his questions were shrewd enough to force both men to drop their bombast and think.
‘They’ll fight on foot,’ Sir Simon concluded. He, like all knights, dreamed of a battle conducted on horseback, of swirling men and couched lances, but the English had learned their business in the wars against the Scots and knew that men on foot defended territory much more effectively than horsemen. ‘Even the knights will fight on foot,’ Sir Simon forecast, ‘and for every man-at-arms they’ll have two or three archers. Those are the bastards to watch.’
The Harlequin nodded. ‘But how do we defeat the archers?’
‘Let them run out of arrows,’ Sir Simon said. ‘They must, eventually. So let every hothead in the army attack, then wait till the arrow bags are empty. Then you’ll get your revenge.’
‘It is more than revenge I want,’ the Harlequin said quietly.
‘What?’
The Harlequin, a handsome man, smiled at Sir Simon, though there was no warmth in the smile. ‘Power,’ he answered very calmly. ‘With power, Sir Simon, comes privilege and with privilege, wealth. What are kings,’ he asked, ‘but men who have risen high? So we shall rise too, and use the defeat of kings as the rungs of our ladder.’
Such talk impressed Sir Simon, though he did not wholly understand it. It seemed to him that the Harlequin was a man of high fancies, but that did not matter because he was also unswervingly dedicated to the defeat of men who were Sir Simon’s enemies. Sir Simon daydreamed of the battle; he saw the English prince’s frightened face, heard his scream and revelled in the thought of taking the insolent whelp prisoner. Jeanette too. The Harlequin could be as secretive and subtle as he wished so long as he led Sir Simon to those simple desires.
And so the French army marched, and still it grew as men came from the outlying parts of the kingdom and from the vassal states beyond France’s frontiers. It marched to seal off the Seine and so trap the English, and its confidence soared when it was learned that the King had made his pilgrimage to the Abbey of St Denis to fetch the oriflamme. It was France’s most sacred symbol, a scarlet banner kept by the Benedictines in the abbey where the Kings of France lay entombed, and every man knew that when the oriflamme was unfurled no quarter would be given. It was said to have been carried by Charlemagne himself, and its silk was red as blood, promising carnage to the enemies of France. The English had come to fight, the oriflamme had been released and the dance of the armies had begun.
Sir Guillaume gave Thomas a linen shirt, a good mail coat, a leather-lined helmet and a sword. ‘It’s old, but good,’ he said of the sword, ‘a cutter rather than a piercer.’ He provided Thomas with a horse, a saddle, a bridle and gave him money. Thomas tried to refuse the last gift, but Sir Guillaume brushed his protest aside. ‘You’ve taken what you wanted from me, I might as well give you the rest.’
‘Taken?’ Thomas was puzzled, even hurt, by the accusation.
‘Eleanor.’
‘I’ve not taken her,’ Thomas protested.
Sir Guillaume’s ravaged face broke into a grin. ‘You will, boy,’ he said, ‘you will.’
They rode next day, going eastwards in the wake of the English army that was now far off. News had come to Caen of burned towns, but no one knew where the enemy had gone and so Sir Guillaume planned to lead his twelve men-at-arms, his squire and his servant to Paris. ‘Someone will know where the King is,’ he said. ‘And you, Thomas, what will you do?’
Thomas had been wondering the same ever since he woke to the light in Sir Guillaume’s house, but now he must make the decision and, to his surprise, there was no conflict at all. ‘I shall go to my king,’ he said.
‘And what of this Sir Simon? What if he hangs you again?’
‘I have the Earl of Northampton’s protection,’ Thomas said, though he reflected it had not worked before.
‘And what of Eleanor?’ Sir Guillaume turned to look at his daughter who, to Thomas’s surprise, had accompanied them. Her father had given her a small palfrey and, unused to riding, she sat on its saddle awkwardly, clutching the high pommel. She did not know why her father had let her come, suggesting to Thomas that perhaps he wanted her to be his cook.
The question made Thomas blush. He knew he could not fight against his own friends, but nor did he want to leave Eleanor. ‘I shall come looking for her,’ he told Sir Guillaume.
‘If you still live,’ the Frenchman growled. ‘Why don’t you fight for me?’
‘Because I’m English.’
Sir Guillaume sneered. ‘You’re Cathar, you’re French, you’re from Languedoc, who knows what you are? You’re a priest’s son, a mongrel bastard of heretic stock.’
‘I’m English,’ Thomas said.
‘You’re a Christian,’ Sir Guillaume retorted, ‘and God has given you and me a duty. How are you to fulfil that duty by joining Edward’s army?’
Thomas did not answer at once. Had God given him a duty? If so he did not want to accept it, for acceptance meant believing in the legends of the Vexilles. Thomas, in the evening after he had met Brother Germain, had talked with Mordecai in Sir Guillaume’s garden, asking the old man if he had ever read the book of Daniel.
Mordecai had sighed, as if he found the question wearisome. ‘Years ago,’ he’d said, ‘many years ago. It is part of the Ketuvim, the writings that all Jewish youths must read. Why?’
‘He’s a prophet, yes? He tells the future.’
‘Dear me,’ Mordecai had said, sitting on the bench and dragging his thin fingers through his forked beard. ‘You Christians,’ he had said, ‘insist that prophets tell the future, but that wasn’t really what they did at all. They warned Israel. They told us that we would be visited by death, destruction and horror if we did not mend our ways. They were preachers, Thomas, just preachers, though, God knows, they were right about the death, destruction and horror. As for Daniel … He is very strange, very strange. He had a head filled with dreams and visions. He was drunk on God, that one.’
‘But do you think,’ Thomas had asked, ‘that Daniel could foretell what is happening now?’
Mordecai had frowned. ‘If God wished him to, yes, but why should God wish that? And I assume, Thomas, that you think Daniel might foretell what happens here and now in France, and what possible interest could that hold for the God of Israel? The Ketuvim are full of fancy, vision and mystery, and you Christians see more in them than we ever did. But would I make a decision because Daniel ate a bad oyster and had a vivid dream all those years ago? No, no, no.’ He stood and held a jordan bottle high. ‘Trust what is before your eyes, Thomas, what you can smell, hear, taste, touch and see. The rest is dangerous.’
Thomas now looked at Sir Guillaume. He had come to like the Frenchman whose battle-hardened exterior hid a wealth of kindness, and Thomas knew he was in love with the Frenchman’s daughter, but, even so, he had a greater loyalty.
‘I cannot fight against England,’ he said, ‘any more than you would carry a lance against King Philip.’
Sir Guillaume dismissed that with a shrug. ‘Then fight against the Vexilles.’
But Thomas could not smell,
