‘Axemen!’
The Greek shield wall had opened again. Long-haired, bearded mercenaries clad in leather hauberks were racing towards them, shield in one hand, two-headed axe in the other, a horde of shrieking men. Some collapsed in the dirt as arrows pierced them in the face and chest. Others reached the carts, climbing up to be met by whirling sword, mace, club and spear thrust. One of them broke through the gap between the carts. Eleanor tripped him up with a lance whilst Imogene, screaming hysterically, clubbed the back of his head to a bloody pulp. On the cart, Hugh and other mailed knights held off the attackers whilst those who did break through were caught by the waiting infantry. A nightmare vision of hissing steel, spurting blood, angry faces, hideous cries and the soul-wrenching sounds of metal and wood smashing out life. A brief respite, then a fresh ferocious assault. Eleanor felt delirious. Bodies were piled either side of her, then she heard a roar, and the attack began to falter, the axemen withdraw. Hugh, all blood-splashed clambered down from the cart. His chain mail had caught pieces of human flesh, his face was splattered with gore. Eleanor turned away and vomited, aware of Imogene’s arm around her shoulder.
‘Eleanor?’ Hugh pulled her hands apart. ‘Godefroi and the other knights attacked the Greeks in the flanks; they are withdrawing.’
Eleanor nodded. She did not care. She just crouched by the wheel; she had descended into hell. Children were crying, sobbing furiously, footmen were moving amongst the wounded. The enemy were given short shrift, a mercy cut across the throat, the same for those Franks the leeches could do nothing for. Dust devils billowed across. Water-bearers with buckets and ladles moved along the line of men baking under the sun. The Beggars’ Company were already pulling the dead of both sides away from their carts. The Vicomte de Béarn and his officers came galloping up. Eleanor leaned against the cart; Imogene pushed a ladle of water into her hand. She slurped at it, staring out over the battlefield. The dead lay mostly in contorted positions, but occasionally so peacefully, heads resting on arms, they seemed asleep. The summer heat, hot and clammy, intensified the agony. The cries of the wounded drove away the marauding buzzards but not the flies hanging in black clouds around gruesome wounds. A child was weeping uncontrollably. A woman wailed. Voices shouted for leeches or a priest. Rahomer, one of the Poor Brethren, had taken an axe cut to his shoulder and was sobbing with the pain. A leech tried to dress the hideous wound. Eleanor glanced away. Hugh was talking to the vicomte. Eleanor rose and walked over even as the vicomte nodded in agreement.
Hugh shouted for Theodore, Beltran and Alberic to join him.
‘We’ll seek a truce,’ he informed them breathlessly. ‘This is madness. We must discover why the Greeks have attacked so fiercely.’
A short while later, carrying a leafy bough hewn from a tree and flanked by Theodore and Alberic, the priest bearing a cross lashed to a pole, Hugh galloped into the dusty haze, Beltran following behind. The Franks dragged the dead, now stripped naked, ghastly bodies with their shiny purplish wounds, to the funeral pyres hastily erected near the stream. The mound of corpses was sprinkled with oil. A priest intoned the Requiem. A torch was thrown to engulf that monument of the dead in sheets of flame followed by plumes of black smoke. The acrid stench of burning flesh curled along the battle line. Godefroi came riding up, his face still full of battle fury. He looked absent-mindedly at Eleanor and cantered off to where the vicomte and other commanders had created a gap between the carts to ride out and stare across the battlefield at the gathering mass of Greeks. Envoys from the enemy camp came galloping through the murk carrying peace boughs. The Franks accepted these, allowing the Greeks to scour the field for their own dead and wounded. Eleanor slumped down. Imogene squatted next to her. They shared a cob of hard bread, some bitter wine and a few dried figs.
‘We are supposedly marching to Jerusalem, the Heavenly City,’ Eleanor murmured. ‘Yet here we are in the meadows of hell!’
‘Sister?’
Eleanor glanced up. Norbert stood over her. The Benedictine’s gaunt face, skin peeling, was spotted with blood.
‘It’s Fulcher the Smith.’ Norbert indicated with his head. ‘He is dying of his wounds. He says he must speak to you before he is shriven.’
Eleanor rose to her feet. She felt so dazed, Norbert had to steady her by the arm as he led her down the line of carts. They passed groups clustered around screaming, moaning men and women. Others were repairing weapons. A few knelt and prayed around some small statue of the Virgin or their patron saint. Smoke floated across, thick and rank. It broke to reveal Fulcher propped against some baggage; he lay shivering, the dirty bandage around his neck and chest blood-soaked.
‘I cannot stop the bleeding,’ the leech murmured. ‘Wounds everywhere.’
Eleanor knelt down. Fulcher’s eyes fluttered. He tried to grasp her hand but he was too weak. Eleanor, hiding her own weariness and fighting to control her stomach, ignored the fetid stench around them.
‘Arrowhead and sling shot,’ Fulcher gasped, ‘struck almost immediately.’ He blinked. ‘A wound to the back. Anyway, God wills it. Listen.’ The smith turned and Norbert withdrew. ‘Listen closer.’ Eleanor did so. ‘I’ve watched you,’ the blacksmith gasped. ‘I trust you, Lady Eleanor. I must speak to you. I was in the coven that killed Anstritha. No, hear me! You are not from the Auvergne, sister — where we live in a world of witches and warlocks. Anstritha had been a wandering woman, skilled in herbs, who came and settled in our village. She was a stranger. We had suspicions about her. She kept to herself, though God knows she was friendly enough. She was young and comely. Some of the women envied her, whilst the menfolk lusted after her. She had money and, to all intents and purposes, led a goodly life. It didn’t save her. Stories were rife, tragedies and misfortunes were laid at her door. A week after Michaelmas last, I and other sinners who drank at the Vine of the Lord…’ Fulcher gasped, a pink froth bubbling between his lips, and his eyelids fluttered. He took a deep breath. ‘We were given a secret message. No one knew its source. On a certain day we were to meet out along the heathland just as Father Alberic tolled the Vespers bell. We did so, gathering one by one in a grassy hollow; its sides rose high to hide the glow of the fire burning there. We thought it was a joke, but the message had mentioned Anstritha so, full of ale and mischief, we agreed. We were to come hooded and masked, and so we did, though I recognised them, Robert the Reeve and other sinners.’ He paused, gasping for breath.
‘Who?’ Eleanor asked.
‘I cannot say, sister, I am bound for God’s judgement seat. I do not wish to lie or condemn another. My soul is black and heavy enough already.’ He paused in a fit of coughing.
Eleanor grasped a battered waterskin and held it to his lips. Fulcher’s face had taken on a deathly pallor. Eleanor glanced quickly around. The blacksmith’s story had made her less aware of the bloody mayhem around her. She abruptly thought of Hugh galloping off towards the Greeks and quietly prayed he would be safe.