Stephen had been in front, just, when they pelted over the bridge and causeway, past a goggling priest, and thence to the road. They were delayed by a terrified carter, who stood by his horse, tugging at the rein. Thomas and Stephen had flown past him like hawks past a pigeon, but soon afterwards, they had heard the pursuit.
There was nothing to be done out here in the open lands other than whip, spur, and pray. Stephen was drawing away, but Thomas’s brute was suddenly flagging. Stephen turned and would have stopped, but Thomas waved him on. No point in them both being caught. ‘Ride on!’
He had reached some woods, and there he slipped from his saddle and slapped the horse’s rump. Only then did he see the arrow protruding from the horse’s back, just behind the saddle. It sent a chill down his spine to think how close that had come to ending his life. Only a couple of feet higher, only a tiny additional angle from the archer’s perspective, and it would all have been over.
Then the horses were closer, and fear took hold. Thomas had run off, like a hare before the hounds, darting in and out among the thin tree boughs, hoping to deter any bowmen, but to be truthful, he doubted that they even noticed him. They certainly seemed to think they had better targets. He had heard one man scream in pain, but there was no telling who. Perhaps it was Stephen. He did not know.
He disliked admitting it, but there was no denying that if it were Stephen, it was more important that he, Frere Thomas, had survived. He was the strategist who had God’s approval.
Frere Thomas lifted his head, brought back to the present. He was sure he had heard another horse from the east. Could that be them again? His nerves were tight as bowstrings as he strained his ears to listen, but there was nothing, no one to be seen. It must be his imagination, or maybe a rider ambling along at the extreme edge of his hearing, and passing now into a wood or gulley where the sound of his hooves could not be heard.
He blew the air from his lungs, rolled over and closed his eyes a moment. Yes, all that was yesterday. Last night he had dozed fitfully with his back against an old oak after walking miles over muddy fields. The peasants here would have good reason to curse the Dominican for the coming year, he thought with a weary grin. His feet would have disturbed their crops.
Today he had risen with the sun, wondering where on earth he was. Although raised not far from Kenilworth, this land was unfamiliar, and he peered about him warily before setting off again, making for the nearest church, which stood on a small hill a mile or two to the south. The priest there was entirely unwelcoming. A hidebound old fool, who believed that friars were only in his parish to steal his tithes, he made it clear that if he heard the friar preaching, he would come and chastise Thomas with a stick.
Personally, Thomas did not think this very likely, since the man looked so frail, but he did not want to raise attention to himself. He managed to persuade the priest to give him bread in exchange for his departure, and a brook was adequate for his thirst.
In the brook he caught sight of his reflection, and it exasperated him. He was used to a good life, to courteous discussions with the King and with the Pope, not to this indignity. Dear Heaven, what would the Pope say if he saw Thomas in this condition? Probably nothing, Frere Thomas admitted to himself, since the Pope would not have been told of a scruffy churl asking to meet him. Guards would have prevented him from entering the presence.
Now he rolled over and studied his injured thumb.
Recently he had been one of the most important men in the country. When there was a need for a cool head and diplomatic manner, King Edward II would send for Frere Thomas. Whether it concerned messages for the Pope, negotiations to assess the possibility of a marriage annulment — anything — it was to Frere Thomas that the King would turn. Sir Hugh le Despenser had been the King’s best friend, yet he had the guile and subtlety of a hog cleaver, in Christ’s name. He could hack, but when it was a silent assassin’s stab that was needed, Despenser failed.
Well, the fool had paid for his manifold crimes. Hauled to a gallows fifty feet from the ground until almost dead, then dropped to a table where he had his genitals cut off and thrown into a fire before he was ritually disembowelled, the entrails also thrown into the flames, and his beating heart hacked from his breast. If it was still beating. Frere Thomas had his doubts about that. He believed that a man tended to expire a short time after his belly was opened.
He had no liking for Sir Hugh le Despenser, but he could sympathise with the man for his fate. It was difficult to think of any creature who deserved such a barbaric death.
Putting the ball of his thumb to his mouth, Frere Thomas bit into the broken-off stub of blackthorn that had stabbed him. It was a tough little imp, but he managed to tug it loose and spit it away, studying the marble of blood that formed, growing to a nugget of almost a half-inch diameter before running quickly down his wrist.
Frere Thomas sighed. As the fresh drops of rain began to clatter among the holly leaves, he closed his eyes, then cast a long suffering look upwards.
‘Thank you, Lord,’ he said, but then rose and made his way to the road. Here in this part of Warwickshire the land was flat, and in places very wet, and there was no jauntiness in his spirit as he stared off into the south, and began to trudge.
He wouldn’t look back. That way lay defeat and misery. That way lay Kenilworth, where the man to whom he still owed his allegiance was held.
John wept as he pulled the hood over Paul’s face, then stood stiffly, the wound in his flank hurting as he moved.
His friend was already cold. He had died soon after they left the roads and entered among the trees, falling from his horse before John could catch him, and gagging as the blood from that awful wound seeped into his throat and lungs. He clung to life with the desperation of a badger in a trap, grasping John’s arms as though he could hold on to life the same way.
John closed his eyes again as tears moved down his cheeks. There was no shame in mourning the passing of an old friend, and there was no friend so close, so dear to his heart, as Paul.
That fight had been so sharp and swift, it took him a moment to comprehend that Paul was injured. Through the part-opened gates, he had seen the men falling, and realised his friend must be badly wounded in the same instant as he saw that face in the court: Sir Jevan de Bromfield.
It was enough. He slashed at his assailant, grabbed Paul’s bridle, and fled.
He would never forget that ride. They had pelted along through the bushes, and Paul had seemed all right at first. Until they stopped.
It was astonishing he made it so far. The blade had cut deep, not through the vein or artery at the side — that would have killed him in moments — but opening his gullet. When he attempted to speak, no sound came. A bloom of crimson spread from his neck down the front of his chemise, and his eyes were desperate, like those of a dog gripped by a bear.
Later, when John could still his sobbing for his friend of so many years, he swore that he would take the body to a place where Paul could be buried decently, with a priest to look over his soul.
Those who had survived would have to meet to discuss what to do, now that they had failed so magnificently in rescuing the King.
Kenilworth
Sir Edward of Caernarfon stared into the yard below. There was little to be seen now of the carnage that had reigned last night. Only black stains on the ground, where flies squatted. As a dog wandered past, the stain rose, leaving behind the rust-coloured mark of dried blood, but then the flies returned, gorging themselves on a man’s death.