by Jack Ludlow
‘Pay?’ called Thornbury, with faux shock, while another captain was sure his gonads would not allow him to pass up carnal opportunity. But these were silly objections made as much in jest as protestation; it was not hard to work out that which was greater, the protestation or suspicion, and it was Sterz who voiced it.
‘What is to stop you just bypassing the town?’
There was no need to elaborate; beyond Pont-Saint-Esprit the real prize might just fall into his hands. He could protest his commitment to their shared enterprise as much as he liked. In this pavilion were men accustomed to taking that which they desired. The notion of individual greed overcoming loyalty when faced with a million in specie was not very outlandish.
‘Would it suffice to say to you all that I value my life, which would not be worth a clipped groat if I was to seek to cheat you? I do not relish the idea of two thousand souls scouring the country for a sight of me and my company, which you would surely do if I sought to make off with that treasure. It is my intention to try to capture Pont-Saint-Esprit and in a manner that suits our needs.’
‘And if you fail?’ demanded Francis the Belge.
‘Then I would request a Christian burial, given survival will be unlikely. For you, nothing will have altered and you can descend on the town and invest it in the manner previously discussed.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘God spare me another dispute like that. There was too much clamour and Sterz did little to control it.’
‘You got your wish, John, be content.’
Roland de Jonzac was with him, sent along with Francis the Belge to see he kept to his bargain; one was a man who could be called a comrade, but the other, if he knew Hawkwood well from service with King Edward, was not seen to be overfriendly. The Belge also had the task of keeping close to di Valona, brought along to proffer advice but also not fully trusted; at the slightest hint of treachery he was to be killed.
The arguments in the pavilion had seen the hourglass turned twice, this so that everyone could have their say, which occasioned much repetition of the possibilities and potential pitfalls. In addition, what Hawkwood had proposed dealt with the outcome not the progress that would take his company to the walls.
He would have to march well ahead but each day he progressed required the route to be sealed to his rear, this to avoid anyone passing beyond him to carry news of the approach of the main host. Then he would have to reconnoitre the place, to add bones to the description provided by di Valona. On the final day’s march would come the most difficult part and that was for he and his company to approach the walls unseen, which could only be done in darkness.
For once Sterz stood aloof until Cunradus suggested the matter be put to the vote, which went Hawkwood’s way despite numerous objections and no end of suggestions that he was the wrong man to carry out the plan. It was necessary to remind the assembly he had made the suggestion, that he was no callow youth but a fighting soldier of forty summers who had been at war for over half that time. He had survived the carnage of Blanchetaque, had distinguished himself at Crécy, helped capture fortresses in Aquitaine and led a company of archers at Poitiers.
Normally modest regarding that battle and the aftermath, he reminded them that the man who was now termed the Prince of Wales knighted him in gratitude after the battle. He forbore to mention his own opinion that it was an act carried out to embellish the prestige of the prince, not the man he dubbed with his great sword. In the end none of these things mattered; fear of the loss of that treasure won out and his intentions were confirmed.
‘That, I suggest, was a ploy worked out at the morning Mass,’ Hawkwood insisted to Jonzac. ‘Our captain general agreed with what I had already said to him earlier but did not want to be seen to have his previous proposals overturned, no doubt told by Cunradus to avoid any loss of face. His monk waited till the mood of the room suited a show of hands before calling for it.’
That accepted, it was Cunradus who laid down the detailed plan; how far Hawkwood was to progress on each day and how far behind should be the nearest elements of the main body, with different sections leapfrogging to back up the archers. The route was one normally avoided, the main highway by which pilgrims made their way to Avignon or Rome, with some headed for the distant goals of Bethlehem or Jerusalem, there to pray in the Holy Sepulchre. That would be the disguise of the lead soldiery.
Weapons would be hidden in a waggon and they must appear pious. When stops were made, to rest horses and men, prayers should be said and that should apply when they encountered any of the numerous shrines that lined the roadway. Likewise hospices – frequent on the pilgrim routes – were to be shunned. Such places were rarely as virtuous as their founders had intended. Most had become enterprises designed to provide income for a monastery producing wines and food, so were more set to extract money than to provide spiritual rest.
Others had succumbed to a degree of licentiousness that would only become apparent on occupation, with women forced to take the veil by jealous husbands or greedy families stealing their inheritance. Having not naturally chosen a life of seclusion they were always hungry for company. Hawkwood could command his men in battle; it was much harder to make them bend to his will in temptation.
Di Valona had stated with confidence the time of arrival for the cardinals at Pont-Saint-Esprit, given he knew every place at which they intended to stop on their way from Italy. This meant progress could be measured, a mere four leagues a day, which made possible the interdiction of travellers, traders and pilgrims encountered heading south. Those going north were to be allowed to pass unmolested, just like any tempting objectives passed on the march. The final leg would be designed to bring Hawkwood’s company to the walls, it was hoped on a moonless night, with his confrères appearing the next day if the outcome was positive.
The sight of a hundred men walking as a body in prayer was unusual but not unknown. It was quaint that once their purpose had been extracted there were often people prepared to come out of their dwellings to offer them sustenance to ease their travel, added to a request that should they reach the Holy Land a prayer be said in the name of the giver. The supposed leader of this pilgrimage from England being one of the monks who rode with the Great Company, names were listed by him for future supplication.
Each night the men of another command caught up to seal the route and it was necessary that Hawkwood set out at dawn to put a distance between them. Singing psalms as they progressed, frequently stopping to be blessed and confess, they passed for what they claimed to be: seekers of salvation without the means to buy it from a venal papacy, mostly of a different nationality to those whose land they passed through, but of the same faith and circumstance.
Naturally, when resting the main subject of discussion was Pont-Saint-Esprit, di Valona repeating and elaborating on his descriptions of the place and its walls while the man who would be tasked with taking them formulated ways in which they could be overcome. On the night before the last leg Hawkwood would proceed ahead of his own men and Jonzac made an obvious point.
‘For all your confidence, I cannot see, John, how you can plan to overcome walls you have not seen with your own eyes?’
‘There’s truth in that, by damn,’ was the trenchant opinion of Francis the Belge.
Hawkwood knew as well as his fellow captains they were right. Description, though comprehensive, could not replace his own experience of assessing defences. Yet certain facts they could guess, like the number of guards who would be on the walls through the hours of darkness. In a body of fifty men there would be those of rank who did not do the duty, though they might be the ones obliged to check their men were awake at their posts or called on to oversee the changes of watch, which had to be split so men could sleep.
Hawkwood reckoned he would have at the most a dozen men to deal with on walls that to be properly defended against a serious threat required perhaps a hundred, and that could only come with help from the citizens. At night they too would
be asleep, though there would be a tocsin with which to summon them from their beds in an emergency.
‘In these parts it is dark by the seventh hour after noon and not light again till seven after midnight. Twelve hours means, in a normal garrison, three guard changes at least. With such small numbers it is possible the last set will be the same as the first, men made weary from disturbed slumbers.’
There were dwellings along the main road north which could provide cover for an approach, but they would contain dogs and geese, the latter the best alarm system invented by nature. For that reason he reckoned he would need to use the narrow strand along the riverbank, likely to be the least well defended.
‘I reckon on a parapet without tubs brimful of water, either.’
That earned a nod of recognition from his peers. Such tubs could, by the tiny ripples on the surface of the water, detect the vibrations of multiple horses’ hooves on hard ground.
‘Such devices would be saved for approaches that favoured cavalry, would they not, which cannot apply where the walls abut the river?’
The Belge pointed out there were bound to be beacons, fire-filled ironwork baskets attached to the top of the walls to cast a faint light on the ground below, but Hawkwood was sure that men, if they looked at all from castle walls, aimed their gaze out not down if anything drew their attention.
‘Are you to go ahead alone?’ asked Roland de Jonzac.
‘I’ll take young Gold. He can return to us if anything goes awry.’
‘And if you are intercepted he is too young to be seen as a threat.’
That got a smile from the lad’s master and a nod at his Aquitanian friend. ‘Even if I told him not to, he would dog my heels, anyway.’
‘He’s faithful, right enough, I can hear him slithering about ten paces away.’
‘He fears I will suffer the fate of his father and be struck by lightning.’
‘And how,’ the Belge asked, with scant grace, ‘does he intend to prevent what will be the will of the Almighty, without even mentioning the weather is clement?’
Jonzac answered for Hawkwood. ‘He prays more than any of us, Francis, and not for himself for I have heard him. He sees himself taking a bolt instead of John here, though he’s more at risk from a crossbow, carrying the banner.’
Originally taken on out of sympathy, Christopher Gold had become obsessed by the need to display his loyalty to John Hawkwood. The lad would shield his master if he thought him in danger, even when he was angrily told to desist. Too young to be a fully competent fighter, he was improving by the day due to his constant efforts to hone his skills with sword, shield and dagger. He had transferred the pennant he carried to a spear that could be used to ward off enemies.
‘Christopher Gold, stop eavesdropping and come sit by the fire.’
The round face, dotted with angry spots, came into the circle of light made by the blazing logs, the expression concerned. ‘Weren’t listening, Sir John, on the lives of the saints.’
Hawkwood shook his head slowly; how many times had he told the youngster not to use that title? The same number of times as he had been ignored, for the lad was proud to serve a true knight, a title taken by many to carry with it no real claim. For his master, the reluctance to have it stated was as much to do with avoiding comparison as a degree of modesty. Besides, those who had elevated themselves became jealous of anyone who carried the right and that was never good in a company of mutual dependence.
A wave brought the boy closer, to sit by his master who was now looking at him with benign affection. Fourteen summers now, the lad had such a sunny disposition that he seemed incapable of making enemies. He had been adopted as a page by Hawkwood after the retreat from Paris, a march that had been depressing enough. Not even King Edward, a man who could charm the birds from the trees, could lift the spirits of an army that felt defeated.
Then came the massive thunderstorm that struck the host on the road back to Normandy. Gold’s father, an Essex archer like Hawkwood and from close to Sible Hedingham, wearing a chain mail cowl, had been struck and killed, leaving the boy distraught and an orphan. There was no home to go to, so his adoption was necessary to honour his father’s memory as well as to keep him alive.
‘Well, can I go on alone?’
‘It would not please me that you should, Sir John.’
‘So you were listening?’
‘Only to that bit.’
Jonzac burst out laughing. ‘So how should we go about attacking the place?’
The reply was delivered with all the certainty of youth. ‘If my master were to ride to their gate and demand that they open it, they would be fools to deny him.’
‘And you would be by his side?’
‘Proud to be so, sir.’
‘Sleep, boy,’ Hawkwood ordered, ‘me likewise. I will have the watchmen wake us early so we can leave before the camp stirs.’
The face lit up. ‘And will we smite the buggers for certain?’
‘Just have a care,’ Jonzac jested, ‘the smites don’t bugger you.’
That brought confusion to the corn-blue eyes; Gold, a good-looking boy even with spots, and naïve, had no idea what he was on about and he did not hang about for clarification. Hawkwood was already making his way to the waggon, under which lay his straw-filled paillasse. It was not long before all the youngster could hear was his hearty snores.
As a pair there was no need for subterfuge or excessive piety. A man and a boy, well dressed now in good if not gaudy clothes, riding together, was too common a sight to be remarked upon on a road getting busier as the light grew stronger, increasingly so as they approached the town, the river and the bridge that spanned it. Hawkwood was armed with no more than a sword and his knife, which would be seen as sensible on a pilgrim’s way, much open to banditry.
The quality of the mounts might be remarked upon for they were very fine, the property of a prosperous man, as indeed they had at one time been until taken as booty. Likewise the spear borne by Gold, bereft of the Hawkwood pennant, might raise an eyebrow. But then young men were prey to such martial fancies and since anyone they passed was heartily greeted with a cry of ‘Godspeed’, no suspicions were evident.
The land was as fertile as reported, with rows of vines on the hillsides and wheat and barley waving on the breeze where the land was flat. Orchards abounded too, with apples, pears and apricots, which were fruit-laden if not yet ripe. The figs were, however, and taken if they could be reached as a welcome purgative to a diet that often left men cozened.
With the heat of the day and a slight haze the walls of Pont-Saint-Esprit, at a distance, seemed detached from the earth, a floating fortress impossible to overcome though the truth became plain closer to. All castles look strong from a distance: in John Hawkwood’s experience many did not sustain that formidable appearance when properly inspected. It was something to remark upon that citizens who depended on walls to protect them were too often mean when it came to paying to keep them in good repair, there always being a better use for their money than their own security. A full belly beat sound stones for most, until they lamented their girth when those walls were overcome.
‘Calais was not like that,’ Hawkwood continued.
He was, as was common, relating to Gold some exploit from his past, going on to describe the double moat and high curtain walls as well as the separate citadel on the northern dunes and what attempts were made to overcome them. This was meat and drink to the youngster who loved to hear of what he called his master’s past glories, though Hawkwood remembered Calais as being more mud than grandeur. It also came from a time when the boy had just been weaned, long before he joined his father in France.
‘Could there be a richer town in northern France, with it being the gateway for anyone travelling from England to trade or go on pilgrimage? No need to starve there to attend to their walls.’
‘Yet it fell, I know, my father told me of it too.’
‘After a whole year it fell and with h
undreds of children and old folks kicked out to save the fighters. If the French had possessed a fleet it would be holding out yet, but that was destroyed at Sluys and so we starved them out. The burghers came with halters round their necks to plead that Calais be spared.’
‘King Edward will keep it?’
That was a sound question given what he had surrendered at the Treaty of Brétigny; to the thinking of many of his army he had given up far too much of that which they had spent years fighting to take for the English Crown.
‘It would be a foolish sovereign who gave that up. When we first came to France it was to an open beach in Normandy. It is not a good route of entry to take if you are opposed.’
A gentle tug on the reins brought Hawkwood to a halt, for the proximity to Pont-Saint-Esprit had dissipated the haze so that the walls were now in plain view and earthbound. If much of the stone had darkened with age, there were enough blocks in original colour and well spread to show they were kept in good repair. The halt was short: running close to the town, the road was now becoming crowded and being static in examination could cause comment. Moving on they passed empty carts coming out from their morning deliveries and jostled with full ones yet to enter the gates. The number of what Hawkwood assumed to be pilgrims making their way homewards had increased to create a crowd by the north-west gate.
Beyond that, with a tollbooth and guards, lay the old Roman bridge: an arch of stones that had stood since the time of the Caesars, a way for the legions to march into Gaul as well as a defensible crossing to keep barbarian hordes in check. It was a sobering thought for Hawkwood that he was contemplating the taking of a fortress on which Rome had relied to defend some of its most fertile possessions. If it had fallen at times, it had not done so often and there was a nagging itch that had him wonder at the wisdom of the claims he had made to his fellow captains.
The gates were guarded and entry was not given freely to strangers, though the familiar went through on the nod. Once the gabelle was paid for by Hawkwood, a purpose had to be stated and an official in the stone gatehouse chamber consulted where doubt arose. What saved Hawkwood the indignity was his clear prosperity; men dressed in good clothing and with what appeared to be a servant in attendance were not of the type to indulge in thievery. Besides, the place lived off the traveller and anyone who looked to have coin to spend had to be welcomed, not discomfited, although the municipality wished to be paid a small fee for access to underwrite their activities.
