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

The west door of the big church was open. High pillars marched in shadow towards the altar, where painted angels danced on the ceiling. An archer knelt on the altar table, hacking gemstones out of the crucifix behind it with a long knife. Another man smashed open the wooden doors of an ambry and pulled out a small iron-bound casket, while two more came out of the vestry carrying armfuls of embroidered robes. Piled on the floor before the altar was a heap of gold and silver vessels, chalices and ciboria, patens and pyxes, a gold monstrance, a couple of reliquaries studded with garnets, the jewelled wooden covers of a bible. The parchment pages of the bible lay strewn across the floor.

‘Stop!’ the herald said sharply. His voice rang in the dark vaults overhead, but the looters around the altar ignored him. The man by the ambry raised the casket over his head and hurled it down on the floor. The casket broke, the iron bands splitting apart, and silver coins danced and spun across the flagstones, shining in the dim light. The man whooped, kneeling down to scoop up the money. ‘Hoy! Look what I found!’

The man attacking the crucifix turned. It was Nicodemus, Edmund de Tracey’s bank clerk-turned-archer. ‘What you got there, Hobby?’

‘French deniers, boy!’ Hobby shouted, stuffing coins into his tunic. ‘Must be five hundred at least!’

Merrivale opened his mouth to repeat his order, but before he could speak, a bowstring twanged behind him and an arrow hissed up the nave, hitting Hobby and driving him back against the painted wall of the church. He sat for a moment, clutching at the shaft protruding from his chest, and then slumped over onto his side. Bate stalked up the aisle, holding his bow with another arrow already at the nock. His hands were red with fresh blood, and more was caked on his tunic. His archers followed him, shadows in russet and grey moving through the church.

‘Drop that knife, Nicodemus,’ Bate said. ‘All the rest, put down your weapons.’

The knife clattered to the floor. The men carrying the vestments dropped them and spread their hands wide, showing they were unarmed; their bows stood propped against the wall behind them.

Bate turned to Courcy. ‘That means you, Sir Nicholas!’ he snarled. ‘And your Irish hogs!’

‘This is a damned shame, Bate,’ Courcy said, laying his sword on the flagstones. ‘And here was me thinking we were friends.’

Bate spat, and gestured towards Mortimer. ‘You too, boy.’

The herald felt Mortimer stiffen, sword hand clenching. ‘No,’ he whispered urgently. ‘This is not worth dying for.’ After a moment, Mortimer nodded, unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it on the floor. Bate pointed towards the pile of gold and silver.

‘We’ll have all this. And that money, too.’

Nicodemus jumped down from the altar. ‘God damn you, Bate, this is ours! There’s plenty other churches in the city. Go and find one of them!’

Bate smiled. The scar on his head was like a dark line of blood across his scalp. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I’d rather steal from you, you ugly bastard. Go on, boys, gather it up. Any of them tries anything, give him a shaft through the guts.’

Something whispered in the air behind Merrivale, a hint of movement in the nave, unseen. He raised his voice. ‘This is a holy place, Bate. Touch those vessels or that money, and you will bring God’s anger down on your head. You and all your men.’

Silence fell in the church. Slowly Bate turned to face the herald. ‘Not worth dying for?’ Courcy murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

Merrivale ignored him. ‘Go,’ he said to Bate. ‘Walk out of here now, and nothing will happen to you.’

Bate’s voice was dark in his throat. ‘You know something, herald,’ he said, raising his bow. ‘I’ve had just about enough of you.’

The arrow, a sharp bodkin point, was levelled straight at Merrivale’s chest. He watched Bate’s face, and saw none of the uncertainty of Pont-Hébert; now, there was only the sick madness that came with bloodshed. This man had killed recently, and was ready to kill again.

‘There are witnesses,’ the herald said. ‘Shoot me, and you will have to shoot them all.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Bate, and he drew back the bowstring just as an archer in a red iron cap stepped out from behind the nearest pillar and shot him through the body.

Bate screamed, dropping his bow and sinking to his knees. Another Lancashire man lifted his bow, and a second red-capped archer shot him too, the arrow driving deep into his shoulder and spinning him around with the force of the blow. More men came running through the church, archers and spearmen together, and Merrivale saw the gold lion on blue of Northumberland, Sir Richard Percy striding up the nave after his men with a drawn sword in his hand. ‘Drop your bows,’ he shouted at the Lancashire men, his voice ringing in the vaults. ‘Now!’

They obeyed at once. Merrivale walked over to Bate. The scar-headed man had fallen onto his back; he lay loose-limbed, gazing up at the cold-eyed angels overhead. Fresh blood welled around the arrow embedded in his body, and when he coughed, more blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. ‘I warned you,’ the herald said.

Bate coughed again. ‘Go to hell.’

Merrivale knelt on the floor beside him. ‘You are dying, Bate. This is the end.’

The bloody mouth twisted. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘I cannot give you absolution. But if you tell me what I want to know, it may count in your favour when the moment of judgement comes.’

Bate’s back arched in a sudden spasm, and the blood flowed.

‘Did you kill Sir Edmund Bray?’ the herald asked.

‘No.’ Already the voice was sinking to a whisper.

‘Do you know who did? Was it one of your men?’

‘No. I swear on the body of Christ, it wasn’t us.’

‘But you were out in the field that day. You saw Fierville meet Chauffin.