Blood on the Sand (22 page)

‘Aye.’

Berenger didn’t add, but he knew Jack was thinking it too: having the new recruits in the front would provide a protective wall of weaker fighters when the hand-to-hand struggles began.
The experienced archers would be protected for a while by the novices. It was better to sacrifice a number of those than valuable, battle-hardened warriors.

A fine mist was wisping about the trees as the men finally kicked over the morning fires and prepared to march. A horn blew, then two more, and men began to mount their beasts and prepare for
the morning’s journey.

‘Where to now, Frip?’ Jack called.

Berenger was sitting beside Jean de Vervins once more. He waved a hand as the columns of men began to trudge onwards. ‘Where do you think? To Durham!’ he called.

The mist was thickening nearer the river, and as they passed by that morning, Berenger grew worried in case the men at the back decided to run away. Desertion was always a problem for any army,
but for a force like this, when the weather gave such a perfect cover, many would be tempted to flee. No one could be thought a fool for trying to make a run for it and escape death. Berenger
trotted back a short distance and cast a look over his shoulder. He could see a winding line of men on foot and on horseback, plodding onwards with their heads down for the most part, but now and
again he saw a man whose gaze had strayed to the bushes and trees and who, when Berenger caught his eye, shamefacedly looked away.

Muttering a curse under his breath, Berenger rode back along the line of archers to where Jack sat uncomfortably on his pony. He had never been a natural rider.

‘Jack, bring the vintaine with you. I want you at the rear of the column.’

‘Why?’

‘Too much risk of losing men in this weather,’ Berenger said.

Jean de Vervins had overheard. ‘You don’t trust your own men, Captain?’ he sneered. ‘What does
that
say for the courage of the English soldier?’

Berenger didn’t answer that, but commanded, ‘You stay here, Vervins – right here in the line,’ wheeled his pony about, and led the way.

They pulled the vintaine out of the line and trotted back to the rear, where they reformed. ‘Keep an eye on your own men, Jack,’ Berenger added quietly. ‘We don’t want to
lose any of them either.’

‘You can leave them with me,’ Jack said.

‘I’d best get back to that damned Frenchman,’ Berenger said reluctantly. He already missed his own vintaine. Having command of the whole mass of archers on this side of the
army was a shocking promotion for him. Back here with his own, it felt as though he had returned to the cradle of his family. Least of all did he want to spend time with that repellent fool Jean de
Vervins.

‘Go on, Frip. Godspeed!’ Jack chuckled.

Berenger cursed him mildly, and was about to spur his pony, when he heard something behind him. ‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing, Frip.’

‘I heard harness, I’m sure,’ Berenger said. ‘Some fuckwit deserter’s wandered right back into the column.’

‘We’d have noticed a deserter,’ Jack argued.

The fog had been bad, but now it was thinning slightly. Peering back through the mist Berenger could see the shape of a man. ‘There he is, the arse.’

He had lifted his reins to slap his beast’s rump, when he saw that the one man had become several. It must be the Yorkshiremen who had missed the muster at Richmond, he thought, and was
about to say so to Jack, when something else caught his attention. There was something odd about the riders’ saddles and equipment. Perhaps Yorkshiremen rode in that loose manner, he thought
. . . and then he saw a look of horror on the face of the two leading riders, and realised who they were. Raising his hands, he bellowed at the top of his voice:
‘Archers
,
string
your bows!
’ and with a quick blast on his horn to warn the rest of the army, he drew his sword and prepared to fight.

The Scottish army had found them.

Berenger was aware of Jack at his side, and wanted to tell him to get back with his command, but then he recalled that he himself was responsible for all the archers. He
shouldn’t even be here!

As the first of the riders thundered towards him, Berenger ducked under the swinging blade aimed at his head. His own blow went wide, but then the second man was on him, a thickset,
ginger-haired brute with bloodshot blue eyes and a heavy beard. He carried a war hammer and aimed it squarely at Berenger as his little horse sprang forward. Berenger spurred his pony to slide away
to the left and heard the hammer head whistle as it flew past him – but then there was a third man before him, a young fellow, half Berenger’s age, with the dark hair and grey eyes of a
Celt and a crazed smile on his face. He hefted his sword like a man cheering on a companion in a race.

Behind him, Berenger heard the first familiar cry: ‘A
RCHERS
! Archers,
nock
! A
RCHERS
! Archers,
draw
!’

Berenger had only a moment. As he approached this fresh enemy on his right, he lifted his sword blade high to block the lad’s and then, hauling on the reins, he stopped his own mount and
brought his mailed fist down and slammed it into the fellow’s face with all his strength, feeling the satisfying snap as the nose and two teeth broke. And then, all at once, he felt a blow on
his helmet. The world span, and he almost fell from his mount. He slumped – and then he heard a loud scream, and saw that Dogbreath had ridden to his side. He blinked, woozy and
uncomprehending for a moment, while Dogbreath shrieked and whirled, crazed as a berserker of old, his sword and a dagger spinning and creating wild patterns in the occasional flashes as sunlight
tried to force its way through the mists.

Then there was a scream of wild men, and two more Scottish warriors were galloping towards him. Berenger could only watch, the blood pounding in his veins as they approached, but before they
could reach him, there was a fierce bellow of ‘
Saint Denis!
’ and Jean de Vervins thundered past. An arrow took the first Scot, and Jean rode straight for the other, his sword
gleaming. It struck, and the Scot’s horse was rearing, blood pulsing from a great gash in its neck. Jean gave a short backhanded slash, and the rider disappeared.

Berenger saw him thrust and parry with another Scotsman, the blades moving so swiftly that Berenger couldn’t follow them, and then he seemed to come back to life. He saw that his sword lay
on the ground near his pony’s hooves. He climbed down, picked it up and clambered back into the saddle, just as a mace was aimed at his head. He ducked, the mass of spikes missed him, and
then he was seated again, and he gave a bellow to his men to call them back.

‘With me! Dogbreath, Sir Jean! With me!’

He saw Sir Jean de Vervins, who glanced back as though uncomprehending, but then he nodded and clapped spurs to his mount.

‘To the trees!’ Berenger yelled. Ahead, all he could see was a rippling line of silver, and he knew what that meant. A line of archers were drawing, and any moment, those sparkling
points would hurtle upwards and towards them.

‘The trees!’ he roared again as he saw the sudden disappearance of the arrow-tips. They were flying already!

He lashed his horse, urging it to greater efforts, even as Sir Jean, crouching low, overhauled him and entered the little copse.

Berenger reached the trees as the first of the screams broke out behind him. Dogbreath was at his heels.

Turning, he saw that the man he had punched lay on the ground, dazed, while all around, horses stamped and pawed the air, maddened by the sudden violence. And then there was a hideous pocking
noise as arrows stabbed down from the heavens, followed by agonised shrieks. Horses whinnied, thrashing and rearing, and men cursed and wept as the clothyards pinned them to the ground, some
receiving four in as many breaths. Men rolled feebly in the attempt to free themselves, one man crawling away sobbing as the shaft that had penetrated his belly snagged the ground beneath him.

More Scots were riding up now, and he heard Jack’s call: ‘Archers,
nock
! Archers,
draw
! Archers,
loose
!’

A whistle and whoosh of finest goose feathers, and it was like watching a scythe taking the tops off a field of barley. One moment, five men-at-arms were riding at full tilt towards the English,
and the next, all were gone. The arrows had all found their mark, and a heavy arrowhead with a yard of ash behind it was enough to penetrate any mail at this range. Each rider had three or more
strike simultaneously, and all were hurled from their steeds, one to be dragged away screaming, his foot entangled in the stirrup.

More had appeared: a fresh group of pikemen, with their captain on a great charger. A flight of arrows, and the destrier plunged to the ground, throwing his rider, who landed heavily on his
head. Berenger could hear the crunch of breaking bones over the rattle of the armour. The men after him were cut down as they ran, groups of two, three or four surviving and trying to force their
way onward, until only one remained. As a kindness, he was pierced by five arrows all at once and fell only a few yards from the line of archers.

Berenger waited for the next eruption of Scottish men, gripping his sword with a fist that now shook as though he had the ague. He stared at it with incomprehension for a while. It seemed
curious that he should have this feeling now that the fighting was all over, but then a bleak reaction set in. He had acted like a fool, drawing steel against God alone knew how many men, while his
own men needed his direction and support; he could have been slain in the first moments. It was pure good fortune that had kept him unhurt. Apart from anything else, an English arrow could have
found him in that mêlée.

He thrust his sword back into its sheath and bellowed, ‘Don’t loose! Hold your arrows! Jack? It’s me, Berenger Fripper! I have Sir Jean de Vervins and Dogbreath with me!’
He waited until he heard Jack’s answering bellow, before urging his pony forward into the open once more.

The ground was littered with the wounded and dead, at least a hundred men all told. Some few lay with terrified eyes, contemplating the imminent sight of the angels of Heaven, but more squatted
with fury in their eyes, watching the approaching English with hatred.

Archers had already unsheathed their long knives or swords and were moving among the dead and injured, stabbing all to make sure of them and despoiling them. More than one archer earned himself
a new pair of boots that day, and several acquired a new sword or mace.

The man Berenger had knocked from his horse was on all fours, panting and spitting. When Berenger reached him, the fellow lifted his sword and waved it in his direction, but one eye was already
closed, and the other was narrowed with the pain. Every movement must have cost him dear, Berenger thought.

‘Put it down, boy. You’ll get yourself killed.’

The lad peered at him, his sword slowly lowering. And then, through his mashed lips, he managed a hoarse, ‘Who are you?’

Berenger stared. It wasn’t that the boy had shown an interest in him. It was that he had not used the harsh, guttural language of the Scots.

The boy was French.

Henry Percy and Ralph Neville had been fascinated by the French youth when Berenger managed to bring him to them.

‘Set him down there,’ Neville said when Berenger reached him.

The boy had miraculously been missed by the arrows plunging into that small field in the mist, but with the blood and snot smearing his face he looked in a worse state than many of the men who
had died.

‘What is your name?’ the Archbishop asked in French. All the nobles and most of the clerks were perfectly familiar with the language. He stood before a trestle table on which many
papers lay. ‘You know that we can find out all we wish about you. Better to tell us now without forcing us to extract the information.’

‘I am Godefroi de Valmet,’ he answered after a moment. ‘I come from near Laon.’

‘I know the land there,’ the Archbishop said pleasantly. ‘It is good country for wine.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘What were you doing riding up on us? Did you mean to attack us?’

‘No, my lord. I was riding with William Douglas. We were on our way back to the main army after a reconnaissance.’

‘Can you find your way to the main army?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it commanded by the King of Scotland – David Bruce?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where does he intend to attack next?’

A flare of animation lit the lad’s face. ‘He rides to Durham to take it. He has a huge army: two thousand knights and fifteen thousand footsoldiers!’

‘So many?’ Percy said, but there was no wonder in his tone, only satisfaction. ‘This will be a victory worth recording, then.’

Godefroi stared at him. ‘You cannot win! You have only a fraction of his men. Yours are all about Calais.’ This last with a blaze of enthusiasm.

‘Aye, well, we will show ye what English blood and bone can do,’ the Earl said imperturbably.

‘You will have to call men from Calais if you want to save your land. We are come to lay waste all the country as far as London.’