1356 (Special Edition)

‘Gunpowder?’

‘He’s a clever bastard, our bastard,’ Sam said. ‘Knocks down gates fast, don’t it? Mind you, it’s expensive. The wifeless pig had to pay double if he wanted us to use powder. He must want the bitch bad to pay that much! I hope she’s bloody worth it.’

Brother Michael saw small flames flickering in the archway’s thick smoke. He understood now why the town’s entrance looked as though it had been torn, blackened and wrenched apart by the devil’s fist. Le Bâtard had forced his way into the town with gunpowder, and he had repeated the trick to blow down the castle’s great wooden gates. Now he led his twenty men-at-arms towards the wreckage.

‘Archers!’ another man called, and the bowmen, including Sam, followed the men-at-arms towards the gate. They advanced in silence, and that too was terrifying. These men in their black and white livery, Brother Michael thought, had learned to live calmly and fight ruthlessly in the dark valley of death. None of them appeared to be drunk. They were disciplined, efficient and frightening.

Le Bâtard vanished in the smoke. There were shouts from the castle, but the monk could not see what was happening there, though it was plain the attackers were inside, for the archers were now streaming through the smoking gate-arch. More men were following, men wearing the badges of the bishop and the count, going to seek more plunder in the doomed fortress.

‘It could be dangerous,’ Sam warned the young monk.

‘God is with us,’ Brother Michael said, and wondered at the fierce excitement he felt, so fierce that he hefted the pilgrim’s staff as though it were a weapon.

The castle had looked big from the alleyway, but as he jostled through the scorched gate Brother Michael saw it was much smaller than it had appeared. It had no bailey and no great keep, but merely the gatehouse and one tall tower, which were separated by a small courtyard where a dozen crossbowmen in the red and gold livery lay dying. One man had been eviscerated by the explosion at the gate and, though his intestines had spilt across the yard’s stones, he still lived and moaned. The monk paused to offer the man some help, then sprang back as Sam, with an ease that was as casual as it seemed heartless, cut his throat. ‘You killed him!’ Brother Michael said in horror.

‘Of course I bloody killed him,’ Sam said cheerfully. ‘What did you expect me to do? Kiss him? I hope someone does the same for me if I’m in that state.’ He wiped the blood from his short knife. A defender screamed as he fell from the gatehouse parapet, while another man staggered down the tower steps to collapse at the foot.

There was a door at the top of the steps, but it had not been defended, or else the defenders’ courage had evaporated when the main gate exploded inwards, and so le Bâtard’s men were streaming into the tower. Brother Michael followed, then turned as a trumpet sounded. A cavalcade of horsemen, all in green and white, were forcing their way through the castle gate where they used swords to drive their own men from their path. At the centre of the horsemen, where he was protected by their weapons, was a monstrously fat man clad in mail and plate and mounted on a huge horse. The cavalcade stopped at the foot of the steps and it took four men to ease the fat one out of his saddle and steady him on his feet. ‘His piggy lordship,’ Sam said sardonically.

‘The Count of Labrouillade?’

‘One of our employers,’ Sam said, ‘and here’s the other one.’ The bishop and his men had followed the count through the gate, and Sam and Michael went onto their knees as the two leaders mounted the steps and went into the tower.

Sam and Brother Michael followed the bishop’s men into the entrance chamber, up a flight of shallow stairs and into a great hall that was a high, pillared space lit by a dozen smoking torches and hung with tapestries showing the golden merlin on its red background. There were at least sixty men already in the hall and they now shuffled to the edges, allowing the Count of Labrouillade and the Bishop of Lavence to walk slowly towards the dais where two of le Bâtard’s men were holding the defeated lord on his knees. Behind them, tall and black in his armour, was le Bâtard himself, his face expressionless, while beside him, unrestrained, was a young woman in a red dress. ‘That’s Bertille?’ Brother Michael asked.

‘Must be,’ Sam said appreciatively. ‘And a nice little mare she is too!’

Brother Michael held his breath, stared, and, for an heretical moment, he regretted ever taking holy orders. Bertille, the faithless Countess of Labrouillade, was more than a nice little mare, she was a beauty. She could not have been a day over twenty and had a sweet face, unmarked by scars or disease, with full lips and dark eyes. Her hair was black and curly, her eyes wide, and despite the obvious terror on her face she was so lovely that Brother Michael, who was only twenty-two himself, trembled. He thought he had never seen a creature so beautiful, and then he breathed again, made the sign of the cross, and uttered a silent prayer that the Virgin and Saint Michael would keep him from temptation. ‘She’s worth the price of the gunpowder, I’d say,’ Sam commented cheerfully.

Brother Michael watched as Bertille’s husband, who had taken off his helmet to reveal a head of greasy grey hair and a heavy, porcine face, waddled towards her. The count’s breath was short because of the effort of walking in his heavy armour. He stopped a few paces from the dais and stared at the breast of his wife’s dress, which was blazoned with the golden merlin, the symbol of her defeated lover. ‘It seems to me, madame,’ the count said, ‘that you show poor taste in clothing.’

The countess dropped to her knees and held her clasped hands towards her husband. She wanted to speak, but the only sound she made was a whimpering sob. Tears on her cheeks reflected the flames of the torches. Brother Michael reminded himself that she was an adulteress, a sinner, a fornicator lost to grace, and Sam glanced at the young monk and thought that one day a woman would cause trouble in his life.

‘Take that badge off her,’ the count ordered two of his men-at-arms, gesturing at the golden merlin embroidered on his wife’s dress, and the two men, their chain mail clinking and plated boots heavy on the flagstones, climbed the dais and seized the countess. She tried to resist them, shrieked once, but then surrendered as one man held her arms behind her back and the other drew a short knife from his belt.

Brother Michael instinctively moved as though to help her, but Sam checked him with his one hand. ‘She’s the count’s wife, brother,’ the archer said softly, ‘which means she’s his property. He can do with her whatever he wants, and if you interfere he’ll slit your belly open.’

‘I was not …’ Brother Michael began, then fell silent rather than tell a lie, for he had been moved to intervene, or at least protest, but now he just watched as the man-at-arms slashed at the precious fabric, ripping the golden threads away from the scarlet, tearing the bodice down to the countess’s waist and finally pulling the embroidered merlin free and throwing it at the feet of his master. The countess, released from the second man’s grip, crouched and clutched the remnants of the dress to her breasts.

‘Villon!’ the count commanded. ‘Look at me!’

The man held by le Bâtard’s two soldiers reluctantly looked up at his enemy. He was a young man, handsome as a hawk, and, till an hour before, he had been ruler of this place, lord of its lands and owner of its peasants, but now he was nothing. He was in mail, with a breastplate and leg plates, and a smear of blood in his dark hair showed that he had fought the besiegers, but now he was in their grasp and he was forced to watch as the fat count fumbled to drag up the skirt of his chain mail. No one in the hall moved or spoke, they just watched as the count wrenched leather and steel aside and then, with a smile on his face, pissed on the merlin torn from his wife’s dress. He had the bladder of an ox and the urine splashed for a long time. Somewhere in the castle a man screamed and the scream went on and on, until at last, blessedly, it stopped.

The count finished at the same time, then held out a hand to his squire, who gave him a small knife with a wickedly curved blade. ‘See this, Villon?’ The count held the knife up so its blade caught the light. ‘Know what it is?’

Villon, held by the two men-at-arms, said nothing.

‘It’s for you,’ the count said. ‘She,’ he pointed the knife at his wife, ‘will go back to Labrouillade, and so will you, but only after we’ve cut you.’

The men in green and white livery grinned, anticipating the pain and pleasure to come. The knife, its blade rusted and its handle a worn sliver of wood, was a castrator’s knife, used to geld rams or calves or the small boys destined for the choirs of great churches. ‘Strip him,’ the count ordered his men.

‘Oh, God,’ Brother Michael murmured.

‘No stomach for it, brother?’ Sam asked.

‘He fought well,’ a new voice intervened, and the monk saw that le Bâtard had stepped to the edge of the dais. ‘He fought bravely and he deserves to die like a man.’

Some of the count’s men put their hands on their sword hilts, but the bishop waved them down. ‘He has offended the laws of man and God,’ the bishop told le Bâtard, ‘and placed himself beyond the boundaries of chivalry.’

‘The quarrel is mine,’ the count snarled at le Bâtard, ‘not yours.’

‘He is my prisoner,’ le Bâtard said.

‘When we hired you,’ the bishop said, ‘it was agreed that all prisoners would belong to the count and myself, regardless of who captured them. Do you deny that?’

Le Bâtard hesitated, but it was clear the bishop had spoken the truth. The tall, black-armoured man glanced about the room, but his men were far outnumbered by the forces of the bishop and count. ‘Then I appeal to you,’ he said to the bishop, ‘to let him go to his God like a man.’

‘He is a fornicator and sinner,’ the bishop said, ‘and so I give him to the count to do with as he wishes. And I would remind you that your fee is contingent on obeying all our reasonable commands.’

‘This is not reasonable,’ le Bâtard insisted.

‘The command for you to step aside is reasonable,’ the bishop said, ‘and I give it to you.’

The count’s men-at-arms thumped their shields on the floor to show their agreement, and le Bâtard, knowing himself outnumbered and out-argued, shrugged and stepped away. Brother Michael saw a man-at-arms take the castrating knife and, unable to bear what was about to happen, he pushed his way out to the steps of the tower where he breathed the smoky night air. He wanted to get farther away, but some of the count’s men had found an ox in the castle’s stable and were torturing the beast, prodding it with spears and swords, skipping away when it lumbered around to face them, and he did not dare try to thread his way through the vicious game. Then the screaming began in the hall behind.

A hand touched his shoulder and he turned, raising the heavy staff, only to see it was a priest, an older man, who offered the monk a skin of wine. ‘It seems,’ the older man said, ‘that you do not approve of what the count does?’

‘You do?’

The priest shrugged. ‘Villon took the count’s wife, so what does he expect? And our church gave its blessing to the count’s revenge, and with reason. Villon is a despicable man.’

‘And the count is not?’ Brother Michael decided he hated the fat count, with his greasy hair and heavy jowls.

‘I am his chaplain and confessor,’ the older priest said, ‘so I know what he is.’ He sounded bleak. ‘And you,’ he asked the monk, ‘what brings you to this place?’

‘I bring a message for le Bâtard,’ Brother Michael said.

‘What message?’

The English monk shook his head. ‘I’ve not read it.’

‘You should always read messages,’ the older man said with a smile.

‘It’s sealed.’

‘A hot knife will solve that.’

Brother Michael frowned. ‘I was told not to read it.’

‘By whom?’

‘By the Earl of Northampton. He said it was urgent and private.’

‘Urgent?’

Brother Michael crossed himself. ‘It’s said that the Prince of Wales is gathering another army. I think le Bâtard is ordered to join it.’ He shrugged. ‘That would make sense, anyway.’

‘It would.’

The conversation had distracted Brother Michael from the terrible screams that sounded inside the hall. Those screams slowly subsided, became a pathetic whimpering, and only then did the count’s chaplain lead the monk back to the flamelight in the pillared chamber. Brother Michael did not look at the naked thing on the bloody floor. He stayed at the back of the hall, hidden from the gelded man by the crowd of mailed soldiers.

‘We are done,’ the Count of Labrouillade said to le Bâtard.

‘We are done, my lord,’ le Bâtard agreed, ‘except you owe us the money for capturing this place swiftly.’

‘I owe you the money,’ the count agreed, ‘and it waits for you at Paville.’

‘Then we shall go to Paville, my lord.’ Le Bâtard offered the count a bow, then clapped his hands to get his men’s attention. ‘You know what to do! Do it!’

Le Bâtard’s men had to collect their own wounded, pick up their dead, and retrieve the arrows shot in the fight, because English arrows were hard to find in Burgundy, Toulouse and Provence. It was dawn before le Bâtard’s men filed out of the city’s ravaged gate, crossed the bridge in the valley and turned eastwards. The wounded were carried in carts, but every other man rode, and Brother Michael, who had snatched a few hours’ sleep, could at last count le Bâtard’s company. He had learned that some of the Hellequin were still guarding the castle at Castillon that was their refuge, but le Bâtard still led a formidable force. There were just over sixty archers, all of them English or Welsh, and thirty-two men-at-arms, mostly from Gascony, but some from the Italian states, a handful from Burgundy, a dozen from England, and some from further away, all of them adventurers who sought money and had found it with le Bâtard. With their servants and squires, they formed a war band that could be hired by any lord who had the resources to afford the best, though any lord who wished to fight against the English or their Gascon allies had to look elsewhere because le Bâtard would not help. He liked to say that he helped England’s enemies kill one another, and those enemies paid him for that help. They were mercenaries and they called themselves the Hellequin, the devil’s beloved, and they boasted that they could not be defeated because their souls had already been sent to hell.

And Brother Michael, after witnessing his first fight, believed them.

Two

The Count of Labrouillade was eager to leave Villon and gain the safety of his own fortress, which, because it possessed a moat and drawbridge, was safe from le Bâtard’s method of opening gates with gunpowder, and the count needed to be safe because le Bâtard, he was certain, would soon have a quarrel with him. And so he had left the bishop’s men to hold the newly captured castle at Villon while he and his force, sixty men-at-arms and forty-three crossbowmen, hurried home to Labrouillade.

His journey, though, was slowed by his captives. He had contemplated beating Bertille in Villon, and had even ordered one of his servants to bring a whip from the castle stables, but then had delayed the punishment to hasten his return home. Yet he wanted to humiliate her, and to that end he had brought a cart from Labrouillade. The cart had been in the stables for as long as he could remember, and on its bed was a cage big enough to hold a dancing bear or a fighting bull, and that was probably why it had been made. Or perhaps one of his ancestors had used the cart for prisoners, or for transporting the savage mastiffs used to hunt boars, but whatever its original function, the heavy cart was now a cage for his wife. The Count of Villon, bloody and weak, was being transported in another cart. If the man lived the count planned to chain him naked in his courtyard as an object for men’s laughter and as a pissing post for dogs, and that prospect cheered the count as he lumbered slowly southwards.

He had sent a dozen lightly armed horsemen eastwards. Their job was to trail le Bâtard’s mercenaries and return with a report if the Englishman pursued him. Yet that now seemed unlikely, for the count’s chaplain had good news. ‘I suspect he has been summoned by his liege, sire,’ the chaplain told the count.

‘Who is his liege?’

‘The Earl of Northampton, sire.’

‘In England?’

‘The monk had travelled from there, sire,’ the chaplain said, ‘and reckoned le Bâtard is ordered to join the Prince of Wales. He said the message was urgent.’

‘I hope you are right.’

‘It is the best explanation, sire.’

‘And if you are right then le Bâtard will be gone to Bordeaux, eh? Gone!’

‘Though he might return, sire,’ Father Vincent warned the count.

‘In time, maybe, in time,’ Labrouillade said carelessly. He was unconcerned, for if le Bâtard did go to Gascony then the count would have time to raise more men and strengthen his fortress. He slowed his horse, letting the carts catch up so he could stare down at his naked and bloody enemy. The count was pleased. Villon was in agony, and Bertille could expect an adulteress’s punishment. Life, he decided, was good.

His wife wept. The sun rose higher, warming the day. Peasants knelt as the count passed. The road climbed into the hills that separated the lands of Villon and Labrouillade, and, though there had been death in the first, there would be rejoicing in the second because the count was revenged.

Paville was only two hours’ ride west of the fallen castle. It had once been a prosperous town, famed for its monastery and for the excellence of its wine, but now there were only thirty-two monks left, and fewer than two hundred folk lived in the small town. The pestilence had come, and half the townsfolk were buried in the fields beside the river. The town walls were crumbling, and the monastery’s vineyards choked with weeds.

The Hellequin gathered in the marketplace outside the monastery where they carried their wounded into the infirmary. Tired horses were walked and arrows repaired. Brother Michael wanted to find something to eat, but le Bâtard approached him. ‘Six of my men are dying in there,’ he jerked his head at the monastery, ‘and another four might not live. Sam tells me you worked in an infirmary?’

‘I did,’ the monk said, ‘but I also have a written message for you.’

‘From whom?’

‘The Earl of Northampton, lord.’

‘Don’t call me that. What does Billy want?’ Le Bâtard waited for an answer, then scowled when none came. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t read the letter! What does he want?’

‘I didn’t read it!’ Brother Michael protested.

‘An honest monk? The world sees a miracle.’ Le Bâtard ignored the proffered message. ‘Go and tend to my wounded men. I’ll read the letter later.’

Brother Michael worked for an hour, helping two other monks wash and bind wounds, and when he had finished he went back to the sunlight to see two men counting a vast pile of shoddy-looking coins. ‘The agreement,’ le Bâtard was saying to the abbot, ‘was that the payment should be in genoins.’

The abbot looked worried. ‘The count insisted on replacing the coins,’ he said.

‘And you permitted that?’ le Bâtard asked. The abbot shrugged. ‘He cheated us,’ le Bâtard said, ‘and you allowed it to happen!’

‘He sent men-at-arms, lord,’ the abbot said unhappily. Labrouillade had agreed to pay le Bâtard’s fee in genoins, which were good golden coins, trusted everywhere, but since le Bâtard’s men had first checked the payment the count had sent men to take away the genoins and replace them with a mixture of obols, écus, agnos, florins, deniers and sacks of pence, none of them gold and most of them debased or clipped, and, though the face value of the coins was for the agreed amount, their worth was less than half. ‘His men assured me the value is the same, lord,’ the abbot added.

‘And you believed them?’ le Bâtard asked sourly.

‘I protested,’ the abbot declared, concerned that he would not receive the customary fee for holding the cash.

‘I’m sure you did,’ le Bâtard said in a tone suggesting the opposite. He was still in his black armour, but had taken off his bascinet to reveal black hair cut short. ‘Labrouillade’s a fool, isn’t he?’

‘A greedy fool,’ the abbot agreed eagerly. ‘His father was worse. The fief of Labrouillade once encompassed all the land from here to the sea, but his father gambled away most of the southern part. The son is more careful with his money. He’s rich, of course, very rich, but not a generous man.’ The abbot’s voice trailed away as he gazed at the piles of shoddy, misshapen and bent coins. ‘What will you do?’ he asked nervously.

‘Do?’ Le Bâtard seemed to think about it, then shrugged. ‘I have the money,’ he finally said, ‘such as it is.’ He paused. ‘It is a matter for lawyers,’ he finally decided.

‘For lawyers, yes.’ The abbot, worried that he would be blamed for the substitution of the coins, could not hide his relief.

‘But not in the count’s own courts,’ le Bâtard said.

‘It might be argued in the bishop’s court?’ the abbot suggested.

Le Bâtard nodded, then scowled at the abbot. ‘I shall depend on your testimony.’

‘Of course, lord.’

‘And pay well for it,’le Bâtard added.

‘You may depend on my support,’ the abbot said.

Le Bâtard tossed one of the coins up and down in a hand that was misshapen, as though the fingers had been mangled by a great weight. ‘So we shall leave it to the lawyers,’ he announced, then ordered his men to pay the abbot with whatever good coin they could find among the dross. ‘I have no quarrel with you,’ he added to the relieved churchman, and turned to Brother Michael, who had taken the parchment from his pouch and was trying to deliver it. ‘In a moment, brother,’ le Bâtard said.

A woman and child were approaching. Brother Michael had not noticed them till this moment, for they had been travelling with the other women who followed the Hellequin and who had waited outside Villon as the castle was assaulted. But the young monk noticed her now, noticed her and trembled. He had been haunted all day by the memory of Bertille, but this woman was just as beautiful, though it was a very different kind of beauty. Bertille had been dark, soft and gentle, while this woman was fair, hard and striking. She was tall, almost as tall as le Bâtard, and her pale gold hair seemed to shine in the early winter sun. She had clever eyes, a wide mouth and a long nose, while her slim body was dressed in a coat of mail that had been scrubbed with wire, sand and vinegar so that it appeared to be made of silver. Dear God, the monk thought, but flowers should blossom in her footsteps. The child, a boy who looked to be about seven or eight years old, had her face but hair as black as le Bâtard’s.

‘My wife Genevieve,’ le Bâtard introduced the woman, ‘and my son, Hugh. This is Brother …’ He paused, not knowing the monk’s name.

‘Brother Michael,’ the monk said, unable to take his eyes from Genevieve.

‘He brought me a message,’ le Bâtard said to his wife, and gestured that the monk should give Genevieve the battered fold of parchment on which the earl’s seal was now dried, cracked and chipped.

‘Sir Thomas Hookton,’ Genevieve read the name written across the folded parchment.

‘I’m le Bâtard,’ Thomas said. He had been christened Thomas and for most of his life had called himself Thomas of Hookton, though he could call himself more if he wished, for the Earl of Northampton had knighted him seven years before and, though bastard born, Thomas had a claim to a county in eastern Gascony. But he preferred to be known as le Bâtard. It put the fear of the devil into enemies, and a frightened enemy was already half beaten. He took the missive from his wife, put a fingernail under the seal, then decided he would wait before reading the letter and so, instead, he tucked it under his sword belt and clapped his hands to get the attention of his men. ‘We’re riding west in a few minutes! Get ready!’ He turned and offered a bow to the abbot. ‘My thanks,’ he said courteously, ‘and the lawyers will doubtless come to talk with you.’