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

story that Despenser put it there himself to get even with Mortimer?’

Merrivale wondered how widely this tale was circulating in the army, and whether Despenser had heard it yet. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I do not believe it. As a matter of interest, Sir Thomas, why did you recommend that I be put in charge of this inquisition?’

‘You won’t believe it, but if there is an assassin among us, I think you are the best person to track him down. I know from experience how goddamned tenacious you are. And I also know you are honest.’

The herald smiled a little. ‘Thank you for the compliments.’

‘Take them. They’re the last you’re likely to get from me… God, my arm feels like it’s on fire.’

‘Perhaps a little light conversation would distract you.’

‘Oh? What subject did you have in mind?’

‘The twenty-first of September 1327,’ the herald said.

‘Oh Christ, not that again. You really are like a dog with a bone, aren’t you?’

‘Three men rode to Berkeley Castle, carrying Mortimer’s orders to kill the king. One was your father. The second was John of Hainault, Lord of Beaumont and the enforcer of Mortimer’s will. Who was the third?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’

‘Of course. How well did your father know John of Hainault?’

Holland considered the matter for a moment. ‘Fairly well, I suppose. It was Hainault who interceded to get his lands restored. Not that it did much good. Six months later, he was dead.’

‘Who else was close to Hainault? Who did he consort with?’

‘At the time of the old king’s death? I don’t know. Later, after Mortimer was gone, he helped a number of men to be reconciled with the king. Lord Rowton was one of them.’

Merrivale stared at him. ‘Eustace Rowton?’

‘No, his father. Gerard Rowton had been one of Mortimer’s supporters after he returned, although I believe they quarrelled not long before Mortimer’s fall from grace. Holland grimaced. ‘Jesus, this hurts. Where is my damned esquire?’

‘He is coming,’ Merrivale said.

The esquire pulled his horse to a halt and jumped down holding a flask and a pannier. Merrivale took them from him, poured vinegar from the flask into the pannier and added water from a waterskin, then gently drizzled the liquid across the wound. Holland stiffened, biting his lip in agony. ‘Now dry the wound and bind it closely,’ Merrivale said to the esquire. ‘Change the dressing regularly, and if you smell putrefaction in the wound, repeat the treatment with vinegar and water.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The esquire began drying the wound with a square of linen.

‘How are your men faring?’ Merrivale asked Holland. ‘They must be missing their vintenar.’

‘We all miss him. Bate was a good soldier. We would have taken Gaillon quicker if he had been there.’

‘And the others? Are they still selling their plunder to Nicodemus?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Holland. ‘And what is more’ he added, with the insouciance of a man with eighty thousand florins in the bank, ‘I no longer care.’

Vernon, 9th of August, 1346

Evening

Blackened with smoke, the walls of Vernon stood intact, French banners waving from their towers. Beyond the walls, the bridge could be seen, lined with houses and watermills, stretching away to the north bank. And up on the escarpment overlooking the far end of the bridge, the French royal army waited, rank upon rank of mounted men-at-arms in bright surcoats and glittering armour, thousands of white-coated Genoese crossbowmen all looking across the river and watching; powerful, ominous, waiting.

Overhead, the clouds drifted, thunder rumbling distant in the heavy air. Clouds of flies buzzed around, feasting on sweat and blood.

At the water’s edge, the grange of the abbey of La Croix was a sheet of flame. Fire was beginning to take hold in the cloister too, roof tiles cracking and sliding to the ground. ‘We won’t be crossing at Vernon,’ said Sir Edward de Tracey, his face and hands black with smoke. ‘We set fire to every building in the faubourgs, right up to the walls, in hopes of tempting them out to fight, but they won’t budge.’

‘And even if they did, it would not matter,’ said Hugh Despenser, wiping blood from his face. ‘We would still have to fight our way through the town and across the bridge, with no room to deploy our own archers and those goddamned Genoese sweeping the span with crossbows. It is hopeless.’

‘It is worse than hopeless,’ said John Grey, his voice cold with anger. ‘It is folly. We failed at Rouen, we failed at Elbeuf, we failed at Pont de l’Arche, and now we have failed at Vernon. There are three more bridges, gentlemen. Then what?’

No one had an answer. Grey departed to join his company, and Despenser followed him. The two red-capped archers remained behind, lurking watchfully in the middle distance.

‘May I have a moment, Sir Edward?’ Merrivale asked.

Tracey turned to face him, eyes wary. They had not spoken since their meeting outside Lisieux a week ago. ‘What is it? Which of my archers do you want to question me about now?’

‘I want to ask about your late father,’ Merrivale said.

‘My father? He was a callous, murdering old bastard who would have cut your throat for the price of a firkin of ale. I tried to have as little to do with him as possible.’

‘He was attainted for a time, was he not? When did he receive his pardon?’

‘I think it was 1332,’ Tracey said reluctantly. ‘The king needed his money, of course, to pay for the Scottish wars. I saw him seldom after that, until the day his horse threw him and he broke his neck. I like to think the beast did it on purpose.’

‘When was that?’

‘1339, the feast day of Saint Hilarius. Apt, I have always thought.’

‘How did he procure his pardon?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘What about your brother? Might he know?’

Tracey shook his head. ‘Gilbert loved our father even less than I did, if such a thing is possible. He was already settled in London by the time the old man went down to hell.’

The roof