Excommunication was not the only instrument in the papal tool casket even if the Pontiff, finding himself ignored, had brought down anathema on the Great Company not once but twice. The routiers took this as a compliment, a statement of their worth, it being a sanction only previously applied to monarchs who sorely displeased the Holy See.
The reasons were not hard to fathom: the vaults that had once held the bishop were now full of booty, much of it in coin, a great deal of which had come from the bridge tolls collected by Hawkwood. Beyond that on the east bank of the River Rhone the Comtat Venaissin had yielded up a cornucopia of produce and treasure which included everything from ransoms and raided aristocratic coffers to the valuables of manors, cathedrals and monasteries.
Prized crucifixes were mixed with endless church plate, this augmented by gold, pearl and jewel-sewn vestments. Then came the reliquaries, by which the clergy engaged the veneration of their flocks. It was hard to know what troubled them more; the loss of their gold and silver ornaments or some fragment of the bones of a saint or martyr.
The company was able to mock their denial of the sacraments. More worrying was Pope Innocent’s next step: the call for a crusade against the free companies – all of them – primarily those harrying papal lands, with remission of sin, as it had been in all previous Crusades, the payment to serve the needs of the church. The countryside around Avignon was now beginning to fill with encampments as the call was answered, which meant raiding that far south had become perilous even if it was seen in Pont-Saint-Esprit as a distant threat. But it could grow, so riding out in search of plunder was put aside in favour of a council where all could discuss the way to react.
‘Indulgences and no need to go all the way to Palestine?’ mused Hawkwood, as the gathering assembled.
‘A potent threat is forming,’ was the opinion of Leofrick of Aachen, ‘and one we must carefully consider.’
No one bothered to tell the Rhinelander he was stating the obvious: that such was the very purpose of his presence, though many an eye was raised to the rafters of the bishop’s audience chamber.
‘The question we are gathered to ask and answer is how do we go about countering it?’ If Sterz had expected a response to that query, a solution of sorts, he was sorely disappointed. ‘As I see it, there are only two alternatives. Do we stay or do we depart?’
‘To where, Captain General?’ Hawkwood enquired.
Leofrick puffed himself up to respond. ‘We have the ability to go anywhere we choose.’
‘Then let us go to Avignon,’ joked John Thornbury.
Pompous and bereft of sense as ever, Leofrick replied with due bombast. ‘If that is here agreed it will not be my brigade found wanting.’
‘Why go anywhere?’ Hawkwood asked softly. ‘We are in possession of a near impregnable fortress and this supposed host gathering against us is yet nothing but talk.’
‘A fortress you, Francis and I captured,’ Jonzac reminded him. ‘And very easily, I recall.’
‘Do not forget my men took part as well.’
Roland de Jonzac smiled, for it was a gentle rebuke. ‘Granted, but it was not much trouble.’
‘Which I have taken steps to ensure cannot happen again, my friend.’
‘It is far from just idle gossip,’ Cunradus interjected; as the man charged with knowing about such matters, he had a grasp of the threat greater than those of the soldiers. ‘According to the travellers I have questioned, lances have already arrived and we are told of many more on the way. In addition it is not just indulgences bringing them to Avignon: Innocent is disbursing gold in great quantities as well.’
‘It is about time he coughed up some of that which he squeezed from his flock.’
The point made by Baldwin set off a general babble as the low opinions of the Holy Church were noisily aired. There was supposed to be a formula to this sort of council: each captain was empowered to speak in turn, usually to advance the feelings of his own brigade, though sometimes there was scant consultation with lesser beings.
If that was the theory it was not the reality: they never proceeded as smoothly as the likes of Cunradus wished. Men such as these could not be so easily corralled and were reluctant to give way to another so constant interruptions were the norm. Sterz, unless he had already formed an opinion and a plan he was determined to impose, tended to stay aloof but not on this occasion: indeed, he appeared to be in serious doubt. The person he needed to answer his questions regarding a possible course was happy to do so.
‘When Pont-Saint-Esprit fell to us it had a garrison of some fifty men in total.’ Hawkwood paused while this was acknowledged. ‘We are far greater in number by a huge factor and I take leave to suggest we are better fighters than those we overcame.’
Growls greeted that assertion; if the freebooters were proud of anything it was their professional skills. That asserted, they were not as strong as they had been on arrival. Raiding could not be carried out without risk, for not all their victims succumbed without a struggle. If deaths had been uncommon they had nevertheless occurred and with plundering success there had been an increase in desertions. That accepted, as a defensive body they had more than enough men to man the walls as well as to launch sorties to disrupt any preparations for assault.
‘Which,’ Sterz cut in, ‘will make taking these walls a bloody affair.’
Hawkwood concurred before he continued, clarifying that the public granaries were full and not just those; every householder in Pont-Saint-Esprit had been allowed to stockpile their own food, the allowance of which, designed to keep them quiescent, they had taken full advantage. If the freebooters had not been as rapacious as first feared that did not induce any feeling of security in the common breast.
He then reminded his confrères that the wells that supplied the city’s water lay within the walls, so the supply could neither be cut off nor poisoned by the tipping in of dead animals, the lack of anything to drink being a sure way to overcome even the most potent defence. As well as wheat and oats there was ample livestock grazing the surrounding fields, all of which could be fetched in, while the huge wine vats were maturing the very good pickings of vendange, while there was fruit in abundance too.
‘Can we rely on those we hold?’ asked Baldwin.
He was clearly looking for a sound reason to depart. He meant the citizens of Pont-Saint-Esprit, who could betray them and make meaningless the stout walls Hawkwood insisted would keep them safe. Three others nodded in encouragement and all present were aware that fortresses more often fell to treachery than assault, a question Cunradus answered. The monk had authority in this: his anathema meant more to a man of his calling than it did to a freebooter.
‘The excommunication extended to anyone who gave succour to us. They too are seen as apostates. I think the citizenry of Pont-Saint-Esprit will know of the fate of heretics, which is how they will be seen by those who see themselves on Crusade.’
The list of massacres in the name of religion was known to all, from the Albigensians to Jerusalem itself, where every Jew and Muslim in the city had been slaughtered in the name of God. Hawkwood wanted to move from the thought of such matters to the reality of anyone trying to take the town as well as the pressure on those in the siege lines.
‘Have we not all experienced the misery of such a task only to find that after months of fruitless attacks or waiting on short commons, our bellies ravaged with disease, the defenders demand a parley, then terms, before marching out with their weapons and carts loaded with their possessions? The King gets the castle while we get nothing.’
‘Not,’ Baldwin opined, ‘a release likely to be granted to us. Innocent wants us strung up, I’m sure.’
Francis the Belge spoke next. ‘A possibility so far in the future as to be an unknown, Baldwin.’
‘I do not claim to know the future, do you?’
Such an irascible response set them all against each other. Cunradus, giving Sterz jaundiced looks for his lack of assistance, tried hard to control the debate, only partially successful as those who wished to run from the impending problem argued with the others who thought they could hold out against Innocent and indeed thwart his purpose. Hawkwood was the most vocal progenitor of the latter, only stopping when Sterz shouted for silence.
‘What is known, or will be common talk in this host forming to fight us, is how well we have stripped this province of its wealth. Innocent has bleated enough about it to anyone who will listen. He may be content to drive us off his lands, but what if those he is gathering think not of saving their souls, but of lining their purse?’
Certain points do not require explanation. If there was questionable security within the walls of Pont-Saint-Esprit there was none at all out in the open against a superior foe. It took no leap for men who were themselves greedy to see the attraction of a chase designed to strip the Great Company of all that it had acquired, and it did not need to be the whole host in pursuit; any major portion of such an army would be difficult to confront.
Baldwin was still in favour of departure and he took the lead for the others who shared his thinking. ‘Which means that if we are to depart we must do so before they are fully formed.’
‘Anyone desirous of an immediate departure may of course do so,’ Cunradus responded, ‘as long as they recall the terms to which they appended their mark.’
That too required no elucidation; the monk was saying you may go but by contract you leave behind you your share of what spoils have been gathered, something no band would accept, regardless of the strength of their leader. One other point was as well made too by their leader: for security they must act as one or not at all.
‘To take with us what we have garnered will oblige us to strip out half the carts in the Comtat Venaissin and that means slow progress. Ask yourself this. In possession of such knowledge and able to ride down your enemies what would you do?’
‘Take the treasure and take the life of every man who had owned it.’
This piece of obvious sense from Leofrick caused both wonder and agreement, which was naturally followed with the concomitant conclusion. The company had more chance of survival and hanging on to what they had plundered by staying put rather than seeking to flee and slowly Baldwin and his ilk were won round. That accepted there was a great deal to do; the Comtat Venaissin still had much to yield, for in previous outings there had always been left with their victims enough to bring on recovery, a future source of plunder.
That changed; knowing time was short, the brigades went out to create a desert around their stronghold, burning that which they could not carry off as well as manor houses and peasant dwellings. Vines and olive trees were cut down; local notables and high churchmen who had not had the sense to flee to Avignon were hunted down and taken in chains to the vaults of St Saturnin, there to reside as tokens with which to bargain.
Scouting parties were out continually to report on the growing threat, detailing the number of encampments springing up around the papal capital as well as by which banners they were occupied. Such information provided sobering reflection. There were bodies of lances from half of France, many parts of Germany and even a small number from Italy, especially the Papal States surrounding Rome.
Such intelligence gathering remained a constant until the day came when the papal host moved. With Pont-Saint-Esprit no more than three days distant for a marching army, that meant it was time to call in the bands, drive in the livestock and the last supplies, set fire to that which could not be carried in time, drop the portcullis and man the walls.
With all of that inside, plus the Great Company in its entirety, Pont-Saint-Esprit seemed ready to burst. The sounds of lowing and bleating were not confined to the animals; many a citizen saw only a horrible death as their future, either at the hands of their occupiers or those trying to overcome them. The sounds of endless praying mingled with the rasp of metal on stone, as weapons were sharpened in readiness for battle.
The first sign of the enemy was their huge papal banner, with the image of St Michael blazoned upon it, as they approached the eastern end of the Rhone Bridge. Hawkwood was on the walls with his archers, willing them to attempt a quick crossing. He knew, as did his confrères, that the assault would not just come from one direction; the river level was low now, the run of the water slow, and boats would be ferrying soldiers and their horses across the river to the north and south, to surround Pont-Saint-Esprit and cut it off with the aim of bringing on starvation.
‘I pray they have enough arrogance to think us supine,’ he whispered to Gold, as ever by his side, though now tall enough to need to bend his head slightly to address his captain. ‘They will not if they have heard there are English bowmen here.’
‘They will fear the Welsh more, John Hawkwood.’
Ivor the Axe called this out, loud enough to be heard by all; he was fiercely proud of the ability of his countrymen with the bow and often given to stating that without the Welsh having invented it, no Englishman would know of its existence, never mind its quality. As ever, his assertion was hotly disputed.
‘Since when did a Welshman have the wit to invent?’ called Alard the Radish, to loud agreement from his own kind. ‘I have looked in an ear of your countrymen many a time, Ivor, and seen daylight clear on the other side.’
‘Not daylight, Alard – divine light, happen. There’s naught in an English head but straw, and damp it will be too.’
‘Let us set that aside for now,’ Hawkwood insisted, for these were well-worn jokes. ‘Baldwin’s lances need us to give support.’
The men mentioned had occupied the stone tollbooth and had also built a barrier to the open side in order to deny the enemy the bridge. They had with them half a dozen crossbowmen, not reckoned to be any use at all by their longbow comrades given the time needed to reload such a weapon, added to the fact that it required two men to carry it out. In the same minute a man on a longbow could launch a dozen arrows, which, if they could not penetrate armour at long range, were so disruptive it was considered equal.
There was one great difference here: there would be no essaying out from the defence to seek to kill or maim men whose horse had fallen to Hawkwood’s archers, whatever their weapon. Baldwin’s men were there to hold as long as possible, which would not outlast the crossings being made on other parts of the river, a manoeuvre that would inevitably cut them off.
Attacking across a bridge is difficult, so few men would be able to deploy. If Hawkwood had been in the shoes of whoever commanded on the east bank he would have never attempted it. That it happened he put down to the enemy being French by their banners, high-born and puffed with arrogance. It was the same stupidity as the battles won by King Edward: each Frankish knight looked to his pride instead of common sense. In such minds no mere mortal, and certainly no peasant soldier, could stand against their chivalry.
Six armoured knights lined up abreast of each other and began to advance, slowly as suited their heavy destriers, the mounts also partially protected by the mail slung on their chests. On each lance there flew a coloured pennant and every shield had on it the rider’s coat of arms, proof of their chevalier status. Heads were protected by plumed helmets that testified to the owner’s wealth by their elaborate and individual designs.
The crown of the bridge was well within range of Hawkwood’s men and their captain waited until his enemy was at that point before ordering that they fire. To him what followed had a sweet sound, the swish of a salvo piercing the air, not as loud as Crécy or Poitiers but audible nevertheless. Skills had not been allowed to rust during the occupation of Pont-Saint-Esprit. Outside the walls stood the butts these men had used to keep such a thing sharp and the speed of the reload and fire was as good as it had ever been.
The missiles, each the length of a tall man’s arm, fell upon the line of knights, to ricochet off their armour, those that missed doing the same off the stones. It was the horses who suffered, not their riders, from what was plunging fire. That was the aim: to so discomfit the mounts they would become impossible to control, causing their heavily armoured riders to tumble to the ground as the mounts reared and bucked, to lie there like a beached fish as they struggled to rise again.
That was when the crossbow bolts came into action. They fired a projectile that could penetrate armour and that applied to those who had retained their saddle as much as to the others rendered vulnerable by having fallen, four in total after the bolts had done their worst. Foot soldiers with a wall of shields then came forward to seek to rescue them and get them to safety. Several fell to the reloaded crossbows as well as more plunging fire from the ramparts.
‘Enough,’ Hawkwood called, when the pair still mounted had retired to safety. ‘Let’s keep our arrows for more pliant flesh.’
‘We’re not short,’ Alard insisted; he had spent the last weeks with wood, fletching and metal headtips to ensure an ample supply.
‘Not yet, friend, but who knows how long this siege will last?’
The only other action that day was to cover the withdrawal of Baldwin’s men as the sun went down, made necessary as papal troops appeared on the west side of the river. It could never have been held and had been nothing more than a gesture, a way of saying to Pope Innocent, his cardinals and his noble supporters that his remission of sin was necessary. It was going to be applied to the souls of many of those who had come to serve his cause.
As expected, the enemy tried to effect a coup, seeking to emulate that which John Hawkwood had achieved and overcome the walls by a combination of subterfuge and surprise. The Hawkwood palisades had been torn down as a matter of course. On a moonless night the papal troops crawled along the riverbank, likewise using the sound of the river to seek to mask their movement but it was a watercourse less potent than previously. The attempt was stymied by the dropping of flaring bales of hay, which lit up the whole strand and the men upon it.
Hawkwood, in anticipation, had built platforms that could be slid out from the top of the walls. Onto these he put his best archers who, with such clear targets unable to respond, made merry. With these sitting ducks it was no more difficult than firing at a straw roundel in the butts. The attack was not only driven off; they left behind many bodies of those wounded and killed. The former were despatched by a party of men from Sterz’s own brigade of Germans sortieing out, their bodies thrown into the river to float down to Avignon as a message to Pope Innocent to tell him the price of his attack on the Great Company.