Read Chapter 18: Enemies at One Table

Sir Thomas Greybourne arrived first.

He brought six men and complained about the road.

Captain Arnaud de Châtillon arrived two days later with eight men and complained about Greybourne.

“You invited an Englishman?”

“I invited someone who can count.”

Greybourne bowed. “A rare French compliment.”

Arnaud's hand moved toward his sword.

Martin put both men at opposite ends of a table.

“I did not bring you here to like each other.”

“Good,” Arnaud said.

Martin laid out evidence from the Concord: supply delays, inflated contracts, duplicate sales, bribes, and payments designed to provoke attacks on competitors.

Arnaud read longer than Martin expected.

Finally he said, “Three of these supply failures caused us to abandon positions last year.”

Greybourne tapped another page. “And this delivery arrived after our garrison had already purchased emergency grain at twice the price.”

They looked at each other.

For once, nationality mattered less than professional insult.

Martin explained his plan.

The Concord's strength lay in information and concentration. It knew where armies would march, bought grain ahead of them, controlled mills, and moved stock between depots. If towns and military quartermasters shared information independently, the Concord could not manufacture scarcity as easily.

“You want French and English officers to share supply records?” Arnaud said.

“No. I want them to share proof of fraud when the same merchants cheat both.”

“That sounds dangerously similar to cooperation.”

“Call it mutual hatred.”

Greybourne smiled. “That has precedent.”

They agreed to limited exchanges through intermediaries.

More importantly, Arnaud provided a name: Étienne de Merval, deputy treasurer in Amiens, who had repeatedly questioned Concord contracts and been ignored.

Greybourne named an English customs clerk in Calais with similar suspicions.

Brother Matthieu began building a network of letters.

The Free Hounds became couriers as often as fighters.

Rochefort responded by making his threat real.

A town that hired Martin lost permission to export cloth through a major market. An abbey sympathetic to Chainbreak received an episcopal investigation. Two merchants vanished on the road to Bruges.

Then one of Martin's lieutenants betrayed him.

Alain the Breton had served since Hugues's days. He commanded twenty-five men and knew the company's routes.

He disappeared with the winter pay chest.

Three days later, Free Hound patrols found one of their supply wagons burned and two guards dead.

Alain had joined the Concord.

Will Hobb wanted revenge.

Martin did too.

Ysabeau placed a ledger in front of him.

“We have six days of coin.”

“Food?”

“Twenty if everyone remains.”

“Then men will desert.”

“Yes.”

Martin sat in silence.

Rochefort had not attacked Chainbreak.

He had attacked trust.

The next morning Martin gathered the company and told them exactly how much money remained.

No speeches. No promises.

“If you leave, you keep the share already owed. If you stay, I cannot tell you when the next pay comes.”

Thirty-two men left.

Martin watched them walk out of the gate.

He did not blame them.

At noon, villagers from three nearby parishes arrived with carts of flour, beans, and smoked pork.

At sunset, the cloth guild of Abbeville sent a loan.

The next morning, an English merchant delivered a chest of silver anonymously.

Inside lay a note in Greybourne's hand:

Apparently mutual hatred has credit.

Martin laughed until he had to sit down.

Rochefort commanded wealth.

But wealth was not the only thing that could circulate.

So could trust.

The meeting between Greybourne and Arnaud nearly failed over seating. Arnaud objected to taking a place below an English knight. Greybourne offered to sit on the floor if the Frenchman promised to stop talking. Martin finally removed the high-backed chair entirely and made everyone use benches.

“Diplomacy,” Ysabeau whispered, “by furniture.”

The humour mattered. Without it, old injuries filled the room. Arnaud had lost cousins to English raids. Greybourne's uncle had died in French captivity. Each man possessed reasons not to cooperate that were more respectable than grain accounts.

Martin did not ask them to forgive anything.

That was why the alliance worked.

He gave them a narrower purpose: identify suppliers who manipulated both forces. Neither captain had to call the other friend. They only had to prefer being cheated less.

The first shared result arrived within a week. A merchant had billed a French garrison for oats supposedly destroyed by English raiders, while billing the English for purchasing the same oats. Copies of both invoices reached Chainbreak.

Arnaud wrote one sentence beneath his copy: I begin to admire the man's courage.

Greybourne replied: Courage would require him to meet us.

Martin kept both notes.

Cooperation grew from jokes, grudges, and practical benefit rather than grand peace. He trusted that more than declarations.