Blood of the Innocents

by Michael Jecks

  ‘Your husband is injured.’

  She felt her breath catch. ‘Denisot? Where is he?’

  ‘You promised me,’ he hissed. ‘You promised to stay with me, but now at the first chance you’d leave me for him, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘He’s my husband, Arnaud!’

  ‘I heard you! You spoke to him yesterday, didn’t you? You told him you’d go back to him, you told him you loved him!’

  Gaillarde felt the breath catch in her throat. ‘You were listening?’

  ‘But if he’s dead, you can’t go to him, can you?’ he said, half-turning away from her as if cradling her horror close to his breast.

  ‘You think he will die?’

  ‘I am sure of it,’ he said, and suddenly he span so that he could watch her.

  She saw the glee in his eyes then, and she was convinced he had killed Denisot. After all this time, after his searching for her and trying to find her, only for her abductor to learn of him and kill him. The thought made her feel that her heart had died and shrivelled within her. ‘You killed him?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said smugly.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Why should I take you to him? So you can desert me and make a life with him again, when you promised to stay with me? No, I don’t think so,’ he said.

  She fell to her knees then, snatching at his tunic. ‘Please, Arnaud, please! He is my husband. I have to see him if he is dying. Please take me to him!’

  He appeared to go through an internal struggle, but finally gave in with a bad grace. ‘If you’re sure. Very well.’

  She followed him into the forest behind the English camp. Arnaud must have brought him here, she thought. Perhaps he told poor Denisot that she was in here, and that she was injured and was calling for him? No, more likely it was Denisot who saw Arnaud and decided to follow him to injure him as a substitute for Bernard, for taking away his wife. He could be so hot-blooded sometimes. Not that she had seen that during their marriage, but then their marriage had been such a strange, miserable affair after the death of their children.

  Brambles snagged at her skirts and a deep trench made her fall to her hands. Arnaud was leading her down the hill, parallel to the English fighting line, as though he was taking her to the ford again, but then he took her away, deeper into the trees.

  ‘Where is he?’ she said as Arnaud stopped her at an old, dilapidated cottage.

  ‘He’s in there, if you want him,’ Arnaud said, and stood aside dismissively. He picked up a stick and began to cut into it with his knife as though he was disgusted with the whole matter, and her in particular.

  She stepped inside, her hand on the door’s jamb. It was a single-roomed building which had been left to decompose like a human’s body. The trees, beetles and worms were gradually pulling it apart. Soon the roof would collapse entirely, and then the trees would have their land back. Cobwebs abounded, and through the rotten roof she could see the trees overhead. She took a nervous step inside, and a rotten branch snapped under her foot. She curled her lip at the feel and withdrew her foot. ‘Denisot?’

  Suddenly she was shoved. A hand or boot in the small of her back sent her tumbling with a little squeak. A splinter stabbed into her knee, and she felt her jaw strike a broken spar. Blood spurted into her mouth and she gagged. She put a hand to her face as she felt the loose tooth, and she whimpered with the pain.

  ‘Bitch! You thought you could fool me? I can see through your little lies and great fabrications! You never loved me. You just pretended to because you thought I could guard and protect you. Well, now I will do as I want!’

  ‘What have I done?’ she asked.

  ‘You slept with my brother as if you were repelled by me.’

  ‘I had to! I thought he would hurt you if I showed him I preferred you. You know how jealous he was!’

  ‘Him? Jealous?’

  For a moment Arnaud stood staring at her in dumbfounded amazement. ‘Is that what you thought? He took you to protect you from me, woman. He didn’t want me to show you my skills.’

  He had pulled a pair of thongs from under his shirt and now he stepped to her. She tried to slap his hands away, but he gave her a backhanded blow across the mouth that sent her reeling. Almost senseless, she was aware of him tying her wrist to something, and when she tried to pull her hand away, he hit her again. Harder. This time he had her other wrist and soon she was bound to something.

  ‘Poor Bernard, he was always so sad when I told him. In Bordeaux he crouched before the little slut I killed there, and wept. It took him so long, I had time to drink a quart of ale while I waited.’ He pulled on a rope, and she realised that he had tied her to a long board of wood. ‘Then, at some little farm near Uzerche, when we were scouting out the land, I heard him bawling again before he stabbed her to death. He always killed quickly. Bernard hated to see people suffering. He never understood it was necessary for them. It was His divine revenge for their guilt.’

  His rope was over a solid roof beam and now, as he hauled on the rope, she was raised to her feet. When she was on her toes, he tied his rope off and sat comfortably before her.

  ‘I don’t like to kill, you know,’ he said conversationally. ‘But I have to. When people like you have been bad, you have to be punished. You are married, and yet you permitted my brother to push his prick into you. That makes you an adulterer, and God hates adulterers. You have to be punished for that.’

  ‘So you will rape me?’

  He giggled. ‘Yes! That is my reward. And then, in a little while, I will kill you.’

  Berenger and the men strode quickly down to where Will’s company were camped. Peter of Reading stood as soon as Berenger appeared.

  ‘Fripper. I hope you aren’t here to get revenge on Will. You’re too late.’

  ‘I know. I saw him die,’ Berenger said. ‘This is different. We hanged a man a few days ago. He and his brother were here with you. They had a marching wife with them.’

  ‘Yes, Bernard and Arnaud. What of them?’

  ‘Their woman was this man’s wife. But she is not around now.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her,’ Peter said. He turned to his men. ‘Anyone seen Arnaud and Gaillarde?’

  A man who was nursing a long cut on his upper arm nodded. ‘Arnaud was here after the battle. I didn’t see him during it, but he went with the woman into the woods there.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Berenger said.

  Peter nodded to him. ‘If you’re going to kill him, carry on. He gives me the shivers. There’s something wrong in him. I think he has a demon inside him.’

  Berenger nodded and crossed the battlefield. The hawthorn hedge was ragged where the fighting had been hardest, and they had to climb over bodies, most of them already stripped, to reach the trees.

  ‘They are in there, you think?’ Denisot said.

  ‘That’s what Peter said. We need to find her.’

  He walked along the line of the trees, peering in. ‘These woods are too thick. We’ll never see in there.’

  ‘If he took her in there, Frip,’ Saul said, ‘it would be because he knew something there, perhaps. A trail he could use, or a building, perhaps. If he didn’t just run away at the first noise of battle, it must be somewhere close to the edge of the trees.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I was thinking, if we go into the woods from the bottom and walk up, we’ll cross over his path if he’s in there and has taken Gaillarde. The two together must have flattened bushes and undergrowth, especially if he had found a place beforehand and was taking her back to it.’

  Berenger nodded slowly. Then he nodded to Fulk and Robin. ‘In case he went the other way, nearer the top of the woods, you two start at the top. Go into the woods about fifty yards from the treeline here, and see if you can find a distinct path made by two. We’ll go to the bottom and work our way up.’

  Leading the way to the bottom, near the ford, Berenger stared in among the trees. It would be growing dark soon, and it would be difficult
to see anything in the murk between the tree trunks.

  It was worse than he thought. They walked in and fought their way through the first yards, but then they found themselves confronted with a broken, trampled mess.

  ‘The soldiers came in to find firewood. Make it further,’ Denisot said. ‘If we move back to a hundred yards, we will be less likely to find the marks of the English soldiers.’

  Berenger thought him hopeful, but they moved into the woods until they were beyond the main thoroughfares used by soldiers hunting more wood. They found one path that was heavily trampled, but that looked as though there had been twenty or thirty men. They continued up through the bushes and undergrowth until Denisot gave an exclamation. ‘What is that?’

  He had seen a path that appeared to travel parallel to their own, and had noticed a flattened section. He stepped towards it cautiously, and picked up a shred of stained material. ‘This is like the linen she wore in her skirts.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Berenger said doubtfully. ‘It could be anyone’s shirt material or—’

  ‘How many soldiers would wear such a fine material? And how many women would be in here, this far in the woods?’ Denisot demanded.

  Berenger glanced at Saul, who gave a shrug.

  ‘Very well,’ Berenger said. He started to cross to the indistinct path through the bushes. By crouching, he could make out an indirect route through the plants, as though one person had tried to follow another, but without any clear view of where to go. It grew boggy, and a couple of times he nearly fell, once grasping a thick, thorny plant that ripped into his palm. Sucking it, he went on more carefully.

  The light was fading quickly. The birdsong was stopped, and the only sounds were of their boots crashing through the undergrowth, breaking twigs and rotten branches, and their panting.

  ‘What is that?’ Denisot said. He had caught sight of a building.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Berenger said, unwilling as always to admit how poor was his eyesight.

  They continued more cautiously, Berenger glancing down every now and again to see if others had used this same path recently. In one muddy clearing, he saw what looked like a man’s boot and, overlapping slightly, a much smaller shoe print. He said nothing, but looked around at the others, before pointing at the building. Saul nodded, and Denisot stared at him, chewing his lip fretfully.

  Berenger stepped out into another clearing, and as he did, they all heard Gaillarde’s voice: ‘No! Please, no!’

  Denisot was over the intervening space before Berenger could hold him back, and Saul and he followed as quickly as they could. Inside the cottage, they found Gaillarde hanging, exhausted, her head held back, and behind her was Arnaud with a knife at her throat. ‘Keep away, or we’ll see how much blood she has in her cold, cold veins!’ he said, and chuckled amiably.

  ‘Let my wife free,’ Denisot said through gritted teeth.

  ‘I think I want her to stay with me.’

  ‘He’s going to kill me,’ Gaillarde said. ‘He told me he would rape me, then kill me. But he wanted to watch me as I hung here. He likes to hurt people.’

  ‘No! It was your punishment for your incontinence,’ Arnaud said with heat. ‘If you hadn’t thrown yourself at my brother—’

  ‘I didn’t throw myself at him! He beat and raped me!’

  ‘He wanted to remind you that you were foul.’

  Berenger said, ‘Is that why he didn’t tell us you were the murderer? He didn’t let on at all, did he, not at the trial, not at the rope. He took all responsibility for your murders.’

  ‘They aren’t murder, Vintener. They are punishments. You know how evil women are. The priests all tell us about Original Sin, the failing that is in all women. I was trying to show how all those women were tempting men.’

  ‘The little girls you killed?’

  ‘They’re all the same!’

  ‘But Ed thought he saw your brother in Bordeaux. He said your brother killed the girl there.’

  ‘Yes.’ For a moment Arnaud’s face darkened. ‘He kept doing that, going and killing them before it was time. If he found them, he put his knife in them to end their suffering. He didn’t realise: making them suffer was for their own good. It meant that they would go to Heaven shriven.’

  ‘And this woman?’ Berenger asked. He was weary. After fighting all day, all he wanted was to have a chance to lie down, to rest. There was a strange sense that he had experienced this before. A negotiation for a life. It teased at his mind for a moment or two, and then he realised: it was the day that Will wrested power from him, the day when his man held first Alazaïs in his hands, then her child. That day he had allowed Will to take control, just as this time Arnaud wanted to. It had led to the death of Alazaïs and her children. He would not allow such an evil act again.

  ‘Her? She’s just a whore. She’s married, but she threw herself at my brother and tried to pull him from me. She tried to break up the love between him and me. Can you imagine that? It’s why she ought to suffer longer. I don’t want to kill her now, but I suppose . . .’ he smiled, gesturing with his hands, as though holding the palms of both uppermost. The knife moved with his hand, pointing away from her neck.

  In that moment, Berenger drew his knife and flung it. It missed Gaillarde’s head by an inch, and cut into Arnaud’s cheek. He screamed and dropped his knife, and as he did, Berenger was on him, slamming his fist as hard as he could into the lad’s nose, feeling the satisfying crackle of breaking bone and cartilage, and then he lifted his knee with all the force he could, smashing it into Arnaud’s groin, before stamping with all his weight on Arnaud’s foot. The lad fell over, and Berenger retrieved his own blade from the mess on the floor, making sure that he had Arnaud’s knife as well.

  With his own knife he cut the thongs holding Gaillarde to the cross, and she slumped to the ground, moaning. Denisot went to her and threw his arms about her, and she gave a sigh of relief, but then her eyes were open and on her tormentor.

  Arnaud was rocking back and forth on his knees, holding his cods with both hands, his mouth open but silent. Anguish was in his eyes.

  Berenger shook his head. Then he took the thongs and bound Arnaud’s arms.

  They hauled the man through the door of the cottage.

  ‘I should kill him here, now,’ Denisot said, holding tightly to his wife.

  Voices were approaching. Berenger recognised the other men from his vintaine. ‘No. If we kill him out of hand, we’re no better than outlaws. He deserves death, and he will have it, but at the hands of our knight.’

  ‘He won’t want to hurt me. I am working for God. You can’t hurt me.’ Arnaud’s voice was muffled. He smiled through the blood. ‘You can’t do anything to me.’

  ‘Really?’ Denisot said.

  The others appeared in the gloom. ‘Is that you, Frip?’ Robin called.

  ‘Aye. Don’t worry. We have the bastard here.’

  But as Berenger walked on, he saw again Sir John de Sully’s face as the idea of seeking a murderer in the army was suggested. He saw the doubt in the face of the good Abbot of St Jacques, and he wondered whether Arnaud would truly find his punishment here. It seemed less than likely. Perhaps a dagger to the back of the neck, here in the woods, would be a better solution for all.

  Except for the Abbot’s expression. He saw again that kindly old man, and heard his calm voice telling him he should go, rather than stay. Now he seemed to hear the Abbot speaking to him again, but this time it was to say that he should deliver Arnaud to justice. He should preserve his own soul, rather than worrying about Arnaud. Perhaps after this war, now that the French King himself was captured, it would be possible for Berenger to find a place in a quiet monastery. He could discover the peace he had craved for so long.

  They had reached the farther limit of the trees now, and Berenger pushed their prisoner onwards. The main English camp was at the far edge of the battlefield now, on the plain, and Berenger headed towards the bright glows of campfires.

&
nbsp; ‘Frip, is that you?’

  Berenger heard the voice of Peter from Will’s company, and he called out quickly in case he and the vintaine could be mistaken for a French counter-attack. ‘It’s me, Peter, yes.’

  ‘Did you find the man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a sudden clatter of weapons. In the darkness, Berenger realised that his little group was surrounded. He saw Fulk lowering his head as though to charge and held up his hand, ‘Wait, Fulk! Saul, you too. What is it you want, Peter?’

  ‘Only one thing. We want Arnaud.’

  Berenger felt a quickening of his blood. After all the effort to find the murderer, after the guilt he now felt for executing Bernard, the man’s commander was going to try to rescue him! ‘Your loyalty to your man does you credit, Peter. I hadn’t thought you would be keen to help a rapist and murderer who takes his pleasure by inflicting pain on women and children.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I had you marked as an honourable man. You should want to help see this piece of garbage swinging on a gibbet.’

  Peter stepped forward now. He had a thin smile on his face as he stood opposite Berenger. He beckoned with a finger and two of his men pushed past Berenger to get Arnaud. ‘You understand very little, Fripper.’

  Berenger heard a blow and a gasp. Turning, he saw Arnaud collapse.

  Peter continued, ‘Our company was marked as a group of murderers and heretics because wherever we went, a man with us tortured women and children unnecessarily. It did not serve to enhance our reputation.’

  ‘What would you have me do? If you take him, I must let Sir John know.’

  ‘Fear not, Frip. This is a matter of martial law. I am commander of the company now. He will have a trial, and then the punishment will be meted out in accordance with the law.’

  Denisot tugged at Berenger’s sleeve. ‘You cannot let them take him! He should be punished!’

  ‘I don’t think you quite understand, Denisot,’ Berenger said, watching as Arnaud was marched away, back down the hill towards the Miosson. ‘This is the army’s punishment. And he will not survive.’