So there I was behind the archers, knights on horseback (of course with their squires), and our “righteous” King and his cohorts. Scared does not begin to describe my feelings toward this battle that I did not volunteer for. I am just a mere foot soldier, an arrow cushion for the royals. We arrived a week ago today and it seems today will be the day of days. The Kings from our side and theirs are meeting in the middle of what will soon become the battlefield, or should I just call it what it will become, the resting place of most of us. I hope they work this out peacefully with some concessions. I am getting ahead of myself. When we first arrived we came ashore on boat and well let me just say there was nothing here, unless you count the forest. Well most of that went to constructing the Kings quarters. We found ourselves fighting over firewood to keep warm at night, although keeping warm almost came in second to just rest after our days. We work nonstop from dawn to dusk. It is just us “less” noble by birth that do all the manual labor, while the noble keep watch over us while they drink wine and we build battlements and quarters for the luckier. I find myself praying every night for this to be over, one way or the other, and at this point I am leaning toward the other, which would mean that I will never see any of you again. How I miss home. I know we work for a noble but at least we have a roof over our head and some grog and mead for our bellies. And it is warm at night. Well it appears that battle will not be avoided as the King and his cronies are riding back and they do not look happy. This sucks. I am not sure if my first letter has reached you or not but battle was not avoided, but I write in good health. Death was avoided thank the Almighty. Although I came very close on more than one occasion I did survive. When the first of the trumpets sounded the archers came forward, what I would not have given to trade places with one of those people. You start the fight in the rear and you end the fight in the rear. It seemed the only people safer than the archers were the King himself. Anyway our archers and their archers traded volleys. This went on for what seemed like an eternity. Death was just falling from the sky, steel rain I heard it being called. It was as though every fourth man was killed or injured from the fire storm. I wanted to look to the sky to pray but was afraid of death. I hid behind the meager defense apparatus that they are calling shields today having no armor to speak of. Being a foot soldier does not give a man any amenities in life. They work you to death before the battle then expect you to die for King and country during the battle. The next trumpet was the one I was dreading, it was the one that was for the foot soldiers to begin our march across the battlefield. These men in the red tunics have never harmed me or my family, yet here we are marching toward one another ready to kill one another, all for some land that I will never see again. I find myself thinking about what the “enemy” might be like in everyday life. We might have enjoyed hunting or fishing together. Does their life rival mine? Are they truly the evil people the nobles would lead us to believe? Anyway we started our march to what I thought was certain doom. You cannot even imagine how hard it was to take that first step. I hesitated and thought I might be trampled to death by the more “disciplined” soldiers that were behind me. Did they have a death wish, know something that I did not from the Lord himself, or just have nothing to live for? Well I would not have the opportunity to ask. Although it seemed that there was an eternity between the first and second trumpet, the third would come very closely with the previous. I could not see it but when I heard the third call I knew that death was coming and on horseback none the less. I mean we had not even met up in the middle of the battlefield yet and both sides were calling up the heavy hitters.