‘A good day to you, my friend,’ Chrestien de Grimault said, bowing to the cardinal – or was it Berenger? ‘I trust I find you well?’

Berenger felt the cardinal’s throat move as he tried to speak. He quickly tightened his grip. ‘My apologies, but His Eminence is feeling a little weak. I will speak for him in case he grows more fatigued.’

‘I think he grows wearier and wearier,’ Chrestien de Grimault said. ‘It is undoubtedly the weight of troubles lying on his mind. So many things for him to consider, such as swearing to me that my prisoners would be treated honourably when I first brought them to him.’

‘He has ordered us to be blinded and crippled.’

‘At the church, it is certain. My man told me earlier that your fate was sealed. I feel sure you would wish to join us for some drinks before any such rash decision could be taken.’

‘We’re going to the port.’

‘A fine idea. However, if I may be so bold,’ Chrestien said, and his eyes rose to the building behind them, ‘it would be sensible to take your guest away from here. There are many men with weapons who watch your every move with interest. Perhaps we should leave here and find a better place to talk?’

Jack stepped to Berenger’s side. ‘I don’t trust the slimy whoreson, Frip.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘Master,’ Chrestien said with a broad smile. ‘I dislike the cardinal there more than anyone. And if I and my men wanted to kill you, we could, with all these weapons. So clearly I do not intend you harm. I suggest a stratagem. You slam the gates and jam them, and then follow me. I shall lead you to the ship, where you will be safe.’

Jack began to speak, but behind them all Berenger heard commands and the pattering of many booted feet.

‘Fuck! Block the gates, use anything you can!’ he roared, and helped the men pull the gates shut, blocking them as best they could with some wagons and a cart. And then, as swiftly as they could manage, the men jerked and rattled their way down after the Genoese.

The clinking of metal was deafening. From the ship, Grimault could hear it like a satanic percussion all around him as the men lurched clumsily with their hobbled ankles. It was good that they had been shackled so quickly, for most of them had chains between the irons that were considerably longer than they should have been. In Genoa they would have been much shorter, designed to hobble the men and prevent escapes. The French blacksmith was not experienced at making prison restraints.

Chrestien de Grimault stood on his ship and watched as the men arrived – a shambling, ill-stinking mess of men, anxious and fretful. He already had four small oared vessels waiting at the quayside, and two cables holding a small supply vessel had already been slipped. ‘Hurry!’ he called, beckoning with his entire arm. ‘Come! Leave that papal usurer and join us here!

‘What will you do, my friend?’ he said to himself as Berenger stood staring at him from the quay. ‘What would I do? I would tell me to go fuck my mother, and then find a smith who could remove all the metalwork, in case I was the sort of disreputable thief and mercenary who would merely take each of you and toss you over the sheers into the sea. With all that iron, none of you would float – and you know that. Just as you know that if you delay, the cardinal’s men will surely come and capture you, and even if you kill the cardinal, you will die. There is no profit in death, my friend.’

Berenger and he stared at each other over the water, and then Berenger snapped a command, and the first of the men began to make their way to the nearer boats. Soon the vintener and the others were helped down into small craft, and before long they were being rowed across the waters to the great galley.

‘Prepare to sail!’ Chrestien roared. He was still speaking in French, for with so many crew members from all over France, it was easier to use the common language. Besides, as the English began to appear, clambering up the rope ladders dangling from the upper hull, it would make most of them more comfortable. Most Englishmen understood at least some French.

‘Welcome aboard my ship,’ he said as Berenger appeared. ‘Did you kill him?’

‘He thought I was going to, but no. I tapped him on the head to shut him up. He’ll wake with a headache, but no more. He’s lucky. I should have killed him.’

‘Undoubtedly. But it would have made my return more problematical,’ Grimault said with a grin. ‘And now, I think I owe you the services of one of my finest men.’

‘Who?’

‘My friend,’ Grimault said, smiling and shaking his head at the naked suspicion flashing in Berenger’s eyes, ‘I feel sure you require the aid of my blacksmith.’

He could not make out the Genoese. Berenger stood near the mast, gripping a rope tightly as the waves sucked and hissed at the galley’s hull, staring out at the white, gleaming track in the water, trying to understand the man.

When he and the other archers had hurried from the cardinal’s hall and straight into the shipman, he had thought they were doomed. These were the very men who had caught him and his own, and it was natural to consider the Genoese their enemies. Yet now they had been freed by the same fellows, and from the chattering and ribald humour shared on board, it seemed as though Chrestien de Grimault considered himself to be Berenger’s host: he was treating him as an honoured guest.

The man was there now, up at the rear castle, his eyes fixed on the horizon ahead as though daring it to display some threat to him and his ship.

He was a natural mariner; that much was certain. His legs had the bandy look of a horseman, and remained bent as the vessel moved, one leg straightening more or less with the deck as it rolled beneath him, scarcely bothering to hold onto a rope or spar as he did so. He looked a part of the ship, as much as the mast or the rigging. Where the galley went, so too would Grimault.

Seeing Berenger’s gaze upon him, the Genoese gave a broad smile and beckoned. Rubbing his chafed, sore wrists, Berenger waited until the deck was almost level, and then let go of his rope and hurried across the deck, moving crabwise as the prow began to swoop downwards into a trough. He made it to the ladder to the rear castle as the prow rose once more, and had to thrust out both hands to stop himself slamming into the beams. This was no life for a man, he told himself for the hundredth time as he set his boot on the first rung and started to climb.

‘Godspeed!’ Grimault said with a flash of teeth in his bearded face. ‘It is a fine, a glorious day, is it not?’

‘It’s clear enough,’ Berenger admitted.

It was a perfect day for sailing. The sea gleamed like quicksilver, so it was hard to look at it for long. The wind whipped at the back of their heads as they stared forward, and to his left, Berenger could see the coast of France. They had been travelling for half a day now, and the rhythmic tapping and clattering of hammers and chisels striking away their irons had at last ceased. All the men had been released, and although one of the younger boys from the ship’s company had complained as the chisel slipped and the bracelet twisted, snapping a bone in his arm, the ship’s tooth-breaker and surgeon reckoned it should heal well enough. Worse was the man whose ankle had been deeply gouged when the chisel span from the armourer’s hand into his flesh. Luckily it didn’t quite shear through his Achilles, but he would be limping for a month with the damage done.

‘Do you not trust me yet?’ Grimault asked.

‘We’re alive and free, so I suppose I do. A little,’ Berenger said, looking along the hull towards Jack, who stood near the drum. The galley could be called to war at a moment’s notice, and the ship taken to battle stations by a simple drumbeat.

‘He is well enough there,’ Grimault said, and cast a sly look at him.

If there were to be a battle, Berenger wanted at least one of his men there, beside the ship’s drum, so that he and his men could swiftly take control and turn matters to their own benefit.

‘He doesn’t get ill.’

Grimault laughed. ‘If we call battle orders, he will be held comfortably, just as you will. You have no need of subterfuge on board my ship. You are our friends. This is a matter of honour with us, you see. We rescued you – we will not wish to harm you.’

‘But you caught us.’

‘Yes. And I promised that you would come to no harm, did I not? That is why I was forced to liberate you. I was going to break in the cardinal’s door to remove you.’

Berenger scowled. ‘How did you know we were there? Didn’t you go to the gaol first?’

‘Yes, of course. But the gaoler had already shown us that you were no longer in the cell.’

‘It was good fortune for you to decide to rescue us on the very day the cardinal decided he would see us executed.’

‘Ah, perhaps there was some fortune in it.’

Berenger nodded with comprehension. ‘The gaoler was bribed to warn you, was he?’

‘No, of course not!’ Grimault said, scandalised. ‘I would not pay another man’s servant to break his own oaths. The gaoler was sworn to secrecy. However, his pot boy was not. So, as soon as the gaoler was told, the pot boy came to find me, and naturally we then came to find you.’

‘But why?’

‘As I said: I promised no harm would come to you.’

‘So you chose to come and free us?’ Berenger didn’t believe the man. ‘You are a mercenary, paid by the French. Surely this will damage your reputation?’

‘Me? My friend, I own this ship! If the French cardinal wishes to complain to the King, he may do so. I will remind them that I fight under my terms, and if they do not like them, I reserve the right to remove myself. I gave you my word as a man of honour, and that French priest would have dishonoured me. I will not allow that. Not after the last weeks.’

Berenger felt he understood a little better. ‘The battle?’

Grimault shot him a look. The smile faded now as he nodded. ‘Yes, I speak of Crécy. The French asked Genoa to help in the war against you English, and then, when they went ahead on the battlefield at Crécy and were hopelessly outmatched against your English arrows, the French rode through them and cut them down. I am told that more were slaughtered by the French cavalry than were slain by your companions.’

Two of his friends had been there, he said. One, Iacme, was only a boy, and had fought well for his French masters, but his reward had been an early death at the hands of a French man-at-arms. Chrestien would find that hard to forgive or forget.

Berenger saw his hard expression and said gruffly, ‘I was there. I saw the French ride into them.’

Chrestien nodded grimly. ‘We know of this. All Genoa will have heard by now. It does not leave us filled with warmth and respect for our allies, to know that they slew so many of us. We will be looking more to our own requirements in the future, rather than slavishly following the commands of the French.’

‘Will you come to the English side with your ship?’ Berenger asked hopefully. If he were to return to the sea, he would prefer not to have to endure another attack by a powerful craft such as this.

‘No, because I have my contract. I will remain true to my word and uphold my honour. I will not overstep the bounds of common sense.’

John of Essex had joined them, and at this he frowned. ‘But you are free to go where you will?’

Chrestien nodded seriously. ‘Yes, my friend. But who would hire me or my ships if I gained a reputation for running? No man would want to give me a contract if I was considered a turncoat. Nobody likes an unreliable soldier.’

He saw the look on Berenger’s face and laughed.

‘Come, Master Berenger, be happy! You are free, on a fast ship, heading homewards, alive and well. And if you fear seeing my flag on the horizon again – well, be merry! All you need do is submit gracefully and at speed, and all will be well. Perhaps next time I will take you to another French commander, one in whom I have more confidence.’

‘There won’t be a next time,’ Berenger said. ‘By my faith, next time we meet at sea, I will catch you!’

Chrestien laughed again, but Berenger was frowning at the sea ahead.

‘Where are you taking us now?’

‘I cannot go too close to the English, for they will fire upon me and I would not have them injure my men. We shall aim for a place I know. From there it is less than ten miles to Calais. You can walk that, I think, without difficulty.’

‘Certainly,’ Berenger said, but as he spoke, he glanced to the left and saw another vessel, a small fishing boat with two men labouring away. A flash caught his eye.

It was nothing: only a brief flash behind one of the men, but it was enough to pique his interest. ‘What is that?’

‘What?’ Grimault said mildly, but didn’t turn his head. He stared resolutely ahead.

Berenger peered through the slight heat haze. There was so much sparkling where the sun’s light bounced, it was like trying to stare into a mass of stars. He looked away, then back; he rubbed his eyes and squeezed them tightly, and then, as the sea shifted and the boat dipped low in the water, he saw it: a mass of ships, tightly packed together in a river’s estuary.

He turned away, aware of the Genoese’s prattling. Those ships were massing for a purpose, and he was sure that it would bode ill for the English.