Gray knew Sir William was already dead when Bruno hit the spearwall and died in an instant. He barely had time for the regret of such a loss before he was shot upward as if launched from a trebuchet, sprung up but not cleanly; one foot was briefly caught in the stirrup and he felt his leg wrench. Then it was free and he was flying in a whirl of arms and legs, like the tumblers he had seen at a fair day once. There was a brief flicker through his helmet slit, an eyeblink vision of a boy with his mouth open.
He crashed down in a great heap, the air driven from him. He thought he had been pinned like a sheep’s eye on a crow beak, but felt himself dragged and kicked, felt his mind narrowing to a last small point of light. I am too young, he thought frantically. I have achieved nothing … he felt the savage wrenching of his neck, then light flared as his helm was torn off; blind, stunned, he blinked into a growl of shadows.
God preserve my soul …
This was chaos and Randolph flailed in the centre of it, bawling for the bodies to be cleared away, the dead spat out like gristle, for the ring to hold, for it to crab away from the dead horses. Someone flung a body at his feet and he stared down into the glassed daze of the knight, his red surcote torn, the silver lion streaked with gore.
‘Yield, my lord?’ he asked, out of politeness’ sake, and Sir Thomas Gray, his senses rushing back into the dubious blessing of a world of pain, could only nod.
A few feet away, Davey the Cooper fought the splintered length of lance from the neck of Bannock and rolled him away – helpful feet kept him going, feeding him out of the ring as it drew back. Peel o’ the Bannock, Davey thought, the hero of Linlithgow who had driven the haywain under the cullis and stopped it dropping long enough for men to spring through and take the place. It is a weeping shame to be leaving him in his own blood for the birds to peck, him who had sworn to defend his own birthplace. Him and a dozen others, he saw, torn and savaged to death by only three knights.
He examined the boy at his feet, hearing him softly moaning out of his smashed face.
‘Swef, swef,’ he soothed, though he knew the lad – Will, he thought the name was – had been sore hurt. Christ’s Bones, you could see the half-moon circle where the iron-shod hoof had caught him full in the face, the bloody furrows where the raised shoenails had gouged him.
‘Candle,’ he heard the boy mush out of his ruined mouth; somewhere, men shouted out a warning and Davey had no more time to think about it, drew his knife and slit the boy’s throat, the blood scalding on his hands.
No candle would bring light to the poor boy, he thought, wiping his fingers down the front of his tunic. Not when his eyes have been torn from his head and his face so monstered his own ma would not recognize him. Better this way …
He helped the press to roll the boy out and rose up, shouldered into a space and braced for the rest of the English to arrive.
Clifford was near weeping with frustration and had torn his helmet off, flinging it away with a bawled curse so pungent it would strip the gilding off a saint’s statue. Beaumont, horrified at what had happened, saw that the entire Battle was in disarray.
There were knights flung to the ground trying to fight their horses for control, others who had failed were streaming away in all directions on mad bolters and a good long hundred or so had compromised with their mounts and were rolling forward against the spear ring but at a steady foam-mouthed canter and all strung out.
‘Form. Form,’ Clifford roared and those remaining fought their plunging mounts into some semblance of tight knee-to-knee order – but the act of this, familiar and tantalizing, simply fanned the flames as the warhorses fought for their heads, squealing and blowing like whales.
‘Advance,’ Clifford called in desperation and, like a bolt from a springald, the relax of reins sent the whole pack raggedly forward in a fast canter. Throwing up his iron fists, Clifford gave in and followed, his own mount held in a steel grip that Beaumont could only admire, smiling and nodding his praise.
Clifford scowled back at him.
‘This is your fault, my lord,’ he said as he swept past and Beaumont, floundering for a reply, could only fume in his wake.
In the end, they could only circle the ring, kept at bay by stabbing spears, reduced to hurling their lances and maces. Beaumont cantered round once, threw his lance, thought about hurling his helmet into the sea of wet, open-mouthed scum, but considered the pointless expense and kept it.
His excellent mount, at a trot, picked a delicate step over the flung bodies, snorting at the dust and blood as Beaumont searched for Sir Thomas.
If God had been just, he thought, he would have discovered Gray alive and bloodied, been able to climb off his expensive warhorse and present it to the man and so expunge his odious obligation. But there was no sign of Gray, only the battered and bloodied remains of his horse, something that might have been Sir William Deyncourt – and, to Beaumont’s added horror, young Reginald Deyncourt as well, who had clearly decided to avenge his elder brother and paid the price for it.