Blood on the Sand

by Michael Jecks

  Jean de Vervins walked about the town with a growing feeling of impatience. To his mind, this siege was pointless. There were far better things for him to be doing.

  Ever since the day that his King had humiliated him at the field outside Paris, allowing Henri du Bos to vanquish him with an unfair attack, Jean de Vervins had been desperate for revenge. He had broken away from his home, from his former loyalties, from all that had defined him – and now he was doubly a traitor. Not only had his French King not comprehended the depth of his rage at the humiliation, Jean de Vervins had covered his tracks so cleverly that the fact of his treachery had not been noticed. Using him to pass messages to King David in Scotland had cost the Scots their lives, their army, their future. All because of him, Jean de Vervins. And next he would begin to bring the battle home to the King of France. He would bring the battle to Paris, or near enough to cause despair at the royal court.

  All he needed was to hear from his friend Gauvain de Bellemont about progress at Laon. As soon as the merchants and town’s guilds were prepared, Jean would be able to bring a small force and take the town. After that, all the towns of Champagne and the lands up to the Flemings would convert and take oaths to support England. No one trusted the French King to be able to defend them now.

  How could they trust him after the military disaster of Crécy?

  Berenger thought Jean de Vervins was a mere turncoat, a man determined to win payment for his loyalty: a mercenary. He was much more than that. Jean was the man who could bring about the ruination of the kingdom of Philippe de Valois.

  Jean was unique.

  It was in the night that the fever took him. Berenger had enjoyed a good meal of pottage with some salted beef, and was sitting back with a horn filled with cider, when the first sensations of something being not right began to assail him. He blamed the meal. Salted beef was heavy on the belly, and it was quite a hot food for a man who was naturally a little melancholy, as a physician had once told him. He wished now that they still had the services of the leech who had joined them on their journey to Crécy, and who had nursed so many of the vintaine back to full strength on that march when wounds threatened to carry them away; however, he had left before they reached Crécy. His skills had been seen and appreciated by the Earl of Warwick, and with the offer of a vastly better purse, he had reluctantly left them.

  But now Berenger felt he could really have done with the man’s expertise. He decided to take to his palliasse.

  Later, he could recall certain things. But of the following week, he would only ever have a sketchy memory. He had lain, so they told him, in a muck sweat, shivering and complaining while the scar on his face glowed like a branding iron in the forge. It took all the efforts of two women to keep him cool and quiet, and even when the fever was over, he was left feeling like a piece of metal after the smith has pummelled it on his anvil.

  Later he remembered only snatches of those days. He knew he had looked up and seen the Devil overhead, and tried to beat at him with his hands; he remembered the two women’s faces looking down at his with such sweetness in their eyes that it made him want to weep; he woke once and saw Marguerite sitting at his side, her head resting on the wall, her face pale, her mouth hanging slackly open, and he thought she must have died, but then he realised she was only sleeping. When he did finally waken fully, he could see from Marguerite’s pallor that she must have spent many hours in that room with him, washing, feeding and soothing him. As he looked at her, she stirred, and her eyes opened and met his. For a moment, he saw in her eyes a pure joy, as though his recovery was the greatest gift she had received, and then she slowly rose. She was exhausted, her feet leaden, her every movement slow as she walked to him and helped him drink a little. Then she bent and touched his brow with her lips, like a mother kissing her child. It was only fleeting, and then she was gone. It was a relief to him to see her go to her own palliasse, lie down on it and fall into a deep, natural sleep.

  Berenger watched her. Her breast rose and fell and she rolled, her head cradled on her arm, breathing quietly. She looked as beautiful as the Madonna, and he felt a quickening of his heart, but he closed his eyes and turned away. She was married; he was a soldier. Life was complicated enough.

  Grandarse came when Berenger was recovered, and told him how the siege had progressed while he was laid up.

  After more attempts to assault the walls, the English had surrendered to reality and decided that it would be better to fully surround the town instead, and starve the people of Calais into submission. The first stage of this strategy was to remove the Rysbank, a long bank that protected both the harbour and the town itself from attack. The English were determined to take this, and several assaults had been launched, all so far to no avail. However, with the arrival of the dire winter weather, that was less of a concern. The French would be unable to supply the town until spring at the earliest. The Channel was vile in such weather, and the English themselves had to rely upon supplies being brought overland from the Fleming territories.

  At last, as weak as a newborn kitten, Berenger left his bed to hobble about the place. He felt as though his bowels were constantly in danger of voiding themselves. Marguerite was always on hand to lend him an arm to lean on. She had become indispensable to him, even as her son had become essential to the vintaine. He watched her covertly as she went about her business, cooking, washing and generally helping Béatrice with her duties, and every so often he would catch the Donkey’s eye and thought he could discern a note of reproval there. What the hell. He was a boy. He didn’t understand anything.

  It was well into January before he felt as though he could hold a sword again. Even then, his left arm was still badly injured.

  ‘I might as well have it strapped to my chest for all the use I can make of it,’ he grumbled to Jack.

  ‘We could always ask the barber to remove it for you. I daresay some of the men would do it for you,’ Jack said, eyeing it quizzically. ‘I could do it with an axe, if you want.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  The sight of the cleric was unsettling to Ed. There was something about him that put his teeth on edge.

  Georges clearly knew him, but wouldn’t say much about it, except that the man had been helpful to him when he had first arrived in the camp. Even when he had said that much, Georges seemed to grow ashamed, or upset. It was natural enough. Ed remembered a little about the time when his own parents had died. For a long while after that he had felt quite guilty. There was something about being alive when they had died that made him feel some kind of responsibility, as though it was in some way his fault that they were dead. He could all too easily imagine that Georges felt a similar guilt for the death of his own father and family, but Ed thought he might be feeling even worse. His mother had not died. Georges should have remained close by and searched for her, rather than running off and joining the very army that had killed his father and the others.

  Why had he joined the English? It was a thought that kept popping into Ed’s head, and for some reason it happened more and more on days like this.

  Ed had spent the morning with Béatrice, helping her and Marguerite as they looked after Berenger. The man was still very weak, although gradually he was coming back to life. Ed was relieved to hear that Berenger was fretting at being kept to his palliasse. That sounded more like the man he knew, and if he was honest, he was sick of seeing Béatrice go to him each day and mop his brow, feed him his broth or pottage, help him to a chamber pot, or any of the other hundred and one little tasks that she performed for her patient. Ed did not like to think of her soft, gentle hands on Berenger’s body. He wanted to feel her fingers on him, and to be allowed to run his hands over her . . . but it was foolish to think like that. It was only torturing himself.

  Today, hearing Béatrice and Berenger joking and laughing in the chamber, and Marguerite’s quiet chuckle, infuriated him. Ed was not prey to jealousy with most things, but he craved Béatrice’s company. However, even if sh
e were to leave Berenger and sit with him, Ed knew that he’d be so tongue-tied that he would become flushed with embarrassment and resort to silence, hoping that she would guess the depth of his affection and respect for her from the tormented expression on his face. He had a horrible conviction that she wouldn’t.

  Torn between the wish to remain near her and his frustration, he left the rooms and walked out towards the port with Georges. It was here that they saw the cleric again.

  The fellow always smiled, Ed noticed, but like so many of the other men, he smiled with his mouth only, not his eyes or heart.

  ‘I hope I see you well?’ the cleric said, addressing them.

  ‘Yes, Father,’ Georges replied.

  Ed was silent. He saw how George’s face changed when he saw the priest. His eyes lit up, and he looked like a boy who could see his own salvation. The cleric took his hand and patted it, and glanced enquiringly at Ed as though expecting him to come closer too. Ed felt like a dog being called to its master, and that made his anger boil. He’d had enough of being bossed around by Berenger. It seemed to the boy that he spent his entire life being told what to do – by his vintener, by the men of the vintaine, by Grandarse, by Archibald, by Béatrice – by everyone! Well, he wasn’t going to do as he was told any more. Not by the archers, not by this priest.

  ‘My son, you are unhappy,’ the priest said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Come, let me pray for you. I can soothe your troubled breast.’

  Ed glowered blackly at him. ‘You can’t help me.’

  ‘The Word of God will help any child.’

  ‘I am not a child!’ Ed spat. ‘I’m a man in the King’s army!’

  The priest gave a condescending smile. ‘Of course you are.’

  Georges sniggered.

  Ed had been patronised by many other men in his short life, but he was old enough now to recognise and resent it. He stared wide-eyed at the priest and Georges, and then stepped away.

  ‘Boy, come back here!’ the priest said sharply.

  Ed shook his head and turned his back.

  ‘Boy! You will come to me.’

  ‘Go swyve yourself!’ he shouted and continued on to the port.

  There were running steps behind him, and Georges caught his sleeve. ‘Wait, Ed, please. Wait.’

  ‘Go back to your great French friend,’ Ed snapped.

  ‘What? No, come back with me to the priest. He is an important man, it won’t do for you to annoy him.’

  ‘I don’t care about him. I’m going to watch the ships.’

  ‘You won’t come back?’

  Ed ignored him. At the harbour a great cog had arrived and was disgorging barrels and bales of essentials for the men. Ed sat on the quay and threw stones at a large pebble.

  The cleric had insulted him. No one likes me, Ed thought bitterly. They’ll make the most use they can of me, and then ditch me. He loved Béatrice, but deep down he knew he didn’t stand a chance of getting her to lie with him. She would never be his wife. If he was honest, she only thought of him as a younger brother. Well, he’d show her. He’d do something to make her respect him. Make her love him as he loved her.

  Berenger enjoyed his period of convalescence. He walked a great deal around the new town as it grew up about Calais. Soon the walking was not enough. It was true that he needed exercise, but he needed peace too; he had no wish to return to war, not yet. He still felt weak from the fever, and in the cold and damp of a coastal winter, that weakness was set to grow. Still, the ministrations of Béatrice and Marguerite were gradually reducing as his health returned, and now that he was able to get up from his bed for several hours in a day, he was glad to go outside for fresh air, and to sit by the fire in the evenings, chatting with the other men.

  ‘Donkey, what’s the matter with you?’ he demanded one day when he saw Ed sitting with his customary brooding expression.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It must be a big “nothing”,’ Berenger said kindly, ‘for you to have a face blacker than those clouds.’

  Ed did not respond.

  Berenger decided the boy needed something to do. A lad of his age needed to keep his hands and mind busy. He would speak with Archibald and see if the gynour could sort something out for him.

  It was late in February when Sir John de Sully came to see him.

  ‘How are you, Fripper? I was worried about you,’ he said, entering Berenger’s rough shack and sitting on a long stool.

  ‘I am well enough, I thank you, Sir John. It was an unpleasant few days.’

  ‘I once had a bad fever. I thought it would take me away at first. By the end, I was praying that it would. There is nothing so debilitating as a disease; it is one of my abiding horrors, that I should be taken away by one. Far better for a knight to be killed by a quick stab of a lance or a slash of a sword. Quick and clean.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I am not, however, come here to talk to you about your fever,’ the knight said.

  ‘Would it ease your throat to have a sup of wine?’

  ‘Some wine would be most pleasant, yes, I thank you.’

  When Berenger was sitting and both had taken sips of their drinks, Sir John cast a look at him from under lowered brows. ‘This siege is going to endure a while longer, Fripper. The French are still sending ships to revictual the town, and there’s little we can do to stop them. There are simply too many of them, and the galleys guard them well.’

  ‘It is not the season for war at sea.’

  ‘No indeed. This siege is set to last at least another four months by my reckoning. Another four months of this, eh?’ he sighed, looking about him at the room. Water was leaking in from a hole near the middle of the roof. Puddles had formed in the packed earth of the floor, and the hearth itself was damp. Starting a fire in this weather was always hard.

  ‘We are losing too many men to fevers,’ Berenger said sombrely.

  ‘So anything we can do to bring about the end of the siege would be welcome. There is one thing that could be tried.’

  ‘What is that?’ Berenger became alert.

  ‘The Duke of Flanders was killed at Crécy. His son is only sixteen years old, and has inherited a large territory. The taxes of that land support the French Crown, but so do the ports. Philippe needs Flanders to remain loyal. However, the Flemish do not want to be allied to France. The merchants and townsfolk all prefer to align themselves with us.’

  ‘I see,’ Berenger said thoughtfully, wondering where this was going.

  ‘We need to take offers to the Flemings to persuade them to renounce their French overlords and come to join with us. What can the French give them that we cannot? The Flemings would be doughty comrades. My messenger must be someone who can be trusted, someone who can keep his men under control, and most of all, someone who can see to it that the message is delivered.’

  Berenger felt his stomach contract. ‘This is too great a task for me, Sir John, I—’

  The knight held up a hand to silence him. ‘No, Frip, you fool. Not you. Listen to me. The main task will be, apparently, to deliver a message to the Flemings. Another will do that. However, a second job will need to be undertaken: to travel to Champagne and safely deliver a certain man . . . and then bring him back in one piece.’

  ‘I don’t think I can do that,’ Berenger said. ‘I am too weak still.’

  ‘This will be quick and easy, I hope. Champagne is over on the other side of Arras. It should not be a difficult task. You’ll have to keep away from French troops, and avoid large towns. But we can give you all the men and provisions you could want. Only you must deliver this man to Laon.’

  ‘Laon? I’ve heard of that place,’ Berenger frowned.

  ‘It is a good little city, I think. But the main thing for us is to persuade them to come over to our King. If we can do that, we will have driven a spike into the French King’s strategems.’

  ‘Who is this mysterious man? Do I know him?’

  ‘Y
ou do. It is Jean de Vervins.’

  The Vidame sipped at a cup of strong wine, his eyes wrinkling with delight as three men regaled him with stories of their travels and courage in the face of adversity, but when one mentioned the coming journey, it took all his efforts to control his features.

  ‘To Laon? But why should the King want to send men there?’ he said lightly.

  ‘The King’s new friend, Sir Jean de Vervins, he says towns in that area are so scared of the English that they will transfer their allegiance to King Edward,’ one of the men explained. His features were bloated and red with wine and food, and the Vidame despised him for his gluttony, but such were the men he must deal with.

  ‘Is that so?’ The Vidame took another sip of wine and drawled, ‘It would be a dangerous mission, surely, to travel all that way into enemy country?’

  ‘Not for Englishmen,’ the man said. His companions hooted with laughter. ‘We have Sir Walter Manny, Sir Thomas Dagworth and thousands of others. Each of ’em’s more of a man than ten Frenchies! Hah! We’ll ride to Laon as if we were on a day’s casual touring about the King’s Forest.’

  The Vidame left them a short while later and walked thoughtfully towards his rooms. He had relinquished his tent as the weather grew less clement, and while the rooms were more comfortable, there was the disadvantage that when he wanted a secret meeting or needed to discuss matters in confidence, he must keep a wary eye on those who might be watching to see who visited him, or listening at a doorway.

  He must send news of this latest mission – but at the present time he had no means. Yet he would have to do so somehow, or watch as a ring of cities fell to the English without an arrow being loosed or sword unsheathed. There was no doubt that terror of the English had grown massively since the disaster of Crécy.