‘They’re preparing!’

The shipman’s cries from the crow’s nest came down to the decks during a brief lull in the storm, and for a moment, Fripper was startled to hear the voice coming from so high up. Then the deck pitched once more and he was forced to clutch at a rope. Staring back at their pursuers, he saw the enemy gathering at the forecastle. They were only a matter of yards away now.

‘Vintaine!’ he yelled. ‘String your bows!’

Usually, before he went into battle, Fripper would find a strange peace washing over him, his breath coming more calmly. As a young man, he had known only terror, his heart beating faster, his armpits and hands growing clammy with sweat at the realisation that he was about to risk his life once more, but with age, that had deadened. Now there was only the sense of a task to be undertaken. Nothing more. It was just a job.

Not this time, however. Today, his fear was smothering him. Fighting on ships felt unnatural at the best of times. He had done so before, but on ships bound together, so that it was like fighting on land. To the vintener, the risk of drowning was more alarming than the thought of a stab to the heart or being hit by a crossbow bolt.

He was terrified, and the realisation sucked at his will. Clinging to his rope as the galley crawled ever closer, he could not muster the energy to draw his sword.

Berenger had come here to France with the intention of making money. Many years ago, his parents had died, and afterwards he had been taken in by the old King, Edward II, the present King’s father. Growing up in the court, shown how to behave as a chivalric man should, he had loved the King like a father. But then the nation rose against Edward II, and suddenly his life was turned topsy-turvy. His King, his lord, was captured and held in prison; he himself was taken and gaoled. Only later, when the disastrous reign of terror of the arch-traitor, Roger Mortimer, had ended was Berenger fully free at last. He travelled widely, and when he returned to England, he was held as a traitor himself. Only the intervention of King Edward III had saved him. The King’s son had shown him every courtesy, and perhaps then Berenger could have made something of his life. Maybe he could have settled and raised a family. But instead the lure of loot and pillage took hold of him. With no roots, no family, no land to hold him, he became a freebooter, fighting wherever there was a battle.

Having learned about chivalry when he lived in the King’s court, he could have worked harder to become a knight himself, perhaps. But nothing had come of that. His life had progressed from one war to another – fighting those against whom he had no quarrel, purely to win the largesse of his master. At least in recent months he had been fighting with Sir John de Sully, but now Sir John was far away. Only Berenger and his men were here, and that felt awfully lonely. And he, Berenger, had absolutely no idea why he stood on this rolling deck facing a force of Genoese and French and about to join the slaughter once again.

If he survived this, if he came out after the Siege of Calais whole, he vowed that he would find a different life. He would forswear war and battle, and with God’s help he would find a woman and settle down. He had said this many times before, but this time he would keep his word. That he swore.

‘Should we loose, Frip?’ Clip’s whining voice cut through his thoughts. ‘They’ll kill us all if we don’t fight.’

Berenger felt a shudder pass through his frame – a surge of anger at these Genoese, at France and, yes, at his King, for sending him here, to this poxy boat, to die. The spell of terror was broken.

‘Archers, draw! Archers, loose!’ he bawled, and set his hand to his sword-hilt. ‘I don’t give a fuck who these arrogant bastards are, but they won’t take me without a fight!’

He could see them clearly enough. Burly fighting men, all of them burned by the sea’s wind and sun, with dark hair set about swarthy features, wearing a mixture of plain clothing and mail, some with helmets or bascinets. Several were equipped with axes and polearms, while more stood at the rail brandishing swords or long knives.

Aloft, he saw the bowmen, their crossbows spanned and ready. Before the English could loose their first arrows, three bolts slammed into his men. The sound, like gravel flung against wet cabbage, made Berenger’s belly roil. He hated that sound above all others. ‘GET THOSE CUNTS ON THE CROW’S NEST,’ he bellowed as he gripped his sword more firmly in his fist. It was a poor way to fight, this, with your hands cold and clammy, and damp from spray. No man could hold a weapon firmly in that kind of state.

A sudden lurch and he heard a splintering noise from beneath his feet. The ship gave a great shuddering roll, and then her rolling was stopped, but the deck remained at an impossible angle. Berenger stayed attached to his rope, the loose end wrapped about his wrist, while his men began to slide along the deck. Clip grabbed at a stanchion as he passed, and gave his hand to John of Essex; Jack Fletcher was halted by the mast, and he managed to hang on to a sailor who passed by him on his back. All about the deck, sailors and warriors were clinging to each other and any spare ropes or stays, rather than fighting the enemy.

Arrows flew over Berenger’s head; he saw one pass through a sailor’s body, to pierce the decking behind him while he shivered and cursed in pain. Another nicked Jack Fletcher’s skull and stabbed into the mast itself, and he looked up at the fletchings over his brow with an expression of shock mixed with fury. Dogbreath swung on a rope, cursing volubly when a bolt flew by and almost struck his hip. Turf was curled into a ball at the wale, his hands pressed together as he prayed.

A man with a grapnel stood at the front of the galley, and Berenger lifted his sword to try to rally his men, but before he could do so, a calm, accented voice cut through the din.

‘English, do you think to die today, or would you prefer to live?’

The speaker was a dark-skinned man with a well-trimmed beard and white teeth that stood out in stark contrast to his oily black hair. His voice was serious, but his eyes were alive with humour.

‘Come, English, there is no need for us to kill you all. Surrender and you will be saved. Your ship is sinking already. Her hull is cracked like a dropped bowl. We could leave you to drown, but I don’t think you would like that.’

Berenger gazed back at the tilted deck. There were three men dead – two men from his vintaine and a sailor – but as matters stood, the Genoese could pick them off one by one without effort if they wanted, and there was nothing he or the archers could do. Only four men looked as though they still had their bows: their arrows were lost. With the deck angled the way it was, there was no choice. They could not fight up the slippery slope of the deck and hope to achieve anything. They would be slaughtered before they had reached the wale.

‘Frip, if we live we can fight another day!’ Jack roared up at him. ‘In Christ’s name, we can’t fight!’

‘You have us,’ Berenger said to the smiling face. At that moment, he hated his captor.