Sara had left her children with a neighbour while she went to buy bread, and she was there, outside the baker’s when she heard the raucous blast of a horn. Hurrying along the street, she came to the road where she could see the bridge, and there she saw the men bringing a body back from the hill. They trailed down to the bridge, and slowly crossed it before making their way past the Water Gate and on around the town.
There was another blast from the horn, then a harsh bellow. ‘Havoc, murder! Help! All healthy men, collect your arms and help catch a murderer!’
At Sara’s side a woman gasped, ‘My Christ! The poor boy!’
Others had already stopped to stare, watching as the small group, Sir Tristram on his horse at the head, and four men carrying the stretcher of stout poles with a palliasse bound between them, made their way to the Court Gate. All could see the blood and pale features of the boy.
‘What have you done to the lad?’ came an angry voice from the crowd.
Sir Tristram whirled his horse about. ‘Don’t bellow at us, man! This is none of my men’s doing. One of my Host saw this fellow being attacked, and we are up the hill now, trying to find the culprit, so any among you who are fit and healthy, grab a weapon, and go up there. We need all the help we can muster. Come on! All of you, up that hill and find this bastard before he kills someone else!’
Coroner Roger, Simon and Baldwin were walking back from Emma’s alley when they saw the men carrying the stretcher.
‘We found your man, Sir Coroner,’ Sir Tristram said with heavy amusement. ‘Although I fear he won’t be of a mood to help you yet awhile. He is a little punctured just now.’
‘Sweet Jesu!’ Baldwin burst out, and then he whirled around to Sir Tristram. ‘Why did you do this? The boy was no threat to you!’
‘We did nothing. My man was riding eastwards towards the moor, thinking that the lad might have tried to escape,’ Sir Tristram said, waving the stretcher-bearers on towards the Abbey. ‘He saw a man striking this lad, kicking him and then preparing to give the fatal blow. He shouted and raised havoc, and the bastard ran away.’
‘Did he see who it was?’ Coroner Roger asked eagerly.
‘Alas, he doesn’t know the local folk,’ Sir Tristram acknowledged. ‘By the time the rest of my men responded to his call, the scoundrel was flown. He could be anywhere. Still, I have left my fellows up there to see if they can find him. It’s the best training for war, hunting a man.’
Baldwin felt sick. He could remember how knights had spoken about hunting down his comrades from the Knights Templar after their destruction. It was repellent, this idea of treating men like so many deer or hares.
Gerard had suffered; it would be a miracle if he lived. Baldwin had seen the thick flap of skin cut away from his cheek, the smashed and all-but cut off nose, the slashed ear that dangled from a small flap of flesh, the bloodied shoulder and flank. After so many wounds, any one of which might grow gangrenous, the lad would be fortunate indeed to live.
‘There they are!’ Sir Tristram exclaimed, pointing.
Following his finger, Baldwin could see a thin line of men working their way up the hill east of them. There was no sign of their prey.
The Coroner saw this too. ‘I shall have to organise the Watch to help them. Christ’s Ballocks! As if there wasn’t enough to do already!’
Baldwin nodded. ‘You go, and I shall see whether I can entice a little information from that poor wreck of an acolyte.’
Studying his coat and tunic in among the trees that stood at the side of the road, Joce was forced to accept that he’d be viewed a little oddly if he were to appear like this in town. He’d be better off leaving his coat behind.
He could hear the horn blowing, and when he stared over the river, he saw that Sir Tristram was shouting for more men to help. It made Joce grind his teeth with impotent rage. If he could, he would charge over that bridge and hurl himself at the tarse! Who did the arrogant sodomite think he was? The new conscience of the land, the new hero? From all Joce had heard, he was nothing more than a reiver himself. There were enough of them up there on the border, as Joce knew perfectly well.
Then he saw a saviour. There, standing near the bridge, as Sir Tristram’s men rode onwards, was Sara. She would help him: she wouldn’t be able to stop herself, he thought smugly. He stepped onto the road from his cover and walked across the bridge, his coat carelessly flung over his shoulder. Once there, he made straight for her.
‘Hello, Sara.’
Her face blanched. ‘What do you want?’
‘My love, all is well now,’ he murmured as soothingly as he could, ‘since that blasted fool Walwynus is gone, I need have no more fear.’
‘Fear?’ she repeated dully. ‘You wouldn’t talk to me after the coining, and now you talk of fear?’
‘It was Wally. I told you afterwards, I had hoped you’d understand,’ he said sadly. ‘Wally came and threatened me, telling me to leave you alone, not to play with your emotions. I was scared.’
‘I…’ Sara swallowed, her face a picture of confusion. ‘But you said you beat him.’
He laughed shortly. ‘Does any man like to admit that he’s been bested? No, my love.’
‘You said you wanted no more to do with me, that you’d deny your own child.’
‘No, never,’ Joce said firmly. He stepped forward and took her elbow, guiding her on, keeping his eye upon her the while, stepping up the lanes, away from the main roadway, away from the Abbey, and down an alley which led to the back of his house. He could enter without being seen. ‘How could I reject my own child? Impossible.’
But confusion was already turning to anger as Sara recalled their last two meetings. She shook her arm free. ‘No! You’re not going to take me in the back here, like a slut. You swore to wed me, and that means I have the right to enter by your front door.’
‘Darling, please come with me just this once,’ Joce said, smiling. ‘It is a whim of mine.’
‘Don’t treat me like a fool!’ she threatened him. She was rubbing at her elbow where he had gripped her. ‘If you’re serious about honouring our vows, and are not going to deny me again, and if you will support Ellis as well, if he is accused, then I shall enter your house, for the sake of my children, as your wife. But I shall not go in the back door so that you can deny seeing me in the future. Ah, no!’
‘Stop rubbing your arm, woman. Come! I merely wish to see my horses.’
‘Then you can, once we’ve entered by your front door. Or is this all merely a jest to satisfy some cruel amusement of yours?’ she asked.
‘This is no jest, I assure you, Wife.’
She said nothing. Her hand was at her elbow still. As he watched, she picked at the material, and pulled a face as she realised that it was covered in mud. ‘Oh, look at that. My best linen shirt, too. What have you been up to?’
He could say nothing. Suddenly he felt as though the blood was draining from his face as she took him in, her features at first sharp and irritated, and then subtly altering, until they registered pure horror. ‘My God!’ she whispered. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You tried to kill that boy!’
His arm was up and at her throat in a moment while he fumbled for his knife, but he was too late to prevent the scream that burst from her. She kicked at his feet, and he stumbled, and then she had broken free. Two men appeared from his gateway, and he stared at them dully, before bolting back the way he had come.
He made it to the bridge without anyone catching him, and then he found himself confronted by a traveller on a tired old nag. Without pausing, Joce ran to the man’s side. The nag side-stepped, rearing his head, and Joce caught the man’s foot, thrusting upwards viciously. In a moment the rider was up and over his mount, falling on the other side with an audible crunch as his shoulder struck the cobbled way. It took no time to shove one foot in the stirrup and lift himself up into the saddle. Kicking the beast’s flanks cruelly, Joce urged it into a slow canter.