Jake sneezed hard into his hand: blood mixed with snot on his palm. At one point, heavy rain washed it away.
‘You are dogs and demons,’ the old woman yelled, pulling on her left stirrup. She yelled out a few more words in a hoarse, raspy voice, and shook her fist at Jake. Rainwater ran down the furrows of her face like a cascade of tears.
“I don’t speak your stupid French,” he yelled at her in English. His horse twitched under him and yanked on the kidneys to stop him. The old woman tugged at her left leg.
‘Get off, old woman!’ Jake yelled.
Burnell, the tall man-at-arms, dismounted and walked toward her. With her studded leather gloves on, he slammed into her face hard, drawing blood, knocking out the last of her teeth and leaving her lying on her with a splash in the mud. Burnell sat on her stomach, drew a dagger and brought it to the old woman’s throat.
“Now then, old hag,” said Burnell, “tell us where they hid the food or I’ll kill you right now.”
Jake turned as Burnell punched the woman again. He heard the pig-like screech of her last breath escaping her as he slit her throat. Jake clenched his jaw; he hated this war.
Jake sneezed over and over again. He covered his nose with one hand, but lost control of his kidneys as his horse snorted and kicked in annoyance, and another sneeze erupted from his aching nostrils. Damn you, you old pest, Jake thought, I know you’re hungry too; be patient. He hadn’t named the horse; he hadn’t thought it worth it since they died so quickly from lack of forage.
Jake managed to control his sneezes. The other men in Sir Robert’s small foraging party searched the houses, sheds, and barns. Sir Robert had taken what was left of his small retinue, three men-at-arms and six archers, including Jake, and left the main army two days ago under cover of night. He had said that the villages in the hills might have food, and perhaps some manor house that might offer an opportunity for plunder. But every village they found had been like this one: empty of people and devoid of supplies. The old woman now lying dead in the mud was the only living person they had found so far.
Jake! Go down. We’ve worked to do it,’ Burnell said.
As he dismounted, thunder rumbled like a hellish cannon, and lightning flashed in a brilliant sheet across the narrow skies between the wooded hills. Both Burnell and Jake jumped in surprise. Burnell cursed. He and Jake grabbed their horses’ halters and ran with them to the nearest stable. The rain hammered down and quickly the road turned into a muddy torrent. The others also found refuge there. They said little to each other, each lost in their own thoughts.
As the rain died down to a minor torrent, Sir Robert rose from a bale of sodden straw and leveled an ax down the hillside. I think the villagers are up there in that manor house on the hill. Without a doubt, his mistress protects them and their supplies.
The men looked up the hillside, where the dark walls and great drum tower of a fortified manor could be glimpsed above the thick forest lit by lightning through the gloom of the storm.
“It looks more like a castle than a house to me,” said Thomas Wheeler, one of the archers.
It’s not as big as it looks. If there are more than one or two combatants in the residence, I would be very surprised. The nobility around here are poor at best. Come on, stragglers, get on your horses. We will be eating around the mansion lord’s fire tonight.
The small troop of English soldiers rode down the road that wound around the wooded slope, their stomachs dreaming of food. Jake’s thoughts were clouded by hunger, cold, and fatigue, but inside him an unpleasant emotion ate at his heart: a flame of resentment against his comrades. Rape and robbery were not what he expected from war, but day after day he had seen little else. There were no real fights to speak of, none of the excitement and heroism he had dreamed of when he signed his contract with Sir Robert’s company in May. Back then, military life had been a way of escaping the disappointments of life at home, but now those problems were insignificant compared to the dance of evil that had gripped him, the English and French armies, and the thousands of of inhabitants of France who had the misfortune to live on their way.
The band halted at a signal from Sir Robert. They were halfway up the slope when Sir Robert, at the head of the column, saw a widening in the road where the road came to a bridge over a steep ravine that cut the slope like a deep and terminal wound. Sir Robert had learned the hard way to be cautious and considered this a good place for a French ambush. No words were spoken, but with a series of hand gestures, the six archers quickly dismounted and strung their bows. Two of the men-at-arms, Clifford and Burnell, raised their great shields and advanced, archers hunched behind them, scanning the woods on either side for any movement. Sir Robert and his lieutenant Richard waited with the horses and watched the progress of the others. Staying out of harm’s way, Jake thought, as he watched Sir Robert move to the rear of the group.
Nothing moved on this side of the densely overgrown ravine, but they could see a strange sight on the other side. Less than twenty paces away, across the narrow wooden bridge, was a colorful pavilion of alternating wide bands of blue and red silk, wet from the rain but still good-looking. Under the canopy at the entrance to the pavilion sat a lady, also dressed in silks, wearing a conical headdress and a veil of fine gauze that covered the dark hair that fell from her neck to her shoulders. She was preoccupied with some kind of detail work on her hands, perhaps embroidery.
But facing her, blocking the farthest exit from the bridge, and clad in dull black plate armor, stood a tall man-at-arms, complete with jousting helmet. He stood motionless with his arms crossed in front of him. Behind him was a tethered warhorse, also black, and a rack of weapons: spears, swords, polearms, maces, and axes. Neither the gentleman nor the lady gave any indication that they had seen the English soldiers.
