Painted in Blood

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  Before dawn, a slight breeze came and tattered the mist, and then came the half-light. It found me sitting on an old ant-hill, fretting over the binding of my sword-hilt. The wire was loose, or at least my jitters had made it so, but my numb fingers could not fix the problem. The blade was sharp enough, for I shaved my thumbnail almost to the quick in testing it. And now I must go shit again, for my guts had resumed their liquid churning. At the ditch I met a knight I recognised, a carrot-haired fellow from Ludlow, who was wincing as he pulled up his breech-clout.

  ‘ ’Tis the fucking French water,’ he told me, shaking his head. ‘God knows why we drink it – there’s wine enough.’

  ‘Why indeed?’ I grunted. It was not the water, of course, and we both knew it, but men must puff themselves up like gamecocks, never more so than in the grey nothing of a battle’s morning.

  The horses were coughing and stamping, and suddenly the field was full of stumbling grooms spilling pails of water. They tore the mist to shreds, that swirled and steadied and clung to the cobwebbed thistles like gonfalons of the underworld. That was not a thought I wished to keep in my skull, and to drive it out I drew my sword and swung it at the nearest thistle stand. There was a neat twang and the spiny head hung for an instant and then dropped. I wiped the milky sap from the steel. As I sheathed it I saw that there was enough light to pick out the purple of the flowers I had cut, tumbled now in the dew. Somehow that seemed like an even worse omen, so I cursed and trotted back to the tent.

  The gentlemen’s servant, a boy with a strawberry mark on his jaw, had kindled a fire and was pulling food from a battery of haversacks arranged in front of him. I smelled ham and swallowed queasily. Letice appeared from behind the tent, scratching her arse absently.

  ‘Good morning, my lad,’ she said cheerily, swinging a hank of knotty hair from her face.

  ‘Up so soon?’

  ‘I had to piss. Don’t know where the quality are doing it, but there’s nettles all over back there. I have a stung bum.’

  ‘Sorry to hear it,’ I said. She gave me a crooked smile and I gave her one back.

  ‘There’s beer,’ she said. ‘And wine – want some?’

  I did not think I would like the sourness of wine at that hour, so I accepted a clay jar of beer and sank my face to its foam-netted surface.

  ‘Are the quality doing this?’ I asked Letice.

  ‘The quality, my boy, are all off their heads. I think that’s how it’s done – the battle thing. You drink yourself stupid, then wake up and drink some more. That way, by the time they’ve hoisted you aboard your horse, and you’re waving your sword and yelling, it might all be making sense to you.’

  ‘You must be right about that,’ I said, trying not to sit on my own sword. ‘Wish you’d told me earlier, though. I didn’t sleep a wink. And I hate fucking tents.’

  ‘How about fucking in tents? Or are your powers of persuasion on the wane? Little Margarete was pining for you last night, you know.’

  So Letice knew about Margarete, and all the others, no doubt. Of course she did. I supposed I had known it all along, and in truth I did not mind, one way or the other. If she was jealous she did not show it, and I found I did not want her to be, for there was no reason any more.

  ‘Margarete is a flower. Much too sweet for me. I’ve been meaning to say goodbye, but it turns out I’m too soft.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be dead soon, so it won’t matter. That was a joke, Patch,’ she added, seeing my look of utter mortification. ‘You aren’t going to be in front, lovely man. You aren’t important enough. Just make a lot of noise but don’t kick your horse too hard. Then you can ride up when it is almost over and kill some poor wounded Frenchie while the king’s watching.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ I said, reflecting inwardly on how very sound her advice seemed to be.

  But in the event I was just important enough to land myself in trouble. I had dragged on my expensive new armour and was beginning to sweat even though the sun was but a hand’s span above the earth’s edge, when the royal page cantered up, bowed from the saddle and informed me that I would be riding in the king’s party. He left, his horse throwing up clods of earth, before I could even open my mouth. And so I found myself sidling my mount up alongside Earl Richard, under a grove of stuttering, snapping pennants and flags. I recognised some of the men with him: Sir John Maunsell, the king’s clerk; Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk; Warren de Montchesnil. And there was the Bishop of Balecester, bareheaded, his mace resting upon his shoulder. Half a mile away was the river, the first rays of the sun seeming to make it boil as the mist lifted from the water and hid the bridge. Beyond, the red roofs of the town and above them the purposeful block of the castle. And against the bleached sky, the great standard of France hung slack, its golden lilies sparkling.

  ‘Well met, Auneford,’ barked Richard, with a jerk of his perfectly barbered chin. ‘No shield, eh?’

  ‘No crest to put on a shield, Your Highness,’ I said. ‘So I reckon my bare left arm’s prettier than a plain bit of wood,’ I added, dredging up a crumb of bravado from God knew where. Richard seemed to appreciate it, for he gave a barking laugh.

  ‘Spoken like a true man of Devon,’ he said, giving me a stinging whack on the shoulder. ‘Your arm may not be bare by nightfall,’ he added, but before I could answer this astounding remark, the king trotted up in a cloud of golden silk and horseflies, for the sun was warming the earth now and the numberless host of biting things had already commenced their own battle.

  ‘Ready, brother?’ he asked Richard.

  ‘It is but a bridge – let us be done in time for lunch, eh?’ I studied Richard’s face, but saw nothing but amused impatience, as if we were riding to hounds and nothing else. Meanwhile, the king raised his arm and the trumpeter at his side blew a stuttering call.

  To our left there was a sudden clatter and clank, and a part of the army’s wing began to move off across the water meadows, a hundred or so mounted men in the lead, another hundred men-at-arms marching behind them, pikes and halberds bristling. Their shadows, long and lean, harrowed the ground before them as they went.

  ‘They will take the French positions before the bridge, and then we shall go across,’ said Richard. There was no trace of doubt in his voice, and indeed, now that they had crossed half the meadow, the company began to trot and the footmen to run, loose and easy, as though this were a tourney on some village green. But the air was warming, and as it warmed, the mist began to dissolve from the river bank and, as though a conjuror had whisked away his magic kerchief, a line of soldiers was revealed, and the dull shine of kettle helmets, and a thicket of spears. Our men did not hesitate. The cavalry gave a whoop and broke into a flat canter, their pennants snapping out stiff behind them. The men-at-arms fanned out and began to sprint. There was a commotion amongst the spears that awaited them, a waving of flags and a blare of horns. A horseman appeared and galloped along the French line. He seemed to wheel and launch himself towards the English knights, only to be swallowed at once, for in another instant the leading horsemen had crashed into the Frenchmen.

  I strained my eyes to see what was happening. Everyone around me was doing the same, leaning forward, taut and grimacing, like figures carved into a church roof. But there was nothing to see, just a confusion of blurry, undulating shapes and – very faint, for the sound was swallowed by the mist – a hiss and clatter, no more than the whisper of hedge crickets, as men clashed and died. Then the king sat up straight and turned to his brother.

  ‘They have carried it, I think?’

  ‘So it appears. Now then …’ But Richard of Cornwall did not finish, but instead leaned forward again, eyes narrowed. I could see a haze of figures running for the bridge. That must be the French, for there were our standards chasing them. But all of a sudden there was a piercing call from a trumpet, and the bridge across the Charente filled with jostling shapes that burst like dark water from a gutter into the water meadows. The English standards met this tide at th
e end of the bridge and I guessed they would drive the French reinforcements back, but instead the brave flags and pennants halted, shivered, and began to go down. There was confusion again, a blur of motion and a rising haze of dust, but still the bridge poured men into the water meadows, mounted men now with flags of their own.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked the king, pointing. A score of courtiers squinted to see what he meant.

  ‘French counter-attack,’ said a young knight with a big red bird on his shield. ‘Hopeless, Your Majesty – they’ll never get free of the bridge.’

  But the king was holding up a mailed hand. ‘Oh, I say,’ he said, with mild exasperation. Across the meadows, English standards were falling back, and still Frenchmen were pouring across the river.

  ‘Shall we go forward, d’you think?’ he asked his brother. Richard held up a mailed hand.

  ‘Look, over there.’ A horseman was pounding towards us on the raised track that led to the bridge. He reined in before the king and bowed hastily. He was covered with dust and his horse was drenched with sweat. The creature rolled its eyes as it danced nervously alongside the king.

  ‘The town is full of the enemy, Sire – in great numbers,’ said the rider. ‘They have secured this side of the bridge and are sending men across in boats.’

  ‘What numbers?’ asked Richard. The man – he was a knight, with a pricey mail shirt all floury with dust – wiped the sweat from his eyes.

  ‘Countless!’ he said. ‘The town has become a city – there are Frenchmen as far as the eye can see, my lord. They have three men for every one of ours, at the very least, and more are coming. And King Louis is with them. He had not crossed when I left, but he was preparing to, I think.’

  ‘And see there!’ Richard was pointing, shielding his eyes. ‘Louis has raised the Oriflamme. He means to give us no quarter.’ I looked, and saw a bright red flag with many streaming tails fluttering beside the blue banner of France.

  Henry was staring over at Taillebourg, his face flushed red, one eye twitching. He looked up and down our lines, and turned to the dusty knight.

  ‘Fall back, sir,’ he said. ‘Fall back on me! Trumpeter, sound recall!’ Earl Richard nodded his approval. The horn blared and the knight rode off, his horse spraying white spittle from its muzzle. There was a heaving in the fighting crowd, and then first horsemen, then running figures broke away and began to stream back to the army. The French were not following, it seemed, but every minute a hundred, five hundred more Frenchmen seemed to appear on our side of the river. Except, I told myself, it isn’t our side any more. There was a flurry of hooves and I saw that Hughues de Lusignan had ridden over from the left wing, where the men of Poitou had drawn themselves up. I heard Richard greet him curtly, then Henry’s plump voice rose up, choked with anger.

  ‘Where are all your promises now, eh, my lord and father?’ Lusignan’s choleric features went slack with surprise, then his eyes narrowed to slits. ‘When we were back in England you promised us, many times – you sent messengers and letters patent, my lord – that you would gather together an army so great that we would be able to oppose Louis of France without fear, and … and you told us we only needed to trouble ourselves about money!’

  ‘I never did any such thing!’ said Lusignan, angrily. The men around us were looking on with a mixture of curiosity, embarrassment and fury. Earl Richard had pulled off his mail gloves and thrown them at his squire.

  ‘You did!’ Henry cried. ‘You did, and I have your letters with me!’

  ‘They were not written or signed by me,’ snarled Lusignan.

  ‘What did I hear you say, father?’ said the king, aghast. ‘Have you or have you not sent to me and, yes, begged me to come here, both by your many letters patent and your messages, and complained in the meantime of our delay? We are here, my lord! Where is all that you promised?’

  ‘By Christ’s cuckold father!’ yelled Lusignan, his cheeks purple. ‘I am to blame for none of this! Blame your mother, my wife – by God’s throat, she has contrived all this without my knowledge!’

  There was a horrible silence, and in it we heard the pounding of hooves and feet and the rattle of weapons as the advance party straggled back across the field. Henry and Lusignan were glaring at each other, the king white, his mouth working, and his father-in-law an awful, splenetic colour, his jaw jutting and his eyes glaring. Earl Richard broke the silence.

  ‘I will parley with Louis,’ he said, firmly. He looked hard at his brother, then at the count. Turning to Henry again he lifted his chin and gazed at him. Then he gave a brisk nod, called an order to his squire, then wheeled his horse and walked it, very deliberately, through the soldiers behind us and back to the camp, his squire following behind. The army was silent save for the coughing of the sick and the stamp and bridle-clatter of horses. But across the field the French were hooting and mocking us, calling us on, challenging the mighty English king. I do not know how long we stood there as if enchanted, mute, angry and frightened. But then there came a murmur through the army and suddenly horses were being edged sideways to make way for Earl Richard.

  He was barefoot, and his head was bare. He wore a plain pilgrim’s smock of coarse brown cloth, and in his hand he carried a wooden staff. Silently he passed through the English lines and set out across the thick green grass. When they saw him the French, to my great surprise, fell silent in their turn.

  ‘Do you know the story?’ said a quiet voice at my shoulder. It was Simon de Montfort. ‘In Outremer, an army of Frenchmen were ambushed by the Mussulmen at Jaffa. Six hundred knights were captured, and my brother Aimury was among them. Earl Richard parleyed with the Mussulman prince called Al Nasir Dawud of Kerak, and had every one of the captives set free. Look: the French honour him.’

  It was true. The enemy had parted and made an avenue for the earl that led to the high arch of the bridge. As he approached they began to cheer and to kneel, and as he passed through them it might have been their own victorious king they were greeting. He walked up the steep side of the bridge and vanished down the far side.

  It was a long wait. Henry and his father-in-law at last ceased to glare at each other like scorpions in a basket, and a low muttering rose from along the line of men. But no one stirred, save once when a knight’s horse bolted out into the field and the foot soldiers let out a nervous cheer. It must have been an hour later, for the sun was up and the day was starting to become very hot, when Richard of Cornwall appeared again at the crest of the bridge. Again the French army cheered him, and their cries rang out as he walked back across the empty field. Moths and grasshoppers flew up around him. He strode up to King Henry and laid his hand upon his brother’s thigh. The king bent down to him. I was near enough to hear his words.

  ‘We must get away from this place quickly – quickly, brother – or we will all be taken prisoner,’ he said. ‘Cousin Louis has granted us a truce until tomorrow. Let us do nothing until darkness comes, and then we will escape as fast as we can.’

  Hughues de Lusignan was the first to move. He nodded at Richard, his face a blotched mask, and rode back to his men. The king gave an order to the trumpeter, and at his call the army, the whole long bristling line of battle, began to melt and recede, like a wave drawing back from the beach. In a few minutes the camp was full again. As if in a dream I found myself back at the tent in which I had spent the night, the boy with the strawberry mark cooking me something to eat as if nothing had happened. But the camp was fevered. Inside every tent men were packing, preparing, so that as soon as night fell the army could move straight away. We would leave the tents, in order to fool the enemy into thinking we had stayed to be butchered. I had not unpacked, so I had nothing to do. I was desperate to take off my armour, but in light of the French host pitching their own tents in such numbers that the river was completely screened by them, their digging of parapets and the loud clatter of arms and men certain of victory, I decided to keep it on.

  Letice was nursing a noblewoman who had come
down with the flux but did not seem to be doing too badly, for she was sipping on sweet wine and fanning herself.

  ‘Still alive, I see,’ said Letice as I walked up.

  ‘Yes. Even I managed to survive this particular battle,’ I said. ‘Are you ready to move?’

  ‘This lot will take days to pack up,’ she said, taking my arm and drawing me away so that she could speak in her own voice. ‘And bloody hell, we had been tearing up sheets all night so that we could bind all you wounded men up nicely. Lady Agnes feels cheated. I don’t, though,’ she added. ‘These women think this is all as normal as shopping for chickens in Cheapside. Me, I’ve decided I’d rather be back there than here, and sod the husband, which they have not found me, I might add. All this la-di-da and waiting to get our heads chopped off is getting on my fucking nerves.’

  ‘Mine too. I’m glad Earl Richard had the sense to parley. We would all be dead by now otherwise.’

  Letice blinked her blue eyes at me, then rose on tiptoe and kissed me very quickly on the mouth. Our lips were dry but they clung to each other for a moment.

  ‘I am glad you are not,’ she said, and went back to her sick friend, leaving me standing like a fool, itching myself where the mail chafed me under the arms.

  The sun seemed to take a year to sink behind us. But as soon as it was gone, the mist began to rise from the river and creep towards us, and the French lines vanished into a thick gloom. The moon would not be up until after midnight, and it was so dark that it was hard to see from one tent to another. There was a strange kind of silent purpose to us all, and incredible as it might seem, our great army of almost thirty thousand men had slunk away before the church bells of Taillebourg had rung out the mist-muffled eleventh hour. We were headed due south to the city of Saintes, and once we had found the road we hurried as fast as we could, a river of men, women and animals a mile long all hurrying to reach safety before the sun came up. It was barely eight miles to Saintes, but we soon left the flat lands and the road started to roll up and down until I feared we would be caught in the open. But in the watery light before dawn I saw the white walls of Saintes rise up in front of us, and the pretty chalk hills of that country, all lined and ordered with vineyards, slowly revealed themselves. I was riding just behind the king’s party, and so I can say that when Henry saw the city gates in the distance he clapped his spurs to the flanks of his horse and galloped towards them, the nobles and squires streaming after him as though this were a Sabbath-day hunt. With that the whole column lurched forward with a huge clamour of creaking, shouting and horrible oaths from the wagon drivers and muleteers, who were far behind the knights and soldiery. By the time I had reached the city walls the end of the train was just coming into sight through a fold in the low hills. White chalk dust was beginning to rise, for the sun had already driven off the dew. The king had gone through the gates, but most of the nobles had drawn themselves up in the fields on either side, watching the column as it came in. Somewhere down there was Letice. I could see the brightly painted carts of the court ladies. They had fallen behind.