Free 1356 by Bernard Cornwell Page A

down.’
    Genevieve smiled briefly, then gazed at the crossbowmen who were sitting at the edge of the northern woods. None of them had a weapon, instead they just watched their lord’s humiliation. ‘Your soul has hardened, Thomas,’ she said softly.
    ‘I’m a soldier.’
    ‘You were a soldier when I met you,’ Genevieve said, ‘and I was a prisoner, accused of heresy, excommunicated, condemned to death, but you took me away. What was I but a useless mouth?’
    ‘She’s trouble,’ Thomas said irritably.
    ‘And I wasn’t?’
    ‘But what will we do with her?’ he asked.
    ‘Take her away.’
    ‘From what?’
    ‘From that hog of a husband,’ Genevieve said, ‘from a future in a convent? From being clawed by dried-up nuns who hate her beauty? She must do what I did. Find her future.’
    ‘Her future,’ Thomas said, ‘is to cause dissension among the men.’
    ‘Good,’ Genevieve said, ‘because men cause enough trouble for women. I’ll protect her.’
    ‘Dear God,’ Thomas said in exasperation, then turned to look at Bertille. She was, he thought, a rare beauty. His men were staring at her with undisguised longing, and he could not blame them. Men would die for a woman who looked like Bertille. Brother Michael had found a cloak rolled up behind the cantle of the count’s saddle and he shook it out, carried it to her and offered it as a covering for her torn dress. She said something to him and the young monk blushed as scarlet as the western clouds. ‘It looks,’ Thomas said, ‘as though she already has a protector.’
    ‘I will do a better job,’ Genevieve said, and she walked to the count’s horse and reached for the blood-stained gelding knife that hung by a loop from the saddle’s pommel. She crossed to the count, who flinched at the sight of the blade. He glowered at the silver-mailed woman who looked down at him with disdain. ‘Your wife will ride with us,’ Genevieve told him, ‘and if you make any attempt to take her back then I will cut you myself. I will cut you slowly and make you squeal like the pig you are.’ She spat at him and walked away.
    Another enemy, Thomas thought.
    The genoins came as dusk shaded into night. The coins were loaded on two packhorses and, once Thomas was satisfied that all the coins were there, he went back to the count. ‘I shall keep all the coins, my lord, the bad and the good. You’ve paid me twice, the second payment for the trouble you caused me today.’
    ‘I’ll kill you,’ the count said.
    ‘It was our pleasure to serve you, my lord,’ Thomas said. He mounted, then led his men and all the captured horses westwards. The first stars pricked the darkening sky. It was cold suddenly because a northern wind had blown up, bringing a hint of winter.
    And in the spring that followed, Thomas thought, there would be another war. But first he must go to Armagnac.
    And so the Hellequin rode north.

Three
     
    It would have been easy enough for Fra Ferdinand to steal a horse. The Prince of Wales’s army had left their horses outside Carcassonne, and the few men guarding the animals were bored and tired. The destriers, those big horses that the men-of-arms rode, were better guarded, but the mounts of the archers were in a paddock and the Black Friar could have taken a dozen, but a lone man on a horse is noticeable, a target for bandits, and Fra Ferdinand dared not risk the loss of
la Malice
, and so he preferred to walk.
    It took him ten days to reach home. For a time he travelled with some merchants who had hired a dozen men-at-arms to guard their goods, but after four days they took the road south to Montpellier, and Fra Ferdinand continued northwards. One of the merchants had asked him why he carried
la Malice
, and the friar had shrugged the question away, ‘It’s just an old blade,’ he had said, ‘it might make a good hay knife?’
    ‘Doesn’t look like it could cut butter,’ the merchant had said, ‘you’d do better to melt it