by Jason Vail
Men in one of the clumps pointed at Stephen as he slipped over the fence into the orchard. More fingers pointed his way, and six men detached themselves from the clump and marched toward him. Three were armed with staves. A six-foot stave was no harmless piece of wood. A blow from a stave could smash an unprotected skull and knock a helmeted man senseless. Two had sickles. These seemed like a harmless farm implement, but Stephen had once presided at a coroner’s court where the victim had been nearly beheaded with such a commonplace tool. The last was unarmed. Murder was on their faces.
A man armed with sword and shield was a formidable adversary, but he was not invincible. From the way the approaching men began to fan out as they drew near, Stephen could guess their plan — the men with staves would rain blows on him from the front and sides while the men with sickles took his back. It was a plan that had a high degree of success, even if he managed to kill one or two of them before he went down.
He thought about running away, but there was nowhere to run, nowhere he could be safe. And odds were, they could run faster than he could with his bum foot.
Stephen dropped his helmet. There wasn’t time to put on his arming cap and the helmet. He hefted his shield and drew his sword while slipping back over a garden fence and retreating until he had a burning house at his back. He hoped the flames and heat would deter any of the men from getting behind him, even if his backside felt as though it was starting to cook.
“I’m not one of them!” Stephen called as the six men negotiated the fence and walked up to just beyond the reach of his sword.
“Don’t take me for a fool!” spat the leader, a tall man with lanky brown hair. He raised his stave overhead in preparation for a blow.
“Hold there!” a voice shouted from a neighboring garden. “Hold, I say!” It was Gilbert, who was running toward them as fast as a short-legged stout man could. He hit one fence, tried to vault it, but fell across it head over heels instead, picked himself up and kept coming. He repeated the tumble at the next fence and drew up beside Stephen.
“He isn’t one of them,” Gilbert panted. “He’s all right.”
“Who are you?” the brown-haired man asked without lowering his stave.
“Me?” Gilbert continued to pant. “I, why, nobody. But certainly not with them!” He waved at the burning houses as if to indicate the invaders who had fired the town. He looked back the way he had come, where Mildred, her husband and their children and servants had gathered at the fence about their garden. “Tell them!” Gilbert called to them. “Tell them that Stephen isn’t one of them!”
“What of it, Hank?” the brown-haired man called to Mildred’s husband. “Do you know this man?”
“I do,” Hank said. “He saved our skins.”
The refugees gathered in the orchard told Stephen a fuller story of the invasion of the town. Two small rebel armies attacked the town. Ferrers had come from the east with about a hundred men, while Henry de Montfort, one of Simon’s sons, had split off from the army at Wigmore and approached from the west. It was impossible to attack Worcester from the west, since it lay on the east bank of the Severn and could be reached only by a well-defended bridge. But as Stephen had heard, Ferrers’ men got over the castle wall, entered the town and admitted Montfort’s men through the Bridge Gate. The total force in the town was probably about five-hundred men, but it was more than the town could muster to resist them, and once the invaders had control of the streets, there was nothing anyone could do.
Meanwhile, Harry and Gilbert regaled Stephen with the story of their suffering in the cramped cellar. They had spent hours packed like pickled herring in a barrel, while the cellar grew hot and tempers hotter as those inside pressed against and fumbled over each other. When Gilbert partially forced the door to admit fresh air, they had discovered the fires, and when they realized it was not some random blaze but a general, deadly thing, they had forced the door and came out. That’s when Gilbert saw Stephen.
“It’s a good thing we spotted you,” Gilbert said to Stephen. They were sitting under an apple tree well into the orchard. Night had fallen but the fires still burning in many of the fallen houses lit the darkness with flickering orange light. “They’d have killed you for certain.”
“Wait a moment,” Stephen said. “You saved them, not me. They didn’t stand a chance.”
“I don’t know. You looked like you needed help,” Harry said. Harry gazed over his shoulder at the town wall. “We’ve lost the horses. What’s your plan for getting to Gloucester now? I don’t think walking there is an option.”
“True. I have no intention of carrying you on my back the whole way,” Stephen said.
“That’s good,” Harry said. “I much prefer riding a horse to riding you. A horse doesn’t groan and complain as much. Are we going to steal some?”
“I doubt there any horses to be had,” Gilbert said, chewing on a stem of grass, not appearing much affected by the loss of his mule; he was probably hiding his feelings. “They’ll all have been stolen.”
“Although your opinion usually isn’t worth much, I’d say you’re right there,” Harry said.
“I shall savor the memory of this moment,” Gilbert said. “Harry admits that I am right about something.”
“It is a great day, indeed,” Stephen said, thinking it was great for a different reason: because they were still alive and he still had his money sack.
Chapter 9
The fires still smoldered at dawn.
Through the smoky haze, a few people could be seen on the streets across the ruins of fallen houses, wandering about in shock. Stephen went with some of the men sheltering in the orchard to call across to them for what news they might have. They learned that the enemy army had pulled out at dawn.
“Where did they go?” Stephen shouted to a man and woman who were poking at the ruins of a house across Bridge Street near where the inn and its stable had stood.
“South!” the man called back before he turned away. “That’s all I know!”
Stephen worked his way through back gardens toward Bridge Gate to see if the guards were still there; they were not.
With the rebel army indeed gone, there was nothing stopping him, Harry and Gilbert from getting out now but the ring of smoldering houses. The smoke rising from the rubble suggested that it was still too hot to walk through. It might be a day or more before they had cooled enough so that people could get beyond them.
Stephen didn’t want to wait a day. Few people had brought any food or water when they fled their homes, and those who did were unlikely to share what they had. He had to find a way to get out.
He had noticed one thing while crossing the back gardens. One of the houses had a good supply of lumber that had been split into planks. Stephen returned to the center of the orchard to fetch Gilbert.
“I think there’s a way out of here,” he said. “But I need your help.”
“Does this involve the chance of getting breakfast?” Gilbert asked. “I’m starving.”
“Of course, you are,” Stephen said. “But you won’t find anything to eat here, unless you’re partial to grass.”
“True,” Gilbert said, climbing to his feet.
Stephen led the way back to the house where he had found the boards. He and Gilbert began to lay out a plank pathway through the remains of the house to the street. When others in the orchard saw what they were doing, a crowd gathered to help, making the work take no time at all.
As the work proceeded to lay down this bridge, practically everyone trapped within the ring of smoldering ruins queued up at its head, and the last planks had hardly been set out when the first scampered across to the relative safety of the street beyond.
Stephen and Gilbert fought their way through the crowd to fetch Harry.
“Come on, Harry,” Stephen said, squatting down with his back to his friend. “We have to hurry. Our road out may catch fire at any moment.”
“What?” Harry asked, bewildered, because from
his vantage point so near the ground he had not seen what Stephen and Gilbert had been up to.
“I said, come on,” Stephen repeated. “Mount up. Time to go.”
Harry grasped Stephen’s shoulders and pulled himself onto Stephen’s back. The sudden weight, even though expected, made Stephen grunt with the effort and he swayed standing up.
“You better not fall,” Harry said in his ear.
“If I do, it will be on you,” Stephen said. “Although you’re not much of a cushion.”
“All bones and bad temper,” Gilbert said, gathering up all their sacks and Stephen’s shield and helmet.
“Not a bit of fat on me,” Harry said. “Which is not something that can be said for all of us.”
The planks across the ruins had begun to smoke when they reached the crossing place, where a woman and three small children were the last ones making their way along the boards, handkerchiefs over their mouths against the soot curling out of the ruins on every side.
Gilbert needed no inducement to hurry, and he scampered across the bridge, which swayed underfoot so that he almost staggered into the ashes.
Harry laughed at the sight, but fell silent when Stephen pinched him hard on the thigh.
“Hush!” Stephen said. “I’d like to see you do any better burdened as he is like a pack horse.”
When Gilbert was halfway, the plank he was about to step on caught fire; flames licked around its edges. He ran through the flames, but lost one of the satchels, which fell upon the bridge beyond the flames. Gilbert made no attempt to recover it, but dashed on — as well as anyone can dash weighed down with burdens on rickety boards that could pitch a man into the burning mire at a misstep.
“Hurry up!” Harry hissed. “That one’s the one with the money!”
At the burning plank, Stephen stopped and leaned over. Harry held on with one hand like a trick rider on a horse and reached down to grab the satchel, which was smoldering itself now, as flames on the board flickered around Stephen’s legs.
Harry embraced the satchel and patted out the flames in the material, while Stephen came upright and lumbered onward as fast as he could go, head light and spinning from the lack of air.
They had to cross one more burning plank, and then they hit the street. Stephen collapsed on hands and knees, gasping. Harry let himself down and examined the bag.
“The holes aren’t bad,” he said, looking at Gilbert. “I don’t think anything’s lost. What’s the matter with you? You almost ruined us!”
“Sorry,” Gilbert muttered between breaths, because he was as winded as Stephen. “Sorry.”
“Let me have a look at your legs,” Harry said, turning to Stephen.
He pushed Stephen on his back and bent over Stephen’s calves. In places, Stephen’s stockings had singed and the skin on the back of his legs, the part not protected by his mail hose, was red but not charred or showing blisters. Harry pulled off the mail and cut the stockings free with his knife while Stephen gritted his teeth at the pain, which was astonishingly sharp.
“You’ll live,” Harry said as he tossed aside the remnants of the lower part of Stephen’s stockings. “Looks worse than it is, I think. Nothing a little tallow won’t fix.” Tallow was a common remedy for minor burns.
“Too bad I forgot to pack any,” Stephen said.
“If you had, our friend here would have already eaten it for breakfast,” Harry said.
“I wouldn’t have eaten all of it,” Gilbert said. “I’d have left some for you.”
Harry smiled. “Yes, tallow on a stick makes a fine supper, with a bit of salt.”
“You would know,” Gilbert said, flopping into his back.
“I certainly would, and do,” Harry said. “I also like it on crickets, but they are not in season.”
“Sounds delicious. Do you cook them first?” Gilbert asked.
“Never had the opportunity. I have usually taken them raw.”
“I think I would prefer mine cooked,” Gilbert said.
“Tasty either way,” Harry said. “Grasshoppers are good, too. Although they tend to be a bit crunchy.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Unless we get away from here, we’re going to end up eating each other,” Stephen said, pulling himself into a crouch. “Mount up.”
Harry regarded Stephen’s back. “You’re really going to carry me to Gloucester?”
“No, I am playing a long shot.”
“Mind telling me what it is?”
“Carrying you is such a chore that I don’t have the breath to waste on explanations. Get on, before I leave you here to be robbed by the desperate citizenry.”
“I am the man with the money, aren’t I,” Harry said, collecting the satchel with all their cash under one arm. “You aren’t going to leave me behind.”
He grasped Stephen’s shoulder with his free arm, while Stephen got his hands under Harry’s legs and stood up.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Harry asked.
“The town quay,” Stephen said, gritting his teeth against the jolt of pain that followed every time he took a stride.
“Ah,” Harry said. “I think I know what you have in mind. You’re —”
“Say nothing or you’ll jinx it,” Stephen said. “Luck is everything.”
The Bridge Gate was, in fact, as unguarded as it appeared to be when Stephen examined it from across the rubble. No one sheltered in the guard’s nook and no one answered when Stephen called up the circular stairwell to the first floor, where the guard room normally was. Gilbert, meanwhile, pulled up the bar securing a smaller, man-sized door in the much larger gate panel and flung it aside.
“Let’s go, before you get an answer,” Gilbert said and stepped through the man-door. “You may not like what it is.”
“He’s got a point,” Harry said. “No telling what rascals could be lurking in there.”
They passed out to the head of the bridge. There was a gap between the end of the bridge and the gate and a well-worn path led from that point down to and along the riverbank, where there were a series of sheds and warehouses built against the wall. In more peaceful times, ships and boats going up and down river crowded the bank. But today, there were no ships in sight. The shipmasters must have fled as soon as they heard about the attack. The only vessels tied to the shore were a handful of rowboats of various sizes that were probably owned by people in the town, and a long, flat barge that had the look of a ferryboat.
There was, in addition, a boat anchored three quarters of the way to the west bank and about fifty yards downstream from the bridge, where they stood. Stephen paused at the head of the path to examine it.
“Harry, you’ve good eyes,” Stephen said, pointed to the anchored boat. “Can you tell if the oars are still aboard it?” People usually removed the oars and locked them in sheds to prevent thievery. Finding a boat with oars aboard would make the task of stealing it far easier in that they would not have to break into one or more of the sheds until they found a set of oars. This could take time and there was always the chance an owner of one of the warehouses might come out to check on his property and object to the break-ins.
Harry squinted over Stephen’s shoulder. “I do believe there are. So, we’re going by water then? Good idea. I was tired of horses, anyway.”
“A rented horse, that I’ll have to pay for before we’re done,” Stephen said.
“You always look on the dark side.”
“You know, I think we need to raise your rent,” Stephen said. “Oh, I forgot, I’m not charging you rent. A notion I should reconsider.”
Stephen carried Harry until they were even with the anchored boat. He put Harry down and started to strip off his mail coat.
“What are you doing?” Gilbert asked. He had gone some more distance down but came back when he realized the others were not keeping pace.
“I am going to swim out to that boat,” Stephen said, indicating the anchored vessel. “We think it has its oars
.”
“Ah,” Gilbert said. He looked down at the green Severn which flowed eight feet below the top of the embankment. Remembering the wetting of his behind, he added, “The water’s cold.”
“As you’ve not let us forget,” Stephen said.
Harry pulled his chin. “People dump their shit in rivers.”
“I don’t see any,” Gilbert said.
“May not now, but you know they do,” Harry said.
“I think the town tanners are down stream,” Stephen said, shucking his gambeson and dropping it onto the pile of mail. Tanners engaged in a notoriously smelly and filthy business involving urine and body parts, like brains and other rotty things. “That’s probably where they dump the rubbish, too.”
“Makes sense,” Harry said. “Who wants to come out of town for a pail of water and come away with a bucket full of shit? But how often do people do the sensible thing?”
“Why all this concern for sanitation?” Gilbert asked.
“Look at those legs,” Harry said, pointing to Stephen’s reddened calves. “They could get infected if he goes for a swim. I knew a fellow once who burned his leg on the hearth. He went wading the next day and before you knew it, he came down with a fever and died. So, Stephen stays out of the water.”
“Certainly, you’re not suggesting I get the thing instead?” Gilbert asked.
“You’re the obvious candidate, but I’ll do it,” Harry said.
He pulled off his cloak and shirt, and swung himself on his hands with agility that surprised those who did not know him down a path that cut through the bank to the river. He tested the temperature of the water with his fingers, made a face, and slipped into the current.
Harry breast-stroked out to the boat, his great, muscular arms drawing him onward with amazing speed. A swan kept pace with him and arched its neck as if considering whether to drive him off as an intruder in this watery realm, but then it lost interest and paddled off.
“He seems at home in the water,” Gilbert murmured.
“Yes,” Stephen said. “He swims better than me.”
Harry reached the boat and pulled himself aboard. For a few moments he was out of sight beneath the upper strakes. Then a hand held an oar aloft and Harry’s head came back into view.
