"Cornwell, Bernard - Vagabond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cornwell Bernard)

If there's a bloody truce then we leave them be."
The French priest's English was good, but it took him a few
moments to work out what Sir William's last three words had
meant. There'll be no fighting?"
Not between us and the city, no. And there's no goddamned
English army within a hundred miles so there'll be no fighting. All
we're doing is looking for food and forage, father, food and forage.
Feed your men and feed your animals and that's the way to win
your wars." Sir William, as he spoke, climbed onto his horse, which
was held by a squire. He pushed his boots into the stirrups, plucked
the skirts of his mail coat from under his thighs and gathered the
reins. I'll get you close to the city, father, but after that you'll have
to shift for yourself."
Shift?" Bernard de Taillebourg asked, but Sir William had already
turned away and spurred his horse down a muddy lane that ran
between low stone walls. Two hundred mounted men-at-arms,
grim and grey on this foggy morning, streamed after him and the
priest, buffeted by their big dirty horses, struggled to keep up. The
servant followed with apparent unconcern. He was evidently accus-
tomed to being among soldiers and showed no apprehension, in-
deed his demeanour suggested he might be better with his weapons
than most of the men who rode behind Sir William.
The Dominican and his servant had travelled to Scotland with a
dozen other messengers sent to King David II by Philip of Valois,
King of France. The embassy had been a cry for help. The English
had burned their way across Normandy and Picardy, they had
slaughtered the French King's army near a village called Crecy and
their archers now held a dozen fastnesses in Brittany while their
savage horsemen rode from Edward of England's ancestral pOssessions in Gascony. All that was bad, but even worse, and as if to
show all Europe that France could be dismembered with impunity,
the English King was now laying siege to the great fortress harbour
of Calais. Philip of Valois was doing his best to raise the siege, but
winter was coming, his nobles grumbled that their King was no
warrior, and so he had appealed for aid to Scotland's King David,
son of Robert the Bruce. Invade England, the French King had
pleaded, and thus force Edward to abandon the siege of Calais to
protect his homeland. The Scots had pondered the invitation, then
were persuaded by the French King's embassy that England lay
defenceless. How could it be otherwise? Edward of England's army
was all at Calais or else in Brittany or Gascony, and there was no
one left to defend England, and that meant the old enemy was
helpless, it was asking to be raped and all the riches of England
were just waiting to fall into Scottish hands.
And so the Scots had come south.
It was the largest army that Scotland had ever sent across the
border. The great lords were all there, the sons and grandsons of
the warriors who had humbled England in the bloody slaughter
about the Bannockburn, and those lords had brought their men-at-
arms who had grown hard with incessant frontier battles, but this
time, smelling plunder, they were accompanied by the clan chiefs