A large division left the King of England’s army under the command of the Earl of Northampton (though some claim the Prince of Wales took part in the operation) . . . and they travelled until they came before the city of Thérouanne . . .
St Omer Chronicle
The Dogs stayed in Wissant for nearly a week until Sir Denis came to find them in their smoky bakery.
In those days, life fell into a rhythm Romford felt was almost like being among a family again, something he had not known since he was a child. His lip began to heal. In an abandoned shop in the tailors’ quarter he found new clothes, cleaner and more comfortable than the tight outfit he had been put in by the prince’s men, which had hung shredded from his body after the battle. In place of his stripy hose he now wore a pair of loose raw linen trousers, cinched at the waist with a simple rope belt, and a comfortable thigh-length woollen shirt.
He began to fill his clothes once more, too. The Dogs ate regular meals, supplied from stalls around the docks by cooks and servants of the royal household. Scotsman traded another two rings for several large barrels of wine. So as the men ate and drank and slept well for the first time in two months, their bruises faded and the bags under their eyes shrank. And as their strength returned, their mood lightened. Although they still spoke of their homes, they accepted that for a few weeks more they were at the mercy of the king and his orders. They speculated about how much the Earl of Northampton might pay them for their service, if they did it well. From time to time they fantasised about capturing some valuable prisoner and exchanging him for a great fortune. Even Loveday seemed less anxious than normal, and Romford sensed that for once the kind, round-bellied leader was not worried for the safety of his men.
So for a few days, Romford was happy. He was busy too. Each morning Tebbe and Thorp took him down to the harbour’s great lighthouse, to the range where the king’s officers had set up butts for the archers to keep their eyes sharp and arms strong. All three were excellent shots, and with several hours of daily practice they all saw their aim improve to somewhere near their best. Romford could hit the small circles painted in the centre of the fat straw targets with around nine arrows in ten. At first, he was accurate from one hundred paces. As the days went by and his drawing arm strengthened and steadied, he was proficient from two hundred, and finally nearer two hundred and fifty. Other archers would stop and watch when he took his longest shots, whispering intensely about the way he drew his right arm to the point of his shoulder, and laying wagers on his accuracy.
One afternoon, when he played a game of six-arrows with Tebbe and Thorp, the Dogs drew a crowd of several dozen onlookers. There were gasps and cheers when Romford hit all six of his shots clean in the small circle from three hundred paces – the furthest distance the range allowed. After Romford landed his arrows and they inspected their targets, the other two archers pounded him on the back while the crowd whooped. ‘Show him which way Paris is and the little bastard could put one clean through King Philippe’s eye,’ said Thorp, shaking his head. ‘War’d be over in one shot.’ Romford felt such a rush of pride that he was lost for words. His face reddened as he smiled shyly at the handsome Thorp.
After archery practice each day, the three archers would rejoin the rest of the Dogs to get drunk. Romford did not drink nearly as much as his older companions. Neither did he discover in any of Wissant’s apothecaries the soothing, mind-dulling powder he had sought out in other towns they had visited. But he did not mind, and he did not itch for the powder as he had done in the worst moments of the march before the battle. He was content sipping his wine, and occasionally nibbling a tiny piece of the Host he kept packed in his arrow bag; just enough to make the colours brighter and the jokes the men told funnier. The combination allowed him to enjoy the other men’s company as they drained their mugs, and became loose and red-faced and jovial. It was like the first days he had ever been with the Dogs, when he met them in the Portsmouth tavern and begged them to take him away with them. He joined their games of cross-and-pile and arm wrestling, and watched the cockfights held in the streets in the hour before dark each night. He was glad things never again grew as riotous as on the day when Scotsman had fought the big Flemish woman called Hircent.
In fact, Hircent and her own small company became regular companions of the Dogs. From their talk, Romford understood that they vaguely hoped for the king’s army to swing north and capture various towns of Flanders that were held by the French. But it seemed to him they were mostly interested in finding, or causing, mischief.
After the fight on the boat, the strong, broad-shouldered woman and Scotsman struck up a curious relationship, like a pair of competitive siblings. They jostled and joshed one another, bickering theatrically for the amusement of the rest of the group and trying to best one another in every game, trial of strength or conversation. The fact that Hircent was a woman passed unremarked by any of the men, either among the Dogs or her own crew, which was made up of three pikemen called Heyman, Jakke and Nicclaes. They treated her as though she were a man, never addressing her as ‘she’ or ‘her’. When there was bawdy talk of women the others claimed they had fucked, or intended to, Hircent roared along with it as though she too were a man, with a man’s lusts and urges.
Romford had known women like this before in his London life. They almost always ran brothels. But he had never seen a woman so proficient at handling weapons. The men in her crew had no experience with the longbows that Tebbe, Thorp and Romford had mastered. Nor did they show any interest. Hircent was different. She was intrigued by the Dogs’ weapons, and would spend long hours watching Scotsman put a new edge on the blade of his axe or Tebbe obsessing over the cut and fit of his arrow feathers.
One day, Romford listened while Hircent quizzed Loveday in detail about his preferred tactics for fighting with a short sword.
‘You can’t lift anything bigger?’ she asked Loveday, part jokingly, but with an edge of scorn in her voice.
‘I’m no knight,’ Loveday replied. ‘Shorter blades are easier on the purse. And they’re better when the fighting is thick and close . . . ’
Hircent smirked. ‘One day you will come to your senses,’ she said, ‘and use a real man’s weapon.’
With this, she hoisted and swung her own favourite war tool: a stout club called a goedendag, tipped with a heavy metal spike driven into its head. The spike whistled close to Loveday’s nose, and the Dogs’ grizzled leader pulled his head back out of its way and frowned. Hircent laughed, and stuck the spike in the ground at her feet. She tapped the goedendag’s heavy shaft. ‘I call this one Heartbreaker.’
The Dogs and Flemings were warming themselves around the bread oven in the yard behind the bakery one grey morning, when Sir Denis pushed open the small store’s creaking wooden door, stepped through its stuffy rooms and called them to order. He looked over the group approvingly. ‘I see life in Wissant agrees with you,’ he said. He pointed at Romford and mimed shooting an arrow into an imaginary target, far away. Then the big knight looked at the Flemings. ‘And you have made some friends among our northern allies.’
‘We have,’ said Loveday, looking awkwardly at Hircent. ‘We met in—’
Sir Denis cut him off with a laugh. ‘I watched your introduction,’ he said. ‘An entertaining bout. Lord Warwick himself paid to repair the damage.’ He waved a hand to dismiss any further talk. ‘I will be brief. Tomorrow our army moves to Calais: a city much like this one, except with high walls, two moats, marshland all around it and gates barred against us. Yet we will not all go together. Lord Northampton has asked me to remind you of your undertaking to ride with him to a different town, which must be made secure. I trust you have not forgotten.’
‘No, sir,’ said Loveday.
‘Good.’ Sir Denis raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘And your friends? It would spare me the task of finding another crew to join you with. And since King Edward is paying our allies’ wages at lavish expense to his treasury . . . ’
The Dogs and Flemings exchanged glances. ‘They can ride with us,’ said Hircent. ‘If they can keep up.’
‘Good,’ said Sir Denis again.
‘So where are we going?’ grunted Scotsman.
‘Thérouanne,’ replied the knight. ‘You know it?’
Hircent cut in and replied contemptuously, ‘Of course. Verdomt honden hol.’
Sir Denis translated for the benefit of the English-speakers. ‘A goddamned doghole,’ he smiled. ‘But it looks to me as though you are at home in dogholes? Or maybe just among Dogs.’ He took a moment to enjoy his own pun, then grew serious. ‘Make whatever last preparations you require, and meet us at dawn tomorrow by the lighthouse,’ he said.
Sir Denis made as if to leave, then turned back. ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘You should know that our expedition will be formally under the command of the Prince of Wales. My lord Northampton will of course be assisting him in every way His Grace requires. But...’
For just a heartbeat, he glanced at Romford. ‘ . . . well. It is as it is.’
The knight ducked through the small door back into the baker’s house and returned to the street. Behind him, the group buzzed with excitement. But at the mention of the prince’s name, Romford’s heart beat hard and his stomach gave an ugly somersault.
There was a brief time when he had been the prince’s squire and companion. When they had eaten powder together and passed out next to one another, their limbs entwined. Yet as Romford had learned painfully, the prince was a man of fleeting tastes, and his concerns were those of another world to Romford’s. He had rejected him, and scorned him.
Romford hated the prince. But he also loved him. He had hoped never to see him again. Yet he also burned with a desperate urge to be touched by him just one more time.
In the bakery, the Dogs and Flemings were bustling around, starting to pack up and check their weapons and armour in readiness for what lay ahead in Thérouanne. Romford let them work, and though he did his own duties it felt like his body was controlled by someone else. His throat stung and from time to time hot tears pricked his eyes. When they came, he blinked them away. But as it neared the hour for sleeping, he reached inside his arrow bag and ate a large piece of the Host.
They left Wissant at dawn the next morning, riding horses from the pool of animals looted on campaign. Romford had not ridden for some weeks, so his legs and lower back were numb from the saddle by the time they arrived in the evening at a large and ancient abbey set in rich farmland. But when dusk fell, and the Dogs assembled with the rest of the company in the abbey’s refectory for a briefing from the Earl of Northampton, he was feeling less troubled than he had before. The mood of the men on the ride had been cheerful and excited, and Romford found that if he ate just enough Host, he could tap into their optimism and keep his dark feelings about the prince at bay.
The refectory was a long, high-ceilinged room, lit by tall, thin windows spaced evenly along its bare stone walls. At the head of it, above the abbot’s table, a huge painted wooden crucifix hung from the roof beams, suspended by invisible wire. Christ’s suffering was skilfully carved, his face gaunt and mournful as he examined the bloody gash in his ribs. Beneath him, Northampton was pacing impatiently.
As soon as the doors were closed and the men came to order, Northampton clambered on to the abbot’s table. He had a broad grin on his face.
‘Thank you, brothers,’ he said, clasping his hands in mock prayer towards the monks who closed the refectory’s great doors, and giving them permission to retreat. He waved an apologetic hand at the crucified Christ above him. ‘And sorry, Lord,’ he said, ‘for what you’re about to hear.’
Laughter carried around the heaving refectory. Romford popped a little piece of Host in his mouth. The whole company was assembled, with most of the men packed together on long benches set along three huge wooden dining tables that ran the length of the room. The Dogs and Flemings had found a space at the end of the middle table, their packs and weapons jammed at their feet. Other crews had not been so lucky. Some of the last crews to arrive were sitting cramped together on the floor and in the window bays.
Romford listened with interest as Northampton addressed them all. ‘First of all, well done. I mean that.’ The earl’s rasping voice echoed into the roof beams, where a couple of bats flitted. ‘It’s been a long road that brought us here. And God’s a fickle fucker. I know a lot of you buried your friends at Crécy. That’s hard. But it’s better than them burying you.’
He paced a couple of steps along the tabletop. ‘Now, Sir Denis and Sir Adrian have spoken to most of you, and we all know why we’re here. But for anyone who’s spent the last week pissed or asleep, let me spell it out.
‘Right now, King Edward is leading the rest of our army to Calais. If Christ and the saints are on our side, that lot are going to kick the fucking gates in, turn out everyone who’s not agreeable to being an English subject, raise the king’s banners over the walls and fuck off home in time to eat our Michaelmas goose and blackberries off tavern wenches’ naked bellies.’
The men gave an enthusiastic cheer. Fists drummed the wooden tables. Scotsman and Hircent competed to thump their fists the hardest.
Northampton waited for the noise to subside. ‘But before we get to the wenches and the blackberries, we’ve got to do our bit. A mile from here there’s a town called Thérouanne. Tomorrow it’s market day. We’re going to go down there and do some shopping.’
The cheers went round again, louder still.
‘But we’re doing it properly. There’s a bishop in charge of the defences.’
Now Northampton looked serious. ‘Laugh all you like. But we’ve seen what happens when you give a bishop a garrison. He gets a hard-on and imagines he’s El fucking Cid. Who here was at Caen?’
Hands went up. Romford felt the mood among the Dogs dip. He knew why. Caen was where Pismire and Father were now buried. Loveday and Scotsman had only just come away from the place with their own lives. The mention of it etched lines on the faces of the older men, and as their brows furrowed, Romford felt his own mood shift too. He ate another piece of Host to try and hang on to his good cheer.
Feeling the room grow sombre, Northampton changed tack. ‘So here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll keep it brief because I know you’ve been riding all day and most of you must be hungrier than Christ in the fucking desert. At daybreak tomorrow, we assemble in the courtyard and head out south-east . . . ’
Speaking rapidly and clearly, the earl began to set out an order of attack on the nearby town, involving a cautious frontal assault of men-at-arms and footsoldiers, supported by archers. Yet as he spoke, there came the sound of voices outside the refectory. Quiet at first, they gradually rose in volume until they were impossible to ignore. Through the thick studded doors, it was hard to work out what was being said. But it sounded like an argument, with three or more voices raised at once.
Northampton felt himself losing the room. He broke off his speech. ‘Saint Lawrence’s arse roasting on the fucking griddle.’ He jumped off the table and started down the hall, exasperation scored on his face. But before he could make it to the end of the hall, the doors swung open.
Around the Dogs, men stood to gawp. Romford craned his neck. But in his heart he knew exactly who was coming.
At the head of the group walked the Earl of Warwick: tall and elegantly dressed, with a mane of glossy hair, smooth skin and gleaming eyes, but his face set tense. Behind him sauntered a tall nobleman with a crooked nose. He wore a thigh-length leather coat, and boots printed with the skeletons of beech leaves, their toes tapered into long points. On his head he wore a bright-orange wig, made from the hide of some rare breed of cow.
Between these two came the prince. The sixteen-year-old heir to the English crown wore a doublet of exquisite dark green velvet, trimmed in gold cord, matched with a pointed cap of the same design. His knee-length riding boots were adorned with gleaming golden spurs. By his side he wore a heavy sword with a jewelled hilt.
‘Fuck does that cunt look like?’ breathed Scotsman. Romford felt a pang of defensive anger. But the prince swept along the tables and past Northampton, ignoring the earl completely and marching to the lectern. As he passed the Dogs, Romford tried as subtly as he could to catch his eye, hoping for a glance or a word: anything that might hint that the prince still remembered him. But all he caught was a waft of the sweet perfume he knew so well. Lavender and sandalwood. The scent drifted into his nose, filled his head and seeped into his soul. It made him feel half-mad with a combination of desire, revulsion and longing.
Romford reached into his arrow bag and pulled out two more pieces of the Host. He ate them and slumped at the table, staring straight down.
All around the room, the men were muttering about the prince’s arrival. The Fleming Heyman nudged Loveday. ‘Your prince is a great battle hero, I think?’
Loveday mumbled, trying to give nothing away. Heyman persisted. ‘He escapes from capture? Holds the great blind king Johann’s head as he dies?’
Scotsman leaned across the table. ‘Where’d you hear that shite? He’s a little fucking whelp who needs some sense whipped into him.’
Again Romford bridled. He wanted to stand up and shout – to tell them all how little they knew of anything. But shouting was quickly becoming beyond him. His belly was now full of Host, and he found it was becoming harder and harder to understand what people were saying.
To try and stop himself from slithering off his bench, Romford spread his fingers wide on the table and stared very hard at them.
He heard a dripping sound coming from the front of the hall. He snapped his head upright and saw what it was. On the cross above Northampton’s head, Christ was writhing in agony, trying desperately to close the wound in his side by curling his dying body around it.
‘Help him,’ Romford whispered.
Loveday heard him. ‘What?’ he said.
‘Help him.’
Loveday seemed to think Romford meant the prince, who had now clambered on to the abbot’s table, where Northampton had been standing.
Romford pointed fearfully at the crucifix above his head. Loveday looked in bafflement at Millstone, who put his arm on the boy’s shoulders.
‘Maybe the heat?’ he heard Millstone say.
Romford looked sideways through his fingers at the prince.
‘Men!’ the prince began. He had his hands on his hips. His voice was thick and slow. ‘I have something to ask of you all.’ He paused theatrically, nodding around the room.
‘I need you . . . ’ He coughed a few times.
‘ . . . I need you to bring me a drink!’ He cackled and slapped his velvet-clad thigh.
The knights and lords standing around the table looked at one another in embarrassment. Northampton, grinding his teeth, motioned to Sir Denis, who produced a silver cup and passed it to the prince.
Romford ground his own teeth too. He hated it when the prince was drunk.
The prince raised his cup, then squawked ‘King Edward! Chivalry! Virtue! And wine!’
He drained the cup, tapped it upside down on top of his head, then tossed it sloppily in Sir Denis’s direction. The knight shot out a hand and caught it.
The prince laughed his high-pitched laugh, then wandered out of the refectory, leaving the other lords staring after him. Northampton was white with fury. Warwick also looked grim. But the third nobleman, with the wig and the bent nose, wore an amused smirk. He clapped his hands approvingly.
‘Who the fuck is that?’ growled Scotsman.
Millstone answered Scotsman. ‘Sir Hugh Hastings.’
Romford ground his teeth some more. Drool dribbled down his chin. He wiped it with his sleeve, then rested his head on his hands and tried to concentrate on his breathing.
He sat there like that for some time, as the nobleman called Hastings launched into a lengthy speech explaining how, while the king’s huge army had been burning a swathe through Normandy, he had led a smaller war band made up of Flemings and English, attacking French-held towns in the area where they now stood. He seemed at pains to point out that his mission had been the more difficult, and that he alone understood how to fight in the region where they now found themselves. He slyly disparaged the other lords around him.
The speech went on for a very long time, and as it did, the room grew restless. A pair of archers picked their noses and flicked sticky balls of snot at one another. At the back of the hall, men got up from their seats and formed a line to piss in the corner. Yawns and even snores could be heard.
Yet Romford did not mind the length of the speech, for as it went on, he felt the worst of the Host’s effects pass. By the time food was served, cold and gluey, he was well enough to put some of it in his mouth, and even engage in the small conversation around the table. The other Dogs seemed to assume that it was hunger and tiredness that had caused him to act strangely, and he felt relieved that no one seemed to understand what he was doing.
‘Got too used to the easy life, did you, lad?’ said Thorp, chewing a piece of cold yellow gristle and licking his fingers. ‘Long day’s ride took it out of you?’
Romford smiled and nodded.
Thorp gave him a friendly punch on the arm and poured him some ale. Before long, Romford was feeling his mood improve once more. The prince was out of sight, and although it had been painful to see him, and the Host had gripped his mind in powerful fashion, Romford felt pleased at having survived. What was more, though he had been scared at first to see Christ writhing on his cross, and though the confusion the Host produced had been difficult to manage at times, he could not deny that he also enjoyed the thrill of having his senses so wildly rearranged. The experience was very different to eating powder. But his compulsion to repeat it was just as strong.
So by the time the Dogs turned in to sleep in a stable loft, bedded down in scratchy straw above the shifting, farting horses, Romford had even started to tell himself that the tactic of eating Host to dull the pain he felt when he saw the prince might be a good one.
That seemed just as well. Hastings in his address had said that the next day the archers in the company would accompany him and ‘Prince Edward of Wales, heir to our mighty sovereign king’, while the rest of the men would go with Northampton and Warwick.
Romford believed he had found a way to cope.