The ground was clear so far as he could see. Reassured, he thrust his hands in his belt and leaned against the rack, idly watching the other squires and knights as they walked about, until suddenly his eye lit upon a slim, fair figure.
He stood, his hand reaching automatically for his knife-hilt. Slowly he walked around behind the rack and watched as the figure approached.
‘Geoffrey!’ His low, hissing voice made the other squire start and gaze about him. ‘You cowardly whore’s whelp!’
Geoffrey was only a few yards away, and he turned with a baffled expression.
‘Geoffrey! You shit!’
‘Eh?’ A man was standing near the rack, Geoffrey could see, but at this distance, some twenty feet, he could only make out an imprecise blurred figure. His sight was poor at the best of times, but here, in bright sunlight, it was hard to see who was standing in the relative shade of the trees at the riverbank.
‘Forgotten me, have you?’ Squire Andrew called. He pulled his knife from its sheath and stalked forward. ‘I’ve wanted to see you again ever since that night. You remember – the night before we ran into Harclay at the bridge? Only you wouldn’t remember, would you? You weren’t there.’
‘I don’t know what you mean. Who are you?’
Andrew smiled thinly. There was a subtle note of fear in the other’s voice. ‘So you have forgotten me – that’s sad. I was in your company when you were riding with your master at Earl Thomas of Lancaster’s side. I remember you perfectly. You were a bold little cock there, weren’t you? Offering your advice to all and sundry. Except you weren’t quite so brave when you realised that the King was getting near, were you? You went off to seek forage, only you never came back.’
‘Of course I didn’t!’ Geoffrey lied. ‘I got cut off by a raiding party. I fought through them and went ahead to return to the Earl’s side, only the bridge I had to cross was taken. Harclay and his men were already there. I had no choice.’
‘Liar!’ Andrew spat. ‘You bolted. You rode off as soon as you could; you deserted your master.’
‘I would never have deserted him,’ Geoffrey declared hotly.
‘You’re lucky he died with the others on the bridge. Shot down by a random arrow, then crushed beneath a horse. He died there honourably, Geoffrey. Just as you should have done. Except you were too cowardly to risk your neck, weren’t you? You had to get away.’
‘I had no choice,’ Geoffrey said weakly. ‘What would you have done?’
‘I’d have fought to get back, so I could die with my master,’ Andrew said. ‘As I did.’
‘Well, all I can say is, you can’t have been cut off in the same way I was,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I had no chance.’
‘Really?’ Andrew asked cynically. ‘Don’t you recognise me yet?’
Geoffrey stared as Andrew approached him. Then his mouth fell open and he held up a hand as if to ward off evil. ‘But you were dead! I saw you fall!’
Andrew smiled mirthlessly. ‘You thought so, did you? Well, if I died, I have been brought back to life to see you suffer for your cowardice, you bastard! And you’ll suffer soon, believe me. I’ll trample your reputation in the mire for running away from the enemy even when your master needed your support. You left him and your Earl to die, just as you left me and the others in the party to die. I shall denounce you.’
Geoffrey retreated a pace as Andrew came closer, his hand reaching for his sword. His palm was slick and he could scarcely grip the hilt, but then a tussock caught his heel and he tumbled down with a squeak. He saw Andrew above him, a long knife in his hand, and he whimpered, snapping his eyes shut, bringing an arm up to protect his face.
There was nothing. No prick of pain, no kick, nothing. He heard a low chuckle of contempt and when he opened his eyes, he saw Andrew’s back as the squire marched back to the fields.
It made him want to sob. He couldn’t be shamed in front of all the people here. It would be unbearable – he’d never be able to hold his head up in public again. Terrible! Utter social ruin. And what of Alice? She would hardly want a coward for a husband.
The scene came back to him with appalling clarity. He had been at the side of his knight, as he should be, when the little party had been given permission to ‘ride out’, the technical term which meant seeking plunder with the Earl’s permission. Of course he was already anxious because of the stories about the army which the King had brought up against them all. Who wouldn’t have been? It was scary knowing that you were committing treason. There was a special punishment for that: slow hanging till nearly dead, then drawing, being gutted while alive, the still-beating heart hauled from the chest before the body was beheaded and hacked into quarters. Hideous!
He slowly climbed to his feet, the bile acrid in his mouth.
When the suggestion that he should seek fodder was made, he hadn’t intended running. He was a squire, committed and determined to do his duty by his knight. He and a number of other men had gone. And Andrew had been one of them.
He was dead. Geoffrey had seen him die! How could he have come back from the grave?
Their route had taken them towards some smoke in the distance, thinking that it must be a farm. Farms had food. Except when they arrived, there was a strong force of the King’s own men waiting and the little group had been surrounded. Andrew had been one of the first into the medley, shrieking some weird cry, sword on high as he spurred into them. Geoffrey wasn’t going to fight – he thought he could ride back and get help, get away from the clattering, clanging battle, but when he looked over his shoulder, he saw that they were already cut off. There was only the one way to safety, and that was ahead.
He had taken a moment to grit his teeth, swallowed his terror, clapped spurs to his mount and lowered his head as his charger leaped forward. There was one place where the fighting was thin. Andrew and others were in a solid mass to his right, but Geoffrey wasn’t stupid enough to head for them. The weight of him and his horse could have beaten back the ambushers, but he would have been embroiled in the same dangerous fight and he had no wish to die. Andrew had screamed at him, just the once, and as he thundered through the thin ranks of foot-soldiers, eyes squeezed tight shut against the horrible sight of polearms and axes aimed at him, he had glanced back quickly to see Andrew fall from his horse, dead. Or so it had seemed.
Geoffrey had not stopped galloping until he was convinced he had not been followed, and then he had not known where to go. North lay the Earl’s own estates and men, but there were also groups of the King’s men who were trying to capture any stragglers. Southwards was the King’s host, and yet… If he were to go south, he might be able to avoid the King’s men, perhaps skirt around them all and make his way homewards. It was a better chance than any other.
Shivering with fear, he had made his choice. He had no desire to die like Andrew and the others, and he had no desire to join the Earl’s men if they were all to be slaughtered as they subsequently were.
That was his saving. He had escaped, and later he heard how the King’s men stopped Earl Thomas at Boroughbridge, holding him and his men at the bridge and a ford until the King’s main host arrived. There was a great killing there, the river running red with the blood of the brave men who contested the passage over that long day.
All Geoffrey knew when he heard of the battle was relief. He might have been there, and if he had, he would have been at the side of his knight Sir Hector, who died on the slick wooden bridge; if Geoffrey had been there, he too would probably have succumbed to an arrow, a bolt or a sword just as his master had. But thank God he had been saved from that doom, emerging unscathed from the danger and without anyone to accuse him of cowardice.