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

‘I should have pushed him out of the way. I should have knocked him off his damned horse and stood on his head, done whatever I had to do to prevent him from going.’

‘He knew the risks,’ Merrivale said, although he was not entirely certain this was true.

‘He was my friend, herald, my only real friend. All the others whisper behind my back, even the prince. But not Edmund, not ever. His friendship was honest and true. God, how I miss him… and that little shit just stood there by the grave in silence, and then walked away.’ There were tears in Mortimer’s eyes.

‘Sir Roger, I must ask you this,’ the herald said. ‘Did Sir Edmund have any enemies in the army? Did he ever speak of feuds concerning him, or his family?’

‘No,’ said Mortimer. He thought for a moment. ‘He did quarrel with Sir Thomas Holland, back in Portchester before we embarked.’

This was news to Merrivale. ‘Do you remember what it was about?’

‘The Countess of Salisbury,’ Mortimer said. ‘Holland made some slighting reference to the earl, her husband. Edmund then said something coarse about the countess. We had to pull them apart. So far as I know, they never spoke to each other again.’

The herald considered this. Salisbury, the prince’s close friend, was married to the king’s first cousin, the lady Joan of Kent. Only after the marriage vows had been exchanged did it emerge that a year or so earlier she had secretly married Sir Thomas Holland. When Holland returned from service overseas and learned of the marriage to Salisbury, he tried to assert his rights but was firmly rebuffed: he had married a ward of the king without the king’s consent, which meant – according to one interpretation of the law, at least – that the marriage was invalid. Angry and humiliated, Holland seldom missed a chance to denigrate his rival.

The feud between Holland and Salisbury was a bitter one, and Bray had been a fool to get caught up in it. But was it sufficient justification for murder? Holland could be an unpleasant man, even a dangerous one, but would he order an assassination at the start of an important campaign? Surely he would meet his enemy face-to-face; as the prince had said, that was what men of honour did.

The question, of course, was whether someone who entered into a secret marriage with the king’s cousin could be considered a man of honour.

Bray’s servant was sitting inside his master’s tent, staring at nothing, probably wondering what would happen to him now that his master was dead. ‘I wish to see Sir Edmund’s baggage,’ Merrivale said. ‘Unpack it for me, please.’

The baggage consisted of two painted wooden chests. The first contained Bray’s armour, including his blood-stained arming doublet; the second held several suits of clothes, fashionably cut, and personal effects including a razor and a comb. The ruby ring the prince had given him was there too; the friars must have removed it when they washed the body last night. Merrivale thought about returning it to the prince, but put it back in the chest. Let Bray’s family have something to remember him by.

All around them the camp murmured with the tramp of marching feet and the rumble of wagon wheels as the army continued to flow ashore.

‘Did your master receive any letters? Between the time the household left London and the embarkation at Portchester?’

The servant shook his head, mute. Merrivale walked out of the tent and stood for a moment, thinking.

Why did Bray leave his post and ride out to meet his death? The last people to see him alive, apart from the killer, were Sir John Grey and Sir Richard Percy and the men of their company. Perhaps they could shed some light.

Quettehou, 13th of July, 1346

Midday

From the escarpment they could see a massive column of smoke rising five or six miles to the north, boiling into the sky and dispersing slowly on the wind. ‘Barfleur,’ Sir Richard Percy said sombrely. ‘Huntingdon’s men were ordered to burn enemy ships, but it looks like they’ve set light to the town as well.’

More fires flickered nearer at hand along the coast. The sun glowered red out of a sky dark with smoke and ash. ‘What has the king to say about this?’ Sir John Grey asked. ‘According to him, the Normans are his subjects now. They’re going to be damned unhappy subjects if his troops keep burning their houses down.’

‘He is issuing a proclamation banning arson and looting,’ Merrivale said. ‘But only in the towns.’

‘Only in the towns?’ Grey stared at him. ‘Do the lives of country people have less value? No, don’t bother to answer that.’

‘Nor has he managed to save Barfleur. But then I’ve never known soldiers to take much notice of proclamations,’ Percy said. ‘Have you, herald?’

‘No.’ Merrivale looked at the men of the Red Company, standing guard or sitting and cleaning their weapons. ‘You manage to keep your men under control. How do you do it?’

‘We pay them well,’ Grey said. ‘In return, we expect obedience. And, they don’t like it when I get angry. How may we serve you, herald?’

‘I have been charged by the king to enquire into the death of Sir Edmund Bray,’ Merrivale said.

‘So we heard. What do you want from us?’

‘You were in the thick of the fighting yesterday afternoon. Did the enemy have archers?’

‘No, and that surprised us. Usually when you run across French men-at-arms, they have a few crossbowmen in support.’

That ended any notion that Bray might have been killed by the enemy, Merrivale thought. He nodded. ‘That has been my experience also. But Bray was shot by a longbow.’

He waited for a reaction. Neither Grey nor Percy said anything.

‘Bray was with you yesterday afternoon,’ the herald continued. ‘My lord of Warwick ordered him to stay with you, but he disobeyed orders. Do you know why?’

‘He wanted to prove that he was better than me,’ Grey said. ‘He didn’t like me. I don’t