47
By Tuesday, August 22, the English army was on the run.
Ralph Fitzgerald was not sure how it had happened. They had stormed across Normandy from west to east, looting and burning, and no one had been able to withstand them. Ralph had been in his element. On the march, a soldier could take anything he saw - food, jewelry, women - and kill any man who stood in his way. It was how life ought to be lived.
The king was a man after Ralph's own heart. Edward III loved to fight. When he was not at war he spent most of his time organizing elaborate tournaments, costly mock battles with armies of knights in specially designed uniforms. On the campaign, he was always ready to lead a sortie or raiding party, hazarding his life, never pausing to balance risks against benefits like a Kingsbridge merchant. The older knights and earls commented on his brutality, and had protested about incidents such as the systematic rape of the women of Caen, but Edward did not care. When he had heard that some of the Caen citizens had thrown stones at soldiers who were ransacking their homes, he had ordered that everyone in the town should be killed, and only relented after vigorous protests by Sir Godfrey de Harcourt and others.
Things had started to go wrong when they came to the River Seine. At Rouen they had found the bridge destroyed, and the town - on the far side of the water - heavily fortified. King Philippe VI of France was there in person, with a mighty army.
The English marched upstream, looking for a place to cross, but they found that Philippe had been there before them, and one bridge after another was either strongly defended or in ruins. They went as far as Poissy, only twenty miles from Paris, and Ralph thought they would surely attack the capital - but older men shook their heads sagely and said it was impossible. Paris was a city of fifty thousand men, and they must by now have heard the news from Caen, so they would be prepared to fight to the death, knowing they could expect no mercy.
If the king did not intend to attack Paris, Ralph asked, what was his plan? No one knew, and Ralph suspected that Edward had no plan other than to wreak havoc.
The town of Poissy had been evacuated, and the English engineers were able to rebuild its bridge - fighting off a French attack at the same time - so at last the army crossed the river.
By then it was clear that Philippe had assembled an army larger by far than the English, and Edward decided on a dash to the north, with the aim of joining up with an Anglo-Flemish force invading from the northeast.
Philippe gave chase.
Today the English were encamped south of another great river, the Somme, and the French were playing the same trick as they had at the Seine. Sorties and reconnaissance parties reported that every bridge had been destroyed, every riverside town heavily fortified. Even more ominously, an English detachment had seen, on the far bank, the flag of Philippe's most famous and frightening ally, John, the blind king of Bohemia.
Edward had started out with fifteen thousand men in total. In six weeks of campaigning many of those had fallen, and others had deserted, to find their way home with their saddlebags full of gold. He had about ten thousand left, Ralph calculated. Reports of spies suggested that in Amiens, a few miles upstream, Philippe now had sixty thousand foot soldiers and twelve thousand mounted knights, an overwhelming advantage in numbers. Ralph was more worried than he had been since he first set foot in Normandy. The English were in trouble.
Next day they marched downstream to Abbeville, location of the last bridge before the Somme widened into an estuary; but the burgesses of the town had spent money, over the years, strengthening the walls, and the English could see it was impregnable. So cocksure were the citizens that they sent out a large force of knights to attack the vanguard of the English army, and there was a fierce skirmish before the locals withdrew back inside their walled town.
When Philippe's army left Amiens, and started advancing from the south, Edward found himself trapped in the point of a triangle: on his right the estuary, on his left the sea, and behind him the French army, baying for the blood of the barbaric invaders.
That afternoon, Earl Roland came to see Ralph.
Ralph had been fighting in Roland's retinue for seven years. The earl no longer regarded him as an untried boy. Roland still gave the impression that he did not much like Ralph, but he certainly respected him, and would always use him to shore up a weak point in the line, lead a sally, or organize a raid. Ralph had lost three fingers from his left hand, and had walked with a limp when tired ever since a Frenchman's pikestaff had cracked his shinbone outside Nantes in 1342. Nevertheless, the king had not yet knighted Ralph, an omission which caused Ralph bitter resentment. For all the loot he had garnered - most of it held for safekeeping by a London goldsmith - Ralph was unfulfilled. He knew that his father would be equally dissatisfied. Like Gerald, Ralph fought for honor, not money; but in all this time he had not climbed a single step up the staircase of nobility.
When Roland appeared, Ralph was sitting in a field of ripening wheat that had been trampled to shreds by the army. He was with Alan Fernhill and half a dozen comrades, eating a gloomy dinner, pea soup with onions: food was running out, and there was no meat left. Ralph felt as they did, tired from constant marching, dispirited by repeated encounters with broken bridges and well-defended towns, and scared of what would happen when the French army caught up with them.
Roland was now an old man, his hair and beard gray, but he still walked erect and spoke with authority. He had learned to keep his expression stonily impassive, so that people hardly noticed that the right side of his face was paralyzed. He said: 'The estuary of the Somme is tidal. At low tide, the water may be shallow in places. But the bottom is thick mud, making it impassable.'
'So we can't cross,' said Ralph. But he knew Roland had not come just to give him bad news, and his spirits lifted optimistically.
'There may be a ford - a point where the bottom is firmer,' Roland went on. 'If there is, the French will know.'
'You want me to find out.'
'As quick as you like. There are some prisoners in the next field.'
Ralph shook his head. 'Soldiers might have come from anywhere in France, or even other countries. It's the local people who will have the information.'
'I don't care who you interrogate. Just come to the king's tent with the answer by nightfall.' Roland walked away.
Ralph drained his bowl and leaped to his feet, glad to have something aggressive to do. 'Saddle up, lads,' he said.
He still had Griff. Miraculously, his favorite horse had survived seven years of war. Griff was somewhat smaller than a warhorse, but had more spirit than the oversize destriers most knights preferred. He was now experienced in battle, and his iron-shod hooves gave Ralph an extra weapon in the melee. Ralph was more fond of him than of most of his human comrades. In fact the only living creature to whom he felt closer was his brother, Merthin, whom he had not seen for seven years - and might never see again, for Merthin had gone to Florence.
They headed northeast, toward the estuary. Every peasant living within half a day's walk would know of the ford if there was one, Ralph calculated. They would use it constantly, crossing the river to buy and sell livestock, to attend the weddings and funerals of relatives, to go to markets and fairs and religious festivals. They would be reluctant to give information to the invading English, of course - but he knew how to solve that problem.
They rode away from the army, into territory that had not yet suffered from the arrival of thousands of men, where there were sheep in the pastures and crops ripening in the fields. They came to a village from which the estuary could be seen in the far distance. They kicked their horses into a canter along the grassy track that led into the village. The one-room and two-room hovels of the serfs reminded Ralph of Wigleigh. As he expected, the peasants fled in all directions, the women carrying babies and children, most of the men holding an axe or a sickle.
Ralph and his companions had played out this drama twenty or thirty times in the past few weeks. They were specialists in gathering intelligence. Usually, the army's leaders wanted to know where local people had hidden their stocks. When they heard the English were coming, the sly peasants drove their cattle and sheep into woods, stashed sacks of flour in holes in the ground, and hid bales of hay in the bell tower of the church. They knew they would probably starve to death if they revealed where their food was, but they always told sooner or later. On other occasions the army needed directions, perhaps to an important town, a strategic bridge, a fortified abbey. The peasants would usually answer such inquiries unhesitatingly, but it was necessary to make sure they were not lying, for the shrewder among them might try to deceive the invading army, knowing the soldiers were not able to return to punish them.
As Ralph and his men chased the fleeing peasants across gardens and fields, they ignored the men and concentrated on the women and children. Ralph knew that if he captured them, their husbands and fathers would come back.
He caught up with a girl of about thirteen. He rode alongside her for a few seconds, watching her terrified expression. She was dark-haired and dark-skinned, with plain, homely features, young but with a rounded woman's body - the type he liked. She reminded him of Gwenda. In slightly different circumstances he would have enjoyed her sexually, as he had several similar girls in the last few weeks.
But today he had other priorities. He turned Griff to cut her off. She tried to dodge him, tripped over her own feet, and fell flat in a vegetable patch. Ralph leaped off his horse and grabbed her as she got up. She screamed and scratched his face, so he punched her in the stomach to quiet her. Then he grabbed her long hair. Walking his horse, he began to drag her back to the village. She stumbled and fell, but he just kept going, dragging her along by the hair; and she struggled to her feet, crying in pain. After that, she did not fall again.
They gathered in the little wooden church. The eight English soldiers had captured four women, four children, and two babies in arms. They made them sit on the floor in front of the altar. A few moments later a man ran in, babbling in the local French, begging and pleading. Four others followed.
Ralph was pleased.
He stood at the altar, which was only a wooden table painted white. 'Quiet!' he shouted. He waved his sword. They fell silent. He pointed at a young man. 'You,' he said. 'What are you?'
'A leather worker, lord. Please don't harm my wife and child, they've done you no wrong.'
He pointed to another man. 'You?'
The girl he had captured gasped, and Ralph concluded that they were related; father and daughter, he guessed.
'Just a poor cowherd, lord.'
'A cowherd?' That was good. 'And how often do you take cattle across the river?'
'Once or twice a year, lord, when I go to market.'
'And where is the ford?'
He hesitated. 'Ford? There is no ford. We have to cross the bridge at Abbeville.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes, lord.'
He looked around. 'All of you - is this the truth?'
They nodded.
Ralph considered. They were scared - terrified - but they could still be lying. 'If I fetch the priest, and he brings a Bible, will you all swear on your immortal souls that there is no ford across the estuary?'
'Yes, lord.'
But that would take too long. Ralph looked at the girl he had captured. 'Come here.'
She took a step back.
The cowherd fell to his knees. 'Please, lord, don't harm an innocent child, she is only thirteen - '
Alan Fernhill picked up the girl as if she were a sack of onions and threw her to Ralph, who caught her and held her. 'You're lying to me, all of you. There is a ford, I'm sure there is. I just need to know exactly where it is.'
'All right,' said the cowherd. 'I'll tell you, but leave the child alone.'
'Where is the ford?'
'It's a mile downstream from Abbeville.'
'What's the name of the village?'
The cowherd was thrown by the question for a moment, then he said: 'There is no village, but you can see an inn on the far side.'
He was lying. He had never traveled, so he did not realize that there was always a village by a ford.
Ralph took the girl's hand and placed it on the altar. He drew his knife. With a swift movement, he cut off one of her fingers. His heavy blade easily split her small bones. The girl screamed in agony, and her blood spurted red over the white paint of the altar. All the peasants cried out with horror. The cowherd took an angry step forward, but was stopped by the point of Alan Fernhill's sword.
Ralph kept hold of the girl with one hand, and held up the severed finger on the point of his knife.
'You are the devil himself,' the cowherd said, shaking with shock.
'No, I'm not.' Ralph had heard that accusation before, but it still stung him. 'I'm saving the lives of thousands of men,' he said. 'And if I have to, I'll cut off the rest of her fingers, one by one.'
'No, no!'
'Then tell me where the ford really is.' He brandished the knife.
The cowherd shouted: 'The Blanchetaque, it's called the Blanchetaque, please leave her alone!'
'The Blanchetaque?' said Ralph. He was pretending skepticism, but in fact this was promising. It was an unfamiliar word, but it sounded as if it might mean a white platform, and it was not the kind of thing that a terrified man would invent on the spur of the moment.
'Yes, lord, they call it that because of the white stones on the river bottom that enable you to cross the mud.' He was panic-stricken, tears streaming down his face, so he was almost certainly telling the truth, Ralph thought with satisfaction. The cowherd babbled on: 'People say the stones were put there in olden times, by the Romans, please leave my little girl alone.'
'Where is it?'
'Ten miles downstream from Abbeville.'
'Not a mile?'
'I'm telling the truth this time, lord, as I hope to be saved!'
'And the name of the village?'
'Saigneville.'
'Is the ford always passable, or only at low tide?'
'Only at low tide, lord, especially with livestock or a cart.'
'But you know the tides.'
'Yes.'
'Now, I have only one more question for you, but it is a very important one. If I even suspect you may be lying to me, I will cut off her whole hand.' The girl screamed. Ralph said: 'You know I mean it, don't you?'
'Yes, lord, I'll tell you anything!'
'When is low tide tomorrow?'
A look of panic came over the cowherd. 'Ah - ah - let me work it out!' The man was so wrought up he could barely think.
The leather worker said: 'I'll tell you. My brother crossed yesterday, so I know. Low tide tomorrow will be in the middle of the morning, two hours before noon.'
'Yes!' said the cowherd. 'That's right! I was just trying to calculate. Mid-morning, or a little after. Then again in the evening.'
Ralph kept hold of the girl's bleeding hand. 'How sure are you?'
'Oh, lord, as sure as I am of my own name, I swear!'
The man probably did not know his own name right now, he was so distracted with terror. Ralph looked at the leather worker. There was no sign of deceit on his face, no defiance or eagerness to please in his expression: he just looked a bit ashamed of himself, as if he had been forced, against his will, to do something wrong. This is the truth, Ralph thought exultantly; I've done it.
He said: 'The Blanchetaque. Ten miles downstream from Abbeville, at the village of Saigneville. White stones on the river bottom. Low tide at mid-morning tomorrow.'
'Yes, lord.'
Ralph let go of the girl's wrist, and she ran sobbing to her father, who put his arms around her. Ralph looked down at the pool of blood on the white altar table. There was a lot of it, for a slip of a girl. 'All right, men,' he said. 'We're finished here.'