To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [257]
So far, the Duke’s strategy appeared reasonable. The leaders were keeping the main body of troops well together, to guard their heels against harrying parties from St Quentin and Amiens. They had sent a small squadron nine miles to the east, to invite the little town of Nesle to surrender. It held no mighty force, only a company of five hundred franc-archers from the Isle de France, come to do their tour, tax deductible. There had been no need for John’s guns and, so far, no proper fighting.
‘I told you,’ said Astorre. ‘And they won’t find much resistance in Nesle. Le Petit Picard will go by the book. We’ll have more fun at Roye. Fifteen hundred middling archers but some men-at-arms who might know their business.’
‘Listen to him,’ John said. ‘He still wishes he were fighting the Germans or the Swiss or the Lorrainers.’
‘The French aren’t bad,’ Astorre said. ‘But their crack troops are all going to the Brittany border. We might never get near them.’
John staged a yawn. A captain’s reputation grew with the quality of his enemies. It was one reason why Nicholas had never tried to tempt him to Scotland. To suit Astorre, a place had to be a notorious cockpit as well as a wealthy state or duchy or kingdom. Astorre had been happy in Cyprus.
Nicholas allowed Astorre the five minutes he deserved for his prejudices, and then proceeded to do what he had come for, which was to receive the reports of his officers and confirm that the company continued to be well run, well provisioned and in a fit state to perform, when called upon, the duties for which Burgundy was lavishly paying them. He also heard such complaints as there were – far fewer, now that the fighting season had opened. He also noticed, as always, the sharpening caused by John’s presence. The company was proud of its artillery, but wanted no one to forget the soldier’s traditional skills with the sword and the bow.
He thought, walking round afterwards, that Astorre’s men were pleased to welcome their owner, and to show others that, by coming with them, he valued their campaign. Most of them he could put names to at once: some from their weeks together outside Hesdin, some from long acquaintance dating back to the Italian wars, and Rhodes and Cyprus and Trebizond; even to when he had just been an apprentice called Claes. He showed that he remembered, without singling them out in particular, and they treated him with the mixture of camaraderie and respect which had long been the norm. Then he left them and went with Astorre to visit the other commanders. He was there when they were all summoned, without explanation, to the Duke.
When he returned to Astorre, the rumours were already spreading, and Julius and John and Thomas were all there awaiting him, while the soldiers sat round their cooking-pots in the dusk, watching their faces. Nicholas said, ‘Come into the tent. Then you can go out and tell them.’
It was news, you might say, of a victory. There were other overtones, as reported back from the vanguard at Nesle, but the gist of it was that Nesle would give no further trouble, and the squadron would shortly rejoin the main body, prepared to march forward.
It became clear, in an indistinct sort of way, that the garrison at Nesle would give no further trouble because they had all been murdered or hanged or had been permitted to leave provided their hands were chopped off. The fault, it finally emerged, was that of the townspeople, who had killed the herald sent to bid them surrender, and then had unchivalrously dispatched two more of the besiegers during an equally sacrosanct truce. The Duke of Burgundy’s vanguard, retrieving their dead, had announced that Madame de Nesle might leave if she pleased, with her servants and moveables, after which the garrison would be put to the sword. She had left, and it was.
‘No need for that,’ Astorre said. ‘My God, were they bloody Albanians?’
‘They broke the truce