outside Portsmouth and waited for news.
Caris learned later that King Edward and his army disembarked on a broad beach at St-Vaast-la-Hogue, on the north coast of France near Barfleur. However, the fleet did not return immediately. Instead, the ships followed the coast eastward for two weeks, tracking the invading army as far as Caen. There they loaded their holds with booty: jewellery, expensive cloth, and gold and silver plate looted by Edward's army from the prosperous burgesses of Normandy. Then they returned.
One of the first back was the Grace, which was a cog - a broad-built cargo ship with rounded prow and stern. Her captain, a leather-faced salt called Rollo, was full of praise for the king. He had been paid at scarcity rates for his ship and his men, and he had gained a good share of the plunder himself. "Biggest army I've ever seen," Rollo said with relish. He thought there were at least fifteen thousand men, about half of them archers, and probably five thousand horses. "You'll have your work cut out to catch up with them," he said. "I'll take you to Caen, the last place I know them to have been, and you can pick up their trail there. Whatever direction they've taken, they'll be about a week ahead of you."
Caris and Mair negotiated a price with Rollo then went aboard the Grace with two sturdy ponies, Blackie and Stamp. They could not travel any faster than the army's horses, but the army had to stop and fight every so often, Caris reasoned, and that should enable her to catch up.
When they reached the French side and sailed into the estuary of the Orne, early on a sunny August morning, Caris sniffed the breeze and noticed the unpleasant smell of old ashes. Studying the landscape on either side of the river, she saw that the farmland was black. It looked as if the crops had been burned in the fields. "Standard practice," Rollo said. "What the army can't take must be destroyed, otherwise it could benefit the enemy." As they neared the port of Caen they passed the hulks of several burned-out ships, presumably fired for the same reason.
"No one knows the king's plan," Rollo told them. "He may go south and advance on Paris, or swing north-east to Calais and hope to meet up there with his Flemish allies. But you'll be able to follow his trail. Just keep the blackened fields on either side of you."
Before they disembarked, Rollo gave them a ham. "Thank you, but we've got some smoked fish and hard cheese in our saddlebags," Caris said to him. "And we have money - we can buy anything else we need."
"Money may not be much use to you," the captain replied. "There may be nothing to buy. An army is like a plague of locusts, it strips the country bare. Take the ham."
"You're very kind. Goodbye."
"Pray for me, if you would, sister. I've committed some heavy sins in my time."
Caen was a city of several thousand houses. Like Kingsbridge, its two halves, Old Town and New Town, were divided by a river, the Odon, which was spanned by St Peter's Bridge. On the river bank near the bridge, a few fishermen were selling their catch. Caris asked the price of an eel. She found the answer difficult to understand: the fisherman spoke a dialect of French she had never heard. When at last she was able to make out what he was saying, the price took her breath away. Food was so scarce, she realized, that it was more precious than jewels. She was grateful for Rollo's generosity.
They had decided that if they were questioned they would say they were Irish nuns travelling to Rome. Now, however, as she and Mair rode away from the river, Caris wondered nervously whether local people would know from her accent that she was English.
There were not many local people to be seen. Broken-down doors and smashed shutters revealed empty houses. There was a ghostly hush - no vendors crying their wares, no children quarrelling, no church bells. The only work being done was burial. The battle had taken place more than a week ago, but small groups of grim-faced men were still bringing corpses out of buildings and loading them on to carts. It looked as if the English army had simply massacred men, women and children. They passed a church where a huge pit had been dug