Steventon was ill-guarded. I saw a couple of grooms by the stables near the left wing of the house, rubbing down a white gelding. Some hens scratched about in the yard, and an old mongrel hound lay on its side beside the front door, enjoying the sun. Otherwise all was quiet.
The grooms put me in mind of Alan. My throat tightened, and a wave of anger coursed through me.
I had sworn an oath to avenge Alan’s death. Today, if God was kind, that oath would be fulfilled.
We approached the house on foot. Burnham notched an arrow to his bow, and I trembled at the thought of one of those wickedly barbed shafts plunging into my back.
I had judged him well. Neither he nor Long Hugh would betray me until it was convenient. The robbery came first.
The house lay some three hundred yards from the wood where we left the horses. There was no cover in the space between, so the abbey servants had ample time to spot us. I saw the grooms shade their eyes to stare at us.
I held up my hands, palms outwards, to show we meant no harm. If possible, I meant to spill no innocent blood, and hoped to plunder the house without violence.
Burnham had other ideas. One of the grooms saw him draw to shoot, and turned to flee for the refuge of the stable.
He was too slow, and Burnham too good a shot. The striped arrow hit him square in the middle of the back. He went down with a shriek, limbs flailing.
“You cursed idiot!” I shouted, rounding on Burnham,
The anger rose inside me. I failed to control it, and reached for my sword.
He was quick. My blade was not even half-drawn before he had another arrow on the string.
Burnham took aim at my head. “You’re too soft, Page,” he hissed. “Did you think we came to play at pat-a-cake with them? Stand aside or I’ll put this through your eye.”
We were distracted by an outbreak of frantic, deep-throated barking. “They have loosed a mastiff!” cried Long Hugh.
I swung round, careless of Burnham and his arrow, and glimpsed a monstrous black shape galloping straight towards us. The kennels stood next to the stables, and a fair-haired youth had shot out of the house to knock the chain off the gate.
Burnham loosed at the mastiff. His hand must have shook, for the arrow flew well wide. Then the huge animal, all slavering yellow jaws and rolling eyes, was upon us.
I leaped aside and dragged out my sword as Burnham screamed. The mastiff had launched itself at his chest, knocked him to the ground and sunk its teeth into the meat of his shoulder.
Neither I nor Long Hugh made any effort to help him. Hugh sprinted towards the kennel, axe in hand, roaring curses at the boy who had released the dog.
I ran for the door, and almost reached it before two hard-faced churls with long staves burst from the shadows inside.
The first man’s eyes widened when he saw me. I had no wish to kill, and swatted him to the ground with the flat of my blade.
His mate almost tripped over the unconscious body, and fell back as I sprang at him. He blocked a downward cut of my sword with his stave, so I got in close and punched him in the face with the hilt. His eyes crossed, blood spurted from his mouth and nose, and he slumped down against the wall.
I ran through the open doorway into the short corridor that lay beyond. It opened onto a long, narrow hall, sparsely furnished and with a vaulted wooden ceiling.
It was purely functional, with little in the way of comfort of decoration. No tapestries or friezes adorned the plastered walls, and the windows had wooden shutters and thin sheets of horn in place of glass. A fire burned low in a hooded grate at the northern end, where a kitchen maid sat crouched in terror, her filthy hands pressed to her mouth, surrounded by the pile of kindling she had just dropped.
I paused to take stock, breathing hard, and spied a man I took to be the steward cowering behind one of the benches. He was stout and bald, dressed like a priest of sorts in a white gown and black mantle. His broad face was ashen as he goggled at me, and I thought he might die of fright.
“Please,” he moaned, dropping to his knees, “please don’t hurt me or my servants. Take all you like. Just spare our lives.”
I puffed out my cheeks and slid my sword back into its scabbard. “The abbot chose well in you,” I said scornfully.
The wretch lacked the spirit to even meet my eye. “Show me to the strongroom,” I ordered him, “or wherever the valuables are kept. Now!”
Bowing and drivelling, he led me down another passage to a black-timbered door, which he unlocked with the largest of the set of iron keys at his belt.
I put my boot to the door, which swung inward to reveal another vaulted chamber, windowless and empty save for three heavy chests shoved against one wall.
“Th-there’s some silver plate and candlesticks in there,” the steward babbled, pointing at one of the chests, “we only use it when guests come to dine. The r-rest of the time we m-make do with pewter.”
“Your dining arrangements are of concern to me,” I growled, “nor is your silver. What’s in the others?”
He stared, probably thinking I was the most unusual of robbers. “The others? Nothing of m-much value. Junk, mostly.”
“Let me see.”
I stood over the steward as he threw back the heavy lids of the two smaller chests.
“Empty them,” I told him. He knelt on the bare floor and lifted out piles of moth-eaten old clothes, stumps of candle, a pewter tankard or two, and other such worthless rubbish.
Near the bottom of the second chest I picked out a badge, much faded and discoloured with age. It was a livery badge, such as a retainer might wear on his coat, and displayed three black bull-calves against a white field with a red bar. I had a good grounding in heraldry, and recognised them as the arms of Sir Hugh Calveley.
There was something else, right at the bottom of the chest, a roll of black silk carefully folded and tucked into one corner. I tossed away the badge and reached inside for the fabric.
I unrolled the piece of silk. One edge was badly torn and showed half a wolf’s head, embroidered onto the silk in red and gold thread. A golden eye stared balefully at me, undimmed by the passage of time and the indignity of being stuffed inside an old chest.
This could only be a scrap of my father’s wolf banner, which he had carried into battle at the head of his Company of Wolves.
I clasped the silk to my chest. This was why I came to Steventon. Not to look for treasure, but to find some other remnant of Thomas Page. Something tangible.
How the banner came to be at Steventon is difficult to say. I knew Calveley had fought for the English at Najéra, where the Prince of Wales won a great victory over the forces of Henry of Trastamara. My father fought on the losing side, and his Company of Wolves was destroyed in the rout. Maybe Calveley captured his banner at Najéra and kept it as a trophy of war.
It was too much to hope that Page’s letters had survived. They were lost forever, most likely burned by Calveley. Still, the banner was something, another link to the father I never knew.
Long Hugh appeared in the doorway. The blade of his axe dripped red, and his face and hands were spattered with blood.
“I slew the mastiff,” he grunted, “and that fool who loosed it. Burnham’s done for, though. The dog ripped out his throat.”
The steward squealed at the sight of Hugh, all gaunt and stinking of death as he was, and shrank into a corner.
“Burnham’s dead, is he?” I said with a shrug, “no matter. All the more loot for us. There’s some good stuff in the largest of these chests. Take as much as you like. I’ve got what I came for.”
He gave me a quizzical look, and wasted no time sifting through the gold and silver.
“Fetch me something to carry all this,” he barked at the steward, who scurried away, long robe flapping round his fat calves, and returned with a draw-string leather bag.
Hugh snatched the bag and stuffed it with plate and candlesticks. I left him to it and went back outside.
I
was greeted by a scene of carnage. The two churls I had fought still lay unconscious, and would sleep for a good while yet.
The fair-haired boy who had released the mastiff lay in the dust beside the kennels, his head split open by Hugh’s axe. Bright red blood pumped slowly from the terrible wound.
I looked for the mastiff, and saw it lying next to Burnham. Hugh’s busy axe had shattered the animal’s skull, though not before its teeth ripped out our comrade’s throat.
I walked over to inspect the bodies. Burnham’s body still quivered, and blood dripped from the teeth-marks in his neck. His eyes stared blankly at - what? The gates of Hell, most probably.
I picked up his bow and ran my fingers over the six feet of smooth English yew. It was a peasant’s weapon, one I was raised to despise. Gentlemen of coat-armour fight hand-to-hand. The notion of killing our enemies at a distance is thought both cowardly and dishonourable.
Great Sultan, never underestimate the English talent for hypocrisy. Our kings have made good use of archers for generations, and relied on them to win great victories in France and Scotland. Fellows like John Burnham, rough, uneducated commoners, are obliged by law to practise archery at least once a week. Thus the yeomen of England are kept in a permanent state of readiness for war.
The war bow, as we call it, has a seventy-pound draw weight. All the long years of endless practice had left Burnham with a slightly deformed right shoulder. His right arm was slightly longer than the other, thanks to stretched sinews and tendons, and the fingers of his draw-hand were swollen and marked with calluses.
I squatted next to him. “A pity,” I said, closing his eyes, “you might have accompanied me to France.”
Ambition struck me. I would resurrect the Company of Wolves, and lead them to fresh victories all over Christendom. Become a famous captain-general of routiers; carve my way to fame, honour and riches under the wolf banner, and lay to rest my father’s ghost.
“Page! Stop daydreaming. We have to be gone from here before the hue and cry is raised.”
The glorious images in my head dissolved at the sound of Long Hugh’s voice. I took the dead man’s dagger and the handful of pennies in his purse before standing to face Hugh.
He carried a sackful of stolen plate over his shoulder, and a smaller bag in his right hand.
“Money,” he said with a grin, raising the bag, “I threatened to put out one of the steward’s eyes if he didn’t show me where he kept his secret funds. Turns out the little swine had a stash hidden under a false board in his bedchamber.”
I grimaced with distaste. We had scared the steward half to death, murdered one of his servants, and committed assault and robbery into the bargain. Any man with a scrap of decency in him would have felt ashamed (I did, a little), but Long Hugh’s conscience had died with his many victims.
We hurried back to the horses, and rode away from Steventon as fast as they could carry us.
“South,” I said, “to the coast, and a ship to take us to France.”
Long Hugh agreed, with good reason. He dared not return to the Weald, and Stafford’s anger at the loss of Burnham. Besides which, the hue and cry would soon be raised for our work at Steventon. Our lives now depended on speed and luck.
Southampton lay directly to the south. It would take us two; maybe three days to reach the port, assuming nothing befell us on the way. Fortunately we had Burnham’s horse to use as a remount. It wasn’t hard to guess at Hugh’s thoughts. When his own horse was exhausted, he would murder me and take the spare. There is little honour among thieves.
We halted at dusk, sore and sweating from a long ride at breakneck pace. I dismounted and led my weary horse off the highway.
“We have to get some sleep,” I said in response to Hugh’s questioning look, “the High Sheriff may already be out hunting for us. Best we take refuge in the forest tonight.”
Hugh saw the sense in that, and followed me under the shadowy branches. I had little notion of our whereabouts - somewhere between Newbury and Winchester, perhaps - only that the woods were deep and dark, and suitable for my purpose.
There were no convenient paths, and for an hour so we fought our way through webs of brambles and deep undergrowth, blundering over fallen boughs and at one point sinking knee-deep into a hidden bog. There were no sounds of pursuit, only the night sounds of the forest: an owl hooted, small creatures rustled among the leaves, and once we heard the distant howl of a wolf.
“Wolves,” Hugh panted when the echoes of that dismal cry had faded away, “I’ve always hated them. One snatched my brother from his cradle when I was young. They would make a meal of us, if we let them.”
I grinned in the dark. He had no idea of the truth of his words.
At last, when it became almost too dark to see any further, I called a halt. I had hoped to reach a clearing, but had to be content with a patch of sloping ground where the trees thinned out a little.
“This is a dismal place to rest,” grumbled Hugh, “scarce room enough to stretch my bones on the ground. I need a good seven feet of earth to get comfortable.”
“There’s hardly any moon,” I said. “You want us to blunder about in the darkness until dawn? Tether the horses, and let’s have a bite to eat. We can’t risk a fire.”
I handed him my reins, and he turned away, still grumbling, to bind them to a nearby trunk.
I drew Burnham’s dagger - a long, sharp sticker it was, perfect for the task - and stepped close to drive it into Hugh’s massive back.
Some might call it a coward’s trick, to knife a man from behind. I say my victim was a black-hearted rogue, a smear of blood and grease upon the world, and deserved a far worse death than the one I gave him.
He jerked violently when the blade sank into his kidneys, and threw back his head. I clapped my free hand over his mouth to stifle the yell, and gasped in pain as his teeth closed on my fingers.
Hugh was strong, and squirmed and wriggled like a dying fish as I yanked the blade free of his body. I was stronger still, for all his great height and reach, and dug my bleeding fingers into his eyes as I stabbed him again, this time under the breast-bone, to push the steel up into his heart.
It was a dirty, difficult kill, and worthy of such a man. “This is for Alan,” I hissed into his ear as he died, “remember him? My companion your friend murdered on the road.”
“Give my regards to Will in Hades,” I added, and drew the edge of the knife across his throat. Then I shoved him onto his face in the grass, where he bled out his last.
The forest was silent, as though appalled, while I knelt and wiped the dagger clean.
Now I had two deaths on my account. The first, my cousin Sir William, was done in the heat of combat. The second was done in cold blood, and will count against me on the day of judgement.
Two deaths. How many more have I committed or brought about since? Hundreds, if not thousands. Not all of them in the line of a soldier’s duty. I shudder to think of the bruises on my soul.
One must be practical. I also had three horses, a sackful of treasure, and a clear road to Southampton.
And France.
10.
The war in France drew me, as surely as it drew any landless, homeless, wifeless young Englishman with a price on his head. I reached Southampton with one horse under me, having virtually killed the other two in my haste and left them to founder on the road.
It was early August by now, and the King had long sailed to Normandy with an army of some twelve thousand men. They landed safely at the mouth of the River Touques, on the northern coast of the duchy.
There were still a fair number of troops in Southampton, and I encountered hundreds of soldiers along the road leading to the walled town. These were reinforcements, intended to cross the Channel in support of Henry’s invasion. I recognised some of the banners of the lesser captains, knights and barons, and soon learned that most of the great English lords had already sailed with the King.
“They’ve all gone over,�
�� a master-bowman told me as I rode alongside his company, “Clarence and Gloucester, Salisbury, Warwick, Pembroke and the rest.”
“Who is your captain?” I asked, looking over the long files, ten men deep, of fierce, bearded faces.
The archers marched in the rear of a long column of footmen, marshalled by under-officers who rode hither and thither, barking curt orders or rebukes at the sturdy rogues under their command. The spears and halberds of the infantry twinkled in the bright autumn sun, and every one of the bowmen wore a parti-coloured tunic, emblazoned with the red cross of Saint George and a device showing three black lions against a yellow field.
“My commander is Sir Thomas Carew,” the master-bowman replied, “you will have heard of him?”
I shook my head, and he gave me a hard look. He was a wary, experienced fighting man, his face stern and lined in its mail coif.
“Sir Thomas is a Welsh knight,” he said, “and did good service in the recent affrays at Harfleur and Agincourt. He is still at Southampton, awaiting reinforcements before he sails. You have not been to the wars, then?”
I replied that I had not, but was bound for the port, and wished to join the King’s army in Normandy.
He gave me another long, searching look. “You have no master,” he said slowly, “and ride alone. That’s a good sword you carry, along with two daggers. No armour, and your horse is like to collapse before dusk. What’s the device on that bit of fabric you wear?”
I had wrapped the wolf banner around my neck as a scarf. “A wolf’s head,” I answered proudly, “I hope to carry it on a standard one day, at the head of my own company.”
He rubbed his bristly chin. I could see the smile playing around his lips. It must have been clear to any man with a degree of sense that I was a fugitive from justice, hoping to find safety and redemption across the sea.
“I wish you good fortune, lad,” he said at last, “and advise you to ride hard for the port. Get on the first boat that will take you. Worry about the army when you reach Normandy, not before.”
The Wolf Cub Page 7