The Pilgram of Hate (23 page)

Then
they heard him. Dogged, steady, laborious steps that stirred the coarse
grasses. In the turfed verge of a highroad he could have gone with less pain
and covered twice the miles he had accomplished on these rough ways. They heard
his heavy breathing while he was still twenty yards away from them, and saw his
tall, dark figure stir the dimness, leaning forward on a long, knotty staff he
had picked up somewhere from among the debris of the trees. It seemed that he
favoured the right foot, though both trod with wincing tenderness, as though he
had trodden askew on a sharp-edged stone, and either cut his sole or twisted
his ankle-joint. He was piteous, if there had been anyone to pity him.

He
went with ears pricked, and the very hairs of his skin erected, in as intense
wariness as any of the small nocturnal creatures that crept and quaked in the
underbrush around him. He had walked in fear every step of the miles he had
gone in company, but now, cast loose to his own dreadful company, he was even
more afraid. Escape was no escape at all.

It
was the extremity of his fear that saved him. They had let him pass slowly by
the first covert, so that Bagot might be behind him, and Poer and Shure one on
either side before him. It was not so much his straining ears as the prickly
sensitivity of his skin that sensed the sudden rushing presence at his back,
the shifting of the cool evening air, and the weight of body and arm launched
at him almost silently. He gave a muted shriek and whirled about, sweeping the
staff around him, and the knife that should have impaled him struck the branch
and sliced a ribbon of bark and wood from it. Bagot reached with his left hand
for a grip on sleeve or coat, and struck again as nimbly as a snake, but missed
his hold as Ciaran leaped wildly back out of reach, and driven beyond himself
by terror, turned and plunged away on his lacerated feet, aside from the path
and into the deepest and thickest shadows among the tangled trees. He hissed
and moaned with pain as he went, but he ran like a startled hare.

Who
would have thought he could still move so fast, once pushed to extremes? But he
could not keep it up long, the spur would not carry him far. The three of them
went after, spreading out a little to hem him from three sides when he fell exhausted.
They were giggling as they went, and in no special haste. The mingled sounds of
his crashing passage through the bushes and his uncontrollable whining with the
pain of it, rang unbelievably strangely in the twilit woods.

Branches
and brambles lashed Ciaran’s face. He ran blindly, sweeping the long staff
before him, cutting a noisy swathe through the bushes and stumbling painfully
in the thick ground-debris of dead branches and soft, treacherous pits of the
leaves of many years. They followed at leisure, aware that he was slowing. The
lean, agile tailor had drawn level with him, somewhat aside, and was bearing
round to cut him off, still with breath enough to whistle to his fellows as
they closed unhurriedly, like dogs herding a stray sheep. Ciaran fell out into
a more open glade, where a huge old beech had preserved its own clearing, and
with what was left of his failing breath he made a last dash to cross the open
and vanish again into the thickets beyond. The dry silt of leaves among the
roots betrayed him. His footing slid from under him, and fetched him down
heavily against the bole of the tree. He had just time to drag himself up and
set his back to the broad trunk before they were on him.

He
flailed about him with the staff, screaming for aid, and never even knew on
what name he was calling in his extremity.

“Help!
Murder! Matthew, Matthew, help me!”

There
was no answering shout, but there was an abrupt thrashing of branches, and
something hurtled out of cover and across the grass, so suddenly that Bagot was
shouldered aside and stumbled to his knees. A long arm swept Ciaran back hard
against the solid bole of the tree, and Matthew stood braced beside him, his
dagger naked in his hand. What remained of the western light showed his face
roused and formidable, and gleamed along the blade.

“Oh,
no!” he challenged loud and clear, lips drawn back from bared teeth. “Keep your
hands off! This man is mine!”

Chapter Fourteen

THE
THREE ATTACKERS had drawn off instinctively, before they realised that this was
but one man erupting in their midst, but they were quick to grasp it, and had
not gone far. They stood, wary as beasts of prey but undeterred, weaving a
little in a slow circle out of reach, but with no thought of withdrawing. They
watched and considered, weighing up coldly these altered odds. Two men and a
knife to reckon with now, and this second one they knew as well as the first.
They had been some days frequenting the same enclave, using the same dortoir
and refectory. They reasoned without dismay that they must be known as well as
they knew their prey. The twilight made faces shadowy, but a man is recognised
by more things than his face.

“I
said it, did I not?” said Simeon Poer, exchanging glances with his henchmen,
glances which were understood even in the dim light. “I said he would not be
far. No matter, two can lie as snug as one.”

Once
having declared his claim and his rights, Matthew said nothing. The tree
against which they braced themselves was so grown that they could not be
attacked from close behind. He circled it steadily when Bagot edged round to
the far side, keeping his face to the enemy. There were three to watch, and
Ciaran was shaken and lame, and in no case to match any of the three if it came
to action, though he kept his side of the trunk with his staff gripped and
ready, and would fight if he must, tooth and claw, for his forfeit life.
Matthew curled his lips in a bitter smile at the thought that he might be
grateful yet for that strong appetite for living.

Round
the bole of the tree, with his cheek against the bark, Ciaran said, low-voiced:
“You’d have done better not to follow me.”

“Did
I not swear to go with you to the very end?” said Matthew as softly. “I keep my
vows. This one above all.”

“Yet
you could still have crept away safely. Now we are two dead men.”

“Not
yet! If you did not want me, why did you call me?”

There
was a bewildered silence. Ciaran did not know he had uttered a name.

“We
are grown used to each other,” said Matthew grimly. “You claimed me, as I claim
you. Do you think I’ll let any other man have you?”

The
three watchers had gathered in a shadowy group, conferring with heads together,
and faces still turned towards their prey.

“Now
they’ll come,” said Ciaran in the dead voice of despair.

“No,
they’ll wait for darkness.”

They
were in no hurry. They made no loose, threatening moves, wasted no breath on
words. They bided their time as patiently as hunting animals. Silently they
separated, spacing themselves round the clearing, and backing just far enough
into cover to be barely visible, yet visible all the same, for their presence
and stillness were meant to unnerve. Just so, motionless, relentless and alert,
would a cat sit for hours outside a mousehole.

“This
I cannot bear,” said Ciaran in a faint whisper, and drew sobbing breath.

“It
is easily cured,” said Matthew through his teeth. “You have only to lift off
that cross from your neck, and you can be loosed from all your troubles.”

The
light faded still. Their eyes, raking the smoky darkness of the bushes, were
beginning to see movement where there was none, and strain in vain after it
where it lurked and shifted to baffle them more. This waiting would not be
long. The attackers circled in cover, watching for the unguarded moment when
one or other of their victims would be caught unawares, staring in the wrong
direction. Past all question they would expect that failure first from Ciaran,
half-foundering as he already was. Soon now, very soon.

Brother
Cadfael was some half-mile back along the ride when he heard the cry, ahead and
to the right of the path, loud, wild and desperate. The words were
indistinguishable, but the panic in the sound there was no mistaking. In this
woodland silence, without even a wind to stir the branches or flutter the
leaves, every sound carried clearly. Cadfael spurred ahead in haste, with all
too dire a conviction of what he might find when he reached the source of that
lamentable cry. All those miles of pursuit, patient and remorseless, half the
length of England, might well be ending now, barely a quarter of an hour too
soon for him to do anything to prevent. Matthew had overtaken, surely, a Ciaran
grown weary of his penitential austerities, now there was no one by to see. He
had said truly enough that he did not hate himself so much as to bear his
hardships to no purpose. Now that he was alone, had he felt safe in discarding
his heavy cross, and would he next have been in search of shoes for his feet?
If Matthew had not come upon him thus recreant and disarmed.

The
second sound to break the stillness almost passed unnoticed because of the
sound of his own progress, but he caught some quiver of the forest’s unease,
and reined in to listen intently. The rush and crash of something or someone
hurtling through thick bushes, fast and arrow-straight, and then, very briefly,
a confusion of cries, not loud but sharp and wary, and a man’s voice loud and
commanding over all. Matthew’s voice, not in triumph or terror, rather in short
and resolute defiance. There were more than the two of them, there ahead, and
not so far ahead now.

He
dismounted, and led his horse at an anxious trot as far as he dared along the
path; towards the spot from which the sounds had come. Hugh could move very
fast when he saw reason, and in Cadfael’s bare message he would have found
reason enough. He would have left the town by the most direct way, over the
western bridge and so by a good road south-west, to strike this old path barely
two miles back. At this moment he might be little more than a mile behind.
Cadfael tethered his horse at the side of the track, for a plain sign that he
had found cause to halt here and was somewhere close by.

All
was quiet about him now. He quested along the fringe of bushes for a place
where he might penetrate without any betraying noise, and began to work his way
by instinct and touch towards the place whence the cries had come, and where
now all was almost unnaturally silent. In a little while he was aware of the
last faint pallor of the afterglow glimmering between the branches. There was a
more open glade ahead of him.

He
froze and stood motionless, as a shadow passed silently between him and this
lingering glimpse of light. Someone tall and lean, slithering snake-like
through the bushes. Cadfael waited until the faint pattern of light was
restored, and then edged carefully forward until he could see into the
clearing.

The
great bole of a beech-tree showed in the centre, a solid mass beneath its
spread of branches. There was movement there in the dimness. Not one man, but
two, stood pressed against the bole. A brief flash of steel caught just light
enough to show what it was, a dagger naked and ready. Two at bay here, and
surely more than one pinning them thus helpless until they could be safely
pulled down. Cadfael stood still to survey the whole of the darkening clearing,
and found, as he had expected, another quiver of leaves that hid a man, and
then, on the opposite side, yet another. Three, probably all armed, certainly
up to no good, thus furtively prowling the woods by night, going nowhere,
waiting to make the kill. Three had vanished from the dice school under the
bridge at Shrewsbury, and fled in this direction. Three reappeared here in the
forest, still doing after their disreputable kind.

Cadfael
stood hesitant, pondering how best to deal, whether to steal back to the path
and wait and hope for Hugh’s coming, or attempt something alone, at least to
distract and dismay, to bring about a delay that might afford time for help to
come. He had made up his mind to return to his horse, mount, and ride in here
with as much noise and turmoil as he could muster, trying to sound like six
mounted men instead of one, when with shattering suddenness the decision was
taken out of his hands.

One
of the three besiegers sprang out of cover with a startling shout, and rushed
at the tree on the side where the momentary flash of steel had shown one of the
victims, at least, to be armed. A dark figure leaned out from the darkness
under the branches to meet the onslaught, and Cadfael knew him then for
Matthew. The attacker swerved aside, still out of reach, in a calculated feint,
and at the same moment both the other lurking shadows burst out of cover and
bore down upon the other side of the tree, falling as one upon the weaker
opponent. There was a confusion of violence, and a wild, tormented scream, and
Matthew whirled about, slashing round him and stretching a long arm across his
companion, pinning him back against the tree. Ciaran hung half-fainting,
slipping down between the great, smooth bastions of the bole, and Matthew
bestrode him, his dagger sweeping great swathes before them both.

Cadfael
saw it, and was held mute and motionless, beholding this devoted enemy. He got
his breath only as all three of the predators closed upon their prey together,
slashing, mauling, by sheer weight bearing them down under them.