Blood on the Sand Page 6

  ‘Then we tell them about the army. How many men there are, where they’ll—’

  ‘You want to give away the army?’ Dogbreath demanded with a low growl, shifting as if preparing to spring on Tyler. Berenger held up a hand to stop any risk of a fight breaking out.

  ‘No, but if it’s something that could help them without harming our friends . . .’ Tyler began, but John of Essex cut across him.

  ‘If it’d save our skins, you mean. You’d give away your mother’s soul if it’d save you a little pain, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’d gladly—’

  ‘Enough!’ Berenger said, standing up. ‘We’ll give away nothing. Do you really think there’s anything you could tell them that would save you? We’re English archers. They hate us for every French nobleman’s life we’ve taken. They don’t want to negotiate with us. You heard them! They want to make an example of us. There’s nothing we can do to stop them.’

  Then, just as if the gaoler had been listening, there came the sound of boots marching along the corridor outside. Jack and Clip stood, and Berenger glared across at John of Essex, as though daring him to argue. John said nothing. His head hung low; he was the picture of dejection.

  Fair enough, Berenger thought to himself. It was how he felt, too. What a wretched way to end their days.

  Berenger had thought that they were to be taken straight to the place set aside for their public humiliation, but to his surprise, when the guards took them out into the open air, they did not force them along the roads to the church, but down a dark alleyway and along a wider street to a small door in a great wall. Once through this, they found themselves in a broad courtyard paved with cobbles. They were led up some stairs to a large hall, and in here they found themselves confronted by the same cardinal who had selected their punishment, talking to the same red-headed Scot whom Berenger had seen on that first day.

  ‘You should be gone, Sir David,’ the prelate said. ‘Godspeed, my son.’

  ‘Thank you, my Lord.’ Sir David bowed to the cardinal, kissed the prelate’s ring and, with a disgusted look at the prisoners, left the room.

  ‘Now! Is there one among you who speaks French well enough to communicate?’ the cardinal asked. He was standing at a large fireplace as he spoke, curling his lip at the sight and smell of them.

  Berenger could understand why. They all had the same pale, drawn features and eyes that glittered with an unhealthy feverishness, and their clothes stank of the midden.

  ‘We all speak French,’ he said.

  ‘Then know this, all of you: you will all be forced to suffer,’ the cardinal said. ‘You have committed grave acts against the Peace of the King, and for that, the penalty is usually death. You are fortunate enough to have won his lenience, and for that you will live, but only after . . .’

  ‘You have had our eyes put out and hacked off our string-fingers,’ Berenger said.

  ‘So you did hear what I commanded the other day.’ The cardinal eyed him dispassionately. ‘Your men will all be blinded. If you help me, you can be the one to keep an eye.’

  ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘If you tell me the disposition of the men about Calais, that will help. And any news of the army.’

  Berenger frowned. ‘The disposition of the men? Calais is under siege and our army is strong. What more could I tell you?’

  ‘Which men stand where. Which noblemen lead the forces there. We will win this battle, Englishman. With God on our side, we cannot fail. But I would see it ended sooner so that fewer women and children are hurt or slain. You English trample the poor folk of France underfoot like a peasant stamping on ants, but as the peasant will regret it when he disturbs the nest, you will regret your impudence in coming here to challenge the right of the King of France to command his people. If you wish to keep your sight, I may be able to help you.’

  ‘We will tell you,’ Tyler blurted out. ‘Ask us! We can help you with any questions you have, and—’

  With a loud rattle of the chain at his wrists, Jack’s hands slammed into his belly and Tyler collapsed in a heap on the floor, gasping and retching. Two guards set upon Jack immediately, beating him with their clubs, and soon he too went down, writhing as they kicked at him.

  ‘Tell them to stop or you’ll have nothing from me,’ Berenger snarled.

  The cardinal raised his hand and the assault stopped as suddenly as it had begun. ‘So? Will you help me?’

  ‘If you swear that we will all be treated equally. None of us to be blinded.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then we will not help you.’

  The cardinal nodded, then pointed to Tyler, lying on the floor huddled about the pain of his belly. ‘Raise him and bring him here.’

  Berenger felt alarm surging. ‘Leave him, he’s only a—’

  ‘Someone silence this fool!’ A blow to the back of Berenger’s head made him fall to his knees, and he tumbled onto all fours, heaving. The cardinal stood over him. ‘I gave you your chance. You will not help me, so you will be blinded like the rest. If this man helps me, he may keep an eye.’ The cardinal smiled. ‘You should be kind to him, if you want him to guide you back to your heretic friends!’

  Berenger managed to swallow the bile that threatened, and sat back on his haunches. As soon as he did so, a guard shoved his staff at Berenger’s breast, the blow forceful enough to slam him backwards. While he rolled over to scramble to his feet, Tyler was helped towards the fire by a guard, and stood with his head downcast as the cardinal sipped from a gilded goblet of wine.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I can’t tell you where the men all are. So far as I know, they are equally spread about the town. But if you have leaders you wish to hear of, I’ll tell you what I can.’

  ‘Your commander? Who is he?’

  ‘Sir John de Sully, banneret. He serves the King.’

  The cardinal nodded and began to ask about the various noblemen who were in the King’s army. There was no secret about these men – they all wore their arms on their breasts or shields – and Tyler answered accurately enough. Berenger would willingly have sprung on him and set his chains about the man’s throat, but there was little point in winning himself another beating for no purpose. And all the information that Tyler gave was unimportant.

  ‘I have heard of Gascons, too. Are there any knights from Gascony?’ the cardinal continued and, as he spoke, Berenger saw that his eyes narrowed a little. ‘King’s officials? What of Pierre d’Agen and other traitors?’

  Tyler answered as best he might, but there was little enough he could tell of the various men about whom he was interrogated. There were some more questions, but the cardinal appeared to have little further interest in them.

  ‘Take them away now,’ he said to the guards. Then, in an undertone, speaking in Latin, he called to a clerk. ‘Tell the executioner he can take them now. Bring them to the church and start to work on them. All of them.’

  Berenger heard the words plainly, and at long last, his mind cleared. ‘Archers, form circle!’ he shouted in English, and the men shuffled or sprang to form a loose ring. ‘Jack! John! With me!’ he bellowed, and leaped forward.

  The other two were with him, and although one guard realised Berenger’s plan and tried to get between them and the cardinal, he was already too late. While Berenger grasped one end of his staff, John hammered at his face with his manacled wrists. The crunch of breaking bones could be heard over the rattle of the chain’s links, and the man fell with blood gushing from his nose and brow. Berenger had the staff now, and he grabbed the cardinal’s wrist, pulling him away from the fire and hurrying back with him into the circle of archers. He looped his chain over the man’s throat and tightened it.

  ‘Kill them!’ the cardinal gurgled, but Berenger pulled his chains taught.

  ‘If they come near, I’ll crack your neck like a capon’s,’ he growled. ‘Tell them!’

  He could feel the man’s head move as he threw panicked glances about the ro
om at his men, wondering if any were near enough to save him. Berenger clenched his muscles, pulling his forearm across the cardinal’s flabby throat.

  ‘Stand back, you fools! Can’t you see he will kill me? Stand back!’ the cardinal squawked.

  ‘Archers? We’re leaving – now!’

  Berenger and his men hurried from the room, the guards pushing and jabbing at them with their steel-shod staffs, while the cardinal screamed abuse at all and sundry. Clip went over, and a guard kicked at him. Enraged, Clip grabbed his foot, twisted and shoved, and the man went down, Clip’s boot in his groin. The man squealed as his knee joint snapped. Another lifted his staff to break Clip’s pate, but Dogbreath gave a sudden shriek of pure fury and sprang forward, grabbing the man’s biceps and headbutting him viciously. When another tried to hit him, Jack dragged Dogbreath out of the way before the blow could strike, and then the archers formed a close wall, fists raised. They might suffer in a fight, but all, apart from Tyler, would prefer to fight than submit to torture and maiming.

  The guards were bellowing orders and somewhere a bell had begun to sound. Berenger threw an anxious look about him. Jack was helping Clip to his feet, muttering, ‘Should have left him tae me. I’d have taken his leg off, the cowardly prickle!’ At the other side of the group, John of Essex had bent his head into an aggressive posture once more. He looked like a man fighting in the ring: focused and determined.

  ‘Archers!’ Berenger called. ‘We can’t fight these gits. We need to get out of here and find weapons; get a blacksmith to take these manacles off.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Tyler shouted, and suddenly threw himself at Berenger, hands outstretched. ‘He was going to let us go! Now he’ll see us all killed!’

  ‘No, he was going to blind us all. That’s what he just said to his clerk over there.’

  ‘You’ll get us all killed! I had him listening to me – he would have let us go!’ Tyler screamed.

  ‘Jack! Get this tarse-fiddler off me and break his neck if he holds us up again,’ Berenger said. Jack grasped Tyler’s wrist chains and pulled him away. Then, with the rest of the men, Berenger began to head to the doors.

  They were open, and the vintaine poured through, Berenger keeping a firm grip on the cardinal’s throat. When the man stumbled, Berenger jerked the chain and the cardinal quickly regained his footing. There was a shuffling and muttering as the archers made their way to the main entrance. There Berenger muttered to Clip, who trotted forward and peered out.

  ‘Clear!’ he called back, and the men hurried out, still followed by the guards. The stairs outside were not easy to negotiate with his arm about the neck of the cardinal, but Berenger made it without falling, and soon he and the rest were down at the courtyard area. Here, they marched across, heading for the large gate by which they had entered only an hour or so before . . . but once the gate was opened, there was a shocked silence. Outside, with swords drawn, were more than forty men. Strong, weather-bronzed men with dark hair and good linen or muslin shirts: the Genoese who had captured them on board their ship.

  ‘A good day to you, my friend,’ Chrestien de Grimault said, bowing to the cardinal – or was it Berenger? ‘I trust I find you well?’

  Berenger felt the cardinal’s throat move as he tried to speak. He quickly tightened his grip. ‘My apologies, but His Eminence is feeling a little weak. I will speak for him in case he grows more fatigued.’

  ‘I think he grows wearier and wearier,’ Chrestien de Grimault said. ‘It is undoubtedly the weight of troubles lying on his mind. So many things for him to consider, such as swearing to me that my prisoners would be treated honourably when I first brought them to him.’

  ‘He has ordered us to be blinded and crippled.’

  ‘At the church, it is certain. My man told me earlier that your fate was sealed. I feel sure you would wish to join us for some drinks before any such rash decision could be taken.’

  ‘We’re going to the port.’

  ‘A fine idea. However, if I may be so bold,’ Chrestien said, and his eyes rose to the building behind them, ‘it would be sensible to take your guest away from here. There are many men with weapons who watch your every move with interest. Perhaps we should leave here and find a better place to talk?’

  Jack stepped to Berenger’s side. ‘I don’t trust the slimy whoreson, Frip.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘Master,’ Chrestien said with a broad smile. ‘I dislike the cardinal there more than anyone. And if I and my men wanted to kill you, we could, with all these weapons. So clearly I do not intend you harm. I suggest a stratagem. You slam the gates and jam them, and then follow me. I shall lead you to the ship, where you will be safe.’

  Jack began to speak, but behind them all Berenger heard commands and the pattering of many booted feet.

  ‘Fuck! Block the gates, use anything you can!’ he roared, and helped the men pull the gates shut, blocking them as best they could with some wagons and a cart. And then, as swiftly as they could manage, the men jerked and rattled their way down after the Genoese.

  The clinking of metal was deafening. From the ship, Grimault could hear it like a satanic percussion all around him as the men lurched clumsily with their hobbled ankles. It was good that they had been shackled so quickly, for most of them had chains between the irons that were considerably longer than they should have been. In Genoa they would have been much shorter, designed to hobble the men and prevent escapes. The French blacksmith was not experienced at making prison restraints.

  Chrestien de Grimault stood on his ship and watched as the men arrived – a shambling, ill-stinking mess of men, anxious and fretful. He already had four small oared vessels waiting at the quayside, and two cables holding a small supply vessel had already been slipped. ‘Hurry!’ he called, beckoning with his entire arm. ‘Come! Leave that papal usurer and join us here!

  ‘What will you do, my friend?’ he said to himself as Berenger stood staring at him from the quay. ‘What would I do? I would tell me to go fuck my mother, and then find a smith who could remove all the metalwork, in case I was the sort of disreputable thief and mercenary who would merely take each of you and toss you over the sheers into the sea. With all that iron, none of you would float – and you know that. Just as you know that if you delay, the cardinal’s men will surely come and capture you, and even if you kill the cardinal, you will die. There is no profit in death, my friend.’

  Berenger and he stared at each other over the water, and then Berenger snapped a command, and the first of the men began to make their way to the nearer boats. Soon the vintener and the others were helped down into small craft, and before long they were being rowed across the waters to the great galley.

  ‘Prepare to sail!’ Chrestien roared. He was still speaking in French, for with so many crew members from all over France, it was easier to use the common language. Besides, as the English began to appear, clambering up the rope ladders dangling from the upper hull, it would make most of them more comfortable. Most Englishmen understood at least some French.

  ‘Welcome aboard my ship,’ he said as Berenger appeared. ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘He thought I was going to, but no. I tapped him on the head to shut him up. He’ll wake with a headache, but no more. He’s lucky. I should have killed him.’

  ‘Undoubtedly. But it would have made my return more problematical,’ Grimault said with a grin. ‘And now, I think I owe you the services of one of my finest men.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My friend,’ Grimault said, smiling and shaking his head at the naked suspicion flashing in Berenger’s eyes, ‘I feel sure you require the aid of my blacksmith.’

  He could not make out the Genoese. Berenger stood near the mast, gripping a rope tightly as the waves sucked and hissed at the galley’s hull, staring out at the white, gleaming track in the water, trying to understand the man.

  When he and the other archers had hurried from the cardinal’s hall and straight into the shipman, he
had thought they were doomed. These were the very men who had caught him and his own, and it was natural to consider the Genoese their enemies. Yet now they had been freed by the same fellows, and from the chattering and ribald humour shared on board, it seemed as though Chrestien de Grimault considered himself to be Berenger’s host: he was treating him as an honoured guest.

  The man was there now, up at the rear castle, his eyes fixed on the horizon ahead as though daring it to display some threat to him and his ship.

  He was a natural mariner; that much was certain. His legs had the bandy look of a horseman, and remained bent as the vessel moved, one leg straightening more or less with the deck as it rolled beneath him, scarcely bothering to hold onto a rope or spar as he did so. He looked a part of the ship, as much as the mast or the rigging. Where the galley went, so too would Grimault.

  Seeing Berenger’s gaze upon him, the Genoese gave a broad smile and beckoned. Rubbing his chafed, sore wrists, Berenger waited until the deck was almost level, and then let go of his rope and hurried across the deck, moving crabwise as the prow began to swoop downwards into a trough. He made it to the ladder to the rear castle as the prow rose once more, and had to thrust out both hands to stop himself slamming into the beams. This was no life for a man, he told himself for the hundredth time as he set his boot on the first rung and started to climb.

  ‘Godspeed!’ Grimault said with a flash of teeth in his bearded face. ‘It is a fine, a glorious day, is it not?’

  ‘It’s clear enough,’ Berenger admitted.

  It was a perfect day for sailing. The sea gleamed like quicksilver, so it was hard to look at it for long. The wind whipped at the back of their heads as they stared forward, and to his left, Berenger could see the coast of France. They had been travelling for half a day now, and the rhythmic tapping and clattering of hammers and chisels striking away their irons had at last ceased. All the men had been released, and although one of the younger boys from the ship’s company had complained as the chisel slipped and the bracelet twisted, snapping a bone in his arm, the ship’s tooth-breaker and surgeon reckoned it should heal well enough. Worse was the man whose ankle had been deeply gouged when the chisel span from the armourer’s hand into his flesh. Luckily it didn’t quite shear through his Achilles, but he would be limping for a month with the damage done.