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

hands gripped their arms and pinned them behind their backs. ‘No,’ said the man with the rings, and he rose to his feet. ‘These men are protected.’

The bishop slammed his fist down on the table. ‘You fool! They are spies, I tell you! Hang them!’

Bertrand stood up too, cradling his wounded arm. ‘My brother is right, Constable. You heard the messenger yesterday. Maldon and Merrivale have been sent to spy and report back to King Edward.’

‘Then we shall prevent them from doing so,’ the man with the rings said calmly. ‘Brother Geoffrey, Master Merrivale, your lives will be spared, but I fear we must detain you. Once your army retreats from Caen, you will be released.’

‘This is monstrous,’ Merrivale said sharply. ‘We are ambassadors. You cannot interfere with us.’

‘Oh, don’t go quoting the laws of war at me, herald,’ the man with the rings said wearily. ‘Ambassadors are also spies; always have been and always will be. It is part of their job. I didn’t need the messenger to tell me that.’ He paused for a moment, stroking his chin.

‘I still say we should hang them,’ the bishop growled.

‘I agree,’ said Bertrand. ‘Make an example of them.’

‘Your bellicosity does you credit, gentlemen. But if we hang their ambassadors, then they will start hanging ours, and so it will go on… I’m afraid we do still need such men, sometimes. And perhaps we can turn this to our advantage.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Bertrand.

‘First, let us separate them. Keep Brother Geoffrey here in the castle. I will take the herald to one of the towers on the bridge of Saint-Pierre. He will be secure there, with no chance of escape, and I shall question him at my leisure.’

‘Question him? About what?’

The man with the rings smiled. ‘A herald to the Prince of Wales must know a great deal about the enemy’s plans and intentions. By the time I am finished with him, he will have told me everything he knows.’

‘You said you would spare our lives,’ Merrivale said.

‘And I shall. But more than that, Sir Herald, I will not promise you.’ He waved his hand, purple and blue light flashing from his rings. Two men-at-arms took hold of Brother Geoffrey. ‘Good luck, old friend,’ Geoffrey murmured. ‘May God watch over you.’

‘And you also,’ Merrivale said quietly.

The men-at-arms marched the black-robed canon away. Merrivale wondered if he would ever see him again. Two more men took his own arms, and the man with the mastiff device tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

Caen, 25th of July, 1346

Late afternoon

The guards took Merrivale to a room high up in one of the squat towers that guarded the southern end of the bridge of Saint-Pierre. Below he could see the bridge itself lined with half-timbered houses, some hanging out over the surging brown river. This was the Odon, which divided the two halves of the city. The river channel was broad; the tide, he guessed, was nearly full. The coast was only about ten miles away.

The single door into the chamber was locked from the outside. Even if he could get through it, the only way out was down the narrow spiral stair to another door at the foot of the tower. That door, as he had seen when they brought him in, was heavily guarded.

The windows were narrow, little more than arrow slits. Different angles showed him small parts of the city. Beyond the bridge to the north stood a big church, Saint-Pierre, its windows and buttresses rising above the riverbank; beyond it were the crowded buildings of Bourg-le-Roi. The towers of the abbey of Saint-Étienne could be seen in the distance. To the south was the district of Saint-Jean, streets lined with fine houses backing onto gardens. A pleasant, prosperous city, the herald thought, and big, too; not so big as London, but still powerful.

Everywhere he looked, he saw preparations for war. At the foot of the bridge a strong barricade had been thrown up, and he could see a host of defenders behind it, armour flashing and sparkling in the strong sunlight. Dozens of shallops and coracles were coming up the river on the incoming tide, all crowded with crossbowmen wearing white tunics.

White was the colour worn by Genoese mercenaries. Until now, apart from the detachment that had been overwhelmed at Pont-Hébert, they had seen nothing of these feared crossbowmen and their powerful weapons. Now, hundreds of them floated on the river, weapons at the ready. Merrivale wondered why they had been so late in arriving. Had Bertrand commanded this many crossbowmen earlier in the campaign, the outcome at Carentan and Saint-Lô might have been different; indeed, the English army might never have got ashore at Saint-Vaast.

Off to the west, smoke clouds billowed like the wall of a storm, lit from within by the red lightning of burning villages, coming steadily closer.

The room itself was not uncomfortable. There was a bed with a straw mattress and wool blankets, a painted wooden chest and a jeu de table, a small table inlaid with triangular patterns of dark wood and bone. Opening a drawer at one end, the herald found a stack of gaming pieces and a pair of dice. Thoughtfully he pulled up a wooden stool and arranged the pieces, then began rolling dice against himself, moving the pieces around the board.

He was halfway through a game when a key rattled in the lock and the door opened. The man with the rings walked into the room, closing the door behind him. He was about Merrivale’s own age, thin-faced and long-nosed, with an air of careless arrogance that came from generations of breeding and power. He wore an embroidered doublet and hose partly covered by a flowing silk surcoat bearing his arms: a gold lion on a blue field, quartered with an ornate gold cross on white. Of course, the herald thought with professional detachment; one of his ancestors had been King of Jerusalem.

‘I assume you know who