A few last Jacks dived into the water, abandoning packs and bows, quivers of invaluable arrows, but a few men had had the presence of mind to drag the rest of the boats off the mud and tow them and, safe in the current, they got the swimmers into boats.
More than a hundred Jacks had been saved from the disaster.
They began to paddle out into the centre. It was obvious from here that Bridge Castle was still in the hands of the sell-swords – an arbalest bolt skipped across the water to put a hole in one boat.
Tyler waved, pointed downstream, waved again, and paddled frantically to turn his boat.
Jack looked into the rising sun and it’s brilliant reflection on the broad river – and saw flashes. Rhythmic flashes – banks of oars on heavy bateaux, rowing upstream. He counted twenty – counted a second twenty-
Disaster. Disaster after disaster.
He turned his head. ‘Less power and more finesse, comrade. We have to turn this boat and paddle upstream – all your power will serve us well, then.’
A pair of crossbow bolts, like swallows feeding on insects, skipped by, passing within an arm’s length of their boat before sinking out of sight.
The man in the stern shook his head. ‘I’m no boatsman, brother,’ he admitted.
‘Never mind, lad. Drag your paddle on the left – just there. And we’re around.’ Bill hadn’t risen to leadership for nothing; he was patient, even when everything was at stake.
Then they were around, and his young companion’s strong arms were pushing the boat forward like a leaping deer. It was a waste of the man’s energy to spend so much but Jack let him tire himself, steering from the bow. Another volley of crossbow bolts from the distant bateaux and he lost a trio of Jacks – they were broadside on to the enemy and all three of them caught bolts.
Bill Redmede was an old boatman. And a master archer. He stowed his paddle, took his bow from the bottom of the light boat, wiped the stave and the string – good wax, not too much moisture. He was glad he’d left it strung, and he rose to his feet, the boat tipping – leaped lightly onto the ash gunwales, one foot on each.
‘Good Christ!’ shouted his stern paddle in dismay.
He drew and loosed in one motion, tipping the boat from side to side, loosing high – a hunting point. Then he knelt as he watched the fall of his arrow.
He lost it in the sun-dazzle. But he felt better for the shot, and he took up his paddle and gave way with a will.
Near Albinkirk – Desiderata
Desiderata was in a borrowed chain shirt – worn with a man’s hose, a heavy wool kirtle laced as tightly as her maids could manage, and a man’s arming cap. The effect should have been ludicrous, but was instead both martial and quite attractive, to judge from the reactions of the guildsmen and the hillmen all around her on the foredeck of the lead row-galley.
Lady Almspend stood by her side, also in a shirt of mail, with a sallet on her head and a sword at her waist. She was more ridiculous, but beaming at Ranald Lachlan, whose attention was torn between his lady-love and the approach of combat. The herd was penned in camp, with twenty of his brother’s men as guards. He stood in hauberk and leg armour, his open-faced bascinet and leather cote almost barbaric in comparison to the crossbowmen of the guilds of Lorica, most of whom had fancy cotes of plates and visored helmets, the latest fashion from the Continent. His hands rested on the great axe he carried.
The Queen looked at him. He was quieter than she had known him in year’s past. According to her secretary, he had actually been
‘Boglins on the bank,’ Ranald said, pointing a gauntleted hand.
‘Got them,’ said one of the guild officers. ‘Boglins to starboard. Pick your targets. Loose!’
A dozen bolts flew.
‘The king must have been victorious,’ Lady Almspend said. ‘Those aren’t our men fleeing across the river in front of us.’
Ranald turned so fast the chain aventail at his neck slapped his helmet. ‘Good eyes, my lady.’ He flashed her a smile – pleased to have her company in his favourite pursuit. He looked under his gauntleted hand for a long time. ‘They’re men – they’re in a sort of uniform. Now they turned their boats away-’
The guild officer had scrambled up into the bows past the Queen. ‘Jacks, by God. Rebels! Traitors! Heretics!’ He raised his arbalest, took careful aim, and loosed a bolt.
The boglins on the north bank began to flick arrows at them.
The Queen started. The back of her throat was scratchy. For the first time, she was afraid.
‘We have come too far west,’ Ranald said. ‘There are enemies on both banks, and the king won’t yet know that we are here.’
The Queen had received a message from the king late in the afternoon, and she had ordered the boats to row all night. She’d picked up the messenger at midnight, and his information had been exact. Today was to be the day – she intended to see it.
She stood on the foredeck and shaded her eyes with her hand – to the front, and to the right, and to the left. To the left, she saw a flash of red, and then another – and then half a dozen Royal Guardsmen appeared on the bank. She waved, and her ladies cheered.
‘Anchor here,’ she ordered.
A half-dozen boglin arrows fell onto the lead galley – most were deflected by the leather curtains that protected the rowers, but one struck home, and the man’s oar fell from his hands as he screamed. The arrow was deep in his shoulder.
Boglins poisoned their arrows, and his screams froze her blood. He had laughed and joked with her maids when they lay on the banks of the Alba, eating sausage.
It was as much of a shock as the sight of a boglin.
An arrow plummeted from the heavens like a stooping hawk, struck her helm, ripped down her back and knocked her flat.
She lay on the deck – suddenly the day was darker, and her back was wet.
‘Ware the Queen!’ Ranald called.
She reached for the golden light of the sun – it was all about her, such a glorious day-
‘She’ll bleed out. It is in her back.’ Ranald was doing something.
‘Is it poisoned?’ Lady Almspend asked.
‘I don’t think so – give me your pen knife. Wicked bastard – a swallowtail point.’ Lachlan sounded afraid.
She was floating above them, able to see the hillman digging in the flesh of her back with a knife. He had the mail shirt hiked over her hips having cut the shaft of the arrow. She’d seldom seen herself look less elegant.
‘It’s in her kidneys,’ Lachlan said, and sat back on his haunches, suddenly defeated. ‘Sweet Jesu!’
The captain had slept in his harness like everyone else, his helmeted head in the corner of the curtain wall where the west wall met the north tower. Four assaults had failed to re-take the wall, but he was so tired-
‘Boats on the river, Captain.’ Jack Kaves, senior archer, stood over him. ‘I brought you a cup of beer. Young Michael tried to wake you and went off to find more wine.’
The captain took the beer, rinsed his mouth and spat onto the mound of dead boglins outside the wall, and then took a long pull. Half of the mound of boglin bodies was still moving, so that the whole pile seemed to writhe – and they made mewling sounds like a pile of kittens, somehow more horrible than the screams of men.
No more men were screaming. The wounded had been sent up the hill to the fortress during a lull between attacks – the Knights of Saint Thomas, like their sisters, were doctors as well as fighters, and they gave basic care and rigged stretchers between horses. And the enemy killed every wounded man they could.
He got slowly to his feet. The weight of his armour and his own fatigue combined to make the process of rising painful – his neck hurt like he had been kicked by a horse. ‘Michael?’ he asked, confused and looking around.
‘In the store rooms,’ Kaves said.
‘Jack, help me get my helmet off,’ the captain said. He unbuckled his chinstrap, and Jack lifted the helmet clear of his head. The aventail was clotted with gore, which dragged across his face. The visor was gone.
He unlaced his arming cap. It was one of Mag’s, and with the intense interest of total exhaustion, he noted that
