But many were forsworn. They gave different reasons for their dishonour: distrust of the King’s advisers, fear of the King’s jealousy, dread of being asked to fight against the Queen and her son, the Duke of Aquitaine – but, as so often, the truth was more mundane. They wanted money.
In the past, life had been so much easier. A man gave his word to his lord and served him. That was enough.
Sir Ralph felt his rounsey stir beneath him and patted his neck gently. ‘Easy, my friend, easy.’
‘What do you think, Sir Ralph?’ Bernard said.
Bernard was a younger man, of some five-and-twenty years, with long, flaxen hair and blue eyes. He always said that his family were knights from some strange country to the east of the Holy Roman Empire, but that they had lived in England since the days of King John, and from his looks it was easy to believe. He was looking at the older man now with exasperation.
‘Think about what?’ Sir Ralph asked.
‘How far must we keep running?’
‘You shouldn’t speak of such things,’ the knight reprimanded him.
‘Everyone else in the camp is,’ Bernard said reasonably. ‘The ones who don’t are leaving in the night. Look about you!’
‘They are false, then.’
‘Sir Ralph, I don’t care whether they’re false or honourable, I just want them to remain here so that it’s not you, me, Alex and Pagan who have to defend the King on our own.’
‘There’re bound to be more men who come to our aid,’ Sir Ralph said stoutly.
‘In truth? Well, that’s good to hear at least,’ Bernard said. ‘Sir Ralph, you know me well enough. I am not the man to moan and bleat at every twist of a sour fate. But even now, I can sense the men around us leaching into the woods. There are very few who’ll stay for honour’s sake.’
‘Go and help the pages,’ Sir Ralph said shortly.
He watched his squire stride off, bellowing at the two as they tried to take down the tent, and sighed.
There was little he would prefer more than to disappear into the woods himself, but the oath he had given the King had been made before God and was binding. A man was defined by how he behaved: whether he stood by his word or broke it. There might be cowards who were prepared to forswear themselves, but he was not one of them. He had never broken a vow in his life, and if it now cost him even that much, at least he would have lived honourably.
To distract himself, he urged his rounsey into a slow walk across from their tent so that he could look out over the men in the camp.
In the past he had ridden with the King’s host from Leeds in Kent up to Scotland, and over all the lands between. He had seen enthusiastic forces gathered; he had seen the shattered remnants of all-but-destroyed ones. The cheery, the furious, he had seen them all. But never before, not even when he had ridden back with his men from the north, when they had been roundly defeated by The Bruce, had he seen their mood so sombre.
Here the men moved about the remains of this village like lost souls. Such a small number… When they left London there had been hundreds. Now, perhaps one hundred remained. No more. They stumbled as they walked, exhausted. Cold and wet, they had taken every item of wood from this vill, even down to the cottage doors, in order to feed their fires, but the flames would not give them any cheer. This force was defeated before a single sword had been drawn.
CHAPTER FOUR
Second Saturday after the Feast of St Michael[8]
Near Marshfield
Paul yawned as he came out of his little cottage. He had run out of bread and had to walk down to the vill, as the Abbot was most insistent on maintaining his rights here.
It was the Abbot of Tewkesbury who owned the benefice of this vill, the manor, and the mill; all those who lived here must take their grain to his mill down near Marshfield. The miller, generally a hated individual and viewed by all with suspicion, would take his tenth of the flour after milling, and from his efforts each year, a due was given to the Abbot.
Paul had only a small sack with a few pounds of grain in it, but he hoped it would be enough for two or three loaves. With fortune, he would be able to acquire some more flour before long, but there was no doubt that this would be a very thin winter. Not so bad as when he was a youth and the great famine had struck at the kingdom, but still not good.
It was almost noon when he set off on the short walk to Marshfield. It was only some three miles to the mill, and he was in no hurry, but the act of walking did at least keep him warmer. He had to loosen his neckcloth after the first mile or so.
The lands here to the north of Marshfield were uniformly flat and tedious, he always felt. His little church was in the midst of them, and while there were excellent pastures, there was no protection from the wind that came from the north and east. He had already grown to hate that wind. It cared nothing for obstacles, whether flesh, clothing, or even wattle and daub. Whatever it struck, it chilled.
South from the vill, the land was more pleasing to his eyes. It was rolling farmland, leading to good woods, and hills undulating into the distance. This scene never failed to please him as he took it in.
On his way, he had to pass a cottage with a blackthorn bush tied into a bundle and bound to a pole above the front door – the universal sign of a home with ale to sell. Paul went to the door and knocked.
‘Yes? Oh, Father, do you want a drop?’ Anna asked.
She was a short, plump woman with a cheery face and thick, powerful hands. Paul smiled as Anna fetched him a large earthenware jug, and he drained a cupful in a moment standing by her fire.
‘Come, Father, you can sit. You’re an honoured guest for us here, you are. Please, take the stool.’
‘Anna, I spend my life sitting and kneeling. Do you want me to grow as fat as the Abbot?’
Speaking of the Abbot in such a derogatory way was not seemly, but he knew the peasants here detested the man for his taxes. There was nothing so mean that the Abbot wouldn’t take it. Whether it was the leyrwite, the tax for adultery, or the heriot when a peasant died, the local people were fleeced like sheep. It was cruel to take so much from those who had the least.
There was a sudden crash at the door, and it rasped open slowly, Anna’s little husband entering with a small sack upon his back. He carried a couple of faggots of twigs in one hand, both balanced on a billhook’s blade.
‘Father,’ he nodded, letting the sack fall to the ground. It contained three cabbages which had been badly mangled by slugs, and two little turnips. ‘You staying for some pottage? Anna makes the best in Marshfield, I’ll vow, and with weather like this, you’ll need something hot for your belly.’
‘I thank you, but the ale and the fire are all I need,’ Paul said untruthfully, for the odours from the little pot by the fire had made his belly groan.
‘Really?’ Anna said mischievously. She lifted the lid and sniffed with appreciation. ‘Marrow bones, some meat from a chicken, with all the garbage, and the last of the peas went into that. Sure you don’t want any?’
It was later, when Paul was sitting replete, that the peasant looked at his wife and remarked, ‘Old Puddock was in the vill this morning. He had news of Bristol.’
Paul smiled to hear that. He was still unused to the broad local pronunciation, and the word ‘Brizzle’ made him feel alien, but strangely comfortable too.