Honour and the Sword Read Online Free

where the shot might have come from, then caught sight of the other bodies further up, which were César and the first two soldiers. One went to look, but the others peered fearfully out into the dark and I realized they were more scared than I was. They were in the light and totally exposed, they hadn’t expected attack from outside the Manor, and they couldn’t know there was just me and the boy, and our only gun discharged with no time to reload. When the horses started kicking up and neighing round the front, they all jogged back to stop them wandering off, but I think the truth was they just didn’t want to stay out there another minute.
    Neither did I. As soon as they disappeared I pulled the boy up on his feet and squeezed us out from the bush. I gave up the idea of escaping from the front while those soldiers were there, and led him back towards the bank instead. If we climbed that, we’d get on to the upper bridle path and the stables.
    But as soon as he realized I was leading him away from the Manor he stopped dead and let go of my hand.
    ‘No,’ he said, and shrank back into the bushes. ‘We can’t leave the others.’
    I crouched down beside him and started to reload the arquebus. If there was still a defence going on somewhere I was going to need it.
    ‘The Seigneur …’ I started.
    ‘They’ve killed him.’
    I think I knew that anyway, but hearing it was awful. If the Seigneur was gone, there was no hope at all.
    ‘My mother’s dead too.’
    There was something funny in the way he said that, though I didn’t know why. I went on loading, I didn’t want to look at his face.
    ‘The Guard?’ I asked.
    ‘They’re all dead. What about the militia? Has anyone gone for the militia?’
    ‘They don’t need to,’ I said. ‘Listen.’
    He cocked his head, then seemed for the first time to hear the tocsin, which was still ringing urgently from the village. I was surprised he hadn’t heard it before, even with the rain.
    ‘They must know,’ I told him. ‘They’ll be here any minute.’
    ‘How long has that been going?’
    ‘Ages.’
    ‘Then why aren’t they here?’
    I remember what it felt like as that sunk in. He was right, of course, you can ride from Dax into Ancre in ten minutes, five if you gallop.
    The Spaniards must have got there first.
    Père Gérard Benoît
    The militia were mustered in haste, but as I relinquished the bells to younger hands and proceeded on to the Square, it became clear to even the most sanguine among us that the road to Ancre was cut. The enemy could by this time be perceived by the movement of horses down the Ancre Road, which runs for a mile between the village and the estate. Barriers were speedily constructed, yet we had perhaps fourteen of the militia to man them and had to call upon our own folk to fill the broad gaps between. Our blacksmith, Henri Lefebvre, took the lead among the civilians, and himself took a musket, assisted in the business of loading by his son Colin. Our ranks were further augmented by the return of some of our people from the Livestock Market, among them Pierre Gilbert, the Ancre groom, and Martin Gauthier, the chief verderer, whose devotion to our Seigneur was so great he had needs be forcibly restrained from rushing to his rescue against the entire Spanish cavalry. It is pleasant to record that some of the Verdâme men also elected to remain with us in our extremity, most notably their village tanner, a man named Stefan Ravel.
    Yet there was little reliance to be placed upon so slight a defence as this, and I accordingly dispatched Gabriel’s son to plead for aid at Lucheux and convey the intelligence to M. de Rambures, Governor of the citadel at Doullens. He had but just departed when there came a young soldier on foot from Verdâme requesting help of our own Seigneur. It appeared there had been an attack there also, but the Baron was from home, and had only a small ceremonial Guard at the best of times, so the Château had fallen