Bernard Cornwell - The Grail Quest 2 - Vagabond

'Can't leave them sitting there,' Sir Thomas said, then held out a hand. 'Thanks, Dick.'

'For doing my job?' Totesham responded, embarrassed. 'So let's scour the bastards out of the other camps, eh?'

A trumpet called the English to assemble.

Charles of Blois had told his men that an archer could not shoot a man he could not see, and that was true,

but the men of the southern encampment, who formed the second largest portion of Charles's army, were crowding onto their outer rampart in an effort to see what was happening in the eastern encampment about the windmill. They had lit fires to give their own cross-bowmen illumination, but those fires now served to outline them as they stood on the earth bank, which had no palisade, and the English archers, given such a target, could not miss. Those archers were in the cleared ground between the encampments, shadowed by the loom of the long earthworks, and their arrows flickered out of the night to strike the watching French and Bretons. Crossbowmen tried to shoot back, but they made the easiest targets for few of them possessed mail, and then, with a roar, the English men-at-arms were charging over the defences and the killing began again. Townsmen, eager for plunder, followed the charge and the archers, seeing the earthwork stripped of defenders, ran to catch up.

Thomas paused on the earth rampart to shoot a dozen arrows into the panicked enemy who had made this encampment where the English siege camp had stood the previous year. He had lost sight of Sir Guillaume and. though he had told Jeanette to go back to the town, she was still with him, but now armed with a sword she had taken from a dead Breton. 'You shouldn't be here!' he snarled at her.

'Wasps!' she called back, and pointed to a dozen men-at-arms wearing the black and yellow surcoats of the Lord of Roncelets.

The enemy here made small resistance. They had been unaware of the disaster that had overcome Charles, and they had been surprised by the sudden assault from the darkness. The surviving crossbowmen now retreated panicking into the tents and the English again snatched brands from the great fires and hurled them onto the canvas roofs to flare bright and garish in the predawn darkness. The English and Welsh archers had slung their bows and were grimly working their way through the tent lines with axes, swords and clubs. It was another slaughter, fuelled by the prospect of plunder, and some of the French and Bretons, rather than face the screaming mass of maddened men, took to their horses and fled east towards the thin grey light that now leaked a touch of red along the horizon.

Thomas and Robbie headed for the men wearing Roncelets's waspish stripes. Those men had attempted to make a stand beside a trebuchet that had the name Stonewhip painted on its big frame, but they had been outflanked by archers and now they were trying to escape and in the chaos they did not know which way to go. Two of them ran at Thomas and he skewered one with his sword while Robbie stunned the other with a massive blow to his helmet, then a rush of archers swept the men in black and yellow aside and Thomas scabbarded his wet sword and unslung his bow before running into a big unburned tent that stood beside a pole flying the black and yellow banner and there, between a bed and an open chest, was the Lord of Roncelets himself. He and a squire were scooping coins from the chest into small bags and they turned as Thomas and Robbie entered and the Lord of Roncelets snatched up a sword from the bed just as Thomas dragged back the bowcord. The squire lunged at Robbie, but Thomas loosed the arrow and the squire jerked back as if tugged by a massive rope and the blood from the wound in his forehead pattered red on the tent roof. The squire jerked a few times and then was still, and the Lord of Roncelets was still three paces from Thomas when the second arrow was placed on the string. 'Come on, my lord,' Thomas said, 'give me a reason to send you to the devil.'

The Lord of Roncelets looked like a fighter. He had short bristly hair, a broken nose and missing teeth, but there was no belligerence in him now. He could hear the screams of defeat all about him, he could smell the burning flesh of the men trapped among the tents and he could see the arrow on Thomas's bow that was aimed at his face and he simply held out his sword in instant surrender. 'You have rank?' he asked Robbie. He had not recognized Thomas and, anyway, presumed that any man carrying a bow had to be a commoner.

Robbie did not understand the question, which had been asked in French, and so Thomas answered for him. 'He's a Scottish lord,' Thomas said, exaggerating Robbie's status.

'Then I yield to him,' Roncelets said angrily and threw his sword at Robbie's feet.

'God,' Robbie said, not understanding the exchange, 'but he scared quick!'

Thomas gently released the bowcord's tension and held up the crooked fingers of his right hand. 'It's a good job you surrendered,' he told Roncelets. 'Remember you wanted to cut these off?' He could not help smiling as first recognition, then abject fear showed on Roncelets's face. 'Jeanette!' Thomas shouted, his small victory gained. 'Jeanette!' Jeanette came through the tent flap and with her, of all people, was Will Skeat. 'What the hell are you doing here?' Thomas demanded angrily.

'You wouldn't keep an old friend from a scrap, would you, Tom?' Skeat asked with a grin and Thomas thought he could see his friend's true character in that grin.

'You're an old fool,' Thomas grumbled, then he picked up the Lord of Roncelets's sword and gave it to Jeanette. 'He's our prisoner,' he said, 'yours as well.'

'Ours?' Jeanette was puzzled.

'He's the Lord of Roncelets,' Thomas said, and he could not help another smile, 'and I've no doubt we can squeeze a ransom from him. And I don't mean that cash' – he pointed at the open chest – 'that's ours anyway.'

Jeanette stared at Roncelets and it slowly dawned on her that if the Lord of Roncelets was her prisoner then her son was as good as returned to her. She laughed suddenly, then gave Thomas a kiss. 'So you do keep your promises, Thomas.'

'And you keep good guard of him,' Thomas said, 'because his ransom is going to make us all rich. Robbie, you, me and Will. We're all going to be wealthy.' He grinned at Skeat.

'You'll stav with her, Will? Look after him?'

'I'll stay,' Will agreed.

'Who is she?' the Lord of Roncelets asked Thomas.

'The Countess of Armorica,' Jeanette answered for him and laughed again when she saw the shock on his face.

'Take him back to the town now,' Thomas told them, and he ducked outside the tent where he found two townsmen searching for plunder among the nearest tents. 'You two!'

he snapped at them, 'you're going to help guard a prisoner. Take him back to the town and you'll be well rewarded. Guard him well!' Thomas pulled the two men into the tent. He reckoned the Lord of Roncelets could not escape if Jeanette, Skeat and the two men were watching him. 'Just guard him,' he told them, 'and take him to your old house.' This last was to Jeanette.

'My old house?' she was puzzled.

'You wanted to kill someone tonight,' Thomas said, 'and you can't kill Charles of Blois, so why don't you go and murder Belas?' He laughed at the look on her face, then he and Robbie slammed down the chest lid and covered it with blankets from the bed in hope of hiding it for a few moments and then they went back to the fight. All through the flame-lit battle Thomas had caught glimpses of men in plain black surcoats and he knew that Guy Vexille must be nearby, but he had not seen him. Now there were shouts and the clash of blades from the encampment's southern edge and Thomas and Robbie ran to see what the commotion was. They saw that a group of horsemen in black surcoats were fighting off a score of English men-at-arms. 'Vexille!' Thomas shouted. 'Vexille!'

'It's him?' Robbie asked.

'It's his men, anyway,' Thomas said. He guessed his cousin had been in the eastern encampment with de Taillebourg and that he had come here in hope of bring-ing a relief force to Charles's aid, but he had been too late and now his men were fighting a rearguard battle to protect other men who were fleeing.

'Where is he?' Robbie demanded.

Thomas could not see his cousin. He shouted again. 'Vexille! Vexille!'

And there he was. The Harlequin, Count of Astarac, armoured in plate, visor lifted, mounted on a black destrier and carrying a plain black shield. He saw Thomas and raised his sword in an ironic salute. Thomas unslung his bow, but Guy Vexille saw the threat, turned away and his horsemen closed protectively about him. 'Vexille!' Thomas yelled and he ran towards his cousin. Robbie called a warning and Thomas ducked as a horseman swung a blade at him, then he pushed against the horse, smelling leather and sweat, and another horseman banged into him, almost throwing him off his feet. 'Vexille!' he bellowed. He could see Guy Vexille again, only now his cousin was turning back, spurring towards him, and Thomas drew the bow-cord, but Vexille held up his right hand to show he had scabbarded his sword and the gesture made Thomas lower the black bow. Guy Vexille, his visor raised and his handsome face lit by the fires, smiled. 'I have the book, Thomas.'

Thomas said nothing, but just raised the bow again.

Guy Vexille shook his head in reproof. 'No need for that, Thomas. Join me.'

'In hell, you bastard,' Thomas said. This was the man who had killed his father, had killed Eleanor, had killed Father Hobbe, and Thomas drew the arrow fully back and Vexille took a small knife that had been concealed in his shield hand and calmly leaned fonvard and cut the bowcord. The broken string made the bcm jump violently in Thomas's hand and the arrow spewed away harmlessly. The cord had been cut so swiftly that Thomas had been given no time to react.

'One day you'll join me, Thomas,' Vexille said, then he saw that the English archers had at last noticed his men and were beginning to take their toll and so he turned his horse, shouted at his men to retreat and spurred away.

'Jesus!' Thomas swore in frustration.

' Calix meus inebrians!' Guy Vexille shouted, then he was lost among the horsemen galloping south. A flight of English arrows followed them, but none struck Vexille.

'Bastard!' Robbie swore at the retreating figure.

A woman's scream sounded from the burning tents. 'What did he say to you?' Robbie asked.

'He wanted me to join him,' Thomas said bitterly. He threw away the slashed cord and took the spare from under his sallet. His clumsy fingers fumbled as he restrung the bow, but he managed to do it on the second try. 'And he said he's got the book.'

'Aye, well, much good that will bloody do him,' Robbie commented. The fight had died and he knelt by a black-dressed corpse and began searching for coins. Sir Thomas Dagworth was shouting for men to assemble at the encampment's western edge to assault the next fortress where some of the defenders, realizing that the battle was lost, were already running away. Church bells were ringing in La Roche-Derrien, celebrating that Charles of Blois had entered the town as a prisoner.

Thomas stared after his cousin. He was ashamed because one small part of him, one small and treacherous part, had been tempted to take the offer. Join his cousin, be back in a family, look for the Grail and harness its power. The shame was sour, like the shame of the gratitude he had felt towards de Taillebourg when the torture ceased. 'Bastard!' he yelled uselessly. 'Bastard.'

'Bastard!' It was Sir Guillaume's voice that cut across Thomas's. Sir Guillaume, with his two men-at-arms, was prodding a prisoner in the back with a sword. The captive wore plate armour and the sword scraped on it with every prod. 'Bastard!' Sir Guillaume bawled again, then saw Thomas. 'It's Coutances! Coutances!' He pulled off his prisoner's helmet. 'Look at him!'