The Half-Hanged Man

by David Pilling

  Froissart pushed his bowl aside and leaned forward eagerly. “Where is he now? What have your men done with him? Your note mentioned that he was caged. I took that to mean he was imprisoned somewhere?”

  Calveley held up his hand. “Peace. I am an old, sick man, and you ask too many questions too quickly. Give me time and space to answer them.”

  Froissart suppressed his impatience by taking a long drink of wine.

  “I gather that our mutual friend told you a story,” said Calveley, “all about his exploits in France, and the origins of that black-haired Spanish whore he loved.”

  Froissart nodded to indicate this was so.

  “It is not often that a man has the undivided attention of Jean Froissart,” Calveley went on, “the greatest chronicler of our age. I know all about the great work you are trying to complete. My tale, I fancy, will make a worthy final chapter.”

  “I have not come here to listen to your old war stories!” Froissart cried, upsetting the tray on his knees as he rose, “I want to know what you have done with Thomas Page! Tell me this instant, or I will go back to London!”

  Calveley’s glare pinned him back to his seat. “You will not speak to like that again,” he said in a soft and steely tone, “and you only leave this house when I give you permission. Understand?”

  Froissart gave a submissive jerk of his head. He had spilled his broth, and some of the scalding hot liquid was trickling down his leg. Easily intimidated by stronger men, Calveley’s stare had transfixed him like a spear-thrust.

  “That’s better,” said Calveley, the grim lines of his weathered face softening a little, “there is no need for animosity. We are not enemies. I would tell you, however, of one who was my enemy, and how I hunted him through Brittany and Spain.”

  His features darkened again. With an oath he cast his empty cup into the fire. “Of how he eluded me,” he growled, “and humiliated me, until we had our reckoning at Najéra.”

  Froissart screwed up the courage to speak. “I have already written about the Najéra campaign,” he said, “it is described in my Chronicle and other works.”

  “Not all,” said Calveley, shaking his oversized head, “you have not written all of it. Have you brought writing materials?”

  “No,” Froissart said bitterly, “I did not expect to be put to work when I came here.”

  Calveley lifted one long arm and snapped his fingers. Adam, who Froissart reckoned must have been eavesdropping in the corridor, appeared and gave a bow.

  “Fetch pen and parchment for our guest,” Calveley ordered, “and send a maid to clear up the mess on the floor. He had an accident.”

  Adam bustled to it, and Froissart was swiftly furnished with a quill and a stack of fresh parchment while a mousy-haired girl cleaned up the remains of his meal.

  When all was settled, Calveley poured another cup of his opium-laced restorative and began to speak.

  1.

  I did not encounter the Wolf until the 29th of September 1364, which was the day of the Battle of Auray. You know all about Auray, of course, but I will supply my version of the campaign here.

  Such a grand affray deserves an eye-witness account, though dry words alone cannot convey the glory and terror of battle – the war-shouts, the zip of arrows, the whinnying of terrified horses, the boom of cannon, the gush of blood and the sweat of terror. The cramping of limbs in the press, the fear and excitement welling in the pit of one’s gut. You have never been in a battle, Froissart. You have spent your life writing about something you cannot understand. Hark to one who does.

  Auray was the final and decisive battle of the Breton wars, much to my regret, for the conflict between the rival ducal Houses of Blois and Montfort had provided me with a good living.

  I arrived back in Brittany in the spring of 1362, after an interesting couple of years in which I commanded a contingent of men-at-arms in the service of Pedro of Castile, and then returned to France and narrowly escaped arrest for violating the Anglo-French peace. We old routiers never learn, and I never had much respect for treaties that were only made to be broken.

  May of that year found me again in the west of Brittany, where I had enjoyed such rich pickings in my youth (and been captured and ransomed twice, in that absurd affair of the Combat of the Thirty, and during a sortie under the walls of Montmuran. Aye, I’ve had an interesting time of it).

  The Breton crisis was much as it always was, with both sides tearing up the countryside and making a fat profit from raid and counter-raid, which is how a war should be. Along with my old comrade, James Pipe, I took service with Sir John Chandos on the side of Earl John de Montfort. I had fought for the Earl in my previous stint in Brittany. Not out of any sentimental attachment to the young firebrand, you may be sure, but because he paid better.

  The whole of France was drowning in fire and blood at this time, with the Free Companies and the armies of Edward of England ravaging at will. The King of France was still a prisoner in England. He was briefly allowed to return to Paris in the summer of 1362, but took one look at the state of the place and scuttled back across the Channel. The Dauphin scraped together an army to try and disperse the Companies, and sent the Comte de Tancarville and the Comte de Marche to meet them in battle at Brignais. There the French were thoroughly whipped and chased like hares through the woods and fields. Great days!

  Months of profitable chaos passed by. In the autumn word reached me that the great walled town of La Charité-sur-Loire in Burgundy had fallen, stormed at night by an alliance of English and Gascon freebooters. I was busy reducing a castle at the time (I forget where, some fly-speck of a place in western Brittany) and the news was an intriguing distraction from the drudgery of the siege.

  I would have shrugged it off - towns and castles were being taken and re-taken every day, and I doubted the Companies could hold La Charité long – save that the messenger, a dirty-faced little Navarrois esquire, also informed me that my cousin, William, had been killed in the street-fighting.

  “How did he die?” I demanded, and was gratified by the look of abject terror on the esquire’s face. I had the gift of inspiring terror in those days. Not difficult with a face like mine, stuck on top of this monstrous trunk.

  “Captain-General,” he snivelled, falling to his knees and clasping his hands together, “he fell, not at the hands of a Burgundian, but in a duel with one of your countrymen.”

  I tried to bring my cousin to mind. I had only met him once or twice at Christmas on my father’s estate at Lea in Cheshire. William Calveley had been an esquire of no great reputation, lord of a few profitless manors in England, though I had heard he was planning to come to France and restore his fortune. I would have liked to employ him in my retinue and school him in the military arts. Now some whoreson, and a fellow Englishman to boot, had denied me that pleasure.

  “Who killed him, maggot?” I snarled, reaching down to grasp the esquire’s belt and lift him, one-handed, clean off his feet. You may not think so now, when you look upon this enfeebled, rotting hulk, but I was fearsomely strong in those days.

  “A man named Thomas Page, Captain-General,” he stammered, turning blue as he gasped for breath, “I know nothing about him, save that he slew your kinsman in revenge for the death of his brother.”

  I dropped him to the floor and kicked him out. For long hours afterwards I brooded on the killing of my cousin, while the bombards and mortars boomed and cracked outside (and made damned little impression on the castle, for all their infernal noise and stench). I was eaten up with thoughts of revenge on the man who had slain my cousin. No-one harmed a Calveley, I vowed, and lived long to boast of it.

  In the end I decided to leave the conduct of the siege to James Pipe and go back to Montmuran, where most of my Company, three hundred lances and seven hundred archers, was quartered. I had some vague notion of leaving the Earl’s service and riding west to hunt down Page in Burgundy, but that was impossible. The war in Brittany had reached a critical juncture. Be
rtrand de Guesclin was laying siege to Mantes and Meulan on behalf of the Blois faction, and my men could not be spared.

  Nor could I do anything to save the towns. They were garrisoned by a lot of cowardly and useless Navarrois, whose commanders proved unequal to Du Guesclin’s wiles: for instance, at Meulan his miners dug a tunnel under the defences, soaked it in bacon grease and fired it, bringing the outer wall crashing down.

  The war in Brittany ground on, and in the spring of 1363 the Earl ordered me to raise the siege of Bécherel. Off I went, like a good little retainer, and on the way I encountered my old acquaintance, James Hook.

  Hook, you may recall, was an Englishman who rose to modest estate by serving as a spy and double agent, first for England, and then for whoever paid him most. I spotted him sitting on a riverbank outside the blackened remains of a village, dangling his feet in the water and placidly eating his supper as he watched my men ride past.

  I came up behind him – for a big man, I could soft-foot when I wanted to - and gave him a kick.

  “Hook, you viper,” I snarled, “you deceiver, you liar, you slippery-tongued Judas. How long has it been?”

  “Not long enough, Captain-General,” he replied, ruefully rubbing his arse as he scrambled to his feet. “The last time we met was in the Auvergne, back in ’59, I think.”

  “And where have you doing recently?” I prodded him in the chest with my forefinger, “if you are in the service of the Blois faction, don’t think of spying on my Company. You know me, Hook. I’ll hang you up by your toes from the nearest tree.”

  He shuddered. “Yes, Captain-General, I know you. Truth is, I have had a hard time of it in recent months. I was in the employ of the Duke of Burgundy, but there was a misunderstanding over stolen wages. Now I work for the Captal de Buch. He has dispatched me to speak to Charles of Navarre about the projected invasion of Burgundy.”

  I didn’t believe a word of it. “A great man like the Captal de Buch wouldn’t employ a sewer-rat like you, except to clean his latrines. Never mind, you can keep your secrets. How long were you in Burgundy?”

  “Three years, Captain-General.”

  “Then you will know about the fall of La Charité-sur-Loire, and a man named Thomas Page?”

  He nodded. “I was not present when the town fell, but spent some time there after the Companies stormed it. It is in the hands of Louis of Navarre now. His troops flushed out the mercenaries just a few days ago.”

  This news had not yet reached me, but it made sense. Louis of Navarre was the younger brother of Charles the Bad of Navarre, and the ally of my own master, Montfort. Charles had claimed Burgundy and Normandy for himself, and must have dispatched his brother to make a pre-emptive strike by seizing La Charité, thus gaining control over the east of the duchy.

  “What of Page?” I demanded impatiently. “Have you met him? Was he at La Charité when it fell a second time?”

  Hook grinned. “Not only was he there, his men were first up the ladders. He knew that the town couldn’t hope to hold out against the Navarrois, so he offered his services to Louis.”

  “What services can one man offer?”

  “You have been too long in Brittany, Captain-General. The Wolf of Burgundy, as Page is known, commands a considerable following. Since La Charité fell last year, he has gained a reputation as a captain who can think and fight, quite often at the same time. He has taken half a dozen castles through various stratagems, and extracted fat ransoms from towns all over the duchy. Some say he relies on the advice of his woman, the Spanish whore they call the Raven. Whether that is true or not, the Duke can do nothing with him, and every army he sends against the Company of Wolves and their allies is severely beaten.”

  “He already commands his own Company?”

  “Yes. The Wolves must number five or six hundred men by now. They are a holy terror. He only takes able fighting men between the ages of sixteen and thirty, and is generous with the division of plunder.”

  A sly look crept over Hook’s face. “I know he killed your kinsman. Page suspects you are thirsting for his blood. I have spoken with him on a few occasions.”

  I folded my arms and looked across the river, where the wagons carrying my ordnance and baggage were creaking past. “How would you like to earn some good money, Hook? I have a job for you.”

  “Your pardon, Captain-General. At any other time I would be happy to serve, but I have my message to deliver.”

  I glanced down at his patched cloak, torn and dirty clothing, and the lean purse hanging from his belt. “Five hundred francs if you accept,” I said.

  Pure greed shone in his eyes, and he patted his jerkin theatrically. “Strange,” he said, “I seem to have lost the Captal’s letter. Ah, well. What job, Captain-General?”

  “Just this. Do you see my crest?”

  I pointed at the standard carried by my esquire at the head of my troops. It bore my personal crest, three black bull-calves divided by a diagonal red line against a white field.

  “I know it well, Captain-General,” Hook said ingratiatingly, “it has flown victoriously over a score of battlefields.”

  “Spare your flattery for those who can stomach it. I want you to take a message to Thomas Page, wherever he is. Tell him this. The Bull will gore the Wolf.”

  Hook smirked in appreciation. “The Bull will gore the Wolf,” he repeated. “I shall tell him.”

  “Good. And hear me, Hook” – I gripped his dirty neck – “if you have any thoughts of absconding with my five hundred francs without fulfilling your mission, forget them, for I will hunt you down and boil you in a pot. You know me.”

  He cringed, and offered a nervous salute. Not that I had any serious doubts he would deliver the message. It amused Hook to stir up trouble, and he knew I didn’t make empty threats.

  “Oh yes, Captain-General,” he said, “I know you.”

  2.

  Hook was wise enough to heed my threats, though I did not receive a reply to my message until after Christmas. By then the Breton war had bogged down in the depths of a particularly harsh winter, and the contending factions were equally mired in peace negotiations at Poitiers that had been dragging on since the summer. The proposal, put before the Prince of Wales as mediator, was that Brittany should be split between Charles de Blois and John de Montfort, and that both parties should have the right to call themselves Duke.

  I have already mentioned that I am no great lover of treaties. They are usually nothing but wind and hypocrisy, merely an excuse for both sides to recover their breath before the next round of fighting. That was the case at Poitiers. Charles de Blois and Earl John loathed each other like poison, and everyone present knew that the issue could only be decided on the battlefield.

  Peace had also been declared between France and England, and their armies disbanded. The ranks of the Companies were swelled by thousands of these unemployed soldiers, and I and my fellow captains spent a profitable winter ravaging and pillaging the French countryside.

  Page’s reply reached me at Rennes, where I was nursing my liver back to health after a debauched Christmas spent in the company of Chandos, James Pipe and Robert Knolles. My recovery wasn’t aided by an ultimatum we had just received from King Edward himself, ordering us to give up the territories we had wrested from the French and return them to King John of France, as per the terms of the Treaty of Bretigny. I was inclined to spit on His Majesty’s ultimatum, though he had knighted me and I could not afford to alienate my liege lord. Without Edward’s patronage I was a mere brigand.

  Taken in all, I was in a foul mood when James Hook found me. He came swaggering into the dining-hall of a merchant’s house I had requisitioned, looking considerably better-fed and clothed than the last time I had seen him.

  “Captain-General,” he trilled, sweeping off his hat and executing an elaborate bow, somewhat impeded by his little paunch.

  “Hook,” I said, looking up from the remains of my breakfast, “what reply from the Wolf?”

>   “Straight to the heart of the matter, as ever,” he laughed. “Well, after long weeks of searching I eventually found him, though not in Burgundy. He and his Company of Wolves are camped in the hills near Lyons, despoiling the country as they please, levying ransoms from the citizens, and resisting any attempt to dislodge them. I was received in their camp with great courtesy, and delivered your message to Page in person.”

  “His response?”

  “Quite lyrical. That handsome whore they call the Raven was at his side. She whispered into his ear before he made a reply. The words are hers, I suspect.”

  “Hook,” I growled, “tell me what the bastard said, before I break you over my knee.”

  “Just so, Captain-General, just so. My apologies. He said that the Wolf and the Raven together have no fear of the Bull, and that they will tear out his eyes and throat if he should venture from his pen.”

  He waited warily for my response, clearly expecting an explosion of wrath. Instead I sat back and grinned. “Insolent little bastard,” I remarked, picking at a nail. “So he has no fear of me. Interesting. I cannot leave Brittany until this war is resolved and I am released from Montfort’s service. Have you any notion where Page will go next?”

  “He confided in me that he is waiting on the result of the negotiations at Poitiers,” he replied, “if Blois and Montfort make peace, then he will take his Company out of France and offer his services to Prince Enrique of Trastamara. The Raven, I understand, has long held a grudge against King Pedro of Castile, and wishes to see him deposed and his head on a spike over the gates of Seville.”

  “And if the negotiations fail?”

  He smirked at my eager expression. “He will bring his Company to Brittany, and enter the service of Charles de Blois. In which case, Captain-General, there should be no need for you to seek him out. You will be fighting on opposite sides.”

  I gazed out of the window, at the snow-heaped rooftops and icy streets of Rennes. “Then let God extinguish any feelings of goodwill at Poitiers,” I said, “which I have no doubt thereof. Mark my words, Hook, war will resume in the spring.”