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

‘Then it was a damned stupid rule,’ the king said. ‘Men are left behind on the battlefield all the time. Men are expendable, Merrivale. You know that.’

‘There will be no further steps to save him?’

‘For Christ’s sake, herald! We have lost one man already because of Brother Geoffrey, and I don’t intend to lose any more. We move on. Understood?’

The herald bowed. ‘Yes, your Grace.’

‘Good. Dismissed.’

Caen, 30th of July, 1346

Late afternoon

Word of the orders to march had already spread by the time Merrivale returned to the Abbaye aux Dames. In the camp, the archers waxed their bowstrings and checked the fletchings of their arrows, while esquires and servants polished armour plate and strained at the cranks of sandboxes, turning the heavy mail coats to remove stains and rust. The tap of a farrier’s hammer sounded among the tents.

For once, the Prince of Wales was neither playing dice nor drinking. When Merrivale was shown into the abbess’s solar, the young man was poring over a parchment map spread out on a table. Salisbury and Bartholomew Burghersh the tutor were with him. ‘Have you heard the news, herald?’ the prince asked excitedly. ‘We are to march against the adversary! Three days’ march to Lisieux, and three more from there to Rouen. When we arrive, the adversary is certain to give battle. It will be a gallant contest of arms, will it not?’

‘Perhaps, Highness,’ the herald said. ‘Let us not forget that Rouen is on the far side of the broad River Seine. To bring the adversary to battle, it will be necessary to force a crossing.’

‘Oh, that will be done,’ said the prince, glowing with the confidence of youth and inexperience. ‘You wished to see me, herald?’

‘Yes, Highness. Brother Geoffrey of Maldon is in the dungeons at the castle. It seems we are to march away and leave him behind.’

The prince’s brow furrowed. ‘But that would be dishonourable! Brother Geoffrey is a good servant and a brave man. Go and see my father, herald, and ask him to arrange for Geoffrey’s release.’

‘I have already done so, Highness. His Grace says there is nothing more to be done.’

‘He says that? I cannot believe it of him.’ Suddenly angry, the prince thumped his fist on the table. ‘I shall speak to my father. Do not fear, herald, he will listen to me.’ The prince hurried out of the chamber and ran downstairs, followed by Salisbury. Burghersh looked at the herald. ‘I hope you know what you are doing.’

‘Geoffrey was your friend too, I recall,’ Merrivale said.

15

Troarn, 31st of July, 1346

Evening

The black-robed body of a monk lay outside the door of the big abbey church, two arrows still protruding from his corpse. He was one of a handful of Benedictine brothers and townspeople of Troarn, eight miles east of Caen, who had tried to resist the English army; the leading companies of the vanguard had swatted them away like flies. Now the abbey buildings and the little town were swarming with English troops. Smoke rose once more, grey and sour, into the evening air.

Beyond the town and abbey lay the tidal estuary of the River Dives, gleaming with water. Warwick rode up the hill from the river followed by a handful of knights including Salisbury and Mortimer. Northampton, the constable, stood waiting for them. ‘There is a ford,’ Warwick said as he dismounted, ‘and the vanguard can cross in the morning. The wagon train will have to wait until midday, once the tide is out, and we’ll have to use faggots to build a causeway over the deeper streams. But once we cross, we can move straight up the road to Lisieux.’

He and the constable moved away, talking quickly. Everyone ignored the dead monk. Merrivale caught Salisbury’s eye, and the young earl walked over to join him, armour clanking softly. ‘Has he spoken to you yet?’ Salisbury asked.

The herald shook his head. The prince had returned yesterday from his interview with his father looking sullen. All through the march from Caen, eight miles of heat and dust, he had not spoken a word to Merrivale, nor glanced in his direction.

‘He is embarrassed,’ Salisbury said. ‘He feels that he has let you down.’

‘It is Brother Geoffrey who has been let down, not I. What happened?’

Salisbury grinned. Most people still saw him as the prince’s lapdog, but as the campaign progressed, he was beginning to emerge as a confident young man, showing some of the qualities that had marked out his late father. ‘He and the king stood toe to toe and shouted at each other until they ran out of breath. Then his Grace told him that unless he obeyed orders, he would be relieved of his command and sent back to England.’

‘I see. I hope I have not been the cause of any rupture between them.’

‘I couldn’t speak for his highness. But when I looked back, the king was smiling.’ Salisbury grinned again. ‘Give the prince a couple of days, herald. He will come around. I’m sorry about Brother Geoffrey, though. He was a good man.’

‘Yes,’ said the herald. He glanced back at the body of the dead monk. ‘He was.’

The other archer and the big man with the spear had come to relieve Matt and Pip. They exchanged a few words, and then the two young archers walked away. Warin followed them through the camp and down the hill to the bank of the Dives. All was calm and peaceful here; the stream rippled softly in the evening light, and a few ducks quacked in the reeds that grew along the water’s edge. Further upstream, not far from the line of the ford, there was a stand of big willows, the wind rustling their long, trailing branches. Matt pointed to these and the two men walked into the shelter of the trees. Silently Warin followed them.

The archers knelt on the riverbank and cupped their hands in the