medieval short story

Remove all ads!

Even as an old lord, living out my dotage in my meager castle, I still remember that glorious but costly battle. It was in the year of our lord 1064 and good and kindly king Richard XVI had just died. So, as was to be expected, the ensuing succession war was long drawn out and, as all wars are, very very bloody.
I can still see it…Sir Robert the Red Knight, who was as a brother to me, and myself rode forth from our shared holdfast in northern England on a summons from our liege lord, The Earl of Trendal, who had been the kings best friend. In those days I was called Sir Beldin “The Cold” because when I fought I was calm, emotionless, and ruthless. God forgive me for an old mans embellishments, but we looked like something right out of the songs. Robert with his red enameled plate mail with black chain mail under that, armed with a wicked half moon battle-axe balanced with a heavy spike, and astride a golden brown stallion. I on the other hand was clad in silver chain mail over laid in steel plate mail, so brightly burnished that it reflected the fires of the sun a thousand fold, and a blue woolen cape cascaded in rich folds down my back. I had a steel tipped lance couched in my stirrup and my fathers two-handed great sword at my side strapped to my saddle. My helmet was in the likeness of a snarling wolf, which had scared every horse that had ever seen it except for my warhorse, which had a beautiful sheen to its black coat and white mane.
We rode for a fortnight, and when finally my companion and I came to the earl’s land we found a huge host awaiting us. The vast sea of men who had heeded my lord’s call to arms was mostly foot with a sizable number of archers.
When we reached the main keep we went directly to the earls study in the main tower. The earl of Trendal was a kind elderly man who was a close friend of my father’s. We greeted him formally and then clasped hands and shared a wine flask as he briefed us on what was going on. Evidently a puffed up pompous ass that called himself a baron had raised the opposing army. This baron had been a courtier and thought he had a right to the throne because the king had favored him, which obviously was not true. He also told us that we were to march on the morrow. We talked of other matters for some time and then took our leave of him so that we might rest ourselves for the night’s feast and festivities.
At the feast, later that evening, we sat on either side of the earl as honored guests and jested with other knights from the surrounding country. There were dancing girls, juggling fools, singing bards, and chanting scalds. It raised all our spirits and put us in good cheer.
When the feast was done Robert and I retired to the bedchambers that had been provided for our use. Our rooms were just above those of the slaves and serfs who worked in the castle. I personally felt that serfdom and slavery were abominations of humanity but I never brought up because there was nothing I could do about it.
When I awoke, early the next morning, I gave Robert a nudge with my foot, which had become a habit because I always got up before him. Then I poked my head out the door and kindly asked a passing servant if he would bring our armour and weapons. As I donned my armour I listened to the banging, clattering, shouting, and cursing of the army without as it prepared for the days march. It was a welcomed sound to my ears because my blade had not seen a good battle in close to ten years. No more than an hour later our vast host was issuing forth, rank upon rank, from the walls of Trendal. The glint of steel and the look of mixed excitement, anticipation, and fear that every man feels as he marches into battle made a glorious sight and one that I shall never forget.
Each day we made approximately five leagues and each night we made camp in the most defensible place we could find. On the mourning of the fifth day the horses of our out riders returned, singly and in pairs, riderless save one who carried a man with an arrow in his side and tidings of the enemy army that were dark beyond comparison. Before he died he told us that an army that out numbered us five to one was a few hours away and that our only advantages would be surprise and choice of battleground.
We decided to set up an ambush in a shallow valley. The pike men would conceal themselves in the woods on the far side of the valley and the archers would hide along either ridge. Robert and I were going to split the knights into two groups, each one of us commanding one, and hide on the other side of the hill on each side of the valley. When the baron’s army entered the valley the archers would open fire while Robert and I pulled a flanking maneuver with the knights under our command and break their line in the back with our lances. After that we would set to methodically grinding the enemy forces into the wall of pikes on the other side of the valley with our swords, axes, maces, and flails while the archers picked away at their internals. With a plan like that there was no way we could lose even against five to one odds. About two hours later the baron’s army drew nigh and entered the valley because it was the only path due to the dense forest and extensive bogs on either side. That’s how we’d known they would come through it because it was the only feasible path. That was it they were all in. the signal was given and the archers let loose what must have seemed a hale storm from hell to the people trying to dodge it without much success. Then we mounted up and thundered around the hill at a gallop. And slammed into their flanks with such force and momentum that our lances went through two or three men apiece. Then we set to decimating their ranks. I lopped off heads and severed bodies with methodical two-handed swings of my sword. Robert on the other hand was whooping and hollering while he split heads like melons with his axe. By this time the enemy army had started to regroup and I began to feel arrows bounce off my armour and I also saw that the opposing cavalry was forming up for a charge. They should have been no problem because almost a third of the ground troops were gone and they would soon be all but obliterated and all that would be left was an informal group jousting match. Unfortunately they charged early and rode down their own men and it took most of us by surprise.
I watched in horror as many of my friends were slaughtered. I wheeled around to find Robert and when I saw him I nearly died my self, for, he was lying on the ground with the hilt of a lance protruding from his breast and his leg twisted at a grotesque angle under his fallen horse. I dismounted, ran to him, knelt beside him, and held him in my arms. He looked up at me and made me promise to kill those sorry bastards and put a good man on the throne, and then he squeezed my hand and smiled as blood poured from his mouth and chest, and died in my arms. Then I screamed, not at anything in particular but at everything. From that moment on I was no longer “cold” or “emotionless” when I fought, for I unleashed the full passion and furry that had been created in me on the enemy knights. I must have seemed as a demon, my eyes smoldering, my throat hollering illegible war cries, and my father’s two-handed great sword seeming to fly in all directions at once.
On that day an army out numbered five to one obliterated, down to the last man an army five times its size, and on that day I had my revenge. A year later my lord The Earl of Trendal took the throne.

copy right (c) 2000 Bret Bronner

 

Great

 

Yeah very good indeed. But i can't believe you put a copyright on it! LOL! You must be American.