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

attacked the bridge with axes and hammers. By the time the Prince of Wales and the rest of the vanguard arrived at Pont-Hébert, the bridge was nothing more than broken timbers lying scattered on the banks of the river below.

‘If the Red Company are already over the river, that means they are cut off,’ said the prince. His young face looked worried. ‘Should we not try to rescue them, Lord Marshal?’

‘The Red Company know how to look after themselves, Highness,’ said Warwick. He turned to his esquire. ‘Fetch Master Hurley and his carpenters, and ask Sir Nicholas Courcy to join us too. We shall need his engineering expertise once more, I think.’

The esquire turned his horse and galloped away. The prince raised a gauntleted hand, shading his eyes against the sun. ‘The enemy are still there, on the far side of the river,’ he said. ‘Should we not drive them off first before we begin to rebuild the bridge?’

White-coated crossbowmen could still be seen lurking in the houses of Pont-Hébert, weapons levelled and pointed towards the ruined bridge. Warwick just managed to keep the surprise out of his voice. ‘Very good, Highness,’ he said approvingly, and turned to Holland and Tracey. ‘Sir Thomas, Sir Edward, you heard your prince. Drive those varlets off. At once, if you please.’

Spreading out, Holland and Tracey’s archers scrambled down the steep slope towards the bridge, lean figures in green and dun brown and russet pulling arrows from their quivers as they ran. In Pont-Hébert, more white-coated figures rose from their places of concealment. Crossbow bolts streaked through the air, dark blurs in the sunlight. Two archers went down, one clutching his leg, the other falling face forward and sliding down the slope for a moment before lying still. The other archers halted and raised their bows.

There was a moment of pause, long enough for an intake of breath, and then the first flight of arrows rose and arched over the river. The second followed almost before the first had reached its target, and then came the familiar pattern of nock-draw-release, nock-draw-release, fifteen times a minute, the thrum of the bows and hiss of feathered shafts vibrating in the air. In Pont Hébert the arrows fell like rain, embedding themselves in thatched roofs and wooden walls, skidding off the cobbled street, pinning the enemy as they tried to load their crossbows and staining their white tunics with blood. In less than a minute, a thousand arrows had been shot into Pont-Hébert, and the only crossbowmen visible now were fleeing up the opposite hill towards Saint-Lô, or lying twitching on the ground.

He had seen it before, but even so the power of the massed longbows left Merrivale a little shaken. The crossbowmen had stood no chance; what had happened just now was not so much a skirmish as a massacre.

He turned to the sound of hoofbeats, and saw Lord Rowton riding up the road from Carentan, followed by his esquire and a little party of men-at-arms. A moment later Rowton reined in beside them, raising his visor and saluting the marshal and the prince.

‘How long will that take to repair?’ he asked, looking at the ruined bridge.

‘I’m waiting for Courcy to tell us,’ Warwick said. ‘But I doubt it will be much before midnight.’

The archers were coming back up the slope, carrying two dead men and supporting a third, who hobbled with a black bolt protruding from his leg. He would survive, Merrivale thought, providing the wound did not become infected. In this heat, it very well might.

Rowton looked dubious. ‘His Grace insists on reaching Saint-Lô by nightfall.’

‘His Grace must needs be disappointed,’ Warwick said. He grinned. ‘You have his ear, Eustace. You can break the news to him.’

‘Thank you very much,’ Rowton said wryly. ‘Is there anything I can tell him to sweeten the medicine?’

‘The Red Company are over the river. If I know John and Richard, they are already raising hell, and Bertrand will have his hands full. Tell the king we will be able to cross at first light, and will be at the gates of Saint-Lô by sunrise. Then all we have to do is find some way of taking the strongest fortress in Normandy… what the devil is that noise?’

Someone was shouting further along the riverbank, and now more voices joined in, raised in anger. The prince turned in his saddle. ‘Herald, find out what that commotion is, and put a stop to it. Remind the men that we are fighting the enemy, not each other.’

He had said much the same to his quarrelling knights in Valognes, Merrivale reflected. It sounded like a phrase someone had put in his mouth.

Further along the bank, archers from Holland and Tracey’s companies had gathered in an angry circle surrounding two men: Bate, the scar-headed vintenar from Lancashire, and Nicodemus, the archer from Tracey’s company. Yesterday evening at Carentan they had met and talked in apparent amity; now they stood crouched, glaring at each other and ready to fight. Bate had drawn a short sword, while Nicodemus held a slender-bladed poignard with a long, wickedly tapering point.

Dismounting and shouldering his way through the press, Merrivale saw another man lying on the ground between them. His head was twisted horribly to one side, and his green tunic was bright with blood. More blood covered his face and matted his hair. His throat had been slashed open from ear to ear, the gory wound revealing his severed jugular vein and windpipe.

Despite this, it was still possible to recognise him. It was Jakey, the Devon man who had been playing hazard outside Carentan last night.

At the sight of the herald’s tabard, the shouting was replaced by an uneasy silence. ‘By order of his Highness the Prince of Wales, I command you to cease and desist,’ Merrivale said. ‘Put away your weapons, both of you.’

Neither Bate nor Nicodemus moved. ‘The punishment for raising a weapon without permission is amputation,’ Merrivale said. ‘If you want to keep your sword