The Grail Quest 1 - Harlequin - Bernard Cornwell

So why didn't he?“ Sir Simon could not resist asking. Christ's bones!” he went on. But I'd have been inside!“ You're not an archer,” Skeat said sourly, then made the sign of the cross. At Guingamp one of Skeat's archers had been captured by the defenders, who had stripped the hated bowman naked then cut him to pieces on the rampart where the besiegers could see his long death. His two bow fingers had been severed first, then his manhood, and the man had screamed like a pig being gelded as he bled to death on the battlements.

The Earl gestured for a servant to replenish the cups of mulled wine. Would you lead this attack, Will?“ he asked. Not me,” Skeat said. I'm too old to wade through boggy mud. I'll let the lad who went past the stakes last night lead them in. He's a good boy, so he is. He's a clever bastard, but an odd one. He was going to be a priest, he was, only he met me and came to his senses.

The Earl was plainly tempted by the idea. He toyed with the hilt of his sword, then nodded. I think we should meet your clever bastard. Is he near?"

Left him outside,“ Skeat said, then twisted on his stool. Tom, you savage! Come in here!”

Thomas stooped into the Earl's tent, where the gathered captains saw a tall, long-legged young man dressed entirely in black, all but for his mail coat and the red cross sewn onto his tunic. All the English troops wore that cross of Saint George so that in a melee they would know who was a friend and who an enemy. The young man bowed to the Earl, who realized he had noticed this archer before, which was hardly surprising for Thomas was a striking-looking man. He wore his black hair in a pigtail, tied with boweord, he had a long bony nose that was crooked, a clean-shaven chin and watchful, clever eyes, though perhaps the most noticeable thing about him was that he was clean. That and, on his shoulder, the great bow that was one of the longest the Earl had seen, and not only long, but painted black, while mounted on the outer belly of the bow was a curious silver plate which seemed to have a coat of arms engraved on it. There was vanity here, the Earl thought, vanity and pride, and he approved of both things.

For a man who was up to his knees in river mud last night," the Earl said with a smile, you're remarkably clean.

I washed, my lord."

You'll catch cold!“ the Earl warned him. What's your name?” Thomas of Hookton, my lord."

So tell me what you found last night, Thomas of Hookton.“ Thomas told the same tale as Will Skeat. How, after dark, and as the tide fell, he had waded out into the Jaudy's mud. He had found the fence of stakes ill-maintained, rotting and loose, and he had lifted one out of its socket, wriggled through the gap and gone a few paces towards the nearest quay. I was close enough, my lord, to hear a woman singing,” he said. The woman had been singing a song that his own mother had crooned to him when he was small and he had been struck by that oddity.

The Earl frowned when Thomas finished, not because he dis-approved of anything the archer had said, but because the scalp wound that had left him unconscious for an hour was throbbing. What were you doing at the river last night?" he asked, mainly to give himself more time to think about the idea.

Thomas said nothing.

Another man's woman,“ Skeat eventually answered for Thomas, that's what he was doing, my lord, another man's woman.” The assembled men laughed, all but Sir Simon Jekyll, who looked sourly at the blushing Thomas. The bastard was a mere archer yet he was wearing a better coat of mail than Sir Simon could afford!

And he had a confidence that stank of impudence. Sir Simon shuddered. There was an unfairness to life which he did not understand. Archers from the shires were capturing horses and weapons and armour while he, a champion of tournaments, had not managed anything more valuable than a pair of goddamned boots. He felt an irresistible urge to deflate this tall, composed archer. One alert sentinel, my lord,“ Sir Simon spoke to the Earl in Norman French so that only the handful of well-born men in the tent would understand him, and this boy will be dead and our attack will be floundering in river mud.”

Thomas gave Sir Simon a very level look, insolent in its lack of expression, then answered in fluent French. We should attack in the dark,“ he said, then turned back to the Earl. The tide will be low just before dawn tomorrow, my lord.”

The Earl looked at him with surprise. How did you learn French?“ From my father, my lord.”

Do we know him?"

I doubt it, my lord."

The Earl did not pursue the subject. He bit his lip and rubbed the pommel of his sword, a habit when he was thinking.

All well and good if you get inside,“ Richard Totesham, seated on a milking stool next to Will Skeat, growled at Thomas. Totesham led the largest of the independent bands and had, on that account, a greater authority than the rest of the captains. But what do you do when you're inside?”

Thomas nodded, as though he had expected the question. I doubt we can reach a gate,“ he said, but if I can put a score of archers onto the wall beside the river then they can protect it while ladders are placed.”

And I've got two ladders,“ Skeat added. They'll do.” The Earl still rubbed the pommel of his sword. When we tried to attack by the river before,“ he said, we got trapped in the mud. It'll be just as deep where you want to go.”

Hurdles, my lord,“ Thomas said. I found some in a farm.” Hurdles were fence sections made of woven willow that could make a quick pen for sheep or could be laid flat on mud to provide men with footing.

I told you he was clever,“ Will Skeat said proudly. Went to Oxford, didn't you, Tom?”

When I was too young to know better,“ Thomas said drily. The Earl laughed. He liked this boy and he could see why Skeat had such faith in him. Tomorrow morning, Thomas?” he asked.

Better than dusk tonight, my lord. They'll still be lively at dusk.“ Thomas gave Sir Simon an expressionless glance, intimating that the knight's display of stupid bravery would have quickened the defenders” spirits.

Then tomorrow morning it is,“ the Earl said. He turned to Totesham. But keep your boys closed on the south gate today. I want them to think we're coming there again.” He looked back to Thomas. What's the badge on your bow, boy?"

Just something I found, my lord," Thomas lied, handing the bow to the Earl, who had held out his hand. In truth he had cut the silver badge out of the crushed chalice that he had found under his father's robes, then pinned the metal to the front of the bow where his left hand had worn the silver almost smooth.

The Earl peered at the device. A yale?"

I think that's what the beast is called, my lord," Thomas said, pretending ignorance.

Not the badge of anyone I know,“ the Earl said, then tried to flex the bow and raised his eyebrows in surprise at its strength. He gave the black shaft back to Thomas then dismissed him. I wish you Godspeed in the morning, Thomas of Hookton.” My lord," Thomas said, and bowed.

I'll go with him, with your permission,“ Skeat said, and the Earl nodded, then watched the two men leave. If we do get inside,” he told his remaining captains, then for God's sake don't let your men cry havoc. Hold their leashes tight. I intend to keep this town and I don't want the townsfolk hating us. Kill when you must, but I don't want an orgy of blood.“ He looked at their sceptical faces. I'll be putting one of you in charge of the garrison here, so make it easy for yourselves. Hold them tight.”

The captains grunted, knowing how hard it would be to keep their men from a full sack of the town, but before any of them could respond to the Earl's hopeful wishes, Sir Simon stood. My lord? A request?"

The Earl shrugged. Try me.

Would you let me and my men lead the ladder party?“ The Earl seemed surprised at the request. You think Skeat cannot manage on his own?”

I am sure he can, my lord,“ Sir Simon said humbly, but I still beg the honour.”

Better Sir Simon Jekyll dead than Will Skeat, the Earl thought. He nodded. Of course, of course."

The captains said nothing. What honour was there in being first onto a wall that another man had captured? No, the bastard did not want honour, he wanted to be well placed to find the richest plunder in town, but none of them voiced his thought. They were captains, but Sir Simon was a knight, even if a penniless one. The Earl's army threatened an attack for the rest of that short winter's day, but it never came and the citizens of La Roche-Derrien dared to hope that the worst of their ordeal was over, but made preparations in case the English did try again the next day. They counted their crossbow bolts, stacked more boulders on the ram-parts and fed the fires which boiled the pots of water that were poured onto the English. Heat the wretches up, the town's priests had said, and the townsfolk liked that jest. They were winning, they knew, and they reckoned their ordeal must finish soon, for the English would surely be running out of food. All La Roche-Derrien had to do was endure and then receive the praise and thanks of Duke Charles.

The small rain stopped at nightfall. The townsfolk went to their beds, but kept their weapons ready. The sentries lit watch fires behind the walls and gazed into the dark.

It was night, it was winter, it was cold and the besiegers had one last chance.

The Blackbird had been christened Jeanette Marie Halevy, and when she was fifteen her parents had taken her to Guingamp for the annual tournament of the apples. Her father was not an aristo-crat so the family could not sit in the enclosure beneath Saint Laurent's tower, but they found a place nearby, and Louis Halevy made cer-tain his daughter was visible by placing their chairs on the farm wagon which had carried them from La Roche-Derrien. Jeanette's father was a prosperous shipmaster and wine merchant, though his fortune in business had not been mirrored in life. One son had died when a cut finger turned septic and his second son had drowned on a voyage to Corunna. Jeanette was now his only child. There was calculation in the visit to Guingamp. The nobility of Brittany, at least those who favoured an alliance with France, assembled at the tournament where, for four days, in front of a crowd that came as much for the fair as for the fighting, they displayed their talents with sword and lance. Jeanette found much of it tedious, for the preambles to each fight were long and often out of earshot. Knights paraded endlessly, their extravagant plumes nodding, but after a while there would be a brief thunder of hoofs, a clash of metal, a cheer, and one knight would be tumbled in the grass. It was customary for every victorious knight to prick an apple with his lance and present it to whichever woman in the crowd attracted him, and that was why her father had taken the farm wagon to Guingamp. After four days Jeanette had eighteen apples I

and the enmity of a score of better-born girls.

Her parents took her back to La Roche-Derrien and waited. They had displayed their wares and now the buyers could find their way to the lavish house beside the River Jaudy. From the front the house seemed small, but go through the archway and a visitor found himself in a wide courtyard reaching down to a stone quay where Monsieur Halevy's smaller boats could be moored at the top of the tide. The courtyard shared a wall with the church of Saint Renan and, because Monsieur Halevy had donated the tower to the church, he had been permitted to drive an archway through the wall so that his family did not need to step into the street when they went to Mass. The house told any suitor that this was a wealthy family, and the presence of the parish priest at the supper table told him it was a devout family. Jeanette was to be no aristocrat's plaything, she was to be a wife.

A dozen men condescended to visit the Halevy house, but it was Henri Chenier, Comte d'Armorique, who won the apple. He was a prime catch, for he was nephew to Charles of Blois, who was himself a nephew to King Philip of France, and it was Charles whom the French recognized as Duke and ruler of Brittany. The Duke allowed Henri Chenier to present his fiancee, but afterwards advised his nephew to discard her. The girl was a merchant's daughter, scarce more than a peasant, though even the Duke admitted she was a beauty. Her hair was shining black, her face was unflawed by the pox and she had all her teeth. She was graceful, so that a Dominican friar in the Duke's court clasped his hands and exclaimed that Jeanette was the living image of the Madonna. The Duke agreed she was beautiful, but so what? Many women were beautiful. Any tavern in Guingamp, he said, could throw up a two-livre whore who could make most wives look like hogs. It was not the job of a wife to be beautiful, but to be rich. Make the girl your mistress," he advised his nephew, and virtually ordered Henri to marry an heiress from Picardy, but the heiress was a pox-faced slattern and the Count of Armorica was besotted by Jeanette's beauty and so he defied his uncle.

He married the merchant's daughter in the chapel of his castle at Plabennec, which lay in Finisterre, the world's end. The Duke reckoned his nephew had listened to too many troubadours, but the Count and his new wife were happy and a year after their wedding, when Jeanette was sixteen, their son was born. They named him Charles, after the Duke, but if the Duke was compli-mented, he said nothing. He refused to receive Jeanette again and treated his nephew coldly.

Later that same year the English came in force to support Jean de Montfort, whom they recognized as the Duke of Brittany, and the King of France sent reinforcements to his nephew Charles, whom he recognized as the real Duke, and so the civil war began in earnest. The Count of Armorica insisted that his wife and baby son went back to her father's house in La Roche-Derrien because the castle at Plabennec was small, in ill repair and too close to the invader's forces.

That summer the castle fell to the English just as Jeanette's hus-band had feared, and the following year the King of England spent the campaigning season in Brittany, and his army pushed back the forces of Charles, Duke of Brittany. There was no one great battle, but a series of bloody skirmishes, and in one of them, a ragged affair fought between the hedgerows of a steep valley, Jeanette's husband was wounded. He had lifted the face-piece of his helmet to shout encouragement to his men and an arrow had gone clean through his mouth. His servants brought the Count to the house beside the River Jaudy where he took five days to die; five days of constant pain during which he was unable to eat and scarce able to breathe as the wound festered and the blood congealed in his gullet. He was twenty-eight years old, a champion of tournaments, and he wept like a child at the end. He choked to death and Jeanette screamed in frustrated anger and grief.

Then began Jeanette's time of sorrow. She was a widow, la veuve Chenier, and not six months after her husband's death she became an orphan when both her parents died of the bloody flux. She was just eighteen and her son, the Count of Armorica, was two, but Jeanette had inherited her father's wealth and she determined to use itto strike back at the hated English who had killed her husband, and so she began outfitting two ships that could prey on English shipping.