Bernard Cornwell - The Grail Quest 1 - Harlequin

He went through the hallway to find a group of archers and hobelars squabbling over the kitchen pots. Two menservants lay dead by the hearth in which a fire still smouldered. One of the archers snarled at Thomas that they had reached the house first and its contents were theirs, but before Thomas could answer he heard a scream from the upper floor and he turned and ran up the big wooden stairway. Two rooms opened from the upper hallway and Thomas pushed open one of the doors to see an archer in the Prince of Wales's livery struggling with a girl. The man had half torn off her pale blue dress, but she was fighting back like a vixen, clawing at his face and kicking his shins. Then, just as Thomas came into the room, the man managed to subdue her with a great clout to the head. The girl gasped and fell back into the wide and empty hearth as the archer turned on Thomas. She's mine," he said curtly, go and find your own.

Thomas looked at the girl. She was fair-haired, thin and weeping. He remembered Jeanette's anguish after the Duke had raped her and he could not stomach seeing such pain inflicted on another girl, not even a girl in Sir Guillaume d'Evecque's mansion. I think you've hurt her enough,“ he said. He crossed himself, remembering his sins in Brittany. Let her go,” he added. The archer, a bearded man a dozen years older than Thomas, drew his sword. It was an old weapon, broad-bladed and sturdy, and the man hefted it confidently. Listen, boy,“ he said, I'm going to watch you go through that door, and if you don't I'll string your goddamn guts from wall to wall.”

Thomas hefted the falchion. I've sworn an oath to Saint Guinefort," he told the man, to protect all women.

Goddamn fool."

The man leaped at Thomas, lunged, and Thomas stepped back and parried so that the blades struck sparks as they rang together. The bearded man was quick to recover, lunged again, and Thomas took another backwards step and swept the sword aside with the falchion. The girl was watching from the hearth with wide blue eyes. Thomas swung his broad blade, missed and was almost skewered by the sword, but he stepped aside just in time, then kicked the bearded man in the knee so that he hissed with pain, then Thomas swept the falchion in a great haymaking blow that cut into the bearded man's neck. Blood arced across the room as the man, without a sound, dropped to the floor. The falchion had very nearly severed his head and the blood still pulsed from the open wound as Thomas knelt beside his victim.

If anyone asks,“ he said to the girl in French, your father did this, then ran away.” He had got into too much trouble after murdering a squire in Brittany and did not want to compound the crime by the death of an archer. He took four small coins from the archer's pouch then smiled at the girl, who had remained remarkably calm while a man was almost decapitated in front of her eyes. I'm not going to hurt you,“ Thomas said, I promise.”

She watched him from the hearth. You won't?"

Not today," he said gently.

She stood, shaking the dizziness from her head. She pulled her dress close at her neck and tied the torn parts together with loose threads. You may not hurt me,“ she said, but others will.” Not if you stay with me,“ Thomas said. Here,” he took the big black bow from his shoulder, unstrung it and tossed it to her. Carry that,“ he said, and everyone will know you're an archer's woman. No one will touch you then.”

She frowned at the weight of the bow. No one will hurt me?“ Not if you carry that,” Thomas promised her again. Is this your house?"

I work here," she said.

For Sir Guillaume d'Evecque?“ he asked and she nodded. Is he here?”

She shook her head. I don't know where he is.“ Thomas reckoned his enemy was in the castle where he would be trying to extricate an arrow from his thigh. Did he keep a lance here?” he asked, a great black lance with a silver blade?“ She shook her head quickly. Thomas frowned. The girl, he could see, was trembling. She had shown bravery, but perhaps the blood seeping from the dead man's neck was unsettling her. He also noted she was a pretty girl despite the bruises on her face and the dirt in her tangle of fair hair. She had a long face made solemn by big eyes. Do you have family here?” Thomas asked her. My mother died. I have no one except Sir Guillaume.“ And he left you here alone?” Thomas asked scornfully. No!“ she protested. He thought we'd be safe in the city, but then, when your army came, the men decided to defend the island instead. They left the city! Because all the good houses are here.” She sounded indignant.

So what do you do for Sir Guillaume?“ Thomas asked her. I clean,” she said, and milk the cows on the other side of the river.“ She flinched as men shouted angrily from the square out-side. Thomas smiled. It's all right, no one will hurt you. Hold on to the bow. If anyone looks at you, say, I am an archer's woman. ” He repeated it slowly, then made her say the phrase over and over till he was satisfied. Good!“ He smiled at her. What's your name?” Eleanor."

He doubted it would serve much purpose to search the house, though he did, but there was no lance of Saint George hidden in any of the rooms. There was no furniture, no tapestries, nothing of any value except the spits and pots and dishes in the kitchen. Everything precious, Eleanor said, had gone to the castle a week before. Thomas looked at the shattered dishes on the kitchen flagstones. How long have you worked for him?" he asked.

All my life,“ Eleanor said, then added shyly, I'm fifteen.” And you never saw a great lance that he brought back from England?"

No," she said, eyes wide, but something about her expression made Thomas think she was lying, though he did not challenge her. He decided he would question her later, when she had learned to trust him.

You'd better stay with me,“ he told Eleanor, then you won't get hurt. I'll take you to the encampment and when our army moves on you can come back here.” What he really meant was that she could stay with him and become a true archer's woman, but that, like the lance, could wait a day or two.

She nodded, accepting that fate with equanimity. She must have prayed to be spared the rape that tortured Caen and Thomas was her prayer's answer. He gave her his arrow bag so that she looked even more like an archer's woman. We'll have to go through the city,“ he told Eleanor as he led her down the staircase,'s o stay close.”

He went down the house's outer steps. The small square was now crowded with mounted men-at-arms wearing the badge of the bear and ragged staff. They had been sent by the Earl of Warwick to stop the slaughter and robbery, and they stared hard at Thomas, but he lifted his hands to show he was carrying nothing, then threaded between the horses. He had gone perhaps a dozen paces when he realized that Eleanor was not with him. She was terrified of the horsemen in dirty mail, their grim faces framed in steel and so she had hesitated at the house door.

Thomas opened his mouth to call her and just then a horseman spurred at him from under the branches of the oak. Thomas looked up, then the flat of a sword blade hammered into the side of his head and he was pitched forward, his ear bleeding, onto the cobble-stones. The falchion fell from his hand, then the man's horse stepped on his forehead and Thomas's vision was seared with lightning

The man climbed from the saddle and stamped his armoured foot on Thomas's head Thomas felt the pain, heard the protests from the other men-at-arms, then felt nothing as he was kicked a second time. But in the few heartbeats before he lost consciousness he had recognized his assailant

Sir Simon Jekyll, despite his agreement with the Earl, wanted revenge.

Perhaps Thomas was lucky. Perhaps his guardian saint, whether dog or man, was looking after him, for if he had been conscious he would have suffered torture Sir Simon might have put his signa-ture to the agreement with the Earl the previous night, but the sight of Thomas had driven any mercy from his mind. He remembered the humiliation of being hunted naked through the trees and he recalled the pain of the crossbow bolt in his leg, a wound that still made him limp, and those memories provoked nothing except a wish to give Thomas a long, slow hurting that would leave the archer screaming But Thomas had been stunned by the flat of the sword and by the kicks to his head and he did not know a thing as two men-at-arms dragged him towards the oak. At first the Earl of Warwick's men had tried to protect Thomas from Sir Simon, but when he assured them that the man was a deserter, a thief and a murderer they had changed their minds. They would hang him.