Chapter 10

Not satisfied, Rand insisted that I let one of the nuns tend to the injury. The nun insisted on letting her leeches drain the blood from under my skin and was sure that at least one of my ribs was broken. She was surprised by my knowledge of herbs and that I even had the necessary ones in my saddlebags to help heal the wound and to prevent sepsis.

When the leeches had eaten their fill and the wound was dressed, Rand reported to me again. His men had performed a cursory search of the belongings everyone took with them to make sure no weapons were being smuggled. They found seventeen clergy trying to smuggle out hordes of coins, money, and jewels. When they protested that they were only salvaging the Lord’s property, Rand had asked where the bibles, gold crosses, and holy statues were. They didn’t have a satisfactory answer.

“We won’t enter the churches to loot them. It’s bad enough that we used them as vantage points from which to fight. However, if the clergy try to smuggle their valuables out of the churches, the valuables can be seized. Have our troops removed from every church, and start choosing the people to go with us,” I ordered. We had talked enough that he knew what type of craftsmen we were looking for, mostly weapon smiths and people experienced in the construction trades. In addition, all single females of age would go with us. The girls’ families could go with us voluntarily if they chose to. If they did, we counted them against the number we took from the city. Every cart and wagon in Paris would be taken to carry the belongings of the people we chose, although we would return most of them. Groups of people could begin leaving for Rouen tomorrow to avoid a miles long caravan to Rouen.

Before I gave in to the pain and crashed, I wrote two rather lengthy, detailed letters and dispatched them by courier, one to London and one to Lancaster. And then crossed my fingers.

I was embarrassed the next morning to not wake up until mid-morning. I would have been even more embarrassed had there been anyone in the room to see me trying to get up. I probably looked like a turtle stuck on his back. After I ate, Rand, Jack, and the French soldier all insisted that I let the nun check me again. I must say, the bruise on my chest was rather impressive, almost black, and twice as big as my fist. After feeding the leeches again and getting a new poultice, I was finally allowed to rejoin the world; so much for being the person in charge of everything.

The city was in a daze as families were chosen to depart for Rouen. I put up with the mothering of my top lieutenants for three days before heading for Rouen myself. After trying to get on my horse, I found myself relegated to one of the boats being used to ferry possessions and freight from Paris and other cities along the river down to Rouen. Once again, my underlings were overprotective, insisting that I have troops accompany me, so we enjoyed the quiet one-day trip, arriving the next afternoon.

My quiet day ended almost immediately. Upon hearing of my return, I was approached by Baron Leffingwell, the man I had left in charge, and Lieutenant Radley, the commander of my troops in town. Evidently, one of the Baron’s men had raped a young woman, despite my orders. He was arrested by Lieutenant Radley and his men. The man was in a cell awaiting my return and Baron Leffingwell was furious.

“Why are you angry with my men for enforcing the commands I gave?” I asked.

“Because I ordered them to release the man to me to be sent back to England,” he hissed.

“What would have happened to him there?” I asked, trying not to show my annoyance.

“He would have been sent home to await punishment when I returned,” he said angrily.

I turned to Lieutenant Radley for his side of the story. “The Baron said he wouldn’t let his man be punished for raping French trash and was sending him home,” he protested.

“Very well, since the man is still here, I will hear the case against him now. Bring the accused and any witnesses,” I ordered.

“This is hardly the time or the place for a hearing,” the Baron protested.

“You would rather wait until we get back to England where he can simply disappear?” I asked, starting to let my anger show.

“I want the King to hear the case,” he demanded.

“You forget, the King left specific instructions that my word was to carry the same weight as his while we are here,” I countered.

Furious, the Baron drew his sword and thrust it in my direction menacingly. “Release him NOW!” he shouted right before a crossbow bolt from the gathering crowd dropped him.

The frightened spectators drew back quickly leaving the archer standing alone. “Thank you, Lieutenant Bayard,” I called out to him. He grinned and nodded.

“Chain him, lock him in a cell, and then have his wound tended to,” I ordered. “Then bring the woman, witnesses, and the accused man to the Great Hall.”

By the time everything had calmed down, I’d received word the Baron seemed to be doing all right. The arrow went into his shoulder and didn’t hit anything critical. As long as the wound didn’t become septic, he’d survive.

The girl was terribly frightened despite my best attempts to calm her. “If only my wives were here to talk with her,” I thought. The best I could get from her was a half-hearted nod acknowledging that she had been raped and a frightened reaction when the man was brought in for her to identify.

Fortunately, there had been several witnesses, including two of my men, to testify against him. His defense was a claim that raping the French whore in a time of war wasn’t a crime.

After the hearing, I had him dragged to the town square and chained to the whipping post. My men looked at me as if I was crazy when I ordered them all back to their posts or to the barracks until dark.

Facing the crowd with just Lieutenant Bayard by my side to translate, I explained that I had determined the man to be guilty of a grievous crime against one of them and would let them determine what his punishment should be.

I asked Lieutenant Bayard to make sure they understood that there would be no repercussions, regardless of what their chosen punishment was. I also wanted to see the girl’s parents sometime tomorrow morning.

“Definitely a conundrum,” Bayard chuckled as I turned and walked away. The soldier’s bloody and badly beaten body was quietly buried the next morning, shortly after dawn.

Right after breakfast, the parents arrived, accompanied by Bayard. I explained that Lieutenant Radley, who arrested the man who had raped their daughter, had refused to follow a direct order from a superior and had to be punished. I wanted the girl’s mother to perform the punishment. “He is to be struck ten times with this cane,” I ordered, quietly adding, “of course, it doesn’t mean that he has to be struck hard,” as I walked away. Bayard translated, and I could hear the mirth in his voice when he got to the last part of my instructions. There was a moment of quiet conversation between the three of them before the woman stepped forward.

“Un,” she counted aloud as she gently tapped Radley’s shoulder with the cane. She looked back at me anxiously to gauge my reaction before continuing. “Deux ... trois...” she continued, finding me smiling, until she reached “dix.”

“Merci beaucoup,” I thanked her, using, and probably slaughtering, the pronunciation of the better part of my entire French vocabulary. I brushed the back of her hand with my lips when she returned the cane to me and, with Bayard translating, apologized again for the soldier’s actions. I asked them to tell everyone that I wanted to know if anyone else had any grievances, and anyone could approach me anytime to talk to me, preferably with a translator.

That afternoon, Bayard came to find me with good news and bad. The good news was, the people of the city were impressed with me, and many already felt I was a welcome change from the previous Duke. They had heard about me from the troops I left and the punishment of the soldier who raped the girl confirmed what they’d heard. The previous Duke not only wouldn’t have done anything about it if one of his troops raped someone, but he was just as likely to have been the rapist.

The bad news was that the mayor had taken the city’s funds and had gone north to Beauvais. He had been joined by the Archbishop and two other Bishops who had likewise cleared out the valuables from their Cathedrals. They intended to help fund an attack being planned against us by the Archbishop of Beauvais, the Count of Eu, Count of Vexin, and several barons in northern Normandy and the surrounding areas, sure that we would abolish the Catholic Church in Normandy and replace it with the Church of England.

“Ask my Iberian troops. I let them take their priests to England and even paid to build the churches for their worship. I was the one who had to ask permission from King Edward to let them practice their religion in England,” I suggested to Bayard.

“I already know that, and the way your Iberian troops talk about you tells me even more. The fact that the people you took thousands of miles from their homes have nothing but good things to say about you and the fact that they are here, fighting alongside you bodes well for Normandy. I think they’re just using it as an excuse to goad everyone into an attack,” he answered.

He suggested sending the father of the raped girl to Paris as a messenger. Quickly, the father was on a boat that carried fish to the Paris markets with instructions for either Rand or Rutledge. I wanted the convoys of citizens from Paris being sent to Rouen via the southern route from Paris. It was a slightly longer, but hopefully a safer route. I asked for a thousand sheaves of arrows to be shipped back via the boatloads of possessions making the trip every day, and for two thousand mounted archers to return immediately via the southern route to help defend Rouen if necessary.

I also asked them to deliver a warning to King Philip that I meant what I said regarding what would happen to France if I found out this was a coordinated attack and not just a group of overzealous nobles and clergy. Even if he wasn’t involved, if there was trouble, he might not recognize the area where the trouble had originated when we finished.

Lt. Radley, Lt. Bayard, and I rode out from the city to survey the surrounding area, trying to decide where and how an attack would most likely be launched and how best to defend against any attacks. The attackers could take several routes, including up the Seine River or from the south if they really wanted to be sneaky. Of the three most obvious, from the north, the east, and the northeast, Bayard was sure they would choose the most obvious one since it was less than a day’s ride and less than two day’s march from Beauvais.

None of the nobles in those areas was known as a military strategist. They would be in a hurry to get their “army” here as quickly as possible since the vast majority of it would be peasants with pikes and swords forced by the nobles to fight. He also estimated they would be able to raise an army of five to eight thousand within a few days.

The citizens of Rouen already knew what to do and were busy stockpiling food, water, firewood, and themselves, inside the city walls. I sent scouts out a half-day ride from the city along every possible route to give us some warning.

Our reinforcements from Paris arrived after dinner two days later with Baron Bentley at the head of the column. At almost the same instant, word arrived that one of the scouts from the northeast was riding in. The last shipment of arrows had also arrived and was still being unloaded and distributed. Baron Bentley reported that all was peaceful in Paris. There had been initial concern about so many people being taken away. The Iberian troops helping to keep order in the city had found enough translators to let the Parisians know that their friends and daughters would be well cared for and not harmed or abused in any way. They even talked about the arrangements I had made for them to be able to send messages back to Castile every few months to reassure the friends and family they had left behind.

Rand and Rutledge had given King Philip my message. He had assured them that the uprising was unplanned on his part, and mostly a surprise to him. Evidently, the nobles in that area had been rather fractious for the last several years and had given him trouble more than once. He even gave Rutledge a map of the lands showing every noble and Bishop in the area, along with information on estimated troop strength, an estimate nearly the same as Lt. Bayard’s had been. After a review of their defenses in Paris, Rand and Rutledge sent an additional six thousand mounted archers under Rand’s command to the trouble area just after sunset yesterday. With their hunter/scouts riding far in front of them, they headed directly north from Paris to Beauvais and should have arrived by dawn this morning barring any trouble along the way.

The messenger reported that enemy troops had been spotted just beyond where the scouts had been waiting and seemed to be making camp for the night. He estimated eight hundred to a thousand mounted knights and maybe two thousand crossbowmen. The remainder of the troops, well more than half, was a peasant army of swordsmen and pikemen. It made me wonder how they expected to breach the city walls. It also made me wonder if there were underground passages here like there were in Paris.

At dawn, we went out to meet the enemy. I felt utterly useless, still not able to draw a bow. Just climbing on and riding a horse was immensely painful and I had been chewing a lot of willow bark lately. We set up our troops in the hills a short ride from town where the road narrowed, and the enemy would have to attack us going uphill. Once again, I sent out scouts, this time closer than before, and we waited ... and waited.

It was nearly noon before their army plodded into view. For our sake, I hoped they didn’t fight as good as they looked. Their knights were at the head of the column, horses prancing ostentatiously, and their banners flying proudly to announce themselves to the world.

The crossbowmen followed on foot, their part of the procession a multi-hued patchwork of different-colored uniforms representing each of the different nobles and clergy involved. The poorly clad peasant-soldiers had barely come into view when it was time to attack. Someday the world might come to understand that I didn’t believe in fighting battles like a gentleman, waiting for my enemy to form their ranks up before I attacked.

My first experience with conflict and the death war brings taught me four harsh lessons that still caused tightness in my chest when I thought about the bodies of my father, the Earl, his wife, and the Earl’s beautiful daughter.

War is not a gentleman’s game, played by chivalrous rules. The only applicable rule in war is kill or be killed. My father and the troops he commanded had been trained for a “gentleman’s war” and were dead because of it. Anyone who insists that war be played by civilized rules is an idiot and will probably be a dead or conquered idiot because of it. “Civilized” and “war” go together like “breathing” and “underwater.”

From analyzing the bandits’ attack, I had realized the advantage of stealth and ambush, enabling a smaller and weaker force to overcome a vastly superior force, frequently with limited casualties.

I also learned from their attack to first concentrate on the biggest threat. In the bandit’s case, it had been the archers. Once they eliminated the archers, the remaining troops on the ground posed almost no threat to the bandits up in the trees.

I learned the value of scouts, not just someone traveling ahead of the column as I had been, but an experienced hunter/soldier. Had I any experience with attacks and fighting before the trip, I hoped that I would have recognized the trap waiting to be sprung when I originally rode through the ambush site and got the uneasy feeling.

My raids against the Barons taught me the value of speed and mobility. Had we not gotten to a different Barony each night they would have been waiting for us or their escape might have been successful.

I motioned to the bugler who sounded the “ready” signal. The hilltops along the road suddenly sprouted thousands of archers, appearing from behind the crest of the hills or from behind the hedges used by the farmers to mark their property or pasture boundaries.

While the knights tried hurriedly to form themselves into some sort of attack formation, I motioned the bugler again. Seconds later the “attack” signal sounded, and a cloud of arrows rained down on the knights and archers. I nodded and another signal sounded, resulting in the release of a second cloud of arrows.

The peasant-soldiers froze with the first volley of arrows. With the second, they realized they were still alive. Dropping their weapons where they stood, they either ran back the way they had come or stood still, hands on top of their heads indicating surrender.

The few professional soldiers ahead of them who hadn’t been wounded followed suit hoping to avoid yet another rain of death. I motioned and the bugler signaled a different tune. This time half of my troops advanced on the devastated army, followed by the Rouennaise civilians who had come with us to help. The civilians started moving a long parade of waiting wagons toward the wounded.

Only two hundred of the professional enemy soldiers were completely unharmed and a similar number only had minor wounds. They were shackled and given tools to begin digging a massive grave for their dead comrades. I had also hired three hundred men from town to help dig the grave. Over half of the professional troops were dead or died before sunset. Only nine hundred of the professional troops out of over three thousand eventually survived.

My troops removed all weapons from the dead and wounded troops. Once the weapons were completely out of reach, I allowed our wagons and civilians to approach close enough to gather those weapons and take them back to town. People with a different set of wagons set up pavilions where the wounded were taken to be tended to. Other men tended to the wounded horses, caring for the ones that could be helped and putting down the others. As ghoulish as it was, boots, armor, and any other useful personal items were removed from the bodies before they were buried. The surviving soldiers identified most of their dead comrades so we could notify their families. We saved one complete uniform from each of the different nobles and clergy represented in case there was any dispute as to whether or not someone’s troops had taken part in the attack.