Du Guesclin shrugged. ‘The canaille make war on us all – rape maidens, kill nobly born children. They are the common enemy, and my lord the Dauphin,’ he shrugged, ‘is not in the field.’
‘The Dauphin has found it more politic to leave us to fight the Jacques while he cowers in his mighty fortress.’ Hawkwood’s contempt was absolute.
‘I saw them on the way here. They wiped out an English garrison on the south of the river – burned two men alive on crosses.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ve seen our men do as much to them.’
Hawkwood nodded. ‘As have I. But if we let them feel their power – they’ll overturn the world order.’
Du Guesclin spat. ‘You have brought this on us, messire. So many good knights are dead—’
Hawkwood laughed. ‘Ah, messire, you are better born than I – a mere English yeoman. You should know better than that. The Jacques are out for your blood because you have failed to defend them. I heard a tale a month back – pardon me, it does no credit to a French knight. A deputation of wealthy peasants came to a lord not far from here. My men had just burned their barns. They went to their lord and asked him if he would go and fight – with my men.’ Hawkwood smiled a grim smile. ‘He explained that he stood no chance at all of defeating a hundred Englishmen with just he and his son.’
Du Guesclin, his friend de Carriere and a dozen other French knights all nodded along.
‘And the leader of the peasants said, “We don’t care whether you win or lose, my lord. As we owe you our tillage whether it rains or the sun shines, so you owe us your very best effort in our defence, whether you win or lose. For this is the obligation of l’homme armé to the men who till the soil.’ Hawkwood looked around.
The French knights were silent.
‘And the lord said, “But we will fail. And die.”’ Hawkwood laughed. ‘And the leader of the peasants said, “Then go die, my lord. That is all we ask.”’
Du Guesclin was angry. His shoulders were tense under his blue jupon and I could see the muscles in his neck. ‘This does not justify the wholesale murder of my class,’ he said.
Hawkwood shrugged. ‘To the Jacques, it does. You have failed them.’
Du Guesclin turned on his heel. ‘We do not need to stay and listen to this.’ He walked away, taking a mass of Frenchmen with him. A few paces away, he whirled. ‘If you love them so much, why not fight for them? Eh? Why fight with us?’
‘You’re paying,’ Hawkwood laughed. ‘You’re paying me and a thousand other Englishmen to kill the peasants who pay the taxes that maintain you.’
Du Guesclin didn’t turn around. He walked away and his men followed him.
I winced.
‘That was impolitic,’ I hesitated. ‘I like him.’
Hawkwood grimaced as if he’d been hit. ‘Do you ever look at the blood, the dead peasants, the wrecked villages, the burned barns, and wonder what it’s all for?’ he asked.
I looked at the ground. ‘All the time,’ I admitted.
Hawkwood nodded. His jaw jutted slowly, as it did when he was moved by great emotion. ‘It’s our living, and never forget that. They are amateurs. They are not like us.’ He shook his head. ‘But sometimes . . . I think it is all worthwhile if we destroy them. As individuals, many are fine men, but as a whole . . .’ He shook his head.
‘But you are fighting for them,’ I said.
He looked at me as if I was mad. ‘They’re paying, lad. Take care of yourself first.’ He waved and shrugged. His shrug dismissed the suffering of France.
I had letters to the King of Navarre, so I went to his great pavilion and spent an hour cooling my heels on a bench with a dozen Gascons, all waiting for an audience. The King of Navarre’s star was climbing – his Spanish officers were haughty as cardinals, and a mere ‘English adventurer’, as I heard myself called, was unlikely to impress anyone, most especially as I declined to offer a bribe to the boy who tracked ‘appointments’.
After an hour, I saw a man in black and white parti-colour approaching. I wanted to vanish, but I wasn’t about to give up my place on the bench. It was the Bourc Camus, trailing men-at-arms, and he came to the bench. Two of his men seized it and dumped us all on the ground.
While he was laughing, I put my fist in his face.
Gascons fear nothing, it is true, and I wasn’t going to cow a dozen Gascons with a dagger, but neither was I capable of backing down. So I drew de Charny’s dagger and snapped the flat pommel into one miscreant’s jaw.
The rest of them took me seriously, so they formed a rough circle.
‘Eh, messire,’ said one gap-toothed rogue. ‘You will pay now.’
‘The King of Navarre sends to ask why this unseemly disturbance?’ said a man with an arrogant lisp to his French. He was as tall as I am, with broad shoulders and the belly most men get in middle age, but he was so big he commanded immediate respect. He looked at me.
Camus bounced to his feet. ‘This English bastard tried to steal my place,’ he said with a winning smile.
My heart was beating sixteen to the dozen, but I forced a smile, too. ‘Pardon me, messire, but I believe you, not I, are the bastard,’ I said.
Camus went white.
You know that bourc means bastard, eh? I’m sure a herald knows such things.
Camus’ hand went to his dagger.
I turned to the big man as if the Bourc didn’t exist. ‘Is it nothing to the King that I am here from the King of England’s Lieutenant in Gascony? I am not on some idle errand, messire.’ I looked at Camus, implying he was on an idle errand.
‘By Christ’s passion, you are a dead man,’ Camus said, and he came at me, dagger high.
I stopped his blow with my left wrist, the way every English boy learns, and the Navarrese men-at-arms parted us.
Suddenly Charles of Navarre was there.
He was of middling height, very handsome, with curling dark hair, a fine beard, sparkling dark eyes and a warmth that I usually associate with the most beautiful and clever women. He almost always wore a smile, and he had a way of fixing his gaze on you that made you feel you were the most important person in the world. Sadly, he also had a way of giving in to fits of childish temper that dispelled the illusion that he was a great man and left the observer with the feeling that the King of Navarre was less than he might be.
He had immense presence, though, and all the men immediately fell silent.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said softly, and turned his smile on each of us in turn, like a ray of sun on a cloudy day. ‘Friends, we are embarked on a high and dangerous empris, and many beautiful ladies, and many innocents, depend utterly on our good faith, our brave hearts and our strong arms. Is it right that any of you indulge in a private quarrel when so many depend on us against a rising tide of chaos?’
I bowed.
Camus whispered, ‘He cannot save you, little boy.’
I ignored Camus. ‘Your Grace, I have letters from the Lieutenant of Gascony. To whom shall I pass them?’
Navarre looked at me with very little interest. He gave a slight shrug – he was assessing the impact of his pretty speech on the crowd. The big Spaniard gave a small nod, and I stepped over to him, bowed and handed him the two scrolls of parchment that were addressed to the King of Navarre, whose domains, may I add, touched on Gascony in several places.
‘Martin Enriquez de Laccarra,’ he said, offering his hand to clasp. ‘I am the King’s gonfalonier. You are the English squire – Gold. There’s a Gold and a Black, yes?’
I had heard of him, of course, the captain of the Navarrese in Normandy. The Prince spoke highly of him as a knight. I was flattered that he shook my hand. ‘Black is my friend Richard,’ I said. ‘He is recovering from a sickness at Poissy.’
‘You two make good fame together – very proper,’ Enriquez said. ‘In brief, what does Sir John Cheverston want?’
‘He asks safe conducts for all his men, so he can exterminate the brigands in the high valleys, north and south. Even going over borders, i
f required.’ I explained about his army and the quest set him by our Prince.
King Charles passed me, going back to his pavilion. He paused in the curtained doorway, where, I think, he thought none could see him. He held up his right cuff, where I saw that he had a small mirror set in the cloth, and he used it to look at himself.
My friends, I’ve never seen a woman, even in the East, with a mirror attached to her clothes. Good God.
Enriquez saw what I saw, and effected not to notice.
‘You have a quarrel with the Bourc Camus,’ he asked quietly.
‘I do,’ I admitted. ‘None of my making.’
He shrugged. ‘My Prince has forbidden all forms of joust or duel until the peasants are crushed,’ he said. He smiled pleasantly enough, but something of his manner reminded me of Hawkwood, or Chandos. ‘I mean to see his will enforced.’
I bowed. ‘I will obey,’ I said.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I predict the King will sign your safe conducts as soon as I can catch his attention.’
Sam, John and I slept in Hawkwood’s camp in borrowed blankets.
The next day, servants brought us a breakfast of wine and stale bread with good soft cheese, then a French priest said Mass. Two Gascons tripped me and a third tried to kick me in the groin while I was down, but Sam broke one of the bastard’s fingers, quick as that.
Afterwards, Sir John surrounded me with his own men. His chief officer was John Thornbury, a solid man from the Midlands, a few years my senior and a head shorter, but already a famous fighter.
‘Camus hates you,’ he said, and I admitted this was true.
He laughed. ‘We’ll see you right, Will Gold.’ He spat. ‘Fucking Gascons, eh?’
I found myself quite popular with the English. I wasn’t used to popularity, but my recent feat of arms and my ‘official’ status acting for Sir John Cheverston gave me a name in an army full of famous men.
I liked it.
Reputation is everything – any boy knows as much. To enter a strange camp and discover that a thousand men know your name is a heady drink for a boy of seventeen.
At any rate, we were on the road after sunrise, and a little after midday we reached Mello, a small town twenty miles north of Paris, where, army rumour said, the leader of the rebels lived.
We made camp, observed at a distance by half a hundred cavalrymen. Sir John took us out from the camp, riding hard, to drive the enemy off, and we chased them north and east almost two miles, and saw their camp – a well-dug-in position on a round-crested ridge with steep sides. We sat our horses at the base of the slope, letting the animals breathe, while we looked up at the palisade at the top.
‘That’s steep,’ I said.
Sir John stroked his beard.
John Thornbury whistled. ‘They look pretty good,’ he said.
I started and pointed. Just above us, in a watch-port, were a dozen well-armed men in red and blue hoods.
Sir John looked at them under his hand. ‘Paris militia,’ he said.
‘But . . . the King of Navarre is the master of the Paris militia!’ I said.
Sir John shrugged and smiled his small smile. ‘Today, he has chosen to be the brother-in-law of the King of France,’ he said. ‘Another day, he may choose to pose as the defender of Paris.’
We rode well to the north, in a great circle, looking for a hill that would overlook the peasant army, but we didn’t find one.
That night, men in our camp said their confessions and saw to their armour. The veterans went to sleep, and the new men – among whom I include most of the French knights – stayed awake all night bragging about their prowess.
Morning dawned and we all armed ourselves. An army of men-at-arms putting on their harness is like a nest of ants when a horse kicks it up: all at sixes and sevens, and I thought all morning that if the peasants had the sense to attack us at dawn, they might have won a great victory.
As it was . . .
When we were fully armed, we learned that the King of Navarre had arranged a parley with the leader of the peasants, a local man named Guillaulme Cale. Martin Enriquez drew us up in three battles, with one mounted battle and two dismounted; I went with Sir John Hawkwood in the mounted battle. Bertrand du Guesclin was six horses to my left.
We stood by our chargers on a beautiful June morning and watched Guillaulme Cale ride down the steep hill from his nearly impregnable position. He rode across the fields between his camp and ours, with just two men, both of whom looked like knights, to my great surprise.
I expected the King of Navarre to ride out meet him, like the Prince at Poitiers with King John, but there were no cardinals here, and no rules. About fifty paces from our front lines, Enriquez and a dozen Navarrese men-at-arms closed around Cale and threw him from his horse. They bound him.
He was about twenty paces from me, and I heard him call out, ‘Is this your courtoise, monsieur the King?’
Charles was on foot, with a poleaxe. He was deep in conversation with one of the French knights, and he didn’t turn his head. Cale was dragged past him, kicking and demanding justice, and taken to the rear in our camp.
‘You gave me a safe conduct, you liar! Caitiff! God will punish you!’ cried the peasant leader.
He was beaten into silence.
All this was done in full view of the peasants on the hill. Many had come down the hill to see the parley, and more had come pouring out of their fortified camp at word that their leader was taken.
Enriquez trotted his charger across our front. He waved to Sir Robert Scot, who commanded the mounted men.
Scot closed his visor.
We all followed suit.
Next to me, Sir John said, ‘Through them – and straight up the hill before they can form. Or we’ll have a hard fight.’ He pointed at the crowd at the base of the hill.
We started forward to the sound of a trumpet. We went forward at a walk, harness jingling. The very harmony of Mars – the sound of horses and armour.
I had a borrowed lance, and I blessed du Guesclin for his patient hours of training me. I’d have been terrified of using a lance in a crowd this dense, but now I felt confident. Indeed, riding in a cavalry charge is the closest a mere man can feel to God’s angels. The power is immense. The feeling of power is . . . like what priests prate of.
And riding through badly armed, poorly disciplined peasants is a special, evil pleasure. They stood in arms against us. They were our enemies, I had no doubt of that. I owed them for Peter.
But they were poor devils, for all that. The better armed men stayed together in clumps, and we ignored them and smashed through the men who turned to flee. It’s always that way when cavalry rides down infantry.
I’ve heard men brag about how many Jacques they killed that day. I’ll save my bragging for more worthy foes. I killed my share.
We rode over them, and up their long hill – diagonally to save our horses. Two hundred good spearmen could have held us all day on that slope, but after smashing the front line – if you can call it a line – we rode unopposed up the ridge and fell upon their camp, and the whole peasant army broke and ran for their lives.
And died.
Down on the plain, the better armed men reformed in our wake and met the whole of the King’s battle, all the dismounted knights, English and French, who went through them like the scythe cuts the wheat.
The lucky ones died there.
The unlucky ones were taken.
Their camp was full of women, and they died hard. None of them surrendered, that I remember. They knew what was in store for them.
Every child in that camp was spitted on a sword.
I have seen every horror war can offer, but here was something I didn’t expect: the worst atrocities weren’t done by us. The English did their part in the battle, and most of them rode or walked back to camp.
It was the local French knights who killed the children.
The worst was Camus. He tried to coral a group of women and coa
x them to surrender, and when they fought, he promised them horrible deaths and made sure his promises were carried out. I was dismounted – Goldie had taken a spear point in his breast and I was seeing to my horse – when he ordered his men to kill them all.
I didn’t want to hear any more, so I got my armoured leg over my saddle.
‘Leave one!’ he shouted. ‘Flay her face and leave her alive to tell others not to defy me!’
Sam Bibbo grabbed my reins from me and rode down the hill – I couldn’t stop him.
At the base of the hill, Sam put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re a nice lad,’ he said. ‘Soft, in some ways. That’s what happens – yon. Worse when a town is stormed.’
I gritted my teeth. ‘Camus is a worm. A serpent. A demon from hell.’ I thought of the man with half his face flayed away, and I knew who had massacred that town.
Sam shrugged. ‘That’s as maybe. You may do as thee list – after I take you to camp. You cannot rescue them.’ He waved at a dozen wounded men – our whole tale of casualties. ‘Poor John took an arrow in the leg – bad luck. I’ll see him well bedded.’
I followed him.
I felt like scum.
It wasn’t that I could have done anything.
It was only that, like the French lord in Hawkwood’s story, I could have died.
The pursuit of the Jacques went on for a day and a night, and whole villages were wiped out – every human creature killed – for ten miles around our camp. The celebrations started immediately, with terrified, peasant-born servants offering us wine and bread made by men and women whose blood was now fertilizing the earth.
I didn’t sleep well. John Hawkwood did, though. I know, as he shared his tent with me.
Thanks to his good offices, my safe conducts were signed by King Charles. Since we were less than a day’s ride from the Dauphin’s castle at Meaux, I collected my goods, thanked Sir John and made to leave.
Sir John rode with me until we were a mile or so from camp. He pointed to a group of riders shadowing us.
‘Bertucat means to kill you,’ he said.
‘I’d be pleased to meet him any time,’ I said. ‘When it is one to one, and not twenty of his against three of mine.’
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