The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic by Bernard Cornwell

instead of elm, and they're rotted through.'
    'How deep is the mud?' the Earl asked.
    'Up to his knees.'
    La Roche-Derrien's wall encompassed the west, south and east of the town, while the northern side was defended by the River Jaudy, and where the semicircular wall met the river the townsfolk had planted huge stakes in the mud to block access at low tide. Skeat was now suggesting there was a way through those rotted stakes, but when the Earl's men had tried to do the same thing at the eastern side of the town the attackers had got bogged down in the mud and the townsfolk had picked them off with bolts. It had been a worse slaughter than the repulses in front of the southern gate.
    'But there's still a wall on the riverbank,' the Earl pointed out.
    'Aye,' Skeat allowed, 'but the silly bastards have broken it down in places. They've built quays there, and there's one right close to the loose stakes.'
    'So your men will have to remove the stakes and climb the quays, all under the gaze of men on the wall?' the Earl asked sceptically.
    'They can do it,' Skeat said firmly.
    The Earl still reckoned his best chance of success was to close his archers on the south gate and pray that their arrows would keep the defenders cowering while his men-at-arms assaulted the breach, yet that, he conceded, was the plan that had failed earlier in the day and on the day before that. And he had, he knew, only a day or two left. He possessed fewer than three thousand men, and a third of those were sick, and if he could not find them shelter he would have to march back west with his tail between his legs. He needed a town, any town, even La Roche-Derrien.
    Will Skeat saw the worries on the Earl's broad face. 'My lad was within fifteen paces of the quay last night,' he asserted. 'He could have been inside the town and opened the gate.'
    'So why didn't he?' Sir Simon could not resist asking. 'Christ's bones!' he went on. 'But I'd have been inside!'
    'You're not an archer,' Skeat said sourly, then made the sign of the cross. At Guingamp one of Skeat's archers had been captured by the defenders, who had stripped the hated bowman naked then cut him to pieces on the rampart where the besiegers could see his long death. His two bow fingers had been severed first, then his manhood, and the man had screamed like a pig being gelded as he bled to death on the battlements.
    The Earl gestured for a servant to replenish the cups of mulled wine. 'Would you lead this attack, Will?' he asked.
    'Not me,' Skeat said. 'I'm too old to wade through boggy mud. I'll let the lad who went past the stakes last night lead them in. He's a good boy, so he is. He's a clever bastard, but an odd one. He was going to be a priest, he was, only he met me and came to his senses.'
    The Earl was plainly tempted by the idea. He toyed with the hilt of his sword, then nodded. 'I think we should meet your clever bastard. Is he near?'
    'Left him outside,' Skeat said, then twisted on his stool. 'Tom, you savage! Come in here!'
    Thomas stooped into the Earl's tent, where the gathered captains saw a tall, long-legged young man dressed entirely in black, all but for his mail coat and the red cross sewn onto his tunic. All the English troops wore that cross of St George so that in a mêlée they would know who was a friend and who an enemy. The young man bowed to the Earl, who realized he had noticed this archer before, which was hardly surprising for Thomas was a striking-looking man. He wore his black hair in a pigtail, tied with bowcord, he had a long bony nose that was crooked, a clean-shaven chin and watchful, clever eyes, though perhaps the most noticeable thing about him was that he was clean. That and, on his shoulder, the great bow that was one of the longest the Earl had seen, and not only long, but painted black, while mounted on the outer belly of the bow was a curious silver plate which seemed to have a coat of arms engraved on it. There was vanity here, the Earl thought , vanity and