The sun climbed in the sky and everyone got hot. Because the crossbowmen knew they might do battle today, they were wearing heavy quilted coats and carrying iron helmets and knee guards as well as their bows and arrows. Towards noon, Mair declared that she would faint unless they stopped for a break. Caris, too, felt exhausted – they had been riding since dawn – and she knew their horses also needed rest. So, against her inclination, she was forced to stop while thousands of crossbowmen overtook them.
Caris and Mair watered their ponies in the Somme and ate some more bread. When they set off again, they found themselves marching with French knights and men-at-arms. Caris recognized Philippe’s choleric brother Charles at the head of the group. She was in the thick of the French army, but there was nothing to do but keep moving and hope for a chance to get ahead.
Soon after midday an order came down the line. The English were not west of here, as previously believed, but north; and the French king had ordered that his army should swing in that direction – not in a column, but all at the same time. The men around Caris and Mair, led by Count Charles, turned off the riverside road down a narrow path through the fields. Caris followed with a sinking heart.
A familiar voice hailed her, and Martin Chirurgien came alongside. “This is chaos,” he said grimly. “The marching order has completely broken down.”
A small group of men on fast horses appeared across the fields and hailed Count Charles. “Scouts,” said Martin, and he went forward to hear what they had to say. Caris and Mair’s ponies went too, with the natural instinct of horses to stick together.
“The English have halted,” they heard. “They’ve taken up a defensive position on a ridge near the town of Crécy.”
Martin said: “That’s Henri le Moine, an old comrade of the king of Bohemia.”
Charles was pleased by the news. “Then we shall have battle today!” he said, and the knights around him gave a ragged cheer.
Henri raised a hand in caution. “We’re suggesting that all units stop and regroup,” he said.
“Stop now?” Charles roared. “When the English are at last willing to stand and fight? Let’s get at them!”
“Our men and horses need rest,” Henri said quietly. “The king is far in the rear. Give him a chance to catch up and look at the battlefield. He can make his dispositions today for an attack tomorrow, when the men will be fresh.”
“To hell with dispositions. There are only a few thousand English. We’ll just overrun them.”
Henri made a helpless gesture. “It is not for me to command you, my lord. But I will ask your brother the king for his orders.”
“Ask him! Ask him!” said Charles, and he rode on.
Martin said to Caris: “I don’t know why my master is so intemperate.”
Caris said thoughtfully: “I suppose he has to prove that he’s brave enough to rule, even though by an accident of birth he’s not the king.”
Martin shot her a sharp look. “You’re very wise, for a mere boy.”
Caris avoided his eye, and vowed to remember her false identity. There was no hostility in Martin’s voice, but he was suspicious. As a surgeon, he would be familiar with the subtle differences in bone structure between men and women, and he might have noticed that Christophe and Michel de Longchamp were abnormal. Fortunately, he did not press the matter.
The sky began to cloud over, but the air was still warm and humid. Woodland appeared on the left, and Martin told Caris this was the Forest of Crécy. They could not be far from the English – but now Caris wondered how she was going to detach herself from the French and join the English without being killed by one side or the other.
The effect of the forest was to crowd the left flank of the marching army, so that the road on which Caris was riding became jam-packed with troops, the different divisions getting hopelessly mixed up.
Couriers came down the line with new orders from the king: the army was instructed to halt and make camp. Caris’s hopes rose: now she would have a chance to get ahead of the French army. There was an altercation between Charles and a courier, and Martin went to Charles’s side to listen. He came back looking incredulous. “Count Charles is refusing to obey the orders!” he said.
“Why?” Caris asked in dismay.
“He thinks his brother is over-cautious. He, Charles, will not be so lily-livered as to halt before such a weak enemy.”
“I thought everyone had to obey the king in battle.”
“They should. But nothing is more important to French noblemen than their code of chivalry. They would die rather than do something cowardly.”
The army marched on in defiance of its orders. “I’m glad you two are here,” Martin said. “I’m going to need your help again. Win or lose, there will be a lot of wounded men by sundown.”
Caris realized she could not escape. But somehow she no longer wanted to get away. In fact she felt a strange eagerness. If these men were mad enough to maim one another with swords and arrows, she could at least come to the aid of the wounded.
Soon the crossbowmen’s leader, Ottone Doria, came riding back through the crowd – not without difficulty, given the crush – to speak to Charles of Alençon. “Halt your men!” he shouted at the count.
Charles took offence. “How dare you give orders to me?”
“The orders come from the king! We are to halt – but my men can’t stop, because of yours pushing from behind!”
“Then let them march on.”
“We are within sight of the enemy. If we go any farther we’ll have to do battle.”
“So be it.”
“But the men have been marching all day. They’re hungry and thirsty and tired. And my crossbowmen don’t have their pavises.”
“Are they too cowardly to fight without shields?”
“Are you calling my men cowards?”
“If they won’t fight, yes.”
Ottone was quiet for a moment. Then he spoke in a low voice, and Caris could only just hear his words. “You’re a fool, Alençon. And you’ll be in hell by nightfall.” Then he turned his horse and rode away.
Caris felt water on her face, and looked up at the sky. It was beginning to rain.
49
The shower was heavy but brief and, when it cleared, Ralph looked down over the valley and saw, with a thrill of fear, that the enemy had arrived.
The English occupied a ridge that ran from south-west to north-east. At their backs, to the north-west, was a wood. In front and on both sides the hill sloped down. Their right flank looked over the town of Crécy-en-Ponthieu, which nestled in the valley of the river Maye.
The French were approaching from the south.
Ralph was on the right flank, with Earl Roland’s men, commanded by the young prince of Wales. They were drawn up in the harrow formation that had proved so effective against the Scots. To the left and right, triangular formations of archers stood, like the two teeth of a harrow. Between the teeth, set well back, were dismounted knights and men-at-arms. This was a radical innovation, and one which many knights still resisted: they liked their horses and felt vulnerable on foot. But the king was implacable: everyone on foot. In the ground in front of the knights, the men had dug pitfalls – holes in the ground a foot deep and a foot square – to trip the French horses.
On Ralph’s right, at the end of the ridge, was a novelty: three new machines called bombards, or cannons, that used explosive powder to shoot round stones. They had been dragged all the way across Normandy but so far had never been fired, and no one was sure whether they would work. Today King Edward needed to use every means at his disposal, for the enemy’s superiority was somewhere between four-to-one and seven-to-one.
On the English left flank, the earl of Northampton’s men were drawn up in the same harrow formation. Behind the front lines, a third battalion led by the king stood in reserve. Behind the king were two fall-back positions. The baggage wagons formed the first, drawn up in a circle, with non-combatants – cooks, engineers and ostlers – inside the circle with the horses. The second was the wood itself where, in the event of a rout, the remnants of the English army could flee, and the mounted French knights would find it difficult to follow.