In the end, the siege engines were not needed. At first light, the trumpets sounded and the army came down off the heights and hurried along the repaired causeway towards the town. As the vanguard drew closer, they saw the gates standing wide open, the ramparts empty of defenders. Unlike at Valognes, there was no procession of burgesses waiting to surrender and pledge their allegiance to the king. Carentan had been abandoned.
Yelling with delight, the leading companies began smashing doors and windows and breaking into houses. Smoke and flames were already rising from a dozen points by the time Warwick and the Prince of Wales entered the town. Swearing violently, Warwick directed his under-marshal to arrest as many looters as possible, but it was too late. The sounds of shouting, drunken singing, splintering wood and smashing glass and crockery echoed through every street and alley.
In the main square they found the Red Company, the only company to have maintained its discipline, standing guard over the church of Notre-Dame. Richard Percy walked forward, sheathing his sword, as Warwick and the prince rode up. ‘Most of the townspeople have fled,’ he said. ‘But there are refugees inside the church, about thirty in all. People who were too slow, or too old and infirm, to escape.’
‘Protect them as best you can. Any sign of the enemy?’
‘The castle is still holding out. The gates are shut and there are men on the ramparts, including at least one crossbowman.’
‘Is Bertrand there?’
‘There’s no sign of his banner.’
A row of arcaded shops along the eastern side of the square was burning, smoke pouring from windows and doors, tiles cracking as flames licked up through the roofs. The prince watched the destruction, his followers nudging each other and laughing. They cheered when a roof caved in and a shower of sparks danced up through the smoke. Their horses stirred, restless.
More men rode into the square, iron-shod hooves hammering on the cobbles, the red and gold banner of Harcourt floating over their heads. Harcourt rode up to Warwick, gesturing towards the fires. ‘What is this? The town has surrendered. It should be under the king’s protection.’
‘If the burgesses had remained, we could have protected them. Once the troops realised the town was empty, there was no stopping them. Why did the townsfolk flee, Godefroi? You sent them letters urging them to surrender, did you not?’
‘My messenger was ambushed and killed before he could reach the town. Another is missing too, Jean de Fierville. That son-of-a-whore Bertrand knew my men were coming and set traps for them.’
Warwick looked at the herald, seated on his palfrey amid the Prince of Wales’s household. Warin the groom was behind him, mounted on a shaggy pony. ‘Your pardon, my lord,’ Merrivale said. ‘But I saw Jean de Fierville last night in Saint-Côme-du-Mont. He was looking for you.’
Harcourt glanced at him sharply. ‘Did he say what his errand was?’
‘Only that it was urgent. I told him he could find you at Coigny, and he rode away.’
‘He never reached Coigny,’ said another of the Normans. It was the man who had threatened Merrivale the night after the landing. ‘You are right, my lord. He must have been ambushed too.’
‘Bertrand’s men are still holding the castle,’ Warwick said. ‘We need to prise them out. Godefroi, take your men around to the Saint-Lô gate and hold it. If the garrison tries to break out from the castle, stop them. John, Richard, leave a detachment of your men to guard the church, and follow me.’
The streets were full of clouds of choking yellow-white smoke, bearing drifting embers on the currents of air like flotsam on the tide. The horses snorted and sweated with fear, and the men-at-arms had to use spurs to force them on.
Somewhere nearby another roof caved in, flames glaring red through the smoke. The herald’s horse reared up, front hooves flailing. For a moment he clung to the saddle, unable to do anything but hold on, and then Warin rode up alongside him and grabbed the reins, pulling the beast down. By the time they had the horse under control again, Warwick and the prince and his household had vanished into the rolling smoke. Merrivale looked around, trying to see which way they had gone. From somewhere close by, invisible in the smoke, a woman screamed.
Merrivale stiffened. ‘Where did that come from?’
The voice screamed again, an inarticulate shriek of terror and anger. Warin pointed down an alley leading off the street. ‘That way, sir,’ he said urgently.
‘Come on.’ The alley was too narrow for horses; they jumped from the saddle and ran. The houses had not yet begun to burn, but the narrow street was still clogged with acrid smoke. Again the woman screamed. They rounded a bend in the lane, and stopped.
Two men stood facing them, archers clad in russet, one with a leather cuirass over his jerkin. Their bows were slung across their backs and they had knives in their hands. Behind them was a third archer, a big man with a shining bald head bisected by a red scar running across his scalp where someone at some point in the past had tried to carve his head open and failed. In one hand he held a short sword; his other arm was wrapped around a woman, barefoot, with long, dishevelled hair, who struggled violently, trying to get free.
The big man swore at her. ‘Hold still, bitch!’
In reply, the woman grabbed his hand, pulled it to her face and bit him hard on the wrist. The big man yelped, raising his arm, and the woman darted away, running towards Merrivale. Fast as a cat, the man was after her, grabbing her by the shoulder and tearing her gown, then throwing her hard down onto the cobbles. He stood over her, sword pointed at her throat.
‘Leave her alone,’ Merrivale said sharply.
One of the archers shook his head. ‘You don’t give the orders here, herald.’
‘I speak in the king’s name. Let the woman go.’
The big man looked up. He was breathing heavily, and blood dripped from his wounded wrist. ‘The king isn’t here,’ he said. ‘And the bitch is ours. Get out of here, if you want to live.’
The other two raised their knives and started walking towards Merrivale. Warin stepped forward, drawing his own knife, but Merrivale waved him back. ‘I am the herald of the Prince of Wales,’ he said calmly. ‘And you cannot touch me.’
‘Herald to the Prince of Wales, is it? You owe us three shillings, herald. For the information we gave to that black man of yours.’
‘I will pay it,’ Merrivale said. ‘As soon as you let the woman go.’
‘No,’ said one of the other archers, and he smiled a broken-toothed smile. ‘The price has just gone up, mate. Hand over your purse, and that ring on your finger too. Nice and easy, now.’
The ring was his seal ring; it was one of the few things he had been allowed to inherit from his father. ‘Don’t be damned fools. If you harm me, you will hang. Step back now, and let the woman go.’
‘Do as he says,’ a soft voice said behind him.
Merrivale turned. Two more archers stood in the narrow street, wearing the dark red iron caps of the Red Company. Both had arrows at the nock, ready to draw and shoot in an instant. He recognised the fine-featured, serious young faces at once; Matt and Pip, the two men Sir John Grey had sent after Edmund Bray.
The Lancashire men hesitated. Their bows were still slung; Matt and Pip could shoot two of them before they moved, and probably the third before he could bring his bow into play. The big man with the scarred head snarled at them. ‘I’ll kill the woman. Lower those bows and walk away, or I’ll cut her throat and let you watch her bleed to death.’
A blur of movement, almost too fast for the eye to see; Matt drawing his longbow, pulling the nock back beside his ear and loosing. Humming, the arrow shot past the big man’s head, so close that the barb drew blood from his ear. He shouted, clapping his hand to his head for a moment and then looking at the blood on his fingers. ‘You bastard,’ he said ominously.
‘I missed you deliberately,’ Matt said. Already he had another arrow at the nock. ‘I won’t miss again. It is you, soldier, who will walk away. You and your friends, now.’
A long, tense moment passed, and then the big man raised his sword. Blood ran from his ear down his neck and dripped onto his jerkin. ‘Come on,’ he said to the others. ‘There’ll be easier pickings elsewhere, I reckon. Aye, and prettier ones too.’ He kicked the woman as she lay on the ground, then turned and strode away through the curtain of smoke. His companions followed him.
Merrivale turned to the two archers. ‘Thank you. But why are you here?’
‘Sir John realised you were missing, and thought you might have got lost in the smoke,’ Matt said. ‘He sent us to find you. If I was you, sir, I’d be going soon. Your horses are still out in the street, unattended and pretty much inviting someone to steal them.’
Again there was that confidence, Merrivale thought. These were no ordinary archers. ‘Just a moment,’ he said. The woman was sitting up, and he hurried to her, taking her hands and lifting her to her feet. ‘Madame, are you hurt? Are you injured?’
She raised her head. Her face was a mask of dirt and grime and her dark red hair fell in tangled clouds around her shoulders and over her face. Her gown had once been fine, but it was soiled and ragged now, and one sleeve had been half torn off, the points ripped and dangling. Her feet were dirty too, and he could see blood on one of them. She was young, he realised, no more than twenty.
‘Thanks to you, I am unharmed,’ she said. Her voice was shaky but strong. ‘May I know the name of my saviour, monsieur?’
‘I am Simon Merrivale, herald to the Prince of Wales. Who are you, madame, and where did you come from?’
‘It is demoiselle. My name is Tiphaine de Tesson, and I have been imprisoned in the castle of Carentan for the past two years. When your army advanced on the town, I escaped and came here hoping to find your commanders. You must take me to them, monsieur. It is urgent.’
He saw the desperation in her brown eyes. Questions could wait, he thought. ‘We have horses waiting. Are you well enough to ride? Good, come with me. Warin, give her your pony and follow us on foot. Lead the way, demoiselle.’
The castle lay in the southern quarter of the town, not far from the Saint-Lô gate. The streets here had not yet begun to burn. They found Warwick and his officers crouched behind the corner of a jettied stone house, looking out at the castle on the far side of the square. The prince and his knights and serjeants of his bodyguard waited further back, out of range of enemy crossbows. No one was visible now on the ramparts of the castle, but the gates were still firmly shut.
‘My lord Warwick!’ the herald called, sliding out of the saddle and reaching up to help Tiphaine down. ‘This lady has recently escaped from the castle. She says she has urgent news.’
Warwick rose and came towards them. The other officers followed, armour and mail clanking. ‘Who are you, demoiselle?’ the marshal asked.
‘I am Tiphaine de Tesson. My father was the lord of La Roche Tesson, whom King Philippe executed for rebellion and treason two years ago. I was arrested along with my father, and I have been held in prison in Carentan castle ever since. My cell was in the walls, directly under the ramparts, and I often overheard officers of the garrison talking. This morning when your army began to advance, I heard Messire Robert Bertrand giving orders to the commander of the castle.’
‘One moment, demoiselle. How strong is the garrison? How many men?’
‘Not more than twenty. Messire Bertrand has withdrawn with the rest to Saint-Lô.’
‘Only twenty?’ said Edward de Tracey. ‘We can storm the place easily.’
John Grey nodded. ‘No need to wait for the mangonels. A simple ram will break the gates down.’
The woman shook her head violently, her tangled hair swinging around her shoulders. ‘No, messire! A trap is waiting for you!’
‘A trap?’ Warwick said sharply. ‘What sort of trap?’
‘I do not know, messire. I only heard Messire Bertrand say to the commander, “Wait until they enter, then spring the trap. Once it is done, escape with your men as best you can.” And the commander said, “Do not fear. They will be destroyed.”’
‘What is the name of the commander?’ Merrivale asked.
‘He is called Raoul de Barbizan. He is one of King Philippe’s officers.’
Merrivale turned to Warwick. ‘Let me parley with this man, my lord. Once I am inside the castle, perhaps I can discover what this trap is.’
Warwick frowned. ‘Herald, you are an ambassador, not a scout. You would be overstepping the bounds. If Barbizan were to discover what you are up to, he would be perfectly entitled to kill you.’
The flames were drawing nearer; a gust of smoke swirled in the street around them. ‘He will not discover it,’ Merrivale said.
‘Perhaps not,’ said Nicholas Courcy, stepping forward. ‘But all the same, herald, I think Donnchad and I will come with you. I’m thinking you might need a little assistance.’
Donnchad was a shaggy mountain of a man, bigger even than the Lancashire archer Merrivale had faced down a few minutes earlier. ‘I do not need assistance,’ the herald said. ‘I can gain entrance to the castle without difficulty.’
‘I am sure you can. But I fancy you might need a wee bit of help getting out again.’
The rest of Carentan was fire and chaos, but the square before the castle was silent as death. The loudest sound was the boots of the three men rasping on the cobbles. The herald walked straight towards the gate, hands at his sides, his tabard shining in the smoke-tainted sunlight. Courcy and Donnchad still wore their swords, but they held their hands out wide, away from their weapons.
A man appeared on the roof of the gatehouse, resting a crossbow on the ramparts and levelling it. His voice echoed hollow off the stone walls around him. ‘Who are you? State your business!’
‘I am Simon Merrivale, herald to the Prince of Wales. I wish to speak to the Sire de Barbizan.’
‘What do you want with him?’
‘Carentan has fallen. We know your defences are weak and you cannot withstand an assault for long. I am here to negotiate your surrender.’
The crossbowman said nothing. He remained motionless, his weapon pointed at the three of them. After some little time, a postern gate in the wooden door swung open.
‘You may enter,’ the crossbowman said.
Merrivale stepped through the postern, Courcy and Donnchad following. Glancing up at the gate arch, he saw that the portcullis had been raised. Courcy noticed it too. ‘That’s a curious thing.’
‘Yes.’ If the defenders were preparing to resist an assault, the portcullis should have been lowered.
A single man stood waiting for them in the courtyard of the castle. He wore full armour, but in the heat of the day he had removed his bascinet and pulled the cowl of his mail coat down so he was bare-headed. His sweat-damp hair clung to his forehead in curls. Glancing back at the gatehouse as they passed, Merrivale saw a wooden door standing open. A cart was parked before it, tipped forward and resting on its shaft. The crossbowman stood on the gatehouse roof above them, crossbow pointed at their backs.
‘Drop your swords,’ said the man in the courtyard.
Courcy and Donnchad drew their swords and laid them on the cobbles. Out of the corner of his eye, the herald saw Courcy glance once at Donnchad, and saw too the almost imperceptible lift of the other man’s head.
‘Who are these men?’ the Frenchman demanded.
‘My escort,’ Merrivale said. ‘Sir Nicholas Courcy of Kingsale and his attendant. Have I the honour of addressing Messire Raoul de Barbizan?’
‘I am he. What do you want?’
‘Robert Bertrand stripped the garrison when he withdrew this morning,’ Merrivale said. ‘We know you have only a few men. You cannot hope to resist our army. Surrender now, and save your lives. You and your men will be fairly treated. I give you that assurance in the name of the Prince of Wales, my master.’
Barbizan considered this for a moment. ‘You underestimate us,’ he said. ‘You have seen how strong this castle is. Twenty men could hold it for a week.’
‘If you refuse, the offer will not be repeated.’
Barbizan said nothing. Merrivale bowed. ‘So be it,’ he said. ‘Farewell, messire. I salute your courage.’ He turned away towards the gate.
‘Wait,’ Barbizan said.
The herald waited. ‘I will surrender only to the king,’ said Barbizan. ‘He must come here in person. I will kneel to him and offer him my sword and the keys to the castle. To him only, herald. No one else.’
Merrivale shook his head. ‘The king has not yet entered the town. But the Prince of Wales is near at hand. You may surrender to him if you wish.’
‘The prince? I do not kneel before children,’ Barbizan snapped.
Merrivale let a few moments pass. ‘The prince will receive your surrender outside the castle,’ he said firmly.
Barbizan hesitated, glancing towards the gatehouse. ‘No. I demand that the surrender takes place here, inside the castle.’
‘Why?’ demanded Merrivale. ‘Why is that so important?’
‘I do not answer to you, herald. Only to your master.’
‘Then I am afraid we are at an impasse,’ said Merrivale, and he turned away again.
Something hit him in the back like a battering ram: Donnchad, slamming into him and shoving him bodily behind the cart just as a crossbow bolt smacked into the cobbles where he had been standing and ricocheted away in a shower of sparks. Courcy pulled a knife from the sleeve of his leather tunic and threw it, and Barbizan collapsed with blood gushing from his throat. The Irish knight picked up the two swords, throwing one to Donnchad and pointing up at the crossbowman on the roof. ‘Téigh! Críochnaigh é, go gasta!’
Donnchad ran through the door into the gatehouse and they heard his boots pounding on the stairs as he raced towards the roof. The crossbowman was already reloading; they had about twenty seconds before he shot again. There was a strange smell in the air, and after a moment Merrivale recognised it as sulphur. Looking inside the cart, he saw traces of fine pale grey dust on the floorboards, glistening a little in the strong sun.
‘Sir Nicholas!’ he called. ‘Come quickly!’
Shouts sounded from the roof of the gatehouse; Donnchad was fighting with the crossbowman. Courcy hurried over to the cart, and Merrivale pointed to the powder. The Irishman shut his eyes for a moment, and the herald saw him go pale under his sunburn. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he said.
‘They used this cart to transport the gunpowder,’ Merrivale said. He turned and began to walk towards the gatehouse door. After a moment’s hesitation, Courcy ran up alongside him. ‘Stand back, herald,’ he said grimly. ‘This is a job for a fighting man.’
Silently Merrivale followed him into the gatehouse. Just inside the door, the stairs rose in a steep spiral towards the roof, where the clatter of swords could now be heard. Another door led to the guardroom. Courcy tried the latch, but it did not budge.
‘Barred on the inside,’ Merrivale said.
‘Not for long.’ Courcy stepped back and kicked the door hard, then again, and again. On the fourth blow they heard wood begin to splinter, and on the fifth the door sprang open, bouncing off the stone wall behind. Sword in hand, Courcy shouldered his way through.
Sword blades clashed, steel rasping on steel, and someone shouted with pain. The herald pushed through the doorway into sudden gloom; the guardroom was lit only by shafts of sun coming through the arrow slits. In the dim light he saw Courcy fighting desperately, holding off two men, one of them bleeding but still coming on. Behind Courcy stood a third man, armoured but with the visor of his bascinet raised so he could see more clearly. His surcoat was white with a red lion rampant, combatant. His sword was raised for a killing stroke.
The sword was already descending when Merrivale grabbed Jean de Fierville’s arm with a grip of iron and spun him around so that the blow intended for Courcy’s head clattered off the stone floor of the guardroom. Before Fierville could raise his weapon again, Merrivale punched him hard in the face. The Norman staggered, his nose streaming blood, and Merrivale hit him twice more, driving him back against the wall of the guardroom. On the far side of the room was a row of stacked wooden barrels, with something hissing and fizzing on the floor in front of them: a powder train, already burning. The air stank of sulphurous smoke.
One of the men Courcy was fighting was down, clutching at his chest, dying. Merrivale hit the Norman again, a powerful back-handed blow that broke his jaw with a sickening crack, and then tore the sword from his grasp. Ripping Fierville’s bascinet off, he clubbed the other man hard over the temple with the pommel of the sword. Fierville’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the floor with a clatter of metal. Behind him, Courcy feinted high and low, then closed in and kicked his opponent hard on the knee. He doubled over in pain and Courcy stabbed him through the chest, stepping back to let the body slide to the floor.
‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ Courcy said breathlessly, and both men ran across the guardroom towards the barrels. A trail of flame snaked across the floor, breathtakingly fast, eating up the powder train. It was less than a foot away from the stacked barrels of serpentine; only a few heartbeats between them and oblivion. Then Courcy’s boot came down hard on the flame, stamping and stamping, snuffing it out, while the herald kicked away the rest of the powder to scatter the train. More smoke wafted into the air, but the flame died.
‘It has stopped,’ Merrivale said.
‘Jesus,’ Courcy said again. He was white as a sheet now, bent over and rasping for breath. ‘Faith, that was as close as I ever want to come. I am not yet ready for paradise, herald. And I am pretty damned sure paradise isn’t ready for me.’
Boots thundered on the stairs and Donnchad burst into the room, bloody sword in hand. ‘You took your time,’ Courcy said. ‘Go find out where the rest of the garrison are, you great ox, and this time hurry back.’
Donnchad disappeared. Courcy turned to Merrivale, wiping the sweat from his face. ‘You’re a fraud,’ he said, grinning.
‘What do you mean?’
‘A true herald shouldn’t know how to fight like that. Coats of arms are his profession, not weapon craft.’
‘I wasn’t always a herald,’ Merrivale said.
‘Oh? What were you?’
Merrivale said nothing. What do I say? he thought. That once upon a time I was a small boy who fought other boys for scraps of food? That I was a king’s messenger and fought for my life more times than I can count?
‘Look out!’ Courcy shouted.
Fierville was on his feet, face a mask of blood, a dagger in his hand. He hurled it at Courcy, who ducked just in time; the dagger missed him by a hair’s breadth and thudded into one of the casks of serpentine. The Norman ducked through the guardroom door and ran outside. Merrivale followed him, but by the time he reached the courtyard, Fierville was already sprinting across the cobbles towards the donjon on the far side.
Two men ran up beside the herald, archers with arrows nocked. ‘Stop him!’ Merrivale shouted without thinking.
One of the archers raised his bow, drew and released. The bowstring hummed; the arrow, a blur of motion faster than sight, hit Fierville in the back, slamming through his backplate and driving deep into flesh and bone. He stumbled once, pitched forward and fell onto the cobbles. In that shattering moment, the herald saw how Edmund Bray had died.
Fierville was still breathing when Merrivale reached him, but his eyes were closed and his face was pallid. His armoured limbs twitched a couple of times and then relaxed into death.
Merrivale rounded on the archers. It was the Red Company men again, Matt and Pip. ‘Why did you kill this man? We needed him alive!’
‘You ordered us to stop him, sir,’ Pip said. ‘You didn’t say how.’
The fact that it was his own mistake only made Merrivale more angry. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’
‘Sir John’s orders, sir. When you failed to return, he sent us to investigate.’
‘Why did he pick you?’ Merrivale demanded.
‘We don’t know, sir,’ said Matt. As usual, his confidence bordered on insolence. ‘You would have to ask Sir John.’
Merrivale bit back his anger. ‘Tell Sir John the garrison have refused to surrender. Five are dead, but there are still fifteen to be accounted for. I suspect they are trying to escape through a postern gate. Fierville was running to join them.’
Matt nodded. ‘We will tell him, sir. Er… the lady was asking after you, sir. The one you rescued. May we tell her that you are safe?’
‘Tell her whatever you wish,’ the herald snapped, and walked back into the gatehouse.
Courcy was still in the guardroom, staring at the barrels of powder. ‘I am not the only fraud in this room, Sir Nicholas,’ Merrivale said.
Courcy turned towards him, face full of resignation. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You most certainly are not. How did you work it out?’
‘It was not exactly difficult. Those barrels have the arrowhead mark branded on them. They come from the Tower armoury. English gunpowder, Sir Nicholas. Powder that was in your custody.’
‘Yes,’ said Courcy.
‘Fierville and Barbizan set a trap for us. Once the surrender was accepted and the army had advanced through the gates, the powder train was to be set alight. The explosion would blow out the walls of the guardroom and bring the entire gatehouse down on the men beneath it. Scores could have been killed. When they realised we had seen through the plan, they set light to the train anyway in hopes of killing us, at least, and destroying the evidence.’
‘Yes,’ Courcy said again.
Merrivale faced him. ‘You sold the serpentine to Fierville, didn’t you?’
‘As God is my witness,’ Courcy said, ‘I had no idea this was his intention. I thought he was on our side. He told me he wanted the powder to arm some ships.’
‘Ships?’
‘Apparently he is a shipowner, and some of his ships are armed with guns. Pots-de-feu, they call them in these parts. He was powerful knowledgeable about powder, quite put me to shame. I thought he was a fellow professional.’
‘So you sold him the powder, no doubt for a tidy profit. What next? You’re an alchemist, you said. You intended to make more powder yourself, and offer it to the king’s officers to replace the missing stocks. Once again, for a profit.’
‘I saw no harm in it,’ Courcy said. ‘Making gunpowder is easy, herald. You only need three ingredients: sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre. Getting hold of the sulphur is easy if you know the right people. Charcoal is cheap and plentiful, and if you want saltpetre, all you have to do is piss in a bucket. The king would have had all the powder he needed in a day or two. I swear on my mother’s grave, I intended no evil.’
Merrivale regarded him for a long time. ‘I am sorry to hear of the loss of your mother,’ he said finally.
‘Don’t be. She’s as hale and well as I am. Her grave is already marked out and paid for in Kingsale church, nice and close to the altar so she’ll go to heaven all the faster. Unlike my father, who is headed in the opposite direction.’ Courcy sighed. ‘What happens now?’
‘We are alone,’ Merrivale said, watching his eyes. ‘You could try to kill me and then make a run for it.’
‘I could. But the problem is, you saved my life just now. Killing you would be damned ungrateful, wouldn’t it?’ Courcy tossed his sword in the air, grabbed it around the blade just below the crossguard and handed it to Merrivale hilt first. ‘Receive my surrender,’ he said.
The herald took the sword, considered it for a few moments, and handed it back. ‘Return the serpentine to the king’s stores,’ he said. ‘How you do it, I do not care. What story you invent to account for its reappearance, I do not care. But make it so.’
The other man hesitated. ‘And then what? We carry on as if nothing happened?’
‘Not quite. If you transgress again, I will inform the king and the constable and let you take the consequences.’
Courcy thought about this. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Rather more than I deserve, in fact. People have always told me I am not worthy of my friends. I won’t say you can rely on me, because clearly you cannot. But I will do my best to keep my nose clean. You have my oath on that.’
‘There is one more thing,’ Merrivale said. ‘Help me discover who killed Edmund Bray. Do that, and I will use whatever influence I have to help you find you a position, something with a stipend attached that will give you the means to live. What income do you have now?’
‘Income? Faith now. I own a tavern in Carbery, back in Ireland, but it costs more to run than it brings in. From which you may gather that I am not a great success as a tavern keeper. I came to the war hoping to recoup my losses. So far, without much luck.’
‘And yet despite the wrong you did, you also proved your worth today,’ said Merrivale. ‘And you saved young Mortimer’s life last night. You deserve better, I think.’
‘Not everyone would agree with you. But I thank you for the kind sentiment, and if I can help you, I will. You have my oath on that too.’ Courcy paused. ‘You’ve probably heard this question before, herald. Why does this matter so much to you?’
‘Bray was killed because he witnessed a meeting between Fierville and a French knight,’ Merrivale said. ‘But I doubt that Fierville killed him. And if he did not, that means Fierville has accomplices in the army, men who are both traitors and murderers. I intend to discover who they are.’
‘Traitors and murderers,’ Courcy repeated. ‘You’re playing with fire, herald.’
‘I know,’ said Merrivale.