Chapter Twenty-Two #3
Cortez couldn’t describe the impression he had when Father Lewis opened the door to the Warming Room.
It wasn’t what he had expected but once he saw it, he was nearly overcome by the sight.
From floor to ceiling, it was stacked with English regalia: plate armor, chain mail, swords, pole axes, shields, personal baggage, tunics, and any number of other things.
The sight was both astonishing and depressing.
Each item represented a life lost, a man killed, and all Cortez could see were dead English.
He saw grieving families, sad children, and sorrowful wives. He saw war.
He stood at the open door, speechless, as Keir and Michael pushed their way in, followed by Drake and the others. All of them were flooding in, searching for regalia they recognized, as Cortez stood in the doorway with the priest.
“Is this all there is?” he asked hoarsely. “This is the only room with English possessions?”
The priest nodded. “This is from both the dead and the wounded.”
Cortez turned to look at him. “What did you do with the wounded?”
The priest looked at him. “Most went home,” he said. “We sent word tae their families, but a few remain, those who cannot remember who their families are or those who simply want tae remain here until they die.”
“Where are they?”
The priest pointed to the ceiling. “Upstairs,” he said. “We have them in a small dormitory.”
Cortez didn’t say anything more after that.
He turned his sad gaze to his knights, now going through all of the armor and shields, calling out the names of men they recognized.
De Warenne, de Berkele, Poyns, de Grundon, de Mond, Martin, Deincourt…
so many names that Cortez knew. It could have just as easily been his name, shut off in here with no one to mourn him or miss him.
No one to care that he’d been killed. It was a horrendously sobering sight, this room with ownerless armor. It was a shrine to death.
“Edlington’s standard was blue and white,” he reminded the group of what they were looking for. “His shield is white with a blue chevron and three sunbursts on it, and he was wearing a tunic of blue and white when I last saw him.”
“Was it this?”
The question came from Drake, who was back in the corner of the room.
He held up a tattered blue and white tunic, barely recognizable through the dim light and battle damage.
Cortez entered the room and took the tunic from Drake, holding it up for all to see.
There was a massive, stained hole in the center of it and a smaller hole with an equal stain on the back.
He knew this tunic.
“Aye,” he said, feeling as if they had just reached the conclusive end of their long and arduous journey.
The relief, the sorrow, was indescribable.
“This belonged to him. These holes are where he was wounded. Is there more in that pile? The man had a shield, a broadsword, and other items. See if there is more in that pile.”
With the knowledge that they had found Edlington’s tunic, both sadness and acceptance descended on the room. It filled every man, every heart. But the knights dutifully converged on the stack of armor in the corner where the tunic had been found, searching for more Edlington possessions.
His attention on the shredded tunic, Cortez wandered out of the room, wondering if he should bring this relic, this testament of Robert’s death, to Diamantha. It was a rather brutal bit of reality. He paused in the open doorway, staring at it.
“Was that what ye were looking fer?” the priest asked.
Still staring at the tunic, Cortez nodded faintly.
“Aye,” he said morosely. Then, he unfurled the tunic and held it up again so the priest could see it.
“Do you remember the man who wore this? I would not be surprised if you did not, for there were many dead that day. But mayhap you can remember him and tell me where you buried him. On that day, you would have found him to the extreme east of the battlefield, propped up against an oak tree.”
The priest reached out to finger the tunic. “There were many men that day, m’laird.”
“I know,” Cortez said patiently. “But think hard, if you will. As you can see, he was struck by an arrow in the torso and it went all the way through him. He was a tall man with short blond hair. He always liked to wear a bit of a mustache, too. Do you remember him?”
The priest’s brow furrowed as he continued to finger the tunic.
He went back to that day, such a terrible day, when he led an ox cart around the east side of the battlefield to collect the dead and wounded with.
So much rain and mud, death and destruction.
East side of the battlefield…. After a moment, a light of recognition came to his eyes.
“Is this the man ye are looking fer?” he asked, incredulous. “He had a mustache!”
Cortez caught the priest’s excitement. “Aye, I told you that,” he agreed quickly. “Do you remember him now?”
The priest nodded eagerly. “Aye, m’laird,” he said. “We did no’ bury this man.”
Cortez looked at him strangely. “What… what do you mean you did not bury him?” he asked, now gravely concerned. “What did you do with his body?”
The priest lifted his shoulders. “But he is no’ dead!”
Cortez had no idea what the man was talking about and he began to grow agitated. “Of course this man is dead,” he said. “He had a gaping chest wound. It would have killed him. What did you do with him?”
The priest shook his head and grabbed him by the wrist. “The man who wore this tunic is no’ dead,” he insisted. “He is upstairs with the rest of the wounded.”
Cortez had never run so fast in his entire life.