I told the others to follow and ran from Amabel’s house across the lane to Amice Thatcher’s dwelling. I stopped in the shadow of the house, raised a hand to halt the others, and was about to divide them and send half to the front and the other half to the rear of the house when I heard a muffled gasp. The throat which made such a sound was surely feminine. Arthur and the others heard also, the night being still.
We were too late. The squires were in the house. They had come by way of the alley, for I had watched the lane. We might trap them in the house, but they held Amice and would threaten her if we menaced their escape.
I whispered for the sergeants to guard the rear of the house, told Arthur and Uctred to follow me, and ran to the front door.
I had told Amice to bar her doors, and when I grasped the latch the door did not open. But it did move enough to rattle the hinges and thus speak a warning to those inside that someone wished to enter.
I told Arthur and Uctred to remain at the front door and ran to the toft. The sergeants stood at the rear door, hands upon their daggers and ready for a brawl. I tested this door also, and found it barred as well. How had two men gained entrance to the house? Or did my ears deceive me and no suspicious gasp come from the place?
“Amice,” I whispered, “Amice… ’tis Master Hugh. Are you well?”
When a response finally came it was not what I wished to hear.
“She is well, but she will not be if you do not depart.”
“Who is there?”
“Desperate men. We were told you might lay a snare for us, so we have prepared one for you. There is a dagger at the woman’s throat. She will tell us where the chapman’s treasure may be found, or you will, or her throat will be slit.”
“If you do such a thing you will die.”
“The man we serve will protect us.”
“Protect you from the Sheriff of Oxford? Sir Roger has the King’s trust, Sir John does not.” (I thought it could do no harm to disclose that I knew who they were and who they served). “Are you willing to risk a scaffold in Oxford upon that confidence?”
Silence followed.
“There are armed men at the front and back,” I said through the door. “You cannot escape.”
“Perhaps. We have the woman.”
“If you harm her you will hang, or perhaps there will be a fight here in the bury and you will, regretfully, be slain in the struggle.”
“You would have us surrender to you? We may hang should we do so. So if we harm the woman, what greater harm to us? Her death is loss to you, not to us.”
The man spoke true. If I could I would see them hang for their felonies. Slaying Amice Thatcher would not increase the penalty.
“You knew we would be watching this house,” I said. “Who told you?”
“No man you can harm.”
“You will never gain the chapman’s treasure.”
“Why do you say so? Have you found it?”
My silence was answer enough.
“So you have not,” the squire said. “Then we may yet discover it before you.”
“Not from the Oxford Castle dungeon.”
“We will not be there.”
“You believe Sir Roger will not impeach you for your felonies?”
“He will not seize us to do so.”
“What? His sergeants stand here at the door.”
“Mayhap, but they will not take us. We have the woman.”
“You cannot remain in the house forever.”
“Aye, but when we depart it will be with the woman, and with a dagger at her neck.”
My plan had unraveled like an old surcoat. All because I had not thought of access to Amice’s toft through the little-used alley. But how did these vile squires get through her barred door without making some sound I might have heard from my post across the lane?
I could not worry about that for the moment. Later, when Amice was free of her captors, then I could learn from her how they gained entrance.
“Stand away from the door, you and the sergeants. We will leave with the woman, and should any man come within five paces of us, my dagger will pierce her throat.”
When I made no immediate reply the man spoke again. “Did you hear? Answer, yea or nay.”
“Yea… I heard.”
I turned to the sergeants and in a whisper bid them seek the alley behind the toft and hurry to where the lane joined the main street. There they would find a man and three horses. I told them they should not seize the fellow, but if they could, they should work their way close to him and the beasts in the dark, without being discovered.
The sergeants disappeared into the shadows of the alley, and I ran to the front of the house.
“We heard,” Arthur said. “Are we to do as the knave said?”
“We must. But as they retreat toward their horses we will follow, five paces away. They must not be allowed to take Amice from Abingdon.”
I heard the bar lifted from Amice’s door, the hinges squealed, and three figures filed through the opening. The shorter of the two squires led, a dagger in his right hand, then came Amice and behind her the taller of the squires, with one arm about her waist and the other pressing a dagger to her throat. I saw the blade reflect moonlight.
“Stay back,” the taller squire demanded, and shoved Amice before him. The stout squire decided ’twould be best to place himself where he could observe us, so moved behind his companion and walked backward, his dagger pointed at me all the while. My arrow wound took that moment to ache, reminding me that I should avoid another perforation.
Thus we traveled, two hundred paces or more, past the silent huts of the bury, no man in either group speaking. The only sound was the scuffling of feet and once, a sob from Amice Thatcher.
As we approached the main street I heard a horse stamp a foot and blow through its nostrils. I studied the night in the direction from which the sound had come, and saw dimly the shapes of three horses. As I watched the animals moved from the shadows into the moonlight.
A rider upon the first horse had seen or heard our approach and led the other beasts to meet the squires and their captive. This horseman wore dark chauces and cotehardie, and his cap was pulled low over his forehead so as to obscure his features, but I knew who it was who awaited the felonious squires.
The rider’s left ear showed white in the moonlight, protruding from under his cap as if set in plaster. My excuse for this misshapen ear is that it was the first time I had ever been called upon to reattach such a member. I shall do better in the future. And, in truth, I cared little at the time if Sir Simon Trillowe’s features were blemished or not.
I detected movement behind Sir Simon and the horses. ’Twas the sergeants I had sent hurrying through the alley. Sir Simon, the squires, and Amice were surrounded, but the advantage yet lay with those who held a blade to a woman’s throat.
Neither Sir Simon nor the squires spoke. They knew the risk they had taken, and had planned what they would do if their scheme was thwarted. The taller of the squires, who held his dagger to Amice’s throat, approached a horse and attempted to throw Amice across the beast’s neck, before the saddle. The animal did not approve of the business and sidestepped, so that rather than finding herself upon a horse, Amice was pitched face-first into the mud of the street.
Just for a moment the squire’s dagger was away from Amice’s neck. “At them!” I yelled, and with my own dagger drawn I plunged toward the tall squire so to prevent his seizing Amice again. A dagger used against me could not be laid aside Amice’s neck.
What followed was a maelstrom of shouting, cursing men, stamping horses, and one shrieking woman. The squire heard my cry, glanced from Amice, at his feet, to me, leaping for him, saw my dagger glinting in the moonlight, and vaulted to his saddle. The other squire had been mounting his beast when Amice fell, so was in his saddle when Uctred and a sergeant charged after him. From the corner of my eye I saw his dagger sweep before Uctred’s approach, and Uctred fell back. Whether or not he had been slashed I could not tell.