Spy in Chancery

sails had lent them speed, even time to separate so they came in on either side of the English ship. Ewell saw the blue flags adorned with the silver lilies and, more foreboding, beneath them, the Oriflamme pennant which indicated that the French were not taking prisoners. The huge poops of the French were crowded with archers, the decks glistened with massed armour and Ewell saw the faint plume of black smoke which showed that the French had catapults. Ewell looked around in desperation, there was little he could do, surrender was out of the question for, at sea, prisoners were rarely taken. He breathed deeply, prayed to St. Anne and put on his rust-stained breastplate and battered steel helmet. The French closed in on either side, their catapults sending huge, glowing balls of fiery pitch up into the dull grey skies. The first one missed but soon they found their range and a rain of fire fell on the Saint Christopher.
    The pitch caught the sail, the rigging and woodwork and the tongue of flame licked greedily and grew. The crew made frantic attempts to douse the flames with sand and water but to no avail. Other missiles, huge fiery black clumps caught the sails, turning them into curtains of fire, while the look-outs, trapped in the rigging, screamed and fell in flames to the deck. Ewell shouted at his archers to loose and turned just in time to see one of the French ships crash alongside, its soldiers pouring like a river over its side. The English archers accounted for a few who screamed and twirled as the ugly, jagged crossbow quarrels ripped the flesh of chest and neck, but the French were too many. The second ship also closed, disgorging its troops.
    Ewell turned, he would reach his cabin, deny the French that leather, wax-sealed pouch but an arrow caught him full in his exposed throat and he crashed to the deck. He thought he could still move but the blood pumped through his mouth, he saw the blurred faces of his wife, his eldest child and the darkness came crashing down about him. Within an hour the Saint Christopher was blazing from the prow to stern. The French ships stood off, their crews watching the bowsprit dip into the waves, its grim burden, the body of the bo'sun, still jerking and twisting. Stephen Appleby died slowly. The noose around his neck strangling off his breath but, just before he died, even in his death agonies, he wondered,
    once again, how the French had known and found his ship.
    In the rue Barbette in Paris, Nicholas Poer hunched over his bowl of rancid meat, leeks and onions, slurping from the horn spoon he always carried with him. He stared round the dirty tavern, slyly studying the other customers sitting on up-turned barrels of broken stools. The place was poorly lighted by thick tallow candles which gave off a putrid smell. Poer did not like it, he heard a rat rustle the dirty straw which covered the earth-packed floor and turned back to his food, wondering what he was really eating. He raised the battered pewter tankard and drained its contents, the raw beer stinging the sores in his mouth. He felt frightened, almost shaking with panic though he tried to conceal it, drawing comfort from the long dagger he clutched under his cloak.
    Of Gascon parents, Poer spoke fluent French and knew Paris well. He had always been confident in his disguise, no one would suspect that this greasy-haired, shabby, unshaven individual was a trained clerk of the Royal Exchequer of England, Edward I's highly trained spy sent to Paris to collect and send back information. Poer had moved easily around the city, crossing skilfuUy from the underworld on the left bank of the Seine to the slovenly splendour of the royal household in the Louvre. Poer had, in recent weeks, been excited by what he had discovered. The French king, together with his brothers, Charles and Louis, was planning another move against Edward of England. Something breathtaking, a Grand Design, so an usher of the court had assured him when deep in his cups: Poer believed he had to discover what it was yet recently he had become afraid.
    He was certain he was being watched, trailed as he made his way down the alleys and runnels of Paris. Earlier in the day he had been in the great square before the Cathedral of Notre Dame, watching a mountebank eat fire while his sons juggled with coloured baubles and there, Poer experienced the same feeling of dread which had assailed him a few days earlier. Someone was following him and though he had