1356 (Special Edition)

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

‘It would.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two

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

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

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

‘Who is his liege?’

‘The Earl of Northampton, sire.’

‘In England?’

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

‘I hope you are right.’

‘It is the best explanation, sire.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘From whom?’

‘The Earl of Northampton, lord.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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