The French on the bridge were fighting with the determination borne of despair. None wanted to give up: they would fight to the very last man.
Then he saw Welshmen pouring into the roadway behind the French. They were rushing along the bridge, and the French didn’t see their danger until it was too late and they were hemmed in. Some tried to surrender, but were cut to pieces where they stood. The others fought on with grim resolve. They knew that there would be no prisoners taken today.
Berenger had fought all the way here, with Geoff roaring and slashing beside him, while Clip seemed to be possessed by a frenzy, spinning and striking like a berserker. Will the Wisp was to his right, wielding his sword and dagger with lunatic disregard for his own safety.
The French were demoralised. They had expected to keep the English from their city. Their enemy’s sudden advance had shocked the citizens. Driven back, they fell over themselves to get to the South Gate, and once there, their mistake was clear. They were attempting to hold the gates closed with timbers and the strength of their men, when the Welsh fell upon their rear.
Sodden from wading across the river, the Welsh fought with all their hearts, and the French defenders died not knowing which way to turn on the bridge’s tight-packed street.
Amidst the French fleeing or dying on the road before him, Berenger moved forward. With Geoff on one side, and Clip, Will and Jon close behind, he made his way across the bridge and into the streets beyond.
Houses rose high overhead, some with jetties almost touching. There were shops and stalls here, and the English must fight whilst avoiding the dead and dying and the loose stones that lay about.
The road ahead was blocked by a rampart of carts, boxes, barrels and anything else that could be collected. This barrier had been thrown together in panic as the English approached, and here the fighting was brutal: a hand-to-hand combat that moved back and forth as men clung to each other, stabbing at any exposed body part, hacking with swords, knives and daggers. The injured must remain standing, for the crush was so tight that those who fell were soon trampled to death.
Berenger grappled with a heavy-set warrior wielding an axe, and when the man fell, Berenger felt himself tumble forward also, in a welter of other men. The French barrier had collapsed, and their defence with it. As soon as he was up again, Berenger bellowed his rallying cry.
In only a short time they were in the island town. The defenders melted away, and Berenger found himself panting in a road full of bodies. There was a moment’s calm as he bent, resting his fists on his thighs, gazing about him.
His vintaine was all around him, while the fighting ahead mainly involved Welshmen throwing themselves into the fray, and fighting fearlessly. Occasionally a whistle and hiss would betray a passing crossbow quarrel, some of which found their mark in hapless victims further along the roadway.
A stone was thrown from a house, crushing a man’s head, and a roar of defiance went up from the French. As he watched, Berenger saw a group of seven Genoese rise, all with spanned crossbows. They fired a volley into the Welsh, and so close were they that almost all their missiles passed through their targets and injured more men behind.
‘’Ware the stone!’ Berenger heard, and Will shoved him in the back. He stumbled, only just avoiding a large rock which crashed into the ground where he had been standing. Looking up, he saw two Frenchmen with a steel bar at the topmost level of the house, on the parapet of the wall, levering away the stones to send them tumbling onto the English below. A cold dread entered his bowels.
‘Archers! Aloft!’ he commanded.
Clip was quickest, and his first arrow took the nearer man under his chin. The fellow’s head snapped up, and he danced on the dangerous wall for a moment, then dropped down. Before his body hit the ground, the second man was pierced by three more arrows, and he disappeared.
‘Will: get more arrows. Send the Donkey,’ Berenger said tersely, and Will was gone, haring back through the streets as Berenger ducked into a doorway.
There was a regular clatter of rocks and stones now, and when Berenger peered from his hiding place, he saw a Welsh spearman hit by a rock. It crushed his head like a ripe cherry, shearing away arm and shoulder. A second caught a man at his hip, and he fell, roaring with pain and disbelief. More crossbow bolts came flying down the street at belly-height, and Berenger saw two men thrown to the ground.
Will was not gone for long. He rushed to Berenger’s side and ducked in, another quarrel missing him by mere inches.
‘Donkey’s fetching them,’ he gasped.
‘Good. We need to clear these bastard Genoese dogs,’ Berenger snarled.
Will nodded, but he couldn’t shoot from here without exposing himself. As another bolt hissed past, he took a deep breath and threw himself over to the other side of the road, slamming into a doorway. From there he steadied his bow, an arrow nocked ready. There was a zip as a bolt hurtled past Berenger’s face and struck the doorframe.
For an instant, his heart stopped. Then he yelled, ‘Will someone please get that bastard?’
There was a flurry of arrows, and he heard screams. Peering from his doorway he saw two Genoese squirming in agony on the ground, while another lay dead beside them. Shouting, Berenger leaped from his cover and pelted along the road. At a flash of movement, he ducked behind some barrels. He saw Clip and Will darting from the road as a flight of bolts hissed by. One man fell back against the men behind him, a bolt impaling him through his mail shirt. He fell to his rump, mouth moving uselessly as he stared at the bolt, before his eyes rolled up and he died.
‘Heads down!’ Berenger bawled at the top of his voice, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Crossbows up there!’
Will was in a doorway and already had his bow ready. With his back to the wall, he bent his bow, peering for a target. At a movement, he loosed, and Berenger turned to see it fly, a flat trajectory, and strike a man in the skull at the barricade. He went down with the arrow embedded, the fletchings projecting like a decorated splinter.
Behind Will, behind a pillar, Clip was grinning evilly as he peered down the length of another arrow. A man moved, Clip loosed his arrow, and the man fell with a shrill shriek, the cloth-yard in the small of his back. Then the Genoese bowmen stood again. Berenger ducked back into the doorway
That was when he saw Ed running forward, his arms filled with sheaves of arrows.
‘No, Donkey, stop!’ he shouted, rising.
He saw Clip loose again, saw Will aiming – and then Will turned and saw the Donkey. He span, arms wide in warning, and Berenger was sure he heard Will’s voice . . . and then three bolts struck Will, one after the other, in his buttock, his kidney, and one in his neck, and Will toppled to the ground, blood gushing from his mouth and nose.
Berenger stared, appalled. Will had been his friend for years. Berenger couldn’t believe he was dead, killed by a Genoese shit of a mercenary. A mist of raw fury came down over him, and Berenger began to run, heedless of the bolts and stones flung at him. He clambered up the rampart and at the top he fought with a concentrated rage that brooked no impediment. A man before him cut at Berenger with frantic despair, but Berenger caught his blade on his sword’s cross, dragged it down, punched him with his left fist, and shoved quickly with the blade. It sliced deep into the man’s thigh, and he fell; another man was before him, and he held his sword like a man holding a snake, but Berenger’s cut took off his hand and wrist; another man was behind him, and this one flew at him with a flurry of cuts like a whirling dancer – but a Welsh spearman behind Berenger stabbed at him, and the man fell with the blood pumping from his throat.
Berenger was over the rampart now, and killing, killing all the way. He kicked and punched, parried and cut, and when he reached a Genoese bowman, he took the man’s head off in one sweep of his sword. All the way, he heard the wails and cries of terror as the English pursued the French through the streets. None had thought the English would reach this far, and there were no more barricades, no de
fences of any kind. Utterly lost, the defenders ran hither and thither, chased by laughing men brandishing spears, swords, long knives or even clubs. The slaughter continued long into the evening.
It was then, when Berenger found himself slumping against the wall of a church in the city again, that the black reaction came over him.
Looking about him, he saw bodies everywhere. Two men lay at his feet, both with gaping wounds. Nearby lay other men without arms, without heads, with their hamstrings cut, their corpses discarded like so much rubbish. The whole street reeked of death.
It was a scene of Hell.
‘Dear Christ, what have we done?’ he groaned.
He wanted to weep.
Sir John left the fighting tired but content. While he had not taken much in the way of loot, he was still alive and whole, which was all to the good. The only pain he acknowledged was a soreness in his shoulder and neck from wielding his sword. It had been hard work in that press, but they had won the day.
Dear God! he prayed, gazing back at the city. You have granted us a marvellous success. To have conquered a city so strong as that in an afternoon! It was truly a miraculous achievement.
He nodded to the guards outside the King’s pavilion and entered to find King Edward stalking about it in a towering rage.
‘Who do they think they are to thwart me?’ he began, his pale blue eyes flashing with anger. ‘They wanted to hold their gates against me – me! Only a few remain, shuttered up in the castle. Well, we can take our time over that. How many of our men are lost?’
Clerics scribbled urgently in ledgers. The Earl of Warwick stood looking over their shoulders with Sir Godfrey de Harcourt nearby. Three other knights stood huddled together as though in defence against the King’s mood.
‘I fear it is some hundreds,’ Warwick said. ‘Genoese archers did some harm, but the fighting was fierce – especially when we came to the bridge. The Welshmen were brave indeed to wade across the river and outflank the militia, but still, many archers were killed.’
‘How many of my archers?’
‘Three, perhaps four hundred, Your Majesty.’
‘So many?’
The King’s face went white. At first Sir John thought it was merely shock, but then he realised that this was pure, white-hot wrath. King Edward III had come to power with a sword in his fist, capturing his mother and her adulterous lover, Roger Mortimer. His choleric temper was forged in vengeance. Those who thwarted his ambition learned to their cost that a King’s right should not be questioned.
‘Three or four hundred of my archers are dead because of these bastards? We need those archers, my Lord! They are the strength of our army, in Christ’s name!’
‘We can make up the numbers, Your Majesty,’ the Earl said calmly. He had been eating a hunk of bread, and now he tossed the crust to two hounds lying on a rug. The two bickered over it, and then one snapped at the other’s throat and pinned him to the ground until he yelped. The winner took his prize, swallowing it in a quick gulp.
The King watched the two as Warwick continued.
‘Send messages to your sheriffs and ask for more archers. They will understand the urgency. Besides, there were some who were late to the muster. Perhaps they will have arrived by now. It is not only these men today whom we have lost: there were others on the way. Now would be a good time to replenish your army with men as well as provisions.’
‘Yes. You are right,’ the King said, but his mind seemed elsewhere. He pointed to his hounds. ‘See them? The fastest and boldest wins the treat. The greater overwhelms the lazier, more indolent brute – just as we shall defeat Philippe. We shall win the land and I shall take the crown. We have swallowed this town today. A swift attack, and our men proved their valour. In the same way we can take the whole of France, if the coward Philippe will ever dare to meet us.’
‘We shall make such a din of war in all his land that he will be forced to meet us,’ the Earl said comfortably.
Sir John was surprised to see the Earl so calm. He had expected Warwick to display more anger. After all, many of the archers thrown into that hectic fight had been his own vassals.
‘We shall do that,’ the King declared, and then he frowned. ‘So many of my archers gone – that is a great shame. Not all were killed by the Genoese bastards?’
‘No. When our fellows broke into the city, the citizens took to their roofs and hurled stones and other missiles down upon them. Those, along with the barricades and the militia fighting street-to-street, caused most of the injuries.’
‘So the people of the city are guilty of all these murderous acts?’ The King’s voice grew cold again. ‘You will give orders, my Lord. In punishment for their intolerable revolt against my honour, the people of this city shall pay a heavy price. The army may take what they want tonight: loot, women – anything – and be free of censure. And then I shall burn the city to the ground.
‘Your Majesty, it shall be done.’
‘Wait – a moment, please, my Lord?’
Sir John saw that Godfrey de Harcourt had interrupted before the Earl could put his orders into force. He was a shortish knight, with the dark hair and eyes of a Norman, a strong, square jaw, and heavy brows. Sir John knew him by sight: he was a wealthy landowner, but because he had declared his loyalty to Edward, he had been exiled from France. Sir John was wary about Normans, for he considered them prey to divided loyalties, and apt to change with the wind at a moment’s notice, but this man seemed reliable enough. He had been enormously useful, Sir John had heard, in choosing the site of the English force’s landing, and then deciding on which route the King should take. Now Sir Godfrey was pale.
‘You wish to add something?’
‘Your Highness, I beg that you curb your wrath. You brought me with you to advise you. Let me give you my opinion. I know these people. They are my people. You can destroy this city. It is yours, and if you wish to bring it down, you can do so. But I urge that you reconsider. It has already been sacked. There are no families which have not suffered the full brunt of your attack. They have seen their property taken, their animals slaughtered, their women raped, their treasure stolen. Many have lost their menfolk. They have suffered. But if you go further, sire, if you burn the place as well, you will have shown that you are utterly merciless. All the cities and towns between here and Paris will rise up and fight you. Why would they not? Where is the virtue in surrender, when the result is the same? At least if they fight, they will die with honour. So they will contest every town, every village, every hamlet, every street. You will never win another quick victory like that which you have won today. And that will cost you more time, and men! You say it is your urgent wish to assault Philippe? Then you have a need for haste. Delay here, and it will not aid your cause. If you have to fight every step on the way to Paris your army will be depleted, so that when you do meet Philippe, he will prove too strong. He may win the day, or you can choose to retreat from him, and that would not gain you respect.’
‘Then what do you recommend?’
‘This: your army has already made free with the city, so show them mercy, and others will submit to you. They will bring you food and wine. They will aid you. You own the city already. It is a poor thing, to destroy that which hundreds gave their lives to win.’
The King nodded slowly, but reluctantly, Sir John thought. He was not inclined to mercy. This was not a campaign to win over the loyalty of the Normans by showing clemency; it was a campaign of conquest.
The Earl of Warwick snorted and peered down at his torn surcoat. Blood adorned the bright red of his shield, and the yellow stripe that passed between the six crosses was ripped where swords had thrust at him.
‘There is another aspect, Your Highness,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘This is a good port. We may hope to win another, but for now, Caen could be used to resupply ourselves with men and provisions.’
‘Which other do we hope to win?’ Sir John asked, and for the first time in that meeting, he s
aw a smile break out over the King’s face.
‘Those bastard French at Calais protect pirates,’ Edward said. ‘I have long felt that, if we could, we should take Calais. Even if the French King refuses to fight me in France, he will change his mind when we lay siege to Calais. He cannot allow that city to fall without fighting.’
The town that night was a scene of riotous pleasure as the English and Welsh moved from one house to another, liberating them of wine and cider, furs, pewter and silver.
Ed wandered through it all in a daze, looking for the vintaine. He had lost them as they continued into the town, and now he gazed about with a growing sense of unreality. He was used to ribald singing and occasional fights from sailors in his home town of Portsmouth, but to see the army let off the leash in this way was like gaining a view of the inner circles of Hell. He saw men bending a shrieking woman over a table as they took her in turns. A man was on the floor, and Ed assumed it was the woman’s husband. A thick pool of blood lay all about him from a terrible gash in his forehead.
A scream from further up the lane caught his attention, and he turned in time to see a woman running from a house, two men chasing after her with cups of wine spilling. She turned at a locked door, and as the men approached her, she drew a little eating-knife from her belt and, weeping, shouted something at them. Ed didn’t understand her words, but it sounded like a plea. One of the men, laughing, went to her, but cursed when he felt the prick of her blade. He drew a long dagger and began to slash at her, long, raking cuts that sliced into her and opened her belly, her breast, and then her throat. She fell, wailing, and Ed watched helplessly as the man kicked her slowly moving body, hurling vile abuse, until his friend called him away.
Ed could not drag his eyes from her. She was only about twenty, if that, and her long dark hair was unbraided, falling from beneath her coif to lie in disarray over her shoulders. As he watched her, he saw her eyes rise to his. There was no expression in her face, only a dumb acceptance, as though he was like all the others, the men who had raped her and killed her. He was no better, because he was a man. She swallowed and he thought he saw a tear run down her cheek, but then she sighed, and her entire body sagged, as though her soul had been sucked from her in that moment.
Fields of Glory Page 14
