‘I ain’t going in there,’ Paddy said. ‘Not for a pass to heaven and a bleeding fortune.’
He and Rob backed away from the heat, staring into the inferno.
‘Nothing’s coming out of that,’ Paddy said. ‘By God, he always said he wanted a grand ending and he found it, didn’t he? He saved the boys and went back in to kill the magistrate.’
They could hear Jack crashing about inside the house, lost to sight in the flames. After a time, the sounds grew quiet and Ecclestone shook his head.
‘I’ve heard they’re looking for workers up in Lincoln, to build some bridge. It’ll be too hot for us around here now.’ He paused, knowing the words were the wrong choice as his friend died in the burning house.
‘I might just walk north with you, at that,’ Paddy replied. He turned to the three boys staring at the fire consuming their home. ‘You three will tell the bailiffs about us, won’t you? It won’t matter a whit that we saved your lives, will it, lads?’
Two of them shook their heads in terrified confusion, but the oldest boy glared up at him and came to his feet.
‘I’ll tell them,’ he said. His eyes were bright with tears and a sort of madness as he heard his father crying out in terror above their heads. ‘I’ll see you hanged for what you’ve done.’
‘Ah, Jesus, is that the way of it?’ Paddy said, shaking his head. ‘If I was a harder man, lad, I’d cut your throat for a foolish threat like that. I’ve done worse, believe me. Oh, sit down, son. I’m not going to kill you, not tonight. Not with my friend dying with his grief on him. Do you know why he came here, boy? Because your father hanged his son this morning. Did you know that? For stealing a couple of lambs from a herd six hundred strong. How does that sit with your fine righteous anger, eh? His boy is dead, but he still caught you when you came falling.’
The oldest boy looked away, unable to meet the fierce gaze of the Irishman any longer. A thumping crash sounded above them and they all looked up as an entire section of burning wall fell out. Paddy lunged to protect the children, knocking the eldest to the ground in the impact. Ecclestone just stepped away, letting the section of brick and lime and ancient straw fall without him under it. He looked round to where the big Irishman’s body was sheltering the magistrate’s sons.
‘You’re soft, Paddy, that’s your trouble. Jesus, you couldn’t …’
He broke off, his jaw dropping as Jack Cade threw himself out of the hole above them, a body in his arms.
The pair landed hard, with a great shout of pain coming from Jack. He rolled as soon as he struck and, in the light of the fire, they could all see smoke rising from his hair and clothes. The magistrate lay like a broken doll, completely senseless, while Jack turned on to his back and bellowed up at the stars.
Robert Ecclestone walked over to him, staring down in wonder. He could see his friend’s hands were seared raw and marked in soot. Every exposed part of him seemed to have blistered or been torn. Cade coughed and wheezed and spat weakly as he lay there.
‘Christ, it hurts!’ he said. ‘My throat …’
He tried to sit up and gasped at the pain of his burned skin. His eyes turned as he remembered the pond across the garden and he dragged himself up and wandered away.
Paddy stood and looked at the three children, though they only had eyes for their father.
‘Is he … ?’ the oldest boy whispered.
‘You can see him breathing, though he might not wake after all that smoke. I’ve seen a few go like that in my time.’
In the distance, they all heard the great splash as Jack Cade either fell or flung himself into the cold waters of the pond. The boys clustered around their father, pinching his cheeks and slapping his hands. The two youngest began to weep again as he groaned and opened his eyes.
‘What?’ he said.
The magistrate began to cough before he could speak again, a violent paroxysm that went on and on until he was close to passing out again and his face had gone purple. He could only whisper at his sons, rubbing his throat with a blistered hand that oozed blood over the soot.
‘How … ?’
He became aware that there were still two men standing over his sons. With a massive effort, Alwyn Judgment heaved himself to his feet. He could not stand fully and rested with his hands on his knees.
‘Where’s Jack Cade?’ he wheezed at them.
‘In your pond,’ Ecclestone replied. ‘He saved you, your honour. And he caught your sons and kept his word. And it won’t matter a damn, will it? You’ll send your bailiffs and we’ll all be taken and have our heads on a spike.’
The burning house still huffed and spat, but they all heard the noise of hooves on the road, drifting to them on the night air. Alwyn Judgment heard it at the same time as Jack Cade heaved himself out of the pond with a moaning sound that carried almost as far.
‘Take the boys away, Paddy,’ Rob Ecclestone said suddenly. ‘Take them towards the road and leave them there for his men to find.’
‘We should run now, Rob. Only chance is to run like buggery.’
Ecclestone turned to his old friend and shook his head.
‘Just take them away.’
The big Irishman chose not to argue with that look. He gathered them all up, taking the oldest by the scruff of the neck when he began to struggle and shout. Paddy cuffed him hard to keep him silent and half-carried, half-dragged them away across the garden.
The magistrate watched him uneasily.
‘I could promise to let you go,’ he said.
Ecclestone shook his head, his eyes glittering in the light of the flames.
‘I wouldn’t believe a word, your honour. I’ve met too many of you, you see? My mates and me will hang anyway, so I might as well do some good first.’
Alwyn Judgment was opening his mouth to reply when Ecclestone stepped forward with a razor held just right in his hand. With one slash, he opened a gushing line in the man’s throat and waited only a heartbeat to be sure before he walked away.
Jack Cade was staggering across the garden when he saw his friend kill the magistrate. He tried to shout, but his throat was so raw and swollen that only a hiss of breath came out. Ecclestone reached him then and Jack was able to rest some of his sodden weight on the man as they headed away from the burning house.
‘Paddy?’ Jack grunted at him, shivering.
‘He’ll find his own way, Jack; don’t worry about that big sod. He’s almost as hard to kill as you are. God, Jack! I thought you were finished then.’
‘So … did I …’ Jack Cade groaned at him. ‘Glad … you killed him. Good man.’
‘I am not a good man, Jack, as you well know. But I am an angry one. He should not’ve taken your boy and he’s paid for it. Where to now?’
Jack Cade heaved in a great, constricted breath to give his answer.
‘Hangman’s … house. Going to set it … on fire.’
The two men staggered and stumbled their way into the darkness, leaving the burning house and the dead magistrate behind.
The morning was cold and grey, with a light drizzle that did nothing to wash the oily soot from their hands. As the three men came back to town, Jack would have walked right into the crowd gathered in the town square. It took Paddy’s big hand pushing him against a wall to stop him.
‘There’ll be bailiffs in that crowd, Jack, looking for you. I have a coin or two. We’ll find an inn or a stable and wait out this meeting, whatever it is. You can come back when it’s dark again, to cut your boy down.’
The man who looked back at him had sobered up somewhere during the long night. Jack’s skin was swollen pink and his eyes were deeply bloodshot around the blue. His black hair had crisped and gone light brown in patches, while his clothes were in such a state of filth that even a beggar would have thought twice before trying them.
He still wheezed a little as he took a breath and rolled his shoulders. He removed the hand from his chest almost gently.
‘Listen to me close, Paddy.
I’ve got nothing now, understand? They took my boy. It’s in my mind to cut him down and put him safe in the ground up at the church. If they raise a hand to me, I’ll make them regret it. I ha’n’t got nothing else, but I’d like to do that last thing this morning before I fall down. If you don’t like it, you know what you can do, don’t you?’
They glared at each other and Ecclestone cleared his throat loudly to interrupt them.
‘I reckon I saved your life getting you away last night,’ Ecclestone said, rubbing his eyes and yawning. ‘I don’t know how you’re still standing, Jack old son. Either way, that means you owe me, so come and sink a pint, then sleep. There are stables nearby and I know the head lad. He’ll turn a blind eye for a bent penny; he’s done it before. We’ve no business walking into a crowd that have probably gathered to talk about the houses on fire last night. I don’t want to state the bleeding obvious, Jack, but you stink of smoke. We all do. You might as well hang yourself now and save them the trouble.’
‘I didn’t ask you to come with me, did I?’ Jack grumbled back.
His gaze searched past them, out of the alleyway to the light of the square. The crowd were noisy and there were enough people to hide the body creaking on the rope. Even so, Jack could see it. He could see every detail of the face he had raised, the boy who’d run from the bailiffs with him a hundred times, with pheasants hidden in their coats.
‘No. No, it won’t do, Rob. You stay here if you want, but I have my knife and I’m cutting him down.’
He stuck out his jaw, his red eyes gleaming like the woken devil. Slowly Jack Cade raised one meaty fist, a great hairy lump that had all the knuckles pushed in, so it seemed a hammer as he waved it in Ecclestone’s face.
‘Don’t stop me, I warn you now.’
‘Christ,’ Ecclestone muttered. ‘Will you walk with us, Paddy?’
‘Have you lost your wits, along with him? Ever seen a crowd in a rage, Rob Ecclestone? They’ll tear us to rags, from fear. By God, we look like the dangerous vagrants they say we are!’
‘So? Are you coming or not?’ Ecclestone said.
‘I am. Did I say I wasn’t? I can’t trust you two to do this on your own. Jesus protect all fools like us, on fool’s errands.’
Jack smiled like a boy to hear them. He patted their shoulders and beamed.
‘You’re good mates when a man is down, lads. Come on then. This needs doing.’
He straightened his shoulders and walked towards the crowd, trying not to limp.
Thomas watched in something like awe as Baron Highbury blew a horn and his troop of horsemen charged down a slope. In the cold of the morning, the horses steamed and came fast, like molten silver pouring out of the trees. The French knights chasing his group of archers were caught flat, their flank smashed apart by Highbury’s lances. In just a moment, they went from hunters intent on their fleeing quarry to desperate men, hemmed in by the land and crushed by Highbury’s hammer blow. Thomas yelled in savage pleasure to see them fall, men and horses spitted on sharp points. Yet Highbury’s men were outnumbered even as they charged and Thomas could see more and more French knights thundering in. The charge slowed and became a vicious mêlée of swords and swinging axes.
‘Strike and away,’ Thomas whispered. ‘Come on, Highbury. Strike and away.’
Those three words had kept them going for two weeks of almost constant fighting, taking a terrible toll on both sides. There were no songs sung in the French lines any more. The king’s column moved with scouts and merciless purpose through Maine, burning as they went. They left behind them villages and towns wreathed in black smoke, but they paid a price for every single one. Thomas and his men saw to that. The reprisals had grown more brutal every day and there was true rage on both sides.
Highbury had bought him time to get clear and Thomas thanked God for a man who acted as he thought a lord should act. The bearded noble was driven by something, Thomas had learned that much. Whatever crime or atrocity he was repaying, Highbury fought with manic courage, punishing anyone foolish enough to come in range of his great sword. The men loved him for his fearlessness and Baron Strange hated him with a fierce intensity Thomas could not understand.
As Thomas climbed the path through the trees his men had marked, he stopped and touched the scrap of cloth tied to a branch, then looked back. He knew the land around him. It was no more than a dozen miles from his own farm and he’d walked every lane and river bank with his wife and children at some point. That local knowledge made it even harder for the French army to pin them down, but still they pushed forward a few miles each day, enduring the ambushes and killing anyone they could catch. For a moment, Thomas felt despair. He and his men had watered the ground with French blood for forty miles, but there was no end to them.
‘Get away now,’ Thomas said, knowing Highbury couldn’t hear him.
The noble’s men were defending their position as the French grew bold, more and more of them riding in hard and trying to surround the small English force. The only way clear was back up the hill and Highbury gave no sign of even seeing the line of retreat. His sword swung tirelessly, his armour red with other men’s blood or his own.
The fighting became a knot of swarming knights around Highbury, maces swinging to crush skulls in their helmets. They were just three hundred yards away and Thomas saw Highbury’s face bared as his helmet was smashed off in a single, ringing blow. His nose was running red and his long hair fell free, whipping around in sweat-soaked strands. Thomas thought he could hear Highbury laugh as he spat blood and lunged at the man who had struck him.
‘Shit. Get away now!’ Thomas yelled.
He thought he saw Highbury jerk and turn at his roar. It jolted him out of whatever murderous trance he’d been in and the baron began to look round him. A dozen of his forty were unhorsed, some of them still moving and lashing out at any French knight they could reach.
Thomas swore softly. He could see flashes of silver movement in all the trees he faced across the valley. The French king had committed a massive force of knights to this action. It meant the archers Thomas had set to ambush the French in the closest town would face fewer men, but sheer numbers would carry the scrambling fight in the valley. Thomas gripped his bow, checking his remaining shafts without looking at them. He knew if he went down again, he would be slaughtered.
He turned at the sound of running steps, fearing some enemy had come up around his men. Thomas breathed in relief to see Rowan skidding to a halt with an odd smile. A dozen more stood waiting for Thomas to lead them over the hill and away.
Rowan saw his father’s expression as both men watched Highbury smashing out his hurt and anger, laying about him with powerful sweeps of his sword. The man was grinning at something, his eyes wild.
‘You can’t save him,’ Rowan said. ‘If you go down to help him now, you’ll be killed for nothing.’
Thomas turned to look at his son, but only shook his head.
‘There are too many, Dad,’ Rowan said. He saw his father running his fingers over the shafts left in his quiver, the motion like a twitch. It made a rough, dry sound. Six bodkin points and a broadhead, that was all.
Thomas cursed in anger, spitting out words that his son had never heard from him before. He liked Highbury. The man deserved better.
‘Take the others clear, Rowan. Pass me your arrows and take the lads over the hill. Look to Strange for your orders, but use your own wits as well.’ Without looking back, he held out his hand for spare arrows.
‘I won’t,’ Rowan said. He reached out and took a grip on his father’s right arm, feeling the muscle there that made it like a branch. ‘Come on with me, Dad. You can’t save him.’
Thomas turned and lunged at his son, grabbing the front of his green jerkin and pushing him back a pace. Though they were almost the same size, he dragged the younger man up, so that his feet dangled in the wet leaves.
‘You’ll obey me when I tell you to,’ Thomas growled at him. ‘Give me your shafts a
nd go!’
Rowan flushed in anger. His big hands reached up to grip his father’s where they held him. The two men stood, locked together for a moment, testing each other’s strength, while the others looked on with wide eyes. They both let go at the same moment, standing with clenched fists. Thomas didn’t look away and Rowan removed the strap of his quiver, throwing it to the ground.
‘Take them then, for all the good they’ll do.’
Thomas took a handful of the feathered shafts and added them to his own.
‘I’ll find you at the farm, if I can. Don’t worry.’ He grew still for a time under his son’s glare. ‘Give me your word you won’t follow me down.’
‘No,’ Rowan said.
‘Damn you, boy. Give me your word! I won’t see you killed today.’
Rowan dipped his head, caught between sullen anger and fear for his father. Thomas breathed deeply, relieved.
‘Look for me at the farm.’
15
Thomas Woodchurch stepped out on the green slope, his bow ready. He had a dozen shafts in the quiver and one on the string as he stalked towards the knights locked in their own form of battle. Every step seemed to double the noise until the crashes and squeals of metal on metal battered against his ears. It was an old music to him, a song he’d known from his earliest memories, like the half-remembered crooning of a nurse. He smiled at the thought, amused at his own fancies as he walked down the hill. The mind was a strange thing.
The French knights were intent on Highbury and his small, besieged force. It was violence as they knew it best, against men who understood honour. Each one barrelling out of the trees roared a challenge as they saw the fighting mêlée, forcing tired horses into a last gallop to bring them against the edges and the armoured English horsemen. They splintered lances on Highbury’s men-at-arms if they could reach them, then raised axes or drew wide-bladed swords for the first crushing blow.
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