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

‘We were doing Sir Thomas’s work. But we didn’t know anything about… the meeting… we had… no reason… to kill Bray.’

‘Sir Thomas’s work? What do you mean?’

‘Stealing. Looting. Raising money. Sir Thomas… needed money. Lots of money.’

‘Why?’

Bate’s lips moved, but no sound came. His eyes froze, staring lifelessly up at the angels guarding the gates to eternity.

Silently, Merrivale closed the man’s eyes with his fingertips and rose to his feet. The Red Company men were already herding Nicodemus and his two comrades out of the church, followed by the remaining Lancashire men. Richard Percy walked over to the herald.

‘What did he have to say?’

Merrivale shook his head. ‘It was a dying man’s confession.’

‘Please yourself. I’ll have to ask you to leave now. You and your men too, Sir Nicholas. We’re about to barricade this church and put a guard on it.’

Merrivale looked at him. ‘Why?’

‘Because we’re restoring order, or trying to. His Grace has issued another proclamation. No more looting, women and children not to be harmed, places of worship to be unmolested, the usual clart. We’ve been sent to enforce it.’

‘No more looting? The troops won’t like it.’

‘His Grace reckons they’ve had their fill. He wants the rest of the spoil for himself.’ Percy glanced at the pile of altar vessels. ‘This campaign has to be paid for somehow.’

They walked towards the door, Courcy and his men following. ‘Who were the archers who shot Bate?’ Merrivale asked.

‘Need you ask? Matt and Pip. Sir John heard you had been freed, and sent them to find you.’ Percy chuckled, glancing up at the ceiling. ‘You’re a lucky man, herald. You have your own private guardian angels.’

I wanted to talk to Bate, Merrivale thought, and they shot him before I could do so. Just like Fierville. I was lucky to get the few words I did.

‘Indeed,’ he said aloud. ‘Kindly convey my thanks to Sir John.’

Caen, 26th of July, 1346

Evening

The nuns of the Abbaye aux Dames had fled as soon as they heard of the English advance. The Prince of Wales’s household had taken over the abbey, the prince himself settling in the abbess’s lodgings and the senior knights and nobles occupying the dortoir, while the rest camped in the abbey grounds. The herald’s tent had been pitched near the crest of the hill, looking out towards the castle and the silent, empty Bourg-le-Roi. The wreckage of Saint-Jean still smouldered beyond the bridge and its towers. In the distance, the masts and sails of ships could be seen; Huntingdon’s fleet had sailed upriver as soon as the tide turned to cut off any French retreat. Very few of the Count of Eu’s four thousand men had survived.

French banners still flew over the castle. Bertrand and his brother the bishop had refused to join Eu in his doomed defence of the city, and were still holed up there with several hundred men-at-arms and crossbowmen, defying the enemy. There too, presumably, was Brother Geoffrey of Maldon.

Merrivale walked up the hill towards the tent. Mauro and Warin were waiting for him, and so was Tiphaine, relief plain in all three faces. Tiphaine took a couple of steps towards him and stopped. ‘Welcome back,’ she said.

‘Thank you. I have some news you will want to hear. Bate is dead. He will trouble us no more.’

‘I am glad,’ she said, and he remembered what she had said about Normans and vengeance. ‘Was Bate the man you were looking for?’

The herald shook his head. ‘Warin, I have a task for you. The two archers from the Red Company, the brothers Matt and Pip. I want you to watch them whenever their company is in camp. If they say or do anything unusual, report to me.’

Warin touched his forehead. ‘And me, señor?’ Mauro asked.

‘I need more information about one of Sir Edward de Tracey’s men, an archer named Nicodemus.’ He could have asked Courcy to do this, but Bate had grown suspicious of the Irishman, and others might have done so as well. ‘Ask around the camp and find out who he deals with, and from which companies they come. Be discreet, and be careful. These are dangerous men.’

‘Yes, señor.’

‘And both of you, keep your ears open for word of an archer named Jack Slade. He deserted from Tracey’s company at Pont-Hébert, but I am guessing he is still in contact with Nicodemus. Try to discover if anyone has seen him.’

‘What about me?’ Tiphaine asked. ‘Have you no task for me?’

The herald smiled briefly. ‘Your task is to stay safe,’ he said.

She planted her hands on her hips. ‘You think I am incapable of helping you?’

Merrivale stared at her in surprise. ‘I did not know you wanted to help,’ he said finally.

‘No,’ Tiphaine said. ‘I don’t suppose you did.’ She turned on her heel and walked into the tent. Mauro shook his head gravely.

‘Forgive me, señor,’ he said. ‘But I think you chose your words unwisely.’

‘Yes,’ Merrivale said. ‘So do I.’

Sir Matthew Gurney’s tent was pitched on the outskirts of the camp, looking out towards the other abbey, Saint-Étienne. In the distance, the royal standard could be seen floating above the Logis du Roi, the King’s House, just outside the abbey gates.

‘Is your prisoner here?’ Merrivale asked.

Gurney nodded.

‘I would like to speak to him,’ the herald said. ‘Alone, if possible. I give you my word he will not escape.’

‘He has already given his parole,’ Gurney said. ‘But I think I should stay. I can guess what questions you wish to ask him, and they concern me as well.’

Macio Chauffin sat on a wooden bench inside the tent, leaning forward with his head in his hands. He did not look up as Merrivale and Gurney entered. Merrivale pulled up another bench and sat down. ‘You know why I am here.’

‘Yes. I lied to you about Bray.’

‘And Holland.’

‘No.’ Chauffin raised his head. ‘I told you the truth about him.’

‘The truth,’ said the herald. ‘Then tell me the truth this time. All of it.’

‘Ah, what a