April 28, 1429 – The Road to Orléans
They had marched. God, how they had marched.
The mud of the Loire valley was deep, a sucking gray clay. In the history of the Hundred Years' War, armies moved like molasses. They stopped for rain. They stopped for prayer. They stopped because a Duke had a gout flare-up.
But this army moved like a landslide.
Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat.
The drums did not stop. The Pas de Charge—120 steps per minute. It was a rhythm that bypassed the brain and wired directly into the legs.
Joan rode her black charger up to the front, bringing her horse alongside Napoleon's white mare. Her face was flushed with wind and excitement. She looked back at the column of men stretching for miles—a long, grey snake moving with a terrifying, singular purpose.
"It is a miracle, Charles," Joan shouted over the wind, her eyes shining. "Look at them! They do not stop. They do not complain. They move like one body, possessed by the Spirit!"
"I have seen French armies before," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "They were scattered, loud, slow. But this... this is a Legion of Angels."
Napoleon looked at her, then he looked back at his army.
He gripped the saddle pommel so hard his leather gloves creaked. Joan didn't see the sweat running down his back—cold, sickly sweat.
Inside the grey coat, the body of Charles VII was screaming.
Every mile of the forced march felt like a hammer blow to his spine. His thighs, unused to hard riding, were raw and bleeding inside his boots. His stomach—the phantom echo of the cancer that had killed him in another life, or perhaps just the weakness of this inbred Valois lineage—churned with acid and exhaustion.
He wanted to vomit. He wanted to faint. He wanted to lie down in the mud and sleep for a week.
Shut up, Napoleon commanded his own ribs. Do not break yet.
He forced his spine straight. He forced his face into a mask of iron calm. He was driving this frail, pampered body like a stolen carriage—whipping it forward until the wheels fell off.
My will is steel, he told himself, fighting a wave of dizziness. Even if this body is glass.
He didn't see angels. He saw exhausted peasants stumbling over their own pikes. He saw mercenaries looking at their feet to keep from falling.
A miracle? Napoleon thought, a bitter smile touching his lips. No, General. It's a Crash Course.
If my Old Guard were here...
The memory hit him with a pang of physical pain. He remembered the Grognards—the men in the tall bearskin caps. Men who could march 40 kilometers a day, sleep in the snow, and wake up ready to conquer Europe.
Compared to them, this? This is a joke. A rough draft. A brittle weapon that might shatter if I swing it too hard.
But against Them?
Napoleon looked at the horizon, where the English forts waited. A cold sneer replaced the nostalgia.
Against the English, who stand still like fence posts? Who haven't changed their tactics since Edward III? For them, this rough draft is enough.
I don't need a scalpel to kill a cow. I just need a hammer.
"It is not a miracle, Joan," Napoleon said aloud, his voice flat but steady. "It is Physics."
"But they are tired," Joan said. "Should we not rest?"
"If we stop, they collapse," Napoleon said. "The rhythm is the only thing holding them up. Keep the drum beating."
He pointed his telescope forward.
"Besides... the English are sleeping. And I hate to keep a landlord waiting."
It was a brutal calculation. 60 kilometers. Two days. Through the sucking clay of the Loire.
Normally, a noble like Sire de Gamaches would ride a palfrey while his squire led his massive destrier behind him. But Napoleon had forbidden it.
"No mixed columns," the order had come down. "Horses slip in the dark. They break the rhythm. They make noise. If we want to catch Talbot sleeping, we move as Infantry."
So, the Knights of France walked.
They cursed the King. They cursed the mud. But under the hypnotic Rat-a-tat-tat of the drums, they kept the pace. The 120-step cadence forced them into a trance. They became part of the grey snake, their expensive sabatons sinking into the same filth as the peasants' sandals.
And in that shared misery, something changed. The pikemen passed water skins to the knights. The knights used their armored shoulders to push stuck wagons. The barrier of "Lord" and "Serf" dissolved in the sweat of the march.
As the sun began to set, painting the Loire River in hues of blood and gold, the army crested the heights of Olivet.
There it was. Orléans. And blocking it, the stone monster—Les Tourelles.
On the ramparts, Lord Talbot peered into the twilight.
"They are right there, my Lord," a young lieutenant urged. "They are exhausted. Look at the mud on their legs. If we sally out now, we can drive them into the river before they set up camp."
Talbot narrowed his eyes. He watched the French army on the hill.
They weren't setting up tents. They weren't collapsing in the grass.
They were standing in perfect, geometric lines. Motionless. Silent. Like statues of grey iron.
"Look at them, boy," Talbot pointed. "Do those look like men who are ready to collapse? Or do those look like men waiting for a trap?"
The lieutenant hesitated. The French formation was unnervingly precise. He didn't know it was because the men were too tired to move; he thought it was discipline.
"They marched sixty kilometers in two days," Talbot muttered, calculating. "No army moves that fast without breaking formation. Yet there they stand. Shoulder to shoulder."
Talbot concluded that this was a Bluff. Or a lure.
"If we open the gates," Talbot said coldly, "we lose our walls. We meet them in the mud, in the dark, on their terms. No."
Talbot turned his back on the French army.
"Keep the watch fires burning. Double the sentries. But we stay behind the stone. Tomorrow, when they try to cross the bridge... then we slaughter them."
Talbot smiled confidently. He thought he was choosing the prudent path.
He didn't know he had just missed the only chance to save his army. He didn't know that the man on the hill wasn't planning to cross the bridge—he was planning to erase it.
Napoleon sat on his white mare. The air smelled of wet grass and Fear.
It was a thick, sour smell. His soldiers were looking at those English forts, and seeing their own graves.
"They are too big," a young pikeman whispered. "It's Talbot."
Napoleon spurred his horse to the front. He refused to wear a helmet or a crown. He wore his dusty grey coat and the bicorne hat.
"Soldiers of France!"
His voice cut through the wind.
"I heard you whispering! I heard you talking about Agincourt! I heard you say they are invincible!"
He laughed. A harsh, barking sound.
"Invincible? Them?"
Napoleon pointed at the fortress.
"I've looked at them. And do you know what I see? I see Squatters."
"They are bad tenants! They are landlords who haven't paid their rent in a hundred years! They are sitting in your house, eating your food, drinking your wine, and telling you to sleep in the mud!"
"And what do they call you?" His voice dropped to a dangerous hiss. "They call you 'Rabble'."
A ripple of anger went through the ranks.
"But I look at you," Napoleon stood up in his stirrups. "And I don't see rabble. I see the Best People in the world!"
"I see a Band of Brothers!" Napoleon shouted. "We few, we happy few!"
The Scots cheered.
"The lease has expired, gentlemen!"
"Tomorrow, we are not going to negotiate. We are serving the Eviction Notice!"
He drew his sabre.
"We are going to kick them out! We are going to win so much, you're going to be sick of winning!"
He pointed his sword at Joan, whose armor glowed in the sunset.
"Don't fight for me! Fight for her! Fight for the Saint who believes in you!"
"Who owns France?" Napoleon bellowed.
"WE DO!" The roar was deafening.
"De l'audace! Encore de l'audace! Toujours de l'audace!"
As the cheers echoed off the hills, Napoleon rode down the line to inspect the Vanguard.
Fifty knights stood by their horses. Their squires were busy rubbing down the animals, which were fresh and energetic, having been led unburdened for the entire march.
But the knights themselves were wrecked.
Sire de Gamaches sat on a log, his squire unbuckling his mud-caked greaves. His feet were raw. He looked up as the King approached, his expression a mix of exhaustion and lingering resentment.
"Sixty kilometers," Napoleon said quietly. "You kept the pace, Raoul."
Gamaches spat on the ground.
"I have three palfreys in the baggage train, Sire," Gamaches grumbled. "I could have ridden in comfort. My feet are hamburger meat because of your 'Rhythm'."
"And if you had ridden," Napoleon countered, "you would have been six feet above your men."
Napoleon gestured to the infantry camp nearby. The pikemen were watching Gamaches with a new expression. Not fear. Not subservience. Respect.
"Tomorrow, when you charge," Napoleon leaned down, "those men will hold the line for you. Not because you are a Lord. But because you marched in the shit with them."
Gamaches looked at the soldiers. One of them, a dirty blacksmith, nodded at him shyly. Gamaches hesitated, then nodded back.
"My feet are ruined," Gamaches admitted, testing his weight.
"But your Warhorse is not," Napoleon pointed to the massive destrier, pawing the ground, eyes bright and eager.
"The English horses inside that fort have been patrolling for weeks. They are tired. Yours is fresh. It is a coiled spring."
"That was the trade, Raoul. You paid with your feet so your horse could pay with speed."
Napoleon looked at the fortress walls.
"Tomorrow, the mud won't matter. When the breach opens, you won't be walking."
"You will be Thunder."
Gamaches looked at his fresh horse, then at the tired English walls. He finally understood the tactical genius behind the torture. He had sacrificed his own comfort to turn his cavalry into a reserve of pure kinetic energy.
Gamaches wiped the mud from his sword hilt. He didn't bow. He saluted—soldier to general.
"Open the breach, Sire," Gamaches growled. "My horse is ready. And my sword is thirsty."
Napoleon turned his horse and rode to the artillery train. Jean Bureau was waiting, looking pale but steady.
"Grand Master," Napoleon said. "The Sword is sharp. Now, give me the Hammer."
"Talbot will expect a frontal assault on the bridge," Bureau said, looking at the formidable defenses. "He has massed his archers there. If we charge, we die."
"Talbot is fighting the last war," Napoleon sneered. "He thinks I will send knights to charge his stakes."
He walked over to one of the canvas-covered Gribeauval guns.
"We are not going to charge the bridge, Jean. We are going to erase it."
He looked at the moon rising over the Loire.
"Get the men some sleep. Double rations. Sausage and wine."
"And tomorrow?" Bureau asked, his hand trembling slightly on the linstock.
Napoleon looked at the English fort, his grey eyes shining with a terrifying light.
"Tomorrow, at 06:00," Napoleon checked his non-existent watch. "Fire and Fury."
"We are going to make the English regret they ever learned how to swim."