"I'd have no respect for a king who'd wagtail a sheep," said Walt, shocked by the proposition.
"Walt, when I was young Rome was ruled by Emperor Nero, who was a drunken fornicator. Did all the great Roman Empire throw off the rule of law just because the Emperor set a bad example? Thirteen years before him was the Emperor Caligula, who was as mad as hares in March and a sodomite too."
"T'bugger were not fit ter lead," snarled Guy.
"Eventually he was assassinated, but we Romans put up with a lot from him because he was our leader. Which would you rather have as ruler? An otherwise just king who tups the queen's ladies in waiting, or the Jacques and brigands?"
"He's right, Mai," said Walt. "Nowt but Christ an' Mary walked the earth free of sin. Ravishin' is always evil, but killin'
them as leads the land means evil for all."
For once Mai had been played out by an argument. "The French I've seen have been sorrowful bad rulers," he muttered.
"Aye, but give our king a few years and all France will be under good English rule," laughed Guy, and for once the others all agreed.
Will was waiting for them as they reached the crest of the hill. Below was a village of about five hundred, and there seemed to be a disturbance going on. The road led right through its center.
'There's no fighting or burning," Will pointed out. "And, no large numbers have passed this way for a few days."
"A wedding, perhaps, or a fair?" asked Vitellan.
"Seems a happy crowd," said Walt, who had acute hearing. "A lot of shouting and laughing, but no screams or clashing of weapons."
'Then we go in," said Vitellan. "If it's a fair we can buy cakes and bread as a break from our dried meat and nuts." As they reached the outskirts they met a lookout sitting on bundles of brushwood and drinking from a heavy silver goblet set with green stones. Guy scowled to see the goblet and turned to Mai as they approached.
"That cup be looted, and he be a Jacque," he said softly. "I'll talk with him, see what he's about." Smiling broadly, Guy walked forward and hailed the villein, who sat up and raised the goblet in salute. They began speaking, and the villein got to his feet and pointed over the roofs to a stubby chapel tower. Almost at that moment the chapel bell began to ring. Still smiling, Guy smoothly drew his falchion and drove it underhand into the man's belly, then jerked upward. The villein collapsed to the road, screaming and writhing. Guy wiped the blade on his jerkin, then walked back to the others.
'T'bugger breathed garlic on me," Guy declared. Vitellan looked to the villein, who was trying to stuff torn intestines back into himself and shrieking with agony and horror.
"So there's been a massacre here, too?"
"There's Jacques in the village, about ten score. Sir, ah, Perceval de Boucien and his squire were killed outside the chapel just now. His lady and children are cornered in the stairwell of the chapel's belltower."
" 'Tis bigger than that hamlet," said Guy, looking straight at Mai.
"Master?" implored Mai, looking to Vitellan. "Advise me," ordered Vitellan. The ringing of the bell and shouting of the distant crowd were a background to his silence. A thin scream cut through the noise, not loud but quite distinct. Vitellan folded his arms and waited for Mai's reply, as did the others. Behind him the villein bubbled out a last breath and died unheeded.
"Master, there's—Master, say there's not too many for us, please!"
They split into two groups, both taking bundles of brushwood that they lit from the coals of an untended communal oven. They made their way through the back paths of the village, setting fire to houses, woodpiles, and brush fences as they went. As they passed near the chapel they could hear laughter and taunts above the commotion and the ringing of the bell. They re-formed on the main road at the other side, just as the fires were noticed and the first shouts of alarm went up.
Seated awkwardly in front of the horses' packs, Vitellan, Mai, Walt, and Will charged the mob, which was already streaming off to fight the fires. Guy followed on foot and to one side, wearing a villein's jacket draped over his shoulders and without a helmet. The riders ploughed into the crowd before the chapel, laying about them with their swords. Guy caught a glimpse of a headless, battered corpse, then he reached the door where villeins were streaming out in alarm. He gripped the edge and squeezed his way in past the crush.
Within the chapel his eyes took some moments to adjust to the gloom after the bright spring sunlight outside. The stone stairwell was to his right, on the other side of the crowd. They were mainly Jacques, all asking each other what was going on outside. Guy cursed himself for not asking Mai a few more words of French as he skirted the crowd, then guessed at two and began to shout "Chapel burning! Chapel burning!" The panic to get through the door intensified.'
A stoutish woman of about forty was holding back a dozen or so remaining Jacques with an oxtongue pike, defending the entrance to a stone stairwell. A boy of about eight was behind her, holding a small axe but petrified with fear. Two Jacques were thrusting severed heads at her on the ends of staves while the others were jabbing with pikes. She was bleeding from several cuts already and her face was streaked with sweat and blood.
Guy calmly removed the villein's jacket, drew his sword and took a handaxe from his belt. He had quietly and me- thodically stabbed three Jacques in the back before the others realized and shrank back in alarm. Blows from pikestaffs bounced from Guy's butt-leather armor, but the Jacques were wearing only padded surplices. Guy cleared a path to the base of the stairwell, where he dodged a vicious swipe from the woman's oxtongue.
"Friends! Friends! Aht, stupid snaileaters!" he bellowed in English.
"English, I speak it," the woman cried back. "How many of you?"
"My two girls ring the bell, this boy, that is all."
"Call 'em down, keep together. Throw the pike away, take the boy's axe. Better for close fighting, aim for their faces." The girls had been dressed as boys, and had had their hair cropped short. By now the chapel was all but cleared of living Jacques, and the woman shepherded the children behind Guy as he led them to the door.
"Stay together as we go through the door," he called. "Don't strike anyone unless they attack, we may not be noticed in the fuss outside. Make for the east."
One of the girls began to whimper, but her mother slapped her ear smartly and she stopped. They went through the door and stumbled over heaped corpses as the sunlight dazzled them. The four riders were fighting in a group over to one side of the square in front of the chapel, and a Jacque captain had managed to get his pikemen into sufficient order to surround them. Guy skirted the fighting with the family behind him, then waved to the concealed bowmen as they got clear. Giles and his men began to methodically shoot into the east side of the circle of Jacques surrounding the riders, and after what seemed an eternity they realized what was happening and began to scatter to either side. Vitellan led the riders through the break, and the bowmen laid down a covering fire as they rode back to them. Luckily for the travelers the Jacque captain was no fool, and had probably spent time as a soldier. Not knowing how many attackers there were and with the village blazing around him, he ordered his men to form a pike-wall across the main road to protect the other villagers as they fought the fires.
Vitellan looked back and realized that there would be no immediate pursuit. As he tried to lift the boy onto his horse Mai toppled to the road, leaving the back of his horse slick with blood.
"You ride?" Vitellan demanded of the woman in French, and she shouted in English that she could.
"Then mount the horse. Gilbert, get Mai across the horse's neck in front of her. Will, Walt, take the two girls and the boy."
The overloaded horses could barely manage a slow, jarring trot, but even so Guy was so exhausted that he could barely keep up. Mai had a pike wound over the right kidney. He moaned for them to leave him, then vomited down the front leg of the horse. One minute of hard fighting is a strain, five minutes can have even a strong man-at-arms near exhaust
ion: the battle in the village had lasted over fifteen minutes. Guy managed to jog for a mile before he collapsed. Vitellan ordered his armor stripped and shared among the bowmen, and Gilbert helped Guy up and supported him as they made for a cluster of willow trees where the road touched a curve in the River Marne.
The woman and Mai fell from the saddle in a bloody heap as soon as they stopped. They were hidden by the drooping branches, and the village was marked only by a thick column of smoke behind some low, scrubby hills.
"Have to move on, soon," panted Vitellan, untying a saddle pack, "but . . . horses exhausted. Unpack blankets, all but a day's ration each. Dump the rest in the river."
"Mai can't travel," said Gilbert, pouring the last of his wine over the wound while one of the girls cut bandages from a cape. "He may not last to nightfall."
"We've not even got an hour," wheezed Guy.
"Cut four willow branches. Strap a stretcher between two horses. I've seen the Danes do that."
"That would kill him as surely as riding."
"We can ... leave him here to die... or he can come with us . . . and die." Vitellan's voice was a rasp, and his legs were trembling. "No ... no other option."
Vitellan collapsed on a grassy bank, hungrily gasping for breath. Although strong, he did not have much endurance. He watched the girls help wash the blood and grime of the battle from his men while the little boy helped the bowmen wrap food and spare gear in blankets weighted with stones, then dump them in the river. Well-trained, well-disciplined children, he thought with approval, then remembered their mother. She was squeezing river water from a cloth onto Guy, who was still gasping loudly for air and feeling his fifty-seven years heavily after running a mile and a half from the village. Vitellan took out a strip of dried meat and began to chew. His stomach was still hurting, but he had forgotten the pain during the events of the morning. When he had chewed what juices he could out of the meat he spat out the pulp, closed his eyes, lay back and drifted away to somewhere quiet and blank.
"Are you wounded, good sir?"
Vitellan opened his eyes to see the woman kneeling beside him. He shook his head.
"I tire easily, I—I have a wasting disease. Nobody can help."
"Good sir, I must humbly thank you with all my heart for saving us from the Jacques. There were hundreds of them, and against them only nine of you." Tears welled in her eyes as she spoke, then ran down her plump cheeks leaving glistening trails in the blood and dust.
"We help as we can," he said, embarrassed, "but this land has gone mad and we are few. What is your name, please?"
"I am Anne, widow of Sir Perceval de Boucien as of this hour. Guy told me that you are Vitellan, from England, and that you are his Master."
Vitellan sat up. "You must wash your face, we must not look as if we have been in recent fighting. Your robes are torn and bloody: how bad are your wounds?"
"Many but slight. My death was to be a long, slow game, they meant to bleed and weaken me."
"You must wear Mai's armor over your robes to hide the rents and blood. Guy! Can you walk?"
"Aye, Master."
"Bring Mai's armor over and show the Lady Anne how to strap it on."
Guy's deathly pale face instantly flushed red. "Master! I couldn't, I, I—"
The undivided attention of everyone was suddenly upon Guy. Even the dying Mai managed to raise his head for a moment.
"Better your fingers than those of the Jacques," said Lady Anne with her hands on her hips. Mai began a wheezing rattle of a laugh.
Guy tramped away to gather Mai's scattered butt-leather armor, sword, and shield. He dropped them in the grass before the knight's widow. ~
"My lady, please to put these on and look the part of a man-at-arms."
"I am sorry for thrusting at you with my pike, and I swear that I shall never eat another snail."
"My lady, I didn't mean . . ." He stood scratching the back of his neck for a moment. "Please to armor up, I'll help—that is, meanin' no lewd intent."
She took his hand and squeezed it in both of hers. Guy blushed beet red again, then reached down for the armor. In less than a quarter hour they were on the road, with the horses a little restored from the water and grazing. Mai was on a stretcher between two horses walking side by side, with light packs piled to conceal him. The archers had shot most of their arrows in their barrage, and had not been able to recover any before they fled. Smoke continued to rise from the village behind them on the still air of late morning. Nobody came after them, but many villeins came hurrying from the other direction.
"Brigands attacked a village but were beaten off and fled west," Guy called in French under instruction from Lady Anne. All the while Anne told her story. She and her husband had been fleeing for the town of Meaux with their children Louise, Marie, and Jean. They had taken refuge in the village when one of their former servants had betrayed them to a group of Jacques that had become separated from the main mob. Her husband and his squire had died covering the family's flight to the chapel.
"You fought uncommonly well," said Vitellan.
"That is, for a woman or for a pampered noble's wife, do you mean, sir?" she replied with a smile.
"I have seen women fight as well as Guy says you did, and even better, but only after I'd trained them for many weeks." She blinked in surprise. "So you English train women to come against us now?"
"No, it was against the Danes when they invaded."
"There are no Danes invading England."
"But five hundred years ago there were."
She stared at him, waiting for the smile that would confess his words to be a joke. The smile never came. She looked to Guy. Guy nodded.
"Do not be alarmed, Lady Anne, you have not been rescued by a madman," Vitellan reassured her. "You had been trapped in the chapel for an hour, you say?"
"Yes. They were toying with me, only giving me many small cuts with their pikes. They could have rushed me at any time, but they knew they had all the time they wanted."
"So your husband taught you to fight like that?"
"Not so, good sir. My father was a baker, and a very rich baker. He owned nine mills and I was his only child. He thought to marry me to a knight, and he had a notion that the wife of a knight need know something of war's arts, along with the more usual women's skills and graces. Nobody could persuade him otherwise, so I was taught something of sword, pike, and archery."
Vitellan rubbed his chin speculatively. "Did it help you to secure a husband?"
"Not at all. Sir Perceval had been captured during the fighting near Caen in 1346, and had lost all of his wealth and estate in the ransom. My father provided an estate near Trakel for my dowry, and the marriage was quickly settled."
"But the Jacques have not threatened Trakel," said Guy.
"We were visiting my father in Beauvais when the Jacquerie began their revolt." By sunset they were fifteen miles from the village, and they stopped in a wood to rest and eat some of the dried meat that they had kept. Mai had begun bleeding again on the road, and his blood had soaked right through the stretcher and dripped into the dust. He was still conscious by the time they stopped, but very near to death. Gilbert boiled a soup of chopped meat in a helmet, but Mai choked while trying to swallow it.
"Best to die wi' conscience quiet," he said as Guy and Vitellan knelt beside him. "Honored to know you, Master."
"You can't die without Master's permission," said Guy awkwardly.
Mai closed his eyes. "Nobody to read over the dead now, Master. Best make sure that no others die."
"Would that I were such a good leader," said Vitellan.
"Dummart, who's to read over you if you die?" pleaded Guy. "Tighten your straps, Mai, the worst is over."
"Aye, the worst is over. I'll say a good word for all of ye ... wherever I'm sent." Lady Anne tended him for a while, and managed to get him to drink some tepid soup and keep it down.
"If he can eat he has a chance," she said to Guy, who had not left his
side. "Now he needs sleep." Some minutes later Mai had fallen asleep and was breathing regularly. Guy began to doze as the others ate and talked, but when he awoke Mai was dead.
They cut makeshift wooden trowels from branches and dug a grave in the soft soil. Vitellan spoke some Latin that he remembered from a Christian burial in the first century, then a few words of some language that none of them understood. Guy wept openly, and the children quietly gathered spring flowers for Mai's grave at the edge of the little fire's glow.
Gilbert had first watch, and Guy ordered the others to get what sleep they could. He was talking with Vitellan about how they might forage for food the next day when Lady Anne came over to them.
"There is no safety in any direction," she said as they sat in the darkness, "but I had heard that the royal family was sheltering at Meaux, on the River Marne. There is a fortress area, called the Market of Meaux, a strong and secure place. Perhaps three hundred great ladies and their children are there, guarded by loyal knights. The town is loyal, too."
"A fortress," Vitellan said doubtfully. "I have seen what
the Jacquerie have done to fortified houses. What of the town? Are the people really to be trusted?"
"The mayor and magistrates have sworn to protect the Dauphin's family from dishonor."
"Seems as good as any place in this terrible land," said Guy listlessly.
"Three hundred noblewomen will draw the Jacques like flies to spilled honey," said Vitellan.
"Aye Master, but if the Market be a stout fort it can withstand a siege for months. When winter comes the Jacques will flee the cold to their homes."
"It's the seventh of June, still two weeks before the solstice and half a year away from winter."
"A siege of six months is nothing rare."
Vitellan sat silent in the darkness for some time, making up his mind. "Meaux it shall be," he finally declared. "How far from here would it be, my lady?"
"Two days at today's pace, good sir."
"It's new moon," said Vitellan, looking through the trees to the west where Venus and Saturn hung brilliantly together above the horizon. "It's also near solstice, so the days are long. Mai is gone, so we can make two or three times today's pace. Tell me, if we were on the road before dawn and marched the whole day, stopping only to graze and water the horses, then could we reach Meaux by dusk?"
The Centurion's Empire Page 13
