Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2)

by Giles Kristian

  ‘I wouldn’t have the mutton pie,’ one of the others put in, pulling the scarf down to reveal his grin, ‘not unless you like dog.’

  ‘The mutton tastes like dog?’ Joe asked, the first time he had spoken.

  ‘The mutton is dog!’ the man said, stirring a damp peal of laughter from the others.

  ‘You will pay for three rooms, which will be found for you by the time you’ve eaten,’ the clubmen’s leader said.

  Joe shook his head, rain flying from his broad-hat’s rim. ‘I will not have my sister left alone, sir,’ Joe said, the steel in his voice impressing as much as surprising Bess.

  The clubman nodded. ‘Very well, as you two are kin you may share a room, though you’ll still pay for three.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Dane said, then clicked his tongue and his cob moved off, feet squelching in the mud. Bess and Joe started forward too, all of them following the squat man with the sickles who was already on his way back to the village.

  ‘One more thing,’ the clubman said, his band dispersing, tramping off to get out of the rain. ‘Your weapons. Folk here are not used to swords and firearms and I will not have you terrifying them.’

  They stopped and Joe looked at Dane who nodded, drawing his fine flintlocks and flipping them over in his hands to give them butt-first to a spotty-faced stripling who held them gingerly, as though afraid they might go off at any moment, and then passed them to his leader. Then they handed over their swords, Dane his plain rapier and Joe his short hanger, to another of the drenched clubmen who took them in one hand, his scythe in the other.

  ‘And your blunderbuss, lad.’ Joe hesitated then, reluctant to give up the weapon with which he had for many freezing nights stood sentry outside Shear House and without which Bess had never seen him. ‘Unless you want to turn around and ride four miles through this pissing rain to the next village.’ The clubman shrugged, as though he cared not either way.

  ‘It’s all right, Joe,’ Bess said. She had begun to shiver again now and could barely remember what it felt like to be warm and dry. Frowning, Joe lifted the blunderbuss on its belt over his head and gave it to the spotty youth, who grinned this time, gripping the weapon as though he wanted nothing more than for it to roar.

  ‘Powder and shot, if you please,’ the clubman said, and Joe reached for the bag of musket balls strung on a belt across his other shoulder but Dane stopped him with a raised hand.

  ‘No, sir,’ he said to the clubman, ‘we shall keep those things with us.’ He pointed at the spotty young man who was still grinning and pointing the blunderbuss at an imaginary foe. ‘I wouldn’t want the lad there to shoot his foot off.’

  The clubman held Dane’s eye for a long moment and then nodded, lifting the pistols. ‘I shall hold them for you till the morning. Now go and get yourselves dry.’ They moved off again, drawn by the scent of wood smoke and the promise of a hot meal. ‘And spend that coin,’ the clubman called after them.

  According to the short, squat man who had led them through the deluge to the alehouse on the muddy bank of the Trent, Allen Greenleafe and his wife had both been servants at the nearby Shugborough estate for upwards of twenty years. But a fall whilst replacing old slate on the house’s roof had left Allen lame and Cecily sick with worry that, she being frequently struck with colds, they would spend their last years on God’s earth starving and miserable. But in recognition of their long and faithful service (and more likely, said the squat man, because he had known Allen wasn’t up to the job and should never have been sent up on the roof) their employer, the lawyer William Anson, had come to their rescue. Anson had bought the Greenleafes the modest cottage in which Bess, Joe and Dane now huddled by a roaring fire which raised a stink from their wet woollen clothes.

  ‘A simple fire is the most wondrous of life’s free pleasures,’ Joe said, his smooth cheeks flushed with drink. ‘Well, other than going for a piss when you’re bursting.’

  He suddenly looked at Bess, horrified to have spoken thus in her company, but she smiled gently and looked back into the flames and the awkwardness was swept away by the raucous, barking laugh of another of the Greenleafes’ guests, one of three men at a table behind them who nursed their ale pots protectively, pipes clamped in their lips. In one dark corner a young cooing couple sat oblivious to all, and in another corner two old men seemed asleep but for the occasional gruff comment or squeaking fart. Two dogs – an old spaniel and a thick-haired mongrel – lay asleep near the fire, their heads on their paws and the mongrel’s back legs twitching so that Joe said it must be dreaming of chasing rabbits.

  ‘Either that or it’s a nightmare about being put in a pie and served up as mutton,’ Dane suggested, and Bess hushed him lest he offend their hosts. ‘You are quite right,’ he mumbled into his mug. ‘We haven’t seen where we shall sleep yet.’

  The air was thick with pipe and hearth smoke, the stench of wet clothes, wet dog, old sour beer and the more pleasant aroma of cooked food. In the little kitchen adjoining the parlour the Greenleafes were clattering pots and scraping scraps, and Bess felt renewed and strong, confident that a full belly and a good night’s sleep would brace her for another day on the road come rain or shine. Avoiding the mutton pie, they had wolfed down a meat and onion stew, cheat bread and pancakes spiced with cloves, mace, cinnamon and nutmeg. Their outer garments hung drying on a frame by the fire and Allen’s home-brewed ale was disappearing almost as fast as the man could pour it, though that was mostly Dane’s doing. Bess wondered how a man could drink so much and yet still stand on steady legs, as Dane did now, having risen to go back out into the rain to check that their horses were being well looked after.

  ‘Order another jug, lad,’ he said to Joe. ‘As it appears there are to be no other amusements,’ he added, scratching the scalp beneath his long black hair, ‘we may as well drink properly.’

  ‘You will both make for poor company tomorrow,’ Bess said as Joe signalled to Allen that their cups were empty, and Dane opened the door, so that for a brief moment Bess could hear and smell the rain that was still sheeting down outside.

  ‘The less he says the more I like him,’ Joe said, thumbing back towards the door, and Bess nodded in agreement with that as Allen Greenleafe appeared with more ale.

  ‘Make sure you fill it,’ she said, pointing to Dane’s cup and thinking the man could stew in his own juices next day for all she cared. ‘To the brim if you please.’ And Joe laughed at that, his face suddenly full of a boy’s mischief that warmed Bess’s heart.

  By the time the other patrons had emptied their last cups and disappeared into the damp night Bess was struggling to keep her eyes open, Joe was blind drunk and Dane was … Dane. Allen Greenleafe had insisted on all accounts being settled before they were too drunk to count their coin, but Bess guessed the man was simply canny enough to want his money before his guests saw their sleeping chambers. Her suspicions were vindicated when Allen hobbled over and began banking the fire, which was their cue to retire to bed.

  ‘You two are upstairs,’ he said to Bess and Joe with a jerk of his grey-bearded chin. ‘There are two rooms up there and yours is the one that doesn’t have Mrs Greenleafe snoring in it. You, I’m afraid,’ he said to Dane, ‘are in the barn down the lane by the mill.’

  ‘I’ll sleep here,’ Dane said, nodding at the rush-strewn floor and the two dogs that still slept on.

  Allen shook his head. ‘No you won’t,’ he said. ‘Not with your thirst. You’ll find Hogg’s barn dry and … spacious.’ He turned back to the fire and continued shovelling old embers onto the logs that still burned, smothering the flames. ‘You won’t be the first to bed down in there and we’ve had no complaints before.’

  ‘From the cows?’

  ‘Now look here,’ Allen said, turning back to face them, trailing his lame leg, his face clenched with offence.

  ‘I jest, sir,’ Dane said, raising a hand. ‘Give me a jug to take to bed and I shall not care where I sleep.’

  Which left Bess and Joe
climbing the stairs, knapsacks over their shoulders, candle lamps held out before them, and pushing open the door to the bedchamber they would share to maintain their pretence of being brother and sister. The lie in itself had been a good idea, Bess knew, for it lent credibility to Dane’s tale of them travelling to London to bury their brother. But neither she nor Joe had yet brought up the subject of their sleeping in the same bedchamber and now here they were, in a small bare room, the door closed behind them.

  Just weeks ago she would have dismissed as absurd the very idea of sharing a bedchamber with another man, let alone this young man, a tenant farmer’s son and now soldier in Shear House’s garrison.

  She watched him spread his bedroll and blanket out on the floor beneath the small window in the far wall and she knew he must be feeling as embarrassed as she. Perhaps even more so. Then he cleared his throat and turned, as though he had heard her thoughts. ‘I could sleep just outside the door,’ he suggested. ‘I know Dane said I must not leave your side, but we’re in no danger and I’d be just out there.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Joe. You wouldn’t have the room to lie flat out there and after all that riding you must get a good night’s rest.’ She felt her brows arch. ‘Things are not as they were,’ she said, thinking of the chaos that nowadays reigned in the kingdom. ‘Besides, the folk back home need never know, for I am sure of your discretion and you may be assured of mine.’

  He nodded. ‘I shall never breathe a word of it,’ he said, fiddling with his shirt sleeves.

  ‘There then, we have our agreement. Now, if you would step outside whilst I get ready.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, making for the door.

  ‘At least we are not in a draughty barn with the rats.’ Bess could not help but smile at the thought of Dane bedding down somewhere out there on such a gloomy wet night.

  ‘He will be happy enough with his bed partner,’ Joe said, raising an imaginary cup to his lips.

  ‘No one else would have him,’ Bess said, and Joe’s smile was full and strong. Then he left, shutting the door behind him, and again Bess thought, as she took off her damp coif and bodice, how glad she was to have the young man with her.

  By the time she called him back into the bedchamber she lay cocooned within the blankets, arms tucked close against her body, looking up at the whitewashed ceiling upon which the glow from her candle danced. She tried to ignore the sounds of Joe undressing, instead listening to the rain scattering upon the roof and the wind that was steadily building beyond those poor walls. It was painfully embarrassing to have a man lying on the floor in her room, but then all she had to do was think of what her brothers must be enduring and her discomforts were as nothing and her toes could uncurl themselves. She felt dry and warm and safe. And she could not know that beyond the Greenleafes’ walls sharp steel was glinting dully in the wet night. And men were coming for her.

  Bess woke to what for a heartbeat sounded like a drumroll of thunder, but which she then knew to be boots thumping up the stairs.

  ‘Joe!’ she said, as the bedchamber door crashed open and men stormed in, one of them kicking Joe in the face as he tried to rise.

  ‘Don’t you touch him!’ Bess screamed, scrambling backwards so that her shoulder blades pressed against the cold limewashed wall.

  ‘Shut your mouth, woman,’ one of the men growled, turning savage eyes on her.

  ‘Get hold o’ him,’ another man barked, gesturing at Joe who lay in a dazed heap half illuminated by what little moon-glow seeped through the window’s thick glass.

  There were five of them and two carried swords: Dane’s and Joe’s swords, Bess saw, though they looked somehow less dangerous than the weapons which the other men gripped.

  ‘You!’ she said, recognizing the squat man who had brought them to the Greenleafes’.

  He clutched one of his sickles and pointed it at her. ‘I’ll have that pretty tongue if you don’t hold it still,’ he threatened, and Bess’s heart bucked at the realization that none of the men had their faces covered now. They have no fear of being identified later, she thought, dread filling her soul like ice-cold water.

  ‘Search it proper,’ a scrawny old man growled at two others, a man and his son by the look of their copper hair, who were on their knees rifling through her and Joe’s gear.

  ‘You come here, to our village,’ the squat man said, hauling Joe up, one fist fat with nightshirt, the other clutching the sickle’s haft, ‘with yer firearms and yer money.’ He thrust Joe against the wall and brought the sickle blade up. But Joe launched his knee into the man’s belly and slammed a fist into the side of his head and the squat man doubled. Then the older man with copper-coloured hair sprang up and swung his club, catching Joe’s left temple and sending him spinning, blood splattering up the white wall.

  ‘No!’ Bess screamed and now there was a man on top of her, clawing at her linen nightdress, ripping it like some frenzied animal. She felt hot spittle on her naked breasts, was vaguely aware of a man grunting at another to stop the whore screaming, and the next moment she felt the pressure of a hand over her face and mouth, smelt tobacco and faeces on those molesting fingers.

  She writhed and thrashed, every sinew in her body enraged, trying to resist the irresistible. She knew they were beating Joe, could hear the dull blows of them kicking him, but she was consumed by her own terror now.

  Francis! her mind screamed, my boy! Not just terror. Fury, too, at these animals. Fighting for her life she opened her mouth and bit into the hand and the man screamed, then the back of his other hand smashed into her face. Blood was in her mouth. Not her own, she realized with crazed joy, seeing the fleshy wound on her attacker’s hand.

  ‘Hold her still, damn you!’ someone growled and then she felt hands grasping her legs, knew they were being forced wide. Knew what was coming.

  No! ‘No!’ she yelled, frenzying, kicking as though her life depended on it, for she knew that it did.

  ‘There it is,’ one of them growled, touching his throat. Stroking it hungrily. ‘Feast yer eyes on that.’

  They had got her legs wide now, the dead weights of their bodies pressing down on them, and she felt a bristled cheek scratch her inner thigh, felt hot breath on her private parts.

  ‘Makes you hungry, don’t it?’ the squat man said, his ugly face joining the others. Down there.

  Is Joe dead then?

  ‘Out of my way, Jonas,’ the squat man said, pushing the others aside.

  ‘You said I could go first,’ Jonas protested.

  ‘Get off, Jonas, or I’ll tell Phyllis,’ he spat, and with that Jonas squirmed up the bed and clamped a hand on her right breast, grinning like a dead fox.

  Francis! My baby!

  Knuckles gouged into her cheek, the blow blinding her, and now there was a hand around her throat, squeezing, the finger ends in amongst the cords and sinews, digging deep.

  Then something about the air in the room changed, seemed to shiver, though she did not know what was happening until the squat man’s head jerked back and a knife slashed open his throat, spraying her with hot blood.

  Suddenly her legs were free, the weights that had pinned her to the bed gone as her attackers reeled in the face of this vicious threat.

  Dane! Dane spun, caught the arm that was swinging the club at his head and plunged the knife into the man’s eye socket, yanking the blade free and turning again even as the man with the copper hair slumped to his knees dead. The hanger swept through the gloom and he twisted aside, clutching his own cloak and hauling it up, snaring the short sword amongst the woollen folds and wrenching it from the clubman, as he scythed the knife across the man’s throat, instinctively ducking a swipe from another club.

  ‘Gut him, Nate!’ the one with Dane’s own rapier squawked. ‘Gut the bastard!’

  The younger copper-haired man had picked up the squat man’s sickle so that he had that in one hand and his club in the other. He stepped forward and Dane flew at him, catching the sickle blade on his
knife and slamming his head into the man’s face. The young man staggered back, blinded, flailing his weapons before him in a desperate defence. Dane went for him, suddenly dropping to the floor with a flurry of knife strikes that made the man mewl as he dropped in a pile, his hamstrings cut.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ the last man shouted. ‘They made us do it. I never laid a finger on her. Or him!’ He gestured down at Joe who was half-sitting against the wall, eyes glowing white.

  ‘You want to kill me with my own sword?’ Dane asked, as though he found the idea almost amusing, beckoning the man on with his knife. Gore was dripping from the blade, Bess saw. ‘Well here I am. Come.’

  The man shook his head and Bess saw the wet stain spread down the legs of his breeches as he wet himself. ‘I won’t fight,’ he said, then threw the sword at Dane’s feet.

  ‘Then you might as well stand still,’ Dane said, striding up and plunging the knife into the man’s chest and twisting it savagely so that the blade lacerated the heart. He pulled it free and wiped it on the dying man’s tunic, then turned to Bess.

  ‘We should go,’ he said. Behind him the man’s eyes rolled in his head, his legs buckled and he thumped to the floor.

  Bess could not move. She was paralysed.

  ‘Up you get, lad,’ Dane said, extending a hand to Joe and hauling him to his feet. Joe pulled away and raised his hands to show he was all right, though his legs were unsteady and his face was a blood- and snot-smeared mess.

  ‘Must I carry you, Bess?’ Dane asked, turning back to her. She knew he would.

  ‘No,’ she said, climbing from the bloodied blankets, trembling fiercely. Five men lay dead or dying. The walls were spattered with blood and there was the smell of faeces again but this time it was sharp and offensive.