Blood on the Sand (4 page)

The boy eyed the hunk of bread Ed produced with all the ravenous desperation of a cur, then stared up at Ed’s face as though suspecting there to be a trick in this act of generosity.

‘I’ve been hungry, too,’ Ed said gruffly by way of explanation. ‘Come. Eat! What is your name?’

‘Georges,’ his visitor said, edging nearer to the bread.

‘Where are you from?’

‘My family lived in a town. You have destroyed it. We have nothing left, and I have lost my family.’

‘I lost my family years ago,’ Ed said. He held the loaf lower, ducking his head. ‘Come, eat.’

The boy darted forward, snatched the bread and darted away a few yards, stuffing the food into his mouth as quickly as he could. He looked like a squirrel desperately filling its mouth before a
predator could arrive.

‘You want some drink?’ Ed asked.

Georges nodded, and Ed fetched him a mazer of wine. The boy drained it in one, coughing at the strength of it. Ed refilled the mazer and the boy took it back, sipping more carefully now.

‘You’ll be safe here,’ Ed said. ‘The men here are kind. They looked after me, too.’

Georges watched him doubtfully, but then nodded. As if by that one action he had passed responsibility for his well-being to Ed, he immediately wrapped himself up in Ed’s blanket, lay down
and was soon fast asleep.

Tyler. Bleeding Tyler, Berenger thought to himself.

There were always men like Tyler in any army. The stranger who stood at the outer edge of the men; the man who held the secrets of his past close to his chest; the odd one who wouldn’t
join in wholeheartedly. The one whom none of the others trusted entirely. John of Essex was bad enough, but he was predictable and, while dangerous, could be understood. Tyler was another sort of
man entirely.

All the men in Berenger’s vintaine had their own secrets. Any group of twenty men would have one or two whose secrets were close-guarded for good reason. In King Edward III’s army,
more than a few had been career outlaws and thieves. There were draw-latches, robbers and murderers in every centaine mingling freely with the honest fighters who had been brought by their lords or
tempted by the promise of booty.

Many of them were pardoned felons. The King had need of more men to swell the ranks of his archers and infantry, which had been depleted in the short, vicious campaign that had taken the army
down to the walls of Paris and back to Calais; therefore any man who could wield a sword or bow was welcome. For every man who could be counted on, who was reliable, there was another who was
viewed askance by those who knew him, suspecting that his shifty manner meant he had something to hide.

And Berenger was convinced that Tyler was such a man.

‘You all right, Vintener?’ John of Essex called.

Berenger grunted, his attention returning to the galley behind them. It was gaining far too quickly. ‘Shipman! How long till we reach the port?’ he bellowed.

The ship’s master, a dour old fisherman with a round face framed by grey whiskers and the expression of a man who had bitten by accident into a sloe, curled his lip as he peered over
Berenger’s shoulder at their pursuer. ‘If he keeps on like that, us’ll never reach the port, boy.’

‘They’re preparing!’

The shipman’s cries from the crow’s nest came down to the decks during a brief lull in the storm, and for a moment, Fripper was startled to hear the voice coming from so high up.
Then the deck pitched once more and he was forced to clutch at a rope. Staring back at their pursuers, he saw the enemy gathering at the forecastle. They were only a matter of yards away now.

‘
Vintaine!
’ he yelled. ‘String your bows!’

Usually, before he went into battle, Fripper would find a strange peace washing over him, his breath coming more calmly. As a young man, he had known only terror, his heart beating faster, his
armpits and hands growing clammy with sweat at the realisation that he was about to risk his life once more, but with age, that had deadened. Now there was only the sense of a task to be
undertaken. Nothing more. It was just a job.

Not this time, however. Today, his fear was smothering him. Fighting on ships felt unnatural at the best of times. He had done so before, but on ships bound together, so that it was like
fighting on land. To the vintener, the risk of drowning was more alarming than the thought of a stab to the heart or being hit by a crossbow bolt.

He was terrified, and the realisation sucked at his will. Clinging to his rope as the galley crawled ever closer, he could not muster the energy to draw his sword.

Berenger had come here to France with the intention of making money. Many years ago, his parents had died, and afterwards he had been taken in by the old King, Edward II, the present
King’s father. Growing up in the court, shown how to behave as a chivalric man should, he had loved the King like a father. But then the nation rose against Edward II, and suddenly his life
was turned topsy-turvy. His King, his lord, was captured and held in prison; he himself was taken and gaoled. Only later, when the disastrous reign of terror of the arch-traitor, Roger Mortimer,
had ended was Berenger fully free at last. He travelled widely, and when he returned to England, he was held as a traitor himself. Only the intervention of King Edward III had saved him. The
King’s son had shown him every courtesy, and perhaps then Berenger could have made something of his life. Maybe he could have settled and raised a family. But instead the lure of loot and
pillage took hold of him. With no roots, no family, no land to hold him, he became a freebooter, fighting wherever there was a battle.

Having learned about chivalry when he lived in the King’s court, he could have worked harder to become a knight himself, perhaps. But nothing had come of that. His life had progressed from
one war to another – fighting those against whom he had no quarrel, purely to win the largesse of his master. At least in recent months he had been fighting with Sir John de Sully, but now
Sir John was far away. Only Berenger and his men were here, and that felt awfully lonely. And he, Berenger, had absolutely no idea why he stood on this rolling deck facing a force of Genoese and
French and about to join the slaughter once again.

If he survived this, if he came out after the Siege of Calais whole, he vowed that he would find a different life. He would forswear war and battle, and with God’s help he would find a
woman and settle down. He had said this many times before, but this time he would keep his word. That he swore.

‘Should we loose, Frip?’ Clip’s whining voice cut through his thoughts. ‘They’ll kill us all if we don’t fight.’

Berenger felt a shudder pass through his frame – a surge of anger at these Genoese, at France and, yes, at his King, for sending him here, to this poxy boat, to die. The spell of terror
was broken.

‘Archers,
draw
! Archers,
loose
!’ he bawled, and set his hand to his sword-hilt. ‘I don’t give a fuck who these arrogant bastards are, but they won’t
take me without a fight!’

He could see them clearly enough. Burly fighting men, all of them burned by the sea’s wind and sun, with dark hair set about swarthy features, wearing a mixture of plain clothing and mail,
some with helmets or bascinets. Several were equipped with axes and polearms, while more stood at the rail brandishing swords or long knives.

Aloft, he saw the bowmen, their crossbows spanned and ready. Before the English could loose their first arrows, three bolts slammed into his men. The sound, like gravel flung against wet
cabbage, made Berenger’s belly roil. He hated that sound above all others. ‘GET THOSE CUNTS ON THE CROW’S NEST,’ he bellowed as he gripped his sword more firmly in his fist.
It was a poor way to fight, this, with your hands cold and clammy, and damp from spray. No man could hold a weapon firmly in that kind of state.

A sudden lurch and he heard a splintering noise from beneath his feet. The ship gave a great shuddering roll, and then her rolling was stopped, but the deck remained at an impossible angle.
Berenger stayed attached to his rope, the loose end wrapped about his wrist, while his men began to slide along the deck. Clip grabbed at a stanchion as he passed, and gave his hand to John of
Essex; Jack Fletcher was halted by the mast, and he managed to hang on to a sailor who passed by him on his back. All about the deck, sailors and warriors were clinging to each other and any spare
ropes or stays, rather than fighting the enemy.

Arrows flew over Berenger’s head; he saw one pass through a sailor’s body, to pierce the decking behind him while he shivered and cursed in pain. Another nicked Jack Fletcher’s
skull and stabbed into the mast itself, and he looked up at the fletchings over his brow with an expression of shock mixed with fury. Dogbreath swung on a rope, cursing volubly when a bolt flew by
and almost struck his hip. Turf was curled into a ball at the wale, his hands pressed together as he prayed.

A man with a grapnel stood at the front of the galley, and Berenger lifted his sword to try to rally his men, but before he could do so, a calm, accented voice cut through the din.

‘English, do you think to die today, or would you prefer to live?’

The speaker was a dark-skinned man with a well-trimmed beard and white teeth that stood out in stark contrast to his oily black hair. His voice was serious, but his eyes were alive with
humour.

‘Come, English, there is no need for us to kill you all. Surrender and you will be saved. Your ship is sinking already. Her hull is cracked like a dropped bowl. We could leave you to
drown, but I don’t think you would like that.’

Berenger gazed back at the tilted deck. There were three men dead – two men from his vintaine and a sailor – but as matters stood, the Genoese could pick them off one by one without
effort if they wanted, and there was nothing he or the archers could do. Only four men looked as though they still had their bows: their arrows were lost. With the deck angled the way it was, there
was no choice. They could not fight up the slippery slope of the deck and hope to achieve anything. They would be slaughtered before they had reached the wale.

‘Frip, if we live we can fight another day!’ Jack roared up at him. ‘In Christ’s name, we can’t fight!’

‘You have us,’ Berenger said to the smiling face. At that moment, he hated his captor.

Berenger stood on the galley’s forecastle and watched as the oars dipped into the water and hauled the vessel away from the cog. The master of the galley had not been
lying. The galley had a projecting spike that had punctured the English vessel as easily as a knife slipping into an inflated bladder. As they withdrew, the cog seemed to settle in the water, like
a hound sprawling before a fire. Soon the entire deck was level with the waves, and then the seawater was crashing over and through her, and the masts leaned further and further from the vertical
until, as the galley pulled away and took the wind in her sails, the old cog rolled over and all Berenger could see was her rounded belly as she sank.

A young, fair-haired shipman was standing not far away, and Berenger saw John of Essex put an arm about his shoulders as the lad began to sob. Strange how men could become so affectionate
towards what was a mere assemblage of cords, pegs and wood, he thought. But then he realised that he too had a sense of loss. Perhaps it was just that the ship represented home. With her sinking,
Berenger was as bereft as any of her sailors.

‘You are the master of the ship?’ the Genoese asked.

‘No, I am a fighting man. You killed the master – a bolt from a crossbow.’

‘The fortune of war, eh? Is a shame. I will say prayers for him.’ The man looked suitably solemn for a moment, but then a smile flashed and he looked more like a pirate than a
priest. ‘But first we must bring you to solid ground again, yes? You would like that?’

Berenger nodded. He had never enjoyed working on ships. They were essential, of course, for travel from England to the King of France’s lands or beyond, but that didn’t mean he had
to like the experience. The sooner he had his feet on dry land, the happier he would be. He would feel safer.