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

her feet. Running up the steps to the platform, he found the other nuns barring his way. He tried to dodge past them to reach Tiphaine, but they seized his arms, screaming curses at him and trying to push him over the edge of the platform. Bracing himself, he tore free and shoved the nearest woman hard, throwing her onto her back. Another nun ran at him, spitting in his face and clawing at his eyes; he stepped sideways to avoid her and she tripped on the hem of her long habit and fell, toppling over the edge of the platform into the fire below.

Then Graham was alongside him, and Matt and Pip with arrows at the nock. At the sight of their grim faces, the other nuns hesitated. ‘Get back!’ the herald commanded.

‘English devil-spawn!’ one of the women screamed. ‘Burn, all of you, burn! Roast in hell for eternity!’

Merrivale grabbed Tiphaine’s arm and pulled her down the steps. She was shaking and trembling as though she had a fever. Graham and the two archers followed, the nuns still screaming abuse at them.

John Grey was in the courtyard, receiving reports from the vintenars. ‘That’s the garrison taken care of, sir,’ said one of them. ‘There’s no one left but the sisters, and the ladies and their servants in the hall.’

‘Leave them be,’ Grey said. ‘What about the enemy?’

An archer ran up, touching his cap in salute. ‘The French camp is arming, sir. And there is already a strong company of men-at-arms and crossbowmen coming this way. They’ll be here in a few minutes.’

Grey nodded. ‘Is this the lady we came for, herald?’

‘Yes,’ said Merrivale.

‘Signal the men to fall back to the boats. Right, everyone. Time to go.’

20

Mantes, 11th of August, 1346

Midday

Another day, another bridge, the herald thought; and this one more impossible than the others. Mantes lay on the south bank of the river, and its defences were even stronger than those of Vernon. After last night’s raid at La Roche-Guyon, the garrison was clearly on alert. From the low hill where he stood, Merrivale could see the ramparts bright with gleaming armour and white Genoese surcoats. Beyond the town, the bridge over the Seine was strongly fortified too, and over on the north shore the French army was drawn up, company after company of men-at-arms with brilliant banners streaming in the wind.

The English had not even tried to take Mantes. The men of the vanguard had circled around the town well out of crossbow range and were moving on east, archers trudging through dust and smoke with their bows over their shoulders. Around them, every hamlet and village for miles was burning, a trail of destruction carved through the heart of France. Ostensibly, this was to lure the French over the river and force them to give battle, but everyone knew that strategy was not working and would never work. No, thought the herald, this is sheer anger and frustration, the lashing out of a king who had been lured into a trap and can see no way out of it.

Tiphaine had been shaking with exhaustion and shock when they returned to camp last night, and she had collapsed into sleep almost at once. Today she was silent, pale under her sunburn, sitting on the grass with her hands clasped on her lap and staring at the army as it marched by. Warin stood quietly behind them, holding the reins of their horses.

Sir Nicholas Courcy and Lady Gráinne rode up the hill, followed by Mauro driving the cart. They dismounted, Gráinne shaking out her black hair. ‘Sir Nicholas, my lady, thank you for your help last night,’ Merrivale said. ‘Sir John Grey bids me tell you he is grateful for your assistance.’

‘John Grey acknowledging that he needed help?’ said Courcy. ‘Now that’s not a thing you hear every day. And how are you faring this morning, demoiselle?’

‘I feel lucky to be alive,’ Tiphaine said. She shivered a little. ‘I thought last night that my luck had finished. I shall never forget the hatred in their eyes.’

‘What happened?’ Merrivale asked gently.

‘When the attack began, my gaoler came to find me. I managed to knock him out with a length of chain and stole his sword, thinking I could escape. But one of the nuns saw me and raised the alarm, and then all the sisters came running. They forced me out onto the platform and barred my way, while others lit the pyre. They told me they were the instruments of God’s punishment, and that they would sooner burn with me than let me escape.’

‘You had a sword,’ Gráinne pointed out. The cut over her eye had been stitched up, quite expertly; there was, it seemed, no end to Sir Nicholas’s talents.

‘Could you kill a nun, my lady? A woman of God?’

‘Women of God bleed just like the rest of us.’

Tiphaine shook her head. ‘I lived in a convent as a child and was reared by nuns. It would have been like killing my own mother. I found I could not do it.’

Silence fell for a few moments. Armour and bright banners gleamed in the sunlight as the army marched on. Just two more bridges remained, Meulan and Poissy.

‘Poissy,’ Tiphaine said, echoing the herald’s unspoken thought. ‘They will finish this at Poissy. That is what the Count of Alençon said.’

‘Where did you hear him say this?’ Merrivale asked quietly.

‘In Rouen.’

‘And why did you go to Rouen?’

She raised her eyes and looked at him. ‘I wanted to know more about Jean de Fierville. I know someone who I thought could give me answers to my questions.’

‘And did he?’

‘Some of them.’ She paused, marshalling her thoughts. ‘Fierville was part of three plots; or four, if you count the fact that he was also in the pay of the French. One was Harcourt’s rebellion, now ruined. The second was the greater rebellion of the Count of Eu and the Queen of Navarre. That too will not take place.’

‘Why not?’ asked Courcy. Mauro