The Deadliest Sin

by The Medieval Murderers

  But God had set His face against her.

  ‘Friend, you are feeling out of sorts,’ said Nicholas. ‘Wait, let another tell his story, and take some ale and a rest.’

  ‘I am fine,’ Janyn snapped. He wiped a hand over his face, remembering, and his voice grew softer as he looked about him at the expectant faces. ‘It is a hard story, though.’

  ‘We have heard such tales before. The men lusted after her, and—’

  ‘You think to tell my story for me?’ Janyn snarled.

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Listen and you may learn something new about men,’ Janyn stated.

  He could see her again in his mind’s eye as he spoke. A lovely girl, she was. Slim and perfect as a birch. In her life, he knew, she was raised to wealth. There was nothing unwholesome about her. Nothing spoiled, unlike the devastated country they had marched through. Janyn had seen war in all its forms, but to walk about a country in which every farm had been burned, all the stored crops stolen or ravaged, all the cattle driven off or slain – to walk about that ravaged landscape hurt his soul. He felt as though he was taking part in the systematic rape of the country.

  She was just one of the countless thousands who had lost all. Both brothers and her mother had been killed by marauding bands of English, and it was a miracle she wasn’t found and raped and killed in her turn, but by keeping to the night hours and hiding during the day, by degrees she made it to Calais. Not that she was any safer when she reached it.

  The girl was found by King Edward’s men just outside the city. Like so many, she had been cast out of Calais when the English appeared. Many had been thrown from the gates as soon as it was realised that the English were coming to lay siege. No spare mouths would be allowed to remain inside the walls. Those who were refugees from the surrounding countryside were evicted, sometimes forcibly, so that the stores would last longer for the garrison and people of the town. This was no time for the kind-hearted support of those less fortunate; rather, it was a time to callously guard one’s own security. And food must be kept for those who came from the city or those who could guard it. She was neither; she was a foreigner.

  She had been flung from the gates, her money and little pack of meagre belongings stolen from her. She would soon be dead, so why leave her with goods to enrich the English? Better to keep them in the town. Too scared and tired even to weep, she took to whatever cover she could find out beside the road. But there was no protection out there, between the lines of English invaders and the city walls. Not a tree, not a bush. The weather was dreadful, and soon she was shivering with the cold and damp, petrified of what would happen when the English caught her. She had heard much of their brutality.

  As the first English hobilars appeared, she was found and taken away, out of bowshot of the town’s walls, to be held with other prisoners. She expected there would be little sympathy for her and her companions. The English could not afford to waste good food on her and her like. She would be fortunate if she was only raped and killed quickly. Others endured days or weeks of torture.

  But Janyn saw her, and he felt a little flare of compassion. He had been marching for miles, and the last thing on his mind as he approached the town was a woman. All he wanted was a chance to sit down under canvas and pull off his sodden boots – but the sight of her touched something in his heart, a sense of tenderness. It was the same, he saw, when he looked into the faces of Bill and Walter. They all felt the same attraction to her. For his part, Janyn reckoned he wouldn’t get any rest unless he saw that she was safe. The thought of her being raped was intolerable, somehow.

  Henry and Weaver were riding on with the rest of the centaine as Janyn dropped from his saddle. Bill and Walter waited on their mounts.

  ‘What is your name?’ he asked as he approached her.

  She looked at him with the fear naked in her eyes. Men here were only interested in what they could take.

  ‘Come, maid, what is your name?’ he said.

  Her gaze dropped. ‘Pelagia.’

  ‘It is a pretty name.’

  She looked up at that, anger searing her face. ‘How would a man who burns and murders recognise prettiness?’ she spat.

  Janyn’s days were full enough after that. He was glad to see that the girl and the other prisoners were not slain immediately, but instead were released. The girl Pelagia was set free on the second day, and Janyn saw her again that morning.

  There was a gaggle of men who organised provisions in this section of the army, and Janyn was at the wagons collecting food when he noticed the slim figure staring desperately at the wagons with their precious cargoes. Her face was tragic. She had no money, and no means of earning it – bar one.

  Janyn walked to her and smiled, but she looked straight through him as though he wasn’t there. Only when he hefted the wrapped bundle in his hands did she show interest. It was a fresh loaf, and he held it out, nodding to her as he pulled the linen from it. The aroma of warm bread seemed to fill the space between them, and he held it out again. ‘Eat – please.’

  She struggled with her feelings. How could she not? These were the men who had destroyed her city, who had probably caused the death of all her family, and now this man offered food in exchange for . . . she knew what he would want.

  ‘Leave me!’ she spat, and turned.

  ‘Girl, just take it and go,’ he snapped. He broke the loaf in two and threw one piece to her. She caught it quickly, and would have said more to him, but Janyn had already stalked off angrily. He only wanted to help her. To have his offer of aid thrown back in his face was demeaning as well as insulting.

  Why? Why would anyone want to help a young woman in her predicament? She was young, fresh, beautiful, a reminder to him of when he was younger and in love, perhaps. Or maybe it was because he thought he saw in her a dim reflection of his own mother. Whatever the reason, he only wanted to aid her. She had a need of food, and would find it hard to come by here, with the English taking everything for miles around. It was foolishness to refuse his offer, no matter what she thought he was like.

  He set her from his thoughts. She didn’t deserve his efforts, he thought. The ungrateful wretch could go hang.

  If there was any justice, that is what would have happened. Janyn would have gone through the siege and never seen her again. She would have been found stealing from a baker’s or from a butcher’s, and would have been hanged on the spot. Janyn would never have been tormented by the sight of her again.

  But life was never so straightforward.

  He came to see her every so often. She had become a familiar face about the camp after a few days, and while men occasionally leered at her and tried to get close, they always found themselves reluctant to get too close. There was something about her that made a man keep away. Not exactly fear – the men of King Edward’s army were not scared of any woman – but a sort of grating on the nerves. When they spoke to her, or made lecherous comments in the hope she would respond, she said nothing, but she had a look that spoke to many of them; it was the kind of stare a witch might give. It was as if there was no soul within her breast, no heart, no compassion or feeling. She felt neither terror nor hatred; she was filled with a numbing emptiness that was so cold it would freeze a man who touched her.

  Once, Janyn saw three men attempting to persuade her to lie with them. They circled about her, one trying to engage her in conversation, another playing with the binding of his cods and holding out a penny, while the third laughed inanely, waving his arms like a cockerel warning off an interloper in his ring. It was plain enough that if she refused their money they would take her for free.

  It was a sight to spark his rage, and Janyn had his hand on his sword as he opened his mouth to bellow at them, but he need not have worried. Even as he prepared to defend her, and while she stared at the men, one at a time, without moving, he saw two others running to her aid: Bill and Walter. They shoved the men away, and her attackers left her like melting snow sloughing from a roof,
to go and find easier prey.

  It came back to him now, that scene. The ringleader of the men spitting at the ground, another biting his thumb at Bill and Walter, but all three moving off, unwilling to test the anger in the faces of the two men who stood at her side to protect her.

  Bill and Walter glanced at each other, then at Pelagia. She stood looking at them, utterly still, and the two men looked confused, pinned under her scrutiny like a man stabbed to an oaken door by an arrow.

  ‘Are you well, maid?’ Bill asked at last.

  She gazed at him from those fathomless eyes of hers, but said nothing.

  ‘I wanted to help,’ he said.

  Janyn watched the woman turn and walk away from them. Neither brother made a move to follow her. They watched her as she made her way between the little shacks and carts of the camp. But in their faces, Janyn saw the dawn of adoration.

  They looked like men who would cast aside their own lives to protect her.

  Janyn knew that there was something between the brothers and the girl from the first moment. Bill and Walter would stare at her, and he wondered at first whether they were planning on making use of her for their own enjoyment. He kept a close eye on them, but soon he realised that these two were not seeking to rape, they were both attempting to win her over in their own ways.

  The older of the two, Walter, was a heavy-set man. If he had been a tree, he would have been an oak. Brown-faced and with a thick, black beard and slanted blue eyes that gleamed under his brimmed felt cap, he had heavily muscled arms and short, stubby fingers. Although he was a massively strong fellow, he had already gained a reputation for kindness – he was the first to share any food or drink, and when he did capture the enemy, he always brought them in alive.

  His brother was not the same. Bill was a harder man, with the slim, wiry strength of a birch tree. He had lean, narrow features, and while he was as dark of hair, there was a tinge of brown in his beard and moustache that wasn’t in Walter’s. Unlike his brother, Bill had long, slender fingers, and his arms and thighs looked as strong as reeds compared to Walter’s powerful build, but Bill was a ferocious fighter. Janyn saw that himself often enough in the little fights about Calais. Still, while both were very different men, neither gave him any cause for concern.

  Not for their fighting prowess, anyway. It was different when it came to love.

  Janyn was wary with all his men when it came to Pelagia. She was aloof, holding all the men in contempt, but for some, especially Walter, this served as a spur to his desire for her. It was not a rough, demanding lust, but a deep infatuation that tore at him whenever he saw her. Janyn could see it, and just as clearly so could the other men. However, Bill adored her too, in his own quiet manner. When she walked about the camp, Janyn could often see the two brothers, their eyes following her slim figure.

  Seeing their competitive desire for her, Janyn had thought they might come to blows, yet their fights were not with each other, but with any other man in the vintaine who threatened Pelagia or who tried to force himself into her company. The two brothers were protecting her, and she seemed to appreciate their help as much as she did Janyn’s own calm defence.

  Perhaps all would have been well, were it not for Henry the Tun.

  Henry was not a man to hold a secret. He was content to tell his tale to any who would listen, and he had spoken of it to Janyn on many occasions. His life had been full of incident, but he was a senior commander in the King’s army now, and safe. Besides, along with his age and experience, he had confidence in his prowess and authority. His tale was known to many. It was a source of pride to him, a proof of his strength and valour, he thought.

  Henry had been born the son of a cooper in a village called Cleopham, some few miles from London. When he was old enough, he had travelled up to the city, and there he was apprenticed to a barrel-maker, but the work didn’t satisfy him. He was a bold, roistering fellow who loved ale and women, rather than being tied to a master who ordered him about and made him work at tasks in which he had no interest. Henry was not remotely interested in sweeping and cleaning, or learning how to split and shape barrel staves, nor in binding barrels with willow. He wanted money to enjoy himself with friends in alehouses lining the Southwark streets. And there he got to know the women.

  There were so many of them, and they were enthusiastic companions to a man with money. The Bishop of Winchester’s lands south of the river were full of brothels and individual women making their own way, usually supporting their pimps with their income.

  It was one of these who got Henry into trouble.

  He had been with the boys in London during the excitement of a riot. King Edward II, the King’s father, was realising that his reign was coming to an end, and when Walter Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, was slain in the street like a common felon by the London mob, Henry and the other apprentices went on the rampage. They swept down Ludgate Hill to the Fleet River, and broke the shutters of all the shops on the way, beating up anyone they met. Any men who wore the insignia of the hated Despenser family were grabbed and tormented, or battered with canes and clubs on the way.

  Henry saw one man dart into an alleyway. Catching a glimpse of Despenser’s arms on his tunic, and full of ale and cockiness, he chased the fellow until he managed to crack him over the head with his club. The man fell, tumbling to the ground, and Henry kicked him a couple of times for good measure before cutting his purse free. It had a pleasant heft to it, and he opened it to find plenty of coins.

  Later, he went with his new-found wealth to the stews of Southwark, and there he met the woman.

  God alone knew what her name was. She must have told him, but he couldn’t remember the morning after. He was brutally drunk: as fighting, swearing, rotten drunk as any man had ever been. And while he was stumbling into walls, shouting and laughing, he yet wanted a woman, this woman.

  She was a saucy-looking little slut, with a head of thick straw-coloured hair and eyes the colour of the cornflowers he used to see in the fields about his home when he was young. He used to pick them for his mother. She liked to receive little gifts like that and, seeing the whore, he was reminded of those little acts. He wanted to find her something pleasant. There were no flowers here in the muddy, noisome streets. Little could survive amongst the cart tracks and faeces. Human, cattle, swine, dog and cat excrement lined the ways. Any plants would be trampled underfoot in no time. But he wanted to get her something.

  He had plenty of money in his purse, he remembered blearily.

  ‘Maid, come with me. I’ll buy you a drink. I’ll buy you a new coif or something . . .’ he blurted.

  ‘You’re too drunk,’ she said.

  ‘I am. You come with me, and you can be too. I’ve money, look!’

  He held up his purse and jingled it so she could hear the coins inside.

  Her eyes widened. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Which is the best tavern in the street?’

  She indicated a building with a large bush tied over the door, and he walked with her to it, stumbling only a little as he went, but as they drew nearer, he was shoved, hard, and a man pulled the woman away.

  ‘You bitch! You don’t leave your place over there. You know my rules!’ the man shouted.

  He was a big man, heavy in the belly, but with the thin, wiry frame of a smith.

  Henry pushed himself to his feet. When he felt his head, there was blood running in a thin trickle where he had struck a stone as he fell. He stared at the blood.

  ‘Get back, bitch!’ the man said again, and shoved her.

  Henry was too full of ale to take care of the likely outcome. He drew his knife and struck the cock-bawd. Later, he heard that he slammed the blade into the man more than twenty times, but for all he knew it could have been once or a hundred times. He didn’t know what he was doing. The ale was driving him.

  That was the end of his apprenticeship. He realised, as he stood looking at the crumpled body before him, that he must flee, that thi
s was the end of all he knew. The whore, after giving a muffled squeak of alarm, began to shriek like a banshee, claiming that someone had murdered her husband, and men began to appear in the street. A horn was blown, and men began to gather.

  Henry had to run faster than ever before in his life. He didn’t take the risk of returning home to collect his meagre belongings, he just ran and ran, up to the river, over along the shoreline, until he found a wherry and begged the oarsman to take him to the other side. A handful of coins persuaded the man. Within a few hours, Henry was safely on board a cog, feeling the waters roll her side to side, bound for Gascony.

  He had never looked back.

  There were many men in the army with irregular marriages. These women who joined the men in the camps were known as ‘marching wives’. Some of them were keen to stay with just one man; some were enthusiastically promiscuous, perhaps because they felt safer knowing that several men would look after them. There was less risk that their investment in time and effort would prove to be pointless. After all, it took only one arrow to remove their asset.

  Janyn had never taken a woman. He had seen them, the sad, grey-faced widows and children, tagging along after the fighting men. Some put on a show of courage and enthusiasm, but for the most part they were weary, shocked, terrified women, many of whom had seen their menfolk hacked to death in front of them. Janyn had early on sworn that he would never force women like them to share his blanket with him. Yet there were times, as he listened in the darkness to other men grunting and rutting, when he envied them.

  For certain, some of the women did enjoy their status. Sometimes the younger ones could be prickly and acerbic, but when they chose their mate, they were enthusiastic. So long as they hadn’t witnessed the slaughter of brothers and parents. That did tend to change them.