Fields of Glory (37 page)

Berenger asked Geoff and Jack to pick up Matt’s body and put it in the cart.

‘No! I’ll take him!’

Berenger was surprised to see Clip barging the other two out of his way. Tears ran down Clip’s face as he stood a moment over Matt, and then he bent and gathered up the body. He carried
his comrade to the cart and gently laid him in it, standing a while with his hand resting on Matt’s breast.

‘I want a priest for him,’ he said.

‘We’ll find him a priest later,’ Berenger said.

‘I want him seen to – properly, mind.’

Geoff put a hand on his back. ‘We will, Clip. We’ll make sure he has a good burial.’

Clip nodded, and walked away to sit on a fallen log, his head bowed.

Berenger exchanged a look with Geoff. Neither had thought that Clip was so attached to Matt.

While the injured had their wounds seen to, Sir John de Sully’s esquire came riding up.

‘Sir John needs your help, Vintener,’ he said. ‘There’s fighting at the next town.’

‘We’re already in the middle of a fight, Richard,’ Berenger said sharply.

‘The King’s orders are that no one should delay. The whole army is moving slowly because of the vanguard, and now some of the Prince’s men are attacking a town even though
they’ve been ordered to leave it. Sir John asks that you join him, so that you can help persuade these fools to leave their plunder, and come away. If the army is halted, the French will
overtake us – and that will mean the death of us all!’

Berenger glanced at the others. Geoff shrugged, while Jack stood and shouldered his weapons, saying philosophically, ‘Aye, well, we won’t get anywhere by sitting on our
arses.’

Clip spat into the dirt at his feet with a display of petulance. ‘Why
us
again, eh? Why do they keep on sending
us
whenever there’s another battle? Haven’t we
already done enough? Matt’s hardly cold, and they want us to go risk our lives again?’

The esquire was about to comment, but Berenger gave him a warning shake of the head.

Clip rose to his feet, muttering all the while, ‘Aye, well, we’ll all get ourselves slaughtered. You do know that? We’ll all be murdered by the bastard French.’

‘Not you, Clip,’ Berenger said, as he pulled his sword loose and examined the blade. ‘You’re the one they count on to single-handedly ruin the army’s
morale.’

‘Aye, it’s a knack I have.’

They mounted their ponies, and soon were rattling along behind the esquire towards the next town, Vessencourt.

It was obvious that they were too late. Smoke was gathered and balled by the gusting winds, looking like thick clumps of fleece, dirty and grey, before being whisked away. All about, they could
smell the charring and scorched grounds, while amidst that were other odours: the tang of sweet, burned meat, the foulness of feathers and fur, a disgusting concoction that assailed the nostrils
like a noisome poison.

Across the plain, they could see the devastation as they approached. Sir John stood in the midst of the ruin staring about him with a gleaming fury in his eyes. Berenger had never seen him so
angry.

‘You see this? All this? They came here at the middle of the day to rob and pillage, as though we have all the time in the world to enjoy taking women! It was hardly a town worth the name,
but the fools came here to plunder, and for that they were prepared to risk their lives and our entire enterprise. Damn their souls! God rot them!’

‘Where are they now?’ Berenger said.

‘God in His heaven must know, but I’ll be damned if I do!’ Sir John shouted, infuriated. He calmed himself with an effort. ‘We will have to follow their trail. Richard,
do you return to my Lord Warwick and ask that we have more men to curtail this meandering, and then hurry back with them. We shall have to try to find these fools and pull them back to the army.
However, Richard, make it clear that the army must continue. Let my Lord the Prince know that another few men must be set to scout ahead, until we are returned.’

‘I shall, Sir John.’

‘Then ride, man, ride! What are you hanging about for? Be fleet! Master Fripper, I depend upon you and your men. Come!’

The trail was not hard to follow. The men who had burned Vessencourt had left a broad path of devastation in their wake. A road of mud and dirt over ten yards wide stretched away into the
distance before them. They set their ponies’ heads to the north and cantered on.

Occasional farmsteads and hamlets were sprinkled over the flat landscape. Most were ablaze, the thatch sending up thick, greenish yellow fumes that caught in a man’s throat and made him
choke. Worse was the ever present odour of burned pork. It had nothing to do with pigs: this was the smell of roasting human flesh.

‘How many men are missing?’ Berenger asked Sir John.

‘Maybe four centuries. Enough to make all this damned mess. But the fools will be slaughtered if they try to take a town. Especially since they’ll be roaring drunk by now.’

There was no need to explain his words. Every few yards as they rode, they passed little jugs or barrels that had been discarded. Clearly the men had stolen all the drink from the houses they
had plundered.

It was a league or more further on when they came across the first stragglers.

‘Hoi!’ Sir John bellowed, and clapped spurs to his rounsey. There ahead were four or five men staggering along under a weight of goods. Berenger kicked his pony into a trot to catch
up with him.

‘What are you men doing up here?’ Sir John bawled as he reined in before the men.

To Berenger they had the appearance of peasants who had been called to muster for the first time. One man he recognised: a tall fellow with a sullen expression who carried a strung bow, while
the others were happily drunk and oblivious.

‘My Lord?’ one asked, hiccuping. A friend of his was giggling beside him, and he slapped away his proffered cask of wine. ‘We are following our comrades.’

The man whose cask had been rejected gave a long, loud belch. ‘There’s good pickings up here. We’ll all be rich men.’

‘You will be rich and dead,’ Sir John declared flatly. ‘You are guilty of abandoning the King’s host without permission, and engaging yourselves on a wild hunt for
plunder on your own account. For that the penalty is death.’

While the other men appeared to sober swiftly, the taller, sullen man spoke. ‘Why should we take
your
word for that, Sir Knight? You come here and tell us we’re in the wrong
but it’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? To ravage the land just as the King has so far. We’re doing his job for him. He should be grateful.’

‘Your King has ordered you to make all haste to beat the French to the Somme, and you and your companions are putting us all in jeopardy by delaying him. You are giving the French a chance
to catch us.’

‘Then we can go on to the next bridge,’ the man said truculently.

‘Like we did on the way to Paris, you mean?’ Sir John said his tone mildly.

Berenger remembered the fellow now: Mark Tyler was his name. God, the day he and Roger had sat and discussed their new recruits seemed an age ago. He eyed the man warily.

‘Well, Archer, return to the army and be swift about it, and I will forget your insubordination,’ Sir John said.

‘Go swyve a goat,’ Tyler said. He squared up to Sir John’s horse. ‘I don’t know who you are, but why shouldn’t we go after the rest of our
vintaine?’

‘You refuse a knight’s order?’ Sir John demanded.

Tyler grinned. ‘Come with us to Beauvais! There are rich takings there, so we’ve heard. Good wine, money, furs, gold, everything. Come with us, and we’ll all be wealthier than
the dreams of a prince!’

Berenger was getting impatient. ‘Tyler, do you realise this knight is one of the Prince’s own advisers? You idiot! You place your life in peril. Even if you carry on, the town is
well-defended and the French army is approaching. Our army may succeed in crossing the Somme if we are swift, but the way things are, I doubt it. Come! There is nothing for us here. Not
today.’

Tyler nodded reluctantly. ‘Very well.’

‘Where are the rest of the men?’ Berenger asked.

‘Follow the tracks,’ Tyler shrugged, at which Sir John nodded and rode away. As Berenger was about to ride off after him, Tyler stepped forward. ‘Master, before you go, can you
spare one or two men to help us with our baggage? The cart is broken, and we have a great deal to carry. It’s mostly provisions, master, not treasure. If you send me two men, I will let them
bring half away with them.’

Berenger considered. The men were all hungry, as he was himself. He looked over his shoulder and called, ‘Walt and Gil: come here.’

He gave them instructions to help Tyler and his drunken companions, and then to head back to the vintaine, as fast as possible, before dark. The first few yards on his own, Berenger felt deeply
uncomfortable, as though a man had painted a target upon his back, and he half-expected a clothyard arrow to bury itself in his spine at any moment.

He was also anxious about what he might find when they caught up with the rest of the renegades. It might not be so easy to cow them.

‘Hoi!’

Berenger turned to see Gil waving. ‘What?’

‘Leave the Donkey with us. We’ll have need of someone to help carry the stuff.’

Berenger glanced at Ed. The lad was downcast. His eyes were red-rimmed and glittered as if he had a fever. ‘Ed? Do you want to go with them?’

‘I’ll go where you tell me, sir. I’m only a porter, after all. I have no opinions or feelings. I’m just here to fetch and carry.’

‘Then
go
! Obey Gil and Walt. They are responsible for you,’ Berenger snapped.

Before he turned back to the trail, he watched the boy shamble off towards the other group of men with a strange presentiment of loss. It was almost as though he was saying farewell to an old
comrade rather than a foolish youth who had been continual source of petty annoyance.

‘Damn him!’ he muttered, and turned to the trail once more.

Only later would he come to regret that decision, when he realised the full horror and danger involved.

Ed found the going hard. Although he had no shoes, his feet were toughened, and the stones and pebbles caused him little trouble, but the speed that Tyler reckoned was
necessary was difficult to cope with. The party hurried on, heading north and west, to avoid Beauvais altogether and so come upon the Somme farther to the west.

Tyler had made up his mind to be friendly, and he chatted and told jokes as they made their way along the rough tracks, soon reducing Gil and Walt to helpless laughter, but Ed remained unamused.
There was an underlying cruelty about this man that Ed disliked and distrusted.

True, the same could be said for most of the men in the army. They were trained killers, when all was said and done. Yet the majority – apart from the Welsh men of Erbin’s vintaine
– had shown him sympathy and kindness, Ed thought.

‘You all right, lad?’ Gil said now, breaking into his thoughts.

‘My feet are sore, my shoulders chafe from these bags and my belly aches from hunger – but I won’t die of any of them,’ Ed said.

‘You have a good sense of humour, boy. It’s lucky, we all need it here.’

Yes, it was true that the kindness of men like Gil and Walt and Jack, and poor Will and Matt, was often gruff, yet it was kindly given, and that was the most important thing for Ed. He was
beginning to feel, for the first time ever, as though he was a wanted, useful member of the vintaine. Gil hadn’t needed to ask for him, but had done so anyway.

Only Berenger didn’t appreciate him.

‘My thanks for asking for me to come with you,’ Ed said.

Gil looked down at him with a twisted smile. ‘You didn’t want to go with Berenger, did you?’

‘He’s the bastard son of a Winchester goose,’ Ed mimicked.

‘Son of a whore, eh? Your language is developing nicely,’ Gil chuckled. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Because I can say and do nothing that will please him. Anything I do say, he derides or pulls to pieces to make me look foolish. Today, after that fight, he insulted me. I don’t
deserve that: it’s not fair. I don’t even report to him any more. I am with the gynour, with Archibald, not with the vintaine, but does he show me any kindness or mercy? No!’

‘You know he was once like you?’

‘Who, Berenger?’

‘Aye. His parents were killed, and he would have died too, if the King hadn’t taken pity and seen to him. He saw his mother killed, and his father, so I heard. He doesn’t like
to have youngsters with him in battle now, and if he must have them, he dislikes those who speak too much of killing. He believes it’s better for boys to be spared the sight of death, and
also the risk of their own death.’

‘What of it? I’m no
boy
!’

‘Today he killed three boys. You should try to understand him. It was hard for him. I wouldn’t care, I’ve killed too many – but Fripper is different. He feels each
one.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so. None of us want to wage war on the young, Ed. If you meet a man with a sword and kill him in a fair fight, that is good. It warms the heart. To learn that you have killed a
youngster does not.’