Fields of Glory Page 5

  She called to the cat, but he had hidden himself away. Unbeknownst to her, it was the last time she would see him, for soon, locals would come to accuse her of witchcraft, and they would hang him, in the casually brutal way of superstitious peasants. If she had known, she would have taken him with her.

  ‘Why fire the place?’ the knight demanded.

  She looked at him and forgot the cat.

  ‘I’ll not have her belongings looted by the English,’ she said, adding silently to herself, ‘nor by the locals.’

  13 July

  Berenger rose as the first horns blared through the early morning. ‘On your feet!’ he shouted to his men, making a dishonest display of enthusiasm for leadership. In truth, he would have much preferred a cup of warm, spiced ale and another hour under his cloak.

  It was still dark, yet all around him men were stirring and grumbling, many searching for a bush or tree to piss against, while others packed belongings and adjusted their coats against the chill. Out at sea, ships waited, and more were being beached and unloaded.

  ‘Aye, there’ll be a fight before we see home again,’ Jack Fletcher said in his heavy Ousham accent, hoicking up his hosen. Berenger had known him longest, and Jack was the man he relied on to give him the mood of the men. ‘Those sailor boys have an easy time of it, eh? Buggering off back to port, guzzling the best wine and ale while we march the soles of our boots thin all the way to bloody Paris. The buggers.’

  Berenger grinned.

  ‘How do you think the men are doing?’ he asked.

  Jack shrugged. ‘Clip’s whining wors’n ever; Wisp’s worried, as usual, but he’s keeping it quiet. You know what he’s like.’

  Berenger knew all too well. Will the Wisp was lanky and clumsy and always fretting: would they win a good reward for their effort, would his bag hold for their campaign, would the rains come on and ruin his boots? In Wisp’s life there were so many things to worry about.

  ‘The others?’ he asked.

  ‘Oliver has toothache; Eliot’s upset because his harrier bitch was kicked by a packhorse and she’s limping; Matt’s on about needing a whore; Gil wants an ale; Jon is hungry; Walt didn’t sleep. It’s the usual moaning and griping, but they’re fine. It’s when they stop bleating you need to worry. That’s when they’re plotting mutiny!’

  Berenger pulled the straps tight on his pack. He wanted to ask about the boy, but there was no point. Of all the men under Berenger, Jack was the most loyal. He would protect any man from the vintaine, especially a youngster, to the utmost limit of his strength. ‘What of Geoff?’

  ‘He’s just missing his wife and boys, as usual.’

  Berenger nodded. Geoff was always sombre at the beginning of a campaign. Berenger had seen it before. His protectiveness towards Ed was just his paternal nature coming to the fore.

  Clip had relit the fire, and now the men were heating flat stones. Most men did not bother with an early meal, but Berenger insisted that, when possible, each man should have something inside them to sustain them for the day’s march. Each had mixed oats with flour and water, some with honey, to make little cakes. It was a trick they had learned from the Scots.

  However, during this campaign there was no telling where they would find supplies. Berenger decided he would keep a store. That way, if the French laid waste the farms before them on their march, they would always have some food.

  While their cakes cooked, Berenger wandered amongst the other members of his vintaine, stopping and talking to each.

  There were too few. Grandarse had been right on that. Berenger was the leader of sixteen men, where there should have been twenty, fifteen excluding Ed – he couldn’t add Ed to the complement. Not yet. Not until they’d seen how he would behave in a fight.

  Berenger saw a messenger pick his way across to Grandarse. The old man nodded and looked across at Berenger meaningfully. Picking up his hot oatcake, Berenger blew on it, saying, ‘Hurry up and eat, boys. It looks like we’ll be working for our money today.’

  Béatrice walked slowly amidst the throng that day. A solitary young woman, with dank and matted hair beneath a tatty wimple, she attracted little attention. It was how she liked it. For the first time in days she almost felt safe.

  She had left the weary men at the little chapel, where they deposited Hélène’s body for her. Since then, she had been trailing along with columns of refugees.

  Here, the rutted road was a mess of mud, human ordure and abandoned belongings. Men and women trudged along wearily, carrying their possessions on their backs, under their arms, or on small carts. She saw a man with a tottering pile of tightly-bound bales of clothing crammed into an unwieldy barrow suddenly stop as the topmost ones fell into the mud. He stood, distraught, staring at them, as though that was the ruin of his life, while the endless line of people passed by him without comment. No one could spare even a word of sympathy. Not now. Everyone was too scared: too exhausted.

  A child of perhaps eight years was darting from one adult to another, snot running from her nose, crying and calling for her mother. One bent old woman, grey of face and hair, meandered from the road and through a collection of nettles, and then slumped to the ground like one who had given up. Béatrice knew she would die there. And nobody would help.

  Béatrice herself was too weary.

  The whole world seemed on the move: everybody’s faces taut with fear, all so sunk in despair that they had no thoughts for others. Ahead, Béatrice saw a priest with his servants, striding with the careful haste of a cockerel sensing a fox in pursuit, avoiding glances to either side in case he might see someone who needed his help. Here, surely, he should have paused, prayed, offered some kind of assistance to these suffering people. It was his job, his God-given duty.

  Her experience at Hélène’s cottage had utterly destroyed her faith in the priesthood. They were hypocrites, she thought bitterly, demanding that others should help their fellow men, but then averting their own gaze from those in need. Unless they could pay, of course. Like the priest who had offered to help her – but only if she would become his whore.

  But today, the priests themselves were fearful. Peasants, burghers, even the rich were scared – and who could blame them? All were terrified of the English.

  The enemy would soon be upon them, and then the terror would start. Everyone knew what it was like to have an army arrive. The countryside would be devastated, fields and pasture would be ravaged, local stores emptied, and the people . . . well, the people would be lucky if they lived. Stories of the depredations of the English were rife, and everyone had heard tell of their behaviour in previous raids. They would ride over a wide front and slay all who stood in their path. If a town or city refused to let them in, they would have to suffer the torments of siege and starvation, and if the place fell, their reward would be wholesale slaughter: men and boys murdered, women raped by whole companies of men, their children spitted on lances for the amusement of the troops.

  So Béatrice walked unmolested among the people fleeing the rumour of invasion. Even here, in the lanes near Carentan, no one was interested in one young woman. There were too many others – maids who had fled their masters’ houses, women from the farms who had been sent away by tearful parents, those without homes who had nothing to tie them to a town – all were on the road now.

  No one hindered her, but no one aided her. She stumbled as she went, but she could survive.

  She would survive. Her thirst for vengeance would keep her alive.

  Sir John returned with Grandarse. The knight wanted to see how the vintaine was shaping up. Long ago, he had served under two commanders, and both had taught him much about handling men: the first by his utter disregard for them and their feelings, the second by his commitment to his archers and men-at-arms. Men, any men, deserved respect. The alternative was mutiny.

  ‘I give you a good day,’ he said to the men as they bickered about their fires.

  They were an interesting group, he thought. He knew th
eir leader, of course. Grandarse was a cantankerous, foul-mannered and still more foul-spoken, unrepentant old sinner. Sir John had known him for many years. Berenger, too, was someone he recognised. The man’s face was familiar, although he couldn’t immediately recall where they had met before. No matter. It would come to him.

  ‘All right, you daft churls, listen!’ Grandarse said. ‘Will, that means you too. We are to march south and west from here, and check the country for more Frenchies. Hoy! Clip, are you listening? I know your brain’s in your arse, but this could be important! We are to scout, and if we find strong forces we’re not to engage them, but come straight back. Do you understand?’

  Sir John eyed the vintaine. They knew their jobs. They must ensure that no French forces could surprise the English while the ships continued to be unloaded.

  ‘Hoy! I said: do you understand, you thieving scrotes?’

  There was a weak chorus of, ‘Yes, we heard you,’ and, ‘Aye, we did.’ Jack snorted and pulled out his sword, studying the blade. Others were similarly undemonstrative.

  Sir John took a step forward and waited until he had their attention. These were experienced professionals who had fought together for years. They were confident, if undemonstrative. They had nothing to prove. Sir John was aware he could rely on them.

  ‘I am glad you are here with us,’ he said clearly. ‘The King is determined to bring the French to battle, but to do that will be difficult. We need to fight on ground of our choosing, and not see our men frittered away in silly fights. That is why I’ve picked you, since you are the most reliable vintaine. Do you have any questions?’

  ‘Do we march soon?’ Will asked.

  Sir John gave a grin that, to Berenger, made him look like a Lyme pirate. ‘As soon as the ships are empty, the King will move. You have been on chevauchée with him before. You will all have rich pickings. Other men have made so much money from taking hostages and winning gold that they have been able to build their own manors and live like lords. You can too!’ He cleared his throat. ‘The King intends this war to bring the French to their knees and accept him as their rightful ruler. To celebrate his arrival, he has knighted his son and many other nobles. Before the end of the campaign, he will give the same honours to others who serve him faithfully, be they ever so young,’ he added, looking straight at Ed. ‘So serve your King honourably and well, all of you, and you will be richly rewarded!’

  He waved a hand, encompassing the landscape.

  ‘Look at this land! It’s so verdant and rich, even the peasants have money. Well, we’re going to ruin their lives. Our orders are to wage dampnum. You all know what that means.’

  He looked about and saw the older men nodding grimly. Newer recruits, and the boy, looked baffled.

  Berenger summed it up. ‘Dampnum means terror: we wage war through the people. Wherever we go, we’ll take their food, their money, their silver and plate. Everything else, we burn.’

  Sir John nodded approvingly. ‘Aye. It means creating such misery that the folk demand that their masters come and protect them, or they will surrender. It means that we shall make this a land of ghosts.’

  Grandarse nodded, then thundered to his men: ‘And now, you idle buggers, get your fingers out of your arses! We have work to do.’

  Béatrice was passing a little tumbledown home when she saw the huddle of old rags. It was already past noon, and at first she scarcely paid it any attention. But her gown was tattered and frayed, her shoes worn, and, struck with hope that there might be a good cloak to keep the night’s cold at bay, or shoes, she hurried over to the bundle before someone else in the struggling column could spy them.

  It was an old woman.

  The old dear lay on her back with her pale eyes staring up at the sky, and Béatrice felt the breath catch in her throat at the sight. Long white hair spread from her head all about her like a halo. She was no rich burgher’s wife, with her face lined and sunburned like that.

  Her clothing was russet and green, but at her flank the material was stained with blood. Béatrice thought she must be dead. There was no point being sentimental. She moved closer, thinking to take the cloak but, as she did so, the old woman’s eyes turned to her. Aware, but dulled.

  Béatrice swallowed. ‘Who did this?’

  ‘A fool who thought I was rich,’ the woman croaked bitterly. Her lip trembled. ‘He gained little by his treachery.’

  Béatrice moved to her side and knelt in the damp grass. A twig stuck in her knee, but she scarcely felt it as she studied the bloody cloth. There was no hissing from the wound, which she knew was fortunate, but it had bled a great deal. The cloth was sodden.

  ‘Can you rise?’

  ‘What do you think?’ the woman said, but she allowed the girl to help her to a sitting posture, the breath sobbing in her throat.

  ‘We must get you out of the roadway for the night,’ Béatrice said, looking at the hovel. There was space in there for them both to sleep in the dry.

  ‘Move me in there and I’ll die. If I am to die anyway, what is the point?’ the old woman grumbled.

  ‘At least I can stay dry while I nurse you in there.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with the young. Always thinking of their own comforts,’ the woman said tartly, but her eye held a glint of amusement that shone through her pain.

  ‘Come!’

  Struggling, Béatrice managed to get her almost to her feet, but then both fell down. The old woman was no lightweight. A second time Béatrice managed to have her rise, only to collapse once more. Before they could try a third time, a housewife hurried over to them, loudly scolding her husband for his tardiness, and took hold of the old woman’s arm while her unhappy spouse was commanded to take the other. Between them, they managed to get the woman upright and help her to the door of the cottage. Béatrice opened it and drew her inside.

  There was little left in there. A couple of smashed pots lay on the floor, and a single neckerchief beside the hearth showed how urgently the owners had packed and departed, but the fire still held some heat, and while the two helpers set the old woman down on the ground by the wall, Béatrice tended to the coals. When she turned, she was not surprised to see that the two helpers had left. Why should they wait to help someone who was neither relative nor friend?

  ‘Come, let me see your wound,’ she said as she rose.

  ‘You go. I can look after myself.’

  ‘You were going to die out there,’ Béatrice pointed out. ‘Let me see the wound. I have some skill with healing.’

  ‘You have the powers of a saint? No? Then do not bother.’

  ‘Was it a long knife?’

  She held her hands four inches apart. ‘No, just an eating knife. But it was enough. Ach! It doesn’t hurt too much. It’s just every so often it feels as though he’s stabbing me again!’

  ‘You are bleeding still. I should bind you.’

  ‘He wanted my money,’ the woman said, not listening. Her head was resting against the wall, eyes staring into the distance. She put her hand into her chemise and drew out a purse. ‘He thought it was in my pack, so he took that. All the food and some clothes, the fool. He didn’t get anything else.’

  ‘Outlaws don’t think. They rob and run while they can.’

  ‘He wasn’t an outlaw. He was my son.’

  The vintaine stopped and had a good lunch of looted bread, sweet cheese and wine, sitting on a low hill from which they could see the sea. It sparkled and gleamed like frosted silver, Berenger thought, and he felt a strange tingle in his heart, like the first thrill of lust at the sight of a beautiful woman. Some things were almost too lovely to endure. Near them was the second vintaine, led by Roger, a dark, narrow-featured man with a determination to survive and prosper. He eyed any patch of ground with a caution that in others would be considered cowardly, except Berenger knew him to be courageous, but careful.

  Roger and Berenger had not spoken since arriving on French soil, and Berenger took the opportunity to join him.<
br />
  ‘Good wine,’ he said.

  Roger had a goatskin filled with wine from a barrel at the last farm. ‘Better than the piss they serve at the Sign of the Boar in Hereford,’ he agreed with a chuckle.

  ‘How are your men?’

  Roger glanced about at his men. ‘All good, I think. While there’s vittles and the promise of women, they’re content. A fight won’t bother them.’

  ‘Mine too.’

  ‘I see you’ve taken on a youngster. He bearing up all right?’ Roger said, watching Ed.

  ‘Well enough.’

  ‘I’ve a new fellow, too. See him over there? Fustian jerkin, with the faded red hosen, and a beard that would suit your boy rather than a grown man?’

  ‘I see him.’

  The man he indicated was a shortish fellow, perhaps five-and-twenty years old, with a long nose and brown eyes, set in a lugubrious face with sallow skin. His hair was straw-coloured, which made his eyes seem startlingly piercing, and they darted about the land before them and back to the men with a swiftness that was quite birdlike.

  ‘He’s a curious one. Says he came from London, but his accent’s wrong. Calls himself Mark Tyler, or Mark of London. The boys call him “Cook” because if you give him a rabbit or lamb, he can make a feast.’

  ‘Plenty of men will call themselves “of London”, if they’ve been apprenticed there,’ Berenger said.

  ‘True enough, but apart from cooking, this one seems to have no skills. Still, he knows how to broach a barrel,’ Roger said with a rough laugh. He pulled out his knife to cut off a hunk of bread. ‘And that always makes a man welcome in the army!’

  ‘You think he’s an abjurer – an outlaw seeking pardon?’ Berenger asked more quietly. If so, it would be better that the other men did not hear. Some took a dim view of harbouring felons.

  ‘He’s probably just a runaway, but I’ll keep watch on him. A new man’s always an unknown until his first fight. Inexperience can be a risk.’