Chapter 300: Settling the Army
Erik paused, "One volley, just one single volley, and those massive doors exploded into dust. The knights guarding the gate were thrown backward."
As the massive army continued to march through the city square, Bjorn turned his attention away from the ruined gates and looked at the local people of Calais.
Many of the Frankish civilians were huddled inside their homes, peeking through cracked wooden shutters with wide eyes. Mothers held their children tightly to their chests, clearly expecting the Northern soldiers to start burning houses and stealing gold.
But as Bjorn looked closer, he saw something else. He saw the beautiful resilience of ordinary people.
Down an alleyway, a local baker was sweeping broken glass off his front porch, muttering to himself before turning back to tend to his warm ovens.
The sweet smell of fresh bread mixed with the scent of ocean salt. Near the central well, a burly Frankish blacksmith was hammering a red-hot horseshoe on an anvil, completely ignoring the thousands of foreign soldiers marching past his shop.
These people were already working. They had looked at the shattered gates, realized the reality of their new rulers, and decided that life simply had to go on.
Bjorn watched a small Frankish boy, no older than seven, step out into the street. The boy stared up at Bjorn’s face with wide eyes.
Bjorn offered the boy a smile and tossed him a shiny silver coin from his pouch.
"Halvar!" Bjorn suddenly shouted.
"Yes, Commander!" Halvar replied, running up to Bjorn’s side.
"We hold this city now," Bjorn ordered. "Organize the men into four separate camps around the city walls. Set up strict patrol shifts. I want the men fed, watered, and resting immediately. They have been on ships for days. Let them sleep, but make sure every single musket is loaded and kept bone dry."
"Understood, Commander! I will set the rotations!" Halvar shouted, quickly turning back to relay the orders down the long column of soldiers.
Within the hour, the three thousand men had melted into the defensive structures of the city.
Campfires were lit, dried fish and hard bread were passed around, and the exhaustion of the long journey finally began to fade.
With his army settled, Bjorn wiped a layer of travel dust from his forehead and turned to King Erik.
"Now," Bjorn said, "Show me these so-called holy knights."
The stone steps leading up to the southern battlements of Calais were steep, but Bjorn and Erik took them two at a time. When they reached the top of the wall, the cool evening wind hit their faces, carrying the distinct smell of roasted pork and cheap wine.
Bjorn stepped up to the edge of the wall and looked down at the grassy plains below.
Less than half a mile away, the French vanguard had set up their camp.
Bjorn could clearly see the heavily armored knights laughing, tossing meat bones into the dirt, and drinking from silver goblets. He stared at the laughing knights for a long, silent moment.
"Erik," Bjorn said, "We have the numbers. We have the firepower. We hold every single advantage."
"We do," Erik agreed, looking at Bjorn curiously.
"Then why are we just standing up here watching them drink wine?" Bjorn asked, turning his body toward the city gates.
"Why not mount our horses, open those gates, march right out there into the town fields, and crush them into the dirt before the sun goes down?"
"Because, my impatient friend," Erik smiled, turning his eyes back toward the southern horizon, "If we ride out there and crush the vanguard now, the main Frankish army might get scared and turn back."
Erik patted the solid stone of the wall.
"Ragnar’s orders were very clear," Erik explained, "We don’t just want to defeat a few knights. We want the entire Christian world to watch their greatest weapon fail. We let these fools sleep. We let them eat their roasted pig to back them up."
Bjorn looked back out over the plains, his smile growing even wider.
"Very well," Bjorn chuckled, "Let them enjoy their little party tonight."
He leaned against the stone and looked sideways at Erik.
"My friend," Bjorn said, "I have a question for you."
Erik stopped humming and turned around, "Ask away, Commander. If you want to know my secret to keeping my hair so perfectly braided during a siege, I’m afraid I cannot tell you."
Bjorn chuckled, shaking his head. "As much as I admire your hair, I am thinking about logistics. Ragnar and Leofric taught me to always look at the numbers. I brought enough dried fish and hard bread on my transport ships to feed my three thousand men for a few weeks. But you..."
Bjorn gestured to the sprawling city behind them. "You have been holding Calais for weeks with over three thousand of your own fierce warriors. A stationary army eats through storehouses like a wildfire. How is there still so much food and prosperity flowing through these streets?"
Erik’s smile grew even wider, "You think I just sat behind these walls and waited for the bread to bake itself?" Erik laughed.
"Of course not! When we first took the city, I realized the local food stores wouldn’t last forever. So, while we waited for your glorious arrival, I took a few hundred of my fastest horsemen and visited our new neighbors."
Bjorn raised an eyebrow. "You went raiding?"
"We went gathering," Erik corrected with a cheeky wink. "We swept through all the peaceful farming villages within a twenty-mile radius. We took everything, Bjorn! Carts full of golden wheat, hundreds of fat pigs, barrels of sweet wine, and enough salted beef to feed an empire. We completely stripped the countryside bare so the Frankish army wouldn’t have anything to forage when they arrived."
Bjorn nodded slowly. "And what of the villagers?"
"Oh, we brought them with us!" Erik said casually, as if he were talking about collecting stray sheep.
"We couldn’t just leave them out there to tell the Frankish scouts about our numbers. I needed strong backs to dig the defensive trenches and haul the heavy stones to reinforce the broken walls."
"How many prisoners did you take, Erik?"
"Around eight hundred!" Erik replied proudly.