Before the Dawn

Sensitive Theme: Animal Death, Sexual Innuendo, Profanity

The eve of battle invades the senses.

Stink of horse droppings, and the rank aroma of urine steams wafting off the morning or night grasses. The steeds seem to feel it somehow, they’re anxious for the charge. The crash of steel on steel.

A pungent stench of melted flesh lingered in the nostrils when some far off creature was branded.

The taste of sweet fat as what had rendered was spooned over a chop. Buttery and oily it spilled down warriors' beards and the scars of their cheeks. Ale, mead, and wine was traded with abandon, merriment was had by all. Anything to distract from the great death which awaited many of those souls on the morrow.

I could hear the tunk of hammers, some sharp, others low. Singing, some melodious, others boisterous and off key — a cacophony of notes rising above the sobbing and the retching and the shitting.

Hisses of red hot iron as it’s plunged into the cooling pools by the thick warped gloves of the blacksmiths. Swearing, grunting, and moans of rapture either authentic or faked sounded from the tents, ditches, and sigil lain pavilions. Some of the soldiers were raucous in their apprehension, drinking, yelling, and violently vomiting the party from the night before out of their systems — green of battle and green of face. Others sat cool and collected, old souls who had seen war, veterans full of grit, laced with tough sinew. I noticed one archaic man in his mail, his face shielded by an impressive mustache that curled at the ends just slightly. His head was covered with slicked, silvery hair. It was obvious he was indeed a knight from his stature, his eyes pierced into the far off woods, unblinking and blank.

On the north side of camp, a small makeshift stage with a friar made for a temporary church. God had no love for me. I felt he existed, but I had been damned in a previous life as well as this one.

At the ripe age of seven I was placed in the king’s yeoman archer training. Orphaned and alone, it was how I survived the wild. I was harshly trained. My hands, when not nocking an arrow, were sore and stubborn. Today they ached from the early morning chill. The muscles in my shoulders were large, and when I pulled my string taut the bones and muscle kissed each other. I was more king, and more god than most of the men on the yard — I could allow life, or snatch it from them in an instant. Men young and old, ranked or not, tilted their heads to men who killed with near invisible missiles, dispatching men who would otherwise kill us. All of this death before we saw their faces in earnest. A two foot long, light war-hammer swung at my waist. I was not the commander, but I was his scout. Tonight, I would be crawling to the enemy line and listening to their plans of attack.

“Might be our last night,” said John as he joined me in my morning constitutional. John was tall, at least the height of the great claymores plus another hand or so. His shoulders were broad, and he was fashioned with a thicket of coarse, brown facial hair.

“We’ve had a lot of those…” I replied, “What jesterings do you have planned tonight.”

“Henry, I need you to have faith in me.”

“Mhm.” I replied. John and I had served together on many occasions. The Holy Roman Empire had not treated us well, nor our king who was supposedly held in one of their castles. It was our force that was meant to find him and take him back. King Richard was always very proud, I am sure he was tucked away in some room, bored as sin. He was never one for just standing around. “The Lionheart is probably bloodying his knuckles on some limestone right now.”

“And here we are,” John picked up a full and frothy tankard from an ale master, “Enjoying the rewards.”

John and I had both been at Jerusalem when our bloodied and bedraggled army, scrapped our swords to the door. I hated the desert — nowhere to hide out there. It was there we saw our king prostrate and begging before God, and Saladin. Pleading the chance to return home to his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Hearing our king beg was rather disenchanting. Saladin on the other hand was indeed a king amongst men. He was gracious enough to let an invading host turn their backs on the enemy and run home, back to England. But that is not the story Richard would tell. He would make sure that his return would be extravagant and powerful, he had already made our country destitute from the money he poured into the crusade — the shame of being released back into the world like an unwanted fish in a net. The king had ordered the deaths of thousands of pilgrims and civilians; Christians, Jews, Muslims were killed by our forces. I could see their faces. I could hear their mother’s screams, and the wailing of orphans. And yet we were still shown clemency.

I had as much love for the king as I did for God.

The field turned to muck from use, and rain. Wagons cut large gashes in the earth. The grasses and hays grazed to dust by goats, sheep, horses, and the like. A light rain had set in, “Fuck.”

“What?”

“You know how I hate being wet.”

“Speaking of!” John pulled me with his arm around my shoulder into a nearby tent where a hardly clothed Teutonic woman, and a consort stolen from the Levant smiled at us.

That evening I made preparations for the long crawl. I felt naked without my bow. Just my hammer strapped to my back, and a single bladed knife sheathed on my chest. Riding my horse in a roundabout league and a half I lashed him to a tree about a mile from where the enemy was camped. Night had fallen, and I crouched for a half mile before laying down when I saw the first guards meandering around the perimeter of their camp.

I crept for hours among the slugs, and mud. Slipping through the underbrush at a snail’s pace I emerged a hundred meters from the pavilions that graced a tree shrouded meadow. I could feel the horses hooves through the earth. I listened to the soil and reveled in the vibrations of life.

Their conversations were difficult to translate. Those in the Holy Roman Empire spoke a variety of languages, these particular soldiers were speaking the language of the Franks. I knew a few of their words, enough to relay messages. “Dawn. Before the sun is up.” My eyes widened, that timeline was soon. It would take me too long to get the message back to my commander. I turned in the dirt, the moisture had thoroughly soaked through my tunic and dragged in the earth. Speeding up my crawl I paused for a moment as one guard went left and the other went right, when I saw my moment, I sped through the gap. Moving with reckless abandon, snapping twigs, upsetting the leaves and pine cones. The guards heard a squirrel dancing in the forest, but I felt I sounded like some great cow blundering its way through the brush.. When I was out of their eye lines I jumped to my feet and ran, sprinting out of the woods and along the tree line to where my horse was tied. He could see my anxiety and began hopping in excitement. We took to the hills, not bothering with the formality of obscuring my trail, I beat for the camp.

A sickening “CRUNCH” sounded.

In an instant my view went from black sky muddled with grey clouds to eating the rock and soil. My stout pony had stepped into a hole, and its ankle had snapped into a grotesque angle. Bone was sticking out through the taut skin of his leg, and he screamed in pain. My eyes watered as the fall had broken my nose, I could taste the metallic tang as blood leaked into my mouth.

“I’m sorry.” I said, as I stabbed the small knife into a soft spot on his head, and the wailing stopped.

I continued on foot. Miraculously, my nose and a bruised knee were the only victims of the tumble. I limped toward the camp — it was in sight now. “They’ll be here soon!” I yelled out into the night. The merriment of the men and sounds of their partying drowned me out. When I crowned a small hill I caught the attention of one of the guards and he sounded the alarm. The sun was rising, and all eyes turned to the north. “Where is my bow?” I cried to myself.

The forces sent to rescue the king rose, lining themselves on the kill. Bugles sounded, drums flared. Enemy helms glowed with the early morning sun.