Sunday 14 August

‘Frip, come with us. We need to exercise the beasts,’ Grandarse said soon after they rose. ‘Besides, we should ride and check the area. We don’t want your old company suddenly springing up and surprising us.’

Berenger was nothing loath. He had been inside the monastery since arriving, and he had a keen desire to see outside the grounds again. With Grandarse and two archers, he set off, trotting briskly along the road that led west. It had been decided that, in their absence, Hawkwood would take charge of the men left behind at the abbey.

‘Guard them well,’ Grandarse said. ‘Fripper’s friends are away to the south and west. We will ride south and then scout. I expect it will take two days. Keep a close guard on the roads.’

‘We will,’ Hawkwood said. ‘They’ll be as safe with me as my own wife.’

Berenger gave him a long stare. ‘Your wife? Would she be safe with you?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t see her harmed by anyone else.’

Berenger shook his head as he walked away and mounted the horse held by a groom. ‘You are an unrepentant bastard, aren’t you?’

‘Me?’ Hawkwood said with mock innocence.

Berenger chuckled as he rode out through the gatehouse.

Once, he turned and stared back at the buildings rising from among the trees, but then he shook off the feeling of slight anxiety and set himself to enjoying the ride.

The sun flared and died as clouds passed overhead, but Berenger was enjoying the feeling of the wind in his face and hair, and the comfort of being with an old friend. They had ridden a mile, and he could feel his mount starting to ease up. It was a palfrey with a spirit to match Berenger’s today, and Berenger glanced about him with a sudden feeling that he was as young as a lad not yet twenty. He felt impudent and it was a feeling that thrilled him and made him feel mischievous all at once.

Suddenly he clapped spurs to his beast’s flanks and felt the palfrey surge forward like a greyhound seeing a hare. ‘Hah! Hah!’ he shouted, lashing the brute’s buttocks and bending low.

He heard Grandarse bellowing behind him, and snatched a glance over his shoulder. From that he saw the centener impotently flailing with his reins to try to persuade his mount to hurry, but all to no avail. Berenger grinned and urged his palfrey on.

Flies hit his face like tiny pellets, and he swallowed one, hawking and spitting several times to expel it. It felt as though the creature was stuck in his throat. A corner in the road and a low branch almost unseated him, but he managed to duck lower, laughing and shouting with pure pleasure, and missed it.

He had been riding for another mile when he came to a small hamlet in a clearing. A pair of carts and three resting horses spoke of an inn nearby, and he reined in. The beast was content to take a rest, and they soon slowed to an easy trot and then a walk as Berenger took in the sight of the little inn. It was a simple thatched house with two tables and a pair of benches. Nearby there was a ring set into the wall, and Berenger slid from the saddle and hitched the palfrey to it before taking his seat at the bench, looking at the other travellers.

They seemed intimidated by him, and he realised that all three were considerably younger. None had a scar on their faces like his. He touched the old wound unthinkingly. He had won that in the north of England, defending Durham from Scottish invaders, and he had nearly died from it. The wound had healed, but the handiwork of the old tooth-butcher who had doubled as a surgeon on that campaign had left much to be desired. He had not thought of it in a long while. When he was running his little inn at Calais, people knew him and, besides, most of them were old soldiers like him. His face was no surprise to them.

‘In Christ’s name, Fripper!’

‘You made it, then, Grandarse,’ Berenger said.

‘No thanks to you, you old git.’

Berenger grinned and the men ordered wine. Berenger asked for a pitcher of water from the well. Grandarse watched as he added it to his cup of wine. ‘You need to be careful of the water,’ he said.

‘I find it is good for me,’ Berenger said. ‘I have drunk enough wine in my time already.’

‘Aye, well, I think it’s impossible for a man to have had a surfeit of wine, no matter what,’ Grandarse said, and tipped his cup into his mouth.

‘It is good to see you again, old friend.’

‘I am glad to find you,’ Grandarse said. ‘We have need of all the fighters we can get.’

‘Not me, though.’

‘Come, Frip, you can’t mean it when you say that you’ll avoid a fight?’

‘I mean to take the tonsure and spend the rest of my days here contemplating all the things I did before. I may even pray for you, Grandarse.’

‘Don’t waste your breath,’ Grandarse said with a chuckle. ‘You two, fuck off and leave us to talk.’

Berenger waited until the two archers had picked up their drinks and walked away to the next table. ‘What is the route?’

‘Far as I understand it, the idea is to go north from here and seek out the French if we can. We want to force him to fight us. But it won’t be easy. He seems to enjoy offering battle and then waiting until we get bored or run out of food and drink and have to move off. He did that last year, and I think he avoided battle with my Lord Lancaster earlier this year in a shameful manner. But hopefully we will tweak his tail so badly that he will want to fight us, no matter what his reservations.’

‘His father was less than accommodating.’

‘His father was brighter. I’ve heard much about King John. He is not a calculating, rational man. He responds, and often badly. It makes him enemies more easily than friends. We can use that. And I can use you.’

‘I don’t want to fight any more. My intention is to join a little monastery. I was badly injured again only three weeks ago, and it’s taken this long for me to heal. If it wasn’t for the help I had from the monks, I’d be dead by now. I owe them.’

‘You owe your King, Fripper.’

Berenger’s voice hardened. ‘I think I’ve repaid any debts of service long ago. I have the wounds and scars to prove it.’

‘Stay with us, Frip. It would be good to have you in my retinue again. You were always one of the first to the front. You want me to beg you? You wouldn’t believe the incompetents and tarse-fiddlers I’ve got in the vintaine!’ He shuddered. ‘I need a man like you who can knock them into shape.’

‘I can’t,’ Berenger said. He felt something then: a slight shiver of anticipation in his blood at the thought of holding a sword and burying it in another man’s breast. ‘No! If I fight again, I think I will become a monster. I cannot do it. I had retired to Calais, you remember, and had given up all thoughts of fighting.’

‘Aye. I recall. It was a good little tavern you had there. But when I was last there, your tavern was closed. They said you were gone.’

‘My wife and our boys died there. They are buried in a plague-pit along with the others who died. That made me mad. I hated everything to do with France and the French. I’ve been running with a band of routiers for the last years and . . . I’ve had enough of death and killing, Grandarse. I cannot go back to that. If I do, I think I will lose my soul. I already have a lot to atone for. The monastery gives me an opportunity to make some restitution for all I’ve done. If I go there and spend the rest of my life in prayer, I will achieve something good from my life.’

‘You could come back as a vintener, if you want. I’d even put you in with my best men.’

‘Even for that, I think no. It’s not plunder I want. It’s my soul. I have to find it again, and I think I have seen how to.’

‘Aye well, then, Frip, I’m sorry about that, but I won’t hold it against you. I’ll take the men and leave in a couple of days. We’ll return to Sir John and the others. Make sure you keep away from the line of march of the English. If you hear them coming this way, forget the abbey. Just ride. Before I go, is there anything you need?’

Berenger gave a dry grin. ‘I’d be glad of a bow and a sheaf of arrows.’

‘I suppose I can afford one stave and a sheaf. Make sure you use them wisely, though,’ Grandarse said. He smiled. ‘I just hope you can find some peace, Fripper, if that’s what you want. Me, I have to keep fighting. It’s the only way I know I’m still alive. I sometimes think that, were I to stop fighting, I would die of boredom.’

‘There’s no risk of that,’ Berenger said.

Archibald felt the wagon lurch and heard the crack as the massive weight of the cannon rolled over on the bed. He glanced behind him at ‘The Wolf’ as it moved, and muttered a curse to himself. ‘Ed! You didn’t bind the gonne!’

Ed was up on the bed of the wagon in an instant, glowering to himself as he lashed the massive barrel again. Archibald watched his efforts with a nod of approval as Ed gave the rope a last turn, tugged it tight, patted the gonne gently as if it was a rounsey that needed soothing, and then sprang down and trotted to his cart, where he knelt on the boards and took the reins Béatrice passed to him.

Archibald blamed himself. He called to the boy in front who prodded the oxen with a goad, the traces creaking with the strain as the huge beasts lumbered into action.

They had already covered some miles, and now the Prince’s host was beginning the action that would set the stage for the chevauchée to come.

Archibald had a simple view of the world. He knew that wars would happen whether he willed it or not. Men would kill each other to enrich themselves, and every time someone went to kill a neighbour, whether he be a peasant or a Lord, that act would bring with it the seeds of another killing, this time in revenge. Life, it sometimes seemed to him, was an unending circle of murders and mayhem.

It had all culminated for him in the battle at Crécy ten years before, when the French army was not merely defeated, but was crushed like a beetle in a mailed fist. The pride of France, her glory, her chivalry, were all slaughtered in a blood-soaked patch of grass in Flanders. So many nobles died, it was hard to count their arms.

Archibald had been there. His gonnes had done their bit to add to the horror. His stone balls had scythed through the cavalry and footmen like the Devil’s own playthings. After the smoke had cleared, the gouts of flame subsided, he could see rents torn in the French lines where only blood and bones remained. All the men were destroyed.

That was the purpose of his gonnes. To deal death on a massive scale. It was ironic, for a man who had spent his youth in a monastery, but he was content. His toys were there to bring about the end of wars. He firmly believed in that: his serpentine powder could bring about a peace sooner than any number of swords or lances. By destroying the armies of his King’s enemies, he could force the parties to stop their feuding. And since the swords and lances were wielded by bold knights and men-at-arms against the innocent peasants, bringing the terror of war to an end sooner was appealing. His gonnes would be able to save lives by causing such catastrophic losses to the French that the war would end sooner with their submission. There was no pleasure in killing, but if it led to a swifter resolution, he was content.

Later, as the sun rose higher in the sky, he saw the shape of the Prince and his household knights ahead. The men who were the Prince’s best, most loyal servants were all there, on a little knoll, peering back at the army. Prince Edward often took up a position like this, from where he could survey the long columns of men. Except now his host was changing its deployment. The men were being ordered into new groupings. Rather than a long snake that travelled over the ground trampling a narrow channel, the host was forming a new front. Knights and squires took their servants and archers and extended east and west, short gaps appearing between each, then filling with more men. It took the rest of the morning and into the afternoon for the column to form up into one long line of steel and death.

Archibald climbed down from his board and rubbed the back of one of his oxen while it contentedly chewed the cud. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It’s a good day for a war.’

Ed was lying back on the grass, while Béatrice stood at the cart’s side. She nodded towards the front of the army where the Prince and his entourage stood still. ‘Do you think this will be the last?’

Archibald scratched at his balls and yawned. ‘No. There will always be a need for another one. Doesn’t matter how much we take from the French, they’ll always demand it back, and then we’ll fight for it again, ceaselessly. It’s the way of the rich, woman.’

‘It is foolish.’

‘So it is. So are men!’ he chuckled. ‘But men like to fight.’

‘I don’t think I want to live in France any more.’ Her eyes had lost the vicious delight that they had once held at the sight of dead Frenchmen. Her rage had dissipated over the last ten years. She looked at him as Archibald yawned again. ‘Rest, Master. You are tired.’

‘Aye, I am at that.’

She watched him amble to the wagon and lie down beside his great gonne, tugging a sheet of canvas over him to keep the wind off. He put his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, a picture of comfort and ease.

He could throw off the pressure of his work in a moment. Béatrice had often felt jealousy rising in her breast, watching him as he relaxed. For her there could be no rest. She had lost her parents, her brother, her family and her friends when her father had been accused of treason and executed. At first she had learned rage and hatred, but gradually her fury had turned to deep sadness. France, poor France, was a tidbit being fought over by two fierce raches or mastiffs. France herself was the victim. Béatrice often felt that with the two rulers snarling and growling at each other, soon there would be little enough of France for either to swallow.

There came a brazen blast of horns. She looked back towards the Prince and his men. Suddenly she saw what was happening. ‘Master Gynour, Archibald! Look!’

Archibald sat up, grumbling, and followed the direction of her pointing finger. The Prince’s standard-bearer was carefully unwrapping the leather covering to the flag. The flag’s staff was shaken to help it unfurl, and then the bearer waved it back and forth so that the vivid colours blazed in the sunlight.

‘Aye, well, that’s it, then. He’s shown his flag like a good warrior should,’ Archibald said. He rose and clambered back onto the board, taking up the whip once more. ‘He’s unfurled the banner of war. Let the killing begin.’

Thomas de Ladit watched the flag in the wind and felt a momentary sadness.

He was not French. His loyalty was owed solely to his master, the King of Navarre, yet he had travelled extensively the length and breadth of France and he was loath to see it destroyed. The rich vineyards, cornfields, and woods and forests that lay in the path of this army would be laid waste, he knew. It was a hideous thought, but there was also the hope that perhaps this fight could see his master released. Navarre’s freedom could be one aspect of the English demands. It was possible, and then he could hopefully return to Pamplona with his King and never come back. That would make the devastation worthwhile.

For now, the English had been generous. Perhaps the stern knight with the astute mind had not told the Prince commanding this army about their conversation. Thomas had been indiscreet, certainly, mentioning that Navarre never negotiated in good faith with them, but what else would the English expect? His claim to the throne of France was at least as good as Edward’s.

But now there were rumours of the French massing a great army to destroy the English, and Thomas was to be employed as a special adviser to the English. It meant he was here, not in a gaol, which was a great improvement on what he had expected, but it did mean that he was arrayed with an army that stood to assault the French King.

The good-quality food and drink may not compensate for his punishment, if he was captured by the French. Of that he felt sure.

There was a shout from the archers practising at the butts and Hawkwood grunted.

It was fine for Grandarse to hurtle off across the country for a relaxing ride with Fripper, but there was still work to be done down here. Hard work: teaching lay-brothers and some feeble old men which end of a sword they should hold. Not that it was much use. The old fools were so decrepit, they could none of them move a sword quickly enough to block or parry, and even if they could, the idea of then striking a killing blow was alien to most of them. There were some few young fellows who were only recently brought into the monastery and who might make a good showing, but for the most part they were a mixture of the old, infirm and incompetent.

He heard another shout and closed his eyes. The thought of going and witnessing the carnage being done to the grass was too depressing. In preference he returned to watch the men practising with swords and spears. There were some there who were half-capable under the expert tuition of Fulk and Saul, but they still lacked the necessary muscle and determination in his opinion.

Hawkwood swore under his breath. ‘All right! I’m coming!’

It wasn’t enough that he must try to bring the men at the sword school into some kind of order, but he had to join in with training the archers too. Since Grandarse had sent eight men back, and now he and Frip had taken two men with them, Hawkwood was left with a scant four men to teach the abbey workers how to fight. The others did their best, but the fact of being an archer did not make a man competent to teach others in how to use a bow. It was hard enough, Hawkwood knew, even for a vintener.

He reached the butts in time to see the man at the farther edge of the field pointing urgently.

‘Shit!’

The man suddenly jerked and fell, thrown back by the hail of arrows that lanced into his breast. A boy near him began to run back, screaming and waving his arms, but he was soon cut down by the first of the men who appeared, all mounted on sturdy little ponies. Some stopped and dismounted in the formations that he knew so well, leisurely nocking arrows and sending them forward.

‘Back!’ Hawkwood shouted, waving frantically. ‘Back to the walls! Quick!’

Shouting became screaming, and he turned with a scowl to see horsemen jumping the wall at the back of the abbey, riding on and cutting down three of his trainee archers.

‘To arms! To arms!’ he bellowed, grabbing at his sword and running towards the threat.