Blood of the Innocents

by Michael Jecks

  ‘You could come back as a vintener, if you want. I’d even put you in with my best men.’

  ‘Even for that, I think no. It’s not plunder I want. It’s my soul. I have to find it again, and I think I have seen how to.’

  ‘Aye well, then, Frip, I’m sorry about that, but I won’t hold it against you. I’ll take the men and leave in a couple of days. We’ll return to Sir John and the others. Make sure you keep away from the line of march of the English. If you hear them coming this way, forget the abbey. Just ride. Before I go, is there anything you need?’

  Berenger gave a dry grin. ‘I’d be glad of a bow and a sheaf of arrows.’

  ‘I suppose I can afford one stave and a sheaf. Make sure you use them wisely, though,’ Grandarse said. He smiled. ‘I just hope you can find some peace, Fripper, if that’s what you want. Me, I have to keep fighting. It’s the only way I know I’m still alive. I sometimes think that, were I to stop fighting, I would die of boredom.’

  ‘There’s no risk of that,’ Berenger said.

  Archibald felt the wagon lurch and heard the crack as the massive weight of the cannon rolled over on the bed. He glanced behind him at ‘The Wolf’ as it moved, and muttered a curse to himself. ‘Ed! You didn’t bind the gonne!’

  Ed was up on the bed of the wagon in an instant, glowering to himself as he lashed the massive barrel again. Archibald watched his efforts with a nod of approval as Ed gave the rope a last turn, tugged it tight, patted the gonne gently as if it was a rounsey that needed soothing, and then sprang down and trotted to his cart, where he knelt on the boards and took the reins Béatrice passed to him.

  Archibald blamed himself. He called to the boy in front who prodded the oxen with a goad, the traces creaking with the strain as the huge beasts lumbered into action.

  They had already covered some miles, and now the Prince’s host was beginning the action that would set the stage for the chevauchée to come.

  Archibald had a simple view of the world. He knew that wars would happen whether he willed it or not. Men would kill each other to enrich themselves, and every time someone went to kill a neighbour, whether he be a peasant or a Lord, that act would bring with it the seeds of another killing, this time in revenge. Life, it sometimes seemed to him, was an unending circle of murders and mayhem.

  It had all culminated for him in the battle at Crécy ten years before, when the French army was not merely defeated, but was crushed like a beetle in a mailed fist. The pride of France, her glory, her chivalry, were all slaughtered in a blood-soaked patch of grass in Flanders. So many nobles died, it was hard to count their arms.

  Archibald had been there. His gonnes had done their bit to add to the horror. His stone balls had scythed through the cavalry and footmen like the Devil’s own playthings. After the smoke had cleared, the gouts of flame subsided, he could see rents torn in the French lines where only blood and bones remained. All the men were destroyed.

  That was the purpose of his gonnes. To deal death on a massive scale. It was ironic, for a man who had spent his youth in a monastery, but he was content. His toys were there to bring about the end of wars. He firmly believed in that: his serpentine powder could bring about a peace sooner than any number of swords or lances. By destroying the armies of his King’s enemies, he could force the parties to stop their feuding. And since the swords and lances were wielded by bold knights and men-at-arms against the innocent peasants, bringing the terror of war to an end sooner was appealing. His gonnes would be able to save lives by causing such catastrophic losses to the French that the war would end sooner with their submission. There was no pleasure in killing, but if it led to a swifter resolution, he was content.

  Later, as the sun rose higher in the sky, he saw the shape of the Prince and his household knights ahead. The men who were the Prince’s best, most loyal servants were all there, on a little knoll, peering back at the army. Prince Edward often took up a position like this, from where he could survey the long columns of men. Except now his host was changing its deployment. The men were being ordered into new groupings. Rather than a long snake that travelled over the ground trampling a narrow channel, the host was forming a new front. Knights and squires took their servants and archers and extended east and west, short gaps appearing between each, then filling with more men. It took the rest of the morning and into the afternoon for the column to form up into one long line of steel and death.

  Archibald climbed down from his board and rubbed the back of one of his oxen while it contentedly chewed the cud. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It’s a good day for a war.’

  Ed was lying back on the grass, while Béatrice stood at the cart’s side. She nodded towards the front of the army where the Prince and his entourage stood still. ‘Do you think this will be the last?’

  Archibald scratched at his balls and yawned. ‘No. There will always be a need for another one. Doesn’t matter how much we take from the French, they’ll always demand it back, and then we’ll fight for it again, ceaselessly. It’s the way of the rich, woman.’

  ‘It is foolish.’

  ‘So it is. So are men!’ he chuckled. ‘But men like to fight.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to live in France any more.’ Her eyes had lost the vicious delight that they had once held at the sight of dead Frenchmen. Her rage had dissipated over the last ten years. She looked at him as Archibald yawned again. ‘Rest, Master. You are tired.’

  ‘Aye, I am at that.’

  She watched him amble to the wagon and lie down beside his great gonne, tugging a sheet of canvas over him to keep the wind off. He put his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, a picture of comfort and ease.

  He could throw off the pressure of his work in a moment. Béatrice had often felt jealousy rising in her breast, watching him as he relaxed. For her there could be no rest. She had lost her parents, her brother, her family and her friends when her father had been accused of treason and executed. At first she had learned rage and hatred, but gradually her fury had turned to deep sadness. France, poor France, was a tidbit being fought over by two fierce raches or mastiffs. France herself was the victim. Béatrice often felt that with the two rulers snarling and growling at each other, soon there would be little enough of France for either to swallow.

  There came a brazen blast of horns. She looked back towards the Prince and his men. Suddenly she saw what was happening. ‘Master Gynour, Archibald! Look!’

  Archibald sat up, grumbling, and followed the direction of her pointing finger. The Prince’s standard-bearer was carefully unwrapping the leather covering to the flag. The flag’s staff was shaken to help it unfurl, and then the bearer waved it back and forth so that the vivid colours blazed in the sunlight.

  ‘Aye, well, that’s it, then. He’s shown his flag like a good warrior should,’ Archibald said. He rose and clambered back onto the board, taking up the whip once more. ‘He’s unfurled the banner of war. Let the killing begin.’

  Thomas de Ladit watched the flag in the wind and felt a momentary sadness.

  He was not French. His loyalty was owed solely to his master, the King of Navarre, yet he had travelled extensively the length and breadth of France and he was loath to see it destroyed. The rich vineyards, cornfields, and woods and forests that lay in the path of this army would be laid waste, he knew. It was a hideous thought, but there was also the hope that perhaps this fight could see his master released. Navarre’s freedom could be one aspect of the English demands. It was possible, and then he could hopefully return to Pamplona with his King and never come back. That would make the devastation worthwhile.

  For now, the English had been generous. Perhaps the stern knight with the astute mind had not told the Prince commanding this army about their conversation. Thomas had been indiscreet, certainly, mentioning that Navarre never negotiated in good faith with them, but what else would the English expect? His claim to the throne of France was at least as good as Edward’s.

  But now there were rumours of
the French massing a great army to destroy the English, and Thomas was to be employed as a special adviser to the English. It meant he was here, not in a gaol, which was a great improvement on what he had expected, but it did mean that he was arrayed with an army that stood to assault the French King.

  The good-quality food and drink may not compensate for his punishment, if he was captured by the French. Of that he felt sure.

  There was a shout from the archers practising at the butts and Hawkwood grunted.

  It was fine for Grandarse to hurtle off across the country for a relaxing ride with Fripper, but there was still work to be done down here. Hard work: teaching lay-brothers and some feeble old men which end of a sword they should hold. Not that it was much use. The old fools were so decrepit, they could none of them move a sword quickly enough to block or parry, and even if they could, the idea of then striking a killing blow was alien to most of them. There were some few young fellows who were only recently brought into the monastery and who might make a good showing, but for the most part they were a mixture of the old, infirm and incompetent.

  He heard another shout and closed his eyes. The thought of going and witnessing the carnage being done to the grass was too depressing. In preference he returned to watch the men practising with swords and spears. There were some there who were half-capable under the expert tuition of Fulk and Saul, but they still lacked the necessary muscle and determination in his opinion.

  Hawkwood swore under his breath. ‘All right! I’m coming!’

  It wasn’t enough that he must try to bring the men at the sword school into some kind of order, but he had to join in with training the archers too. Since Grandarse had sent eight men back, and now he and Frip had taken two men with them, Hawkwood was left with a scant four men to teach the abbey workers how to fight. The others did their best, but the fact of being an archer did not make a man competent to teach others in how to use a bow. It was hard enough, Hawkwood knew, even for a vintener.

  He reached the butts in time to see the man at the farther edge of the field pointing urgently.

  ‘Shit!’

  The man suddenly jerked and fell, thrown back by the hail of arrows that lanced into his breast. A boy near him began to run back, screaming and waving his arms, but he was soon cut down by the first of the men who appeared, all mounted on sturdy little ponies. Some stopped and dismounted in the formations that he knew so well, leisurely nocking arrows and sending them forward.

  ‘Back!’ Hawkwood shouted, waving frantically. ‘Back to the walls! Quick!’

  Shouting became screaming, and he turned with a scowl to see horsemen jumping the wall at the back of the abbey, riding on and cutting down three of his trainee archers.

  ‘To arms! To arms!’ he bellowed, grabbing at his sword and running towards the threat.

  Grandarse had insisted on sharing another jug of wine before he would leave.

  They were at a small village, where a jovial, if wary, innkeeper had presented them with a good-quality wine. Their ride had taken them south and east in a great loop, but they had discovered no sign of a force of men approaching the convent.

  By mid-morning they were back on their horses and riding southwards, further away from the abbey, to make a wide sweep and scout for Will and his men. Berenger rode with his eyes watching the horizon before them. From his experience, the first sign of Will would be the rising columns of smoke from buildings that had been torched.

  ‘So you will turn your face against all the pleasures of life, eh?’ Grandarse said.

  ‘Eh? Oh, I can forego the pleasures you think of,’ Berenger said. ‘But surely you cannot enjoy most now? You’ve drunk so much wine, cider and ale that your nose is the size and colour of a ripe plum! Surely there can be little joy in drinking even more. You’ve eaten and drunk your way across the world, haven’t you? With your belly that big, you can’t see your prick when you’re trying to poke a wench, and if you could, how many women will dare lie under you? You’d flatten almost any woman.’

  ‘It’s not being flattened they need fear,’ Grandarse said complacently.

  Berenger laughed. ‘It’s been good to see you again, old friend.’

  ‘Aye, well, I daresay we can return down this road one day to see how you are, although I would prefer to see you still in Calais. That was a suitable berth for a retired warrior: and a convenient post for a man like me when I had to come to this land.’

  ‘That decides me! I couldn’t stay in business if you were to visit too often,’ Berenger said with forced amusement. He still could not think of that little house without remembering his wife and the boys.

  They rested that night at a barn some miles south and east of the abbey.

  ‘Will ye not miss the life?’ Grandarse demanded while they sat about a meagre fire, staring at the flames. Their two companions were silent. Whenever one tried to speak, Grandarse glared until they closed their mouths.

  Berenger looked up at the roof with missing thatch, over to the broken door, the thick hay that would be his bed for the night, and thought of a clean sheet on a large palliasse and his woman at his side, warm and eager, and shook his head. ‘No. I miss other things.’

  ‘Ach, there’s no satisfying some people,’ Grandarse said.

  Later, when Grandarse was already snoring fit to rock Notre Dame to the foundations, Berenger lay back staring at the stars through a gap in the roof. Would he miss the life? he wondered. A life of hardship and brutality.

  No, he was sure in his own mind that leaving the battles to others would be for the best.

  Monday 15 August

  Berenger and Grandarse had ridden eastwards, looking for any signs of a large party of men, but there was nothing apparent. Only once, when they found a ford over a small river, there was a great deal of mess at the entrance and exit.

  ‘What do you think?’ Grandarse asked. He halted with the two archers some distance from the stream so that they would not spoil the tracks.

  Berenger squatted at the river’s edge. ‘Some men passed here, but there is little way to tell how many. They were all riding in each other’s tracks, and here the ground is wet enough that each subsequent hoof overlapped and concealed the ones before.’ He rose and stared towards the north with a frown. ‘If it was Will, he will have missed the abbey if he kept on in that direction. Perhaps he rode past.’

  ‘Aye, well, let’s hope so,’ Grandarse said.

  They were nearly at the abbey now. They had bickered and disputed all the way from their overnight rest place, and now they passed around a hill.

  ‘Aye, well, it’s good that you would be prepared and happy to tolerate an old git coming to . . .’ Grandarse was suddenly still. As they turned the last bend in the road, all four men saw the devastation.

  ‘No! In God’s name, no!’ Berenger said, and then whipped and spurred his beast to a gallop.

  He reined in at the gatehouse. The gates were left wide, and the porter’s body lay a little way inside, his head on the ground nearby. Berenger let his horse amble on. The bodies of lay-brothers and the religious lay scattered all about. He had his mount pause, and he stood up in the stirrups to stare about him, looking for John Hawkwood and the others, for the Abbot, for Denisot, but he could see no sign of them.

  ‘So, the fuckers got here, eh, Frip?’ Grandarse said as he came through the gates. ‘Eh, but the buggers could have had us too, if we hadn’t made it off to scout about. Damn my arse, this is shit!’ He looked about him with the wariness of long experience. ‘Where are they, then, Frip? Eh? Where’d the bastards go?’

  Berenger was already on the ground. He had seen a familiar figure near the Abbot’s chambers and he ran as fast as he could to the body on the ground. There was clearly no urgency.

  The Abbot’s head had been crushed by a mace. The side of his skull was broken and blood, brains and splinters of bone were thrown all over his shoulder.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Berenger said, kneeling at his side. The Abbot’s le
ft eyeball was on the ground, like a spat cherry pip, and the good eye stared at Berenger. It seemed to hold a lifetime of accusation in that unblinking stare and Berenger felt as though his heart was going to break.

  He bent his head and began to weep.

  The abbey grounds had been trampled to a muddy mess. Grandarse bellowed to the two archers to go and search the undercrofts for supplies, anything that might have been left behind, before joining Berenger to study the wreckage.

  The orchard where Berenger had walked with the Abbot had been cut down and many trees burned, but the devastation inside was much worse. In the cloisters all the writing tables had been broken to pieces. Inks and valuable books were spilled and scattered. Leaves from the books drifted in the wind, their gold lettering and bright-blue pigments standing out hopefully when the sun caught them.

  Berenger walked about the place with anger in his heart, filled with hatred for what the men had done here. Grandarse kept a yard or two away, and held his tongue. He could sense Berenger’s increasing rage.

  There was no reason to kill monks. Will and his men had killed them purely because they could. They had as little compunction as a fox finding itself inside a hen house. While the creatures fluttered, the fox would slaughter. This was the same. A man with a sword in his hand feels stronger than others purely because he wields the power of life and death. But it was an illusory power. Men could kill, but none could create without a woman. Not for the first time Berenger wondered why men were the dominant sex. God should have created woman first and given her authority, because then fewer people would die in pointless savagery like this.

  He entered the church to pray, but stood in the doorway and stared. It felt as though God had left this place.

  The altar had been broken, and all the ornaments of their faith had been taken, before all the woodwork had been broken and a small fire started with the pieces. Luckily they had clearly found the Abbot’s wine stores and lost interest in the church after that, for else the ceilings must have been burned away. As it was, the timbers were blackened, the white-painted backgrounds and paintings scorched and ruined.