Walter turns on the captain.
‘Think your boys can do any better?’ he asks.
‘I know they can,’ the captain says. ‘But let’s have a bet, shall we?’ The captain has tired eyes, creases either side of his mouth, and wears a scarf to warm his throat. ‘A barrel of ale?’ he suggests.
Walter cannot get out of it. They shake hands and the men of John Fakenham’s company shuffle to one side to let the Watch take their places. Thomas cannot help thinking that even without their livery and quilted jacks, these men look more like soldiers than Fakenham’s. They are older, grizzled, and their equipment more accustomed to use. They move with a muscular ease, too, certain of themselves.
Others have turned up to watch now: other archers, billmen, some women and boys and a dark-skinned man in a wool-lined travelling cloak, sitting on a rouncey with a baggage train behind him.
‘Right,’ the Watch Captain says in a nasal drawl. ‘Butt on the left-hand side. A sheaf apiece. Nock. Draw. Loose!’
The soldiers erupt into action. It is measurably smoother and faster than Fakenham’s men and it seems each one has sent his third arrow off before the first has hit its target. In less than two minutes it is over. They all level their bows as one.
‘Fuck me,’ one of the Johns mutters.
Everybody else is silent for a moment. The two companies walk down to the butts, one on either side of the range. The Watch’s arrows are without exception buried up to their shoulders in the earth of the left-hand target. Those of Fakenham’s company – distinctive because of the green-tinged twine that has been used to secure the fletches – are scattered over the ground: some have fallen short, some have overshot, some are wayward to the left, others to the right.
‘Tcha!’ the officer says, clapping his hands together with a bang. ‘We’ll have that barrel delivered to the garrison, if you please.’
They collect the shafts and walk back to their tents in silence, shame trailing them like a pall.
‘I’m glad they’re on our side,’ one of them mutters.
‘They are for now,’ Walter snarls.
When they get back to their tent, they put away their bows and sit in silence. None can look another in the eye.
‘So what are we going to do?’ Richard asks.
‘Can’t go back there again,’ Walter says.
‘Chuck away our bows? Become billmen?’ This is from Simon the Londoner.
‘God’s nails!’ Dafydd says. ‘I’m not becoming a bloody billman. Don’t get paid as much, for one thing.’
‘We’d best be selling our bows anyway,’ one of the others says, ‘to pay for that bloody barrel of ale.’
‘Walter should pay for it. He made the wager.’
This is from Simon again. The others look at him.
‘Walter backed us,’ Red John says. ‘We let him down. Least we can do now is help him out.’
Walter nods his thanks. One or two of the men dig in their purses for small coins and pass them to Walter.
‘Simple fact of the matter is that we aren’t good enough,’ Richard says.
‘We are,’ Simon says. ‘We’re as good as any of those northerners, and much better than any Scot, or any bloody Frenchman.’
‘But when we go back, we won’t be fighting Frenchmen, will we?’ Red John says. ‘We’ll be fighting . . . You know. Fighting . . .’
He cannot bring himself to say that they will be fighting Englishmen.
In the silence that follows, Richard stands up.
‘By God,’ he says. ‘You might as well be a billman if that’s the way you look at it. I don’t want to stand and fight with men who aren’t as good as someone else. I only want to stand and fight with the best.’
All eyes are on him. What is he going to do? Desert them and join the Calais garrison?
‘The thing is,’ he starts again, quieter this time, piecing his thoughts together, ‘they are fast and they are accurate. That comes not from fighting, but from practice.’
‘And any fool can practise,’ Geoffrey chips in.
‘Even you lot,’ Walter adds.
Each man is silent for a moment, trying to imagine the comments they’ll have to endure when next they appear at the butts.
‘We need to get away,’ Richard goes on. ‘Somewhere we can put in the hours without the garrison troops turning up every few minutes to show us how it’s done.’
‘Not back in the boat again?’ This is from Hugh.
‘No,’ Richard says. ‘I’ll see if we can’t volunteer to garrison the fort at Sangatte. On the higher ground over there.’ He gestures westwards, back towards the sea. ‘Nothing’s going to happen here, anyway. Not until the Earl gets back. No one will miss us.’
10
THE NEXT MORNING the same men who’d watched them erect their camp the day before watch them break it again. While Walter goes in search of the carters and their ox to first take a barrel of ale to the ordinaries at the Seaward Gate, then to carry their gear up to Sangatte, Geoffrey takes Thomas and Katherine to buy more supplies, including arrows from the fletcher.
‘So what are we going to do?’ Katherine asks him as he loads her arms with three sheaves in their linen bags.
‘We’ll spend every moment in the butts,’ Geoffrey supposes, passing the fletcher a large handful of coins, ‘until the Earl of Warwick returns, and then, when he does, we’ll be the best archers in his affinity.’
Richard has bought a horse, ‘with money borrowed from a Genoese banker’ according to Walter, and he leads them out of the camp with his cap low, hunched in his travelling cloak. Cows graze in the waterlogged furlongs, low-bellied pigs rootle along the baulks, and the wind from off the sea presses cold wet cloth to cold wet flesh.
After half a mile or so, the road passes through a complex of earthworks where sluice gates corral a river and send it under a stone bridge and around the walls of another forbidding stone fort.
‘Newnham Bridge,’ Walter says. ‘See them sluice gates? If the French come, the garrison can close them in a moment and flood the whole Pale.’
‘Why would they do that?’ one of the Johns asks.
‘So the fuckers can’t get their bombards and whatnot up to the walls,’ Walter says, jerking his head back towards Calais. ‘Whoever controls the sluice gates controls Calais, see, and whoever controls Calais, well . . . that’s a question, isn’t it?’
There is a sizeable Watch on the bridge: more men in the Earl of Warwick’s red livery coat with that white badge on their chests. Each carries a bill except the sergeant, who carries a pollaxe like Thomas’s, and he steps out from under a slate awning to greet Richard.
‘May God send you to prosper, sir,’ he says, touching the rim of his sallet. ‘Mind telling me where you’re bound?’
‘Sangatte,’ Richard replies. He hands him a pass, signed and sealed by Lord Fauconberg, but the sergeant can’t read, so he sends for the castle’s captain, and while they wait, he looks them over.
‘Who are you?’ he asks. ‘Don’t recognise the badge.’
‘My father is Sir John Fakenham,’ Richard tells him. ‘He is Lord Fauconberg’s indentured man and we are his company.’
The sergeant pauses and then smiles, as if he has remembered something.
‘Heard about you,’ he says. ‘You’re the archers, aren’t you? Ha! The archers what can’t shoot arrows.’
The men on the bridge laugh with their sergeant. Walter reaches for his sword, smiles vanish, four bills come down and the point of the pollaxe swings up.
‘Easy, there,’ the sergeant says. ‘If your fighting’s like your shooting you’d best not get into it with us.’
There is the tap of metal against stone and through an aperture in the castle wall Katherine sees a man peering at her over the top of a crossbow.
‘Walter,’ Richard says, ‘step back.’
Geoffrey pulls him back. A moment later the runner returns with the Captain of the Watch.
‘God give yo
u good day, sir,’ he says, taking Richard’s hand. In his dented leg armour and faded livery he looks every inch the old soldier, and Katherine watches Richard covertly studying him.
‘You are garrisoning Sangatte?’
‘We are.’
‘The captain up there. Walden. He’s a drunk. Sleeps all day and roars all night. As a consequence there are no women up there, or boys. You may need to provision yourselves accordingly.’ He nods to the village beyond.
Richard thanks him.
‘I’ll bid you good day, then,’ the captain says and then: ‘Oh. Sorry. Nearly forgot. Wonder if this’ll be any use to you?’
The captain is holding out a boy’s practice bow.
The men of the Watch begin laughing again.
Richard exhales loudly, touches his helmet and nudges his horse on. Across the bridge is a village with two churches and a cobbled marketplace where roads meet: one leads southwest to the French port of Boulogne, the other to the castle at Guisnes. Another, theirs, leads westwards, up on to the headland and the fort at Sangatte.
They follow it through steep banks around the cesspit and then on up towards the high ground where its muddy surface becomes sandy and stands of leafless poplars close around them. They carry on up the hill, sweating now, helping the cart along until at length they emerge from the woods to breast the rise. Sangatte Fort stands on the foreland before them like a solitary tooth in an old man’s jaw and beyond is the sea, clean and grey, vanishing in the distance, and the wind is sharp in their faces.
They find the relieved garrison already gathered on the grass, waiting to take their cart. They are glad to get away from the place and it is soon clear why. The garrison captain meets them in the fort’s courtyard with a mazer of ale in his hand. He has a grey beard streaked with food and his clothes, likewise stained, stretch across his bulbous gut. He is drunk already.
‘Day to you,’ he says, addressing Richard. ‘You’re to be my lieutenant then, are you?’
Richard nods and introduces himself.
‘Well,’ the man says, ‘I am Gervaise Walden, Captain of Sangatte Fort, and so long as you keep yourselves tidy, and out of my way, you’ll hear no word of complaint from me.’
He drains his ale and leads them back through the gatehouse. The fort consists of a circular tower of limestone blocks surrounded by an outer wall, both topped by flint-capped battlements and a deal of bird shit. Within the tower are four rooms, the one above the other, each linked by a spiralling staircase canted so that anyone mounting them exposes their sword arm to those above. On the ground is a cistern for fresh water, a sewer that gives out on to the dunes below and, under one smoke-blackened patch of rough-built wall, a pile of spindly firewood and damp coal.
‘We had a woman,’ Walden says. ‘But she went.’ He lets out a ringing burp and leaves them, saying, ‘If you need me I shall be in Newnham.’
The men stare around.
‘Homely,’ Dafydd says.
‘Like Wales, you mean?’ Walter laughs.
They climb the steps to the battlements. Seagulls wheel overhead and the wind is strong. On some days, when the weather clears, they’ll be able to make out the low profile of England herself, but for now it is not easy to tell where the sea ends and the cloud begins. Down below, in a trough between the sedge-topped dunes, someone has built an archery butt and broken arrows and fletches litter the sand.
By the time they descend Geoffrey has got the fire going and has set about making dinner. They begin unloading the wagon, carrying the tent canvas up to spread across the top floors to dry, and then after dinner the men troop down to the butts, leaving Katherine to keep watch from the battlements.
‘Keep a good watch that way,’ Richard instructs, pointing over the Pale towards a distant castle. ‘That is Guisnes. The Duke of Somerset’s taken it, and would love nothing better than to take this one too. If you see anything, anything at all, ring that bell.’
A verdigris-covered bell hangs from a strut cemented into the stonework. From the top of the castle Katherine watches the men spill out below and make their way through the long grass to the butts. She watches them form up, this time with Thomas in their midst, between Red John on one side and Dafydd on the other. He has that old bow of which he has complained but she sees he’s managed to borrow a glove for his right hand and one of the leather sleeves to stop the string cutting his left forearm.
They loose some arrows and now that she has watched the soldiers from Calais shoot, even she can see how slow they are. Each man looses an arrow perhaps every ten seconds, and after they have each loosed twenty-four, the arrows, perhaps buffeted by the wind, are scattered over an area the size of the garth in a cloister. Thomas is the last to finish, and still has five arrows left to shoot after the next last, Dafydd, has finished shooting his.
She watches as Thomas and Dafydd are made to run up the butts to collect the spent arrows. When they have gathered them in their bags, they are made to run back down and distribute them among the rest. As soon as that is done, they loose them all over again. She can just hear the shouts carried by the wind.
‘Nock! Draw! Loose!’
Again Thomas is the slowest. He takes off his jack and throws it on the ground. Walter shouts at him and he puts it back on and sets off up to the butts again, staggering through the sand. He gathers all the arrows together and starts running back with them. His legs are heavy and he falls over, drops the arrows, gets up, picks them up, falls over again. He delivers the arrows, then collapses on a grassy sand bank until Owen brings him a winesack to drink from. No one seems to think any the worse of him when he begins retching. The men carry on shooting.
A while later Thomas rejoins them, but by now he can hardly lift his bow, let alone draw it, and after failing to keep up he sits back on the bank and watches.
Katherine follows the walkway around the castle battlements, searching the land in all directions, watching the farmers and charcoalers, tiny dots in the distance, going about their business. Men are passing up and down the roads, some on horseback, others walking. There are a few carts rolling along, carrying barrels, and she watches a swineherd lose control of his animals as a galloping messenger scatters them under his hooves.
The archers continue all afternoon.
‘They’ll be stiff tomorrow,’ Geoffrey says, joining Katherine on the tower. She does not mind his company any more. Despite his size and strength, he is a soft man, kind-hearted, who misses his wife and daughter, who should, he tells her, be married by now but is in England.
They stare out to sea. A ship lumbers through the heavy waters, heading westwards, to Ireland Geoffrey says, or around the coast and down to Spain. Beyond is England.
‘I bet there are men in towers over there’ – Geoffrey nods – ‘staring this way, just waiting for us to come back and start it all again.’
‘When d’you think it’ll be?’ Katherine asks.
‘Depends on the weather,’ Geoffrey thinks. ‘The Earl of Warwick’s got to get back from Ireland first, and I’ve heard of men stuck there for months or more, waiting for the right wind.’
‘What’s he doing in Ireland?’
‘He’s with the Duke of York, coming up with a plan, though it is clear to all what that plan’ll be: Warwick and his men – that’s us – we’ll land somewhere in Kent; the Duke and his men’ll land somewhere in the west. Then each party will march towards London, hoping to raise the country as he goes. The men of Kent have reason to hold the Earl of Warwick dear, for he has kept the sea clear of pirates these last few years, and stopped any more raids on the coast, but the Duke of York, well . . .’
He trails off. It is clear the Duke is less popular than the Earl.
‘But what will happen when we reach London?’ Katherine asks. ‘Surely they don’t mean to kill King Henry?’
Geoffrey actually splutters.
‘Course not. Course not. No one would wish that. It is just to free him from the crust of his advisers, see? The
y cling on, don’t they? And take everything they can. And the Queen! Did you know she’s a Frenchy? And that she organised the raid on Sandwich?’
Katherine has never heard of a raid on Sandwich. Hardly ever heard of Sandwich.
‘Where’ve you two been?’ Geoffrey exclaims again. ‘You and Thomas. You know nothing. It’s as if you’ve been locked away these past years.’
11
DAYS PASS, EACH longer than the last. Catkins appear on the hazel branches and the elm blossom is purple in the woods. A blackbird calls loudly. Spring is coming. Katherine can feel it in her bones: a curious thrill.
Until it comes though, the men spend every day, wet or dry, in the butts with Walter snapping at them, comparing them harshly to their forefathers who’d fought the French to a standstill at Agincourt, Crécy and Poitiers, judging them just as harshly against the men of the Calais garrison. When they come in from the butts for supper they eat in silence before throwing themselves on to the floor to sleep, each man curled against his neighbour for warmth. They go off instantly, and the noise of their snoring is like bubbles rising through mud.
Meanwhile Katherine either keeps watch on the tower, or is replaced by one of the archers as his reward for having won one of Walter’s competitions. Sometimes she goes with Geoffrey to buy more bread and ale in Newnham, where the farmers speak English and come to know them by name. Here she watches Geoffrey haggle and tries a little herself. She is pleased when she beats a woman down a few pennies. She learns the meaning of money. Other days she scours the beach for firewood. Then she helps Geoffrey cook the dinner and supper, turning the spit, watching the pot, stoking the fire, eating plenty herself, and for the first time she can recall, she spends more than two consecutive days warm and dry and full of food.
‘I have never eaten so much meat in my life,’ she tells Thomas when they are on the castle walkway one morning. ‘I used to dream of it, when I was in the priory, but now I thank the Lord it is Lent soon and that all we will eat is herring.’
Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims Page 14
