Читать книгу Harlequin - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 11

Thomas crouched beside the river. He had broken through a stand of alders to reach the bank where he now pulled off his boots and hose. Best to go barelegged, he reckoned, so the boots did not get stuck in the river mud. It was going to be cold, freezing cold, but he could not remember a time when he had been happier. He liked this life, and his memories of Hookton, Oxford and his father had almost faded.

‘Take your boots off,’ he told the twenty archers who would accompany him, ‘and hang your arrow bags round your necks.’

‘Why?’ someone challenged him from the dark.

‘So it bloody throttles you,’ Thomas growled.

‘So your arrows don’t get wet,’ another man explained helpfully.

Thomas tied his own bag round his neck. Archers did not carry the quivers that hunters used, for quivers were open at the top and their arrows could fall out when a man ran or stumbled or clambered through a hedge. Arrows in quivers got wet when it rained, and wet feathers made arrows fly crooked, so real archers used linen bags that were water-proofed with wax and sealed by laces. The bags were bolstered by withy frames that spread the linen so the feathers were not crushed.

Will Skeat edged down the bank where a dozen men were stacking the hurdles. He shivered in the cold wind that came from the water. The sky to the east was still dark, but some light came from the watch fires that burned within La Roche-Derrien.

‘They’re nice and quiet in there,’ Skeat said, nodding towards the town.

‘Pray they’re sleeping,’ Thomas said.

‘In beds too. I’ve forgotten what a bed’s like,’ Skeat said, then edged aside to let another man through to the riverbank. Thomas was surprised to see it was Sir Simon Jekyll, who had been so scornful of him in the Earl’s tent. ‘Sir Simon,’ Will Skeat said, barely bothering to disguise his own scorn, ‘wants a word with thee.’

Sir Simon wrinkled his nose at the stench of the river mud. Much of it, he supposed, was the town’s sewage and he was glad he was not wading barelegged through the muck.

‘You are confident of passing the stakes?’ he asked Thomas.

‘I wouldn’t be going otherwise,’ Thomas said, not bothering to sound respectful.

Thomas’s tone made Sir Simon bridle, but he controlled his temper. ‘The Earl,’ he said distantly, ‘has given me the honour of leading the attack on the walls.’ He stopped abruptly and Thomas waited, expecting more, but Sir Simon merely looked at him with an irritated face.

‘So Thomas takes the walls,’ Skeat finally spoke, ‘to make it safe for your ladders?’

‘What I do not want,’ Sir Simon ignored Skeat and spoke to Thomas, ‘is for you to take your men ahead of mine into the town itself. We see armed men, we’re likely to kill them, you understand?’

Thomas almost spat in derision. His men would be armed with bows and no enemy carried a long-stave bow like the English so there was hardly any chance of being mistaken for the town’s defenders, but he held his tongue. He just nodded.

‘You and your archers can join our attack,’ Sir Simon went on, ‘but you will be under my command.’

Thomas nodded again and Sir Simon, irritated by the implied insolence, turned on his heel and walked away.

‘Goddamn bastard,’ Thomas said.

‘He just wants to get his nose into the trough ahead of the rest of us,’ Skeat said.

‘You’re letting the bastard use our ladders?’ Thomas asked.

‘If he wants to be first up, let him. Ladders are green wood, Tom, and if they break I’d rather it was him tumbling than me. Besides, I reckon we’ll be better off following you through the river, but I ain’t telling Sir Simon that.’ Skeat grinned, then swore as a crash sounded from the darkness south of the river. ‘Those bloody white rats,’ Skeat said, and vanished into the shadows.

The white rats were the Bretons loyal to Duke John, men who wore his badge of a white ermine, and some sixty Breton crossbowmen had been attached to Skeat’s soldiers, their job to rattle the walls with their bolts as the ladders were placed against the ramparts. It was those men who had startled the night with their noise and now the noise grew even louder. Some fool had tripped in the dark and thumped a crossbowman with a pavise, the huge shield behind which the crossbows were laboriously reloaded, and the crossbowman struck back, and suddenly the white rats were having a brawl in the dark. The defenders, naturally, heard them and started to hurl burning bales of straw over the ramparts and then a church bell began to toll, then another, and all this long before Thomas had even started across the mud.

Sir Simon Jekyll, alarmed by the bells and the burning straw, shouted that the attack must go in now. ‘Carry the ladders forward!’ he bellowed. Defenders were running onto La Roche-Derrien’s walls and the first crossbow bolts were spitting off the ramparts that were lit bright by the burning bales.

‘Hold those goddamn ladders!’ Will Skeat snarled at his men, then looked at Thomas. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘I think the bastards are distracted,’ Thomas said.

‘So you’ll go?’

‘Got nothing better to do, Will.’

‘Bloody white rats!’

Thomas led his men onto the mud. The hurdles were some help, but not as much as he had hoped, so that they still slipped and struggled their way towards the great stakes and Thomas reckoned the noise they made was enough to wake King Arthur and his knights. But the defenders were making even more noise. Every church bell was clanging, a trumpet was screaming, men were shouting, dogs barking, cockerels were crowing, and the crossbows were creaking and banging as their cords were inched back and released.

The walls loomed to Thomas’s right. He wondered if the Blackbird was up there. He had seen her twice now and been captivated by the fierceness of her face and her wild black hair. A score of other archers had seen her too, and all of them men who could thread an arrow through a bracelet at a hundred paces, yet the woman still lived. Amazing, Thomas thought, what a pretty face could do.

He threw down the last hurdle and so reached the wooden stakes, each one a whole tree trunk sunk into the mud. His men joined him and they heaved against the timber until the rotted wood split like straw. The stakes made a terrible noise as they fell, but it was drowned by the uproar in the town. Jake, the cross-eyed murderer from Exeter gaol, pulled himself alongside Thomas. To their right now was a wooden quay with a rough ladder at one end. Dawn was coming and a feeble, thin, grey light was seeping from the east to outline the bridge across the Jaudy. It was a handsome stone bridge with a barbican at its further end, and Thomas feared the garrison of that tower might see them, but no one called an alarm and no crossbow bolts thumped across the river.

Thomas and Jake were first up the quay ladder, then came Sam, the youngest of Skeat’s archers. The wooden landing stage served a timberyard and a dog began barking frantically among the stacked trunks, but Sam slipped into the blackness with his knife and the barking suddenly stopped. ‘Good doggy,’ Sam said as he came back.

‘String your bows,’ Thomas said. He had looped the hemp cord onto his own black weapon and now untied the laces of his arrow bag.

‘I hate bloody dogs,’ Sam said. ‘One bit my mother when she was pregnant with me.’

‘That’s why you’re daft,’ Jake said.

‘Shut your goddamn faces,’ Thomas ordered. More archers were climbing the quay, which was swaying alarmingly, but he could see that the walls he was supposed to capture were thick with defenders now. English arrows, their white goose feathers bright in the flamelight of the defenders’ fires, flickered over the wall and thumped into the town’s thatched roofs. ‘Maybe we should open the south gate,’ Thomas suggested.

‘Go through the town?’ Jake asked in alarm.

‘It’s a small town,’ Thomas said.

‘You’re mad,’ Jake said, but he was grinning and he meant the words as a compliment.

‘I’m going anyway,’ Thomas said. It would be dark in the streets and their long bows would be hidden. He reckoned it would be safe enough.

A dozen men followed Thomas while the rest started plundering the nearer buildings. More and more men were coming through the broken stakes now as Will Skeat sent them down the riverbank rather than wait for the wall to be captured. The defenders had seen the men in the mud and were shooting down from the end of the town wall, but the first attackers were already loose in the streets.

Thomas blundered through the town. It was pitch-black in the alleys and hard to tell where he was going, though by climbing the hill on which the town was built he reckoned he must eventually go over the summit and so down to the southern gate. Men ran past him, but no one could see that he and his companions were English. The church bells were deafening. Children were crying, dogs howling, gulls screaming, and the noise was making Thomas terrified. This was a daft idea, he thought. Maybe Sir Simon had already climbed the walls? Maybe he was wasting his time? Yet white-feathered arrows still thumped into the town roofs, suggesting the walls were untaken, and so he forced himself to keep going. Twice he found himself in a blind alley and the second time, doubling back into a wider street, he almost ran into a priest who had come from his church to fix a flaming torch in a wall bracket.

‘Go to the ramparts!’ the priest said sternly, then saw the long bows in the men’s hands and opened his mouth to shout the alarm.

He never had time to shout for Thomas’s bow stave slammed point-first into his belly. He bent over, gasping, and Jake casually slit his throat. The priest gurgled as he sank to the cobbles and Jake frowned when the noise stopped.

‘I’ll go to hell for that,’ he said.

‘You’re going to hell anyway,’ Sam said, ‘we all are.’

‘We’re all going to heaven,’ Thomas said, ‘but not if we dawdle.’ He suddenly felt much less frightened, as though the priest’s death had taken his fear. An arrow struck the church tower and dropped into the alley as Thomas led his men past the church and found himself on La Roche-Derrien’s main street, which dropped down to where a watch fire burned by the southern gate. Thomas shrank back into the alley beside the church, for the street was thick with men, but they were all running to the threatened side of the town, and when Thomas next looked the hill was empty. He could only see two sentinels on the ramparts above the gate arch. He told his men about the two sentries.

‘They’re going to be scared as hell,’ he said. ‘We kill the bastards and open the gate.’

‘There might be others,’ Sam said. ‘There’ll be a guard house.’

‘Then kill them too,’ Thomas said. ‘Now, come on!’

They stepped into the street, ran down a few yards and there drew their bows. The arrows flew and the two guards on the arch fell. A man stepped out of the guard house built into the gate turret and gawped at the archers, but before any could draw their bows he stepped back inside and barred the door.

‘It’s ours!’ Thomas shouted, and led his men in a wild rush to the arch.

The guard house stayed locked so there was no one to stop the archers from lifting the bar and pushing open the two great gates. The Earl’s men saw the gates open, saw the English archers outlined against the watch fire and gave a great roar from the darkness that told Thomas a torrent of vengeful troops was coming towards him.

Which meant La Roche-Derrien’s time of weeping could begin. For the English had taken the town.

Jeanette woke to a church bell ringing as though it was the world’s doom when the dead were rising from their graves and the gates of hell were yawning wide for sinners. Her first instinct was to cross to her son’s bed, but little Charles was safe. She could just see his eyes in the dark that was scarcely alleviated by the glowing embers of the fire.

‘Mama?’ he cried, reaching up to her.

‘Quiet,’ she hushed the boy, then ran to throw open the shutters. A faint grey light showed above the eastern roofs, then steps sounded in the street and she leaned from the window to see men running from their houses with swords, crossbows and spears. A trumpet was calling from the town centre, then more church bells began tolling the alarm into a dying night. The bell of the church of the Virgin was cracked and made a harsh, anvil-like noise that was all the more terrifying.

‘Madame!’ a servant cried as she ran into the room.

‘The English must be attacking.’ Jeanette forced herself to speak calmly. She was wearing nothing but a linen shift and was suddenly cold. She snatched up a cloak, tied it about her neck, then took her son into her arms. ‘You will be all right, Charles,’ she tried to console him. ‘The English are attacking again, that is all.’

Except she was not sure. The bells were sounding so wild. It was not the measured tolling that was the usual signal of attack, but a panicked clangour as though the men hauling the ropes were trying to repel an attack by their own efforts. She looked from the window again and saw the English arrows flitting across the roofs. She could hear them thumping into the thatch. The children of the town thought it was a fine sport to retrieve the enemy arrows and two had injured themselves sliding from the roofs. Jeanette thought about getting dressed, but decided she must find out what was happening first so she gave Charles to the servant, then ran downstairs.

One of the kitchen servants met her at the back door. ‘What’s happening, madame?’

‘Another attack, that is all.’

She unbarred the door to the yard, then ran to the private entrance to Renan’s church just as an arrow struck the church tower and clattered down into the yard. She pulled open the tower door, then groped up the steep ladders that her father had built. It had not been mere piety that had inspired Louis Halevy to construct the tower, but also the opportunity to look downriver to see if his boats were approaching, and the high stone parapet offered one of the best views in La Roche-Derrien. Jeanette was deafened by the church bell that swung in the gloom, each clapper stroke thumping her ears like a physical blow. She climbed past the bell, pushed open the trapdoor at the top of the ladders and clambered onto the leads.

The English had come. She could see a torrent of men flowing about the river edge of the wall. They waded through the mud and swarmed over the broken stakes like a torrent of rats. Sweet Mother of Christ, she thought, sweet Mother of Christ, but they were in the town! She hurried down the ladders. ‘They’re here!’ she called to the priest who hauled the bell rope. ‘They’re in the town!’

‘Havoc! Havoc!’ the English shouted, the call that encouraged them to plunder.

Jeanette ran across the yard and up the stairs. She pulled her clothes from the cupboard, then turned when the voices shouted havoc beneath her window. She forgot her clothes and took Charles back into her arms. ‘Mother of God,’ she prayed, ‘look after us now, look after us. Sweet Mother of God, keep us safe.’ She wept, not knowing what to do. Charles cried because she was holding him too tight and she tried to soothe him. Cheers sounded in the street and she ran back to the window and saw what looked like a dark river studded with steel flowing towards the town centre. She collapsed by the window, sobbing. Charles was screaming. Two more servants were in the room, somehow thinking that Jeanette could shelter them, but there was no shelter now. The English had come. One of the servants shot the bolt on the bedroom door, but what good would that do?

Jeanette thought of her husband’s hidden weapons and of the Spanish sword’s sharp edge, and wondered if she would have the courage to place the point against her breast and heave her body onto the blade. It would be better to die than be dishonoured, she thought, but then what would happen to her son? She wept helplessly, then heard someone beating on the big gate which led to her courtyard. An axe, she supposed, and she listened to its crunching blows that seemed to shake the whole house. A woman screamed in the town, then another, and the English voices cheered rampantly. One by one the church bells fell silent until only the cracked bell hammered its fear across the roofs. The axe still bit at the door. Would they recognize her, she wondered. She had exulted in standing on the ramparts, shooting her husband’s crossbow at the besiegers, and her right shoulder was bruised because of it, but she had welcomed the pain, believing that every bolt fired made it less likely that the English would break into the town.

No one had thought they could. And why besiege La Roche-Derrien anyway? It had nothing to offer. As a port it was almost useless, for the largest ships could not make it up the river even at the top of the tide. The English, the townspeople had believed, were making a petulant demonstration and would soon give up and slink away.

But now they were here, and Jeanette screamed as the sound of the axe blows changed. They had broken through, and doubtless were trying to lift the bar. She closed her eyes, shaking as she heard the gate scrape on the cobbles. It was open. It was open. Oh, Mother of God, she prayed, be with us now.

The screams sounded downstairs. Feet thumped on the stairs. Men’s voices shouted in a strange tongue.

Be with us now and at the hour of our death for the English had come.

Sir Simon Jekyll was annoyed. He had been prepared to climb the ladders if Skeat’s archers ever gained the walls, which he doubted, but if the ramparts were captured then he intended to be first into the town. He foresaw cutting down a few panicked defenders then finding some great house to plunder.

But nothing happened as he had imagined it. The town was awake, the wall manned, and the ladders never went forward, but Skeat’s men still got inside by simply wading through the mud at the river’s edge. Then a cheer at the southern side of the town suggested that gate was open, which meant that the whole damned army was getting into La Roche-Derrien ahead of Sir Simon. He swore. There would be nothing left!

‘My lord?’ One of his men-at-arms prompted Sir Simon, wanting a decision as to how they were to reach the women and valuables beyond the walls, which were emptying of their defenders as men ran to protect their homes and families. It would have been quicker, far quicker, to have waded through the mud, but Sir Simon did not want to dirty his new boots and so he ordered the ladders forward.

The ladders were made of green wood and the rungs bent alarmingly as Sir Simon climbed, but there were no defenders to oppose him and the ladder held. He clambered into an embrasure and drew his sword. A half-dozen defenders lay spitted with arrows on the rampart. Two were still alive and Sir Simon stabbed the nearest one. The man had been roused from his bed and had no mail, not even a leather coat, yet still the old sword made hard work of the killing stroke. It was not designed for stabbing, but for cutting. The new swords, made from the finest southern European steel, were renowned for their ability to pierce mail and leather, but this ancient blade required all Sir Simon’s brute force to penetrate a rib cage. And what chance, he wondered sourly, would there be of finding a better weapon in this sorry excuse for a town?

There was a flight of stone steps down into a street that was thronged by English archers and men-at-arms smeared with mud to their thighs. They were breaking into houses. One man was carrying a dead goose, another had a bolt of cloth. The plundering had begun and Sir Simon was still on the ramparts. He shouted at his men to hurry and when enough of them had gathered on the wall’s top, he led them down into the street. An archer was rolling a barrel from a cellar door, another dragged a girl by an arm. Where to go? That was Sir Simon’s problem. The nearest houses were all being sacked, and the cheers from the south suggested the Earl’s main army was descending on that part of the town. Some townsfolk, realizing all was lost, were fleeing in front of the archers to cross the bridge and escape into the countryside.

Sir Simon decided to strike east. The Earl’s men were to the south, Skeat’s were staying close to the west wall so the eastern quarter offered the best hope of plunder. He pushed past Skeat’s muddy archers and led his men towards the bridge. Frightened people ran past him, ignoring him and hoping he would ignore them. He crossed the main street, which led to the bridge, and saw a roadway running alongside the big houses that fronted the river. Merchants, Sir Simon thought, fat merchants with fat profits, and then, in the growing light, he saw an archway that was surmounted by a coat of arms. A noble’s house.

‘Who has an axe?’ he asked his men.

One of the men-at-arms stepped forward and Sir Simon indicated the heavy gate. The house had windows on the ground floor, but they were covered by heavy iron bars, which seemed a good sign. Sir Simon stepped back to let his man start work on the gate.

The axeman knew his business. He chopped a hole where he guessed the locking bar was, and when he had broken through he put a hand inside and pushed the bar up and out of its brackets so that Sir Simon and his archers could heave the gates open. Sir Simon left two men to guard the gate, ordering them to keep every other plunderer out of the property, then led the rest into the yard. The first things he saw were two boats tied at the river’s quay. They were not large ships, but all hulls were valuable and he ordered four of his archers to go aboard.

‘Tell anyone who comes that they’re mine, you understand? Mine!’

He had a choice now: storerooms or house? And a stable? He told two men-at-arms to find the stable and stand guard on whatever horses were there, then he kicked in the house door and led his six remaining men into the kitchen. Two women screamed. He ignored them; they were old, ugly servants and he was after richer things. A door led from the back of the kitchen and he pointed one of his archers towards it, then, holding his sword ahead of him, he went through a small dark hall into a front room. A tapestry showing Bacchus, the god of wine, hung on one wall and Sir Simon had an idea that valuables were sometimes hidden behind such wall-coverings so he hacked at it with his blade, then hauled it down from its hooks, but there was only a plaster wall behind. He kicked the chairs, then saw a chest that had a huge dark padlock.

‘Get it open,’ he ordered two of his archers, ‘and whatever’s inside is mine.’ Then, ignoring two books which were of no use to man or beast, he went back into the hall and ran up a flight of dark wooden stairs.

Sir Simon found a door leading to a room at the front of the house. It was bolted and a woman screamed from the other side when he tried to force the door. He stood back and used the heel of his boot, smashing the bolt on the far side and slamming the door back on its hinges. Then he stalked inside, his old sword glittering in the dawn’s wan light, and he saw a black-haired woman.

Sir Simon considered himself a practical man. His father, quite sensibly, had not wanted his son to waste time on education, though Sir Simon had learned to read and could, at a pinch, write a letter. He liked useful things–hounds and weapons, horses and armour–and he despised the fashionable cult of gentility. His mother was a great one for troubadours, and was forever listening to songs of knights so gentle that Sir Simon reckoned they would not have lasted two minutes in a tourney’s mêlée. The songs and poems celebrated love as though it was some rare thing that gave a life enchantment, but Sir Simon did not need poets to define love, which to him was tumbling a peasant girl in a harvest field or thrusting at some ale-reeking whore in a tavern, but when he saw the black-haired woman he suddenly understood what the troubadours had been celebrating.

It did not matter that the woman was shaking with fear or that her hair was wildly awry or that her face was streaked with tears. Sir Simon recognized beauty and it struck him like an arrow. It took his breath away. So this, then, was love! It was the realization that he could never be happy until this woman was his–and that was convenient, for she was an enemy, the town was being sacked and Sir Simon, clad in mail and fury, had found her first.

‘Get out!’ he snarled at the servants in the room. ‘Get out!’

The servants fled in tears and Sir Simon booted the broken door shut, then advanced on the woman, who crouched beside her son’s bed with the boy in her arms.

‘Who are you?’ Sir Simon asked in French.

The woman tried to sound brave. ‘I am the Countess of Armorica,’ she said. ‘And you, monsieur?’

Sir Simon was tempted to award himself a peerage to impress Jeanette, but he was too slow-witted and so heard himself uttering his proper name. He was slowly becoming aware that the room betrayed wealth. The bed hangings were thickly embroidered, the candlesticks were of heavy silver and the walls either side of the stone hearth were expensively panelled in beautifully carved wood. He pushed the smaller bed against the door, reckoning that should ensure some privacy, then went to warm himself at the fire. He tipped more sea-coal onto the small flames and held his chilled gloves close to the heat.

‘This is your house, madame?’

‘It is.’

‘Not your husband’s?’

‘I am a widow,’ Jeanette said.

A wealthy widow! Sir Simon almost crossed himself out of gratitude. The widows he had met in England had been rouged hags, but this one…! This one was different. This one was a woman worthy of a tournament’s champion and seemed rich enough to save him from the ignominy of losing his estate and knightly rank. She might even have enough cash to buy a baronage. Maybe an earldom?

He turned from the fire and smiled at her. ‘Are those your boats at the quay?’

‘Yes, monsieur.’

‘By the rules of war, madame, they are now mine. Everything here is mine.’

Jeanette frowned at that. ‘What rules?’

‘The law of the sword, madame, but I think you are fortunate. I shall offer you my protection.’

Jeanette sat on the edge of her curtained bed, clutching Charles. ‘The rules of chivalry, my lord,’ she said, ‘ensure my protection.’ She flinched as a woman screamed in a nearby house.

‘Chivalry?’ Sir Simon asked. ‘Chivalry? I have heard it mentioned in songs, madame, but this is a war. Our task is to punish the followers of Charles of Blois for rebelling against their lawful lord. Punishment and chivalry do not mix.’ He frowned at her. ‘You’re the Blackbird!’ he said, suddenly recognizing her in the light of the revived fire.

‘The blackbird?’ Jeanette did not understand.

‘You fought us from the walls! You scratched my arm!’ Sir Simon did not sound angry, but astonished. He had expected to be furious when he met the Blackbird, but her reality was too overpowering for rage. He grinned. ‘You closed your eyes when you shot the crossbow, that’s why you missed.’

‘I did not miss!’ Jeanette said indignantly.

‘A scratch,’ Sir Simon said, showing her the rent in his mail sleeve. ‘But why, madame, do you fight for the false duke?’

‘My husband,’ she said stiffly, ‘was nephew to Duke Charles.’

Sweet God, Sir Simon thought, sweet God! A prize indeed. He bowed to her. ‘So your son,’ he said, nodding at Charles, who was peering anxiously from his mother’s arms, ‘is the present Count?’

‘He is,’ Jeanette confirmed,

‘A fine boy.’ Sir Simon forced himself to the flattery. In truth he thought Charles was a pudding-faced nuisance whose presence inhibited him from a natural urge to thrust the Blackbird onto her back and thus show her the realities of war, but he was acutely aware that this widow was an aristocrat, a beauty, and related to Charles of Blois, who was nephew to the King of France. This woman meant riches and Sir Simon’s present necessity was to make her see that her best interest lay in sharing his ambitions. ‘A fine boy, madame,’ he went on, ‘who needs a father.’

Jeanette just stared at him. Sir Simon had a blunt face. It was bulbous-nosed, firm-chinned, and showed not the slightest sign of intelligence or wit. He had confidence, though, enough to have persuaded himself that she would marry him. Did he really mean that? She gaped, then gave a startled cry as angry shouting erupted beneath her window. Some archers were trying to get past the men guarding the gate. Sir Simon pushed open the window. ‘This place is mine,’ he snarled in English. ‘Go find your own chickens to pluck.’ He turned back to Jeanette. ‘You see, madame, how I protect you?’

‘So there is chivalry in war?’

‘There is opportunity in war, madame. You are wealthy, you are a widow, you need a man.’

She gazed at him with disturbingly large eyes, hardly daring to believe his temerity. ‘Why?’ she asked simply.

‘Why?’ Sir Simon was astonished by the question. He gestured at the window. ‘Listen to the screams, woman! What do you think happens to women when a town falls?’

‘But you said you would protect me,’ she pointed out.

‘So I will.’ He was getting lost in this conversation. The woman, he thought, though beautiful, was remarkably stupid. ‘I will protect you,’ he said, ‘and you will look after me.’

‘How?’

Sir Simon sighed. ‘You have money?’

Jeanette shrugged. ‘There is a little downstairs, my lord, hidden in the kitchen.’

Sir Simon frowned angrily. Did she think he was a fool? That he would take that bait and go downstairs, leaving her to climb out of the window? ‘I know one thing about money, madame,’ he said, ‘and that is that you never hide it where the servants can find it. You hide it in the private rooms. In a bedchamber.’ He pulled open a chest and emptied its linens onto the floor, but there was nothing hidden there, and then, on an inspiration, he began rapping the wooden panelling. He had heard that such panels often concealed a hiding place and he was rewarded almost instantly by a satisfyingly hollow sound.

‘No, monsieur!’ Jeanette said.

Sir Simon ignored her, drawing his sword and hacking at the limewood panels that splintered and pulled away from their beams. He sheathed the blade and tugged with his gloved hands at the shattered wood.

‘No!’ Jeanette wailed.

Sir Simon stared. Money was concealed behind the panelling, a whole barrel of coins, but that was not the prize. The prize was a suit of armour and a set of weapons such as Sir Simon had only ever dreamed of. A shining suit of plate armour, each piece chased with subtle engravings and inlaid with gold. Italian work? And the sword! When he drew it from the scabbard it was like holding Excalibur itself. There was a blue sheen to the blade, which was not nearly as heavy as his own sword but felt miraculously balanced. A blade from the famous swordsmiths of Poitiers, perhaps, or, even better, Spanish?

‘They belonged to my husband,’ Jeanette appealed to him, ‘and it is all I have of his. They must go to Charles.’

Sir Simon ignored her. He traced his gloved finger down the gold inlay on the breastplate. That piece alone was worth an estate!

‘They are all he has of his father’s,’ Jeanette pleaded.

Sir Simon unbuckled his sword belt and let the old weapon drop to the floor, then fastened the Count of Armorica’s sword about his waist. He turned and stared at Jeanette, marvelling at her smooth unscarred face. These were the spoils of war that he had dreamed about and had begun to fear would never come his way: a barrel of cash, a suit of armour fit for a king, a blade made for a champion and a woman that would be the envy of England. ‘The armour is mine,’ he said, ‘as is the sword.’

‘No, monsieur, please.’

‘What will you do? Buy them from me?’

‘If I must,’ Jeanette said, nodding at the barrel.

‘That too is mine, madame,’ Sir Simon said, and to prove it he strode to the door, unblocked it and shouted for two of his archers to come up the stairs. He gestured at the barrel and the suit of armour. ‘Take them down,’ he said, ‘and keep them safe. And don’t think I haven’t counted the cash, because I have. Now go!’

Jeanette watched the theft. She wanted to weep for pity, but forced herself to stay calm. ‘If you steal everything I own,’ she said to Sir Simon, ‘how can I buy the armour back?’

Sir Simon shoved the boy’s bed against the door again, then favoured her with a smile. ‘There is something you can use to buy the armour, my dear,’ he said winningly. ‘You have what all women have. You can use that.’

Jeanette closed her eyes for a few heartbeats. ‘Are all the gentlemen of England like you?’ she asked.

‘Few are so skilled in arms,’ Sir Simon said proudly.

He was about to tell her of his tournament triumphs, sure that she would be impressed, but she interrupted him. ‘I meant,’ she said icily, ‘to discover whether the knights of England are all thieves, poltroons and bullies.’

Sir Simon was genuinely puzzled by the insult. The woman simply did not seem to appreciate her good fortune, a failing he could only ascribe to innate stupidity. ‘You forget, madame,’ he explained, ‘that the winners of war get the prizes.’

‘I am your prize?’

She was worse than stupid. Sir Simon thought, but who wanted cleverness in a woman? ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I am your protector. If I leave you, if I take away my protection, then there will be a line of men on the stairs waiting to plough you. Now do you understand?’

‘I think,’ she said coldly, ‘that the Earl of Northampton will offer me better protection.’

Sweet Christ, Sir Simon thought, but the bitch was obtuse. It was pointless trying to reason with her for she was too dull to understand, so he must force the breach. He crossed the room fast, snatched Charles from her arms and threw the boy onto the smaller bed. Jeanette cried out and tried to hit him, but Sir Simon caught her arm and slapped her face with his gloved hand and, when she went immobile with pain and astonishment, he tore her cloak’s cords apart and then, with his big hands, ripped the shift down the front of her body. She screamed and tried to clutch her hands over her nakedness, but Sir Simon forced her arms apart and stared in astonishment. Flawless!

‘No!’ Jeanette wept.

Sir Simon shoved her hard back onto the bed. ‘You want your son to inherit your traitorous husband’s armour?’ he asked. ‘Or his sword? Then, madame, you had better be kind to their new owner. I am prepared to be kind to you.’ He unbuckled the sword, dropped it on the floor, then hitched up his mail coat and fumbled with the strings of his hose.

‘No!’ Jeanette wailed, and tried to scramble off the bed, but Sir Simon caught hold of her shift and yanked the linen so that it came down to her waist. The boy was screaming and Sir Simon was fumbling with his rusted gauntlets and Jeanette felt the devil had come into her house. She tried to cover her nakedness, but the Englishman slapped her face again, then once more hauled up his mail coat. Outside the window the cracked bell of the Virgin’s church was at last silent, for the English had come, Jeanette had a suitor and the town wept.

Thomas’s first thought after opening the gate was not plunder, but somewhere to wash the river muck off his legs, which he did with a barrel of ale in the first tavern he encountered. The tavern-keeper was a big bald man who stupidly attacked the English archers with a club, so Jake tripped him with his bowstave, then slit his belly.

‘Silly bastard,’ Jake said. ‘I wasn’t going to hurt him. Much.’

The dead man’s boots fitted Thomas, which was a welcome surprise, for very few did, and once they had found his cache of coins they went in search of other amusement. The Earl of Northampton was spurring his horse up and down the main street, shouting at wild-eyed men not to set the town alight. He wanted to keep La Roche-Derrien as a fortress, and it was less useful to him as a heap of ashes.

Not everyone plundered. Some of the older men, even a few of the younger, were disgusted by the whole business and attempted to curb the wilder excesses, but they were wildly outnumbered by men who saw nothing but opportunity in the fallen town. Father Hobbe, an English priest who had a fondness for Will Skeat’s men, tried to persuade Thomas and his group to guard a church, but they had other pleasures in mind. ‘Don’t spoil your soul, Tom,’ Father Hobbe said in a reminder that Thomas, like all the men, had said Mass the day before, but Thomas reckoned his soul was going to be spoiled anyway so it might as well happen sooner than later. He was looking for a girl, any girl really, for most of Will’s men had a woman in camp. Thomas had been living with a sweet little Breton, but she had caught a fever just before the beginning of the winter campaign and Father Hobbe had said a funeral Mass for her. Thomas had watched as the girl’s unshrouded body had thumped into the shallow grave and he had thought of the graves at Hookton and of the promise he had made to his dying father, but then he had pushed the promise away. He was young and had no appetite for burdens on his conscience.

La Roche-Derrien now crouched under the English fury. Men tore down thatch and wrecked furniture in their search for money. Any townsman who tried to protect his women was killed, while any woman who tried to protect herself was beaten into submission. Some folk had escaped the sack by crossing the bridge, but the small garrison of the barbican fled from the inevitable attack and now the Earl’s men-at-arms manned the small tower and that meant La Roche-Derrien was sealed to its fate. Some women took refuge in the churches and the lucky ones found protectors there, but most were not lucky.

Thomas, Jake and Sam finally discovered an unplundered house that belonged to a tanner, a stinking fellow with an ugly wife and three small children. Sam, whose innocent face made strangers trust him on sight, held his knife at the throat of the youngest child and the tanner suddenly remembered where he had hidden his cash. Thomas had watched Sam, fearing he really would slit the boy’s throat, for Sam, despite his ruddy cheeks and cheerful eyes, was as evil as any man in Will Skeat’s band. Jake was not much better, though Thomas counted both as friends.

‘The man’s as poor as we are,’ Jake said in wonderment as he raked through the tanner’s coins. He pushed a third of the pile towards Thomas. ‘You want his wife?’ Jake offered generously.

‘Christ, no! She’s cross-eyed like you.’

‘Is she?’

Thomas left Jake and Sam to their games and went to find a tavern where there would be food, drink and warmth. He reckoned any girl worth pursuing had been caught already, so he unstrung his bow, pushed past a group of men tearing the contents from a parked wagon and found an inn where a motherly widow had sensibly protected both her property and her daughters by welcoming the first men-at-arms, showering them with free food and ale, then scolding them for dirtying her floor with their muddy feet. She was shouting at them now, though few understood what she said, and one of the men growled at Thomas that she and her daughters were to be left alone.

Thomas held up his hands to show he meant no harm, then took a plate of bread, eggs and cheese. ‘Now pay her,’ one of the men-at-arms growled, and Thomas dutifully put the tanner’s few coins on the counter.

‘He’s a good-looking one,’ the widow said to her daughters, who giggled.

Thomas turned and pretended to inspect the daughters. ‘They are the most beautiful girls in Brittany,’ he said to the widow in French, ‘because they take after you, madame.’

That compliment, though patently untrue, raised squeals of laughter. Beyond the tavern were screams and tears, but inside it was warm and friendly. Thomas ate the food hungrily, then tried to hide himself in a window bay when Father Hobbe came bustling in from the street. The priest saw Thomas anyway.

‘I’m still looking for men to guard the churches, Thomas.’

‘I’m going to get drunk, father,’ Thomas said happily. ‘So goddamn drunk that one of those two girls will look attractive.’ He jerked his head at the widow’s daughters.

Father Hobbe inspected them critically, then sighed. ‘You’ll kill yourself if you drink that much, Thomas.’ He sat at the table, waved at the girls and pointed at Thomas’s pot. ‘I’ll have a drink with you,’ the priest said.

‘What about the churches?’

‘Everyone will be drunk soon enough,’ Father Hobbe said, ‘and the horror will end. It always does. Ale and wine, God knows, are great causes of sin but they make it short-lived. God’s bones, but it’s cold out there.’ He smiled at Thomas. ‘So how’s your black soul, Tom?’

Thomas contemplated the priest. He liked Father Hobbe, who was small and wiry, with a mass of untamed black hair about a cheerful face that was thick-scarred from a childhood pox. He was low born, the son of a Sussex wheelwright, and like any country lad he could draw a bow with the best of them. He sometimes accompanied Skeat’s men on their forays into Duke Charles’s country and he willingly joined the archers when they dismounted to form a battleline. Church law forbade a priest from wielding an edged weapon, but Father Hobbe always claimed he used blunt arrows, though they seemed to pierce enemy mail as efficiently as any other. Father Hobbe, in short, was a good man whose only fault was an excessive interest in Thomas’s soul.

‘My soul,’ Thomas said, ‘is soluble in ale.’

‘Now there’s a good word,’ Father Hobbe said. ‘Soluble, eh?’ He picked up the big black bow and prodded the silver badge with a dirty finger. ‘You’ve discovered anything about that?’

‘No.’

‘Or who stole the lance?’

‘No.’

‘Do you not care any more?’

Thomas leaned back in the chair and stretched his long legs. ‘I’m doing a good job of work, father. We’re winning this war, and this time next year? Who knows? We might be giving the King of France a bloody nose.’

Father Hobbe nodded agreement, though his face suggested Thomas’s words were irrelevant. He traced his finger through a puddle of ale on the table top. ‘You made a promise to your father, Thomas, and you made it in a church. Isn’t that what you told me? A solemn promise, Thomas? That you would retrieve the lance? God listens to such vows.’

Thomas smiled. ‘Outside this tavern, father, there’s so much rape and murder and theft going on that all the quills in heaven can’t keep up with the list of sins. And you worry about me?’

‘Yes, Thomas, I do. Some souls are better than others. I must look after them all, but if you have a prize ram in the flock then you do well to guard it.’

Thomas sighed. ‘One day, father, I’ll find the man who stole that goddamn lance and I’ll ram it up his arse until it tickles the hollow of his skull. One day. Will that do?’

Father Hobbe smiled beatifically. ‘It’ll do, Thomas, but for now there’s a small church that could do with an extra man by the door. It’s full of women! Some of them are so beautiful that your heart will break just to gaze at them. You can get drunk afterwards.’

‘Are the women really beautiful?’

‘What do you think, Thomas? Most of them look like bats and smell like goats, but they still need protection.’

So Thomas helped guard a church, and afterwards, when the army was so drunk it could do no more damage, he went back to the widow’s tavern where he drank himself into oblivion. He had taken a town, he had served his lord well and he was content.