‘I’ll wait for them here,’ he said.
‘For pity’s sake, get in amongst the trees,’ I urged him. ‘A man can’t swing either a stick or his fists effectively when he’s hampered by trunks and branches.’ I offered him my own cudgel. ‘Take this! I’m assuming you know how to use it.’
‘Of course, I know to use it!’ He was indignant. ‘But I don’t want it. I’ve done nothing wrong, as Rosamund will testify.’ She gave him an odd look, grim and white-faced. Tom went on violently, ‘I’m sick and tired of defending myself against accusations that aren’t true. The only thing I’ve been guilty of is the crass stupidity of ever believing myself in love with Eris Lilywhite. But that’s nobody’s concern except mine and Rosamund’s. It has nothing to do with Lambert Miller!’
‘What has nothing to do with me?’ Lambert demanded, bursting into the clearing, panting heavily and red in the face from the exertion of running uphill. He paused for a moment to get his second wind, then lifted his stick and took a swipe at Tom Rawbone, which the latter dodged easily. It would be a minute or two before the miller recovered himself sufficiently to pose any real threat.
‘Stop it, Lambert! Stop it at once!’ Rosamund, hands clenched, stepped between her warring swains. ‘I agreed to meet Tom to listen to what he had to say. This has nothing to do with you!’
I doubt if the miller even heard her. He simply reached out and pushed her to one side as easily as if she had been a feather, before raising his cudgel again. This time, his aim was truer, but not by much, and he caught his rival a glancing blow on his left arm. Enraged by this lack of success, Lambert seized the stick with both hands and swung it straight at Tom’s head. Had I not moved almost instinctively to parry the stroke, it might well have cracked his opponent’s skull wide open.
With a furious roar, the miller turned on me, playing dirty and lowering his stick to strike me a wicked blow across both legs; a blow which knocked me off my feet and left me rubbing my shins in agony. He now had Tom at his mercy, but that was the last thing he intended to show. He dealt him a buffet that felled Tom, then started belabouring him about the head and body just as, by God’s good grace, Ned Rawbone and William Bush arrived on the scene. They took in the situation at a glance and threw themselves at the miller – the landlord, with a bravery and agility I wouldn’t have expected of him, jumping on Lambert’s back, while Ned stooped and grasped his brother’s assailant around the knees, tripping him up. The fact that Lambert and William Bush then toppled, with a sickening thud, on top of Tom Rawbone, in no wise detracted from Ned’s resourcefulness; not, at least, in my opinion. It was the lesser of two evils.
Tom, however, was disinclined to see it that way, and dragged himself to his feet, cursing his brother and the miller in equal measure. Lambert, too, was yelling and swearing as he tried vainly to free himself from the restraining clutches of William Bush. I had by now recovered sufficiently to assist by sitting firmly on the miller’s chest while Ned straddled his feet. As for Rosamund, she was standing a little apart, looking down her nose and surveying us all as if we were a bad smell that had just come to her attention. Then, in scathing accents, she uttered the one word ‘Men!’ before stomping off through the trees, obviously washing her hands of the lot of us. A very sensible young woman.
With her departure, we picked ourselves up and sorted ourselves out. William Bush hurried after his daughter, anxiously calling her name. The two protagonists, with no one to impress, contented themselves with glaring and snarling at one another.
‘Leave Mistress Rosamund alone in future,’ Lambert warned Tom between clenched teeth. ‘Or you’ll get more of the same.’
Tom rubbed at various batches of new bruises – I could guess at them, even if I couldn’t see them – and glared at his rival for a moment or two without responding. Then he said in a low tone, charged with menace, ‘You’ll be sorry for this, Miller. It’s the second time in as many days that you’ve attacked me. I’ll get my own back, just you see if I don’t!’
Lambert sneered. ‘Do you think I’m afraid of you and your threats? Just remember what I’ve told you. Leave Rosamund alone, if you value your hide. Next time, you might not have your bodyguard with you.’
He didn’t wait for Tom’s reply, but set off after Rosamund and her father, hoping, I supposed, to catch them up. But if he was expecting the lady’s thanks for rescuing her, I felt sure he was doomed to disappointment.
I whistled for Hercules, who had been cowering in the long grass during the recent pleasantries, and now came crawling warily out from his hiding place, sizing up the situation before running to greet me, wagging his stump of a tail. I picked him up and looked into his eyes.
‘Where were you when I needed you?’ I reproached him. ‘You could have sunk your teeth into the miller for me again.’ But he wasn’t a fool, that dog: he knew when the odds were stacked against him.
A sudden flurry of movement, seen out of the corner of one eye, made me turn, just in time to help Ned Rawbone catch his brother’s sagging form. Three beatings in three days had finally proved too much for Tom and, for a few seconds, he had almost lost consciousness.
He recovered a little, but it was plain that he would need assistance to get home. He was leaning heavily on Ned, who had one arm around his brother’s waist and the other supporting Tom’s left elbow. They were strong men, these Rawbones, and it never really occurred to me that Ned couldn’t manage on his own, even on the difficult downhill slope to Dragonswick Farm. But I saw an opportunity that I could not afford to miss. I put a steadying hand beneath Tom’s other elbow.
‘Let me help,’ I offered. ‘He may pass out again and he’s no light weight.’
Somewhat to my surprise, for I had anticipated opposition, the elder Rawbone nodded.
‘Very well,’ Ned agreed. I judged him to be a naturally taciturn man, and so was surprised, after we had gone a hundred yards or so along the path, when he burst into a low-voiced tirade against his brother. ‘The boy’s a bloody fool! He’s made an ass of himself once over Eris Lilywhite, now he’s making a bigger fool of himself trying to win back Rosamund Bush. And threatening Lambert Miller like that! In front of witnesses, too!’
‘Is he likely to do what he threatened?’ I asked, taking my cue from the elder Rawbone; ignoring the semi-conscious figure between us and talking over Tom’s head. ‘I should have thought he’d had enough punishment these past three days.’
‘Oh, he’s quite capable!’ Ned snorted disgustedly. ‘He’s been a hothead all his life. Father and I will just have to keep a close watch on him, that’s all.’
He lapsed into silence, which lasted until we finally arrived at the farm. As I released my share of the burden, I was afraid that that might be the end of it; that I would be dismissed with a curt nod of thanks. But perhaps something in the way I stooped to rub my bruised shins, where Lambert had hit me, and also in the way I shivered and huddled into my cloak, convinced Ned that I was in need of refreshment.
‘You’d better come inside,’ he said grudgingly. ‘You look as though you could do with a cup of ale or a mazer of wine.’
I didn’t wait for a second invitation.
Twelve
Not for Ned Rawbone the servants’ entrance and the kitchen quarters. Supporting Tom between us, we walked round to the front of the house and went in by the door to the great hall, where our appearance was met with a flurry of women’s skirts and an outpouring of feminine concern.
‘Tom! What’s happened? Are you badly hurt?’ That was Petronelle.
‘Stupid boy! You haven’t been in yet another fight, have you? Sweet heaven! What a fool!’ But Dame Jacquetta’s anxious looks belied the harshness of her words. ‘Sit in my chair by the fire.’
The housekeeper said nothing, but tuttutted loudly and hurried away to the sideboard to pour a mazer of wine.