He waited grimly, watching as the men stormed the walls. It was clear that the professional English soldiers were cutting through the townspeople of St-Lô like knives through soft French cheese. Such people could not hope to defend themselves against trained men. A drunken archer from Roger’s vintaine staggering back from town burdened with furs and a silver goblet gave him a long pull from a wineskin, giggling, and the rush of heavy wine on Berenger’s empty stomach left him light-headed. Still, by the second gulp, some of the pain was alleviated.
He had moved to sit on a tree-trunk left by the joiners at the side of the road when he heard a familiar voice. ‘Not dead yet, then?’
He looked up to see Geoff. ‘Bored already with plunder?’ he retaliated.
‘Ah, you know how it is,’ Geoff said easily, but his grey eyes were pained, and he wouldn’t look directly at his vintener. Berenger knew that the worst atrocities were always unsettling. They dragged at a man’s soul afterwards like lead.
Geoff sat on the ground beside Berenger. In one fist he held an earthenware pot, which he passed to Berenger, who sniffed and then drank.
‘Sweet Jesus!’ he said. ‘What the hell is that?’
‘Someone called it burned cider. It sure as hell puts hairs on your balls where none stood before,’ Geoff said.
There was a wildness to him. A long, raking cut had sheared through his left sleeve and the flesh beneath it, and there was a short gash on his right shoulder as well as a new scratch under his left eye – but it wasn’t the wounds that struck Berenger. The vintener had seen him after numerous other battles, but this was the first time he had seen such an expression of despair on his face.
‘What is it, Geoff?’
‘The King has decreed that, because the town held its gates against him, the men can lay it waste. The rich are to be ransomed, but all their property is forfeit. Much’ll be burned.’
‘He’s making an example,’ Berenger said, and took another swig.
He felt drunk already. At plenty of other battles he had joined in the plunder, stealing all he could before others did. It was all part of the business of war. But to see Geoff’s face was to understand that this was a different kind of battle.
‘It’s worse even than that,’ Geoff went on. ‘At the gate were three skulls. The King heard they were knights executed for supporting him during the truce, when they should have been safe. The King’s furious that his allies were murdered, so he’s given the army a free hand. You know what that means: no mercy. All the women . . .’
‘I see.’
Berenger put his hand on Geoff’s shoulder. Geoff always missed his wife. He would whore with the others, but he never forgot his woman at home, and would not join in a rape. He only ever took women who were willing. Usually the English army was restrained, with most men anxious about punishments, but when they were set loose from the leash, English soldiers could be as brutish as the worst heathen.
‘I saw two men with a little girl, Berenger,’ Geoff whispered. ‘I wanted to kill them.’
‘Drink.’
Geoff took the pot, but didn’t lift it to his lips. He stared moodily at the town as the first orange glows began to light the walls. Smoke was beginning to boil from the southern edge of St-Lô, tipping over the walls like a sea overwhelming a castle in the sand.
‘I didn’t come here to watch women and children being raped,’ he said quietly. ‘I believe in the King’s authority, but how can he permit them to be violated in pursuit of his ambition? It’s not right.’
Berenger pulled the pad from his shoulder and winced. ‘It’s his right if he wants to punish the townspeople. They showed him disrespect.’
He was about to continue when Grandarse and Clip appeared at the bridge. They stood, staring about them, and when they saw Berenger and Geoff, they began to walk towards them. Behind them, Berenger saw Will and a stranger: a little, bent man with a satchel over his shoulder.
‘Didn’t expect you back so quickly,’ Geoff said. He remained staring at the town as a flurry of sparks rose from the farther side.
‘Aye, well, we couldn’t leave this old git suffering, could we, eh?’ Grandarse said. ‘How is it, Fripper?’
‘It hurts,’ Berenger said shortly.
‘This man can help you. He’s a leech. Not the best, from the look of his clothes, but at least he’s alive – for now,’ Grandarse said, shoving the stranger towards Berenger.
The old man peered at him, pulling the balled cloth from Berenger’s shoulder and sniffing it with a frown. He opened his bag and began to rummage inside.
‘Where’s the Donkey?’ Berenger asked, to take his mind from his shoulder as the man moved the material of his shirt aside. It hurt, but not so much as when he began to poke at the wound with a pair of tweezers. ‘Hey!’
‘Bits of your shirt are in the wound. You leave them, you die. You know gangrene? Must take all the shirt out.’
Berenger clenched his jaw as the man probed and pulled out tiny threads of linen. ‘Well?’
‘I haven’t seen him, not for an age,’ Grandarse said. ‘Thought he was outside.’
‘He was,’ Geoff said. ‘I wasn’t going to have him in there while the town was taken. I told him to clear off.’
‘I saw him in there at the first barricade,’ Clip said. ‘But when we took it, he was gone.’
Berenger gave an exasperated grunt. ‘Come on, then. We’d better go and search for the daft lurdan.’
‘Oh, no you don’t,’ Grandarse said. ‘We went to the effort of finding this old bastard, and we’re not letting you get up until he says you’re fit. You’ll stay here until he’s done with you.’
‘I can’t sit here while—’
‘Ye can and ye will, eh? Sit back and enjoy being pampered. We’ll be back later.’
Berenger fretted, but in truth he felt so battered, the thought of rising again did not appeal. He watched his companions as they crossed the bridge again, and wished he could be with them. The thought of Donkey being injured or dead was oddly painful.
‘Careful, that hurt!’ he snarled as the leech delved too deeply.
The man muttered something which sounded like ‘English children,’ but when Berenger glared at him, the leech ignored him and continued with his delicate task.
When Ed came to himself he was down near the bank of the river. The sun was sinking now, and the area was lighted by a livid red glow from the town. He washed his face in water that sparkled, reflecting golden-yellow flames, and squatted with his hands over his eyes, shivering.
When he first came here, all he had longed for was to see Frenchmen being slain. Only a mound of their bodies could ever begin to compensate for his suffering. Or so he had thought. But the bodies in the road, the little girl hiding by her dead mother, the three murdered children . . . they weren’t guilty. They were as innocent as he was.
His life had been so bound up with thoughts of revenge and hatred, he had never considered that he might reach a time like this, when his life’s purpose was lost.
So why was he here, sitting at the side of a French river, while his friends and companions indulged in an orgy of murder and rape?
He drew his hands down and stared about him, still confused, lost amidst the madness of the sacking of St-Lô. Leaning down, he cupped water in his hands and rinsed his mouth once more. As he did so, he saw an arm float past.
Springing to his feet in horror, Ed retreated up the bank of the river again. It felt as though his mouth was stained indelibly with blood, and he fell and retched on all fours until his empty belly could convulse no more. Only then did he notice the man.
It was the Welshman, Erbin. He had a woman by her hair, and was half-dragging her back to the army camp. She was screaming and flailing with her fists, and the Welshman panted, ‘Try that again, bitch, and you’ll regret it!’
That was when he caught sight of Ed, and he hesitated. The woman’s fist caught him at the temple, and he swore, then bunched his own fist an
d slammed it hard into her belly so that she collapsed, gasping for air, rolling with her hands over her stomach.
‘You, boy! Come here!’ he called, and he kicked the woman before crossing the ground towards him. ‘You want to buy me another drink, eh? Is it still that you want to join the army, boy? You can join our group, if you want.’
He was grinning now, his dark eyes watchful and filled with a strange light. ‘We can help you, boy. If you want to be with us, with the Prince’s men.’
Ed remembered that soft voice from the tavern, the way that the men took his drinks, and then the crushing blows that fell upon him outside. He hadn’t seen the man who assailed him, but Erbin’s smile was enough to make him shake with terror.
‘Or is it that you have been speaking about me and my friends behind our backs?’ Erbin asked softly, approaching with alarming speed.
Ed shook his head, backing away as the Welshman came nearer, and then with a little bleat of terror, he turned and fled, back along the bank of the river, away from the bridge.
The Welshman took a few paces after him, but then spat. He returned to the woman curled up and moaning on the ground. ‘Up, you bitch. He’ll wait, but you have some men to entertain before you rest!’
Geoff was tired. ‘Damn his cods!’ he muttered as he approached the town once more. ‘Fool should have stayed back, like I said. What was he doing coming up here?’
But he thought he understood. Ed knew nothing of life. He was alone at the sack of a town, a terrifying experience for anyone. No wonder he wanted to remain with his vintaine.
Geoff stopped under the gateway to the town and stared about him. It was a scene of horror. At his feet was a baby with a crushed head. On his left a heap of bodies, some soldiers, some citizens, a few older women. Three English soldiers were removing everything of value from the dead. One man with bare feet was hopping on one leg while he tried to pull on a shoe from a corpse, swearing and laughing in equal measure.
Bodies lay everywhere, and more dangling where they had been hanged. Farther off, a small boy, perhaps four or five years old, stood and screamed, his hands twisting a scrap of cloth. Men walked past, ignoring him and his despair. Near him lay a woman.
Geoff paced slowly, his eyes fixed on her body. The sight captivated him. She had hair the same colour as his wife’s; she had a similar build, and the wound in her throat looked like his wife Sarra’s – the wound he had seen that terrible morning when he found her corpse waiting for him downstairs.
His ears were assailed by harsh laughter, the crackle and rush of flames taking hold, occasional clattering of weapons.
It was scenes like this which had driven his brother, Henry, to despise him. When he thought of Henry, Geoff wanted to remember the youth with the smiling face, but instead he saw the priest with haunted eyes and thin, pale features. He had looked at Geoff with sadness and regret, as though Geoff was responsible for every death, every body tormented beyond pain.
‘All the Devils in Hell,’ Henry had said one day, ‘cannot butcher and torture so well as we poor souls.’
Not long after that, he had left, and Geoff had never seen him again. Once Geoff had heard from a friar that his brother sent his best wishes and prayed for him, but neither thought there was any hope for him.
Well, Geoff didn’t want his prayers. He was strong enough. He would shout at the Devil and curse him when he died. He had no need of a priest’s sympathy. Not even now, with his wife dead.
The thought made him stop, stock-still, in the road.
Two men ran from a house further up the street. They bore torches, and then stood watching the building with an eager glee, waiting. Soon a burst of flame rewarded their patience, and they began to dance, singing. Screams came from within.
It was suddenly too much. Geoff turned and hurried from the town. There was a stinging in his eyes, but not from the smoke.
He was almost at the bridge when something made him stop and look past the gates, along the line of the wall. There, he saw a familiar figure. ‘Donkey?’ he called.
The boy saw him, and suddenly he was pelting along the grass towards Geoff, a panicked boy who had seen too much, just like Henry all those years ago. He cannoned into Geoff like a rock from a trebuchet.
‘What is it, boy?’ the man said, not unkindly.
‘Geoff, I, I didn’t . . .’ he faltered, ‘I couldn’t . . .’
‘Was it the town? Now you know why I didn’t want you to see all that.’
‘No, it was out here. The Welshman.’
‘What Welshman? Don’t panic now,’ Geoff said, and he gripped the boy’s arms to calm him. ‘It’s all right, lad. You’re safe now.’
But the sobbing wouldn’t subside. Geoff could see how the shock overwhelmed him even as he carried Ed back over the bridge towards the wagons and Berenger.
Archibald the Gynour filled his water bottles and stood a while staring over the river at the fires, his mind empty. He had no sense of guilt or shame. This was not his city, and not his responsibility. He had taken no part in the sack.
He felt a fleeting regret. There would have been good stores of cash and plate in there, and along with all those lives, it was lost now forever. The enemy would suffer in any war, of course. Surely it was better that it was the French who suffered, rather than the English.
He was walking back to his wagon when he saw something lying in the debris at the side of the road. A body.
Old habits died hard with a man who had been a priest. He could contemplate with equanimity many deaths in the town over the water, but a body close to hand required his attention. Leaning down, Archibald pushed some of the rubbish from about the figure and felt a little pang when he saw the shock of hair. Turning the body over, he recognised the young groom who had helped him the other evening, and whom he had rewarded with a bowl of pottage.
The boy had a hoofprint on his breast. It looked as though he had been knocked down here in the rush to get to the bridge and attack the city. Possibly it was a destrier that struck him, and the rider didn’t realise what had happened.
Archibald was not outraged at the death. Boys were as liable to die in battle as any man. Yet he was stung by the thought that the lad would not share his fireside again. What was his name? He couldn’t remember.
He picked up the body and stared about him. He wanted to find him a suitable resting place – but where in this hell of fire and death was there somewhere for an innocent child?
Unaccountably, Archibald felt hot tears springing in his eyes as he stared down at the dead boy’s face. He looked as if he was sleeping.
26 July
For Ed the days passed in a welter of noise and terror.
The men marched with a joyous demeanour, all but Berenger, who hissed and glared at the French leech at every twinge of pain.
The army was spread over a huge front three or four leagues in breadth, swallowing the countryside like a glutton. Houses, villages, towns – all were engulfed and left smouldering. Any people discovered there were left dead. Before them was green, fertile land with hamlets dotted about, a scene of pastoral calm; behind them lay Hell.
Not that the men displayed any concern about the destruction they had left in their wake. Grandarse sang his lewd songs, while Clip and Will joined in lustily with the choruses; Geoff grinned and murmured the refrains, but he kept near Ed, who felt comforted by his presence. The others were too taken with the pleasures of the moment to be worried about their Donkey.
They were moving towards Cormolain, where the French Marshal and his men had retreated. King Edward and his son were keen to find him and break his force, since with the Marshal’s men out of the way, they would have a clear route to Paris.
It was a continual grinding, misery for Ed. He staggered on, laden with loaves and some cheeses Grandarse and Clip had liberated. Farmsteads were put to the torch and fields of wheat burned, while cattle were brought to be slaughtered at night for all to eat. The French had killed many of them alrea
dy, to deprive their enemy of food. Ed would never forget the sight of dead cattle in the fields, legs uppermost, bellies swollen with decay. Nor the stench of putrefaction. It would not leave him, but grew, so that he felt it was impregnated in his flesh, even unto his soul. The army was befouled. Each soldier carried the reek of death.
Last night they had reached this prominence and had slept a scant league or two from the great sprawl of Caen.
Ed lay awake, convinced that the following morning they would reach the city and repeat the scenes he had seen in St-Lô. It terrified him.
Just before dawn, the horns blared their command to rise and muster. The vintaine rose all about Ed, grunting, hawking, spitting, grumbling and cursing as only an English army could. Ed slowly climbed to his feet, and Clip, still half-asleep and looking for a tree to piss against, tripped over him. ‘Watch where you’re going,’ he snarled, before staggering to an oak and untying his braies.
Ed waited with the others while the darkness cleared to a bright daylight. The men stood, leaning on bowstaves or polearms, metal caps on their heads, leather or quilted jacks tight against the chill air, and as Ed looked about them, he hoped to see a glimmer of pity, a show of sadness in any of their eyes.
He shivered; he saw none.
Caen.
They reached an open space late in the morning that afforded them an uninterrupted view. Berenger gave a low whistle at the sight.
‘We won’t take that in a hurry,’ he said quietly.
It was a large city, lying in the curve of two rivers, with marshy land all about. The walls were formed from a gorgeous, pale cream-coloured rock that, in the early-morning sun, seemed to glow from within, like a city built for angels. To their left stood a great castle on a promontory, slightly above the city itself. The wall led from the castle around the city to the south and west, before meeting a strong abbey. A second abbey lay further beyond the castle. The yellow sun glinted from the rivers and streams that appeared to fill the space west of the city, beyond the abbeys. It was an enchanting sight.
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