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

have to do is piss in a bucket. The king would have had all the powder he needed in a day or two. I swear on my mother’s grave, I intended no evil.’

Merrivale regarded him for a long time. ‘I am sorry to hear of the loss of your mother,’ he said finally.

‘Don’t be. She’s as hale and well as I am. Her grave is already marked out and paid for in Kingsale church, nice and close to the altar so she’ll go to heaven all the faster. Unlike my father, who is headed in the opposite direction.’ Courcy sighed. ‘What happens now?’

‘We are alone,’ Merrivale said, watching his eyes. ‘You could try to kill me and then make a run for it.’

‘I could. But the problem is, you saved my life just now. Killing you would be damned ungrateful, wouldn’t it?’ Courcy tossed his sword in the air, grabbed it around the blade just below the crossguard and handed it to Merrivale hilt first. ‘Receive my surrender,’ he said.

The herald took the sword, considered it for a few moments, and handed it back. ‘Return the serpentine to the king’s stores,’ he said. ‘How you do it, I do not care. What story you invent to account for its reappearance, I do not care. But make it so.’

The other man hesitated. ‘And then what? We carry on as if nothing happened?’

‘Not quite. If you transgress again, I will inform the king and the constable and let you take the consequences.’

Courcy thought about this. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Rather more than I deserve, in fact. People have always told me I am not worthy of my friends. I won’t say you can rely on me, because clearly you cannot. But I will do my best to keep my nose clean. You have my oath on that.’

‘There is one more thing,’ Merrivale said. ‘Help me discover who killed Edmund Bray. Do that, and I will use whatever influence I have to help you find you a position, something with a stipend attached that will give you the means to live. What income do you have now?’

‘Income? Faith now. I own a tavern in Carbery, back in Ireland, but it costs more to run than it brings in. From which you may gather that I am not a great success as a tavern keeper. I came to the war hoping to recoup my losses. So far, without much luck.’

‘And yet despite the wrong you did, you also proved your worth today,’ said Merrivale. ‘And you saved young Mortimer’s life last night. You deserve better, I think.’

‘Not everyone would agree with you. But I thank you for the kind sentiment, and if I can help you, I will. You have my oath on that too.’ Courcy paused. ‘You’ve probably heard this question before, herald. Why does this matter so much to you?’

‘Bray was killed because he witnessed a meeting between Fierville and a French knight,’ Merrivale said. ‘But I doubt that Fierville killed him. And if he did not, that means Fierville has accomplices in the army, men who are both traitors and murderers. I intend to discover who they are.’

‘Traitors and murderers,’ Courcy repeated. ‘You’re playing with fire, herald.’

‘I know,’ said Merrivale.

7

Carentan, 20th of July, 1346

Evening

Smoke boiled from the ruins of Carentan. A few stone walls still stood, but the stink of burning filled the air for miles.

Godefroi d’Harcourt’s tent stood on rising ground east of the city walls, overlooking the flooded marshes. Merrivale stopped outside and spoke to the guard, a Norman serjeant in an iron helmet with an old-fashioned nose guard. ‘Ask his lordship if he will receive me.’

The guard stepped into the tent. There was a brief murmur of conversation, and then he reappeared. ‘You may enter.’

Harcourt was seated before a wooden table, reading letters. ‘What is it?’ he asked curtly.

‘Jean de Fierville is dead,’ Merrivale said, and waited.

‘How?’ Harcourt asked after a moment.

‘He and Barbizan, the captain of the garrison, attempted to destroy the gatehouse of the castle with gunpowder, but they were foiled by Sir Nicholas Courcy. Both were killed.’

Harcourt looked up sharply. ‘Fierville was working with the enemy?’

‘Probably for some time, since before the army departed from Portchester. He was a conduit between Bertrand and other French agents embedded in our army. He passed on messages to a French knight named Macio Chauffin.’

‘Christ Jesus,’ said Harcourt, and Merrivale saw the bitterness in his scarred face. ‘I also employed him as a messenger to send letters to my allies in the countryside inviting them to join us. And he betrayed them to Bertrand. All of them have been arrested and executed.’

‘I suspect that is why he came to report to you in Saint-Côme-du-Mont: to tell you they were dead. I dispatched him to find you at Coigny, but he must have known I was suspicious of him, and he joined the enemy instead.’

A long silence ensued. ‘My attempt to rouse the Norman nobles has failed,’ Harcourt said. ‘My friends, on whom I counted for support, are dead. The rest of the nobility have been persuaded, or threatened, into continuing their allegiance to Philippe. Not a single man will come over to me now.’

He slammed his hand down on the wooden table so hard the parchment sheets jumped and fell to the ground. ‘I have failed, utterly. It is over.’

‘Surely not yet, my lord. Our army is strong.’

‘If you think fifteen thousand men can defeat France, you are a fool.’ Abruptly, Harcourt rose and walked out of the tent.

‘Good evening, Sir Thomas.’

Thomas Holland turned and glared at the herald. A group of young men had gathered around the Prince of Wales, who was rolling dice. They shouted and waved their wine cups when they won, and the prince, as always, laughed uproariously when he lost. He could afford to, Merrivale thought. He didn’t have to pay the bills. When he ran out of money, he applied to his treasurer, and his treasurer applied to the Exchequer. Job