Marked to Die

by Sarah Hawkswood

  He did not care whether it could be proved or not. He already had his plan of escape forming in his head. The cold steel of the knife pricked to keep Christina silent.

  ‘The man, Reginald, did not come up with this alone, for your men,’ Bradecote was drawing a bow at a venture here, ‘were used, and he has not sold the salt, so he would not have money to buy the services of the Archer.’

  ‘Very interesting, but mere speculation. You know, I think I preferred Fulk de Crespignac as undersheriff. He did not meddle where he was not needed.’

  ‘We also have the testimony of the man himself,’ growled Catchpoll.

  De Malfleur was a cool one, he would give him that, thought Catchpoll, though he saw him as the sort who did things for the sheer excitement. Such men could be unpredictable, seeing just how far they could go, prepared to stake everything.

  Walkelin had taken in the situation at a glance and made a big decision when they had first arrived, sending Reginald and a man-at-arms immediately back, outside the gatehouse. It received the briefest recognition from Serjeant Catchpoll. As Walkelin correctly saw it, there was a stand-off and Reginald would be something de Malfleur would want out of the way, permanently. He had caught sight of him for certain, and that was enough. The situation was finely balanced. De Malfleur’s men, taken off guard, might be twice in number, but were not leaping to their lord’s defence. They seemed to stand back from the proceedings, watchful, prepared to act only if commanded or threatened. The men from Cookhill looked uncertain, seeing their lady with a knife at her throat and blood oozing down to the neck of her gown. De Malfleur’s smile became a little more fixed, but he had confidence that he would still make his escape, and in style. It would add to the notoriety he would leave behind. He would still be the bigger legend than Arnulf.

  Hugh Bradecote was trying desperately to keep up the appearance of total calm, though his insides were churning and his mouth was dry. He did not want to look Christina in the eye, for fear that de Malfleur would see the unspoken connection between them even more. The bastard seemed to have an inkling, but that might have been pure guesswork, hoping it would hit home if true. The more he knew she meant to him the greater the risk to her life. Yet he wanted to look at her to tell her, as little as he felt it, that all would be well, and that he would save her, somehow. The blood on her pale skin taunted him with his impotence.

  Catchpoll sensed the desperation in the man beside him. Bradecote was doing well in the circumstances, for it must be hard to keep the outer shell of calm with the woman you had uppermost in your thoughts at the point of a blade wielded by a man perfectly happy to use it. Most men used a hostage simply as a shield. De Malfleur did so also because he enjoyed the power of life … and death. The serjeant watched him as a cat did a mouse, assessing the next move from the tiniest hint. Years of people watching had taught the wily Catchpoll nearly all the signs, and de Malfleur was giving off bad ones. He had little hope that it would work, but he tried using the paternal voice of calm reason.

  ‘Give yourself up quiet, like. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.’

  Why the man should give himself up to the noose, he had no idea, but sometimes it just worked.

  De Malfleur laughed openly.

  ‘Of course there is somewhere to go, there always is. The world is very large, and this piddling shire very small, though it is all the world you may ever see, Serjeant.’

  Bradecote made a decision.

  ‘Let her go, de Malfleur, and you may leave unharmed.’

  ‘Forgive me if I doubt that. You look a pathetically honest soul, but trusting you with my life seems, shall we say, rather dangerous. No, far safer to take the lady with me. So you will provide me with a horse, yours from preference, since you do at least seem a good judge of horseflesh, and I shall depart, with any men who choose to follow me.’ He glanced over the men-at-arms, all watching to see how this would end. ‘The lady comes with me to ensure you comply, and you have not the time to dither. Just remember, my knife will slip at the first drawing of a blade.’ He grinned, looking at Bradecote’s impotent rage. ‘Oh, it is very frustrating for you, no doubt, since you would love to play the hero, but truly, there is nothing you can do, Bradecote, nothing anyone can do.’

  ‘Except a good man with a bow,’ a new voice rang out, and from an unexpected place.

  Nobody had seen the Archer slip in through the postern gate, even in a bailey of men. He had travelled across country since the previous evening, undeterred by the darkness, stopping only to doze for an hour or so to rejuvenate his tired body. He had broken his fast with an elderly couple, who had shared their oat broth and been left speechless when their guest had disappeared silently, but having left a scrip heavy with silver, spilt across his stool. The Archer wanted nothing of de Malfleur’s except his blood, and that he had sworn an oath to have.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A single moment of pure fear crossed Baldwin de Malfleur’s face, but then the customary assurance reasserted itself.

  ‘Ah, the Archer. Perhaps I should have guessed you would find out in the end. You had a nasty habit of that, didn’t you? And yet, it was so worth the risk, just to imagine you, you who would want me dead, killing at my behest.’ All pretence of innocence was cast aside. ‘It has such a glorious irony to it, and has given me much pleasure.’ He smiled, a long, feline, and ever so slightly bored, smile.

  ‘I thought you drowned off the Levantine coast, or I would have found you four years ago.’ The Archer’s voice, noted the bound Reginald, with a certain satisfaction, had lost its customary poise. ‘You murdered Ivo of Clent, a fair and Christian lord, foully and under the cloak of battle. I neither know nor care why. For that alone, before all deeds here, you owe a death.’

  ‘Why? Well, I think it was because I could. He was so “caring” and keen to be virtuous, so irksomely noble, it was a relief as well as a pleasure. He kept on about it being “A Duty To God”, and refusing to take what was available. Virtue is vastly overrated.’ Baldwin spoke with total confidence again, and mockery in his voice. He saw one of his own men had taken up a bow and nocked an arrow. ‘The undersheriff here reminds me of him.’ He sneered. ‘And by the way, this lady, whose throat I shall slit anyway, was once my brother’s wife. You happened to kill her second husband on the Feckenham road, for which I thank you most genuinely. I think she liked brother Arnulf as little as did your thieving father, but she may have liked the one who claimed her thereafter.’

  Baldwin was enjoying this now, liking the reactions he was getting from the sheriff’s man and duped bowman, but saw the Archer tense, and spoke swiftly.

  ‘Ah no, Archer, much as you might like to do so, you will not save her, and kill me, because you have a choice, a choice in which there is actually … no choice to be made. You see, there is a man of mine with an arrow nocked and aimed at you. If you loose at me, you will be dead as I fall, assuming you do not hit this fairer target.’

  He moved Christina’s body to cover himself a little better, and his smile broadened. He was not afraid. His man-at-arms was dead meat of course, but that was a mere incidental. The Archer would save himself, for what man would not, unless he was a fool or—

  The thought stopped as the arrow entered through the orbit and pierced his brain. The knife pressing into Christina’s neck pricked and then fell from the dead hand as Baldwin de Malfleur crumpled silently to the ground. As a death it was swift and far better than most of those present thought he deserved.

  The man-at-arms was taken aback for a moment, during which time the Archer had nocked a second arrow, but he recovered in time to loose first. The shot was mortal but not clean, striking the Archer not as he intended, straight through the heart, but just above, a few fingers’ breadth below the collarbone. The force of the impact made the Archer stagger back, as if hit with a sack of flour. The look of vague surprise was replaced by one that, Catchpoll later remarked, seemed more like affront. The Archer took a breath that scarce seemed
to work as the blood filled his lung, steadied himself and, to the man-at-arms’ indescribable horror, took aim.

  ‘Not worthy … to call yourself … archer,’ murmured the Archer, and sent his own steel-tipped ash unerringly to its target. Then, with a sigh, he sank to his knees.

  Christina had not moved, though de Malfleur had fallen behind her. She stood as still as a carved saint in a church niche, her eyes still wide with horror, and a thin trail of blood from below her ear trickling to stain the neck of her gown. Bradecote ran forward as she began to sway, and caught her before she fell, clasping her so tightly to him she could barely breathe. He rested his cheek against hers, and his voice, murmuring in her ear, shook.

  ‘It is all over, all over. You are safe. Oh dear God, I thought I had lost you, Christina, and I could do nothing to aid you. What madness made you come alone, what madness?’

  The anger of relief seized him, and for a moment he could have shaken her, but then it passed. He buried his face in her loosened hair and felt her trembling.

  Catchpoll went to the Archer, now so bowed his forehead would have touched the ground had the protruding arrow not prevented it. He helped him more upright. The eyes, already losing lustre, caught sight of Christina. Struggling as he was to breathe, the Archer tried to call her.

  ‘Lady, no malice … to you or yours. Forgive me.’

  She raised her head and looked at him, then moved to approach, Bradecote’s arm still around her waist, supporting her. She leant down slightly, her pale hand, with the long, delicate fingers, extended in a benediction.

  ‘For life that was lost, a life has been saved, and we share a past at de Malfleur hands. I forgive you, Aelward the Archer.’

  Her voice was low and soft, yet he heard her words and half smiled. His grip upon his bow, which he had still in his hand, tightened.

  ‘Aelward the Archer,’ he repeated, as if remembering something long forgotten, and kissed the tensioned yew, feeling the slight vibration within it. A bow strung, he thought, muzzily, was a live thing, a true and faithful companion. His bow had kept faith with him to the end. ‘I struck true,’ he whispered, and the breath was bubbled with blood.

  ‘You struck true, Archer, no shame to your craft,’ said Catchpoll softly, with understanding, as Aelward died.

  Christina blinked, tears running down her face, and she knew not whether they were for Corbin and the lost baby, herself, or the crumpled form before her.

  ‘I was right to forgive him? Not disloyal to my lord? I had sworn vengeance, but …’ She was suddenly uncertain, confused. ‘There was no hate, was there, and … he killed de Malfleur.’

  Bradecote was lost for words, and it was Catchpoll who found them.

  ‘You did right, my lady. Your lord was a fair man, a man who would understand. All that are born come to death one way or another. It is as it is, and there is something to be said for a quick end against a lingering one. I think he would have forgiven this man.’

  She took a long stuttering breath, as all that was bottled up within her found release in an anguished cry, and her hands covered her face. Her frame shook with wracking sobs. Bradecote wrapped his arms about her, buried his head once more in her tresses and, overwhelmed by the relief of her survival, made no attempt to quieten her. This much he had learnt from being married; there were times when a woman needed to weep. His body supported, comforted, demanded nothing, offered everything.

  Catchpoll, conscious that this was a private moment in very public view, turned to Walkelin, who had led Reginald in on the end of a rope like a hound.

  ‘That one we can hang,’ declared the serjeant, with a mixture of relief and relish. It had already occurred to him that William de Beauchamp would not be best pleased to find the instigator and prime instrument of the killings had evaded the noose by death. Justice had not just to be done, as it had been, but be seen to be done.

  ‘I killed no man upon the King’s highway,’ whimpered Reginald. ‘I only did as my lord instructed, told the Archer where to be, paid the man. I can name the men who took and hid the salt, I can—’

  ‘Yes, and they will hang also, make a pretty show of it in Wich when the Justices come, but even if you were not there getting your hands dirty, ferret-face, you are up to your neck, which will be stretched, for this. And since you will swing for the murder of Walter, the reeve of Wich, whom you assuredly killed, you might as well swing for the rest.’ Catchpoll had warmed to his theme. ‘You’ll get a better crowd for a start.’

  ‘Tie this miserable animal to a post, and make sure he cannot climb on a horse and trot off, for it would be a pity not to have a good hanging out of this,’ he addressed Walkelin, ‘while we set about sorting out this rabble, but get the names of the men who thieved quickly, lest they try and silence him. Guard him, and if he plays games …’ Catchpoll turned and looked about him at the de Malfleur men. With the exception of the single man-at-arms who had taken up a bow, presumably thinking he would receive largesse for saving his lord, all the rest had simply watched and waited. Whatever else he had inspired, de Malfleur had not inspired loyalty in any other than the previously taciturn Reginald.

  The undersheriff still stood by Aelward’s body, the lady he claimed within his hold, oblivious of everything now except her.

  ‘It shames me, that I could do nothing, that I was powerless, Christina, but if I had stepped but one pace forward …’ he whispered.

  ‘I understand, my lord.’ Her voice was unsteady and tearful but she looked up at him and her eyes looked trustingly into his. ‘This is … real, not a nightmare and a dream?’

  ‘Is standing thus the nightmare, lady?’ He smiled tenderly at her, knowing the answer, and the colour returned to her cheeks. ‘You would have me let you go?’

  ‘No, you know this is the dream, it must be a dream. I …’ she frowned, trying to find the words she wanted, ‘… I never wanted, never felt, never knew I could want … Never let me go.’

  She was floundering, and he took pity on her confusion, bending his head to stop the words with his mouth. As once before, he felt her respond.

  ‘When you first kissed me,’ he murmured as he broke away to breathe, ‘my bold Christina, you did not mean it.’

  ‘Not when it began, but then,’ her arm slid around his neck and her voice became the merest sighing breath, ‘I meant it. For the first time in my entire life, I meant it.’

  He kissed her again, and her fingers were in his hair, drawing him deeper. It was dangerous, exciting, and this was, his voice of reason told him, neither the time nor the place. He ignored it. He kissed her cheek, her neck, and tasted the iron of blood.

  ‘I had almost forgotten, you bleed a little, but it is not severe.’

  He let her go for a moment, and, dragging out the hem of his undershirt, used strong teeth and fingers to tear off a strip to make both pad and bandage.

  ‘My lord, your shirt!’

  ‘You may stitch me another. It is a wifely task.’

  He pressed the pad gently over the wound.

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Of course. You think I would hold you as I have, if I did not want you as my wife?’ He laughed, a little unsteadily. ‘With Serjeant Catchpoll probably watching us too?’

  ‘My lord, oh Hugh, you do not object that I am twice a widow, have borne children?’

  ‘No.’ He smiled, winding the bandage about her neck. ‘Very fetching. Christina. You said you had never felt as you do when I kiss you. You have never loved before. I would have you if you had, but that this should be new to you … means it is special. And I had a wife, remember, have a baby son. Ela was a good woman, a loving wife, God rest her soul, and I was fond of her, but, Heaven forgive me, never loved her, never burnt for her, as I do for you.’

  ‘You do? You … burn?’

  ‘I do.’ His arm slipped about her waist once more. ‘Let us hope the lord de Beauchamp, who is my overlord as well as superior, does not simply count the bodies that were buried before
we got to the bottom of this, and gives his support to our union. It is my only concern.’

  Behind him, Catchpoll gave what he considered to be a discreet cough but actually sounded like a beast of burden about to expire. Bradecote rather self-consciously let go his hold upon the lady, who yet leant slightly against him, and turned.

  ‘My lord, we have secured the three men identified by the weasel Reginald. We bring both the other bodies also?’ Catchpoll had little doubt of the answer but it was a way of bringing his superior back to the matter in hand.

  Bradecote looked down at the body of Aelward the Archer.

  ‘It is a pity if we have to take him. De Malfleur I will happily parade before half the shire, and I am sure they will all cheer. The widows in Wich will have little sympathy for the Archer, and who is to blame them. Yet I am glad we did not have to hang him,’ muttered Bradecote, his face suddenly solemn.

  ‘No, my lord, he deserved and got a better justice than that. I’ve been serjeanting a good many years, and once or twice only have I come upon a killer like him. Murderer almost seems the wrong word, if you understands me. He did not do it from greed, nor malice, nor lust for the flesh or power. He did it because he was an archer, and the best, and he was there to follow his craft.’ Catchpoll shook his head. ‘Odd, isn’t it. He would surrender his life to get the justice for his lord, and to save the lady FitzPayne here, hand his coin to a beggar, but drop nine men in their tracks for no more reason than that was what he was paid to do. Had he not come here at this hour, I doubt we would ever have found him, truth to tell. He would have gone to some other shire and been employed as his father was perhaps.’

  ‘Can that not be what happened?’ Christina touched Bradecote’s arm. ‘Would it not be possible to say that de Malfleur was taken by an arrow from Serjeant Catchpoll or your man Walkelin?’