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

by Bernard Cornwell

  Thomas could have done with some reassurance this night. He was with Sir Guillaume and his two men-at-arms and they watched the enemy's preparations from a bastion on the town's south-east corner, close to where the tower of St Barnabe's church offered a van-tage point. The remnants of Totesham's giant springald had been used to make a rickety bridge from the bastion to a window in the church tower and once through the window there was a ladder that climbed past a gaping hole torn by one of the Widowmaker's stones to the tower parapet. Thomas must have made the journey a half-dozen times before midnight because, from the parapet, it was just possible to see over the palisade into the largest of Charles's camps. It was while he was on the tower that Robbie came to the rampart beneath. 'I want you to look at this,' Robbie called up to him, and flourished a newly painted shield. 'You like it?'

  Thomas peered down and, in the moonlight, saw something red. 'What is it?' he asked. 'A blood smear?'

  'You blind English bastard,' Robbie said, 'it's the red heart of Douglas!'

  'Ah. From up here it looks like something died on the shield.'

  But Robbie was proud of his shield. He admired it in the moonlight. 'There was a fellow painting a new devil on the wall in St Goran's church,' he said, 'and I paid him to do this.'

  'I hope you didn't pay him too much,' Thomas said.

  'You're just envious.' Robbie propped the shield against the parapet before edging over the makeshift bridge to the tower. He vanished through the window then reappeared at Thomas's side. 'What are they doing?' he asked, gazing eastwards.

  'Jesus.' Thomas blasphemed, because something was at last happening. He was staring past the great black shapes of Hellgiver and Widowmaker into the eastern encampment where men, hundreds of men, were form-ing a battle line. Thomas had assumed that any fight would not start until dawn, vet now it looked as though Charles of Blois was readying to fight in the night's black heart.

  'Sweet Jesus,' Sir Guillaume, summoned to the tower's top, echoed Thomas's surprise.

  'The bastards are expecting a fight,' Robbie said, for Charles's men were lining shoulder to shoulder. They had their backs to the town and the moon glinted off the espaliers that covered the knights' shoulders and touched the blades of spears and axes white.

  'Dagworth must be coming.' Sir Guillaume said.

  'At night?' Robbie asked.

  'Why not?' Sir Guillaume retorted, then shouted down to one of his men-at-arms to go and tell Totesham what was happening. 'Wake him up,' he snarled when the man wanted to know what he should do if the garrison commander was asleep. 'Of course he's not asleep,' he added to Thomas. 'Totesham might be a bloody Englishman, but he's a good soldier.'

  Totesham was not asleep, but nor had he been aware that the enemy was formed for battle and, after he had negotiated the precarious bridge to St Barnabe's tower, he gazed at Charles's troops with his customary sour expression. 'Reckon we'll have to lend a hand,' he said.

  'I thought you didn't approve of sorties beyond the wall?' Sir Guillaume, who had chafed under that restriction, observed.

  'This is the battle that saves us,' Totesham said. 'If we lose this fight then the town falls, so we must do what we can to win it.' He sounded bleak, then he shrugged and turned back to the tower's ladder. 'God help us,' he said softly as he climbed down into the shadows. He knew Sir Thomas Dagworth's relieving army would be small and he feared it would be much smaller than he dared imagine, but when it attacked the enemy encampment the garrison had to be ready to help. He did not want to alert the enemy to the likelihood of a sortie from the battered gates and so he did not sound the church bells to gather his troops, but rather sent men through all the streets to summon the archers and men-at-arms to the market square outside St Brieuc's church. Thomas went back to Jeanette's house and pulled on his mail haubergeon, which Robbie had brought back from the Roncelets raid, then he strapped his sword belt in place, fumbling with the buckle because his fingers were still clumsy at such finicky things. He hung the arrow bag on his left shoulder, slid the black bow out of its linen cover, put a spare bowcord in his sallet, then pulled the sallet onto his head. He was ready.

  And so, he saw, was Jeanette. She had her own haubergeon and helmet and Thomas gaped at her. 'You can't join the sortie!' he said.

  'Join the sortie?' She sounded surprised. 'When you all leave the town, Thomas, who will guard the walls?' 'Oh.' He felt foolish.

  She smiled, stepped to him and gave him a kiss. 'Now go,' she said, 'and God go with you.'

  Thomas went to the marketplace. The garrison was gathering there, but they were desperately few in number. A tavern-keeper rolled a barrel of ale into the square, tapped it and let men help themselves. A smith was sharpening swords and axes in the light of a cresseted torch that burned outside the porch of St Brieuc's and his stone rang on long steel blades, the sound strangely mournful in the night. It was warm. Bats flickered about the church and dipped into the tangled moon-cast shadows of a house ruined by a trebuchet's direct hit. Women were bringing food to the soldiers and Thomas remembered how, just the year before, these same women had screamed as the English scrambled into the town. It had been a night of rape, robbery and murder, vet now the townsfolk did not want their occupiers to leave and the market square was becoming ever more crowded as men from the town brought makeshift weapons to help the foray. Most were armed with the axes they used to chop their firewood, though a few had swords or spears, and some townsmen even possessed leather or mail armour. They far outnumbered the garrison and would at least make the sally seem formidable.

  'Christ Jesus.' A sour voice spoke behind Thomas. 'What in Christ's name is that?'

  Thomas turned and saw the lanky figure of Sir Geoffrey Carr staring at Robbie's shield, which was propped against the steps of a stone cross in the market's centre. Robbie also turned to look at the Scarecrow who was leading his six men.

  'Looks like a squashed turd,' the Scarecrow said. His voice was slurred and it was evident he had spent the evening in one of the town's many taverns.

  'It's mine,' Robbie said.

  Sir Geoffrey kicked the shield. 'Is that the bloody heart of Douglas, boy?'

  'It's my badge,' Robbie said, exaggerating his Scottish accent, 'if that's what you mean.' Men all about had stopped to listen.

  'I knew you were a Scot,' the Scarecrow said, sound-ing even more drunk, 'but I didn't know you were a damned Douglas. And what the hell is a Douglas doing here?' The Scarecrow raised his voice to appeal to the assembled men. 'Whose side is bloody Scotland on, eh? Whose side? And the goddamn Douglases have been fighting us since they were spawned from the devil's own arsehole!' The Scarecrow staggered, then pulled the whip from his belt and let its coils ripple down. 'Sweet Jesus,' he shouted, 'but his god-damn family has impoverished good Englishmen. They're goddamn thieves! Spies!'

  Robbie dragged his sword free and the whip lashed up, but Sir Guillaume shoved Robbie out of the way before the clawed tip could slash his face, then Sir Guillaume's sword was drawn and he and Thomas were standing beside Robbie on the steps of the cross. 'Robbie Douglas,' Sir Guillaume shouted, 'is my friend.'

  'And mine,' Thomas said.

  'Enough!' A furious Richard Totesham pushed through the crowd. 'Enough!'

  The Scarecrow appealed to Totesham. 'He's a damned Scot!'

  'Good God, man,' Totesham snarled, 'we've got French-men, Welshmen, Flemings, Irishmen and Bretons in this garrison. What the hell difference does it make?'

  'He's a Douglas!' the Scarecrow insisted drunkenly. 'He's an enemy!'

  'He's my friend!' Thomas bellowed, inviting to fight anyone who wished to side with Sir Geoffrey.

  'Enough!' Totesham's anger was big enough to fill the whole marketplace. 'We have fight enough on our hands without behaving like children! Do you vouch for him?' he demanded of Thomas.

  'I vouch for him.' It was Will Skeat who answered. He pushed through the crowd and put an arm about Robbie's shoulders. 'I vouch for him, Dick.'

  'Then Dou
glas or not,' Totesham said, 'he's no enemy of mine.' He turned and walked away.

  'Sweet Jesus!' The Scarecrow was still angry. He had been impoverished by the house of Douglas and he was still poor – the risk he had taken in pursuing Thomas had not paid off because he had found no treasure – and now all his enemies seemed united in Thomas and Robbie. He staggered again, then spat at Robbie. 'I burn men who wear the heart of Douglas,' he said, 'I burn them!'

  'He does too,' Thomas said softly.

  'Burns them?' Robbie asked.

  'At Durham,' Thomas said, his gaze on Sir Geoffrey's eyes, 'he burned three prisoners.'

  'You did what?' Robbie demanded.

  The Scarecrow, drunk as he was, was suddenly aware of the intensity of Robbie's anger, and aware too that he had not gained the sympathy of the men in the marketplace, who preferred Will Skeat's opinion to his. He coiled the whip, spat at Robbie, and stalked uncertainly away.

  Now it was Robbie who wanted a fight. 'Hey, you!' he shouted.

  'Leave it be,' Thomas said. 'Not tonight, Robbie.' 'He burned three men?' Robbie demanded.

  'Not tonight,' Thomas repeated, and he pushed Robbie hard back so that the Scotsman sat on the steps of the cross.

  Robbie was staring at the retreating Scarecrow. 'He's a dead man,' he said grimly. 'I tell you, Thomas, that bastard is a dead man.'

  'We're all dead men,' Sir Guillaume said quietly, for the enemy was ready for them and in overwhelming numbers.

  And Sir Thomas Dagworth was nearing their trap.

  John Hammond, a deputy to Sir Thomas Dagworth, led the feint that came from the west along the Lannion road. He had sixty men, as many women, a dozen carts and thirty horses and he used them to make as much noise as possible once they were within sight of the westernmost of Duke Charles's encampments.

  Fires outlined the earthworks and firelight showed in the tiny slits between the timbers of the palisade. There seemed to be a lot of fires in the encampment, and even more blazed up once Hammond's small force began to bang pots and pans, clatter staves against trees and blow their trumpets. The drummers beat frantically, but no panic showed on the earthen ramparts. A few enemy soldiers appeared there, stared for a while down the moonlit road where Hammond's men and women were shadows under the trees, then turned and went away. Hammond ordered his people to make even more noise and his six archers, the only real soldiers in his decoy force, went closer to the camp and shot their arrows over the palisades, but still there was no urgent response. Hammond expected to see men streaming over the river that Sir Thomas's spies had said was bridged with boats, but no one appeared to be moving between the enemy encampments. The feint, it seemed, had failed.

  'If we stay here,' a man said, 'they'll goddamn crucify us.'

  'They goddamn will,' Hammond agreed fervently. 'We'll go back down the road a bit,' he said, 'just a bit. Back into deeper shadow.'

  The night had begun badly with the failure of the feint assault, but Sir Thomas's men, the real attackers, had made better progress than they expected and arrived off the eastern flank of Duke Charles's encamp-ment not long after the decoy group began its noisy diversion three miles to the west. Sir Thomas's men crouched at the edge of a wood and stared across the felled land to the shape of the nearest earthworks. The road, pale in the moonlight, ran empty to a big wooden gate where it was swallowed up by the makeshift fort.

  Sir Thomas had divided his men into two parties that would attack either side of the wooden gate. There was to he nothing subtle in the assault, just a rush through the dark then a swarming attack over the earth wall and kill whoever was discovered on its farther side. 'God give you joy_,' Sir Thomas said to his men as he walked down their line, then he drew his sword and waved his party_ on. They would approach as silently as they could and Sir Thomas still hoped he would achieve surprise, but the firelight on the other side of the defences looked unnaturally bright and he had a sinking feeling that the enemy was ready for him. Yet none showed on the embanked wall and no crossbow quarrels hissed in the dark, and so he dared to let his hopes rise and then he was at the ditch and splashing through its muddy bottom. There were archers to left and right of him, all scrambling up the bank to the palisade. Still no cross-bows shot, no trumpet sounded and no enemy showed. The archers were at the fence now and it proved more flimsy than it looked for the logs were not buried deeply enough and they could be kicked over without much effort. The defences were not formidable, and were not even defended for no enemy challenged as Sir Thomas's men-at-arms splashed through the ditch, their swords bright in the moonlight. The archers finished demolishing the palisade and Sir Thomas stepped over the fallen timbers and ran down the bank into Charles's camp.

  Except he was not inside the camp, but rather on a wide open space that led to another bank and another ditch and another palisade. The place was a labyrinth! But still no bolts flew in the dark and his archers were running ahead again, though some cursed as they tripped in holes dug to trap horses' hooves. The fires were bright beyond the next palisade. Where were the sentries? Sir Thomas hefted his shield with its device of a wheat-sheaf and looked to his left to see that his second party was across the first bank and streaming over the grass towards the second. His own archers pulled at the new palisade and, like the first, it tumbled easily. No one was speaking, no one was shouting orders, no one was calling on St George for help, they were just doing their job, but surely the enemy must hear the falling timbers? But the second palisade was down and Sir Thomas jostled with the archers through the new gap and there was a meadow in front and a hedge beyond it, and beyond that hedge were the enemy tents and the high windmill with its furled sails and the monstrous shapes of the two biggest trebuchets, all of them lit by the bright fires. So close now! And Sir Thomas felt a fierce surge of joy for he had achieved surprise and the enemy was surely his, and just at that moment the crossbows sounded.

  The bolts flickered in from his right flank, from an earth bank that ran between the second earthwork and the hedge. Archers were falling, cursing. Sir Thomas turned towards the crossbowmen who were hidden, and then more bolts came from the thick hedge in front and he knew he had surprised no one, that the enemy had been waiting for him, and his men were screaming now, but at least the first archers were shooting back. The long English arrows flashed in the moonlight, but Sir Thomas could see no targets and he realized the archers were shooting blindly. 'To me!' he shouted. 'Dagworth! Dag-worth! Shields!' Maybe a dozen men-at-arms heard and obeyed him, making a cluster who over-lapped their shields and then ran clumsily towards the hedge. Break through that, Sir Thomas thought, and at least some of the crossbowmen would be visible. Archers were shooting to their front and their side, con-fused by the enemy's bolts. Sir Thomas snatched a glance across the road and saw his other men were being similarly assailed. 'We have to get through the hedge.' he shouted, 'through the hedge! Archers! Through the hedge!' A crossbow bolt slammed into his shield. half spinning him round. Another hissed over head. An archer was twisting on the grass, his belly pierced by a quarrel.

  Other men were shouting now. Some called on St George, others cursed the devil, some screamed for their wives or mothers. The enemy had massed his crossbows and was pouring the bolts out of the darkness. An archer reeled back, a quarrel in his shoulder. Another screamed pitiably, hit in the groin. A man-at-arms fell to his knees, crying Jesus, and now Sir Thomas could hear the enemy shouting orders and insults. 'The hedge!' he roared. Get through the hedge, he thought, and maybe his archers would have clear targets at last. 'Get through the hedge!' he bellowed, and some of his archers found a gap closed up with nothing but hurdles and they kicked the wicker barriers down and streamed through. The night seemed alive with bolts, fierce with them, and a man shouted at Sir Thomas to look behind. He turned and saw the enemy had sent scores of cross-bowmen to cut off his retreat and that new force was pushing Sir Thomas's men on into the heart of the encampment. It had been a trap, he thought, a god-damned trap. Charles had wanted him to come
into the encampment, he had obliged and now Charles's men were curling about him. So fight, he told himself, fight!

  'Through the hedge!' Sir Thomas thundered. 'Get through the damned hedge!' He dodged between the bodies of his men, pounded through the gap and looked for an enemy to kill, but instead he saw that Charles's men-at-arms were formed in a battle line, all armoured, visors down and shields up. A few archers were shooting at them now, the long arrows smacking into shields, bellies, chests and legs, but there were too few archers and the crossbowmen, still hidden by hedges or walls or pavises, were killing the English bowmen. 'Rally on the mill!' Sir Thomas shouted for that was the most prominent landmark. He wanted to collect his men, form them into ranks and start to fight properly, but the crossbows were closing on him, hundreds of them, and his frightened men were scattering into the tents and shelters.

  Sir Thomas swore out of sheer frustration. The survivors of the other assault party were with him now, but all of his men were entangled in the tents, tripping on ropes, and still the crossbow bolts slammed through the dark, ripping the canvas as they hurtled into Sir Thomas's dying force. 'Form here! Form here!' he yelled, choosing an open space between three tents, and maybe twenty or thirty men ran to him, but the crossbowmen saw them and poured their bolts down the dark alleys between the tents, and then the enemy men-at-arms came, shields up, and the English archers were scattering again, trying to find a vantage point to catch their breath, find some protection and look for targets. The great banners of the French and Breton lords were being brought forward and Sir Thomas, knowing he had blundered into this trap and been comprehensively beaten, just felt a surge of anger. 'Kill the bastards,' he bawled and he led his men at the nearest enemy, the swords rang in the dark, and at least, now that it was hand to hand, the cross-bowmen could not shoot at the English men-at-arms. The Genoese were hunting the hated English archers instead, but some of the bowmen had found a wagon park and, sheltered by the vehicles, were at last fighting back.