Blood on the Sand (41 page)

Grandarse pulled Berenger aside.

‘What do you make of that then, eh, Fripper? Sounded to me like the Frenchie wants to get out of this without too much fuss.’

‘Well, he would,’ Berenger said. His attention was still on the Frenchmen outside the gates. There was a certain amount of shouting and running around.

‘There is another thing though, Frip. He reeled off all those names – Gauvain and his son and that. Sounds to me like the whole venture has gone tits up. There’s little
advantage to us or anyone else in staying here to be massacred.’

‘We should be able to hold the place.’

Grandarse nodded sagely. ‘Oh yes – we should. Now,’ he turned and faced the besiegers once more, ‘let me think . . . All we need is some artillery, and maybe some more
men. Of course, having only about a hundred men is good, because it means we can count on plenty of space to swing our blades, but there is the little problem of them having several blades to every
one of ours. Look at them, Frip! How many men do you think they have against us, eh?’

‘They do have more than us.’

‘
More
? I don’t know if you noticed, Frip, but they have what looks to me like a thousand, perhaps more. More than ten men for every one of ours. Yes, our lads are competent,
but we cannot win a siege like this. Look, we have the men in here from Laon, and Jean too. We could let them have the castle and the men they want, in exchange for our freedom, couldn’t we?
Eh? They’d have to agree to let us walk out with all our weapons, but that should be reasonable, don’t you think?’

‘I think we would be ridiculed if we were to try it,’ Berenger answered. ‘What would Sir John say? I think he’d refuse.’

‘Perhaps he would. But it’s surely worth trying. We’d survive to fight another day.’

Berenger caught a movement from the corner of his eye, and shouted: ‘They’re at the foot of the wall here. Archers,
prepare to defend yourselves
!’

Under cover of the parley, a couple of score of men had made for the woods at the edge of the river, and now they were dashing at full tilt along the rough ground, just as John of Essex had
predicted. They bore heavy scaling ladders, and already the first two ladders were rising into the air.

‘Archers,
hit the men with the ladders
!’ Berenger roared, and in a moment three arrows were winging their way towards the men at the nearer ladder, but all missed,
over-striking. They were enough to terrify the French, but not to dissuade them.

‘Aim low! Aim low!’ he cried. ‘They are below us, don’t forget. Adjust your aim.’

Two more arrows flew, and one struck a man at the next ladder, who immediately began shrieking like an injured rabbit, and soon the archers had their mark and were sending regular flights at
their targets.

A group of French fighters, screaming and shrieking to keep their morale up, ran into a hail of arrows and were flung to the ground, writhing as they died. Only after twenty-three men had been
killed, and many others injured and helped from the field, did the French cease their reckless attacks. They withdrew to a safe distance . . . and soon afterwards came the sound of splintering wood
and hammering. When they returned, they were carrying strong pavises, constructed from cart-beds, that would protect two or three men. With these they ran safely to the walls again, but once at the
wall they were at the mercy of the archers once more. The English arrows would penetrate an inch of good oak when sent from a strong bow, and now most passed straight through the pavises as though
the wood was little stronger than parchment.

Once more the French withdrew, and this time they remained out of sight while they considered their next assault.

Mark Tyler stood at the edge of the walkway, peering down with a curled lip as he aimed and loosed. Berenger drew his own bow and felt the tension first in his shoulder, then in his face as the
scar seemed to surge with heat. He loosed, feeling the bow’s lurch as the string ran along his bracer, and saw his arrow fly straight and true into the thigh of a man-at-arms at the edge of
the woods. Another man darted out to help him to safety, and two arrows narrowly missed him, although one did pass through the arm of the already injured man, making him howl afresh.

That was their problem, Berenger knew. While they had plenty of arrows, the archers must make each one count. There were simply too many Frenchmen surrounding the castle for them to waste a
single one. While in a battle, archers could depend on being able to rescue arrows from the field, but, here, all arrows loosed were arrows lost.

They would need to be more careful or this siege would not last long.

At his post on the wall, the spy reflected that this was the third time he had been forced to fight against his compatriots on the side of his enemies. It was galling to think
that, as soon as the French under the Compte de Roucy entered the castle, he would become just another victim of their savage vengeance.

He drew his bow and loosed at a man running to the wall. The fellow was struck in the thigh, and hobbled his way back to the French lines.

Yes, the only way for the English to leave the castle alive would be if a truce was agreed. But how could a man guarantee that? And Jean de Vervins would never surrender. He knew what would
happen to him, were he to do so.

A plan began to form in the spy’s mind.

As his men kept up their steady effort, Sir John walked amongst them, offering them encouragement and support. There were a series of sudden attacks, but each was quickly
beaten off. Berenger could see that the French numbers were not showing against the professionalism of the archers. If the attackers had been experienced at warfare, the outcome would have been
much less certain, but these were men who only that morning had been labouring in their fields. When a few arrows hit their friends, the others would tend to withdraw rather than remain and sustain
the attempt. English soldiers would have behaved with more commitment, unconcerned by the injuries of others, aware that the best way to keep safe is to end an attack as swiftly as possible –
and press home with utmost energy.

The walkway on the wall was full of men. Berenger had to push past archers leaning over and loosing arrows. The Earl turned to him, his usually laconic face stern, next to Dogbreath, who seemed
to be panting like a hound. Pardoner was further along, near Tyler, and both were drawing and releasing as quickly as they could nock their arrows.

He made for the northernmost point of the walkway, and there he pointed out two more men, and as he saw Jack and Clip turn and target them, he felt his foot slip. There was a moment of sheer
panic, and then he was falling, staring up at the wall as he hurtled down to the ground inside the castle. A mere moment, but it lasted for a year: an age in which he had plenty of time to see the
faces of Tyler, Pardoner and Grandarse staring down at him.

He tried to twist, but there was no protection from the jarring agony when he struck the roof of the stables only some six feet below; fortunately the thick straw thatch broke his fall well. For
a brief instant he thought himself safe, but then, with a mighty crack, the timbers gave way and he was falling again, his head striking a rail as he went.

Hitting the hard-packed soil of the stable, he felt the breath slammed from his breast. For a long while he could only lie, winded, as the ghastliness of his situation was brought home to him.
He attempted to move a leg, but pain exploded in his brain and he gave a long, shuddering gasp.

And then he was falling again, into what felt like a narrow well with no bottom.

‘
Fuck my old boots!
’ Grandarse bellowed, staring down as Berenger disappeared through the roof. ‘John! Oi, John! Fripper’s fallen from the wall,
and he’s landed in the stable. Get him out, man!’

John of Essex stopped supervising the oils in their great vats and ran for the stables. Inside all was mayhem, and he had to push past startled horses and ponies to get to the place where the
roof had collapsed. Spars and planks lay haphazardly all over the floor, and amidst the mess of straw, thick, dried ferns and maddened horses, he could see the vintener. The sun’s shafts
falling through the hole in the roof were thick with dust from the dry vegetation, and John began to cough as he hurried to the prone figure. ‘Help me!’ he bawled, and began to cast
about for a means of carrying Berenger from the room.

A short while later, he and one of his vintaine left the stables, the two carrying a broad trestle-table top with Berenger lashed loosely to it. They were only a few yards from the entrance,
when there was a scream, and Marguerite rushed to John’s side, staring down at Berenger’s bleeding face.

‘Mistress, away, if you please. I have to get him indoors to safety,’ John said.

‘Bring him to the hall, where I can tend to him. No – now!’ she added, as she saw his eyes move to the walls once again. John glared, but nodded to the other archer, and the
two carried Berenger inside as she had commanded.

‘Look after him well,’ John said threateningly, but there was a series of shouts and cries from outside, and he ran out again.

Marguerite looked down at Berenger and very slowly began to weep.

‘Do not die, M’sieur. Do not die.’

At the first lull in the fighting, John of Essex pulled off his bascinet and wiped his sweaty hair away from his brow. It had been a hard series of skirmishes, with men
storming the walls as well as the gates, in rushes. But their assaults were badly coordinated, and the men on the walls were able to beat them off. A score or more of the enemy were horribly
incinerated when boiling oil was tipped over, scalding those it struck and then igniting and enveloping still more in the engulfing flames. The screams and shrieks of agony were so intense, so
frightful, that for a moment both garrison and attackers stood back, appalled. But now the French were consumed by the urge to avenge their dead, and they redoubled their assaults.

At the middle of the afternoon, both sides withdrew for a rest. The archers of John’s vintaine leaned against the battlements or slumped to the floor. There were two boys in his group: one
sat blubbing in the corner by the tower, while the other, a younger boy, knelt on the walkway and stared about him, his eyes wide with shock. John was relieved to see a grizzled old archer pull the
lad to him and hug him, rocking him gently.

Some of the garrison were set to collecting bodies and hurling them over the walls, and then John went down to see how Fripper was.

He liked Fripper. There was something about him that encouraged loyalty from his men. John had worked with others of supposedly more experience who did not inspire that kind of confidence.
Fripper did. John had tried to analyse what it was about the man, but he could not isolate it. It was something to do with the way he gave men his trust but didn’t ask anything in return. He
expected them to act as he wished, and his belief in them seemed to bear fruit.

‘How is he?’ he asked as he entered the chamber.

Fripper was still lying on the trestle where John had left him, and while Marguerite had wiped and cleaned his face, there was still a lot of blood. John could see that he was very pale. Every
so often he would shiver, and a hand would twitch.

‘What do you think?’ she said crossly. ‘He is lucky to be alive.’

‘He would be dead, were it not for the stable roof.’

‘He has had a blow to the head, but I do not think he will die.’

‘That’s a relief, anyway. Do you need anything from me to help you?’

‘No.’

‘Then look to him well, mistress. We need him.’

She nodded and turned back to her charge. John stood staring down at Fripper, and shook his head sadly. As he left the room, he almost barged straight into Tyler.

‘Where are you going?’ he demanded as Tyler stepped aside.

‘Me? In there. I’m parched.’

‘Get back to your post, Tyler, and don’t leave it again or I’ll have you flogged.’

‘You aren’t my vintener!’

John recalled looking up and seeing Tyler’s face on the walkway after Berenger’s fall. He lifted his hands and shoved Tyler hard in the breast, sending him staggering backwards.

‘Hey! What are you doing?’

‘You want to argue about my right to command you? You want to dispute my authority? Or do you just want to get in there and finish the job?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I saw you up on the walkway when he fell. You were there, weren’t you? Be easy to make a man slip and fall, wouldn’t it?’

‘I would never do that!’

Grandarse suddenly appeared. Barging his way between the two, he physically separated them and glared from one to the other.

‘He says I pushed Fripper off the wall, but I didn’t! You were there, Grandarse, you saw what happened. He just slipped and fell,’ Tyler said desperately.

‘I saw him falling through the air, no more,’ Grandarse said, looking at John. ‘What did you see?’

‘Only his face as Frip fell,’ John said, and shoved at Tyler again. ‘I think this prickle did it on purpose.’

‘I didn’t even touch him, Grandarse!’

Grandarse looked at Tyler. There was no sympathy in his eyes, but his voice was firm. ‘John, we can discuss this later, but for now we have a castle to defend. Tyler, go back to your
vintaine on the wall. Do not leave your place again.’

As Tyler left them, John spat at the ground. ‘He did it!’

Grandarse suddenly span on him. ‘Don’t give me that ballocks, man.’ He thrust his face forward until John could feel the spittle hit his cheeks as Grandarse hissed, ‘We
have a fuckin’ enemy outside those walls, you understand?
They
’re the enemy. Anyone in here is a friend because we need them all! Don’t you dare piss around and cost us
another man on top of the ones we’ve already lost.’

‘But he might—’

‘I don’t give a farthing’s fuck what he may or may not have done. If it looks like he did something, we’ll sort that out later, once –
once
–
we’ve escaped this place. You understand me? You go around causing trouble inside the castle and I’ll cut your throat meself!’