The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

‘Jan?’ Barda said again. ‘Do you want us to find them?’

‘How’ll we do that at this time of night?’ Janyn said. It was the middle watch of the night, when the darkness was at its blackest, and even the best hunter and tracker would find it difficult to follow a trail. Janyn knew he was no master huntsman. Besides, he and his men had been installed here to help protect the road, and that they must do.

‘You want to leave it till morning?’

‘Yes. For now we all need to rest,’ Janyn said, striding to his blankets. He wrapped himself in them, spreading a heavy cloak over the top, and closed his eyes, seeking sleep.

But he sought it in vain.

Janyn took himself back to the next miserable morning, and as he did so, he felt his face hardening.

He had been furious when he learned what had happened. The shock to discover he had been fooled all that time. And then the slow realisation that he had been wrong again. Even now, the worm of disgust squirmed in his belly at the memory, and his voice grew colder.

‘I had trusted those brothers as much as any other men in my vintaine for months. I had done all I could to help them, and then I took Pelagia under my protection too.’

The attractive, well-dressed woman in the pilgrim party – her name was Katie Valier – nodded encouragingly, absorbed in his tale. ‘You approach the end of your tale, friend? Round it off.’

‘Very well,’ Janyn said shortly.

It was still dark when the screams and shouts started afresh. All the vintaine was roused at once, and they collected their weapons and moved to the front in support of a small company of men who were beset by the vanguard of the French army.

Janyn recalled that battle as a series of disjointed little fights. There were never more than a couple of hundred men from either side. It was mostly a matter of brutal hand-to-hand combat with small groups of Frenchmen. Janyn fought with his teeth gritted, his belly clenched, stamping down on feet, stabbing, butting his shield into a man’s face, then hacking at a man fallen at his feet. As day broke, he and the vintaine was thrust backwards, and Janyn saw Henry over to the further side of the vintaine as the fighting began to wane and the French who were still capable began to drift away, fighting as they went.

The men gathered about Janyn, faces pale from exhaustion, weary from too little sleep and too much fighting. For some time none of them could speak, but all stood panting, their fingers still gripping their weapons with the death-grasp of men who knew they could be under attack again at any moment. They all had a need for rest after their exertions, but even as the reinforcements arrived and the first of Janyn’s vintaine began to drop to the ground, a series of fresh calls came from further up the line, and they hurriedly clambered to their feet again and ran to the alarms.

It was after the last of these small frays that Janyn was called to a small pavilion some yards from the road. ‘Hussett? I have need of your men,’ Janyn was told. It was his master, Sir John de Sully.

‘Sir?’

‘Take your archers to the right of our front. There seems to be a small party of French archers over there, near the edge of your quarry. They’re loosing bolts into our flank. I want you to go with your men and remove them.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But be careful.’

‘Yes.’

He saw at the pavilion’s door a quick movement, and caught a fleeting glimpse, no more, of a figure that stalked away. It was impossible to be certain, but it looked like Henry.

The men were soon arrayed with bows at the ready, quivers full, and they made their way slowly about the edge of the quarry, climbing the steep hillside through mixed brambles, thorns and thick undergrowth between the slender boughs of young saplings. Overhead great branches rustled in the soft, soughing breeze. All that Janyn could hear was the noise of men breathing heavily, cursing, slipping and cracking twigs.

Their way was not easy. Loose stones and soil moved underfoot, sending more than one man sprawling on his face. They were trying to approach the French from the north, looping around in a great circle so that they could attack from the rear of their enemy, but even as they reached the top of the hill, they realised their mistake.

Before them and to their side was a large company of Genoese crossbowmen lying in wait. Loosing their quarrels from safety behind trees, they unleashed a sudden attack that knocked six of Janyn’s men down in the first instant.

It was a hellish place to try to fight. The trees shielded the men from the sun, and the thick vegetation meant none of Janyn’s men could see a target. But every instant a solid thud told of another bolt slamming into a tree trunk, or a damp sound like a wet cloth thrown against a stone heralded a fresh scream of pain as a bolt struck a man.

Janyn tried to rally the men and charge, but it was impossible. On the ground before him, he saw other men. Another vintaine had been here to storm the Genoese, and they too had been killed. In only moments Janyn had lost half his own men, and now the Genoese were picking off the remainder. With too few men to assail the crossbow-men, and with the English handicapped by their great long bows here in among the trees, Janyn had little choice other than to call the remnants of his men to him. He was himself struck in the calf, and began to hobble away, helped by Barda, who stopped and turned to loose an arrow at every other step, taking one Genoese in the throat, whose slow, agonised death persuaded the rest of the pursuit to take more care.

As they made their way through the trees, sliding on the scree and tripping over roots and branches, Janyn’s mind was empty of suspicion. But then, as they came closer to the quarry, he slipped on something soft and fell to his hands and knees, winded. It was some little while before he could turn and take in the sight.

In a deep hole formed where a tree’s roots had once clung to the soil, he had stumbled over an accumulation of loose branches. Leaves dangled from them, still full and fleshy. They had been cut recently. A bolt hurtled overhead as Janyn leaned down, a leaden sensation in his belly.

‘What are you doing, Jan?’ Barda demanded.

‘Shut up. Just keep them back,’ he said, pulling branches and twigs away. ‘Christ!’

‘What?’

Janyn didn’t answer, but squatted back on his haunches, staring down at the pale features of Pelagia. ‘At least now she is at peace,’ he mumbled to himself.

She had the look of a woman deep in sleep. If it weren’t for the nakedness of her lower body, the blood on her thighs and belly where her murderer had slashed and stabbed at her, Janyn might have thought she was only resting.

‘Who did this?’ Barda demanded. He was staring down at the body with horror in his eyes. ‘Shit! Was this Bill?’

‘Who else could it have been?’ Janyn asked. He heard the whistle, thump, as another bolt slammed into a tree. ‘The two of them disappeared in the night. I suppose Bill got away after this. He took her, raped her, and fled before we could catch him.’

There was a sudden cry from over on their left. They crouched, and then began to crawl through the thick bushes towards the source of the sound. There they saw a pair of Genoese holding an English archer, while a third calmly spanned his bow and set a bolt ready.

Before he could lift it to aim, Barda’s arrow passed through his head. The man was hurled to the ground by the impact, and then Janyn was hobbling forward, pulling his knife from its sheath, while a second arrow flew and took one Genoese in the cheek, spinning him about and making him fall. Janyn’s knife was up and he grabbed the last man’s arm, pulling the man off-balance and slamming his knife into the man’s liver and kidneys, stabbing again and again until the fellow stopped moving.