Nicholas’s voice remained even but the smile had faded. “Surprisingly, perhaps, since you claim to believe so much against me,” he said, “But now I am more than a little angry myself.”
There were other footsteps, somebody pushing through the crowd. Jerrod called out, “He’s not worth it, boy. Leave it be, or you’ll end up taking the blame yourself.”
“I invariably do,” said Nicholas, and sidestepped with sudden speed. Adrian’s sword swung straight, aiming into unexpected empty air. Nicholas, now behind, took him at once around the neck with one arm, muscles straining through the fine linen of his shirt sleeve. His sword countered Adrian’s, clash to clash and flashing sparks of reflected sunlight. Nicholas forced his cousins head back and hissed directly into Adrian’s ear, his spit on Adrian’s cheek. “I could kill you now. Just one little thrust. But I want a better fight than this. Show me what you can do, cousin.” And he released him at once, hurling him sideways.
Adrian stumbled, righted himself, and tightened his clasp on the hilt of his uncle’s sword. He turned, spinning back to face Nicholas. “Bastard. Trickster.”
Nicholas laughed. “Come show your cowardly cousin how to fight with honour, then.” He bowed, then danced backwards. “Though if you want a straightforward face to face slash and batter, you’ll be dead at my first blow. And remember, I’m also the younger son, or was until you murdered my brother. And I’d have had a little sister to protect, if the plagues of hell hadn’t stolen her from me. Few men grow old without some share of misery. So show me your pathetic grievances, and play the hero, sir knight.”
Adrian rushed him. He grappled Nicholas one handed, bringing the point of his sword straight to his cousin’s chest. But Nicholas forced it down with his own steel, relentlessly inch by inch down across his thigh. Then he twisted his leg behind Adrian’s unbalancing him, so Adrian’s sword sliced first down his own leg, then rebounded. The blade scraped Nicholas’s thigh, springing loose threads down his hose and a light graze against the flesh. Adrian’s leg was deeply wounded and when he righted himself again, he found Nicholas’s sword point pressed to his throat, and a long knife point to his groin. Adrian yelled, “Killer. Tell your father this is what you did to your brother.”
“So easily infuriated, cousin?” Nicholas laughed, again releasing him with a quick shove backwards. “A few children’s insults, and you lose all control and fight like a blacksmith’s apprentice. So now face me square, and prove your skills.”
Wide legged, sword raised, Nicholas waited. Adrian limped, adjusted, and stood four steps off, watching carefully. He raised his sword. Nicholas began to turn his blade, twisting it to swing in the sparkling sunlight. It thrummed faintly, cutting the breezes. Adrian’s hand was trembling, the palm badly sliced. His leg poured blood, his throat bleeding from one small round cut. Nicholas’s thigh was bleeding also, a thin trickle soaking into the wool of his hose. As he swung his sword right handed, he kept a grip on the knife in his left.
Then one of the horses bolted. Flinging up its head, ripping the reins from the small groom’s loosened clutch, it snickered in alarm and made straight for the fence. The crowd parted, the groom squeaked and ran after. The other beasts began to mill, champing and fretting, twisting, turning, unsure. Two grooms grabbed, two horses reared, one kicked out and David moved aside, catching it by the tail. The horse pulled back and kicked, teeth bared. The earl yelled, “Watch out, Nick m’boy.” Another horse reared and a stable boy fell, half trampled. The noise mounted, whinnying and spitting, shouting and frightened cries from the boys. The crowd half dispersed, some running forwards, yelling advice and pulling the boys from harm. A stall’s planks cracked and split with splinters and another squealing horse.
Nicholas dodged. One heaving belly, black and bulging, wedged between himself and Adrian. Adrian looked around, desperate. “Run, then,” Nicholas called, “It’s your best chance.” He raised his sword again, point it towards the oak tree and the path leading back into the hills. “Run,” he laughed again. “As all traitors and murderers do.”
The horses were frantic, avoiding capture. The stable boys were grabbing at manes, flying reins and the panicked flick of plaited tails. Nicholas ran past one, again facing Adrian. He grinned, and brought his sword hard down, its edge to a fallen and rolling wooden bucket. The bucket split immediately in two shuddering parts. Nicholas laughed. “Your skull next time, cousin? This sword can split a body in two, or cut through both legs with one stroke. What part would you choose, I wonder? Knees? Shoulder? Head? Shall I make two of you, cousin?”
Adrian shouted back, “Madman. Mad as your mad father.” But he was panting, the words disjointed and breathless.
Harry was flat on his back, kicked by a horse, blood pouring from his chin and nose. Rob dragged him into one of the stalls, away from flying hooves. Alan and David were rounding up as many of the beasts as they could, dodging, advising, ordering the stable boys into moving lines to block the horses’ escape. Jerrid, back amongst the crowd, was reassuring the landlord and two of the patrons. “Just a little misunderstanding,” he said, wide and earnest blue eyed. “Conflicting loyalties, you know. Nobles of the land – never easy to talk out of some crusade or another.”
The earl stood central, staring, red faced. He seemed stunned. Gradually the horses calmed, one by one led back to their stalls. David filled two buckets at the well and hauled them back to the trembling, thirsty animals, speaking softly, soothing them.
Adrian’s five men had entirely disappeared along with their horses. Nicholas watched the last shadow streak beneath the low branches of the distant oak tree. When he looked back, Adrian had gone as well.
Chapter Fifty-One
Petronella combed her mistress’s hair. “Very tangled, m’lady,” she said with a sniff of disapproval.
“Honestly Nellie,” Emeline objected, “sometimes you’re worse than my mother. There’s been nothing but sweaty travel and horrid little taverns for weeks and then the most awful danger. My husband’s badly wounded, I’ve been terrified that I might have caught the pestilence and I’ve been shut away up here for four days without a bath, and you just think I should have done nothing but comb my hair?”
Petronella apologised with a faintly martyred sigh, and Martha looked up. She was brushing down Emeline’s best gown with Fuller’s Earth, and a small damp brush to the mud around the hem. Martha frowned. “The proper care of a young lady’s appearance is never of minor importance, as I’ve taught you for years, Emeline. And his lordship has no more than a slight graze to the thigh. I doubt he’d be pleased to hear you call him badly wounded.”
Nicholas was, in fact, thoroughly enjoying the compensations of the wounded, with best Burgundy and hot baked honey cakes served in the parlour downstairs. His father regarded him with unusual hesitancy. “You did well, my boy. Showed some skill – at least – bested that foolish cousin of yours, but luckily didn’t kill him.”
“I’d no intention of killing him,” Nicholas waved an impatient hand. “I expected him to run. It’s the easiest solution for all of us. Dragging him off to the sheriff and seeing him manacled in the Tower dungeons would be a huge exaggeration at this stage. High treason? Well, perhaps. Tudor’s letter puts both him and Northumberland under suspicion, but it was no battle cry. It’s Peter’s murder which concerns me more.”
A pause. “Did he? Can we be sure?” The earl drank quickly, choosing his words with unexpected care. “I’ve learned a good deal about you in these past two days, my boy, and I admit I’ve misjudged you. But I’ll listen to no criticism of Peter. I didn’t when he lived and I surely won’t now he’s gone. Now, as for his murderer?”