Fitzjohn

[Axeknight]

Part five: Last stands, and last repects

Fitzjohn swore in French. The lack of sleep and food was getting to him, the sun was beating down on the back of his neck, and the army was still a day’s ride away. Damn him to the gate of hell. Damn him to the lowest level of hell. “Keep going, Copenhagen, keep going,” he mumbled, as he touched his boots on the horse’s flanks. Fitzjohn did not use spurs. He had trained the horse so that he did not need to inflict unnecessary pain. Using spurs could only be bad in the long run. Wouldn’t want to have to pay for a new charger. And Copenhagen’s too important tome to kill off prematurely. It was then that he saw the bodies on the road. Merde!

At almost the same moment, half a day’s ride away, Thomas Style swore as well. The middle son of a farmer, he could not speak French, and so he swore in English. “No bleedin’ honour in ambush. None at all, eh Rob?” The Scotsman sat next to him grunted, not opening his eyes. They were currently away from the road to rest, and had broken into a deserted house. The soldiers on duty were in the street below, guarding the makeshift crossing over the Garonne. The crossing was a hastily built pontoon thrown together shortly after the Duke’s departure. Most of the nobles were across now, but the common soldiers kept staggering back towards the river, often harassed as they went by French cavalry. So far, none of the light horsemen had attacked the spearmen guarding the crossing. But it was just a matter of time before they came back with infantry. Style half-heartedly swatted at a fly, squirming in his hot chainmail. “When do we get over the river, Rob?”
“When the rest o’ the army’s across, lad. Or when the Duke gets back, if he’s coming back.”
“The rest of the army? So are we the last across?”
“Yes, lad. That is, unless the Frenchy has his way.”
“What then?”
“We don’t ever get across, lad.”

The French cavalry had struck two hours before dawn, ransacking the poorly guarded baggage train just outside of the town. The fires could be seen for miles around, and cavalry and infantry had been sent out. On getting to the pyre where there was once a baggage train, the men had found nothing. The officers had been searching the wreckage when the mine blew. Then, when the English were virtually leaderless, the French infantry appeared. The skirmish had lasted mere minutes before the first Englishmen fled. At first a trickle, then a full-blown rout as the line crumbled. The cavalry harried the routers back into the back alleys around Toulouse. It was midday, and though scattered pockets of soldiers unable to get across were still this side of the river, the remnants of the companies send to deal with the baggage train raid were mostly across now. Ross and Style’s company of spearmen had not been sent out of the city the previous night, and having been billeted the area around the crossing two nights before, they had been chosen to guard the pontoon. Style was suffering in the baking midday heat, and walked over to the window for air. Looking out, he saw the fast approaching soldiers in their blue livery, and swore again.

It made him sick, but it had to be done. The Duke gently lifted the bodyguard’s corpse off the horse, setting it down on the ground. He reflected on the waste of it. He had hand picked his guards from the hundreds of cavalrymen under his command. As well as being the best fighters under his command, he had seen the spark of leadership in them. They would have made fine captains; perhaps some would have risen to generalship with the proper tutelage. But not now, and not in this life. He knelt and paid his respects. He stood and remounted, his face like thunder. As he began to trot, he looked back. “I will kill him! Fear not, fear not I will kill him!”