The Water Devil (4 page)

“Hsst. Gilbert.” Someone, he couldn't tell who, was outside his open tent flap, visible as only a dark shape in the last of the pallid twilight. “Listen, Gilbert, you clot-headed scribbler, get out here.” Oh. Father. Gilbert stuck his pen behind his ear, raised one eyebrow, and looked at the dark shape with a quiet, ironic gaze. “Is that any way to look at your
father,
you serpent's tooth?” said the shape.

“My pardon, most worthy and reverend sire,” said Gilbert, rising and saluting the old man with studied formality.

“Gilbert, come look at the horses. We've lost two more—” “Sumpter horses?”

“No, my destriers, dammit. My heart, my blood. Come look. It's something in this accursed French fodder. You pussyfoot around the Duke all the time. Take some advantage from your position, and tell him about my horses. If we stay longer, the Brokesford stud is dead. I have three stallions left, Gilbert. Three, counting the one you've
got. God knows if I'll bring even one of them home sound again.” Gilbert had not seen his father in such a state for the entire campaign, even when he'd lost the eighth archer from the manor and begun to doubt he'd have enough men for plowing, if they ever got home. Gilbert rose quickly, threw a heavy, fur-lined cloak over his stained leather gambeton and wool tunic. Outside, his own horses were picketed, where his boy was feeding them. His father stopped, and peered fiercely at the fodder, running it through his fingers and smelling it. “No, no. This stuff's all right.” He eyed the big black destrier whose fodder he'd just inspected. Thin and winter coated, the stallion rolled his eye and skittered sideways. “Thin, dammit, thin. But at least his spirit's still there.”At this, the boy feeding the horses snorted. Calling Urgan spirited was flattery indeed; he was bad tempered and crazy, the best looking and the meanest, most unreliable horse the manor possessed. That was why Sir Hubert had decided to lend him to Gilbert for the campaign.

They made their way through the lit fires roasting rabbits, roasting hedgehogs, roasting any small unmentionable creature that had allowed itself to be caught. Around them archers and pikemen, and sappers huddled and drank watered French wine. Outside his father's and his older brother Hugo's tents, the last of the Brokesford stud was picketed. Three men in soft, knee length leather boots, their heavy, fur-lined cloaks drawn close around them, were gathered around a bloated, dead destrier. Another man, one of the stable hands from Brokesford, knelt at the creature's head.

“My lord!” cried Sir Hubert, sweeping the quilted arming coif from his white hair and kneeling before the great Duke of Lancaster.

“Rise, rise at once, Sir Hubert,” said Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester, steward of England, Lord of Bergerac and Beaufort, and second only to the king himself in power and lands. “Your destrier seems to have died. What is your opinion?”

“My lord, there's too little fodder, and what we have is going bad.” He paused. The word “retreat” was not in his vocabulary. “If we stay another week, we will lose the horses.”

“That is exactly what I think. But I would rather say,‘another two days.'” said the Duke. He was a shrewd-eyed, sober-headed man of fifty, who had learned through long experience when to take chances and when risk was futile. Now as he paced about the destrier, a handsome dappled gray he had once thought to have for himself, he was making up his mind about something.

“That is my opinion, too,” said the Earl of Warwick, one of the commanders who had accompanied the Duke.

“Someone must tell the king that he risks losing in a day what it has taken him twenty years to get,” said the Duke quietly. And silently he added to himself, and that someone will have to be me. Your will be done, Lord.

THE FOLLOWING DAY
, the archers on the city walls looked out at a sea of churned mud and garbage, spotted here and there with the decaying corpses of horses. Across the low, undulating fields, blackened and ruined, the columns of supply carts, footsoldiers, and mounted cavalry wound into the distance toward Chartres. In the rear, a detachment of horsemen and archers, banners whipping in a curious, icy wind that had sprung up, guarded the last of the supplies from any pursuit that could be mounted from the city. Black clouds were moving across the sky, and the cold wind blew away the sound of the bells of Cathedral of Notre Dame, ringing for the
Te Deum
that was being celebrated beneath its high, shadowy arches.

What an odd wind, thought Gilbert. Just look at how it's piling up those black clouds. I hope the rain won't be heavy. He had a padded arming coif beneath his pointed helmet, the high neck of his thick wool tunic stood between him and the chain mail of his gorget, and a heavy, quilted leather gambeton stood between the tunic and his mailshirt, and still he felt cold. The first drops of rain dampened his long riding surcoat, embroidered with the de Vilers arms, and it clung to the steel breastplate beneath. Damn, it'll have to be polished again, he thought. All best quality armor, bought new from the most expensive armorer in London, and not yet paid for. I should
have been a Lombard, he thought briefly. Those bankers make money no matter who wins. Well, I suppose it's lowly, lending out money for a living. But just now, I wouldn't mind being a bit lowlier myself and cozy at home with Margaret. You don't find a banker riding a crazy horse in a rainstorm at the tail end of a retreating army.

On one side of the winding column of carts, pack animals, and men, the stumps of trees were all that remained of a slashed and ruined orchard. On the other side of the road, blackened fields stretched to meet the ruins of a little village. Here and there an old tree, too big for destruction, extended its branches. But as Gilbert watched the toiling column moving into the distance, from the black clouds above came the distant rumble of thunder, and a faraway flash. Then a bright streak of lightning streaked across the sky, and another crashing boom came, much closer this time. Urgan rolled his eyes and flicked his ears back and forth, then paused, quivering all over. Gilbert was about to sink his spurs into him when he heared the gush and felt the icy breath of the hailstorm. A sheet of white descended in front of him, and huge stones pelted down, bigger than pigeons' eggs, clattering on his helmet, battering animals and soldiers to the ground. Lightning, snaking from the sky, seemed to seek out the mounted knights in their wet armor. In front of him, footsoldiers, smashed to their knees by the assault from heaven, held their shields over their heads. There was a hideous “crash” and the mounted knight in front of him was struck dead, together with his horse. But Urgan, with an eerie scream, was on his way, out of control, too crazed to feel the heavy curb bit and fleeing wildly to the shelter of the nearest tree. Beneath its outstretched branches, Gilbert was at last able to pull him to a stop. There was a blinding crash, and Gilbert de Vilers vanished briefly from the world.

“WELL, BROTHER GREGORY
, you always wanted to see God; now's your chance.” The voice of Godric of Witham, the abbot who had booted him out of the monastery for disputing with his interpretation of Saint Paul's concept of salvation. There had been a
few other things, too, but Gilbert had never counted them relevant. What a narrow old man; he could never admit when he was wrong. Worse than father, even.

“I didn't know you were dead,” said Gilbert de Vilers, who felt curiously insubstantial at this point.

“Oh, I've been dead for ages. A bit of bad fish six days before Holy Week three years ago. But just take a look at yourself.”The former Brother Gregory looked down and saw the tree, blackened and split by lightning. Beneath it lay several dead, drenched archers and Urgan, his bony legs stuck straight out like a set of fire-blackened pokers. Still tangled in his harness, flat and stark, lay a tall looking fellow in full armor, dark hair matted beneath his helmet, several days growth of beard, muddy, drenched surcoat with the de Vilers arms…

“Wait just a moment,” said Brother Gregory, “that's me.” His body's eyes, he noted, were staring open, fixed and dead, in a ghastly stare.

“Villanous looking fellow, isn't he?” said the abbot. “Let me tell you about his sins—intellectual arrogance, snobbery, pride, gluttony—” but Brother Gregory wasn't listening very hard. Godric always
had
been a prig, and besides, his knowledge of Aquinas was practically cursory. Why Brother Gregory himself would have made a better abbot…

“I was very fond of that body—” said Brother Gregory.

“But now, not that you deserve it in the least, look up, Brother Gregory.” Gilbert looked up. He saw rank upon rank of angels dressed in velvet and cloth of gold, gently waving their irridescent wings like butterflies at rest. Between the angels was a staircase made of light and he knew he was invited to climb it by the sound of enticing music that came from above. He put a foot on the staircase, then looked down at his body in the mud. All around the tree, piles of hailstones that looked almost like heaped snow were melting. A miserable death, in the French mud, undignified by honor, unshriven. He'd always planned on something a little better than that. But the music was more urgent, more inviting now. Brother
Gregory looked up at the shining host of heaven. He thought hard. There was something he was struggling to remember.

“I can't go just now,” he said,“Margaret's expecting me. I sent her a letter I'd be home.”

Godric the former abbot looked disgusted. “Your earthly vows and promises are void now,” he said. “Go up.”

“Oh, no, it's more than a promise. Margaret can't do without me. How will she manage? The children—my family. She'll have to go live with them, and they're very hard to get along with. And she must be out of money by now—” Looking up at the golden company, he said, “I really don't mean to be rude. I mean, this was what I always wanted. You know that I prayed for it all my life. But even though it's higher and better, and my soul's desire, well, you see—” He took a step back down the staircase again and looked regretfully at the cold, muddy place below the shattered tree. Would it hurt to jump so far? Suddenly he was surrounded by a blazing white light, and felt a strange warmth moving through him.

“What are You doing that for? Look at what he's doing. Turning his back on Your heaven itself. Can't You see he is unworthy, just as I always told You?” Gilbert could hear the abbot's voice nattering somewhere distant.

“On the contrary, that's exactly why he is worthy,” came a vast, vibrating voice in response. “Poor dried up, right-thinking Godric, you stand at the foot of my staircase and still do not understand that I exist in the past, the present, and the future all at one time. Brother Gregory is worthy because even before, he would be this, and when what will be is, he will be yet again otherwise. Could you make such a choice as he has done, holy man? When you have at last learned that there are many paths to the foot of My staircase, I will invite you, too, to mount up it.”Abbot Godric looked again and saw a crowd of people climbing up the staircase: priests and nuns, merchants and knights, horse traders and carpenters, fishwives and laundresses and…

“There goes Brother Peter—I fasted much more strictly than
him
—and that horrible brewster who served ale on Sundays—”
“Ah, Godric, Godric, you were the most virtuous of virtuous men. But where was love?” answered the Voice.

GILBERT DE VILERS'S DEAD
, staring eyes looked up into the frightened face of one of his crossbowmen. He blinked.

“He blinked!” cried the soldier. “A miracle! He lives!”

“Take off my helmet,” whispered Gilbert, “I've got the most terrible headache.” He saw they'd cleared his foot of the stirrup, pulled off his surcoat, and unbuckled his breastplate. Had the heralds already counted the dead? Had they been stripping his corpse? His leg throbbed. He hoped it wasn't broken. There lay Urgan, his harness covered in mud. “Oh, my God,” groaned Gilbert, “father's horse. I'm finished. I'll never live it down.” Gray clouds were scudding across the sky, but still it was too bright to look at. He closed his eyes again. “I think my leg's broken,” he said. “Send for the surgeon and strip Urgan's harness.” Someone put something beneath his head—a saddle blanket by the smell—and he could hear the clatter and grunting as they tried to undo the girths of his heavy war saddle and pull it from beneath the dead animal. How odd to be smelling things again. The blanket, the filthy mud, the charred scent of the tree, all laced through the cold air. Then he heard—a snort. He opened his eyes. Urgan was twitching all over like a slaughtered pig, then thrashing wildly. In a panic the horse scrambled up, spilling the saddle and its lashed-on equipment to the ground with a crash. He turned his head to watch as they ran to catch the bucking destrier's bridle and at the same time avoid his vicious hooves.

“Well, who would have thought it,” said Aimery the squire. “As good as new and as mean as ever. But look here—every place that metal touched his coat, there's a big singe mark.”

Two miracles, Lord, thought Gilbert as he looked up to the dreary gray sky from the jolting cart where he had been piled with the other injured. Surely, I'm meant to see Margaret again.

KING EDWARD THE THIRD
rode out with his advisers to assess the damage. Animals lay dead along the route of march. The little
band on horseback stopped to watch as drovers freed a dead ox from his yoke. The army had lost so many draft horses it was no longer mobile. Twelve hundred cavalry mounts were dead. The human toll of the storm was visible everywhere, as the living gathered up the dead. Soldiers and stable hands, smiths and wheel- wrights, all those with leather helmets or no helmets at all had been mortally injured. The heralds rode up, reciting the first list of the nobles killed.“So many, so many,” said the King. The cold wind blew at his cloak and ruffled his long beard. It had gray in it, the first his advisers had noticed. “It is the will of God,” he said. “I will accept the request of the Pope to negotiate a treaty of peace.”

On May Day, not far from Chartres, the French clerics and ambassadors met the English warlords to negotiate. Together, delegates of the French and English parties carried the treaty to be signed by the Dauphin in Paris. The gates of the city were thrown open; all the bells were ringing, and the streets hung with tapestry. But King Edward was not there to see the celebration. The crown of France having slipped from his grasp, the King of England rode at full speed with his four sons to the nearest channel port, leaving the Duke of Lancaster to lead the troops back to Calais.