Parrying aside a thrust from the spear, he darts in close with a lunge he’d never attempt against a more experienced opponent, and jabs at the youth’s head with the rim of his shield. He sees blood burst from under the nose guard from the impact. The young man staggers back and loses his balance, dropping his poorly positioned spear in the process, and clatters into the frosty mud of the courtyard.
The old sergeant shakes his head. ‘What do they teach you lads up at the castle these days?’
He helps the youth take off the helmet, its nose guard dented back, and pulls a cloth from his satchel to press against the young man’s broken nose. The lad sways slightly from the concussion. ‘Keep that on until it stops.’
He turns to the rest of the assembled youths, all the sons of minor nobles, who regard him with wide-eyes, fearing they’ll be next to spar him.
These poor buggers. Not their fault that their swordmasters only teach them how to dance about in formal duels.
‘There’s no manners on the battlefield,’ says the sergeant. ‘There’s no orderly conduct. Just you and a lot of people trying to kill you. They will gang up on you. They will spit in your face. They will bowl you over and pin you to the ground while their mates poke daggers into the gaps in your plate. There’s no fair fight in a battle, because nothing in war is fair.’
He can see the fearful and disgruntled looks in their eyes. Seen it a hundred times before. Who is this common brute to tell them how war is conducted? All the best people in their lives have told them otherwise, so right now they think he’s just lying to them to justify his unchivalrous ways. That’s why he has to break a few noses, to show them that the soldier’s way of fighting is the most effective way of fighting. The only way.
‘First lesson,’ he says, and holds his shield aloft, ‘is that this is as much a weapon as those spears in your hands.’ He nods to the youth sat in the mud with a broken nose. ‘As he can attest.’
Paddy Dobson
28th July 2022