The Bow (7 page)

Eric smiled. ‘Chiswick!’ he said. ‘What sort of
scrape-hole is that?’

‘
My scrape-hole!’ laughed James, ‘And you’d be
doing well to find a better one. When I get you out of this, I’ll
take you back home to my Hettie’s until you’re in good enough
shape to return to your own folks.’

Eric said nothing. He just stared. Finally he spoke,
though he still shivered and beads of sweat stood out on his brow:

‘
You’d really do that?’

‘
Aye, I would. And I will. You took a blow for me. I
owe you.’

Slowly the man-at-arms shook his head. ‘You’re mad.
There’s no way, and you’re mad!’

Old Lewis frowned. ‘He’s right James. When you’re
wounded in this army, you walk home on your own, or you don’t go
home at all. Unless you’re a knight or a noble, that is. We all
know that. Talk sense, man!’

While he was talking, Yevan, Morgaun, Jankyn and the
others came back. They were dragging a handcart and laughing.

James went to meet them. ‘Where’d ye get that?’

'Borrowed it!’ said Yevan with a grin. ‘A passing
priest on the way to his glebe said we could borrow it, if we
returned it safe and sound in the morning.’

‘
Did ‘e now?’

‘
Aye, ‘e did. And a fine, fat fellow ‘e was too,
though ‘e spoke more of his furriner tongue than ‘e did of the
king’s English.’

James looked at the handcart, already caked with mud,
and leaning drunkenly to one side. ‘For Eric?’

'Well, it’s not for the crown jewels boyo,’ said
Yevan, and it’s sure as not for thee.’ He swept the cart clear of
dirt with the side of his hand, tossed in his quiver and bow, then
looked down at Eric:

'Up now ye laggard Englishman ! There’s a chariot to
take ye home!’

Eric grinned: ‘Another reason to hate the Welsh!’ he
said, and leaning on James struggled painfully to his feet.

In the morning they buried the dead. They dug great pits
near Maisoncelles, filled them with lime and threw the bodies in. The
king allowed the bodies of noble-born to be taken from the field, but
all others, English and French, went into the pits. That is, save the
body of Davy Gamm, who was knighted by the king as he lay dying on
the battlefield.

It was said that the French dead numbered some ten
thousand, and the English dead just two hundred, but it did not seem
that way to James. Perhaps it was where he laboured in the centre of
the field, but he seemed to be burying an Englishman for every three
French. At times the bodies were so hacked and bloodied he could not
tell, and as the stink rose and his arms tired, he neither cared nor
noticed.

An hour past noon the job was done, and he sat under an
oak at the field’s edge and ate a ploughman’s meal. Eric was
there, and looking better for a night by a warm fire, and a quart of
friar’s wine: part he drank, and part he poured on his broken
shoulder. Old Lewis sniffed the wound, pronounced the break a clean
one, and said that Eric should make it back to England.

They took the road to Calais with the sun on their
backs, and a westerly breeze on their left quarter. The French army
had been broken, but by no means destroyed, and King Henry was
anxious to make the safety of the port before that army regrouped.
The Constable of France had died of his wounds, and along with him
near half the nobility of the French Duchies, but scattered French
forces could always pose a threat. Ambush was a constant fear.

Nonetheless, they marched in good spirits – some even
sang – and though the rutted road was difficult, it was by no means
impassable. For a time Eric endured the handcart, and the
good-humoured efforts of his friends, but in the end he took to
walking, and hobbled along next to James, who had strapped his armour
and kitbag to his own back.

The weather held, three days rolled by, and they came to
Calais, with less wounded than they had set out with, but with more
than they had hoped to keep. Fresh water and fresh food had driven
back the dysentery and fever. Even Morgaun Filkyn had shaken off the
sweats, and strode alongside Yevan and Old Lewis, talking at the top
of his voice.

‘
They’ll ring the bells for us in England, mark
you!’ he said, ‘And the girls will wave us through the streets of
every town.’

Yevan laughed. ‘Like as much they’ll run at the
sight of us,’ he replied. ‘We come stinking from the fields of
France, as ragged as any beggar band ye’ll see.’

'I care not either way,’ grunted Old Lewis. ‘As long
as Harry pays me my due, and gives me square of the ransom, I’ll
come home happy.’

'Aye,’ said Morgaun, as he stared down the road at the
towers and spires of Calais Port, ‘If the provost marshal hasn’t
played me false, I should get a tidy sum. I’ve a share in the Count
of Richemont, and if we hadn’t killed the Duke of Brabant by
mistake . . .’

‘
So it was you, boyo!’ broke in Yevan. ‘What sort
of trick was that to cut the throat of a duke, when you could have
had a feast of ransom?’

Morgaun cursed, and slowed his stride. ‘He was dressed
in the tabard of a squire, damn his eyes! No one knew him. It was
over so quick.’

‘
Ah well. What’s done is done. For my part, I only
grabbed a couple of half-dead knights, but I hear William Bretoun got
him a royal duke, Orleans it was!’

‘
The devil ‘e did! Who told you that?’

‘
William Glyn from Tudur’s company. He saw Bretoun
put a clout-head fair smack into his breastplate. Near knocked the
stuffing out of ‘im. Glyn got there first with his poignard, but it
was Bretoun’s arrow what nailed the duke, so ‘e gets the lion’s
share.’

‘
After the king and old Erpingham have had a bite of
it,’ replied Morgaun who was tiring of the conversation, and eager
to get to the port and find a tavern.

'Aye, that’s as maybe, but ‘e’ll go home with
enough to raise a company and come back to France for more.’

James who was sweating beneath his load, and like
Morgaun eager to quench his thirst, shook his head: ‘No more of
this for me’, he said.

But Yevan only half heard him. He was gazing at the
gates to the town, and the barbican towers that defended them.

'Nearly there,’ he said. ‘If Harry doesn’t make us
camp outside the town, we’ll be in the streets within the hour.’
He paused. ‘Can ye hear the bells? They’re ringing us in!’ he
threw back his head and laughed. ‘Hah! It’s free for us in there,
lads! Whatever we like!’

'All I want,’ replied James, ‘is a hot meal, a warm
bed of straw, and news of a boat on the morrow.’

'England?’

'Aye, England. What say you, Eric?’

'I say anywhere a man can lie down, and ease his bones
is good enough for me.’ He was leaning heavily on his staff, and
blood was showing through the bandaging across his shoulder.

'Well, we’ll have ye there in a short while’, said
Old Lewis. ‘See! Here’s a hay cart on it’s way to no where in
particular. Let’s be putting young Eric on it!’

They waved the ox-cart down. It was driven by a young
boy and his father, who looked a little uncertain when they
understood what the archers wanted, but finally the father shrugged,
muttered something in French , and helped Eric up onto the cart.

And so they came to Calais, and made the streets their
own, though they camped outside the town at command of the king, and
took shelter as best they could beneath the walls, and in the fields
and hedgerows that ran down to the great sea.

Three days later, they took ship for England. The king
had paid the indentured archers and men-at-arms as best he could, but
many were forced to sell their plunder cheaply just to get food.
Prisoners were also ransomed cheaply. Bread, salted pork and Gascon
wine became scarce throughout the town, and prices soared. The
sutlers prospered.

James, and the other archers of his company found a
little Cog in the harbour that was bound for Winchelsea. It was the
Andrew of Rye, and though its master had come to trade barrels of
Rhenish for fine Sussex wool, he was willing to make space for
longbowmen with wallets full of the king’s silver.

‘
Come up, my lads!’ he said, leaning over the rail,
and beaming down on them where they stood on the stone quayside.
‘We’ve room enough for thee, and all ye carry. Are ye from the
great battle?’

‘
We are!’ replied Jankyn, ‘And we’re ready for
home!’

The master laughed. ‘That I’ll warrant! We sail on
the noon tide. There’s a dry nor’easter at our backs and an easy
swell ahead o’ us. Should be a good crossing.’ He waved them on,
then turned to shout at a sailor who was rolling a wine barrel up the
gangplank. Moments later they were all aboard.

They reached Winchelsea the following morning, coming in
on the tide, and sliding through the mist that all but hid the stone
watch towers at the entrance to the harbour.

‘
England!’ said James.

‘
Where?’ replied Yevan. ‘Can’t see a blamed
thing, boyo. It may as well be Flanders.’

James arrived at Chiswick a week later. He came alone up
the muddy road from Shene, and stopped when he saw the long, low
slope that flanked the broad Tamesis River. He was home:

The same line of oaks crowding along the water’s edge.
The same rich, green sweep of the meadow land that ringed the little
village. The church, the mill, and the old knight’s hall: they were
all there still, and clustered around them along the narrow street
the crucks and cottages of the Chiswick folk.

He turned and looked back the way he had come. There was
no one. In his Company, the Welsh had gone back to their valleys, the
Devon men to Devon, and the Cheshire bowmen to the North. Not even
Eric had come to Chiswick. He was a Penshurst man, and Mat Bromfield
the tanner, who came from near that same village, had agreed to see
him safely home.

James breathed in the early morning air. Home! And
nobody about. Chiswick abed! He laughed to himself, and headed for
the village.

By Christmastide, when the steady frosts of Winter hung
heavy on the orchards and fields of Chiswick, James had done the
ploughing, repaired the cruck, and built a lean-to barn against the
sheepfold. Hettie was with child, her mother had moved in, and the
midwife said there would be an extra mouth to feed by the Summer
harvest.

One day, as the sun dipped and the cold drew in, James
went down to the marker stone that separated his land from that of
his lord, the Dean of St. Paul’s. The land James held was good
land, fresh, deep, and dark from the ploughing. Good for barley, easy
to work, and full fat in the hands of a yeoman farmer.

Still, he needed more and the land of his lord the Dean
looked ripe for the taking. He stared at it. It was no more than
five hides, but it was rich and green and well set. It ran along the
river by Chiswick Eyot, and bordered Sutton manor where the king
himself held a hall. Five hides! All he would need, and sitting there
with naught to do but graze the few sheep of the village priest.

He rubbed the stubble on his chin, and scanned the
meadow once more. What price? The bailiff had said he would need a
good few crowns just to get the grazing rights, and at least another
twenty pounds of easterlings to turn it over to tillage. He had heard
that from the Dean’s own scrivener who kept the books for the
chapter of St Paul’s and knew the asking rates.

Well, that was that then. He could rent at a king’s
ransom, but never buy, and there would be no special deals for a
soldier home from the wars. In fact the village rumours that there
were yeomen aplenty about with Agincourt silver in their crocks had
doubtless forced the prices up, and the Church was ever ready to
sniff a bargain.

He smiled and stepped past the marker. Good land all
right. Firm beneath his feet and sheltered by a stand of elms hard by
old Tamesis.

But too rich for him. He had brought back so little from
France. The old knight had paid a ransom that worth no more than a
milch cow, and the young lord he had captured at the end of the
battle was also claimed by the Duke of Westmoreland, so there was
less than a few shillings for the likes of a bowman from Chiswick.

Still, he had sold the knight’s armour at Calais, and
picked up three crowns from a Flemish merchant for a jewel-inlaid
dagger he had found on the battlefield. But that was all, apart from
the wages of his indenture. And some he had spent on food, and some
on his passage home, and some on some fine French ribbons for Hettie
to tie back her hair.

As for buying land . . . he looked again at the five
hides. Land! One clean shot with a clout-headed arrow smack into the
breastplate of a French noble, and he could have all the land he had
ever dreamt of. William Bretoun had done it. One clean shot! That’s
all, and the world turns upside down. With the ransom of a royal
duke in his pocket he would be more than a poor yeoman farmer in
Chiswick. He would have those five hides, and more besides if good
French gold spoke as loudly as men said it did.

He turned and began to walk back up the lea slope
towards the cruck-house. A light was burning in the doorway, and he
could hear Hettie singing over the cooking pot. The smell of hare and
bacon pottage came to him, and he quickened his stride. Still, he
could not forget the five hides of lea land.