His sword was of limited use against plate armour, but he was a big man on a spirited horse, and his best hope was to knock enemy soldiers off their mounts. He charged again. At this point in a battle he felt no rear. Instead, he was possessed by an exhilarating rage that drove him to kill as many of the enemy as he could. When battle was joined, time stood still, and he fought from moment to moment. Later, when the action came to an end, if he was still alive, he would be astonished to see that the sun was setting and a whole day had gone by. Now he rode at the enemy again and again, dodging their swords, thrusting where he saw an opportunity; never slowing his pace, for that was fatal.
At some point – it might have been after a few minutes or a few hours – he realized, with incredulity, that the English were no longer being slaughtered. In fact, they seemed to be winning ground and gaining hope. He detached himself from the melee and paused, panting, to take stock.
The beach was carpeted with corpses, but there were as many French as English, and Ralph realized the folly of the French charge. As soon as the knights on both sides engaged, the Genoese crossbowmen had stopped firing, for fear of hitting their own side, so the enemy had no longer been able to pick off the English in the water like ducks on a pond. Ever since then the English had streamed out of the estuary in their hordes, all following the same orders, archers spreading left and right, knights and infantrymen pushing relentlessly forward, so that the French were inundated by sheer weight of numbers. Glancing back at the water, Ralph saw that the tide was now rising again, so those English still in the river were desperate to get out, regardless of the fate that might await them on the beach.
As he was catching his breath, the French lost their nerve. Forced off the beach, chased up the hill, overwhelmed by the army stampeding out of the rising water, they began to retreat. The English pressed forward, hardly able to believe their luck; and, as so often happened, it took remarkably little time for retreat to turn into flight, with every man for himself.
Ralph looked back over the estuary. The baggage train was in midstream, horses and oxen pulling the heavy carts across the ford, lashed by drivers frantic to beat the tide. There was scrappy fighting on the far bank, now. The vanguard of King Philippe’s army must have arrived and engaged a few stragglers, and Ralph thought he recognized, in the sunlight, the colours of the Bohemian light cavalry. But they were too late.
He slumped in his saddle, suddenly weak with relief. The battle was over. Incredibly, against all expectations, the English had slipped out of the French trap.
For today, they were safe.
48
Caris and Mair arrived in the vicinity of Abbeville on 25 August, and were dismayed to find the French army already there. Tens of thousands of foot soldiers and archers were camped in the fields around the town. On the road they heard, not just regional French accents, but the tongues of places farther afield: Flanders, Bohemia, Italy, Savoy, Majorca.
The French and their allies were chasing King Edward of England and his army – as were Caris and Mair. Caris wondered how she and Mair could ever get ahead in the race.
When they passed through the gates and entered the town, late in the afternoon, the streets were crowded with French noblemen. Caris had never seen such a display of costly clothing, fine weapons, magnificent horses and new shoes, not even in London. It seemed as if the entire aristocracy of France was here. The innkeepers, bakers, street entertainers and prostitutes of the town were working non-stop to fulfil the needs of their guests. Every tavern was full of counts and every house had knights sleeping on the floor.
The abbey of St Peter was on the list of religious houses where Caris and Mair had planned to take shelter. But even if they had still been dressed as nuns they would have had trouble getting into the guest quarters: the king of France was staying there, and his entourage took up all the available space. The two Kingsbridge nuns, disguised now as Christophe de Longchamp and Michel de Longchamp, were directed to the grand abbey church, where several hundred of the king’s squires, grooms and other attendants were bedding down at night on the cold stone floor of the nave. However, the marshal in charge told them there was no room, and they would have to sleep in the fields like everyone else of low station.
The north transept was a hospital for the wounded. On the way out, Caris paused to watch a surgeon sewing up a deep cut on the cheek of a groaning man-at-arms. The surgeon was quick and skilful, and when he had finished Caris said admiringly: “You did that very well.”
“Thank you,” he said. Glancing at her he added: “But how would you know, laddie?”
She knew because she had watched Matthew Barber at work many times, but she had to make up a story quickly, so she said: “Back in Longchamp, my father is surgeon to the sieur.”
“And are you with your sieur now?”
“He has been captured by the English, and my lady has sent me and my brother to negotiate his ransom.”
“Hmm. You might have done better to go straight to London. If he isn’t there now, he soon will be. However, now that you’re here, you can earn a bed for the night by helping me.”
“Gladly.”
“Have you seen your father wash wounds with warm wine?”
Caris could wash wounds in her sleep. In a few moments she and Mair were doing what they knew best, taking care of sick people. Most of the men had been hurt the previous day, in a battle at a ford over the river Somme. Injured noblemen had been attended to first, and now the surgeon was getting around to the common soldiers. They worked non-stop for several hours. The long summer evening turned to twilight and candles were brought. At last all the bones had been set, the crushed extremities amputated and the wounds sewn up; and the surgeon, Martin Chirurgien, took them to the refectory for supper.
They were treated as part of the king’s entourage, and fed stewed mutton with onions. They had not tasted meat for a week. They even had good red wine. Mair drank with relish. Caris was glad they had the opportunity to build up their strength, but she was still anxious about catching up with the English.
A knight at their table said: “Do you realize that in the abbot’s dining room, next door, four kings and two archbishops are eating supper?” He counted on his fingers as he named them: “The kings of France, Bohemia, Rome and Majorca, and the archbishops of Rouen and Sens.”
Caris decided she had to see. She went out of the room by the door that seemed to lead to the kitchen. She saw servants carrying laden platters into another room, and peeped through the door.
The men around the table were undoubtedly high-ranking – the board was loaded with roasted fowls, huge joints of beef and mutton, rich puddings and pyramids of sugared fruits. The man at the head was presumably King Philippe, fifty-three years old with a scatter of grey hairs in his blond beard. Beside him, a younger man who resembled him was holding forth. “The English are not noblemen,” he said, red-faced with fury. “They are like thieves, who steal in the night and then run away.”
Martin appeared at Caris’s shoulder and murmured in her ear: “That’s my master – Charles, count of Alençon, the king’s brother.”
A new voice said: “I disagree.” Caris saw immediately that the speaker was blind, and concluded that he must be King Jean of Bohemia. “The English cannot run much longer. They are low on food, and they’re tired.”
Charles said: “Edward wants to join forces with the Anglo-Flemish army that has invaded north-east France from Flanders.”
Jean shook his head. “We learned today that that army has gone into retreat. I think Edward has to stand and fight. And, from his point of view, the sooner the better, for his men are only going to become more dispirited as the days go by.”