His sixteen men were down to eight after a long day. With so many soldiers following in his steps, he knew he couldn’t turn to fight, but he was equally unwilling to run to complete exhaustion and be taken as easily as a child. His beard was wet with sweat and his horse stumbled and skidded at intervals, a warning that the animal would drop soon.
Highbury reined in at a crossroads, looking back at the shining armour of the men following. They wouldn’t know who he was, he was almost sure, only that he was running from them towards English territory. That was enough for them to give chase.
He could see a stone marker giving the distance to Rouen. It was just six miles or so, but too far. He was finished, his hands frozen and numb, his body reduced to a hacking cough
and pain that seemed to have reached even his beard, so that the very roots of it ached.
‘I think they have me, lads,’ he said, gasping for breath. ‘You should go on, if you have the wind. It’s just an hour’s ride, no more and maybe less. I’ll slow them as best I can. You’ve made me proud and I wouldn’t change a day.’
Three of his men hadn’t stopped with him. Weak from their wounds, they rode with their heads lolling, the big warhorses ambling along. The remaining five were only slightly more alert and they looked at each other and then back down the road. The closest removed a mailed gauntlet and wiped his face.
‘My horse is finished, my lord. I’ll stay, if it’s all right.’
‘I can surrender, Rummage,’ Highbury said. ‘You, they’ll just cut down. Go on now! I’ll hold them as long as I can. Give me the satisfaction of knowing I saved a few of my men.’
Rummage dipped his head. He’d done his duty with the offer, but English territory was tantalizingly close. He dug in his spurs once more and his weary horse broke into a trot past a wagon and a miserable family staggering along.
‘Go with God, my lord,’ one of the others called as they moved away, leaving Highbury alone at the crossroads.
He raised a hand to them in farewell, then turned and waited for their pursuers.
It didn’t take long for them to reach the lone English lord. The French knights filled the little lane and spread out around him, cursing another family who pressed back into hedges to let them pass, terror clear on their faces.
‘Pax! I am Lord Highbury. To whom am I surrendering?’
The French knights pulled up their visors to get a good look at the big, bearded lord. The nearest had his sword
ready as he brought his horse in close and laid a hand on Highbury’s shoulder, claiming him.
‘Sieur André de Maintagnes. You are my prisoner, milord. Can you pay a ransom?’
Highbury sighed.
‘I can.’
The French knight beamed at such a windfall. He continued in halting English.
‘And your men?’
‘No. They are soldiers only.’
The knight shrugged.
‘Then it falls to me to accept your surrender, milord. If you will hand over your sword and give your parole, you may ride at my side until I find a place to keep you. Can you write, to have the money sent?’
‘Of course I can write,’ Highbury replied. With a muttered epithet, he unstrapped his great sword and handed it over. As the knight’s hand closed on it, Highbury held on.
‘You will let my men go, in exchange for my parole?’
Sieur André de Maintagnes laughed.
‘Milord, there is nowhere for them to run, not any more. Have you not heard? The king is coming and he will not stop until he has pushed you English into the sea.’
With a jerk, he took the scabbard out of Highbury’s hands.
‘Stay close to me, milord,’ he said, turning his horse.
His companions were cheerful enough at the thought of a fine ransom to share among them.
Highbury briefly considered asking for food and water. As his captor, the French knight had a responsibility to provide such things, but for the moment, Highbury’s pride kept him silent.
They rode back down the road Highbury had followed all
afternoon, and as they went, he saw more and more knights and marching men, until he was staring around in confusion and dismay. He’d ridden so far and fast that he’d failed to understand that the entire French army was coming north behind him. The fields were filled with them, all heading to the new border of English territory in France.
William de la Pole paced up and down, his hands shaking as he gripped them together behind his back. The gulls screeched around the fortress, a noise that had begun to sound like mockery. He’d spent the morning roaring orders at his hapless staff, but as the afternoon wore on, his voice had grown quieter and a dangerous calm had settled on him.
The last messenger to reach him was kneeling on the wooden floor, his head bowed out of a sense of self-preservation.
‘My lord, I was not given a verbal message to accompany the package.’
‘Then use your wits,’ William growled at him. ‘Tell me why there are no reinforcements ready to cross to Calais, when my forces are outnumbered and a French army is charging across English Normandy.’
‘You wish me to speculate, my lord?’ the servant replied in confusion. William only glared at him and the young man swallowed and stammered on. ‘I believe they are being gathered, my lord, ready to be brought south. I saw a fleet of ships in harbour when I left Dover. I heard some of the Crown soldiers have been sent to quell unrest, my lord. There have been murders and riots in Maidstone. It may be that …’
‘
Enough
, enough,’ William said, rubbing at his temples with a splayed hand. ‘You’ve said nothing more than I can hear in any alehouse. I have letters to be taken home immediately. Take those and go, in God’s name.’
The young messenger was grateful to be dismissed, scuttling out of the duke’s presence as fast as he could go. William sat at York’s table and seethed. He understood his predecessor’s words a little better after a few bare weeks in command. France was falling apart and it was small wonder that Richard of York had been so cheerful and enigmatic at being relieved.
William wished Derry were there. For all the man’s sarcasm and acid, he would still have had suggestions, or at least better information than the servants. Without his counsel, William felt completely adrift, lost under the weight of expectations on him. As commander of English forces in France, he was required to turn back any and all interference by the French court. His gaze strayed to the maps on the table, littered with small lead pieces. It was an incomplete picture, he knew. Soldiers and cavalry moved faster than the reports that reached him, so the stubby metal tokens were always in the wrong places. Yet if only half of the reports were true, the French king had crossed into Normandy, the fragile and hard-won truce ripped apart as if it had never been agreed.
William clenched his fists as he continued to pace. He had no more than three thousand men-at-arms in Normandy, with perhaps another thousand archers. It was a massive and expensive force for peacetime, but in war? Given a battle king to lead them, they might still have been enough. With an Edward of Crécy, or a Henry of Agincourt, William was almost certain the French could be sent running in humiliation and defeat. He stared hungrily at the maps as if they might contain the secret to life itself. He had to take the field; there was no help for it. He
had
to fight. His only chance lay in stopping the French advance before they were knocking on the doors of Rouen or, God forgive him, Calais itself.
He hesitated, biting his lip. He could evacuate Rouen and save hundreds of English lives before the French assault. If he accepted the impossibility of taking the field against so many, he could devote himself instead to defending Calais. He might at least win time and space enough to allow his king’s subjects to escape the closing net. He swallowed nervously at the thought. All his choices were appalling. Every one seemed to lead to disaster.
‘Damn it all to hell,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I need six thousand men.’
He barked a short laugh and puffed out his cheeks. If he were wishing for armies he did not have, he might as well ask for sixty thousand as six. He’d sent his pleas to both Derry Brewer and King Henry, but it seemed the refugees coming home from Anjou and Maine had brought their contagious fear with them. The king’s forces had been deployed to keep the peace at home. Back in France, William was left with too few. It was infuriating. By the time the English court even understood the magnitude of the threat, he thought Normandy would be lost.
William wiped sweat from his forehead. Calais was a superb fortress on the coast, with a double moat and massive walls that were eighteen feet thick at the base. Set on the coast and supplied by sea, it could never be starved into surrender. Yet King Edward had broken it once, a century before. It could be taken again, with enough men and massive siege weapons brought in to hammer it.
‘How can I stop them?’ William said aloud.
Hearing his voice, two servants came scurrying in to see if the commander had fresh orders. He began to wave them away, then changed his mind.
‘Send orders to Baron Alton. He is to make the garrison ready to march.’
The servants disappeared at the run and William turned to stare out at the sea.
‘Christ save us all,’ he whispered. ‘It’s been done before. It can be done again.’
Numbers were not everything, he knew. English kings had commanded a smaller force against the French almost every time they’d met in battle. He shook his head, his thick hair sweeping back and forth on his neck. That was the difficulty that faced him. The people of England expected their armies to win against the French, regardless of numbers or where the battles were fought. If he failed to protect Normandy, after the chaos of Maine and Anjou … William shuddered. There was only one other piece of English territory in France – Gascony in the south-west. It would be swallowed up in a season if the French triumphed in their campaign. He clenched his fist, hammering it on the table so that the lead pieces scattered and fell. He had lost his own father and brother to the French. Every noble house had taken losses, yet they had kept and enlarged the French territories. They would all despise a man who could not hold what their blood had won.
William understood the ‘poisoned cup’ York had described in their brief meeting. Yet he did not think even York had foreseen the sudden advance of French forces into Normandy. He sighed miserably, rubbing his face with both hands. He had no choice but to meet the French king in battle and trust to God for the outcome. He could not choose disaster, only have it forced upon him.
He summoned his personal servants, three young men devoted to his service.
‘Bring me my armour, lads,’ William said, without looking up from the maps. ‘It seems I am riding to war.’
They cheered delightedly at that, bolting out of the room
and heading to the armoury for his personal equipment. It would be well oiled and maintained, ready to encase him in iron. Staring after them, William found himself smiling as they shouted the news to others and a ragged cheer began to spread across the fortress of Calais. Despite his black mood, he was pleased at their enthusiasm and confidence in him. He did not share it, but he could not refuse the cup he had been given either.
Thomas groaned and then began choking when a big hand was pressed over his mouth and nose. He struggled against the weight, bending fingers back until whoever it was hissed in pain. Just before the finger bones cracked, the pressure vanished and Thomas was left panting for breath in the dawn light. His mind cleared and he felt a wave of shame as he made out his son sitting in the dim light next to him. Rowan’s eyes were furious as he rubbed his bruised hand.
Thomas was alert enough by then not to speak. He watched his son’s eyes slide over as he tilted his head, indicating someone close by. In panic, Thomas felt his gorge rise, some last symptom of the fever that had gripped him cruelly and made his body as weak as rotted cloth. The last thing he remembered was being dragged through a field by his son, under moonlight.
The fever had broken, Thomas understood that much. The terrible heat that dried his mouth and made every joint ache had gone. He tasted vomit rising in his throat and had to use his own hands to close his jaw, pressing as hard as he could as the world wavered and he came close to passing out. His hands felt like slabs of cold meat against his face.
Rowan tensed at the grunting, choking noises coming from his father. The young man peered through the slats of the barn at whoever was walking around out there, but he
could see very little. In more peaceful times, it would have been nothing more sinister than the farmer’s lads roused for a day of work, but it had been days since the two archers had found a farm that wasn’t abandoned. The roads heading north had clogged with a new wave of refugees, but this time there was no excuse at all, no fine talk of a truce and deals struck in private. Rowan knew he and his father were over the Normandy border, though it had been a while since they’d dared to cross a main road and scrape the moss from a milestone. Rouen lay somewhere to the north, that was all Rowan knew. Beyond that city, Calais would still be there, the busiest port in France.
In the dust and crumbling chicken muck, Thomas could not prevent the spasms as his empty stomach heaved. He tried to smother the noise with hands black with dirt, but he could not be completely silent. Rowan froze as a board creaked nearby. He hadn’t heard anyone enter the barn and caution made little sense. The French soldiers marching north were loudly confident in the strength of their own army. Yet there was a chance Thomas and Rowan were still hunted by their original pursuers. They’d learned enough about those stubborn, dogged men to fear them, men who had followed the two archers for sixty miles of night treks and daylight collapse.
In his imagination, Rowan had fleshed out the dim moving shadows he’d seen in the distance more than once. His mind made vengeful devils of them, relentless creatures who would not stop, no matter how far they had to follow. He looked helplessly at his father’s battered body, far thinner now than when they had fought and lost. They had thrown their bows away days before, a gesture of survival that felt more like yanking healthy teeth from a jaw. Apart from losing the weight of the weapons, it would not save them if they
were taken. The French were known to look hard for the peculiar build of archers, reserving a special hatred and appalling punishments for those they caught. There was no hiding the calluses of an archer’s hands.
Rowan’s hand still ached for the weapon he’d lost, clutching for it whenever he was afraid. God, he could not bear it! He still had his seax with a horn hilt. He almost wished he could just launch himself from the shadowed stall at whoever was creeping around the barn. The tension was making his heart pound so fast it made lights flash across his vision.
He jerked his head round at a rustle, almost cursing aloud. There was always something moving in a barn among the bales of straw. Rats, of course, and no doubt cats to chase them; insects and birds making their nests in the spring. Rowan told himself he was probably surrounded by creeping, living things. He doubted any of them were heavy enough to make the floorboards creak.
Outside, he heard a crash of plates, shattering and spinning on the ground with a noise that could be nothing else. Rowan stood up from his crouch to peer through the slats once again. As he did so, he heard a footstep in the gloom. He glanced quickly into the yard, catching sight of a French soldier laughing as he tried to pick whole plates out of the pile he’d dropped. They were not the dark pursuers he’d feared, just looting French pikemen.
Yet there was still that step, inside the barn. Rowan looked down at his father, at the clothes wet with sweat and mired in his own filth. When Rowan looked up again, it was into the face of a startled young man wearing rough blue cloth. They gaped at each other for an instant of pounding hearts and then Rowan leaped forward, thrusting his knife into the other’s chest and crying out as he did it.
His weight took the stranger down on to his back and the
seax sank in further, pressing through him until Rowan felt ribs crack under his hand. The young Frenchman blew out a great rush of air. Whatever he had been trying to say was lost in the agony of the knife in his chest. Rowan stared down in terror at the scrabbling figure he had pinned to the ground. He could only lean on him with his full weight, smothering the kicking legs with his own.
In the yard, a voice called a question or a name. Rowan’s face crumpled in something like weeping as he pressed his forehead against the cheek of the man he held down, just hanging on and waiting for the twitches and scuffles and gasping moans to come to an end. Rowan was shaking when he finally raised his head, looking down into eyes that were smeared with dust from his tunic, yet did not close.
The voice called once more, closer. Rowan sank into a crouch, baring his teeth like a dog defending its kill. He slid the big knife out from between the ribs and held it up, ready to be attacked again. There could be a dozen soldiers nearby, or a hundred, or just one or two. He had no way of knowing, and terror and disgust overwhelmed him. He wanted nothing more than to run, just
run
from the scrabbling horror he had felt as another man’s life was stolen. What he’d felt had been sickeningly intimate and he wanted to get away from that place.
He heard a soft sound at his feet and glared down, understanding that the young man’s bowels had emptied themselves, along with his bladder. The soldier’s penis was clearly erect, visible in his darkening trousers. Rowan felt his stomach heave and his eyes fill with unwanted tears. He’d heard of such things, but the reality was far, far worse. It was nothing like striking a man from a distance with a cloth-yard arrow and a good yew bow.
A shout from outside made him start and scramble back
to the wooden stall. The voice was growing louder and more irritable, as the man outside lost patience with his missing companion. Rowan peered through tiny cracks and nail holes, looking for others. He could not see them, though he had the sense that they were all around the ramshackle barn in the dawn. He shuddered, muscles twitching all along his side and back. He needed to get away into the fields, but his father was too heavy to carry further.
On impulse, Rowan crouched by Thomas and slapped lightly at his face. The eyes opened, the dark irises tinged with yellow as his father pushed his hands away.