The Centurion's Empire (18 page)

"No, but nobles represent order. Order builds churches, castles, and roads like the one we walk. Order stores grain
against famine and allows kings to form armies to protect villages from brigands. I saw England in the ninth century, and
it was very like France as it is now. What would you have? The rule of nobles, or the rule of the Jacquerie and Free
Companies?"

"But, but if the noblewoman had committed adultery—" began Mai.

"A king who buggers a sheep is still a king! Upon his death he might have trouble talking his way past the Gates of
Heaven, but meantime he is still a king."

"I'd have no respect for a king who'd wagtail a sheep," said Walt, shocked by the proposition.

"Walt, when I was young Rome was ruled by Emperor Nero, who was a drunken fornicator. Did all the great Roman
Empire throw off the rule of law just because the Emperor set a bad example? Thirteen years before him was the
Emperor Caligula, who was as mad as hares in March and a sodomite too."

"T'bugger were not fit ter lead," snarled Guy.

"Eventually he was assassinated, but we Romans put up with a lot from him because he was our leader. Which would you
rather have as ruler? An otherwise just king who tups the queen's ladies in waiting, or the Jacques and brigands?"

"He's right, Mai," said Walt. "Nowt but Christ an' Mary walked the earth free of sin. Ravishin' is always evil, but killin'

them as leads the land means evil for all."

For once Mai had been played out by an argument. "The French I've seen have been sorrowful bad rulers," he muttered.

"Aye, but give our king a few years and all France will be under good English rule," laughed Guy, and for once the
others all agreed.

Will was waiting for them as they reached the crest of the hill. Below was a village of about five hundred, and there
seemed to be a disturbance going on. The road led right through its center.

'There's no fighting or burning," Will pointed out. "And, no large numbers have passed this way for a few days."

"A wedding, perhaps, or a fair?" asked Vitellan.

"Seems a happy crowd," said Walt, who had acute hearing. "A lot of shouting and laughing, but no screams or clashing
of weapons."

'Then we go in," said Vitellan. "If it's a fair we can buy cakes and bread as a break from our dried meat and nuts."
As they reached the outskirts they met a lookout sitting on bundles of brushwood and drinking from a heavy silver goblet
set with green stones. Guy scowled to see the goblet and turned to Mai as they approached.

"That cup be looted, and he be a Jacque," he said softly. "I'll talk with him, see what he's about."
Smiling broadly, Guy walked forward and hailed the villein, who sat up and raised the goblet in salute. They began
speaking, and the villein got to his feet and pointed over the roofs to a stubby chapel tower. Almost at that moment the
chapel bell began to ring. Still smiling, Guy smoothly drew his falchion and drove it underhand into the man's belly,
then jerked upward. The villein collapsed to the road, screaming and writhing. Guy wiped the blade on his jerkin, then
walked back to the others.

'T'bugger breathed garlic on me," Guy declared. Vitellan looked to the villein, who was trying to stuff torn intestines
back into himself and shrieking with agony and horror.

"So there's been a massacre here, too?"

"There's Jacques in the village, about ten score. Sir, ah, Perceval de Boucien and his squire were killed outside the
chapel just now. His lady and children are cornered in the stairwell of the chapel's belltower."

" 'Tis bigger than that hamlet," said Guy, looking straight at Mai.

"Master?" implored Mai, looking to Vitellan. "Advise me," ordered Vitellan.
The ringing of the bell and shouting of the distant crowd were a background to his silence. A thin scream cut through the
noise, not loud but quite distinct. Vitellan folded his arms and waited for Mai's reply, as did the others. Behind him the
villein bubbled out a last breath and died unheeded.

"Master, there's—Master, say there's not too many for us, please!"

They split into two groups, both taking bundles of brushwood that they lit from the coals of an untended communal oven.
They made their way through the back paths of the village, setting fire to houses, woodpiles, and brush fences as they
went. As they passed near the chapel they could hear laughter and taunts above the commotion and the ringing of the
bell. They re-formed on the main road at the other side, just as the fires were noticed and the first shouts of alarm went
up.

Seated awkwardly in front of the horses' packs, Vitellan, Mai, Walt, and Will charged the mob, which was already
streaming off to fight the fires. Guy followed on foot and to one side, wearing a villein's jacket draped over his shoulders
and without a helmet. The riders ploughed into the crowd before the chapel, laying about them with their swords. Guy
caught a glimpse of a headless, battered corpse, then he reached the door where villeins were streaming out in alarm. He
gripped the edge and squeezed his way in past the crush.

Within the chapel his eyes took some moments to adjust to the gloom after the bright spring sunlight outside. The stone
stairwell was to his right, on the other side of the crowd. They were mainly Jacques, all asking each other what was
going on outside. Guy cursed himself for not asking Mai a few more words of French as he skirted the crowd, then
guessed at two and began to shout "Chapel burning! Chapel burning!" The panic to get through the door intensified.'

A stoutish woman of about forty was holding back a dozen or so remaining Jacques with an oxtongue pike, defending the
entrance to a stone stairwell. A boy of about eight was behind her, holding a small axe but petrified with fear. Two
Jacques were thrusting severed heads at her on the ends of staves while the others were jabbing with pikes. She was
bleeding from several cuts already and her face was streaked with sweat and blood.

Guy calmly removed the villein's jacket, drew his sword and took a handaxe from his belt. He had quietly and me-
thodically stabbed three Jacques in the back before the others realized and shrank back in alarm. Blows from pikestaffs
bounced from Guy's butt-leather armor, but the Jacques were wearing only padded surplices. Guy cleared a path to the
base of the stairwell, where he dodged a vicious swipe from the woman's oxtongue.

"Friends! Friends! Aht, stupid snaileaters!" he bellowed in English.

"English, I speak it," the woman cried back. "How many of you?"

"My two girls ring the bell, this boy, that is all."

"Call 'em down, keep together. Throw the pike away, take the boy's axe. Better for close fighting, aim for their faces."
The girls had been dressed as boys, and had had their hair cropped short. By now the chapel was all but cleared of living
Jacques, and the woman shepherded the children behind Guy as he led them to the door.

"Stay together as we go through the door," he called. "Don't strike anyone unless they attack, we may not be noticed in
the fuss outside. Make for the east."

One of the girls began to whimper, but her mother slapped her ear smartly and she stopped. They went through the door
and stumbled over heaped corpses as the sunlight dazzled them. The four riders were fighting in a group over to one side
of the square in front of the chapel, and a Jacque captain had managed to get his pikemen into sufficient order to
surround them. Guy skirted the fighting with the family behind him, then waved to the concealed bowmen as they got
clear. Giles and his men began to methodically shoot into the east side of the circle of Jacques surrounding the riders,
and after what seemed an eternity they realized what was happening and began to scatter to either side. Vitellan led the
riders through the break, and the bowmen laid down a covering fire as they rode back to them.
Luckily for the travelers the Jacque captain was no fool, and had probably spent time as a soldier. Not knowing how
many attackers there were and with the village blazing around him, he ordered his men to form a pike-wall across the
main road to protect the other villagers as they fought the fires.

Vitellan looked back and realized that there would be no immediate pursuit. As he tried to lift the boy onto his horse
Mai toppled to the road, leaving the back of his horse slick with blood.

"You ride?" Vitellan demanded of the woman in French, and she shouted in English that she could.

"Then mount the horse. Gilbert, get Mai across the horse's neck in front of her. Will, Walt, take the two girls and the
boy."

The overloaded horses could barely manage a slow, jarring trot, but even so Guy was so exhausted that he could barely
keep up. Mai had a pike wound over the right kidney. He moaned for them to leave him, then vomited down the front leg
of the horse. One minute of hard fighting is a strain, five minutes can have even a strong man-at-arms near exhaustion:
the battle in the village had lasted over fifteen minutes. Guy managed to jog for a mile before he collapsed. Vitellan
ordered his armor stripped and shared among the bowmen, and Gilbert helped Guy up and supported him as they made
for a cluster of willow trees where the road touched a curve in the River Marne.

The woman and Mai fell from the saddle in a bloody heap as soon as they stopped. They were hidden by the drooping
branches, and the village was marked only by a thick column of smoke behind some low, scrubby hills.

"Have to move on, soon," panted Vitellan, untying a saddle pack, "but . . . horses exhausted. Unpack blankets, all but a
day's ration each. Dump the rest in the river."

"Mai can't travel," said Gilbert, pouring the last of his wine over the wound while one of the girls cut bandages from a
cape. "He may not last to nightfall."

"We've not even got an hour," wheezed Guy.

"Cut four willow branches. Strap a stretcher between two horses. I've seen the Danes do that."

"That would kill him as surely as riding."

"We can ... leave him here to die... or he can come with us . . . and die." Vitellan's voice was a rasp, and his legs were
trembling. "No ... no other option."

Vitellan collapsed on a grassy bank, hungrily gasping for breath. Although strong, he did not have much endurance.
He watched the girls help wash the blood and grime of the battle from his men while the little boy helped the bowmen
wrap food and spare gear in blankets weighted with stones, then dump them in the river. Well-trained, well-disciplined
children, he thought with approval, then remembered their mother. She was squeezing river water from a cloth onto
Guy, who was still gasping loudly for air and feeling his fifty-seven years heavily after running a mile and a half from
the village. Vitellan took out a strip of dried meat and began to chew. His stomach was still hurting, but he had forgotten
the pain during the events of the morning. When he had chewed what juices he could out of the meat he spat out the
pulp, closed his eyes, lay back and drifted away to somewhere quiet and blank.

"Are you wounded, good sir?"

Vitellan opened his eyes to see the woman kneeling beside him. He shook his head.

"I tire easily, I—I have a wasting disease. Nobody can help."

"Good sir, I must humbly thank you with all my heart for saving us from the Jacques. There were hundreds of them, and
against them only nine of you." Tears welled in her eyes as she spoke, then ran down her plump cheeks leaving
glistening trails in the blood and dust.

"We help as we can," he said, embarrassed, "but this land has gone mad and we are few. What is your name, please?"

"I am Anne, widow of Sir Perceval de Boucien as of this hour. Guy told me that you are Vitellan, from England, and that
you are his Master."

Vitellan sat up. "You must wash your face, we must not look as if we have been in recent fighting. Your robes are torn
and bloody: how bad are your wounds?"

"Many but slight. My death was to be a long, slow game, they meant to bleed and weaken me."

"You must wear Mai's armor over your robes to hide the rents and blood. Guy! Can you walk?"

"Aye, Master."

"Bring Mai's armor over and show the Lady Anne how to strap it on."

Guy's deathly pale face instantly flushed red. "Master! I couldn't, I, I—"

The undivided attention of everyone was suddenly upon Guy. Even the dying Mai managed to raise his head for a
moment.

"Better
your
fingers than those of the Jacques," said Lady Anne with her hands on her hips. Mai began a wheezing rattle
of a laugh.

Guy tramped away to gather Mai's scattered butt-leather armor, sword, and shield. He dropped them in the grass before
the knight's widow.
~

"My lady, please to put these on and look the part of a man-at-arms."

"I am sorry for thrusting at you with my pike, and I swear that I shall never eat another snail."

"My lady, I didn't mean . . ." He stood scratching the back of his neck for a moment. "Please to armor up, I'll help—that
is, meanin' no lewd intent."

She took his hand and squeezed it in both of hers. Guy blushed beet red again, then reached down for the armor.
In less than a quarter hour they were on the road, with the horses a little restored from the water and grazing. Mai was
on a stretcher between two horses walking side by side, with light packs piled to conceal him. The archers had shot most
of their arrows in their barrage, and had not been able to recover any before they fled. Smoke continued to rise from the
village behind them on the still air of late morning. Nobody came after them, but many villeins came hurrying from the
other direction.