Harlequin. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 disapproved 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 wellborn 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 Tote-sham, 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 ramparts 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 СКАЧАТЬ