The Deadliest Sin (4 page)

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.

Why? Why would anyone want to help a young woman in her predicament? She was young, fresh, beautiful, a reminder to him of when he was younger and in love, perhaps. Or maybe it was because he
thought he saw in her a dim reflection of his own mother. Whatever the reason, he only wanted to aid her. She had a need of food, and would find it hard to come by here, with the English taking
everything for miles around. It was foolishness to refuse his offer, no matter what she thought he was like.

He set her from his thoughts. She didn’t deserve his efforts, he thought. The ungrateful wretch could go hang.

If there was any justice, that is what would have happened. Janyn would have gone through the siege and never seen her again. She would have been found stealing from a baker’s or from a
butcher’s, and would have been hanged on the spot. Janyn would never have been tormented by the sight of her again.

But life was never so straightforward.

He came to see her every so often. She had become a familiar face about the camp after a few days, and while men occasionally leered at her and tried to get close, they always
found themselves reluctant to get
too
close. There was something about her that made a man keep away. Not exactly fear – the men of King Edward’s army were not scared of any
woman – but a sort of grating on the nerves. When they spoke to her, or made lecherous comments in the hope she would respond, she said nothing, but she had a look that spoke to many of them;
it was the kind of stare a witch might give. It was as if there was no soul within her breast, no heart, no compassion or feeling. She felt neither terror nor hatred; she was filled with a numbing
emptiness that was so cold it would freeze a man who touched her.

Once, Janyn saw three men attempting to persuade her to lie with them. They circled about her, one trying to engage her in conversation, another playing with the binding of his cods and holding
out a penny, while the third laughed inanely, waving his arms like a cockerel warning off an interloper in his ring. It was plain enough that if she refused their money they would take her for
free.

It was a sight to spark his rage, and Janyn had his hand on his sword as he opened his mouth to bellow at them, but he need not have worried. Even as he prepared to defend her, and while she
stared at the men, one at a time, without moving, he saw two others running to her aid: Bill and Walter. They shoved the men away, and her attackers left her like melting snow sloughing from a
roof, to go and find easier prey.

It came back to him now, that scene. The ringleader of the men spitting at the ground, another biting his thumb at Bill and Walter, but all three moving off, unwilling to test the anger in the
faces of the two men who stood at her side to protect her.

Bill and Walter glanced at each other, then at Pelagia. She stood looking at them, utterly still, and the two men looked confused, pinned under her scrutiny like a man stabbed to an oaken door
by an arrow.

‘Are you well, maid?’ Bill asked at last.

She gazed at him from those fathomless eyes of hers, but said nothing.

‘I wanted to help,’ he said.

Janyn watched the woman turn and walk away from them. Neither brother made a move to follow her. They watched her as she made her way between the little shacks and carts of the camp. But in
their faces, Janyn saw the dawn of adoration.

They looked like men who would cast aside their own lives to protect her.

Janyn knew that there was something between the brothers and the girl from the first moment. Bill and Walter would stare at her, and he wondered at first whether they were
planning on making use of her for their own enjoyment. He kept a close eye on them, but soon he realised that these two were not seeking to rape, they were both attempting to win her over in their
own ways.

The older of the two, Walter, was a heavy-set man. If he had been a tree, he would have been an oak. Brown-faced and with a thick, black beard and slanted blue eyes that gleamed under his
brimmed felt cap, he had heavily muscled arms and short, stubby fingers. Although he was a massively strong fellow, he had already gained a reputation for kindness – he was the first to share
any food or drink, and when he did capture the enemy, he always brought them in alive.

His brother was not the same. Bill was a harder man, with the slim, wiry strength of a birch tree. He had lean, narrow features, and while he was as dark of hair, there was a tinge of brown in
his beard and moustache that wasn’t in Walter’s. Unlike his brother, Bill had long, slender fingers, and his arms and thighs looked as strong as reeds compared to Walter’s
powerful build, but Bill was a ferocious fighter. Janyn saw that himself often enough in the little fights about Calais. Still, while both were very different men, neither gave him any cause for
concern.

Not for their fighting prowess, anyway. It was different when it came to love.

Janyn was wary with all his men when it came to Pelagia. She was aloof, holding all the men in contempt, but for some, especially Walter, this served as a spur to his desire for her. It was not
a rough, demanding lust, but a deep infatuation that tore at him whenever he saw her. Janyn could see it, and just as clearly so could the other men. However, Bill adored her too, in his own quiet
manner. When she walked about the camp, Janyn could often see the two brothers, their eyes following her slim figure.

Seeing their competitive desire for her, Janyn had thought they might come to blows, yet their fights were not with each other, but with any other man in the vintaine who threatened Pelagia or
who tried to force himself into her company. The two brothers were protecting her, and she seemed to appreciate their help as much as she did Janyn’s own calm defence.

Perhaps all would have been well, were it not for Henry the Tun.

Henry was not a man to hold a secret. He was content to tell his tale to any who would listen, and he had spoken of it to Janyn on many occasions. His life had been full of incident, but he was
a senior commander in the King’s army now, and safe. Besides, along with his age and experience, he had confidence in his prowess and authority. His tale was known to many. It was a source of
pride to him, a proof of his strength and valour, he thought.

Henry had been born the son of a cooper in a village called Cleopham, some few miles from London. When he was old enough, he had travelled up to the city, and there he was apprenticed to a
barrel-maker, but the work didn’t satisfy him. He was a bold, roistering fellow who loved ale and women, rather than being tied to a master who ordered him about and made him work at tasks in
which he had no interest. Henry was not remotely interested in sweeping and cleaning, or learning how to split and shape barrel staves, nor in binding barrels with willow. He wanted money to enjoy
himself with friends in alehouses lining the Southwark streets. And there he got to know the women.

There were so many of them, and they were enthusiastic companions to a man with money. The Bishop of Winchester’s lands south of the river were full of brothels and individual women making
their own way, usually supporting their pimps with their income.

It was one of these who got Henry into trouble.

He had been with the boys in London during the excitement of a riot. King Edward II, the King’s father, was realising that his reign was coming to an end, and when Walter Stapeldon, Bishop
of Exeter, was slain in the street like a common felon by the London mob, Henry and the other apprentices went on the rampage. They swept down Ludgate Hill to the Fleet River, and broke the
shutters of all the shops on the way, beating up anyone they met. Any men who wore the insignia of the hated Despenser family were grabbed and tormented, or battered with canes and clubs on the
way.

Henry saw one man dart into an alleyway. Catching a glimpse of Despenser’s arms on his tunic, and full of ale and cockiness, he chased the fellow until he managed to crack him over the
head with his club. The man fell, tumbling to the ground, and Henry kicked him a couple of times for good measure before cutting his purse free. It had a pleasant heft to it, and he opened it to
find plenty of coins.

Later, he went with his new-found wealth to the stews of Southwark, and there he met the woman.

God alone knew what her name was. She must have told him, but he couldn’t remember the morning after. He was brutally drunk: as fighting, swearing, rotten drunk as any man had ever been.
And while he was stumbling into walls, shouting and laughing, he yet wanted a woman, this woman.

She was a saucy-looking little slut, with a head of thick straw-coloured hair and eyes the colour of the cornflowers he used to see in the fields about his home when he was young. He used to
pick them for his mother. She liked to receive little gifts like that and, seeing the whore, he was reminded of those little acts. He wanted to find her something pleasant. There were no flowers
here in the muddy, noisome streets. Little could survive amongst the cart tracks and faeces. Human, cattle, swine, dog and cat excrement lined the ways. Any plants would be trampled underfoot in no
time. But he wanted to get her something.

He had plenty of money in his purse, he remembered blearily.

‘Maid, come with me. I’ll buy you a drink. I’ll buy you a new coif or something . . .’ he blurted.

‘You’re too drunk,’ she said.

‘I am. You come with me, and you can be too. I’ve money, look!’