‘It was terrible,’ Denisot explained when they were sitting at a table and the Abbot had placed a large jug of wine before them. ‘I could not describe it all.’

‘What happened?’ the Abbot asked.

They were sitting in his chamber at his great table. Denisot and Ethor were side by side at their bench, while Abbot Andry was seated at the head. Berenger had the other side with Fulk, whom Berenger had grown to trust even more in recent weeks.

‘It was the mercenaries. They must have come to the town at about noon. We should have been there. Ethor and I had been down on the road south and east, where some soldiers had murdered a family and burned their house. It is growing all too common now, I fear,’ he added sadly.

‘What then?’ the Abbot asked.

‘We conducted an inquiry around the burned house, and then set off homewards. It was late, and in the end we stopped and rested many times. The cart with the bodies was so heavy, we could not push it all afternoon. You do understand that? So it was in the late afternoon when we saw smoke rising ahead and realised the town was on fire.’

‘We hurried,’ Ethor said. He had lost his ruddy complexion now, and was almost grey-faced. ‘As soon as we came to the place, we saw bodies littering the streets. Men, women, boys, girls. They didn’t even leave the dogs or cats in peace. Everything they could kill was left there dead. Everything.’

When he stopped and put his face in his hands, it was strangely unsettling. Berenger felt as though his heart was welling with sympathy. He didn’t know this man, but to see such a large fellow brought so low by the sights he had seen was oddly affecting, especially since he could imagine those sights so clearly. For a moment he was struck with a desire to put an arm about this fellow, but he restrained himself. He had himself caused so many deaths after attacks, it would be the height of hypocrisy to offer sympathy to this man now.

Yet he felt Ethor’s pain like a blow. Berenger thought back to the cities and towns which he had helped despoil. There were so many, it was hard to recall their number, let alone how many citizens had been slaughtered and robbed within the town walls. He felt a quickening shame at the thought that he had helped create such misery.

Denisot continued, ‘When we went to my own house, there was nothing there. My maid, Suzette, was dead. She had been raped in front of the house, and left to die after someone stabbed her in the breast. My wife . . . well, I don’t know where my wife is,’ Denisot admitted.

His face told of his anguish.

When he saw Suzette sprawled where the men had held her down, her face blue in death, tiny explosions of blood in her eyes, Denisot had crouched at her side and wept, mourning for the pretty little maid who had been so vivacious and attractive. He had remained there, crying for his pretty Suzette, before lurching up and rushing into his house, searching with ever increasing desperation. Gaillarde was not there, nor in the garden, nor yet out in the little shed in the field where his cow lay dead. She was his wife, his responsibility, his ward, his love. He should have guarded her, he should have been there!

The horror was reserved not only for his own house.

There were many other scenes in his mind that he could not mention. The sight of Pathau in his wine shop, tied to his counter top, his breast torn apart by the blows of some great edged weapon, and the children of his neighbours lying in the streets, their throats cut. There was a great accumulation of men and women in the square, the two sexes separated. While the men were poleaxed, the women were forced to suffer all the indignities of women through the ages before also being killed. Bodies everywhere; buildings burned to the ground, their contents rifled and stolen.

He shook his head. ‘All was destroyed.’

Berenger shook his head with dull incomprehension. ‘This was not the idea. We were only to take Uzerche and hold it. We wanted some peace from the wars, and we were to take the town and demand tolls from all those who passed along the roads. That was all.’

‘Where a man takes the power to himself to take over a town, he will often find it easier to kill than to relinquish his power,’ the Abbot said.

‘Where a man takes over a company, he may yet find that there are some who will fight rather than submit,’ Berenger said. ‘Denisot, of all the men of the village, some must have escaped. We need all the able fellows we can find here to protect the monastery. They will come. Will is fully aware that monasteries hold gold and silver in great quantities. We need the means to defend this place. Can you find them?’

‘I could try,’ Denisot said. ‘But there are not many. The mercenaries managed to kill almost all the men. We saw all my neighbours dead in the street.’

‘The only alternative is to find others from about here,’ Berenger said. He looked at the Abbot. ‘Can we call up all the strong fellows from your demesne? We need everyone who can handle a sword or an axe.’

‘We have some few, but not enough who have experience in such warfare.’

‘I’ll find them somehow,’ Berenger said, half to himself.

Saturday 13 August

‘They come! They come!’

The terrified shriek, along with the tolling of the church’s great bell, had Berenger leaping from his palliasse, pulling his chemise over his bare chest, then slipping into a pair of thick hosen and tying their laces. He stepped into his boots and laced them too, before grabbing his sword sheath and hurrying out to the main gate.

There were sixteen men there, a ragtag of scruffy men clad in cheap mail and some armour. They were travel-stained, and there were oil and rust marks on their surcoats and tunics. From the weapons gripped in their fists, he could see that they were experienced fighters, and he was about to increase his speed, when he faltered and stumbled to a halt, his face falling.

He knew two of those faces even from many tens of yards away. If not the face, he could not mistake the immense belly on the glowering fellow in front. He had to stop and gape, and then, seeing another man’s face turn towards him, Berenger gave a roar and pelted towards the men.

‘Grandarse, you old git! Never have I been so happy to see a man in all my life!’

‘Aye, well, you young tarse fiddler, get your great mitts off me, man! What, do I look like a bloody cock-quaen to ye?’

But for all his coarse welcome, there was no doubting the sincerity in Grandarse’s welcome. As Berenger threw out his arms, Grandarse gave a twisted grin, then grabbed Berenger and enfolded him in a bear hug.

Berenger pulled away and then, his face still wreathed in smiles, welcomed the others. ‘John of Essex, as I live and breathe! It’s good to see you! And you have a vintaine with you? How many are archers? Are there any of the old vintaine with you?’

Grandarse shook his head. ‘This is the new batch. The old ones, some of them, are here. They hope for honour, glory, and as much wine as they can drink! Clip and Dogbreath are here, but I sent them back with the men we captured on the ride here. That’s how we heard of you, Frip. Eh, but it was a hard ride. A man could die of thirst after a ride like that!’

‘If you will help defend this place, you will have as much wine as you can drink,’ Berenger said, leading them towards the frater.

Grandarse eyed him keenly. ‘What do you do in this place?’

‘I was injured, and the good Abbot allowed me to recover here,’ Berenger said, but he would not say more before the newcomers had been fed and given ale and wine. Then, while they ate, Grandarse told him of the party of routiers they had found some miles to the south of Uzerche, and how that gave him and his men the direction they could take to follow Berenger. When they were finished, Berenger spoke of his own story: how he had remained in Calais until the pestilence, the deaths of his wife and family, and how he had joined a company of mercenaries who set off to fight wherever they would be paid, and if they weren’t, to pillage across France.

‘You? Ye turned mercenary?’ Grandarse said with some disbelief, but then a broad grin passed over his face. ‘Aye, well, I never doubted you’d see sense in the end.’

Gaillarde stumbled on, one shoe already gone, the soft leather torn away. Her light shoes weren’t made for long marches, and she could feel how the sole of her foot was tender already. When she put it down on the dry earth, it felt like she was stepping onto brambles. Each step was agony, but the agony was dissipated by its constant repetition. It felt as though her mere existence was itself grown to be a torment. Nothing else existed but the action of placing one foot before the other.

A prod in her buttock urged her on to greater speed, and she acquiesced without complaint. She had seen what happened to others who had argued, who had complained, or who had wept bitter tears. All were dead. The last was a woman of two-and-twenty, who had limped and wept after seeing her husband beaten to death while trying to protect and conceal their child. When he was dead and his body rolled over, the mercenaries saw the child. Three of them played campball with the baby, kicking it from one side of the square to the other while the woman screamed and screamed in horror until her voice was gone. Two of the guards raped her then, and afterwards more, but she never spoke a word. Her eyes were already dead by then. Gaillarde could see her clearly. She breathed, and her body functioned, but her heart was dead within her. It was a terrible sight.

So Gaillarde trudged on, heedless of the direction, not caring where they were going, but determined not to die.

Not yet.

It was only a little later, once Berenger had persuaded the doubtful porter and Abbot that these men were safe enough to be permitted into the monastery, that he could stand leaning at the walls, sipping at a cup of wine while Grandarse and Hawkwood drank with gusto.

‘Aye, but that’s good wine!’ Grandarse said, smacking his lips and smiling beatifically at the sight before him.

He had already split his men into two groups. Half were to return to the English army with their spoils, while Grandarse and Hawkwood had decided to take their ease for a few days. The men were unloading the horses and ponies now. There were several large bags on three packhorses that rattled very interestingly, and Hawkwood caught Berenger’s eye when two men lifted weighty strongboxes from a donkey.

‘We’ve had a successful rampage,’ he said with a smile. ‘We are scouting for the King. In fact, we serve under your old master, Frip. Sir John de Sully is with the army.’

‘What army?’

‘Christ’s bones, man, have you been sleeping all year?’ Grandarse said. He belched and wiped his mouth with a delicate thumb and forefinger. ‘Last year the King was determined to see the French brought to battle. They’ve been pulling at his beard for too long now, and he wanted to end things once and for all, not that he had any joy in it. The French refused battle at every opportunity. Even when he stood to and demanded satisfaction, King John held himself and his armies away. This year, Lancaster took the battle to Normandy, thinking to force the French to fight, but they didn’t. So now we’re down here to force the French to fight once and for all. The King wants his French crown, the men want his money and his treasure, and the women want his silks and furs. There’s something here for everyone, aye,’ he said, and held his empty mazer to be refilled.

‘We have been able to stock our stores in the last couple of days,’ Hawkwood said. He was quiet a moment, and then added, ‘It is good to see you again, Frip. I heard about your wife. I was sorry about that. We all liked her.’

‘We all know of people who lost wives, brothers, friends. It was hard, but many had it worse,’ Berenger said. He knew he was lying even as he spoke.

‘Perhaps,’ Hawkwood said. Neither believed it.

‘Have you been to a convent a little to the south?’ Berenger asked.

‘Not a nunnery, if that’s what you mean. Is there a rich one nearby, then? We wouldn’t mind going and seeing a parcel of naughty nuns if there are some down here.’

Berenger looked around him at the convent and felt an acid bitterness in his stomach. He knew what the outcome would be, were a vintaine to go to a nunnery. He had seen such scenes before. Yet Grandarse would not lie about the places he had been to, nor the atrocities committed, so it had not been he and John with their men who had so devastated that place. Someone else had been there: no doubt it was Will and his men.

‘Aye, we’ve visited a few other places, mind, and persuaded the inhabitants to support us,’ Grandarse said, sucking down another long draught of wine. ‘On the way here we found a parcel of men. I had them taken back to Sir John. We could do with the extra hands.’

‘What sort of men were they?’

Grandarse cocked a shrewd eye. ‘You know well enough, Frip. One of them told us you had been at some town with a strange name, and that your friends had decided to do without your leadership. That right?’

‘Yes. They tried to ambush me once they had told me I was free. I will meet their leader again and make him pay for his deceit,’ Berenger said.

‘Aye, well, that will be good. And soon we’ll be heading north with the rest of the army.’

‘Sir John will be going too?’

‘Aye. He was at Bordeaux with the Prince, but they moved to La Réole early in the month. They’ll be marching now, I’d guess. They were waiting for reinforcements, but they must have arrived by now. They should be arriving around here any time now.’

‘What then?’

‘Then? Then we’ll prepare for another grand chevauchée! There’ll be rich pickings when we ride north. You should join us.’

‘I would like to. But I would have this abbey left safe,’ Berenger said.

‘Aye, well, if you want to get your revenge on this man Will, you won’t do it while bolted up inside an abbey, unless he comes to attack you here. And if he does that, you’ll be wishing you had a better force to defend the place.’

‘They’ll have to fight past me. The good Abbot and his monks have been kind to me. I won’t see them slaughtered.’

‘As they should be to an English archer,’ Grandarse said. He cast an eye about the place. ‘Little enough, you say?’

‘Grandarse, I would not want to fall out with you over a small abbey. This is too small to tempt even you.’

‘If you’re sure,’ Grandarse said.