The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic

by Bernard Cornwell

  Thomas grimaced, not at Father Hobbe's words, but because he had bitten down on a scrap of millstone grit caught in the bread. He spat it out. 'My soul isn't so black as you make it sound, Father.'

  'How would you know? All our souls are black.'

  'I've made an effort,' Thomas said, then found himself telling the whole tale of how he had gone to Caen and sought out Sir Guillaume's house, and how he had been a guest there, and about Brother Germain and the Cathar Vexilles, and about the prophecy from Daniel and the advice of Mordecai.

  Father Hobbe made the sign of the cross when Thomas talked of Mordecai. 'You can't take the word of such a man,' the priest said sternly. 'He may or may not be a good doctor, but the Jews have ever been Christ's enemy. If he is on anyone's side it must be the devil's.'

  'He's a good man,' Thomas insisted.

  'Thomas! Thomas!' Father Hobbe said sadly, then frowned for a few heartbeats. 'I have heard,' he said after a while, 'that the Cathar heresy still lives.'

  'But it can't challenge France and the Church!'

  'You would know?' Father Hobbe asked. 'It reached out across the sea to steal the lance from your father, and you say it reached across France to kill Sir Guillaume's wife. The devil works his business in the dark, Thomas.'

  'There's more,' Thomas said, and told the priest the story that the Cathars had the Grail. The light of the burning cottages flickered on the walls and gave the seaweed-crowned image on the altar a sinister cast. 'I don't think I believe any of it,' Thomas concluded.

  'And why not?'

  'Because if the story is true,' Thomas said, 'then I am not Thomas of Hookton, but Thomas Vexille. I'm not English, but some half-breed Frenchman. I'm not an archer, but noble born.'

  'It gets worse,' Father Hobbe said with a smile. 'It means that you have been given a task.'

  'They're just stories,' Thomas said scornfully. 'Give me another penance, Father. I'll make a pilgrimage for you, I'll go to Canterbury on my knees if that's what you want.'

  'I want nothing of you, Thomas, but God wants a lot from you.'

  'Then tell God to choose someone else.'

  'I'm not in the habit of giving advice to the Almighty,' Father Hobbe said, 'though I do listen to His. You think there is no Grail?'

  'Men have sought it for a thousand years,' Thomas said, 'and no one has found it. Unless the thing in Genoa is real.'

  Father Hobbe leaned his head against the wattle wall. 'I have heard,' he said quietly, 'that the real Grail is made of common clay. A simple peasant dish like the one my mother treasured, God rest her soul, for she could only afford the one good dish and then, clumsy fool that I am, I broke it one day. But the Grail, I am told, cannot be broken. You could put it in one of those guns that amused everyone at Caen and it would not break even if you dashed it against a castle wall. And when you place the bread and wine, the blood and flesh, of the Mass in that common piece of clay, Thomas, it turns to gold. Pure, shining gold. That is the Grail and, God help me, it does exist.'

  'So you would have me wander the earth looking for a peasant's dish?' Thomas asked.

  'God would,' Father Hobbe said, 'and for good reason.' He looked saddened. 'There is heresy everywhere, Thomas. The Church is besieged. The bishops and the cardinals and the abbots are corrupted by wealth, the village priests stew in ignorance and the devil is brewing his evil. Yet there are some of us, a few, who believe that the Church can be refreshed, that it can glow with God's glory again. I think the Grail could do that. I think God has chosen you.'

  'Father!'

  'And perhaps me,' Father Hobbe said, ignoring Thomas's protest. 'When this is all over,' he waved a hand to encompass the army and its plight, 'I think I may join you. We shall seek your family together.'

  'You?' Thomas asked. 'Why?'

  'Because God calls,' Father Hobbe said simply, then jerked his head. 'You must go, Thomas, you must go. I shall pray for you.'

  Thomas had to go because the night had been disturbed by the sound of horses' hooves and the strident voices of men. Thomas seized his bow and ducked out of the church to find that a score of men-at-arms were now in the village. Their shields carried the lions and stars of the Earl of Northumberland and their commander was demanding to know who was in charge of the archers.

  'I am,' Thomas said.

  'Where's this ford?'

  Thomas made himself a torch from a sheaf of thatch lashed to a pole and, while its flame lasted, he led them across the marsh towards the distant ford. The flames flickered out after a while, but he was close enough to find his way to where he had seen the cattle. The tide had risen again and black water seeped and flooded all about the horsemen, who huddled on a shrinking ridge of sand.

  'You can see where the other side is,' Thomas told the men-at-arms, pointing to the fires of the French, which looked to be about a mile away.

  'Bastards are waiting for us?'

  'Plenty of them too.'

  'We're crossing anyway,' the leading man-at-arms said. 'The King's decided it, and we're doing it when the tide falls.' He turned to his men. 'Off your horses. Find the path. Mark it.' He pointed to some pollarded willows. 'Cut staves off them, use them as markers.'

  Thomas groped his way back to the village, sometimes wading through water up to his waist. A thin mist was seeping from the flooding tide, and had it not been for the blazing huts in the village he could easily have got lost.

  The village, built on the highest piece of land in all the marsh, had attracted a crowd of horsemen by the time Thomas returned. Archers and men-at-arms gathered there and some had already pulled down the shrine to make fires from its timbers.

  Will Skeat had come with the rest of his archers. 'The women are with the baggage,' he told Thomas. 'Bloody chaos back there, it is. They're hoping to cross everyone in the morning.'

  'Be a fight first,' Thomas said.

  'Either that or fight their whole damn army later in the day. Did you find any eels?'

  'We ate them.'

  Skeat grinned, then turned as a voice hailed him. It was the Earl of Northampton, his horse's trapper spattered with mud almost to the saddle.

  'Well done, Will!'

  'Weren't me, my lord, it was this clever bastard.' Skeat jerked a thumb at Thomas.

  'Hanging did you good, eh?' the Earl said, then watched as a file of men-of-arms climbed onto the village's sand ridge. 'Be ready to move at dawn, Will, and we'll be crossing when the tide falls. I want your boys in front. Leave your horses here; I'll have good men watch them.'

  There was small sleep that night, though Thomas did doze as he lay on the sand and waited for the dawn, which brought a pale, misty light. Willow trees loomed in the vapour, while men-at-arms crouched at the tide's edge and stared north to where the mist was thickened by smoke from the enemy's fires. The river ran deceptively quick, hastened by the ebbing tide, but it was still too high to cross.

  The sandbank by the ford held Skeat's fifty archers and another fifty under John Armstrong. There were the same number of men-at-arms, all on foot, led by the Earl of Northampton, who had been given the job of leading the crossing. The Prince of Wales had wanted to lead the fight himself, but his father had forbidden it. The Earl, far more experienced, had the responsibility and he was not happy. He would have liked many more men, but the sandbank would hold no more and the paths through the marshland were narrow and treacherous, making it difficult to bring reinforcements.

  'You know what to do,' the Earl told Skeat and Armstrong.

  'We know.'

  'Maybe another two hours?' The Earl was judging the fall of the tide. The two hours crept by and the English could only stare through the thinning mist at the enemy, who formed their battleline at the ford's further side. The receding water let more men come to the sandbank, but the Earl's force was still pitifully small — perhaps two hundred men at most — while the French had double that number of men-at-arms alone. Thomas counted them as best he could, using the method Will Skeat had taught him: to divide
the enemy in two, divide again, then count the small unit and multiply it by four, and he wished he had not done it for there were so many, and as well as the men-at-arms there had to be five or six hundred infantry, probably a levy from the country north of Abbeville. They were not a serious threat for, like most infantry, they would be ill-trained and badly armed with ancient weapons and farming tools, but they could still cause trouble if the Earl's men got into difficulties. The only blessing Thomas could find in the misty dawn was that the French seemed to have very few crossbowmen, but why would they need them when they had so many men-at-arms? And the formidable force that now gathered on the river's northern bank would be fighting in the knowledge that if they repelled the English attack then they would have their enemy pinned by the sea where the greater French army could crush them.

  Two packhorses brought sheaves of precious arrows that were distributed among the archers. 'Ignore the goddamn peasants,' Skeat told his men. 'Kill the men-at-arms. I want the bastards crying for the goats they call their mothers.'

  'There's food on the far side,' John Armstrong told his hungry men. 'Those goddamn bastards will have meat, bread and beer, and it'll be yours if you get through them.'

  'And don't waste your arrows,' Skeat growled. 'Shoot proper! Aim, boys, aim. I want to see the bastards bleeding.'

  'Watch the wind!' John Armstrong shouted. 'It'll carry arrows to the right.'

  Two hundred of the French men-at-arms were on foot at the river's edge, while the other two hundred were mounted and waiting a hundred paces behind. The rabble of infantry was split into two vast lumps, one on each flank. The dismounted men-at-arms were there to stop the English at the water's edge and the mounted men would charge if any did break through, while the infantry was present to give the appearance of numbers and to help in the massacre that would follow the French victory. The French must have been confident for they had stopped every other attempt to ford the Somme.

  Except at the other fords the enemy had possessed crossbowmen who had been able to keep the archers in deep water where they could not use their bows properly for fear of soaking the strings and here there were no crossbows.

  The Earl of Northampton, on foot like his men, spat towards the river. 'He should have left his foot soldiers behind and brought a thousand Genoese,' he remarked to Will Skeat. 'We'd be in trouble then.'

  'They'll have some crossbows,' Skeat said.

  'Not enough, Will, not enough.' The Earl was wearing an old helmet, one without any face plate. He was accompanied by a grey-bearded man-at-arms with a deeply lined face, who wore a much-mended coat of mail. 'You know Reginald Cobham, Will?' the Earl asked.

  'I've heard of you, Master Cobham,' Will said respectfully.

  'And I of you. Master Skeat,' Cobham answered. A whisper went through Skeat's archers that Reginald Cobham was at the ford and men turned to look at the greybeard whose name was celebrated in the army. A common man, like themselves, but old in war and feared by England's enemies.

  The Earl looked at a pole which marked one edge of the ford. 'Reckon the water's low enough,' he said, then patted Skeat's shoulder. 'Go and kill some, Will.'

  Thomas took one glance behind and saw that every dry spot of the marsh was now crowded with soldiers, horses and women. The English army had come into the lowlands, depending on the Earl to force the crossing.

  Off to the east, though none at the ford knew it, the main French army was filing across the bridge at Abbeville, ready to fall on the English rear.

  There was a brisk wind coming from the sea, bringing a morning chill and the smell of salt. Gulls called forlorn above the pale reeds. The river's main channel was a half-mile wide and the hundred archers looked a puny force as they spread into a line and waded into the tide. Armstrong's men were on the left, Skeat's on the right, while behind them came the first of the earl's men-at-arms. Those men-at-arms were all on foot and their job was to wait till the arrows had weakened the enemy, then charge into the French with swords, axes and falchions. The enemy had two drummers, who began thumping their goatskins, then a trumpeter startled birds from the trees where the French had camped.

  'Note the wind,' Skeat shouted at his men. 'Gusting hard, she is, gusting hard.'

  The wind was blowing against the ebbing tide, forcing the river into small waves that whipped white at their tops. The French infantry were shouting. Grey clouds scudded above the green land. The drummers kept up a threatening rhythm. Banners flew above the waiting men-at-arms and Thomas was relieved that none of them showed yellow hawks on a blue field. The water was cold and came to his thighs. He held his bow high, watching the enemy, waiting for the first crossbow bolts to whip across the water.

  No bolts came. The archers were within long bowshot range now, but Will Skeat wanted them closer. A French knight on a black horse caparisoned with a green and blue trapper rode to where his comrades were on foot, then swerved off to one side and splashed into the river.

  'Silly bastard wants to make a name,' Skeat said. 'Jake! Dan! Peter! Settle the bastard for me.' The three bows were drawn back and three arrows flew.

  The French knight was hurled back in his saddle and his fall provoked the French to fury. They gave their war shout, 'Montjoie St Denis!' and the men-at-arms came splashing into the river, ready to challenge the archers, who drew back their bows.

  'Hold hard!' Skeat shouted. 'Hold hard! Closer, get closer!' The drumbeats were louder. The dead knight was being carried away by his horse as the other French edged back to the dry land. The water only reached to Thomas's knees now and the range was shortening. A hundred paces, no more, and Will Skeat was at last satisfied. 'Start putting them down!' he shouted.

  The bowcords were drawn back to men's ears, then loosed. The arrows flew, and while the first flight was still whispering over the wind-flecked water the second flight was released, and as the men put their third arrows on the strings the first whipped home. The sound was of metal striking metal, like a hundred light hammers tapping, and the French ranks were suddenly crouching with shields held high.

  'Pick your men!' Skeat shouted. 'Pick your men!' He was using his own bow, shooting it infrequently, always waiting for an enemy to lower a shield before loosing an arrow. Thomas was watching the rabble of infantry to his right. They looked as though they were ready to make a wild charge and he wanted to plant some arrows in their bellies before they reached the water.

  A score of French men-at-arms were dead or wounded and their leader was shouting at the others to lock their shields. A dozen of the rearward men-at-arms had dismounted and were hurrying forward to reinforce the riverbank.

  'Steady, boys, steady,' John Armstrong called. 'Make the arrows count.'

  The enemy shields were quilled with arrows. The French were relying on those shields that were thick enough to slow an arrow, and they were staying low, waiting for the arrows to run out or for the English men-at-arms to come close. Thomas reckoned some of the arrows would have driven clean through the shields to inflict wounds, but they were mostly wasted. He glanced back to the infantry and saw they were not moving yet. The English bows were firing less frequently, waiting for their targets, and the Earl of Northampton must have tired of the delay, or else he feared the turn of the tide for he shouted his men forward. 'St George! St George!'

  'Spread wide!' Will Skeat shouted, wanting his men to be on the flanks of the Earl's attack so they could use their arrows when the French stood to receive the charge, but the water rapidly grew deeper as Thomas moved upstream and he could not go as far as he wanted.

  'Kill them! Kill them!' The Earl was wading up to the bank now.

  'Keep ranks!' Reginald Cobham shouted.

  The French men-at-arms gave a cheer, for the proximity of the English charge meant the archers' aim would be blocked, though Thomas did manage to loose two arrows as the defenders stood and before the two groups of men-at-arms met at the river's edge with a clash of steel and shield. Men roared their war cries, St Denis contending with St Ge
orge.

  'Watch right! Watch right!' Thomas shouted, for the peasant infantrymen had started forward and he sent two arrows whistling at them. He was plucking shafts from the arrow bag as fast as he could.

  'Take the horsemen!' Will Skeat bellowed, and Thomas changed his aim to send an arrow over the heads of the fighting men at the French horsemen who were advancing down the bank to help their comrades. Some English horsemen had entered the ford now, but they could not ride to meet their French counterparts because the ford's northern exit was blocked by the wild mêlée of men-at-arms.

  Men slashed and hacked. Swords met axes, falchions split helmets and skulls. The noise was like the devil's blacksmith shop and blood was swirling down tide in the shallows. A Englishman screamed as he was cut down into the water, then screamed again as two Frenchmen drove axes into his legs and trunk. The Earl was thrusting his sword in short hard lunges, ignoring the hammer blows on his shield.

  'Close up! Close up!' Reginald Cobham shouted. A man tripped on a body, opening a gap in the English line, and three howling Frenchmen tried to exploit it, but were met by a man with a double-headed axe who struck down so hard that the heavy blade split a helmet and skull from nape to neck.

  'Flank them! Flank them!' Skeat bellowed, and his archers waded closer to the shore to drive their arrows into the sides of the French formation. Two hundred French knights were fighting eighty or ninety English men-at-arms, a brawl of swords and shields and monstrous clangour. Men grunted as they swung. The two front ranks were locked together now, shields against shields, and it was the men behind who did the killing, swinging their blades over the front rank to kill the men beyond. Most of the archers were pouring arrows into the French flanks while a few, led by John Armstrong, had closed up behind the men-at-arms to shoot into the enemy's faces.

  The French infantry, thinking the English charge stalled, gave a cheer and began to advance. 'Kill them! Kill them!' Thomas shouted. He had used a whole sheaf of arrows, twenty-four shafts, and had only one sheaf more. He drew the bow back, released, drew again. Some of the French infantry had padded jackets, but they were no protection against the arrows. Sheer numbers was their best defence and they screamed a wild war cry as they pounded down the bank. But then a score of English horsemen came from behind the archers, pushing through them to meet the mad charge. The mailed riders chopped hard into the infantry's front ranks, swords flailing left and right as the peasants hacked back. The horses bit at the enemy, and always kept moving so that no one could slash their hamstrings. A man-at-arms was hauled from his saddle and screamed terribly as he was chopped to death in the shallows. Thomas and his archers drove their arrows into the mob, more horsemen rode to help slaughter them, but still the wild rabble crowded the bank and suddenly Thomas had no arrows left and so he hung the bow round his neck, drew his sword and ran to the river's edge.