Blood on the Sand (39 page)

They were riding under the gatehouse now.

‘So,’ Berenger said, ‘what made you turn against the King?’

‘I told you. Philippe de Valois wanted to honour his friend, Sieur Henri du Bos. So Henri and I were to joust at Paris. And when the day came, the King commanded me to lose. Henri tilted
well, and he could have beaten me in a fair fight, but I had no choice: I had promised to lose. It was a moment of utter horror, for of course I would have to give him my armour and my horse, my
noble destrier. But du Bos did
not
unhorse me. I refused to be bested and lose everything. The King was furious and ordered me to submit my horse and armour because I had cheated. It was
nonsense. I had stuck to the code of chivalry as a knight must. So instead of obeying, I gathered my possessions and left Paris that same afternoon, resolved that I would have my revenge on the
knight and the King. I went straightway to the coast. I was determined to go to Edward. I exchanged messages with your King, who was pleased to accept my offer of support. And now, after my efforts
in Scotland and in Laon, when he hears of my plight, he will send more men to support me. It is one thing for me to fail to win over the populace of Laon, but another for him to allow me to lose my
castle. He would not want to see me suffer in that way. My humiliation would reflect badly upon him.’

‘Don’t forget, the King has other matters on his mind,’ Berenger cautioned. ‘With the siege of Calais uppermost, and the marriage of his daughter to the Count of
Flanders, there is plenty to occupy him.’

‘This is important though, no? He will see the importance of supporting me and saving my castle. It will become a small
bastide
in the heart of France.’

Berenger said nothing. He had his doubts. There were times when Edward of England could be thoroughly helpful and generous, but when he was at war, he became focused on that, to the exclusion of
all else. But perhaps Jean was correct. After all, the King had sent men down here: a token force, granted, but a force nonetheless. And he was concentrating all his efforts on destroying the
French, which was the reason for his daughter’s marriage: to ally the Count of Flanders to his cause. If he could see this little castle as helping his cause, perhaps he would consider
sending support troops.

He looked about him as the archers dropped from their horses, rubbing sore backsides and thighs, complaining as only English archers would, about the heat, and their thirst for women and wine,
preferably at the same time, and he felt that they might be able to hold this place.

Yes, they just might.

‘Gauvain de Bellemont, you have been found guilty of conspiracy to treason, of conspiring to overthrow the community of this city, and of plotting with confederates to
bring the town under the control of the treacherous Sir Edward of England. You are sentenced to life imprisonment.’

Gauvain had been captured in Rheims, and brought here to Laon in the afternoon of the same day. This trial was a surprise. He had not expected to survive so long. But the officials here had
declared his sentence, and it would be a thoroughly hideous existence. He had seen the gaols here and at Metz; the ones at Laon were more comfortable than those at Metz – the innermost rings
of Hell would be more comfortable than
them
. They were wet, with green slime on the walls where the poor light at least permitted some colour to be observed, and with a stinking stream that
flowed along the middle of the floor, full of turds. When the rains came and the stream rose, men sleeping on the floor could be smothered in fecal deposits floating in the floodwaters. At least
Laon had a bucket.

He was hustled from the officer’s hall, and out into the sunshine. Here he was chained and locked to a cart for the shameful ride to the prison. He was forced to sit facing backwards to
emphasise his humiliation. As he waited for the cart to start on its journey, he saw people gathering, unsmiling, hostile. He had been promised incarceration, but these good citizens did not
approve of such an easy escape for him. He had been willing to put their lives at risk, after all. If he had succeeded, he would have allowed English soldiers into their city. Colluding with the
enemy to give away their city, he would have carelessly sentenced many of them to their deaths.

They knew that. And now they wanted their revenge.

‘Driver! Carter!’ he shouted. ‘Take me to the gaol, I beg!’

There was no sound, and when he looked over his shoulder, he saw that the carter was nowhere to be seen. This was clearly a spontaneous mob, desiring to show him their contempt, and the carter,
fearing for his life, had fled.

‘You’re all brave enough now, I see,’ he shouted. ‘You’ll come out to show your courage now, eh?’

He could see the first men and women hefting stones. At the sight he felt his bowels loosen and he could not hold his bladder. All his powers of persuasion failed him now as the trickle of
pungent urine ran down his hosen, and he began to sob. He wanted to shout for the official, to plead for his life, but when he glanced at the steps leading to the hall, he saw the man standing at
the top of them, watching silently. He obviously knew all about this gathering – had probably organised it. An extra punishment for the man who would have seen the city laid waste and
besieged. The man who would willingly have seen the official himself slain.

A howl of rage, a roar of disapproval, a woman screeching at him . . . and then a heavy stone crashed against the side of the cart near his left forearm. He stared down at the mark on the wood
where the stone had struck. It had left a massive dent. The wagon shuddered as another rock hit the cart-bed on his right side, and then a cobble smacked into his knee and he screamed.

He screamed for a long time, until the last rock crushed his skull and he could scream no more.

The castle was a secure, comfortable group of buildings huddled inside the walls. True, it had been designed some decades before, in the happy days when it was common for men
to bed down with their lords in the same building. Nowadays, with guards loyal only for as long as they were paid, it was more normal to keep the guards separate from the lord and his family. Too
often had mercenary guards turned traitor, despoiling and murdering their own lords, Berenger knew. But for all that, it was warm and cosy, and Berenger could see why Jean de Vervins was so fond of
the place.

Sir John had ordered that the men should be sent out in regular two-vintaine patrols to spy out the land, both to find out when the French army was approaching and to seek out
good places for ambushes or attacks.

Leaving Marguerite and her son at the castle for their safety, Berenger had taken his vintaine to the north, in a sweep roughly a league away, when news came to them of Gauvain’s
death.

They had been riding gently that morning in deference to Berenger’s fragile mood. He had a splitting headache, a queasy stomach, and a trembling sensation in his hands and legs. In short,
he was badly hungover. As the two vintaines rode past deserted farmsteads, his mood was not improved by the sight of the columns of smoke rising on all sides.

He had known that the vintaines which had come this way yesterday had returned laden with plunder, but to see the results of their efforts was shocking even to him. Berenger had seen many
examples of rape and slaughter in his time. The roads to Crécy were filled with the wounded and the dead after the army had passed by. Yet to see this carnage on a smaller scale was somehow
more distressing.

‘Pointless waste,’ he muttered.

Jack was riding nearby, his eyes on the hedgerows and any other places that could possibly conceal an ambush. ‘Why does he do it?’

‘Jean de Vervins has no brain, but seeks to profit from the distress of others. He thinks King Edward will come here to rescue him. The fool is turning every peasant against
him.’

It was unnecessary. There was no need to bring war to these peaceful, flat fields. Sir John and Grandarse had no desire to draw an army towards them any sooner than must inevitably happen, but
this kind of wanton destruction was bound to lead to exactly that: a retaliatory raid by all the forces available to the local men.

‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’ he grunted as another spasm made his stomach send acid into his throat. He grimaced at the taste and bitter sting, and took a sip of water from his leather
flask. It didn’t help, just as his chewing a hunk of dry bread had not helped earlier. It just made his belly rumble and complain still more. He thrust the cork back into the neck with
excessive force and almost broke it.

‘Rider, Frip!’

He looked up in time to see a man cantering towards them. He wore a russet tunic and his green cloak snapped and jerked in his wake. Berenger said, ‘Archers,
keep your eyes
open
!’

The fellow was only young, but was plainly no fool. At the sight of the archers, he slowed and came closer at a trot: brisk enough, but wary.

‘Sir, are you English?’

Berenger grinned sardonically. The fact of their bows should have been confirmation enough. ‘Yes. And you too, from your voice.’

‘I am. I’m looking for the castle of Bosmont and Jean de Vervins or Sir John de Sully.’

‘You’re three leagues from it. If you want, we can take you there.’

‘Good. I’ve been riding for the last day without pause. I’ll be glad to reach the place at last.’

‘You have urgent messages?’

‘That useless prickle, the Count of Flanders, has escaped – and some think he could be heading this way.’

‘But he was to marry the King’s daughter,’ Berenger said.

‘Aye, he was. He’s kept the King and all his entourage dangling in Flanders these past weeks with the constant promise of compliance, but now he’s flown the coop and all we can
do is curse him! Unless, of course, he rides straight into some of our own men.’

Berenger scowled. This was terrible news. He had thought that the Flemings were all on the side of the English, and if their leader had left, what would happen to the rest of the country?

‘Does that mean the people will side with their Count?’ he asked.

‘Hah! After he fled, his brother tried to raise an army.’ The messenger fell into step with the vintaine as they began to make their way back to the castle. ‘The people heard
of his plans, caught him and executed him. The Flemings want their freedom and they can see themselves getting it from King Edward.’

Berenger nodded, and questioned the messenger about all the activities in Flanders and at Calais.

‘There is little enough to tell about the siege,’ the man said when he had told of the fighting to the north. ‘The French are desperate to have supplies arrive, but we have
tightened our fist about the place. They won’t be getting any more food in there, or I’m a Saracen. The last attempt left them with three of their ships destroyed; after that the rest
turned tail and fled.’

‘That is all to the good,’ Berenger said. ‘So long as the siege lasts long enough for us to join in again. Otherwise my men will string me up for allowing Sir John to bring us
all down here. The rewards will be much better in Calais!’

But he didn’t relish the thought. He had not forgotten his feelings at the sight of the dead after the battle outside Durham. The young Frenchman who had been poleaxed in front of him
still returned to him in his dreams. It was part of the reason for his drinking: not only to help him alleviate the pain of his wound, but also to help him forget that young face.

Perhaps he had seen enough of war, he thought.

Archibald was scurrying around the muzzle of his great gonne like some sort of demented ant, Béatrice thought as he darted hither and thither, swabbing, drying, filling
it with powder, tamping it down, rolling a ball of stone into it, ramming it home, and then clambering up the slope to the vent.

She was watching from the west of the town. There was a stand of trees and bushes here that had so far miraculously survived the depredations of soldiers desperate for firewood. It was here, so
Archibald had said, that the man kept appearing, watching over the town and Archibald’s gonnes. She was to see if she could work out who he was, and bring news to Archibald without running
any silly risks. But so far there was no sign of him. She could see much of the shoreline from here, and the first of the moats and walls encircling the town, but the only fellows hereabouts were
soldiers and tradesmen plying their wares.

Up at the gonne’s little fortress she saw a sudden jet of smoke rise vertically. There was a blast of flames from the muzzle, and the thick column of smoke belched forth, dissipating as it
reached halfway across the moat, the thick roiling blackness looking like smoke from the Devil’s own furnaces. From this distance she could understand why men looked upon Archibald’s
devices as hideous machines of Satan.

A loud crack, and the rock flung from the gonne struck a wall and shattered into a thousand shards. The wall, however, showed little damage, and she bit her lip worriedly. Archibald was so
convinced that his great tubes would devastate buildings and walls, and yet his greatest gonne had achieved little more than to pepper the town walls with dusty marks where his stones had smashed
themselves to smithereens.