Lussac glanced at the soldiers huddled together in large, sprawling groups on the gently shelving beach, waiting. They were tired and hungry, and in no position to push forwards, to march any long distances. The few horses belonging to the nobles stood behind the Queen’s tent, tails fanning out in the breeze. He had no wish to sit and wait with them, to chew over the tedious details of the journey, to stare dully at the sea. Or to think.
‘I will go and look for them. They can’t have gone far.’
‘Nay, you can’t do that!’ Mortimer looked horrified. Lussac was the same rank as himself and, beyond that, he was close friends with the King of France. They had grown up together, trained together; it simply wouldn’t do to send such a high-ranking nobleman out on a simple scouting expedition. His gaze switched to Philippe. Maybe...?
‘I want to go,’ Lussac explained. How could he explain the constant nagging restlessness coursing through his big frame, the inability to sit still and reflect, to stare at a bird in flight, or watch the waves crash on to the shingle? Nay, that might be for other men, but not for him. Not now. If he allowed his mind to think too much, then the full horror of the past came back to him, filling his head with images and pictures he would prefer to forget. Better to keep active, to throw himself into every battle and skirmish when the opportunities arose, rather than sit around and brood. Never that.
Chapter Two
Lussac kicked the heels of his stout leather boots into his horse’s side, urging the animal away from the beach. After the cramped, restrictive conditions on board ship, it felt good to be moving again. He stretched his legs out against the stirrups, the taut muscles in his thighs and calves relishing the movement as the saddle-leather creaked beneath his tall, muscular frame. As his horse climbed to the top of the narrow path that led up the low cliffs, the whole sweep of this hostile country spread out before him. To his left, through a patchy area of tidal creeks, the wide, flat ribbon of a river made its slow, meandering course towards the sea. Before him, a gently sloping area of rough grass dissolved into woodland up to his right. The place was deserted.
But then his gaze swung back, sharply. What had he seen? What has his mind registered that his eyes had not? A trace of colour, blotched on the horizon? He kicked his horse on, suspecting he might find the soldiers he was looking for. The animal cantered across the uneven plain, Lussac hunkered low in the saddle. As he approached, he realised it was one soldier, sitting on the bleached ground at the edge of the tussocky marshland, his head bowed. A dark-blue patch of colour in this pale, glittery, everlasting landscape. He had removed his helmet and his thick, sandy-coloured hair riffled in the slight breeze. Galloping across to him, Lussac reined his horse brusquely, jumping down almost in the same movement.
‘You, soldier, tell me what happened!’
The boy looked dazed, drugged even, as if he had woken from a dream. Seeing Lussac, recognising his authority, he placed one hand behind him and tried to push himself to his feet, but dizziness overwhelmed him and he fell back.
‘Stay where you are, boy,’ Lussac ordered, impatiently. ‘What happened to you?’ Behind him, his horse shifted constantly, as if aware of his master’s irritation, hooves pawing the ground.
‘An angel came,’ the boy murmured.
‘And she hit you on the head?’ Lussac mocked. The boy had obviously been unconscious, judging from his addled speech. What did he think he was saying?
‘Aye, she hit me on the head. And she took my horse.’
Lussac snorted in disbelief. The boy was clearly talking nonsense. ‘Can you not remember what really happened?’ he tried once more.
‘I tell you no lie, my lord, I promise you.’ The young soldier rubbed the back of his head, tentatively. A searing, uncomfortable ache was spreading through his skull. ‘I was following the others, at the back. And then, all of a sudden, I was pulled from my horse, backwards. She pulled me from my horse.’
‘She?’
‘An angel, I swear to you. Her face...like a pearl, gleaming it was. Beautiful. She was beautiful. I must have knocked myself out when I fell, despite wearing this...’ he gestured towards his helmet ‘...and she leaned over me, told me I would be all right.’
‘Did she indeed.’ Lussac didn’t believe one word of it. A face like a pearl? The lad was delusional, suffering from the after-effects of hitting his head, or he was deliberately making the whole story up to cover his own embarrassment at having his horse stolen. He had probably fallen off his animal of his own accord and the horse had run off, following the others.
‘The other soldiers—did they see any of this?’
The lad had the grace to look faintly embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, my lord, I was lagging behind, and they didn’t realise. I’m...I’m not used to riding with all this heavy armour.’
‘You’ll get used to it,’ Lussac replied tartly. ‘Which direction did they take? Can you remember that, at least?’
The boy lifted his arm, pointed towards the cloud of dark-green trees to the north. ‘That way, they went towards the forest.’ He lowered his arm, fixing Lussac with a resolute stare. ‘And the angel followed them.’
‘On your horse.’ Lussac threw the lad a tight smile as he swung himself back into the saddle. The leather creaked as he leaned forwards, gathering the reins, the split side-seam of his tunic falling open to reveal long legs encased in shining chainmail.
‘On my horse,’ the soldier repeated, staring up at him. ‘I know you don’t believe me, my lord, but it’s true. An angel stole my horse.’
* * *
Irritation clenched at Lussac’s gut as he raised one arm to push away a low, overhanging branch at the entrance to the forest. Where had Isabella found these mercenaries to fight on her behalf—in the madhouse? The only saving grace was that they had all gone in the same direction—north—Mortimer’s men, and the ‘stolen’ horse.
The forest was quiet, still, the thick belt of trees diffusing the power of the wind that had raced across the flat river plain. Sunlight, diluted, subdued, flickered down to the sandy mud of the forest floor. The half-light was easy on the eye, a welcome relief after the stark, searing light of the beach, the sunlight bouncing harshly off the sea. Lussac inhaled, deeply, rolling his shoulders back to ease the tension in his muscles, a clean, fresh scent rising from the ground as his horse’s hooves ground into the pine needles strewn across the track. The smell yanked him back, back to the southern pine forests of his youth, those carefree days when he had ridden bareback through the trees, laughing and joking with his friends, when he had swam in the cool lakes and eaten fresh walnuts from the trees, in those idyllic days, when he had had a family to go home to.
There was no one there now. His family home was empty, half-burned to the ground. His mother and father and sister were dead, dead from smoke inhalation, their prone bodies clasping, reaching out to each other to die on the floor of the locked solar. Where he had found them.
A sudden sweep of wind brought down a shower of leaves, beech leaves, spinning around his helmet like burnished feathers, adding to the undulating carpet of dark-green pine needles across the ground, jolting him back to the present, to the quiet stillness of the forest.
A sound—a single sound carried towards him on the breeze.
The jangle of a bridle. Amidst the startled shriek of a blackbird, the sough of the wind high in the tree canopy, and the slow whisper of leaves dropping to the ground, he heard it. And heard it again. He spurred his horse on, pushing the animal from a trot to a canter, hooves flying over the soft ground, in pursuit of that delicate sound. The sound of an angel? He smiled, but the smile failed to reach the steely turquoise depths of his eyes.
*