The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 8

Simon thought it was difficult to organise a few thousand men but there was over twenty thousand men in camp it was complete chaos with everyone rushing around a lot of tents, fires and mess, it was also very noisy as a lot of the men were talking or shouting over something. There wasn’t only just noise and chaos there was smell with all these human bodies in close proximity sweating and shitting in an area. Some of the soldiers caught disease and died here but there were only a couple of these cases. Simon manly stayed with his own county men when in the camp though he did wonder round the camp a few times including the time he went and met the other squires but he had his lords needs to look after and his orders to do. Two days later the scouting cavalry came back to camp and reported in, the north army was still at Trygon and numbered around fifteen thousand men and so the king sent out orders and now they were to march to go attack them, they had a clear advantage with the numbers side but they still had to be careful as the north weren’t no pushovers but hard men and they were fighting for their home which meant they fought even harder. It took all the next day for the army to be ready to march organising all the men into order and to pack everything up but once they were they went on their way. The lord’s position was behind the vanguard which was the front of the army and he organised his men pretty quickly so they were in a good marching order. They were long hard days marching and their days started earlier usually before dawn and they had breakfast to make and then packing up the camp they’d make the night before and then by mid-morning they were marching again towards Trygon which was to the North West. They would break shortly for lunch and then carry on until late in the day and then they would stop set up camp and cook food. They did this for five days on the sixth they came to Trygon, it wasn’t nothing special a small village but what made it interesting was there was lots a fields and plains around it and the north army were camped on a small hill so they set up camp a ways from them near a river that flowed through this land.

            Simon was left in charge of setting up the lord’s tent as he was summand once again to the King’s tent for they needed to discuss battle strategy and so he did that got the tent raised easy enough as he done it so often now and then he went and helped the other men do theirs before going to the cooks fires and getting the lords meal prepared for him but as he didn’t know how long the meeting was going to be so there was no point in doing too much as it would just go cold. Instead he made himself something and sat with the other men and talked with them, a couple shared their opinions on what would happen in the next days for they knew battle would come but they said the leaders would ride out tomorrow and ask for the enemies surrender but he doubt they would do that and so they would fight and it would be a hard fight the high ground gave the rebels a small advantage but not much compared to our numbers and the generals will think of something good to defeat them but we will suffer losses for they had picked the battleground and knew this area. Simon nodded at this it sounded reasonable to guess that they would do all this but they would win whenever they did fight here they were too many but then he thought about other battles and he knew that the larger force did not always prevail over a smaller one that fought smart or had some unseen advantage from the terrain or who were in their army like the longbow men at Agincourt for Henry V.

            The lord came back from the meeting a few hours later and wanted his dinner as he said they only had drinks at the meeting and so Simon went back to the cooking fires and started cooking what he had already prepared earlier so it didn’t take him very long to get it sorted and then he took it to the tent and served it to the lord with some more ale and he ate quickly as he was very hungry. Once he was done Simon cleared it away and then went back in in case the lord had any more orders.

            “Well the battle will begin soon so you had better see that my weapons and armour are ready for the fight yours as well as we’ll need to use them” the lord said.

            “Yes sir I will make sure they are already for use” Simon replied.

            “Good knew you wouldn’t fail me” the lord said and Simon nodded and left and went and did this polishing the armour to make sure it wasn’t rusty and sharpened the sword and spear they would carry into battle. It took him a few hours to do this and by that time it was now late on into the night so he went to his sleeping place and grabbed a few hours kip. In the morning he woke tired and weary but he had to make breakfast for his lord and so he did, it was pretty easy to prepare and once it was he took it to the lord who looked well rested compared to Simon and he took the breakfast in silence, afterwards Simon cleared up again and came back.

            “The armour and weapons are all ready for battle sir” Simon said.

            “Good I shall put it on soon and you will help me with that and then get my horse ready” the lord said.

            “Yes sir” Simon replied.

            “Well it had to be Dontilious leader the opposition didn’t it” the lord said.

            “Who?” Simon asked.

            “Ah yes I forgot you don’t know him, Dontilious is a famous soldier from the north a very respected general who fought in the last far against Yalgaris, a kingdom to our east, and he won a lot of honour their and gave us a few good victories too, he’s smart and he’s tough so this won’t be an easy battle with him leading them” the lord said.

            “Ah yes that explains it I’m sure we have men just as good as him” Simon said.

            “We do but no the less it will be a hard fight I hope you are ready for it” the lord said.

            “Ready as I’ll ever be” Simon said.

            “Yes it will be your first won’t it well you will be shocked but you will do well” the lord said.

            “I’ll do my best shall I fetch your armour now?” Simon asked.

            “Yes you do that” the lord replied and Simon did and he got his lord ready for battle and then himself and the horse too and now to wait.