The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic (52 page)

The lance of St George struck Guy Vexille on the chest. The silver blade crumpled and tangled with the crimson banner, but the old ash shaft had just enough strength to knock the horseman back and keep his sword from the Prince, who was being pulled free by two of his men-at-arms. Vexille hacked again, reaching far from his saddle and Will Skeat bellowed at him and thrust his sword hard up at Vexille's waist, but the black shield deflected the lunge and Vexille's trained horse instinctively turned into the attack and the rider slashed down hard.

'No!' Thomas shouted. He thrust the lance again, but it was a feeble weapon and the dry ash splintered against Vexille's shield. Will Skeat was sinking, blood showing at the ragged gash in his helmet. Vexille raised his sword to strike at Skeat a second time as Thomas stumbled forward. The sword fell, slicing into Skeat's head,
then
the blank mask of Vexille's dark visor swung towards Thomas. Will Skeat was on the ground, not moving. Vexille's horse turned to bring its master to where he could kill most efficiently and Thomas saw death in the Frenchman's bright sword, but then, in panicked desperation, he rammed the broken end of the black lance into the destrier's open mouth and gouged the ragged wood deep into the animal's tongue. The stallion sheered away, screaming and rearing and Vexille was thrown hard against his saddle's cantle.

The horse, eyes white behind its chanfron and mouth dripping blood, turned back to Thomas, but the Prince of Wales had been freed from the dying horse and he brought two men-at-arms to attack Vexille's other flank and the horseman parried the Prince's sword blow, then saw he must be overwhelmed and so drove back his spurs to take his horse through the mêlée and away from danger.

'Calix mens inebrians!'
Thomas shouted. He did not know why. The words just came to him, his father's dying words, but they made Vexille look back. He stared through the eye slits, saw the dark-haired man who was holding his own banner, then a new surge of vengeful Englishmen spilled down the slope and he pricked his horse through the carnage and the dying men and the broken dreams of France.

A cheer sounded from the English hilltop. The King had ordered his mounted reserve of knights to charge the French and as those men lowered their lances still more horses were being hurried from the baggage park so that more men could mount and pursue the beaten enemy.

John of Hainault, Lord of Beaumont, took the French King's reins and dragged Philip away from the mêlée. The horse was a remount, for one royal horse had already been killed, while the King himself had taken a wound in the face because he had insisted on fighting with his visor up so that his men would know he was on the field.

'It is time go, sire,' the Lord of Beaumont said gently.

Is it over?' Philip asked. There were tears in his eyes and incredulity in his voice.

'It's over, sire,' the Lord of Beaumont said. The English were howling like dogs and the chivalry of France was twitching and bleeding on a hillside. John of Hainault did not know how it had happened, only that the battle, the oriflamme and the pride of France were all lost. 'Come, sire,' he said, and dragged the King's horse away. Groups of French knights, their horses' trappers rattling with arrows, were crossing the valley to the far woods that were dark with the coming night.

'That astrologer, John,' the French King said.

'Sire?'

'Have him put to death.
Bloodily.
You hear me?
Bloodily!'
The King was weeping as, with the handful of his bodyguard that was left, he rode away.

More and more Frenchmen were fleeing to seek safety in the gathering dark and their retreat turned into a gallop as the first English horsemen of the battle burst through the remnants of their battered line to begin the pursuit.

The English slope seemed to twitch as the men at arms wandered among the wounded and dead. The twitching was the jerking of the dying men and horses. The valley floor was scattered with the Genoese
who
had been killed by their own paymasters. It was suddenly very quiet. There was no clang of steel, no hoarse shouts and no drums. There were moans and weeping and sometimes a gasp, but it seemed quiet. The wind stirred the fallen banners and
flickered
the white feathers of the fallen arrows that had reminded Sir Guillaume of a spread of flowers.

And it was over.

—«»—«»—«»—

Sir William Skeat lived. He could not speak, there was no life in his eyes and he seemed deaf. He could not walk, though he seemed to try when Thomas lifted him, but then his legs crumpled and he sagged to the bloody ground.

Father Hobbe lifted Skeat's helmet away, doing it with an extraordinary gentleness. Blood poured from Skeat's grey hair and Thomas gagged when he saw the sword cut in the scalp. There were scraps of skull, strands of hair and Skeat's brain all open to the air.

'Will?' Thomas knelt in front of him. 'Will?'

Skeat looked at him, but did not seem to see him. He had a half smile and empty eyes.

'Will!' Thomas said.

'He's going to die, Thomas,' Father Hobbe said softly.

'He is not! Goddamn it, he is not! You hear me? He will live. You bloody pray for him!'

'I will pray, God knows how I will pray,' Father Hobbe soothed Thomas, 'but first we must doctor him.'

Eleanor helped. She washed Will Skeat's scalp, then she and Father Hobbe laid scraps of broken skull like pieces of shattered tile. Afterwards Eleanor tore a strip of cloth from her blue dress and gently bound the strip about Will Skeat's skull, tying it beneath his chin so that when it was done he looked like an old woman in a scarf. He had said nothing as Eleanor and the priest bandaged him, and if he had felt any pain it did not show on his face.

'Drink, Will,' Thomas said, and held out a water bottle taken from a dead Frenchman, but Skeat ignored the offer. Eleanor took the bottle and held it to his mouth, but the water just spilled down his chin. It was dark by then. Sam and Jake had made a fire, using a battle-axe to chop French lances for fuel. Will Skeat just sat by the flames. He breathed, but nothing else.

'I have seen it before,' Sir Guillaume told Thomas. He had hardly spoken since the battle, but now sat beside Thomas. He had watched his daughter tend Skeat and he had accepted food and drink from her, but he had shrugged away her conversation.

'Will he recover?' Thomas asked.

Sir Guillaume shrugged. 'I saw a man cut through the skull. He lived another four years, but only because the sisters in the abbaye looked after him.'

'He will live!' Thomas said.

Sir Guillaume lifted one of Skeat's hands, held it for a few seconds,
then
let it drop. 'Maybe,' he sounded sceptical. 'You were fond of him?'

'He's like a father,' Thomas said.

'Fathers die,' Sir Guillaume said bleakly. He looked drained, like a man who had turned his sword against his own king and failed in his duty.

'He will live,' Thomas said stubbornly.

'Sleep,' Sir Guillaume said, 'I will watch him.'

Thomas slept among the dead, in the battle line where the wounded moaned and the night wind stirred the white feathers flecking the valley. Will Skeat was no different in the morning. He just sat, eyes vacant, gazing at nothing and stinking because he had fouled himself.

'I shall find the Earl,' Father Hobbe said, 'and
have
him send Will back to England.'

The army stirred itself sluggishly. Forty English men-at-arms and as many archers were buried in Crécy's church yard, but the hundreds of French corpses, all but for the great princes and noblest lords, were left on the hill. The folk of Crécy could bury them if they
wished,
Edward of England did not care.

Father Hobbe looked for the Earl of Northampton, but two thousand French infantry had arrived just after dawn, coming to reinforce an army that had already been broken, and in the misty light they had thought the mounted men who greeted them were friends and then the horsemen dropped their visors, couched their lances and put back their spurs. The Earl led them.

Most of the English knights had been denied a chance to fight on horseback in the previous day's battle, but now, this Sunday morning, they'd been given their moment and the great destriers had torn bloody gaps in the marching ranks,
then
wheeled to cut the survivors into ragged terror. The French had fled, pursued by the implacable horsemen, who had cut and thrust until their arms were weary with the killing.

Back on the hill between Crécy and Wadicourt a pile of enemy banners was gathered. The flags were torn and some were still damp with blood. The oriflamme was carried to Edward who folded it and ordered the priests to give thanks. His son lived, the battle was won and all Christendom would know how God favoured the English cause. He declared he would spend this one day on the field to mark the victory,
then
march on. His army was still tired, but it had boots now and it would be fed. Cattle were roaring as archers slaughtered them and more archers were bringing food from the hill where the French army had abandoned its supplies. Other men were plucking arrows from the field and tying them into sheaves while their women plundered the dead.

The Earl of Northampton came back to Crécy's hill roaring and grinning. 'Like slaughtering sheep!' he exulted,
then
roamed up and down the line trying to relive the excitements of the last two days. He stopped by Thomas and grinned at the archers and their women.

'You look different, young Thomas!' he said happily, but then looked down and saw Will Skeat sitting like a child with his head bound by the blue scarf. 'Will?' the Earl
said
in puzzlement. 'Sir William?'

Skeat just sat.

'He was cut through the skull, my lord,' Thomas said.

The Earl's bombast fled like air from a pricked bladder. He slumped in his saddle, shaking his head. 'No,' he protested, 'no. Not Will!' He still had a bloody sword in his hand, but now he wiped the blade through the mane of his horse and pushed it into the scabbard. 'I was going to send him back to Brittany,' he said. 'Will he live?'

No one answered.

'Will?' the Earl called, then clumsily dismounted from the clinging saddle. He crouched by the Yorkshireman. 'Will? Talk to me, Will!'

'He must go to England, my lord,' Father Hobbe said.

'Of course,' the Earl said.

'No,' Thomas said.

The Earl frowned at him. 'No?'

'There is a doctor in Caen, my lord,' Thomas spoke in French now, 'and I would take him there. This doctor works miracles, my lord.'

The Earl smiled sadly. 'Caen is in French hands again, Thomas,' he said, 'and I doubt they'll welcome you.'

'He will be welcome,' Sir Guillaume said, and the Earl noticed the Frenchman and his unfamiliar livery for the first time.

'He is a prisoner, my lord,' Thomas explained, 'but also a friend. We serve you, so his ransom is yours, but he alone can take Will to Caen.'

'Is it a large ransom?' the Earl asked.

'Vast,' Thomas said.

'Then your ransom, sir,' the Earl spoke to Sir Guillaume, 'is Will Skeat's life.' He stood and took his horse's reins from an archer, then turned back to Thomas. The boy looked different, he thought, looked like a man. He had cut his
hair, that
was it.
Chopped it, anyway.
And he looked like a soldier now, like a man who could lead archers into battle. 'I want you in the spring, Thomas,' he said. 'There'll be archers to lead, and if Will can't do it, then you must. Look after him now, but in the spring you'll serve me again, you hear?'

'Yes, my lord.'

'I hope your doctor can work miracles,' the Earl said,
then
he walked on.

Sir Guillaume had understood the things that had been said in French, but not the rest and now he looked at Thomas. 'We go to Caen?' he asked.

'We take Will to Doctor Mordecai,' Thomas said.

'And after that?'

'I go to the Earl,' Thomas said curtly.

Sir Guillaume flinched.
'And Vexille, what of him?'

'What of him?' Thomas asked brutally. 'He's lost his damned lance.' He looked at Father Hobbe and spoke in English. 'Is my penance done, father?'

Father Hobbe nodded. He had taken the broken lance from Thomas and entrusted it to the King's confessor who had promised that the relic would be taken to Westminster. 'You have done your penance,' the priest said.

Sir Guillaume spoke no English, but he must have understood Father Hobbe's tone for he gave Thomas a hurt look. 'Vexille still lives,' he said. 'He killed your father and my family. Even God wants him dead!' There were tears in Sir Guillaume's eye. 'Would you leave me as broken as the lance?' he asked Thomas.

'What would you have me do?' Thomas demanded.

'Find Vexille.
Kill him.' He spoke fiercely, but Thomas said nothing. 'He has the Grail!' the Frenchman insisted.

'We don't know that,' Thomas said angrily. God and Christ, he thought, but
spare
me! I can be an archers' leader. I can go to Caen and let Mordecai work his miracle and then lead Skeat's men into battle. We can win for God, for Will, for the King and for England. He turned on the Frenchman. 'I am an English archer,' he said harshly, 'not a knight of the round table.'

Sir Guillaume smiled. 'Tell me, Thomas,' he said gently, 'was your father the eldest or a younger son?'

Thomas opened his mouth. He was about to say that of course Father Ralph had been a younger son, then realized he did not know. His father had never said, and that meant that perhaps his father had hidden the truth as he had hidden so many things.

'Think hard, my lord,' Sir Guillaume said pointedly, 'think hard. And remember, the Harlequin maimed your friend and the Harlequin lives.'

I am an English archer, Thomas thought, and I want nothing more.

But God wants more, he thought, but he did not want that burden.

It was enough that the sun shone on summer fields, on white feathers and dead men.