At first, the track seemed no different from the main road, and cut through the Fens in a reasonably straight line. Then Alan began to lead them in a series of twists and turns that had Bartholomew totally disoriented. The path became so narrow that the shrubs brushed past him on either side, showering his already saturated cloak with droplets of water from their leafless branches. Bartholomew’s horse was unnerved at the proximity of the trees, and began cavorting again, so that he was forced to concentrate all his attention on preventing the animal from rearing and thrashing around with its forelegs.
The track then widened, but degenerated into a morass. The riders could do little more than guide the mounts around the edge of it, and hope that the sloppy mud was not deeper than it appeared. One of Stanmore’s stories had been about bogs that could swallow a man and his horse without trace, and Bartholomew had often heard Fenland farmers complaining that they had lost sheep, goats and even cattle to the black, suffocating mud of the marshes. He began to doubt the sagacity of Alan’s decision to cut east.
Once round the morass, they were faced with a brackish waterway that was too wide to jump, and looked too deep to wade across. Bartholomew leaned forward in his saddle, and saw the swathe of water disappear as far as he could see in either direction. It was fringed with reeds, and was as still as glass.
‘You are lost!’ said Jurnet accusingly. ‘I told you–’
What happened next was a blur. Jurnet toppled from his saddle, and Bartholomew saw the tip of Alan’s sword stained red. The injured man gave a high-pitched screech that rent the air like a whistle. Alan ignored it, and spurred his mount towards Bartholomew. Bartholomew’s horse, however, startled by the sudden howl of pain and terror, went wild. Bartholomew hauled desperately at the reins in an attempt to control it, but, with a piercing scream of its own, it was off, bolting wildly and blindly through the undergrowth to the left of the track. Bartholomew caught a glimpse of glittering steel, and saw Cynric engaged in a furious battle with one of the mercenaries, and that was all.
‘After him!’ came Alan’s enraged yell.
But Bartholomew had no time to assess what was happening behind him as the flailing branches ripped and tore at his face. He pulled on the reins as hard as he could, but the horse seemed oblivious to him. He could hear nothing except the thud of its hooves and the sound of branches cracking and tearing as it smashed through them. He imagined that at least one of the mercenaries was following him, an easy task given the trail of destruction the animal must have been leaving behind it.
Then the undergrowth gave way to another span of water, similar to the one that had caused Jurnet to accuse Alan of being lost. Bartholomew closed his eyes as the horse decided it could jump to the other side, but at the last moment realised it could not and faltered. The result was that horse and rider landed squarely in the middle with a great splash that drove spray high into the air. For a moment, Bartholomew was aware of nothing but a searing cold and gurgling water in his ears, and then he came to his senses.
He struggled to free himself of the thrashing horse, but his foot was entangled in the stirrup. He tried to reach down to release it, but his fingers were clumsy with shock, and the task proved impossible with water surging and frothing all around him. The horse kicked and tried to swim its way to the other side, but its flailing legs became hopelessly entangled in the weeds and sucking mud that choked the bottom of the waterway. It began to sink. Panic-stricken it reared its head and kicked even harder, but it was fighting a losing battle. Bartholomew watched the water rise up its neck, and then cover its head, although for an instant he could see its terrified, rolling eyes under the surface. And then the water began to creep up his own chest towards his shoulders. He struggled and squirmed as hard as he could, but the stirrup held fast. Then the brown water was up to his chin and the horse underneath him was still sinking. And then it closed over his own head, plunging him into a world of dirty brown bubbles and the roar of water.
Chapter 5
For petrifying moments, Bartholomew was paralysed with fright. He could see nothing, and the sound of water thundering in his ears dominated his senses. Beneath him, the horse continued to struggle, but increasingly feebly. Then Bartholomew panicked, thrashing around in a hopeless attempt to tear himself free. But the stirrup leather held firm, dragging him deeper down into the black water.
He felt himself growing dizzy from lack of air and his lungs burned with the agony of suffocation. Knife! he thought. Use a knife! He forced his numb fingers to the belt at his waist where the dagger he wore for travelling was buckled. He tugged at the hilt, but he was growing weak, and for a moment he thought he would be unable to draw it. It came out in a rush and he gripped it hard, terrified lest he should drop it. He twisted down and began, laboriously, to hack at the strap, fighting the increasingly desperate urge to give way to panic and try to claw his way up to the air above.
As he sawed, he saw something white flash past his eyes, and thought it was the effects of slowly losing consciousness. But there was another and then a dull pain in his leg. Dimly, a part of his mind registered that the mercenaries must have followed him and were firing crossbows at the water where he had disappeared.
But it was almost to the point where it did not matter. Bartholomew’s movements were becoming slower and slower and he began to experience a strange light-headedness. The black water around him began to turn bright colours – reds and greens and blues – all swirling together. He made a final chop at the stirrup and felt the dagger slip from his nerveless hand.
And then he was floating upwards. The water turned from black to brown and he exploded from it into the air with a great gasp that hurt his throat. Instinctively, he kicked away from the deep water in the centre of the lode toward the shallows near the bank. His frozen fingers felt something solid and he grasped at it as he fought to regain his breath, caring nothing for the mercenaries who had been trying to kill him, and only for dragging in great lungfuls of air. Gradually, he came to his senses and began to take in his surroundings.
He was clinging for dear life to a tree that had partly fallen across the lode and that was shielded from sight by a line of the reeds that grew in the shallower parts of the marshes. As long as he had not made too much noise surfacing, it was possible the mercenaries had not seen him.
Soon he became aware of voices. Taking care not to relinquish his hold on the tree, he edged forward and peered through the fringe of sedge. The camouflage it offered turned out to be too scanty for comfort, and the soldiers were nearer than Bartholomew had imagined they would be. He tried to control his still ragged breathing.
‘He is dead,’ one was saying. ‘I saw him go down with the horse.’
‘But I heard something,’ insisted the mercenary with the northern accent. ‘I think he surfaced.’
‘I saw him go down and I did not see him come up,’ insisted the first soldier irritably. ‘I tell you, he has drowned.’
‘It takes longer than this for a man to drown,’ said the northerner. ‘Go and check over there.’
Footsteps came closer, dead reeds and undergrowth cracking noisily as the soldier made his way around the edge of the water. Bartholomew fought to quieten his gasping, certain they would hear him in the silent Fens. He sank further down into the water, so that only his head was above the surface. The mercenary began slashing at the reeds with his sword, his sweeps coming ever nearer. Bartholomew looked around him in despair. What should he do? He could not outrun them, and in the water he was a sitting duck for their crossbows. The reeds near to his head quivered as the sword hissed past them, and Bartholomew thought he could see the dark, wet leather of a boot.