‘Bring me my armour, lads,’ William said, without looking up from the maps. ‘It seems I am riding to war.’
They cheered delightedly at that, bolting out of the room and heading to the armoury for his personal equipment. It would be well oiled and maintained, ready to encase him in iron. Staring after them, William found himself smiling as they shouted the news to others and a ragged cheer began to spread across the fortress of Calais. Despite his black mood, he was pleased at their enthusiasm and confidence in him. He did not share it, but he could not refuse the cup he had been given either.
Thomas groaned and then began choking when a big hand was pressed over his mouth and nose. He struggled against the weight, bending fingers back until whoever it was hissed in pain. Just before the finger bones cracked, the pressure vanished and Thomas was left panting for breath in the dawn light. His mind cleared and he felt a wave of shame as he made out his son sitting in the dim light next to him. Rowan’s eyes were furious as he rubbed his bruised hand.
Thomas was alert enough by then not to speak. He watched his son’s eyes slide over as he tilted his head, indicating someone close by. In panic, Thomas felt his gorge rise, some last symptom of the fever that had gripped him cruelly and made his body as weak as rotted cloth. The last thing he remembered was being dragged through a field by his son, under moonlight.
The fever had broken, Thomas understood that much. The terrible heat that dried his mouth and made every joint ache had gone. He tasted vomit rising in his throat and had to use his own hands to close his jaw, pressing as hard as he could as the world wavered and he came close to passing out. His hands felt like slabs of cold meat against his face.
Rowan tensed at the grunting, choking noises coming from his father. The young man peered through the slats of the barn at whoever was walking around out there, but he could see very little. In more peaceful times, it would have been nothing more sinister than the farmer’s lads roused for a day of work, but it had been days since the two archers had found a farm that wasn’t abandoned. The roads heading north had clogged with a new wave of refugees, but this time there was no excuse at all, no fine talk of a truce and deals struck in private. Rowan knew he and his father were over the Normandy border, though it had been a while since they’d dared to cross a main road and scrape the moss from a milestone. Rouen lay somewhere to the north, that was all Rowan knew. Beyond that city, Calais would still be there, the busiest port in France.
In the dust and crumbling chicken muck, Thomas could not prevent the spasms as his empty stomach heaved. He tried to smother the noise with hands black with dirt, but he could not be completely silent. Rowan froze as a board creaked nearby. He hadn’t heard anyone enter the barn and caution made little sense. The French soldiers marching north were loudly confident in the strength of their own army. Yet there was a chance Thomas and Rowan were still hunted by their original pursuers. They’d learned enough about those stubborn, dogged men to fear them, men who had followed the two archers for sixty miles of night treks and daylight collapse.
In his imagination, Rowan had fleshed out the dim moving shadows he’d seen in the distance more than once. His mind made vengeful devils of them, relentless creatures who would not stop, no matter how far they had to follow. He looked helplessly at his father’s battered body, far thinner now than when they had fought and lost. They had thrown their bows away days before, a gesture of survival that felt more like yanking healthy teeth from a jaw. Apart from losing the weight of the weapons, it would not save them if they were taken. The French were known to look hard for the peculiar build of archers, reserving a special hatred and appalling punishments for those they caught. There was no hiding the calluses of an archer’s hands.
Rowan’s hand still ached for the weapon he’d lost, clutching for it whenever he was afraid. God, he could not bear it! He still had his seax with a horn hilt. He almost wished he could just launch himself from the shadowed stall at whoever was creeping around the barn. The tension was making his heart pound so fast it made lights flash across his vision.
He jerked his head round at a rustle, almost cursing aloud. There was always something moving in a barn among the bales of straw. Rats, of course, and no doubt cats to chase them; insects and birds making their nests in the spring. Rowan told himself he was probably surrounded by creeping, living things. He doubted any of them were heavy enough to make the floorboards creak.
Outside, he heard a crash of plates, shattering and spinning on the ground with a noise that could be nothing else. Rowan stood up from his crouch to peer through the slats once again. As he did so, he heard a footstep in the gloom. He glanced quickly into the yard, catching sight of a French soldier laughing as he tried to pick whole plates out of the pile he’d dropped. They were not the dark pursuers he’d feared, just looting French pikemen.
Yet there was still that step, inside the barn. Rowan looked down at his father, at the clothes wet with sweat and mired in his own filth. When Rowan looked up again, it was into the face of a startled young man wearing rough blue cloth. They gaped at each other for an instant of pounding hearts and then Rowan leaped forward, thrusting his knife into the other’s chest and crying out as he did it.
His weight took the stranger down on to his back and the seax sank in further, pressing through him until Rowan felt ribs crack under his hand. The young Frenchman blew out a great rush of air. Whatever he had been trying to say was lost in the agony of the knife in his chest. Rowan stared down in terror at the scrabbling figure he had pinned to the ground. He could only lean on him with his full weight, smothering the kicking legs with his own.
In the yard, a voice called a question or a name. Rowan’s face crumpled in something like weeping as he pressed his forehead against the cheek of the man he held down, just hanging on and waiting for the twitches and scuffles and gasping moans to come to an end. Rowan was shaking when he finally raised his head, looking down into eyes that were smeared with dust from his tunic, yet did not close.
The voice called once more, closer. Rowan sank into a crouch, baring his teeth like a dog defending its kill. He slid the big knife out from between the ribs and held it up, ready to be attacked again. There could be a dozen soldiers nearby, or a hundred, or just one or two. He had no way of knowing, and terror and disgust overwhelmed him. He wanted nothing more than to run, just run from the scrabbling horror he had felt as another man’s life was stolen. What he’d felt had been sickeningly intimate and he wanted to get away from that place.
He heard a soft sound at his feet and glared down, understanding that the young man’s bowels had emptied themselves, along with his bladder. The soldier’s penis was clearly erect, visible in his darkening trousers. Rowan felt his stomach heave and his eyes fill with unwanted tears. He’d heard of such things, but the reality was far, far worse. It was nothing like striking a man from a distance with a cloth-yard arrow and a good yew bow.
A shout from outside made him start and scramble back to the wooden stall. The voice was growing louder and more irritable, as the man outside lost patience with his missing companion. Rowan peered through tiny cracks and nail holes, looking for others. He could not see them, though he had the sense that they were all around the ramshackle barn in the dawn. He shuddered, muscles twitching all along his side and back. He needed to get away into the fields, but his father was too heavy to carry further.
On impulse, Rowan crouched by Thomas and slapped lightly at his face. The eyes opened, the dark irises tinged with yellow as his father pushed his hands away.
‘Can you walk?’ Rowan whispered.