Blood of the Innocents

by Michael Jecks

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘And you will swear to be bound to this?’ Charny asked.

  ‘Yes. Subject only to one condition.’

  ‘Which is?’ Talleyrand said.

  ‘That the treaty must be ratified by King Edward, his father.’

  ‘That is not possible,’ the Cardinal said with a smile. ‘We would have to wait for weeks to hear back from your King. We cannot accept that.’

  ‘That is the Prince’s firm determination. Without his father’s approval, the peace would hold no force. He has no right to agree to anything without his father’s agreement.’

  Charny peered at him. ‘You are serious? He will agree to nothing?’

  ‘Perhaps a short truce. No more.’

  ‘There is nothing more to discuss,’ the Archbishop snapped. ‘This has been an exercise in bad faith!’

  ‘Bad faith?’ Suffolk growled.

  Berenger’s hand moved towards the arrows at his belt. He glanced at Clip, who nodded.

  ‘You never had any intention of honourably negotiating,’ the Archbishop spat. ‘You wanted to hold us here and delay the battle. To rest your men, and give them the food you have looted from the farms about here!’

  ‘Whereas your men wanted to come and view our meagre forces,’ Chandos said.

  The two groups separated with a bad grace, Talleyrand piteously pleading with both parties not to report the failure of the talks. Instead he begged that both sides should warn their leaders that he would return later with further ideas.

  It was already late, and Berenger was glad to be marching back to the camp. With his eyesight he could see glowing balls of light at the French lines, but although he knew they were campfires, he could see nothing of the men who waited there for the moment when they would be sent into battle.

  He found himself close to the priest, Thomas de Ladit. As the light faded, Thomas was walking nearer as though seeking comfort in companionship.

  ‘What do you do here?’ Berenger asked him.

  ‘Me? I represent my King, Charles of Navarre, and will seek to advise your Prince as well.’

  ‘What will you seek to advise him?’

  ‘If he asks me, I will say that nothing King John offers can be believed. I have seen his uncontrollable rages. He is ungovernable when in a fury, and now he is determined to crush you and your army. He will not negotiate your freedom lightly.’

  The negotiators were soon back, and Berenger and his men were sent to find food for themselves. Later, Berenger saw a lone torch approaching, and the Prince once more met Talleyrand and his little entourage near Berenger and his men.

  ‘Sire, I have spoken to the French King and he does not accept your proposals.’

  ‘He does not?’

  Talleyrand looked like a man close to the end of his tether. ‘The Bishop of Chalons is there, and I fear he spoke against you. He declared that the English would do all they could to link armies with the Duke of Lancaster, and then begin to assault French towns and cities once more. They believe you will not surrender any towns or people, but will continue until you are stopped, and your army is destroyed. He was able to persuade the others that the best time to fight you would be now, when you are already trapped.’

  ‘So all our promises were ignored?’ Suffolk said.

  ‘If you will not agree to terms on your honour, but continue to demand that everything must be approved by your father the King, Chalons will convince others that you do not negotiate in good faith,’ Talleyrand declared, and there were tears in his eyes.

  ‘So, it is all done. You can bear witness, along with all my Lords here, along with these good archers, that I have offered much. I accepted your proposals in good faith, and I offered my own assurances. It is he who has rejected the chance of peace, and so I confidently place myself in the protection of God. He must adjudicate, and I ask that you pray for Him to grant the victory to our side because ours has the most justice. Our cause is just, as He will decide, I am sure.’

  ‘Please, do not submit to war! Give me something to negotiate with, and I will see if I can change their minds!’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Well, Sire, the King of France did offer you a truce for this night, if you swear not to use it to leave the field and retreat to Bordeaux. He is determined to give you battle.’

  ‘Is he? Well, you can assure him that I am also keen on a fight. But I will give him no assurances of remaining here, no. I didn’t come here with his permission, and I do not intend to ask it to leave either. I am here, and if the man calling himself King wishes to stop me from leaving, he must use his troops to do it.’

  ‘Sire, could you not give me space to negotiate? A truce in which you will not attack France again? That would at least give them some comfort!’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘As long as is necessary!’

  ‘I will consider a truce,’ the Prince said. ‘You may tell the French that I will consider a truce.’

  ‘My Lord, I am glad!’ Talleyrand said, and in moments he was gone.

  ‘So, Fripper,’ the Prince said when the delegation was gone. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Me, Sire? I think he is keen for a truce.’

  ‘Yes, but why, I wonder? Is it to save lives, or just to hold us here with no means of replenishing our stores of food, so that we can be more easily dealt with when it comes to battle later?’

  ‘I don’t pretend to understand the ways of negotiators,’ Berenger said. ‘It’s all over my head, Sire. My task is to serve you, and that I’ll do as best I may.’

  ‘Good. Then set guards about the camp and get your head down, Fripper. For in God’s name, I believe tomorrow we shall have our battle.’

  Monday 19 September

  Berenger and the men slept at their positions and were up and ready before dawn. He passed around his small sack and they began to make their oatcakes as the sun started to light the far hill. Campfires were lighted, and the men went to warm themselves occasionally, but for the most part the men stayed where they were. None of them had a satisfying sleep.

  Then, as the sun rose, Berenger saw her light spread across the French lines. Their banners and flags moved sluggishly in the gentle dawn breeze, but that did not detract from the awesome sight of thousands of men in armour standing in the cool morning while tendrils of mist moved slowly.

  ‘Shite, Frip! There’s more than yesterday,’ Grandarse muttered.

  Berenger was not convinced of that, but there was no doubt that it was a formidable army. It reached out in an arc before them, an enormous battle of men.

  ‘The buggers have learned from us, too,’ Hawkwood commented. ‘They’re all on foot.’

  It had been a firm principle of English fighting that it was better to dismount and fight on foot from a defensive position, rather than send cavalry against men who possessed spears and lances. A man with a spear would always be able to break a charge and threaten the knight, if he was determined enough. As Berenger watched, he could see men dismounting, their horses being taken to the rear of the French battles.

  ‘This is going to get messy, right enough,’ Dogbreath said.

  There was a shout from the front of the English lines and a body of men could be seen on horseback trotting towards them from their enemy.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Grandarse said.

  It was Robin who answered. ‘The Cardinal.’

  Clip looked over and sneered. ‘Perhaps he comes to say the French want to surrender?’

  Berenger gave a dry chuckle, but then he was beckoned by Sir John, and he was sent with his vintaine to join the Prince. Talleyrand met them at the front of the English lines.

  ‘Sire, will you grant me one more favour?’ he asked as he stepped forward, a clerk holding his reins for him.

  ‘No. It is too late, Cardinal. I am grateful for your efforts in saving us bloodshed, but you have overstepped the bounds of convention now.’

  ‘I swear I have attempted to bring
about peace. I have worked hard for that. I beg, just one more opportunity, please! To save all these lives, would you consider a truce for a year? Not an indefinite truce, but merely a truce for a year.’

  ‘So he decided to reject an indefinite peace?’ the Prince said. He cast a glance at Suffolk, who stood beside him, with Audley and Chandos behind. ‘Very well, you can offer him this, a peace until spring, but no later.’

  ‘But if you could—’

  ‘Until spring, Talleyrand. Return to him and see what his answer is.’

  Berenger watched the crestfallen Cardinal remount and trot back to the opposing lines of men. As Talleyrand rode, a number of men in his group broke from his entourage and rode to places in the battles.

  ‘I know,’ the Prince said when this was pointed out to him. ‘The good Cardinal was keen to keep us here. He excited my suspicions last night. I believe he and his knights thought to aid the French King by keeping us here arrayed for war. After two or three days of starvation, they would attack. Although I told him we have supplies, they must know how limited our stocks are. Well, with luck the assault will come today. But we must not attack first. With all their troops, they can afford to attack us.’

  Berenger went to celebrate Mass with a different attitude that morning, compared to all those other mornings before a battle.

  In his youth and adult life he had attacked many towns and pillaged them. He had taken part in a number of assaults and fought in pitched battles from Crécy to Neville’s Cross and beyond, but each time he had found the prayers to be routine and little more than a ritual based on the necessity of the moment: they were important because he might be killed, and the Mass could protect his soul. That was worth taking a few minutes to pray, but much of the time, while pleading his case at the feet of God, his mind had been elsewhere, thinking about the disposition of his troops, thinking about getting some food, thinking about sharpening his blades. Rarely had he, like today, considered deeply what he was about to do: kill many men.

  It was a wrenching realisation, to know that he was here planning the destruction of as many men as he could achieve. And all for little reason, other than to support his Prince. It was not that he distrusted his Prince, nor that he felt the Prince’s cause was not just. That had been proved to his satisfaction several times in the last weeks. However, it was strange. He had a feeling now that his presence here was not right.

  He had been imbued with the desire to fight from an early age. As a loyal soldier of his King, he had thought that coming here to win back his Lord’s lands was a worthwhile cause. And since then, killing had been a part of his life. Now, visions rose in his mind of the monastery, of the kindly Abbot Andry, the Infirmarer, the monks who laboured in the kitchens with their sleeves rolled up, those who toiled in the fields and the stews, those who smiled and nodded at him even when he had been sick all night after drinking too much, and their faces seemed more real to him now than the faces of his own vintaine.

  ‘What’s your trouble, Frip? You look like a frog who’s eaten a dragonfly too big to swallow!’ Grandarse said.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Berenger said. He could not allow his men to hear that he had any doubts. No matter what God might think, if his men realised he had doubts about the battle to come, they would lose all faith in him, and that could make some of them run. He would not do that to them.

  He stood resolutely with his men at the rear of the Prince’s battle and searched the landscape in pursuit of any symbol or sign from God that fighting today was a good act. Because it would be a fight today, of that he was sure.

  As he left the Mass and walked back to his men, he saw Will.

  His successor had a haggard look about him. Will stared at him, and there was a look of reluctant respect in the way he nodded slowly. Berenger was suddenly put in mind of Abbot Andry and the way that he would study a man with seriousness.

  ‘Will,’ he said, and bent his steps towards the man. Owen stood in his path, his hand on his sword, but Will called him to move aside, and Berenger walked to him. ‘Will, I will do you no harm this day. Today we fight for England,’ Berenger said. ‘We can neither of us risk the battle because of our dispute.’

  ‘Good,’ Will said. ‘But after the fighting here is done?’

  ‘I made an oath before God,’ Berenger said.

  ‘Then we will fight afterwards,’ Will said. He stared out over the fields and pastures before them. ‘You know, I thought that after I’d taken control, the company would move to greater and greater feats. That we’d become the strongest force in Christendom, perhaps hold our own land, and I would become a great Lord. But the men bicker and argue over every decision and never pay my views any heed.’

  ‘Commanding a company is not easy,’ Berenger said.

  ‘I swear, I wish I’d never taken it,’ Will said quietly.

  ‘We have peace for this day,’ Berenger said, and held out his hand in a sign of faith.

  ‘We do. God preserve you, Fripper.’

  ‘And you, Will,’ Berenger said as he returned to his men.

  In his mind, he wandered again amid the orchards of the abbey with the Abbot. He saw again that kind man’s simple delight in the countryside and in the abbey he served. And he saw the Abbot smile as though delighted by his act of peace with Will.

  After the battle, he and Will would have to fight, he thought. ‘God, if I could avoid my oath, I would,’ he murmured under his breath.

  The idea of life as a monk had never seemed so appealing.

  Returning to his men counting the rosary beads, he almost bumped into Thomas de Ladit.

  ‘My apologies, Vintener,’ Thomas said, and was about to hurry on when Berenger asked him to wait a moment.

  ‘Yesterday, you looked like a man with an urgent message. I saw you talking to a French esquire. What was that about?’

  Thomas hesitated, but then he could not restrain his glee. ‘I spoke with an old friend. Martin de Rouen told me something that may help us today. You know that the King of France captured my Lord during a feast being hosted by the King’s son, the Dauphin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Dauphin, so I have heard, is still bitterly angry about that. He will do nothing that will honour his father, it is said, and his father will not wish to help him. In the battle, the plan is that the Dauphin will lead the first battle to let him win his spurs. If he wins, it will strengthen his position, and the King will find it harder to restrain him. But if he does not succeed, he will be withdrawn and a third of the army will go with him. That means the English will have only to hold on for the first stage, and then the forces will be more evenly balanced.’

  ‘They will still be stronger than us,’ Berenger said.

  ‘Yes – but they will have to cross that field with your archers raining arrows on their heads the whole way. If the English army can hold fast, I think the day will be yours.’

  Berenger was still considering his words when the Prince appeared before the men on horseback. He progressed along the line, his bascinet in the crook of his arm, talking easily with a clear, loud voice. His household was about him as he rode on his great charger, looking at his men with his eyes bright.

  ‘Look about you, my friends! This is a merry place for a battle, is it not? Look here, we have our men all stationed securely, with the river down there, so we cannot be outflanked. Here we have the ground, this hedge, and the ridge. Any French army trying to attack us will be broken on the lances of our men here, and on the arrows of the archers. They will try, but they will die in the attempt!’

  He lowered his head and met their eyes. ‘But it will not be an easy fight, my friends. When they come, they will outnumber us. It is not easy to see how we could fight so numerous an enemy, but fight we will, and defeat them we must! I am fortunate to have so many stoical and stern men in my army. You know well how difficult this will be, but you do not turn away! You acknowledge the trial to come with resolution, like hounds straining to be slipped free after t
he hare! Well, today I will give you such a hare as no English army has seen in many a long year.

  ‘Some of you, my friends, were with me ten years ago. Grandarse, you were there, though you were half the man you are now! Fripper, you too. My Lords here were at my side. Sir John helped when I was almost overwhelmed. And there, that was where I won my spurs and was blooded. Crécy, they called that battle. I will give you another battle today that will ring down the ages. You will return to your homes as heroes, each one of you a Hector or Alexander. You will never want for female company after fighting here with me today! I swear that you will all be gladly serviced by all the women of England when they hear of your exploits today, hey!’

  He got a cheer for that.

  ‘But let us not be foolish. We have yet to celebrate, my friends. So, archers, hold to your orders. Do not desert your posts. Keep to strict discipline, for any man who leaves his position will be hanged. That is how important this task is. Keep to your positions. And when it comes to the mêlée, all of you must fight with all your courage and determination. Do not stop to capture a valuable prize, no matter who it is, but fight on. We must win the battle before we worry about the men captured and how much we may claim as ransom. Do you all agree?’

  There was a second cheer for that, although Berenger could hear it was more muted.

  So did the Prince.

  ‘Do your duty, men. Keep your position and protect your mates on either side. Serve me well, and I will see you all rewarded. For am I not a generous Prince?’

  The cheer this time was louder again, and the Prince grinned and wheeled his horse about.

  Berenger watched him ride off to the easternmost battle and begin his harangue once more, but his eyes were more turned towards the French lines.

  They still didn’t move. Even Berenger could see that with his eyesight. Yet the English could not remain here waiting much longer. Too many of the men had not eaten for a day, and all were thirsty again. They needed provisions.