Berenger’s face was itching. Tooth Butcher had come with the army from Percy, and now appeared to have adopted Berenger as his own personal experimental patient. Every few days Berenger would see him in the roads and he would peer closely at his stitching with every sign of satisfaction. No matter how often he heard the barber tell him to leave it alone or he would scratch it into gangrene, he could not help but worry at the edges of the bloody clots.

‘You’ve seen gangrene, haven’t you, Frip? It’s a horrible thing. Eats away at you under your skin. And it all comes about, I reckon, because of daft buggers like you, who keep fiddling with your scar, and before long you’ll have killed off the skin and got yourself diseased. You do that, and I won’t be answerable. It’ll be a coffin for you, and that’s the truth.’

‘As a barber, you are good; as a bone-fixer or hacker off of other men’s limbs, you are competent, I’ll give you that. But when it comes to things like this, you have no idea how greatly it plagues me! I have to scratch to get some relief!’

‘It’s your life, Fripper. And I’m not your mother. Just don’t come running to me when you find that your face is falling off and you’re being eaten away from inside, that’s all I’m saying. Got that?’

Berenger took his advice and tried to keep his hands from his face – but Christ’s cods, it was difficult! On an evening like this, when the bitter wind was blowing, shrinking a man’s balls to the size of acorns, it was even harder. The chill seemed to inspire the scar tissue to produce greater heat in comparison. The worst of the scabs had fallen away, but the feeling of tightness, and the sense that inside the wound there was a scrabbling of insect feet trying to escape, was utterly maddening.

Things were not eased by the discussion he was forced to have with Sir John and Sir Peter of Bromley. Sir Peter made it clear he thought the full responsibility for the death of the messenger lay at Berenger’s door, and insisted that Berenger was demoted; no longer a captain, but merely a vintener again. He had demanded that Berenger be reduced to the rank of archer, but there Sir John drew a line. He threatened to take the matter to his friend Prince Edward, and on hearing that, Sir Peter reluctantly backed down. Sir John was known to have the Prince’s ear.

In those times, the only ease Berenger knew was when Béatrice took to caring for him. For the first few days after returning, when it felt as if he was going to have to scratch the whole of his face away, he was soothed by her soft hands. She draped cool cloths over his wound, murmuring gently to him all the while. When he opened his eyes and saw her face, he was struck by the compassion there. It was like looking into the eyes of a nun, or even the Madonna herself.

Marguerite too was kind to him. For a woman who had suffered so much at the hands of the English, she worked like a saint. Every so often, he even thought he saw a little smile begin at the edges of her mouth, as though she was not tending him from duty alone, but from a sense of personal gratitude. Not that he had done anything for her. She had come here because Béatrice and Archibald had invited her and her son.

Today, his wound was painful again.

‘Bad, Frip?’

‘I’ll live, Jack. Is there any news?’

‘Only that Sir Peter’s been given a bollocking by Sir John. It seems he blamed you for everything, from the death of the messenger to the bad harvest last year!’

‘I don’t trust that man,’ Berenger said.

‘I think you’ll find he views you in the same light,’ the Earl commented from near the fire.

‘If he were a spy, he could have spread news of our journey to Durham,’ Berenger said grimly. ‘He could have betrayed any of our missions.’

‘So could another,’ Jack said reasonably.

‘He’s a knight. He comes and goes on raids all the time.’ Berenger was thinking of what Béatrice had told him – that Sir Peter was often out, away from the siege. That would give him time to leave messages with others – messages that could be passed on to the French commanders. Sir Peter was only a recent turncoat, when all was said and done. What if he had never genuinely changed his allegiance? Besides, Béatrice detested the man and Berenger trusted her judgement in many matters.

‘What of it?’

‘Just warn the men to keep their eyes open where he’s concerned. Sir Peter of Bromley may have forgotten he’s supposed to have changed his allegiance.’

It was mid-November, and the weather had grown steadily worse. The huts of their wooden town had become islands. The roadways between were filled with mud and puddles, reeking as middens overflowed and human waste lay in the streets. Any grass that had once filled the lanes was long gone, and the place had become infested with rats and wild dogs, both species slinking away warily when humans came close.

It was the rats that had led to the men coming out here today. They had some small dogs with them and had been trapping all the rats they could find. Now several sacks’ worth were moving and scrabbling as the men began to heft them. The vintaine had cleared a space, lining it with close-fitting stones to make a small arena, and now the men emptied the rats into it. The creatures ran hither and thither, and Grandarse stood booming out his appreciation of the sport to come.

Three small dogs, yapping and barking enthusiastically, were held in sight of their prey while men wagered coins as to how many each dog would kill; when all the bets were taken the dogs were released and thrown in amongst the rats.

So far, the men had been sitting outside Calais for two and a half months. Berenger and his vintaine had at least been able to get away for a while, even if it had involved putting their lives at peril, but for the rest of the army, the dampness and monotony, with the ever-present risk of fever and death, was wearing all the men down. It was partly in order to counterbalance their demoralised state that Berenger had suggested the rat-catching. It certainly had an impact on the men in his vintaine.

‘Get that one, you poxed little wimp!’ Clip shouted in disgust as his terrier bounded over one rat and missed another. ‘What is it with you? I’ll bloody kill you meself if the rats can’t be arsed!’

‘Ah, did your special little doggie miss again?’ the Earl enquired with spurious sympathy. ‘Let me see, what did you call it?’

‘I think he called it the Berserker, didn’t he?’ the Pardoner grinned.

‘Someone or something’s berserk, I will agree,’ the Earl said.

‘Look at that! Mine has the big bastard by the throat!’ Aletaster cried.

‘Your little one is being played with,’ Dogbreath muttered. ‘If I was in there, that one would have been first to go.’

‘If you were in there, my friend, the rats would all have fled from the stink,’ the Earl said.

Dogbreath turned on him, snarling, and would have leaped upon him, but Berenger was glad to see that the Pardoner and Clip both took a shoulder each and heaved him back to the entertainment. The vintaine’s survivors were melding well into a unit.

Berenger watched as a terrier snapped a rat’s spine. One bite, a jerk of the head, and the rat’s back was broken. It dangled limply, one leg pawing at the ground as it was dropped, and the dog ran to its next victim. A snap, a shake, and another died. It was like watching a hunt – when the alaunts and hounds ran to a fox or a hart, the leader of the pack snapping the spine and killing so swiftly. Few men could kill so cleanly, he thought. Some did: he knew an expert warrener who would catch his rabbits, softly stroking them as he disentangled them from his nets, deftly calming them until he quickly broke their necks. They died without fear at his hands.

Not all these rats did as well. Running wildly in their panic, they were hunted down by the vintaine’s terriers. One rat, he saw, was flung high into the air, and he watched as it flew up – but as it fell, his gaze remained fixed on the distance.

‘What’s up, Frip? What is it, man?’ Grandarse demanded.

‘Archers!’ Berenger bellowed. ‘Archers, to arms!’

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Clip said.

‘French ships! They’re resupplying the town!’

The Vidame was in his tent when the doorway was opened.

‘I am glad to see you here,’ Jean de Vervins said. He wore an ingratiating smile on his face.

The Vidame drew his lips tightly over his mouth. ‘And I you. I heard you were serving with the English against the Scots.’

‘Yes. It was an interesting little engagement. Quite lively.’

‘May I offer you wine, Sir Knight?’

‘No, I thank you,’ Jean said. ‘I merely wanted to come and find a friendly face.’

‘You can always rely on me,’ the Vidame said. ‘After all, when we renounced our vows to King Philippe, and became servants of King Edward, we burned our houses and vills behind us.’

‘I did not,’ Jean said with a trace of asperity. ‘Mine were all stolen from me before. When the King took my enemy’s part, that was when I was forced to choose a different route. He betrayed me, just as he did you, too.’

‘He betrayed us all,’ the Vidame said. But in his heart he was screaming at Jean de Vervins that there was only one traitor in the tent.

As soon as Berenger had spotted the ships, the men had scurried away from the rat-killing, apart from Clip who leaned down, quickly cuffed his losing dog, and grabbed their arms and bows and arrows. With Georges, whom they had adopted as the replacement for Donkey, to push their cartload of arrows, they hastened to the docks and boarded a fishing vessel.

Casting off, Sir John and Grandarse had to threaten to kill a member of the crew to persuade the shipmaster to take them to the midst of the French ships. As soon as they drew near, the archers began to loose their arrows. Some sailors could be seen leaping from the rigging as arrows ripped through sails or struck, quivering, into masts and spars, while many lost their grip and fell screaming to the deck beneath. One man was hit and fell, only to strike the wale with such a loud crack that Berenger could hear it from his boat. The man had surely broken his spine, and started to shriek with every movement of the ship, unable to free himself.

Sir John stood at the prow, his sword drawn, yelling with rage at the ships moving before him. ‘Aim for that one!’ he bellowed, and the shipmaster turned her prow towards the vessel indicated, but before they could reach it, another was close to ramming them. ‘Mind that!’

As the ship turned to save her hull, Sir John roared at the men to get grapnels and draw nearer to this new target, but although some archers kept up their practice, to aim and loose from a rolling, bucking deck was no easy feat. Many arrows flew too high, and as many ended up planted in the hull of the ship. Few indeed found their mark, and as they worked, so did the French sailors, hacking with swords or axes at the grapnel ropes as soon as they landed. One parted with a great crack, and the men holding it were thrown backwards as the rope flailed. The rope-end knocked another man senseless, opening his brow to the bone from temple to temple.

A shouted command, and suddenly crossbow bolts were coming at the English. Two archers were hit and collapsed, while another had a bolt through his thigh. He kept on loosing his arrows, but Berenger could see he was weakened. Later they realised his artery had been severed, and he died of blood loss.

Berenger grabbed a polearm and began to use it to keep French sailors away from the grapnels, before leaping up onto the wale. At his side he saw Sir John jump lightly into the enemy vessel and begin to attack the French with his sword. With three sweeps of his blade, Sir John had cut down two men, and now already Jack was at Berenger’s side with an axe and poleaxe, and Clip was near, loosing more arrows and dropping more Frenchmen. There came a bellow, and a Frenchman darted forward to loose a crossbow bolt. All the men instinctively turned, and as they did so, two more French shipmen pelted forward and hacked away the remaining grapnel ropes. Now there was only Sir John, Berenger and five men left on the ship, and the whole ship’s company of Frenchmen began to press upon them urgently, striving to force them into the prow itself, where the boarders’ movements could be restricted and they could be picked off one by one. A crossbow bolt flew into the face of one of the archers – Berenger didn’t have time to look down to see who it had hit – and then they were rushed. The French came at them en masse, and that was when Berenger was struck on the left shoulder, making him cry out. Once more, his arm fell dead at his side. For a while he thought it was a sword blow that had cut off all sensation, but then the feeling returned with a vengeance, and he had to grit his teeth against the pain.

They fought on, weary but determined, as the French tried to force them into the sea, or at least just kill them all. And then, when Berenger felt sure that he was at the uttermost limits of his own strength, there came a juddering crunch in the timbers at his feet, and he was almost thrown to the deck. And joy of joys, suddenly he saw that it was their shipmaster with his humble little fishing boat, and the deck rang to the clatter of English armour as the men sprang over the sides and attacked the French from behind.

Yes, it had been a success against that one ship. That was itself good. But the rest of the ships had got past and revictualled the town.

‘We cannot go on like this!’ Sir John said as they disembarked.

‘We could mount siege engines to sink their ships, sir,’ Jack suggested.

‘Archibald would be happy to test his gonnes against them,’ Berenger put in. ‘Although whether he would hit them at any distance is another matter.’

‘Don’t ever let him hear you question his machines,’ Sir John joked, but then continued more seriously, ‘This siege is sapping our army. With all those ships getting through, we’ll be here another three months at least – all through December, January and February. My armour will have rusted to dust in that time.’

‘What else can we do?’

‘Break this damn siege!’ Sir John grated, and in the grey morning light, he stalked away in the direction of the King’s pavilion.