Harlequin. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ is opportunity in war, madame. You are wealthy, you are a widow, you need a man.’

      She gazed at him with disturbingly large eyes, hardly daring to believe his temerity. ‘Why?’ she asked simply.

      ‘Why?’ Sir Simon was astonished by the question. He gestured at the window. ‘Listen to the screams, woman! What do you think happens to women when a town falls?’

      ‘But you said you would protect me,’ she pointed out.

      ‘So I will.’ He was getting lost in this conversation. The woman, he thought, though beautiful, was remarkably stupid. ‘I will protect you,’ he said, ‘and you will look after me.’

      ‘How?’

      Sir Simon sighed. ‘You have money?’

      Jeanette shrugged. ‘There is a little downstairs, my lord, hidden in the kitchen.’

      Sir Simon frowned angrily. Did she think he was a fool? That he would take that bait and go downstairs, leaving her to climb out of the window? ‘I know one thing about money, madame,’ he said, ‘and that is that you never hide it where the servants can find it. You hide it in the private rooms. In a bedchamber.’ He pulled open a chest and emptied its linens onto the floor, but there was nothing hidden there, and then, on an inspiration, he began rapping the wooden panelling. He had heard that such panels often concealed a hiding place and he was rewarded almost instantly by a satisfyingly hollow sound.

      ‘No, monsieur!’ Jeanette said.

      Sir Simon ignored her, drawing his sword and hacking at the limewood panels that splintered and pulled away from their beams. He sheathed the blade and tugged with his gloved hands at the shattered wood.

      ‘No!’ Jeanette wailed.

      Sir Simon stared. Money was concealed behind the panelling, a whole barrel of coins, but that was not the prize. The prize was a suit of armour and a set of weapons such as Sir Simon had only ever dreamed of. A shining suit of plate armour, each piece chased with subtle engravings and inlaid with gold. Italian work? And the sword! When he drew it from the scabbard it was like holding Excalibur itself. There was a blue sheen to the blade, which was not nearly as heavy as his own sword but felt miraculously balanced. A blade from the famous swordsmiths of Poitiers, perhaps, or, even better, Spanish?

      ‘They belonged to my husband,’ Jeanette appealed to him, ‘and it is all I have of his. They must go to Charles.’

      Sir Simon ignored her. He traced his gloved finger down the gold inlay on the breastplate. That piece alone was worth an estate!

      ‘They are all he has of his father’s,’ Jeanette pleaded.

      Sir Simon unbuckled his sword belt and let the old weapon drop to the floor, then fastened the Count of Armorica’s sword about his waist. He turned and stared at Jeanette, marvelling at her smooth unscarred face. These were the spoils of war that he had dreamed about and had begun to fear would never come his way: a barrel of cash, a suit of armour fit for a king, a blade made for a champion and a woman that would be the envy of England. ‘The armour is mine,’ he said, ‘as is the sword.’

      ‘No, monsieur, please.’

      ‘What will you do? Buy them from me?’

      ‘If I must,’ Jeanette said, nodding at the barrel.

      ‘That too is mine, madame,’ Sir Simon said, and to prove it he strode to the door, unblocked it and shouted for two of his archers to come up the stairs. He gestured at the barrel and the suit of armour. ‘Take them down,’ he said, ‘and keep them safe. And don’t think I haven’t counted the cash, because I have. Now go!’

      Jeanette watched the theft. She wanted to weep for pity, but forced herself to stay calm. ‘If you steal everything I own,’ she said to Sir Simon, ‘how can I buy the armour back?’

      Sir Simon shoved the boy’s bed against the door again, then favoured her with a smile. ‘There is something you can use to buy the armour, my dear,’ he said winningly. ‘You have what all women have. You can use that.’

      Jeanette closed her eyes for a few heartbeats. ‘Are all the gentlemen of England like you?’ she asked.

      ‘Few are so skilled in arms,’ Sir Simon said proudly.

      He was about to tell her of his tournament triumphs, sure that she would be impressed, but she interrupted him. ‘I meant,’ she said icily, ‘to discover whether the knights of England are all thieves, poltroons and bullies.’

      Sir Simon was genuinely puzzled by the insult. The woman simply did not seem to appreciate her good fortune, a failing he could only ascribe to innate stupidity. ‘You forget, madame,’ he explained, ‘that the winners of war get the prizes.’

      ‘I am your prize?’

      She was worse than stupid. Sir Simon thought, but who wanted cleverness in a woman? ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I am your protector. If I leave you, if I take away my protection, then there will be a line of men on the stairs waiting to plough you. Now do you understand?’

      ‘I think,’ she said coldly, ‘that the Earl of Northampton will offer me better protection.’

      Sweet Christ, Sir Simon thought, but the bitch was obtuse. It was pointless trying to reason with her for she was too dull to understand, so he must force the breach. He crossed the room fast, snatched Charles from her arms and threw the boy onto the smaller bed. Jeanette cried out and tried to hit him, but Sir Simon caught her arm and slapped her face with his gloved hand and, when she went immobile with pain and astonishment, he tore her cloak’s cords apart and then, with his big hands, ripped the shift down the front of her body. She screamed and tried to clutch her hands over her nakedness, but Sir Simon forced her arms apart and stared in astonishment. Flawless!

      ‘No!’ Jeanette wept.

      Sir Simon shoved her hard back onto the bed. ‘You want your son to inherit your traitorous husband’s armour?’ he asked. ‘Or his sword? Then, madame, you had better be kind to their new owner. I am prepared to be kind to you.’ He unbuckled the sword, dropped it on the floor, then hitched up his mail coat and fumbled with the strings of his hose.

      ‘No!’ Jeanette wailed, and tried to scramble off the bed, but Sir Simon caught hold of her shift and yanked the linen so that it came down to her waist. The boy was screaming and Sir Simon was fumbling with his rusted gauntlets and Jeanette felt the devil had come into her house. She tried to cover her nakedness, but the Englishman slapped her face again, then once more hauled up his mail coat. Outside the window the cracked bell of the Virgin’s church was at last silent, for the English had come, Jeanette had a suitor and the town wept.

      Thomas’s first thought after opening the gate was not plunder, but somewhere to wash the river muck off his legs, which he did with a barrel of ale in the first tavern he encountered. The tavern-keeper was a big bald man who stupidly attacked the English archers with a club, so Jake tripped him with his bowstave, then slit his belly.

      ‘Silly bastard,’ Jake said. ‘I wasn’t going to hurt him. Much.’

      The dead man’s boots fitted Thomas, which was a welcome surprise, for very few did, and once they had found his cache of coins they went in search of other amusement. The Earl of Northampton was spurring his horse СКАЧАТЬ