Blood on the Sand (28 page)

‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

Jean’s eyes narrowed, and his expression reminded Berenger of a man who was hooding his thoughts.

‘Do you know who Godefroi was?’ Berenger persisted.

‘Yes. He was a messenger for the French King, up in the north to exhort the Scottish to fight. I was on the same ship as him, travelling to Scotland.’

‘He was a messenger?’

‘Of course. He was to give messages to the Scottish, and then fight with them to encourage them in their campaign. According to the French, my own task was the same. If one of us were to
die, the other would survive, you see.’

‘And you succeeded?’

‘My interest lay in delaying the army so it would do less damage. I believe I succeeded. You know the little tower in Northumberland – Selby’s? Well, Selby had sworn fealty to
King David some years ago and it made the King angry to see him so content in his English castle. So I suggested that the insult to his honour should be razed, just as the castle should be laid
waste.’

‘Godefroi was convinced that there was no chance the English would hold back the Scottish invaders,’ Berenger stated. ‘Why would he have been so certain of that?’

‘Perhaps he merely considered that with King Edward here in France along with all his army, the Archbishop and his allies could not hope to hold the March against such a strong foe as the
Scottish.’

‘And perhaps he had been misled by someone.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jean enquired mildly.

Berenger wasn’t sure himself. The idea that this man Jean de Vervins could have been a spy for the English was curious enough, but was it any more preposterous to think that he could have
been serving
both
sides? Or that he could have served one side, but appeared to serve both? Perhaps he had convinced the French and Scots that he was on their side, while in reality he was
helping to destroy them?

It sickened Berenger. He thought of Godefroi’s face again, seeing that moment when the pole-axe broke into the boy’s skull and his eyes died, as though his soul was no more than a
candle-flame to be snuffed. It was one thing to know that a man had died in a fair battle, but quite another to think that he had died because he had believed in a lie told by a man pretending to
be a friend who was in reality determined to see his destruction.

‘I serve your King,’ Jean de Vervins said, and this time he smiled.

Berenger could happily have smashed that smile with his gauntleted fist.

The Vidame was definitely not expecting to see the huge figure of Bertucat approaching him openly in the town, and he felt his anger flare.

‘I have to speak to you,’ Bertucat mumbled, and was gone.

The Vidame caught up with him further into Villeneuve-la-Hardie within sight of Calais’ walls. The artillery was loosing stones at the walls in a steady barrage, the huge wooden structures
swinging around, the slings releasing their vast weights into the sky, tumbling and spinning lazily until they slammed into the walls with a hideous impact. If a piece were to hit a man, some were
large enough to cut him in half. As it was, the smaller pieces could inflict severe injuries.

‘What is it?’ the Vidame hissed as he came closer. He was tempted to pull out his knife and stab the fat man where he stood.

‘Jean de Vervins,’ Bertucat said flatly.

‘What of him?’

‘He was on the ships going to Scotland to help advise them of our King’s support. I’ve been waiting at the docks to learn what happened. It’s not good news.’

‘Tell me!’

‘I overheard some of the messengers coming back. There has been a great victory – our allies were crushed. There will be no more support from Scotland. The English even captured
their King. He’s been hurried away to a safe prison.’

The Vidame felt as if he was holding his breath at this appalling news. He wondered whether God truly had moved to support the English. They seemed invulnerable. He had a sudden sense of
impending disaster. France, it seemed, was deserted. She was alone, desperate and bereft, while the English stamped on her and trampled her into the mud.

‘There’s more,’ Bertucat said. ‘Your spy has returned and says he must speak to you. It is urgent. He said he has seen Jean de Vervins.’

‘Good. Did Jean have any news?’

‘You don’t understand me. He saw Jean because Jean is a traitor. Jean de Vervins has become an agent of the English.’

The Vidame’s voice shook. ‘My God!’

Turning, he stared at the walls of the town. They looked impregnable, but even as he watched, a rock struck the parapet of the nearest wall and knocked off two castellations. It looked like the
beginning of the end for the town. For the first time, the Vidame began to suspect that Calais might fall. And if Calais, why not Rouen, or even Paris?

The Vidame felt weak and lonely. If Jean de Vervins had double-crossed them, whom could he trust?

Berenger’s face was itching. Tooth Butcher had come with the army from Percy, and now appeared to have adopted Berenger as his own personal experimental patient. Every
few days Berenger would see him in the roads and he would peer closely at his stitching with every sign of satisfaction. No matter how often he heard the barber tell him to leave it alone or he
would scratch it into gangrene, he could not help but worry at the edges of the bloody clots.

‘You’ve seen gangrene, haven’t you, Frip? It’s a horrible thing. Eats away at you under your skin. And it all comes about, I reckon, because of daft
buggers like you, who keep fiddling with your scar, and before long you’ll have killed off the skin and got yourself diseased. You do that, and I won’t be answerable. It’ll be a
coffin for you, and that’s the truth.’

‘As a barber, you are good; as a bone-fixer or hacker off of other men’s limbs, you are competent, I’ll give you that. But when it comes to things like this, you have no idea
how greatly it plagues me! I
have
to scratch to get some relief!’

‘It’s your life, Fripper. And I’m not your mother. Just don’t come running to me when you find that your face is falling off and you’re being eaten away from
inside, that’s all I’m saying. Got that?’

Berenger took his advice and tried to keep his hands from his face – but Christ’s cods, it was difficult! On an evening like this, when the bitter wind was blowing, shrinking a
man’s balls to the size of acorns, it was even harder. The chill seemed to inspire the scar tissue to produce greater heat in comparison. The worst of the scabs had fallen away, but the
feeling of tightness, and the sense that inside the wound there was a scrabbling of insect feet trying to escape, was utterly maddening.

Things were not eased by the discussion he was forced to have with Sir John and Sir Peter of Bromley. Sir Peter made it clear he thought the full responsibility for the death of the messenger
lay at Berenger’s door, and insisted that Berenger was demoted; no longer a captain, but merely a vintener again. He had demanded that Berenger be reduced to the rank of archer, but there Sir
John drew a line. He threatened to take the matter to his friend Prince Edward, and on hearing that, Sir Peter reluctantly backed down. Sir John was known to have the Prince’s ear.

In those times, the only ease Berenger knew was when Béatrice took to caring for him. For the first few days after returning, when it felt as if he was going to have to scratch the whole
of his face away, he was soothed by her soft hands. She draped cool cloths over his wound, murmuring gently to him all the while. When he opened his eyes and saw her face, he was struck by the
compassion there. It was like looking into the eyes of a nun, or even the Madonna herself.

Marguerite too was kind to him. For a woman who had suffered so much at the hands of the English, she worked like a saint. Every so often, he even thought he saw a little smile begin at the
edges of her mouth, as though she was not tending him from duty alone, but from a sense of personal gratitude. Not that he had done anything for her. She had come here because Béatrice and
Archibald had invited her and her son.

Today, his wound was painful again.

‘Bad, Frip?’

‘I’ll live, Jack. Is there any news?’

‘Only that Sir Peter’s been given a bollocking by Sir John. It seems he blamed you for everything, from the death of the messenger to the bad harvest last year!’

‘I don’t trust that man,’ Berenger said.

‘I think you’ll find he views you in the same light,’ the Earl commented from near the fire.

‘If he were a spy, he could have spread news of our journey to Durham,’ Berenger said grimly. ‘He could have betrayed any of our missions.’

‘So could another,’ Jack said reasonably.

‘He’s a knight. He comes and goes on raids all the time.’ Berenger was thinking of what Béatrice had told him – that Sir Peter was often out, away from the siege.
That would give him time to leave messages with others – messages that could be passed on to the French commanders. Sir Peter was only a recent turncoat, when all was said and done. What if
he had never genuinely changed his allegiance? Besides, Béatrice detested the man and Berenger trusted her judgement in many matters.

‘What of it?’

‘Just warn the men to keep their eyes open where he’s concerned. Sir Peter of Bromley may have forgotten he’s supposed to have changed his allegiance.’

It was mid-November, and the weather had grown steadily worse. The huts of their wooden town had become islands. The roadways between were filled with mud and puddles, reeking
as middens overflowed and human waste lay in the streets. Any grass that had once filled the lanes was long gone, and the place had become infested with rats and wild dogs, both species slinking
away warily when humans came close.

It was the rats that had led to the men coming out here today. They had some small dogs with them and had been trapping all the rats they could find. Now several sacks’ worth were moving
and scrabbling as the men began to heft them. The vintaine had cleared a space, lining it with close-fitting stones to make a small arena, and now the men emptied the rats into it. The creatures
ran hither and thither, and Grandarse stood booming out his appreciation of the sport to come.

Three small dogs, yapping and barking enthusiastically, were held in sight of their prey while men wagered coins as to how many each dog would kill; when all the bets were taken the dogs were
released and thrown in amongst the rats.

So far, the men had been sitting outside Calais for two and a half months. Berenger and his vintaine had at least been able to get away for a while, even if it had involved putting their lives
at peril, but for the rest of the army, the dampness and monotony, with the ever-present risk of fever and death, was wearing all the men down. It was partly in order to counterbalance their
demoralised state that Berenger had suggested the rat-catching. It certainly had an impact on the men in his vintaine.

‘Get that one, you poxed little wimp!’ Clip shouted in disgust as his terrier bounded over one rat and missed another. ‘What is it with you? I’ll bloody kill you meself
if the rats can’t be arsed!’

‘Ah, did your special little doggie miss again?’ the Earl enquired with spurious sympathy. ‘Let me see, what did you call it?’

‘I think he called it the Berserker, didn’t he?’ the Pardoner grinned.

‘Someone or something’s berserk, I will agree,’ the Earl said.

‘Look at that! Mine has the big bastard by the throat!’ Aletaster cried.

‘Your little one is being played with,’ Dogbreath muttered. ‘If I was in there, that one would have been first to go.’

‘If you were in there, my friend, the rats would all have fled from the stink,’ the Earl said.

Dogbreath turned on him, snarling, and would have leaped upon him, but Berenger was glad to see that the Pardoner and Clip both took a shoulder each and heaved him back to the entertainment. The
vintaine’s survivors were melding well into a unit.

Berenger watched as a terrier snapped a rat’s spine. One bite, a jerk of the head, and the rat’s back was broken. It dangled limply, one leg pawing at the ground as it was dropped,
and the dog ran to its next victim. A snap, a shake, and another died. It was like watching a hunt – when the alaunts and hounds ran to a fox or a hart, the leader of the pack snapping the
spine and killing so swiftly. Few men could kill so cleanly, he thought. Some did: he knew an expert warrener who would catch his rabbits, softly stroking them as he disentangled them from his
nets, deftly calming them until he quickly broke their necks. They died without fear at his hands.

Not all these rats did as well. Running wildly in their panic, they were hunted down by the vintaine’s terriers. One rat, he saw, was flung high into the air, and he watched as it flew up
– but as it fell, his gaze remained fixed on the distance.

‘What’s up, Frip? What is it, man?’ Grandarse demanded.

‘
Archers!
’ Berenger bellowed. ‘
Archers, to arms!
’

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Clip said.

‘French ships! They’re resupplying the town!’

The Vidame was in his tent when the doorway was opened.