blame her. He’s a pig, the count, a bloody pig, but marriage is marriage, ain’t it? And it’ll be a chill day in hell that a woman can choose a husband. Still, I do feel sorry for her, married to that pig.’ He half drew the bow, stepped around the corner, looked for a target, saw none and stepped back. ‘So the poor girl’s in there,’ he went on, ‘and the pig is paying us to fetch her out double fast.’
Brother Michael peered around the corner, then twitched back as a pair of crossbow bolts caught the firelight. The bolts banged into the wall close to him, then ricocheted on down the alley. ‘Lucky, aren’t you?’ Sam said cheerfully. ‘Bastards saw me, took aim, then you showed yourself. You could be in heaven by now if the bastards could shoot straight.’
‘You’ll never get the lady out of that place,’ Brother Michael opined.
‘We won’t?’
‘It’s too strong!’
‘We’re the Hellequin,’ Sam said, ‘which means the poor lass has got about an hour left with her lover boy. I hope he’s giving her a good one to remember him by.’
Michael, unseen, blushed. He was troubled by women. For most of his life that temptation had not mattered because, closed away in the Cistercian house, he rarely saw any women, but the journey from Carlisle had strewn a thousand devil’s snares across his path. In Toulouse a whore had grabbed him from behind, fondled him, and he had torn himself free, shaking with embarrassment, and fallen to his knees. The memory of her laughter was like a whip on his soul, as were the memories of all the girls he had seen, stared at, and wondered about, and he remembered the white naked skin of the girl at the town gate and he knew the devil was tempting him again, and he was about to say a prayer for strength when he was distracted by a whirring sound and saw a shower of crossbow bolts slashing down to the marketplace. Some, striking the cobbles, gave off bright sparks, and Brother Michael wondered why the defenders were shooting, then became aware that dark-cloaked men were running from every alleyway to line the open space. They were archers, who began loosing arrows at the high battlements. Flights of arrows; not the short, leather-fledged, metal bolts of crossbowmen, but English arrows, white-feathered and long, speeding silently up to the wall’s top, propelled by the great yew war bows with their hempen strings that gave a harp’s sharp note for every missile shot. The arrows trembled as they left the string, then their feathers caught the air and they streaked up, white flashes in the dark, the firelight glistening from their steel points, and the monk noted how the defenders’ bolts, so thick a moment ago, were suddenly sparse. The archers were drenching the castle’s defenders with arrows, forcing the crossbowmen to duck behind the wall’s parapet, while other bowmen shot at the slits in the flanking towers. The sound of the steel heads striking the castle walls was like hail on cobbles. One archer fell back, a bolt in his chest, but that was the only casualty the monk saw, and then he heard the wheels.
‘Stand back,’ Sam warned him, and the priest stepped into the alley as a cart thundered past him. It was a small cart, light enough for six men to push, but it had been made heavier because ten great pavises, man-sized shields designed to protect a crossbowman as he reloaded his clumsy weapon, had been nailed to the front and sides to protect the men who pushed the cart, which was loaded with small wooden barrels.
‘Much less than an hour,’ Sam said, stepping into the street when the cart had passed. He drew the big bow and sent an arrow towards the castle’s gate.
It was all strangely silent. Brother Michael had expected battle to be noise, he had expected to hear men calling to God for the sake of their souls, to hear voices raised in fear or pain, but the only sounds were the shrieks of the women in the lower town, the crackle of the flames, the harp-notes of the bows, the sound of the cart’s wheels on the cobbles, and the rattle of bolts and arrows clattering on stone. Michael stared in awe as Sam kept shooting, not seeming to aim, but just whipping shaft after shaft at the castle’s battlements.
‘Good thing we can see,’ Sam said, releasing another arrow.
‘The flames, you mean?’
‘That’s why we set fire to the houses,’ Sam said, ‘to light up the bastards.’ He loosed another shaft, seemingly without effort; when Brother Michael had once tried to draw a yew bow he had not been able to pull the string more than a hand’s breadth.
The cart had reached the castle’s gate now. It stopped there, a black shadow inside the dark archway, and Brother Michael saw a flicker of light spring up in that darkness, fade, revive, then steady to a dull glow as the six men who had pushed the cart ran back towards the archers. One of them fell, evidently struck by a crossbow bolt. Two of the others snatched his arms and dragged him back, and it was then that the monk caught his first sight of le Bâtard.
‘That’s him,’ Sam said fondly, ‘our bloody bastard.’ Brother Michael saw a tall man dressed in a belted haubergeon of chain mail that had been painted black. He had high boots, a black sword scabbard and his helmet was a simple bascinet that was black like his mail. His sword was drawn and he used it to wave a dozen men-at-arms forward, forming them in a line, shields overlapping, in the open space. He glanced towards Brother Michael, who saw le Bâtard’s nose was broken and his cheek scarred, but he also saw a force in the face, a savagery, and he understood why the abbot at Paville had spoken of this man with awe. Brother Michael had expected le Bâtard to be an older man, and was surprised that the black-armoured soldier looked so young. Then le Bâtard saw Sam. ‘I thought you were guarding the church, Sam,’ he said.
‘Poxface and Johnny are still there,’ Sam said, ‘but I brought this fellow to see you.’ He jerked his head towards Brother Michael.
The monk took a step forward and felt the full force of le Bâtard’s gaze. He was suddenly nervous and his mouth went dry with fear. ‘I have a message for you,’ he stammered, ‘it’s from …’
‘Later,’ le Bâtard interrupted. A servant had brought him a shield that he looped onto his left arm, then turned to look at the castle.
Which suddenly gouted flame and smoke. The smoke was black and red, shot through with stabbing flames, and filling the night with a bursting thunder that made Brother Michael crouch in fear. Scraps of flaming wreckage seared through the night as the heated air punched past the alley’s mouth. Smoke shrouded the open space as the noise of the blast echoed and rolled back from the valley’s far side. Birds that had been nesting in crevices of the castle wall flapped into the smoky air, while one of the great banners, calling on the help of Saint Joseph, caught the fire and blazed bright against the battlements. ‘Gunpowder,’ Sam explained laconically.
‘Gunpowder?’
‘He’s a clever bastard, our bastard,’ Sam said. ‘Knocks down gates fast, don’t it? Mind you, it’s expensive. The wifeless pig had to pay double if he wanted us to use powder. He must want the bitch bad to pay that much! I hope she’s bloody worth it.’
Brother Michael saw small flames flickering in the archway’s thick smoke. He understood now why the town’s entrance looked as though it had been torn, blackened and wrenched apart by the devil’s fist. Le Bâtard had forced his way into the town with gunpowder, and he had repeated the trick to blow down the castle’s great wooden gates. Now he led his twenty men-at-arms towards the wreckage.
‘Archers!’ another man called, and the bowmen, including Sam, followed the men-at-arms towards the gate. They advanced in silence, and that too was terrifying. These men in their black and white livery, Brother Michael thought, had learned to live calmly and fight ruthlessly in the dark valley of death. None of them appeared to be drunk. They were disciplined, efficient and frightening.
