by Jason Vail
Stephen saw the men now, two black shapes on the other side of the river. Their horses plunged down the bank and splashed across, rising on the opposite shore, swords gleaming in the moonlight.
Embolden by the hounds, the two men charged through the trees and burst into the clearing more rashly than they should have, for Stephen was ready for them. He threw the spear at the first rider. It caught the man in the chest and he hung precariously in the saddle, while his horse brushed by nearly knocking Stephen down. Stephen saw the man’s face as he tried to pull the spear free: Edgar.
The other man, alerted to danger by what had happened to his companion, reined up. It was Warin Pentre.
Pentre moved his horse around the edges of the clearing, sword at the ready.
Stephen recovered the cloak, which he wrapped around his left arm, and waited to see what would happen next. He regretted throwing the spear. It would have been more use to him now than the sword.
“Here!” Pentre shouted. “Over here! I’ve found him!”
Stephen could not hear the sound of any other pursuit, and he wondered if this was not a bluff. Yet he could not gamble that it was. He had to do something now to beat Pentre, or he would die.
Edgar’s horse had halted at the edge of the clearing. Edgar remained in the saddle, bent over from the weight of the spear. “I can’t get it out,” he muttered.
“Hold on, Edgar,” Pentre said, as he maneuvered his horse in Edgar’s direction.
But Stephen swung the sword at the animal’s head, and Pentre reined it away, while striking back. Pentre’s sword hissed in the air, and missed, coming down with such force that he just avoided cutting his own mount, turning the blade at the last instant so the flat struck rather than the edge. The horse leaped at the impact, as if whipped, and carried Pentre to the opposite side of the clearing before he regained control.
Stephen took this chance to step to Edgar’s side. “Let me help,” he said, as he pulled Edgar to the ground and drew out the spear.
“I’d say thanks,” Edgar gasped, “but fuck you seems more appropriate.”
“Fuck you will do well enough,” Stephen said, turning to face Pentre. “Care to have a go?”
“No,” Pentre said. “I think I’ll wait.”
“Afraid?”
Pentre’s mouth twitched at the insult. But he could not be goaded. “The mark of a good leader is to do the prudent thing, not the rash thing, regardless of his personal feelings. Like I said, I’ll wait.”
“Well, then, while I have you here, tell me about what happened at Onibury. Surely you remember it. Last November. Seven dead, including a child. Hard to forget something like that.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why did you kill them?”
“We were told not to leave witnesses.”
“Who told you that?”
“That, I’m afraid, is none of your business.”
“But why the child? He wasn’t old enough to identify you.”
“I told the fellows that. But its crying was tiresome.”
“So you killed him to shut him up?”
“Not I. Edmund did. He’s rather good at that sort of thing, and enjoys it.”
“Killing what doesn’t fight back.”
“Every man has his weaknesses. Edmund’s is that he doesn’t fight very well. I’m afraid he never will. A streak of cowardice, you know, to his father’s shame. But he has his uses.”
The sound of voices came distantly through the trees, drawn to the baying of the hounds, which had not stopped their clamor.
“It will be over soon,” Pentre said. “I think I’ll have you buried here. It’s a nice spot.”
“What? You’re not preserving me for the earl?”
“Not after this,” Pentre said, eyes on Edgar.
That was an unguarded moment, for Pentre looked upon Edgar with real affection and sadness, as he struggled for his last breaths, the wound making terrible sucking sounds.
Stephen took the moment to pull himself onto Edgar’s horse.
“Go ahead,” Pentre said. “You won’t get far. We’ll catch you in the end.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that yet,” Stephen replied. He dug his heels into the horse’s sides, wishing for spurs, but it responded well enough and bounded across the clearing directly at Pentre, as Stephen couched the spear under his arm and settled himself deep into the saddle fearful that an impact would throw him off the horse. Pentre brought his sword to his left shoulder, point in the air, ready to parry Stephen’s thrust.
As Pentre’s sword swept down to knock the blow aside, Stephen pulled the spear back and dropped the point to the horse’s neck. The stab might not be fatal, but the horse shied violently away, sideways and out from under Pentre, who fell heavily.
Edgar’s horse wanted to continue into the trees, but Stephen reined its head around, ducking low to avoid being swept off by a branch.
He slid off the horse and struck Pentre, who was just rising to one knee, on the head with the spear shaft. Pentre collapsed on his stomach, unconscious.
Glancing at the surviving dogs, which paced nervously on the opposite side of the clearing, Stephen retrieved Pentre’s sword. It was small compensation for his trouble, seeing as he had lost his own, but would have to do.
“I suppose there is something to this curse,” he murmured, thinking of the ring on the thong around his neck, as he mounted Edgar’s horse. “It’s brought you bad luck twice now.” And me at least once, he considered, wondering if he should throw it into the forest. He resisted that impulse and looked around for Pentre’s mount, but his horse had disappeared.
“Sorry about the horse!” Stephen called, as he took his directions from the moon, turning east, and continued through the forest upon gently rising ground. Somewhere ahead was a road, and he was eager to find it.
Chapter 25
In under a quarter hour, Stephen came to a well-maintained road shining white in the moonlight. When you are a stranger to a place, it is hard to tell what roads go where, but this could only be the high road out of Leintwardine.
The road went north. After a short distance, it forked, one branch continuing northward, while the other bent to the east. To go north was to stay within the Honor of Clun. All the manors and villages along it belonged to the Earl of Arundel. He considered what to do for a moment. The baying of the dogs was still audible to the west. It was hard to tell if they were following him. The dogs surely could catch the horse if they had a mind to do it, but he felt much better mounted than on foot. Stephen went right.
Stephen did not know this country, having never been along this road, although he knew one connected Leintwardine and Bromfield, and he prayed as he trotted onward, moving as quickly as he dared push the horse, that this was the way. But how far he had to go, he had no idea. Not far, he thought, not far.
It was a punishing ride. He was miserably tired and cold despite the stolen cloak, for it was as dripping wet as his coat and stockings. His arm could barely hold the spear, but he lacked the courage to cast it away. He had known men who, in the desperation of the retreat, had thrown away their spears and shields, and who in the brief time remaining to them had surely come to regret it. But worst was the shrieking of his back. The wounds broke open from the jolting and the grinding of his shirt upon them, and he felt dribbles of blood running down to collect at his waist. Let it be over, he thought. Please, let it be over.
After no more than an hour, he reached the end of the road. It met another just above a wooden bridge, and even in the moonlight, he knew the place: Bromfield. A track just to the right led to the Benedictine priory and the Church of Saint Mary. Even though it was the middle of the night, they would give him sanctuary and rest and tend to his back. They were used to travelers arriving late at night.
But he did not stop.
Nor did he turn south for Ludlow, even though his bed in the garret room which he shared with pigeons called to him. It was only four miles
away; he could be there in under an hour. Yet he was not finished with his work. He turned the horse north toward Shrewsbury.
Stephen knew the exact distance to Shrewsbury almost down to the footstep — twenty-six and a half miles — and each step along the way was agony, each jolt of the saddle torture, his shirt a devilish device more cunning and terrible than any machine made by man, the cold due to the fact he was sopping from his dunking in that stream more penetrating than the most ferocious gale. Even his missing toes were not spared. Spikes of pain shot through them up his leg, leaving trails of red sparks across his field of vision. His teeth chattered so much that he thought they’d wake those in the dark houses he passed. He paused only once to wring the water out of his cloak and clothes. They were giving him such a chill that standing naked was almost warmer than being clad. The wrung clothes brought some relief when he got them back on, though the boots remained sodden and never dried out, and he hated wet boots almost as much as he hated a certain crown justice.
Familiar landmarks passed by unnoticed: the huddle of Onibury; the spot by the river where he and Gilbert had found the dead from the robbery, Stokesay somewhere off to the left beyond its fields; the crossroad where he and Gilbert had turned toward Clun during the autumn; villages whose names he couldn’t remember lying as if deserted; passing under the old abandoned castle upon its hill south of Church Stretton , saplings sprouting out of the embankment; through Church Stretton’s wide market, the ruts in the dirt etched as though in a drawing, a single light showing behind a shutter as if someone was up despite the hour; through the clusters of houses sealed against the night at Dorrington and Bayton. At last, the road descended and he smelled the stink of potters’ works.
Coleham reared out of the dark, and he surprised a woman hurrying along the way. She was as equally startled and ran off between two houses, no doubt up to no good. But it was not his concern, and he turned onto the path along the river, grasping the pommel of the saddle now in an effort not to topple off, for it he fell, he would surely die there before morning.
He heard voices raised in what sounded like singing from the Augustine priory across the river. Was it that late — time for prime already? Dawn had not yet shown itself. Then he remembered that the monks often woke in the third hour before dawn for yet another of their devotions, Matins, he thought it was, glad that he was not a monk. At least you had to get up only once during the night for guard duty and didn’t have to sing unless you needed it to keep you awake, although most sergeants of his acquaintance discouraged singing since it gave warning to any evildoers of the guard’s presence.
He took a wrong turn in the dark where the path forked, and continued along the riverbank, where boats were drawn up on the shore like great beached animals to avoid the toll on the other side of the river. Someone in one of the boats called out, “Who’s that?”
“Not the watch,” Stephen replied, thinking that in fact this fellow was the watchman hired to keep an eye on the boats and any property they held. The stealing of boats was a popular sport along England’s rivers, so they had to be minded as much as a man’s horse. “Mind your own business.”
“Anyone who passes is my business.”
“Well, I’m gone now, so go back to sleep,” Stephen called back over his shoulder.
Saint George Bridge, that impressive structure of red stone that looked better when the sunlight showed off its color, loomed ahead, glowing a dull gray under a moon that was now sinking to the west, throwing its last light into his face. Stephen came onto the road at the foot of the tower guarding this side of the bridge. The passage through the tower was a black maw, but there was enough light to see that the drawbridge within it was up, as it should be this time of night when no one was supposed to be about but felons and agents of the devil. There should have been a guard on watch, but no one called down to ask his business. He turned left, the aroma of urine and tannic acid in his nostrils. Despite the fact these scents had a tendency to make you gag, he was glad to smell them at last, for they meant he was almost there.
The street curved away to the left, lined with low houses except for the stone box that was Saint John’s Hospital, smelling of latrines and the ash from fires that never went out. The horse, tired from its exertions, could barely plod up the modest rise from the river, so Stephen slid off and walked the rest of the way.
At last, he reached the inn. He recognized it not from its sign, but from the shape of the house, an L with the top end against the street and the stable next to it across its yard. As much as he wanted to curl up and sleep, he unsaddled and untacked the horse, and put him in a vacant stall with hay, oats, and a bucket of water as his reward for the night’s work. He had been a good horse and had done more than anyone would expect of him on a night like this.
Then he crossed the yard to the front door. There was no use knocking. No one would be up, and the proprietor would be angry at being awakened. It was not unusual for innkeepers to find people sleeping in the yard come dawn.
Stephen leaned the spear against a wall, crouched on the stoop, and wrapped the cloak around himself. His clothes had dried after a fashion, so the cold was not as punishing as it had been, but it was cold enough that his misery did not much abate.
Finally, he slept.
Chapter 26
An innkeeper’s boy woke Stephen with a push that sent him sprawling on his face.
“For God’s sake, man, have a care!” Stephen groaned. “If you want my business, you’ll be more polite.”
“You are in the way,” the boy said with some urgency. “Just be glad I don’t give you a dousing.” He descended to the yard and headed toward the road, bearing two chamber pots, which he poured into a tub, the sort of thing many people left out for the night soil workers to collect for the tanners and the farmers.
Stephen tried to stand, but could not and had to crawl to the door, where he managed to pull himself up, and even then he tottered if he let go of the wall. He ached in every fiber and his back screamed.
As the boy returned, Stephen asked, “Is there a Gilbert Wistwode staying here?”
“And I suppose you expect me to wake him?” the boy replied, heading deeper into the inn.
“I would expect that,” Stephen said.
“Top of the stairs, to the right,” the boy said as he climbed the stairs. “Wake him yourself, but mind the draper. He’s got a temper and he was out late last night.”
Stephen lurched from one table to the next. A women bent over the fire in the fireplace glanced his way with some alarm.
“You sick?” she asked. People were often afraid of the sick. No one really knew how disease passed from one person to another, but one common thought was it passed upon the air, so people liked to stay away from the ill in case they caught whatever ailed them by their mere scent or breath.
“No,” Stephen said, “just beaten up.”
“You look sick.”
“I just need to lie down.”
“Not in one of our beds!”
“That was the idea. Don’t worry, I’m not about to die in it.”
The woman did not seem convinced, but by this time, Stephen had reached the stair. The fact that he had to climb on all fours like a dog did not persuade the woman that he was well.
Stephen reached the top of the stairs and paused. He felt so wobbly that he feared he might fall. He couldn’t remember which room he and Gilbert had occupied. He thought it was the second on the right, but when he reached it and raised his hand to knock, the boy collecting chamber pots emerged from a room down the hallway and said, “Not that one. The next one down.”
“Thanks,” Stephen murmured, and tottered as best he could to the next door.
He did not have to knock, for a small young man flung open the door and rushed into the hallway, sending Stephen reeling. Had another wall not been there, he would have fallen, but even then it was no sure thing.
“Out of the way, fool,” the little man said. “I’m late.�
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In normal times, Stephen — or anyone else for that matter — would have taken offense at such deliberate discourtesy, but he was in no position to object. All he could think of was the bed that awaited beyond the door. Had the innkeeper demanded gold for it, he would gladly have pledged to pay whatever sum was demanded.
There was only one bed in the room, and Gilbert was sitting upon it, stark naked. It was not unusual for people to sleep naked, but when they had to share a bed with a stranger, it was not often done out of fear of accusations of immodesty.
Gilbert squinted at Stephen as he stumbled across the short distance that separated them and collapsed upon the bed beside him.
“At least you’re alive,” Gilbert said.
“What do you know about it?” Stephen muttered, face down on the blanket.
Gilbert patted him on the thigh. “Well, it’s good to see you, even if you are in a state.”
“That hurts too.”
“I suppose at some point you’ll tell me the story. A sad one of disappointment and tragedy, no doubt.”
“And at some point you will tell me you told me so.”
“I don’t think I have to, from the look of you. You already know I was right. What did they do, by the way, although I don’t want to spoil the story by jumping ahead.”
“They beat me. With singlesticks.”
“Ah. Well, those things can be dreadful. Let’s have a look.”
“I’m not moving. I’ve been up all night and I insist on rest.”
“You can rest while I dress.”
Stephen, who did not crack his eyes, heard moving around, and at last Gilbert knelt on the bed. He tugged at Stephen’s coat and shirt. “Come on now, don’t make me cut them off. I don’t want to ruin this fine suit of clothes, cheap as they are.”