Three Great English Victories: A 3-book Collection of Harlequin, 1356 and Azincourt. Bernard Cornwell
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the quartered banner of the Prince of Wales, which showed the golden lions of England on the two red quarters and golden fleur-de-lis on the two blue. The fleur-de-lis were there to show the King’s claim to the French throne while the whole flag, which was that of England’s king, was crossed with a white-toothed bar to show that this was the banner of the King’s eldest son. Thomas was tempted to follow Jeanette, to demand the Prince’s help, but then one of the lower banners, the one furthest away from him, caught the small warm wind and sluggishly lifted its folds. He stared at it.
The banner had a blue field and was slashed diagonally with a white band. Three rampant yellow lions were emblazoned on either side of the bar, which was decorated with three red stars that had green centres. It was a flag Thomas knew well, but he scarcely dared believe that he was seeing it here in Normandy, for the arms were those of William Bohun, Earl of Northampton. Northampton was the King’s deputy in Brittany, yet his flag was unmistakable and Thomas walked towards it, fearing that the wind-rippled flag would turn out to be a different coat of arms, similar to the Earl’s, but not the same.
But it was the Earl’s banner, and the Earl’s tent, in contrast to the other stately pavilions on the low ridge, was still the grubby shelter made from two worn-out sails. A half-dozen men-at-arms wearing the Earl’s livery barred Thomas’s way as he neared the tent. ‘Have you come to hear his lordship’s confession or put an arrow in his belly?’ one asked.
‘I would speak to his lordship,’ Thomas said, barely suppressing the anger provoked by Jeanette’s abandonment of him.
‘But will he talk to you?’ the man asked, amused at the ragged archer’s pretensions.
‘He will,’ Thomas said with a confidence he did not entirely feel. ‘Tell him the man who gave him La Roche-Derrien is here,’ he added.
The man-at-arms looked startled. He frowned, but just then the tent flap was thrown back and the Earl himself appeared, stripped to the waist to reveal a muscled chest covered in tight red curls. He was chewing on a goose-bone and peered up at the sky as though fearing rain. The man-at-arms turned to him, indicated Thomas, then shrugged as if to say he was not responsible for a madman showing up unannounced.
The Earl stared at Thomas. ‘Good God,’ he said after a while, ‘have you taken orders?’
‘No, my lord.’
The Earl stripped a piece of flesh from the bone with his teeth. ‘Thomas, ain’t that right?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Never forget a face,’ the Earl said, ‘and I have cause to remember yours, though I hardly expected you to fetch up here. Did you walk?’
Thomas nodded. ‘I did, my lord.’ Something about the Earl’s demeanour was puzzling, almost as though he was not really surprised to see Thomas in Normandy.
‘Will told me about you,’ the Earl said, ‘told me all about you. So Thomas, my modest hero from La Roche-Derrien, is a murderer, eh?’ He spoke grimly.
‘Yes, my lord,’ Thomas said humbly.
The Earl threw away the stripped bone, then snapped his fingers and a servant tossed him a shirt from within the tent. He pulled it on and tucked it into his hose. ‘God’s teeth, boy, do you expect me to save you from Sir Simon’s vengeance? You know he’s here?’
Thomas gaped at the Earl. Said nothing. Sir Simon Jekyll was here? And Thomas had just brought Jeanette to Normandy. Sir Simon could hardly hurt her so long as she was under the Prince’s protection, but Sir Simon could harm Thomas well enough. And delight in it.
The Earl saw Thomas blanch and he nodded. ‘He’s with the King’s men, because I didn’t want him, but he insisted on travelling because he reckons there’s more plunder to be had in Normandy than in Brittany and I dare say he’s right, but what will truly put a smile on his face is the sight of you. Ever been hanged, Thomas?’
‘Hanged, my lord?’ Thomas asked vaguely. He was still reeling from the news that Sir Simon had sailed to Normandy. He had just walked all this way to find his enemy waiting?
‘Sir Simon will hang you,’ the Earl said with indecent relish. ‘He’ll let you strangle on the rope and there’ll be no kindly soul tugging on your ankles to make it quick. You could last an hour, two hours, in utter agony. You could choke for even longer! One fellow I hanged lasted from matins till prime and still managed to curse me. So I suppose you want my help, yes?’
Thomas belatedly went onto one knee. ‘You offered me a reward after La Roche-Derrien, my lord. Can I claim it now?’
The servant brought a stool from the tent and the Earl sat, his legs set wide. ‘Murder is murder,’ he said, picking his teeth with a sliver of wood.
‘Half Will Skeat’s men are murderers, my lord,’ Thomas pointed out.
The Earl thought about that, then reluctantly nodded. ‘But they’re pardoned murderers,’ he answered. He sighed. ‘I wish Will was here,’ he said, evading Thomas’s demand. ‘I wanted him to come, but he can’t come until Charles of Blois is put back into his cage.’ He scowled at Thomas. ‘If I give you a pardon,’ the Earl went on, ‘then I make an enemy out of Sir Simon. Not that he’s a friend now, but still, why spare you?’
‘For La Roche-Derrien,’ Thomas said.
‘Which is a great debt,’ the Earl agreed, ‘a very great debt. We’d have looked bloody fools if we hadn’t taken that town, miserable goddamn place though it be. God’s teeth, boy, but why didn’t you just walk south? Plenty of bastards to kill in Gascony.’ He looked at Thomas for a while, plainly irritated by the undeniable debt he owed the archer and the nuisance of paying it. He finally shrugged. ‘I’ll talk to Sir Simon, offer him money, and if it’s enough he’ll pretend you’re not here. As for you,’ he paused, frowning as he remembered his earlier meetings with Thomas, ‘you’re the one who wouldn’t tell me who your father was, ain’t I right?’
‘I didn’t tell you, my lord, because he was a priest.’
The Earl thought that was a fine jest. ‘God’s teeth! A priest? So you’re a devil’s whelp, are you? That’s what they say in Guyenne, that the children of priests are the devil’s whelps.’ He looked Thomas up and down, amused again at the ragged robe. ‘They say the devil’s whelps make good soldiers,’ he said, ‘good soldiers and better whores. I suppose you’ve lost your horse?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘All my archers are mounted,’ the Earl said, then turned to one of his men-at-arms. ‘Find the bastard a sway-backed nag till he can filch something better, then give him a tunic and offer him to John Armstrong.’ He looked back to Thomas. ‘You’re joining my archers, which means you’ll wear my badge. You’re my man, devil’s whelp, and perhaps that will protect you if Sir Simon wants too much money for your miserable soul.’
‘I shall try to repay your lordship,’ Thomas said.
‘Pay me, boy, by getting us into Caen. You got us into La Roche-Derrien, but that little place is nothing compared to Caen. Caen is a true bastard. We go there tomorrow, but I doubt we’ll see the backside of its walls for a month or more, if ever. Get us into Caen, Thomas, and I’ll forgive you a score of murders.’ He stood, nodded a dismissal and went back into the tent.
Thomas did not move. Caen, he thought, Caen. Caen was the city where Sir Guillaume d’Evecque lived, and he made the sign of the cross for he knew fate had arranged all this. Fate had determined that his crossbow arrow would miss Sir Simon Jekyll and it had brought him to the edge of Caen. Because fate wanted him to do the penance that Father Hobbe had demanded. God, Thomas decided, had taken Jeanette from him because he had been slow to keep his promise.
But now the time for the keeping of promises had come, for God had brought Thomas to Caen.