Walcott looked around the hall again: perhaps they were right. The door might have been unlocked all along, and his men had simply failed to check earlier. But he could not shake the feeling that something was wrong here. He glanced back up towards the gallery, and Anton tried to press himself further into the shadowy corner, the axe pressing uncomfortable into his back.
“There!” Walcott pointed.
“What?”
“The Skullsplitter is missing from its place on the wall.”
“Perhaps his Lordship is making use of it?”
“For what? Cutting his toe nails? It has been taken!” Walcott insisted.
Anton heard the two guardsmen re-enter the hall below him, and when the first spoke he was gasping for breath.
“The door … at the bottom of the east tower … was open onto the courtyard.”
“Our thief has already fled. But he may not yet have made it beyond the wall,” Walcott said. “Sound an alert: I want every single man searching this place. I will not have a thief escaping with his lordship’s possessions on my watch!”
The guardsmen hurried out to rouse their comrades and begin the search.
Lieutenant Walcott leaned back against the nearest table for a moment. He feared that the thief had already made off with his spoils, the axe and perhaps more besides. His thoughts then turned to what punishment might be his for allowing such a lapse in security: the flogging post hadn’t been raised for many years, but the post-hole in the yard behind the guardhouse was still maintained. A trickle of cold sweat ran between his shoulder blades. If he wanted to keep his hide intact, he had better ensure that the men under him were performing their duties more diligently than they had earlier.
He started towards the door at the back of the hall, eyes sweeping left and right, hoping against hope to see the tell-tale bulge of a figure hiding behind a tapestry. One swift thrust of a sword, and his career and skin were saved. But there was nothing to be seen.
Anton heard the lieutenant pass beneath the balcony, but then the man’s footsteps halted.
Walcott had spotted an unevenness in the shadow behind the dais. A figure hiding? He drew his sword and approached cautiously. It was a man, slumped back against the wall. Unconscious? Closer still and he could make out the uniform of a guard and the dull gleam of the man’s face, and his first thought was that the skin had been stripped from the young guardsman’s face, until he saw the jagged outline of the wound above.
A theft and now the murder of one of his own men. For an insane moment, as he heard the whip whistling through the air behind him, he considered hiding the body. But then he drew back and moved towards the door again: he would supervise the search, and if he was lucky the thief and the axe would be found. And if Fortune did not favour him, then he would take his punishment and bear the scars as proudly as he could. Something swelled in his throat and he had to blink back tears. Why couldn’t this have happened on Sheldrake’s watch? He breathed deeply and strode out, banging the door shut behind him.
Anton Leyander let out a long breath and the tension leaked from his muscles. He stood slowly, his back still against the wall, not yet trusting his legs to support him. The blood between his fingers was drying now, beginning to flake away from his skin. He leaned away from the wall and looked over the balcony to make sure that the hall below was empty. He reached behind him and pulled the axe from his belt. He wondered whether it might not be better to leave it behind, but he felt more comfortable with it in his grasp, knowing that he could fight his way out of this place if he had to. Did he think the Skullsplitter’s magic would protect him? Or did he still hold some small hope of receiving the reward offered for stealing it? If he was caught with the axe his appearance of guilt would be multiplied a hundred-fold, whereas if he left it behind he could simply join in the current search, just another uniformed guardsman running hither and thither, until a moment presented itself and allowed him to slip away unnoticed.
Anton turned and approached the open archway, listening carefully. There was no sound. Cautiously he poked his head out, looking left and right. The corridor behind the minstrels’ gallery was empty and dimly lit: torches burned in sconces at either end, where smaller archways opened onto stairwells. The stairwell in the east turret was not to be recommended, as the search would be concentrated there, no doubt, given the open door found into the courtyard. Anton headed for the smaller staircase at the other end of the corridor, heading further into the castle, and further away from freedom.
He closed his eyes for a moment, seeing the plan of the castle in his mind’s eye, trying to plot his route to freedom, imagining where guards might be searching. Where would he be least likely to be spotted? A brief smile flickered across his lips and his eyes opened. Of course, the only place the Guardsmen wouldn’t be searching would be the place they had just left – the Guard House itself. If he could make his way there, Anton knew he could make his way out unobserved; there was a route the Guards themselves used to sneak off site and enjoy a night in town. He headed down the stairs.
Anton knew the axe made him more vulnerable to discovery, so he spent several precious minutes on the ground floor seeking something to disguise it. Eventually he came across a pile of old sacks which, from the smell of them, were the sleeping place of one of the castle dogs. Anton slid the axe into the cleanest of the sacks and slung it over his shoulder: still suspicious perhaps, but less overtly so.
“Where are you off to?” A voice rasped behind him as he exited through a small oak door into the yard on the western side of the castle.
Anton turned, straightening into the pose of a guardsman facing a superior, this one a lieutenant he guessed.
“Back to the guardhouse, sir, to bring back weapons. Lieutenant Walcott said some of us were too stupid with sleep to bring swords with us, sir, and sent me back for them.”
“I see.” The man looked less than convinced. “Weren’t thinking of sneaking back into your nice warm bunk, were you?”
Anton let his face relax into wide-eyed, slack-mouthed disbelief. “No, sir! Just obeying orders, sir.” Sweat trickled down from Anton’s temple and he glanced over the other man’s shoulder.
“Why you looking so nervous, son?”
“Sir, the lieutenant said if I wasn’t back in five minutes he’d have me stripped and boiled alive.” Anton swallowed loudly. “I don’t think he was joking, sir.”
The officer smiled at this promised cruelty. “Better get a move on then, haven’t you, if you want to avoid a lobster’s fate?”
Anton creased his brown, pretending not to understand.
“Get to it, soldier!” the man barked, annoyed that his wit had been wasted.
“Yessir!” Anton spun on his heel.
“Hold it. What’s that in the sack there?”
Anton stopped in his tracks and turned back slowly, trying to think up a suitable reply.
“The sack, boy, what is inside?” The lieutenant pointed.
Anton swung the sack down off his shoulder and looked down as if seeing it for the first time. “Don’t know, sir. The lieutenant handed it to me and told me to give it to the armourer. He didn’t tell me to look inside…” Anton held the sack out towards the man, trying to disguise as best he could the true weight of its contents.
“Don’t give it to me, you idiot, I’m not the armourer. Get about your business, and quickly lad, or they’ll have that big pot on the fire and your name on it!” Cruel laughter followed Anton has he turned on his heel and scurried away.
He had been right about the Guard House being unmanned, and he was able to make his way out. As soon as he was outside the castle walls he ducked into a narrow alley and shrugged off the scarlet tunic. His own dark shirt beneath helped him to blend with the shadows. He stuffed Varian’s tunic into the sack with the axe.
Anton made his way towards a more open area, away from the buildings and looked up at the sky, then looked towards the east. There was still not even a glimmer of ligh
t on the horizon, and according to the position of the moon it was no later than two of the clock: could that be correct? Had he been in the castle less than two hours?
Trusting the moon more than his own sense of time, he set off towards the centre of town. He had a rendezvous with the broken-armed thief in the courtyard behind the blacksmith’s shop: if the old man was there, money might yet be handed over for the axe. And if he wasn’t there, Anton would know that the old man had been part of the elaborate plot to have him captured and charged with theft and murder.
Chapter Six
“Do you have the Skullsplitter?” The voice rasped close to his ear, startling him. Anton peered into the shadows to his left, but could see nothing. Then the clouds uncloaked the moon and a hooded shadow became visible against the darkness. It smiled.
Anton lifted the sack with both hands: the axe was not something to be wielded easily. “I did not expect to find you here,” he said.
“Where else should I be?” the old thief asked, confused.
“I thought perhaps you had betrayed me,” Anton said. “It seemed to me that someone in the castle knew I would be there tonight. They left a guardsman’s corpse for me to find, perhaps by way of warning.”
“Someone was killed?” The surprise in Copthorne’s voice seemed genuine.
“I had to pull the axe from his skull,” Anton said. “Do you have my payment?”
Copthorne held up a leather purse and shook it so that the jingle of gold coin could be heard.
Anton relaxed slightly: he had been expecting some form of trickery. “Open the purse, and I will reveal the contents of the sack.”
Copthorne began pulling at the drawstring with the fingers of his good hand.
Anton bent to pull the axe free from the flour sack, then looked up at the old thief’s struggling. “Let me help with that.” He reached for the coin purse.
Copthorne hesitated for a moment, then handed over the money.
“Hold fast, gentlemen! What goes on here?” The voice was loud in the darkness.
The two hooded thieves were transfixed, peering in the direction of the voice.
“I am Gareth Sheldrake, Lieutenant of the King’s Guard.” A uniformed figure emerged from the shadows. He was taller than Anton, but not a particularly imposing figure: his face was a ghostly white, against which a drooping black moustache and dark red lips stood out starkly. His pale blue eyes were never still, darting from man to man, shadow to shadow, and these alone were enough to make Anton uncomfortable. “I hereby arrest you both on suspicion of murder and theft.” Sheldrake smiled: he held a crossbow at hip height in his right hand, a sword in his left.
Anton frowned, peering into the gloom beyond Sheldrake. “You are alone?”
“I alone have discovered the thieves who took the Skullsplitter. I do not intend to share credit with my colleagues,” Sheldrake said. “I knew I had only to follow our friend here to recover the axe.” He nodded towards Copthorne.
“You will take the Skullsplitter and the money,” Anton said. It was not a question.
“No!” Copthorne protested. “This is some trick, you are in league!” The old man looked from Sheldrake to Leyander and back, then he fumbled inside the folds of his cloak, perhaps reaching for a sword, perhaps for a dagger, perhaps only scratching a flea-bite, it did not matter.
Sheldrake raised the crossbow and the bolt hissed through the night and buried itself in Copthorne’s throat.
The old man’s eyes crossed as if to see the projectile, then he fell backwards.
Anton regarded the corpse. “Was he who he claimed?” he asked. “Was he the Scarlet Hood?”
“You know, I do believe he was,” Sheldrake said. “Many years ago.” He seemed pleased at having brought down so famous an outlaw. Sheldrake switched the sword to his right hand. “Now, let us see who you are – take off the hood.”
“You did not need to kill him,” Anton said, making no move to lower his hood.
“But I wanted to.” Sheldrake smiled. “Place the axe back into the sack.”
Anton knelt and tied the sack around the axe. “You were the one who hired Copthorne to steal the axe,” he said, realisation dawning. “You planned this whole thing. Why?”
“I am an ambitious man,” Sheldrake said, “and see myself as our captain’s second. To achieve that, I must discredit my closest rival.”
“Lieutenant Walcott?” Anton said.
Sheldrake nodded. “Your crimes tonight took place on his watch, and that will be sufficient to discredit him in the eyes of our commander.”
“Why go to such elaborate lengths to be rid of him? Wouldn’t a dagger in the back have been easier to accomplish?” Anton said.
“Ruining Walcott’s reputation was only part of it; at the same time, I must enhance my own. When you entered the great hall, I had intended to ‘discover’ you there. You, a common thief, would have been killed while fighting to escape, while I would have been lauded as a brave, noble hero who had recovered Lord Eòghan’s priceless axe, and avenged the death of one of our own guardsmen. How could they fail to reward me?”
“I was there, and yet you did not spring the trap,” Anton said.
“I had expected you to leave through the door at the back of the hall, and had left it unlocked for your escape. The falling candle-holder was meant to start you and caused you to flee.”
“You were waiting in the corridor?”
“Sword in hand. Your death would have been swift.”
“And you fled down the east tower stairs when you heard the Guardsmen enter the hall.”
Sheldrake nodded. “I thought my little scheme had failed, or worse backfired, and that Walcott would discover you and the axe, and claim all of the glory. But now here you are, offering me another opportunity to write my own ending.”
“All of this to further your career?” Anton asked. He felt something rising inside him, but wasn’t sure whether it was anger or nausea. “You murdered one of your own men.”
Sheldrake shrugged, he did not care.
“Give me the axe and the purse, and you may leave,” Sheldrake said.
“You need me dead to complete your plot. How else can you prove what a brave, loyal soldier you are?”
“True,” Sheldrake admitted. “Hand them to me, and I will make your death a swift one.”
Anton threw the purse directly into Sheldrake’s face.
Sheldrake staggered backwards.
Anton gripped the shaft of the Skullsplitter in both hands and lifted it: feet planted firmly shoulder-width apart, he twisted at the waist and swung the axe round and up. The flat side of the axe head smashed into the side of Sheldrake’s head, lifting him from his feet and sending him sprawling. He twitched once and then lay still
If Anton had used the blade itself, the axe would have taken Sheldrake’s head off his shoulders, even through the sack cloth, but Anton had not needed to kill him. He dropped the axe and picked up the coin purse. Anton glanced towards the body of Fergus Copthorne, wanting to do something for him, but knowing time was too short for anything meaningful. Without really knowing why, he unfastened the scarlet hood the old man had been wearing, folded it, and tucked it into his own shirt. Then Anton fled, leaving the two men where they had fallen.
*
Anton Leyander hid for the whole of the next day, expecting the Guard to launch a search for him throughout Sangreston. But the town was strangely quiet. Anton wondered if the blow to Sheldrake’s head might have proved fatal. But late in the day, an exhausted Varian came to his room and shared the Guard House gossip. Varian had no inkling that Anton had been in any way involved, and so related the whole of it.
Anton asked questions about what had occurred, as an innocent man might. Sheldrake had not been mortally wounded, and aside from his ear having swollen up like a cow’s liver and his complaining of a constant ringing of bells and occasional dizziness, the lieutenant was in the rudest o
f health. He told the Captain of the Guard he had been injured while stopping the thief and recovering the Skullsplitter. Fergus Copthorne was said to be the thief, and no mention had been made of a second thief. Despite his usual unpopularity, Sheldrake was currently something of a hero. And no-one had questioned how the old man with the broken arm had managed to get into the castle and carry away the battle axe. Sheldrake was blaming a mild concussion for his haziness about events.
Anton gave serious thought to leaving Sangreston, before Sheldrake recovered enough to remember who was responsible for his thick ear. But he was certain his hood meant Sheldrake had never seen his face clearly. And if any opportunity came to make Sheldrake pay for what he had done – to the Scarlet Hood and to the nameless guardsman – Anton wanted to take it.
Chapter Seven
The shop doors were open, and lights had been lit behind the diamond-leaded windows. The smell of freshly prepared goods enticed customers into the baker’s and the butcher’s. Women passed with large baskets, out to buy bread for their employers’ breakfasts. The over-hanging upper stories of the half-timbered buildings made the early morning shadows darker, and Edison found himself for a moment feeling trapped, longing for the openness of the hills or for the wide streets of a city. If there had been money in his purse to pay his debts – to the hunchback and to his landlord – Edison knew he might regard Sangreston in a very different light. Before very much longer, he would have to do something to improve his situation. But before he was ready to tackle such things, he needed breakfast.
Stalls and carts had been erected in the market square before first light, and were now laden with breads, fish, vegetables, flour, spices, eggs, pickles and preserves, salted and smoked meats and fish, sliced cooked meats, and hot meat pies. Poultry and rabbits hung, dead and glassy-eyed at one stall, while at another they were alive and wild-eyed in tiny cages. “Fresh poultry!” one stall-holder called. “Fresher poultry!” countered his rival.
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