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

drifting embers on the currents of air like flotsam on the tide. The horses snorted and sweated with fear, and the men-at-arms had to use spurs to force them on.

Somewhere nearby another roof caved in, flames glaring red through the smoke. The herald’s horse reared up, front hooves flailing. For a moment he clung to the saddle, unable to do anything but hold on, and then Warin rode up alongside him and grabbed the reins, pulling the beast down. By the time they had the horse under control again, Warwick and the prince and his household had vanished into the rolling smoke. Merrivale looked around, trying to see which way they had gone. From somewhere close by, invisible in the smoke, a woman screamed.

Merrivale stiffened. ‘Where did that come from?’

The voice screamed again, an inarticulate shriek of terror and anger. Warin pointed down an alley leading off the street. ‘That way, sir,’ he said urgently.

‘Come on.’ The alley was too narrow for horses; they jumped from the saddle and ran. The houses had not yet begun to burn, but the narrow street was still clogged with acrid smoke. Again the woman screamed. They rounded a bend in the lane, and stopped.

Two men stood facing them, archers clad in russet, one with a leather cuirass over his jerkin. Their bows were slung across their backs and they had knives in their hands. Behind them was a third archer, a big man with a shining bald head bisected by a red scar running across his scalp where someone at some point in the past had tried to carve his head open and failed. In one hand he held a short sword; his other arm was wrapped around a woman, barefoot, with long, dishevelled hair, who struggled violently, trying to get free.

The big man swore at her. ‘Hold still, bitch!’

In reply, the woman grabbed his hand, pulled it to her face and bit him hard on the wrist. The big man yelped, raising his arm, and the woman darted away, running towards Merrivale. Fast as a cat, the man was after her, grabbing her by the shoulder and tearing her gown, then throwing her hard down onto the cobbles. He stood over her, sword pointed at her throat.

‘Leave her alone,’ Merrivale said sharply.

One of the archers shook his head. ‘You don’t give the orders here, herald.’

‘I speak in the king’s name. Let the woman go.’

The big man looked up. He was breathing heavily, and blood dripped from his wounded wrist. ‘The king isn’t here,’ he said. ‘And the bitch is ours. Get out of here, if you want to live.’

The other two raised their knives and started walking towards Merrivale. Warin stepped forward, drawing his own knife, but Merrivale waved him back. ‘I am the herald of the Prince of Wales,’ he said calmly. ‘And you cannot touch me.’

‘Herald to the Prince of Wales, is it? You owe us three shillings, herald. For the information we gave to that black man of yours.’

‘I will pay it,’ Merrivale said. ‘As soon as you let the woman go.’

‘No,’ said one of the other archers, and he smiled a broken-toothed smile. ‘The price has just gone up, mate. Hand over your purse, and that ring on your finger too. Nice and easy, now.’

The ring was his seal ring; it was one of the few things he had been allowed to inherit from his father. ‘Don’t be damned fools. If you harm me, you will hang. Step back now, and let the woman go.’

‘Do as he says,’ a soft voice said behind him.

Merrivale turned. Two more archers stood in the narrow street, wearing the dark red iron caps of the Red Company. Both had arrows at the nock, ready to draw and shoot in an instant. He recognised the fine-featured, serious young faces at once; Matt and Pip, the two men Sir John Grey had sent after Edmund Bray.

The Lancashire men hesitated. Their bows were still slung; Matt and Pip could shoot two of them before they moved, and probably the third before he could bring his bow into play. The big man with the scarred head snarled at them. ‘I’ll kill the woman. Lower those bows and walk away, or I’ll cut her throat and let you watch her bleed to death.’

A blur of movement, almost too fast for the eye to see; Matt drawing his longbow, pulling the nock back beside his ear and loosing. Humming, the arrow shot past the big man’s head, so close that the barb drew blood from his ear. He shouted, clapping his hand to his head for a moment and then looking at the blood on his fingers. ‘You bastard,’ he said ominously.

‘I missed you deliberately,’ Matt said. Already he had another arrow at the nock. ‘I won’t miss again. It is you, soldier, who will walk away. You and your friends, now.’

A long, tense moment passed, and then the big man raised his sword. Blood ran from his ear down his neck and dripped onto his jerkin. ‘Come on,’ he said to the others. ‘There’ll be easier pickings elsewhere, I reckon. Aye, and prettier ones too.’ He kicked the woman as she lay on the ground, then turned and strode away through the curtain of smoke. His companions followed him.

Merrivale turned to the two archers. ‘Thank you. But why are you here?’

‘Sir John realised you were missing, and thought you might have got lost in the smoke,’ Matt said. ‘He sent us to find you. If I was you, sir, I’d be going soon. Your horses are still out in the street, unattended and pretty much inviting someone to steal them.’

Again there was that confidence, Merrivale thought. These were no ordinary archers. ‘Just a moment,’ he said. The woman was sitting up, and he hurried to her, taking her hands and lifting her to her feet. ‘Madame, are you hurt? Are you injured?’

She raised her head. Her face was a mask of dirt and grime and her dark