Ten: Of the Battle of Crécy

On the field of Crécy after a brief rain, Thomas rides in the first French charge with the Comte de Givras. The English hold high ground in a funnel-like trap. Forced forward, the Genoese crossbowmen break under longbow fire, and impatient French knights trample through them to attack.

The English archers loose devastating volleys; horses panic and men fall. Thomas takes an arrow through his cheek and tongue while the Comte de Givras is mortally wounded. Cannons and continued arrows shatter the charge. Thomas and his lord attempt to withdraw, but the comte dies as waves of French assaults collapse.

As darkness falls and English and Welsh infantry finish the wounded, Thomas’s squire André rescues him on a baggage nag and carries him from the field. In Amiens, a surgeon painfully removes the arrow, stitches Thomas’s face and tongue, and sets his broken leg.

When Thomas can almost travel, André returns from Arpentel with news: the Comte d’Évreux has seized Thomas’s keep and lands, Thomas’s wife has admitted the Norman and shares his bed, and Thomas’s son is named heir under d’Évreux’s regency. Worse, the bishop of Laon has excommunicated Thomas; he will be stripped of honors in absentia.

Bereft and enraged, Thomas later goes to Normandy and sells himself to Godefroy’s brigands, vowing revenge on Chrétien, Comte d’Évreux. He spits on a cross and embraces outlawry, accepting the thefts and killings that follow—at least for a time.