Dan Davis [Davis - The Immortal Knight Chronicles Box Set 2

The messenger woke me beforedawn. It was Saturday 26th August 1346 and there would be a grand battle thatday between the kings of France and England. And, although I did not know itthat morning, by nightfall I would discover a new and terrible immortal enemyin the midst of the French army.

What was that? I asked thefigure standing over me in the dark. He had spoken before I was fully awake.

His Grace summons you, sir,one of the Kings men said, speaking softly but with some urgency.

It was dark inside the churchin the small village of Wadicourt.

Where is the King now? Iasked, rubbing my eyes.

His Grace is yet in the othervillage, sir, the messenger said. In Crecy.

I climbed to my feet andstretched the aches from my muscles. Over the decades, I had become accustomedto sleeping in my armour, when necessary. The mail hauberks from my youth hadslowly been replaced by various other forms of armour. Many of my men worecoats riveted or sewn with small plates to provide protection. Those of us whocould afford it though wore larger, close-fitted iron pieces. Sleeping in abreastplate and back plate along with armour on the front of my legs and theoutsides of my arms, and armoured feet and gauntlets, took some getting used to.After decades of campaigning experience, along with my immortal strength andendurance, I was capable of getting a fair nights sleep in it.

I left my helm with a page andstepped around the sleeping bodies on the floor of the church. It was dampoutside and colder than an August morning deserved to be but it would soon warmup once the day got going.

We traipsed across the ridgefollowing the rutted track between the two villages, walking past thousands ofEnglish men-at-arms and archers beginning to bestir themselves. Scores of campfireswere being lit along the slope. Few of us expected the battle to start any timesoon. Still, many men were eager to arm themselves immediately upon waking andthe sounds of steel plate and mail clanging filled the air, along with gruffcomplaints, coughing and the clearing of throats and the odd bark of laughter. Everyman in the army wore a steel helm of some kind and although most were darkenedwith grime or painted, still they glinted in the gloom.

I approached the village ofCrecy, walking past a windmill at the top of the ridge, its furled sails stationaryin the dawn light as if it was some giant sentinel watching over us. In betweenthe thatched houses and kitchen gardens, soldiers and servants busied themselvesby fetching water from the stream running at the back of the village. Beyondthe village to the south was a woodland, deep in shadow. Young pages led groupsof horses to and from the stream, or brushed them down, or walked them to warmthem up. Many were led back behind the ridge to the wagon park where they wouldbe both safe and out of the way, assuming the French came at us from the way wewere expecting.

The messenger led me past theKings pavilion tent into the small church. It was stifling inside and darkdespite the candles and packed with men in armour. A priest was concluding amass and I waited by the door for it to finish.

Is that you, Richard? theKing asked as I approached. His helm, with its ring of gold around it, stoodhigher than almost all of the priests and lords surrounding him.

King Edward III of England hadgrown into a very fine man. Already wearing his harness, clad in the finest platearmour and helm, he was ready for the battle and yet appeared relaxed andcomfortable. The Kings surcoat was quartered with the red field and threegolden lions of England and the blue field and gold lilies of France. His visorwas even affixed, though he had it hinged up so that his face was exposed.

Your Grace, I said, bowing.

Come closer, sir, the Kingsaid.

The lords clustered all aroundhim were unwelcoming, begrudging the attention I was receiving. For many ofthem, it would be a day for them to shine before their enemies and peers, towin renown and solidify their already-glowing reputations as fighting lords ofEngland.

The King brought me a stepfurther away from the crowd and waved away one of his priests who made tofollow.

We will fight in threebattles, as planned, with most of the bowmen on the flanks and some in front ofthe men-at-arms. The first two battles will form a line across the ridge, twothirds of the way up, he said, speaking clearly but softly, so that his wordswould not carry. When he said battle, he was referring to our formations. A battailewas a semi-independent division and our armies were almost always divided intothe van, middle and rear guards, or battles. My battle will hold behind themain line, on the ridge in the centre, forming the reserve. You will keep yourown bowmen with you and the rest of your company at the edge of my battle onthe centre of the ridge. I would ask that you stay within earshot.

I nodded, and attempted to keepmy disappointment from my face at being held in the rear. My men would befrustrated at being so far from the action. Not least because that meantthousands of Englishmen would plunder dead Frenchmen before they could.Assuming, of course, that we won the field.

You have a specific task forme in mind, Your Grace? I asked. I had known Edward for many years and eventhough I kept my true strength and speed hidden from mortals, the King knew meas a consummate knight who could be trusted with any task. It would not be thefirst time he had given me special instructions for swinging a battle in ourfavour.

The King lowered his voicefurther and turned his back on the great lords waiting on him. The Princefights in the van on the right, by this village. You will have noted how theslope on that flank is gentler, easier. Our enemies will press him hard.Perhaps, if events necessitate it, you might consider providing him with just alittle support?

I understand, Your Grace.

He pursed his lips, cleared histhroat and punched his fist into my breastplate. I know, Richard.

When he turned back to thegreat lords of his kingdom, our conference was over and I had been dismissed.Pushing through the priests and lords who ignored me or scowled at me, I wentback to prepare my men.

I was posing as a mortal, asalways, and as a somewhat impoverished knight at that. Edward had favoured meever since I helped him to take control of his crown from the traitor Mortimersixteen years earlier.

Yet, I was a man with an inventedlineage, pretending that I was the latest in a line of minor knights who hadfought for Henry III and Edward I. The lords considered my pedigree to benon-existent. And the great men of the realm disliked my closeness with Edward,from the days of his youth through to that morning in France when he was in hisprime at the age of thirty-four.

More than their needless pettyjealousies, though, I was beginning to run into the problem that I alwaysencountered.

The fact that I had apparentlynot aged in the sixteen years since I came to prominence was now oftencommented on, and the young men who had laughed and joked with me over winewhen we were twenty years old were now beginning to go grey and bald and fat.

Eva, who had once been mywife, had told me that I unnerved many men just with my presence. She suspectedthat they sensed there was something different about me, something wrong.Something dangerous. For young men, that is all very well. Exciting, even. Butold men grow suspicious and bitter and so it would soon be time for me to moveon. To remove myself from England and the English for twenty or thirty years sothat most of the men who knew me would die. Then I would return and perhapsonce more claim to be the son of the man I had pretended to be.