hate Douglas. I hate every Douglas that ever dropped out of the devil’s backside.’ Sir Geoffrey shuddered, then turned to his horse. ‘Burn them both,’ he ordered.
Thomas, looking away from the sudden blood, had seen a stone cross fallen at the crossroad’s centre. He stared at it, not seeing the carved dragon, but hearing the echoes of the noise and then the new screams as the prisoners were hurled into the flames. Eleanor ran to him and held his arm tight.
‘Pretty,’ Beggar said.
‘Here, Beggar, here!’ Sir Geoffrey called. ‘Hoist me!’ The giant made a step with his hands and Sir Geoffrey used it to climb into his saddle, then he kicked the horse towards Thomas and Eleanor. ‘I’m always hungry,’ Sir Geoffrey said, ‘after a gelding.’ He turned to watch the fire where one of the Scotsmen, hair flaming, tried to escape, but was prodded back into the inferno by a dozen bowstaves. The man’s howl was abruptly cut short as he collapsed. ‘I’m in the mood to geld and burn Scotsmen today,’ Sir Geoffrey said, ‘and you look like a Scot to me, boy.’
‘I’m not a boy,’ Thomas said, the anger rising in him.
‘You look like a bloody boy to me, boy. A Scots boy, maybe?’ Sir Geoffrey, plainly amused by Thomas’s temper, grinned at his newest victim who did indeed look young, though Thomas was twenty-two summers old and had fought for the last four of them in Brittany, Normandy and Picardy. ‘You look Scots, boy,’ the Scarecrow said, daring Thomas to defy him again. ‘All the Scots are black!’ he appealed to the crowd to judge Thomas’s complexion, and it was true that Thomas had a sun-darkened skin and black hair, but so did a score or more of the Scarecrow’s own archers. And though Thomas looked young he also looked hard. His hair was cropped close to his skull and four years of war had hollowed his cheeks, but there was still something distinctive in his looks, a handsomeness that attracted the eye and served to spur Sir Geoffrey Carr’s jealousy. ‘What’s on your horse?’ Sir Geoffrey jerked his head towards Thomas’s mare.
‘Nothing of yours,’ Thomas said.
‘What’s mine is mine, boy, and what’s yours is mine if I want it. Mine to take or mine to give. Beggar! You want that girl?’
Beggar grinned behind his beard and jerked his head up and down. ‘Pretty,’ he said. He scratched at the lice in his beard. ‘Beggar likes pretty.’
‘I reckon you can have the pretty when I’m through with her,’ Sir Geoffrey said with a grin and he took the whip from where it hung at his waist and cracked it in the air. Thomas saw that the long leather thong had a small iron claw at its end. Sir Geoffrey grinned at Thomas again, then drew back the whip as a threat. ‘Strip her, Beggar,’ he said, ‘let’s give the boys a bit of pleasure,’ and he was still grinning as Thomas swung his heavy bowstave hard into the teeth of Sir Geoffrey’s horse and the animal reared up, screaming, as Thomas knew it would, and the Scarecrow, unready for the motion, fell backwards, flailing for balance, and his men, who should have protected him, were so intent on the burning Scottish prisoners that not one drew a bow or a blade before Thomas had dragged Sir Geoffrey down from the saddle and had him on the ground with a knife at his throat.
‘I’ve been killing men for four years,’ Thomas said, ‘and not all of them were Frenchmen.’
‘Thomas!’ Eleanor screamed.
‘Take her, Beggar! Take her!’ Sir Geoffrey shouted. He heaved up, but Thomas was an archer and years of drawing his big black bow had given him extraordinary strength in the arms and chest and Sir Geoffrey could not budge him, so he spat at Thomas instead. ‘Take her, Beggar!’ he yelled again.
The Scarecrow’s men ran towards their master, but checked when they saw that Thomas had a knife at his captive’s throat.
‘Strip her, Beggar! Strip the pretty! We’ll all have her!’ Sir Geoffrey bawled, apparently oblivious of the blade at his gullet.
‘Who reads here? Who reads?’ Father Hobbe bellowed. The odd question checked everyone, even Beggar who had already snatched off Eleanor’s hat and now had his huge left arm around her neck while his right hand gripped the neckline of her frock. ‘Who in this company can read?’ Father Hobbe demanded again as he brandished the parchment he had taken from one of the sacks on the back of Thomas’s horse. ‘This is a letter from my lord the Bishop of Durham who is with our lord the King in France and it is sent to John Fossor, Prior of Durham, and only Englishmen who have fought with our King would carry such a letter. We have brought it from France.’
‘It proves nothing!’ Sir Geoffrey shouted, then spat at Thomas again as the blade was pressed hard into his throat.
‘And in what language is this letter written?’ A new horseman had spurred through the Scarecrow’s men. He wore no surcoat or jupon, but the badge on his battered shield was a scallop shell on a cross and it proclaimed that he was not one of Sir Geoffrey’s followers. ‘What language?’ he asked once more.
‘Latin,’ Thomas said, his knife still pressing hard into Sir Geoffrey’s neck.
‘Let Sir Geoffrey up,’ the newcomer commanded Thomas, ‘and I shall read the letter.’
‘Tell him to let my woman go,’ Thomas snarled.
The horseman looked surprised at being given an order by a mere archer, but he did not protest. Instead he urged his horse towards Beggar. ‘Let her go,’ he said and, when the big man did not obey, he half drew his sword. ‘You want me to crop your ears, Beggar? Is that it? Two ears gone? Then your nose, then your cock, is that what you want, Beggar? You want to be shorn like a summer ewe? Trimmed down like an elf?’
‘Let her go, Beggar,’ Sir Geoffrey said sullenly.
Beggar obeyed and stepped back and the horseman leaned down from his saddle to take the letter from Father Hobbe. ‘Let Sir Geoffrey go,’ the newcomer ordered Thomas, ‘for we shall have peace between Englishmen today, at least for a day.’
The horseman was an old man, at least fifty years old, with a great shock of white hair that looked as though it had never been close to a brush or comb. He was a large man, tall and big-bellied, on a sturdy horse that had no trapper, but only a tattered saddle cloth. The man’s full-length mail coat was sadly rusted in places and torn in others, while over the coat he had a breastplate that had lost two of its straps. A long sword hung at his right thigh. He looked to Thomas like a yeoman farmer who had ridden to war with whatever equipment his neighbours could lend him, but he had been recognized by Sir Geoffrey’s archers who had snatched off their hats and helmets when he appeared and who now treated him with deference. Even Sir Geoffrey seemed cowed by the white-haired man who frowned as he read the letter. ‘Thesaurus, eh?’ He was speaking to himself. ‘And a fine kettle of fish that is! A thesaurus indeed!’ Thesaurus was Latin, but the rest of his words were spoken in Norman French and he was evidently confident that no archer would understand him.
‘Mention of treasure’ – Thomas used the same language, which had been taught to him by his father – ‘makes men excited. Over-excited.’
‘Good Lord above, good Lord indeed, you speak French! Miracles never cease. Thesaurus, it does mean treasure, doesn’t it? My Latin is not what it was when I was young. I had it flogged into me by a priest and it seems to have mostly leaked out since. A treasure, eh? And you speak French!’ The horseman showed genial surprise that Thomas spoke the language of aristocrats, though Sir Geoffrey, who did not speak French, looked alarmed for it suggested Thomas might be a good deal better born than he had thought.
