Cursing, Harling abandoned the branch, scrambled to his feet and raced forward, bowling into Cynric so that they both fell over the edge of the causeway and disappeared from view. Bartholomew crawled cautiously towards it, and peered down. At that moment, the moon came out from behind a cloud, bathing the Fens in an eerie light and illuminating the spot where Harling was trying to force Cynric’s head into a marshy puddle. Cynric was struggling valiantly, but Harling was bigger, stronger and had both knees pressed into Cynric’s back, making it difficult for the Welshman to move to defend himself.
With a yell of fury, Bartholomew launched himself at the Vice-Chancellor, who abandoned his attempt to drown Cynric and backed away quickly.
‘Your friend will die unless you help him out of the bog,’ said Harling, gesturing to where Cynric was trying to extricate himself from the clinging mud. He took a step towards the causeway.
‘I will not!’ yelled Cynric, floundering helplessly in the marsh.
‘Keep still, Cynric,’ called Bartholomew urgently. ‘You will sink faster if you struggle.’
‘Fight him, boy!’ the Welshman howled. ‘You can do it! He is a coward when he has no weapons.’
‘He will slip below the surface, and you will never see him again,’ said Harling. He reached the bottom of the causeway bank and began to inch up it. ‘He will be sucked down to the bowels of the Earth – to the very mouth of hell.’
‘I can get out of this,’ gasped Cynric, his voice carrying less conviction than a few moments before. He fell to one side, so that not only were both his legs caught to knee-height in the thick, cloying mud, but one arm, too. ‘Watch him or he will escape!’
‘Cynric, lie still!’ Bartholomew’s gaze went from the trapped book-bearer to Harling as he began to climb the bank.
‘Look at him,’ said the Vice-Chancellor, eyeing Cynric pityingly. ‘Help him now, Bartholomew, or say your farewells while he can still hear you.’
Bartholomew did not answer and began to move towards Harling, determined that he should not evade justice yet again. An involuntary gasp from Cynric, as mud oozed into his mouth, made him falter and he glanced quickly at the Welshman. When he looked back to Harling, the Vice-Chancellor had clambered over the edge of the causeway and was lost from sight.
‘After him, boy!’ shouted Cynric furiously, pointing to where he had disappeared ‘Do not let him escape!’
But by the time Bartholomew had scrambled onto the causeway, the road was deserted and he could see nothing moving in either direction. He ran a few steps one way and then the other, peering desperately into the darkness, and trying to detect the slightest of movements that might tell him which way Harling had gone. There was nothing. He stopped and closed his eyes, listening intently for footsteps or the crack of a twig, but all he could hear was Cynric’s agitated flapping as he fought to free himself from the marsh. It was hopeless! Bartholomew knew he could never hope to track Harling without Cynric’s help, and, reluctantly, he slithered back down the bank and picked his way towards his book-bearer.
‘Give me your hand,’ said Bartholomew, reaching towards him. Immediately, his own feet began to sink. He stepped backwards to the relative safety of a mat of dead reeds.
‘Throw me your cloak!’ said Cynric. He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Not the whole thing, boy! Keep hold of one end so you can tug me free.’
Bartholomew heaved as hard as he could, his feet sliding in the slick mud, but he felt himself being dragged towards Cynric, rather than the other way round. After several abortive attempts, it occurred to him to wrap the cloak round a tree trunk and use it as a kind of pulley.
‘It is working!’ called Cynric triumphantly, as one knee emerged from the sucking slime. ‘Pull, boy! I have no wish to enter hell through a bog.’
‘Harling was lying,’ gasped Bartholomew, hauling with all his might. ‘The marshes near the town are not bottomless. Those are further north. He was just trying to distract me to give himself time to escape.’
‘Well, he succeeded,’ muttered Cynric, not without disapproval. ‘He used me to prevent you from following him. You should not have listened to his treacherous words.’
Cynric’s feet came free of the mud with a foul plopping sound, and he was able to reach Bartholomew’s hand. Together, they stumbled from the bog, and climbed the slippery bank to the causeway.
‘Where did he go?’ Cynric demanded urgently, looking one way and then the other. ‘Which direction did he take? We might catch him yet!’
‘You are soaked,’ said Bartholomew. ‘You should return to the town before you take a chill.’
‘And leave you here alone?’ asked Cynric, in the tone of voice that suggested it was not an option worth considering. ‘I am fine, boy. But what of Harling? Did he head east or west?’
Bartholomew was forced to admit that he did not know. Cynric gave him a look of appalled disgust, and wordlessly began to search for clues. In desperation, Bartholomew ran up the road until he was forced to stop and catch his breath, but, apart from the sound of his own laboured gasps, the marshes were as silent as the grave. He doubled back again, panting heavily, and hating to think he had allowed Harling to outwit him so easily.
‘It is too dark,’ muttered Cynric, slashing viciously at the undergrowth with his dagger. ‘I cannot see well enough to track him, even when the moon is out.’
‘Please try, Cynric!’ cried Bartholomew, crashing around uncertainly in the dense shrubs at the side of the causeway, searching for some hidden path that Harling might have taken. ‘He will kill Dame Pelagia for certain if you lose him!’
Cynric’s shoulders slumped in defeat. ‘I cannot, boy,’ he said softly. ‘He has given us the slip and I can do nothing about it until daylight.’
‘Daylight?’ echoed Bartholomew in horror. ‘But that may be too late! Dame Pelagia might be dead by then!’
Cynric nodded slowly, but turned his attention back to the task he knew was hopeless.
While Cynric continued to hunt in vain for some clue as to the direction Harling might have taken, Bartholomew lumbered about in the bushes near where Harling had attacked them. The task was impossible, but they continued relentlessly until the first threads of dawn began to lighten the sky in the east. Out of the semi-darkness, they heard the thud of hooves, and Cynric dragged Bartholomew into the bushes until he recognised the horsemen: Michael, Langelee, and Tulyet with some of his men. Bartholomew could not meet Michael’s eyes when he told him how they had lost Harling and Dame Pelagia, and turned away when Michael sank down at the side of the road and put his head in his hands.
Tulyet had sustained a cut over one eye in the skirmish near the river, and he told Bartholomew that reinforcements from his deputy had arrived in the nick of time. Langelee had apparently fought like the Devil, and it was only with his help that Tulyet and those soldiers who had remained loyal had managed to hold off the ambushers. The deputy’s force had tipped the balance, and those of Harling’s men who had not been killed in the fighting were now safely in the castle prison – among them Alan of Norwich and his mercenaries.
As Tulyet gave Bartholomew and Cynric this information, one of the soldiers said he knew where there was a track that led to the village of Fen Ditton through the marshes. He led the way a short distance to the north, and gestured at the undergrowth, but Bartholomew could see nothing that remotely resembled a path. Nevertheless, he followed the soldier through the tangle of vegetation with the others trailing behind, Cynric pointing out broken leaves and footprints that indicated someone had passed that way, although whether it was Harling and Dame Pelagia was impossible to tell.