Blood of the Innocents

by Michael Jecks

  Berenger moved closer to kill him, but as he did so, the door finally gave way and Alazaïs appeared in it, a war hammer with a protruding spike in her hands. She tried to swing it at the man’s head, but he moved underneath it and caught her hand, turning, so that she was pulled between him and Berenger. She was held there, two steps up the staircase, gripped by his left arm about her waist, and he wrenched the war hammer from her hand with ease, smiling.

  ‘What do you want, Fripper? Want her dead? Keep on coming. I’ll put a spike in her head that’ll stop her heart in a second. Want that?’

  ‘Let her go and I’ll let you go.’

  ‘Right, I can trust your word, can I?’ the man sneered. He deliberately moved his hand from her waist to her breast and clutched it. Alazaïs’s face went cold and grey at his touch. ‘Good feel, this. She has a nice body. I can share her, if you want a go too. But I expect you’ve already enjoyed her, eh?’

  Berenger felt her despair and horror like a physical pain in his chest. The mercenary had begun to pull Alazaïs up the rest of the stairs with him, keeping her before him like a shield. There was nothing Berenger could do to prevent him. Berenger was tired already, and his back felt as though his injury had been ripped wide again, but he dare not put his sword down. He didn’t want to see Alazaïs made to suffer more than she already had. She stared at him with a brittle expression of fear, overwhelmed by the horror of what lay in store for her.

  ‘You know you can trust me,’ Berenger said. ‘I have been in charge of the company for the last seven months. You know me. If I give my word, you know I can be trusted.’

  ‘Men break their oaths when it comes to their women.’ The man kept on going up the stairs, pulling Alazaïs with him.

  Berenger walked up, holding his gaze as he went.

  ‘Keep back! You come too close and she’ll get a pain in her head that won’t go away!’

  Berenger kicked out and hooked his ankle behind Alazaïs’s knee. She collapsed suddenly like a pole-axed horse, and although the mercenary swung his hammer, it was too late. She was too low and falling down the stairs, knocking Berenger from his feet.

  The mercenary swore, turned and fled up the stairs.

  ‘My children!’ Alazaïs wailed.

  Berenger sprang over her clumsily and hurried up the stairs. There was a corner at the top, and he took that warily, anxiously jerking his head around it, hoping not to receive a death-blow from the hammer, but the man wasn’t there. He was already at the far end of the room, and now he had his knife out and held it to the throat of Alazaïs’s oldest son, Perrin. The ten-year-old was shivering and crying, but every time he tried to wipe his eyes, the man holding him smacked his hand away.

  The sight of the lad’s terror and the mercenary’s harsh response was enough to make the blood burn like acid in Berenger’s heart. He gritted his teeth.

  Loys was behind him. Berenger took some comfort from that as he waved his sword’s point and edged around the room.

  ‘Come closer, and I’ll stick the bratchet!’

  ‘You hurt him and you won’t leave this room alive,’ Berenger said. He was sweating now. If only there was a jug of wine somewhere near. He could do with a long draught. But if he did, he would be still more incapable of freeing the boy. He had to get the boy.

  There was a sudden clamour from the hall below. Berenger heard Will’s voice calling up the stairs. ‘Frip? Don’t try to take my head off. I’m here to help. Belot, don’t do anything. I’m coming up with an idea that may help us all.’

  His face appeared at the top of the stairs, and he gave a momentary frown to see how the boy was gripped. ‘Belot, let the boy go, in Christ’s name! What’s he done to you?’

  ‘Soon as I do, Fripper’s going to use his sword. He’s blaming me for all this, and it’s not even my fault!’ the man called Belot said.

  ‘Let him go!’ Will said.

  Reluctantly, Belot stared from Berenger to Will, and then shrugged and took his knife away. At the same he gave the boy a shove that propelled him towards Berenger, who only just moved his blade away in time.

  ‘Are you well, boy?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘Yes, master.’ The lad was as terrified by Berenger as he was by Belot. All he knew was that these mercenaries had appeared almost two weeks ago, and now they were fighting. He was petrified.

  ‘Good.’ Looking up, Berenger saw Will walk to his man and drop a gauntleted fist onto his shoulder. Berenger pushed the boy gently towards the stairs and his mother.

  ‘Let it go, Frip. Let Belot here alone. You have been with the company for long enough. There are two options here: I can have you killed, which would be easy enough, but messy; you have already killed two yesterday, half-crippled another, and killed three more today.’

  ‘Four today.’

  ‘Four? In God’s name, it had seemed so straightforward to remove you! You see? So, I think the second approach would be easier. Either submit to me and agree to serve again as a vintener, or leave with my blessing. You can go anywhere you want, with your horse and some food to take with you. Which will it be?

  ‘Take the woman, take her children too. You can go with them wherever you want, if you don’t want to remain a part of the company. But you won’t return.’

  ‘You mean this? You will allow us to leave?’

  Will shrugged. ‘Come, let us get some food and wine. You and I have been allies for long enough.’

  ‘We were,’ Berenger said warily, but he allowed Will to persuade him. He had little choice. Will had the entire force at his command, so it seemed. At least Will did not try to suggest that they had been friends.

  He followed Will down the stairs. Alazaïs and her two sons followed. Berenger could hear that Perrin and Charlot, his younger brother, were both snivelling, but at least they weren’t complaining. That much sense had been battered into their heads, apparently, since the arrival of the English.

  English! Only a quarter of the men were truly English. As for the rest, the majority were adventurers from every corner of France and the Holy Roman Empire. There was even that wiry man who claimed to come from a land with high mountains near Morgarten. He had the calmest blue eyes Berenger had ever seen, but there was a coldness about him that didn’t allow for companionability or friendship. In any case, the land he described didn’t sound convincing to Berenger. Mountains that were capped with snow all year round, high cliffs and plunging valleys. Fulk claimed that his father had helped destroy a French army some years ago, but that sounded unlikely to Berenger too.

  All he knew was, men whom he could trust were rare. It was not like the glory days when he had been a centener in King Edward III’s army when they won their glorious victory.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Will led the way out into the open. Alazaïs would have remained in her house, but Berenger took her hand and led her from her home. ‘Stay here and I cannot protect you, or your sons,’ he said. She nodded and brought her boys with her.

  For some moments, Berenger stood in the doorway, waiting. Outside almost all the company had gathered, and he had a quick certainty that they were there to see to his end. He expected to be grabbed and dragged away to a gallows, there to be hanged. It was the normal way for those who broke the unwritten rules of the company: a death, swift and sure.

  But Berenger had broken no rules. His failure lay in imposing rules on the men that they had decided to reject. They were not here on a war footing, but were enjoying the spoils of their victory over the town. They wanted to enjoy it still more. For that reason they had agreed to depose Berenger.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  There was a shuffling and some of the men looked away. Loys was at his side, and as Berenger looked about the rest of the men, he saw Fulk peering at him. His eyes were the colour of the sky reflected on a calm lake in midsummer, a deep blue that was almost indigo. Fulk stepped forward. As always, he carried a long-handled halberd with a blade on one side, a spike at the top and a hammer on the
reverse. It was his weapon of choice, and having seen how he could wield it, Berenger knew how fearsome it could be.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  The Swiss grinned, then shrugged and set his head to one side. He was blond and handsome in his confidence. ‘You would give up the command without fighting? You would walk away from us, your company? All to protect this woman?’

  ‘If I was to fight Will, who would support me?’ Berenger looked about the men of the crowd, and felt a perverse pleasure to see how the men averted their eyes from him. It was an affirmation of sorts. The other new man, Arnaud, held his gaze and smiled as if confused, but his brother, Bernard, glowered like an angry bear. At least his decision was proved right. Only Saul of Plymouth held his gaze without wavering.

  ‘You would do this?’ Fulk pressed.

  ‘For her and her children, yes,’ Berenger said, his attention pulled back to the Swiss.

  In the crowd, Saul hawked and spat, then picked up his pack and walked towards Berenger.

  ‘What do you want?’ Berenger said.

  Saul was shorter than Berenger, and had a face that looked like old leather, with wrinkles on top of wrinkles. His hair was faded, and receded badly from his brow, leaving a round patch of fluff. He met Berenger’s gaze now with a steady certainty. ‘God love you, Frip, you’re a man of pride and honour, but you’re only one against all the company. You need at least one man to stand with you. Mind you, if they attack us now, boy, we’re fucked,’ he said.

  Berenger’s stern expression cracked. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Keep your sword at the ready,’ Saul said, and stood at his side.

  It had been a good afternoon for Denisot.

  He had ridden at a careful pace, filled with the constant fear that he might be being watched as he travelled along the road beneath the trees. Their branches towered overhead and met, creating a tunnel that smelled of loam and rich soil. Occasionally he caught a whiff of fox spray, but apart from that there was nothing. He half-expected to detect the rank odour of stale sweat and the damp smell of horses which had slept out of doors for too long, and to hear the jingle of harnesses and clatter of weapons as a mercenary band bore down on him; but there was nothing and he arrived safely.

  The town of Chamberet was far enough from his home for the people to be interested in his tale. Here he was not merely an official put in place by a nobleman to collect taxes and enforce the peace, but a slightly exotic stranger from a foreign town, an alien. While most of the populace had heard rumours of what had happened at Uzerche, he was the first to bring definite news of the atrocities that the capture of the town had entailed. After all, a crucifixion was not common. Murders tended to be committed with a knife, especially when the victim was a raped child. It must surely have been committed by those terrible sons of the Devil, the English. They were all vicious and perverted.

  He had met with his counterpart and then the priest, and held meetings with some of the people of the town, and on all sides he received eager attention, but it was not until late in the afternoon that he met a grizzled innkeeper with a face marked with as many red lines as a surgeon’s map of a body and a nose that was the colour and size of an overripe plum, who frowned at the description of the body and then gave a contemplative nod.

  ‘I know the girl you mean, I think. She was here a while ago. Over a week, I think. Not a local girl. I never saw her before, anyway. She didn’t seem all there, if you know what I mean. Her brain was addled.’

  ‘In what way?’ Denisot said.

  ‘Oh, you know the sort. Wide-eyed and empty-brained. You would have found space for a quart of ale in her skull. She came here and spent the evening sitting by the fire and flinching whenever anyone stepped near her. She didn’t even have the price of a warm drink on her. No idea about how to get by.’

  ‘Did no one speak to her?’

  ‘Like I said, she jumped like a started squirrel when anyone stepped close to her. No one tried to speak to her. It was embarrassing.’ He wiped his face on his apron, transferring charcoal smuts along with his sweat.

  Denisot was coming to dislike the man. ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I don’t know. Alicia or something.’

  ‘Did she say where she came from?’

  ‘Like I said, she wasn’t very talkative, but I got the impression she came up from the south. And you say she’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. I think the English dragged her behind their horses and then crucified her after they were done with their pleasures.’

  ‘An evil death.’

  Denisot could not disagree with that. There were worse ways to die, of course. He had seen a few of them. Before long he would see more.

  When Will offered them wine, Berenger and his companions followed him down the hill to the inn, where a table was cleared for them, the landlord twittering and chirping like a sparrow as the men swept the cups and trenchers onto the floor, evicting three travellers who had been enjoying their meal in order to make space for Berenger and Will. Saul and Loys sat on a bench, while Alazaïs and her children stood nearby, like peasants accused of theft before a bayle.

  When they were seated, Will poured Berenger a cup of wine and leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘So, Frip, what now?’

  ‘You said I can leave?’ Berenger ignored the cup. He felt as though the Devil was tempting him to drink.

  ‘With your wench and her boys, if you must. If I am unreasonable towards you, it’ll only make the others think again about having me as their leader. I don’t need that sort of trouble. Better for me – and you too, incidentally – if you merely ride off and leave us to our own devices.’

  ‘You will not try to attack us as we go?’

  ‘You will have a free hand. I only want to see you go. You haven’t been a bad leader, Frip, but you drink too much. You can’t be trusted. If you would only have a monk’s allowance you would be all right, but with your consumption you’re growing irrational. It’s no good for us.’

  ‘Have you seen how ineffectual I am in a fight? Ask your friend Owen,’ Berenger said.

  ‘I never said a word about your fighting ability, Frip. Only your ability to plan, to think rationally. You should have known better than to threaten to hang the men for taking a wench or two. What does it matter what they do to the women?’

  ‘The plan was to take the town and hold it. You terrorise all the people of the town, and they will despair. If they despair, they will lose their fear because if existence itself is a torment, they have nothing to lose by death. If you assault their women, you will bring them to revolt even more swiftly. We agreed that.’

  ‘And you drank too much when you got here and became illogical. I couldn’t discuss it with you. Well, there we are. You cannot remain as commander, and I think you are right not to stay under my command. I think you could be a sore difficulty to the men, were you to remain here. Better that you seek your fortune with another company.’

  ‘I created this company,’ Berenger said.

  ‘You honed it, yes. But there was a company before you, and there will be another after you. Under me.’

  Will’s eyes glittered and he didn’t blink. That was a classic proof of his intent. When he grew serious and stared fixedly, a man could be certain that he was in earnest.

  ‘You can take your horse, a single pack, your sword and belongings. Any friends going with you will have the same courtesy extended. I’m not being generous. This is natural self-interest. If the others think I am unfair or unreasonable, they will seek to replace me as well. So, better by far that you take what is mostly yours. You will have food, too, and water. But beyond that, you take nothing.’

  Berenger considered him. If Will intended to kill him, a second abortive attempt in the village would destroy his chances of leading the company. But if he allowed Berenger to ride away, the others would accept that. Berenger would have left the band. If he stayed, Berenger would never have allowed a rival to survive. He would be a constant source of
trouble. Others in the company might decide that he was a better leader and hasten the new captain’s end, if it meant bringing back the previous commander. Berenger was uncomfortably sure that Will would feel the same. ‘What of the widow?’

  ‘If she goes with you, she can take her dress and shoes. If she remains, she can keep her house. I am sure she will soon find a man to replace you,’ Will said, and cast her a smile.

  ‘She will need a mount, as will her boys.’

  ‘Don’t test me too far. If you want her and she wants you, you can go together, alive. I am not denuding the company of mounts, though. She stays and keeps her property, or goes and leaves all behind. It’s her choice.’

  Berenger looked at her and saw her irresolution. ‘If you stay, you know what will happen.’

  She nodded. ‘I will go with you.’

  Will left them in the tavern soon afterwards. Berenger waited, an itching in his back telling him that many men from the company were watching him. He could sense their eyes, the compulsive urge to grab a bow, a sword, a dagger, and set about him, but none of them did. Perhaps it was the last vestige of their respect for him that held them back. He didn’t know, but at this moment he was grateful.

  He glanced at Alazaïs. She had the haunted look of a hart held at bay while the hunters draw their bows, but her eyes held his firmly. It was clear enough that here there was no safety for her or her children. She would be better off for a while, until her new lover grew dissatisfied or bored, and then she would lose her house and belongings. She knew that. Better to make a clean break and leave with Berenger.

  Loys and Saul were agreed too. Their contracts with the company were void. There was nothing here for them either. They would remain with Berenger.