The King of England . . . made many attacks on [Calais], with stone-throwers, cannon, and other missile-throwing devices . . .
St Omer Chronicle
Ten days later, Romford stretched on his pallet and listened to matins bells toll across the strange wooden town. He rolled on to his back and rubbed his eyes. The bells had woken him from dreams. But he did not mind waking. The attic space in the eaves above the brothel was dimly lit, but it was warm. It smelled rich and woody. Tiny shafts of the new day’s light were creeping through the hole where a ladder led down to the rooms below. The golden beams caught dust and curls of smoke. Scotsman and Millstone had been on duty overnight. Romford guessed they had kept the oven burning.
For a moment, Romford lay and enjoyed the comfortable gloom. Along with the distant bells, he could hear the steady breathing of the other men who slept in the attic with him: Tebbe, Thorp and Loveday. From further away came the snores and murmurs of the other men and women sleeping on the ground floor of the building. Invisible above his head, Romford heard the scratch of a rat burrowing around in the thatch packed on to the roof beams above him. Making a nest for winter.
When he had lain like that for a short while, the bells stopped tolling and Romford knew that if they did not rise now, they would be late. So he sat up, folded his night-blanket, stretched the stiffness from his fingers and shoulders, and felt around for his flask. The leather pouch was still a quarter full, though not with tincture. After what happened at the cathedral, he had tipped the last of it away. It was too powerful for him to control. And for all that it soothed his anxiety, he was sick of its rank taste. Of the visions that wrenched him between bliss and terror. And most of all, of Father. Shuddering at the thought of the old, dead priest who haunted him, Romford pulled the flask-stopper with his teeth, then swilled his mouth with herbed ale. Then he crawled across the attic floor and gently shook Tebbe and Thorp awake.
‘It’s time to work,’ he said.
Tebbe had not been long in bed. He groaned. ‘Already?’
‘Sorry,’ said Romford.
The thin archer coughed and dragged himself up to lean on an elbow. He sniffed his fingers. ‘That was some night. What day is it?’
Beside him, Thorp yawned. ‘Christ and all the archangels, Tebbe, it’s Michaelmas. It’s all you could talk about last night. You don’t remember?’
Tebbe looked groggy. ‘I do love Michaelmas,’ he said.
‘So we heard.’ Thorp chuckled. ‘I tell you, it’s a good job that girl Margie doesn’t speak much English. You kept telling her: “It’s Michaelmas on the morrow, by God. Fucking Michaelmas! If our luck stays in, someone will bring us a goose.” ’
Tebbe considered this, trying to recall it. ‘That does sound like something I’d say.’ He rested on his side and let out a long, rolling fart.
‘Happy Michaelmas to us all,’ he said, and hauled himself out of bed.
Having roused themselves, the three archers slung their bows on their backs, pulled on their green-and-white caps, crept down the ladder and eased out of the front door of the brothel. When they left, Millstone and Scotsman were dozing with their backs against the oven’s warm stone walls. Romford also spied Hircent, behind the curtain-door to one of the cells. She was lying face down on a sack mattress, with a girl under each of her meaty arms.
Out in the street it was a fine autumn morning. The lingering bank of grey cloud that had hung over them most days since the battle had now scattered above the sea and the low, bright sun that emerged made Calais’ high walls and Villeneuve-la-Hardie’s freshly cut timbers gleam. The sunlight glinted off the new paint on the sign Hircent had hung over the brothel’s entrance. It was daubed with a picture of an animal grinning slyly, and emblazoned with words in Flemish and English:
Het Wolvenhuis. The House of the Wolf.
The siege town now seemed to Romford to be bigger than Calais itself. Almost as big as London. Every day, new wooden buildings arose on the islands of hard land in the marsh, built at astonishing speed by the king’s engineers and the willing hands of the stalled army. As Villeneuve expanded across the marsh, it developed suburbs, connected by new roads and causeways, where the acres of tents were replaced by thousands of shacks and hovels. Some of the men had fashioned pigpens and chicken yards behind their new dwellings. Here and there were dotted churches, marked with brightly painted wooden crosses on their roofs. Romford found it was difficult to retain a sense of direction in its ever-growing warren of streets. But his daily work helped. He, Tebbe and Thorp had been posted by Hastings to the prince’s ever-expanding retinue of archers. They were joined by dozens of other bowmen who were veterans of the great battle. But each day there also arrived a few more, recruited from the prince’s lands in England. These newcomers spoke a broad mixture of dialects: some from Cornwall, some from Cheshire and others from the borders of Wales. What they had in common was that they could all shoot.
Fortunately for Romford, although they were called the prince’s company, and all the men were dressed in the prince’s green-and-white livery, the prince himself very rarely appeared with them. And the tasks given to the company were mundane. Most days they reported in shifts to guard the town’s perimeter and gates, or headed out in groups of eight or ten along the coast road to make sure wagon trains bringing supplies from Flemish merchants passed along unmolested. It was quiet work. The king’s scouts had reported that there was no new French army in the field, and brought back rumours that Philippe remained so mad with rage and grief that he was not minded to raise one. So for weeks the men had not loosed an arrow in anger. They organised tests of skill and bowmanship. More often than not, Romford would win these, unless he tried his hardest not to do so, for fear of making the other men in the company envious. Nevertheless, his reputation for pinpoint accuracy spread. So he did not mind the days they worked.
Tebbe and Thorp, however, often complained. This morning was no different.
‘It’s a fine life for those fuckers,’ said Thorp, glancing back at the Wolvenhuis as they left it. ‘Sitting around playing cross-and-pile with the girls all day.’
‘Cross-and-pile?’ snorted Tebbe. ‘Cradle-my-pintle, more like. And Millstone with the missus and whelps at home.’ Tebbe seemed momentarily to have forgotten that he had spoken often of the family awaiting his own return.
They carried on in this vein for some time. But before long, the sun warming their faces and the thought of the Michaelmas celebrations to come that evening seemed to drive the tiredness and bad temper out of them. They were soon joking with one another and comparing the talents and specialities of the Flemish girls Hircent had so far recruited, as they made their way to the usual assembly spot on the far side of Villeneuve.
The archers’ mood lightened even further when they passed a gaggle of thin and dirty footsoldiers being marched across the town square by two burly knights. Each man carried a long-handled shovel. Their clothes, feet and faces were caked in dried mud. Romford recognised none of them, but he noticed that one of the knights in charge was the Earl of Northampton’s attendant, Sir Adrian, who had been good friends with the late Sir Denis, whose murder in the woods near Thérouanne had shocked them all.
The other knight, whom Romford had never seen before, had smooth olive skin and a neatly trimmed beard that covered only his top lip and chin. He was elegantly dressed, fit, lean and strong, and he wore a thick gold chain around his neck. He was calling out to the men in a confident, rapid patter. ‘Another fine day for digging, gentlemen. A fine day to bend your back and praise the Lord and soak up the flavour of swamp juice and stagnant water!’ The filthy soldiers looked aggrieved, but no one answered him back. Once the group had passed, Thorp gave Romford and Tebbe an excited nudge.
‘That was Toussaint,’ he said.
Tebbe raised his eyebrows, impressed, but Romford looked blank. The name meant nothing to him.
‘The tournament champion,’ Thorp explained. ‘They say he can somersault backwards in full armour.’
‘Doesn’t look like he’s somersaulting anywhere today,’ said Tebbe, with a grin. ‘Looks like he’s watching those poor, shitty-arsed bastards dig the ditch.’
The thought of digging made them wince. The ditch – a shallow moat that provided a line of defence around the camp – was the only part of Villeneuve that was not emerging at speed. A spell with the diggers was handed down as a punishment to runaways caught trying to desert the army, and to any other ordinary man who displeased the lords. It was a job to be avoided at all costs.
‘Could be worse for us, by St Michael’s brass bollocks,’ said Thorp. ‘If things had gone another way at Thérouanne, with Loveday . . . ’
‘Too right it could,’ said Tebbe, catching Thorp’s meaning and frowning. Then he lightened. ‘Speaking of St Michael, I wonder if we’ll have a goose . . . ’
Thorp rolled his eyes.
The three Dogs were still laughing as they reached the gathering company of around two dozen archers dressed in identical green-and-white short-coats and caps, assembling near the start of the road that led towards the beach at Sangatte. Those who had been there a while looked excited, and were chattering among themselves. But before the Dogs could find out what was animating them, a deep, authoritative voice called the company to order.
It belonged to Sir John Chandos, the prince’s steward, a composed man in the prime of his life, with a tightly curled beard that covered his enormously wide and square jaw. Romford knew Chandos a little, for during his time as one of the prince’s squires he had reported to him. All that seemed a lifetime ago now, though. Romford was no longer a squire. He was an ordinary archer once more. He stood with the other archers and listened to Chandos speak.
‘Welcome, men,’ Chandos called to the group. ‘And may the blessings of the archangel Michael be upon us all on this Michaelmas morning.’
His eyes flickered over the group. Then he said: ‘Can any of you men tell me what St Michael looks like?’
Answers in various accents rang out.
‘Wings, sir! And he carries them . . . whatch ’ou call . . . ? Weighing scales!’
‘Old Michael gives the devil a good hiding, sir! Sends the fiend packing back to hell!’
Tebbe called out too, his eyes gleaming. ‘St Michael has a fiery sword, Sir John.’
At this, Chandos beamed. ‘Quite right, whoever said that. A fiery sword. Have any of you seen a fiery sword in this earthly life?’
He paused for effect, like the narrator of some village mystery play.
‘Nobody? Well, men, then I’ve a treat for you today. Another company will take our duties guarding the gates. We’re going to go and have some fun where the siege machines are. Follow me.’
One of the prince’s pages was holding a horse nearby, which Chandos now smoothly mounted. The archers followed him on foot for a half-mile or so, towards a place Romford had not yet seen: an area of the marsh outside Villeneuve’s sprawl, where the ground was firm underfoot, and the archers had an unobstructed view of the soaring stone walls of the city, surrounded by their two deep moats. As they neared the land, Romford could see that the king’s engineers had siege towers and large stone-throwing catapults there in various stages of construction, and in range of the walls. Most of these were of a similar design: tall, triangular frames fitted with ropes, winches and ladders, supporting a long hurling-arm. Others were outlandishly large crossbows strapped to wooden tables, which could be aimed towards the top of the city’s walls.
Among all this was a set of smaller devices, each of which featured some sort of metal tube. Some of these contraptions were long and thin, the length of spears or knights’ lances, which looked light enough for the engineers to pick up and handle. Others were squat and fat, and were mounted on carts. These looked extremely heavy, their tubes shaped like pears or vases: bulging fatly at one end and tapering to a narrow neck at the other. From around the tubes drifted a strange stink and puffs of sickly yellow smoke.
It was a stink Romford recognised. Just one sniff took him back in time. To the battle.
His memories of Crécy were in no better order now than before. A lot of them were fading completely. But there were certain things he recalled very vividly. One was the stink. As men had slashed and swayed and kicked and trampled one another, a new weapon none of them had seen before roared and flashed and gave off clouds of this same grim-smelling vapour, panicking the enemy lines and making the French horses rear in terror. Romford remembered the smoke enveloping the battlefield like fog. Coughing and wiping his stinging eyes. He remembered shooting an arrow blindly through it.
Romford shuddered. He glanced at Tebbe and Thorp, wondering if they felt the same. They looked intrigued, but not alarmed. Like the rest of the small company, they simply seemed excited by the sight of these weapons and eager to know what Chandos wished to show them. So Romford tried to put away his bad thoughts of the battle.
The men were now standing beside the strange metal tubes. The engineers who had been working on them had stood back, and Romford could view them more closely. They appeared to be improvised and even unfinished – as though they were being built to a design that was changing. Some were loaded with oversized arrows or bolts. Around others were lumps of stone and iron balls the size of a fist.
Chandos was preparing to address the archers again. ‘Men,’ the smooth-talking steward began. ‘What you see here is a weapon that will change war forever.’
There were a few doubtful murmurs around the group. Chandos nodded indulgently. ‘You think not?’
He held up an arrow and gestured with it towards a round tower built into Calais’ walls. ‘We have spoken of St Michael and his fiery sword. Would any of you care to shoot a fiery arrow into the city over there?’ Laughter rippled around. ‘Quite so. No archer in history would ever choose to shoot a burning arrow. Because?’
‘You’d burn your bowstring,’ called out one of the northerners. ‘Or your bollocks.’
Chandos nodded. ‘Inelegant but accurately put. Imagine, though, if we could control fire like St Michael, and use it to shoot missiles far greater than arrows, but with the same deadly accuracy. What then?’
As Chandos spoke, Romford felt a tickling in his stomach. Suddenly, the stink he had smelled at Crécy bothered him less than what the steward had suggested. He considered the possibilities.
‘Would you like to see what I am talking about?’ asked Chandos politely.
The archers cheered. ‘I thought so,’ said the steward. He clicked his fingers and an engineer handed him a lit taper. ‘Take a few paces back, all of you,’ said Chandos. ‘Cover your ears and open your mouths.’
Then he lit a short piece of oil-soaked wool that plugged a tiny hole at one end of the fat, pear-shaped tubes, and moved sharply away from it.
Nothing happened.
With his palms flat on the sides of his head and his mouth open, Romford stared at the tiny glow of the wool plug and wondered if Chandos was jesting them, or if his trick had not worked. The rest of the archers did the same.
‘It’s fucked,’ muttered one of the northerners.
Thorp elbowed Tebbe. ‘Might as well have put a candle up the arse of your Michaelmas goo—’
He did not finish his sentence.
The fat tube erupted with a bang and a flash. It roared louder than thunder. Like all the demons of hell on the day of judgement.
As it roared, Romford felt as though he had been blown from his feet.
He felt the boom in his gut. In his bladder. He felt as though he were going to piss and shit. The roar made a lump in his throat. It made his ears chime as if angels were singing. He understood why Chandos had ordered them to open their mouths: if he had not, he was sure his skull would have burst.
As the roar’s echo subsided, leaving only the ringing sound, Romford realised he had closed his eyes. When he opened them, everything seemed to be moving soundlessly and very slowly, shrouded in the stinking smoke. Then, as the world’s sounds came back, Romford heard the whole group of archers coughing and spluttering.
At that moment, Romford realised that he was laughing. And not just laughing. His belly was heaving with mirth, contorting so hard he felt as though he might never stop. Most of the other archers were standing open-mouthed and vacant, unable to comprehend what they had seen and heard. Tebbe and Thorp were looking at each other in confusion.
But Romford understood. There was no sign of the arrow or stone the tube had hurled towards Calais’ walls. But that made sense. The angle at which the engineers had set the thing on its cart was much too low, assuming they wanted to shoot at the top of Calais’ towering walls. Whatever missile it had spat would have clattered harmlessly into the masonry, and would probably now be sinking in one of the city’s two moats.
That could be fixed.
Romford could not take the smile off his face. Nor could he stop his exhilarated heart pounding.
He felt as though in one thunderclap he had glimpsed a new world. What had Chandos called these devices?
A weapon that will change war forever.
He said the words out loud. And when his eyes had cleared of his laughter’s tears, Romford saw Chandos was looking right at him.
‘Young man,’ said Chandos thoughtfully. ‘I hoped you in particular would like that.
‘The prince has asked me to let some of his best archers test their sights and hands on this new device, which we call an iron pot, or a cannon. Any man in this group may have a turn. But perhaps you would like to be the first?’
Romford nodded dumbly.
Chandos brought him forward and began to explain exactly how this metal beast, too hot for any of them yet to touch, could spit its monstrous flame.
Romford hung on every word. Everything apart from the operation of this thing Chandos called a ‘cannon’ faded from his awareness.
He was thinking of nothing but angles, projectiles, concoctions of saltpetre, sulphur and coal and wool plugs.
He felt the same way as he had all those years ago when his brother first put a bow in his hands and showed him how to aim at tree trunks.
The same way as the first time he put powder on his gums.
Over the hours that followed, around half the prince’s archer company took a turn at firing one of the cannons. They enjoyed the noise and the shock of the blasts, but after a while most had begun to drift away from the demonstration to find their friends and begin the Michaelmas celebrations.
Romford did not drift away. He stayed as long as Chandos and the engineers would allow him, waiting patiently so that he might try lighting each one of the iron pots in turn. As he did so, he studied the difference between each device, tried to figure out the best methods for aiming, taking into account the power of the cannon and the direction of the brisk sea breeze. He watched closely when the engineers packed the saltpetre concoction into the mouth of the cannon. He tried to imagine the effect an army might have if a row of competent iron-pot-men could detonate their weapons in such a sequence that they kept up a constant roar and volley of shots towards a target.
These thoughts delighted him. The ringing in his ears thrilled him. Although around his feet the marsh grass was dying back with winter’s approach, the sulphur stink on his fingers was suddenly as pleasing to him as fresh-cut flowers in spring.
As Romford blasted away, up on the ramparts of Calais’ walls a few curious townsfolk gathered, popping their heads over the battlements swiftly and cautiously to try and catch a glimpse of what was happening.
Once or twice, archers loosed off arrows in their direction, hitting no one.
But with his last shot of the day, Romford managed to aim one of the cannons so well that it spat a lump of iron against the stone wall exactly where the townsfolk were taking cover.
He timed it so that the missile hit the wall just as one of the citizens popped up his head. Broken masonry sprayed up and tore the gawper’s face.
Although Romford was a hundred paces away from the wall and almost the same distance below, as he strained to see through the smoke cloud he saw the man clutch his bloody cheeks. Heard him shriek in shock and pain.
Romford nodded with interest. He reckoned he had blinded the man in at least one of his eyes.
By this time, Chandos, Tebbe and Thorp were the only remaining members of the archers’ company. They watched Romford work with fascination and amusement.
They cheered as the blinded man screeched.
‘Happy fucking Michaelmas!’ yelled Tebbe.
Fragments of masonry were still dropping from the place where the iron ball had hit the wall.
Tebbe tired of goading the wounded citizen and grinned at Thorp and Romford. ‘Shall we get back to the whorehouse? A goose in my guts and a girl on my lap would finish this day off nicely.’
Romford smiled shyly. He was sorry to leave the cannon. But his fingertips were scorched and smudged with soot and his hair and body stank of the smoke. He bent over and wiped greasy black filth from his fingers on the dying marsh grass.
Chandos patted his back. ‘We’ll have you back here,’ he said. ‘Go and have some fun with your mates.’
‘Thank you,’ said Romford. And he ran off to catch up with Tebbe and Thorp, who had already set out for the brothel.