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

Percy grinned. ‘Plenty of people don’t like you, and you never understand why,’ he said.

‘Could his departure have been premeditated?’ Merrivale asked. ‘Is it possible that he was actually riding out to meet someone?’

Grey thought. ‘Anything is possible, but somehow I doubt it. Nothing in his demeanour said he was anxious, or in a hurry. He was a young, rather vain man who badly needed to show off how clever he was.’

‘Which is exactly what he thought of you,’ Percy said, ‘and he didn’t trouble to conceal it. I agree with John. Bray was in a bilious mood, and he wanted to prove himself.’

‘We tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen,’ Grey said. ‘After he rode away, we sent two archers after him in case he ran into trouble. But they never caught up with him.’

Two archers. Bray had been killed by two longbow arrows. ‘May I speak with these men?’

‘Of course.’ Grey turned to another archer standing nearby. ‘Rob, fetch Matt and Pip, will you?’

The two archers arrived a moment later, touching their foreheads in salute. They were both in their late teens, Merrivale guessed, slender, with fine features; they looked like brothers. They wore plain jerkins and hose and rough boots, with quivers full of arrows strapped across their backs and knives tucked into their belts.

‘You wished to see us, sir,’ said Matt, the taller of the two.

‘Sir John tells me you were instructed to follow Sir Edmund Bray yesterday afternoon. Did you do so?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Matt. He had a light, pleasant voice and spoke with a strong Midlands accent. ‘That is to say, we tried, sir. But he was riding hard when he set out. We ran after him, but was he still faster than us.’

‘Which direction did he go?’

‘Down the road towards Valognes, sir. Straight towards the enemy, as it happens.’

‘Did you find his body?’

Pip shook his head. ‘No, sir. We didn’t get very far, not more than half a mile from the rest of the company.’

‘Oh? What happened?’

‘As we were following Sir Edmund, sir, another horseman came down the road towards us. Man-at-arms, he was, and riding like the wind. When he saw us, he turned his horse and rode back the way he had come. We thought he might be an enemy scout, so we followed on carefully.’

‘If you thought he was an enemy, why didn’t you shoot?’

‘We thought he might be,’ Matt corrected. ‘But we weren’t certain. Things were a bit fluid out there. We didn’t know for certain who we might be shooting at.’

‘Very well. What happened next?’

‘Well, sir, it wasn’t more than a few minutes later that we spotted the enemy. There was one company coming down the road towards us, and more over the fields towards Quettehou. We didn’t know what had happened to Sir Edmund, but there was nothing we two could do against so many, so we legged it back to report to Sir John and Sir Richard.’

‘The company on the road was a flank guard,’ Grey said. ‘We saw them off, and moved across the fields to join the fighting at Quettehou. The rest you know.’

‘The first man-at-arms you spotted. Did he have a coat?’

‘He did, sir,’ said Matt. ‘A red lion upright, with his paws like so. On white.’

A red lion rampant on white. Merrivale searched his herald’s memory, trying to think who might bear this device. It was no English coat that he knew. He studied the two men. For ordinary archers, they are very confident, he thought. All of the Red Company bore themselves like professionals, but these two were different, in a way he could not quite put his finger on.

‘Are you quite certain you never saw Sir Edmund again after he left your position?’

‘Quite certain, sir,’ said Pip.

Matt looked at the herald, searching his face. ‘Pardon me for being presumptuous, sir,’ the archer said. ‘But are you thinking we might have killed him?’

‘The thought crossed my mind,’ Merrivale said.

Pip shook his head. ‘No, sir. We didn’t know Sir Edmund, and we had no score to settle with him.’ He looked at Merrivale with clear brown eyes. ‘And if we had, sir, we wouldn’t have wasted a second arrow. One would have been enough.’

‘Don’t be impertinent,’ said Sir John Grey, but he sounded amused rather than angry. ‘All right, both of you, dismissed.’

‘How well do you know those men?’ Merrivale asked when Matt and Pip had gone.

‘They joined our company last winter,’ Percy said. ‘Our master archer recruited them in Warwickshire. They’re good archers, among the most reliable we have.’

Warwickshire, the herald thought. A long way from Cheshire. Bray had not been killed by the enemy, and the idea that he had died as a result of some family feud was looking weaker and weaker. Like the smoke that boiled up from the ruins of Barfleur, his suspicions were growing steadily darker.

Quettehou, 13th of July, 1346

Afternoon

The looters had become bolder. The houses of Saint-Vaast had so far been spared, thanks to the fact that the king was camped nearby, but as Merrivale rode back down the hill, he saw the first flames spurting from the roofs of the town. By the time he reached the beach, clouds of smoke and ash were rolling through the camp. Around him, men were already striking tents and packing wagons. The livestock the royal kitchens had brought with them, cattle and sheep and pigs, were all clamouring with fright, and as Merrivale passed one wagon he heard chickens clucking frantically in their crates.

‘The household is moving to Morsalines on the other side of the bay,’ said Andrew Clarenceux, the royal herald. He was a serious man, with tufts of grey hair fringing a bald head. People sometimes asked if he had taken holy orders. He did not find this amusing. Around him his staff were packing up, flinging parchment rolls into chests and carrying them outside. ‘The king is furious, as you can imagine. He keeps calling for the