Read Chapter 35: The Night Watch

The camp had gone quiet at last, the groans of the wounded fading into the thick, wet dark. The fires burned low, mere smoldering heaps of ash and bone, and the smell of blood and horseflesh hung over the field like a shroud.

Thomas walked the perimeter with his bow strung and an arrow nocked, more out of habit than fear. The French had broken. They had fled into the night, carrying their wounded and their shame. But the dead lay where they had fallen, thousands of them, and the English were too exhausted to bury them.

He stopped at the edge of a copse of trees, where the ground sloped down toward a shallow ditch. The prisoners had been gathered there—those too badly hurt to walk, or too slow to run. The guards were young men, boys really, from the levied foot, and they nodded to him as he passed, their eyes glazed with fatigue.

Thomas counted the shapes huddled against the cold. French men-at-arms, a few crossbowmen, a priest who had been caught trying to slip away. And then he saw a face he knew.

Roger.

The man sat apart from the others, his hands bound with cord, his tunic torn and dark with dried blood. He looked up as Thomas approached, and for a moment, his eyes held a flicker of something—fear, perhaps, or shame—before he dropped his gaze to the mud.

Thomas said nothing. He stood over Roger for a long moment, the wind moving through the trees, the distant sound of a horse nickering somewhere in the dark.

"Fletcher," Roger said, his voice cracked and low. "I thought you dead."

"I thought you dead too," Thomas said. "Seems we were both wrong."

Roger laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "Aye. Wrong about many things."

Thomas crouched down to eye level, his bow balanced across his knees. "You were with the Viscount at Calais. You knew what he planned."

"I knew what he said." Roger's hands trembled in the ropes. "He told me my wife and daughter would be safe if I did as he asked. He had them in Rouen. In his keeping."

"His keeping," Thomas repeated. "And you believed him."

"What choice did I have?" Roger's voice rose, cracking. "He said he'd have them hanged if I refused. You know what kind of man he was, Thomas. You know what he did to those who crossed him."

Thomas was silent. He did know. The Viscount's cruelty had been whispered about in every camp from Harfleur to this godforsaken field. But knowing and understanding were different things.

"You could have come to me," Thomas said. "You could have warned us."

"And what would you have done?" Roger's eyes were wet now, catching the faint light. "Marched on the Viscount? The King's own cousin? You'd have been hanged for treason before the week was out, and my family would have died for nothing."

Thomas looked away, out across the field where the dead lay in their hundreds. The moon was rising now, thin and pale, casting long shadows over the carnage.

"Why are you here?" Roger asked. "To gloat? To finish what the Viscount started?"

"I came to see if you were alive," Thomas said. "The men told me you'd been captured in the melee. I wanted to see it with my own eyes."

Roger laughed again, but there was no humor in it. "And now that you've seen?"

Thomas stood, slowly, his knees cracking. He looked down at the prisoner, at the man he had once called friend. They had trained together in the butts at Pontefract, drunk together in the taverns of York, watched each other's backs through the mud and misery of the siege at Harfleur.

"I'm going to let you go," Thomas said.

Roger's head snapped up. "What?"

"You heard me." Thomas drew his knife and cut the cords binding Roger's wrists. "There's a horse tethered behind the supply wagons. A bay mare, steady enough. Take her and ride north, into Burgundy. Don't look back."

Roger stared at him, his mouth open. "You're mad. You're mad, Thomas. Why would you—"

"Because I've seen enough death today," Thomas said. "And because I know what revenge does to a man." He paused, his voice dropping. "I've carried it in my chest for weeks now, and it's a heavy load. Heavy enough to break a man if he lets it."

Roger scrambled to his feet, rubbing his wrists. "The guards—"

"Will be dealt with." Thomas pressed a small pouch of coins into Roger's hand. "There's enough silver to get you to Lyon, if you're careful. After that, you're on your own."

Roger looked at the pouch, then at Thomas, his face working with emotion. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything." Thomas turned away, pulling his cloak tighter against the cold. "Just go. Disappear. If I ever see your face again, I'll put an arrow through it."

He walked back toward the camp without looking behind him. He heard Roger's footsteps in the mud, the sound of the horse being untied, the soft thud of hooves fading into the night.

The guards looked at him as he passed, but they said nothing. They had learned not to question the archer who had killed the Viscount.

Thomas made his rounds once more, walking the perimeter of the camp. The fires were dying now, and the men were curled in their cloaks, sleeping the sleep of the utterly exhausted. He passed Jack, who was propped against a wagon, snoring with his mouth open. He passed the wounded, lying in rows, the surgeons moving among them with their knives and their vinegar.

Will was with the King's guard, his arm in a sling, sitting by a fire with a cup of something warm. Thomas stopped for a moment, watching him. The boy had grown in the space of a single day. He had held the line when it mattered. He had shot clean and true.

Thomas did not interrupt. He moved on, past the royal pavilion, where the King's banner hung limp in the still air. Greyhill was there, standing guard despite his wound, his face pale but determined.

"You should be resting," Thomas said, stopping beside him.

Greyhill shook his head. "The King is still awake. He's writing letters to the Council, he says. Telling them of the victory."

"He'll be up all night, then."

"Aye." Greyhill looked at Thomas, his eyes searching. "I heard you let one of the prisoners go."

Thomas met his gaze. "You hear a lot."

"I'm a soldier. I listen." Greyhill shifted his weight, wincing as the movement pulled at his shoulder. "Was it the man who betrayed us? The one who helped the Viscount?"

Thomas was silent for a moment. Then he said, "He had a family. The Viscount threatened them."

Greyhill nodded slowly. "I understand."

"Do you?"

"I understand that this war has taken enough," Greyhill said. "We don't need to take more than we must." He looked out at the field, at the rows of dead. "I've buried enough friends today. I don't want to bury any more."

Thomas felt something loosen in his chest. "Neither do I."

He left Greyhill there and walked to the edge of the camp, where the ground rose slightly, offering a view of the battlefield. The moon had climbed higher now, and the field was a landscape of silver and shadow. The dead lay in their hundreds, frozen in the attitudes of their final moments. The crows would come tomorrow, and the wolves.

Thomas sat down on a fallen log, his bow across his knees, and watched the night pass.

He thought of Roger, riding north into the dark. He thought of the Viscount, dead at his hand, his banner now wrapped and waiting to be presented to the King. He thought of the men he had lost—good men, York men, who had followed him through the mud and the blood and would never follow anyone again.

He thought of his father, who had taught him to make arrows in the workshop in Pontefract, who had told him that a good fletcher understood his wood, his feathers, his steel. "Aim true," his father had said, "and you'll never miss."

He had aimed true today, Thomas thought. He had done what needed to be done. But the weight of it sat heavy on his shoulders.

As dawn approached, the sky began to lighten in the east, a faint gray line separating the earth from the heavens. The stars faded one by one, and the camp began to stir. Men coughed and rose, building fires, boiling water, preparing for the grim work of the day.

Thomas stayed where he was, watching the light spread across the field. He did not feel triumphant. He felt tired, bone-tired, the kind of tired that no amount of sleep could cure.

But he felt something else too. Something that had been missing for weeks, months, maybe years.

He felt clean.

He heard footsteps behind him, and Jack's voice, rough with sleep. "Thomas. You been up all night?"

"Aye."

Jack sat down beside him, looking out at the field. "Damn, but it's a sight. All of them French bastards, dead in the mud."

"They were men," Thomas said. "Same as us."

Jack was quiet, considering this. Then he said, "Well, they won't be marching on us again. That's something."

"It's something."

Jack looked at Thomas, his brow furrowed. "You all right? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Thomas shook his head. "Just thinking."

"About what?"

Thomas did not answer. He stood, slinging his bow over his shoulder, and walked back toward the camp. The morning was coming now, gray and cold, and there was work to do.

But for a moment, he lingered, looking back at the field. Somewhere out there, among the dead, was the Viscount. And somewhere to the north, riding into safety, was a man who had chosen his family over his honor.

Thomas hoped, for Roger's sake, that he had made the right choice.

He hoped, for his own sake, that he had too.