all the credit for himself. He gave the letter to a shipmaster who sailed that same afternoon, and next morning a horseman rode south from Paimpol. There were no hellequin in the wasted country between the port and the Duke’s capital so the message arrived safely. And in Guingamp, which was Duke Charles’s headquarters, the farriers checked the war horses’ shoes, the crossbowmen greased their weapons, squires scrubbed mail till it shone and a thousand swords were sharpened.
The English raid on Lannion had been betrayed.
Jeanette’s unlikely alliance with Thomas had soothed the hostility in her house. Skeat’s men now used the river as their lavatory instead of the courtyard, and Jeanette allowed them into the kitchen, which proved useful, for they brought their rations with them and so her household ate better than it had since the town had fallen, though she still could not bring herself to try the smoked herrings with their bright red, mould-covered skins. Best of all was the treatment given to two importunate merchants who arrived demanding payment from Jeanette and were so badly manhandled by a score of archers that both men left hatless, limping, unpaid and bloody.
‘I will pay them when I can,’ she told Thomas.
‘Sir Simon’s likely to have money on him,’ he told her.
‘He is?’
‘Only a fool leaves cash where a servant can find it,’ he said.
Four days after the beating his face was still swollen and his lips black with blood clots. His rib hurt and his body was a mass of bruises, but he had insisted to Skeat that he was well enough to ride to Lannion. They would leave that afternoon. At midday Jeanette found him in St Renan’s church.
‘Why are you praying?’ she asked him.
‘I always do before a fight.’
‘There will be a fight today? I thought you were not riding till tomorrow?’
‘I love a well-kept secret,’ Thomas said, amused. ‘We’re going a day early. Everything’s ready, why wait?’
‘Going where?’ Jeanette asked, though she already knew.
‘To wherever they take us,’ Thomas said.
Jeanette grimaced and prayed silently that her message had reached Duke Charles. ‘Be careful,’ she said to Thomas, not because she cared for him, but because he was her agent for taking revenge on Sir Simon Jekyll. ‘Perhaps Sir Simon will be killed?’ she suggested.
‘God will save him for me,’ Thomas said.
‘Perhaps he won’t follow me to Louannec?’
‘He’ll follow you like a dog,’ Thomas said, ‘but it will be dangerous for you.’
‘I shall get the armour back,’ Jeanette said, ‘and that is all that matters. Are you praying to St Renan?’
‘To St Sebastian,’ Thomas said, ‘and to St Guinefort.’
‘I asked the priest about Guinefort,’ Jeanette said accusingly, ‘and he said he had never heard of him.’
‘He probably hasn’t heard of St Wilgefortis either,’ Thomas said.
‘Wilgefortis?’ Jeanette stumbled over the unfamiliar name. ‘Who is he?’
‘She,’ Thomas said, ‘and she was a very pious virgin who lived in Flanders and grew a long beard. She prayed every day that God would keep her ugly so that she could stay chaste.’
Jeanette could not resist laughing. ‘That isn’t true!’
‘It is true, my lady,’ Thomas assured her. ‘My father was once offered a hair of her holy beard, but he refused to buy it.’
‘Then I shall pray to the bearded saint that you survive your raid,’ Jeanette said, ‘but only so you can help me against Sir Simon. Other than that I hope you all die.’
The garrison at Guingamp had the same wish, and to make it come true they assembled a strong force of crossbowmen and men-at-arms to ambush the Englishmen on their way to Lannion, but they, like Jeanette, were convinced that La Roche-Derrien’s garrison would make their sally on the Friday and so they did not leave till late on Thursday, by which time Totesham’s force was already within five miles of Lannion. The shrunken garrison did not know the English were coming because Duke Charles’s war captains, who commanded his forces in Guingamp while the Duke was in Paris, decided not to warn the town. If too many people knew that the English had been betrayed then the English themselves might hear of it, abandon their plans and so deny the Duke’s men the chance of a rare and complete victory.
The English expected victory themselves. It was a dry night and, near midnight, a full moon slid out from behind a silver-edged cloud to cast Lannion’s walls in sharp relief. The raiders were hidden in woods from where they watched the few sentinels on the ramparts. Those sentinels grew sleepy and, after a time, went to the bastions where fires burned and so they did not see the six ladder parties creep across the night fields, nor the hundred archers following the ladders. And still they slept as the archers climbed the rungs and Totesham’s main force erupted from the woods, ready to burst through the eastern gate that the archers would open.
The sentinels died. The first dogs awoke in the town, then a church bell began to ring and Lannion’s garrison came awake, but too late for the gate was open and Totesham’s mail-clad soldiers were crying havoc in the dark alleys while still more men-at-arms and archers were pouring through the narrow gate.
Skeat’s men were the rearguard and so waited outside the town as the sack began. Church bells were clanging wildly as the town’s parishes woke to nightmare, but gradually the clangour ceased.
Will Skeat stared at the moon-glossed fields south of Lannion. ‘I hear it was Sir Simon Jekyll who improved your looks,’ he said to Thomas.
‘It was.’
‘Because you told him to boil his arse?’ Skeat grinned. ‘You can’t blame him for thumping you,’ Skeat said, ‘but he should have talked to me first.’
‘What would you have done?’
‘Made sure he didn’t thump you too much, of course,’ Skeat said, his gaze moving steadily across the landscape. Thomas had acquired the same habit of watchfulness but all the land beyond the town was still. A mist rose from the low ground. ‘So what do you plan to do about it?’ Skeat asked.
‘Talk to you.’
‘I don’t fight your goddamn battles, boy,’ Skeat growled. ‘What do you plan to do about it?’
‘Ask you to lend me Jake and Sam on Saturday. And I want three crossbows.’
‘Crossbows, eh?’ Skeat asked flatly. He saw that the rest of Totesham’s force had now entered the town so he put two fingers to his lips and sounded a piercing whistle to signal that his own men could follow. ‘Onto the walls!’ he shouted as the hellequin rode forward. ‘Onto the walls!’ That was the rearguard’s job: to man the fallen town’s defences. ‘Half the bloody bastards will still get drunk,’ Skeat growled, ‘so you stay with me, Tom.’
Most of Skeat’s men did their duty and climbed the stone steps to
