Read Chapter 38: A New Dawn

The morning mist hung low over the field, softening the horror of what lay beneath it. Thomas stood at the edge of the encampment, his new bow cradled in his arms, and watched the army stir to life. Cart wheels creaked. Horses stamped. Men coughed and spat and cursed the cold as they rolled blankets and kicked dirt over the remains of campfires.

They were leaving. Marching for Calais. The thought should have brought relief; instead it sat heavy in his chest, like a stone lodged beneath his ribs.

"Barrow."

Thomas turned. Greyhill approached through the haze, his arm bound tight against his chest, his face pale beneath the grime of battle. He moved stiffly, favoring his wounded shoulder, but he walked with the straight-backed purpose of a man who refused to yield to pain.

"You should be resting," Thomas said.

Greyhill stopped beside him and looked out over the field. "The King does not rest. His guard does not rest."

"His guard looks like death warmed over."

A ghost of a smile crossed Greyhill's lips. "You have a way with words, Barrow. Ever consider the clergy?"

"Thought about it. Decided I'd rather kill men than bore them." Thomas glanced sidelong at the knight. "What news?"

"The army marches at noon. The King has ordered the wounded to be carried in the baggage train. We make for Calais in good order, banners displayed." Greyhill's jaw tightened. "He wants them to see us coming."

"To see us coming with half our number dead."

"To see us coming at all."

Thomas nodded slowly. He understood the game well enough. After a victory like this, with the French nobility shattered and their pride broken, the English could afford to walk tall. They had won a miracle on this field, and Henry meant to make sure every man, woman, and child between here and the coast knew it.

And Thomas—Thomas had played his part. He had unmasked the traitor. He had stood over the royal standard when the Viscount's treachery might have broken the line. He had given the King his victory.

The thought brought no warmth. Only the cold knowledge that the shadows could return.

"The King speaks highly of you," Greyhill said, as if reading his mind. "The bow you carry now is the finest in his arsenal. He said as much himself."

Thomas looked down at the weapon in his hands. It was a beautiful thing—yew, polished to a dark honey glow, the tips tipped with horn and the string braided with care. He had not yet fired it. He was saving that moment for a quiet hour, in a place where he could pay the bow the respect it deserved.

"He honors me," Thomas said. "I'd rather he gave me men."

"You'll have them. The companies are to be reorganized at noon, as you know. Your survivors will form the core of a new company, reinforced by soldiers from the rear guard."

Thomas grimaced. "Scratchings and leftovers."

"Scratchings and leftovers who have seen your work," Greyhill said. "They'll follow you."

"Or they'll resent me. Hard to tell with men who've spent the war guarding the baggage."

"You'll make them archers. It's what you do."

Thomas fell silent. Beyond them, the fieldworkers had begun their grim labor, hauling the dead toward the great pits that had been dug at the field's edge. The burial would take days. The English could not wait that long. They would leave their dead to the French ground and the French peasants, trusting God to keep the souls safe and the bones undisturbed.

It was not a thought that sat well.

"Will," Thomas said after a moment. "How is he?"

Greyhill's expression softened. "I spoke with him this morning. His arm is set clean, the bone will knit in time. The surgeon says he will have full use of it within a month, perhaps less."

"He'll be useless until then."

"He will. Which is why I wanted to speak with you."

Thomas turned to face him fully. Greyhill met his gaze without flinching, though there was something uneasy in his eyes—something almost like embarrassment.

"I know what it is to lose a man you trust," Greyhill said carefully. "I know that Will has been your shadow since before the march began. And I know that asking you to give him up now seems cruel."

Thomas felt a flicker of understanding. "You're not asking me to give him up."

"No. I'm asking you to share him."

The words hung between them. Greyhill shifted his weight, wincing as his shoulder moved.

"The King has granted Will a full pardon, as you know. His name is clear. But he cannot bend a bow with two good arms and he cannot march with a broken one. He needs a place to heal, and I need someone I can trust."

"Your squire," Thomas said.

"Yes." Greyhill's voice was quiet. "I watched him in the battle, Barrow. I watched him hold the line beside you. He carried himself with honor, and he fought with courage beyond his years. He deserves more than to sit in a baggage cart and watch the road go by."

Thomas considered the words. He had known this moment might come—had seen the shape of it in Greyhill's eyes ever since the knight had spoken to Will on the morning after the battle. It was a good thing, he knew. Will was young, bright, and loyal. A place as a knight's squire would give him purpose, training, a future beyond the fletcher's bench.

But it would take Will out of his reach. And that felt like losing something he had only just found.

"He was a thief," Thomas said.

"He was falsely accused."

"He was falsely accused," Thomas conceded. "But he was also a boy who had lost his way. I gave him a bow and a purpose, and he followed me through hell with it. You can't replace that with a set of clean clothes and a knight's codpiece."

Greyhill actually laughed at that. "You have a poet's soul, Barrow."

"Like I said, I was going to be a priest."

"Will you give your blessing?"

Thomas was silent for a long moment. Then he looked past Greyhill, toward the rows of wounded where he knew Will would be sitting, propped against a cart, staring at the sky.

"He'll say no," Thomas said.

"He hasn't. He told me he would accept, if you agreed."

"He did, did he?" Thomas grunted. "Bold of him."

"He learned from you."

Thomas let out a breath. He could fight this, could refuse, could keep Will close the way he had kept his bow close through the long march south. But he knew what that would mean. It would mean keeping a good young man small so that Thomas could feel less alone in the world. And he had sworn, standing over the burning of those candles, that he would never let deceit or selfishness guide his hand again.

"Tell him he'd better write," Thomas said. "Tell him I'll be watching his work from afar, and that if he shames the bow I taught him to carry, I'll come find him and break his other arm."

Greyhill's smile widened, a rare expression that transformed his stern face. "I'll tell him. And Thomas—"

"Don't thank me."

"I wasn't going to. I was going to say that you'll need a new squire of your own."

"I'll manage." Thomas turned and walked a few paces back to where his pack lay in the mud. He stooped and lifted it, feeling the weight of his belongings settle against his shoulder. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a bow to clean and a company to shape. Don't you have a king to guard?"

Greyhill nodded and began to walk away. He paused after a few steps and looked back.

"Barrow. What you did—on the field, and before. The men know. The King knows. I know."

Thomas said nothing. He waited until the knight had disappeared into the haze of the camp, then turned his attention to the bow in his hands.

He found a quiet patch of ground away from the bustle and sat, legs crossed, the weapon laid across his knees. From his pack he took a cloth and a small pot of oil, and he set to work in the careful rhythm he had learned as a boy, when his father had taught him that a bow was not a tool but a companion.

The wood was warm beneath his fingers. Smooth. The grain ran true from nock to tip, and the string had been braided tight and even. The King's fletcher had known his craft. Thomas traced the curve of the stave, feeling the faint vibrations of a weapon that had never been drawn in anger.

He thought about the arrows he had burned on the pyre—the doctored shafts that had been meant to break at the worst possible moment, sending half his company to their deaths with useless bows. He had burned them to make an ending, to close that chapter. But as he ran the cloth along the length of his new bow, he understood something else.

The fire had not been merely for closure. It had been for cleansing.

He had been born again on this field, in mud and blood and the screaming of dying men. He had unmasked a traitor, saved a prince, and held a line that should have shattered. But more than any of that, he had found a purpose that could not be broken by any arrow or shattered by any sword.

He had sworn an oath to watch for treachery. He would keep it.

Thomas finished his work and stood, testing the bow's weight in his hand. The camp was stirring around him now, the army beginning to form its columns for the march. He heard the distant voice of a sergeant calling out orders, the rumble of carts, the low murmur of men who had survived and did not quite know what to do with the gift.

He walked back toward his company, where nineteen survivors were gathering among a crowd of new men—soldiers and billet-mates who had been pulled from the rear guard to fill the gaps. They looked at him with wariness, expectation, and hope.

Thomas raised the bow over his head.

"Archers!" he called out. "We march for Calais. We march for home. And we march with our heads high, because we have seen what shadows can do and we have put them in the ground."

A few of the men raised weak cheers. Others simply nodded.

"That's all I ask of you," Thomas said. "Keep your eyes open, your bows dry, and your hearts true. And when we reach the sea, we'll drink a toast to the men who fell and the men who carried on."

The formation began to move. Thomas fell in with his company, the King's bow in his hand, the weight of his promise settled around his shoulders like a cloak. The road to Calais stretched ahead, uncertain and full of perils he could not yet name.

But he was ready.

The mist rose, and the sun broke through, and Thomas Barrow walked forward into a new dawn.