Where Simon had seen the little huddle, now there was quite a group, all standing together and talking. Simon could see one man expostulating with another, then three or four who appeared to hurry up to them, listening. After a short altercation, the bulk of the men ran towards the castle, and there Simon could see nothing of them because of the line of the western wall, but the others set off at a run to the northern gate, and Simon watched with a frown as they disappeared behind a building. ‘What are they up to?’ he wondered.
Sir Laurence paled. ‘They are going to open the gates! Sir Stephen, Earl Hugh, the city is about to capitulate, I think.’
Earl Hugh spun round and stared. There was a greyness in his features. ‘No! No, they wouldn’t. They must know that they only have to hold faith to the King and he will rescue us. They’d be mad to open the gates now! Don’t they realise the King will exact terrible revenge for a betrayal like that?’’
Sir Stephen said nothing. He had darted to the corner of the battlement, and was staring down at the roads. ‘Leave it to me, my lord,’ he said, and was off into the tower. Soon he was below in the court, bellowing for his squire and servants. In a short space of time, there was a hoarse shout, and Sir Stephen ran from the gates with six men behind him, all armed with axes, knives and swords. A moment or two later, Simon saw them pelting up the roadway in pursuit of the men he had seen before, chasing north towards the city gate.
‘Odd,’ Simon said musingly.
‘What?’ Sir Charles said.
‘I’d thought that the second party were going to guard us here, so that no one could get to the city gate and prevent their opening it.’
Sir Laurence stared at him, and then cupped his hands and shouted to the guard on the gatehouse: ‘Is there a band of men before the castle’s gate?’
The answer came back that there was, but Sir Stephen had passed through them without trouble, and now they stood apparently ready to repulse any force from the castle.
Sir Charles leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, while Sir Laurence set his jaw and glared down at the city. ‘I could get some men,’ he muttered. Bellowing down into the ward, he ordered a party of men-at-arms to gather weapons, and strode to the tower’s door.
Earl Hugh looked from Sir Charles to the city with perplexity. ‘What is happening?’
‘It would seem that Sir Stephen is also about to capitulate, my lord. I think that he is helping the city to open the gates.’
It was as he spoke that they all heard the roaring noise: the sound of a thousand men cheering as they entered the city.
Earl Hugh slumped as Sir Laurence returned. The knight gripped the nearest battlement and stared, but Earl Hugh could not look. He turned and slowly made his way to the staircase, his face waxen, like a man who had already died.
St Peter’s Church, Bristol
The job of fosser at St Peter’s Church in Bristol was not generally an arduous one, Saul thought; mind, it was possible that his duties would soon become more onerous.
As Saul the Fosser hobbled along St Peter Street, he reckoned that it was all to the good. Men tended to die quite often, and if their deaths were hastened for reasons outside his own control, he was content to take the pennies each body represented as his due.
‘Ach, God’s pains,’ he muttered as he came to another of the irregular barricades flung over the roadway to stop horses. ‘Oi! How do I get past here?’
A face appeared at the top, that of a boy aged ten or eleven. ‘You’ll have to go round, Grandad. There’s no path here.’
Cursing all little boys under his breath, the fosser went along an alley as the lad had indicated, and soon found his way to the church.
There was no burial today. He left his spade in the lean-to shed at the side of the church, and instead walked over the long grass of the cemetery. There were three mounds of soil. Two had sunk quite well now, both being a few days old, and only Cecily’s was yet rounded and proud of the grass.
He went to the nearer of the low graves and cast a wary look about him before thrusting his hand into the loose soil. It took no time to find the packet, and he took it out, shaking the muddy soil from it and shoving it into his shirt. Then he rose and strode from the cemetery as quickly as his gammy leg would allow.
It was an ancient wound, that. When younger, he had been apprenticed to a bowyer, but then he had had an accident: borrowing his master’s horse without permission he took part in a race against a friend. His horse put a hoof into a rabbit-hole at full gallop, and crashed to the ground, throwing Saul over and over. His prize was a badly broken leg that left him crippled, and the loss of his apprenticeship. He was lucky that he wasn’t forced to replace the beast, which had to be put out of its misery. That was the end of his aspirations. Now he lived from one day to the next, surviving on the pennies he was given for each burial and a small sum for keeping the cemetery neat.
Which was why the discovery of the little dagger inset with rubies had been so thrilling. It represented a sudden change in his fortunes. Every so often Saul had been able to ‘rescue’ some item from a corpse – a pilgrim badge, a cross, or perhaps a silver pin – but each was trivial and hardly worth the bother. Were his theft to be recognised, of course, the consequences would be catastrophic. The rector of St Peter’s was ever-vigilant for misdemeanours, and Saul would lose his post for ever.
But this dagger made all the other items pale into insignificance beside its gleaming gilt and precious stones. And Saul knew just the man who would be prepared to pay for such a trinket, too.
Guy le Dubber was a short, thickset man in his early forties. He had a flowing grey beard that entirely concealed his throat, and covered the whole of his face from the cheeks down. A perpetual scowl almost hid his eyes, and what was visible glittered with a shrewd speculation. Any man meeting him for the first time had the impression that his value was assessed in the first moments, and generally the result was unfavourable, if le Dubber’s expression was anything to go by.
Saul had known le Dubber for many years now, and he entered the little chamber with a swagger. ‘You’ll like this,’ he said confidently.
Le Dubber was sitting at his fireside, and stared at the little fosser with his habitual frown. He had a spoon in his hand, which he placed down, then wiped his moustache with the back of a hand. He rose from his stool, pushing aside a pair of hams hanging from a rafter, and said, ‘I’m eating.’
‘I’ve something you’ll want,’ Saul said without moving.
The broker hawked and spat onto his floor, then scratched his buttock and jerked his head to beckon his visitor closer. He walked around the hearth to the board under the window and waited.
Saul passed him the parcel, and the broker pulled at the twine holding it. He undid the wrappings, then Saul saw his brows rise with surprise at the sight within.
‘Nice, eh? It’d made anyone happy, that would,’ Saul said.
‘Shut up.’
Saul subsided, watching. He had seen the gleam of interest in le Dubber’s eyes as soon as the first ruby appeared from its wrappings, and knew that the broker would be able to make a lot of money out of it. He would start bargaining at five shillings, Saul told himself, and allow Guy to gradually knock him back to three. Three shillings! It was more money than he had ever possessed in one time. Thirty-six pennies!
‘No. Not interested.’
Saul stared at le Dubber as the broker pushed the knife back towards him.
‘What do you mean, no?’