Blood on the Sand (31 page)

At last, as weak as a newborn kitten, Berenger left his bed to hobble about the place. He felt as though his bowels were constantly in danger of voiding themselves. Marguerite was always on hand
to lend him an arm to lean on. She had become indispensable to him, even as her son had become essential to the vintaine. He watched her covertly as she went about her business, cooking, washing
and generally helping Béatrice with her duties, and every so often he would catch the Donkey’s eye and thought he could discern a note of reproval there. What the hell. He was a boy.
He didn’t understand anything.

It was well into January before he felt as though he could hold a sword again. Even then, his left arm was still badly injured.

‘I might as well have it strapped to my chest for all the use I can make of it,’ he grumbled to Jack.

‘We could always ask the barber to remove it for you. I daresay some of the men would do it for you,’ Jack said, eyeing it quizzically. ‘I could do it with an axe, if you
want.’

‘Fuck off.’

The sight of the cleric was unsettling to Ed. There was something about him that put his teeth on edge.

Georges clearly knew him, but wouldn’t say much about it, except that the man had been helpful to him when he had first arrived in the camp. Even when he had said that much, Georges seemed
to grow ashamed, or upset. It was natural enough. Ed remembered a little about the time when his own parents had died. For a long while after that he had felt quite guilty. There was something
about being alive when they had died that made him feel some kind of responsibility, as though it was in some way his fault that they were dead. He could all too easily imagine that Georges felt a
similar guilt for the death of his own father and family, but Ed thought he might be feeling even worse. His mother had not died. Georges should have remained close by and searched for her, rather
than running off and joining the very army that had killed his father and the others.

Why
had
he joined the English? It was a thought that kept popping into Ed’s head, and for some reason it happened more and more on days like this.

Ed had spent the morning with Béatrice, helping her and Marguerite as they looked after Berenger. The man was still very weak, although gradually he was coming back to life. Ed was
relieved to hear that Berenger was fretting at being kept to his palliasse. That sounded more like the man he knew, and if he was honest, he was sick of seeing Béatrice go to him each day
and mop his brow, feed him his broth or pottage, help him to a chamber pot, or any of the other hundred and one little tasks that she performed for her patient. Ed did not like to think of her
soft, gentle hands on Berenger’s body.
He
wanted to feel her fingers on him, and to be allowed to run his hands over her . . . but it was foolish to think like that. It was only
torturing himself.

Today, hearing Béatrice and Berenger joking and laughing in the chamber, and Marguerite’s quiet chuckle, infuriated him. Ed was not prey to jealousy with most things, but he craved
Béatrice’s company. However, even if she were to leave Berenger and sit with him, Ed knew that he’d be so tongue-tied that he would become flushed with embarrassment and resort
to silence, hoping that she would guess the depth of his affection and respect for her from the tormented expression on his face. He had a horrible conviction that she wouldn’t.

Torn between the wish to remain near her and his frustration, he left the rooms and walked out towards the port with Georges. It was here that they saw the cleric again.

The fellow always smiled, Ed noticed, but like so many of the other men, he smiled with his mouth only, not his eyes or heart.

‘I hope I see you well?’ the cleric said, addressing them.

‘Yes, Father,’ Georges replied.

Ed was silent. He saw how George’s face changed when he saw the priest. His eyes lit up, and he looked like a boy who could see his own salvation. The cleric took his hand and patted it,
and glanced enquiringly at Ed as though expecting him to come closer too. Ed felt like a dog being called to its master, and that made his anger boil. He’d had enough of being bossed around
by Berenger. It seemed to the boy that he spent his entire life being told what to do – by his vintener, by the men of the vintaine, by Grandarse, by Archibald, by Béatrice – by
everyone
! Well, he wasn’t going to do as he was told any more. Not by the archers, not by this priest.

‘My son, you are unhappy,’ the priest said.

‘So?’

‘Come, let me pray for you. I can soothe your troubled breast.’

Ed glowered blackly at him. ‘You can’t help me.’

‘The Word of God will help any child.’

‘I am not a child!’ Ed spat. ‘I’m a man in the King’s army!’

The priest gave a condescending smile. ‘Of course you are.’

Georges sniggered.

Ed had been patronised by many other men in his short life, but he was old enough now to recognise and resent it. He stared wide-eyed at the priest and Georges, and then stepped away.

‘Boy, come back here!’ the priest said sharply.

Ed shook his head and turned his back.

‘Boy! You will come to me.’

‘Go swyve yourself!’ he shouted and continued on to the port.

There were running steps behind him, and Georges caught his sleeve. ‘Wait, Ed, please. Wait.’

‘Go back to your great French friend,’ Ed snapped.

‘What? No, come back with me to the priest. He is an important man, it won’t do for you to annoy him.’

‘I don’t care about him. I’m going to watch the ships.’

‘You won’t come back?’

Ed ignored him. At the harbour a great cog had arrived and was disgorging barrels and bales of essentials for the men. Ed sat on the quay and threw stones at a large pebble.

The cleric had insulted him.
No one likes me
, Ed thought bitterly.
They’ll make the most use they can of me, and then ditch me
. He loved Béatrice, but deep down he
knew he didn’t stand a chance of getting her to lie with him. She would never be his wife. If he was honest, she only thought of him as a younger brother. Well, he’d show her.
He’d do something to make her respect him. Make her love him as he loved her.

Berenger enjoyed his period of convalescence. He walked a great deal around the new town as it grew up about Calais. Soon the walking was not enough. It was true that he needed
exercise, but he needed peace too; he had no wish to return to war, not yet. He still felt weak from the fever, and in the cold and damp of a coastal winter, that weakness was set to grow. Still,
the ministrations of Béatrice and Marguerite were gradually reducing as his health returned, and now that he was able to get up from his bed for several hours in a day, he was glad to go
outside for fresh air, and to sit by the fire in the evenings, chatting with the other men.

‘Donkey, what’s the matter with you?’ he demanded one day when he saw Ed sitting with his customary brooding expression.

‘Nothing.’

‘It must be a big “nothing”,’ Berenger said kindly, ‘for you to have a face blacker than those clouds.’

Ed did not respond.

Berenger decided the boy needed something to do. A lad of his age needed to keep his hands and mind busy. He would speak with Archibald and see if the gynour could sort something out for
him.

It was late in February when Sir John de Sully came to see him.

‘How are you, Fripper? I was worried about you,’ he said, entering Berenger’s rough shack and sitting on a long stool.

‘I am well enough, I thank you, Sir John. It was an unpleasant few days.’

‘I once had a bad fever. I thought it would take me away at first. By the end, I was praying that it would. There is nothing so debilitating as a disease; it is one of my abiding horrors,
that I should be taken away by one. Far better for a knight to be killed by a quick stab of a lance or a slash of a sword. Quick and clean.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I am not, however, come here to talk to you about your fever,’ the knight said.

‘Would it ease your throat to have a sup of wine?’

‘Some wine would be most pleasant, yes, I thank you.’

When Berenger was sitting and both had taken sips of their drinks, Sir John cast a look at him from under lowered brows. ‘This siege is going to endure a while longer, Fripper. The French
are still sending ships to revictual the town, and there’s little we can do to stop them. There are simply too many of them, and the galleys guard them well.’

‘It is not the season for war at sea.’

‘No indeed. This siege is set to last at least another four months by my reckoning. Another four months of this, eh?’ he sighed, looking about him at the room. Water was leaking in
from a hole near the middle of the roof. Puddles had formed in the packed earth of the floor, and the hearth itself was damp. Starting a fire in this weather was always hard.

‘We are losing too many men to fevers,’ Berenger said sombrely.

‘So anything we can do to bring about the end of the siege would be welcome. There is one thing that could be tried.’

‘What is that?’ Berenger became alert.

‘The Duke of Flanders was killed at Crécy. His son is only sixteen years old, and has inherited a large territory. The taxes of that land support the French Crown, but so do the
ports. Philippe needs Flanders to remain loyal. However, the Flemish do not want to be allied to France. The merchants and townsfolk all prefer to align themselves with us.’

‘I see,’ Berenger said thoughtfully, wondering where this was going.

‘We need to take offers to the Flemings to persuade them to renounce their French overlords and come to join with us. What can the French give them that we cannot? The Flemings would be
doughty comrades. My messenger must be someone who can be trusted, someone who can keep his men under control, and most of all, someone who can see to it that the message is delivered.’

Berenger felt his stomach contract. ‘This is too great a task for me, Sir John, I—’

The knight held up a hand to silence him. ‘No, Frip, you fool. Not you. Listen to me. The main task will be, apparently, to deliver a message to the Flemings. Another will do that.
However, a second job will need to be undertaken: to travel to Champagne and safely deliver a certain man . . . and then bring him back in one piece.’

‘I don’t think I can do that,’ Berenger said. ‘I am too weak still.’

‘This will be quick and easy, I hope. Champagne is over on the other side of Arras. It should not be a difficult task. You’ll have to keep away from French troops, and avoid large
towns. But we can give you all the men and provisions you could want. Only you must deliver this man to Laon.’

‘Laon? I’ve heard of that place,’ Berenger frowned.

‘It is a good little city, I think. But the main thing for us is to persuade them to come over to our King. If we can do that, we will have driven a spike into the French King’s
strategems.’

‘Who is this mysterious man? Do I know him?’

‘You do. It is Jean de Vervins.’

The Vidame sipped at a cup of strong wine, his eyes wrinkling with delight as three men regaled him with stories of their travels and courage in the face of adversity, but when
one mentioned the coming journey, it took all his efforts to control his features.

‘To Laon? But why should the King want to send men there?’ he said lightly.

‘The King’s new friend, Sir Jean de Vervins, he says towns in that area are so scared of the English that they will transfer their allegiance to King Edward,’ one of the men
explained. His features were bloated and red with wine and food, and the Vidame despised him for his gluttony, but such were the men he must deal with.

‘Is that so?’ The Vidame took another sip of wine and drawled, ‘It would be a dangerous mission, surely, to travel all that way into enemy country?’

‘Not for Englishmen,’ the man said. His companions hooted with laughter. ‘We have Sir Walter Manny, Sir Thomas Dagworth and thousands of others. Each of ’em’s more
of a man than ten Frenchies! Hah! We’ll ride to Laon as if we were on a day’s casual touring about the King’s Forest.’

The Vidame left them a short while later and walked thoughtfully towards his rooms. He had relinquished his tent as the weather grew less clement, and while the rooms were more comfortable,
there was the disadvantage that when he wanted a secret meeting or needed to discuss matters in confidence, he must keep a wary eye on those who might be watching to see who visited him, or
listening at a doorway.

He must send news of this latest mission – but at the present time he had no means. Yet he would have to do so somehow, or watch as a ring of cities fell to the English without an arrow
being loosed or sword unsheathed. There was no doubt that terror of the English had grown massively since the disaster of Crécy.

There
must
be a way to get news to France . . .

A triangular face, mousy-coloured hair and deep-set eyes.

There weren’t many men who had that kind of look about them, Clip thought. He was walking near the alley where he’d been attacked when he saw that face again, and this time he
recalled precisely when he had seen the man. It was when the vintaine was attacked and the messenger was killed.
This
was the man he had allowed to go free after the fight.