Read Chapter 8: The Duke's Guard

The first pale blush of dawn had barely touched the treeline when the pike haft slammed across Thomas’s chest, driving him back against the cart and knocking the breath from him. Two men in white-and-blue livery had materialized from the shadows between the wagons, their sallets half-raised, their pikes crossed before him like a gate.

“Looter,” the larger one said, not a question. He had the flat, meaty face of a man who enjoyed accusations. “Caught red-handed, creeping from the traders’ row at this hour.”

Thomas’s hand went instinctively to the bill of lading folded inside his jerkin. The paper crackled, and the guard’s eyes dropped to the sound. “Search him.”

“I’m no looter,” Thomas said, keeping his voice level. “I’m Sir John Greyhill’s man, archer under Captain Liddell. I’ve been about the Earl of Suffolk’s business.”

The meaty guard snorted. “Archers don’t have business at dawn except pissing and dying.” He reached for Thomas’s collar.

Thomas brought his hand up, slow and deliberate, and held the signet ring before the guard’s face. The silver band caught the gray light, Greyhill’s arms—a falcon and a broken arrow—clear enough to read.

The guard paused. His companion shifted, uncertain.

“I’m on Sir John’s errand,” Thomas said. “He’ll vouch for me if you wake him. Shall I go fetch him, or will you take me to his tent yourself?”

It was a gamble. Greyhill might not be awake, and a knight dragged from his blankets before the muster would not thank an archer for the disturbance. But the guard captain’s hesitation told Thomas the ring carried weight. Men in guard livery recognized noble signets the way hounds recognized the master’s scent.

The meaty guard lowered his pike a fraction. “Let’s see the ring up close.”

He stepped in, and Thomas resisted the urge to step back. The man’s breath was sour with last night’s ale. He squinted at the band, traced the falcon with a calloused thumb.

“Sir John Greyhill,” he muttered. “He’s with the York retinue now, ain’t he?”

Thomas’s gut tightened. Greyhill had not mentioned being attached to York’s command. But it made a grim kind of sense—the Duke of York was the senior noble on this march, and every knight not under the King’s direct banner fell beneath his shadow.

“The Duke will want to know one of his archers is wandering the camp at false dawn,” the guard said. He did not smile, but something shifted in his flat eyes that Thomas did not like. “You’ll come with us. Quietly, or loudly. Your choice.”

There were two of them, and Thomas had no bow drawn. The knife at his belt was a tool, not a weapon for fighting king’s guards. He let his shoulders drop.

“Lead on.”

They marched him through the sleeping camp at a brisk pace, past huddled clusters of men wrapped in cloaks, past the low embers of cookfires, past the dark bulk of the artillery train where the bombards sat cold and silent. The Duke of York’s pavilion stood apart from the rest, a great tent of white and blue silk that caught the first real light of day, the golden lions of the Duke’s arms rippling above the peak.

Meaty Guard announced them at the entrance, and a page ducked inside. A moment later, the tent flap drew back.

The Duke of York was not dressed for war. He wore a quilted jack over a fine linen shirt, his gray hair uncombed, a cup of wine already in his hand. He looked at Thomas the way a man looks at a rat that has wandered into his kitchen.

“An archer,” the Duke said. The word was not a title. It was a species. “At my door before prime. Say what you’ve come to say, and be quick about it. I’ve a battle to ready for.”

Thomas knelt, one knee in the damp grass, and held out the ring. “I come from Sir John Greyhill, my lord. I’ve been investigating a matter of—of damaged goods in the quartermaster’s stores.”

The Duke’s eyes narrowed. “Damaged goods.” He took a sip of wine, let the silence stretch. “You’ve the look of a man who’s been up all night, archer. What kind of damage keeps a longbowman from his rest?”

Thomas chose his words with care. He could not show the bill of lading yet. Not here, not to a Duke who might be the man behind it. But he could plant the seed, see how it took root.

“Sabotage, my lord. Arrows with split shafts, bowstrings cut in the bundle.” He watched the Duke’s face. “Whoever’s behind it means to leave us toothless at first light.”

The Duke set down his cup. For a moment, something flickered across his face—surprise, perhaps, or calculation—and Thomas felt the familiar thrill of a line cast into still water. Then the Duke laughed.

It was a short, ugly sound, like a dog barking at a stranger.

“Sabotage.” He looked at the guard captain, who stood near the tent flap, and shook his head. “Henry’s been telling me the French have paid agents in our camp. I thought it was soldier’s gossip. Now here’s a bowman come to my tent at dawn, spinning tales of cut strings and split shafts, wanting me to cry conspiracy so the battle can be postponed.” He turned back to Thomas, and the amusement drained from his voice. “It’s a coward’s excuse, archer. You and your kind are frightened. You’ve seen the French numbers. You want a reason to turn for Calais with your honor intact. You’ll not find it in my tent.”

“My lord, I have proof.” Thomas’s hand moved toward his jerkin, toward the bill of lading. “A trader at Le Crotoy—“

“Le Crotoy.” The Duke’s voice went flat. “The French side of the river. You expect me to believe a Flemish trader sold you a document that implicates French nobles in a plot against English archers? A document you just happened to find on the eve of battle?” He stepped closer, and Thomas could smell the wine on his breath, could see the red veins in his eyes. “I’ve heard enough. You’ll return to Sir John Greyhill and you’ll tell him his archer is a lying knave who’ll be flogged if he spreads sedition again.”

“My lord—“

“Guard Captain.” The Duke’s word cut Thomas off. “Escort this man back to his master’s tent. See that he troubles no one on the way.” He turned his back, dismissing Thomas as completely as if he had ceased to exist. “Wake me at full light. We march within the hour.”

The guard captain seized Thomas’s elbow before he could speak again. The grip was iron, and Thomas knew better than to resist. He let himself be marched out of the pavilion, past the page who held the flap, out into the brightening air.

The dawn was coming fast now. Gold and rose were spreading across the eastern sky, painting the camp in light that showed the rust on pike heads and the wear in men’s faces. Soon the horns would sound, and the army would form, and the arrows in the carts would snap on the first draw.

Thomas was still turning the Duke’s dismissal over in his mind—the man had been too quick, too ready to call it a coward’s tale, too eager to shut the door on enquiry—when he saw them.

A cluster of York’s men-at-arms stood beside the Duke’s supply wagon, twenty paces from the pavilion. One of them, a tall fellow in a faded blue surcoat, was listening to a slender figure in a page’s tabard who spoke fast and low, one hand raised to point.

Thomas’s breath caught.

The page was Roger. Greyhill’s squire. The boy with the unbroken left hand.

The boy who should have been in his master’s tent, preparing for the march.

Roger finished speaking, and the man in the blue surcoat turned to look toward the pavilion. Toward Thomas. Their eyes met across the open ground, and Thomas saw recognition flare in the man’s face—not the recognition of a name, but of a description. A face to watch for.

The man nodded once, a small, deliberate movement, and then he melted back into the shadows between the wagons. Roger turned and walked away in the opposite direction, not hurrying, not glancing back.

Thomas stood frozen in the camp, the guard captain’s hand still on his elbow, the dawn light washing over him like a tide.

The Duke knew Roger. The Duke’s men knew Thomas’s face.

And Greyhill’s ring, the only authority Thomas had, had just been shown to the very man whose circle the saboteurs moved in. If the Duke was not behind the plot, he was blind to it—and a blind nobleman was as dangerous as a treacherous one. But if the Duke was blind, he’d just been given eyes.

Thomas shook off the guard captain’s hand and walked toward Greyhill’s tent. The bill of lading burned against his chest, and behind him, the sound of the army waking rose like the groan of a beast coming to life.

He had proof, but proof meant nothing if its bearer was already marked.