His body stood upright for a few seconds, blood fountaining from the neatly carved stump of its neck. Sir Richard’s men tore aside the remainder of the barrier, bellowing ‘Saint George!’ as they laid into the citizens. More blood splashed over the cobbles, and the few survivors fled like hares.
Later, when all was over, I managed to piece together the events of the final assault on Caen. While I witnessed the pillage of the old quarter, King Henry led an attack on the gatehouse that linked the defences of the town, while his brother Clarence attempted to storm the western wall. This triple-pronged assault should have been enough to overrun the town, but victory was delayed when word reached Henry of a surprise attack on our camp. He charged back to deal with the threat, only to find it was a false alarm, possibly spread by French agents.
In the midst of all the slaughter and confusion, I wandered down my alleyway to find it opened out on a square, occupied by a cluster of large public buildings. They were enclosed by a high wall, and a battle raged before the gates, where the people inside struggled to resist a mob of archers.
I saw two of the archers attempting to rape a woman, without much success She had her back against the wall and a bloody dagger in her hand, wet to the hilt with the blood of a third archer, who lay groaning with his hands cupped around his groin. The other two kept their distance, snarling in rage and frustration, too cowed to venture within range of the dagger.
“Goddam!” she kept yelling at them, along with a stream of French obscenities, “Goddam!”
I recognised her as the woman in the red shawl, who had tipped the oil over the head of my luckless sergeant.
“What is the knight’s oath?”
The stern voice of Father Stephen, my childhood tutor, drifted down the years. I still remember him, a tall, spare figure in a black gown and hat, always ready to strike me across the knuckles with his birch if I proved slow in my answers.
“To ever be a good knight and true,” I would squeak timidly in response.
“Yes?” he snapped, “and the rest? Spit it out, boy, we have been over them enough times!”
“To fear God and maintain his Church...to protect my liege lord in valour and faith...to defend the weak and helpless...to respect and defend the honour of women...”
To respect and defend the honour of women. I wager not a single knight in Henry’s army lived up to this particular vow, or any of the others, during the sack of Caen. Only one penniless bastard esquire, inspired more by lingering fears of his old tutor than aught else, stepped forward to redeem the honour of English chivalry.
I was not born to play Sir Galahad, and almost made a mess of it. “That’s enough, lads,” I shouted, raising my voice to be heard above the sound of battle, “she wants none of you.”
Both men turned to stare at me. Their faces were thin, dirty and brutish, with mossy growths of beard clinging to their unwashed necks and chins.
The nearest spat at my feet. “Piss off and find your own meat,” he growled, and turned back to his quarry.
“Watch out,” cried his mate as I stepped closer, sword ready.
I hesitated. As yet the blade was clean, and I had no desire to dirty it in English blood.
The archers had no such scruples. They came at me like a pair of wild dogs, stabbing with their falchions. I guarded myself as best I could, praying fervently none of our nobles or officers were on hand to witness the brawl.
If not for the Frenchwoman, they might have finished me. Instead of taking the opportunity to bolt, she sprang at the closer of her would-be rapists.
The point of her dagger skewered the artery in the side of his neck. Blood poured from his mouth as he crumpled to his knees.
“Help!” yelped his mate, who was now trapped between me and her, “this English traitor and his whore mean to butcher me!”
Perhaps my first instinct is flight, for I allowed the Frenchwoman to grab my wrist and lead me away at a dead run.
“This way,” she gasped in heavily accented English as we darted down an alley.
The half-hearted sounds of pursuit swiftly faded behind us. Swept along by fears of reprisal, I followed her down the street. It ended next to the curtain wall. To our right was a gatehouse, and beyond that the swell of the hillock with the white citadel on its summit. The French flag still flew from one of the turrets, and light glinted off the rows of helmeted heads on the battlements.
I thought she meant to take me out of Caen via some hidden postern gate. Instead she turned left, past a group of archers busily sorting through a heap of goods they had dragged out of a house, and down some steep stone steps to a narrow alley.
It was dark and cool here. The buildings were close-packed, and the bright August sun almost blotted out by the sharply pointed roofs above our heads.
Another flight of steps, flanked by an iron rail, led down to a arched doorway. My companion tried to pull me towards the stair.
“Wait,” I snapped, wrenching my hand away, “where are you taking me?”
The Frenchwoman rolled her eyes. She was about thirty, striking rather than pretty, with a strong-boned, angular face and olive skin that hinted at mongrel blood. The plain blue robe under her shawl was belted tightly at the waist, revealing a slender, muscular figure. She had sheathed her dagger, which I noticed had an ivory hilt.
“Safety,” she replied in French, “safety for us both. Will you come, or shall I leave you here to explain matters to your friends?”
My instincts screamed at me not to follow her down the stair. For once I ignored them. There was something beguiling about her, and the lure of adventure and the unknown overrode my natural caution.
She produced a small iron key from a pouch at her belt, twisted it sharply in the well-oiled lock on the black door, and led me inside.
The room beyond was lost in shadow. I pulled the door closed behind me and waited in the cool darkness while she moved about, hunting for candles. There were flagstones under my feet, and the small of cheap tallow, stale wine and unwashed clothes hung heavy in the air.
I listened to the torment of Caen. The occasional boom of gunfire still echoed in the distance - King Henry had turned his cannon on the castle to intimidate the garrison into surrender - all but drowned by the voices of our soldiers as they ran amok in the streets. The people of Caen were paying a heavy price for their resistance, just as their forebears did in King Edward’s day.
My companion lit two candles and placed them on the sill under the locked shutters of the single window. The weak light cast the details of the room in silhouette. I made out a single table and three-legged stool, a narrow bed shoved against the far wall, a battered wardrobe, and an iron bucket in the corner. Bits of laundry hung from a rope across the low ceiling, and there was a platter of black bread and gnawed cheese on the table.
“There,” she said with a mock curtsey, “my humble home. What do you make of it?”
She had switched to English again, possibly to keep me off-balance. I looked around the room, trying not to clap a hand over my nose against the smell, and cudgelled my wits for something to say.
“Snug,” was all I could manage. She gave an unladylike snort and moved past me to turn the key in the lock.
That done, she slipped the key back into its pouch and crossed to the wardrobe. There she knelt and sang softly under her breath as she rummaged inside a drawer.
“Dieu Merci,” she said happily, producing a dusty bottle, “I knew there was one left.”
She also produced a couple of small tin cups. For a moment I thought this extraordinary woman might uncork the bottle with her teeth, but there was an opener on the table.
A stream of wine, red as blood, filled both cups to the brim. “Here,” she said, offering me one, “drink. It will take the edge off your fear.”
I took the cup and drained it it one swallow. The wine was thin and tart, with a bitter aftertaste. Cheap muck, doubtless bought from some backstreet wine-shop.
“I’m not afrai
d,” I said sullenly, wiping my lips. She gave another crude little snort and refilled her cup.
“Yes you are,” she said, winking, “I can see it in your eyes. You tremble like a leaf in the wind. Don’t be ashamed. I’m afraid as well. We all are. Even your King, who carries all before him, trembles under the eye of God.”
“I am Catherine,” she added, “you saved my life earlier, or at any rate my virtue. What remains of it.”
She grinned, displaying strong if uneven teeth. There was a gap in the middle of the top row, which added to her strange charm.
“I’m John Page,” I replied curtly, “there is no need to thank me. I acted on the spur of the moment.”
“I am also God’s own fool,” I added with a sigh, “why did I run? None of our captains would have blamed me for trying to defend a woman. Even a Frenchwoman.”
Catherine set down her cup and watched me for a long moment. Her expression was unreadable. I tensed, half-expecting her to set about me with her dagger. The blade was still wet with the blood of one of her attackers.
She stepped forward and took my hand. “Je suis une pute,” she said gently, “and whores have no honour to defend.”
Catherine offered me her body as payment for my rescue act. I was too much in need of comfort to refuse. She was attractive enough under the grime, and I hadn’t lain with anyone since tumbling one of the kitchen maids at Kingshook. That was back in the spring, though it felt like a lifetime ago.
We made love on her bed while death ruled the town above us, and afterwards lay naked together, listening to the English army celebrate its victory. The initial wave of slaughter, rape and larceny had ebbed, due in no small part to the vast stores of wine our soldiers found in the cellars of the houses they pillaged, and now the streets rang with drunken merriment.
Catherine walked her long, brown fingers through the hairs on my chest. “Poor fools,” she said, “how many will live through the winter, do you suppose?”
“Perhaps a third of our men will die,” I replied, “slain by dysentery rather than French blades. Dysentery is the bane of any army.”
“The Devil shall take their souls,” she said, “for all your people are of the Devil, and forged in his kilns. Your King Harry is of Angevin stock, non? Everyone knows the Angevins are descended from a witch named Melusine. She gave Count Fulk of Anjou four children. Two were carried down to Hell when the witch returned to her master. The other two remained on earth, and became the ancestors of the Devil’s Brood.”
I smiled. My nurse had taught me the same story as a child, though mother disapproved of it. The cruelty and vile temper of the Angevin kings that had ruled England, and their Plantagenet descendants, made it easy to see where the story came from.
“The Devil won’t take Harry,” I said, “he spends too much time at prayer.”
“Half the time on his knees,” Catherine murmured, her breath moist against my neck, “the other half on horseback, tormenting my people. Killing our menfolk, levelling our castles, destroying our towns and cities. For what? So he can make himself King of France?”
There was anger in her voice. “When he is done, there will be nothing of France to rule. Just bones and ashes. Will God approve of that, do you think?”
“France is rich,” I said, running my hand through her mop of greasy curls, “and huge. Our army could tramp from one end of the country to the other and back again, until their beards reached their ankles, and still only tap a fraction of her wealth.”
“Rich?” she exclaimed, “pardieu! Am I rich? Are the people of France rich? Open your eyes, John Page!”
I looked around the squalid little garret. It was the kind of rat-hole a common whore might be expected to live in. Even so, part of me was beginning to suspect Catherine was no common woman.
“I am a poor man,” I said, deciding to test her, “yet I possess a treasure beyond price.”
Her liquid brown eyes widened, and it amused me to see them fill with hunger. “A treasure beyond price? What treasure? Show me.”
I leaned over the side of the bed and searched among the pile of discarded clothes and armour. At last I found my purse, and took out my father’s ring: the ring would not fit over the steel fingers of my gauntlet, so when I was armed I kept it in the purse for safe keeping.
“Here,” I said, holding the ring up to the dim light, “this belonged to my father. He was a great soldier in his time. Captain-General Thomas Page of the Company of Wolves.”
Catherine puffed out her cheeks. “Wolves,” she sneered, “France is full of wolves. English, French and those beasts of Burgundy, forever tearing at each other for scraps of land.”
The ring briefly held her interest. I got the impression she grew bored easily, and the light in her eyes faded when she realised it was only of personal value.
“So your father was a soldier,” she said, turning onto her back, “and you wish to be like him. Which means you will rob and kill all your days, until you are killed yourself in some battle or other, or die of camp fever. Perhaps, if you are lucky, you will live long and grow fat off misery and bloodshed, and end your days as a famous chevalier in a castle stolen from its rightful owner.”
While she talked, I quietly placed the ring back in its pouch and unsheathed my dagger.
I could move fast in those days. My free hand seized a fistful of her curls, and the edge of my blade pressed against her throat.
“You’re right,” I hissed, “I am a killer. So are you. Earlier you slew a comrade of mine, though I had to finish him off. You and some other harpy emptied a pannier of hot oil onto his head.”
She betrayed no sign of fear. “Yours is not the first blade to be held against my throat,” she replied in a conversational tone, “I have lain with many men here. Some were reluctant to pay for my services.”
“What of it?”
“Nothing. I ask you merely to consider the life I have led, that’s all.”
It would have been easy, so very easy, to snuff out her life. What would that make me? I was already a murderer.
Murderer. Horse-thief. Draw-latch. Poacher. Outlaw. All these terms I could bear, yet woman-killer was not one I cared to add to the list.
I slowly released my grip and climbed off the bed. She rubbed her throat, where my blade had left a red weal. A little more pressure, and it would have drawn blood.
She watched in silence as I dressed. Again, I sensed no fear in her, only a kind of detached interest.
“We shall see each other again, John Page,” she said when I had tightened the last buckle, “I am sure of it.”
I held out my hand. “Give me the key,” I ordered, “and stay on the bed until I am gone.”
She gave one of her coarse laughs. “Pardieu! Do you fear me so much, then, that you will not turn your back on me?”
“I’ve seen what you can do with a knife.”
She rummaged through her clothes, found the key, and threw it at me. I caught it and paused a moment. What would happen if I returned to the army? Would I be punished for desertion, and assaulting fellow Englishmen?
I brushed aside my doubts. It was time I learned to brazen things out, instead of running away from danger like a startled deer.
Without another word I tossed the key back to Catherine and stepped outside.
14.
I had lain inside her garret longer than I thought. The first rays of the morning sun were already breaking over the distant hills, and shone a wan light on the ruin of Caen.
I retraced my steps back to the centre of the town, hoping to find Sir Richard Harrington. He was said to be an honest, even-tempered character, much in the mould of his late father, and would not have forgotten the man who carried his standard onto the walls. With luck, I might end up being féted as a hero.
My path took me past all the horrors of the sack. Heaps of drunken soldiery, snoring off their excesses, lay strewn about like so many corpses. There were also a fair number of true corpses, citizens who had di
ed trying to defend their property and loved ones.
I picked my way through piles of stolen furniture and furnishings, emptied barrels of ale and broken pots and tankards, soiled and ripped clothing, curtains and tapestries, bits and pieces of jewellery: it seemed as though every shop and house in Caen had been ransacked, and the private possessions of every citizen dragged out and scattered about the streets.
I followed the street leading to the gatehouse that divided the old quarter from the new. The gatehouse had been stormed (by King Henry in person, I later found, at the head of his royal bodyguard) and the Plantagenet arms flew from its turrets.
There were four halberdiers on the gates, the first sober men I had encountered since leaving Catherine. They wore royal livery, and glared at me suspiciously.
“I’m English,” I said, tapping the badge on my surcoat, “of Sir Richard Harrington’s company.”
“Got lost, did you?” remarked one, to the sniggers of his comrades, “your captain is lodged yonder, next to the King, in the street they call Les Jacobins.”
His pronunciation was terrible, and I had to ask him to describe the route. I followed his directions and walked down the main street beyond the gatehouse for a short distance, before turning right into a wide avenue dominated by a church .
The avenue was lined by rows of large stone houses with tiled and gabled roofs and half-timbered upper storeys. They belonged to the wealthier of Caen’s citizens, and had been requisitioned by King Henry and his nobles. I recognised several of the banners and tabards hanging over the doorways, including the quartered red and white arms of the Earl of Salisbury, the five-leafed golden flower of Sir Robert de Umfraville, and finally, hanging from a pole over the largest of the houses, the lilies and lions of the King of England.
It was a chill morning, and a group of soldiers stood warming themselves over a brazier set up in the middle of the avenue. Otherwise all was quiet. The hour was yet early, and most of the nobles were still abed.
The Wolf Cub Page 11