all of them. You and Brother Michael, get around the back and make sure they’re bridled. Karyl!’
The German had finished buying supplies and was pushing food into saddlebags. ‘You want more?’ he called.
Thomas beckoned him close. ‘There are seven men whoring in the tavern. We’ll take their mail and weapons.’
‘Kill them?’
‘Only if they cause trouble.’
Karyl strode towards the tavern as Baillaud caught up with Thomas. ‘They’ll do it?’
‘Willingly,’ Thomas said.
‘I didn’t hear your name,’ Baillaud said.
‘Thomas,’ Thomas said, and reached down to shake Baillaud’s hand, then realised there was nothing to shake.
‘You sound Norman,’ Baillaud said.
‘That’s what folk tell me. Is that where the English are going? You said they were going north.’
‘Christ knows,’ Baillaud said. ‘They marched out of Gascony and the last I heard they were at Perigueux.’
‘They could be coming this way,’ Thomas said.
‘More plunder northwards,’ Baillaud said. ‘The English princeling stripped everything to the south last year.’ He scowled. ‘It’s a goddamned scandal,’ he said angrily.
‘Scandal?’
‘Edward of Wales! He’s a nothing! A spoiled, privileged puppy! Women and gambling are all he cares about, and he’s running riot around France because King Jean is scared of arrows. We should catch the bastard, take his hose down and spank him like a seven-year-old.’ Baillaud suddenly turned and stared at the inn. He could hear shouting. ‘What?’ he began, then stopped abruptly as a naked man was hurled backwards through an upstairs window. The man landed heavily on his back and lay there, stirring slightly. ‘That’s …’ Baillaud said.
‘One of your men,’ Thomas said. ‘They must have very tough whores in this town.’
‘God’s blood,’ Baillaud protested, and started towards the prostrate man, then stopped because a second naked man had come out of the tavern door. He was backing away frantically, pursued by two of Thomas’s men.
‘I surrender!’ the man shouted. ‘Enough! Enough!’
‘Let him be!’ Thomas said.
‘Bastard threw a full piss-pot at me,’ Arnaldus snarled.
‘It’ll dry,’ Thomas said.
‘It wasn’t filled with piss,’ the Gascon said, and kicked the naked man hard between the legs. ‘Now I’ll let him be.’
‘What are you …’ Baillaud began
Thomas smiled down from the saddle. ‘Men call me
Thomas now had more spare horses, more weapons, more mail. If there was any pursuit from Montpellier it was left far behind, but no such pursuit worried him. Genevieve worried him.
So they rode on northwards.
The arrow struck Philippe full in the chest. The crunching sound reminded Roland of a butcher’s axe driving into a carcass. Philippe was thrown back by the force of the blow. The arrow had pierced his mail coat, broken a rib, and punctured a lung. He tried to speak, but instead bubbled blood at his lips, then fell backwards. More arrows flew. Two more men were down. Blood was swirling in the stream. An arrow slashed by Roland’s head, missing his ear by a hand’s breadth. The wind of it was like a slap. A horse was screaming, an arrow in its belly. The arrows were much longer than Roland expected. He was amazed he even noticed that, but even as the missiles whipped in from the west he was astonished by the length of the shafts, so much longer than the short arrows he used for hunting. Another struck a tree and shivered there.
Philippe was dying. Men were scrambling to hide behind trees, or else beneath the shallow stream bank, but it was Jacques who saved them. He ran to Genevieve’s side and snatched her son from her protective arms. He gripped the boy’s belt and held him high with one strong hand and slid a long knife from its sheath with the other hand. He held the blade at the boy’s throat. Genevieve screamed, but the arrows stopped. ‘Tell them your son dies if there’s one more arrow,’ Jacques said.
‘You …’ Genevieve began.
‘Tell them, bitch!’ Jacques snarled.
Genevieve cupped her hands. ‘No more arrows!’ she called in English.
Silence, except for the gurgling in Philippe’s throat. Every gasp brought more blood to spill from his mouth. The horse began whinnying, white-eyed.
‘Tell them we’re going,’ Jacques said, ‘and the boy dies if they try to stop us.’
‘You must leave us alone!’ Genevieve shouted.
Then the archers appeared from a copse a hundred yards to the east. There were sixteen of them, all holding the long war bows. ‘Genny!’ one of them called.
‘They’ll kill Hugh if you try to stop them,’ she called back.
‘Any news of Thomas?’
‘No, Sam! Now let them go!’
Sam waved, as if to suggest they could leave, and Roland began to breathe again. Two men were lifting the dying Philippe onto a horse, and two corpses were draped over other saddles. The men mounted, but Jacques took care to keep hold of the boy. ‘Break the arrows,’ he ordered a man.
‘Break them?’
‘So they can’t use them again, you half-brained idiot.’
The man snapped as many fallen arrows as he could find, then Jacques led them northwards. Roland was silent. He was thinking of the arrows searing in. By God’s grace none had struck him, but the terror of those shafts was still making him tremble, and that had been a mere handful of archers. What could a thousand such men do? ‘How did they find us?’ he asked.
‘They’re archers,’ Genevieve said, ‘they’ll find you.’
‘Quiet, bitch,’ Jacques shouted. He had Hugh across his saddle bow and still held the knife.
‘Be courteous!’ Roland said more angrily than he had intended.
Jacques muttered something under his breath, but spurred ahead to get out of Roland’s company. Roland looked back down the road and saw that the archers were mounted now and following, but keeping a good distance. He wondered how far an English war bow could shoot, then forgot the question as the men-at-arms crested a small rise, and there was Labrouillade. The castle lay at the centre of a wide, shallow valley, the moat fed by a meandering stream that looped through calm pastureland. No trees grew close to the castle, nor was any building allowed within a quarter-mile, so that no besieger could find shelter for a bowman or a siege engine. The stones of the curtain wall looked almost white in the strong sun. The moat glittered. The count’s green banner hung listless from the topmost tower, then Jacques spurred on and the other horsemen followed, and Roland saw the great drawbridge creak down. The hooves echoed loud on the bridge’s planks; he plunged through the sudden darkness of the entrance arch and there, waiting in the castle’s courtyard, was a tall churchman with green eyes and a hawk on his wrist.
The huge capstan in the gatehouse creaked as two men turned its handle to close the heavy drawbridge. The pawl that held it closed clattered on the metal teeth, then the planks met the arch with a crash and two men ran to bolt the massive bridge upright.
And Roland felt safe.
