Blood on the Sand (38 page)

Gauvain snapped his head away, threw back his hood and stared at her. ‘Woman, that is disgraceful!’

‘Hush,’ she entreated. ‘That is why I had to ask you to listen to my—’

‘Christ’s bones!’ he cried. ‘You think I want to listen to this sort of filth? My God, you are a shameless slut – a wanton of the worst sort. Words do not do
justice to . . .’

He fell silent as he became aware that not only the woman, but the others all about him in the street, especially the watchman, were observing him and hanging on to every word.

‘You should, er . . .’ What kind of penance should he give her? To have done that to her brother-in-law, while her own sister was vomiting and drowning in her sleep . . . the woman
was a disgrace. But he had no idea how to give her a punishment. What form should it take? A hundred
pater nosters
, two hundred? A thousand? And the watchman was staring at him now, a
doubtful expression on his face.

‘Begone! You are innocent in this,’ he tried desperately. ‘Go to your priest and tell him that you were tempted by a devil and that he must pray for you.’

‘But you are a monk, Brother, and if I tell him this story, he will be always on at me to go and swyve him. I know what he’s like!’

‘You must go,’ Gauvain hissed, but already it was too late.

The watchman, his suspicions fully roused, was purposefully making his way across the square towards the couple. Panicked, Gauvain shoved at her and she fell on her rump with a squawk. There was
a moment’s hush, as though the whole world was holding its breath, and then Gauvain began to run, the robes flapping wildly about his ankles, until he was forced to lift them, like a woman
hurrying after a mislaid child.

There was a street, and he dodged down it. The crowd parted as he flew past as though inspired by some celestial hand to make way for this Man of God. A loose cobble almost made him tumble to
the ground, but then he was back on his feet and hurtling on again, the blood pounding in his temples, the air rasping in his throat, aware of light-headedness and a sense of near suffocation as he
tried to breathe faster and faster with this unaccustomed exercise. He could feel the strain in his chest as he began to labour up a slight incline.

Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw that his pursuer was flagging.
Thank God
, Gauvain thought, and turned back round – just in time to see the cart being thrust into his path
from a side-alley.

He could not hope to stop. Holding out his hands, he tried to halt his onward rush, but the cart’s movement prevented his manoeuvre from working. One fist missed the cart altogether, while
the other was caught on a plank, and he felt the splinters stabbing viciously into his palm. Then his hip struck the wheel, and the wheel ran over his foot, and then he was spinning and the cart
carried on, but he was falling and looking up at the cart, and his head struck the ground with a crack that made him think he must have broken his pate, and for a moment or two the world lost focus
and he was only aware of the pain in his flank and hand and head.

But a moment later, the angry and reddened face of the watchman appeared, and as the man’s sword rested on his belly to hold him there while his pursuer panted and coughed, Gauvain
suddenly realised again how grim was his peril. He tried to rise, but a boot caught his chin, and he fell back, spitting out a tooth and groaning with the pain and the grief.

It was a relief for Berenger when he and the other men finally left the city.

His ride under the gatehouse was once more filled with the anticipation of danger; at any moment, he expected to find that the gates before them were shutting, those behind already bolted
against them, trapping them – and that the citizens were all overhead on the inner walls, ready to rain down rocks and arrows on them. To his enormous relief, none of this happened. The
people of Laon were as worried about the presence of the English as they were about being besieged by the French. It was the inevitable horror of the labouring classes throughout the centuries.
Soldiers came and went, but the poor folk were always the lambs, doomed to be fleeced and slaughtered – no matter who the enemy.

As soon as they had made the decision to leave, two men were despatched to tell the outlying vintaines to prepare to depart. They had hurried back in short order, with the news that there was no
sign of an army approaching yet, but that meant nothing. When the French did arrive, the English needed to be well away from here.

‘It’s really not far, Sir John,’ Jean was saying as they left the curving walls of Laon and took the road east. ‘We ride five leagues east, then another five north
– and then we will be there. It’s a good castle, you’ll see. Strong, well-positioned, and sufficiently distant from here for us to feel secure, eh?’

Grandarse was riding a few horse-lengths behind Berenger, watching and listening. ‘Aye, Frip. D’ye see what I said, eh? Right dangerous mess, this. We’d have been better
staying at Calais. Still, once we’ve made it to Jean’s castle, we can see what pickings there are about the place. Maybe a little manor or two to visit, and some plate and silver to
take away with us? That would serve us well.’

‘The main thing is to patrol the countryside,’ John of Essex said. ‘We must know when the French are getting within a few leagues so we can be ready for them.’ He had
joined Berenger, and his vintaine was riding in a parallel column alongside Berenger’s.

‘Aye, that would help,’ Grandarse said, but Berenger could see from the look in his eye what he was thinking: it would be safer still to be as far from Bosmont and Jean de Vervins as
possible when the French did arrive. No English archer was welcome in France, especially not since Crécy, when so many noble lives had ended at the point of an English arrow.

‘Look at them,’ Mark Tyler said disgustedly, pointing to the huddle of merchants riding a little to their left. ‘What good will any of them be, Frip, when we get to the castle?
They can hardly hold a staff, let alone a sword.’

‘They may show some courage,’ Berenger said shortly. ‘As matters stand, we couldn’t leave them at Laon. They would be killed for certain. Better to keep them with
us.’

‘Why?’ Tyler grumbled. ‘So they can eat our food?’

‘I was thinking more because we can find out where they keep their money,’ Grandarse said comfortably.

‘And I was thinking that the King might be unhappy, were we to mislay his allies,’ Berenger said.

‘He won’t miss allies who failed to achieve the one thing he wanted,’ John commented.

‘He’ll miss any who have money and who could prove useful in the future. Look at Jean de Vervins himself,’ Berenger said. ‘He’s hardly the sort of man I’d
expect our King to take to, but he seems to have wormed his way into the King’s favour. Not that it will necessarily continue when our King sees that he’s failed to bring in Laon.
Still, he could work to the King’s benefit, if we can keep this castle of Bosmont secure and him with it.’

Grandarse eyed him doubtfully. ‘You think so?’

John of Essex was gazing about them as they rode, staring at the verdant pastures and the crops just appearing through the crust of the soil. They were passing a hamlet now, and in it were
several pleasant houses and farm buildings. Horses and cattle grazed, and there was a bleating from over a hedge that spoke of lambs.

‘Someone will have to go to the King, to bring him up to date with developments,’ he said. ‘Not I, though. I’ll be staying here as long as I can.’

Berenger sighed as he recognised John’s expression: it was that of an English soldier who could smell, all about him, the sweet odour of plunder.

Archibald finished ramming the ball up the barrel, and threw himself over the parapet behind his safety ramp. In front he had caused some pavises to be built – large
shields of wood so that he was safe from bolts and arrows aimed at him from the town’s walls as he worked his gonne. The clatter and thud of missiles hitting the pavises had grown to be a
constant background noise, rather like the clatter of hail against a shingled roof.

He aimed along the length of the barrel, then used a heavy, lead-filled wooden maul to hit the breech.

‘You need to clobber that harder, if you want it to hit something, don’t you?’ a sentry asked. He was new here, and hadn’t worked with Archibald for long.

Archibald threw a meaningful look at Ed. Even the boy had not been as slow as this. ‘I clobber it hard to move it. As I hit it, the barrel turns,’ he said. One day, he would have to
give some thought to an easier way of shifting the barrel. Perhaps putting it on a wheel, instead of a sledge or raft? He could have it on a trailer, but the massive shock of the detonation would
shatter any wagon at the first shot.

‘That’ll do it,’ he said to Ed. The Donkey was hardly listening, he saw. Instead, he was peering over the parapet towards the flats west of the town. ‘Hey – Donkey!
Shift yourself!’

The boy scurried down to the wooden boards at the bottom and ran to the brazier at the farther end of their trench. Here he grabbed the long coil of string Archibald had made, and thrust its end
into the fire. The match blackened and singed, and Ed blew on it to keep it glowing, while Archibald tipped powder from the flask about his throat into the little hole. He stoppered his flask and
reached for the match. ‘Stand back!’ he shouted, and shoved it down.

Béatrice, watching from the powder store, saw the high, inverted cone of smoke as the first powder sizzled in the vent, but then there was the brief pause – the tremble, almost
– and the roar as the gonne belched out its flames in a thunderous cacophony.

Archibald danced around at the breech end, shouting, ‘Did I hit it? Did I hit it?’ as the smoke rolled greasily around. Gradually, as it cleared, and he could see again, he was
struck by the sight of a cog bucketing in the sea at the harbourside. As he watched, he saw a new hole in its planking, and the cog began to move more sluggishly in the water, gradually tilting,
while shipmen ran aloft on the ropes to try to release the sails, but all to no avail.

‘Look at that!’ Archibald cried triumphantly. The unmistakable sounds of rending wood came over the water as the vessel’s planks and beams began to break apart, torn asunder by
the weight of the cargo inside.

But Donkey wasn’t watching. His attention was still fixed on the other bank of the river.

‘What on earth is it, boy?’

‘It’s that priest again. He’s spying on us, as he was before.’

Archibald poked his head over the parapet and stared. ‘Then we must do something about him, mustn’t we?’

The little castle of Bosmont rose on its own modest hillock in the bend of the River Serre. Standing on the eastern edge of the river, it loomed over them as they approached.
Berenger considered it as they trotted up the narrow pathway.

With a gatehouse that had a strong, square gateway with a drawbridge, three small towers to protect each corner, and one larger tower that was also the donjon, all mounted on a rough outcrop of
rock, it looked strong enough to survive an assault by even a very numerous army. The side facing the river was safe enough. Although it had no precipitous cliffs to deter assault, Jean said that
the ground near the river was marshy and very damp, therefore unsuitable to position men, let alone siege engines.

‘And if you look behind the castle, there are woods. It would be extremely difficult to form a body of men at any distance from here in that direction,’ he said smugly. ‘If a
man wishes to take my castle from me, he will find that I am a tough opponent!’ And he slapped his fist against his breast as he spoke.

Sir John nodded. ‘I require you to guide me all about your territory. I must view the lands and see where to place men to warn us of the advancing forces.’

Jean nodded. ‘I will come myself.’

‘Good. I shall take a cup of wine first and we must water the horses, but then I will want to get moving. We may have little time.’ The knight spurred his mount and rode on ahead,
eyeing the road at either side for points of ambush.

‘You love this castle,’ Berenger noted.

‘Of course I do! It is mine – my birthright. I have little enough left, after my King’s betrayal.’

Berenger had the good sense to hold his tongue as they rode the last yards to the castle’s gates.

Jean said bleakly, ‘If it were not for King Philippe’s intolerable desire to honour those whom he loves, I would still be with him, you understand? I am not a natural traitor. It
goes against my nature. But when he broke his oath to me, I could not maintain my own oath of fealty. What is chivalry, if the lord will not honour his part in the bargain?’

‘What happened?’

‘I was a knight in his service. In the first months of war, seven years ago, it was I who raised the army from local settlements, and we rode into the lands all about Chimay and put Jean
de Hainault’s men to flight. Those were glorious days, those. Plunder, and the joy of battle and seeing your foes flee before you. But then, the Hainaulters returned the favour, and we were
forced to run here, to my castle, where we could lick our wounds and prepare for the next fight.’