Fields of Glory (10 page)

The moaning started again as they reached him. His throat had been cut and the wound gaped. Berenger thought that he could see cartilage inside, but then it moved, and he realised it was flies,
gorging themselves. Jack ended the boy’s misery with his dagger.

Then, peering over the wall, Berenger was confronted with a scene that would remain with him for a long time.

‘Your Royal Highness, my Lords,’ Sir John said as he entered the Prince’s large tent and bowed.

It was a simple construction a short way inland from the beach. Inside was only the most basic decoration: this was the working tent of a knight, not a gaudy display for a tournament. There was
a pair of trestles: one covered with pages weighted with leather-covered stones, two clerks murmuring to each other as they worked through correspondence; the other held meats and cheeses set out
on plundered silver plates, and wine in great jugs. Beyond that, the room contained all the essentials for a knight: spare armour, spare weapons and surcoats.

He had heard of foreign potentates who insisted upon their subjects treating them with a fawning reverence more suited to God than a mortal. They dared not gaze at their masters directly for
fear of giving insult. Not, thank God, in England. Here, if a man were to avoid his eyes, a monarch would rightly be suspicious.

‘Sir John. I am glad to see you,’ the Prince said.

Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, was a handsome young man of sixteen. Tall, broad-shouldered, with the neck of a fighting knight, he had trained from an early age with a heavy war helm in
jousts and tournaments. His fair hair was long, and he had a thin moustache trimmed back from his mouth. His blue eyes were clear and confident.

Sir John thought much of his confidence was due to his father, but a large part came from the men in the pavilion with him.

Sitting on a stool and chewing on a honeyed lark, Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was a heavy-set, dark-haired man in his early thirties. Already a war leader of great fame, having led the
King’s armies against the Scots, he was the Marshal of England, known for his intelligence, his devotion to his King – and his utter ruthlessness.

Behind him, resting against a trestle and toying with a long misericord dagger, was the Earl of Northampton, William de Bohun, a man as famous for his cunning as for his ferocity in battle. He
had marched with King Edward from the first, being one of the King’s most devoted comrades in the recent battles at Sluys and Morlaix.

‘Your Royal Highness,’ Sir John began, ‘my men have returned from Barfleur. It is as we feared. The town is destroyed.’

Warwick took a bone from his mouth and sucked it noisily. ‘None living?’

‘No.’

‘Then there will be no ships from there to harry the fleet, which is good.’

The young Prince glanced at Sir John. ‘What do you say?’

Sir John cast an eye at the two magnates. The Prince had the same direct manner as his father. Against his better judgement, he found himself thinking that perhaps he could like this new
Edward.

‘Your father did not want men and women attacked if they had accepted the King’s Peace.’

Warwick shrugged. ‘I’m happy if there are no pirates attacking our army from the sea or cutting off our supplies.’

‘So you would ignore my father’s orders?’ Edward said quietly.

There was no answer. After a moment, the Prince faced Sir John again. ‘You say it is destroyed?’

‘My men said that it was a scene of utter carnage.’

Carnage was right. Berenger thought the sights would sicken the Devil himself.

It was one thing to participate in the capture of a town, to rush at the walls of a fortress and clamber up the scaling ladders, expecting at any moment to be slain, knowing that the man beside
you had fallen with a shriek, that the man before you had been punched in the chest by an arrow, and to expect that your own life was about to end. Then, when your entire mind was filled with the
red mist and bloodlust – the primeval desire to slay all who stood before you and survive – then it was natural to use a sword, lance, axe, mace, club, anything, and lash out at those
who dared defy you.

But it was different to walk into a town in cold blood and slaughter all the innocents there.

The place reeked of blood and death. Bodies littered the streets. Near Berenger a woman lay gutted on the threshold of a house, a baby sprawled pathetically beside her, its head crushed. Three
men and a boy lay in the road, all beheaded, and opposite were smoking ruins where once had been houses. There was little standing that wasn’t blackened by soot.

‘Why are we here?’ Geoff muttered. ‘There’s nothing for us to do.’

He spoke for them all. They had been sent to scout for potential threats from an enemy who was nowhere to be seen.

They had guessed that the town would have been attacked, but this was far worse than any of them had anticipated. As they wandered the streets, they came across women raped and discarded with a
sword in the belly, men butchered, babies kicked or stamped to death. Blood seeped into the cobbles on all sides.

It was natural that the first men to disembark were sent to scout the lands all around. This was one of the first towns the English had reached, and their arrival had been as unexpected as it
was savage. The proof lay all around.

‘Come on, boys,’ Berenger said. He took the lead and walked warily, the point of an arrowhead of men. Hearing a scurrying, he turned quickly, but it was only a pair of startled crows
rising from a body near a chapel.

The whole town seemed to crackle and tick as burned timbers glowed and cob or brick walls cooled in the late-morning air. As he passed one ruined building, the heat from the brick walls licked
at Berenger’s cheek. It was so hot he thought his hair must blacken and curl.

Wisp was at his side, but he didn’t meet anyone’s eye. Since the day he had seen the cat in the cottage, he had withdrawn into a world of personal terror. The others were beginning
to shun him.

‘The Devil’s been here,’ he said. ‘This is
his
work.’

‘Shut up, Wisp,’ Berenger snapped, nerves on edge.

At first, when they saw Wisp’s fear, the others had been supportive – even Clip had gone to speak with him – but the aura of unremitting gloom that now surrounded Wisp had
repelled all their efforts. It was affecting the morale and cohesion of the vintaine, and Berenger didn’t know how to combat it. Perhaps he should bellow and curse them out of this tension?
Grandarse would have done so. If they could loot a barrel of wine, that might help.

He was no leader of men, he thought bitterly. When all went well, he was fine, but given a problem like Wisp, he was lost. A man used to dealing with disobedience would have been more competent:
a father, a beadle or sergeant. Berenger was just a solitary soul. No woman, no children, only a life spent serving the interests of others.

‘There’s no one here. No one alive, anyway,’ Geoff said, interrupting his thoughts.

‘No, but we carry on,’ Berenger said.

‘Aye. Get your arses up the road,’ Grandarse said. ‘We have our orders.’

‘Yes, there may be something,’ Mark Tyler said.

Berenger and Roger exchanged a look. Tyler was too keen, whether on death or plunder, it was impossible to know; they would continue to watch him.

‘Is there any sign of who could have been responsible?’ Northampton asked. He had set the point of his dagger on his forefinger and was balancing it there.

‘My Lord, the men say that there was no indication who the guilty men were.’

‘It is fortunate,’ Woodstock said. ‘I would not want to have to tell my father that a particular vintaine had run amok. He would be displeased to learn that his own men could
seek to ruin his plan.’

‘My Lord?’ Sir John said.

‘Come, Sir John. You must know that the King has planned this in great detail.’

‘Your Royal—’ Warwick began in a warning growl.

‘Peace, Sir Thomas! If I cannot trust a knight with Sir John’s experience, whom may I trust? Sir John, I know that my father gave it out that he was keen to launch his war from
Guyenne, but that was never in his mind. He always intended to begin in the lands from which William the Bastard attacked our shores all those years ago: Normandy. There is a poetic justice in
landing in the same territory from which William embarked. My father has only one aim: to bring the false French King to battle and destroy him. Philippe is reluctant to fight, but we will make
him.’

‘He has a mighty army.’

‘The French are bloated. They are so convinced that their horse will defeat any army, that they fail to study how others fight. Look at us! We innovate, we test new systems, new weapons,
and when did we last lose a battle? You know Sir Thomas Dagworth?’

‘Of course.’

‘Did you hear of Brest last month? He stumbled across the army of Charles de Blois with thousands of battle-hardened Bretons. Dagworth had eighty men-at-arms and a hundred archers. Think
of that! It was obviously pointless to fight, so Dagworth offered to surrender for ransom, but de Blois wanted his head. You can imagine it, eh? Dagworth’s men hardly had time to put their
trust in God.’

‘This was over a month ago,’ Warwick said. He dipped his fingers in a large bowl brought by an esquire, wiping his hands clean and standing.

‘And Dagworth won!’ Woodstock said gleefully. ‘They held their positions – they were cut about dreadfully, of course – but when it came to nightfall, he and his men
had fought the Bretons to a standstill and it was they who withdrew to lick their bloody wounds. Think of it! Sir Thomas and his men fought off an army twenty or thirty times their number, and
lived to tell the tale! It’s more impressive even than Thermopylae.’

‘Wonderful,’ Sir John nodded.

‘Ah, well, you’re so much older, Sir John, you will have seen even more marvellous battles, I am sure,’ Edward said happily. ‘Were you at Thermopylae yourself?
You’re old enough!’ He laughed boyishly.

‘Your Highness, that is well, but now the French must come and attack us. This chevauchée will attract a strong response.’

The Prince’s eyes hardened. ‘You are right, Sir John. But we are not here to terrorise peasants. We are here to
take
the crown. Philippe knows we can do it. We will force him
to meet us, and we will wrest the crown from his head.’

‘If he will fight,’ Northampton said grimly. He had his dagger balanced perfectly, and he flicked it into the air now and caught it neatly. ‘He has slunk away from battle
before. He thinks to wait until we have run out of food, and then force us back to our ships, keeping his own knights in check.’

‘He will have to fight,’ Woodstock said. He took a silver-chased goblet from an esquire and drank deeply.

Warwick glanced at Northampton. ‘But we will not have those wishing to enter the King’s protection thinking they will be slaughtered if they do.’

‘No,’ Woodstock agreed, a little of his beaming joy falling away. ‘Those who wish to enter the King’s Peace must be aided, not robbed and killed.’

‘Yes, Your Royal Highness,’ Sir John said.

‘See to it that your men are well-behaved at all times, then,’ Woodstock said. ‘I will have all obey the King’s proclamation. Especially my Welshmen. I would not have any
of my own men become known for disobedience.’

Archibald the Gynour sat with his back to the wagon and scratched his head through his scorched and stained coif, running through the list of items he had stored.

It had taken time for the sailors to help him offload his equipment. One huge barrel, linen bags full of stones and pieces of iron, and the barrels of coarse black powder. This was to be a new
war, he knew. A war of destruction; a war of terror.

He had set all his toys in the bed of this wagon, balancing everything fore and aft as well as side to side. With the weight involved, it would take only a slight misdistribution to break the
axle or wheels even of this great wagon.

There was a fire a short distance away, and he cast a jealous eye to it, but he didn’t bother to go and speak with the men there. He knew how he would likely be received. A Serpentine
– one expert in the use of black powder – was more often than not viewed with alarm and distrust by ordinary soldiers.

It meant that most of his life was spent alone. Other men tended to shun him. He had no companion, no youthful apprentice or servant. His work was his own. He must do all his own preparations,
his own cooking.

The fact was, a man who could control a vast gonne like his, a fellow who smelled of rancid grease and brimstone, was not thought to be good company.

Brimstone was the smell of the Devil, after all.