A Flight of Arrows by A.J. MacKenzie (most recommended books txt) 📗

the shadows. Restraining the impulse to run, he walked calmly to the gatehouse. ‘Where is the man who brought us here?’

‘Gone,’ said the captain of the gate. ‘He said he wasn’t going to wait around all night. Do you need an escort, Sir Herald?’

Merrivale smiled and touched his tabard. ‘This will do.’

‘Then I bid you good night, sir.’

They walked away from the gatehouse towards the camp, quickly veering towards the darker patch of the marshes. ‘Who was that fellow?’ demanded Courcy.

‘Rollond de Brus,’ said Tiphaine. ‘My former lover, and the man who betrayed me in Rouen.’

‘He was your lover?’ said Gráinne. ‘Máthair Dé, girl, but you have terrible taste in men.’

‘I should have hit him harder,’ said Courcy. ‘Either he has woken up, or someone has found him. There goes the alarm.’

A trumpet sounded from the abbey, harsh and urgent. Another joined the call. ‘This way,’ Merrivale said, and they hurried towards the marshes.

The moon was down behind the trees; they had only the reflected glow of the campfires to guide their way. Water squelched around their boots. Smells of rotting vegetation rose to their nostrils, along with other things more foul; the men in the camp had clearly been using the marshes as a latrine. They followed the winding course of the little stream, guided by the faint glimmer of light off water, hearing the commotion behind them growing louder. ‘They’ll be sending out search parties,’ Courcy predicted.

‘I know. Hurry.’

Somewhere up ahead Matt and Pip would be waiting. They too would have heard the trumpets and be ready… on the heels of the thought, Merrivale saw someone coming out of the shadows ahead, an archer with a longbow in hand. ‘Is that you, Matt?’ he whispered.

The archer said nothing. He stopped, pulling an arrow from his quiver and nocking it. Then he turned his head, and Merrivale saw his face.

It was Nicodemus.

The four of them halted and stood very still. The range was no more than twenty yards. Even in the dim light the archer could hardly miss. Merrivale waited, watching the barbed arrowhead glinting in the light; the same kind of arrow that had killed Edmund Bray.

Nicodemus smiled. ‘I am going to enjoy this.’

‘Then get on with it,’ said Merrivale.

‘What’s the hurry? You have caused me more trouble than you can imagine. You owe me a little suffering.’

‘Like the suffering of the slaves you sold at Southampton?’

‘Don’t be so fastidious, king’s messenger. You’ve done dirty deeds yourself in your day.’

‘I have made mistakes, Nicodemus, but you are human filth. The mud of this sewer is pure and noble compared to you.’

Nicodemus raised his bow. ‘I know just where to plant this arrow, herald. It’s going to take you a long time to die.’

A figure hurtled out of the gloom and crashed into Nicodemus, hitting him in the small of the back. He stumbled and fell to his knees in the mud, dropping the bow and arrow. Nell Driver jumped on him, climbing onto his back and pummelling him with her fists. Raging, Nicodemus shook her off, picking her up by the shoulders and throwing her hard into the mud. Gráinne and Courcy were already running forward; Nicodemus saw them coming and reached for his bow. He was too late. Courcy slipped in the treacherous mud and fell, but Gráinne’s sword flashed like lightning in the gloom, slashing Nicodemus across his side. The archer yelped with pain, but he raised the bow and clubbed Gráinne’s arm, knocking the sword from her hand. Before she could pick it up again, he had bolted into the darkness.

Nell stood up, mud dripping from her tunic. ‘Are you all right?’ Merrivale asked her.

‘Yes, sir.’

He wanted to ask what she was doing here, but that would have to wait; from behind he could hear Brus’s voice, perilously close, urging the pursuers on. Matt and Pip were running towards him, splashing through the water. ‘Go on, sir,’ Matt said, low-voiced. ‘We’ll cover your retreat.’

They ran, hearing behind them the venomous hiss of arrows and shouts of pain. They were beyond the perimeter of the camp now, and they came up out of the water and sprinted towards the copse of trees where Mauro and Warin waited with the horses, expecting at any moment to be spotted and the French to come yelling after them. But the darkness hid them well, and they reached the trees without incident. Matt and Pip followed a few minutes later, breathing hard.

‘We let the air out of a few of them, sir,’ Matt said. ‘But there’s more coming after us. Horsemen too. That fellow who leads them isn’t giving up.’

‘Time we were gone,’ Merrivale said. ‘Ride for the forest, and ride fast.’

They heard the drumming of hooves behind them, but they reached the dense forest before the pursuit could catch them. Once there, Matt and Pip led them deep into the woods, where they dismounted and stood in silence, holding the muzzles of their horses to keep them silent and listening to the sounds of their pursuers crashing through the undergrowth trying to flush them out. The sky was pale with dawn by the time Brus shouted angrily to his men and they rode away towards Abbeville.

In the wan light, Merrivale turned to Tiphaine and took her hands gently in his. ‘I am so very sorry,’ he said softly.

‘Don’t be. I know you had to do it, to convince them. There is no better way for a man to prove himself to other men than to treat a woman like a dog.’

They rode in silence back to the English camp.

The sentries recognised them at once and let them pass. Merrivale rode to the cluster of tents around the king’s pavilion, dismounting outside Northburgh’s tent and going inside to shake the secretary awake. ‘We must arrest Edward de Tracey. Immediately.’

Northburgh sat up, rubbing his eyes. ‘It’s him?’

Doubt still nagged the herald, but he pushed it aside. Vaud, Zajíc, Rožmberk, Alençon; they had all named Tracey. ‘It is,’ he said.

‘I will