William dismounted from his courser and sent the lighter horse back to the baggage lines, replacing it with Aethel, knowing if it came to a hard fight, his life might depend on the stallion.
"We want twice as many men," Will muttered, exchanging his own palfrey for his chestnut destrier. "Even split as they are, the French have more soldiers. I know God is on our side, but even so we will have to deal with two of them to every one of us." He took the costrel of wine handed to him by William Longespée, removed the stopper, and drank deeply.
William studied the grooms and squires bringing destriers through the lines to their owners and looked thoughtful. "The French may have seen our approach, but they don't know how many we have." He took the costrel from his son and put it to his lips. The wine was smooth and rich, and had travelled remarkably well, given that most vintages usually turned to vinegar in less time than it took to cart them out of the vineyard.
"What are you thinking?" Longespée asked.
William handed back the wine. "We might be able to fool them into thinking our numbers are greater than they are." He wiped his mouth. "Raise the banners in the baggage camp, have every squire and groom don what spare armour there is. Make it look as if we have a strong reserve."
Longespée pouched wine in his cheeks, considered, and slowly nodded. "It could work. Certainly it'll cost nothing to try."
William had the word passed back and soon a forest of banners and spears sparkled and rippled amid the baggage lines. The Earl of Chester cantered up to William on his destrier, its coat the colour of hoar frost, mail barding jingling on the breast-band. The horse stood almost sixteen hands at the withers. Chester, being of modest stature, used every advantage he could get.
"Good strategy, Marshal," he said with a stiff nod towards the reserve "army."
"Wine, my lord?" offered Longespée.
Chester hesitated, then accepted the costrel and drank. As he swallowed, a horn blared the alarm.
"They're coming!" bellowed a knight on lookout detail, his voice high and breaking with strain. "The French are coming!"
Men scrambled to mount horses and grab weapons. Spears
rattled to attention; shields were braced on left arms. The Bishop of Winchester arrayed his crossbowmen in a long line to the right of the English troops, ready to shower arrows on the French should they charge.
A glittering array of mounted knights was emerging from the north gate, the banners of Poissey, de Quincy, and Perche fluttering at their head. William stared at them. Thomas, Count of Perche, was his kin and last time he had seen him was at the French court. Now they were facing each other across a battleground and each would do what he must.
The silence and the tension drew out as the French made no move to engage, and William held his men in abeyance. He glanced towards Chester's contingent and was reassured. The Earl might desire to strike the first blow but he had himself and his troops under control. No one was about to charge out and get picked off.
There was a stir of activity at the head of the French line and de Quincy and the Count of Perche rode forward, each accompanied by heralds bearing banners. William signalled to Chester and together they rode out with their own heralds to the middle ground between the armies. When a few yards apart, the men drew rein and faced each other. A warm summer wind rippled the horses' barding and billowed the knights' surcoats. William's hair blew about his face. Thomas of Perche was wearing an arming cap and Saher de Quincy's blunt features were framed by a mail coif. All set for battle, William thought, and aiming for intimidation. He almost smiled at the ruse.
"God's greeting, my lords," he said.
De Quincy muttered a less than gracious response into his ventail, but Perche answered courteously. "And to you, Marshal, and my lord of Chester. This is a sad day when I find myself facing kin in battle, especially a battle that can be avoided."
"Indeed so, my lord," William replied. He was aware of de
Quincy eyeing up the royalist troops, gauging strength, numbers, and morale. William was tempted to glance over his shoulder and see if the baggage wains looked sufficiently convincing, but held his gaze steady on his cousin.
"You know you cannot win this battle," Perche said.
"You are wrong," Chester retorted scornfully. "You have been excommunicated by the Papal Legate and stand in peril for your souls. How many of your men want to go to hell today?"
The Count flushed and anger sparked in de Quincy's eyes.
"The castle is held against you," William said on a more diplomatic note. "If you surrender to us now, we will deal leniently with all."
De Quincy laughed. "By Christ, Marshal, has old age withered the single wit you have left? You must have pushed your horses to get here but ours are as fresh as the dew."
"Do you want to take that risk?" William asked impassively.
Perche waved his hand. "You cannot win, my lord. If we choose not to fight in the open, all we have to do is retreat behind our walls and wait for Prince Louis to bring up reinforcements. Sit out here and besiege us for as long as you dare; it won't do you any good."
"If I am not master of Lincoln town by nightfall, then may God abandon me," William retorted. "I give you one last chance to surrender."
Thomas of Perche smiled. "You know I have to decline and in my stead offer the same to you."
"Ach, this is a waste of time," growled de Quincy, turning his horse around.
William and his second cousin looked at each other, then briefly clasped hands. "As God decides," Perche said. He held out his hand to Chester too, who accepted it briefly, gripped, and withdrew.
Perche cantered after de Quincy and William and Chester returned to their lines where William's captains were waiting.
"They won't fight on the plain," William said to the gathered men. "They'll depend on the city walls to keep them safe."
"How do you know?" demanded the mercenary captain Faulkes de Breauté.
"Because they were both counting our men and noticing our 'reserve,'" William replied. "They won't charge with the numbers so equal because for all their talk there is no assurance of victory."
"And if they retreat behind the walls? We don't have the grace of time to set up siege machines. Louis will be upon us within a couple of days."
"No," said Peter des Roches, joining the discussion. In place of his gilded mitre, he wore an iron cap and the mail and surcoat of a knight. "There's an entrance to the west of the castle that's been blocked up since the trouble began and never properly sealed. If we can draw the French away by feints and ruses, we may be able to break into the town at that point and unite with the castle garrison."
William eyed des Roches keenly. "Just how good is your information, my lord bishop?"
"Good enough." Des Roches's breathing had quickened. "Let me take one of my knights and reconnoitre. There's another gate further along at the corner of the castle. If I make contact with those within and tell them what we intend, they can give us archery cover."
"Go then," William said with a rapid gesture. "And I'll send others out to inspect the walls for gaps we might use."
The Bishop turned swiftly to his horse. William looked round at the other commanders. "If the Bishop is right and we can break through that blocked gate, we will need to concentrate attacks at other parts of the wall to draw off the French."
"I'll take the North Gate," Chester said immediately. "It's
the main thoroughfare from that side of the city, and it wouldn't just be a ruse. I would hope to break through."
William nodded. "As you see fit." He swung to de Breauté. "You enter the castle with your men and penetrate the town through the East Gate. Put the arbalesters on the castle walls to shoot down at the besiegers. The French will be forced to split themselves between defending the North Gate and their position outside the castle. While they are doing that, I, my son, and the Earl of Salisbury will break down the West Gate—if the Bishop of Winchester is right about it being easily broachable."
De Breauté gave a warped smile. "You make it sound simple, Marshal."
"It is," William said. "It is what we must do and we have to succeed." He handed the wine to de Breauté. It was a gesture of acceptance, something that seldom came de Breauté's way. He was not born of the aristocracy, had had to fight his way up from lowly beginnings, and often that fight had been bloody, dirty, and underhand, but through it all he had remained loyal to King John. It was because of that loyalty now that William offered him a drink.
The mercenary took the costrel, gulped, and wiped his mouth. "Thank you, my lord Earl," he said, holding William's gaze as an equal before he turned to his stallion. "I'll go and ready my men."
Within the hour, the Bishop of Winchester returned from his reconnaissance with the information that the blocked-up gateway could be broken down. "It's filled with rubble and mortar," des Roches said, "but it will yield to a good battering ram or a few blows from a well-aimed trebuchet. The French have got more siege machines than Agamemnon had before the walls of Troy. One of the garrison knights managed to guide me into the castle, but stones and masonry are falling all around and there are many dead and wounded. They're in perilous straits and I fear if we don't take the town soon, the castle will fall."
"Did you speak to Lady Nicolaa?" William asked.
Des Roches nodded. "The lady is in fighting spirits, but needless to say relieved to see us. She says she will do all she can, and if the French break through, she will take up weapons herself and fight on the battlements." His expression was slightly disapproving. Whilst Lady Nicolaa's defence of the castle was laudable, there was a fine line between being doughty and acting the termagant.
William looked wry. "I do not doubt she would. She has the stoutest heart of any woman I know…saving my wife, of course."
"I doubt your wife would ever need saving, Marshal," Chester remarked without expression.
William grinned. "From herself sometimes," he said. Although the humour lightened the moment, his thoughts were not upon the jest, but the task in hand. The success of their assault on Lincoln depended on luck, timing, and their ability to stand hard. And their success or failure would decide England's sovereignty. It was like being on the siege ladder at Milli, he thought: run for the battlements and don't look down, because looking down meant taking eyes and mind off one's goal and realising how great the drop was.
The leaders mounted up, spoke to their seconds, and organised their contingents. Chester was the first to go, bringing up the siege ladders and great ram towards the North Gate, behind the protection of great circular targes fashioned from woven withies. De Breauté followed with the Bishop of Winchester, taking the detail of arbalesters and cutting towards the entrance where the castle and city wall met on the western side. William rode with de Breauté, but did not intend following him and the cross-bowmen into the castle. A crash of stone shattering on stone came from within the compound as yet another missile from a French trebuchet struck its target.
"Godspeed," William said to de Breauté, clasping his hand.
The mercenary gave him a broken-toothed grin, "In through the jaws of hell and out through the Devil's arse," he quipped. "Don't be too long about breaking through that wall. I don't want to fry my cods in the heat of battle."
The castle defenders opened the gateway to admit de Breauté and his troop. Moments later the crossbowmen appeared on the battlements and the first quarrels began spitting down on the French besiegers. Cursing and yelling the French drew back; the instant they did, de Breauté sallied into the town through the eastern gateway. Horns blew the advance, battle cries rang out, and the clash of sudden, intense fighting carried back to William and his men. For the moment the stretch of wall over the West Gate was bereft of defenders as the French raced to deal with the assaults on the north and east sides.
William signalled for the battering ram to be brought up and applied to the blocked gateway. "Hard as you can, lads!" he urged the men.
"Don't worry, my lord!" the team leader shouted back irrepressibly. "We'll swive like sailors fresh in port after three months at sea! There's no barrier we won't breach!"
The ram snout smashed against the mortared stone with a dull boom and a cloud of dust and rubble puffed around the iron head, spiked with larger slivers of stone. "Fetch my helm!" William commanded his squire as the ram withdrew and thudded again, releasing another shock of stone and cement. Cracks appeared, striating the work in the centre of the wall like jags of petrified lightning. The men took up a rhythm, shouting and pounding, their chants cheerfully obscene.
On the walls a lone French arbalester saw them and, bellowing
the alarm, shot at the soldiers on the ram. The quarrel thudded into the oak trunk, burying deep, the feathered end trembling. The arbalester stooped to load his bow for another attempt and the ram struck up against the wall. Stone shuddered and broke, mortar crumbled, and at the next blunt thrust the ram burst through and the soldiers rushed to clear cut stone and rubble from the entrance. The arbalester on the walls rose to shoot again, but was forced to duck as one of William's Welsh bowmen retaliated.
William fretted Aethel. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. A lifetime ago, he had fought the French in the streets of the Norman town of Drincourt. He had lost his horse that day and been wounded during the battle. It had been his first taste of blade-on-blade combat and the occasion when he learned that beyond the practice bouts of squirehood, beyond the play jousts on the training ground, he had a natural, deadly talent at his fingertips. Even now the surge tingled through him and the blood in his veins remembered. There was a fresh horse beneath him and he felt as if he were one and twenty again. It wouldn't matter if he died today.