The Bow Read Online Free Page A

watch yourself,’ snapped the master
bowman. ‘Now, on my call . . .’
    The archers tensed.
    'On my mark, on my mark. . .Knee! . . .Stretch! . . .
Strike!’
    The bows sang and the arrows flew like starlings against
the lightening sky. There was another flight in the air before the
first struck. And another. The ranks of French knights staggered and
buckled, but did not give way. On they came, heads lowered, shields
raised, shouting out with anger and alarm as the bodkin shafts drove
in among them. Men were falling everywhere: some wounded, many
killed, and all trampled by the feet of the knights who were hurrying
up behind them. Banners went down, only to be snatched up, and then
moments later go down again. The trumpets blared desperately, and
even from the English lines French captains could be seen urging
their men on, helmets cast aside and shields lowered to show they
felt no fear.
    Soon, despite the losses, and despite the mud, the
battle had advanced well beyond the bark-stripped oak and was closing
to within eighty paces of the English stakes.
    'They die well!’ shouted Morgaunt Filkyn as he sent
another war arrow arching and dipping towards the mass of knights.
    'They kill better!’ replied Lewis the Hunte. ‘If we
don’t stop them soon, they’ll be in among us like scythes in a
harvest.’
    With a shudder James loosed another arrow. He knew how
dangerous the French were at close quarters. Only a few days ago, a
company of archers were caught unawares near the Somme by a French
patrol. They were all but wiped out: two hundred men. The French
commander sent the only two survivors back to the English army: the
oldest and the youngest of the company, stripped to their breeches,
and with their bow fingers cut.
    Again James loosed, bending and straightening in unison
with the rest of his comrades. The field ahead of him was strewn with
bodies, but still the French came on. How could they? Arrows sleeted
down on them in showers of black and grey, sweeping over their
melting ranks and throwing all into bloody disorder. But every time
James looked up between the constant flights, he saw huddled groups
of knights pressing forward. Soon, very soon, he would have to throw
down his bow and unsheathe the broadsword that hung at his belt.
    At his feet were the last of his own arrows. One of them
had been smashed and snapped by the rearing destrier which now lay
dead in front of him: a protecting bank of muscle and bone.
    Beside him Yevan ap Griffiths continued to loose arrow
after arrow, silent save for a grunt of satisfaction or a stifled
curse as he glanced to see a shaft to its target.
    There came a familiar clatter behind him: good! More war
arrows. Perhaps there would be time for a few last flights.
    He was now firing directly into the faces of the
oncoming knights. No longer were they simply targets, random parts of
an advancing mass. They were men. Men with their own shields, their
own devices painted on them. Men who gasped and panted as they
charged, so that their breath steamed in clouds about their visors
and helms.
    James could pick the gaps in the armour now: those
chinks and fatal, dark lines that leather straps and rivets could not
conceal. Bodkin arrows were no longer needed; war arrows from the
king’s ordnance were sufficient to find the parting of the plates,
where neck meets shoulder, and chest meets throat. It was there that
the broad-barbed arrow-heads smashed easily through mail, and
gambeson, and flesh beneath.
    A man-at arms appeared at his right hand, and another on
his left. The one on his left was Eric. He winked: ‘Here we go
again!’
    James nodded, and shot one last arrow that took a knight
from Amiens in the shoulder and spun him to the ground. Then, almost
without thinking he unstrung his bow, dropped the stave at his feet
and drew the broadsword.
    'Know how to use that thing?’ asked Eric.
    'I can swing it well enough.’ He trembled as he spoke.
    Eric grimaced and shook his head.