Death of a Squire (20 page)

For a moment Jack almost let self-pity engulf him, the feeling that fate had once again played him false, mischievously letting the double prize come so close to being in his grasp before snatching it away, but he shook his head and forced himself to control his despair. For now, he was safe, as was his cache of silver. He had built up a band before; he would do it again. Time enough when the winter was over. Until then he and his two men would be snug enough here. Yes, when spring came, all would be well once more.

His thoughts were interrupted by the return of his companions. Later Jack realised that he should have known something was amiss by the way they came in almost silently, with not a word of greeting or a look at each other. But, at the time, his thoughts were elsewhere and only the game they had brought in—two small hares, a hedgehog and a badger—caught his notice briefly. Nor did he pay much attention when they started a small fire and damped it down with turf after burying the game, wrapped in leaves, beneath the flames. It wasn’t until the food was done, barely cooked but edible, that he observed there was something shifty about the way his two cohorts were eyeing him across the fire.

“What’s up?” he asked, his hand straying stealthily to the dagger at his belt.

“Nothin’, Jack,” replied Warin, the older of the two, a tall thickset man with a nose that had been slit for stealing. “We were just wondering what you reckon on doin’ now.”

“What need is there to do anything?” Jack responded. “We’re safe enough here and there’ll be plenty of game in the woods to do us through the winter. What do we lack with food in our bellies and a dry spot to lay our heads?”

“There are other bands in Sherwood,” put in the other bowman eagerly, a youngster named Geraint, who had escaped into Sherwood when the hue and cry had been set after him in Nottingham after he had killed a man in a drunken brawl. “In the southwest; we could join one of them. Short Shank’s maybe. He’s always looking for men that are good with a bow.”

“Aye,” said Jack. “That’s because he can’t pull one himself.”

The jest did not produce a smile on the faces of the two men. They looked first at each other, then at him. Finally Warin said, “We’re not of a mind to stay here, Jack, not all winter long. Aye, it’s snug enough, but there’s no ale, and there’s no women.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “For a week or two, maybe, but not for the long months ‘til spring. We’ve decided, Geraint and me, that we’ll head south. Join another band, or forage on our own, if need be. We’ll not spend the winter pent up in here like monks in their cubbyholes.”

Jack stood up. “Well, you’d best go then. I’ll not deny I’d expected more loyalty from you, but ale and women are as powerful a lure as any to a man. I wish you good fortune.”

Still the two men stood there and the tenseness in their stance made the hackles rise on the back of Jack’s neck. His hand found his dagger and he pulled it free, but his movement was not quick enough. Both Geraint and Warin had arrows nocked to their bows, the barbed tips pointing at his chest.

“We’ve no wish to harm you, Jack,” Warin said, “but we’ll need a little silver to pay our way until we’ve earned some of our own. Ale does not come cheap even if women do, and I doubt whether Short Shanks will provide us with either unless he sees we have something to share that will prove our good faith.” He motioned with his head and Geraint moved a little to one side. “Now, we knows that you has silver here, for you would not have left it behind at our old camp if you had stowed it there, so here it must be. And we wants it.”

“What makes you think I have any silver at all?” Jack asked, trying not to sound intimidated. “The pickings have been lean these last months.”

Warin laughed, a dry hacking sound. “If you hasn’t any, then that’s your misfortune, for if you come up with nowt, then I reckon as how we’ll have to kill you. All we’re asking of you is what we ask of any we rob—pay up or give us your life. Now that’s fair, ain’t it, Jack?”

As Geraint took another step, Jack took his chance and threw his knife at Warin, diving to one side as he did so. As he rolled he snatched at a thick length of tree branch, hearing an arrow thud into the log on which he had been sitting moments before. Straightening, he saw that Warin had fallen face-first across the fire and Geraint, white with fear, was in the act of fitting another arrow to his bow. Jack swung the branch, loosing it as it reached the apex of its arc and it slammed into Geraint’s left arm, knocking him backwards into a stumble so that his arrow misfired and flew low, piercing the meaty part of Jack’s thigh. Ignoring the pain, Jack was on the bowman in a trice, knocking him to the ground and pushing the tree branch across the young man’s neck. It took only a few moments’ struggle before he ceased to move, his windpipe crushed.

As quickly as he could, Jack rolled, cursing the stab of pain that shot up into his groin as he did so, to see if Warin had recovered. It was with a sigh of relief that Jack realised the older archer had not moved. Already an acrid stink was beginning to fill the air from the scorching of his flesh and clothes. Jack pushed him off the burning embers and turned him over. The dagger had taken him clean in the heart. He was as dead as Geraint.

W
HEN
F
ULCHER PULLED HIMSELF FROM THE RIVERBANK
he travelled quickly and quietly back to the place where Green Jack had been making his camp on the day that Fulcher and the others had left the band, praying it had not been moved in the interim. It was full dark now and the wet rags he wore clung to him like freezing fingers of river weed, bringing shivers to his body whenever he paused to catch his breath and bearings. He kept the Templar’s dagger in his hand, wary not only of being discovered by Jack’s men, but of wolves. Once or twice he glimpsed a shadowy shape moving amongst the trees, but they drifted away at his approach, proving to be only small animals as fearful as himself. Above him a nearly full moon shone a silver light through the bare branches of the trees, showing him the path he sought clear like a snail’s track through the forest. The rain had ceased but it had grown colder, and there would be frost before morning. He hoped he was either warm or dead by then. He might be both, perhaps. The teachings of the church warned that the flames of hell were as hot as the heart of the sun.

When he came to the dell where the camp had been situated, he took care not to let his presence be known until, by peering through the surrounding foliage, he could see a few people were still gathered there. Only women and children seemed to be huddled in the small glow of a dying fire, but then he noticed that on the periphery of the dim circle of light were two of the younger men of the band, sitting hunched over on the ground and staring into the dark. All looked forlorn and miserable, and there was no sign of Jack or any of his bowmen.

Fulcher straightened and walked into the enclosure. At the noise of his approach, a few of the women started up in fear, clutching their children to them, while the two men bolted upright, one clutching a stout wooden club in one hand while the other brandished a piece of rusted iron that had once protected the wheel of a cart.

“Peace,” Fulcher said as he went up to them, mindful of their nervous glances at the dagger in his hand and of the fear on the faces of the two boys, as well as the countenances of the women.

“We didn’t know the bowmen were going to shoot at you, Fulcher,” one of the young men blurted out, the one with the old shard of wheel rim clutched in his fist. “Jack only told us we was to lure the Templar to our side of the river and then we’d get to hold him for ransom as well as loose you from Sheriff Camville. ‘Twould be a double victory, he said, with plenty of silver paid as ransom for the Templar. I swear, he never said aught of playing you false….”

“He’s telling the truth, Fulcher, ‘though I don’t suppose you’ll believe me,” one of the women interjected. She had most likely once been very pretty, but now weeping sores covered her face and neck, and her hair, a matted tangle of grime, hung lank around her shoulders. “Jack told us just what Will said—the women and those of the lads who weren’t one of his trusted bowmen, that is. Said it would be a great victory over the sheriff to get you out of his clutches and hold the Templar for ransom besides. Black-hearted liar that he is, we believed him. Even cheered him for being so bold on behalf of you, an old enemy. Well, do to us what you will, Fulcher. Our men are gone, all except for Will and young Thomas here. There’s no one to hunt, or keep us safe. We’ve naught to face but starvation or being eaten by wolves. If you’ve a mind to kill us, at least it’ll be a quick death.”

Some of the children started crying at her words, burying their faces in their mothers’ bosoms. Fulcher hunkered down by the fire, laying his knife between his feet. “I’ve no mind to hurt any of you,” he said. “Tell me what happened at the riverbank. Were all the men taken by the sheriff? Where is Green Jack?” As he spoke he reached out to the warmth of the fire, holding his hands in plain sight.

Reassured by his manner, a babble of voices broke out as they explained what had happened, how the sheriff and his soldiers had burst from the wood and captured or killed most of the men, and how the Templar had retrieved his servant and got away.

“Me and Thomas only escaped because we were at the back, hidden in the bushes,” Will said. “When the horsemen rode out from the north, on our side of the river, they had swords and maces. Dropped our men like they was a rack of skittles at a village fair.” He looked down, shamefaced. “We ran. I had only this”—he lifted up the club, which he had laid across his knees—”and Thomas’s weapon was not much better. We just ran and kept going until we couldn’t hear the fighting anymore. Then we made our way back here.”

“And Jack? Do you know if he was taken with the others?” Fulcher asked.

Another woman spoke. Heavily pregnant, she was sitting on the ground near the fire, an old rag drawn around her head and shoulders for a shawl. Her eyes were dull, uncaring. Fulcher remembered that she had once been Jack’s doxy. “Not him,” she said. “Not Green Jack. Never even came near the fight, just stayed back and let the others carry out the devil’s plan he had made.”

“How do you know that?” Fulcher asked, nodding with thanks as one of the other women passed him a rough wooden mug filled with watered ale heated over the fire. Talli’s sister, he noted; Talli and Berdo must have been among those taken by the sheriff.

“Followed him, didn’t we?” Now it was the first woman who had spoken that piped up. “Well, I did, anyway. Mary, here, she couldn’t keep up, what with her belly being so big.”

“Followed him to where?”

“When all the men left, with the boy, to where they was to meet the Templar, I saw Jack go off in a different direction, with Warin and Geraint. I heard him tell the others that he would meet them in a little while, that he was going to make sure the sheriff’s men had not got onto our side of the river.”

She stopped and picked at one of the sores on her chin, then continued, “Me and Mary thought it was strange, for he went
upstream
, not down, and there’s no ford there for the soldiers to cross, not without making a commotion. So we went after them. I saw Jack climb up into a tree, high, the way he does, and thought at first that maybe he was doing what he said and could see better from up there. But he didn’t come down. And Warin and Geraint waited at the bottom. Never stirred towards where the other men were.”

“Then the noise of fighting at the riverbank started.” Mary took up the tale, her voice still listless. “I was scared, but I waited until Leila came back, and then we ran here as fast as we could. Then Will and Thomas turned up.” She nodded in the boys’ direction. “We all just stayed here. We didn’t know what else to do. We couldn’t run, not with the children. Besides, where would we go? We thought that if the soldiers came and found us, it’d be no worse a fate than being a meal for the wolves.”

“So you don’t know where Jack is?” Fulcher asked, his anger at the outlaw leader beginning to burn bright again.

“Only that he probably made his way south,” Leila said. “Wouldn’t go north, would he? Sherwood’s trees peter out a few leagues that way and he’d be in open country. He likes to be deep in the greenwood, does Jack.”

“In the morning, will you show me the tree that he climbed?” Fulcher asked Leila.

She nodded, puzzlement on her face. “I will, but I doubt you’ll track him. He’s too canny, and too much of a coward, to be caught.”

“That’s exactly what I’m hoping he’ll think, Leila,” Fulcher replied.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, N
ICOLAA WAS UP LONG BEFORE
dawn, working. In front of her lay neat piles of parchment containing lists of stores, tallies of candles and bed linen, countings of cups and tableware. All of these she was checking and rechecking. This was her forte; here she knew her work and knew it well. All was prepared for the king’s visit and for his meeting with William of Scotland. In and out of her room the castle staff came and went—steward, wardrobe keeper, butler, laundress—from the highest servant to the lowest, as she heard from each the progress of their duties. Every one of her servants knew they would feel her displeasure if they were lax. Unlike Gerard, Nicolaa’s disapproval was icy and spare of words, but final. If any were indolent, or lied, never again would they have a place in her retinue, nor a good word said for them in Lincoln town.

In a separate pile of parchment lay the messages she had received from King John. Alongside it was notification from the abbot at Torksey of the Scottish monarch’s safe arrival, which included a separate list of the names of the lords in his retinue and the number of his retainers. There was also a letter from the Templar preceptor in London, telling her that Bishop Hugh was
in extremis
and was not expected to retain his life for as long as it would take the letter to reach her. In a corner behind her, at a small lectern, one of her clerks was penning a fair copy of the replies she was sending to both men. The guard on the gate tower had been instructed that she was to be informed immediately the king’s entourage was sighted on the approach to Lincoln, and she had runners waiting on the road from Nottingham to let her know of John’s progress from that city. She could find nothing she had forgotten. All was in readiness, yet still a throbbing kept on at her temples, like a small drum, banging as though to draw her attention to some detail she had forgotten. She thought she knew what it was, this nagging warning of dereliction, yet it was something that all her care and efficiency could not remedy. It was the unresolved matter of the squire’s death.

How soon would some courtier, looking for advancement, or to displace her and her family from favour, whisper in John’s ear of the rumour that surrounded Hubert’s hanging? She had known John since he was just a child, with herself only a few span of years older. She knew how suspicious he was, how he saw devils in every corner, treachery in a glance or a carelessly spoken word. And she had seen him take his revenge, not boldly like his brother Richard, or with measured justice like his father, but with a sly quietness, feigning naivety and friendship, then thrusting retribution when it was least expected. For all that John valued her, and she him, he would strike without compunction at Gerard or, heaven forfend, her son.

She wished desperately that there was some way she could quash this rumour about Hubert, but without proof of the identity of his murderer, and the reason for it, gossip would run rampant. Blaming outlaws would be seen by John for the lame excuse it was and dismissed. As would the possibility that the villagers had killed him for attempting to defile one of their womenfolk. She shook her head to clear it. Ruminating thus would bring no profit and would only encourage the ache in her head to strengthen.

She had been meaning to look into the matter that Ernulf had mentioned to her about Copley. She had already had her clerk bring the relevant documents to her chamber and had asked her bailiff to speak to the regarder for the area, a local knight whose task it was to inspect the royal forest for infringements. The bailiff had reported his findings to her steward that morning. Now, she called to her clerk to bring the letters he had completed along with all the other papers, and to light another candle. Hard work had always given her comfort in times of trial. It was a medication she would apply now.

I
N
E
RNULF’S CHAMBER IN THE BARRACKS
B
ASCOT AND
Gianni were breaking their fast. Both master and servant had missed the morning service of Mass, Bascot deciding that the boy needed sleep more than anything else after his ordeal and, reluctant to leave the lad’s side, he had said his own prayers, including one of fervent thanksgiving for the boy’s safe recovery, while quietly kneeling by his pallet. When Gianni had awoken, Bascot had given him a few strips of salted beef left in the chamber from the day before, along with some ale to wash it down. For himself, Bascot made do with coarse bread and a piece of goat’s cheese from Ernulf’s private store.

“Are you recovered enough now, Gianni, to tell me why you were out in the forest on your own?” Bascot asked, trying to sound stern. He knew he should berate the lad, but having so recently come near to losing him, he could not find it in his heart to be angry.

Gianni looked down, his jaws almost ceasing their avid chewing of the meat. “I know you must have had a good reason for leaving the castle without telling anyone where you were going,” Bascot continued, “but I still must know what it was.”

Gianni looked up at his master, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. With a sigh he reached for the small casket that contained the writing materials on which he practiced his letters. Slowly, and with great care, he wrote a few lines, then gave the scrap of parchment to the Templar to read.

J
UST AS DAWN ANNOUNCED ITSELF BY A SLIGHT LIGHTENING
in the heavy sky, Godfroi de Tournay was spurring his mount towards Nottingham. He had spent a sleepless night tossing his worries about Hubert’s death to and fro, and had come to no resolution. Finally he had decided that he could not, would not, wait for the accusation of treason to be levelled at his family. He would go to see King John, not to confess, but rather to express his outrage at the rumour that was being bruited abroad. For the moment, he had the king’s favour; if he could couch his anger in convincing enough tones he was sure John would believe him. To wait for another to level the allegation would be folly; far better to bring it out into the open himself, and pray the king did not see through his ruse. He wished he had time to find his brother and consult with him, but he did not. Ralph had been away from home inspecting a property many miles away that included buildings in dire need of repair when he and Richard had gone to Boston. It was unlikely he had yet returned. By the time he found Ralph, the king would be in Lincoln and the de Tournay cause lost. He would have to act as he thought best and hope that God would show him mercy and, at the same time, protect him.

I
N THE WARD OF
L
INCOLN CASTLE
, W
ILLIAM
C
AMVILLE
and Richard de Humez stood beside the sheriff and watched the shuffling row of outlaws, the reeve’s nephew amongst them, being shepherded towards the south wall of the castle by Ernulf and a contingent of his men-at-arms. At Gerard’s feet two of the castle dogs, large boarhounds, sat alertly watching the prisoners. They resembled their master, broad of chest and heavy of jaw, and looked up at him from time to time as though waiting for his command to attack.

“Stretch their necks on long ropes, Ernulf, so they dangle well over the battlements,” Gerard commanded. “I would have their bodies in plain view of the king when he arrives. He will then know that I keep the peace in Lincoln and keep it well.”

“Are you sure this is wise, Gerard?” William asked. “Would it not be better to wring a confession to Hubert’s murder out of one of them before they are despatched? You still need an answer for the boy’s death to give to the king, as it is certain he will ask for one.”

De Humez shuffled restlessly as William waited for his brother’s answer. This matter of the squire’s murder and Nicolaa’s questioning of his own culpability was making him uneasy.

“If I did that, William,” the sheriff said to his brother, “it would seem I had need to find a scapegoat, one that was conveniently dead.”

“There is another side to that argument,” William declared. “It might be said that one of these men was paid by you to kill the boy and, by hanging him so summarily, you sought to guarantee his silence.”

Gerard turned and glowered at his brother. “Whatever is said will be said. I am tired of plots and manoeuvres to gain royal favour, or to dispel distrust. I am sheriff. These men are outlaws. It is my duty to hang them, and hang them I will.”

William knew better than to push his brother further. He stood silently by as, one after another, the brigands had a noose placed around their necks and were thrown over the castle wall.

A
S THE CHURCH BELLS RANG OUT THE HOUR OF
T
IERCE,
Melisande Fleming was giving her daughter a thrashing. The girl whimpered as the thin rod struck her back and buttocks, but she did not cry out.

“You will tell me why you were at the castle yesterday. And you will tell me who you went there to meet.”

Still the girl remained silent and Melisande signalled to the two female servants holding her daughter to stretch her out farther. Again the rod fell, this time catching her shoulder and biting through the thin material of the only garment she wore, a shift of fine linen.

“Joanna,” her mother said, her bosom heaving from her efforts, “I will beat you senseless if I have to, you know that. Tell me his name.”

The girl lifted her head from where it had drooped between her shoulders. “Then beat me senseless you will have to, Mother. Or kill me, I care not. For I will not tell you.”

J
UST A LITTLE BEFORE
S
EXT, UNDER A LOWERING SKY
, Bascot and Gianni were approaching the village where Edward’s uncle was reeve. The gateward, a small skinny youngster with a pimple-scarred face, gave them admittance. Inside the enclave all was still, and the sound of women sobbing could be clearly heard. No one came to greet the Templar and Bascot sent a boy who was tending a flock of geese to fetch Father Samson. When the old man came up the path from the church his steps were slow, and his face wet with tears.

“Greetings, Sir Bascot,” he said unsteadily. “You must excuse myself and the villagers if we seem discourteous today. We have been told of Edward and his involvement with the outlaws, and that he is being punished for his crimes at this very hour. His family is sorely grieved. None of us had any knowledge that he was party to such deviltry.”

“You may not have been privy to it, Father, but his family surely was.”

The old man lifted his rheumy eyes to Bascot. “Oh no, my lord. They were not. Of that I am certain.”

Bascot got down from his horse and went up to the elderly priest. “Father, your duty to God binds you to see the good in men. Yet where there is good, there can also be evil. Believe me when I say that Edward was not the only man of this village to consort with the outlaws, even if the others did so unwillingly. I will have the truth from them, and if I do not, I will let the sheriff extract it by force.”

Samson’s mouth fell open at Bascot’s words, then he clamped it shut along with his eyes and mumbled a prayer under his breath, fingering the plain wooden cross that hung from a leather thong around his neck. “May God forgive them if you speak true, Sir Bascot. And me also, for I have failed in my duty as shepherd of this small flock.”

“Bring all the men into the church, Father, and the milkmaid, Bettina,” Bascot said kindly to the distressed priest. “And there you and I will together hope that your errant parishioners will finally give truthful answers to my questions.”