Spring had arrived in the hamlet. Woodsmoke and children's laughter spread across the meadows to greet Thomas as he saw home again. From his vantage on the chalk hill, the sun had awoken all before him- each stride now cut a swathe through the emerald grass adorned with cobwebs strung with dew -a wetness that wiped away the foreign soil that had caked his boots for so long..
His ears were also now being cleansed of the stain of war - the cries of death that had greeted every dawn and setting sun since he could remember. Now he was home, all was full of the promise of renewal- spring herself sang to him with the gentle birdsong that filled the hawthorn thicket and canopy of oaks and beech.
Those sounds of men dying tormented him with fear of his own death -of being taken down to their hell where surely those mother's sons he had felled with his own arrows would rent him to pieces in vengeance.
Thomas was still running as his thoughts raced across five years past-with leaps and jumps faster and faster down the hill like a man chased by an unseen demon.
The sun breathed her sweet heat on his face as he came to a pause in the clearing.He was home again to his childhood, to the brook where he scooped trout for supper with a deft swipe of hand and trapped ducks with his father. But that was a dream now -the war had taken his father and brother and his friends from him. With no human friend to remind him of time before war even the war had become a welcome friend of sorts - the reliable passage of autumn,snow and bloom ignorant of the scheming of princes and pillage, of rape and execution.
Now even that rhythmn had now gone.Thomas faced the bare rooms of loneliness .Peace promised much and he had heard the King's words on that day of triumph.He had cried like a baby and so had hard faces of men he once had feared, even though they were his fellow countrymen. Those doughty and rough woodsmen from the north and west, the veteran fighting Pikemen who had no fear. Yet he,an archer of half their years had gained their respect that final day when the sun had not dared show her disc in shame at illuminating the bloody acts of his fellows upon the French.
English arrows had cast their shadow upon the earth as surely as the shadow of death itself and it was a silent swift death for those poor basterd sons who had taunted him before the signal was given.Then there was only silence.The shout of Gabriel was in the sound of release of five thousand shafts -the majesty of timing and speed of the next release gave him pride and then respect from those Pikemen. Then they all ran into the enemy in a wave of blood lust and havoc of clashing metal of axes and spears and pikes-and more arrows rained down -until he had an empty quiver and drew and thrust his meat dagger into the bare chest of a screaming body whose face he never saw. Then it was done. The slashing and stabbing .The sick-sweet smell of blood and bile finally numbed with French wine-and a full belly of ham,sweetmeats and bread -the sweet fruits of the enemy.
Now his chest drank in the meadow sweet air and increased his heartbeat like the thought of a kiss from a new love. He saw everything in the rich colours of a new tapestry-like those he wrested from the walls of the French monastry after the battle.
Now he found his legs running as if he was being spirited by some invisible witchcraft- leaping over the boundary fence like a man with no weight. He came to a stop outside his doorway-he looked for something to bear as a gift. He laid down his bundle; belt and dagger. Then for the first time he could remember, even Angel. Angel was his saviour and protector-it was part of him like a mother and extension of his belief in Right.
Angel was his longbow, carved with his father's help from the grove of yew trees a day's walk to the west. She was too strong for him to pull then-how his father and brother had teased him!
But it was not the bow that had weakened -rather Thomas had become her master-he had been but fifteen then- his right arm and shoulders not honed to the task.
Now even Angel's work was done, or so he thought. In truth, Angel's work was just about to begin..
