‘It shows that the two know each other, nothing more than that,’ Berenger said, but he knew it was too much of a coincidence for that. ‘Did you hear what they were talking about?’
‘I didn’t dare get too close. The outlaw and I had a talk a while ago, and—’
‘You saw him before and didn’t think to tell me?’ Berenger growled.
‘Frip, he was in the yard and jumped on me, right? I really thought I was going to get killed. That was the day I had the black eye, remember? Anyway, if I’d got too close he’d have recognised me, so I kept back, but they were muttering.’
‘Where did they go afterwards?’
‘The big man headed to the west, the other back towards the harbour. I went after the big man – he was easy to keep an eye on with his head standing up above the crowds. He went back to a shed out at the east of the town. And then I heard a bit of a rumpus from here, and thought you might appreciate my return.’
‘Can you find the place again?’ Berenger asked.
Clip gave him a sly look. An expert scavenger, he never forgot a place that could be of profit.
‘Well, there’s little enough we can do for now,’ Berenger said. But it did mean that there were still some members of the spying team in the English camp. He noted that. ‘You’ll have to tell Grandarse and possibly Sir John all about your little escapades, and what you saw and heard today. It’s just possible we’ll have to mount a closer guard on the King in future. In the meantime, as soon as we can, we’ll go to this room and see if we can catch the man.’
It was dark when Berenger, Jack and Dogbreath crept along the path behind Clip.
‘That’s the one,’ Clip whispered, pointing. ‘They’ll be sure to hear us, though. If they don’t run, they’ll kill us for sure.’
‘Shut up,’ Jack hissed automatically.
Berenger studied the place in the gloom. It was a simple shed standing alone at the edge of the marshes. In happier times it might have been a fisherman’s store, but now it was little more than a wreck, with the wooden shingles all broken and awry on the roof. A window was to the left of the entrance, a door that was reached by a pair of steps. The hut stood on piles to keep the floor away from the sodden sands all about.
‘Careful, lads,’ Berenger said. He motioned, and Jack slipped away around the side of the shed to the rear. Soon he was back.
‘There’s one window at the back. I don’t know if anyone’s inside. There’s no light.’
‘Go to the back and wait. If anyone hurries out, you know what to do.’
Jack nodded and was gone. After a count of sixty, which Berenger felt should give Jack enough time to get into position, he took a deep breath, pulled out his knife and stepped cautiously up the stairs to the door. He pushed at it, and it squeaked. As soon as it did, he shoved it wide, the door slamming against the wall inside. A startled grunt, and a man was sitting up on a bench. Berenger ran to him and gripped his shirt, holding his knife to his throat. ‘Shut up!’ he rasped as Clip and Dogbreath hurtled in behind him. There was one door to their right, and Berenger jerked his head towards it. Clip reached it as it was thrown wide, and the enormous bulk of Bertucat appeared.
‘Jesus save me!’ Clip yelped.
Berenger punched his prisoner to still him, and as he fell back, snuffling in pain, Berenger joined Clip and Dogbreath.
The man was not as massive as he first appeared, but he was enormously strong, and his long arms allowed him to punch or stab at men when he was still far from their reach. Clip was slapped about the cheek in a moment, and thrown to the ground. Berenger took his place, but even as he ducked and bobbed, he knew he would never get close enough to punch the man.
And then he heard a shrill squeal, and suddenly Dogbreath shoved him aside and threw himself at the man.
Briefly shocked into paralysis as the small noisome whirlwind materialised, fists flailing, Bertucat was pushed off-balance. Dogbreath sprang up and grabbed his throat, hauled hard, butted him in the face, dropped down, and kicked hard at his cods, then at his shin. Bertucat had never known such exquisite pain. He cradled his ballocks with both hands, his nose streaming, and as he did so, Dogbreath crouched low, and then exploded upwards like a rock from Archibald’s gonne, and struck Bertucat with his fist right on his already broken nose.
The man’s head was flung upwards by the force of the blow, and while Dogbreath gave a whistling cry, shaking his hand and dancing on one foot in pain, Bertucat tottered, took a step backwards, and then crashed to the floor.
While Clip took a malicious pleasure in tying Bertucat up very tightly, Berenger went to interrogate the other man.
After a lengthy questioning, it seemed clear to Berenger that the fellow knew nothing of Bertucat or the Vidame. He was simply an English shipmaster who had rented a bed for a night, and was happy to take one as cheap as Bertucat’s. He had never seen the big man before renting the room from him, he said.
Bertucat was little more forthcoming, lying on the floor with his hands bound behind him. ‘I’ve done nothing to you,’ he said in his thick accent.
‘Where is the Vidame?’ Berenger asked.
‘He is gone. He went days ago.’
‘Then why were you talking to your friend the outlaw in town this afternoon?’ Berenger said.
‘What outlaw?’ he sneered.
Clip answered, holding a hand three inches above his head. ‘This high, with a pointy face, mouse-coloured hair and blue eyes. Wore a faded fustian tunic and pale brown boots, had green hosen with a tear in the left knee, and—’
‘Piss off!’
‘Shithead!’ Dogbreath shouted, and would have launched himself on Bertucat again, had Jack not restrained him.
Berenger was about to send him outside to cool his head, when he saw a flicker of fear in Bertucat’s eyes, and without thinking, said, ‘Jack, let him go. Clip, Jack, come outside with me. We’ll leave Bertucat to talk things through with Dogbreath for a while. Dogbreath, don’t kill him, but do what you need to get us answers.’
‘Hey!’ Bertucat called, struggling to rise. ‘Don’t leave me with him, he’s a lunatic! Stay here with me, don’t leave me!’
‘No obvious wounds, Dogbreath,’ Berenger said as he reached the door. He did not cast a glance at Bertucat. ‘The King will want him for his own torturer.’
‘Wait! I’ll tell you all I know! But not this man, and no torturer.’
Berenger hesitated, one foot on the step outside. ‘Not this man, perhaps. However, if you are deemed to be a traitor or spy, you’ll pay for it.’
‘I understand that. I’ll tell you all, but no torture.’
Berenger gave a nod to Jack, who was frowning slightly at the thought of explaining this arrangement. Ah well, it was Berenger’s agreement, not his.
‘I was employed by the Vidame, yes,’ the big man told them.
‘Was it you who killed my man?’
‘The Vidame ordered me to kill him. He was a traitor to you, and would have betrayed us, the Vidame said.’
‘Where is the Vidame now?’
‘I told you, he’s gone.’
‘Where?’
‘He’s with the army,’ Bertucat said, throwing a glance up as though he could see through the walls to the hills of Sangatte.
‘What does he intend to do?’
‘He was just here to gain information, so that when the army arrived with King Philippe, they would best know how to break through your ranks.’
‘What sort of man is he?’
‘Absolutely determined. He is a loyal Frenchman, and he would do anything, regardless of the consequences, if it would help France. He often said that his duty was to destroy the English capacity to withstand the French attack.’
‘How?’
‘He never told me.’ Bertucat shrugged. ‘Look, he was only one man, and he counted the English as more than twenty thousand. What could he do?’
‘What indeed?’ Berenger wondered aloud.
‘Frip?�
�� Jack said. ‘We need to take him to the King.’
Berenger turned to study Bertucat. In his mind’s eye he saw all the men who had died in action since he landed in France last year. There were so many. From the young Frenchmen who tried to ambush him and the vintaine in the first days, to the steaming piles of corpses at Crécy, the outlaws in England, the pale face of Godefroi outside Durham, and even the man running at him down south of Calais today. Most of all, he remembered the flayed body outside Durham, and he heard again those agonised shrieks as the skin was peeled from the prisoner’s body.
‘I will not send him to be tortured,’ he said.
Bertucat peered at him. ‘I thank you,’ he said. And then, licking his lips: ‘I have one confession to make to you,’ he added. ‘When you were at the castle at Bosmont, you fell from the wall. That was not an accident. It was the man you knew as Pardoner, who tripped you. He was told to remove you.’
‘Why me?’
‘My master thought you were too shrewd. He felt you might realise about Pardoner and the boy, and that you would uncover the plot. He didn’t want to run the risk that you would prevent it.’
‘And yet you tell us now?’
‘I doubt that the plot can achieve anything. What, the French break through this ring to liberate Calais? It cannot happen.’
‘I see.’
‘Frip, think!’ pleaded Jack. ‘We have to take him to the King to be questioned.’
‘I will not do it, Jack. I won’t send a man to be broken and cut up alive, skinned and gutted, not for anyone. It’s bad enough that I’ve helped kill so many.’
‘What, then?’
Berenger looked at Bertucat again. Then he drew his sword. ‘It’ll be quick,’ he promised.
‘You slew him?’ Sir John de Sully said again with disbelief.
‘He wouldn’t have told us any more, except lies to stop us hurting him,’ Berenger said. ‘And I wouldn’t have any part of that.’
‘You don’t make my job easy, do you, Frip?’ Sir John sighed. ‘Still, it was useful to learn. And at least the clerk is well away from us.’
‘I don’t know. I think that he has an idea.’
‘Such as?’
‘We had heard that an attempt could be made on the life of the King.’
‘Yes, but nothing has happened.’
‘Why should it? Think about it – would there be any point before the French King arrived here with his army?’
Sir John nodded and chewed at his moustache. ‘Very well. I shall speak to the King and suggest that he should have a stronger force to protect him in future.’
‘What of Sir Peter of Bromley?’
‘What of him?’
‘His servant was the man taking messages about the army’s strength. His house was where the messages were stored. Surely . . .’
‘I think you should stop right there.’
‘But Jean de Vervins was able to pretend loyalty to Philippe while spying and working for King Edward. What is to say that Sir Peter is not doing the same?’
Sir John nodded slowly. ‘These are hard times, if even a knight must be viewed askance as a possible traitor, Frip.’
‘These are hard times,’ the vintener said.
Sir Peter was sitting alone at his table when the two men knocked and marched in.
‘What is it you want?’ he demanded angrily. He had enjoyed a quiet meal with four men from his household and was feeling pleasantly mellow when these impudent scoundrels entered. He stood up and was about to berate them when he saw Berenger glaring at him and hissed, ‘What is that vintener fellow doing here?’
Sir John stalked to his table and stood grimly. ‘When we sent men to Scotland, the Scottish were expecting us. Outlaws had been warned and tried to ambush the messenger. As it was, they succeeded in killing him. It was only the intervention and speed of this man and his vintaine that saved the exercise. Then, when the men went to Laon to try to bring the city around to our King, the messenger was again caught and the mission put in jeopardy. A spy could have warned the French about our plans.’
‘And you dare to accuse me?’ Sir Peter was too shocked to be angry at first. The idea that these men, who were supposed to be his allies and comrades, could suspect him of dishonour was appalling.
‘No. We are here because we believe that your servant – the clerk, Alain de Châlons – is the spy. Is he here?’
‘No, I have not seen him for some hours.’
‘I see,’ Sir John said.
‘This is ludicrous! It could not be him! Why, I have known Alain for years.’
Sir John looked at him without expression, but Berenger snapped contemptuously, ‘You may have come here full of the desire to serve our King, but did you not consider the feelings of your household? Did you ask the Vidame whether he wanted to follow you or not? Did you ask him for his opinion? You were prepared to show him to be faithless to his old vows, but didn’t think to learn how he felt about it?’
Sir Peter was stung by the rebuke. ‘Me? You dare ask me that? If you had seen your family broken up, your properties stolen, your country ravaged by the man to whom you had promised your life, your loyalty – your all – you too would be keen to leave, and if I was keen, then of course all those who gave their oaths to me would remain so! Alain has been my clerk for many years now. Why should I not continue to trust him?’
‘Perhaps so that you could appear to be loyal to a new lord,’ Sir John said flatly. And then, with no further speech, he and Berenger turned and left.
Sir Peter stood staring at the place where the men had stood, and then sat heavily.
He was finished. It was impossible to return to France and the French King, and he would forever be watched and distrusted here with the English King. He would never find rest again.
They had been there, waiting, for four long days after the two French Cardinals had negotiated a truce. Four days of sleeping in the trenches and at the barricades at the front, all the time wondering when the talking would stop and they would be sent off to fight once more. Four restless, uncomfortable days and cold, damp evenings, with poor food and worse drink.
It was the same two Cardinals who had tried, unsuccessfully, to negotiate peace all those miles before, just after they had taken Caen: Cardinal Pietro, who said he was from Piacenza, and Cardinal Roger, who looked to Berenger as though he had chewed on a diet of underripe sloes. The tracks at either side of his nose were deeply graven into his flesh like razor scars, and his posture was stiff, like a man holding in his anger with difficulty. Pietro looked more like a man who was dog tired after too much travel and too little sleep.
The two Cardinals rode to the bridge at Nieulay and waited, asking to speak with men of suitable rank. After some time, they were offered safe passage and, without glancing to either side, they went to present their messages.
Sir John was nearby and saw Berenger’s eyes following the Cardinals.
‘Fripper, go with them and make sure they aren’t robbed again.’
The last time the Cardinals had arrived, some Welsh knifemen had stolen their horses and money. Berenger nodded to his knight and ran off after the two.
It was a curious group, more because of the way the English soldiery reacted than because of the two Cardinals themselves, who were only too aware of the contempt in which they were held. On all sides, English archers and men-at-arms watched, and while some guffawed or taunted the visitors, for the most part the men viewed the Cardinals in much the same way that they would have viewed a traitor. Berenger thought again about Bertucat. He had stabbed him quickly in the heart, and there was almost a look of gratitude in the big man’s eyes as his soul passed away. It was one good deed Berenger had managed in a life of warfare: the alternative was always there in the back of his mind – the body of the young Scotsman outside Durham and the strips of flesh cut from his breast and limbs lying all about the butcher’s floor where the executioners had let it fall.
The Cardinals were gre
eted with intense mistrust. On the other occasions when these two had appeared, it was always to argue that the English should swallow the insults doled out to them by the French and return all their winnings. It was to the credit of King Edward that he would not listen to such villainy. He believed he had come to France to correct a terrible wrong. His right to inherit France had been wrested from him by Philippe de Valois and his allies, who took the Crown, ignoring King Edward’s claim through his mother by taking the outrageous step of changing the law to deny the ancient right of inheritance through the female line.
And while declaring that he had no ambitions to control England, King Philippe had drawn up plans to invade. The English had found them while searching through the records of Caen: detailed agreements with the people of Normandy for ships, men and weaponry, stipulating how the spoils would be divided. Since King Edward’s publication of these discoveries at every church in the country, the English had learned to distrust French protestations of innocence. Many black looks showed the feelings of the troopers towards these Cardinals who always tried to defend the French Crown.
Berenger stood with the two men as they were presented to the Earls of Lancaster and Northamptonshire. They asked for a truce so that negotiations could begin.
This was granted. The English had great pavilions erected just inside their lines, and both sides sent earls, lords and knights to discuss terms. But while the French accepted that Calais was lost, they demanded that all the inhabitants should be released with all their goods and chattels intact and protected. They repeated the offers made before, of returning Aquitaine to the English Crown, but only as it had been held before, as a fief of the French Crown.
The talking went on throughout the four days, and at the end of the first day Berenger was already bored to madness with the whole affair. The French were haggling over a few goods and dickering about Aquitaine, but it was like a gambler offering bets after a race. They knew their bolt was shot: they had nothing with which to negotiate. For all the bombast and arrogance of the Dukes of Athens and Bourbon, and the others with them, it was plain that the offer of Aquitaine would never be acceptable. The English could retake it whenever they wished, and no English King, after trouncing French military might at the field of Crécy, would be ready to surrender all those victories in order to submit to a French King for lands held by right for centuries. But nor would the French delegation agree to allow the lands to pass to the English without acknowledgement of the French claims to overlordship. That would be a humiliation too far.
Blood on the Sand Page 36