A Flight of Arrows A.J. MacKenzie (black authors fiction TXT) 📖

the trees. The entire army was camped inside the forest now, protected from the prying eyes of enemy scouts. Mauro looked at the archer. His russet tunic was stained and faded, and his boots had worn thin. ‘You think so?’ the manservant asked.

‘Old Northampton’s found a field he likes. Crest of a hill just the other side of the forest. We’ll make a stand there and wait for the French to come to us.’

The archer held up the arrow, squinting along the line of the cock feather and checking the fixing of the broad barbed head. Satisfied, he laid it aside and reached for another arrow, this one with a long needle-like point.

‘Why the different heads?’ Mauro asked.

‘That one’s a broadhead. We use them at long range, to cripple or kill the horses. This here is a bodkin point.’ The archer touched the long needle. ‘That goes through the rings on a mail coat. We use them next, and when the enemy are good and close, we turn to these.’ He held up another arrow, this one with a cylindrical head ending in a sharp point like an awl. ‘At thirty yards, that will punch through armour,’ he said. ‘Nothing’ll stop it.’

‘Can we hold the French?’ Mauro asked.

‘Nah. Forty thousand men coming at us all at once? They’ll wrap around our flanks and roll over us.’ The archer looked down the shaft of the arrow, rotating it in his fingers. ‘Don’t reckon I’ll be seeing Wigan again.’

He looked up at Mauro. ‘I remember you. Spanish fellow, the one that gave us water at Sainte-Mère-Église. Don’t suppose you have a drink now, do you?’

Mauro tossed over the waterskin, and the archer drank deeply. ‘Thanks, mate. Fair parched, I was.’

‘I wasn’t sure you would still be talking to me,’ Mauro said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I am the herald’s servant.’

‘You mean because of Bate? Don’t worry about that. Batey wasn’t thinking straight, hadn’t been for a long time. That knock on the head he took in Prussia scrambled his wits, I reckon.’

The archer took another long drink, stoppered the waterskin and threw it back to Mauro. ‘Tell your master not to worry,’ he said. ‘We don’t hold a grudge. Nicodemus, now, that’s a different story. If we catch him, we’re going to cut his balls off.’

‘Have you seen him?’ Mauro asked.

‘No, but it’s said he’s still around. I knew he was trouble right from the first day, when we spotted him and Slade waiting by that road.’

A cold finger crawled down Mauro’s spine. ‘Jack Slade, the Somerset man? What road was this?’

‘The road from Quettehou to Valognes, the day we landed. He and Slade were crouched down behind a hedgerow beside the road. They had their backs to us, so they didn’t see us, but we saw them all right.’

‘The other man you mentioned, Macio Chauffin. When did you see him?’

The archer thought. ‘A little later, I guess. A bit further up the road too, towards Valognes.’ He frowned. ‘We thought Nicodemus and Slade were out looting, just like us. Do you suppose they were waiting for Chauffin?’

‘They were waiting for someone,’ Mauro said, ‘but it was not Chauffin. Thank you, señor. You have been most helpful.’

‘I think Nicodemus and Slade killed Sir Edmund Bray,’ he reported a few minutes later. ‘They were guarding the road, with orders to kill anyone who disturbed Señor Chauffin’s meeting with Señor de Fierville. When Sir Edmund appeared, they followed him and shot him.’

‘Come with me,’ the herald said grimly. ‘I may need a witness.’

They found Edward de Tracey talking with one of his vintenars, the rest of his archers scattered among the trees waxing bowstrings and checking arrows. ‘I need a word with you,’ Merrivale said.

Tracey motioned to the vintenar and the man walked away. He glanced at Mauro and the two archers waiting a few yards away, but the herald shook his head. ‘They stay.’

‘What do you want now?’ Tracey asked, his voice level.

‘When you landed, was Nicodemus with the rest of the company on the beach at Saint-Vaast?’

Tracey thought for a moment. ‘Yes. He went up to Quettehou with the rest of us, after the alarm had sounded.’

The herald shook his head. ‘But that is not true, is it?’

Tracey’s hand rested on the hilt of his sword. ‘Are you challenging my word, herald?’

‘I have witnesses who saw Nicodemus and Jack Slade near the Valognes road at almost exactly the same time as Edmund Bray was killed. Why did you tell me Nicodemus was with your company on the beach?’

‘I thought he was. I didn’t keep an eye on him the whole time, I had other things on my mind, like organising my company and making sure they were armed and ready. Clearly I was mistaken when I spoke earlier. Don’t you ever make mistakes, herald?’

‘Frequently. But Nicodemus was no ordinary retainer, was he? You relied on him, and he had worked for your father, too. He was practically a family retainer. And yet on the day of the landing, you had no notion of where he was?’

‘None whatever.’

‘Take care, Sir Edward,’ the herald warned. ‘You know what Nicodemus stands accused of. It is more than just Bray’s murder, much more. The selling of innocent children into slavery at Southampton. The murder of Jake Madford at Pont-Hébert. The attempted poisoning of several members of the Prince of Wales’s retinue at the Lammas feast, and the much more ambitious attempt to poison the king and all his captains at Poissy.’

Tracey said nothing. ‘The king looks on you favourably,’ Merrivale continued, ‘and your banker brother has great influence. But if it is found that you have any connection with Nicodemus and his crimes, neither favour nor influence will save you. Hanging will be the kindest death you could face.’

‘I swear to God,’ Tracey said. His face had gone pale. ‘I swear on the bones of all the saints, I had nothing do with this. I employed Nicodemus because I thought he was reliable and had a good head