by Paul Doherty
‘Let’s pray they’ll think their scouts got lost. We should leave, Father.’
They found Edmund crouched beside a tree. He said he had heard something but decided discretion was the best part of valour. Philip ignored his questions about why his robes were dirty. They returned to the pathway, where they informed an impatient Stephen what had happened. They quickly mounted their horses and galloped into the village, not stopping till they had reached the Priest’s house.
Piers said he would warn Lord Richard. He ordered Philip not to sound the bell or raise the alarm but, on his advice, Philip sent Edmund and Stephen, together with Crispin, to gather the men who were now coming in from the fields. Philip went into the kitchen. He removed his cloak and sat whilst Roheisia, who had the sense not to ask questions, served him a bowl of steaming hot stew and a goblet of watered wine. Philip ate slowly, trying to make sense of what had happened. He’d been out at High Mount and, when they were coming back, God knows why he had entered the woods or why he had insisted on finding out who those horsemen were. He had heard it, and so had Piers, that harness jingling, as if mounted men were moving amongst the trees. Philip rose, thanked Roheisia absentmindedly and went up to his chamber to change. He sat on the edge of his bed and, through the window, watched the darkness gather. He knelt at his prie-dieu before the crucifix.
‘So far, Lord,’ he prayed in a hoarse whisper, ‘I have experienced nothing but evil here. Yet there, in the woods . . .’
Philip stopped, distracted. He had always prided himself on his love of reason, the dictates of logic, yet he was sure that, somehow or other, he had stumbled upon those French because he had been warned. But by whom? He heard Edmund calling him from downstairs.
‘The men are gathering in the church, Brother. Sir Richard will be here soon!’
It took about an hour before everyone arrived at the church. When Sir Richard appeared, Philip repeated what Piers had already told the manor lord. Sir Richard bristled like a fighting dog and clapped the verderer on the shoulder.
‘There’s a reward for you, Piers my boy. What you say is true. The French have swung in through the woods. They are waiting to attack.’
‘Won’t they come tonight?’ Edmund asked anxiously.
Philip looked around. Stephen seemed hardly alarmed by the crisis: he was more interested in Sir George Montalt’s tomb, crouching down, studying the Latin inscription.
‘No, they won’t attack tonight,’ Sir Richard replied slowly. ‘That’s as dangerous for them as it is for us. In the dark, you can’t tell friend from foe. No Frenchman would want to be cut off, any who were captured would be summarily hanged.’
‘But why are they waiting?’
‘What’s the day today, Father?’
‘Why, Saturday.’
‘And what happens on a Saturday evening?’
Philip pulled a face.
‘Oh come, Father.’ Sir Richard laughed. ‘The men have worked hard and tomorrow is their rest day. They’ll drink deep, sleep heavy and, tomorrow, rise and put on their best apparel . . .’
‘Of course,’ Philip broke in. ‘And come to church. All the villagers will be here for morning Mass.’
‘They’ve done it before.’ Piers spoke up. ‘When they were raiding Rye and Winchelsea they always tried to trap the people in the churches. Men are away from their houses, they don’t carry arms. The French would simply bar the church and fire it. Afterwards, they can loot and kill to their hearts’ content.’
‘Won’t they attack the manor?’ Philip asked.
‘No, Father. You’ve seen the walls and gates. Why should they go there and raise the alarm? No, they’ll sack Scawsby first and then come looking for me. They’ll enter the village by the high road,’ Sir Richard continued. ‘Scouts will go first, doing what they always do, killing the old, the infirm, silencing the dogs. However, we’ll be ready for them!’
Sir Richard strode up into the pulpit and clapped his hands. In a few pithy phrases he told his tenants what Father Philip and Piers had seen in the woods. He clapped again for silence.
‘If we had not known,’ he declared, ‘we might have all died. Now we do, the tables are turned. I will send a rider, for what it is worth, through the night, to see if the sheriff and his men can be raised but, tomorrow morning, no one leaves the village or goes out into the fields. The French do not know Scawsby. Father Philip will, An hour after dawn, about seven o’clock, Father Philip will ring the bell for morning Mass. You must all come here, bring your wives and your children. The old and the bed-ridden. No one must be left at home. They can shelter in the church. But all men between the ages of fourteen and sixty must come fully armed. Bring bow and arrow, staff and sword: any weapons you can lay your hands on. My retainers will bring what we have from the manor. I tell you this: we will teach the French to come to Scawsby!’
His short, fiery speech encouraged the villagers. Sir Richard then repeated his advice. No one was to leave the village, whilst he would post scouts on the outskirts to make sure the French did not come at night. He then invited Philip to offer a prayer of thanksgiving and a petition for God’s help. As the priest did so, he also added a quiet word of thanks to those mysterious riders in Scawsby wood who had warned him of this terrible danger to his parish.
Chapter 4
Philip felt a relief, the French incursors were a physical threat, something which could be dealt with. This pressing danger allayed some of his fears. He slept fitfully so he got up, put his cloak around him and went out into the high street. Sir Richard had posted guards, men who moved quietly as cats, grizzled veterans from the French wars. They were used to stealing food at night and dealing, so they told the priest, with French pickets. Philip gave them his blessing and went back to the house where he knelt and prayed. At last, peering through the window, he saw the first streaks of dawn. He heard a sound from below as people, anxious to be away from their homes and wishing to be together, began to arrive early for church. Mailed horsemen, the hooves of their mounts muffled by rags, also appeared. A party of Montalt’s retainers pushed carts, the wheels of which were covered in straw, down the high street. Philip shaved and washed. He put on his best robes, went down and broke his fast on some bread and ale. Edmund and Stephen, white-faced and anxious, were already waiting for him.
‘Keep out of the fighting,’ Philip warned. ‘None of us are soldiers: that’s not cowardice, it’s just common sense. If the French break through and enter the church, that will be different.’
Beneath his cloak, Philip wore his sword and a long Welsh stabbing dirk. Edmund carried a long arbalest he had found in one of the chambers upstairs. It was still workable and lashed to his belt was a leather quiver containing ugly, barbed bolts. Stephen wore his sword and said he would try and borrow a long bow and a quiver of arrows. They left the house and made their way across the cemetery to the church. Women and children were already flocking in. Sir Richard stood on the steps. He was dressed in half-armour, a conical steel helmet on his head, its broad nose-guard covering most of his face. He looked a fighting man born and bred. He gruffly greeted Philip. Beside him his son was similarly attired but more nervous, shuffling from foot to foot. Philip went into the church, moving round, talking to the women and children, encouraging the latter that here was some new game they had to play. Outside he could hear the preparations for battle. Sir Richard was shouting orders: there was the creak of harness and the rumble of cart wheels, the sheering clash of swords being sharpened. Sir Richard cursed, telling everyone to be as quiet as possible. Philip remembered the coffin woman. He went out and across the cemetery. She was already up, collecting sticks: Philip almost had to drag her into the church. She protested volubly and said she didn’t care but Philip heartily reminded her that freebooters were respecters of neither age nor sex. She was one of his parishioners and he would protect her. She seemed rather flattered and, before he left, she grasped his hand and kissed it.
‘Ring the bell!’ Sir Richard ordered
, coming into the church. ‘Ring it loud and hard! Let the French know we are at prayer, though a different service than they intended.’
Edmund went into the tower. Stephen, who had borrowed a bow and quiver from Piers, followed him up the steps but Sir Richard had already placed men there so he came down. Instead he took a position near an arrow slit aperture facing the main porch. Edmund rang the bell for all his worth. Philip, standing beside Stephen, suddenly saw all the men disappear. The front of the church became as silent as the graveyard. Behind him the children played and chattered whilst their mothers pretended to listen. The bell stopped tolling and Philip began to pray. Time passed slowly. Philip wondered if they had made a mistake when he heard a dog, one of the mongrels who roamed the village, start to bark raucously, then suddenly go quiet. Philip peered through the window – nothing, only a bundle of grass and twigs being rolled by the early morning breeze. When he looked again his heart stopped. A man was standing there, a leather mask covering his face. He carried a shield and sword. He turned and waved. Philip heard the sound of running feet and shouts, doors being broken into. More of the attackers poured into the broad space in front of the church. Stephen notched an arrow to his bow string as one came in under the lych-gate. Suddenly, sharp and clear, the sound of a horn shrilled. Silence reigned for a few seconds. The horn blew again and the battle began.
At first Philip couldn’t see what was happening. He heard a whirl, as if some giant hawk was flying through the sky, and the French began to die. Some were killed outright, others writhed in agony as the arrows took them in the face, chest, neck or stomach. Stephen loosed at the man standing by the lych-gate; the arrow missed but the man, alarmed, retreated back into the high street. Philip went up the tower steps, pushed aside one of the archers and stared out. His view was limited but he saw how sound Montalt’s tactics were. The French had been allowed into Scawsby. However, in the houses further down the high street, including his own and in the church tower above him, archers had been placed. In the fields behind the hedges other men had been hidden. Their tactics were the same as the English armies had used to such devastating effect in France. The archers simply found their aim and loosed: if the French ran forward they went into a hail of arrows. If they went back, or to their right or left, the same threat met them. Philip had heard about the skill of the long bow but now he saw why it was so fearsome. An archer, a few steps above him, was loosing arrows more quickly than the priest could finish a Pater Noster. Philip went down. Most of the fighting was taking place further back in the village but, even from where he stood, the sound of screaming and shouting was like that from some infernal nightmare. The enemy in front of the church disappeared, most of them killed or wounded, others retreating back to join the main battle. Piers, who had been left in the church as Sir Richard’s officer, now ordered the doors opened.
‘I am to collect all the archers and move them to the village,’ he said. ‘Make sure the French are sealed in. I will leave three men to guard the church.’
‘I’m coming with you!’ Philip declared. ‘Edmund, you stay, Stephen too!’
Piers was already hurrying down the path, shouting at the men in the church and the cemetery as well as those behind the hedgerows to join him. At first Philip kept stopping by every corpse.
‘There’s a man wounded here!’ he shouted.
‘Ah, so there is.’ An English archer knelt down and, before Philip could intervene, the wounded man’s throat was slit from ear to ear.
More corpses littered the highway. Piers now formed his archers into a line. They moved slowly down the high road back into Scawsby. Now and again they would stop to despatch a wounded assailant. Occasionally, very rarely, some of the French attackers tried to run to the outskirts of the village. The verderer’s archers made short work of them. Up came the bows, the archers wagering where they would hit their victims. Philip lowered his eyes. When they turned the corner, the scene in front of them was unbelievable. Sir Richard had sealed the village off with carts, full of burning tar and pitch. The French were now forced to fight in a tightly enclosed square. The houses on either side were packed with English archers whilst others, a mixture of retainers and peasants, stood behind the carts and simply loosed over the French milling about. Now and again the occasional attacker would break free from the trap only to be cut down. As Piers’ group approached, they heard the horn sound again. Sir Richard, leading a line of horsemen, came out of a side street: grappling hooks were placed on the carts, which were pulled aside, and then Sir Richard charged. By the time Philip had reached the bloody mêlée it was apparent that the French had been utterly defeated. Corpses lay sometimes two, three, deep in places. Others were fighting desperately with the horsemen swirling about them. Eventually the cry went up.
‘Ayez pitié! Ayez pitié!’
Frenchmen dropped their arms and knelt, hands extended. Philip was horrified to see the killing still continue: heads pulled back, throats slashed; horses tumbling across prostrate men. Sir Richard charged about on his great destrier. Young Henry rode behind him carrying a pennant bearing the Montalt insignia and motto: IN MONTE ALTO, SUMMUM BONUM: In the high mountain lies the supreme good. A pun on the family name? Philip ran through fighting men and grasped Sir Richard’s knee.
‘My Lord! My Lord!’ he cried. ‘This is murder! They have surrendered! This is butchery!’
Sir Richard lifted his visor. Philip recoiled at the blood lust in the old man’s eyes.
‘They would have killed us, priest!’ he rasped. ‘Men, women and children and they would have hanged you from the door of your church.’
‘For the love of God!’ Philip declared. ‘Surely, Sir Richard, there’s more to life than an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth? This is murder and you know it.’
Sir Richard dropped his sword. He then shouted at Henry who blew three long blasts on his horn. Already more merciful feelings were making themselves felt. The English hit and cuffed the French but the hot-blooded slaughter ceased. The French were pushed together; there must have been about sixty still standing and another score wounded. Hands and ankles were tied. They were formed into a line and led down towards the church. News of the victory had already reached there. Women and children came running up and, if Philip had not intervened, rocks and sticks would have been hurled. Eventually the French were led into the cemetery and forced to sit under the yew trees whilst their wounded were laid on great stone slabs. Sir Richard now sent out riders to see if anyone had escaped. Piers led another force, into the woods to discover where the French had hidden their plunder when they had camped the night before.
Philip was pleased to see some of the women, the coffin woman included, begin to tend the wounded French. Wine and herbs were brought to dress the terrible wounds, clean rags being used as bandages. These were assisted by Montalt’s veterans who used their long misericordia daggers to force out arrow heads or cut the hard-boiled leather which the French had used as armour. After the excitement, exhaustion set in. Men, women and children sprawled everywhere. Aidan Blackthorn, the owner of the village tavern, brought down a hog’s head of ale and victuals to eat, Sir Richard promising that he would pay for everything that he provided. The old lord took his helmet and chain mail off. He slumped on the church steps, bathing his face and neck with a wet rag, taking great sips from a blackjack of ale which Aidan always kept full.
‘Well, Father?’ Sir Richard stared into the priest’s face. ‘Our young King and Commons will be pleased. My Lord of Gaunt,’ he referred to the Regent of the kingdom, ‘will make his pleasure known.’
‘And what about the French?’ the priest asked.
‘I know that was a bloody business.’ Sir Richard gestured further down the high road. ‘But these are pirates. When they attack they take no prisoners. I’ve seen women and children impaled on spikes, priests hacked and skinned like animals. By all the laws and usages of war they should hang and be dead within the hour.’ He sighed. ‘But you are right. I’m a s
oldier, not a butcher.’ He held Philip’s gaze. ‘And we need God’s blessing here, don’t we, Father? Only those who grant mercy can receive it. It’s been a good day, not one Scawsby villager was killed, a few nasty wounds but nothing that won’t heal.’ He stood and pointed to the prisoners. ‘They’ll be taken to Rochester or Canterbury. The French hold English sailors as prisoners. They’ll be exchanged or ransomed. What I want to know is why they came to Scawsby?’
‘But you said the manor and village were rich?’
‘Yes, Father, but it’s a good ride from the coast. Marauders very rarely cross country unless they are looking for something. As I’ve sat here, supping Aidan’s watered ale, I’ve been wondering what? So, perhaps it’s time we found out. You’d best come with me.’
They walked into the cemetery. The French, those unwounded, had now clustered together talking and jabbering at a tall, blond-haired man who had a nasty slash across his right cheek. He was dressed differently from the rest. The chain mail was of good value and, on the empty scabbard which hung from his war belt, was the insignia of a noble family. The young man stared coolly as Sir Richard and the priest walked towards him.
‘I can speak French,’ Lord Montalt began. ‘But this is England and these are my lands. You are pirates. I have every right to hang you like a farmer would rats and there are enough trees in Scawsby to do it.’
The young man’s blue eyes stared impassively back, one finger going to dab at the cut on his cheek.
‘Can any of you speak English?’ Philip asked.
‘I can speak it as well as you,’ the blond-haired man replied, bowing slightly to Sir Richard. ‘I am Sir Tibault Chasny.’