A Flight of Arrows by A.J. MacKenzie (mobi reader android .txt) 📕

French men-at-arms wavered and broke. The survivors fled up the bank with the English racing after them, screaming and shooting. The French foot soldiers, wilting under the showers of arrows, turned and ran too. More companies of English troops surged up out of the river, yelling with exultation and relief. The miracle they had not dared pray for had happened. The Blanchetaque was taken, and the way across the Somme was clear.

Hugh Despenser was on his feet, his bascinet off and wiping blood from his face. The bascinet was badly dented and there were more dents on his breastplate and arm guards. Mortimer stood beside him, leaning heavily on his sword; Gurney was down on one knee, recovering his breath.

‘Well,’ Mortimer said. ‘At least I didn’t shit myself.’

‘No,’ said Despenser. ‘Not this time.’ He grinned suddenly and slapped Mortimer on his shoulder guard, and after a moment Mortimer smiled back at him.

The Prince of Wales dismounted and walked towards them, pulling up his visor. Despenser and Gurney knelt in front of him, and after a moment Mortimer did the same. The younger knight saw Merrivale watching him and smiled again, both remembering Saint-Vaast. The day will come when I bow the knee to no one, Mortimer had said. But those words had been spoken a lifetime ago.

‘There is no need to kneel, my friends,’ the prince said. ‘Rise, I pray you.’

Startled, the three men rose to their feet. The prince embraced each of them, and Merrivale saw there were tears in the young man’s eyes. ‘This is why I asked you to serve under my command,’ he said. ‘This has been my great hope, right from the beginning: that we could forget the past and fight together, side by side like brothers. I rejoice that this day has come.’

He stepped back a little and held out one hand. ‘Give me your hands,’ he said. They did so, Mortimer’s gauntlet still dripping blood. ‘Swear this to me,’ said the prince. ‘Swear that we will be brothers, and that discord will never come between us. Swear that this bond will last all our lives, and will be sundered only by death.’

‘We swear it,’ the three men said in unison.

‘So do we all,’ said the Earl of Salisbury, and Thomas Holland nodded.

A murmur ran around the watching men. Merrivale turned and met Bartholomew Burghersh’s eyes, and the tutor nodded in silent satisfaction. The boy who had landed at Saint-Vaast had won his spurs.

24

Forêt de Crécy, 24th of August, 1346

Evening

‘The man who told the king about the Blanchetaque,’ said Nicholas Courcy. ‘He was remarkably willing to talk, don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ the herald said. ‘He had been paid to do so.’

Around them the exhausted army was making camp on the edge of the forest, the last of the battered rearguard slowly straggling in. There had been hard fighting on the south bank; the Bohemian panzerati in particular were vicious opponents, and despite the best efforts of the king and Arundel, a number of baggage wagons had been lost, including most of the remaining food. Fortunately the vanguard had captured stores of bread and peas and salt meat in Noyelles and Le Crotoy. Both these small towns were now burning fiercely in the distance.

‘Who paid him?’ demanded Gráinne.

Tiphaine stirred. Her tunic was in rags, her hose worn through at the knees. ‘The conspirators,’ she said. ‘It was another trap.’

‘It was,’ the herald agreed. ‘And planned with care. They drove us deliberately towards the ford, paid that man to tell us where it was and lied about the number of men guarding it so we would be encouraged to make the attempt. Their intention was to bottle us up in the river until the tide turned and the water rose and drowned us all.’

He remembered the prince’s words. ‘Like rats in a sack,’ he said.

‘Just so,’ said Courcy. ‘Only they didn’t reckon with Hugh Despenser and his men, or the Red Company, our latter-day Myrmidons. Come to that, neither did I.’

‘We are not out of danger,’ Merrivale said. ‘As John Sully said, the time will come when we can run no longer.’

Courcy nodded. ‘Warwick told me that the king is determined to fight. Northampton has gone out to look for a battlefield where we can meet the French. I have been ordered to make the cannon ready.’

Tiphaine shivered. ‘I saw their army at Rouen. It is more powerful than you can imagine.’

The four of them, Merrivale, Tiphaine, Courcy and Gráinne, were seated on wooden benches outside the herald’s tent, smoke drifting around them in the falling dusk. As part of the Prince of Wales’s household, the herald’s baggage had not been abandoned at Airaines, and Mauro had somehow managed to get the cart across the Blanchetaque before the Bohemians closed in. He and Warin stood behind the herald; Matt and Pip leaned on their bows a few yards away, chewing on rinds of bacon.

‘Tell us about this conspiracy,’ Courcy said.

‘It has two parts,’ Merrivale said. ‘The first is the destruction of the English army and the death of the king and the Prince of Wales. Then I imagine the conspirators would attempt to gain control of Queen Philippa and the next heir to the throne, Prince Lionel. He is only eight years old, so they might push the queen aside and attempt to rule as regents.’

‘The queen would not give up without a fight,’ said Courcy. ‘Which could mean another civil war. What is the second part?’

Merrivale told him about the plot to overthrow Philip of France. ‘I am not desperately interested in what happens to him, but I prefer not to see England torn apart. I remember the violence of the 1320s all too well. I have no desire to see those days return.’

‘What do you have in mind?’ Courcy asked.

‘The conspirators have asked me to join them,’ Merrivale said.

The silence that followed lasted for quite some time. ‘And how did you respond?’ Tiphaine asked.

‘I asked to meet some of their leaders, and they