Fields of Glory

by Michael Jecks

  Berenger glanced at the others. Geoff shrugged, while Jack stood and shouldered his weapons, saying philosophically, ‘Aye, well, we won’t get anywhere by sitting on our arses.’

  Clip spat into the dirt at his feet with a display of petulance. ‘Why us again, eh? Why do they keep on sending us whenever there’s another battle? Haven’t we already done enough? Matt’s hardly cold, and they want us to go risk our lives again?’

  The esquire was about to comment, but Berenger gave him a warning shake of the head.

  Clip rose to his feet, muttering all the while, ‘Aye, well, we’ll all get ourselves slaughtered. You do know that? We’ll all be murdered by the bastard French.’

  ‘Not you, Clip,’ Berenger said, as he pulled his sword loose and examined the blade. ‘You’re the one they count on to single-handedly ruin the army’s morale.’

  ‘Aye, it’s a knack I have.’

  They mounted their ponies, and soon were rattling along behind the esquire towards the next town, Vessencourt.

  It was obvious that they were too late. Smoke was gathered and balled by the gusting winds, looking like thick clumps of fleece, dirty and grey, before being whisked away. All about, they could smell the charring and scorched grounds, while amidst that were other odours: the tang of sweet, burned meat, the foulness of feathers and fur, a disgusting concoction that assailed the nostrils like a noisome poison.

  Across the plain, they could see the devastation as they approached. Sir John stood in the midst of the ruin staring about him with a gleaming fury in his eyes. Berenger had never seen him so angry.

  ‘You see this? All this? They came here at the middle of the day to rob and pillage, as though we have all the time in the world to enjoy taking women! It was hardly a town worth the name, but the fools came here to plunder, and for that they were prepared to risk their lives and our entire enterprise. Damn their souls! God rot them!’

  ‘Where are they now?’ Berenger said.

  ‘God in His heaven must know, but I’ll be damned if I do!’ Sir John shouted, infuriated. He calmed himself with an effort. ‘We will have to follow their trail. Richard, do you return to my Lord Warwick and ask that we have more men to curtail this meandering, and then hurry back with them. We shall have to try to find these fools and pull them back to the army. However, Richard, make it clear that the army must continue. Let my Lord the Prince know that another few men must be set to scout ahead, until we are returned.’

  ‘I shall, Sir John.’

  ‘Then ride, man, ride! What are you hanging about for? Be fleet! Master Fripper, I depend upon you and your men. Come!’

  The trail was not hard to follow. The men who had burned Vessencourt had left a broad path of devastation in their wake. A road of mud and dirt over ten yards wide stretched away into the distance before them. They set their ponies’ heads to the north and cantered on.

  Occasional farmsteads and hamlets were sprinkled over the flat landscape. Most were ablaze, the thatch sending up thick, greenish yellow fumes that caught in a man’s throat and made him choke. Worse was the ever present odour of burned pork. It had nothing to do with pigs: this was the smell of roasting human flesh.

  ‘How many men are missing?’ Berenger asked Sir John.

  ‘Maybe four centuries. Enough to make all this damned mess. But the fools will be slaughtered if they try to take a town. Especially since they’ll be roaring drunk by now.’

  There was no need to explain his words. Every few yards as they rode, they passed little jugs or barrels that had been discarded. Clearly the men had stolen all the drink from the houses they had plundered.

  It was a league or more further on when they came across the first stragglers.

  ‘Hoi!’ Sir John bellowed, and clapped spurs to his rounsey. There ahead were four or five men staggering along under a weight of goods. Berenger kicked his pony into a trot to catch up with him.

  ‘What are you men doing up here?’ Sir John bawled as he reined in before the men.

  To Berenger they had the appearance of peasants who had been called to muster for the first time. One man he recognised: a tall fellow with a sullen expression who carried a strung bow, while the others were happily drunk and oblivious.

  ‘My Lord?’ one asked, hiccuping. A friend of his was giggling beside him, and he slapped away his proffered cask of wine. ‘We are following our comrades.’

  The man whose cask had been rejected gave a long, loud belch. ‘There’s good pickings up here. We’ll all be rich men.’

  ‘You will be rich and dead,’ Sir John declared flatly. ‘You are guilty of abandoning the King’s host without permission, and engaging yourselves on a wild hunt for plunder on your own account. For that the penalty is death.’

  While the other men appeared to sober swiftly, the taller, sullen man spoke. ‘Why should we take your word for that, Sir Knight? You come here and tell us we’re in the wrong but it’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? To ravage the land just as the King has so far. We’re doing his job for him. He should be grateful.’

  ‘Your King has ordered you to make all haste to beat the French to the Somme, and you and your companions are putting us all in jeopardy by delaying him. You are giving the French a chance to catch us.’

  ‘Then we can go on to the next bridge,’ the man said truculently.

  ‘Like we did on the way to Paris, you mean?’ Sir John said his tone mildly.

  Berenger remembered the fellow now: Mark Tyler was his name. God, the day he and Roger had sat and discussed their new recruits seemed an age ago. He eyed the man warily.

  ‘Well, Archer, return to the army and be swift about it, and I will forget your insubordination,’ Sir John said.

  ‘Go swyve a goat,’ Tyler said. He squared up to Sir John’s horse. ‘I don’t know who you are, but why shouldn’t we go after the rest of our vintaine?’

  ‘You refuse a knight’s order?’ Sir John demanded.

  Tyler grinned. ‘Come with us to Beauvais! There are rich takings there, so we’ve heard. Good wine, money, furs, gold, everything. Come with us, and we’ll all be wealthier than the dreams of a prince!’

  Berenger was getting impatient. ‘Tyler, do you realise this knight is one of the Prince’s own advisers? You idiot! You place your life in peril. Even if you carry on, the town is well-defended and the French army is approaching. Our army may succeed in crossing the Somme if we are swift, but the way things are, I doubt it. Come! There is nothing for us here. Not today.’

  Tyler nodded reluctantly. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Where are the rest of the men?’ Berenger asked.

  ‘Follow the tracks,’ Tyler shrugged, at which Sir John nodded and rode away. As Berenger was about to ride off after him, Tyler stepped forward. ‘Master, before you go, can you spare one or two men to help us with our baggage? The cart is broken, and we have a great deal to carry. It’s mostly provisions, master, not treasure. If you send me two men, I will let them bring half away with them.’

  Berenger considered. The men were all hungry, as he was himself. He looked over his shoulder and called, ‘Walt and Gil: come here.’

  He gave them instructions to help Tyler and his drunken companions, and then to head back to the vintaine, as fast as possible, before dark. The first few yards on his own, Berenger felt deeply uncomfortable, as though a man had painted a target upon his back, and he half-expected a clothyard arrow to bury itself in his spine at any moment.

  He was also anxious about what he might find when they caught up with the rest of the renegades. It might not be so easy to cow them.

  ‘Hoi!’

  Berenger turned to see Gil waving. ‘What?’

  ‘Leave the Donkey with us. We’ll have need of someone to help carry the stuff.’

  Berenger glanced at Ed. The lad was downcast. His eyes were red-rimmed and glittered as if he had a fever. ‘Ed? Do you want to go with them?’

  ‘I’ll go where you tell me, sir. I’m only a porter, after all. I ha
ve no opinions or feelings. I’m just here to fetch and carry.’

  ‘Then go! Obey Gil and Walt. They are responsible for you,’ Berenger snapped.

  Before he turned back to the trail, he watched the boy shamble off towards the other group of men with a strange presentiment of loss. It was almost as though he was saying farewell to an old comrade rather than a foolish youth who had been continual source of petty annoyance.

  ‘Damn him!’ he muttered, and turned to the trail once more.

  Only later would he come to regret that decision, when he realised the full horror and danger involved.

  Ed found the going hard. Although he had no shoes, his feet were toughened, and the stones and pebbles caused him little trouble, but the speed that Tyler reckoned was necessary was difficult to cope with. The party hurried on, heading north and west, to avoid Beauvais altogether and so come upon the Somme farther to the west.

  Tyler had made up his mind to be friendly, and he chatted and told jokes as they made their way along the rough tracks, soon reducing Gil and Walt to helpless laughter, but Ed remained unamused. There was an underlying cruelty about this man that Ed disliked and distrusted.

  True, the same could be said for most of the men in the army. They were trained killers, when all was said and done. Yet the majority – apart from the Welsh men of Erbin’s vintaine – had shown him sympathy and kindness, Ed thought.

  ‘You all right, lad?’ Gil said now, breaking into his thoughts.

  ‘My feet are sore, my shoulders chafe from these bags and my belly aches from hunger – but I won’t die of any of them,’ Ed said.

  ‘You have a good sense of humour, boy. It’s lucky, we all need it here.’

  Yes, it was true that the kindness of men like Gil and Walt and Jack, and poor Will and Matt, was often gruff, yet it was kindly given, and that was the most important thing for Ed. He was beginning to feel, for the first time ever, as though he was a wanted, useful member of the vintaine. Gil hadn’t needed to ask for him, but had done so anyway.

  Only Berenger didn’t appreciate him.

  ‘My thanks for asking for me to come with you,’ Ed said.

  Gil looked down at him with a twisted smile. ‘You didn’t want to go with Berenger, did you?’

  ‘He’s the bastard son of a Winchester goose,’ Ed mimicked.

  ‘Son of a whore, eh? Your language is developing nicely,’ Gil chuckled. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because I can say and do nothing that will please him. Anything I do say, he derides or pulls to pieces to make me look foolish. Today, after that fight, he insulted me. I don’t deserve that: it’s not fair. I don’t even report to him any more. I am with the gynour, with Archibald, not with the vintaine, but does he show me any kindness or mercy? No!’

  ‘You know he was once like you?’

  ‘Who, Berenger?’

  ‘Aye. His parents were killed, and he would have died too, if the King hadn’t taken pity and seen to him. He saw his mother killed, and his father, so I heard. He doesn’t like to have youngsters with him in battle now, and if he must have them, he dislikes those who speak too much of killing. He believes it’s better for boys to be spared the sight of death, and also the risk of their own death.’

  ‘What of it? I’m no boy!’

  ‘Today he killed three boys. You should try to understand him. It was hard for him. I wouldn’t care, I’ve killed too many – but Fripper is different. He feels each one.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I know so. None of us want to wage war on the young, Ed. If you meet a man with a sword and kill him in a fair fight, that is good. It warms the heart. To learn that you have killed a youngster does not.’

  ‘I came here to slay as many French people as possible. They killed my family, and I wanted revenge – but now we are committing the same atrocities they did against us.’

  ‘Good!’ Gil said with approval. He slapped Ed’s back so hard, the boy almost fell. ‘You’re learning. Perhaps you will become a soldier yourself. If you do, make sure you avoid the same mistakes so many others make.’ His face grew bleak and he stared into the distance.

  ‘What, killing the young?’

  ‘Aye – and of being found out,’ he murmured.

  Geoff rode along with a feeling of disquiet. It was good to have something to occupy his mind other than Béatrice. The others were treating him once more as they had before. But still, this area felt dangerous.

  The roadway was broad, and every so often they would find that the plain had a little rise, with cleared land for pasture or planting, but for much of the way, the trail they followed took them through woods and stands of trees, perfect for ambushes. It was a relief when at last they came out into the open and saw before them the broad sweep of a fresh road.

  ‘Christ Jesus!’ Jack swore under his breath, and Geoff followed the direction of his gaze, seeing a strong, walled town before them. There was already a fight going on. Clear on the air they could hear the din of battle: shouting, screaming, the clash of weapons and the thundering of a siege-weapon against the gates.

  ‘They have moved on faster than I expected,’ Sir John said wearily. ‘Look at that! It’ll be well nigh impossible to extricate them once they feel that they have a modicum of success. Those fools think that they can blunder their way inside without trouble.’

  ‘Then we’d best hurry and call them away,’ Berenger said.

  Geoff saw his eyes go to him, and he nodded at once. ‘Yes. I’m ready.’

  ‘Ride on, then – and Jack, you go too. We’ll be along shortly.’

  ‘I will ride with them,’ Sir John said.

  ‘I would advise against it,’ Berenger said. ‘Better that they see it’s only men like themselves, more poor warriors, than a rich knight.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Sir John said. ‘So, what now? Ride on towards the town?’

  ‘I think so.’

  That was the last Geoff heard as he and Jack trotted off. ‘Look out for Frenchmen,’ he muttered, and Jack nodded.

  The land was prodigiously flat here, Geoff noted. Large ripples were the closest things to hills, but were nothing compared with the hills of his native lands.

  He missed his home. The thick woods and forests, the swift-flowing streams and brooks, the hills with their pastures for the hill-farmers and shepherds, the strips in the communal fields. He could almost smell the thick loamy soil near his home, the house in the woods not far from the Avon, in which he had fathered his children with his wife.

  But he would never see them again. The thought made his throat close up, and he had to wipe at his eyes with a terrible sadness.

  They were close to the town now, and Jack rose in his stirrups, shouting and waving his arm. It was enough to distract Geoff from his grim mood, and he began to copy his companion.

  The men at the walls turned to glare at the newcomers. They had worked hard, in the short time they had been here. Palisades and a number of scaling ladders had been constructed of timber liberated from the nearby woods. A siege engine had been thrown together, brought from King Edward’s siege train, from the look of it. And on all sides men bellowed and fired arrows at the Frenchmen who dared show themselves at the walls. A team worked with a huge ram resting on a wagon, slamming it at the gates with abandon, while stones hurtled towards them from above. Even as Geoff and Jack reached the men, there was a gout of flame as a vat of oil was tipped over them, but luckily only two were superficially burned. The others dropped their holds and ran away a short distance until the worst of the flames were burned through, and then they went back to their charred wagon and ram.

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’ Geoff demanded of the first man.

  He was a heavy-set fellow with a round bearded face and an almost entirely bald head. ‘Who wants to know?’ he replied.

  Geoff jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Sir John de Sully, knight banneret, on behalf of Edward of Woodstock.’

  ‘Really? And why would my Lo
rd Edward be so interested in us here then, eh?’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘I am Ham of Bristelmestune, master, and I’m the vintener of this group of felons and cut-throats,’ he grinned.

  ‘Well, Master Ham, you should know that the King’s express orders are that the whole army should be moving because the French army is too close to us already. And if we don’t keep moving, they will overtake us.’

  ‘Who cares?’ The man snapped his fingers dismissively. ‘If they come, we’ll fight ’em. You know we can beat the French on any battlefield – we’ve shown that already. Let ’em come and see what happens when they meet a real army.’

  ‘Yeah, and if they were to appear here – right now – the whole French army surrounding you here, and beating you like a hammer beating a nail against the town’s walls, do you really think you’d survive? Are your brains in your tarse that you think you can fight the whole of the French army on ground that suits them, not us?’

  As he spoke, Geoff was aware of the man’s eyes going behind him, and he thought that the rest of the vintaine with Sir John had come to join them. It was suitable timing, he thought, just as he mentioned the idea of the sudden appearance of the French.

  Ham turned and bellowed orders. Then he pulled off his metal cap. ‘You could have warned us,’ he hissed to Geoff.

  Geoff shrugged. ‘I relayed the King’s orders, that’s all. Get a move on.’

  ‘We’ll come with all speed. Tell my Lord Edward of Woodstock that we’ll extricate ourselves as quickly as we can.’

  Geoff nodded, turned his pony – then sat gaping.

  The whole of the English army had appeared behind him, and now straggled in a ragged column over the plain.

  Ed felt his legs beginning to falter. They had already covered so many miles in the last few days since leaving Paris, and now, with the load he was carrying, and the weariness of the long distance, he felt as though he must fall with every stumble.