Fields of Glory (16 page)

‘Yes, sir,’ his esquire said, and trotted back towards the bridge.

‘We do not have the men or matériel to sit and become embroiled in a lengthy siege. Sometimes it is necessary to grasp the nettle,’ Sir John said. Seeing a boy nearby, he
whistled. ‘You: come here!’

‘Sir?’ Ed had been unashamedly listening, eyeing the huge destrier with fascination and not a little fear. He had never been this close to such a massive beast before.

‘Hold Aeton for me.’

Ed quailed, but held the reins as Sir John dismounted. The knight pulled on his bascinet, and soon his esquire was back, leading several men bearing ladders.

‘Set them there,’ Sir John instructed. ‘Archers? Keep the men from the walls.’

Grandarse directed the fire of the centaine. One man at the battlements fell with a shriek, toppling back inside the town, and all the others at the walls immediately hid themselves.

‘UP!’
Sir John shouted, and as the first ladder clattered against the wall, he was already at it. Arrows flew over his head as he clambered up. The wall was tall, and he could
feel the sweat soaking into his padded coif before he was halfway to the top.

His mail rattled, and inside his armour he was thoroughly uncomfortable. It added an edge to his excitement. He was at the battlements now. A man leaned through the embrasure to see what was
happening, and the knight butted him with his helmet, then grabbed the man’s collar and yanked at him. He fell, screaming, to the ground, as Sir John climbed in through the embrasure. In a
moment he was on the walkway. A man was before him, a heavy sword gripped in his hands, but his mail shirt was ancient, and the rings stopped at his upper arm. He tried to stab with his blade, but
Sir John cut once. It took his hand off above the wrist, and while the man wailed, waving his stump in horror, Sir John booted him in the belly. He fell from the wall, and then the knight was at
the next man.

This fellow at least was more experienced. He had sharp eyes in a square face, and he held his sword like an old friend. The blade wavered close to Sir John’s belly, but his own sword was
already in the
true gardant
, and as soon as the man thrust, Sir John parried and stabbed. He was in no hurry. All he need do was hold the wall while the rest of the army climbed after
him.

Richard was soon at his side, and the two stood abreast, holding back the guards while more English fighters joined them. Soon there were twenty or more, and then Sir John gave the order to
advance.

The French were unwilling to give way, but the English pushed forward, hacking and cutting. A crossbow was aimed at them, and Sir John saw one of his men clutch at a bolt in his skull before
falling. A quarrel passed through another man’s belly and threw him against the man behind him, who shrieked as the missile ended in his spine. Both slumped against the wall, but they were
the last victims. The English held the whole of the upper wall, and while the defenders retreated to a tower at the corner, more ladders were brought and set down inside the town behind the wall.
Soon forty or more were in the lane and running for the gates. Sir John gave one last push at the men before him, before going down a ladder himself.

‘Open the gates!’ he bellowed, standing in the main roadway. The men before him were reluctant to throw themselves into the fray. Barricades had been erected to hold back the
English, but they were ineffective.

The gates were opened.

‘My Lord,’ he said as the Prince of Wales entered on his horse. ‘Saint-Lô is ours.’

In the plain before the walls, Ed had delivered Aeton to the grooms, and since then had been running back and forth with sheaves of arrows, delivering them to the vintaine as
the men kept up a relentless assault on the walls. Every time a man poked his head around a castellation, three or four arrows went whistling towards him.

When the vintaine began to run for the gate, Ed was with them. A swirl of smoke wafted before him, blinding him momentarily and concealing the street ahead, but it didn’t matter. Not now.
The town was theirs. No one could stop them.

His blood thrilled with the thought of killing a Frenchman. Any memory of the miserable plight of the ambushing militia man, and his inability to end his suffering, was banished as Ed pulled his
dagger from its sheath and set off after the others.

‘Not you, Donkey,’ Geoff said, a spade-like hand planted on his breast. ‘This is man’s work,
boy
.’

‘But I want—’

‘I don’t give a shit what you want, Donkey. I won’t have you in here,’ Geoff told him.

Ed was suddenly scared of him. The man who had been the most genial and protective of the whole vintaine was now threatening, his eyes black with anger, before he turned and was gone, hastening
with the others into the town. Already Clip was further along the road, running with that strange, loping gait of his, and Jack was close behind – and then a fresh breeze filled the road with
smoke and Ed was blinded once more.

Struck with indecision, Ed was buffeted by others running past, but then he set his jaw. He was a soldier, with as much right to be here as any.

The gateway held three skulls on spikes. A grim reminder that here the law held sway: malefactors would be punished. Their faces were blackened, strips of tanned leather clinging to the bone
beneath, and the eyeless sockets were horrible. They seemed to be looking down at him, as though mocking him.

Lifting his chin in defiance, Ed strode beneath the gatehouse and into the streets of St-Lô.

Near the gate there was a tavern, and a pair of Englishmen issued from it, clutching small barrels. One was singing in a hoarse croak, while the other was giggling like a lunatic. It gave Ed the
feeling that he was walking in a dream, hearing that mad laughter.

Along the lane, he saw two men kicking and beating a figure rolling on the ground. Ed could hear the man’s cries. Time seemed to slow. Each step took an age, as though he was walking
through heavy water, like the day he landed at the beach. He saw a woman, gripped by her elbows by one man while a second man ripped away her chemise and tunic, then grabbed her and began to
thrust.

Bodies lay in clumps all about. Ed saw boys and a girl tangled together in a mess of death, tossed aside carelessly. Dogs and cats lay in their own blood – lots of dogs – near a
little girl cowering behind a dead woman, watching the men passing by with eyes like pits of horror.

There was a metallic crack from the wall by his head, and he saw a crossbow bolt pinwheel away with the sound of a pigeon taking off, a chip of stone flying where it had hit.

That was when he suddenly seemed to lurch back to reality. The first barricades in the streets were being attacked by the vintaine, with Grandarse bellowing and roaring incomprehensibly; Geoff
heaving at a great baulk of timber and hurling it aside; Clip darting up and around, loosing an arrow whenever he saw a face appear; other men swinging swords and axes with gusto. He saw a
man’s head lifted clean off his shoulders, to rise up into the air as though driven by the gush of blood that followed it in a fountain of death . . . Ed fell back stumbling into the wall,
the acid hot in his throat at the nightmarish sights and sounds. He opened his mouth to sob, and an acrid vomit fell from his lips, the stench overpowering.

That was when he turned and fled. He ran and ran, away from the town, out to the bridge, and fell, and picked himself up, and fell again, sprawling, and only then did he begin to sob.

Because here, seeing the French people of that town as they died, he could not help himself. He didn’t hate them – he mourned for them, too.

Sitting on a piece of timber with a pad of cloth held to his shoulder, Berenger felt helpless. A carter, ambling over, said, ‘Shame you’re missing it all, friend.
There’ll be good loot in there.’

‘Yes,’ Berenger said. ‘The town was a rich one.’

‘Not for much longer,’ the carter chuckled and walked on.

Berenger was still weak. He had tried to sleep, but his wound kept him awake. Every time he moved, the pain woke him. In the end he rose and walked about the camp, swearing to himself about the
foolishness of standing by the bridge when he had known that crossbowmen were about.

By morning his temper was not improved. The sharp throbbing was unremitting now, and Berenger had to grit his teeth against it. He would have gone into the town with his men, but for the
realisation that he couldn’t fight. With this wound he would simply be a liability.

He waited grimly, watching as the men stormed the walls. It was clear that the professional English soldiers were cutting through the townspeople of St-Lô like knives through soft French
cheese. Such people could not hope to defend themselves against trained men. A drunken archer from Roger’s vintaine staggering back from town burdened with furs and a silver goblet gave him a
long pull from a wineskin, giggling, and the rush of heavy wine on Berenger’s empty stomach left him light-headed. Still, by the second gulp, some of the pain was alleviated.

He had moved to sit on a tree-trunk left by the joiners at the side of the road when he heard a familiar voice. ‘Not dead yet, then?’

He looked up to see Geoff. ‘Bored already with plunder?’ he retaliated.

‘Ah, you know how it is,’ Geoff said easily, but his grey eyes were pained, and he wouldn’t look directly at his vintener. Berenger knew that the worst atrocities were always
unsettling. They dragged at a man’s soul afterwards like lead.

Geoff sat on the ground beside Berenger. In one fist he held an earthenware pot, which he passed to Berenger, who sniffed and then drank.

‘Sweet Jesus!’ he said. ‘What the hell is
that
?’

‘Someone called it burned cider. It sure as hell puts hairs on your balls where none stood before,’ Geoff said.

There was a wildness to him. A long, raking cut had sheared through his left sleeve and the flesh beneath it, and there was a short gash on his right shoulder as well as a new scratch under his
left eye – but it wasn’t the wounds that struck Berenger. The vintener had seen him after numerous other battles, but this was the first time he had seen such an expression of despair
on his face.

‘What is it, Geoff?’

‘The King has decreed that, because the town held its gates against him, the men can lay it waste. The rich are to be ransomed, but all their property is forfeit. Much’ll be
burned.’

‘He’s making an example,’ Berenger said, and took another swig.

He felt drunk already. At plenty of other battles he had joined in the plunder, stealing all he could before others did. It was all part of the business of war. But to see Geoff’s face was
to understand that this was a different kind of battle.

‘It’s worse even than that,’ Geoff went on. ‘At the gate were three skulls. The King heard they were knights executed for supporting him during the truce, when they
should have been safe. The King’s furious that his allies were murdered, so he’s given the army a free hand. You know what that means: no mercy. All the women . . .’

‘I see.’

Berenger put his hand on Geoff’s shoulder. Geoff always missed his wife. He would whore with the others, but he never forgot his woman at home, and would not join in a rape. He only ever
took women who were willing. Usually the English army was restrained, with most men anxious about punishments, but when they were set loose from the leash, English soldiers could be as brutish as
the worst heathen.

‘I saw two men with a little girl, Berenger,’ Geoff whispered. ‘I wanted to kill them.’

‘Drink.’

Geoff took the pot, but didn’t lift it to his lips. He stared moodily at the town as the first orange glows began to light the walls. Smoke was beginning to boil from the southern edge of
St-Lô, tipping over the walls like a sea overwhelming a castle in the sand.

‘I didn’t come here to watch women and children being raped,’ he said quietly. ‘I believe in the King’s authority, but how can he permit them to be violated in
pursuit of his ambition? It’s not right.’

Berenger pulled the pad from his shoulder and winced. ‘It’s his right if he wants to punish the townspeople. They showed him disrespect.’

He was about to continue when Grandarse and Clip appeared at the bridge. They stood, staring about them, and when they saw Berenger and Geoff, they began to walk towards them. Behind them,
Berenger saw Will and a stranger: a little, bent man with a satchel over his shoulder.

‘Didn’t expect you back so quickly,’ Geoff said. He remained staring at the town as a flurry of sparks rose from the farther side.

‘Aye, well, we couldn’t leave this old git suffering, could we, eh?’ Grandarse said. ‘How is it, Fripper?’

‘It hurts,’ Berenger said shortly.

‘This man can help you. He’s a leech. Not the best, from the look of his clothes, but at least he’s alive – for now,’ Grandarse said, shoving the stranger towards
Berenger.

The old man peered at him, pulling the balled cloth from Berenger’s shoulder and sniffing it with a frown. He opened his bag and began to rummage inside.