Stormbird

‘You married a bit of a dragon there, Tom,’ he said, settling himself in a chair. It was well made, he noticed, taking his weight without a creak. The whole kitchen had the mark of a loved place, a home. It brought a pang of sadness to Derry that he had nowhere like it of his own.

‘I’ll thank you to keep your opinions about my wife to yourself, Derry. We’ve other things to talk about and you’ll want to be on your way before sunrise.’

‘You’d turn me out? I had hoped for a meal and a bed. I’ve been on the road for a week to get here.’

‘All right,’ Thomas said grudgingly. ‘There’s a stew in that big pot. Horsemeat. As to whether you stay under my roof, maybe it depends on what you can tell me.’

Derry sipped the hot drink, feeling it put a little fire back into his veins.

‘Fair enough. So what was so important that you remembered your old friend? Gilpin nearly missed me, you know. I was at the docks on my way to England when he found me. It’s a good thing the man knows my pubs or I wouldn’t be here.’

Thomas looked at the man he had not seen for fourteen years. Time and worry had weathered Derry Brewer. Yet he still looked strong and fit, even with wet hair plastered to his head and stuck with red-gold leaves.

‘I heard you made good, Derry, over there in London.’

‘I do all right,’ Derry said warily. ‘What do you need?’

‘Nothing for me. I just want to know what will happen if the men of Maine fight, Derry. Will King Henry send men to stand with us, or are we on our own?’

Derry choked on his drink and coughed until he was red in the face.

‘There’s a French army camped in Anjou, Tom. When they move next spring, will you have your wife wave her broom at them?’

He looked into the grey eyes of his old friend and he sighed.

‘Look, I wish it could be another way, but Maine and Anjou were the price for the truce. You understand? It’s done, bought and sold. Your son won’t have to go to war before he can grow a decent beard, the way we had to. This is the price.’

‘It’s my land, Derry. My land that’s been given away without so much as a word to me.’

‘What’s that now? It’s not your bleeding land, Tom! King Henry owns this farm and sixty thousand like it. He owns this house and this cup I’m holding. It sounds to me like you’ve forgotten that. You pay your tithe each year, though. Did you think it was voluntary? King Henry and the church are the only ones who own land, or are you one of those who think it should all be shared out? Is that it? Are you a firebrand, Tom? An agitator? Seems having a farm has changed you.’

Thomas glared at the man he had once called a friend.

‘Perhaps it has changed me, at that. It’s my labour bringing in the fleeces, Derry. It’s me and my son out there in all weathers, keeping the lambs alive. I don’t work to fill a lord’s purse, I’ll tell you that. I work for my family and my holding, because a man must work or he isn’t a man at all. If you’d ever tried it, you wouldn’t mock me. You’d know I begrudge every coin I pay in tithe, every damned year. Every coin that I earned. My work makes this my land, Derry. My choices and my skills. Christ, it’s not like this is some ancient Kent plot, with a lord’s family ruling for generations. This isn’t England, Derry! This is new land, with new people on it.’

Derry sipped from his cup, shaking his head at the other man’s anger.

‘There’s more at stake than a few hills, Tom. There’ll be no help coming, trust me on that. The best thing you can do is cart away everything you can carry and head north before the roads get too crowded. If that’s what you wanted to know, I’m doing you the courtesy of telling it to you straight.’

Thomas didn’t reply for a time, as he finished his drink and refilled both cups. He was more generous than his wife with the brandy and Derry watched with interest as he crumbled a little cinnamon into the cups before handing one back.

‘Then out of courtesy, Derry, I’ll tell you we’re going to fight,’ Thomas said. The words were not a boast. He spoke with quiet certainty, which was why Derry sat up straight, shrugging off tiredness and the effects of the brandy.

‘You’ll get yourself killed, then. There are two or three thousand Frenchmen coming here, Thomas Woodchurch. What do you have in Maine? A few dozen farmers and veterans? It will be a slaughter and they’ll still have your farm when it’s over. Listen to me now. This is done, understand? I couldn’t change it if my life depended on it. Yours does. You want to see your boy cut down by some French knight? How old is he? Seventeen, eighteen? Jesus. There are times when a man has to cut and run. I know you don’t like to be pushed, Tom. But we ran when that cavalry troop spotted us, didn’t we? Just three of us against fifty? We ran like fucking hares then and there was no shame in it because we lived and we fought again. It’s the same thing here. Kings rule. The rest of us just get by and hope to survive it.’

‘Are you finished? Good. Now you listen, Derry. You’ve said there won’t be help coming and I’ve heard you. I’m telling you we’ll stand. This is my land and I don’t care if King Henry himself comes to order me off. I’d spit in his eye too. I’m not running this time.’

‘Then you’re dead,’ Derry snapped, ‘and God help you, because I can’t.’

Both men sat glaring at each other, no give in either of them. After a time, Derry drained his cup and went on.

‘If you fight, you’ll get your men killed. Worse, you’ll break the truce I’ve worked for, before the damn thing has even properly begun. Do you understand that, Tom? If that’s the way they’re talking, I need you to go to your friends and tell them what I’ve told you. Tell them to let this one go. Tell them it’s better to stay alive and start again than to throw it all away and end up another corpse in a ditch. There’s more riding on this than you know. If you ruin it for a few scrub farms, I’ll kill you myself.’

Thomas laughed, though there was no mirth in it.

‘You won’t. You owe me your life, Derry. You owe me more than your old-woman warnings.’

‘I’m saving your life by telling you to get out!’ Derry roared. ‘For once, why don’t you just listen, you stubborn sod?’

‘Our arrows had all gone, remember?’

‘Tom, please …’

‘You had a gash in your leg and you couldn’t run — and that French knight saw you in the long grass and turned back, do you remember?’

‘I remember,’ Derry said miserably.

‘And he didn’t see me, so I jumped up at him and pulled him down before he could cut off your head with his fine French sword. I took my little knife and I stuck it into his eye slit, Derry, while you just stood and watched. Now that same man is sitting in my kitchen, on my land, and telling me he won’t help? I thought better of you, I really did. We stood together once and it meant something.’

‘The king can’t fight, Tom. He’s not his father and he can’t fight — or lead men who can. He’s like a child and it’s my neck if you ever say it was me who told you. When my king asked me to get him a truce, I did it. Because it was the right thing to do. Because otherwise we’d lose the whole of France anyway. I’m sorry, because I know you and it’s like a knife in me to sit in your kitchen and tell you it’s hopeless, but it is.’

Thomas stared at him over the rim of his cup.

‘You’re telling me this was all your idea?’ he said in wonder. ‘Who the hell are you, Derry Brewer?’

‘I’m a man you never want to cross, Tom. Never. I’m someone you should listen to, because I know what I’m talking about and I don’t forgive easy. I’ve told you what I know. If you start a war over a few hills and some sheep … Just don’t, that’s all. I’ll find you a stake to buy another place in the north, for old times’ sake. I can do that much.’

‘Alms for the poor? I don’t want your charity,’ Thomas said, almost spitting the word. ‘I earned my land here. I earned it in blood and pain and killing. It’s all mine, Derry, no debts, nothing. You’re sitting in my home and these are the hands that built it.’