Master of War (11 page)

‘Thomas! Thank God! My leg, bind my leg,’ the young archer begged. Blackstone tore the red-stained shirt from a dead man and bound the broken leg, using an arrow as a splint. The archer screamed again, forcing his arm into his face, biting into his jacket. Blackstone could do little for him. The archer gulped air. ‘Do you have water? God, I’m parched. D’you have any?’

Blackstone was suddenly aware how thirsty he was. ‘No. Noth­ing. Have you seen my brother? He’s with Skinner and Pedloe. And Sir Gilbert.’

The archer shook his head, then rested back against the wall. ‘Sweet Jesus, this hurts. Find me wine, Thomas – find me some­thing, for God’s sake!’

Blackstone glanced back towards the square. The French were retreating. He remembered the boy’s name, Alan of Marsh. He was from the next village to his own. His mother was a bondswoman to Lord Marldon. Blackstone fought for her name in his mind in order to offer the boy some comfort, but it eluded him.

‘Alan, I’ll find us something,’ he said and shouldered the half-open door into a darkened room. No one had ransacked it, the fighting having bypassed the small rooms that made up the ground floor of the townhouse. He kicked aside a pallet with its grimy straw mattress, and turned the reed flooring in case there were any hidden cavities in the floorboards that might yield hidden supplies. All he could find were carrots and onions soaking in a bowl of water and a few of last season’s apples still mouldering on a rack. He found a small cask, its cork reddened by the contents, but there was no sign of fresh water and the communal well could be anywhere.

Blackstone unplugged the barrel, then slumped in the door­way with the injured boy. The wine would revive him, and the raw onion tasted almost as good as the soggy apple. For a few moments neither archer spoke, exhaustion of battle and the scourge of fear depleting them. Blackstone got to his feet, feeling his leg muscles complain. He had rested too long. He wished he could crawl back inside the darkened room and sleep on the lice-infested mattress, leaving the battle to end when it must.

‘I’ll come back for you when it’s finished,’ he said, touching the boy on the shoulder. He unhooked his scabbard and drew the blade for the boy so he might have a weapon. He would be unable to use his bow to defend himself propped against the wall. The wine had eased the boy’s pain and thirst, though Blackstone knew that unless a physician could be found his chances of survival would be slender.

‘Tell my father and mother, Thomas. When you go home. Tell them I killed more than the others. And give them some plate, there’s plunder in every house. Send them something for me, I beg you.’

The boy’s parents were peasants – ignorant, superstitious and untrustworthy – and would as soon steal your firewood as kill for a pig. Consumed by superstition, they prayed to spirits of the woods and fields, and the death of their son would prove a curse because he was no longer able to bring in the harvest. But to the wounded archer it was home. Blackstone hesitated. How far adrift must a man be to lose hope?

‘I’ll come back for you – then you can tell them yourself,’ he said.

Hope was everything.

Thousands of men crammed the streets, defenders and their attackers milled back and forth as informal fighting groups gath­ered and attacked each strongpoint that they encountered. Blackstone ran, searching for his brother, praying not to find his body among the many that lay in huddled groups. Wherever he found a dead archer he took his unused arrows, though there were few; the archers had sold their lives at great cost to the French. Blackstone saw a dozen Welsh spearmen and as many archers – the Earl of Oxford’s; others showing Cobham’s colours. There were none of Blackstone’s own men. Few had more than two or three arrows left.

Blackstone ran among them, seeking out anyone he might know. By the time he got to their head screams and shouts came from the other side of the barricade. Men were streaming across the marshes; Welsh spearmen waded into the river in a suicidal attack against the barges and the Genoese bowmen. To their rear English and Welsh archers covered them as best they could, but the spearmen were being slaughtered. Those on Blackstone’s side of the barricade had no choice – they had to throw themselves at the French men-at-arms.

Smoke swept across the barbican towers that stood sentinel by the city gates and the defended bridge. The spearmen gathered at the edge of a tower’s walls. An older man, shoulder-length white hair tied back with cord, commanded respect, others nodding in agreement at what he said. There was no choice, they had to attack the heavily defended barricade at once. Their countrymen on the other side were going down under the hail of crossbow bolts. The man looked at Blackstone.

‘Can you and your men cover us?’ he said.

Blackstone realized that of the archers present his surcoat was the most bloody and that the head wound sustained at the barricade had encrusted his hair. He looked as though he had fought through the worst of it. He nodded.

‘As best we can. There’s no more than two volleys.’

‘Ready yourself,’ the Welshman said.

Blackstone turned to the archers without thought that there were veterans in the group. Elfred had shown him the way earlier and these men would follow the regimen of command.

‘Nock!’ No one questioned.

‘Mark!’ All obeyed.

‘Draw!’ The disciplined English killing machine was ready. The stretch of hemp cord and bent yew and ash staves sounded as one.

‘Loose!’ he cried.

The Welshmen charged.

The French heard their battle cry and turned. A dozen went down from the archers’ volley, but others stepped forward and hacked five or six of the men down. Blackstone saw the white-haired soldier thrust at a man-at-arms and then disappear from view as men around him fell beneath savage, hacking blows.

He called the order again and the last of the arrows arched and fell into the armoured men. The Welshmen had killed as many as their own fallen, but wooden-shafted spears could not withstand the cut of axe and sword. The attack might fail. Blackstone secured the bow across his back, feeling the stave press against his spine. A backbone of yew was no bad thing at that moment. He reached for his sword but the scabbard had gone. Then he remembered that he had left it with the wounded archer. All he had was his long knife. He unsheathed it and released the cry that exploded from his chest – and charged into madness.

None of the archers would survive. Except for their knives they were defenceless, and their padded jackets would split like skin once the French men-at-arms struck with sword and axe. The bodies of the dead and dying Welshmen littered the ground, French dead lay beside them, pierced by lance or arrow, and within another twenty paces Blackstone saw the wall of armoured men raise their swords, readying themselves for the easiest killing they would have that day.

Ten paces.

A violent storm of bloodcurdling howls blew at his back.

The black smoke shifted and from the defenders’ flank English knights stormed into attack with a ferocity that slowed Blackstone and the archers’ charge as the English set about killing their enemy. Steel clashed, shields thudded from blows. One shield took the brunt of an axe blow, its coat of arms declaring the knight’s reputation.

‘Sir Gilbert!’ Blackstone yelled, but the knight was cutting his way through the French with methodical sword strokes as blood spewed and shattered bone pierced muscle. It was a slaughterhouse. One of Warwick’s archers overtook Blackstone and leapt on a French man-at-arms hammered to the ground by a mace-wielding Englishman. He threw his weight on the fallen man and with all his strength jabbed his knife through his visor, twisting the blade as blood spurted and the man’s legs kicked in agony.

The English were clambering across the barricade from the opposite end of the bridge’s defences and suddenly Frenchmen were yielding, down on one knee, offering their swords to their English equals.

English knights blocked the archers from killing more men-at-arms; some of Oxford’s men were pulled away moments before ramming their knife blades beneath the knights’ helms into their throats.

For a moment the smoke wrapped itself around a dream-like vision as English knights encircled their French hostages, pro­tecting them against their own men.

Caen had fallen.

Sporadic fighting continued all day, and as dusk settled houses still burned. Pockets of resistance remained – citizens and some of Sir Robert Bertrand’s soldiers who had survived the main attacks. Bertrand and a couple of hundred men were in the castle and posed no threat to the King’s forces. A company of soldiers was placed to ensure the French did not try a counter-attack in the night. By the end of the battle more than a hundred French knights and men-at-arms, and that number again of esquires, had surrendered to men of equal rank, but the streets were littered with thousands of French dead. The English had proved their courage, especially the archers and infantry, who had fought hand-to-hand against the armoured French. But the wolves tore through the city. No one was safe. No man, woman or child dare contest the rape and plunder. With a ferocity the like of which the citizens of Caen could not even have imagined, English and Welsh soldiers eviscerated their city.

Sir Gilbert had accepted the surrender of a local knight who was taken, along with other captured noblemen, aboard English ships that had sailed up the River Orne on the tide. They would be returned to England and held until their ransoms were paid. The King had issued another proclamation forbidding violence to women and children and the pillaging of churches, but the marshals and captains could not enforce it. There was no protection from looting for the rich merchant houses and the marketplaces. The soldiers needed their spoils of war, and it would serve as a lesson to citizens in other towns not to resist in the future.

Elfred had survived the battle, so too Will Longdon, both bloodied with wounds but remaining steadfast with Sir Gilbert throughout the fighting. Blackstone’s brother had been with them most of the way, but Skinner and others had come under fire from crossbowmen and had attacked a street barricade. The fighting had been intense, but it was a rolling battle and the men were separated. Archers were missing from the company and Sir Gilbert sent his men into the streets to find the dead and recall those who were plundering or caught up in the final skirmishes.

Blackstone trudged back through the streets searching for his brother, ignoring the pockets of resistance that still held an alleyway or square. Grime was etched into his skin with blood and dried sweat, and the stench of his own body made him yearn for water to scrape away the day’s filth. Every muscle ached and his bow arm felt as though it had been beaten with a mace. Soldiers slept in doorways, others dragged bodies into the streets, stripping them of coin or jewellery. Small groups of men sat drinking looted wine or gorging on bread, eggs and cheese, ravenous after the day’s efforts. Whatever meat was found in larders or smokehouses was ignored. It was Wednesday, a fast day when no meat could be consumed, even when men and women could be slaughtered.

Blackstone retraced his steps trying to find the alleyways and streets to take him back to the barricade where he last saw his brother. He came across Alan of Marsh, who still lay in the doorway but whose body had been mutilated, most probably by the town’s citizens. The sword was missing, but it was no great loss, it was, after all, a poor knight’s sword. A mass grave awaited the boy, but at least he would lie with the other archers. The grim cost of the fighting settled like curdled milk in Blackstone’s stomach. It made no difference where a man was buried. Dead was dead and putrid meat would wriggle with maggots once the flies settled.

Charred buildings altered the shape of the streets and his memory faltered. He had taken a wrong turn somewhere and came across a man-at-arms commanding a group of infantrymen piling bodies of French dead in the street, readying them for burial. Blackstone was ordered to help and for the next two hours dragged and stripped corpses, laying them in a row the length of the street. As the soldiers slowed, giving way to their exhaustion, Blackstone slipped down a darkened passageway and made his way to the streets where he had fought. He asked every Englishman he met if they had seen his brother during the fighting. A weary group of Welsh spearmen said they saw the boy’s hulk smashing his way down the street behind his captain. The archer was using a polehammer like a scythe. Then another spearman added that he had seen the knight whom he knew to be Sir Gilbert Killbere attack a barricade and swore he had been killed in the fighting. Blackstone said he had survived. The white-haired man who had asked Blackstone for help at the bridge barricade came into the group. He was haggard from battle. The others made room for him. He looked sharply at Blackstone and then extended his hand.

‘I am Gruffydd ap Madoc.’

‘Thomas Blackstone.’

They talked of the fighting and Blackstone gratefully shared the bread and cheese they offered. He told them about the Welsh archer who had given him courage. He was nameless and the spearmen did not know him either. But from what Blackstone described of the man’s wounds they agreed he had fought well. He showed them the medallion the dying man had pressed into his hand.

Gruffydd examined it and laid it back in Blackstone’s hand. ‘Keep it. The old man wanted you to have it. She’s a protector of men in this life and she will carry your soul across to the other side when it’s time. She is called Arianrhod, Goddess of the Silver Wheel. It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not. She is with you.’

As the men curled into sleep where they lay, Blackstone went further into the ravaged city. Fires still burned and cries and moans still echoed through the labyrinth of streets. A proclamation was not enough to stop women being raped and their husbands slaughtered. He ignored the rampaging groups of drunken soldiers; they were too dangerous to approach. Blood-lust and rape drove them through house after house. He allowed only a glance at small, frightened children, half naked and snot-nosed, wandering helplessly near their homes, waiting for a mother to return, bewildered by the stench of gutted bodies and howls of anguish from women being ravished.