Mercenaries Read Online Free PDF Page B

from which he could dominate the locality; this while his neighbours, the de Hautevilles included, still occupiedsimple stone manor houses adjoining a motte-and-bailey castle constructed of mud and wood.
    De Montfort looked up at Tancred, being a good deal shorter and overfed with it. ‘Then I am forced to ask my Lord of Hauteville why he is prepared to fight under my banner. If that does not imply vassalage, what does?’
    ‘I am here at the express command of my liege lord, who no doubt fears that the men you command require stiffening with a better class of knight.’
    ‘What my Lord of Hauteville means…’ said Geoffrey de Montbray.
    ‘I know what he means, priest, and to show I am given to believing what I hear, maybe I will put the de Hauteville knights in the forefront of the battle.’
    ‘If you will promise me a battle,’ growled Tancred, ‘I accept the station.’
    ‘We move to La Roche-Guyon in the morning, to rendezvous with the King of the Franks.’
    The way de Montfort said that, puffed as he was with his own conceit, created the impression that the King of the Franks would be attending upon him.
        
    Darkness was upon them by the time they had eaten, and they bedded down on palliasses stuffed with fresh straw, covered by cloaks stretched between upended lances to ward off the chill of the night, and chill it would be with a clear, star-filled sky and a brightmoon. Tancred was first to slumber, assuring, by his stentorian snoring, that everyone else took longer to achieve the same. The two who could not sleep, being too excited, were the boys Serlo and Robert; indeed their endless whispering to each other had been another bar to rest amongst their elders and they had been told more than once to shut up.
    Sick of tossing and turning, they were soon up and wandering about among the sleeping soldiers and the dying embers of their fires. There were men guarding the rim of the encampment, for the locals would look to pilfer or, indeed, recover things that had been taken from them to feed this host, but within the perimeter there was no movement save the odd fellow stumbling to the riverbank to relieve himself. The horses and donkeys were asleep on three legs, only moving when changing from one to another.
    ‘I found an anthill earlier,’ hissed Serlo.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Along the riverbank and up a track that led to a hamlet where I stole the fowl and the marrow. Big ants too, who looked to have a good bite on them when I poked the mound. What do you say, Robert?’
    No explanation was required for the kind of mischief Serlo had in mind, for his half-brother had a quick brain. ‘Can we do it in the dark?’
    ‘It’s on the edge of a clearing. Fetch your palliasse and let’s go and see.’
    ‘Why mine?’
    ‘My idea,’ Serlo insisted, ‘so your bed.’
    Accepting that was fair, Robert took the bed he no longer occupied and, having emptied it of straw, followed Serlo down to and along the riverbank until they came to the track he had found previously, well worn and obviously one the locals used to fetch water. Moving cautiously, in case this was one of the points with a guard, they crept into the darkness afforded by the trees and, once their eyes had adjusted, made their way inland. The clearing, judging by the smell, was some kind of midden and the boys could see the pile of waste in the centre. With Serlo pulling his arm, Robert was directed to the mound, which lay between two rotten tree trunks and was surrounded by leaf mould.
    ‘Find something to poke it with.’ There was always a hesitation when Serlo issued any command; with only a year between them, Robert was never willing to acknowledge the rights his elder half-sibling assumed. ‘Come on, brother, we don’t have all night.’
    A stick was found, a broken branch of which in summertime, when kindling was less required, there was ample choice. Serlo took the stick and poked hard at the mound, the result being immediate. Even in the