by Wayne Grant
The main street was now jammed with Mercadier’s troops, all converging on Gamaches’ citadel, built into the eastern wall of the town like a castle keep. As Roland and the Invalids reached the street, a cheer went up from the men there. The small garrison of the citadel, judging the hopelessness of their cause, had surrendered, flinging open the barred door before the English ram could splinter it. The paltry force, less than a score of men, stumbled out into the small square that fronted the fortress, throwing down their arms as they came.
In the front rank of the English host, a single man was mounted on a burly warhorse looking down upon the scene. It was Mercadier. He turned to a lieutenant and nodded. The man shouted out an order and a dozen men fell upon the surrendering French with swords and axes.
Roland watched in shock as the unarmed French soldiers were slaughtered like sheep in a matter of seconds. His stomach heaved, but he held back the urge to retch in the street.
“Good God, what is this?” Declan managed to blurt out.
Roland could hardly speak as the screams of the dying echoed against the stone buildings of Gamaches, But he gathered himself and grabbed Declan’s arm.
“Dec, have our men block this alley, but don’t let on what you’re about.”
“Our prisoners?” the Irish knight asked, though he knew the answer.
“I’ll not have them butchered like that,” Roland replied.
Declan nodded and called Patch over to spread the word among the Invalids to loiter at the entrance to the side street as Roland pushed his way back through their ranks and ran for the chapel. As he neared the place he saw that Blackthorne had placed thirty disarmed Frenchmen inside a cordon of Invalids. Behind the one-armed knight was a stack of surrendered weapons. Sir John turned at the sound of running feet. When he saw Roland sprinting toward him, he tensed.
“Tell the Vicomte they are slaughtering French prisoners in the square. Tell him he and his men should go—now!”
Sir John blinked.
“Release them?”
“Aye, dammit, let them go. Mercadier‘s men are mercenaries, John. You saw what such men did in Sheffield to your own folk. I won’t have that here.”
The mention of the massacre at Sheffield that left Blackthorne a widower with only one arm seemed to galvanize the man.
“Aye, sir!” he said, turning and beckoning to the Vicomte de Dammartin. He rattled off a few terse sentences in French and Roland saw the look of shock and then anger on the young nobleman’s face. He blurted something back at Sir John who turned back to Roland.
“He wants his weapons.”
“Let them have them, but they must go.”
Blackthorne relayed Roland’s order to the Frenchman who scowled. He stood for a long moment, looking back up the side street to where his comrades had been butchered, but then nodded.
“Oui,” he said quietly, then looked past Blackthorne to Roland.
“Merci, mon ami!” he called out, then turned and issued new orders to his startled men.
Blackthorne ordered the Invalids to stand aside and the Frenchmen rushed forward to arm themselves. As they did, Jamie Finch came running from the centre of town.
“Mercadier has taken notice of our men standing about at the end of the street, sir,” he said breathlessly. “Sir Declan is chatting him up, but I fear he can’t detain him long. Patch sent me to warn ye.”
“Thank you, Jamie,” Roland said, as he watched the French running for their lives down the narrow lane. There would be a gate somewhere in that direction and now those men at least had a fighting chance. It was the best he could do.
“Follow them, Jamie. See if they are able to get clear of the city.”
“Aye lord,” Jamie replied and set off at a run after the fleeing French.
Behind him Roland heard hoof beats on the cobbles and turned to see Mercadier riding up on his big warhorse. The Invalids, led by Declan, had followed the commander of the English forces up the side street. Mercadier reined in and looked past Roland at the French running down the street.
“What have you done here, Inness?” the mercenary commander snarled as the last of the French disappeared around a bend in the narrow lane.
“I’ve paroled the prisoners, my lord.”
Mercadier swung out of the saddle, his jaw set and his eyes blazing. He stopped a foot in front of Roland and leaned in close, his face red.
“Paroled?” he barked, spittle flying from his lips. “On whose damned authority have you paroled my captives?”
Roland did not flinch before his commander’s fury.
“On my own authority, my lord.”
“Your authority!” the man sputtered. “You have no authority here, by God.”
Behind Mercadier, more of his men were pouring into the side lane, the spectacle on the main street having run its course. They pressed forward into the narrow passage to see what excitement had drawn such a crowd.
“They surrendered to me, my lord,” Roland said calmly.
Roland’s refusal to quail before his wrath seemed to further infuriate the mercenary general. He whirled around and, spotting one of his officers in the gathering crowd, barked out an order.
“Captain Joubert, send a detachment after those damned Franks,” he commanded, “and arrest this man!”
Joubert who was built like a block of stone, started forward, but was stopped by the flat of Declan O’Duinne’s sword.
“You’ll not arrest Sir Roland Inness,” Declan snarled, and a growl of angry approval rose from the Invalids. All around the little chapel, men of the Company began to draw swords that had been sheathed. Mercadier’s mercenaries reached for their own weapons.
“Invalids! Stand down!” Roland ordered.
The Invalids did not immediately obey as they eyed Mercadier and his men. By now the lane in front of the chapel was jammed with armed men. One wrong look, one pointed insult and a bloody melee in the streets of Gamaches would erupt. Roland had noted the size of Mercadier’s encampment. The Invalid Company would be outnumbered four to one if it came to a fight.
“Stand down, I say!” he shouted now. “Declan, let the man pass.”
For a long moment no one was sure if the Irish knight would obey. He looked at Roland and shook his head.
“Let him pass!” Roland ordered again, and Declan slowly lowered his weapon. As Captain Joubert stepped forward, Declan whispered to him.
“Any harm come t’ him and yer a dead man.”
Joubert hurried past the Irishman without acknowledging the threat. Roland drew his short sword and handed it to the man.
“I am your prisoner, sir,” he said.
Angry protests rose from the Invalids, but Roland raised his hands to quiet them. Captain Joubert reached out to seize Roland by the arm, but Mercadier gave him a pointed look and the man hesitated. The mercenary general had seen the same potential for carnage as had Roland and, as he looked at the grim faces of the Invalids, he softened his tone.
“Take Sir Roland into custody,” he said calmly, “and escort him to our camp.”
Joubert nodded.
“Please, come with me, Sir Roland,” he said politely, then turned up the street toward the centre of town without laying a hand on his prisoner. The crowd parted as Joubert led Roland out into the main avenue that ran from the citadel to the now-open west gate. As they left the crowd behind, the mercenary captain glanced over his shoulder at his prisoner.
“It was a stupid thing to do,” he observed quietly. Joubert spoke decent English but with a pronounced Gaelic accent.
Roland pointed to the sprawled bodies of the dead French defenders who lay where they’d fallen in front of the citadel.
“And what is that,” he asked, “if not stupid? Once news of this spreads, the next French town will fight to the last man before they surrender.”
Joubert shook his head.
“Or they will surrender with no fight at all and save themselves, which is what Mercadier expects. This is w
ar in France, monsieur. There is no place here for soft hearts!”
“Or for honour, it seems.”
“Honour?” Joubert hooted. “What is that? I have not heard of it, Englishman! What counts in this war are men and money and with General Mercadier it is mostly money.”
“So why kill the prisoners? Won’t the French ransom them back?”
“Only the high born ones, but there you’ve also crossed the General. The Frankish commander here was a young nobleman of high rank—a Vicomte I believe—and a very capable soldier. More importantly, he was a personal favourite of King Philip. That Vicomte would have been worth a great deal of silver to Mercadier. He wasn’t in the keep and hasn’t been found among the dead, so I expect he was with the men you foolishly paroled. The General won’t forgive you for that. He has hung men for much less.”
“And the other French prisoners I paroled?”
“Oh, those? He’d have killed them for certain.”
***
Joubert led Roland to a small stone barn at the edge of the English camp. Its roof was long gone and it had been set aside to serve as a holding pen for prisoners. The French officer left Roland there under the care of four stolid guards. As he turned to leave, he hesitated, then spoke.
“Inness, I saw what you and yer lads did this morning. It was well done. Our attack on the breach made no headway. You’re a brave man and I wish you well, for what little good that will do you.”
Mutiny
When Captain Joubert departed, two of the guards shoved Roland unceremoniously through a narrow door and into the roofless barn. There were six other men inside and all looked miserable. With nothing better to do, Roland found an unoccupied corner and sat down. The battle fury that had propelled him through the morning was now spent and he slumped back against the wall. He’d sat for only a moment before one of the men in the makeshift gaol shuffled toward him. The man’s face showed signs of recent rough treatment, his lip being split and one eye swollen shut.
“Deserter?” the man grunted.
Roland shook his head.
“Then what ye here for?” the man asked, puzzled. “Desertion’s ‘bout the only thing that bastard Mercadier gives a fig for.”
The man jerked his head toward the other prisoners who were lounging about on the dirt floor.
“We’re proof of that.”
Roland shrugged.
“I paroled some French prisoners. The general did not take kindly to that.”
The prisoner drew back and looked at him with puzzlement in his one good eye. Around the roofless cell the other prisoners now took notice of the new man.
“Ye let some Frenchies go?” one asked, puzzled. “What for?”
Roland shook his head.
“They surrendered to me. I don’t kill unarmed men.”
“But they was Frenchies!” another prisoner insisted.
“They were men.”
One man snorted and spat on the dirt floor. The rest began to drift away shaking their heads. The man with the swollen eye stood over him for a moment longer.
“You’ll hang fer sure,” he proclaimed and turned to join his fellows.
Roland rose to his feet.
“And you, what will they do with you?”
The man gave him a wide grin that showed bloody gums where his front teeth had once been.
“Oh, we’ll all swing too,” he said flatly, “but not for the sake of some poxy Frenchmen.”
***
Darkness had fallen when a guard entered Mercadier’s tent.
“My lord, there is a man outside who demands to see you. He is from the new group. The ones just come from England.”
Mercadier looked up from the lists of booty taken from Gamaches and frowned. He would be moving his small army north in two days and there were important logistical decisions to be made. He did not wish to waste time on belly-aching subordinates. But he’d been in this business long enough to know it was best to deal with such complaints head on, rather than let them fester. He sighed.
“Send him in.”
He watched Declan O’Duinne enter and remembered the squarely-built young knight from the day before, though he did not recall the name.
“What is it?” he demanded impatiently.
“I’ve come to ask you to release Sir Roland Inness, my lord.”
Mercadier moved around the field table and stood a foot in front of his visitor.
“He violated my orders,” he said softly. “I’ll send you his body after he hangs.”
“We received no orders to massacre prisoners, my lord.”
“Those are my standing orders, damn you!”
“Which we did not receive, my lord.”
Mercadier scowled.
“Your name?” he barked.
The knight did not flinch.
“Sir Declan O’Duinne, at yer service, my lord.”
“O’Duinne…,” the mercenary general wrinkled up his face as though the name was something loathsome stuck to the sole of his boot. “You’re Irish then. I find the Irish...unreliable.”
Mercadier was surprised to see the flicker of a smile on the young Irishman’s face.
“Oh, we are very reliable in one regard, my lord,” Declan said.
“And how is that?”
“We can be relied upon to return injury for injury.”
Mercadier blinked.
“How dare you threaten me, sir!” he bellowed. “Guards!”
Four men surged in through the tent flap and seized Declan by the arms.
“Put him with his chief. Hang ‘em both in the morning.”
The guards dragged Declan from the tent. Mercadier returned to counting up the haul of booty from the fall of Gamaches.
It was always best to deal with complaints head on.
***
“I feared this,” Patch whispered as they watched the four guards dragging Sir Declan up the hill to the gaol.
“What’s the plan?” Sir John, whispered back. “Spring ‘em now? The lads are ready.”
“Nay, John. We bust ‘em out and Sir Roland would just order us to stand down again.”
“I sometimes don’t understand that man,” Sergeant Billy said, perplexed.
“He’s a man of honour,” Brother Cyril said simply. “So is Sir Declan, and Patch is right. They wouldn’t approve of what we’ve in mind. It’s best we do what we must, without their leave.”
Patch nodded.
“Aye. This we do on our own hook,” he said grimly. “Have the lads ready an hour before first light.” He looked at the men gathered around him the dark.
“No one hangs our commander.”
***
Roland groaned when he saw Declan tossed into the barn. He’d worried that his friend might act rashly and that concern had now been borne out. He rushed to help the Irishman scramble to his feet.
“Dec, for God’s sake. What have you done?”
Declan brushed the dust from his tunic and gave Roland a sheepish grin.
“I just asked Mercadier to be reasonable and let ye go,” he said, “but the man had to go and insult the Irish…”
Roland shook his head.
“I was counting on you to keep the men in line, Dec.”
“And I was trying to do just that, Roland,” Declan fired back. “The lads were ready to storm the gaol as soon as they heard you were to hang. I knew you wouldn’t want that, so I ordered them to wait. Then I went to see Mercadier.”
“And now here you are,” Roland finished glumly. “I can’t see how this ends well.”
Declan sighed and looked at the deserters who were giving them a wide berth.
“Well, there’s always divine intervention.”
***
Somewhere in the dark a cock crowed. Outside the walls of Gamaches a few sentries kept a drowsy watch outside the English camp. With the French fortress captured and the few surviving defenders fled, there was little to threaten the camp and vigilance was low. None o
f the sentries expected a threat from within the camp, but a half-mile away, dark figures moved quietly among the men of the Invalid Company, silently rousing the sleepers there.
Without a word spoken, men took up shields and spears, axes and swords and formed up. In the east, there was still no hint of the coming day. None in the English camp noticed as nearly six score men slipped into position down the hill from the roofless barn and waited for the dawn.
***
The sky in the east was showing its first hint of colour when one of the four guards posted at the gaol trudged down the hill to find a bush. Something he’d had for his supper had loosened his bowels and his need was urgent. Hastily he dropped his trousers and squatted. He was finishing his business when he felt a sharp point touch his neck.
“Up, and not a sound,” someone whispered behind him.
The man jerked to his feet, dragging his trousers up with one hand. Around him now he saw dozens of men, all heavily armed and felt his bowels clench once more. But when no killing blow came, he let himself be led away quietly by one of these strangers.
The remaining three guards paid no heed to their missing companion as the sky grew lighter and the surrounding area began to emerge from the darkness. They had been tossing lots to pass the time, when one stood up to stretch. He looked down the hill and thought he saw movement in the faint light. He squinted and looked harder. Then he stepped back in surprise.
“Shit…”
***
“My lord!”
Mercadier snapped awake. He was a light sleeper, a trait that had saved his life on more than one occasion. One of his personal guard was hovering over his cot.
“What?” he asked, as he flung off his blanket and swung out of bed.
“The English company, lord—the one with the cripples. They’ve formed up around the gaol!”
Mercadier cursed. Was there no end to the trouble these new arrivals could cause? He reached down and began to pull on his boots.
“Have Captain Joubert turn out the Gascons and the Flemings, and roust up the Genoese,” he ordered. “We may have need of their crossbows.”
