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

others chuckled. The leader looked back at Mauro. ‘Thanks for the drink, mate. Who’s your master?’

‘Herald to the Prince of Wales,’ Mauro said.

‘Soft billet,’ commented one of the archers.

‘You’re a well-set-up lad,’ the leader said. ‘Why not throw in with us?’ He tapped his haversack with a metallic clink. ‘You could do well. Like Jannekin said, we’re all going to be rich by summer’s end.’ He winked. ‘And there’s plenty of chances to raise hell on the side. If you know what I mean.’

Mauro looked at the fires raging in Sainte-Mère-Église. The church roof was beginning to burn, the tower already half obscured by smoke. ‘Thanks. But I’ll stick where I am.’

‘Please yourself,’ said the leader. He took another long drink of water. Mauro watched him, thinking.

‘Holland’s retinue,’ he said after a moment. ‘You must have been one of the first companies ashore, back at Saint-Vaast.’

‘Us, Cobham’s men and the Red Company.’

Mauro nodded. ‘Once you were ashore, did you get a chance to do any foraging? Around Quettehou, maybe?’

The other man lowered the waterskin. ‘What of it? I thought you weren’t interested.’

‘While you were out in the field, did you happen to see a Norman man-at-arms? Red lion on a white coat?’ Was it his imagination, or had the little group of archers gone rather still?

‘Why do you want to know?’ the leader asked.

‘My master would like a word with him, that’s all.’ Mauro hesitated for a moment. ‘He did say there might be a reward.’

‘A reward, now.’ The leader scratched his scarred head. ‘How much?’

Careful, Mauro thought. Offer too much and he’ll grow suspicious and demand to know more; too little and he’ll lose interest. ‘I think I heard my master mention two shillings.’

The leader held out his hand. ‘Do you have the money?’

Mauro didn’t move. ‘Did you see him?’

After a moment, the leader lowered his hand. ‘Aye. At least, we saw a man wearing that coat. He was out on the Valognes road, talking to another fellow.’

‘Any idea who the other fellow might have been?’

‘Oh, we knew him all right. He’s an old friend of the master. His name is Chauffin. Macio Chauffin.’

‘And who might he be? We could make it three shillings.’

Suspicion and greed struggled in the leader’s small blue eyes. Greed won. ‘He’s a French man-at-arms. In the service of the Count of Eu, the Constable of France.’

Mauro rubbed his jaw. ‘How does your master know him?’

‘Four years ago, there was a truce between England and France, so we all went off to Prussia together, Sir Thomas and his men, and the Count of Eu and his. We served together under the Teutonic Knights, campaigning against the heathen. Chauffin was with the count.’

‘And he and your master became friendly?’

‘Aye, and the count too. Like brothers they were.’ The leader tilted up the waterskin again.

‘Curious, that,’ said Mauro. ‘Bosom friends one year, trying to carve each other’s guts out the next.’

‘That’s war,’ said the big man. He threw the empty waterskin back, and Mauro caught it one-handed. ‘In the end, mate, your only friend is yourself. Thanks for the water. And tell your master we want that reward. If we don’t get it, we’ll come looking for him, and you.’

Up ahead, the column was moving again. Thomas Ughtred, the under-marshal, galloped down the line on a lathered horse, shouting at the drivers. ‘You men!’ he snapped at the archers. ‘What are you doing here? Get back to your company at once!’

The leader touched his bald head and the file of archers moved away across the fields through the drifting smoke. Mauro whipped up the carthorse and then sat back holding the reins, frowning.

Saint-Côme-du-Mont, 19th of July, 1346

Evening

The bells of Carentan were ringing vespers when Mauro finally drove the cart into the English camp on the heights at Saint-Côme-du-Mont, two miles from the town. The tide was in and the marshes that surrounded Carentan were flooded, a broad sheet of water stretching away to the south and east broken here and there by little islands and stands of trees. A long, narrow causeway ran across the marshes towards the town.

Mauro found his master with the Prince of Wales and his knights, standing and staring across the flooded marshes towards Carentan and listening to the distant bells. They could see the walls enclosing church towers and the ramparts of a distant castle. This was where Bertrand had chosen to make his stand.

‘Señor,’ Mauro said quietly, ‘I have news about Jean de Fierville.’

‘Come with me.’ They walked away from the group until the others were out of earshot. ‘What is it?’ Merrivale asked.

Mauro related what he had learned from Holland’s men. ‘I promised them a reward,’ he said. ‘I hope I did the right thing, señor.’

‘You did very well, Mauro. Thank you. I shall see that the money reaches them.’

Before joining the herald’s little household, Mauro had experienced many years of slavery and hard servitude. Never before had he had a master who thanked him and praised him. Now he glowed a little with inward warmth. ‘Fierville was meeting with a French knight in the service of the Constable of France,’ he said. ‘That does not sound good, señor.’

‘No. Particularly when that knight is also a personal friend of Sir Thomas Holland. I wonder if Bray also witnessed this meeting.’

‘Perhaps that was why he was killed,’ Mauro said.

‘Perhaps… one other thing bothers me. Sir Nicholas Courcy claimed he and his men were the first to go foraging in that sector. Now Holland’s men are saying they were there too, perhaps even earlier.’

‘Maybe Sir Nicholas was mistaken, señor,’ Mauro suggested.

‘Or he was lying.’

‘Yes, señor. That is also possible.’

Merrivale looked out across the rippling flood towards Carentan. ‘We need to find Fierville’.

It was Nell the cowherd who spotted him first, and came running through the camp to the place where the prince and his household were dining in the open air. Stopping and drawing breath, she spoke to one of the guards. He gave her a suspicious look, but when