The Medieval Murderers: The Deadliest Sin

Anyway, Weaver, he said nothing. I thought it was because he didn’t want to be beaten, but when I looked at him, I saw why. He was staring down at a figure by the side of the road. A young woman.

Like I said, war is a horrible thing for the poor souls who work the land it smothers. That’s what war does, it engulfs whole lands; and the poor people who live there, they’re like cattle. Captured, milked dry, and killed. Of course, for women and children, it’s worse. They are little better than slaves to an invading army, and any can be taken or slain on a whim. I saw enough of that kind of casual brutality on the way to Calais. Even English boys who were there to help support the fighters were often beaten for no reason, just because the soldiers knew they could.

This girl had been brought up well. She had soft skin on her hands, and her knees were unmarked. She wasn’t a peasant’s child, I could see that from the first. But her clothing was rough, tattered stuff that would have suited a maid from a plague vill. You know what I mean. We’ve all heard of folk who’ve lost their families since the plague. In France, I’ve seen worse: girls and boys without their fathers, who’ve had to fend for themselves for months until they starved. All with swollen bellies, their faces pinched and grey. Well, this girl had the same ragged clothing, but her belly was flat, her face still haughty. It was a wonder she had not learned humility yet, I thought. After all, a girl with that kind of manner appeals to many men.

You can imagine how a girl like her would have found life under the English boot. She had been brought up to enjoy all the finer things: good food, wine, servants. Suddenly she was homeless, wandering with the refugees trying to escape the English. Us.

Who was she? No one. She had been raised in some town or other – mayhap it was Caen – and was daughter to a fuller. He was a good, kind man, apparently, but, as our army approached, he insisted that she should leave with her mother and two brothers. He was to remain to look after the town with the rest of the militia, so she said when I got to speak with her later. She and her mother and brothers took a heavy purse of coin, and set off on their way.

But God had set His face against her.

‘Friend, you are feeling out of sorts,’ said Nicholas. ‘Wait, let another tell his story, and take some ale and a rest.’

‘I am fine,’ Janyn snapped. He wiped a hand over his face, remembering, and his voice grew softer as he looked about him at the expectant faces. ‘It is a hard story, though.’

‘We have heard such tales before. The men lusted after her, and-’

‘You think to tell my story for me?’ Janyn snarled.

‘No, I-’

‘Listen and you may learn something new about men,’ Janyn stated.

He could see her again in his mind’s eye as he spoke. A lovely girl, she was. Slim and perfect as a birch. In her life, he knew, she was raised to wealth. There was nothing unwholesome about her. Nothing spoiled, unlike the devastated country they had marched through. Janyn had seen war in all its forms, but to walk about a country in which every farm had been burned, all the stored crops stolen or ravaged, all the cattle driven off or slain – to walk about that ravaged landscape hurt his soul. He felt as though he was taking part in the systematic rape of the country.

She was just one of the countless thousands who had lost all. Both brothers and her mother had been killed by marauding bands of English, and it was a miracle she wasn’t found and raped and killed in her turn, but by keeping to the night hours and hiding during the day, by degrees she made it to Calais. Not that she was any safer when she reached it.

The girl was found by King Edward’s men just outside the city. Like so many, she had been cast out of Calais when the English appeared. Many had been thrown from the gates as soon as it was realised that the English were coming to lay siege. No spare mouths would be allowed to remain inside the walls. Those who were refugees from the surrounding countryside were evicted, sometimes forcibly, so that the stores would last longer for the garrison and people of the town. This was no time for the kind-hearted support of those less fortunate; rather, it was a time to callously guard one’s own security. And food must be kept for those who came from the city or those who could guard it. She was neither; she was a foreigner.

She had been flung from the gates, her money and little pack of meagre belongings stolen from her. She would soon be dead, so why leave her with goods to enrich the English? Better to keep them in the town. Too scared and tired even to weep, she took to whatever cover she could find out beside the road. But there was no protection out there, between the lines of English invaders and the city walls. Not a tree, not a bush. The weather was dreadful, and soon she was shivering with the cold and damp, petrified of what would happen when the English caught her. She had heard much of their brutality.

As the first English hobilars appeared, she was found and taken away, out of bowshot of the town’s walls, to be held with other prisoners. She expected there would be little sympathy for her and her companions. The English could not afford to waste good food on her and her like. She would be fortunate if she was only raped and killed quickly. Others endured days or weeks of torture.

But Janyn saw her, and he felt a little flare of compassion. He had been marching for miles, and the last thing on his mind as he approached the town was a woman. All he wanted was a chance to sit down under canvas and pull off his sodden boots – but the sight of her touched something in his heart, a sense of tenderness. It was the same, he saw, when he looked into the faces of Bill and Walter. They all felt the same attraction to her. For his part, Janyn reckoned he wouldn’t get any rest unless he saw that she was safe. The thought of her being raped was intolerable, somehow.

Henry and Weaver were riding on with the rest of the centaine as Janyn dropped from his saddle. Bill and Walter waited on their mounts.

‘What is your name?’ he asked as he approached her.

She looked at him with the fear naked in her eyes. Men here were only interested in what they could take.

‘Come, maid, what is your name?’ he said.

Her gaze dropped. ‘Pelagia.’

‘It is a pretty name.’

She looked up at that, anger searing her face. ‘How would a man who burns and murders recognise prettiness?’ she spat.

Janyn’s days were full enough after that. He was glad to see that the girl and the other prisoners were not slain immediately, but instead were released. The girl Pelagia was set free on the second day, and Janyn saw her again that morning.

There was a gaggle of men who organised provisions in this section of the army, and Janyn was at the wagons collecting food when he noticed the slim figure staring desperately at the wagons with their precious cargoes. Her face was tragic. She had no money, and no means of earning it – bar one.

Janyn walked to her and smiled, but she looked straight through him as though he wasn’t there. Only when he hefted the wrapped bundle in his hands did she show interest. It was a fresh loaf, and he held it out, nodding to her as he pulled the linen from it. The aroma of warm bread seemed to fill the space between them, and he held it out again. ‘Eat – please.’

She struggled with her feelings. How could she not? These were the men who had destroyed her city, who had probably caused the death of all her family, and now this man offered food in exchange for… she knew what he would want.

‘Leave me!’ she spat, and turned.

‘Girl, just take it and go,’ he snapped. He broke the loaf in two and threw one piece to her. She caught it quickly, and would have said more to him, but Janyn had already stalked off angrily. He only wanted to help her. To have his offer of aid thrown back in his face was demeaning as well as insulting.