The Deadliest Sin

The First Sin

He had listened to the anecdotes and rumours told by the other travellers with half an ear while they were trudging along the road, but once they reached the inn, Janyn Hussett glanced about him and shook his head as he settled himself near the fire, trying to ignore them.

These folks were all full of piss and wind. They wittered on about their feelings, their lives, as though nothing else mattered, but they were shallow, insubstantial people. If he had any choice, he would leave them. He wasn’t one of them. They had no idea what life was like for men like him, for men like Bill and Walt and Barda. For those who had died.

He sat and stared at the fire. Flames were licking up the faggots from the twigs beneath, and he was reminded again of the fires about Caen after the terrible sacking of the city, the wailing and weeping. And those horrors were early in the campaign, long before the astonishing victory at Crécy, and then the capture of Calais itself. His was a life of horrors: war and bloodshed, power and fear.

But now? Now it felt as though his life was ended. He had fought and killed, and when Calais fell, he had enjoyed a brief spell of happiness, but now God was punishing him – punishing everyone. Janyn’s wife and little babe were only two among the countless bodies that littered France’s villages and towns after the arrival of the Terrible Death, ‘atra mors’, or what the French were calling the ‘morte bleue’. So many: all tossed into the mass graves in cities like Calais, or left to rot in the fields and lanes uncared for, since all the others had already died. The horror would never leave him, he was sure. God had decided to punish them all. But Janyn knew others who suffered even more than he himself. One man had thought himself responsible, and suffered in his own private hell.

That was his curse.

When the travellers started this stupid game, asking about the worst sins, Janyn almost shot to his feet and left the room, struck with the urge to vomit. Scenes appeared in his mind, pictures of the corpses at the roadside, women screaming as they were raped, soldiers laughing and queuing for their turn, a nun’s corpse decapitated, babies… the world was full of sins. The deadliest sins? They were all deadly. Wherever men went, they brought evil with them. For a while he had been happy with his wife. He had been content. Seeing the miracle of pregnancy and birth, feeling the wonder as he held for the first time his little pink, mewling son, he had thought life could not offer anything so marvellous and awe-inspiring. Then the joy in his heart had almost crushed him. He adored his wife and son so much, he would happily have died for them.

But now both were gone. God had taken them.

Janyn Hussett wanted to shout at the other pilgrims: ‘You know what I think? I think you have no idea what real life is like! Look at you, all of you! Sitting here in comfort, out of the rain, whining about the weather…’

But he held his tongue. He held his hands to the fire and gritted his teeth. It was better not to speak, but to hold himself in resentful silence, ignoring their vapid maunderings.

But they would keep going on about their pointless, stupid, irrelevant lives.

‘Friend, you are very quiet,’ one of the pilgrims said to him. ‘Tell me, where do you hail from?’

Janyn looked up and snapped, ‘What is it to you where I come from? Why do you want to know?’

‘Please, friend! I was being amiable, that is all,’ said the man. He was stocky, serious-looking. His name was Nicholas. ‘We are all friends here, aren’t we? We are making a long journey. It would be good to know you better. Then, if we meet again, we can exchange stories about our lives.’

‘Exchange stories?’ Janyn said with contempt. He took a stick of kindling and broke it, hurling the halves into the flames. ‘What stories do you want? Tales of death and horror? Shall I tell you how I have seen nuns raped and slaughtered like so many sows? Or children taken from their mothers’ breasts to have their heads dashed against a wall? Is that what you would hear? No: you don’t want that. You don’t want to know my story.’

‘I would hear it,’ Nicholas pressed him quietly. ‘Come, friend, we are all here together. You are a man of much experience, I’d wager. I would value your tale. Which sin do you think is the most terrible?’

‘Why do you ask me that?’ Janyn demanded. He was wound tight as a cog’s rigging as he leaned forward, his hand straying to the knife at his belt.

Laurence saw his hand’s movement and the innkeeper shook his head, smiling and holding his hands up pacifically, but stepping forward to prevent a fight. ‘Hoy, friend, he means nothing by it: nothing. But we were talking about the deadly sins. From the look of you, you must have a view on such things. Which would you say was the worst?’

‘I have seen all the sins imaginable committed while I was in France. There are men there who have sought to offend Christ and His saints every day with their debaucheries,’ Janyn said, grimacing. ‘Ach, no! Why do you want me to speak of them? I would forget them all.’

‘You were a fighter in France?’

This was the prior, the churchman with the sharp face. He sat at the other side of the fire, smugly arrogant as he eyed Janyn – like a judge presented with a felon of notorious fame.

Janyn sneered and turned his attention back to the flames. ‘A pox on your cockiness! If you were in France, you wouldn’t survive above a day,’ he muttered. Then he looked up, his dark brown eyes fixed on the rest of the group as he spoke, glowering with a fixed intensity that spoke of pain and anguish. ‘What can you know of the horror, the suffering of the men out there? How many of you have been told to slaughter prisoners? To butcher men and women, aye, and their wains? Not one. You cannot appreciate how war changes a man, how it twists him and torments him, until he is utterly broken.’

He was a grim-faced little man. Like many a peasant, his face was leathery and tanned from exposure, but there was a hard edginess to the lines on his face.

‘You want to know what I think, then? I’d say lust is the worst. Because it’s lust that leads to murder and slaughter. Lust for women, lust for gold, lust for power. All come to the same: lust! And one man felt sure that his own lust brought about the plague that hunts all men now.’ ‘Tell us your story, friend. Show us what you mean.’ He stood, caught between the urge to leave them there in the chamber – and the desire to tell them all. He was almost ready to flee the room but, just then, Laurence passed him a green-glazed drinking horn, and he took it and stared into the pale-coloured ale. There were bubbles and swirls in the drink, and suddenly, as clouds might form the appearance of a cog at sea or a man’s face, he saw her again: Pelagia, the Frenchwoman with the neck of a swan, the body of an angel. He saw her face as clearly as he saw the flames in the fire.

It decided him. With a gesture of defiance, he tossed his head back and drained the horn in one. He could tell them a tale to make them sit up and listen! A tale of…

Lust

War is evil for many, but most of all for the people who want no part in it – he began – the women and children. They suffer from the unwanted attentions of men; they are raped and slain by invaders, or they’re killed by their own because they can’t fight, or they starve because food is kept back for the men who will fight. That is what Calais was like. A foul city, full of scared, fretful people. When we got there, the place was already encircled by our King’s host, but the fear – you could taste it in the air.

Men react differently to things like that: the smell of fear. Some are like hounds. If a hound senses another is scared, it’ll push it around, snarl, growl… anything to make it know who is the master, who is the villein. Some men are the same: if they can tell another is petrified, it gives them a feeling of power. In the army, there were many men like that. Some beat their men, some would brawl and bellow, bragging about their conquests, while others would enjoy a man’s terror in silence. They would stand quietly and observe as a man shivered and shook. They are the ones to watch, the ones who will tease and torment, and twist the knife a little deeper, enjoying every squeal of terror, every rictus of agony.

I knew a man like that at Calais, a man called Henry the Tun. The centener.

At Crécy, I was a vintener myself, responsible for twelve men by the end of the campaign. They were all that was left of two vintaines of forty archers under our banneret, Sir John de Sully, but my boys were badly mauled during the flight to the north. We were harried all the way from Paris by the French King’s armies, and the people of the towns came out and attacked us as we drew near. There was never a spare yard that wasn’t fought for.

After Crécy, things eased a bit. We had destroyed the French on that battlefield, and when we finally left it we were filled with joy. The country was ours, with all the wealth. Even poor archers became rich. And we soon had more men arrive to fill the gaps. My own vintaine needed new blood more than most, and we had seven new fellows join us. But then I was struck down with a fever, and I had to take to a wagon. My men were sent on before me, and I rattled along in their wake like some kind of pathetic infant, with only a pair of brothers to help me: Bill and Walter from Southampton. They were recent recruits, sent to help win Calais after our losses on the long march. I didn’t know them, nor the men we travelled with, and, at the first opportunity, I left the wagon and took up a horse. I wanted to rejoin my men. With the brothers, I tagged along behind another vintaine that was passing, and soon I was introduced to their centener: Henry the Tun.

He was a short, thickset man, with a heavy belly that stuck over his belt like a sack of oats bound at the middle. His face was round and ruddy, with cheeks as red as the apples that made his favourite drink, cider. A nose like a plum, and jowls like a mastiff’s gave him a pleasing appearance. He looked jolly, a genial, jovial man like a Bacchus come to earth. His eyes were constantly creased as though in great humour – but when a man looked into them, it was clear that there was nothing there. No kindness, no humility, only an overweening greed and desire.

When we were within eyesight of the town, he sat back on his mount and breathed deeply, before pointing to it and grinning at me and his own vinteners. ‘There, boys, that’s where we’ll make our fortunes,’ he said.

One of his sergeants, a man called Weaver, looked over at the town. Most of us in that army were good at grumbling. We’d fought all the way from the coast down to Paris and, like I say, been chased away from there all the way to Crécy. There we won our famous victory, it is true, but the cost was high. We lost many friends, good friends, on that march homewards, so we felt entitled to grumble.

Anyway, Weaver was there at the front with Henry, and as he looked out over the town and the army, he drew his face into a sneer. ‘The King wants that? I wouldn’t pay a clipped penny for the whole place.’

‘Shows how much you know of things like that,’ Henry said. He sat back in his saddle, gazing ahead of him, that smile on his thick lips, like a glutton presented with a whole roasted suckling pig. ‘It’s the King’s delight, is Calais, and should be yours, too, Weaver. It’ll be an easy sail home from here. You can almost see England over there.’

Weaver, he just grunted. All we could see was a greyish mess. Could have been clouds, but more likely it was the thick smoke rising from all about the town. When you have a few thousand Englishmen in an army, you have a mess. Weaver wasn’t stupid enough to argue. We’d all seen others who’d argued with Henry. They hadn’t done so well.

Anyway, Weaver, he said nothing. I thought it was because he didn’t want to be beaten, but when I looked at him, I saw why. He was staring down at a figure by the side of the road. A young woman.

Like I said, war is a horrible thing for the poor souls who work the land it smothers. That’s what war does, it engulfs whole lands; and the poor people who live there, they’re like cattle. Captured, milked dry, and killed. Of course, for women and children, it’s worse. They are little better than slaves to an invading army, and any can be taken or slain on a whim. I saw enough of that kind of casual brutality on the way to Calais. Even English boys who were there to help support the fighters were often beaten for no reason, just because the soldiers knew they could.

This girl had been brought up well. She had soft skin on her hands, and her knees were unmarked. She wasn’t a peasant’s child, I could see that from the first. But her clothing was rough, tattered stuff that would have suited a maid from a plague vill. You know what I mean. We’ve all heard of folk who’ve lost their families since the plague. In France, I’ve seen worse: girls and boys without their fathers, who’ve had to fend for themselves for months until they starved. All with swollen bellies, their faces pinched and grey. Well, this girl had the same ragged clothing, but her belly was flat, her face still haughty. It was a wonder she had not learned humility yet, I thought. After all, a girl with that kind of manner appeals to many men.

You can imagine how a girl like her would have found life under the English boot. She had been brought up to enjoy all the finer things: good food, wine, servants. Suddenly she was homeless, wandering with the refugees trying to escape the English. Us.

Who was she? No one. She had been raised in some town or other – mayhap it was Caen – and was daughter to a fuller. He was a good, kind man, apparently, but, as our army approached, he insisted that she should leave with her mother and two brothers. He was to remain to look after the town with the rest of the militia, so she said when I got to speak with her later. She and her mother and brothers took a heavy purse of coin, and set off on their way.

But God had set His face against her.

‘Friend, you are feeling out of sorts,’ said Nicholas. ‘Wait, let another tell his story, and take some ale and a rest.’

‘I am fine,’ Janyn snapped. He wiped a hand over his face, remembering, and his voice grew softer as he looked about him at the expectant faces. ‘It is a hard story, though.’

‘We have heard such tales before. The men lusted after her, and-’

‘You think to tell my story for me?’ Janyn snarled.

‘No, I-’

‘Listen and you may learn something new about men,’ Janyn stated.

He could see her again in his mind’s eye as he spoke. A lovely girl, she was. Slim and perfect as a birch. In her life, he knew, she was raised to wealth. There was nothing unwholesome about her. Nothing spoiled, unlike the devastated country they had marched through. Janyn had seen war in all its forms, but to walk about a country in which every farm had been burned, all the stored crops stolen or ravaged, all the cattle driven off or slain – to walk about that ravaged landscape hurt his soul. He felt as though he was taking part in the systematic rape of the country.

She was just one of the countless thousands who had lost all. Both brothers and her mother had been killed by marauding bands of English, and it was a miracle she wasn’t found and raped and killed in her turn, but by keeping to the night hours and hiding during the day, by degrees she made it to Calais. Not that she was any safer when she reached it.

The girl was found by King Edward’s men just outside the city. Like so many, she had been cast out of Calais when the English appeared. Many had been thrown from the gates as soon as it was realised that the English were coming to lay siege. No spare mouths would be allowed to remain inside the walls. Those who were refugees from the surrounding countryside were evicted, sometimes forcibly, so that the stores would last longer for the garrison and people of the town. This was no time for the kind-hearted support of those less fortunate; rather, it was a time to callously guard one’s own security. And food must be kept for those who came from the city or those who could guard it. She was neither; she was a foreigner.

She had been flung from the gates, her money and little pack of meagre belongings stolen from her. She would soon be dead, so why leave her with goods to enrich the English? Better to keep them in the town. Too scared and tired even to weep, she took to whatever cover she could find out beside the road. But there was no protection out there, between the lines of English invaders and the city walls. Not a tree, not a bush. The weather was dreadful, and soon she was shivering with the cold and damp, petrified of what would happen when the English caught her. She had heard much of their brutality.

As the first English hobilars appeared, she was found and taken away, out of bowshot of the town’s walls, to be held with other prisoners. She expected there would be little sympathy for her and her companions. The English could not afford to waste good food on her and her like. She would be fortunate if she was only raped and killed quickly. Others endured days or weeks of torture.

But Janyn saw her, and he felt a little flare of compassion. He had been marching for miles, and the last thing on his mind as he approached the town was a woman. All he wanted was a chance to sit down under canvas and pull off his sodden boots – but the sight of her touched something in his heart, a sense of tenderness. It was the same, he saw, when he looked into the faces of Bill and Walter. They all felt the same attraction to her. For his part, Janyn reckoned he wouldn’t get any rest unless he saw that she was safe. The thought of her being raped was intolerable, somehow.

Henry and Weaver were riding on with the rest of the centaine as Janyn dropped from his saddle. Bill and Walter waited on their mounts.

‘What is your name?’ he asked as he approached her.

She looked at him with the fear naked in her eyes. Men here were only interested in what they could take.

‘Come, maid, what is your name?’ he said.

Her gaze dropped. ‘Pelagia.’

‘It is a pretty name.’

She looked up at that, anger searing her face. ‘How would a man who burns and murders recognise prettiness?’ she spat.

Janyn’s days were full enough after that. He was glad to see that the girl and the other prisoners were not slain immediately, but instead were released. The girl Pelagia was set free on the second day, and Janyn saw her again that morning.

There was a gaggle of men who organised provisions in this section of the army, and Janyn was at the wagons collecting food when he noticed the slim figure staring desperately at the wagons with their precious cargoes. Her face was tragic. She had no money, and no means of earning it – bar one.

Janyn walked to her and smiled, but she looked straight through him as though he wasn’t there. Only when he hefted the wrapped bundle in his hands did she show interest. It was a fresh loaf, and he held it out, nodding to her as he pulled the linen from it. The aroma of warm bread seemed to fill the space between them, and he held it out again. ‘Eat – please.’

She struggled with her feelings. How could she not? These were the men who had destroyed her city, who had probably caused the death of all her family, and now this man offered food in exchange for… she knew what he would want.

‘Leave me!’ she spat, and turned.

‘Girl, just take it and go,’ he snapped. He broke the loaf in two and threw one piece to her. She caught it quickly, and would have said more to him, but Janyn had already stalked off angrily. He only wanted to help her. To have his offer of aid thrown back in his face was demeaning as well as insulting.

Why? Why would anyone want to help a young woman in her predicament? She was young, fresh, beautiful, a reminder to him of when he was younger and in love, perhaps. Or maybe it was because he thought he saw in her a dim reflection of his own mother. Whatever the reason, he only wanted to aid her. She had a need of food, and would find it hard to come by here, with the English taking everything for miles around. It was foolishness to refuse his offer, no matter what she thought he was like.

He set her from his thoughts. She didn’t deserve his efforts, he thought. The ungrateful wretch could go hang.

If there was any justice, that is what would have happened. Janyn would have gone through the siege and never seen her again. She would have been found stealing from a baker’s or from a butcher’s, and would have been hanged on the spot. Janyn would never have been tormented by the sight of her again.

But life was never so straightforward.

He came to see her every so often. She had become a familiar face about the camp after a few days, and while men occasionally leered at her and tried to get close, they always found themselves reluctant to get too close. There was something about her that made a man keep away. Not exactly fear – the men of King Edward’s army were not scared of any woman – but a sort of grating on the nerves. When they spoke to her, or made lecherous comments in the hope she would respond, she said nothing, but she had a look that spoke to many of them; it was the kind of stare a witch might give. It was as if there was no soul within her breast, no heart, no compassion or feeling. She felt neither terror nor hatred; she was filled with a numbing emptiness that was so cold it would freeze a man who touched her.

Once, Janyn saw three men attempting to persuade her to lie with them. They circled about her, one trying to engage her in conversation, another playing with the binding of his cods and holding out a penny, while the third laughed inanely, waving his arms like a cockerel warning off an interloper in his ring. It was plain enough that if she refused their money they would take her for free.

It was a sight to spark his rage, and Janyn had his hand on his sword as he opened his mouth to bellow at them, but he need not have worried. Even as he prepared to defend her, and while she stared at the men, one at a time, without moving, he saw two others running to her aid: Bill and Walter. They shoved the men away, and her attackers left her like melting snow sloughing from a roof, to go and find easier prey.

It came back to him now, that scene. The ringleader of the men spitting at the ground, another biting his thumb at Bill and Walter, but all three moving off, unwilling to test the anger in the faces of the two men who stood at her side to protect her.

Bill and Walter glanced at each other, then at Pelagia. She stood looking at them, utterly still, and the two men looked confused, pinned under her scrutiny like a man stabbed to an oaken door by an arrow.

‘Are you well, maid?’ Bill asked at last.

She gazed at him from those fathomless eyes of hers, but said nothing.

‘I wanted to help,’ he said.

Janyn watched the woman turn and walk away from them. Neither brother made a move to follow her. They watched her as she made her way between the little shacks and carts of the camp. But in their faces, Janyn saw the dawn of adoration.

They looked like men who would cast aside their own lives to protect her.

Janyn knew that there was something between the brothers and the girl from the first moment. Bill and Walter would stare at her, and he wondered at first whether they were planning on making use of her for their own enjoyment. He kept a close eye on them, but soon he realised that these two were not seeking to rape, they were both attempting to win her over in their own ways.

The older of the two, Walter, was a heavy-set man. If he had been a tree, he would have been an oak. Brown-faced and with a thick, black beard and slanted blue eyes that gleamed under his brimmed felt cap, he had heavily muscled arms and short, stubby fingers. Although he was a massively strong fellow, he had already gained a reputation for kindness – he was the first to share any food or drink, and when he did capture the enemy, he always brought them in alive.

His brother was not the same. Bill was a harder man, with the slim, wiry strength of a birch tree. He had lean, narrow features, and while he was as dark of hair, there was a tinge of brown in his beard and moustache that wasn’t in Walter’s. Unlike his brother, Bill had long, slender fingers, and his arms and thighs looked as strong as reeds compared to Walter’s powerful build, but Bill was a ferocious fighter. Janyn saw that himself often enough in the little fights about Calais. Still, while both were very different men, neither gave him any cause for concern.

Not for their fighting prowess, anyway. It was different when it came to love.

Janyn was wary with all his men when it came to Pelagia. She was aloof, holding all the men in contempt, but for some, especially Walter, this served as a spur to his desire for her. It was not a rough, demanding lust, but a deep infatuation that tore at him whenever he saw her. Janyn could see it, and just as clearly so could the other men. However, Bill adored her too, in his own quiet manner. When she walked about the camp, Janyn could often see the two brothers, their eyes following her slim figure.

Seeing their competitive desire for her, Janyn had thought they might come to blows, yet their fights were not with each other, but with any other man in the vintaine who threatened Pelagia or who tried to force himself into her company. The two brothers were protecting her, and she seemed to appreciate their help as much as she did Janyn’s own calm defence.

Perhaps all would have been well, were it not for Henry the Tun.

Henry was not a man to hold a secret. He was content to tell his tale to any who would listen, and he had spoken of it to Janyn on many occasions. His life had been full of incident, but he was a senior commander in the King’s army now, and safe. Besides, along with his age and experience, he had confidence in his prowess and authority. His tale was known to many. It was a source of pride to him, a proof of his strength and valour, he thought.

Henry had been born the son of a cooper in a village called Cleopham, some few miles from London. When he was old enough, he had travelled up to the city, and there he was apprenticed to a barrel-maker, but the work didn’t satisfy him. He was a bold, roistering fellow who loved ale and women, rather than being tied to a master who ordered him about and made him work at tasks in which he had no interest. Henry was not remotely interested in sweeping and cleaning, or learning how to split and shape barrel staves, nor in binding barrels with willow. He wanted money to enjoy himself with friends in alehouses lining the Southwark streets. And there he got to know the women.

There were so many of them, and they were enthusiastic companions to a man with money. The Bishop of Winchester’s lands south of the river were full of brothels and individual women making their own way, usually supporting their pimps with their income.

It was one of these who got Henry into trouble.

He had been with the boys in London during the excitement of a riot. King Edward II, the King’s father, was realising that his reign was coming to an end, and when Walter Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, was slain in the street like a common felon by the London mob, Henry and the other apprentices went on the rampage. They swept down Ludgate Hill to the Fleet River, and broke the shutters of all the shops on the way, beating up anyone they met. Any men who wore the insignia of the hated Despenser family were grabbed and tormented, or battered with canes and clubs on the way.

Henry saw one man dart into an alleyway. Catching a glimpse of Despenser’s arms on his tunic, and full of ale and cockiness, he chased the fellow until he managed to crack him over the head with his club. The man fell, tumbling to the ground, and Henry kicked him a couple of times for good measure before cutting his purse free. It had a pleasant heft to it, and he opened it to find plenty of coins.

Later, he went with his new-found wealth to the stews of Southwark, and there he met the woman.

God alone knew what her name was. She must have told him, but he couldn’t remember the morning after. He was brutally drunk: as fighting, swearing, rotten drunk as any man had ever been. And while he was stumbling into walls, shouting and laughing, he yet wanted a woman, this woman.

She was a saucy-looking little slut, with a head of thick straw-coloured hair and eyes the colour of the cornflowers he used to see in the fields about his home when he was young. He used to pick them for his mother. She liked to receive little gifts like that and, seeing the whore, he was reminded of those little acts. He wanted to find her something pleasant. There were no flowers here in the muddy, noisome streets. Little could survive amongst the cart tracks and faeces. Human, cattle, swine, dog and cat excrement lined the ways. Any plants would be trampled underfoot in no time. But he wanted to get her something.

He had plenty of money in his purse, he remembered blearily.

‘Maid, come with me. I’ll buy you a drink. I’ll buy you a new coif or something…’ he blurted.

‘You’re too drunk,’ she said.

‘I am. You come with me, and you can be too. I’ve money, look!’

He held up his purse and jingled it so she could hear the coins inside.

Her eyes widened. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Which is the best tavern in the street?’

She indicated a building with a large bush tied over the door, and he walked with her to it, stumbling only a little as he went, but as they drew nearer, he was shoved, hard, and a man pulled the woman away.

‘You bitch! You don’t leave your place over there. You know my rules!’ the man shouted.

He was a big man, heavy in the belly, but with the thin, wiry frame of a smith.

Henry pushed himself to his feet. When he felt his head, there was blood running in a thin trickle where he had struck a stone as he fell. He stared at the blood.

‘Get back, bitch!’ the man said again, and shoved her.

Henry was too full of ale to take care of the likely outcome. He drew his knife and struck the cock-bawd. Later, he heard that he slammed the blade into the man more than twenty times, but for all he knew it could have been once or a hundred times. He didn’t know what he was doing. The ale was driving him.

That was the end of his apprenticeship. He realised, as he stood looking at the crumpled body before him, that he must flee, that this was the end of all he knew. The whore, after giving a muffled squeak of alarm, began to shriek like a banshee, claiming that someone had murdered her husband, and men began to appear in the street. A horn was blown, and men began to gather.

Henry had to run faster than ever before in his life. He didn’t take the risk of returning home to collect his meagre belongings, he just ran and ran, up to the river, over along the shoreline, until he found a wherry and begged the oarsman to take him to the other side. A handful of coins persuaded the man. Within a few hours, Henry was safely on board a cog, feeling the waters roll her side to side, bound for Gascony.

He had never looked back.

There were many men in the army with irregular marriages. These women who joined the men in the camps were known as ‘marching wives’. Some of them were keen to stay with just one man; some were enthusiastically promiscuous, perhaps because they felt safer knowing that several men would look after them. There was less risk that their investment in time and effort would prove to be pointless. After all, it took only one arrow to remove their asset.

Janyn had never taken a woman. He had seen them, the sad, grey-faced widows and children, tagging along after the fighting men. Some put on a show of courage and enthusiasm, but for the most part they were weary, shocked, terrified women, many of whom had seen their menfolk hacked to death in front of them. Janyn had early on sworn that he would never force women like them to share his blanket with him. Yet there were times, as he listened in the darkness to other men grunting and rutting, when he envied them.

For certain, some of the women did enjoy their status. Sometimes the younger ones could be prickly and acerbic, but when they chose their mate, they were enthusiastic. So long as they hadn’t witnessed the slaughter of brothers and parents. That did tend to change them.

Many of these marching wives were happy to join the army. They came not from villages that had been pillaged, but from towns further away. Their lives were already mapped out for them: marriage with a local boy, life under a despotic mother-in-law, a patriarchal father-in-law, who would often hold incestuous desires, all of them ready and waiting to force the young wives into prolonged servitude. And for what? So that they could become brood-mares for the village. Nothing more. They were valued as highly as a bitch in whelp – not even as highly as a cow in calf, for a cow brought milk, meat and money. A bitch would only bark and snap. Little surprise, then, that the more enterprising young women would slip their leashes and run to join the army. There, they were valued as companions and lovers.

But Janyn would not take them. He was content with a simple financial relationship with one of the many whores, but he would not become emotionally entangled. It would take only a moment’s reflection on a husband’s, brother’s or child’s death for a woman to turn into a knife-wielding avenger, and he had no wish to share his bed with a vengeful harpy. Sex with a woman who might bear a grudge for her man’s death – that was a risk he could happily live without.

For that reason, when Pelagia joined him in the camp the day after the three had been scared away by Bill and Walter, the men of his vintaine were surprised. They knew their vintener’s opinions about the marching wives. But none dared say anything. The grim expression on Janyn’s face was enough to dispel any potential humour.

He had come across her lying huddled beside a tree that evening, already cold, shivery, suspicious and wary. She had no cloak to cover herself, nor yet a thick tunic. Instead, she huddled for warmth closer to the tree. It was like clutching ice in the hope of heat.

‘If you don’t find a man to protect you soon, you’ll be taken by someone less understanding. If you’re not careful, I’ll wake up one morning and find your body. I don’t want that,’ he said, and shuddered at the thought as though it were a premonition.

She gave him a long, slow stare. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘I would have you live. That is all,’ he said. ‘There has been enough death about these fields. Just live, woman, and I will be content.’

She rose stiffly, and shivered again. He led the way without turning to see if she was behind him. She could have slid away into the welcome concealment of the surrounding trees, for all he knew, but he continued traipsing on until he reached the circle of his men. There, he turned, and found that she was a mere four paces behind him.

‘Lie down there,’ he said to her, indicating his own blankets. The thick fustian was scratchy and rough, and he saw her eye it doubtfully. ‘It’s all there is,’ he said. ‘If you want to keep warm, you must roll yourself up in it.’

He said nothing more that evening. As she settled herself, wrapped in the coarse cloth, he sat nearby, his back to a tree, his steady gaze fixed on a point in the distance. Walter brought him a little pottage, but for the most part the men left him to his bleak meditations. Only one person didn’t seem to hold him in awe. When he glanced down, he saw that her eyes were still fixed on him. Feline, she seemed, and he could not tell whether, like a cat, she appreciated his protection or doubted his intentions.

Henry the Tun had not thought of the woman in the days since his arrival at Calais. He had been too busy with his men. He had never been an ardent womaniser as such. There were too many other distractions for a man like him. As he strode about the encampment and as he sat in the hastily erected tavern drinking sack, he had no time to think about women, and Pelagia had been little more than a bundle of rags in the ditch when he first caught sight of her, but then, one day, he saw her again, and this time he wanted her.

Henry the Tun took women when the urge washed over him, but he was no cruel ravisher of innocents. Those taken prisoner as the army marched tended to be safe from him. He had little use for them, in truth. Women were necessary on occasion when he was free to indulge his natural desires, and that was all. He preferred the whores who were more likely to be compliant than determined to avenge a dead lover or relative.

With men he was a natural bully. Janyn knew him of old, and knew that Henry was a bold and fierce fighter. He liked to brawl and wrestle, and even when sober, he would join in a gladiatorial battle. He was no coward: that was not one of his faults.

His boldness, his conviction of his own strength and authority, led to his intimidating and bullying others. If there was a ready target for his bile, that fellow would suffer. If a stable-boy mishandled his pony, that boy would receive a clout over the ear that would send him flying, but when he was drunk, Henry would use any as the target of his vicious cruelty.

He was a keen drinker and, when deep in his cups, he was vicious. He would pick on any man, even one of his own company. No matter that the fellow was stronger than most, Henry would willingly take him on. And often, when he had taken more wine than he should, his thoughts turned to other pleasures.

That night he was feeling comfortably amorous after a few pints of wine, and walking back from the tavern, he was feeling a warm glow. His men were content, his purse was full, and all was well with his world. Perhaps he should go to the stews and find himself a woman. There were wenches down there who would be willing enough when they saw the weight of his purse, but it was growing harder to find one to slake his desires. As his reputation was passed from one slut to another, it grew ever more difficult to persuade one to let him lie with her. No woman willingly slept with him above once or twice when he was deep in his cups, because for him the height of ecstasy was to inflict pain while he rutted.

The roads from one place to another were well marked out by then. All about the town of Calais, where the English were camped, a makeshift town had been thrust up. Now there was a regular market, with peasants from about the countryside bringing in some goods, and more appearing from English ships. Wine, ale, clothing, and – blessed Mary! – even new boots materialised. At the same time, ale-houses and taverns appeared, their barrels set up on wagons or simple trestles, and the men tramped along paths that were soon solid-packed earth roads. Gutters ran alongside the older, long-established roads, and it was into one of these that Henry stumbled drunkenly.

Cursing, he stood and staggered from the filth back to the road itself, and began to make his way back to his men, but now he found his path was blocked by a slowly trundling wagon, and he must stand aside.

At the side of the road here, he saw a group of huddled figures, and in their midst, he saw her: the girl.

He didn’t recognise her immediately. At that first glimpse all he saw was a woman with a long, willowy throat, her hair indecorously loose over her shoulders, without wimple or coif. She must have appeared a very lewd woman, sitting there amongst a company of men. Who knows? Perhaps he thought her a common marching wife, or even a whore.

Janyn saw Henry at the side of the roadway, and immediately felt the prickling in his belly that warned of danger.

Henry was a strong man, the commander of a centaine, responsible for the wellbeing of his men, but he had no actual friends, only men to be commanded. Janyn’s was a lonely enough position, answering to the commands of his banneret, but trying always to keep the men beneath him happy and keen. It wasn’t always easy, and for a man more senior, like Henry, it was still more difficult. There was no camaraderie for the leader of a hundred. Above him was his lord, Sir John de Sully, who was himself a stern commander, but a knight had his own circle of companions. Henry had none, only the loneliness of authority.

Seeing him there, Janyn thought Henry had a wistful look about him. Perhaps that was it: sometimes a man just wants to stop, rest, take some comfort. That evening, as drunk as a churl at the harvest festival, Henry perhaps sought only that at first: companionship. Perhaps that was all he ever wanted from a woman. A moment’s freedom from responsibility, a spurious friendship. And only later did he come to want to inflict pain to increase his own delight.

When his eyes lit on her, he saw not a prisoner, not a piece of meat, but a young woman of delicacy and beauty. Perhaps, like Janyn, he remembered a vision: a summer’s day, a river bank, the scent of meadowsweet heavy on the air making him drowsy as he sat with his head resting in the lap of a woman such as this. It was the kind of memory to take a man’s breath away. A lovely, enticing memory of a time long gone, when a boy could meet a girl and they could enjoy the natural pleasures without shame.

It is often the way that a man will form a picture in his mind, when he is all but befuddled with drink, and he won’t realise that the object of his affections doesn’t share his dream. So it was this time.

He made his way to them.

‘Maid, I have a mind to take ye,’ he said, belching and dragging at his belt. He was far gone in his cups that night, and once he had the idea of a bout with the maid, nothing would dissuade him from his determination.

‘She’s not for sale,’ Janyn said. ‘She’s not a slut from a tavern.’

‘Shut your mouth, unless you want to feel the King’s justice for answering a King’s officer,’ Henry said. ‘By Christ’s balls, she is lovely. Maid, I want you. Won’t you come with me? I’ll look after you better than these churls!’

‘Centener, go!’ Janyn said.

‘Go swive a donkey,’ Henry said.

Henry had lumbered forward like a man almost in a trance. His lips were moving, but Janyn couldn’t hear a word, only a roaring in his ears that muffled all sound. There was a moment when he felt suffocated with rage, and thought he was going to fall down, but then an intoxication of fury propelled him forwards, and he found himself face to face with Henry.

The centener didn’t look at him. His attention was focused entirely on the girl, and as Janyn thrust himself before him, Henry stopped and blinked as though confused to find that another man was in his way.

‘She is not for sale,’ Janyn grated. ‘Leave us alone.’

‘You are trying my patience,’ Henry said, his face reddening. His jaw jutted as he leaned towards Janyn. ‘Get out of my way, you cat’s turd.’

‘You try this, and I’ll have you broken,’ Janyn said. ‘All my vintaine here will stop you.’

‘You would stop a King’s officer? You think so? I’ll come back with three vintaines, man, and I’ll take her over your dead bodies!’

‘Try it. You’ll be the first to die,’ Janyn hissed.

There was a moment’s shocked pause. Janyn could feel the tension like a taut bowstring as he stared at Henry. There was a creak and a slight click, the familiar sound of a bow being drawn taut. Janyn knew that behind him at least one man had nocked an arrow.

‘Hear that, Centener? You try to strike me down, or try to steal her from us, and you’ll be dead before you’ve taken two paces. Now go!’

Henry the Tun’s face went utterly blank. The colour left his features like water running from a leaking bucket, and Janyn could almost imagine he was facing a ghost. The thought made him shiver.

‘You’ll regret this,’ Henry said quietly. He stood, studying Janyn for a long moment, his eyes empty of all emotion. For a while, Janyn held his breath, convinced that his centener would draw steel and try to stab him, but at last, Henry retreated. After some paces, he turned and walked away, but before he had taken more than a few paces, he stopped again.

His eyes took in all the men there: Janyn, the bowman behind him, and the woman, and he nodded as though reminding himself of all their faces, before chuckling to himself and striding off.

Was he evil? Janyn considered that again now, sitting before the fire. He always wanted to see the good side of any man, where possible. In the past he had taken raw, savage men, and from them honed sharp, competent warriors, and he would like to think that there was more to Henry than he met at first sight, but he knew, even as he considered the man, that there was no point.

Some men may be overtaken with rage in an instant and forgive in the next. Henry was not of that mould. He took his hatred and viciousness and nursed it to his breast until it became a focus and concentration of his anger.

Henry was filled with bile and spite at that moment, that was certain. To be forced away from his chosen prize by a few meagre churls from another vintaine, and by one of Sir John’s own vinteners, was demeaning, and that alone incurred his wrath. But to leap from that to declaring him evil was a long jump. Janyn knew that many men, thwarted of their desires, could be vicious. Some would lie in wait for a victim and take revenge for a slight. Many would punish a man by any means. Henry did none of these. He was fixed upon a different revenge. If he could not take her, he would have those who protected her destroyed; he would have her destroyed in time. But he would take her. He had no doubts of his abilities there. He would recognise no bounds to his rage at his humiliation. No, he would see how to get his revenge, and when he did, he would see them all utterly ruined, and they would see his hand in their destruction. He would gain satisfaction in their horror. And he would ensure that they knew he would have her regardless.

That was the mark of his cruelty. Not that he would stab or punch in a moment’s rage, but that he would nurse his hatred and black bile to himself and nurture them, and let them grow and fester, until they took him over entirely.

Henry did not think himself evil. His life had been one of fighting and struggling, but he was only a man, making his way as best he could.

Arriving in Guyenne after he fled London, he had been happy. He had enjoyed his time there. The warmth, the wine, the women, all were to his taste. But a man needed a career as well. He had no trade, but he was good, he learned, at fighting, and he began to take part in the little tournaments for money. He would take on all comers, and his speed and lack of fear usually gave him the victory. Whether he fought with swords, daggers or fists, Henry soon learned that he had an edge over most men.

It was that which led to his joining the King’s men. He fought for many of the noblemen of his day, spending much of his time with Sir John of Norwich, but then he met Sir Walter Manny, and joined his forces. Ten years after the murder of the man in Southwark, Henry was on a ship once more, and fighting with Sir Walter against French ships near Sluys. They won a victory at Cadsand and, from that moment, Henry knew his vocation. He was a fighter for the King.

As the war continued and conflicts spread, he found himself advancing ever further. He joined as an infantry fighter, but then gained a pony and a bow. From there he became vintener, and gradually built a reputation for steadiness in battle, for a cool head, and a ferocity unequalled in Edward’s host. Henry was as fierce as a tiger when he was placed with an enemy before him, but that enemy could be a Frenchman or a recalcitrant fighter from his own vintaine. A man who did not fight for him would often be forced to fight against him. He held an iron discipline in his unit, and all who disliked it were forced to respect it.

When he rose to his current post, it was because the old centener was too incompetent for his own good, let alone the men he was supposed to lead. He couldn’t lead the men into a tavern on a good day. On a bad day, he was too swine drunk to bother. More and more often it was Henry who took the men and led them himself, while his own men rallied them when a sudden reverse struck. And one day, the old man was in the line, fighting, when a sword caught his belly and opened him like a paunched rabbit.

That day, Henry took the top job. It was his right. It was his reward, he felt, for having endured the laziness and cowardice of his predecessor. He had to kill the man for the good of his unit and that whole arm of the King’s host.

In all these last years, no one had dared gainsay him. No one had thought to refuse him anything he demanded. And this miserable cur, this mewling kitten, this streak of piss, this Janyn Hussett, dared to stand before him and deny him the woman he should have as a right!

He would have her. He wanted her, and no one would stand in his way.

No, he did not think himself evil. He merely did not consider how any action of his own would affect other people. He didn’t care.

Janyn and his men could guess that no good could come of this.

‘Well, Janyn, by my faith, you’ve dropped us right into the shite this time,’ Barda muttered, taking the arrow from the string and putting it back with its sheave before reaching up to unstring his bow. ‘Ballocks to that! I didn’t come over the water to fight my own folk. I thought I was going to fight and kill the King of France’s men.’

Barda atte Mill was a short man, with a fuzz of grizzled hair circling his bald pate. About his cheeks and chin was a thick growth of beard as if to compensate for his hairless skull. His eyes were shrewd and kindly, with enough laughter creases to make him look like a modern Bacchus.

‘What would you have had me do? Let him take her?’ Janyn demanded, glancing round at Pelagia.

She was still staring after Henry and, when she felt his eyes on her, she threw him a cursory look before bending and continuing with her work preparing vegetables for the pot.

‘Aye. If it makes our life easier,’ Barda said. His eyes were narrowed as he peered after Henry, but there was no humour in them. ‘It’s a mistake to go upsetting the man who commands you in battle, Jan.’

‘Don’t talk of her like that,’ Bill said. His face blackened with his mood. ‘Would you see the poor maid raped by that son of a dog?’

‘I’d prefer to see her open her legs wide for him rather than see us suffer his anger.’

‘Perhaps. But I wouldn’t let him take her,’ Janyn said.

‘Is she your wife?’

Janyn didn’t answer that.

‘Well, I hope she’s worth it in the end, Vintener,’ Barda said, and walked off.

Bill and Walter stood together, muttering in low voices, their eyes drifting off to where Henry had gone, but Janyn squatted with his back against a tree and closed his eyes. After the rush of excitement, he felt light-headed and slightly sick. He had been so close to drawing a knife that he could feel how it would have been, to have stabbed and slain the centener. There was a metallic taste in his mouth at the thought, just like he had after a battle.

Pelagia was over at the fireside, and Janyn opened his eyes to watch her. She was entirely unaffected by the presence of the men about her, as if she knew that she was safe with them. Sitting amongst them, she pulled her hair up, away from her neck. She had a fine neck, Janyn thought, like a swan’s. Pale, long, slender, it looked vulnerable. He wanted to kiss it. It was rare for him to be attracted to women, but this one had something, an inner strength like a cord of hemp that kept her together. Even when threatened by Henry, she had shown no fear. Perhaps it had been throttled from her. The tribulations of her last weeks, losing her family, seeing her countrymen slaughtered all about her, maybe that had had the effect of squeezing all her feelings from her, so that now there was nothing left at her core but a savage determination to survive.

There was something in her eyes that he saw occasionally. A gleam, as if she entertained a thought that gave her solace. Perhaps it was a dream of quiet and rest, a view of an all-but-unattainable peace. For he was sure that there was little peace in her soul usually. Not during her waking hours. While she slept, she looked as though she was calm enough. Sometimes he had seen her lips curl into a gentle smile… but other times she gave muffled screams and moans as she thrashed from side to side. And always, as soon as she woke and took in her surroundings, any happiness faded until her eyes took on that distant harshness once more. Hers was not a soul at rest.

Janyn desired her, yes, but he would not go near her. She was a focus and target of danger. He could feel it about her. She could bring only disaster. Barda was right: they should throw her from the vintaine, send her away to fend for herself.

Except if Janyn were to do that, he would lose the support of newer recruits like Bill and Walter.

Barda had walked to her. As Janyn watched, he hunkered down beside her. ‘Maid, do you want food?’

She said nothing, but Janyn saw her give him a slanted smile and a flash of her eyes. She knew she had him already. Like a spider watching a fly willingly land on her web.

It was a thought that made Janyn shiver with sudden trepidation.

It was in April that things grew more troubling for the English. Janyn could remember it with such clarity: the mud, the constant dampness, the grey faces of the troops forced to endure.

All that winter the weather had been foul and, in March, when their spirits were at their lowest, came the news that they had all feared: the French King had taken up the great crimson banner of France, the Oriflamme of St Denis. With this flag in the hands of the French, they could not be defeated, some said in hushed whispers – but they had borne it with them at Crécy, and there it had served them no useful purpose, as others said. These loud denials, however, could not change the increased tension that affected the English with the news of the gathering French host.

But after March, there was nothing for weeks. Snippets of information came to say that Flemings and French were fighting on their borders, and occasionally there were tales of sea battles, of English convoys being savaged by the damned Genoese, but more often the news was of victories by the English. Even when French fleets tried to force the blockade and bring food to the starving population of Calais, they failed. At last, in late April, the English captured the last piece of land encircling the town: the Rysbank. With this narrow spit of sand taken, the English could control the whole harbour with cannon and other artillery. It was the beginning of the end for Calais. The English had their mailed fist on the throat of the town, and they were slowly strangling it.

A few weeks later, the French made a last attempt to rescue their town. A fleet of fifty or more ships set sail – cogs and barges laden with provisions – all guarded by galleys full of fighting men, but before they could approach the stricken town they were met with a larger English force that sank or put to flight the whole convoy. Not a single ship reached the garrison of Calais.

For the people of the town it was dismal news. The commander, Jean de Vienne, wrote to his king to say that there was no more food left in the town, and that they must resort to the horrible expedience of human flesh or die. A terrible, grim letter, it was, as the English soon learned.

It was entrusted to a Genoese, who tried to slip from the town at night in a small boat to make his way to Paris, but before he could pass by the English lines, he was seen. English ships were launched in pursuit, and he was captured, although not before he had bound the letter to a hatchet and hurled it into the sea. But at low tide the message was discovered, still tied to its weight, protected by its oil-cloth wrapping, and the letter was read by King Edward. He resealed the letter, placing the mark of his own seal on it, and had the letter dispatched to King Philippe. It was a flagrant challenge, and the King of France took it up.

He mustered an army, at least five-and-twenty thousand strong, and marched to meet the English.

It was a few days later that the call came for the English in Janyn’s vintaine to gather their weapons. There were rumours of an army marching to meet them, and while it was scarcely to be thought that it could equal the size of the army they had destroyed at Crécy, still, a host of French knights was a force to be reckoned with.

‘They’re coming up the road there,’ Janyn was told.

He and the other vinteners and centeners from the force with Sir John de Sully were gathered together in a wide space behind a wagon-park. Men were standing on wagons and carts to listen as Sir John, tall, hawkish and lean, told them of the danger approaching.

‘They are coming slowly, we believe. I doubt me not that after Crécy they will be keen to show us that our success there was a mere chance. They will have as many knights and men-at-arms as they can gather together in so short a space. It will not be easy for them, for we slaughtered their army. There can be few fighting men in the whole of the French King’s northern lands.’

Next to Janyn, Barda grimaced, then muttered, ‘The French King’s son had an army. He was bringing that up here in a hurry. What if this is his army? Battle-hardened and powerful.’

Janyn said nothing. Barda was his most trusted companion from the vintaine, but there were times when his grumbling and complaining were annoying.

Sir John was continuing: ‘So we have to hurry and meet them. We have to assess their speed of march, gauge their size and abilities. If need be, we shall have to make them pause on their march. The siege is essential, and nothing can be allowed to prevent us from taking Calais. No matter what this army may be. But we do need to know all we can about it so we can find the best way to deter it. Are there any questions?’

The usual few hands rose, with queries about the food and provisions for the march, but all issues were soon resolved and a basic plan agreed.

‘So, off we go again.’ Barda grunted. ‘Always us at the foreground. The army likes us to be the bleeding spearpoint, doesn’t it? And when we’re blunted, other bastards can claim the sodding glory.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Janyn said as they made their way back to their men.

‘You know what I think? I reckon the King knows he can replace any number of men over here. So many English would be glad to come and join in the sack of Calais that he will never lack for men. And after Calais, well, it’ll be easier to launch an attack with a town already colonised, won’t it? He doesn’t care about you and me, Jan. He thinks he’s got the country by the short hairs as it is.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘No “perhaps” about it, old son. Take my oath on it. We are the dispensable vanguard. He can lose any or all of us. Right now, we’re the most experienced of his soldiers, but he’ll throw us at the enemy, like a lure to the French hawk. We can be discarded – just so long as we hold them back for a little while, until the King’s host is ready to receive them.’

‘You’re too cynical,’ Janyn said.

‘You think so? You’re too trusting, man. You’re gambling, but you’re gambling with your life,’ Barda said harshly. ‘And ours, too.’

It was a thought that would return to haunt Janyn later.

The vintaine was packed and ready in short order. Janyn looked about him and assessed their strength, studying each man and his weapons.

Although they had marched hundreds of miles to get here, and then endured the winter over the long months, they did not have the appearance of men worn out by their journeys and privations. Still, there was the usual grumbling and complaining. Will of Whitchurch, a scrawny, ill-favoured malcontent with the look and sound of a whining cur, muttered loudly as he packed about: ‘These gits. Why don’t they send in the Welshies, eh? Just about done, me. Nay, but they’ll send us all in until we’re all jiggered. They can’t risk the Prince’s little darlings, can they, oh, no. But us, they can throw us into every battle.’

‘You should be honoured, Will,’ Janyn said.

‘Honoured, Jan? Just why should I be that?’

‘You’ve done so much, they think you can win the battle all on your own, man. We’re only here to guard you so you can fight and hold them all back.’

‘Oh, ah. Yes, I can see that. I’ll bloody have to, because we’re all going to die, but I’ll tell you this: you’ll go before me, man! I’m not getting my throat cut by a Genoese quarrel-chucker! Not me!’

‘I doubt you will,’ Janyn said, and meant it. There was something about the wiry little fellow that inspired confidence in his ability to survive any number of disasters. They had already come through a series of battles on the way here, and not many of the original team were still alive.

It was only when the men were mostly packed and had already begun to wander off to the muster that Janyn realised Pelagia was standing silent. She looked like a statue. Her hands were balled at her side, and she held her body tense, unbending. Her face was stiff, and Janyn thought her jaw looked like a clenched fist, the muscles were so taut. He was about to go to her when he saw Bill and Walter. Bill wandered to her, his head low, glaring at the world from surly eyes.

‘Maid, what will you do?’ he asked.

She looked at him, then gave a long, slow stare about the rest of the English camp. ‘If I stay here, how long can I survive?’

Janyn made a quick decision and crossed to them.

‘We can introduce you to some of the other men,’ he said. He could take her to some of the other marching wives, let them help her. It would take no time for her to find a new ‘husband’. But the brothers stared at him. They both knew what would happen to her there. They didn’t – she didn’t – want that, and neither did he. He remembered the day he had given her half his loaf. He had admired her even then. With Janyn’s vintaine she had not been forced to pay the marriage debt. She had made no vows to bind her to any of them, and her time with the men had been one of armed neutrality. She held no feelings for Janyn or the others, and while he had no need to protect her, yet he felt some affection for her. To discard her would be like throwing a chicken in the midst of a pack of dogs. They would squabble and bicker over her until the strongest consumed her.

Bill’s head dropped, and Janyn could see the man’s despair. They all knew what would happen if they left her. But marching to a battle was a matter of hard effort. They had no time to concern themselves over the woman. And in a fight, Janyn didn’t want his men worrying about the woman left behind with the camp. He had seen that all too often before: men fighting while half their minds were fixed on a woman. All too often it led to the man being killed.

‘Vintener, we can’t leave her,’ Walter said firmly.

Horns were blowing to signal the march. Janyn made a quick decision. ‘If you bring her, she’s your responsibility,’ he said.

‘Aye,’ Bill said quickly.

Janyn could see how Bill’s mind was working. The thought of leaving her here filled him with horror. If she was left to the mercies of the English army, she would be ravished and probably dead inside a day. It had taken Bill and his brother to rescue her from three drunken men before now. She could do nothing to protect herself if she were left alone.

Janyn could almost see these thoughts chase themselves across his face.

‘Will you come with us, then?’ Bill demanded gruffly.

‘What else can I do?’ she said.

They did not journey far. They marched on horseback with full packs and the spare arrows and bowstaves packed carefully on their carts, one to each vintaine, and the few women and children trudged along behind.

Looking back along the lines of troops and women, Janyn was hit by a feeling of happiness.

‘Glad to be rid of the place for a while?’ Barda asked, riding at his side.

‘It’s the stench of the latrines – I never could abide that,’ Janyn said, but it wasn’t only that. It was the feeling of grim, relentless misery that encompassed the area about the town, and more than anything else, the unremitting boredom of daily duty in the army.

‘Aye,’ Barda said, breathing deeply. ‘It’s good to be on a horse again, and to be riding, even if we will be riding into danger.’

Behind them, kneeling on the bed of the cart, he could see her: Pelagia. Beside her, as though guarding her on the way to her wedding, were Bill and Walter, flanking her on their ponies. Janyn was quite tempted to bellow at them to leave her and join the main column that straggled its way along the road, but there was no point.

He could see why they kept near her. She looked lovely.

‘What?’ Barda asked, seeing the direction of his gaze.

‘Should I do something about them? Look at them: drooling over her like a pair of dogs after a bitch,’ Janyn said.

‘What, are you jealous? Jan, get a grip!’ Barda chuckled to himself. ‘You met her, you allowed her into our vintaine, and you stopped the arsehole Henry from raping her – what more do you want? Are you jealous of the lads?’

‘Of course I’m not.’

‘But she does look beautiful, doesn’t she?’ Barda said. ‘She gives the brothers something to fight for. No Frenchman will get to her without knocking them down first.’

‘I’m worried about Bill. She never gives him a look, but I’ll bet he’s never stopped thinking about her.’

‘I think Walter is smitten as badly, and yet she gives them no affection, no sign of any desire to be with them, only a cold, distant demeanour.’

‘I don’t think Walter hoped for anything from her. When she first came to the camp, he just sought to protect her from the other men.’

‘Is this all about them – or is it you, Jan?’ Barda asked.

‘Me?’

‘When Henry came to us, it wasn’t Bill or Walter who stood before him, it was you. Is that the problem?’

‘No!’

It wasn’t because he wanted her. If he’d wanted a woman, he could have found himself one. Any of the Winchester Geese who followed the army would be good for a quick release. They were able, willing, and quick, generally, just like the whores of the Bishop of Winchester’s stews from whom they took their name.

Pelagia was not like them. She was a mystery. Other women demanded attention and craved companionship, but Pelagia just seemed to exist. She desired nothing from any of the men in the vintaine, and only showed a calculated disdain when any tried to get too close to her. The rest of the time, she remained with their group as though she was sister to their whole unit. There was no offer of sex or even friendship, only a firm independence.

She was not like other women. He didn’t get the sense that there would be any pleasure in pursuing her like a sensualist determined to gain another notch on his bedpost. Other men talked of the thrill of the chase of a fresh woman, but Janyn had never been interested in that kind of exercise. He was content to concentrate on his work. One day, perhaps, he would go to England and seek a wife, but not here, not in this godforsaken land of burned crops and slaughtered animals. This was no place to think of settling, it was only a country to be tamed, and that profitably.

Sometimes he thought he saw something in her face. Perhaps a flash of sadness, or a look of quick despair, but it was so fleeting, he could not swear to it. Perhaps it was just his mind trying to make sense of her, of her feelings and of what drove her on.

He didn’t care, anyway. Whatever it was that she wanted, he wanted none of it.

‘How was the battle?’ Laurence asked. The other pilgrims were hushed by the tale as Janyn paused and topped up his drink from a jug.

‘The French did not have enough men. Nothing like enough. By that time, I suppose our King had some thirty thousand men under arms. It certainly looked it, with men all about the town itself, and more arriving every day. But the French had gathered together a scant twenty thousand.’

He nodded to himself pensively. ‘Even if they could synchronise their attack with a sortie from the men in the town, they wouldn’t have had enough. Their army was demoralised before they saw the English. Who wouldn’t have been, after the shattering defeat of Crécy? And while they may have hoped for a diversion from Calais itself, the people in the town were already enfeebled by the siege. Hunger and despair tore at them, and those who still had strength enough to wield a sword would still never have reached the lines of archers ringing the town.

‘So I say it again, they didn’t have enough. But from where we were, it looked like they had enough to trample us into the mud.’

The French King had to make a display, if only for his honour’s sake. So he marched his men up the road to the town. And the only thing stopping him at that moment was Sir John de Sully’s little force.

The old warrior was then in his sixties or so. His scarred and worn face displayed no fear that Janyn could see, only a boyish excitement. ‘We’ll stop them there,’ he said, pointing to a narrowing in the roadway.

The road leading to the higher ground outside the town had to pass through a wood before passing a small quarry. Beyond the quarry a hamlet had stood, but now the single stone building, the church, was the only one remaining. All the others had been burned, and even the church itself stood blackened and ravaged, like a sole surviving tree after a forest fire. The tower remained, but the building itself was a husk.

‘An ambush?’ Janyn asked.

‘Yes, Hussett. We’ll have our archers here at the front, and as they enter the quarry, we’ll loose the arrows. It’ll blunt their ardour, eh? The front ranks will run to cover in the quarry, and we can keep aiming arrows at the men coming. They will be pushed on by the press of men behind them, and we can kill many of them as they keep coming.’

Janyn nodded. It was the way the English fought. The archers stood their ground while their enemies ebbed under their withering assault. He moved off to prepare his men.

The two brothers were still there, and now he saw that when Pelagia went to speak with either, it was to Bill that she naturally turned. Walter was left sullenly glowering nearby while she spoke with his brother, her hand resting naturally on his forearm.

Janyn turned away. It was none of his business, but he disliked the idea that she might be breaking the close bond between the two lads.

The first that Janyn knew of the attack was a shrill scream in the night that jerked him from his slumbers.

They were all settled by early evening, his vintaine taking a patch of turf close to the wall of the old quarry. Their cart was nearby, and their weapons all laid close to hand. Bow-staves lay on the ground beside many of the archers, the strings held about their throats or kept in their purses, against the threat of the dew dampening them. As Janyn lay back, his head on his pack, he could see the men. Wisp and Barda stared into the flames from their campfires as they lay wrapped in blankets, and Bill and Walter were a little further off, their faces lost in the glare of the nearer fire. Janyn had dozed off staring at the coals and glittering sparks.

It was foolish to be so arrogant. A few successes against the French and all believed that they were secure, even here, lying out in the open. They should have known that even a cowed enemy would not hesitate to attack a force much smaller, and yet no one had thought to post a guard. All were asleep as the first cry came.

As soon as he heard the first high, piercing shriek, Janyn was up, flinging aside his blanket and bellowing at the other men to gather their weapons and follow him as he sprang forward.

The roadway was already a scene of confusion. Half-asleep archers were milling in the near darkness, while some few blundered around gripping blazing torches in their fists, rubbing the sleep from their eyes.

Janyn hurried to the line nearer the French army, but there was no sign of fighting there. All was peaceful, so far as he could see. A small group of French peasants lay hacked and bloody in a heap near the front line of the English, and two sentries were dead.

‘What happened here?’ he asked a man-at-arms.

‘We all heard a cry, and when we came here, we found this little force. They were probably just here to cut a couple of throats, steal a purse and make their escape. We were lucky: someone behind us heard them and gave the alarm.’

‘Hardly behind you,’ Janyn said. It was a stupid comment to make. Unless the French had infiltrated the English camps and killed someone in their midst. And yet that first cry, he could have sworn it had not come from this direction. ‘Must be the way the hill curls around us. The quarry. Rock can make noises seem to come from an odd direction.’

‘If you think so, Vintener,’ the man said without conviction.

‘Right,’ Janyn said, watching as the men pulled the bodies about, one with a war-hammer giving each skull a good blow for good measure. There was no time to take prisoners up here.

Looking at the dead, he felt sad. It was such a pathetic little group: farmers and peasants who were determined to strike their blow for the defence of their realm. When they were confronted and joined battle, they were soon forced to flee, leaving many of their companions dead or squirming in their own blood, their hatchets, bills and sickles left on the ground. If the French Army of the King was no match for the English force of arms, how could these fools have thought that they were capable of doing them damage?

When it was clear that all was safe and not further attacks could be expected that night, Janyn returned to the camp with his men, but when he looked around, he realised that the woman was not where she had hidden.

Pelagia was gone, and so was Bill.

Even now he shuddered at the memory of the shock that coursed through his body at the sight. Bill’s bed roll was left open just as so many others were all about; each man, hurrying to his feet, had thrown aside his blankets and grabbed his weapons in a hurry to get to the fight. But Janyn could not remember seeing Bill at the road or up at the front line. ‘Walter, where is your brother?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know, Vintener,’ he said, but in his eyes there was a terrible anguish as he looked to where Pelagia had been lying.

‘Your brother took her, didn’t he? Christ’s bones, the shriek that woke us, that wasn’t the French, that was Bill. He’s killed her, hasn’t he?’

Walter hesitated. It was enough for Janyn. He had seen the look in Bill’s eyes over the last few days. The longing and desperation that had gradually turned to greedy hunger. He wanted the woman, Janyn was sure. And now he felt sure Bill had taken her.

‘Walter, if you find your brother first, you’d better make sure she’s all right, because if I learn Bill’s hurt her, I’ll see him hang!’ he said.

‘What do you mean? Bill wouldn’t hurt her any more than I would,’ Walter said haltingly. He was almost pleading.

‘You’d better hope that’s true if you don’t want to watch Bill hanged from a tree.’

‘What do you want to do, Jan?’ Barda asked. All banter had ceased at Janyn’s tone of voice. Now the men stood watchfully.

Where they were, the quarry wall encircled their little camp, but there was no way to tell where the two could have gone. Had they fled together, he would have left things as they were. The loss of one lovesick man was one thing, but if he had snatched Pelagia to rape her, Janyn would see to it that Bill paid.

‘Jan?’ Barda said again. ‘Do you want us to find them?’

‘How’ll we do that at this time of night?’ Janyn said. It was the middle watch of the night, when the darkness was at its blackest, and even the best hunter and tracker would find it difficult to follow a trail. Janyn knew he was no master huntsman. Besides, he and his men had been installed here to help protect the road, and that they must do.

‘You want to leave it till morning?’

‘Yes. For now we all need to rest,’ Janyn said, striding to his blankets. He wrapped himself in them, spreading a heavy cloak over the top, and closed his eyes, seeking sleep.

But he sought it in vain.

Janyn took himself back to the next miserable morning, and as he did so, he felt his face hardening.

He had been furious when he learned what had happened. The shock to discover he had been fooled all that time. And then the slow realisation that he had been wrong again. Even now, the worm of disgust squirmed in his belly at the memory, and his voice grew colder.

‘I had trusted those brothers as much as any other men in my vintaine for months. I had done all I could to help them, and then I took Pelagia under my protection too.’

The attractive, well-dressed woman in the pilgrim party – her name was Katie Valier – nodded encouragingly, absorbed in his tale. ‘You approach the end of your tale, friend? Round it off.’

‘Very well,’ Janyn said shortly.

It was still dark when the screams and shouts started afresh. All the vintaine was roused at once, and they collected their weapons and moved to the front in support of a small company of men who were beset by the vanguard of the French army.

Janyn recalled that battle as a series of disjointed little fights. There were never more than a couple of hundred men from either side. It was mostly a matter of brutal hand-to-hand combat with small groups of Frenchmen. Janyn fought with his teeth gritted, his belly clenched, stamping down on feet, stabbing, butting his shield into a man’s face, then hacking at a man fallen at his feet. As day broke, he and the vintaine was thrust backwards, and Janyn saw Henry over to the further side of the vintaine as the fighting began to wane and the French who were still capable began to drift away, fighting as they went.

The men gathered about Janyn, faces pale from exhaustion, weary from too little sleep and too much fighting. For some time none of them could speak, but all stood panting, their fingers still gripping their weapons with the death-grasp of men who knew they could be under attack again at any moment. They all had a need for rest after their exertions, but even as the reinforcements arrived and the first of Janyn’s vintaine began to drop to the ground, a series of fresh calls came from further up the line, and they hurriedly clambered to their feet again and ran to the alarms.

It was after the last of these small frays that Janyn was called to a small pavilion some yards from the road. ‘Hussett? I have need of your men,’ Janyn was told. It was his master, Sir John de Sully.

‘Sir?’

‘Take your archers to the right of our front. There seems to be a small party of French archers over there, near the edge of your quarry. They’re loosing bolts into our flank. I want you to go with your men and remove them.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But be careful.’

‘Yes.’

He saw at the pavilion’s door a quick movement, and caught a fleeting glimpse, no more, of a figure that stalked away. It was impossible to be certain, but it looked like Henry.

The men were soon arrayed with bows at the ready, quivers full, and they made their way slowly about the edge of the quarry, climbing the steep hillside through mixed brambles, thorns and thick undergrowth between the slender boughs of young saplings. Overhead great branches rustled in the soft, soughing breeze. All that Janyn could hear was the noise of men breathing heavily, cursing, slipping and cracking twigs.

Their way was not easy. Loose stones and soil moved underfoot, sending more than one man sprawling on his face. They were trying to approach the French from the north, looping around in a great circle so that they could attack from the rear of their enemy, but even as they reached the top of the hill, they realised their mistake.

Before them and to their side was a large company of Genoese crossbowmen lying in wait. Loosing their quarrels from safety behind trees, they unleashed a sudden attack that knocked six of Janyn’s men down in the first instant.

It was a hellish place to try to fight. The trees shielded the men from the sun, and the thick vegetation meant none of Janyn’s men could see a target. But every instant a solid thud told of another bolt slamming into a tree trunk, or a damp sound like a wet cloth thrown against a stone heralded a fresh scream of pain as a bolt struck a man.

Janyn tried to rally the men and charge, but it was impossible. On the ground before him, he saw other men. Another vintaine had been here to storm the Genoese, and they too had been killed. In only moments Janyn had lost half his own men, and now the Genoese were picking off the remainder. With too few men to assail the crossbow-men, and with the English handicapped by their great long bows here in among the trees, Janyn had little choice other than to call the remnants of his men to him. He was himself struck in the calf, and began to hobble away, helped by Barda, who stopped and turned to loose an arrow at every other step, taking one Genoese in the throat, whose slow, agonised death persuaded the rest of the pursuit to take more care.

As they made their way through the trees, sliding on the scree and tripping over roots and branches, Janyn’s mind was empty of suspicion. But then, as they came closer to the quarry, he slipped on something soft and fell to his hands and knees, winded. It was some little while before he could turn and take in the sight.

In a deep hole formed where a tree’s roots had once clung to the soil, he had stumbled over an accumulation of loose branches. Leaves dangled from them, still full and fleshy. They had been cut recently. A bolt hurtled overhead as Janyn leaned down, a leaden sensation in his belly.

‘What are you doing, Jan?’ Barda demanded.

‘Shut up. Just keep them back,’ he said, pulling branches and twigs away. ‘Christ!’

‘What?’

Janyn didn’t answer, but squatted back on his haunches, staring down at the pale features of Pelagia. ‘At least now she is at peace,’ he mumbled to himself.

She had the look of a woman deep in sleep. If it weren’t for the nakedness of her lower body, the blood on her thighs and belly where her murderer had slashed and stabbed at her, Janyn might have thought she was only resting.

‘Who did this?’ Barda demanded. He was staring down at the body with horror in his eyes. ‘Shit! Was this Bill?’

‘Who else could it have been?’ Janyn asked. He heard the whistle, thump, as another bolt slammed into a tree. ‘The two of them disappeared in the night. I suppose Bill got away after this. He took her, raped her, and fled before we could catch him.’

There was a sudden cry from over on their left. They crouched, and then began to crawl through the thick bushes towards the source of the sound. There they saw a pair of Genoese holding an English archer, while a third calmly spanned his bow and set a bolt ready.

Before he could lift it to aim, Barda’s arrow passed through his head. The man was hurled to the ground by the impact, and then Janyn was hobbling forward, pulling his knife from its sheath, while a second arrow flew and took one Genoese in the cheek, spinning him about and making him fall. Janyn’s knife was up and he grabbed the last man’s arm, pulling the man off-balance and slamming his knife into the man’s liver and kidneys, stabbing again and again until the fellow stopped moving.

Standing, panting, he looked about him to see that the other man was dead. Two more arrows had hit him in the back of the neck and spine and, although his body twitched sporadically, there was clearly no life in him.

‘Come, quickly!’ Janyn hissed, and grabbed the man from the ground.

It was not until that moment that Janyn paused to glance at the man he and Barda had rescued. For an instant, he gaped, and then he leaped forward and rammed his fist into the boy’s belly. ‘That’s for her, you son of a whore!’

Barda had to pull him away and hold him back. ‘Let’s get away from here, Jan. Come on, this isn’t the time or the place.’

Janyn stood with his jaw clenched so tightly he thought a tooth was loosened. Then he turned on his heel and set off down to the camp, leaving Barda to help the boy.

The rage bubbled and fizzed in his blood. There was a hollowness in his belly, and his heart was thundering like a galloping horse in his breast as he strode on, all thought of the Genoese put from his mind. It was only as he reached the English lines and saw a column of men marching forward towards him that he remembered the trap in the trees, and paused to warn the commander of the men.

Back at the camp, already the main assault had been turned away, and now the only sign that there had been a battle was the mound of corpses, as Englishmen picked up the French slain and piled them one upon another. Janyn marched to his banneret’s pavilion and stood outside while Sir John finished buckling greaves and pulling on his gauntlets.

‘You removed them?’ Sir John asked.

‘No, sir. They were too numerous, and in the trees there, there was little we could do to protect ourselves. They were well positioned.’

‘Never mind. The main assault has failed, anyway. I’m surprised, though. Your centener thought you would easily win through.’

His words took a moment to register, and then Janyn thought again about the figure hurrying from the pavilion earlier, before he and the men went to outflank the Genoese. ‘Henry? He suggested us?’

‘Yes. He said your men were best placed. He said you were freshest and ready for a little excursion up into the woods. Why? Is there a problem?’

‘No, sir,’ Janyn said. ‘Did you know someone else had tried that route before? There were many dead on the ground already.’

‘I had not heard, no. That is annoying – we could have saved you and your men, if we had been told.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Over at the carts, he saw Bill lean up against a wheel, his arms draped over the wheel. Janyn thought to himself how he would see him whipped later, until the skin was flayed from his back. It was clear enough what had happened. The boy had taken Pelagia, hoping perhaps to run away with her, and then raped and killed her when she refused. The murderous scum had hidden her body to hide his guilt. In his mind’s eye, Janyn saw the scene: Bill half-dragging the woman up the slope after him, all for lust. All for desire for a woman who didn’t want him.

But as he’d noticed, she did seem to want him. Janyn could only assume she wanted to imitate a nun, and when Bill got her up on the hillside, she didn’t want to open her legs to him. Perhaps she was scared of the idea of the army approaching, or maybe Bill’s lust was alarming to her. Whatever the reason was, she refused him. And he, craven cur that he was, forced her.

Although that too seemed unlike him. Janyn stood, staring over at the cart. Bill had a gash on one cheek, and even as Janyn watched, the lad turned, draping his hands over the top of the wheel as though crucified.

He had never shown violence towards her. He had never even displayed much lust. Rather, he held a simmering bitterness towards anyone else who looked at her. The only man of whom he appeared to hold no jealousy was his brother. That was natural, after all. Brothers could maintain their friendship even in the face of rivalry.

But there was another man who had shown his lust. Henry had been violently angry when the vintener refused to allow him to take Pelagia. He expected to be able to rape her, and had even made threats when he was thwarted. And today, for some reason, he had recommended Janyn and the others to go into that terrible wood.

It was coincidence, Janyn told himself. Why would Henry want to kill off the vintaine, especially Janyn? It made no sense, except he knew Henry. They all did. If he felt snubbed or insulted, his brutality in revenge could be boundless.

Janyn was suddenly assailed by a sense of revulsion so intense, he had to grasp a nearby tree and cling to it, waves of nausea running through his entire body.

‘It was him,’ he said. ‘Damn his eyes, Henry tried to get us all killed!’

Barda saw his sudden lurch, and hurried to his side. ‘Jan? Are you all right?’

‘By God’s cods, Barda, I think little is well,’ Janyn said.

Henry was with his commanders when Janyn approached him. The other vinteners were about him, and Henry looked at Janyn sidelong.

‘Thank you, centener,’ he said. ‘My men appreciate being sent up to the ridge.’

‘What are you talking about, Jan?’

‘You’d had your own men, or another man’s vintaine up there already. Their bodies are all over the hill. We’d already fought all morning before light, but that didn’t worry you, did it? You were happy enough to be rid of us, I suppose.’

‘You always were an insubordinate bastard, Hussett. Your father was a trader in second-hand clothes, and I suppose you’re little better. Well, if you don’t like the army, you shouldn’t have joined the King’s forces.’

‘I joined my master, Sir John, to come here,’ Hussett said. He looked about the other men with casual deliberation. ‘But he wouldn’t have sent me to have me killed with the callous disregard that you did.’

‘Me? What are you saying?’

‘That you wanted your vengeance because you wanted the woman Pelagia. You were prepared to kill us all to have her, weren’t you?’

‘You’ve been drinking too much cheap wine!’

‘She’s dead. But perhaps you know that already. She was killed and set down in a hollow last night. Where were you? Did you go up there to kill her, and then tried to have me and all my vintaine wiped out so you could hide your murder?’

‘Now you’re talking hog’s turds!’ Henry said, and set his arms akimbo. ‘You say I killed the maid? And what of it if I had? How many other men and women have we all killed? You think I’d have run with my thumb up my arse in case a peasant’s mongrel like you learned of it? Get your brain to work, man! You think I’m scared what you or anyone else thinks? Go swive a goat!’

Janyn was about to launch himself at the man, but Barda put a restraining hand on his breast. Then Janyn paused and considered.

There was merit in Henry’s words. Why would he worry about killing the woman?

‘You tried to have all my vintaine wiped out just so you could have her to yourself, didn’t you?’ he said wonderingly. ‘It wasn’t just to hide her murder – it was simple lust. You wanted her, and you were prepared to kill me and all my men just so you could take her.’

‘You have no way of knowing what I would or woudn’t do,’ Henry said, but now his voice was colder.

‘You were prepared to have Sir John’s force depleted just so you could rape the woman.’

‘She would have been willing enough,’ Henry said with a smirk. ‘The women always are.’

Janyn nodded. He set his jaw and gazed at all the other vinteners standing with Henry. ‘You all heard that. He wanted to sacrifice us, his own men, so that he could grab the woman. Like David and Bathsheba. A corrupt leader prepared to see his own men slain just so he can steal their women. We all know where we stand with him.’

‘Get your arse out of my sight!’ Henry spat. ‘That is villeiny-saying of the worst sort, you-’

‘You accuse me of villeiny-saying?’ Janyn said mildly, but then he launched himself forward. Barda grabbed his arm as he flew past, and another vintener caught him by the shoulder and neck, keeping him back. ‘Get off me! Leave me alone! He’s safe enough from me – for now!’

‘You’re finished!’ Henry said. ‘I’ll see that you’re ruined, Hussett! You won’t fight here with the men ever again, you little shite!’

Janyn nodded. As he was released, he tugged his jack and hosen back where they had been jerked tight. ‘I will never fight for you again, Henry. I don’t mind a Frenchman killing me, but I won’t die from your bile.’

He stalked away, and Barda had to trot to keep up.

‘Do you really think he did that?’ he asked.

‘Who doubts me? Sir John told me as much. He wanted to see all of us die in a trap up there, Barda.’

‘He won’t do that again.’

‘No,’ Janyn said. The two glanced back over their shoulder to where the centener was expostulating with his other commanders. ‘No, he will not last long in the next fight.’

Janyn and Barda found Walter not far from the front line with the rest of the vintaine.

‘Have you heard about your brother?’

‘What, have you found him?’ Walter said.

‘Yes. He wasn’t far from her body.’

Walter nodded, his face empty, and then, very slowly, a tear formed. ‘I couldn’t let him. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t…’

‘She was going to marry him?’

‘I think she enjoyed the attention we both gave her. It gave her satisfaction to see men bickering over her, and when it was me and Bill, she was pleased to see how she could make us both suffer for love of her.’

‘It wasn’t love. Love doesn’t mean raping a woman and then killing her.’

‘I didn’t want to kill her! I didn’t mean to! I only wanted to keep her for my own! I thought if I took her, and showed her how much she meant to me, that maybe she’d marry me. I made her take me, but then, when I was spent, she looked at me like I was a turd, and told me she would enjoy telling Bill what I’d done. I saw her then for what she really was. It was your fault, Jan! You brought her with us – you should have let us leave her behind! Why did you bring her with us? It’s ruined us all!’

‘What will you do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Your brother knows?’

‘When I took her, he saw us leave, and followed us. I had to strike him down before he could find her. I knocked him down, and covered her over. I hoped he wouldn’t realise it was me!’ He was sniffling now, snot gathering at the tip of his nose. He wiped it away angrily. ‘I didn’t want to hurt him. I was just desperate. And lonely.’

‘You did better than hurting him,’ Barda said. ‘You nearly had him killed. The Genoese found him up there and would have killed him. And when we found him, Jan nearly killed him, too.’

Janyn stopped. His eyes were fixed on the flames as though he could see the faces from long ago deep in the flickering light.

‘Well?’ Laurence asked quietly. ‘What happened? Did the two brothers forgive each other?’

‘Only one need forgive,’ the Austin canon said. ‘That was the point. His lust drew the man Walter into dishonour and deceit, and made him knock down his own flesh and blood.’

Janyn shut his eyes in disgust, then stared up at the friar. ‘Did you understand nothing of my story?’ he said harshly. ‘You think it was all that cut and dried? It was lust moved them all: simple, animal lust. Henry wanted the woman, and he was prepared to kill anyone to slake his desire. Bill wanted her too, and he would have killed anyone who threatened her. He would have taken her if he had the courage, but instead his brother decided to take her for himself. Not because he was worse than the others, but because his lust overwhelmed him sooner. And what else? Why were we all there in France? Because of the lust of two kings for the same city. We are all consumed by lust. Even Pelagia, who wanted revenge like Henry wanted her body! We were all consumed by lust. And then the plague came, and Calais was consumed. This plague, it is a proof of God’s displeasure with us. All of us!’

‘What happened to Henry?’ the landlord enquired after a moment’s thought.

‘He died a short time later. His centaine was in the thick of a battle, and he fell.’

‘From a blow before him or behind?’

Janyn curled his lip without humour. ‘If you were a man in his hundred, and you heard about him sending an entire vintaine to its doom just because he wanted a woman, would you want to fight with him?’

‘What happened to the brothers?’

‘What would you have done? Was there any purpose to be served in punishing one? I didn’t have to, in any case. Bill refused to speak to Walter, and a week or so later, Walter was found hanged in a barn near Calais. He couldn’t bear the guilt over what he had done. And then, he couldn’t bear his brother’s contempt either.’

‘Did his brother survive?’

‘Bill took his money when Calais fell, but when the peace was agreed, he went away. I heard he joined a fraternity of mercenaries. He didn’t feel there was a life for him back here.’

‘What happened to you?’

‘Me?’ Janyn stared into the flames. ‘I swore I wouldn’t fight any more after Calais. I took up a little alehouse in the town and built good custom with the English garrison. I promised myself I’d forget war, and for a year I was happy. I married Alice, my lovely Alice, and she bore me a son.’

‘Are they in Calais still?’

‘Oh, yes. They will always be there. Both perished when the plague came. So I came here on pilgrimage. To find peace.’

Aye, he said to himself: peace – calm after the fighting. A pilgrimage to beg forgiveness.

Forgiveness for slaying his own centener in the midst of a battle; forgiveness for all the Frenchmen he had killed, some in anger, some in cold blood; forgiveness for the rapes and tortures, for the abbeys and churches laid waste, for the nuns left raped and slain in the burning embers of their convents.

And for failing the young French woman who had sought his protection.