In the dust and crumbling chicken muck, Thomas could not prevent the spasms as his empty stomach heaved. He tried to smother the noise with hands black with dirt, but he could not be completely silent. Rowan froze as a board creaked nearby. He hadn’t heard anyone enter the barn and caution made little sense. The French soldiers marching north were loudly confident in the strength of their own army. Yet there was a chance Thomas and Rowan were still hunted by their original pursuers. They’d learned enough about those stubborn, dogged men to fear them, men who had followed the two archers for sixty miles of night treks and daylight collapse.
In his imagination, Rowan had fleshed out the dim moving shadows he’d seen in the distance more than once. His mind made vengeful devils of them, relentless creatures who would not stop, no matter how far they had to follow. He looked helplessly at his father’s battered body, far thinner now than when they had fought and lost. They had thrown their bows away days before, a gesture of survival that felt more like yanking healthy teeth from a jaw. Apart from losing the weight of the weapons, it would not save them if they were taken. The French were known to look hard for the peculiar build of archers, reserving a special hatred and appalling punishments for those they caught. There was no hiding the calluses of an archer’s hands.
Rowan’s hand still ached for the weapon he’d lost, clutching for it whenever he was afraid. God, he could not bear it! He still had his seax with a horn hilt. He almost wished he could just launch himself from the shadowed stall at whoever was creeping around the barn. The tension was making his heart pound so fast it made lights flash across his vision.
He jerked his head round at a rustle, almost cursing aloud. There was always something moving in a barn among the bales of straw. Rats, of course, and no doubt cats to chase them; insects and birds making their nests in the spring. Rowan told himself he was probably surrounded by creeping, living things. He doubted any of them were heavy enough to make the floorboards creak.
Outside, he heard a crash of plates, shattering and spinning on the ground with a noise that could be nothing else. Rowan stood up from his crouch to peer through the slats once again. As he did so, he heard a footstep in the gloom. He glanced quickly into the yard, catching sight of a French soldier laughing as he tried to pick whole plates out of the pile he’d dropped. They were not the dark pursuers he’d feared, just looting French pikemen.
Yet there was still that step, inside the barn. Rowan looked down at his father, at the clothes wet with sweat and mired in his own filth. When Rowan looked up again, it was into the face of a startled young man wearing rough blue cloth. They gaped at each other for an instant of pounding hearts and then Rowan leaped forward, thrusting his knife into the other’s chest and crying out as he did it.
His weight took the stranger down on to his back and the seax sank in further, pressing through him until Rowan felt ribs crack under his hand. The young Frenchman blew out a great rush of air. Whatever he had been trying to say was lost in the agony of the knife in his chest. Rowan stared down in terror at the scrabbling figure he had pinned to the ground. He could only lean on him with his full weight, smothering the kicking legs with his own.
In the yard, a voice called a question or a name. Rowan’s face crumpled in something like weeping as he pressed his forehead against the cheek of the man he held down, just hanging on and waiting for the twitches and scuffles and gasping moans to come to an end. Rowan was shaking when he finally raised his head, looking down into eyes that were smeared with dust from his tunic, yet did not close.
The voice called once more, closer. Rowan sank into a crouch, baring his teeth like a dog defending its kill. He slid the big knife out from between the ribs and held it up, ready to be attacked again. There could be a dozen soldiers nearby, or a hundred, or just one or two. He had no way of knowing, and terror and disgust overwhelmed him. He wanted nothing more than to run, just
He heard a soft sound at his feet and glared down, understanding that the young man’s bowels had emptied themselves, along with his bladder. The soldier’s penis was clearly erect, visible in his darkening trousers. Rowan felt his stomach heave and his eyes fill with unwanted tears. He’d heard of such things, but the reality was far, far worse. It was nothing like striking a man from a distance with a cloth-yard arrow and a good yew bow.
A shout from outside made him start and scramble back to the wooden stall. The voice was growing louder and more irritable, as the man outside lost patience with his missing companion. Rowan peered through tiny cracks and nail holes, looking for others. He could not see them, though he had the sense that they were all around the ramshackle barn in the dawn. He shuddered, muscles twitching all along his side and back. He needed to get away into the fields, but his father was too heavy to carry further.
On impulse, Rowan crouched by Thomas and slapped lightly at his face. The eyes opened, the dark irises tinged with yellow as his father pushed his hands away.
‘Can you walk?’ Rowan whispered.
‘I think so,’ Thomas said, though he did not know. A childhood story of Samson losing his hair came to his mind and he smiled weakly to himself, using the handle of an old plough to heave himself up. He rested then, fat drops of sweat pouring from his face to strike the dust and darken it.
Rowan crossed the lines of golden sunlight streaming into the barn. He stood by the door, looking out on the morning as he gestured for his father to come over. Thomas gathered himself, feeling as if he’d been beaten the night before. He needed to sleep, or perhaps just to die. The promise of rest called to him with enough force to make black shapes swim across his vision. He shuffled across the dusty floor, trying not to gasp as his mind swam and sank in waves of sickness.
Rowan almost threw himself back as a voice spoke a torrent of French right by his head.
‘Are you hiding from me, Jacques? If I catch you asleep, I swear …’
The door came open and Rowan narrowed his eyes, seeing the man’s astonishment slide into terror at the sight of his knife and bulk in the gloom.
The man bolted, slipping and falling as he turned in panic. His voice was already rising in a shout as he scrambled up, but Rowan was on him in one great lunge, stabbing wildly through the coat. With savage strength, he reached his left arm around the man’s neck and crushed it close. The desperate noises became creaks of sound and Rowan found himself sobbing as he struck and struck, seeing red blood spatter around them. He let the body fall on to its face, standing up and panting, with senses suddenly dull in the morning sun.
The farmyard was empty, with rich green grass growing between the cracked stones. He saw a tumbledown cottage that had been invisible the night before, the door hanging open from a broken leather hinge. Rowan looked around him, then down at the vivid red drops in the dust and smeared on his knife. Just two men, looking for something worth stealing while their officers slept. Rowan knew he should have dragged the second body back into the barn, but instead he stood there in the yard, with his eyes closed and his face raised to the sun.
He heard his father come out and stand at his shoulder. Rowan didn’t look at him, preferring to let the warmth ease into his skin. He’d slaughtered animals with his father on the farm, he reminded himself. They’d killed deer while hunting, then dressed the flopping bodies on hillsides until they were covered in gore and laughing.
Thomas took a long breath, unsure if his son would want him to speak or not. Hunger pangs bit at his stomach and he found himself wondering if the two soldiers had any food with them. It was another sign that his body had fought through the illness that had struck him down.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ he asked.
Rowan opened his eyes and looked at him.
‘What?’
‘Killing. I’ve known men who enjoy it. I never did, myself. It always seemed like an odd thing to
Rowan shook his head in dull astonishment.
‘No … I didn’t … God, no … enjoy it.’
To his surprise, his father clapped him on his back.
‘Good. There’s that. Now I find I have an appetite. I’m still weak enough to be frightened by a small boy with a stick, so would you search the house for food? We need to find a place to rest and hide for the day and I can’t do
