Bernard Cornwell - Vagabond

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First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2002

Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2002

Map © John Gilkes 2013

Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007310319

Ebook Edition © JULY 2009 ISBN: 9780007338795

Version: 2018-08-16

VAGABOND

is for June and Eddie Bell

in friendship and gratitude

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page VAGABOND BERNARD CORNWELL

Copyright Copyright Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2002 Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2002 Map © John Gilkes 2013 Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication Source ISBN: 9780007310319 Ebook Edition © JULY 2009 ISBN: 9780007338795 Version: 2018-08-16

Dedication VAGABOND is for June and Eddie Bell in friendship and gratitude

Map

Part One:ARROWS ON THE HILL PART ONE England, October 1346 Arrows on the Hill

It was October …

A rush of …

Thomas, Father Hobbe …

Sir William Douglas …

Part Two: THE WINTER SIEGE

It was dark …

It was the …

A single short …

The English had …

Part Three: THE KING’S CUPBEARER

Jeanette Chenier, Comtesse …

Lodewijk – he insisted …

Thomas lay shivering …

The first stone …

Richard Totesham watched …

Historical Note

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It was October, the time of the year’s dying when cattle were being slaughtered before winter and when the northern winds brought a promise of ice. The chestnut leaves had turned golden, the beeches were trees of flame and the oaks were made from bronze. Thomas of Hookton, with his woman, Eleanor, and his friend, Father Hobbe, came to the upland farm at dusk and the farmer refused to open his door, but shouted through the wood that the travellers could sleep in the byre. Rain rattled on the mouldering thatch. Thomas led their one horse under the roof that they shared with a woodpile, six pigs in a stout timber pen and a scattering of feathers where a hen had been plucked. The feathers reminded Father Hobbe that it was St Gallus’s day and he told Eleanor how the blessed saint, coming home in a winter’s night, had found a bear stealing his dinner. ‘He told the animal off!’ Father Hobbe said. ‘He gave it a right talking-to, he did, and then he made it fetch his firewood.’

‘I’ve seen a picture of that,’ Eleanor said. ‘Didn’t the bear become his servant?’

‘That’s because Gallus was a holy man,’ Father Hobbe explained. ‘Bears wouldn’t fetch firewood for just anyone! Only for a holy man.’

‘A holy man,’ Thomas put in, ‘who is the patron saint of hens.’ Thomas knew all about the saints, more indeed than Father Hobbe. ‘Why would a chicken want a saint?’ he enquired sarcastically.

‘Gallus is the patron of hens?’ Eleanor asked, confused by Thomas’s tone. ‘Not bears?’

‘Of hens,’ Father Hobbe confirmed. ‘Indeed of all poultry.’

‘But why?’ Eleanor wanted to know.

‘Because he once expelled a wicked demon from a young girl.’ Father Hobbe, broad-faced, hair like a stickleback’s spines, peasant-born, stocky, young and eager, liked to tell stories of the blessed saints. ‘A whole bundle of bishops had tried to drive the demon out,’ he went on, ‘and they had all failed, but the blessed Gallus came along and he cursed the demon. He cursed it! And it screeched in terror’ – Father Hobbe waved his hands in the air to imitate the evil spirit’s panic – ‘and then it fled from her body, it did, and it looked just like a black hen – a pullet. A black pullet.’

‘I’ve never seen a picture of that,’ Eleanor remarked in her accented English, then, gazing out through the byre door, ‘but I’d like to see a real bear carrying firewood,’ she added wistfully.

Thomas sat beside her and stared into the wet dusk, which was hazed by a small mist. He was not sure it really was St Gallus’s day for he had lost his reckoning while they travelled. Perhaps it was already St Audrey’s day? It was October, he knew that, and he knew that one thousand, three hundred and forty-six years had passed since Christ had been born, but he was not sure which day it was. It was easy to lose count. His father had once recited all the Sunday services on a Saturday and he had had to do them again the next day. Thomas surreptitiously made the sign of the cross. He was a priest’s bastard and that was said to bring bad luck. He shivered. There was a heaviness in the air that owed nothing to the setting sun nor to the rain clouds nor to the mist. God help us, he thought, but there was an evil in this dusk and he made the sign of the cross again and said a silent prayer to St Gallus and his obedient bear. There had been a dancing bear in London, its teeth nothing but rotted yellow stumps and its brown flanks matted with blood from its owner’s goad. The street dogs had snarled at it, slunk about it and shrank back when the bear swung on them.