Текст книги "The Merchant’s Partner"

Автор книги: Michael Jecks

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Sixteen

Every now and again Simon or Edgar would stir from the fireside and peer out, but each time the view was the same: clouds of tiny swirling and pirouetting motes sweeping by in the breeze, a pageant in white and grey. The knight sat and stared morosely at the fire.

It was still early when they decided they must remain for the night. The snow was here to stay for some hours and they all recognised the need to keep warm. Once the horses were fed and watered, they opened the packs that Margaret had forced them to bring and sipped at the cool wineskins, then huddled in their blankets around the fire and began to talk desultorily until sleep took them.

Simon found himself nodding soon after sitting, and his voice dropped, his words coming slower and slower, until Baldwin and Edgar were aware of a rhythmical droning as he started snoring.

“Noise like that could waken the dead,” said Edgar, but not unkindly.

Baldwin nodded. It was many months since he and his servant had slept away from their new home. In the past, when they had travelled more, they had always tended to avoid other people on the road. Someone always snored, and they preferred their own sleep undisturbed.

“At least the snow’s not too heavy,” he said. “We should be able to get on tomorrow.”

“Yes. And then we’ll need to hunt for Greencliff.”

Nodding, the knight sighed. “So long as the snow stays like this, we should be able to follow him.”

“Yes, God forbid that it could get any worse – we could get snowed in here for ages. No one even knows we’re here.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t worry.” He peered at the bailiffs body and threw a quick smile at Edgar with a quizzically raised eyebrow. “There’s a good amount of meat on him! We’ll survive!”

His servant smiled, relaxing back and laughing silently. He was the only man Baldwin had ever met who did so, opening his mouth and letting the breath gasp out in that curious, inaudible exhalation. Baldwin had seen him laugh that way before battles, showing his teeth in a purely natural delight, taking pleasure while he might, even if were to die shortly thereafter.

“So if we’re snowed in for a while we can eat him?” Edgar said after a moment. “Ah, that would be good. There’re some good joints on him! Mind, he’ll be heavy to haul to the fire. How would you cook him? On a spit?”

Leaning back, the knight squinted at the recumbent figure. “I don’t know,” he said musingly. “He looks a bit heavy. Is there a spit strong enough in this place?”

Rolling on to an elbow, Edgar stared at him too, grinning. “I don’t know. No, you’re right, we’d need to paunch and joint him first. Maybe we could hang the rest of him in the open air outside? At least that way he’d keep well.”

“Maybe, but he might be too tough. Perhaps we should boil him into a stew?”

“That’s possible. Yes, with carrots and a thick slice of fresh bread.”

There was a grunt from the bailiff, then they heard his voice. Although muffled by his blanket, the disgruntled tone was unmistakable. “When you have both finished discussing my merits as food on the hoof, perhaps you would like to go to sleep so that we can all be fresh in the morning.”

Laughing, Baldwin rolled himself up in his blanket, and was soon breathing long and deep, but now Simon found sleep evaded him. He kept seeing, as if in close juxtaposition, the two gaping wounds, one which had killed the old woman, the other which had killed the merchant. And then he saw the face of Harold Greencliff next to Angelina Trevellyn.

The first attack was easy to fight off. As the Bourc watched, the pack circled, some slinking from side to side in the expanse of clear ground before the wall, others sitting and peering back, like soldiers at a siege checking on the defences. But then he noticed one in particular, and concentrated on it.

It was a tall dog wolf, from the look of it, lean, taut and strong, with thick grey hair and eyes that stared fixedly at the Gascon. As the others in the pack walked up and down, this one slowly and deliberately inched forwards like a cat, staring unblinkingly. Then, as if at his command, they hurled themselves forward.

The leader died first. John drew the string back, sighted the cruel barbs of the arrow head between the eyes of the grizzled dog, and let the arrow fly. He snatched another arrow and fixed it to the bow, drawing again. But there was no need. The wolf died instantly. The arrow sank deep into his brain, and the animal somersaulted on to his back, then lay, shuddering in his death throes. Immediately the others pulled back, withdrawing dismayed to the gloom where he could not fire with certainty. The death of their leader made them pause, as if they suddenly appreciated their prey was not defenceless. They kept just out of clear sight, silently circling his camp, a series of grey wraiths in the gloom.

The Bourc knew wolves, and now he had found a defensible area, he knew he could hold them off. Satisfied that he was safe for a moment from another attack, he investigated his camp.

He was out of the vicious wind at last. The tall walls of stone offered a barrier against the worst of the weather – the ground beneath was free even of snow. Here he tethered the horses.

Nearby, beyond the line of stone, some bushes stood, twisted and stunted as if blasted by magic into their weird shapes. He took his knife and hacked at them, wrenching branches off and tossing them into a pile. While there was firewood handy he would conserve the faggots on the packhorse. Nearer the horses he found a small hollow and set himself to lighting a fire, looking around as the flames began to curl upwards.

By their light he saw that he was in a natural bowl on the top of a low hill. Its perimeter was bounded by a low wall to the south, but northwards it had collapsed. Behind, what he had thought was a derelict building was a rocky outcrop, three or four great slabs, one on top of the other, with a narrow, low gap like a door between the two lower ones. Peering through, he saw that there was a cavern inside. A place to sleep, safe from wind and snow.

It was while he was peering inside that the second attack began. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a shape leaping noiselessly on to the wall. Even as the Bourc grabbed his bow and notched an arrow to the string, drawing it back and letting the shaft fly, he heard the screams of terror from the horses, and, spinning round, he saw the packhorse rearing in terror as another wolf jumped, jaws snapping, trying to reach the horse’s throat.

Lurching to his feet, the Bourc tried to aim, but the wolf was too close to the horses, and he dared not risk the shot. Cursing, he ran forward shouting, and as he did, the wolfs teeth scraped a ragged tear in the horse’s neck. Shrieking, the horse rose once more, but now the smell of blood appeared to enrage the Bourc’s mount and made him lose his fear. Lifting his bulk up onto his hind legs as the wolf passed before him, he suddenly dropped, both hooves falling, legs stiff, the whole of his weight behind them. With a petrified screech, the wolf was crushed to the ground, forepaws scrabbling in the dirt, eyes wide in agony, as the horse rose again and again, only to bring his whole weight down on the wolfs back, not stopping until the hideous cries had ceased.

Before running to his horse’s side, the Bourc stared around his camp carefully, arrow still set on the bowstring, every sense straining. There was nothing: no noise to disturb him. He slowly rose, walking along the line of the great rocks until he came to the horses. Squatting, he put aside the bow, and drew his dagger to make sure the wolf was dead. It was unnecessary. A quick look at the ruined body was enough to show that.

The horse was still shivering, eyes rolling in horror, and the Bourc stroked it for a moment. A few yards away was the packhorse, and he stared at it anxiously. He could see the blood dripping steadily from the long gash, but he gave a sigh of relief as the fire spluttered and flared. The wound was not deep enough to kill the animal. Walking to it, he made sure, then patted the horse and spoke softly to him.

It was while he was there that he heard the panting. Turning slowly, his heart beating frantically, he saw the sharp features of the wolf crouched low, eyes fixed on him as it stalked forward. He glanced at his bow, lying useless only yards away. It was close, so close, but already nearer the approaching wolf than him: he would never be able to reach it. He showed his teeth in a snarl – though whether in fear or rage, he was not himself sure – and grasped his long-bladed dagger.

When Simon awoke, it was to a sense of mild surprise, wondering where he was. At least over the night he had not suffered from the dream again. It was as if it only wanted to seek him out while he was idle, not now, while he was searching for the witch’s killer. While he was employed on that task the nightmare would leave him alone, although its memory would stay with him as a spur to his commitment to the hunt.

It took them little time to saddle their horses, roll up their blankets and prepare to leave. The snow appeared not to have been so strongly blown by the wind this time, and lay evenly rather than drifting, so the three men felt that the journey to Wefford should not be too difficult. From the front of the house, they could look over to the east where the woods began and see where the lane made its way in among the trees, the hedges at either side standing out as two long ramparts. The trail itself looked like a ditch between them, like some sort of fortification, from the way that the land rose on their left to form the small hill.

As they mounted and turned their horses’ heads to the sun in the east, which seemed to hang larger and redder than usual in the pale blue sky, they had to squint from the already painful glare off the snow. Baldwin rode alongside the trail he had seen the evening before. In the bright sunlight the tracks still stood out, and they led the men along the lane a short way. But then the marks were obliterated under a fall of snow from the branches of the trees overhead. Taking their time, they set a slow pace, between a trot and a walk, as they went under the trees, casting about for a continuation of the tracks, but they saw nothing.

“We’ll have to get Tanner, of course,” said Baldwin after a few minutes.

Looking across at him, Simon sighed as he turned back to the road ahead. “Yes. And raise a search party; see if we can hunt him quickly.”

Another manhunt, the knight mused sadly. He enjoyed the chase for an animal. After all, that was only right, to hunt and kill for food and sport was natural. But tracking a man was different, demeaning for the man and his hunters as well.

It would be different, the knight knew, if he felt that there had been any justifiable reason for the murders, but there did not seem to be. He frowned and bit his lip in his annoyance at one thought: if he had kept this boy Greencliff in gaol, or put him back when they had heard from Stephen de la Forte that the two of them had not been together all the time when Agatha Kyteler had died, maybe Alan Trevellyn would not have died. That meant that a little of the guilt for the murder, he felt, now lay with him for making the wrong decision at the time. As his eyes rose to the road ahead, they held a frown as he swore to himself that he would catch the criminal and avenge Trevellyn’s death.

Jogging along quietly beside him, Simon was not so convinced of Harold Greencliff’s guilt. Why? That was the question that plagued him: why? Why kill the merchant? Or the witch, for that matter. The boy had made comments about her at the inn that night, but nobody could explain why he hated her. And there seemed no reason why he should kill Trevellyn either.

Then his eyes took on a more pensive look and his head sank on his shoulders. Mrs. Trevellyn was very beautiful, he admitted to himself. Was it possible that she was the mysterious lover? That Jennie Miller was right? Could the boy have killed her husband to win her? But if he had, why run away afterwards? It made no sense!

The admission of what she had done at the witch’s cottage had launched Harold Greencliff into a nightmare that would not stop. All he had ever wanted was to be able to live out his life like his father before him, a farmer. To be able to earn his living honestly. He knew he would never be rich, but that did not matter when none of his friends and neighbours were. Money and cattle were pleasant to dream of, but he felt it was more important to be satisfied and content, to work hard and earn a place in heaven, like the priests promised.

But since the death of Agatha Kyteler last Tuesday, there had been no peace for him. Maybe if he had managed to run away then, he would have left all this behind. If he had got to Gascony, perhaps then he might have been able to forget the whole affair, but it was too late now. He was marked by his guilt.

At first, when he got back home from the Trevellyns’ hall, he had sat down as if in a dream, his mind empty. It felt impossible to move, and he stayed there on his bench, sitting and occasionally shivering in the lonely cold of his house, not even bothering to stoke his little fire so deep was his misery. But soon the despair returned, and the disgust, and he stood and walked around his room, sobbing. Ever since that witch had ruined everything, his life had been wrecked. It was all her fault: she had deserved her end.

It was like a dream, the way that he had made his decision and started taking up his meagre essentials, stuffing them into his old satchel. He had picked up his ballock knife, the long dagger with the single sharp edge, from where it had fallen on the floor. He might need it, and it was good in a fight, with the two large round lobes at the base of the solid wooden grip to protect the hand.

For food, he took some fruit and dried and salted ham, which he dropped into the bag, followed by a loaf of bread as an afterthought. Then the satchel was full. He pulled a thick woollen tunic over his head, draped his blanket over his shoulders, took his staff, and left. He would never return. The shame would be too painful.

At first he had wandered in the darkness without any firm direction in mind, aimlessly following where his feet led him, and he had found himself heading south. Soon he was in among the woods. Usually he would stride through there, knowing each trunk and fallen bough like the furniture in his hall, but in the bitter cold and his despair he had meandered witlessly.

Now he knew it was a wonder that he had managed to survive and had not succumbed to the freezing temperatures. He had been lucky. The woods appeared to go on for ever, leading him up gentle hills and down the other sides, through lighter snow which the winds had not been able to pile into deep drifts, heading away from his home and his past life.

Only when he had begun to smell woodsmoke did he realise he had almost arrived at Crediton, and he stopped. Almost without consciously making a choice, he had found himself starting to walk again, following the line of trees to circumnavigate the town, always keeping to the shelter of the thick boughs. When he had passed by the town, he had discovered a strange lightening of his spirit, as if he had truly left his old life behind. He had only rarely been this far from home before.

All that day he had continued, ignoring calls from other travellers, concentrating solely on the steady trudge of his feet, careless of his direction, neither knowing nor caring where he was heading, until he had realised that the snow was falling again.

It forced him to waken from his mindless, daydreaming tramping, and he stopped dead, staring around with no idea where he was. He had arrived at a flat area, an open space fringed by trees, and now, as the first few flakes began to fall, he could see that there appeared to be no houses nearby.

Here he was quite high up, his view unimpaired, and to the left he could see over the top of some trees to a hilltop some miles away which wore a circle of trees at its summit like a crown. Before him he could see along a small cleft in the land, which appeared to forge ahead like a track, with both sides hidden under a light scattering of trees. Narrowing his eyes against the thin mist of snow, he had set his face to the valley and determinedly carried on.

But it had been no good. The snow had begun to take hold, the air becoming colder, and each fresh gust of wind felt as if it blew a little harder than the last, making the snow swoop and dive like millions of tiny, white swallows.

The random movement of the white dust held an almost hypnotic fascination, and he found himself beginning to stumble more often as he fell under the spell of the all-encompassing whiteness that now appeared to form an impermeable barrier around him. It was as if the dance of the snow motes before his eyes was an invitation to sit and sleep. He had the impression that they were soothing, calming, as if asking him to rest.

And then he had fallen.

Possibly it was a gnarled tree root hidden from sight, maybe a fallen branch, but suddenly he had discovered he was not walking any more. He had tripped, and was now lying headlong, his face resting against what had felt like a warm soft pillow of the smoothest down. Rolling, he could not help a sigh of relief. He stretched and groaned in happiness. At last he could relax: he had come far enough. Now he could sleep.

It was not until much later that he could be grateful for the interruption. At first it had seemed to be a growling, then a moaning as of pain, low and persistent. Just at the edge of his hearing, it had penetrated his thoughts and dreams like a saw cutting through bark. He had mumbled to himself and rolled, trying to sleep and lose the insistent noise, but it had continued, and as his mind grew angry at the interruption, the anger started to make him waken. It was sufficient.

The snow had strengthened, and as he lurched unwillingly back to consciousness, he realised that he was smothered in a film of light powder. Recognising his danger, he stood quickly, his heart beating madly, while his breath sobbed in his throat, and he gazed around wildly, a feral creature recognising the sound of a hunter. The snow had cocooned him, swaddling him under its gentle grip of death. If he had not heard that noise, he would soon surely have died, sleeping under the soothing influence of the murderous cold.

But what had made the noise? As he turned here and there looking for the source, a slow realisation had come to him: it was the noise of cattle, and it came from nearby.

As soon as he had recognised the sounds, he had started off towards them. There, hidden behind a line of oaks, was an old barn. The walls were red-brown cob, not limewashed, and if he had not heard the animals inside, he would not have seen the place. After carefully looking to see that there were no people nearby, he had entered. Inside there was a store of hay, and he fashioned a rough cot from it, sitting and preparing to wait for the snow to stop.

The sudden lack of movement freed his mind from the shackles of exercise and he had found his thoughts returning to her. To his pain at leaving her behind. He had wept tears for her last evening as he had sat alone and miserable at his house, he could now remember. Hot, scalding tears that seared his soul. He had loved her. Inevitably, his thoughts turned to her again. To know that he could never see her again, never feel the smooth softness of her body, never hold the thick, blue-black tresses of her braids in his hands like silken ropes, never kiss her again, hold her, feel the warmth of her breasts and the flat sweep of her belly, was maddening. He had once thought that he had loved Sarah, but this was much more: this was almost a religious loss. It felt as if, after the horror of her face in the dark only two nights before, a part of him had died. When she saw him there, and spoke with such loathing, a spark of his soul had weakened and finally faded to dullness. There was nothing there any longer.

He sighed at the memory. Now, in the morning, he could accept that he could never see her again. Picking up his satchel, he swung it on to his back and made his way to the entrance, carefully peering out. There was no one there, so he walked out. He could break his fast later. For now the main thing was to get away, as far away as possible from this area. Could he get on a ship? Would it be possible to find one to take him away?

Pausing, he considered. There were docks at Exeter, he knew, but last time Tanner had found him there. It was further, but would they expect him to head down to the south? To Dartmouth or Plymouth? Weighing the satchel in his hand, he debated the two options. He would need more food on the way if he was going that far. It was a great deal further, but if he could make it, they would never think of searching for him there, would they?

Making his choice, he set his shoulders and set his face to the south. He must go to the coast, then on to Gascony and to freedom.

The village looked like a slumbering animal, as if the area had chosen hibernation in preference to the freezing misery of the winter weather, and Baldwin gazed around sourly as they rode along the street. “God! Why aren’t these people up and working yet?” “It is very early, Baldwin. And I have no doubt that some are up. They will be out tending to their sheep and cattle,” said Simon calmly. “Especially after the snow last night.”

Baldwin grunted, and maintained a disapproving silence for the rest of their journey. It was not far. They stopped outside the inn, and at a curt nod of Baldwin’s head, Edgar dropped from his horse and walked leisurely to the door. Watching, Simon saw him casually glance up at the sky, trying to assess the time. The bailiff nodded to himself. It was very early to waken the innkeeper. But then he realised his error.

After looking up to reassure himself as to the earliness of the hour, the servant grinned back at him quickly, then beat on the door in a shockingly loud tattoo before retreating a few yards. It was a sensible precaution, from the bellow of rage that issued from inside. Simon heard rapid steps, the sound of bolts being drawn, and then the door was yanked open and the unshaven and furious features of the publican appeared, mouth wide to roar at whoever had woken him. At the sight of the knight with his servant and friend, his mouth snapped shut as if on a spring.

“Sir Baldwin,” he managed at last, with a snarl that appeared to be his best approximation to a smile. “How can I serve you?”

The knight grunted. “You can fetch hot drinks for three, prepare cooked eggs and bread for our breakfast, and start to organise a search party. Then you can send word to my house that we are all well, find Tanner, and tell him to come here immediately. Prepare provisions for three days for three men.”

“I… Er…”

“And you can do it all now. We must hunt a man.”