I spent January learning to use a lance. Du Guesclin was a fine lance, and he was surprised I was so bad at using the weapon. He had a quintain in the woods, and when the ground was frozen hard, I rode at it every day. Jamie Wright hooted at my poor horsemanship, and Richard winced when I was struck by the sack of turnips on the back of the swinging arm. Almost a week into my training, I cocked it up so badly that I managed to fall onto frozen, bumpy ground.
Du Guesclin stood over me and shook his head. ‘By St Lo,’ he said. ‘One hears this story, but never actually sees it.’
All around the clearing, men were laughing.
Jean de Flery and Michel de Carriere, two of his most trusted men, were laughing so hard that they sat in the snow.
De Carriere looked at me and pointed, unable to speak. He wheezed and finally looked at his friend. ‘How is it these men are driving us out of Normandy?’ he asked.
Richard, who was quite competent with the lance, rode a course, slammed his point into the shield so that splinters flew and trotted up to the laughing pair. ‘It’s the long bow,’ he said. ‘It’s faster than the lance.’
Well, that shut them up, but it killed the bonhomie of the clearing for a day.
I was black from the bottom of my arse to the top after that fall. It didn’t heal for two weeks, and every time I bathed, they all laughed again.
Pentecost came, and we heard Mass again — it was more churching then I had had in years — then du Guesclin got word that our ransom had been paid.
‘I have Sir James’ ransom as well. And letters from the King of Navarre.’
We had dinner, and all the French knights were silent. It was not a festive occasion.
It can be hard with men who are both friends and enemies, but who speak a different language. I wasn’t sure about their silence — it might have been the season, with Lent about to start, or it might have been the war.
We didn’t want to ask. In truth, although I’ve glossed over and made light of it, we were prisoners, and from time to time, an angry Frenchman would propose killing the lot of us. It’s happened. We were eager to go. It was so close that we all feared some last-minute difficulty.
The tension at dinner that night was like the heavy air near the sea in mid-summer.
After a few sallies that failed, I turned to my host. ‘What troubles you, my lord?’ I asked boldly.
Chaucer stepped on my foot. But I thought then, and still do, that some things are best met head on.
Du Guesclin made a face. ‘In this, I will hope that you can share our anger. Michel wants me to be silent — he thinks that to tell you this will be to tell a secret, yes?’ He looked at de Carriere, who glared at him.
‘The person of the Dauphin was seized by Etienne Marcel three days ago. They took him prisoner and killed Marshal Clermont and every other servant of the King that they could find in Paris.’ Du Guesclin pursed his lips.
‘And the King of Navarre condones it!’ shouted de Carriere — he was usually a pleasant, if silent, man, as young as we ourselves, but he had drunk deep, and his anger was as deep as his draughts.
Chaucer spoke carefully. ‘This is what we. . sought to prevent.’
‘So you say,’ de Carriere said.
Du Guesclin shook his head. ‘If you English dismember France,’ he said, ‘what will be left? Who will till and work the land? Who will pray? Have you English thought on what will happen if France collapses into anarchy?’
There was, in decency, no answer we could make.
The next day, wearing our own armour and riding our own horses, we rode away. We rode into Normandy, where there was no royal administration to be found. The siege of Rennes was over, and the men who’d participated in it were all serving in the King of Navarre’s armies.
We rode south through lands that were already showing signs of recovery. It was early March and the men were tilling. Women leaned on stone walls and watched us ride by.
This part of southern Brittany had never been a theatre of war, but now it was English, as English as Gascony. And when we reached Gascony, it looked prosperous. Spring was peeking out of every sunny morning; birds sang.
We reached Bordeaux late in March. Lent was almost out. The air was clear, the girls were pretty and we sang as we rode the last few miles.
The Three Foxes looked about the same, except that there was a table in the front of the yard, and at it sat Christopher Shippen and John Hughes, playing dice. I bridled, but Marie threw herself into my arms, and Sam Bibbo came down the stairs — was it her door that had opened?
He clasped my hand, and we had to tell our stories ten times as wine was served and all the girls had a holiday. Ah, I had sworn a hundred times to give her up, cease my fornications and send the girls away.
That good change did not last out my Marie sitting on my lap and telling over our accounts. Taxing me with having run risks and been captured.
I put de Charny’s dagger on the oaken chest by our bed, looked at it and thought hard thoughts.
But that didn’t keep me out of the bed.
The Prince was in England for a tournament, and so was Sir John Chandos. The Prince’s Lieutenant for Gascony was Sir John Cheverston, and he was reported to be marching up the Dordogne valley. Richard and I rested a day, gathered our retinue and rode north after him.
Fortune is a fickle mistress.
After months of hardship and failure, we arrived at the siege of Nadaillac, young Chaucer in tow, in time to present Sir John Cheverston with our damp and somewhat moth-eaten array of sauvegardes.
He was a hard man, with a greying forked beard and heavy moustache, a broad forehead and a ferocious temper. His steward warned us before we were taken to this tent that he was in a mood.
‘How long were you two scamps on the road?’ he asked. ‘Chandos must have been scraping the barrel when he chose to send you. Where’s Master Hoo? He’s been sore missed by the Prince.’
‘Dead,’ I said. ‘Killed by the militia in Paris.’
Sir John’s squire helped him get his aventail over his head, and his stained arming cap emerged. ‘Where in the nine hells were you two, that he was killed?’
‘Fighting,’ I said.
He looked at us and shook his head. ‘And you were captured,’ he said in disgust.
‘Yes, my lord,’ I answered humbly.
‘Am I allowed to know exactly why two such very young scallywags and a rogue of a notary were sent to Paris?’ he asked.
‘We thought you might tell us?’ I said quietly.
Cheverston spat and took a cup of wine from his squire. ‘I’m of half a mind to send you back,’ he said. ‘The Prince ordered me to acquire a safe-conduct from the French so that I could clear the bandits from the Dordogne, but he didn’t leave me orders as to where I should get such a document.’ He sighed. ‘You boys have had a hard winter — its in your faces — and I suppose you expect to be paid?’
What do you say to that?
We stood silently. With our caps in our hands.
Richard leaned forward. ‘May we. . stay on for the siege?’ he asked.
Cheveston shrugged. ‘If I’m paying your wages, you might as well be of some help. I don’t suppose you know anything about the Chateau of Nadaillac?
Richard and I spoke out at about the same time. ‘We scouted it last autumn,’ we said in unison, like monks chanting.
We showed him the spring on the hillside.
It took me six months to accomplish nothing for my own reputation. It took one evening for me to make it.
Richard and I took ten men-at-arms and a dozen archers in light harness, and we worked our way up the hillside in the dark. There was very little cover, and we made noise, but the siege had gone on for weeks and the garrison was lax — they expected Sir John to buy them out soon enough, and the fighting had been sporadic, to say the least, as the men inside were mostly the same kind of Gascon routiers who made up most of Sir John’s army.