Blood of the Innocents Read online

  But that was not enough to justify further destruction for no reason.

  ‘If you find another man raping a woman in the town, you will have him handed over to the woman’s family for them to take their revenge according to the customs of the land,’ he said. ‘I won’t have our position here threatened by one or two men’s greed.’

  ‘You may find that the men are not satisfied with that.’

  ‘Then they can see me. They know where I am.’

  Berenger felt his back stiffen as he turned back to stare at the view again. Below him, some trees waved in the faint breeze. A cool air, filled with the scent of fish and refuse, rose from the river below, and he sniffed it like a hound tasting the odour of a hart in the wind. For a moment his memories faded and he could feel only the satisfaction of emptiness. No pain, no joy, only a calmness. He closed his eyes. At any moment he expected to hear Will draw his sword, and then he knew that he would feel that one stab and at last find the embrace of eternity. It would bring peace at last.

  He longed for that blow.

  When he heard Will turn and leave the wall, he felt desolation to be still alive.

  Thomas de Ladit was exhausted when he finally walked into Thiviers. It was a small town, with buildings of a pale, yellowish grey that seemed to glow from within when the sun struck them. It had a wall, but that would be but little defence against determined men such as those who had carried the walls at Uzerche, Thomas was sure. But for now, he did not care. All he wanted was a bed for the night and some peace.

  He found a small hostelry which offered reasonable rates for an evening, and as the curfew was rung, he lay back on a soft mattress, sharing it with a large, grunting peasant whose dialect was so harsh and obscure, Thomas found it hard to comprehend more than one word in every three. Perhaps that was partially caused by the wine he had drunk with his simple meal of pottage and bread. This being a Friday, he eschewed the offered meats with a frown of disapproval.

  For a long time he lay staring up at the ceiling. This was surely the worst year of his life. He had lost his master, he had lost his own possessions in that mad, panicked rush from Rouen, when he and two servants had run from the disaster that had overrun the rest of the King of Navarre’s household.

  The three had kept moving. At first Thomas had wanted to rush from one safe town to another in King Charles’s estates, but Bernard had persuaded him that any manors and castles that Thomas knew of, King John would also know well. They would be the places where the French officers would go first to confiscate Charles’s lands and revenues. The three would be safer if they kept to small villages and farmsteads.

  Thomas did not like Bernard. The man was uncouth and smelled. And whenever they went to a tavern or inn, he seemed to stare at the young women and children of the area with a great intensity. All in all, it was a good thing when Thomas and the two were separated some miles west of Chartres.

  It had been an unseasonably chilly evening, and the three had settled down to a doze near a fire, when a whole group of men bearing torches appeared and tried to capture them. Arnaud and Bernard had instantly awoken and fled northwards, while Thomas managed to slip away quietly into a small copse. When day broke, he took himself east, and by degrees he trudged more and more south until he ended up in Uzerche with the good Père who had taken him in and fed him until he was fit once more.

  Now he must make his way southwards and reach Navarre. There, as the Chancellor of the small kingdom at the other side of the Pyrenees, back in Pamplona, he would be safe. The French would find it difficult to break through the protective mountains.

  He stretched, feeling the tenderness in his feet turn to heat. Although he had travelled far and wide with his King, that had been mostly on horseback and over a considerable time. These last weeks had tested his poor body more than he could have imagined. It had seemed so easy at first, just slogging onwards without thinking, but since his halt at Uzerche the miles had felt harder and harder, as though he was constantly being drawn back to the north. He was just not as young as once he had been.

  With luck it wouldn’t be too much longer. He would make his way to the coast, pick up a ship and leave France. If he could, he would never return.

  Rolling over, he closed his eyes and was soon asleep.

  When Grandarse saw him later that day, Archibald was almost finished. He had already cleaned and greased the two ribauldequins, his latest pride and joy. These were three-barrelled gonnes with small calibres, set on small carriages like hand-carts. They were no good at any range, but as enemies came closer, their fire was devastating.

  He patted the barrel of his great gonne, like a master petting his hound, as Grandarse approached.

  ‘If you put on more of a paunch, you won’t be able to find a belt to encompass your girth,’ Archibald said. He pulled off his coif and rubbed his shaven head with his cloth before pulling the coif back on.

  ‘There are times when I dislike you.’

  ‘Rare enough, I trust,’ Archibald grinned.

  ‘Yes. Usually I detest you,’ Grandarse growled.

  ‘That’s good, then,’ Archibald said. He studied the centener. ‘What is it? You look like you bit into a raisin and found it was a sloe.’

  ‘You don’t have eighty-two men and only three vinteners.’

  ‘You have eighty-two men? You only need four vinteners, then. You can see to the last.’

  Grandarse snorted. ‘I’m centener, and I’m paid for five vintaines. I need a good man to bring the rabble together in the last group. I can control one, but I need another man. I wondered whether you could leave the gonnes to Ed and Béatrice, and maybe . . .’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It would only be until we could find someone else.’

  ‘You think I could control your archers? Man, I couldn’t even string one of those things. Better that you find someone who can inspire their confidence; they’re all terrified of me. They think I’m associated with the devil. My powder alarms them all, the superstitious fools!’

  ‘Who else can I ask?’ Grandarse demanded petulantly. ‘I need another man.’

  ‘Merge the men. Make four of the five and look to the fourth vintaine yourself.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘You need to find a way to do it,’ Archibald said. ‘I have enough on my plate already. That is your job.’

  Grandarse left Archibald in a dispirited mood and made his way down to the butts where the men were practising.

  ‘Well?’ he asked Hawkwood. ‘How are they doing?’

  ‘Mostly hopeless, except as a barrier between real archers and an attacking enemy. Watch!’

  Grandarse did. The men had been drawing bows for almost an hour of the sun now, and he could see that six of them were unused to such efforts. They held one arm straight and tried to pull the bow with the right. One almost hit the wicker quiver resting on the ground before him. Two seemed competent with lighter bows, but four could not hold the bow still, and Grandarse groaned to see how the arrow-heads wavered and wobbled before the command to ‘Loose!’ When the arrows flew, he winced to see how they sprang forward, some flying high over the targets, others burying themselves in the grass, while most passed between. The butts were almost all unmarked. Only a couple of archers had succeeded in hitting them.

  ‘I’m surprised at you, Robin,’ he called.

  Robin’s missiles were dotted about the butts. Not one had hit the boards where he was supposed to aim.

  ‘I told you I was no good.’

  ‘I don’t fucking believe you.’

  Robin shrugged. He leaned on his bow, unperturbed by the accusation. ‘I don’t think I give a shit what you believe.’

  Grandarse smiled. ‘Perhaps a lashing will make you care a little more? I want you to loose six more arrows at the butt, and if you don’t hit with all of them, I’ll have you flogged. Does that help with your keenness?’

  He motioned to the boy with the arrows, who scampered forward with a handful and
dropped them into the wicker quiver before Robin. The tall man gazed at Grandarse speculatively. There was a coldness in his eyes that quite surprised Grandarse. It didn’t worry him unduly – he was more than accustomed to threats, whether implicit or explicit, and he was comfortable with his ability to protect himself – but it was a surprise. Insubordination in the face of a threat of flogging was a new experience to him.

  Robin took up an arrow. He weighed it in his hand and turned away to face the butts, the bow loose in his left hand, standing relaxed.

  ‘Watch this,’ Grandarse breathed to Hawkwood.

  Robin picked up five more arrows and held them loosely between the fingers of his left hand. The sixth he nocked and then he stood quietly, the bow easy in his hand, drawing the string a mere hand’s breadth, then relaxing, allowing the string to return while never letting go; pulling and releasing the string as though testing the tension and the bow’s movement.

  Then he suddenly moved. He lifted both hands over his head like a man stretching, then brought both hands down, keeping his left arm straight, while crooking his right until the string touched his cheek, his fingers at his ear, and released; he did so again, seemingly without hesitation, the bow rising and falling, and when the arrow was in the right line, it was loosed; again, again, again.

  Grandarse puffed out his cheeks as he took in the sight of five arrows, each perfectly stabbing the bull’s-eye of each of the nearer five targets. Robin had shown off, taking the butts of the other archers near him.

  ‘Keep still, Grandarse,’ Hawkwood hissed.

  It was only then that Grandarse realised the archer was staring down the shaft of the sixth and last arrow, and it was pointing straight at his face. He felt his buttocks clench. Not from fear: he had faced enemy arrows and lances all his adult life; but there was something about the sight of the eye behind that weapon that brought home to him how fleeting was his life.

  ‘You loose that arrow and you’ll be dead before Grandarse,’ Hawkwood said. He was moving away from Grandarse, circling round. Grandarse saw that he had drawn his dagger and was already holding it by the tip, ready to hurl it.

  ‘I don’t appreciate being threatened,’ Robin said.

  ‘Get used to it. This is an army,’ Grandarse said.

  ‘I still don’t like it.’

  ‘You want to go?’

  ‘No,’ Robin said. ‘I’m here because you forced me. I didn’t want to join this army but now I’m here, I might as well make some money.’

  ‘And it’ll be good for you. You want money? Stay with me and Sir John de Sully and you’ll make enough to buy a tavern if you want. But if you point that at me any longer, you little shit, I’ll cut your head off and piss down your throat.’

  ‘I do want to make money,’ Robin said, ‘and I’ll be a good fighter. I just don’t like you threatening me.’

  He span about, making Hawkwood duck in sudden alarm, and then the arrow was flying towards the butts. It didn’t split the arrow already resting there, but from where Grandarse was standing it was a close thing. Robin stared at the target for a moment, then patted the bow stave as though congratulating it. When he walked away, still gripping the bow, no one contested his passage.

  Hawkwood puffed out his lips in a silent whistle, and he heard Grandarse’s quiet ‘God’s fucking ballocks’, but for once didn’t feel the urge to comment.

  Gaillarde wept. She often wept. There was little else for her. Her anger and bitterness kept her alive. Her womb was as shrivelled as an ancient prune, and all the love she had in her was long gone.

  Sometimes she thought she ought to leave her husband and join a convent. There was the little sisterhood over to the north. Since the pestilence that community had been keen to recruit ever more women, and age was no barrier. For nuns, an older novice was attractive. She would be less likely to be afflicted with the natural urges of others. A young girl could be tempted at all hours, but a woman who had conceived and given birth already was more stable and reliable, less prone to silly infatuations.

  But she didn’t want to go. She just wanted her husband to confess and go to the priest for absolution. If only he could see the harm he was doing.

  ‘Mistress?’

  That little slut with the wayward eye, Suzette, could infuse even the most innocent-seeming question with a depth of contempt. She treated Gaillarde with cold scorn whenever she could. It was clear that Denisot had taken to her bed rather than sleep with Gaillarde. Consorting with the housemaid! It was shameful in any man, but in a bayle, a man who should be beyond reproach, it was a disgrace. He brought shame to them all.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you want me to press the bedclothes?’

  Gaillarde wanted to slap her face, but that would only show that the girl had got to her again. She was always like that, asking silly questions that were, or should be, unnecessary. ‘Yes.’

  The girl went away, and Gaillarde fell back onto her stool. Her mind was empty of all thoughts. She was merely a husk of a human. This is what her husband had done to her. She was no woman. A woman had purpose; a woman had children and must raise them. Her husband’s manifest infidelities and deceits had taken her life’s meaning from her.

  She hated him.

  A pint and a half of wine down, Berenger was feeling mellow when the men appeared. It made him grumpy to be called from his table at the inn.

  The English had swarmed all over the land in recent years. Ten years ago the King’s host had met the French army at Crécy and slaughtered thousands of the French nobles. In the intervening years more and more battles had shown that the English had little to fear when facing a French force, and when the Prince brought his men and marched across the country, they didn’t simply trample the crops, they devastated the land. Theirs was not a kindly war, it was dampnum, warfare by terror. The army marched across a wide front, up to thirty miles wide, and burned and looted every town, every village, every farmstead, even every cottage in their path. It was the Prince’s intention to prove to the peasants that they could not rely on King John to come and save them. He wanted to make them so petrified of the English that they would willingly come into the peace of the English King, a warrior who could defend them.

  If a man had marched across Berenger’s lands, threatening all he held dear, he would immediately have grabbed a spear and sword and gone to join whichever force was gathering to kill the invaders. A fruitless, pointless act perhaps, but at least it had the merit of demonstrating courage.

  There had been cases over the years of French towns and villages trying to stand and fight the English. Of course, it was invariably a poor show. The English men-at-arms looked on such rabble as fine sport, in the same way that they would view foxes or boar as enormous fun, running them down with ease. If a force looked threatening, the archers would soften them up first, and then the men in steel would charge in to continue the killing.

  But at least those men died with defiance in their hearts. This group was somehow horrible. It was degrading. These men came from this area, yet they were keen to join the forces laying waste to their lands. They were little better than traitors.

  It was a group of six men. Three were boys, perhaps each eleven years old, although one looked nearer eight or nine. Berenger stared at them without blinking for a long while. His own boy would be their age, if he had lived. But there was no point remembering those happier days: his wife, her son whom Berenger adopted, their own natural child. All were gone, swept away by the plague.

  He gulped more wine. The boys could work. There was always a need for grooms, lads to hold the horses in a fight, more to bring arrows to the archers, even for sturdy fellows to carry goods on the march. They could be useful.

  The other three, they were more interesting. One was a youngish lad with fair hair, slender about the hips but with broad shoulders, who ducked his head and peered up at Berenger from below his brows, head hunched over. He looked like a kicked puppy. With him was an older, dark, wild-lookin
g bearded man with a ‘Fuck you’ look in his eyes. There was no fear or submission in this one. He held Berenger’s gaze for a long time, dark eyes narrowing in his round face as though he was measuring Berenger more than Berenger measured him.

  Finally there was a man who stood a short distance apart. He was taller, well built and fair-haired, but with an expression of mild amusement in his blue eyes. When he met Berenger’s look, there was no challenge in him, only a quizzical air of enquiry.

  ‘Where are you from?’ he asked the third man.

  ‘I come from a small town in the Free Cantons, not far from Morgarten,’ the blond man said. ‘I am called Fulk.’

  ‘Can you fight?’

  ‘I fight with axe, sword and spear. If you have an enemy far away, I can use a crossbow.’

  ‘What of you?’ Berenger asked the black-haired man.

  This one seemed to consider. ‘I am called Bernard. My brother Arnaud here and me, we’re used to fighting with swords.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘We come from Rouen. We were in the service of Charles of Navarre, but he was captured by King John, and three of the noblemen of Normandy were slaughtered by order of the King, so we chose to leave.’

  ‘You are welcome,’ Berenger said. He turned to Will. ‘See to it that they are given a good billet.’

  ‘I’ll take them into my own vintaine,’ Will said. ‘They’ll soon learn with my men.’

  Berenger nodded. It was of little importance to him. He turned and returned to the inn – he wanted more wine.

  Monday 18 July

  As Grandarse walked the feelings of disgust and concern mingled with the proprietorial pride that he always had on looking at a new company.

  The army was arrayed ready to ride. Older warriors stood by their mounts, their weapons slung over shoulders or hanging from sheaths. Their heavier items lay on the ground. Newer recruits tried to look bold and experienced by holding on to their weaponry; older hands saved their arms from exhaustion.