Past Marcham we found the road leading south to Hanney, and a short while later a squat church tower appeared, barely lifting above the trees. Less than a mile from the village the road entered a wood. I had considered how best to investigate the village, and the forest provided an answer.
At a place where the forest undergrowth was not so dense I signaled Arthur to stop, dismounted, and led Bruce from the road into the forest. Arthur followed. A hundred paces into the wood I stopped, tied Bruce to a small oak, and motioned to Arthur to do the same with his palfrey. All this time neither of us spoke, as if we thought we might be overheard, distant yet as the village was.
We pushed through the wet forest, becoming thoroughly damp, until we reached its southern limit. A field lay before us, encircled by a low stone wall, where grain had been cut some months before. Now sheep wandered across it, munching upon the stubble and manuring the ground for next year’s crop of peas or beans. A hundred paces across this field was a manor: a large house, several barns, and some smaller outbuildings. Many of these needed repair, as did the manor house. The thatching was old and decayed, and I could see a place where a chunk of daub had peeled away from the wattles. The lord of this manor was either uncaring or too poor to keep up his property. I wondered if he was too impoverished to see to his horse’s broken shoe.
Arthur stood beside me, gazing at the distant manor. Beyond it was the village, and in the distance, above the rooftops of the houses, I saw the low tower of the village church and another, larger house, of two stories. This village had two manors; was the second as poor as the first? This seemed unlikely, for the larger house had a slate roof.
I returned my gaze to the closer manor, and saw a man appear from behind a ramshackled outbuilding. This structure appeared at a distance to be much like a hencoop, but if it was, Reynard would not be long in devising some means of entry. The man was unkempt, shaggy and meanly clothed.
I pointed silently to the fellow, and Arthur whispered, “I see ’im.” There was no need to speak softly. At that distance even a normal conversation would go undetected. But at the verge of the wood, where we stood, we might be seen. I took Arthur’s arm and drew him a few steps deeper into the forest.
“What’s ’e doin’?” Arthur asked.
“Nothing. Look there… he turned and walked behind that shed.”
Indeed, the man had disappeared, resuming the place he had occupied when we first saw the manor.
“Let’s watch and see if the fellow reappears.”
He did. A few minutes later he again sauntered into view, then seemed to bend toward the shed and peer in. Perhaps there was a door there, or a chink in the wattles.
“’E’s sayin’ somethin’,” said Arthur.
We could not hear his words, but even from one hundred paces it was possible to see that the fellow spoke. Folk do not speak to decrepit hencoops unless they are addled. Someone was inside the shed.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Arthur asked.
“Aye. Look there, he’s moved from the shed, but does not walk far away.”
“Somebody’s in there… unless ’e talks to chickens.”
“And he’s laughing, I think.”
“Did someone inside that shed make a jest?”
“I doubt so,” I replied. “I think the man laughs because of the state someone is in… which he finds amusing.”
“I’d like to know who, or what, is in there.”
“You shall. We will wait here behind this wall till dark, then approach from behind that barn you see to the right of the coop. If the fellow is yet guarding the place, and it’s my opinion that’s what he’s doing, we can be upon him in a few steps when he turns in his pacing.”
“What if there’s no one in that shed?”
“The fellow is behaving strangely if that is so. And we’ll deal carefully with him. Find a fallen limb here in the wood which will put him to sleep when laid across his skull, but not so large as to give him more than a headache tomorrow.”
“Aye,” Arthur smiled. “I’d best be about it while there’s light an’ enough to see.”
The day had been cloudy and drear since dawn, and so now, at the tenth hour, it was already growing dark. I heard Arthur searching the forest while I kept watch on the guard and the shed. I was convinced that Amice Thatcher and her children were held there, and if I acted wisely and boldly I could free them. But sometimes wise acts are not bold, and bold acts are unwise.
Arthur soon returned carrying a downed oak limb nearly the size of his arm.
“Don’t swing that too hard, or the fellow will not awaken till next week.”
“Was all I could find,” Arthur said, glancing down at his cudgel. “I’ll be kind. The fellow’ll not feel nothin’.”
“Till he awakes,” I laughed.
“Aye. By then we’ll have done what’s needed an’ be gone.”
Just before the twelfth hour, when the forest was dark and the field between us and the manor near so, a second figure approached the shed. The two faced each other for a moment, and perhaps spoke, but ’twas too dark to see. Then the first man departed and the newcomer took his place. I dimly saw the fellow bend toward the shed, but if he spoke or not I could not tell.
“Changed the guard over who’s in the hencoop,” Arthur said. “Must be someone important. Whoso put ’em in there don’t want ’em to get away.”
“Amice Thatcher is in the shed, I think.”
“My guess, too,” Arthur agreed. “Think it’s dark enough?”
“Not yet. We’ve waited three hours. Another half-hour will not do us harm.”
When it was so dark that I could no longer see the shed or the man who stood beside it, I whispered to Arthur, “Let’s be off,” and together we climbed the stone wall and crossed the field. Nettles grew in the stones of the wall, and when I pulled myself over the top my hands found them. This was not an auspicious beginning to the business. Arthur must have found the nettles also. I heard him mutter a curse as we dropped to the other side of the wall.
The wheat stubble was wet and pliant under our feet. We made no sound crossing the field, and even the sheep, huddled together for the night near the center of the enclosure, paid us no attention.
When we first came upon the field I had seen that near the shed was a gate. I had decided to avoid it and its squealing hinges, and vault the wall, as we had done leaving the forest. But the thought of another encounter with nettles persuaded me to try the gate.
It was a crude affair, made of coppiced poles and fastened together with lengths of hempen cord. Such cords also formed rough hinges and, unlike iron, offered no protest when used to swing the gate open. I pushed against the gate, and Arthur followed through the opening and across an open space until a barn hid us from the shed and the manor house.
The house was perhaps twenty paces from where we stood. I could hear voices from within, and candlelight flickered from two of the windows, which were of glass. If the man standing beside the shed was allowed to raise an alarm, those in the house would surely hear. Whatever we did must be silent.
Perhaps a change of plans was in order. If I circled behind the second barn I could approach the shed and its guard from the direction of the house. If I made no effort to be silent or conceal my appearance the guard would turn his attention to me. Perhaps he would think his lord was making a last inspection of the prisoner in the hencoop before taking to his bed. While I approached Arthur might sneak up behind the guard, and seize him with a hand across his mouth. Then, with Arthur’s dagger at his throat, he might be persuaded to keep silence while I opened the shed to free Amice Thatcher and her children. If the fellow seemed unwilling to cooperate there would always be Arthur’s club to fall back on. If we could keep the fellow conscious he might be persuaded to answer some questions after I released Amice and the children.