Blood on the Sand (27 page)

‘It looks worse than it feels. I’ll be fine, Jack.’

His comrade nodded, and then, as the Scots came closer, Berenger tried to call to them, to have them drop their weapons and submit. One man, he saw, heard his words, but instead of agreeing, the
fellow bared his teeth and rushed at Berenger with an axe held high overhead. Four arrows slammed into his breast and throat, and he was almost lifted from his feet by the terrible power of the
clothyards.

‘Enough!’ Berenger cried, but too late. The arrows flew fast, and before Berenger could stop them, all the Scots were sprawled on the ground, so full of arrows they looked like
nothing so much as so many hedgehogs.

‘Are you all right, Frip?’ Jack said.

His concern was plain. ‘I am fine. Fine.’

‘Well, God has blessed us, Frip. We have a great victory today. Are you sure . . .’

‘Go. There are men to be put out of their suffering.’

Jack nodded. John of Essex was a short distance away. He looked at their vintener. ‘I’ll go, Jack. You stay with Frip.’

‘No. Both of you go. I’ll be fine.’

The rest of the day was spent in despatching the wounded while the knights and other men-at-arms chased the remains of the Scottish army over the fields, in and out of the walls and ditches, and
up almost as far as the March itself.

But Berenger took no part in the hunt or the pillage. He found a wagon with a pot of wine on it, and sat with it until Jack found him, and took him, singing a sad song, to see the physician.

Berenger looked about him as Jack helped him towards the barber. The field was covered in bodies, and the grass had the oily, scarlet sheen of congealing blood. As they
approached the makeshift camp beside the wagons, he saw the Frenchman’s body. It was already almost naked. The armour had been stripped from him, his weapons taken, and even his shirt and
braies were gone. Only a neckerchief remained about his throat. Berenger’s eyes remained on him as he was led past the wagons and over to a trestle table where the worst of the wounded were
being seen to by Gyles of Healey, or ‘Tooth Butcher’, as the men knew him.

‘Shit, man, you picked your fight with the wrong fellow,’ he said, his face twisted in concern at the rip in Berenger’s face.

‘Yes. Can you fix me up?’

Wordlessly, Tooth Butcher took his arm and made him sit on a stool while he hunkered down, his fists on his thighs as he stared at Berenger thoughtfully. ‘Aye, I can make it a bit better,
but it won’t be easy. You’ll owe me after this,’ he said at last.

He went to his leather bag and dug around inside it. There were several tools there. He brought out some pincers, two shears for cutting hair, some pliers for extracting teeth, and then a roll
of canvas. Bringing it to the table, he unrolled it and contemplated the array of needles. ‘Now, I’m no saddler, laddy, but my needlework has been said to be as good as the best
harness-maker in London.’

‘Who said that?’ Jack asked.

‘Me.’

Berenger left the barber a half-hour later. The fellow took regular swigs from a leather jug while he worked, but Berenger was past caring, and shared the strong ale. He had a
feeling that if one of them stayed sober the after-effects would be less traumatic, but since he was already full of wine, the thought did not linger. Soon his face felt as though it had been
skinned and rasped with a file, and perhaps burned with red-hot brands. On the way back to his men, he was vague about the direction and had to rely on Jack’s patient ministrations to return
him safely.

The archers had gathered over to the right of the main battlefield, away from the blood-slaked area where only a few hours ago they had scrambled and fought. Now they were sitting in distinct
groups. Berenger walked among them, muttering a word or two of encouragement, resting his hand on the shoulder of a boy who sat huddled, his knees gripped tightly with both arms, his head all but
concealed behind their ramparts, eyes wide and unblinking with shock. There were always those who could not cope with the foulness of battle, Berenger knew, but that boy’s expression hit him
harder than most. It reminded him of the fear on the face of Godefroi when he died. There was something unutterably sad about the death of youth or the shattering of youthful spirits.

With Jack aiding him, he uttered words of praise or support as he saw fit until they reached his own vintaine.

‘I looked after you well enough before,’ Dogbreath said, peering at his face. ‘I didn’t hardly need to bother, did I?’

‘Aye, well, they tried, Frip, eh?’ Clip said. He had a dirty cloth wrapped about his shoulder, through which the blood was already seeping. ‘Yes, they tried to kill us, but our
luck hasn’t run out yet.’

‘Your luck never will,’ the Earl said. ‘The Devil himself doesn’t want you.’

‘That’s true,’ Dogbreath said. ‘He thinks you’d bring the tone of the place down.’

John of Essex chuckled along with the rest as Clip swore at the pair of them, but then looked at Fripper. ‘What do we do now, Captain? Do we stay here to support the Archbishop and his
men?’

‘No. We have to return to the siege,’ Jack said. ‘We have a duty to be there.’

‘Aye, we should be first at the plunder,’ Oliver said. He licked his lips. ‘Furs, gold, silver, women and wine, eh? What more could a soldier want?’

‘We’ll be getting none of that,’ the Pardoner said. ‘We’ve been away too long.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Jack argued. ‘If we are there for the end of the siege, we will have the right to our share.’

‘Do ye remember so little?’ Clip said. ‘When we took all those cities in France on the way to Crécy, we were the ones sent on to guard and keep watch, while all those
who did nothing for the battle helped themselves. It’ll be the same this time, you hearken to my words: we’ll do all the work, and they’ll send us to the hardest places, and then
some other bastards will take the credit
and
the profit.’

‘Well, Fripper?’ John of Essex said again. ‘What will we do?’

Berenger closed his eyes against the hideous pain of his cheek and nose. It burned, as though someone had branded his face. The stitching pulled as he tried to speak.

‘Tonight I will take some more wine, and then, if I can, I will sleep,’ he mumbled.
And
, he added to himself,
I will try to forget
.

He was woken early the next morning and was already up when Sir Henry Percy came to see the men. One of the new recruits had died in the night, and Berenger was looking down at
the lad as the priest spoke the
viaticum
over his body and muttered his way through the
Pater Noster
.

‘Captain, I hope I find ye well? Yer face shows you were at the forefront of the battle.’

‘We were. My men fought well,’ Berenger said. He wanted to say,
they fought like barbarian savages
, but what would be the point?

‘We destroyed their army, captured their King, killed or captured some French knights fighting with them, and took Douglas, three Earls and more than fifty other barons and knights. Hah!
We were chasing them all the way to Corbridge. Damn their souls, but they could run!’

Berenger nodded wearily. ‘Does that mean that they are defeated for long? Will they recover their strength soon?’

‘Nay, man. They are a spent force now. We’ll have guaranteed ten years of peace on the Marches. They’ll take that long to replace all the men we’ve killed. What of your
men?’

‘Among the archers, our losses were few. I lost some in this vintaine, but in general our losses were light.’

‘Ye’ve had a bad battle though, man. I can see that.’

In truth, the baron himself looked thoroughly unwell. He was pale-faced, and although his joy at the victory could not be mistaken, he coughed a great deal and his head hung low. Berenger
thought he looked very haggard, like a peasant who has worked long hours in the fields, or like a man about to suffer from a fever.

‘My battle was not so bad as that which others suffered,’ Berenger said.

‘Well, ye’ve earned a rest.’

‘We must return to the King,’ Berenger said. ‘I swore that I would bring news of the French to you, and that I did, but the King will need to know what has happened
here.’

‘Then I’ll wish you Godspeed, Master Fripper. For my money, you’ve earned the rank of captain in the battle yesterday. You did well to rally the archers after the first arrows
stung the Scots into retaliation. Without that effort, they could have overrun us all, or the Scots could have waited and forced us to try our luck against them.
That
could have been
disastrous.’

‘Sir Henry, the young Frenchman who was slain in the ring around their King . . .’ Berenger started, but then he didn’t know how to finish. What could he say? The poor boy was
too young, he wanted to surrender, he wanted to return to France to woo a woman or two, to grow old with his grandchildren on his knees, a loving wife at his side?

‘The youngster? Aye. I saw him. It was a shame to see the young scamp killed, but that is war.’

‘Sir, would it be possible to pay for a stone for his funeral?’

Sir Henry looked at him for a moment. ‘This was the same youth ye caught in the rearguard action the day before the fight, was it not? Aye, man, I’ll gladly put some money together
for a stone. I feel sorry to see a fine, proud fellow like that die so young.’

‘I thank you, Sir Henry.’

‘And now, man, ye should get some rest. Ye look as though ye’ll need it.’

Jack asked quickly, ‘Sir, will Fripper be taking all his vintaine back to the south?’

‘Well, man, my Lord Neville was to send three thousand to the siege. It seems his men are not badly required up here now. I see no reason why Fripper here and his vintaine shouldn’t
go with them. And if Fripper is content, I’ll give order that he’s to be the captain of the archers. Would that content ye?’

Fripper tried to smile, but the scabs of his wound made him wince. ‘That would indeed, my lord.’

The journey was long and uncomfortable, but Fripper and the men made their way in stages until they had passed the great wen of London and could catch a ship to France.

He stood on the quayside at Calais with the first groups of archers, listening to their banter.

‘Doesn’t look as if they’ve stirred their stumps, does it?’ Clip said. ‘The minute we left, they must’ve put their feet up and had a rest.’

‘You would expect them to have broken into the town by now?’ the Earl asked languidly.

‘I feared they might. I want me share of the winnings. What, would ye have the bastards get in and snare all the best prizes?’

‘There aren’t likely to be too many prizes here,’ Jack said. ‘The best things will have been moved before the full blockade worked. The gold and silver would have been
boxed and sent by galley to be placed in safekeeping. The furs and rich silks may still be there, a few of them, but the rest?’ He threw his cupped hands up as though tossing handfuls of
flour. ‘Poufft! Gone!’

‘What would you do now, then?’ Clip said, unwilling to surrender his dreams, but always ready to learn from another seasoned campaigner.

‘Me, I’d leave this eyesore and work my way down the rivers towards the richer little towns. You could take a town with a small force, and rule it like a lord. That would be fine
work. To have a little place all of your own, tax all the people, maybe set up your own tolls outside the town, and take a share of the money from travellers passing by.’

‘And have the French King breathing down your neck inside a week?’ the Earl said with disdain. ‘I can think of faster ways of having my neck stretched, but not many.’

‘Are you as big a fool as you look, then?’ John of Essex asked. ‘You think the French King has men to spare just now, with his main town on the coast being held ransom? And if
it were not just me, but four or five groups of men had the same idea, we could take over a county, perhaps. Capture a bigger town and the area all about it, and form alliances with the men in
other towns. Man, it would be easy!’

Jean de Vervins was nearby, and now he joined in the discussion. ‘There are indeed rich towns in France. You are correct, my friend. Look at Champagne, for example. There are magnificent
places there. Many. I would think of one such as Laon. That would be worth some effort.’ He spoke with a curious twist to his mouth, as though he had seen a joke that was hidden to all the
others.

‘What do you know of such places?’ Berenger demanded.

‘I know all the Champagne area. I was born there, and I’ve spent many happy hours riding about the land,’ Jean de Vervins smiled.

‘When we were fighting up at Durham, I saw you in the middle battle. You were there, fighting, although you’d been told to stay back.’

‘Yes. The fighting was already mostly done, and I thought that since the men had been striving so hard for three hours of the day, I with my fresh arms and unweary muscles could do some
good.’

‘The French fellow saw you – the youth called Godefroi whom we caught. He recognised you – why?’

‘You mean the man we caught after I saved your life, Vintener?’