Blood of the Innocents

by Michael Jecks

  But Archibald cared nothing for his suffering, for his tormented death. He walked on until he came to a pair of French fighters. One took one look at him and bolted, but the other crouched, a long knife held at the ready.

  Archibald swung his helmet, but the boy was faster. He ducked, and Archibald gave a bellow of rage as he felt the knife pierce his thigh. He brought the helmet down on the boy’s head and saw him tumble to the ground, and then raised it again, slamming it into the fellow’s face four times, oblivious to the world about him, he was so entirely taken up with his personal fight.

  But there was a keening sound. It gradually managed to break through the red mist of rage that had entirely absorbed him, and Archibald glanced about him. That was when he saw the other lad, the one who had bolted. He stood now, with tears streaming, shivering and watching with mingled horror and terror as Archibald beat at the face of his companion. And Archibald looked down and realised that the dead man beneath him was little more than a child, and he climbed to his feet, still staring down at the body. He looked at the other, who stared with utter incomprehension at the ravaged remains of his friend, his brother, his comrade, whatever he might be, and Archibald felt the full weight of God’s contempt and anger land on his shoulders. He dropped his bloody, broken helmet, and stepped away from the body, appalled and shocked at his own actions.

  The other lad ran at him, and Archibald waited for the blow, but before the fellow was within reach, Ed reached out and casually grabbed him by the chin, exposing his throat. He slashed once, quickly, like a butcher bleeding a hog. There was a flash of blood and the youngster fell to the ground.

  It was enough. The blood lust had left him. Archibald stared at the young body before him, then back to the ruined boy he had killed, at the helmet, and then the weapon in his hand, and was filled with a profound despair.

  ‘Master? Come, Master,’ Ed said, and when he grabbed his arm, Archibald obediently turned from the field and walked with his companion, past the bodies and down to where they had left Béatrice’s body.

  As soon as the men-at-arms slammed into the flank of the French battle, the French were thrown into a turmoil. Their strong force was shattered into a hundred small groups of men fighting on all sides as the English surrounded them. Some were forced away from the main battle, and continued their defence further away, while some few took to their heels and ran straight into Berenger and his men. Berenger fought with a stern ferocity marring his features. He hacked and hacked, and the men before him were despatched with every blow. Hawkwood and his men worked as hard, but it was Berenger who passed through the French on the heels of the Captal de Buch, and who sent many of the enemy flying away, down the hill, and straight onto the knives and daggers of the waiting archers. A few had arrows, and the groups of Frenchmen were broken up until only a few remained. Some of these intended to fight on, but they were soon overwhelmed as English archers ran among them, stealing spurs, swords, equipment, and catching all those who would later merit a valuable ransom.

  Berenger was content. That day he had seen too many friends die already. He felt that he had taken his fill of death. But then he and the others were called by the blast of a trumpet, and Berenger wearily turned back to a fresh battle.

  The last battle of France.

  Berenger walked up to where the fight continued and he felt the horrible scenes as a fist clenching about his heart. No man should die like this. No man should see a field so sprinkled with death.

  For men were dead or dying all about. As he passed, Berenger saw a man spitting out shards of teeth from his broken mouth; men slipped on mud created from their own blood, and collapsed; he saw a man who tripped and stumbled, white-faced, as he clutched his shoulder, the arm dangling loose and the blood pulsing steadily through his fingers; another, his eyes as wide as a tortured cat, dragged himself along, both legs gone below his knees; others wept and begged for their mother, their wife, their lover, while others wriggled and squirmed in the mire. It was a scene from Hell. Berenger looked all about him at the slaughterhouse horror and felt sure that the scene would never leave him. If he went to join a monastery and prayed every hour of every day for the rest of his life, he could never eradicate the foul deeds done here on God’s good, clean earth. It was polluted.

  The standard of the French still fluttered in the midst of a circle of English fighters. Berenger went to join them with reluctance in his heart, but he saw Sir John de Sully, and went to his side. A man swung his sword and Berenger saw it flying towards his face, but he lifted his own sword and let it slip to the cross of his own before turning his blade. The leverage in his weapon allowed him to push the man’s away, and Berenger was about to punch him in the face and make him surrender, when Sir John thrust with his sword and the man fell with the blade in his eye. Berenger stepped forward, and the ring of English contracted. A man fell, knocked down by a blow to his head, and Berenger saw two more stabbed who fell on top. The man was going to be smothered until he was suffocated. Another man wielding a lance near the French King stabbed with all his strength, and the man to Berenger’s right took the blow in his cheek. The force turned his head, so the blade came out through his other cheek, and Berenger was momentarily blinded by chips of tooth and splashes of blood. He dashed it away from his face as the man fell back.

  All this long while, the French King and his household continued to fight. His standard flew over his head, a lasting picture of beauty and colour in that hideous patch of gore and grass.

  And then Berenger saw the standard shudder like a tree as the final axe blows strike. It wobbled, and then crashed down, and Berenger felt a curious, detached sadness. While men took prisoners, he watched with dull lack of interest.

  These were the last few men to surrender, the men of King John’s entourage. The King himself refused to submit. He continued to bellow defiance and swing his sword until at last a knight of Artois called upon him to surrender and promised his safety. The King agreed at last, demanding to know whether his opponent was actually a knight, before he agreed to give up his sword, and Berenger felt relief to think that the main battle was done at last, but then a rowdy group of Guyennois soldiers took him and dragged him from the field.

  Berenger nudged Sir John. The men were all exhausted from their exertions, and worse, they were deafened by the commotion of battle. Berenger had to bellow to Sir John to persuade him that the Guyenne men were taking the King away, but when Sir John realised, he nodded and he and Berenger straightway took as many men with them as they could, and ran to the French King. He was furious to have been grabbed and manhandled away, and Berenger found it almost amusing to see how he roared and raged at being snatched away by a group of ‘Treacherous, thieving, felonious lying dogs and their lackeys!’

  ‘Hold!’ Sir John shouted at the top of his voice. Some of the men in the party turned, but for the most part they continued onwards, whether because they were deaf or because they were past obedience now, Berenger could not see.

  Berenger ran on in front of the men and held both hands aloft to slow the Guyennois. The leading men looked as though they might contest his right to stop them, but gradually the group slowed and halted. In their midst an argument was raging over their shares in the King’s capture.

  ‘You cannot take him!’ Berenger bellowed.

  ‘You want him, you’d better take him,’ said one of the men at the front.

  Berenger lowered his head. ‘You want to fight some more? I’ll fight you, tarse-breath, and then I’ll fight any others of you! You want to see more men dead about here? Fine! Let’s do it! You want to fight? I’ll fight you!’

  Sir John was already pushing his way through the mass of Guyennois even as the man in front of Berenger squared up and took a pace forward. But before he could draw his knife, Berenger ran forward and butted him in the face with the full weight of his bascinet. He felt the man’s nose shatter, and the fellow staggered back, momentarily blinded.

  Berenger could think of n
othing but Grandarse and Clip, their bodies up on the hill above them. The man tried to rise, but now his companions held him back, glaring at Berenger, and soon he realised why. Behind him stood the Earl of Warwick and Reginald Cobham with a large force of men-at-arms. The Earl shouldered the Guyennois from his path, declaring, ‘We are taking His Royal Highness. Any of you who try to prevent us will die here.’

  He and Cobham pushed their way through to the French King, and before him both bowed low. The Earl said, ‘Your Majesty, I have a horse here, if you would honour me by using it, I will take you to Prince Edward, who is most keen to meet you.’

  Berenger watched the party as the King deigned to mount the Earl’s horse and was taken away. So that, Berenger thought, was that.

  Sir John had walked to his side and stood there now, eyeing the Guyennois. The man with the broken nose and bloody face had been led away by his companions, and the men remaining seemed less keen to continue fighting, especially now that their prize had been removed. Sir John nudged Berenger. ‘That was a dangerous act.’

  ‘I don’t think I cared for his attitude,’ Berenger said, trying to make light of it, but when he looked at his hands, they were shaking.

  ‘Are you injured?’

  ‘No, Sir John. But Grandarse is dead. And Clip.’

  And untold hundreds of others, he could have added. His vintaine was sorely depleted, he knew. But it was much worse for the French.

  Sir John nodded. ‘I am right sad to hear that. Grandarse was a good man.’

  ‘As was Clip.’ A burst of honesty made him add, ‘Mostly.’

  That night there was great celebration in the English camp. Archers, gynours and all the tradesmen rested where they could, most moving to find a place upwind of the battlefield and the bodies. Men moved about the field, searching the bodies for anything to steal, but most found that they were too late. Some, having found stores of wine, were raucously merry, but most were so exhausted by the excitement and effort of the day that they tumbled to the ground where they could and were soon asleep.

  Berenger wanted nothing to do with any of the festivities immediately after the battle. He heard about the Prince going down on one knee to serve the King of France, and he heard how Audley, who had led the last charge, was found dying on the field and brought to the King on a shield, but Berenger was not there. Those were events for the great and important. He was neither. Berenger was only a fighter in the Prince’s army, nothing more. He knew that, and he didn’t aspire to any form of greatness. All he wanted was to hear Grandarse’s rough voice, or Clip’s irritating whine. To have lost those two was appalling.

  He found a cart, and with the help of Fulk, Saul and Dogbreath, he collected the dead of his vintaine. Robin was suffering from a gash in his arm, but he joined the four and watched as they picked up Clip and placed him in the bed of the cart. Hoisting Grandarse proved a struggle, but in the end they succeeded. Over in the corner of the field they found Pierre and Felix, and added them too, before taking the cart back to their camp.

  It was on the way that they saw Ed.

  ‘Have you seen Archibald?’ he asked.

  Berenger looked up. His head felt heavy with grief, but he could hear something in Ed’s voice that caught his attention. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Béatrice is dead. He was in the thick of the battle, but after that he walked away. I haven’t seen him.’

  Berenger nodded. He felt dull-witted, but he knew he must find Archibald. ‘Which direction did go in?’

  Ed pointed towards the road that led to Poitiers. ‘I think he went along there, but it was at the end of the battle. You know what it’s like.’

  He did. The hurried men trying to grab a knight or a count to make their fortunes, the opportunists searching among the dead and wounded for valuables, and the others who moved about looking for those who were too far gone to be saved and who were given the kindness of the misericorde, the long dagger. With so much movement, it would be easy to lose sight of one man.

  ‘Go back to your gonnes, Ed. We will find him.’

  ‘He was so upset, Frip. He was more like a bear than a man. I was scared for him, and I’m his friend, but . . .’

  ‘There was nothing you could have done. Go back to your gonnes and wait there.’

  Berenger was sure he knew where Archibald would have gone. He set off with the men and the cart, up to the roadway, and thence around the top of the forest of Nouaillé. He was sure that the old gynour would not have elected for the seven or more miles he would have to walk to Poitiers, and if he had, he would know that he could be cut to pieces on the way, either by French troops escaping the battle, or by English troops mistaking him for an enemy. It would be greatly preferable to head in the opposite direction, towards Nouaillé, where there was the great church. Besides, the vintaine had all their own fallen comrades to bury.

  The church at Nouaillé was Benedictine, but when he reached the gates, he found them already open. The men pulled and pushed the cart across the little bridge that crossed the moat and stopped outside the church. The door was ajar, and Berenger entered.

  Inside, the church was painted a glorious white that was blinding to a man used to the grimness of that day. Pictures of the saints decorated the walls, but Berenger was immune to the charms of the colour. Instead he strode quietly to the altar and knelt at it beside the silently weeping gynour.

  ‘I am sorry indeed for your loss,’ he said.

  Archibald appeared not to hear him. He was kneeling, with Béatrice’s body lying across his knees, and every so often he wiped her face, as though to comfort her.

  A nervous priest stood nearby, and Berenger went to him, giving him enough coins to buy wax for a king’s funeral, and had the men bring in the bloody and broken bodies of his men. He watched as they were collected by lay-brothers and taken out to a separate chamber to be washed and cleaned, but when he went to Archibald, the old gynour refused to allow any of them to clean her. ‘This is for you and me, Fripper,’ he said. ‘It’s the last thing we can do for her.’

  ‘I don’t know how to.’

  ‘It’s a damp cloth. That’s all we need. And a clean tunic to clothe her.’

  They set her on a table and removed her clothes. The wound at her belly was appalling. The ball had ripped through her intestines and out through her spine. Fragments of bone and faeces erupted from her back, while her belly was black with burning powder. Berenger worked automatically, wiping with the cloth until it was black and red and foul, and then he rinsed it in the bucket provided by a lay-brother. The two worked until Archibald was happy, and then he stood back and wiped his face. He motioned to Berenger to help, and both lifted her body upright. Berenger held her there while Archibald wrapped clean linen about her middle to stop her blood from marring her winding-sheet, and then they enfolded her in the sheet.

  ‘She always loved you, you know,’ Archibald said.

  ‘I know. But we never had the words to say so.’

  Archibald nodded, as if it was the most natural comment in the world, and the two finished their task, carrying her body out to the altar. They bowed and knelt in prayer, but Berenger’s mind was blank. He could only peer down at the face of Béatrice hidden in the folds of the linen, and wonder whether she was, at last, happy and in peace.

  Before long the rest of the vintaine walked in carrying the great body of Grandarse between them, before fetching the others and setting them down beside Béatrice. Berenger stood staring down at the bodies of his friend and the woman for whom he had felt such great affection, if not love. He suddenly pulled the crucifix and rosary from his neck and looked at it, before setting it down softly upon Grandarse’s breast. ‘There, old friend. You have need of His compassion more than I,’ he said, his voice breaking.

  Berenger rose, and with Archibald behind him the two slowly made their way to the door.

  A Benedictine was there as they reached it, and he frowned at them. ‘I do not have space for mercenaries and soldiers of t
he Devil in my graveyard,’ he began, but then Berenger’s forearm was at his throat and he was thrust back against the wall, Berenger’s bloodshot face an inch from his own.

  The vintener hissed, ‘You will find space, and you will install them on consecrated ground, or as I am an Englishman, I swear I will return and destroy this entire monastery!’

  ‘Have you not done enough harm here without threatening a monk?’ the man snapped. ‘Look at you! Covered in blood, with weapons still at your belt, and you come here to make demands here in God’s house?’

  Berenger took his arm away. ‘Brother, I apologise. We have seen too many of our friends dead.’

  ‘So have we all,’ the monk said. He glanced down at the bodies. ‘A woman?’

  ‘Yes. She was a countryman of yours, who suffered at the hands of both sides. I beg that you give her absolution.’

  ‘I have a duty to serve all the poor souls who die, no matter who they are, if they are Christian.’

  ‘I thank you.’

  It was not a long journey to the English camp, but none of them was in a hurry, and they took their time, each at peace with his own thoughts, until they came to their own huddle of belongings. That was where they found Denisot.

  ‘I’ve lost her, Fripper,’ he said, and wept.

  When the battle was over, Gaillarde’s first thought was for Denisot and how he had fared. There were men leaving the field in dribs and drabs, and she searched among their faces hopefully, but without luck. Before she could go and search for her husband, Arnaud was back.

  Arnaud was smiling at her with that sly, childlike expression that she had always liked. It made him look like a naughty child, and at first she had thought it was merely proof of his simplicity. But now she knew it was his cruelty that made him look like that. He enjoyed making her worry. He liked to see fear in others.