Falls the Shadow (29 page)

Simon spun around, his sword dripping blood. But the halberdsman was shaking his head; he’d begun to back away. The injured man clutched his stump, rocked back and forth, staring dumbly at his mangled hand. It had fallen into the mud; the fingers still twitched. He seemed in shock, as if not yet comprehending what had befallen him. The third man looked no less horror-struck.

“Fulke! Christ! You bastard, you maimed my brother!” he screamed, and lunged at Simon. It was a wild blow, ill aimed, yet as luck would have it, it connected. The sword slashed at Simon’s upper arm, and the point caught upon several of the metal links of his hauberk. As the blade twisted, the rings gave way; pain seared up Simon’s arm.

The man called Fulke had dropped to his knees, retching. The halberdsman was gone, in search of easier prey. Simon circled slowly around the last of his assailants. “I’ll kill you if I must.” He was panting, could feel blood trickling down his arm. “Take your brother and go.”

In answer, the man swung again. Simon easily parried the blow. But as he stepped back, he stumbled on the wet grass. The other man flung himself forward, and they both crashed heavily to the ground. For several frenzied moments, they thrashed about by the pond’s edge, neither able to gain an advantage. But then Simon managed to roll over on top, and the added weight of his hauberk and helm enabled him to pin the man long enough to unsheathe his dagger. The man gave a frantic heave, carrying them both into the shallows, and Simon thrust the knife up under his ribs. He gasped, his body jerked, and Simon broke free. The water was fast turning red. He gasped again, began to choke. Simon grasped his belt, dragged him back onto the grass. A bubble of blood had formed in the corner of his mouth. As his eyes clouded over, Simon made the sign of the cross, then rose slowly to his feet.

The man he’d maimed continued to moan, oblivious of all but his own pain. Simon ignored him, crossed to where his dying stallion lay. He knelt, rested his hand on the horse’s head. The destrier’s eyes rolled; its legs kicked weakly, and it made a valiant, futile effort to regain its feet. “Easy,” Simon said, “easy, Smoke.” His throat tightened; he stroked the muddied forelock, and after a moment or so, he brought up his dagger, drew it swiftly across the animal’s throat.

A knight afoot was not likely to survive for long. He’d have to find a loose horse, and fast. He turned back toward the battlefield, stopped abruptly at the sight of the men. They stopped no less suddenly, taking in the graphic scene before them: the two men sprawled in the grass, the dead horse, the blood still wet on Simon’s sword. “Do not mind us,” the first one said. “We’re but passing by!” Giving Simon a very wide berth, they headed for the body of his horse, where they crouched, sought to pry the ivory cantle from the saddle.

Simon watched them wearily, too tired to object. Sheathing his dagger, he started to walk. He’d not gone far, though, before he saw a knight riding toward him. The chivalric code held that it was dishonorable for a knight to ride down a fellow knight, but Simon had no expectations that his attacker would dismount for a fair fight. He stood where he was, and waited, feeling an enormous reluctance to hamstring a horse, yet knowing he was likely to have no choice. The knight was almost upon him before he recognized the six gold lions embossed upon his shield.

Will reined in beside him, his eyes taking in Simon’s crimson-stained surcoat. “I trust most of that blood is not yours?” When Simon shook his head, he said, “Christ Jesus, Simon, this is no battle, is more like a God-cursed circus! Half of our men seem to be blundering into each other instead of the French. As for the looting, I swear I saw bodies stripped clean ere they hit the ground. And this you’ll not believe, but I even saw a couple of whoresons rutting with a peasant wench, though how they found a woman amidst this madness…”

“An unlucky pilgrim. But you’re right, Will; this is madness. Where is Henry? We must get him away from here whilst—” Simon stopped, for Will had begun to laugh.

“I’ll wager my cousin the King has long since fled the field. His men would see to that!”

Simon frowned. “What are you saying, Will? Are you calling Henry a coward?”

Will was no longer laughing, for there was no more serious charge than to impugn a man’s courage. “No,” he said. “No, I am not. I had forgotten; you’ve never fought with Henry ere today, have you? Henry…how can I say this? You know how he is, Simon, how easily he gets flustered. Well, on the battlefield, he seems to lose his head altogether. If you’d ever seen him, flailing about with his sword, for all the world like a windmill gone berserk…” Will laughed again, ruefully this time. “The Lord God in His wisdom made Henry a King, but He for certes made him no soldier!”

Simon could not help grinning at the image Will had just conjured up. “That is all the more reason, then, to see to his safety,” he pointed out, and Will nodded.

“Do not go wandering away,” he said. “I’ll be back.” And he was as good as his word, returned shortly thereafter leading a blood-streaked bay.

Simon and Will could catch no glimpse of the royal arms of England. But they did see a banner flying the silver-crowned lion of Richard of Cornwall, and beneath it they found not only Richard, but John Mansel. Mansel had just murmured a prayer over a dying soldier, all the while clutching a morning-star mace, the favorite weapon of warrior-priests seeking to evade the Church’s stricture against “smiting with the edge of the sword.” Under his kettle hat, his face was grey with fatigue, but the blood splattering his surcoat was not his own. He told them that Henry was on his way back to Saintes with a bodyguard of one hundred twenty sergeants, and he did not quarrel with Simon’s terse verdict, that the battle was lost. The French battle cry of “Montjoye!” now echoed from all quarters of the field.

“If we begin a withdrawal back toward the town, can you hold them here?” he asked, and Simon nodded.

“For a time, yes. Just try not to let the men panic.”

It was Mansel’s turn to nod. He had odd, amber-colored eyes, heavy-lidded, sharp with suspicion, but as they came to rest now upon Simon, they showed a fleeting, grudging respect. “I hear you fought well this day.”

Simon gestured toward the blood-caked spikes of Mansel’s mace. “So did you.”

Despite Simon and Will’s best efforts, the retreat soon turned into a rout. In their haste to reach safety at Saintes, the outnumbered English broke ranks and ran, although others did rally to Simon and Will, and some of the bitterest fighting took place within sight of the city’s stone walls. A few of the French became so caught up in the passion of the chase that they foolishly pursued the English into the city itself, only then to find themselves trapped in the town. The French army withdrew in triumph to their encampment across the river, and an eerie silence settled upon the vineyards of Saintes, where so many men had fought and died such a few short hours before.

Once they’d pulled his hauberk over Simon’s head, his squires saw that the sword’s blade had slashed cleanly through his leather gambeson, too. The wound was not deep, but it had laid the skin open from shoulder to elbow, and there had been a fair amount of bleeding. Simon’s shirt was so stiff with dried blood that the boys were reluctant to peel it back from the wound, and Simon ended up having to jerk it off himself.

Wincing as if the pain were their own, they made haste to obey when he bade them fetch verjuice, pour it over the injury. Blood was oozing out again, and they would have torn a perfectly good pillow cover into bandages had Simon not tossed them his bloodied shirt, suggested they make do with that. Now that he was stripped to the waist, they could see the ugly bruises spreading across his ribs, discoloring rapidly, and they began to argue as to which salve could best ease their lord’s discomfort. Simon slumped back in his chair, closed his eyes. After a time, a wine cup was pressed into his hand; he glanced up, saw Peter de Montfort smiling down at him.

“Men are talking of your exploits, Simon. You gained glory for yourself this day.”

“But alas, not so much as a farthing of ransom money,” Simon said dryly. Seeing Baldwin standing in the open doorway, as if hesitant to enter, Simon beckoned to him. “You acquitted yourself well, Baldwin. All in all, we did our best. Though I lost Smoke…” He sighed, only belatedly became aware of the younger man’s silence. In the five years they’d been in his service, Baldwin and Adam had become inseparable companions, so constantly together that those in Simon’s household had jokingly begun to call them Sun and Shadow. And now Baldwin stood alone in the doorway, tears welling in his eyes.

Simon pushed his chair back. “Adam? He is dead?”

Baldwin blinked. “I do not know, my lord. I…I saw him fall…”

The squires froze, not daring to move. Peter made a sorrowful sign of the cross. All watched Simon. He had begun to pace. “Christ wills it,” he said, very low. But his rage was growing, a hot, heedless rage born of grief, blind to consequence. “Had he died in the Holy Land, it would have been for the glory of God Eternal. But to die in a wretched village vineyard, and for what? For a King’s folly, a rebel baron’s greed! Where is the justice in that?”

“Simon!” The hurrying footsteps, the raised voice were Rob’s. “You’d best come to the King’s chamber. Simon, the man intends to hold Saintes against the French!”

Simon’s eyes were very dark, utterly opaque. “Has he gone mad?”

“I can only tell you what he says, that he’ll not retreat—”

Simon was no longer listening. Grabbing a tunic, he started for the door, as Miles cried out a plaintive protest. “My lord, wait! We’ve not yet bandaged your wound!”

But his plea was cut off by the slamming door. Rob turned toward Peter, who said bleakly, “Simon just learned that Adam is dead.”

Rob swore. “Christ keep us all, for I’ve just made a grievous mistake.”

Henry’s anger was threaded through with unease. His decision to defend Saintes had been an impulsive one, the response of raw pride. The reaction of his barons was so adverse, though, so resistant that he’d begun to have second thoughts. To a man—his cousin Will, his brother Richard, the Earls of Winchester and Norfolk, the young Earl of Gloucester, Hugh de Lusignan, even John Mansel—they insisted that the town was indefensible, so vehemently that Henry found himself wondering if they might be right. But he’d staked out a position for himself, did not know how to retreat with grace.

“The lot of you suddenly sound as timid as nuns,” he said testily. “I’m not asking you to defend a rabbit hutch, but a town I’ve spent six weeks fortifying. The city walls are made of sturdy ashlar stone, not Ruayn cheese!”

Hugh de Lusignan gave a loud snort. The day’s defeat had brought home to him just how vulnerable he was to the wrath of the French King. Henry could sail blithely back to England, but he’d have to come to terms with Louis, and he knew how harsh, how humiliating those terms would be. He was not feeling charitable, saw no reason to indulge his stepson’s posturing now that Henry had proved such a worthless ally, and he said scornfully,

“We’d be better off with the Ruayn cheese; at least that would fill our bellies. Just how do you expect to feed our army? Mean you to go from door to door, plundering every larder? Even then, we’d run out of food long ere Louis ran out of soldiers. Christ, within a fortnight we’d count ourselves lucky to be eating rats!”

With the sole exception of the indignant Henry, the men agreed with Hugh, though it galled them to admit it. Even had Hugh not been so arrogant, they would have disliked him, but he made it easy for them. Will spoke for all when he drawled, “Speaking of rats, mayhap you can tell me if it is true, my lord, what men say, that rats are ever the first to abandon a sinking ship?”

Hugh leaped to his feet. “Say what you mean, Salisbury!”

Will’s smile was cold. “I thought I did.”

“Enough!” Henry glared at them both, but neither man seemed daunted by his displeasure. They continued to eye each other with undisguised rancor.

The Earl of Norfolk shifted impatiently in his seat. He’d distinguished himself on the battlefield that day, was now bruised and sore and short-tempered in consequence. Glancing toward Richard, he said, “You talk to him, my lord, make him see the folly of this.”

Richard looked troubled, started to speak. But Henry forestalled him. “The decision is not my brother’s to make, my lord Norfolk. It is mine.”

The ensuing silence was an uncomfortable one for Henry. However much he sought to feign indifference, he could not be impervious to their disapproval. Their criticism rankled, and their doubts were contagious. He moved toward the table, gestured for Mansel to pour from the flagon. His was the right of command. So why must he have to argue for the obedience that was his due? But what if he was wrong, if Saintes could not be held?

When the door opened suddenly, Henry felt a flicker of relief at sight of Simon. He’d put it to Simon, let Simon persuade him—reluctantly—that they should retreat. None could fault him for paying heed to Simon’s advice, for even Mansel admitted that Simon was a brilliant battle commander. He smiled at his brother-in-law, said, “It is my belief that we ought to make our stand here, at Saintes. But I value your opinion, Simon. Tell us what you think.”

“Why not show you?” Simon said, so curtly that Henry’s smile faded. There was a chessboard on the table. Simon strode toward it, picked up one of the ivory chess pieces. “We have here the King of England,” he said, and Will sat up straight in his chair, for Simon had selected the pawn. Henry noticed that, too, and color began to rise in his face. Simon reached next for the wine flagon. Flipping up the lid, he poured red wine onto the hearth. By now the silence was absolute, all eyes riveted upon him. “The city of Saintes.” He dropped the pawn into the flagon. “The English King has taken up position. The French King then acts—thusly.” He slammed the lid shut, with a resounding clang. “Behold,” he said, “the battle of Saintes.”

Henry was as darkly flushed as the wine dripping down the hearth stones. “How dare you speak to me like that! I find this little game of yours highly insulting. Disagree with me if you will, but by God, you’ll show me the respect due me, as your King!”