To Kill A King: James I takes the throne but not everyone wants him there... (The Bailiff Mountsorrel Tudor Mysteries Book 5) by David Field

Author:David Field [Field, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2024-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

11

Edward stood to one side and gave the order for the dozen or so men he’d brought to Ollerton to begin the charge. They set off running and shouting, waving sticks and broom handles above their heads, and Edward cursed and yelled for them to stop. They did so in a ragged pattern that left half of them yards ahead of the others, and Edward called angrily for them to return to the starting point. Then he stalked across the coarse grass of the lower meadow and bellowed his displeasure.

‘What was the first thing I taught you oafs? You!’ he said to one of the youngest — the one who he’d hoped might one day become something approaching a man at arms.

The man looked shamefacedly back at him, then dropped his gaze to the grass as Edward pierced him with a glare.

‘You don’t charge like that, you ignorant fools!’ Edward bellowed. ‘Not with your arms above your heads, as if you were baling hay. You run forward with your swords at waist height, ready to parry enemy shields with your own, or cast them aside with an upward strike of your spare arm! If your arms are raised when you reach your target, you expose your own upper bodies to a blade from the enemy. You’d be dead before you even got to raise your own weapons! Now go back and do it again properly, you pathetic clods!’

He watched, fuming and cursing, as the men muttered among themselves. On his command, they began lurching across the uneven ground with about as much menace as young bullocks escaping from a tether. Edward looked away, disgusted and frustrated, in time to catch the amused grin of a finely dressed gentleman who’d left the bowls game on the upper green in order to scoff at the pathetic display.

‘A shockingly ill-trained collection, are they not?’ said the gentleman.

Edward glared back as he looked him up and down, taking in his fine blue cloak, his matching brown doublet and hose, and his polished black riding boots. ‘And what would you know about swordplay?’ he challenged him.

‘I’d be able to acquit myself better than that,’ the gentleman replied, nodding at the vagabond army. ‘Which pig farm did you recruit them from?’

Edward felt a strong urge to punch the arrogant gentleman on the nose, but checked himself when he recalled that he was a house guest of Markham’s. His mission for Cecil would end badly if he were ordered from the estate for striking a man who was seemingly highly regarded by the man that Edward had been commissioned to spy on. Instead he drew a deep breath and asked sarcastically, ‘Perhaps you’d care to show them how it’s done?’

‘I could, had I a mind to it,’ the gentleman replied, ‘but I shall shortly be depriving Richard Lambert of more coin during our bowls contest in yonder meadow. Instead, I shall amuse myself for a few moments longer watching your clodhoppers attempting to imitate men at arms.

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