Part 17 (2/2)

'This is nothing. C'est rien. I would burn more,' she said with a coldness that sent a s.h.i.+ver of ice into his bowels. He recoiled.

'These are your people,' he said.

'I have no people,' she said. 'They killed my father and they tried to kill me. I hate them.' She turned away, and her face was fixed on the fires all about them. 'Now it is my turn for revenge.'

'Fripper, get up off your a.r.s.e!' Granda.r.s.e called.

To Berenger he was a humorous sight: red in the face, and smeared with smudges where a store of pitch had caught light. Sooty clumps had gathered on all the men nearby and made each sweaty face as dark as a Moor's. His jerkin was ripped where a falling timber had caught it.

'What now?'

'There's a force riding to the bridge at Rouen to see what the Frenchies are doing.' He spat. 'Ach, my mouth tastes like a blacksmith's taken a p.i.s.s in it! All this smoke and s.h.i.+te in the air! Sir John de Sully is going: you'll be with his private guard. I want to know what's happening up there. There'll be some hobelars riding with him, I dare say, so you won't be alone. Take my pony.'

Berenger nodded and wandered to the cart. The bowstaves were kept in waxed sleeves to protect them from the weather, and he slid three out before he found one without a knot or imperfection. He bound it with cord so it slipped over his shoulder, then took a sheaf of arrows and went to find Granda.r.s.e's pony. It was a recalcitrant beast at the best of times, and Berenger had to ram his thumb hard into its belly before he could tighten the cinch-strap. 'Cross me, you miserable git, and I'll make you into a b.l.o.o.d.y stew,' he muttered as he jerked the girth sharply.

'You are joining us, Master Fripper?' the knight enquired when Berenger trotted over to the party.

'Sir John,' Berenger said. He glanced about the rest of the men.

There were forty armed archers on horseback and ten men-at-arms. Sir John was not the only knight. Berenger recognised Sir Thomas Holland: when they took Caen, it was Sir Thomas who had accepted the surrender of the French Marshal, Sir Robert Bertrand, at the gatehouse. He was smiling now, chatting merrily with the others, as Sir John lifted his arm and called the men to ride off.

On all sides were the proofs of the English rampage. Bodies lay in the roads near their homes. At one door he saw a pale, skinny little girl with a skull-like face watching as the party rode past. The house behind her was gone: it was merely three walls with no roof, and at her feet lay two adults, so cut about and bloodied that Berenger could not tell whether they were men or women.

The sight depressed him immeasurably. He remembered his talk with the Donkey, discussing the choices of the local people, whether they would survive when two armies trampled and burned their lands. Seeing this waste made him feel more sympathy for the French peasants than for the army in which he served. He could happily fight on the battlefield; killing another man who was trying to kill him was easy. When he stood in a wall with other Englishmen, with his pike or spear pointing at the enemy charging him, he felt exultation in his heart. It was what he was good at. He knew it. He had survived battles with the Scottish and the French, and although he had known fear, he had swallowed it and fought on.

That was the measure of a man, someone once said to him: not that he was fearful of battle, but that he conquered his fear and continued to grapple and stab. There was a sensation that came from nowhere else, when he fought. A kind of thrill in the blood, an excitement that was a part of his body, not a mere 'feeling'. When a warrior wielded his sword in the line with his comrades, when he felt the first slashes of the weapons that were aimed at his death, when he felt the bite as his own sword leaped into a man's throat or breast and caught a bone, there was an exhilaration that was almost religious.

But to see this the ravaging of a vill with the peasants lying ruined in the dirt like rats caught by dogs; to see good, solid homes burned and fallen down, the grain stores broken into and their precious stocks trampled into the mud, the few possessions smashed and despoiled to see that, was to know shame. There was no pride in this, no glory or jubilation. It was simply the strong, conquering the weak. And while many would look on these poor people as mere chattels to be killed or let live, Berenger could see in them the faces of people he had known when he was a boy. He felt befouled by this pointless aggression and slaughter.

'There it is,' Sir John said.

He had taken them north to the westward bend in the river, before following it downstream towards Rouen, and now they could see the town before them.

It was similar in size, Berenger thought, to Caen, but this would be a harder town to break. The Seine curled about it, and without access to a bridge it was clear that the English would struggle to cross so wide a river.

'With me, my friends,' Sir John called, and broke into a gentle canter. 'Can you see all the men at the city walls? They are alert, in any case. Halloo! What is this?'

They were closer now, and they could clearly see the workers scurrying all over the one bridge. Berenger saw men with axes and hammers, and even as he watched, a great baulk of timber slowly leaned over and began to topple from the vertical.

There was a hill or rise in the land a mile, perhaps two, from the river, and the knights went to the top with the hobelars following after. When they reached the top, Sir Thomas Holland whistled. 'Look!'

Beyond the town Berenger saw a vast, sprawling mess of tents and makes.h.i.+ft covers, standing higgledy-piggledy in the pastures north and east of Rouen itself.

'There is the French army, then,' said Sir John. He leaned back against the cantle and stared. 'I confess, I do not think I have seen so many men gathered together in one place before. We shall need to select our ground carefully.'

'Come, Sir John,' Sir Thomas said. He reached over and tapped his mail gauntlet against the older knight's bascinet. 'The more French there are, the greater the glory. Do you not know that if the French do not outnumber us five to one, it is an unfair fight? We have fifteen thousand men, so to make it right, the French needs must have at least seventy-five thousand. Ah, me! I do not think they have enough. It will be a battle as lambs to the slaughter!'

Sir John smiled thinly, but said nothing. Berenger was glad to be fighting under Sir John rather than the younger, more hotheaded knight.

They rode off down the hill to go and study the works more closely.

It was clear that the English army would not be able to cross the bridge. It was already largely dismantled, and by the time the English arrived in force, would be broken down entirely. Even as they watched, another span of timbers fell away and floated off, a raft in the river.

'Is there a ford?' Sir Thomas asked. He was behaving like a rache who has seen the quarry, Berenger thought privately.

'Go and look, Fripper,' Sir John said, and Berenger trotted closer.

In many towns and cities, there was a toll to pay on a bridge, and men would often ride to a ford where, for the cost of sodden feet and hosen, they could cross the river for free. You could always see where a ford lay because of the tracks leading to it, the bare soil where the gra.s.s had been worn away. Here there was nothing.

He was still at the bank when he heard the sound of horses, and when he turned, he saw Sir Thomas had joined him.

'Well, Master Fripper, that is a brave sight, is it not?'

'There's no ford I can see.'

'Surely there must be something.'

'If there was, I reckon we'd have trouble trying to use it,' Berenger said. 'It would only take a few men to defend the crossing, even if we outnumbered them. At a place like this, they could let us cross and pick us off as we approached the far bank. We'd be sitting targets.'

'Oh, come now! Do you really think we couldn't force our way past them if that was our intention?'

'Sir, I think we'd lose half our army, and the other half would be slain as they tried to enter the town.'

The knight glanced at him, a confident smile on his face. Then he gave a whoop, spurred his horse and galloped off to the bridge itself. Three men were hurrying to it from a little cottage, and Sir Thomas aimed straight for them.

'Sweet Jesu, what will he do now?' Berenger muttered, and kicked his own beast to follow. Two other men-at-arms and a knight also pelted off after Sir Thomas.

Sir Thomas drew his sword and as he reached the men, he hacked viciously three times, whirling his horse and trampling their bodies. When Berenger arrived, Sir Thomas and another knight were fighting with four more Frenchmen. A pair of Frenchmen with spears arrived, and began jabbing and prodding at the horses, trying to unsettle them, but Sir Thomas managed to withdraw, then ride around so as to attack them from behind. He nearly succeeded, but the men realised their danger and ran for the river, plunging in and swimming for the other side. One of them made it, gasping as he crawled up the far bank. The second, however, disappeared. The weight of his mail, or the strong current of the river was too much for him.

When the little battle was over, Sir Thomas stood up in his stirrups, and bellowed at the French on the other bank.

'St George for King Edward! If any of you dare to meet us, we are ready!'

Sir Thomas had been cheered by the action, and he continued to joke and be merry with the other men as they jogged along. Sir John de Sully looked less sanguine, however, and Berenger saw him keeping a constant lookout for ambushes.

He was distracted by Richard Bakere, the knight's esquire, saying, 'Master Berenger, my lord would speak with you.'

Berenger nodded and urged his pony to trot up to the knight. 'Sir John you wanted me?'

'You and I are not so young as some in this army,' Sir John said. 'I remember the ride to Avignon; our old King trusted you as a solid fighting man. You are little changed, I think. I like to know that men I am selecting are sound.'

'What do you mean?'

'This war has one purpose, my friend: to crush the French army. We have enough archers to make every French infantryman look like a hedgehog, and with luck our bodkin arrows will p.r.i.c.k any French knight who tries to charge us, but some may escape even our clothyards. Of course, we have other weapons to throw them into confusion, G.o.d willing, but there are so many of these d.a.m.ned Frenchmen! You saw the size of their army at Rouen. If all should fail, we will have to act with caution.'

'You mean that we should consider retreat?' Berenger said. The idea did not appeal. The army that turned and fled was invariably the army that was destroyed. No man could fight while taking to his heels.

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