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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] ground, cutting throats with quick boarlike jerks of their knives, when a candidate proved worthless or too wounded to promise to live. The wild, calling crossbowman, with the lank black hairfialling half over his face, the-v had passed b -v out of a sort of instinct-two or three had even crossed themselves in passing. For, by a trick (if its entering angle, the arrow appeared to anyonefrom a distance to have driven squarel 'v through the crossbowman's heart. It seemed that he must already be dead; but still propped up and calling; whereas lie was actually only dying, like all the rest. Beyond the unfocused eyes of the crossbowman was part of the field of Poitiers, in the midwest of France. Up a slope behind him was a rubble of hedges and new-dug mounds, considerably torn about and beaten down now, which had been the original Position of the English. Out beyond in the other direction was the little vallev with the wood of St. Pierre to his left. In another part of thefield, at the edge of that same wood, the banner o Edward Page 88 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html of England, the Black Prince, wasflyingfrom a tall tree, to serve as a rall 'ving signal for those English pursuing the French retreating to the moment of their slaughter below the prudently, 172 Gordon R. Dickson THE CHANTRY GUILD 173 locked gates of the city of Poitiers. Below thatflag, the tent of the Black Prince had been pitched; and in it, the Prince, Sir John Chandos and some others were drinking wine. In afarthersection of thefield Geffroi de Charny hadjust been killed, and the banner of France, which he was holding, tottered to the ground. Behind him, King John oj'France, his dead lords about him, his fourteen-Year-old son Philip beside him, felt his weary arms failing at the effort to lift and strike with his battle axe once again. The English were crowding close, eager to capture a King, shouting at him to surrender. He turned to one strong young man, pushing toward him, who had called out to him in good and understandable French. The moment oj'his capture was near. Meanwhile, unknowing of all this, the crossbowman wept a littlefrom his unseeing eyes, propping himse@f on his elbow, and called out to the great pain in his body and the sun, like a brilliant furnace at high noon over his head in the cloudless sky:- "Help! Help for the tanner's son And so he cried-as he had criedfor a long time without am, response, but more weakly as time went on. Until, from somewhere he heard the approaching thudding oj'hooves that came to him, and stopped; and a following thud as two mailed feet came one after the other to earth beside him. For a moment nothing happened: and then a voice in all English the crossbowmail could not have understood even before he got all arrow through his bod -v, spoke above him. "Who's a tanner's son. "I A couple of iron-sheathed knees came to earth beside the crossbowman. The crosshowman felt the weight of his upper bod 'v lifted off the supporting elbow. Through the delirium of his pain, a feeling oj'b(,ing rescued penetrated to him. He stopped cr-ying out and made a great effort to focus his eyes. A circular shape peaked at the top steadied and unblurred before his eyes. He looked from a distance of inches up into a lean, rectangular-jawed jace, unshaven and surmounted by all iron skullcap with a cloth skullcap showing dark- blue and rather ragged edges underneath the metal edge. The jace of John Hawkwood had a deep-set nose, fine blue e -yes under straight brown eyebrows, and a straight, angular nose that had never been broken. The jace had the clear, even color of naturally blond skin tanned and dried by the sun until its surface had gone into tiny, premature wrinkles around the corners of the eyes and indented deeply around the mouth. The mouth itself was thinlipped but level of expression, the nostrils thin-andfirom them came a strong exhalation of breath laden with the odor of wine gone stale. "Who's a tanner's son?" repeated the lips, this time in the mixed argot of the military camps. But the crossbowman now comprehended nothing but the dialect of his childhood. He understood only that someone had come to his aid; and because the man who held him was clean-shaven he thought, not of a knight who might need to breathe unencumbered inside his clumsy headpot of a helm, but that the one who held him was a priest. He thought the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |