Paul Doherty - By Murder's bright light

The long bows sang their song, a low musical thrum, as goosequill-flighted arrows swooped into the darkness. The night air was shattered by screams and yells.

‘Again! Loose!’

A Frenchman, his dark face bearded, the only man yet to reach the deck of the Holy Trinity, stared at Athelstan in stupefaction. An arrow caught him straight between the eyes. He fell back.

‘Again!’ Crawley shouted. ‘Loose!’

Athelstan felt himself pulled back by Cranston and stared at the archers. They were hand-picked master bowmen; they fired one arrow whilst keeping another between their teeth. Athelstan guessed each one must be shooting at least three a minute. They worked in a silent, cold way. Now and again a French arbalester replied and an archer fell screaming to the deck. He was pulled away and another took his place. Other, more enterprising archers were climbing the rigging. Athelstan hurried to those who had been wounded. The first, a youth of about sixteen, was already coughing up blood, his eyes glazing over. Athelstan sketched the sign of the cross over his face and trusted that Christ would understand. Now Crawley was bringing up fire archers, exposing them to danger as they leant over the side of the ship to shoot down into the galleys. The French replied with their crossbows. One archer disappeared screaming over the side, half his face ripped away. Athelstan stood with Crawley and a small knot of officers at the foot of the mast and listened to the din of battle. He realised how fortunate they had been – without Moleskin’s warning the entire ship’s company would have been unprepared and looking in the opposite direction when Eustace the Monk’s freebooters struck.

‘To starboard!’ someone shouted.

Crawley turned. A galley had come in on the shore side to complete the encirclement of the Holy Trinity. Athelstan glimpsed the top of its mast, where a monk’s hood fluttered as its pennant. Now the danger was acute. Archers hurried over, but the grappling lines snaked up and caught the ship’s rigging and bulwarks. In a mad rush, armed Frenchmen, wearing the livery of a monk’s hood over their chain mail, gained a footing. They pushed back the lightly armed archers, so skilled with their long bows and yet unprotected against these mailed men-at-arms.

‘Now!’ Cranston shouted and, not even waiting for Crawley’s orders, the fat coroner led the ship’s company of men-at-arms against the invaders. Athelstan would have moved too but Crawley pushed him back. Cranston hit the Frenchmen like a charging bull.

The friar watched, petrified. Cranston swung his great sword like a scythe. Athelstan smelt fire. He turned and saw smoke billowing from the galley at the other side of the ship. The fire-arrows had at last begun to take effect. Crawley, his face blackened with smoke, left the fight on the deck to run over and scream at his men.

‘Push it away! Push it away!’

The galley, flames licking it from bow to stern, was pushed out into the mist. The screams of the men on board were terrible. Athelstan saw at least three, their clothes aflame, throw themselves into the icy Thames. Now free on one side, more archers rushed to help Cranston. Athelstan retreated towards the shelter of the stern castle. As he did so, a Frenchman broke free of the mêlée and darted towards him. Athelstan moved sideways to dodge. The ship lurched. The deck underfoot was slippery, the seawater edged with a bloody froth. Athelstan crashed to the deck, jarring his arm. The Frenchman lifted his sword to strike but he must have realised Athelstan was a priest, for he smiled, stepped back and disappeared into the throng. The friar, nursing his bruised arm, limped towards the cabin. Behind him, he could hear Cranston’s roar. The friar closed his eyes and prayed that Christ would protect the fat coroner. Then he heard the bray of a trumpet, once, twice, three times, and immediately the fighting began to slacken. The arrows ceased to fall, shouted orders faltered. Athelstan, resting against the cabin, glanced along the ship, experiencing that eerie silence which always falls as a battle ends. Even the wounded and dying ceased their screaming.

‘Are you all right, Brother?’

Cranston came swaggering across the deck. The coroner was splashed with blood, his sword still wet and sticky. He appeared unhurt except for a few scratches on his hand and a small flesh wound just beneath his elbow. Cranston grasped Athelstan by the shoulder and pushed his face close, his ice-blue eyes full of concern.

‘Athelstan, you are all right?’

‘Christ be thanked, yes I am!’

‘Good!’ Cranston grinned. The farting Frenchmen have gone!’ The coroner turned, legs spread, big belly and chest stuck out, and raised his sword in the air. ‘We beat the bastards, lads!’

Cheering broke out and Athelstan could hear it being taken up on the cogs further down the line. He walked to the ship’s side. A number of French galleys were on fire and now lay low in the water, the roaring flames turning them to floating cinders. Of Eustace the Monk’s own galley and the rest of his small pirate fleet there was no sign.

‘What will happen now, Sir John?’ Athelstan asked.

‘The buggers will race for the sea,’ the coroner replied. They have to be out before dawn, when this mist lifts.’

Cranston threw his sword on the deck, his attention caught by the cries of a group of men under the mast. Cranston and Athelstan crossed to where Sir Jacob Crawley lay, a surgeon crouched over him tending a wound in his shoulder. The admiral winced with pain as he grabbed Cranston’s hand.

‘We did it, Jack.’ The admiral’s face, white as a sheet, broke into a thin smile. ‘We did it again, Jack, like the old days.’

Cranston looked at the surgeon.

‘Is he in any danger?’

‘No,’ the fellow replied. ‘Nothing a fresh poultice and a good bandage can’t deal with.’

Crawley struggled to concentrate. He peered at Athelstan.

‘I know,’ he whispered. ‘I remember. Everything was so tidy, so very, very tidy!’ Then he fell into a swoon.

Athelstan and Cranston drew away. The ship became a hive of activity and the friar winced as the archers, using their misericorde daggers, cut the throats of the enemy wounded and unceremoniously tossed their corpses into the river. Boats were lowered and messages sent to the other ships about what was to be done with the English wounded, the dead of both sides and the enemy prisoners.

Athelstan, nursing his arm, sat in the cabin and listened as Cranston, between generous slurps from his wineskin, gave a graphic description of the fight. Crawley, now being sent ashore to the hospital at St Bartholomew’s, had won a remarkable victory. Four galleys had been sunk and a number of prisoners taken. Most of these, perhaps the luckiest, were already on their way to the flagship to be hanged.

The news had by now reached the city. Through the fog came the sound of bells and sailors reported that, despite the darkness and the mist, crowds were beginning to gather along the quayside.

‘Sir John,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘We should go ashore. We have done all we can here.’

Cranston, who was preparing for a third description of his masterly prowess, rubbed his eyes and smiled.

‘You are right.’

The coroner walked to the cabin door and watched as a French prisoner, a noose tied around his neck, was pushed over the side to die a slow, choking death.

‘You are right, Brother, we should go. No charging knights, no silken-caparisoned destriers, just a bloody mess and violent death.’

They crossed the deck to the shouts and acclamations of the sailors and archers. Athelstan glimpsed the dangling corpses.

‘Sir John, can’t that be stopped?’

‘Rules of war,’ Cranston replied. ‘Rules of war. Eustace the Monk is a pirate. Pirates are hanged out of hand.’