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

land,’ said Merrivale. He sat, his heavy embroidered tabard lying in folds over his lap, and took the glass of wine the esquire held out to him. A dog lying in a corner of the tent raised its head and looked at him; recognising the herald, it settled back to sleep once more.

Sully chuckled. ‘Not seasick, were you? You’re a Devon lad like myself, Simon. The sea should be in your blood.’

‘I was born and reared on Dartmoor, remember. It’s rain I have in my blood, not the sea.’

The humour faded from Sully’s voice. ‘Aye, I remember.’

The herald’s childhood memories were full of rain, endless days of rain that saturated the ground and turned the streams and leats of Dartmoor into rushing brown torrents. For three long summers there had been no sign of the sun, only leaden skies and steady downpours and wind. The sheep died first; he could still remember their rotting carcasses in the fields, legs sticking upright out of the mud. Then, when the last one had perished, famine crept in. They had buried his two sisters ten days apart; a month later, his mother followed them into the ground. He remembered their deaths, the cramp of hunger that fastened itself like a vice on his bowels and never let go, and the final terrible journey from a homeland that had become a charnel house, down to poverty and exile in the lowlands around the moor.

He shrugged off the memories. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said.

‘It’s an odd thing, old age,’ Sully said. ‘Everything seems like a long time ago, and yet at the same time it feels like yesterday.’ He smiled. ‘But you have done well for yourself, lad. King’s messenger for ten years, then herald to the Earl of Lancaster and now to the Prince of Wales.’

‘All of which I owe to you, Sir John. It was you who plucked me from obscurity after our family’s lands were confiscated, and obtained a post for me in the king’s household.’

‘I gave you a leg-up at the beginning of your career, no more. Your own hard work and integrity have done the rest. The gossip says you’ll get the top job one day, when Andrew Clarenceux hangs up his tabard. How would that suit you? Herald to the king himself.’

Merrivale smiled a little. ‘I am content with my present post.’

He looked at the wine in his glass and his smiled faded. Sully watched him. ‘You don’t look content. What troubles you?’

‘We lost a man today. Young Edmund Bray, formerly one of the prince’s esquires. The prince knighted him a few hours ago. They brought his body in just now.’

Sully watched him with sympathy. ‘Poor fellow. How old was he?’

‘Eighteen.’

The older man clicked his tongue. ‘All his life before him. What a waste. The prince must be grieving his loss.’

‘If he is, you would never know it. Bray was his friend, and yet he was quite offhand, almost callous. All he said was “Such are the fortunes of war.”’

‘He thinks this is how a real man behaves.’

‘Perhaps.’

Silence followed. Sully drained his cup and held it out to his esquire to be refilled. ‘You still haven’t told me what is really troubling you.’

‘I think Bray was killed by one of our own men,’ the herald said.

Sully’s eyes opened a little wider. ‘Ah. Now what makes you think that?’

‘The arrows that killed him are still embedded in the body. The shafts have been broken off, but they are definitely not crossbow bolts. They are longbow arrows.’

‘The French have bows,’ Sully suggested.

‘Little hunting bows for sport, yes, but in war? They rely on crossbows, and always have done.’

Sully watched the herald’s face. ‘What do you want to do, lad?’

‘I want to discover who killed him,’ Merrivale said. ‘And why.’

Sully continued to study him. ‘We are at the beginning of a long, hard campaign. Many more men will die before this is over. Why care so much about this one?’

‘It is one thing to die in battle,’ Merrivale said. ‘It is another to be murdered by one’s own people. If this had happened back in England, there would be a commission of oyer and terminer. A suspect would be identified and brought to trial before the courts. Bray was serving his king and his liege lord the prince. Why should he be denied the justice he would have received at home?’

‘Others will see the matter differently,’ Sully said. ‘He is a casualty of war, they will say. Bury him, say a mass for his soul and move on.’

‘Do you believe that?’

Sully smiled, his weathered old face creasing into wrinkles. ‘What I believe doesn’t matter. It’s what you believe that counts.’

‘So what should I do?’

‘Follow your heart. Do what your conscience tells you, and damn the rest. That’s the only thing a man can do.’

Merrivale smiled too. ‘I wish I had your wisdom,’ he said.

‘You will, when you have my years. But then, like me, you’ll be too old to do anything about it.’

Merrivale drained his glass. ‘Too old. You weren’t even the oldest man in the field today. You’re sixty-two. Robert Bertrand is ten years older.’

‘And that why he failed today. He tried too hard to be clever and canny. A younger man wouldn’t have stopped to think. He would have charged straight in and not stopped until he had pushed us into the sea.’

‘He came close enough,’ Merrivale said, rising to his feet. ‘Thank you. As always, you have helped me see things more clearly.’

‘Then I wish you good fortune in your quest,’ said Sully.

Saint-Vaast, 12th of July, 1346

Evening

The sun had gone down behind the escarpment, though the sea still glowed with light and the sails of the ships waiting to debark flamed like lanterns against the darkening east. Men were lighting torches around the camp, and more torches flickered on the beach where the unloading of ships and boats continued. Further along the coast, fires flickered into life as houses and barns were set alight.