Read Chapter 11: Back to Camp

The reeds were still whispering behind him when Thomas broke from the treeline, keeping low along the ditch that ran parallel to the camp's eastern palisade. The sky above the forest had turned from black to a bruised violet. Dawn was peeling back the dark, and with it, every shadow that had hidden him was about to vanish.

He found the gap in the hedge where the latrine trenches emptied into the muck, the same gap the camp dogs used. The smell was enough to keep any sentry's attention elsewhere. Thomas pressed himself into the mud and crawled through, his bow scraping along his back like a reproach.

The camp was waking. Cookfires were catching, men coughing and cursing as they pulled on damp wool, the clank of iron pots and the low murmur of prayers to St. George. Hundreds of men, maybe thousands, shuffling toward their deaths, and none of them knew that the arrows meant to kill the French were already dead in their sheaves.

Thomas moved along the rope lines behind the supply tents, keeping his head down. Twice he passed men he knew by sight—archers from the shire levies who nodded at him without interest. A limping man in a lion-badged surcoat. He checked every face, every gait, and saw no one who matched Jean's description.

The prisoners' tent was a low pavilion near the baggage train, guarded by a single man-at-arms who was leaning against a cart, eyes half-closed. Thomas didn't go to the tent. He found instead the lean-to where Jack Redmayne kept his kit, the old Herefordshire lad who'd fought beside him at Harfleur and had the scar on his cheek to prove it.

Jack was sitting on his haunches by a small fire, eating a heel of bread. He looked up, and his eyes went hard the moment he saw Thomas. "You look like you've been sleeping with corpses," he said. "And you stink of shite."

"Close enough," Thomas said, dropping to a knee beside him. "Jack, I need you to do something, and I need you to not ask questions until I'm done."

Jack chewed slowly, watching him. They'd bled together. That counted for more than oaths, more than lords' pennons. "I'm listening."

Thomas pulled the bill of lading from his tunic, unfolded it, and set it in the dirt between them. The paper was creased and mud-smeared but the writing was still legible. "Flemish trader named Jasper Voss. He shipped these arrows from a warehouse on the French side. Ordered by the Viscount of Agincourt himself." He tapped the seal. "I've got a French prisoner swears he saw a man in lion-badged livery tampering with the fletching. And I've got a dead boy, or a taken one, and two sets of boots that dragged him into the woods."

Jack's jaw stopped moving. "Will? The little page?"

"Found his pack abandoned. Then drag marks. A knife that's not English work." Thomas looked at him steadily. "I saw the man who took him. He's not a squire. He's no more Roger of Greyhill's household than you're the King of Scots. He's an impostor, working with the French, and he's been poisoning our arrows all night."

Jack looked at the bill, then toward the prisoners' tent, then back at Thomas. "What do you need?"

"Someone to watch my back. I can't move through this camp without him knowing my face. He's got word out—York's own guard knows who I am now, or thinks he does." Thomas leaned closer. "But I need to catch him in the act. Make contact with his French masters. I need proof that would hang a squire, or the Duke will have me flogged for a coward before the sun's fully up."

Jack was quiet. Then he said, "I'll cover for you. Say you were with me all night, working on the cart axles. Say anything you need." He gripped Thomas's wrist. "But if you're wrong, Tom, I'll be the one shoveling your corpse into a pit."

"I'm not wrong."

"Where do you go now?"

Thomas jerked his head toward the prisoners' tent. "I need to see who comes and goes. The man Roger's working with—he's been using the prisoner lines as a post drop. If I can catch them passing word, I'll have more than a trader's seal. I'll have them holding the other end of the rope."

Jack nodded. "I'll tell anyone who asks that you were with me. Go."

Thomas slipped away, keeping the line of supply carts between himself and the main thoroughfare. He circled wide and came up behind the prisoners' tent, where the canvas was patched and loose against the ground. A stack of firewood half-hid a gap at the bottom edge.

He dropped to his belly and crawled up to the gap, easing his face to the slit. Inside, half a dozen French prisoners sat or lay in chains, their faces pale in the early gloom. He scanned the shadows, looking for Jean—the man who had given him the letter, the man with the hidden message about Calais and Faulquemont.

Jean was against the far post, head bowed, apparently asleep. But even as Thomas watched, the man's head lifted, and his eyes went to the tent flap. He was waiting for something.

A moment later, the flap moved. A man slipped in, quick and quiet, someone the guard outside didn't stop. Thomas recognized the shape of him—the narrow shoulders, the way he moved, one hand always near his belt. Roger.

Thomas held his breath.

Roger crossed the tent and knelt beside Jean, close enough that their heads nearly touched. They spoke in low, rapid French, too fast for Thomas to catch the words, but he caught the rhythm of it—a question, an answer, a warning. Roger reached into his boot and pulled something out, a scrap of paper, and pressed it into Jean's palm.

Jean took it without a word and slipped it into his sleeve.

Then Roger said, in accented but clear English, "Midnight. The mill on the eastern road. Tell Faulquemont the gate will be unbarred. The arrows are done. All they have to do is walk through and slaughter us in our sleep."

Thomas went cold.

Jean nodded. "And the archer? The one who has been asking questions?"

Roger's face hardened. "The one they sent me to kill the page for. He's still alive, but he won't be by morning. I've already set the word. York's men are looking for him. If I hear he's taken, I'll make sure he doesn't live long enough to be questioned."

Thomas's knife hand twitched at his belt. It would be so easy. One quiet push of steel between Roger's ribs, and the serpent is dead. But then Jean still lives, and the message still travels, and Faulquemont sends someone else. He needed more than one corpse. He needed the whole plot, laid out so plainly that even York could not ignore it.

Roger stood, straightened his surcoat, and slipped out of the tent the way he'd come.

Thomas stayed where he was for a long moment, his heart beating hard against his ribs. The mill. Midnight. The eastern road. The gate would be unbarred. The arrows were done. Every detail Roger had given Jean was a thread that led back to the same noose.

But it was still not enough. He had to catch Roger at the mill, in the company of the French, with evidence enough to hang them all.

Dawn was nearly full now. The camp was rousing around him, the sound of men rising and horses being saddled carrying through the canvas. The Duke had said the army marches within the hour. But the attack would come at midnight, before the battle.

Which meant Thomas had the whole day to get himself killed—or to lay his trap.

He pulled back from the gap, keeping low, and made his way toward the firewood pile. As he rose, he saw something that made him stop.

On the far side of the prisoner tent, half-hidden behind a barrel of salted pork, a figure stood watching the tent's entrance. A man in the blue surcoat of York's service. The same man Roger had been whispering to earlier.

The guard captain.

He was not moving. He was not patrolling. He was watching.

And as Thomas looked at him, the man looked directly at Thomas, their eyes catching across the gray light. For a moment, neither moved. Then the captain smiled—a slow, knowing smile—and turned, walking away into the camp without a word.

Thomas stood frozen, the breath cold in his chest.

The conspirators weren't just Roger and Jean. They had a man inside York's own guard. Thomas's face was not just known. It was hunted.

And the captain had just seen exactly where he was hiding.