‘Will they have seen us?’ Wace asked as he joined us.
‘As surely as we’ve seen them,’ Aubert replied. He pulled harder on the tiller, leaning back on his heels, using the whole of his weight to bring the prow over to steerboard: away from the ships to our left, out of the midstream and towards the southern shore. The tiller creaked with the strain, and I only hoped it did not break. If that happened, we would have little choice but to fight.
‘Take the drum,’ the shipmaster said, nodding his head towards where it lay beside his ship-chest, down near my feet.
I picked it up. It was a large instrument, heavier than it looked, and I held it in the crook of my arm, as I had seen the shipmaster himself do.
‘What do we do?’ I asked. ‘Can we turn the ship around?’
‘By the time we’ve done that, they’ll be upon us for sure,’ Aubert said.
‘So we outrun them, then?’
‘We can try.’ He glanced towards me. His face had gone pale, and I saw the uncertainty in his eyes.
‘See to the ladies,’ I said to Wace. ‘Get them hidden; make sure they’re safe.’ I couldn’t have them exposed to arrows and spears and whatever else might come our way.
Wace nodded and hurried back towards the bow platform, where Elise and Beatrice stood, eyes wide in panic. But I would have to leave them to him, for just then a horn sounded from across the water, and I noticed two of the ships on the side nearest us turning, breaking away from the pack. Their oar-blades moved in unison, and their dragon-prows rose high as they skimmed over the black waters. They were not headed directly for us, but instead were moving to cut us off at the head of the next bend. Our only choice, then, was to make it there before they did, for otherwise we would be trapped with no hope of escape.
‘Come on, you whoresons,’ I shouted to our men as I began to beat out a steady rhythm on the drum. ‘Pull!’
Beneath my feet I felt the ship surge forward, rocking from side to side as it did so. Not all the rowers were pulling in time with my beat, and the waves made by their blades were crossing over each other, interfering with the next man’s stroke.
‘With me,’ I roared, feeling myself begin to sweat. ‘Listen!’ I struck the drumskin more loudly, slightly slower at first, just to get them all pulling together, but I did not want to lose too much speed, and as soon as I thought they were all in time I began to beat faster again.
I glanced at Aubert, but his gaze was fixed on the river ahead and I could see he was concentrating on our course. The river was gently curving to the right and he was trying to take us as close as he dared to the inside of that curve, to take the shortest line possible without running aground on the mudbanks which were now visible above the surface.
But the enemy were gaining speed now as they raced us towards the headland. Their vessels were smaller than ours, with roughly twenty oars to a side, but they were clearly lighter too, for they sat high above the waterline. A few hundred paces of open water still lay between us and safety.
‘Row, if you want to live!’ I said. ‘The English will not spare you; they will not show mercy. They are wildmen, animals, the Devil’s own children. They live only to kill Frenchmen like us!’
It seemed to work, for all of a sudden I sensed a fresh determination among the oarsmen, an extra burst of pace, and I responded in kind, speeding up my beat to take advantage of their renewed vigour.
‘Yes,’ I went on, starting to fall into a rhythm of my own, ‘they will kill you, but they will kill you slowly. They will cut out your tongue so you cannot scream; they will gouge out your eyes and sever your balls; and when they have finished, they will take their pleasure from your corpses.’
The mudbanks were now less than the Wyvern’s own length away from our steerboard side, and I hoped Aubert was aware of what he was doing, for if he didn’t judge it correctly then we could quickly find ourselves stranded and open to attack.
At the bow, Wace was lifting up planks, helping the ladies as they climbed down into the hold space below the deck. Eudo and the other knights were already donning hauberks and coifs, fastening scabbards to their belts. If it came to a fight, however, I knew we must surely lose; six knights could not hold them off for long. Of course there were a good number of Aubert’s crewmen, all of whom could probably handle a spear or a knife, but they were not trained warriors.
‘Pull!’ I shouted. ‘Pull, pull, pull!’
We were nearing the head of the bend now, and I could see that it was going to be far tighter than I imagined. For as quick as we were, the enemy were quicker still, and the gap we were aiming for was steadily narrowing with every stroke, with every heartbeat. Their drumbeats rang out louder than before, and even voices could be heard, jeering at us in what sounded like the English tongue, whooping with the delight of the chase. Weapons crashed against shields, raising the battle-thunder.