Hood

by Toby Venables

  XI

  Dunewich

  4 March, 1194

  “PUT YOUR BACK into it, you ’eathen shit-stain,” said Udo, spitting a lump of mutton gristle into the mud.

  “Now, now,” said Jupp, turning his saggy face towards the younger man. “No need for that kind of talk. There’s more than enough of that back there.” He gestured over his shoulder, where the sprawling metropolis of the port of Dunewich spread south of the estuary. “You don’t hear master Digory coming out with that kind of talk, do you?” He turned to Digory, seated on his other side, and patted him upon his meaty shoulder. Udo stared resentfully into Digory’s vacant face for a moment, then turned his crossed eyes back to the sweating Saracen. “Our own little world here, it is, away from the hurly burly,” said Jupp. “Our own little kingdom.” He watched in satisfaction as the big man hefted the packed barrel of herring onto the back of the creaky wagon, then fetched a great basket from the quayside.

  Jupp chuckled to himself and slapped his knees. “Oh, I could watch this all day, I really could! You see that, Udo, my friend? That is a talent. Most can only lift them baskets when they’re half so full. And it takes two to heave them barrels on the cart. But him...”

  Asif al-Din ibn Salah took a fish in his palm, slid the thin-bladed knife into its belly and slit it open. Just keep going, he told himself. One fish at a time... Pulling out the guts with his finger, he doused the fish in salt and tossed it into the next empty barrel.

  “Oi, go easy on the salt...” called Udo.

  Just keep on... He reached for the next fish and repeated the process, his eyes low. He had done this over a thousand times already, and would do five times that before the day was done. It had become his habit to keep count. Partly because it satisfied him to know what he had achieved—to set a goal and to try to better it. But, more importantly, it kept his mind off everything else. He needed to stay focused, to stay out of trouble. To be invisible. Although that, of course, was well-nigh impossible here. Back where he came from, he had been one of the crowd—judged for what he said or did, if he was judged at all. Here, he was and would always be different. Something to be stared at. Spat at.

  He couldn’t really blame them. Self-pity was not his way. They had been at war, after all. Not that any here had seen that for themselves, nor had they the slightest notion that there were Christians born and raised in the Holy Land who had regularly traded, laughed and broken bread with those they were called upon to fight. In his own small way, Asif had done what he could to make that possible. The fact that it was not his war was a possibility few seemed to entertain. None wished to. They preferred things simple. He understood that, too—his own people were no different, when it came to it. He laughed to himself. If they only knew. If only they understood that what he feared most was not the wrath of suspicious Christian hosts, but that of his own kind. These grumbling, petty-minded Christians may wish him dead, but there were others—here, now—who meant to kill him. And so, every hour, every day, he trod with caution.

  “What’s he got in this bag, anyway?” Udo’s whining voice jolted Asif out of his meditation, and he nicked his finger on the knife. He looked up to see that the rangy, stooped figure had sidled over to his battered old scrip bag by the wheel of the wagon, and was now poking it with his foot.

  “Leave it,” he muttered.

  “He never lets no one near it,” said Udo, and continued to prod it until he got the metallic sound he was searching for. “I hears it clank and jangle when he carries it. I seen a glint from it, too. Silver, I reckon.”

  “Get away from it!” rumbled Asif, the gutting knife pointed towards Udo. It was a gesture only, but Udo blanched.

  Jupp raised a hand. “That is his private business, Udo, and don’t you go poking your nose, or you might find you lose it.”

  “Plenty of it to lose,” said Digory, and snorted with laughter. It was the longest sentence Asif had heard the giant utter in three days.

  Udo slunk sideways, and resumed his place next to Jupp. “Don’t trust ’im,” he muttered, then bit on the mutton bone he had been worrying, on and off, for most of that morning. Where he had managed to find that, Asif had no idea. He suspected a midden.

  “Don’t you listen ’a these two,” said Jupp, cheerily. “It was a good day when you came amongst us, heathen.”

  Asif, his eyes still upon Udo, slit another fish open, dragged out its innards and threw them with a slap upon the heap of guts at his feet. “And there was I thinking you disliked me,” he said.

  “I? Dislike you? No, no, no!” He chortled, then shifted his large arse upon the plank of the makeshift bench they had constructed for themselves. “I didn’t want you for this work, heathen, I’ll admit. If it had been down to me, you would not be here. But there was a favour owed, and I honoured it. And glad I am that I did, for I learned a lesson, and a valuable one. And now... Well, I wouldn’t change this for anything, would you, lads?”

  They said nothing.

  “Well, would you?” There was a hint of threat in his voice this time. Jupp tweaked Udo’s ear with a laugh. Both shook their heads and muttered incomprehensibly. “Yes, you have changed my whole view of this world. I like you, heathen. Do you know why?”

  “Because I do the work of three men, and yet am paid half as much as one?”

  “Quite so, heathen, quite so! And what’s more you can work on Sundays. On Holy Days. There’s no stopping you! I see a bright future for you here, my boy.” The bench creaked as he leaned forward. “You wonder how that is?” Asif had no intention of replying, but Jupp was not waiting on him anyway. “Well, I’ll tell you. We are in a time of famine. Rain has drenched the land from summer to spring; made it wet as the sea, in some parts. Well, that’s all right if you be a farmer of mould. But no Englishman ever lived off such fare, no. So, the harvest fails. Stores are sodden and mildewed. Cattle cry out for lack of feed and turn to skin and bones, their very feet rotting in the mud.” He leaned forward again and raised a fat finger. “But what is not made bad by this wet? That’s right, my heathen friend—the sea. That has not failed us. By the grace of the Almighty, it continues to give up its rich bounty, and those who farm its fields and reap its harvests are therefore kings.”

  He sat back, rubbing his palms upon his knees. “Now, can you tell me what day this is?” This time, it seemed a genuine question.

  “It is Friday,” said Asif. “When I should be at rest.”

  “At rest? We never stop work on a Friday, do we? Busiest day of the week, Friday is. Why? Because it is a fasting day. And here is my point. We are two days past Ash Wednesday. Now, I wouldn’t expect a heathen to know what that means—but what follows it is Lent, a time of fasting. For six-and-forty days, no meat is to be eat. Nothing what lives off the land nor flies in the air. But fish... Ah, yes, fish may be consumed upon any fast day, and in any such quantities as you desire, provided the priest don’t see it.” Udo and Digory chuckled at that. “No, God has no qualms about the fishes. And that is our blessing. So, you gut those beggars as fast as you like, for there’s old men and babes out there crying out for your handiwork—and though we’d never tell ’em, they would not even care not that those hands be godless, just as long as their bellies are full!”

  His witless companions guffawed. Still laughing, Udo resumed his gnawing upon the mutton bone. He looked to Asif like a giant rat that someone had dressed in human clothes as a joke.

  As he turned, a sudden, swift movement caught his eye—a half-familiar shape moving silently between the stacks of baskets and barrels. He froze, his mouth turning dry. They had found him.

  “Asif...” Udo muttered contemptuously, tossing the bone into the mud.

  “As if what?” said Digory.

  “Eh?”

  “As if what?”

  “I dunno. It’s his name.”

  Asif hardly heard them. He straightened up and took a step sideways, towards his bag.

  “Hey!” said Jupp. “What you stopped fo
r? There’s twenty baskets to...”

  “Get out of here,” interrupted Asif, his eyes scanning the stacks. “Go back to the main dock, as fast as you can. Or better still, the streets of the town, among as many people as you can find.”

  Jupp glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Asif’s gaze, then, seeing nothing, turned back with a sour expression. “Are you trying to mess with me, boy?”

  “No, Jupp of Ledeston, I am trying to save your life.”

  Jupp had barely opened his mouth when a deafening crack stopped his reply, and one of the empty salt barrels stacked behind Asif leapt into the air, sending others tumbling. Asif hurled himself at the ground, landing heavily behind a jumbled heap of empty baskets. As he lay—half in the mud, half in fish guts—the barrel fell and spun to a halt by his head, shot clean through with an arrow.

  It should have killed him, but some instinct had preserved his life. He took a deep breath and muttered a prayer. Asif was not one to depend on Allah’s mercy, but he was glad of it this time.

  He shuffled himself around, keeping low behind the rickety jumble of baskets. His mind raced, but drove out, one by one, all extraneous thoughts until a strange clarity descended. A single, simple truth: if he went after his attacker or tried to escape, he would be killed. If he stayed hidden and simply waited, his adversary would have to come to him.

  But what then? It was by no means certain that Asif would see or hear him coming. And if he did? The man who was coming for him would be well-equipped for combat. What did Asif have? A knife to gut fish.

  He peered out tentatively. No movement. The bench was empty, one barrel toppled and the plank askew on the ground. Jupp, Udo and Digory seemed to have vanished into the damp, salty air. The arrow had clearly come from one of the big stacks of barrels opposite, but if the archer had any tactical sense—and Asif was sure he did—he would already be trying to get around behind him. To his left was the more sheltered route. Asif crawled around the right side of his feeble wicker barricade, to keep it between him and his attacker. A movement to his other side made him turn: Jupp, Udo and Digory, cowering in the shadow beneath the wagon, against the wheel of which his bag still rested.

  “Throw me the bag!” he hissed. Jupp started so violently at the sound that he hit his head on the underside of the cart. Asif could see his hands shaking as they curled over his balding scalp. “Throw it here! Quickly!” Udo looked at the bag, just beyond the shadow cast by the wagon, his eyes as wide as shield bosses, then back at Asif, and shook his head. “Throw me the damn bag!” he barked.

  To Asif’s great surprise, the lumpen frame of Digory then pushed forward between his quaking colleagues, and with apparent disregard for his own safety—or total lack of awareness—reached out, grabbed the bag, swung it and let go.

  It landed with a clank less than a yard from Asif’s hiding place. He darted out, dragged it back to him and clutched it to his chest—just as something struck him with the force of a horse’s kick. As it did so, he glimpsed a dark, shabby figure disappearing behind the barrels to his left.

  The second arrow had struck the bag and stopped hard against the metal inside; another near miracle. There would not be a third. Scrambling further round his meagre battlement, he pulled the arrow from the thick leather. He knew its type, and the mind behind it. Thinking him unarmed, his adversary would surely come for him now. They did not like to wait, and they did not waste opportunities. But he was no longer unarmed. With nervous fingers, wet with mud and fish blood, he pulled at the knot on the flap of the bag.

  The attack came sooner than expected. It seemed impossible that his attacker could have covered such a distance without a sound—yet in the next moment the dark, cloaked figure flew at him from behind the barrels at his back like a great, silent bird, his sword arcing through the air, a dagger glinting in his other hand. Flat on his back, the bag still stubbornly tied, Asif had nothing.

  As he braced himself for death, his outstretched hand met a familiar texture; the spilt load of a fallen barrel. His fingers closed about it, and he flung the contents wildly at the looming, shrouded face.

  The black wrappings obscured all but the eyes, and it was at these that he hurled a fistful of the coarse salt.

  The man cried out, and Asif rolled as his attacker’s blade struck wet earth inches from his head. Before he was even fully to his feet, he slammed his fist into the man’s side with every ounce of strength he could summon.

  The blow should have broken ribs, but Asif’s knuckle cracked against hidden armour. The man fell, nonetheless. Still blinded, he crashed into the heap of baskets, clinging to his weapons as if they were a part of him. Asif grabbed his bag and pulled again at the leather tie, but the attacker—as big as him, and far faster—was already on his feet, his streaming eyes red and burning with fury.

  The sword sighed through the air, and Asif leapt back. It flashed back again, catching the bag that he held before him like a shield. The blow cut the tie—but the bag fell, spilling its contents into the mud. Asif felt the thump of the teetering stack of barrels at his back; there was nowhere left to go.

  Everything slowed. As if in a dream he saw the blade draw back again—and stop dead. His attacker’s eyes showed confusion. He seemed to be struggling, as if somehow unable to complete the gesture. And then, wrapped about the blade of the sword, Asif saw a gauntleted fist.

  The dream broke. Everything accelerated—all action a blur. The sword was yanked down and raised to the attacker’s own neck. He staggered backwards, the blade’s edge close to his throat, his dagger falling from his hand. Then, over the killer’s shoulder, Asif saw the face of an old friend.

  Without a second thought, he made for the bag.

  THE MAN’S STRENGTH caught Gisburne by surprise. He’d come into this fight with all the advantages, but now the bigger, stronger man—with a determination that marked him as more than a mere cutpurse—had locked Gisburne’s grip in his own and was forcing him backwards. The opportunity to close the blade on the man’s throat was lost, and if he stumbled, and the big man fell on him, he’d be done for sure.

  There was only one other way to break the impasse. Gisburne let him go.

  The man whipped round, sword still in his grip as if nailed there, but Gisburne’s own sword was already drawn. Up swung his blade. Gisburne saw the man’s dark eyes follow it, ready to block—or stab him in the side before the blow could fall. But as it drew back, up came the seax in Gisburne’s unregarded left hand. The man saw the feint—but too late. The short, heavy blade caught the attacker’s hand on its upward swing, and his sword spun away, end over end, into the heap of baskets. With the agility of an acrobat, he leapt backwards out of the range of his enemy’s blades, then drew a shortsword from beneath his cloak and turned on Gisburne again.

  But he now faced two adversaries, to one side, Gisburne with sword and seax; to the other, Asif. He had availed himself of his attacker’s lost dagger—but it was the weapons in his left hand that caught the attacker’s attention: three flat rings of steel, their outer edges sharp as knife blades. He tucked the dagger in his belt, passed one of the rings to his right hand, and began to spin it about his finger. The metal rang as it gathered speed.

  “Run,” said Asif.

  The attacker’s eyes, framed in black, flicked from Asif to Gisburne and back. Then, fast as a fox, he turned and bolted for the heap of barrels.

  Gisburne lurched forward, intent on pursuit. “No!” snapped Asif. He stepped ahead of him, drew back his arm and flung the ringing metal disc after the fleeing attacker.

  It sang through the air, ending in a dull, sickening thud. The man jerked weirdly. The ring—embedded in the side of his skull—caught the weak sunlight for a moment and glinted like a skewed halo. Then his legs, limp as rope, gave way, his momentum sending him sprawling in the mud.

  Both stood in silence for a moment. Behind them, the trio of wharf rats crept out from beneath the wagon.

  “So, how are you liking England s
o far?” said Gisburne.

  Asif gave a great laugh and flung his arms around his old friend.

  “It is... very green,” he said.

  “Green?” said Gisburne, stepping back and looking about him. “Asif, it’s barely spring...”

  “It’s greener than I’m used to. Except for where it’s brown.”

  “That would be the constant rain.”

  Asif stood back to look at him. “In Jerusalem we used to celebrate when it rained, remember?”

  “If anywhere will make you tire of that habit, Asif, it’s England.” Gisburne turned and looked back to their fallen adversary. “I would have caught him, you know.”

  “You would not. And he had a bow hidden behind that pile.” He strode towards the body, Gisburne trailing him. “But how did he find me here?”

  The question knocked against another that had begun to niggle Gisburne: why this man had arrived on the same day as he—almost the same moment. The answer, all too obvious, struck him through like a blade. “Me. It was because of me. It’s no coincidence, us both being here. I led him to you, or to those in London who gave me the information to find you. Damn it!” He crouched by the crumpled figure. “I was asking after you in London. And I was not discreet, not at first. I had no reason to be, until I began to understand what had happened...”

  Asif held up a hand. “He would have found me anyway. Where else would a dock worker go after London but Dunewich? And had you not arrived at the same moment, it would be me lying face-down in the mud.”

  “So what brings you all this way?” said Gisburne. “Your message was vague on that front.” He turned the body over and pulled apart the shabby, nondescript travelling cloak to reveal glinting scales of armour.

  “You were always telling me what a beautiful country England was. I thought I should see it for myself.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping the peace in Jerusalem?”