The Grail Quest Trilogy by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell [Cornwell, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: eng
ISBN: 9780007531509
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A SINGLE SHORT BURST of thunder sounded as Thomas and Robbie neared Evecque. They did not know how close they were, but they were riding through country where all the farms and cottages had been destroyed which told Thomas that they must be within the manor’s boundaries. Robbie, on hearing the rumble, looked puzzled for the sky immediately above them was clear, although there were dark clouds to the south. “It’s too cold for thunder,” he said.

“Maybe it’s different in France?”

They left the road and followed a farm track that twisted through woods and petered out beside a burned building that still smoked gently. It made little sense to burn such steadings and Thomas doubted that the Count of Coutances had initially ordered the destruction, but Sir Guillaume’s long defiance and the bloody-mindedness of most soldiers would ensure that the pillage and burning would happen anyway. Thomas had done the same in Brittany. He had listened to the screams and protests of families who had to watch their home being burned and then he had touched the fire to the thatch. It was war. The Scots did it to the English, the English to the Scots, and here the Count of Coutances was doing it to his own tenant.

A second clap of thunder sounded and just after its echo had died Thomas saw a great veil of smoke in the eastern sky. He pointed to it and Robbie, recognizing the smear of campfires and realizing the need for silence, just nodded. They left their horses in a thicket of hazel saplings and then climbed a long wooded hill. The setting sun was behind them, throwing their shadows long on the dead leaves. A woodpecker, red-headed and wings barred white, whirred loud and low above their heads as they crossed the ridge line to see the village and manor of Evecque beneath them.

Thomas had never seen Sir Guillaume’s manor before. He had imagined it would be like Sir Giles Marriott’s hall with one great barn-like room and a few thatched outbuildings, but Evecque was much more like a small castle. At the corner closest to Thomas it even had a tower: a square and not very tall tower, but properly crenellated and flying its banner of three stooping hawks to show that Sir Guillaume was not yet beaten. The manor’s saving feature, though, was its moat, which was wide and thickly covered with a vivid green scum. The manor’s high walls rose sheer from the water and had few windows, and those were nothing but arrow slits. The roof was thatched and sloped inward to a small courtyard. The besiegers, whose tents and shelters lay in the village to the north of the manor, had succeeded in setting fire to the roof at some point, but Sir Guillaume’s few defenders must have managed to extinguish the flames for only one small portion of the thatch was missing or blackened. None of those defenders was visible now, though some of them must have been peering though the arrow slits that showed as small black specks against the gray stone.

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