I fear long ages begin to sap my fiber! There was a time when I would have sat my war-horse in the courtyard and could have watched the red blood streaming down the gutters and listened to the shrieking as cold amid the ruin as any Viking on a hostile conquered strand. But, somehow, with this steel panoply of mine I had put on softer moods; I am degenerate by the pretty theories of what they called their chivalry.
Far be it from me to say the English army was all one pack of bloodhounds. War is ever a rough game, the country was foreign, and the adventure we were on was bold and desperate, therefore these things were done, and chiefly by the unruly regiments, and the scullion Irish who followed in our rear, led by knights of ill-repute, or none. These hung like carrion crows about our flanks and rear, and, after each fight, stole armor from dead warriors bolder hands had slain, and burned, and thieved from high and low, and butchered, like the beasts of prey they were.
On one occasion, I remember, a skirmish befell shortly after we joined the main army, and a French noble, in their charge, was unhorsed upon our front by an English archer. Now, I happened to be the only mounted man just there, and as this silver shining prize staggered to his feet, and went scampering back toward his friends with all his rich sheathing safe upon his back, his gold chains rattling on his iron bosom, and his jeweled belt sparkling as he fled, a savage old English swashbuckler, whose horse was hamstrung—Sir John Enkington they called him—fairly wrung his hands.
“After him, Sir Knight,” screamed that unchivalrous ruffian to me, “after him, in the name of hell! If thou rid’st hard he cannot get away, and run thy spear in under his gorget so as not to spoil his armor—’tis worth, at least, a hundred shillings!”
I never moved a muscle, did not even deign to look down at that cruel churl. Whereon the grizzly old boar-hound clapped his hand upon his dagger and turned on me—ah! by the light of heaven, he did.
“What! not going, you lazy braggart!” he shouted, beside himself with rage—“not going, for such a prize? Beast—scullion—coward!”
“Coward!” Had I lived more than a thousand years in a soldier-saddle to be cowarded by such a hoary whelp of butchery—such a damnable old taint on the honorable trade of arms? I spun my charger round, and with my gloved left hand seized that bully by his ragged beard, and perked him here and there; lifted him fairly off his feet; stretched his corded, knotted throttle till his breath came thick and hard; jerked and pulled and twisted him—then cast the ruffian loose, and, drawing my square iron foot from my burnished stirrup, spurned him here and there, and kicked and pommeled him, and so at last drove him howling down the hill, all forgetful for the moment of prize and pillage!
These lawless soldiers were the disgrace of our camp, they did so rant and roar if all went well and when the battle was fairly won whereto they had not entered, they were so coward and cruel among the prisoners or helpless that we would gladly have been rid of them if we could.
But, after the manner of the time, the war was open to all: behind the flower of English chivalry who rode round the Sovereign’s standard, and the gallant bill and bowmen who wore his livery and took his pay, observing the decencies of war, came hustling and crowding after us a host of rude mercenaries, a horde of ragged adventurers, who knew nothing of honor or chivalry, and had no canons but to plunder, ravish, and destroy.
They made a trade of every villainy just outside the camp, where, with scoundrel hawkers who followed behind us like lean vultures, they dealt in dead men’s goods, bought maids and matrons, and sold armor or plunder under our marshal’s very eyes.