by Alys Clare
Jack – good, honest Jack; out of memory I heard Gurdyman saying, Jack Chevestrier is a better man by far than his master the sheriff, and is decent, honest and capable – was his polar opposite.
And now Jack stood alone, facing a ruthless enemy poised like a snake about to strike.
I wanted to warn him but I seemed to have frozen.
But Jack was ready for him.
I had seen Jack’s icy fury before. I’d watched him, out in the wilds of the fenland, and seen what he’d done to the hired murderer who Gaspard Picot had sent to kill him. I’d seen him wrench Picot’s arm up behind his back, so violently that it was a miracle he hadn’t dislocated the shoulder. I had believed he was going to kill both of them, for he had overcome them and had them at his mercy. But he didn’t; he had left them, bound and helpless. He must have been confident they would either manage to free themselves or be rescued.
But this time I knew it was different. This was the second and final conflict between them, for this time the fight would be to the death.
They were in a confined space and swords would be no good. I saw Gaspard Picot reach for his dagger and, quick as lightning, Jack did the same. Both were right-handed; both had a blade in one hand, the other empty.
They circled each other, briefly coming together in an attack which had the violence of two stags clashing head-on, wrestling, each trying to disarm the other. Then they fell back, both panting.
I saw something glinting on Gaspard Picot’s left hand. I thought it was his gold ring.
But it wasn’t gold, it was silver-coloured. It was steel.
Gaspard Picot carried a concealed knife up his left sleeve, and he had just slid it down into his hand.
Before I could scream out a warning, he leapt on Jack. I thought it was all right; I thought Jack was ready for him, for it seemed he had knocked the left hand and its blade away.
They were clutched together again, their deadly embrace unyielding, and I heard Gaspard Picot cry out. He sprang back, then leapt up on to a bench and launched himself on Jack, knife in his right hand aimed straight at Jack’s chest.
But Jack held up his own knife, arm extended, and as Gaspard Picot descended on him, his own momentum drove Jack’s blade straight into his throat.
He fell, on to the bench, then down to the floor. Blood poured out of his neck, and he was making terrible gurgling sounds. He lay on his back, then, as the struggle for air became more desperate, began to thrash about, left, right, left.
Now others were pounding down the passage. Walter crouched at Gaspard Picot’s side, then he looked up and said swiftly ‘We all saw what happened, Jack. A whole band of people were witness, and all will swear you acted in self-defence, and he attacked first.’ Fat Gerald stood behind him, Ginger, Luke, Henry and a man I didn’t recognize crowding in behind him. If they were afraid Gaspard Picot was going to leap up and run away, they were wrong. Gaspard Picot was dying.
After what seemed quite a long time, the awful bubbling sounds ceased. Walter reached down and drew a fold of the luxurious cloak over the white face. ‘He’s dead,’ he said.
One or two of the men uttered a response. Someone even said, ‘God have mercy on him.’
Jack didn’t say anything.
Cold suddenly, I leapt to my feet and flew up the passage. Jack was sitting down beside Gaspard Picot’s body. He, too, was deathly pale. He had a hand under his leather jerkin, inside his tunic.
I took him by his shoulders and laid him down. His eyes closed, fluttered open again, closed. I wasn’t sure he had recognized me.
I put my hand inside his undershirt, pushing his away.
I felt the fast pulse just beneath his skin. Felt the blood pumping out between my fingers. Something detached and professional took me over. I unfastened my satchel with my free hand, took out a thick wad of soft fabric and pressed it very hard against Jack’s chest.
At the back of the crowd – which was rapidly growing as news of the drama spread along the quayside and off into the town – stood a fair-haired man with dark eyes.
He had been watching for some time and had seen every move made by the two men at the far end of the passage. But now he had eyes only for the young woman who knelt with the wounded man’s head in her lap. She was pressing down on his chest with all her strength but already there was a pool of blood soaking into her skirts.
It seemed as if some of the men at the back of the crowd didn’t yet understand what had happened. ‘We’ll have to swear to it that Picot struck first,’ someone said, too loudly. ‘Jack will require all of us to confirm he had no option but to fight back.’ Then, when nobody answered, the man said in a doubtful voice, ‘He did strike first, didn’t he?’
The girl cradling the wounded man heard. She looked up, and the fair-haired man saw her face. She screamed, ‘Look how he’s bleeding!’ and held up her hand, soaked red. ‘Of course he struck first! He had a second blade, hidden in his left sleeve, and Jack didn’t see it.’ She was waving her hand now, as if demanding they all look. ‘What further proof do you want?’
Now others were kneeling round Lassair and Jack, forming a protective, concealing group, and the fair-haired man could no longer keep her in sight. He didn’t need to. He had seen her expression, heard that terrible fear in her voice because she thought the man was dying right before her eyes and there was nothing she could do to hold on to him.
It told Rollo all he needed to know. He turned and walked away.
NINETEEN
Gurdyman sat by the hearth in Mercure’s house. Dawn had broken and he was alone, for Hrype still had not returned and Mercure was, as so often, out in his workroom, where Gurdyman suspected he had been all night. There was a sweet smell in the air, which Gurdyman thought was burning apple wood. He was tired, strained; he could still feel Hrype’s fury in the little room, for all that many hours had passed since his abrupt departure. Gurdyman fancied he could see the anger as jagged, brilliant blue lines that cut across the soft early light.
He slipped into a daydream, on the edge of a doze. He had hardly slept, and he knew such states were easier to enter when the mind was fatigued. He thought about Hrype, and the dislike of Lassair that ate into him. He is jealous of her, a calm voice said in Gurdyman’s head.
Then his mind slowly filled with images of Lassair. She was in deepest distress and he made an involuntary movement, as if his body had already made the decision to find her, help her, support her …
But he didn’t move.
The sweet woodsmoke smell intensified. Gurdyman’s mind relaxed. He saw shapes, coalescing into vague human form. A tall, pale figure, black-shrouded, which slowly melted and re-formed.
Some time later – he thought only a short time had elapsed, but then he noticed the sunshine outside, although, strangely, that observation seemed to go as soon as it had come – Gurdyman woke. Mercure was bending over the hearth, stirring something that spattered in hot fat in a shallow pan, and an appetizing, savoury smell filled the air.
Gurdyman looked at him, still confused. I was more deeply asleep than I imagined, he thought, for I know I am awake, yet I am disoriented.
Mercure turned to him, smiling. ‘I have been neglecting you, old friend,’ he said. ‘Now I intend to make up for it, for I am preparing eggs and black pudding, and we shall sit by the fire together and speak of the long years of our acquaintance.’ He paused. ‘Where is Hrype? I am cooking for him, too, so perhaps we should call him?’
‘He’s gone.’ Gurdyman was mildly surprised that Mercure hadn’t noticed.
‘Gone?’ Mercure spun round, and Gurdyman caught a glimpse of his expression. But then Mercure smiled, and, in a tone of casual interest, said, ‘He comes and goes according to some deep and complex plan of his own, that one.’
‘Indeed he does,’ Gurdyman agreed. ‘Just now, I suspect he is somewhere out in the wilds, quite alone, for I told him some truths about himself that I do not think he wished to know.’
Mercure nodded
. ‘Ah, but it is ever our lot, my old friend, to see beyond the vision of normal men, and, when we relate what we see, our words are seldom accepted in the spirit in which they are delivered.’
‘Hrype is far from being a normal man,’ Gurdyman observed. He knew exactly what Mercure meant by the word.
Mercure looked at him with interested eyes. ‘So it is as I suspected,’ he murmured. ‘We proliferate, do we not?’
Gurdyman watched him. He looks weary beyond endurance, he thought with a surge of pity, as if his work demands more of him than he has left to give.
‘Sit and eat,’ he urged. ‘I worry about you, Mercure. Working alone as you do, you have nobody to regulate your days.’
‘I manage well enough,’ Mercure replied.
There was silence for a while as they consumed the hot, savoury food. Then Gurdyman said, ‘Hrype will, perhaps, visit the town. I hope for news, for I am anxious to return. I have been grateful for your hospitality, Mercure, but if the danger is past I wish to be back in my own home.’
‘Say rather back at your work, my old friend,’ Mercure said with a grin. Then, raising his head, his large dark eyes on Gurdyman, he said, ‘But please, do not go yet. Think what became of Morgan and young Cat.’
‘I do, constantly,’ Gurdyman said. ‘However, you forget that I too have my young adept, and I have the strongest sense that she is in danger.’
‘Danger,’ Mercure echoed. ‘It is all around, yes.’
A soft humming seemed to start up. Gurdyman shook his head, wondering if it originated inside his own ears. He glanced at Mercure to see if he had noticed, but he was calmly carrying on with his meal.
Something was happening.
Gurdyman felt as if his limbs were slowly turning into soft wool. He slumped back against the wall, relaxed, drifting into a trance. Mercure seemed to be similarly affected: his eyelids were drooping and his empty bowl fell from his limp hand and rolled away. Somewhere in Gurdyman’s head a warning note sounded. As if a part of his mind fought whatever was overcoming him and his companion, he saw an image of Lassair, and she had tears on her face and an expression of dread in her eyes. Then he saw a tall, stooping figure in a dark hooded cloak, and when the figure of horror turned to stare at him, its face was dead white and it had dark holes for eyes.
Gurdyman struggled. He saw Mercure fall over sideways, gently, a smile on his face, and curl up, surrendering. Gurdyman struggled against the enchantment. Lassair was in terrible danger and he must find her, go to her, use the mighty power of his lifetime’s accumulation of strong magic to fight off whatever loomed over her and keep her safe.
He managed to get up on to his knees. Then the humming suddenly intensified, so that the whole of the little house seemed to thrum, and he fell back. His eyes closed, and the trance took him.
They took Jack to a small cell off the room at the tavern which Walter and his men were using. He was alive. That was as much as I or anyone could say. I didn’t let myself think about how much blood he had lost. Could a big man go on living when he had been so gravely depleted?
In my panic, as we settled him on a narrow cot, I kept looking round for someone to tell me what to do. I had never taken charge of a really serious case. There was always Edild, calm, serene, quietly watching me and guiding me when I went wrong or didn’t know what to do. Gurdyman, too, knew so very much more than I did about the human body and how it works, and while I might not have had his reassuring presence when I tended severe injuries and diseases here in the town, he was always there for me to talk to, giving his advice and explaining how he would have set about the appropriate treatment.
I realized quite soon that the only person telling me what to do was me.
Furthermore, the others – Walter, Ginger and their companions; the kindly and anxious man and wife who ran the tavern – made it perfectly obvious that they were looking to me to save Jack’s life.
I bathed and cleansed the wound so that I could see just how badly hurt he was. Gaspard Picot’s treacherous little blade had gone into the big muscle in Jack’s chest, just to the left of his breastbone. Had it gone in straight, it would have pierced his heart. It went in at a slight angle, and so he still lived. He was very well-muscled and it was probably that which had saved him from instant death, for at that angle the blade wasn’t long enough to reach the heart through all the muscle.
Gurdyman had explained to me the theory of the Arab doctors who taught him when he was young, to do with how blood goes round the body. They said it went in little tubes, some leading away from the heart and some returning to it. If that was right – and my own observations told me it was – then I was guessing that the knife thrust had torn one such tube inside Jack’s chest. If the blood stopped before he lost too much, he would live. If the wound was too big to mend itself, he wouldn’t.
I stitched him together as best I could. Both my teachers are wonderfully nimble-fingered, and neither is satisfied with me unless I perform as well as they do. With Jack’s blood still pumping up under my hands, I compromised, sacrificing a bit of neatness for speed. I hoped it was the right thing to do, and I prayed, harder than I’d ever prayed for anything, that it was.
Some time in the middle of the morning, I realized that the bleeding had slowed. The pads pressed to his chest were still colouring red, but slowly now, as if the blood was only seeping. Jack was still unconscious – luckily for him he had been all the time I was sewing the wound – but once or twice he stirred slightly. I knew I must get him to drink, and I asked the innkeeper’s wife to have clean water ready. Delighted to have something to do, she rushed off and presently returned with a huge bucketful.
I smiled involuntarily. She seemed to think I was nursing a fully-grown horse.
The day went on. I managed to get a small mug of water into my patient. He felt cold, as the afternoon waned, and I asked for a fire. He still felt cold, so I got on the little cot beside him and took him in my arms.
I hadn’t realized that it was night until I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. Turning quickly round, I saw in the soft light of the fire in the little hearth that a grey-haired priest stood over the bed.
‘I am Father Gregory,’ he said quietly. ‘I am the infirmarer at the priests’ house, and I came to offer my help.’
‘Oh!’ Quickly I sat up, carefully pulling the covers up over Jack and straightening my gown. ‘Thank you, how kind.’
‘We all like Jack,’ he said solemnly. ‘He is a good man.’
I tried to gather my thoughts to explain to this kindly man what had happened, what I’d done to help, how Jack had been all the long day. But my mind was a blank. I looked up at Father Gregory, shaking my head. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to think,’ I said.
He took my hands and raised me to my feet. ‘Go and rest,’ he said firmly. ‘I will sit with him.’
‘Will you—’ I began.
I didn’t have to finish. ‘Of course I will,’ he said.
The tavern-keeper had made up a bed for me in a corner of the main room. I walked carefully between other sleeping bodies and sat down on it. A candle had been left burning to help me find my way. I was about to stretch out and try to sleep when I heard someone approach.
It was Ginger. ‘I found this, miss.’ He was holding out a little bag made of soft fabric. His face was wretched; I realized how much he and the others cared for and depended on Jack.
I held out my hand. ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ginger said, ‘I haven’t opened it. It fell out of your satchel when you were – when you tended the master.’
I took it from him. ‘Thank you.’
He nodded. Then he said, ‘How is he?’
‘He’s sleeping and so far he isn’t feverish.’ It was all I could say and no answer, because what Ginger was really asking was, Is he going to live? and I didn’t know. ‘There’s a priest with him,’ I added, in case Ginger thought I’d left Jack alone.
‘Aye, Father Gregory. He’s a
ll right, he is.’ He smiled. ‘Get some sleep, miss. You look all in.’ He nodded again, then crawled away.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to close down my racing, panicky mind, so I thought I might as well investigate the little cloth bag. It was the object I’d found in the secret hiding place in Osmund’s cell, when Jack and I went to leave Robert Powl’s token.
Jack. Fit, whole, healthy. And now he—
I shut off that thought before it could undermine me.
I opened the neck of the little bag and tipped the contents out into my hand. A length of thin silver chain slithered and settled in the hollow of my palm, and there was a pendant suspended on it.
A pendant on a silver chain … Why did that strike a note of memory?
I bent down closer to the light of the candle flame and studied the pendant. It was a round silver coin, or so I thought at first. Then I saw that it had a strange design etched on it, unlike that on any coin I’d ever seen. The lines were worn with age but I could see what they depicted. It was a strange figure made up of a man and a woman, half and half, wearing one crown, their disparate feet standing on the back of a two-headed dragon’s back.
I had seen that image before.
Silently I beat my fist against my forehead in frustration, trying to make my mind work. It was terribly important – somehow I knew it was – but I couldn’t find the connection. Something I’d seen, or been told … But I was so tired, so worried, and I was only keeping despair and a flood of tears at bay by sheer will power.
I lay back, the pendant and chain clutched in my hand, and tried to relax. I seemed to hear Gurdyman’s voice, intoning the chant he uses to enter the meditative state. Oh, how I wished he was there with me.
Perhaps the fervour of my wish conjured up some element of my beloved teacher; I don’t know if that is possible. If anyone was likely to hear my desperate need and respond, though, it was Gurdyman.
All at once my mental turmoil began to ease. I closed my eyes, and I seemed to feel a cool hand on my forehead; someone was reassuring me, telling me everything would be all right, although I didn’t know who it was. I didn’t exactly hear words spoken; it was more a thought, put into my head. I welcomed it.
