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

water, lifting them to drink. After a moment, Pip said something to Matt, who nodded. Reaching under his tunic, Pip pulled out a small strip of red cloth and dropped it into the water, washing it slowly and carefully until the colour began to fade. Matt watched him for a few moments, and then stood up and pulled his tunic off over his head. His torso gleamed pale in the sunset light.

Warin did not wait to see more. Backing away, he turned and hurried back to the camp, where he found the herald and related what he had seen. Merrivale stared.

‘Are you quite certain?’

‘Yes, sir. There is no doubt about it.’

‘Well,’ Merrivale said, half to himself. ‘That explains some things, at least. Wait here. I am going to see Sir John Grey.’

‘Their names are Matilda and Philippa Forrester,’ Grey said. He seemed amused. ‘Otherwise, it is exactly as I told you. Their mother died when they were small, and their father raised them as boys and taught them to shoot and live out of doors. After their father died, they were homeless, until we recruited them.’

‘How long have you known?’

‘Since very shortly after they joined the company.’

‘And you made no objection?’

‘Why would I? I told you, they are the best we have. Our master bowman once shot a man through the heart at three hundred and twenty-five yards. I thought he was the best I had ever seen, or ever would see. Then I met these two.’

‘Do the rest of your company know?’

‘I would imagine they do.’

‘You imagine?’

Grey raised one eyebrow. ‘We have never discussed it,’ he said. ‘Why would we?’

Merrivale nodded. ‘I owe you an apology,’ he said. ‘And them also. I felt all along that there was something not right about them, something not… authentic. I see now what it was.’

‘You’re wrong. They are authentic. Matt and Pip are archers of the Red Company, accepted by their brothers in arms, and that is all that matters. Do you have any objection to their keeping watch over you?’

‘On the contrary,’ said the herald, ‘I am profoundly grateful. Thank you, Sir John.’

Night was falling as Merrivale walked back through the camp towards his own tent. He saw two figures in front of him and realised suddenly who they were. One, still in his battered leather jerkin with the three red eagles on his faded surcoat, was Sir Nicholas Courcy; the other was Tiphaine. They were talking together, both smiling, and after a moment Tiphaine threw back her head and laughed.

Merrivale had never heard her laugh before, and he could not tell why the sound should irritate him so much. He started to move towards them, and then realised that someone else was watching them too, a man-at-arms in armour that looked like it had been made for some long-ago war: a mail tunic, battered vambraces and dented greaves, a heavy iron breastplate and an ancient pot helm with a narrow slit for a visor. He wore a sword but no surcoat or device of any kind. When Courcy and Tiphaine walked away, the other man followed them.

Alert, the herald shrugged off his all-too-conspicuous tabard and went after them, keeping his eye on the man-at-arms. It was impossible to tell who he was watching, Courcy or Tiphaine. They passed a group of West Country archers roasting rabbits on spits over a fire, felt a warm glow of charcoal heating a portable forge, saw men unloading wagons by torchlight and carrying bundles of faggots down to the river to build Warwick’s causeway. Further on was Sir John Sully’s tent, the dog curled up outside the door. It raised its head when it saw Merrivale and wagged its tail, then went back to sleep.

It might have been the dog that betrayed his presence, he could not be certain. But suddenly the man-at-arms wheeled around and looked straight at him. The visor of his helm was a black line, but Merrivale could feel the invisible eyes behind it, boring into him. For a moment the other man’s hand went to the hilt of his sword. Then he turned and walked away, quickly swallowed up in the gathering shadow.

Rumesnil, 1st of August, 1346

Late afternoon

In the morning, the vanguard splashed across the shallow waters of the Dives and climbed the gentle slope on the far side, pushing on through fields and hedgerows past the village of Rumesnil. The king’s division followed more slowly, and both halted to wait while the wagon train made its tortuous way across the muddy estuary. By the time the wagons arrived it was nearly evening, and the army made camp once more. In the open-air kitchens the cooks began preparing for the Lammas feast. Lammas, the Loaf Mass, was the traditional first day of harvest and a time for celebration, even for an army in the field, marching through enemy country and burning and despoiling crops as it went.

Nell milked her cows in a nearby field, watching the beasts with a critical eye. They had lost weight during the march from Saint-Vaast to Caen; they had put some of it back on again during the halt at Caen, but Marigold in particular was looking thinner already, and there was an unhappy look in her soft brown eyes. The other milk cows were restive too, and Garnet lowed unhappily. Of course, their mood was not helped by the fact that those idiots the butchers were cutting up beef carcasses only a few yards away, and her cows could smell the blood. She would have to speak to Master Coloyne, she thought, about procuring better fodder and asking the slaughterers to move somewhere else. Otherwise the cows might stop giving milk at all, and no milk meant no butter for the king’s table.

She loaded the foaming buckets of milk onto a handcart and pushed it across the field towards the kitchen. The bakers had already lit fires under their ovens, and further on Master Clerebaud the sauce-maker was hard