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 valley with the wood of St. Pierre to his left. In another part of the field, at the edge of that same wood, the banner of Edward of England, the Black Prince, was flying from a tall tree, to serve as a rallying signal for those English pursuing the French retreating to the moment of their slaughter below the prudently locked gates of the city of Poitiers. Below that flag, the tent of the Black Prince had been pitched, and in it, the Prince, Sir John Chandos and some others were drinking wine.
In a farther section of the field Geffroi de Charny had just been killed, and the banner of France, which he was holding, tottered to the ground. Behind him, King John of 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 of his capture was near.
Meanwhile, unknowing of all this, the crossbowman wept a little from his unseeing eyes, propping himself 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 cried for a long time without any response, but more weakly as time went on. Until, from somewhere he heard the approaching thudding of 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 crossbowman could not have understood even before he got all arrow through his body, spoke above him. "Who's a tanner's son?"
A couple of iron-sheathed knees came to earth beside the crossbowman. The crossbowman felt the weight of his upper body lifted off the supporting elbow. Through the delirium of his pain, a feeling of being rescued penetrated to him. He stopped crying 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 face, unshaven and surmounted by all iron skullcap with a cloth skullcap showing dark-blue and rather ragged edges underneath the metal edge. The face of John Hawkwood had a deep-set nose, fine blue eyes under straight brown eyebrows, and a straight, angular nose that had never been broken. The face 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 and from 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 priest was speaking to him in latin and exhorting him to confess. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned ." he whispered.
The man who held him had been able to make out the business of the tanner's son, but this further whisper in the Genoese dialect left him at a loss. Vaguely, he caught the sense of the word "sinned" but that was all. "What the hell,'' he said, in the camp argot, a little thickly, we're all sinners. But we aren't all tanner's sons." He sat back on his heels and lowered the head of the crossbowman on to his knees. He lifted the cloth and metal skullcaps of the bassinet off his head together and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I'm a tanner's son, myself. "
He broke off and looked down, for the crossbowman had begun to speak again, and the rhythm of the phrases of the confessional were familiar. "Well, " he said in English, "I can do that much for you. One Christian to another, eh?"
He put the bassinet back on his head and listened, though what the other said was all but incomprehensible. The crossbowman was trying to remember his sins, but he confused the pain in his body with the pain of disease, which he associated with the evilnesses of his relations with women. To describe these, he had of necessity to use words more common and understandable to the man whose knees he rested on - and who nodded, hearing the words. "That's it," said the man. "That's it. Not much like that in Hedingham Sibil, in Essex where I was a tanner's son - or wherever you had from, I suppose. But enough here." He listened awhile longer. He noticed the lips of the crossbowman were darkened and dried. "Use a little wine, here,'' he muttered. "None with wine though, damn it. Go on, go on..."
But the crossbowman had finished his confession, and now he had begun to weep once more. He had thought that, having confessed himself, he would find himself forgiven and the pain taken away. But it was still with him. He plucked the now smooth end of the arrow. "Help!" he husked, once more, in a barely audible voice. ''Help, for the tanner's son..." "Damn you."' swore the man holding him, blinking his own eyes suddenly and pulling the plucking hand from the unmoving arrow's nocked end. ''What do you want me to do for you that's no good."
The crossbowman wept. His mind had wandered again, and now he imagined he was a boy again and the pain was because he was being punished for something. "You made your peace, " growled the man holding him. ''Get on with your dying. " He looked at the arrow. ''A hard way out is it."" He blinked again. "Poor filth. All right, then. ''
He reached down and drew a short, heavy-hilted dagger from a scabbard on his swordbelt. "Misericord, '' he said. ''God forgive this wretched sinner, and give him quick relief from payment for his sins, amen."
He leaned over with his lips close to the crossbowman's right ear, thinking perhaps it would give the sinner the good feeling of a little pride before his death. "A knight kills you, man."
But the crossbowman did not in any way understand the words. A deeper understanding had come to him. He had finally understood that he was dying. His mind had fled back to imagining he was with a priest again, and when he saw the insubstantial, glittering shape of the misericord lied up before his eyes, he thought it was the Cross being given him to kiss, and he felt a holy joy. "I am ready to die, Lord, " he thought he prayed. ''Only let it be fast. "
It was fast.
CHAPTER 18
Hal woke to find himself stumbling over the level ground, which seemed to heave and billow under his feet like the ocean surface. From the position of Procyon, overhead, it was midmorning, he was no longer in the circle. Amanda held him by one arm, supporting and guiding him. Old Man held and supported him on the other side with equal strength. As Hal turned his head to see the other, Old Man looked up, smiled fleetingly but warmly and then looked ahead again to the dormitory building containing Amid's office, to which the two were taking Hal. "What is it?" said Hal. "What's wrong?"