Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One: Castillon (7 page)

He was scared enough that every apparent slight seemed to him to show that everyone knew what he had done.

He saw Alessandro nod to the cardinal and ride back down the column, and he knew immediately that the
capitano
was coming for him.

He straightened his back.

The Italian turned his horse neatly, and waved. ‘The blessing of the day to you, Messire Swan. The cardinal begs the honour of your company.’

Swan bowed in the saddle. ‘Nothing could give me greater pleasure than his company, unless possibly your own,’ he said in Italian.

Cesare slapped him on the back. ‘The courtier’s motto! If you must rub your nose in a man’s arse, do it with elegance.’

Swan flushed, and Cesare laughed.

‘Never mind him,’ said Alessandro.

They rode along the column to the cardinal without another word.

‘Good morning, messire my prisoner,’ said the cardinal.

Swan bowed, and accepted the proffered hand, kissed the ring.

Bessarion smiled. ‘How did you do it?’ he asked.

Swan realised that the Italian man-at-arms was very close to his back.

‘Listen,’ said Bessarion. ‘Alessandro thinks you did it, and I think you did it.’

Alessandro leaned into his back. ‘If you did it without stealing – then you have done us a noble service. And it is an act of . . . let’s say an act of war. A feat of arms. Tell.’

Swan hesitated.

Because he had made a mistake, and once he told . . .

The cardinal reached out and put a hand on his arm. ‘You took goods from the merchant’s wagons, and put them in the count’s empty wagons.’

Swan looked back and forth between the two men.

‘If I were to say that I found the count’s wagons empty—’ he said.

Alessandro laughed. ‘I thought so,’ he said, punching the air.

Cardinal Bessarion frowned. ‘Messire Merechault claims that he is missing six bales of goods. As well as four pieces of carved ivory from a Parisian maker to be delivered in Burgundy.’

Swan shrugged. He’d learned that shrug through hard practice. He could shrug like that even when his uncles were hitting him with a belt. ‘I imagine the count’s men have them,’ he said.

Bessarion leaned over. ‘I would be very disappointed to find that anything else was true.’ He leaned back. ‘But I am in your debt, messire. The count will be tied up in law for a week. Even the merchant, I think, owes you some gratitude.’

‘It is a pity they can’t find the girl,’ Alessandro said.

‘Girl?’ the cardinal asked.

‘That sly rogue, the count – the supposed count – paid a whore to distract the night guard while his men stole from the wagons.’ Alessandro looked at Swan. Who shrugged. Again.

‘Or so says the night guard,’ Swan said. ‘Perhaps he was bribed.’

Bessarion nodded. ‘What I cannot fathom,’ he said quietly, ‘is why the supposed count would be fool enough to put the goods in his own wagons under Merechault’s nose.’

Swan writhed.

Alessandro came to his rescue. ‘
Par dieu
, Eminence. He’s arrogant enough to haul empty wagons across four fords, as if we would never notice them. He thought he might get away with it. That’s all.’

It occurred to Swan at that point that he was going to get away with it, and a feeling of joy flooded him, unmixed with any reserve whatsoever. No school prank, no petty thievery in Cheapside, would ever have the satisfaction of this – pulled off under the very eyes of the enemy.

Bessarion nodded.

Swan found that he liked these strange, foreign men, and he looked back and forth at them. After a few more paces, he said, ‘I must confess a thought I have had.’

The cardinal bowed slightly. ‘I can provide absolution,’ he said.

Swan tried to see a way to tell the truth without owning to his part in it. ‘If – someone – had – hmm. Put the count in this unenviable position,’ he said. ‘Ahem. If the count imagined that he had been slighted—’

‘Get on with it,’ muttered Alessandro.

‘What is to keep the count from revenge?’ he asked. ‘He must suspect – er – us.’

Alessandro raised an eyebrow.

Swan went on – he’d had all morning to think it through. ‘At some point, Merechault will call for the . . . I don’t know what they are called in France, but in London we’d call him the sheriff. And the count will find himself in a difficulty.’ He was speaking too fast.

‘He will, too,’ Alessandro said.

‘So he kills Merechault and sets fire to the inn and rides away to kill us,’ Swan finished. ‘As he has more men-at-arms than we do ourselves.’

‘Why kill us?’ the cardinal asked.

Alessandro looked at the young Englishman. ‘Perhaps he doesn’t believe his own men were fools enough to place the bales of cloth in his wagons.’

‘Perhaps he can’t afford any witnesses,’ Swan said.

‘Perhaps he is so well born that he can weather any legal action,’ Alessandro said slowly.

Bessarion raised a hand, looked Alessandro in the eye and said, ‘See to it.’

Alessandro nodded, put a hand on Swan’s bridle and turned them out of the column. As he rode down the column, he gathered men – half his soldiers; Giannis, another Greek called Stefanos, a third called Giorgos, and two Italians, Ramone and Marcus.

He turned to Swan. ‘You’re coming with me. You made this mess, you can help clean up.’ But despite his acerbic tone, he smiled and put an hand on Swan’s arm. ‘You did well enough.’ He shrugged. ‘I think you are too cautious. I think the so-called count will simply ride away.’

Swan shook his head. ‘That was my mistake,’ he said.

Alessandro made a face. ‘What mistake?’

They were just passing a low bluff on their right, covered in big trees – oaks, and some beech. Alessandro was looking at it.

‘The first night I was with you at dinner, I saw him sitting with the merchant’s men, at a middle table. He was as angry as a mad dog.’ Swan was looking at the horizon.

Alessandro shrugged. ‘So?’ He shaded his eyes with his hand to look at the trees.

‘He was angry he hadn’t been given a place at the high table,’ Swan said. ‘He really is a count.’

Alessandro’s face went still, just for a moment. Then his eyelids came down a little. He turned away from the high woods.

‘Then we must, in fact, clean this up very carefully,’ he said quietly. ‘Is your servant an archer?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you even know?’

‘He’s a very good archer,’ Swan said, hoping it was true.

‘Good. I have a couple of English bows I bought at Castillon from the victors.’ He turned and beckoned to Peter, who rode out of the column.

‘We need to hurry,’ Swan said.

He pointed at a column of smoke rising from the town on the next ridge, just three leagues away. ‘That’s the inn.’

Alessandro nodded. ‘Right here will do,’ he said. He opened his purse and dumped it in the road – twenty silver ecus and some gold, glinting in the summer sun.

The two wagons and twenty retainers rolled on sedately, unthreatened by the rising smoke behind them. At their head rode the cardinal, his red hat prominently displayed. The little convoy raised dust that could be seen from ridge to ridge, for several leagues.

The count’s party moved quickly, raising a column of dust that could be seen from the convoy. The cardinal turned in his saddle from time to time to watch the count’s progress. His force of men-at-arms rode down into the valley, splashed across the ford, and started up the long ridge, now just a league away, closing the distance.

The cardinal gave an order, and the convoy began to move faster. He turned to watch as the count’s cavalcade drew abreast of the oak woods on the bluff above the road.

‘We must kill them all,’ Alessandro said. His voice was as hard as steel. The Greek and Italian men-at-arms all nodded.

Marcus and Stefanos, the best-armoured men after Alessandro himself, rode away, moving slowly so as not to raise dust.

The rest of them dismounted in the trees, where they were bedevilled by insects for an uncomfortable hour. Peter took the two bows from the
capitano
, and strung them with Swan’s help. He drew first one, and then the other, and winced on both draws. He made a face.

‘Good bows. I’ll take this one.’ He put the bow by him and unstrung the other, and Swan handed it to the
capitano
. Alessandro looked at him.

‘Do you shoot?’ he asked.

Peter rested his back against the bole of a giant oak and prepared to go to sleep. But he raised his face to Swan.

‘
Toe nou!
I’d be surprised if he didn’t shoot,’ Peter said.

Swan shrugged. ‘I can use a bow,’ he admitted.

Peter nodded, as if a mystery were solved, or perhaps as if Swan could now be taken seriously. ‘I’ve never met an Englishman who could not shoot,’ he said, and went to sleep.

Giannis spanned his crossbow, put an arrow into the trough, and lay down.

Giorgos and Ramone stayed with the horses. They had no armour, and no bows.

‘Always be sure of your retreat,’ Alessandro said. ‘Even when the odds are heavily in your favour.’

The insects droned. Peter snored.

There were hoof-beats near the ford, and the sound of harness and armour, and suddenly Peter was awake, bow in hand, standing behind the bole of his tree.

Swan’s heart beat too hard. He was tired – he wanted to sleep, but he was too afraid, too full of something that made his nerves tingle, his stomach flip over, his bowels twitch.

Alessandro just chewed on a grass stem and watched the road.

The count’s men – led by the unmistakable figure of the count – came on at a fast trot. The count passed the silver in the road, but the next man reined in, and suddenly they were all stopped, and men were dismounting.

Alessandro smiled, much as the fox might smile when the hen comes to find its missing egg. He snapped his fingers. Peter tensed, and Swan took a war arrow from the bundle at his feet, placed it to the string, and drew to his ear, cocking his head slightly to engage the muscles in his back.

Giannis loosed. His crossbow made a flat
snap
. One of the men in the scrum over the coins flipped off his horse.

Before his demise was noticed, Peter drew his great bow to his ear and loosed. His arrow hit the count’s charger and sank all the way to the fletchings in the horse’s side, and the great horse screamed and fell.

Swan’s arrow wobbled in the air as it arched. Swan didn’t watch the fall – he knew he’d missed his loose as soon as his fingers released the string.

Every head among the count’s men turned to the woods on the bluff.

Peter’s second arrow took a black-bearded man in full plate armour under his arm while he waved at the woods. He fell backward in a rattle of plate. His horse stood stock still in the road.

Peter’s third arrow plunged into the withers of a
franc-archer
’s horse. The horse bolted, ran a few steps, and fell in a spectacular crash, flinging his unlucky rider the length of a horse down the road.

Swan’s second arrow struck one of the count’s
routiers
in the helmet. The arrow sprang away, but the man slumped.

The count was demanding that another man-at-arms give him his horse. Three men turned and bolted, and the rest turned towards the wood and started to ride up the steep slope.

Giannis finished spanning and took careful aim. He muttered a prayer to the Virgin in Greek.

He loosed. His bolt took an armoured man full in the breastplate and flipped him out of his saddle.

Peter’s fourth arrow killed an archer’s horse. The count gave up demanding a horse and started to run for the trees, a hundred yards away.

Peter missed with his fifth arrow. Swan had just raised his eyes from fumbling for his third arrow, and he was having trouble nocking it. All of the non-archers were watching. Peter’s accuracy was remarkable. So when he missed, they all groaned.

The riders were close now.

Peter plucked his sixth arrow from the ground, whipped the nock on to the string, drew and loosed in a single long motion, and his bodkin point drove into a man’s unarmoured face.

Swan put his third arrow into a horse. The horse reared, its feet flailed at the air, and together horse and man fell to earth.

Peter plucked his seventh arrow and the remaining three riders were close enough to discover that there were too many men in the woods for them to defeat. Swan reached for his fourth arrow but Alessandro shook his head.

‘To horse. With me.’ He gestured.

Swan dropped his bow atop the arrows and got a foot in the nearside stirrup.

Peter and Giannis loosed together. By bad luck they both picked the same target, and a young squire died with two heavy arrows in his body.

‘Get them,’ Alessandro said. He and Swan were now mounted, and the two of them charged the survivors, Swan’s heart hammering away. The two men were turning to run. Their horses had galloped up the steep hill, and now they were blown.

Alessandro was like an arrow. His horse passed across the two fleeing opponents’ front, and he cut back into them. In his first pass, he killed the horse of the lead man with a flick of his sword and a dainty
montante
into the animal’s unprotected neck. He and the second man swaggered swords – heavy, downward cuts ringing together.

Swan rode up on the man’s left side and thrust under the arm while his full intention was on the Italian. He turned, mouth open to scream, and Alessandro ran him through the mouth. The blow cut away his jaw as he fell off the sword.

Alessandro gave Swan a short salute, hilt to his lips. Then he rode across the face of the hill and waved up at Giannis. ‘Make sure they are all dead,’ he called.

Giannis waved and aimed. And loosed. His quarrel hit the count, still running towards them. It knocked him down, but in a second he was up. His armour was good enough to turn a light crossbow.

Peter’s arrow struck him a few paces farther on. It bounced off his breastplate, leaving a dent visible to Swan on his horse, twenty paces away.

Swan, unarmoured, had no intention of engaging the count. His sword high, he swept wide of the armoured man, riding carefully to stay clear of the archer’s line of fire.