Read Chapter 20: Rescuing Will

The voices carried across the damp earth—low, casual, French. Two men, maybe three. Thomas pressed himself flat against the tunnel floor, the cold seeping through his tunic. Beyond the opening, firelight flickered against the trunks of the eastern wood, painting the scouts in shifting orange.

One of them laughed. A scrape of metal on stone. A jug being lifted.

Thomas counted heartbeats. He had no bow, only Greyhill's sword at his hip and the knife in his boot. Against three armed Frenchmen, those were poor odds in the open. But in the dark, with the tunnel at his back, a different kind of fight was possible.

He backed out of the tunnel on his elbows, the torn cap still clutched in his fist. Will's cap. The boy had been here. The footprints had led straight to this gap in the palisade, and the cap had been dropped—or torn off—in a struggle.

The camp behind him was coming alive. Muster horns had sounded three times already. Men would be checking their gear, forming ranks, waiting for the order to march. The archers would be looking for their barrels, for their sheaves, for him.

Thomas broke into a run back through the camp's edge, keeping to the shadows of the baggage wagons. The eastern hedge gate stood ahead, still unbarred. Two sentries flanked it, but their eyes were fixed on the wood, not on him.

A shape moved near the supply carts. Thomas's hand went to his knife before the figure spoke.

"Thomas."

Jack. The young archer from Yorkshire, barely seventeen, with a face that hadn't yet learned to hold a grudge. He stepped out from behind a cart stacked with arrow barrels, his bow strung and ready.

"I saw you go under the palisade," Jack said. "Thought you might need company."

"You shouldn't be here."

"Half the army heard you accuse the captain in front of the King. The other half heard he's dead." Jack's jaw tightened. "The devil of it is, I believe you. About Ashworth, at least. And about the lad."

Thomas studied him a moment, then nodded. "You know how to move quiet?"

"Aye."

"There's a French outpost in the eastern wood. Maybe four men. They've got Will. I need one man to make noise on the far side while I go in quiet."

Jack's eyes brightened. "Drawing them off?"

"Right. You loose a few arrows into their fire from the south, make them think an English patrol stumbled on them. They'll turn that way. I'll come in behind."

"Then what?"

"Then I get Will out and we run like the devil's at our heels."

Jack nodded once, no hesitation. "You point. I'll loose."

They moved through the hedge gate—still unbarred, still a wound in the camp's defense—and into the wood. The ground was soft with dew, muffling their steps. Thomas led them in a wide arc, keeping the firelight to his left. When they were close enough to smell the smoke, he touched Jack's shoulder and pointed south.

Jack melted into the trees.

Thomas waited. The voices continued—two men in conversation, a third silent. Something metal clanked, a ladle against a pot. Then, from the south, a bowstring thrummed.

An arrow thudded into the earth beside the fire.

The voices cut off. A shout in French—alarm, not panic. Two men scrambled to their feet, reaching for weapons. Thomas watched them move toward the south, leaving one by the fire. A third voice called out from beyond the ring of light, deeper in the trees. That one did not move.

Thomas circled wide, coming at the camp from the east. The lone figure by the fire had his back to him now, peering into the dark where Jack had loosed. Thomas drew his knife, moved in low, and had the man's mouth covered and his blade at his throat before the Frenchman could turn.

"Where is the boy?" Thomas hissed in rough French.

The man's eyes went wide. He pointed—not toward the fire, but deeper into the wood, where a lean-to of branches had been thrown together against a fallen log.

Thomas drove the pommel of his knife against the man's temple. He crumpled.

The lean-to was ten paces away. Thomas crossed the distance in three long strides and dropped to his knees. Inside, a shape lay bound, mouth gagged with a strip of torn cloth.

Will.

The boy's eyes found his, and Thomas saw fear, exhaustion—and relief.

Thomas cut the ropes at Will's wrists and ankles, tore the gag free. "Can you walk?"

Will nodded, then shook his head. "M-my legs. They've had me trussed up since midday."

Thomas pulled him out of the shelter by his shoulders, got an arm under him, and hauled him upright. Will swayed, then found his feet.

"Where's the third man?" Thomas asked.

"Went south to see what the noise was. He'll be back."

"Then we move now."

They limped through the trees, Will leaning on Thomas's shoulder. The firelight dwindled behind them. Jack materialized out of the dark ahead, bow half-raised, then lowered it when he saw them.

"Got him," Thomas said.

"Good. Let's go."

They were fifty paces from the palisade when Will stopped, his feet digging into the earth. "Wait. Thomas, I have to tell you something."

Thomas turned. The boy's face was pale in the first gray hint of pre-dawn.

"Roger wasn't the only one," Will said. "He wasn't the leader either. He took orders from someone else. From the French knight."

"I've seen him for myself," Thomas said. "Jean. Says he's Roland's son."

Will shook his head violently. "Jean is what he calls himself. But I heard him talking to Roger, before Roger ran. I heard him say—" Will swallowed. "He's not some wandering knight. He's the Viscount of Agincourt. The very man whose lands we're marching to fight under. He's been in our camp for weeks, wearing a dead man's surcoat."

Thomas felt the ground shift beneath him. The Viscount of Agincourt. Not a scout, not an agent—a nobleman, embedded in the English host. And Ashworth had been his man. The letter had named Ashworth but not the viscount. The real traitor walked free, unless—

"They've been waiting for this," Will said. "The march, the field. They've chosen it. Every step we take toward Agincourt puts us deeper into his net."

Thomas steadied the boy. "There's more. You said Roger wasn't the only one. More besides Ashworth?"

"Aye. But it's worse than spies." Will's voice cracked. "The arrow barrels. The ones meant for the forewheel."

Thomas's blood went cold. "What about them?"

"Jean made Roger and me do it," Will said. "Two nights ago. We opened the barrels from the bottom, took out bundles of arrows, and dipped the heads in a paste Jean had. Mud, but mixed with something—salt, I think, and a touch of lye."

Thomas closed his eyes. He knew what salt and lye did to steel. The arrowheads would be ruined—not today, maybe not even tomorrow, but soon. They'd rust fast, pit, lose their edge. A sheaf of arrows that looked true but would fail in battle.

"How many bundles?"

"Four, mayhaps five. He had us do it quick, put them back the same way. You'd not know by looking."

Four or five bundles. Ninety or more arrows. Enough to blunt the archers' first volleys if they were dealt to the men who needed them most.

Thomas opened his eyes. The gray in the sky was brightening. First light was not far off.

"Jack," he said. "Get Will to the baggage. Find the quartermaster's list and mark which barrels were for the forewheel. I need to know which ones were touched."

"What will you do?"

Thomas was already moving toward the camp, toward the hedge gate. "I need my bow. And I need to reach the column before they march."