Chapter 11      First Battle

 

 

 

Thomas stood up from a discussion with a German mercenary about the merits of the long pike and shield as primary weapons in battle.  The German, who, like Thomas, spoke a form of Norman French as a second language, had demonstrated how a phalanx of men could form themselves into a tight unit surrounded by shields, with the pikes sticking out of the spaces between shields, the pike ends embedded in the earth behind and tilted upwards so that their points were at chest height of a mounted knight.  Any attacking knight would push at the pike and not compete with any man but the firmness of the earth.  If the knight moved unwisely swift, he would impale himself before he knew what he was about.  Thomas had felt the point and edge of the pike head and was well convinced that it could split and separate the links of the finest mail with little effort.  He cached this knowledge away in memory.

Cyril and Robert Stoll listened to the song of a troubadour, sung in a language of the Norsemen, the meaning unknown but the melody rich with cadence and military stir.  The saga, the story of a man named Njal, seemed to move the band of red-haired soldiers immensely.  They responded to the tale with alternate expressions of tragedy, anger, intolerance, joy, and coldness.  Each listened with the rapture of a child.

Trumpets suddenly broke the scramble of sounds that accompanied camp life.  All stood, looking about for the source and reason for the call.  The king's banner waved aloft.  These were John's trumpets.  Thomas, Cyril, and Robert scrambled to their horses and rode at a trot to the edge of the tents, where they broke into a gallop, and headed toward the tents of Norbury.  Something unexpected was happening.

As they reached the tents, the knight's squires leaped forth to hold the horses.

"What is about?" shouted Thomas to his squire.

"I am not sure," answered Burke, "but I heard there is an army headed this way!  From London!"  Burke sounded very small.

Thomas stood in his saddle and scanned the thatched roofed houses, barns and dry laid stone walls of Rochester, looked beyond the banks of the river Medway toward the low hills which led the way to London.  There was no army in sight.  Thomas glanced at the sky.  Only a few hours of daylight remained.  Little time for a battle.  He noticed his breath coming in quick shallow drafts and his hands, warm the whole day through, now seemed cold and shrunken.  His squire looked up at him expectantly, and for the first time, he truly felt the first flickering weight of his spurs.  In his hands and in the hands of his comrades lay the safety of his household, his mesnie, his town, and his country.  Briefly, he felt very inadequate, a child in a surcoat, carrying a sword too large, a hauberk too heavy.  He leaned back in his saddle, glanced at Cyril in whose gaze he had once before shared a moment of knightly understanding, and found Cyril looking back, his expression blank.  Seeing Thomas, he smiled.  Thomas nodded slowly, and the warmth returned to his hands in a rush.

James Beaumont pulled his horse through the throng of gathering knights, seeking out those familiar faces with whom he would bicker in calm, to stand solid beside them in storm.  Thomas felt the change in situation and welcomed him with a hand raised but an inch, enough to signal comradeship, little enough so as not to be mistaken for friendship.  Beaumont responded in kind, his eyes shadowed with the same doubts Thomas and Cyril felt.

"There is an army approaching?" asked Beaumont.

"So I have heard, though I can see nothing.  Look!  There is Lord William."

From his tent, Lord William emerged with quick but stately bearing.  He climbed the tongue of a laden ox cart and stepped onto the baggage for greater height.  His banner rippled just a foot over his head.  He stood against the cloud scudded blue sky, a proud old man basking in the warmth of his mesnie.  Stephen stood beside him on the ground, lending support to his words, but chivalrously avoiding competition with his elder.  Thomas marked it in the younger man's favor.

"Knights of Norbury and Chipping Ashby!" shouted William against the wind.  "King John has received word of an army of three hundred knights and two hundred men afoot, mercenaries mostly, who are marching down the south bank of Medway, not more than three miles from here.  They crossed somewhere far upstream.  They are trying to buy time for Rochester, but the king will not have it!

"We will ride under his flag and intercept them before nightfall.  Gather your weapons.  Mount your horses.  Squires will ride behind the mesnies they serve.  Attend your knights from the lists; otherwise keep clear of the battlefield.  Men afoot!"

"Aye," shouted their captains.

"One in three will attend the knights.  The others will lay siege to the walls with crossbow under command from the king's tent."

"Aye!"

Lord William surveyed his mesnie as would a general, almost paternally, but stern, expecting obedience.  His gaze fell briefly on Thomas.  Thomas raised his head slightly, and let the tension in his features relax.  The lord took this as a signal that his concern had been registered and resumed his survey of the troops.

Lord William then asked, "Is everyone clear in his duty?"

"Aye!" shouted the knights, squires and men afoot in rough unison.

"Very well.  Fight hard and watch yourselves!  Let us to it!"

Saying no more, William vaulted to the ground, laid a fatherly hand on the shoulder of his eldest nephew, then climbed into his saddle.  The banneret rode to a position behind him, parallel to William's eldest nephew.  Stephen rode to William's left.  Prodding his horse, William transitioned to a fast walk and pulled his destrier toward the king's tent, his mesnie falling into ranks behind.  The banneret's men formed behind the senior knight, the other knights finding place easily.  Thomas and Cyril rode beside one another, Beaumont and Robert Stoll side by side behind.  They all strained, but could not catch sight of William the Marshal.  Considering his age, it would be a wonder if he came, though tales of his plunging headlong into the enemy at age sixty still took mention around winter hearths.

The knights moved swiftly down the road, joining other knights who formed up in front or behind them as timing allowed.  The king met them at the crossroad, his banneret and marshal beside him, and personally headed the column in the direction of Gravesend, a small town across a finger of land bounded by the Medway, northwest of Rochester.  The king moved with intent, so the enemy position must be accurately known.  The men afoot trotted, doglike, in formations behind, their own commanders keeping up with John's impatient pace as well as they could.

Thomas glance briefly behind and confirmed that Rochester wall remained upright.  It seemed about two thirds of John's sergeants pursued the siege, but the knights were with them.

There was no time for reflection.  As they traveled, the king's marshal rode back to each mesnie, giving instructions.  The combined Norbury and Chipping Ashby mesnies were to take the left flank, while the king's mercenaries took center and right flank to the river.  The right flank troops were to prevent the enemy army from slipping through at the river, and the  knights had the job of keeping the main force of the opposing knights directed toward the king's men.  The king, the marshal reported lastly, wanted deaths, not captures.  There were to be no ransoms from this engagement, though any armor captured was personal bounty.

No ransoms.  That was the prize Thomas had most sought.  He had, many times, imagined himself leading the splendid mount of a renowned knight from the battlefield in triumph, to be toasted by his enemy for his prowess, and turning the wretch over to his family for a hauberk's weight in silver.  He would keep the horse and armor, of course.  But with this royal directive went such dreams.  Remembering John's spittle covered lips, he did not wish to try the king's forbearance.  Well, he thought, tightened by anticipation, there would be glory in battle.  At least that!  And before an assemblage which could make a difference to a knight.

Only the smallest part of him, a part deep inside, buried alongside memories of disturbing dreams, felt the slightest tinge of doubt, realization that it was possible for such martial conflict to result, not in glory but in death.  He could barely imagine himself one of the emaciated cripples of former wars who pulled themselves around the streets of every town he had ever been in, begging some ignominious work to put bread in their mouths.  Not he!  No, he felt beguiled by victories to come, not by defeats.  He took a deep breath, concentrated on the horizon over the heads of the knights in front of him, and banished thought from his mind.

The sun edged toward the horizon, sliding amber light beneath the clouds until their undersides glowed like hearth coals.  The wind eased and the clouds paused, feathered their edges like rose bellied plummets settling in for the night.  The blue between the clouds darkened.  The sky no longer seemed limitless.  It had a ceiling.  Thomas yawned to clear his ears.  They popped and suddenly the sounds of the world came rushing in with renewed clarity.

Still they trotted, pausing from time to time for the men afoot, then moving on.  There was a shout from the front.  Thomas and Cyril, like the other knights, strained neck, ear and eye for some sign of what was seen at the head of the column.  A rider was coming at a gallop.

"Spread to your points!  Spread to your points!" shouted the rider without pause.  He galloped to the rear, still yelling, his voice fading.

The new knights looked at each other, uncertain where to go.

Lord William suddenly appeared to the left of the ranks.  Stephen and the banneret stood beside him.  The banner was held high, waving frantically to and fro.  The mesnie turned their horses until William and Stephen were enclosed by a circle of knights.

"To the left, spread and await the men afoot!" commanded Lord William.  "The rebels are riding towards us.  They will attempt to shock our lines with mounted knights.  Do not let this happen!  Wait for the men afoot, but if the rebels reach within twenty rods of our position, charge into them en masse.  This will be bloody.  Keep yourselves well.  To helm!  To form!" and he pulled his horse about and dove through the knights to mark their assigned position.

Thomas looked back.  The men afoot were still a half mile back.  Where were the rebels?

Thomas peered anxiously into the fields, past hedge rows and stone fences.  What would he do if he saw a knight?  What would a line of knights look like bearing down on you?  Listen!  That sound.  Heavy, earth tremoring.  A movement!  He turned to nudge Cyril when he caught sight of a dappled line of browns, blacks, reds, blues, and greens.  Knights ahorse!  Horses, surcoats, helms and shields.  Mounted knights.  Hundreds of them.  Steel glistened and sparkled.  Hauberks shimmered.  There was a terrifying amount of detail to see in the advancing line of knights and horses.  The ground seemed covered with movement, a string of multi-hued banners, a plague of locusts.  They were at fast walk.

"God's Holy Bonnet," muttered Beaumont.

Thomas looked down the line toward the banneret.  Some of the knights crossed themselves and said brief prayers.  Many checked the tightness of helm straps or gauntlets, or seated themselves firmly in saddles they had settled into many times before.  Hands reached for shields and lances.

Thomas looked down.  There stood Burke, his squire, holding his lance and shield ready, just as he had been trained to do.  Burke offered the shield.  Thomas fitted the kite shaped, reinforced wood panel to his arm, sliding his left forearm through a fixed leather loop and grasping the hand grip firmly.  He clenched his fist.  The length of his arm fitted tightly against the leather and tow padding.  It was solid.

Burke crossed to the other side of the horse.  Thomas followed the movement.  Their eyes met and Burke nodded trustingly, offering the lance.  Thomas nodded back and took the shaft in his mail gauntleted hand.  He knew all Burke could see behind the hauberk and nasal of his helm were his eyes.  Apparently the uncertainty he felt found no window there from which to peer out, for Burke seemed put at ease by the glance.  His squire turned and trotted back to the lists, the flagged sanctuary where squires stood in supposed safety during battle, ready to re-arm or otherwise attend their knights.  The flags marking the lists looked frightfully insubstantial.

The dull tremor of nearly three hundred horses grew louder.  The bare branches of trees seemed to creak in sympathy then grow silent.  Even the ravens and rooks ceased their bickering and the fields and trees grew silent of all noise save that authored by Man.  The steamy breaths of the advancing horses shot out like smoke, became clear, formidable.  He could hear the crunch of hooves on dry grass, could see the details on surcoats and shields, the polished metal on lance tips.  The horses beneath them stomped and shifted weight in response to the sounds and smells of their own kind.  Little did the poor beasts know, thought Thomas, to just what abuse they would soon be put.

The line of rebel knights approached still closer, forty rods.  In a moment, they would cross the imaginary line and the command would sound to counter charge.  The air rarefied to the point of nonexistence.

Then the spell broke.

"Hold," shouted the banneret in a deep, authoritative tone.  Many knights sighed, gladdened by a voice from their own ranks.  So, not everyone stood in awe of the rebels.  The old hands had seen this sort of thing before and had lived to tell of it.  Nevertheless, Thomas felt hollow, his stomach all astir.

Cyril turned to him.  "May God go with you, Thomas," he said solemnly.

"Fare well, Cyril.  We will toast ourselves a victory tonight."  His voice sounded surprisingly normal.

"Amen."

Beaumont, on the other side of Thomas spit out an epithet.  "Where are our damned footmen?  God's Breath.  They could find us by following the horse dung!"

Thomas laughed.  After a moment, so did Beaumont.

"They would not have anything to do anyway," said Thomas, briefly taking his eyes off the hypnotic movement of men.

"Aye."

After that, nothing more was said.  The invisible twenty rod line fell beneath the feet of advancing hooves.

A horn sounded.  Lower lances!  The clack of wood against metal rippled up and down the line as lances moved from vertical to horizontal, the after ends firmly pressed between ribs and upper arms, lying in the couched position, the position where a good knight could charge a mounted counterpart and unseat him, or impale him, without losing his horse.  Thomas felt comfortable at last.  Everything was falling into familiar patterns stitched by endless training.  Now, he felt ready.

Another horn blared.  The horses knew this signal as well as the men.  The massively muscled hindquarters of the heavy horses bunched and sprang, moving in one explosive burst from a standstill to a fast running trot.  Any knight not holding on would have been left to fight on foot.

Across the field, a different horn sounded.  The rebel horses transitioned to a running trot also.  The ground and air thundered, shook, trembled, as nearly a thousand horses converged on a space of tranquil air between them.

Thomas at first could see only a frighteningly monotonous line of men and horses approaching him, but as he drew closer to the advancing line, he noticed the rebel knights to the far right and far left blurring away.  He lost awareness of the knights to his own right and left, his focus shifting toward the horsemen directly in front.  Hooves pounded forward.  Metal scraped, leather creaked, details of sound frosting the waterfall roar of hooves.  Closer.  Closer.  The sounds melted together, a cataract, an avalanche.

Over his destrier's mane and ears, now only three knights remained in focus before him.  He began to hear sounds emanating from individual riders, and suddenly, he knew who his opponent would be.  A red haired German mercenary in a white and blue surcoat, his eyes gaping, his mouth screaming, his lance low and steady, the point disappearing in a miasma of mottled shadow.  Deadly.

Thomas suddenly heard his own voice raised in cry, and to his relief found it joyous and confident.  A rapidly closing horse length remained between the points of their lances.  Thomas aimed his point at the broad area between the German's shoulders.  Steady on.  He thrust his shield from him at a greater angle.

A shearing impact, a fleeting blur!  His arm burst outward, following the course of his deflected lance.  A gray body, the distorted face of the German, then open field.  He pulled his horse short and spun back around.  There was the German, pulling his horse in similar maneuver, the main force of the charge erupting all around them like the churning waters at the foot of a fall.  So, neither of them had fallen, neither was wounded, neither was without lance.  His shield had careened the German's point away to the rear.  The German had done likewise.

Thomas jammed his spurs into the flanks of his horse.  The horse responded with another explosive burst in the direction of the German.  They converged, moving at one another in the midst of a singing silence.  At last, he could see.  There was an odd lethargy to normal motion.  Sound exploded again!  Their lances struck.  Thomas saw the point of his lance pass between the German's shield and his body, felt the impact of the German's lance on his own shield.  Hard!  A crack of wood.  He clung hard to the reins as tawny grass swept up at him.  He had been nearly unhorsed!  He struggled to regain his seat, saw the tip of the German's lance piercing his shield, a shattered foot of wood on the other side.  His lance was gone.  He had dropped it to remain in saddle.

Pulling himself upright, he felt for his axe.  Where was the German?  Upon him already?  A cold spasm flashed down his spine and out.  No!  There he was.  What was he doing?  His opponent's shield arm hung at a strange angle beside him.  His arm was broken, to be sure.  Yet, the German had a raised axe in his good hand. 

The German spurred his horse and fell upon Thomas in a heartbeat, seemingly unconscious of his wounded left arm.

The axe slammed into Thomas's raised shield, driving his arm low.  Over the top edge of the shield, Thomas saw the German.  His eyes had nothing to say, nothing of reason, nothing human.  They were eyes insane.

Thomas swung his axe and saw it parried by the axe head of the German's weapon.  An impact of metal on metal.  The German swung again before Thomas could strike.  In a horrific moment, Thomas saw the German's axe cut through the top of his shield, the force driving the top of the shield back towards his chest.  The German's blade continued its motion toward the mail of his shoulder, slicing through and arcing away.

Thomas spurred his horse.  At first, his shoulder felt nothing, and he thought he had escaped with but some links of mail cleaved in two.  Then the burn of torn flesh told him the German had aimed true.  He moved his shield arm.  It responded as it should.  The wound could not be too bad.

Thomas pulled his horse around once again and charged the German's bad side.  The mercenary swung with his axe, but awkwardly, across his body.  The blow had no weight and Thomas's shield held easily.  But of the German, his defenses were gone and Thomas's axe had a full swing behind it.  The blade entered the man at the shoulder blade and caught solid bone.  The German, still twisting to avoid the blow, collapsed in a heap over his saddle, uttering a surprised "Oh," and dropped his axe.  The wound was deep.  The axe head wedged solid in the bone beneath the sundered flesh, but Thomas held to his grip.

A second passed.  The man shuddered.  The motion rearranged the shoulder blade and released the axe.  Blood welled into the open wound, which for a moment, seemed to Thomas like a dark furrow in new plowed earth.  Thomas did not strike again.  He blinked back sweat from his eyes.  In quick flashes, he thought, "What now?" and like a blow, "Watch out for yourself!"

He spurred his horse again to clear the area as swiftly as possible, then turned to see what needed to be done.  But the worst was over.  Many rebel knights had apparently turned after first shock and now thundered away in the direction from which they had come.  The field behind them, toward Gravesend, lay empty.  No men afoot.  The battle was over.

Forgetting his shoulder and the incapacitated German, Thomas galloped back to the battle line to engage another knight, if he could find one.  He scanned the line, found no one to fight, and quite suddenly, became aware of a hellish chorus of screaming.  The horses!  Many convulsed on the ground, impaled by lances, severely cleaved by axe blows, legs broken, terribly wounded.  Blood blew in clouds from the nostrils of the animals, their eyes rolling, rimmed by white, terrified, yet struggling to right themselves on limbs which would never work again.

Beneath the cries of the animals were the screams of men, the worst of the fallen little better than their mounts.  The dead and dying lay all around, the mutilated groping for lost or useless function in missing arms or broken legs.

Already, squires hurried to their knights, and surgeons, from the now arriving contingent of men afoot, kneeled at the bloody masses of men and tried to tie the parts together.  Thomas loosened his chin strap and tore off his helmet.  His hair felt suddenly cool as the accumulated sweat began evaporating in the cold air.  He looked around, adjusting to the change he saw.

But a moment before, these men and horses had been proud riders, like the armies he had sometimes seen in tapestries, invincible, sturdy, arrayed in colorful armor, atop proud horses.  What a change.  It looked as though a storm had blown through.  The beauty had gone.  This was the Hell spoken of by priests?  Why ever did they say it came after death?  Here it was before him.  He felt sick but he had nowhere to go.

His disorientation lasted but a heartbeat, then he remembered his duty.  There, before him: a surcoat he recognized.  He dismounted and knelt beside the wounded knight, a man from Stephen's mesnie, called Mendel.  Thomas did not know him well.

"I am here," he said, placing his hand against the man's shoulder.

The man rolled his head around to see the speaker and at once began a shallow, gargling sort of cough.

"Quiet yourself, Mendel," he said.  "Lie still.  You must have broken something.  I see no blood."

Mendel coughed again.  He looked in shock, frightened.  "I cannot move, Thomas!  I swear to you, I cannot move!  Not a finger!  Pull the shaft out, Thomas!  Pull it out so I can move again."

Thomas frowned.  "I see no shaft."

"There must be a shaft.  Look for it.  Pull it out!"

Just as Thomas started to answer, a voice behind him said, "Stand away, knight.  I will attend him.  I am a surgeon."  The man belonging to the voice was middle aged, capable looking, with gray hair and penetrating eyes.

"He says there is a shaft in him."

"I will attend to it.  Page!  I need two boys!"

He did not have to wait long.  Two boys, scarcely twelve years old, ran up carrying a sack of bandages and other surgical instruments.

"God," said the surgeon, then looking up at Thomas, said, "Young knight, silence these poor horses.  I cannot think and God must abhor their cries.  Silence them!"

Thomas stood from Mendel, watched him, and for the second time wondered, without words, what would become of such used men.

"Go to it!" insisted the surgeon.  "And get yourself attended to.  That shoulder needs thread."

His shoulder needed thread?  Thomas looked at it.  Several links of mail were severed and blood soaked the split quilting beneath, but the bleeding had stopped.  Yes, it felt stiff, but no blood flowed.  Though skin be split, his strength remained.  He remembered the dark split in the German's back.  How much the worse if Lord William had not seen fit to give him a new hauberk of French ringed mail?

Thomas retrieved his mace from the loop on his saddle and went to the nearest screaming horse.  The animal had a broken shoulder and wallowed around futilely trying to right itself.  The saddle had slipped back, partially hobbling the poor beast's back legs.  With considered timing, Thomas stepped into the sweep of the horse's flailing legs and delivered a sharp, bloodless blow to the horse's upper forehead.  Abruptly, all movement ceased.  There was peace on the animal's frothy face as the great body slumped to final rest.

Feeling strangely satisfied, Thomas went to the next injured horse, this one impaled by a lance, the thick shaft of wood entering the animal's chest and exiting between the ribs just behind the left front leg.  Its own body had driven the point so deep, as no man alone could have done the job.  He swung the mace, and the horse, the destrier, the pride of a knight, fate unknown, lay quiet forever.

He, a knight, had become the killer of horses.  Who better fitted for the task?  It was a kind of penance, for this day had, if nothing else, been a war upon horses.  A war upon horses and men.  "God," he thought, moving to the next horse, "what be this thing called knight?"

As he progressed up the battle line, he saw others engaged in the same dismal job.  Some horses were killed by axe or sword and hastily dragged off of knights pinned beneath.  Surgeons attended the knights while knights and squires attended the horses.  A few horses, bloodied but not permanently injured, were bandaged as carefully as their riders and led from the field by sergeants.

The battle line slowly grew quiet.  Only a few, strangely lengthened minutes had passed since the engagement.  The sun still squatted low on the horizon and the air still felt dusky, though now smelt of blood, urine, dry grass and the sour pungent tang of exposed vitals.  Steam rose from split bodies.  Yet, he was alive!  Alive and tested by battle.  That, amidst this awfulness, was something to take pride in, yet the pride would not come fully.  He began walking toward the center of the battle line, toward the road, leading his horse.  He felt very tired, loose.

There were signs that he had passed an invisible, but essential marker in his station.  For one, the banneret came riding by at a trot and saluted him as he passed.  A little later, he saw Lord William's elder nephew in the back of a cart, his right arm cradled in his left.  Lord William watched as the cart started its way back to Rochester, then turning back to his men, he spotted Thomas and waved.  The wave had more in it than it had ever had in the past, a rigidity, a muscle tone which saluted as well as extended good will.  It was the sort of wave William used to salute a knight.

Thomas waved back.

Then he saw Cyril.

Cyril lay on the ground, on his back, as if asleep.  The roar of horses, wagons, and men did not disturb him.  The rough ground and stones caused him no discomfort.  The crossbow bolt protruding from his chest offered no inconvenience.

Thomas knew death's face when he saw it, but he knelt beside his friend, removed his gauntlet, and delicately felt the side of Cyril's neck, beneath the right ear.  Cyril's heart did not beat.  It lay stilled by the shaft that pierced it.

He would never exchange fleeting looks of doubt and triumph with him again.  His friend had not made it.  Crossbow.  The pope had outlawed the machines, and no honorable knight would use one in single combat, yet some would.  Did.  The mercenaries were not honorable.

There Cyril lay.  It shocked Thomas.

He backed away a half-dozen paces, trying to figure out why this death disturbed him so.  He had known Cyril well, that was true.  He had known many people well who had died.  They had just died.  Cyril had been killed.  Maybe that was part of it.  He continued watching Cyril, his head cocked to one side in puzzlement.  He knew he was not reacting normally.  He was stunned, emotionless, reduced to black and white.

Men-at-arms and knights passed the body with scarcely a glance.  Two knights from another mesnie paused a moment to admire the workmanship of the mail and to speculate if the man's lord would let him take such a fine garment with him to the grave.  After all, they said, it had obviously seen little use and the hole from the bolt could be mended by any competent smith.

The sky brightened almost to gold as the sun paused in a glory just before setting.  Sparse, ragged leaves, attached more firmly than their fellows, rattled in the trees at the edge of the field.  Green blades of grass and herbs, tenaciously resisting winter's death touch, defiantly signaled from isolated holdouts deep in the turf.  Hidden spots of green brightened everywhere, on trees, grass, hedges and stones.  On closer inspection, however, the remaining leaves of the oaks revealed brown around the edges, grass whispered dryly, its green more a moldy powder.  Hedges mocked with decomposing piles of old bird's nests.  Stones lay cold and damp.  In this strange light, everything seemed bent on showing its secret mark of mortality.

Cyril looked in health, barring the slight shaft of the bolt, a tiny thing of seemingly little consequence.  He looked exactly as if he were asleep.  So familiar, yet....  Thomas could not complete the thought, not for lack of courage, but because he really did not know what he was trying to put together in his mind.  Cyril, in death, disturbed him.  The disturbance ran deep, deeper than he usually allowed himself to descend, but the mystery beguiled.  He had to know why Cyril's death bothered him so fundamentally.  He dropped his mace on the grass and half collapsed into a sitting position beside it.  While the other knights scoured the battlefield for their rightful spoils, he sat in death watch over Cyril, feeling alone but not lonely, summoning courage to plunge deep into himself.

There Cyril lay.  Cyril with the shaft protruding from his chest.  It was an abomination, not because of its effect, but because it was too insignificant to merit such an effect.  Abruptly, Thomas rose and went over to the body, grasped the shaft and tried to pull it out.  A little surprised to find the wood so firmly lodged, he snapped the end off and carried the feathered portion back to his seat in the grass.  He stared at the body with approval.  The offending distraction was removed.

Cyril's eyes had been closed.  That hid something and at the same time spared something.  Sightless eyes would have been more disturbing, just now.

Why?

A good question.  Thomas absently tapped the head of the mace in his left palm.  It felt cold, heavy, a blunted thing of simple purpose.  A few black hairs lay embedded in the coarse grain of the metal.  From the horses he had slain.  What of the German's blood?  He looked up to his destrier, that fine horse which had carried him into and out of the dangers of battle.  The horse had bloody spots on its flanks from the thoughtless drives of his spurs, and seeing the wounds, he felt ashamed.  An excellent horseman, a knight drawn fine in battle, would not have a horse so marked.  He looked for and found the axe.  It hung in its rightful place from his saddle.  On the axe blade, a polished crescent of steel with a simple spike on the nether end, hung from the saddle loop.  Yes, even from this distance, he could see a faint stain of red on the metal.  The cold, golden light illuminated it distinctly.

He looked at Cyril again.  Around the shaft, there was also blood.  He had not noticed it before.  A very small amount for the draining of life, yet it was not the quantity that mattered.  Not the quantity at all.