The King’s Arrow (15 page)

“Simon, do tell me, please,” he said, softening his manner. “Why should we endanger our lives and our ship?”

Simon could not for a long moment bring himself to broach the tidings.

“Something terrible has happened,” he allowed himself to say.

Oswulf's eyes were round with the unspoken question.

Simon made a gesture, the wave of his hand that meant that he could bring himself to speak no more.

“What is it?” asked Oswulf.

Riders rode hard up and along the bank above. Commands were barked, horses snorting, spear shafts clattering against stirrups as Simon got ready for a hail of arrows, or the whistling approach of a javelin.

Simon said, “The king has been killed.”

FOUR

The King's Arrow

28

Roland Montfort spoke, but with every word blood bubbled from his lips.

He could stand, and he could execute a halting step, but he felt lost to his normal powers. Roland stretched out a hand, and the oak tree beside him offered support. Undersergeants scurried around leading horses, the huntsmen scattered by now, everyone not absolutely bound by duty running off. The incident was too great, and no one would want to admit that he had witnessed the king's dead body.

Roland was glad he was in pain, because with the king dead it was honorable and even necessary to suffer. It was a way of mourning, and a way of experiencing a wrathful humor. His very flesh was heated, and when he gave a command, telling Grestain to ride out and lay hands on the killer, the words made a bone in his skull vibrate and caused his vision to blur.

“But don't slay Lord Walter,” Roland instructed his sergeant in conclusion, blotting his mouth on his sleeve. “Bind him well, and bring him back alive.”

Roland called for Oin, the chief huntsman. “Let no one else escape the woods,” he said.

“The men of good name have ridden off already, my lord marshal,” said Oin. The huntsman wiped his tears. In his sorrow, he was waiting for some further instructions. He was a bluff, agreeable man who could calm dogs and servants with a nod. Oin could run a stoat to ground, but he would be useless, Roland knew, in a fight against other men.

The sergeant's man returned shortly and said that the knight Bertram de Lis had killed Grestain. He gasped out his news before Roland could question him, a ragged recitation that sounded shameless, as though Walter and his cohort were an act of God that no guardsman could confront and survive. The marshal was tightening the saddle girth of a big stallion as he heard the report of his sergeant's death.

He was silenced by an instant of sorrow. Then he asked, “How did the good sergeant die—by sword, ax, or spear?”

“My lord,” came the undersergeant's answer, “by the might of his own blade, taken from him by Bertram.”

Those full-blooded Norman knights could fight, thought Roland. You could hold off an army with three men like Bertram. The undersergeant addressing Roland now was Aubri, with a cowherd's accent and a youth's flushed cheek. Roland had thought Aubri had ridden north, toward Winchester with the prince.

But it was like scolding a duck, chiding a youth like Aubri. Roland kept his mouth shut. He felt flush with purpose, grim and wrathful. Roland had possessed one task in life, his single reason for eating and sleeping the king's safety, and Walter Tirel had drawn a bowstring and destroyed it all.

Many riders gathered now, recent arrivals from the lodge wanting to avenge the king, and to avenge their fallen sergeant, too. They were an agitated lot, still strapping on their helmets and buckling on their swords, but Roland would whip them into a fighting force in an instant.

There was no mystery what Walter was going to attempt. His ancestral home of Poix beckoned as a haven, and Roland gave the instructions clearly, each syllable causing the little fissure in his skull to vibrate painfully. Any pursuit would require ships.

“My lord, wait one moment, if you please,” said a familiar voice.

It was none other than Climenze, the undermarshal.

“I thought you were with the prince,” exclaimed Roland in surprise. “In Winchester, on your way with him to London—along with Aubri.”

“My lord, I was directed here,” said Climenze. “By the prince himself.”

“By Heaven's mercy, you can help,” said Roland, pleased to see Climenze after his initial surprise, and setting aside any puzzlement.

“My lord Roland,” the undermarshal was saying, “if you would consider what proceedings would please our royal prince.”

Roland marveled that this son of a mule driver could have learned to speak like a clerk. It was the surest way to advance in the world of circumspect and violent men—speak like one of them.

“Prince Henry,” said Roland, irritated that any explanation was required, “will surely want Walter manacled and set behind walls.”

“My lord, the king's death—” began Climenze. The words stopped him. Climenze made a visible effort and continued, “The king's mishap was purest accident, I warrant, and nothing more.”

Roland knew better. A guardsman helped Roland into the saddle. The marshal's ears were ringing. Who would have expected that upstart Simon Foldre to have such a potent right fist?

“Think carefully, my lord marshal,” said Climenze, seizing Roland's horse by the bridle, “what the prince and his supporters might have in mind.”

Roland raised his voice, even though the effort made a fissure in his skull ignite like red lightning. “Our duty!” he cried.

“Our duty to the king,” came the breathless, eager cheer from the horsemen all around. But perhaps they were not so fervent as he might wish, Roland thought. Perhaps the spirit of the men would kindle only when they spied their quarry. No doubt they were bemused with unexpected grief over the fallen king, and would take time to rise to the pursuit.

The royal marshal rode hard, scattering geese, flushing a billy goat, bramble hedges and puddles all but vague impressions.

Climenze rode along with the rest. No one wanted to be left out of this fierce chase. The lord marshal knew that a new song would ring throughout the kingdom after this day—the story of Walter of Poix seized, Walter brought to London in shackles, Walter confessing for the good of his soul.

And Simon Foldre, thought Roland. Yes, that half-Norman upstart—he would beg for mercy, too.

29

Simon realized as soon as he had delivered the news of the king's end that his choice of words, and the truth they conveyed, could have been more artfully expressed.

Gilda put a hand out to the side of the ship to steady herself at the report, seizing one of the sail sheets and causing the furled canvas to creak and sway, the entire mast describing a tight circle in the sky. Oswulf reeled, too, deck pegs squeaking all the way to the prow.

When he could manage to make a further sound, Oswulf said, “Simon, get them off my ship.”

An arrow snapped through the air, missing the ship and splashing in the current beyond. The passage of the humming projectile and its entrance into the water was much like the flight of a swift or a barn swallow, quick-flying birds that never meant any harm to human beings.

The contrast between the happy hum of the arrow and the instant death that it implied made Simon feel all the more concerned at the predicament he had forced upon his companions. He felt responsible for encouraging Walter to go hunting and had a dismal insight into events. He realized that without his own discovery of the antler in the woods—it seemed ages ago now—the king would still be alive.

Walter gave the riverbank a thoughtful, calculating glance. It was possible to dodge an approaching arrow, with nimbleness and luck, but not if several arrows arrived at the same time.

“Simon,” said Oswulf, not belligerent now so much as pleading, “I don't want this trouble.”

As he spoke he made an effort to steer the ship away from the bank, across the widening circles the vanished arrow had made in the water as Nicolas, unbidden, began working at the ropes binding the sail.

Borne almost entirely by the outgoing tide, the ship was at first slow to answer the tiller, but as the weathered canvas fell open, the keel made a satisfying sound beneath their feet, and the entire ship's frame shivered with gathering speed.

Another arrow, its white feathers flashing, sang through the air. There was no arc to its flight, the arrow describing a long, straight line across the ship and far off, toward the distant opposite embankment. Archers were testing the range, and at the same time they were letting the ship's passengers know that they would make easy targets.

To preserve his own life and the life of his sister, and to save the ship from the harm an iron-tipped arrow could do, Oswulf levered the ship further into the main current. The sail bellied steadily with the wind, and Simon began to feel the first real hope.

“Our price is ten shillings a day,” said Gilda, “for my brother's service, and ten for mine, and another ten for the use of the ship.” She was pale, one hand on the ship's rail to steady herself. Simon had to admire her pluck.

But there was no reason for Gilda and her brother to panic. The two arrows had shown that the archers were capable of killing them, choosing their shots. But they also demonstrated that Walter's illustrious name, and the uncertain justice of killing river folk whose vessel had apparently been commandeered, made the bowmen cautious.

“Your price is too high,” protested Simon.

No one living near New Forest avoided hard bargaining, and many people enjoyed it. Simon was not one of them.

“What, Simon,” asked Gilda, “are his lordship's choices?”

Gilda's offer was far from cheap. The service of an experienced man-at-arms could be had for five shillings a day, and many freemen accepted payment in blocks of salt or candle wax, or even ells of wool, and considered themselves to be on the road to prosperity.

“And his lordship,” added Oswulf, “agrees to pay for as much of the cargo as salt water might ruin. And he'll pay us a further ten shillings per day for our trip home.”

This could run to a considerable expense. A voyage across the Channel could take anywhere from overnight to a month, depending on weather and currents, and an easy voyage out was often followed by a rough passage back. The
Saint Bride
might prove to be a ruinously expensive vessel.

Gilda gave her brother an appreciative smile, and then she looked at Simon and lifted one eyebrow expectantly.

“And,” she said, “we'll see his silver now.”

Simon could not believe what he was hearing. “Now?”

“Simon,” said Gilda with a show of patience, like someone explaining the obvious to a child, “we need to have a grand deposit on the voyage, or this man of illustrious name might well disembark once we reach the safety of Normandy and leave us without so much as a farthing.”

Walter acted the part of the nobleman trusting that his companions would arrange all the details, but his gaze continued to search the trees above the river. He shot a questioning glance at Simon, and Simon in return made a gesture of reassurance he could not at the moment feel.

He was quietly furious with Gilda and her brother, and astonished that they could treat an old friend with so little heart. At the same time, Simon realized that Gilda was no doubt playing for time, believing that as long as she and her brother delayed, quibbling over money, the royal guard would have time to crowd the bank with bowmen, and boats, fast and many, could be summoned to block the mouth of the river.

But Simon felt that he knew Walter Tirel's character fairly well by now. He recognized that this aloof, handsomely mantled figure could commit unexpectedly violent acts. Simon would feel bitterly responsible if Walter felt he had to draw his sword.

They all heard the next arrow's approach, a wasplike keen impending from the dark trees. Even Walter, for all his practiced self-possession, ducked his head reflexively at the sound. But there was no following report of impact, and no further evidence of an arrow—no splash, and no lancing flight toward the opposite bank.

The ship's ropes continued to grow alternately taut and slack as the vessel worked, and the sail was ripe with the wind. No harm, thought Simon.

No harm had come
.

There was, however, an additional, delayed gasp of surprise, and an in-taken breath.

And, after a long moment, a body tumbled heavily onto the deck.

30

Tuda lay on the planks, his leather cap black with blood.

An arrow jutted from his temple, his arms and legs thrown just as they had fallen, powerless to move. Blood and dark matter from his ruptured horse-hide cap spilled across the deck as the ship inclined.

Simon fell to his knees.

Oswulf wailed, and Gilda had to take the tiller as her brother knelt on the deck and made every effort to shake Tuda back to life.

Simon was shocked beyond words. He knew Tuda's family, with their landmark henhouse. Simon could not bring himself to imagine the grief Tuda's loss would bring throughout New Forest.

“They killed our Tuda,” cried Oswulf.

When Oswulf resumed his place at the tiller, his jaw had a determined set, and there was no talk of turning back, or of the price of the voyage, as the ship rode the swift tide and the rising wind.

“The Devil take you, Simon,” said Oswulf after a silence, “and the old king and the new king Henry, or whoever it will be, and all the rest.” He spoke in anger, but like someone resigned to whatever further disgrace would take place.

Gilda stood beside her brother in a show of sibling concord, united in their fury and sorrow. Simon understood that to Gilda, her brother was both a responsibility and a source of support, but Simon was disappointed in her. He doubted that he would ever again enjoy Gilda's smile, or take pleasure in her touch—or ever want to.