camp. There was some shouting.
"Ah crap," Nat muttered. He raised his voice and shouted in English, "Let's get gone before the legionaries fuck us! No one kill this one; he's coming with us!"
Men started to run for Harfleur.
In French Nat said, "Run ahead of me as fast as you can. If you slow us, I'll kill you. Understand?"
The gruff heathen nodded.
"Good. You got a name?"
"Falco."
"I'm Nat. Now move it!"
Behind them, the siege engines burned.
I believe I am close to reaching what I planned as the end of the first part of this story. I think there's maybe two more chapters until I hit that point. Obviously it won't be the end of the story, but it'll be a mark a good end point if this was say the first book in a trilogy or the first season in a show. Really it doesn't matter much to you readers; it's more of an organizational thing for my story outline. The story will, as always, go on.
Anyways, not much else to say here. Thank you for reading. If you're able, please do review. It helps motivate me to write.