power of a white-feathered arrow to kill the King’s enemies. To think of dark lords and of heresiarchs was to flirt with the madness that had harrowed his own father.
‘If I find the man who killed my father,’ he evaded Sir Guillaume’s demand, ‘then I will kill him.’
‘But you will not search for him?’
‘Where do I look? Where do you look?’ Thomas asked, then offered his own answer. ‘If the Vexilles really still exist, if they truly want to destroy France, then where would they begin? In England’s army. So I shall look for them there.’ That answer was an evasion, but it half convinced Sir Guillaume, who grudgingly conceded that the Vexilles might indeed take their forces to Edward of England.
That night they sheltered in the scorched remains of a farm where they gathered about a small fire on which they roasted the hind legs of a boar that Thomas had shot. The men-at-arms treated Thomas warily. He was, after all, one of the hated English archers whose bows could pierce even plate mail. If he had not been Sir Guillaume’s friend they would have wanted to slice off his string fingers in revenge for the pain that the white-fledged arrows had given to the horsemen of France, but instead they treated him with a distant curiosity. After the meal Sir Guillaume gestured to Eleanor and Thomas that they should both accompany him outside. His squire was keeping watch, and Sir Guillaume led them away from the young man, going to the bank of a stream where, with an odd formality, he looked at Thomas. ‘So you will leave us,’ he said, ‘and fight for Edward of England.’
‘Yes.’
‘But if you see my enemy, if you see the lance, what will you do?’
‘Kill him,’ Thomas said. Eleanor stood slightly apart, watching and listening.
‘He will not be alone,’ Sir Guillaume warned, ‘but you assure me he is your enemy?’
‘I swear it,’ Thomas said, puzzled that the question even needed to be asked.
Sir Guillaume took Thomas’s right hand. ‘You have heard of a brotherhood in arms?’
Thomas nodded. Men of rank frequently made such pacts, swearing to aid each other in battle and share each other’s spoils.
‘Then I swear a brotherhood to you,’ Sir Guillaume said, ‘even if we will fight on opposing sides.’
‘I swear the same,’ Thomas said awkwardly.
Sir Guillaume let Thomas’s hand go. ‘There,’ he said to Eleanor, ‘I’m safe from one damned archer.’ He paused, still looking at Eleanor. ‘I shall marry again,’ he said abruptly, ‘and have children again and they will be my heirs. You know what I’m saying, don’t you?’
Eleanor’s head was lowered, but she looked up at her father briefly, then dropped her gaze again. She said nothing.
‘And if I have more children, God willing,’ Sir Guillaume said, ‘what does that leave for you, Eleanor?’
She gave a very small shrug as if to suggest that the question was not of great interest to her. ‘I have never asked you for anything.’
‘But what would you have asked for?’
She stared into the ripples of the stream. ‘What you gave me,’ she said after a while, ‘kindness.’
‘Nothing else?’
She paused. ‘I would have liked to call you Father.’
Sir Guillaume seemed uncomfortable with that answer. He stared northwards. ‘You are both bastards,’ he said after a while, ‘and I envy that.’
‘Envy?’ Thomas asked.
‘A family serves like the banks of a stream. They keep you in your place, but bastards make their own way. They take nothing and they can go anywhere.’ He frowned, then flicked a pebble into the water. ‘I had always thought, Eleanor, that I would marry you to one of my men-at-arms. Benoit asked me for your hand and so did Fossat. And it’s past time you were married. What are you? Fifteen?’
‘Fifteen,’ she agreed.
‘You’ll rot away, girl, if you wait any longer,’ Sir Guillaume said gruffly, ‘so who shall it be? Benoit? Fossat?’ He paused. ‘Or would you prefer Thomas?’
Eleanor said nothing and Thomas, embarrassed, kept silent.
‘You want her?’ Sir Guillaume asked him brutally.
‘Yes.’
‘Eleanor?’
She looked at Thomas, then back to the stream. ‘Yes,’ she said simply.
‘The horse, the mail, the sword and the money,’ Sir Guillaume said to Thomas, ‘are my bastard daughter’s dowry. Look after her, or else become my enemy again.’ He turned away.
‘Sir Guillaume?’ Thomas asked. The Frenchman turned back. ‘When you went to Hookton,’ Thomas went on, wondering why he asked the question now, ‘you took a dark-haired girl prisoner. She was pregnant. Her name was Jane.’
Sir Guillaume nodded. ‘She married one of my men. Then died in childbirth. The child too. Why?’ He frowned. ‘Was the child yours?’
‘She was a friend,’ Thomas evaded the question.
‘She was a pretty friend,’ Sir Guillaume said, ‘I remember that. And when she died we had twelve Masses said for her English soul.’
‘Thank you.’
Sir Guillaume looked from Thomas to Eleanor, then back to Thomas. ‘A good night for sleeping under the stars,’ he said, ‘and we shall leave at dawn.’ He walked away.
Thomas and Eleanor sat by the stream. The sky was still not wholly dark, but had a luminous quality like the glow of a candle behind horn. An otter slid down the far side of the stream, its fur glistening where it showed above the water. It raised its head, looked briefly at Thomas, then dived out of sight, to leave a trickle of silver bubbles breaking the dark surface.
Eleanor broke the silence, speaking the only English words she knew. ‘I am an archer’s woman,’ she said.
Thomas smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said.
And in the morning they rode on and next evening they saw the smear of smoke on the northern horizon and knew it was a sign that the English army was going about its business. They parted in the next dawn.
‘How you reach the bastards, I do not know,’ Sir Guillaume said, ‘but when it is all over, look for me.’
He embraced Thomas, kissed Eleanor, then pulled himself into his saddle. His horse had a long blue trapper decorated with yellow hawks. He settled his right foot into its stirrup, gathered the reins and pushed back his spurs.
A track led north across a heath that was fragrant with thyme and fluttering with blue butterflies. Thomas, his helmet hanging from the saddle’s pommel and the sword thumping at his side, rode towards the smoke, and Eleanor, who insisted on carrying his bow because she was an archer’s woman, rode with him. They looked back
