When the besieged people of Calais saw the shameful flight of [King Philippe] . . . they opened the gates and their captain, John of Vienne . . . came to the presence of the King of England, sitting on a little nag as he could not go on foot because of the gout, and with a halter tied round his neck . . .
Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker
The road out of Villeneuve up to Sangatte was packed with jubilant English troops. Most walked. Some jogged or even sprinted, trying to get ahead of the crowd. The sun beat down. Already, the very first of the English who had made it up to the abandoned French camp were coming back to show off their prizes: swigging wine and waving new weapons. Peasants wore bright knights’ helmets crooked on their heads. Archers held the reins of great stamping stallions. A gang of kitchen boys raced carts down the hillside where it dropped away from the road, dragging their vehicles up with cheers, then whooping as they sped pell-mell down the dry grassy bank.
‘He came, he saw, he fucked off,’ said Thorp. Loveday and Millstone looked blank. ‘I don’t know,’ said Thorp. ‘Something I heard once.’
The three men laughed. The absurdity of what had happened was still settling on them. Two nights ago, the Earls of Derby, Northampton and Warwick had been organising the army for battle: a clash of arms they said might be as deadly as the one fought at Crécy. Rumours swept around that King Philippe had at last joined forces with his son, Prince Jean, and the new Count of Flanders. That their army was as large as any ever raised in France. That every town and city in Flanders was aflame. That a new fleet was coming to smash the English blockade.
When the French had arrived at Sangatte by night, the Dogs had run with the rest of the army to catch a glimpse of them from afar. It had been a terrifying sight. The fury of countless thousands of torches, burning all together below the frigid blaze of the moon. Word spread that the French had already destroyed an English wooden fort as big as that on the Risbank, which guarded the bridge over the main road into Villeneuve from the south.
That, at least, seemed to be true. The Dogs had seen flames leap from the fort. Seen its blackened husk hissing and smoking beside the road.
Yet the reason they had seen it at close quarters was the same reason they were now strolling along the road to Sangatte with twenty thousand other happy Englishmen.
As quickly as the French king had arrived – apparently ready to swoop down and reduce Villeneuve to ashes, bring the English to battle and free Calais from its torment – so he had departed.
‘Soft bastard pissed his breeches,’ Thorp was saying. ‘Took one look at our boys and didn’t fancy it. Didn’t want to take another hiding.’
Of the three of them, Thorp was the most excited by this turn of events. And there was something in the tone of his crowing that Loveday recognised.
As if he was talking to Tebbe.
Loveday wiped sweat from his forehead as they neared the place where the French had camped. Millstone whistled as the Dogs took in what vast riches the enemy army had left behind.
Clean, new tents stood proud in neat lines, most of them full of fresh blankets and men’s packs. An impromptu breakfast was being served at a grand pavilion, which Loveday reckoned must have been King Philippe’s kitchen-tent. The warm air carried the delicious scent of fresh-baked bread and roasted chicken.
The three Dogs sat down at a long table and Millstone went to fetch them a share of the food and drink.
‘Fucking miracle, this is,’ said Thorp, his mouth full of soft, warm bread. ‘No other explanation.’
Loveday and Millstone nodded. But after a while, Millstone spoke. ‘I don’t know,’ he said carefully. ‘There must be more to it than that.’
Thorp laughed. ‘More than a miracle?’
‘Less, then. But there’s something else. Something we’re not seeing.’
They had just finished their second helping of food and were about to go and find a cart and claim a new tent when the Earl of Northampton strode through the site. He was almost as cheerful as Thorp.
Loveday tried to avoid Northampton’s gaze, but the earl spotted him and marched over. ‘Essex Dogs!’ he cried. ‘Still here! Holy Mary riding bareback, the Lord could send the Rapture and you bastards would still be here at the end of it, pintles in your hairy palms and those same dozy fucking faces on.’
‘Good day, my lord,’ said Loveday, trying to stand, but only making it partway up, so that his arse was hovering over the bench and his thighs were jammed under the table.
‘Sit down. Eating well, I see,’ said the earl. He leaned over to Thorp’s bowl and picked up a hunk of bread soaked in pig grease. ‘Fucking delicious,’ he said. ‘Say what you like about the French, but the bastards don’t fuck around when it comes to vittles.’
He swallowed the bread. ‘You had the gut-rot?’ he asked.
The three Dogs all nodded.
‘Aye, me too. This should sort it out.’ The earl now picked up a piece of blood sausage from Loveday’s bowl, threw it in the air and caught it in his mouth. ‘Save you from going the same way as our friend in the wig.’ He looked meaningfully at Millstone. The stonemason held his gaze and gave nothing away.
‘Aye,’ said Northampton, still chewing. He tried another approach. ‘I gather Sir Hugh left a bequest for a most magnificent tomb in his favourite church in Norfolk. Commemorating his heroic service in this and other wars.’
Still none of the Dogs said anything. ‘His wife will be most grieved,’ Northampton continued. ‘But then, she’s not the only East Anglian widow this war has made. Corpse washed up on the Risbank this morning. Head smashed to pieces. Missing its ears. But they seemed to have been removed long ago.’
Northampton sucked blood pudding crumbs from his fingers. ‘Well. Do with that what you please. Fuck, that’s good.’ He clicked his fingers at a kitchen boy, who scuttled off and returned with a wooden bowl full of chicken livers and more bread.
As the Dogs sat awkwardly, Loveday could feel his leg jiggling under the table. They were all desperate to discuss what the earl had just told them about Faine, but felt unable to do so until he left them alone.
Northampton, however, did not leave. He squeezed on to the bench beside Loveday and ate his chicken livers. After a while, he said, ‘None of you have asked me what happens now.’
‘Aye, my lord . . . we were hoping . . . ’ began Loveday.
The earl talked over the top of him. ‘I’ll tell you. Now there’s a big fucking scene planned. Down at the city. I can’t say any more than that, but by Saint Barnabas’s bronzed bollocks, it’ll be one to remember. Want to see it?’
Loveday looked at Thorp and Millstone. ‘Of course, my lord. But – well. We’re not exactly . . . ’
Northampton raised his eyebrows, then understood what Loveday meant. ‘You look and smell like shit?’ he said. ‘This is true. Very true.’ He scratched the long grey stubble on his cheek and thought for a moment. ‘Fuck it. Get back down to Villeneuve and go and see my steward. He’ll lend you some livery.’
He turned to Loveday, hitting him on the leg to stop him jiggling it. ‘Have you still got that fucking frilly garter?’
‘I have,’ said Loveday, frowning at the earl’s irreverence.
‘Right, well, assuming it’s not completely wrecked from you tugging your yard over it, here’s what you need to do. When you’ve cleaned yourselves up, take it down to the smart seats by the city gates, flash the frill around. Act like you own the place and it’s your brat she’s cooking in her belly. Enjoy the show, then get the fuck out of here.’
‘Out of here?’ said Loveday, confused.
Northampton grimaced, as though talking to the Dogs caused him physical pain. ‘When did you come over?’
‘With the ships, my lord . . . I mean . . . at the start of all this. We have been here a goodly while now.’
‘Fuck me,’ said Northampton. ‘I suppose you have. By Christ, you’re overdue.’ He breathed deeply and amended his instructions.
‘Get clean. Get dressed. Watch the performance. Then go and see the king’s treasurer: boring, grey-faced prick called Walter Wetwang, if you can believe that. Tell him how many forties you’ve done. After that, the ships start leaving tomorrow with the tide. Get yourselves on one.’
‘On one, my lord?’
‘On one, FitzTalbot. On one. Get on a ship. Go home.’
The Dogs did everything the earl had told them. By the time the fiercest heat of the day was ebbing away, they had washed, their beards and hair were cropped and they wore clean coats and breeches of soft blue cloth, embroidered with gold stars and slashed with strips of white and red linen.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Thorp kept saying. ‘Christ on the tree, I can’t fucking believe it. Home.’
Millstone was quieter. ‘We’ve heard that before,’ he kept telling Thorp. But Loveday could feel his relief. In their minds, he and Thorp were already halfway back to England.
Loveday tried to enter into the same mood as the other men. Yet he found it hard. He pictured his cold hut. Alys’s overgrown grave.
Was that even home?
They made their way to the spectator stands that the royal engineers had erected facing one of the largest gatehouses in Calais’ walls.
Just as the earl had told them, the little scrap of fabric Loveday had treasured since the awful day on the ladders was enough to have a royal servant usher them to seats near the edge of the stand. When they sat down, there were few others there. But as the shadows grew long, the benches began filling up. Servants wearing royal livery began walking up and down the aisles between the benches, handing out mugs of good wine, and hot pies fresh from the oven. There was a celebratory mood in the air.
But Loveday still felt confused.
‘We still don’t know what happened,’ he said to Millstone. ‘Where was the battle?’
A familiar figure slid into an empty space on the bench in front of the Dogs. He turned around and fiddled with the patch over his eye.
‘This was the battle,’ said Sir Thomas Holand. ‘You’ve been in it all this time. You just didn’t know it.’ He patted Loveday on the knee. ‘You three have come up in the world. Last I saw you, you were cracking skulls in a whorehouse.’
Loveday shifted in his seat. Holand turned back around for a moment and surveyed the city in front of them. The soaring walls, battered but no less imposing than the day the English army had first arrived.
‘You want to know why there was no fight?’
‘Aye,’ said Loveday.
Holand leaned on his elbows, relishing the chance to show what he knew. He lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘Because someone didn’t want there to be one,’ he said. He raised the eyebrow above his good eye.
Millstone looked sceptically at Holand. ‘Philippe didn’t want one. We know that. What we don’t know is—’
Holand shook his head. ‘You don’t know anything about anything,’ he said. Outside the city gates, a group of important-looking noblemen had arrived and were inspecting the site. A bridge had been run across the double moat leading up to the gatehouse, evidently without resistance from defenders on the walls above. Between this and the spectator stands, a grand stage with royal flags at each corner of it had been wheeled into place. Two thrones were placed on it, shaded by canopies of brightly dyed silks. One of the noblemen gave orders to adjust the stage position minutely. Loveday recognised him from a distance. It was the king’s cousin, Henry Grosmont, Earl of Derby.
Another nobleman was overseeing the arrival of a second raised platform. It was mounted with a gallows and a chopping block.
Holand pointed to the noblemen. ‘Derby. You know who he is?’
‘We do.’
‘Aye, well, he and Manny – that’s the madman over there by the headsman’s station – they’ve been leading all this.’
‘All what?’ asked Loveday. He was growing frustrated. As though Holand had been watching some entirely different siege to him.
Holand sighed, as though he were talking to a particularly slow-witted child. He began again.
‘Look. Philippe raised a big army. You know that?’
Thorp was also growing annoyed. ‘Fuck off, of course we do. We saw the fucking—’
‘Right. Well, he took it around a few towns in Flanders and burned them. He took down our fort near the bridge that leads up to Sangatte. But once he saw our defences and how many of us are here, he panicked. Taking us out would be a big job. Not impossible, but big. It would need to be worth the trouble. Have you seen the size of the fucking ditch around this place? Toussaint may be a stuck-up prick, but he’s done a great job digging it.’
The Dogs glanced at one another. ‘Aye, we saw the ditch,’ said Millstone. ‘Too much of it, if anything.’
‘Well. Getting through that would be no small feat. Let alone being sure of beating us if he did. He could try and starve us out, but that would take too long, you understand?’
Satisfied that for once the Dogs were following him, Holand went on. ‘Good. Now hear this. Overnight, someone intercepted a letter from the boys in charge inside Calais to Philippe. Well, I say intercepted. It washed up on the fucking beach. Hidden inside an old axe-head, if you can believe that. Not even written in a cipher. It said they were all starving, and ready to give up. Awful negotiating position to start from. It’s almost like whoever wrote it actually wanted the English to win, not the French. Because what do we do? Mad bastard Manny sends it straight to Philippe’s camp, and they figure the game is up. Cut their losses. Give it up.’
Holand shook his head. ‘Every time you think you’ve seen it all . . . Anyway, you’ll see them soon enough and—’
He was interrupted by a trumpet blast. The spectator stands, now full of expectant men and women, dressed as if for a tournament, hushed. From somewhere behind the stand came the queen, flanked by attendants.
Loveday flushed when he saw her. She was ripe with child, her belly huge and her breasts full, her eyes bright and her hair glossy and thick.
The queen went up to the dais that faced the gates. Then a signal was given and a team of engineers swarmed forwards, carrying tools and short ladders. They set to work unbarring the gates, shouting to whoever was inside, who was working on the same task.
A chatter began again in the stands, while below, in and around the dais, the great and good of the English camp began to arrive. More trumpet squawks announced the most important, including the Prince of Wales and his cousin, Jacky. Northampton arrived, along with Warwick, a number of bishops, and a pair of red-hatted cardinals, who wore gloomy expressions. Outnumbering all of these, however, were merchants, finely apparelled and surrounded by their own bevies of scurrying servants. Loveday nudged Thomas Holand again. ‘Who are they?’
Holand broke off from his conversation with a lanky knight who had settled in front of him and turned back. ‘Rich fuckers?’ He chuckled. ‘They’re the special guests.’ He pointed out a few, none of whom Loveday had ever seen or heard of before.
‘That’s John Pulteney, you know, London, Cinque Ports . . . fingers in everything, beautiful house in Kent, did that year in Newgate but no one mentions it now . . . and . . . there’s William de la Pole, from Kingston, hard to say whether he stinks more of money or fish . . . ’ He continued, reeling off names that meant nothing to the Dogs, some of them English, some Flemish and others Italian.
Seeing the Dogs were nonplussed, Holand laughed. ‘You really are pig-chasers, aren’t you, boys!’ Once more he rolled his eyes at the effort of explaining the world to such an ignorant audience. ‘Who do you think has paid for all this?’ he said. ‘Boats. Troops. Weapons. Food. Timber. Wine. Women . . . I mean . . . fucking everything. Who?’ Silently, he jabbed his finger in turn at each of the wealthy men he had just named. ‘Him. Him. Him. Him. And you know why? Because as soon as this charade is over, they’ll be in that city like rats into a brand-new sewer. Carving up the best bits for themselves. This is going to be the richest town in France. Only it won’t be in France any more. It’ll be a little nugget of London, and the fellows who paid for all this won’t just be rich. They’ll look after their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren . . . ’
Holand waved at a royal servant walking up and down the stairs of the stands with a wine jug. He bade him fill the Dogs’ cups, then his own. He took a long gulp. Angled his face to enjoy the warmth of the afternoon sun.
‘Listen, Loveday. You’re a good man, but you don’t see what’s right there in front of your face. Men like you get paid to fight. Men like me pay to fight, and we either hope we can impress the king so he covers our losses and keeps us in his favour, or we gamble on capturing our cousins and selling them back to their families and turning a small profit. That’s the game. But men like that . . . ’ – he pointed out Pulteney and the others – ‘they’re in charge. They underwrite everything, because they make it back sevenfold. Every penny you earn, every pound I spend, passes through their hands. Same for you. Same for me. Same for the king. Then when God sends good fortune, they’re there, with their hands open, ready to claim the lion’s share of the rewards.’
For a moment, Holand regarded Pulteney and the rest of the merchants milling around the royal dais with a sort of admiration. ‘Knowing them, they’ll already have done the deals with their mates inside Calais to take over their existing businesses, turn them into partnerships. Money makes money. And then they’ll all underwrite the next campaign, wherever that might be. I hear Poitiers is looking possible . . . ’
As Loveday struggled to digest this information, another fanfare announced the arrival of King Edward. The crowd parted to allow his great black stallion through. The great men he passed stepped back like parting waters. They bowed and sank to their knees before him.
In the year the Dogs had been on the campaign, Loveday had set eyes on the king only a handful of times. Now he looked more magnificent and dreadful than ever. Tall, strong and heavily bearded, he rode with a perfectly straight back. Despite the heat, he wore all black silk, adorned with a few pieces of ceremonial armour, and a tabard bearing his arms of English lions and French fleurs-de-lis.
‘Sit tight,’ said Holand to the Dogs as the king dismounted his horse smoothly and allowed his servants to escort him to his throne beside the queen. Holand turned back around to give his whole attention to the scene before him. But before he did, he said:
‘The play begins.’
It was slow and exquisitely choreographed.
When the king and queen had settled, and been told the engineers’ work was done, the king waved his hand. Thick ropes had been attached to the gates, and teams of men-at-arms now wrapped their hands around these and hauled. With a creak that sounded like the falling of a tree, the gates began to move.
The crowd was silent and still.
At a distance, set far back from the stands, thousands of ordinary troops from Villeneuve had gathered. They were held back by hastily erected fences, guarded by more burly men-at-arms in royal colours. As the gates moved, they let out a stifled cheer, but were either told to quieten or felt the mood for themselves.
Loveday felt his head grow light.
The gates finished their slow opening.
Then from within came a frail man riding a tiny nag. He wore a filthy shift of linen, which had once been white, but was now stained brown and yellow and hopelessly crumpled. Around his neck hung a noose.
‘All the saints . . . ’ murmured Thorp in a tiny whisper.
The nag plodded forward. It was as hungry and weak as its master.
Behind it walked five other men, dressed identically. All were in similar states of exhaustion and hunger. Two were very old: one with thin, papery skin and another blind, or close to being so. They held one another’s arms as they stumbled along. Two others, brothers or cousins, followed. They were younger, but also moved as though they were both one hundred years old.
Loveday was about to tap Sir Thomas Holand on the shoulder and ask him who they were when a herald with an astonishingly loud voice stepped out in front of the stands.
‘The burghers of Calais,’ he announced.
Although he had his back to the scene behind him, he seemed to know by heart exactly what was happening.
As each of the men stumbled forward to approach the king and queen’s dais, the herald called their names, introducing them to the spectators.
‘Sir Jean de Vienne, Governor of Calais . . . the most worshipful masters Eustache de Saint-Pierre and Jean d’Aire . . . my lords Pierre and Jacques de Wissant . . . ’
Then came a figure the three Dogs recognised.
‘Hey,’ whispered Thorp, as a bony figure walked out, also in a dirty linen shift and with a noose about his throat, ‘isn’t that the knight?’
Millstone nodded. ‘Aye, it is. Sir Arnoul d’Audrehem.’ He shook his head. ‘All the trouble he caused us.’
Having introduced the six men, the herald now launched into a rehearsed speech about their responsibility for the long resistance Calais had put up, their stubborn refusal to open the gates that had now swung open.
Jean de Vienne remained on his pathetic little horse. Some condition in his feet meant he could not stand unaided. The other five burghers stood behind him, all with their faces downcast.
The herald continued. ‘Against God, and against the might of His Noble Grace King Edward . . . ’
But Loveday was not listening. For behind the burghers, more people were emerging from the gates. They moved just as slowly as the six men with nooses around their necks, shuffling in ranks.
There were at most a few hundred of them: Loveday supposed these were all that remained alive of Calais’ citizens.
They too were dressed simply in knee-length undergarments, men and the few women among them alike. Each of them was ragged and thin. Some carried tapers and others crucifixes. All were chanting and wailing and holding out their hands theatrically, begging the English king for mercy.
This was everyone who had survived the ordeal behind the walls. The horrors they had endured meant most of them now looked identical, their faces stripped back to skin and bone and their hair razored.
Yet despite their similarity in dress and emaciation, in the group were two faces Loveday recognised instantly.
One was salt-whipped and covered with knife scars, gold teeth catching the light.
Jean Marant.
The other was even more disfigured, his skin red-raw as though it had been burned by fire. His hair was grey, with patches missing from the close crop. He limped on a crutch, so that he could only supplicate and beg to the king with one of his hands.
Loveday knew him as well as he had on the day they had parted, more than two years before.
‘There he fucking is,’ said Thorp.
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ said Millstone.
Loveday felt as though he were tumbling. Like his seat had dropped out from under him. As though he had been cast from the highest tower of some huge building.
Green spots danced in front of his gaze. He heard a buzzing in his ears.
Before the stands, a performance was underway. It followed the strict pattern of a dance. It was narrated portentously by the loud-mouthed herald.
The leading men of Calais, with Jean de Vienne at their fore, offered their lives to King Edward.
The king affected great anger, tearing at his clothes almost hard enough to rip them. He took off his crown and waved it at the burghers. Pointed at the scaffold.
‘The king tells the burghers they have caused him great misery and hardship,’ boomed the herald.
‘The burghers weep for clemency.’
The king shook his head in an exaggerated manner.
‘The king refuses. His heart is hard.’
The king pointed to the gallows.
‘The six burghers fall to their knees.’
This took some time, for Vienne was obliged to dismount gingerly from his little horse. The older men also found it hard work lowering themselves. But when the scene was set, they continued.
‘They offer the keys to the city.’
‘The king sends for the executioner and calls on God for his mercy on these condemned men.’
At this there was a playful gasp from the crowd in the stands around the Dogs.
‘The queen implores her husband to have mercy.’
Also struggling to get to her knees, Queen Philippa waddled towards the king and, with the prince on one side of her and Jacky on the other, managed to kneel on a cushion provided for the purpose.
‘The king is adamant . . . ’
The scene continued, but Loveday had lost all interest. His eyes were fixed on the raw face of the Captain.
Loveday knew what he would be thinking. He was bored by the melodrama. He had already considered everything that might possibly happen. Had foreseen what was most likely. Had anticipated the many ways things could unfold and put himself in the right place to take maximum advantage of them.
Always thinking. Always calculating. Always asking the same question.
What next?
It was always what next?
And here was he, Loveday. Who had done none of those things. Thought none of those things.
Who sat here on the winning side, alive despite everything, wearing some lord’s clean clothes, with half a dozen or more forties due in his hand tomorrow. A berth on a ship home. A few good men left with him. Many more broken, dead, missing.
Yet, at the end of it all, a spectator.
In everything.
He stared at the Captain. He tried to stamp this image of him on to his mind, so he would never forget it. He told himself that this was how he would now think of this man whom he had followed for so long.
Burned. Starved. Lame. Shorn. Calling out for mercy.
Defeated.
Yet somehow, Loveday assumed, winning.
He had waited for this moment. Had dreamed of seeing the Captain again. But now he knew.
He heard Northampton’s words. Said to him long ago, before he climbed the ladder on that awful day Tebbe died.
Forget about hunting for the past. It’s gone. Think about the world that’s coming in.
Why had he never been able to do that?
In front of him Thomas Holand, who had also stopped watching the scene, was swapping gossip with the lanky knight.
‘You think this has been bad, think about Caffa. Tartars giving the Italians hell. Did you hear? Chucking diseased plague bodies over the walls. Every bastard one of them coming up in black lesions. Pissing blood out of their eyes and arseholes. Armpits swelling up like blood puddings. Dead in three days.’
The lanky knight was laughing. ‘God spare us that here!’
Tebbe and Millstone were staring at the Captain. Loveday had not taken his eyes off him from the moment he had come through the gates.
Finally, the Captain felt their gaze.
On the dais, the queen’s pleading reached a crescendo and the king was playing to perfection his role of the husband softened by the love of his good wife.
The executioner was sent away. The burghers’ pleading turned to tears of thanks and relief.
The Captain kept up his performance too. He did not take his eyes off King Edward and the queen and the merchants. Nor did he let up his own pleading and his prayers.
But for the Dogs’ benefit, he let the tiniest smile dance across his lips.
Gave Loveday the very subtlest glimmer of a wink.