They took much pains to examine all the dead, and were the whole day in the field of battle . . . [finding] the bodies of eleven princes, twelve hundred knights and thirty thousand common men.
Chronicles of Jean Froissart
‘Let’s get him up.’
‘Loveday’ FitzTalbot stood, holding his aching lower back, and watched Tebbe and Thorp take hold of the knight’s limbs and yank. He clapped his hands to encourage his men. ‘Come on, boys, it might be someone who matters.’
The knight was lying face down, trampled so heavily he was half-buried in the earth. Dead. He had been a big, barrel-chested man. Now he was a sprawled, broken mess, his body mangled by feet and hooves and pressed deep into the churned mud of the field. The plate armour on his back was crushed and in places it had split. The surcoat bearing his insignia of arms, which in life had identified him, was tattered and bloodied beyond recognition.
The archers heaved.
‘He’s stuck,’ complained Tebbe. ‘We’d be better off digging the bastard out.’
Thorp let go of the knight’s leg for a moment and gave the dead man an angry kick. ‘Tebbe’s right. We’ll never move him,’ he said. He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Let’s just cut that rag off him and send it to the king’s men so they can work out who he was. Then we can move on.’
Loveday said nothing. He understood his men’s frustration. They were all sore, hungry, dirty, bloody, thirsty and worn out. He handed Thorp his flask. The dark-haired bowman grunted thanks then drank deeply. He swallowed a couple of times, spat out half a mouthful of the murky liquid and scrunched up his face. ‘Water?’
‘Aye,’ said Loveday. ‘That’s all they’re giving out for now. Ale’s gone.’
Thorp shrugged, resigned. ‘We’ll be back in England soon enough. Thank fuck. Plenty of ale there.’ He shielded his eyes from the late summer sun and glared around the field. Everywhere, groups of men just like them were picking over corpses, removing anything valuable before the bodies were dragged away feet first for burial in long pits. There were thousands of them. All had fallen in a battle that took place there two days earlier, beside a vast, dense, dark green forest called Crécy. The six Essex Dogs had fought in the thick of that battle. Now they sorted and pilfered its dead.
Thorp turned back to the knight and booted him again, though with less force than before. Tebbe put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘One more go. No point giving up. He could have something good on him.’
Tebbe flicked his long, grey plait of hair over his shoulder. It was stiff with dried sweat and blood. He re-gripped the knight’s right arm. Thorp sighed and grabbed the right leg. Then the two men heaved again, bending their knees, digging their heels into the uneven ground and straining until the veins sprang on their foreheads.
With a sucking noise, the knight began to lift. But his left arm was thrown out awkwardly behind him, and once the archers had him half-turned, Tebbe slipped, and the knight flopped back down on to his front.
Loveday felt a heavy trudge behind him and turned to see Scotsman arrive. The gruff-tempered giant was one of Loveday’s oldest comrades and friends, although in size and temper the two men were very different. Today, despite the chill in the air, Scotsman stood stripped to the waist, showing off a broad torso that was badged with bruises. He grinned as he considered the knight on the ground and the archers panting beside him. Then he picked a few scabs of grime from the rancid, greasy ropes of his ginger beard. ‘Christ’s stinking loincloth,’ he said. ‘You fuckers are making hard work of this.’
As Scotsman groomed his beard, Loveday noticed the big man’s fingers, which sprouted with orange hair and were as thick as most men’s thumbs. Each bore several glinting gold or silver rings. The Scot had been scouring the battlefield for trinkets.
Scotsman saw Loveday looking. He turned his hands to show off his haul.
‘Plenty worth selling, next town we visit,’ Loveday said. ‘God knows we need something to take home with us.’
‘Aye. That we do. I’ve got nearly two dozen here. We’re going to be rich enough to spend the whole winter in a whorehouse.’ The Scot chuckled and turned his attention to Tebbe and Thorp, who were still struggling with the half-buried knight. ‘Move over, you flea-bitten English bastards,’ he said. The archers stepped back, exhausted. Scotsman took hold of the dead man with one hand and heaved. Within seconds, he had flipped the corpse and dropped it on its back. ‘Easy,’ he laughed.
Behind him, Thorp threw his hands up in exasperation. ‘Baptist’s bollocks, Scotsman. We did all the hard work, and you just stroll in and . . . ’
But as he looked down at the knight, he tailed off.
The visor of the knight’s helm was missing. That, Loveday supposed, was what had got him killed. The left eye socket had been hit with something heavy, swung very hard. Where it had landed, the knight’s skull had collapsed, caving inwards. Around the wound, the flesh was blackened and broken. The forehead above it was grotesquely swollen with blood.
But the right half of the face was unmistakeable, and each of the Dogs knew it. It was even uglier in death than it had been in life, but the piggish right eye and the lips, squeezed in a tight pompous pout, could only have belonged to one man.
‘Sir Robert le Straunge,’ chuckled Scotsman. ‘You fat, dead cunt.’ He knelt and wiggled the knight’s metal gauntlet until it came off. He untied the soft leather glove beneath. On his rigid third finger Sir Robert wore a thin band of gold, which flared into a lozenge etched with the head of some fantastical beast.
Scotsman worked the ring free and slipped it on to his own left hand, where it sat just below the knuckle of his little finger. He looked up at the Dogs. ‘What? He can’t use it now. In any case, the fucker owed us all forty days’ pay.’
Loveday sighed. It was true. Each of them bore the scars of seven hard weeks in the field, marching through the hot French countryside, joining the king’s assaults on cities and villages, risking their lives and losing their friends. They had done it for the same reason they did anything. So that a richer man would pay them for their service and they could go back to their ordinary lives with their pockets full of coin. Now that richer man, Sir Robert le Straunge, who had first recruited them to join the king’s army, lay dead at their feet.
Loveday scratched his chin. ‘We haven’t lost that much,’ he said, trying to sound more cheerful than he felt. ‘Sir Robert was ill-disposed to us. In any case, the obligation to pay our forty had been transferred to . . . ’
Thorp cut in and finished the sentence for him. ‘Sir Godefroi d’Harcourt?’
Loveday nodded. ‘Aye, Sir Godefroi.’
There was an awkward silence around the group. Millstone had wandered over to join them, and he too was now examining Sir Robert’s remains with detached interest. After a moment, he spoke. His voice, with its soft Kentish burr, was calm. ‘Sir Godefroi has abandoned the king’s cause. He’s gone back to Philippe. He saw his brother killed among the French ranks, and it broke his heart. I’ve heard the story told many times today.’
Tebbe snorted. ‘Once a traitor, always a traitor. He fucked the French king over, now he’s fucked the English. One day he’ll get his reward.’
‘Which is more than we will.’ Thorp spat on the ground. ‘Christ’s teeth and claws, that’s our pay for the whole campaign gone. The rich bastards have got richer taking each other alive for ransom. And here we are, with no wages, wrestling with dead men for their clothes.’
He was right and Loveday knew it. With Sir Robert dead and Sir Godefroi having vanished, the Dogs now had little hope of claiming the wages they were due for their weeks of fighting. All they could take home would be a diminished pile of coins they’d earned selling plunder to a sailor called Gombert in a city called Caen, and whatever they could strip from the fallen in the short time before the army broke camp to march for the coast.
Loveday stared around the battlefield, littered with arrows and broken shields and corpses. Black, sharp-beaked birds were hopping hungrily around. Twenty paces from where the Dogs stood, a sleek she-crow was digging at a dead crossbowman’s eyeball.
Loveday felt his men’s disappointment bore into him. He cleared his throat to address them. But Millstone spoke for him. ‘Never mind. Let’s get back to work. We’re here. We should gather anything we can, no matter how worthless it looks, and load it on the cart. The loot-brokers will be here soon.’
Scotsman grunted. ‘Where is the fucking cart, anyway?’
Millstone pointed towards the road, where, during the battle, wooden wagons of all types and sizes had been turned on their sides to form a wall against the French assault. Most had now been righted and claimed by English companies. Loveday spotted Romford, the Dogs’ youngest member, perched on one.
The boy looked thin and frail. His cheekbones stood out and his eyes were surrounded by dark patches. He wore the livery of the Prince of Wales, which he had been given during his short time as a squire to the sixteen-year-old lord. But the green-and-white jacket was torn and ragged, caked in mud and barely recognisable. Romford was swinging his legs back and forth and staring at the ground, as though he were searching for something. His top lip had been split and was crusted with blood. But his loose curls of hair glowed golden in the afternoon sun. Sensing the Dogs talking about him, Romford looked up and waved a shy hand.
Loveday waved back. Scotsman shook his head. ‘That one’s not right,’ he said.
Loveday ignored him. He turned back to the dead knight. ‘Should we bury Sir Robert?’
Scotsman glared at him as though he were a madman. ‘Are you fucking joking? Leave him for the crows.’
By sundown the Dogs had piled their cart high, and the loot traders had begun to arrive. Some were mere opportunists – peasants who had wandered along the roads beside the forest to bargain with the triumphant English. Others were artisans from nearby towns. Blacksmiths’ boys paid tiny silver coins for sacks of arrowheads and horseshoes. Skinners haggled for dead horses and donkeys, flaying the carcasses quickly before trudging away with the wet and bloody hides draped over their shoulders, as though they were the actors in a nativity play.
The more enterprising traders worked in twos and threes, setting up makeshift stalls, calling across the field to advertise their particular interest and sending out apprentices to drum up business. Some bought saddles and bridles, others maces and swords. Lines formed around several of the stalls – particularly those where the traders were handing out free mugs of wine.
‘They have accents,’ Romford said to Loveday. ‘Where are they from?’
Millstone, standing on the far side of the loaded cart, cut in and answered.
‘Flemings.’ He wrinkled his nose.
‘What’s wrong with Flemings?’ asked Romford.
The stonemason just grunted.
‘Lying, cheating, swindling, godless, pox-pintled sons of whores,’ said Tebbe. ‘And that’s the nice ones.’
Romford seemed satisfied with the answer. He stood up and stretched his legs. ‘Flemings,’ he repeated, as though he had never heard the word before. Then he said, ‘I’ll get wood for the night-fire.’ He slid off in the direction of the forest’s edge.
Loveday watched him go. The campaign had changed Romford, Loveday thought. The boy had seen things that could not be unseen. The Dogs’ round-bellied, thin-haired leader felt a pang of guilt, as he often did when he thought of Romford. As usual, he tried to reason it away.
He came here because he wanted to. Same as we all did.
After Romford left, a young Fleming not much older than him approached the Dogs’ cart. By now, the sun was very low. Salty wood smoke was drifting across the field. Loveday felt his arm-hairs rise. For the first time that summer, the air had a bite to it.
The boy strolled up to the Dogs without fear and spoke to them in English, though with a thick accent. ‘What have you to sell?’ he asked. Wot hiv. Shell.
Loveday looked at the jumble on the cart. ‘Armour,’ he replied, ‘mostly. Breastplates, some of them are in good condition. Two or three mail coats that could be easily repaired. A few crossbows, still strung. Genoese, I think. A pike. Needs a bit of—’
The boy laughed scornfully. Loveday felt Scotsman and the archers stiffen.
‘What’s funny?’ demanded the Scot. ‘Mother of God bent over the fucking bramble bush, our stuff’s as good as any other bastard here will sell you.’
The boy raised his hands in apology. ‘I’m sure your things is good, by God. But we cannot pay for this. You have heard the king’s edict.’
He looked around them, still smiling, enjoying the fact that he knew something they did not. ‘You didn’t hear? Your king has said enough armour is taken. He has forbidden to sell any more of it. He thinks we will sell it back to the French. Which we do.’ He laughed. ‘Your king’s men are burning and melting it. You smell, I think, the fires.’
Tebbe shook his head. ‘God’s guts, I don’t believe you. My old woman’s at home expecting me to come back with a few bloody shillings at least. Now name us a price or get out of here.’ Loveday admired the archer’s spirit. But all the Dogs could now smell smoking charcoal and the tang of molten metal.
The boy was about to retort, when out of the gloom of the field appeared a tall, square-jawed knight with huge shoulders and long brown hair. He wore the livery of William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton and Constable of the English Army. At the sight of the knight, the boy’s cocksure manner evaporated. He glanced shiftily around him, weighing the possibility of running away.
The knight took the decision away from him. In two long strides he reached the Dogs, and in the same easy motion he shot out an arm and seized the boy by the nape of his neck. The boy squirmed and yelped.
‘Sir Denis,’ said Loveday, nodding in greeting.
Sir Denis of Moreton-on-the-Weald smiled. Laughter lines bunched at the corners of his eyes. Yet there was something hard and unwavering in the eyes themselves. He shook his long hair, still oddly clean and glossy. ‘Essex Dogs,’ he said, half bowing. ‘Is this young rogue troubling you?’
Loveday pressed his shoulders back and tried to mirror Sir Denis’s straight-backed stance. ‘No, Sir Denis. He was . . . we were hoping to make a small gain on the spoils of the battle.’
The boy wriggled again. Sir Denis shook him like a puppy. He smiled politely at Loveday, inviting him to continue.
‘We were . . . We have had some misfortune,’ Loveday said. He was babbling. ‘Sir Robert . . . Sir Godefroi . . . we are hoping before we go back to England . . . ’
Sir Denis nodded. ‘We are destroying armour now. Not selling it.’
‘And what if we do sell it?’ Scotsman growled.
‘I think you know what.’
Sir Denis let go of the boy, who stood rubbing his neck angrily, though he did not yet dare to move away.
‘You can take your gatherings to the blacksmiths in the morning,’ said the knight. ‘The king will pay you a penny per piece.’ He paused. ‘But I would not waste your time. If you want real pay, you should seek out my lord, Northampton. I think he will remember you.’ He laughed once more. ‘Not all of us are going back to England,’ he said. He winked. ‘But I didn’t tell you that.’
‘Not going—?’ Thorp began to protest. But as he did, Romford returned, dragging two large branches behind him and softly whistling to himself. ‘Firewood,’ he said, as though it needed explaining.
Sir Denis regarded Romford as though he were trying to place him. ‘I know you,’ he said thoughtfully. But he said no more. Instead, he turned back to Loveday. ‘Think about it,’ he said.
‘And you,’ he said, reaching out his finger and thumb and flicking the Flemish boy hard on the ear, ‘fuck off.’ He clasped his hands as if in prayer and pointed them at the Dogs, then strode away.
The young Fleming glowered at the knight’s back, then started walking off as well.
Scotsman called him back. ‘Hey boy. You buy rings?’ He raised his right hand and flexed his jewelled fingers.
The boy turned. He moved his hand inside his loose linen shirt and pulled out a thick piece of cord, tied necklace-wise around his neck. On it hung at least forty rings, set with onyx and crystals, precious stones of green and ruby. He took it off his neck and whirled the string around his index finger, making the rings clatter together.
‘You know how many lords died here?’ he called. Lorts dite.
He caught the necklace, put it back over his head and tucked it once more inside his shirt. ‘Everyone has a rink today.’
Scotsman’s shoulders fell. He said no more. Loveday patted him on the back, as consolingly as he could, and all the Dogs stared around the field, piled everywhere with dead men and abandoned possessions. Thick smoke from the royal furnaces was billowing in gusts and the dusk was turning to night. The Flemish boy skipped away from them, poking his tongue out as he went. Before he had gone more than twenty paces, he had vanished into the shadows.