The Edge of the Blade

by The Edge of the Blade (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  Baynard Falkan made no attempt to hide his disdain for the captives. Even so, he was aware the man they’d sided with was his own treacherous brother, the man with whom he shared the name of Tremellion.

  They were also Baynard’s equal in rank; some of them no doubt senior to a mere second son. No matter their crime, they deserved to be treated correctly; though let just one of them try a fancy phrase, and he’d weigh lighter, by a tongue…

  ‘You have one moment in which to elect a spokesman. He, alone, will respond to my questions. If his answers are insufficient, or if I judge them to be untruthful, I shall have him thrown in the river, upstream of the mill wheel. His death will be as simple, as ignominious as that. It may suit you to think I’d hesitate at the end. But beware, my lords. Each of you murdered my father as surely as did the hirelings. And you most certainly murdered them. I’ve done my share of killing tonight – and wish it had been more – the smell of death is in the air. Doubt me, my lords, and you’ll live to regret it. For as long as it takes the wheel to chew you up.’

  He stared at them, searching for a sneer, a smirk that would tell him: The things Ranulf recounted about you, Sir Baynard Falkan! Sensitive as blossom in frost! With a mouthful of languages, and a pilgrim’s knowledge of Europe! My, my, but you must have hardened fast, to speak so rough tonight! Why, my lean young Baynard, I’d wager those blades of yours are even now pulling down at your wrists!

  But the men were not yet ready to chance their lives. It was true; Ranulf had recounted a few amusing tales about his brother. But he’d omitted to tell them Baynard was twice his worth in intelligence; clever enough to track them to their hideout, cunning enough to send them howling from a sackful of eels, courageous enough to hack his way the entire length of the room. And quick enough to pin seven of them in the corner…

  A murmured consultation, then one of the knights took a single step forward, his hands half raised to show he was inoffensive. ‘You will not know me, Sir Baynard, though your brother and I – well, I’ve a manor near Gilberdon. Sir Ranulf has been there on occasion. We’ve hunted together, though it has to be admitted—’

  ‘Just admit your name.’

  ‘As you wish. It’s Justin de Vallen.’

  ‘Where do you suppose my brother will make for, de Vallen? Your place? Some better defended hideout than this mill?’

  Unaware of the compliment he was paying, de Vallen said, ‘Knowing Ranulf as I do – and you, sire, as I find you – I’d say he’ll most likely make for the far end of the earth. Short of that, he might go anywhere. Possibly to my manor, though I doubt it. Could be to any of thirty haunts around.’ Then, his voice honeyed with innocence, he asked, ‘Why, Sir Baynard? Have you men enough to track thirty different ways?’

  Deflecting the probe from the weakness in his armour, Falkan snapped, ‘Time will see, de Vallen. Meanwhile, we’ll talk of something I’ve no doubt lies closer to your heart. Plate and jewels and coin. And a phrase I’d like explained to me – Deal with the Levantine.’

  ‘I have little to do with them,’ de Vallen spurned. ‘Perfidious Easterners… Turks and Armenians… and the so-called Chosen Race, though they were never of my special choosing.’

  Anxious to forestall a discussion – how the prisoners would love to mire him down with opinions – Baynard Falkan used the blade of his sword to cut the spokesman’s reply. ‘Sleep with your own damned attitudes, if you will. But I’ll tell you this. You’re starving my patience. Guthric! Master Quillon! Be ready to see this prisoner to the wheel!’ With an odd show of subtlety, the Saxon pretended to misunderstand the command. Shouldering forward, the left side of his body strapped with bloodstained strips of linen, he snatched at de Vallen, jerking the man toward him. Quillon reacted quickly, seizing the knight’s free arm. ‘Shortest way’s out by the stables,’ he offered. ‘No more’n twenty steps from there to the stream.’

  De Vallen yelled at Baynard. ‘I never said I didn’t know! Deal with the Levantine? It meant trade with him! Sell off Tremellion’s – what was in the chests there – sell the contents to that hook-nosed buyer, the one who’s known as the Levantine! Christ in Heaven, are you mad, Falkan? I’m telling you all I know!’

  Baynard might have released him then; allowed the man to recover. But he sensed he had de Vallen on the run, and that now was the time to pursue him, breach his defences, destroy him in front of his friends. If it wasn’t done now, the captive knights might see his threats as no more than gaseous eruptions in a swamp. Rough talk from the wiry young Falkan, though just like Ranulf told us, blossom in frost.

  ‘I regret, de Vallen. But you’ve not said all you know. If the trading took place… Where the Levantine might have gone… The whereabouts of the money… I thought to find some vestige of common sense in you, sire, but I don’t. Hurry him off, old Guthric. You too, Quillon. But stay to see he’s properly chopped by the wheel.’

  With horrible satisfaction, the constable winked at the captives. It was almost as if to tell them the blades would keep on turning; lots of room for seven mangled corpses.

  De Vallen went weak at the knees. ‘Listen,’ he managed. ‘Listen, Tremellion… Grant me a moment… Oh, Christ, grant me a moment and I’ll tell you… Everything… Everything I know…’

  ‘Less than a moment,’ Falkan told him, ‘for all the while I’m reminded you were party to the killing of my father. But let me add this, de Vallen. The very slightest hesitation, and not only you, but all these others, they’ll go one by one, skull-first into the wheel.’

  Then he waited as the spokesman gabbled, the stones of his story mortared by his peers.

  * * *

  The results of the ambush had exceeded all expectations. So far as they knew, the hirelings had killed Sir Geoffrey, his servants, his cleric and every member of the sixteen-strong escort. The idiot bowmen had then posed with pride as Ranulf and his riders thundered along the track, their stupid smiles pinned to their lips as the horsemen cut them down. For certain, not one of the archers had lived beyond the hour.

  The close-helmed knights had caught up the reins of the treasure train, turned the animals round, then led them a half-mile northward toward Launceston. At which point they’d swerved west through the forest, emerging to cross the belly of Bodmin Moor.

  A short night’s rest in a tavern, then onward again, reaching the mill some twenty hours after the ambush. Two days easy…

  The buyer was already waiting for them, and Ranulf took him alone into a side room of the mill. The miller was entrusted with a small purse of coins and sent the nine miles to Torbridge, with instructions to hire the services of the wagoner and whores. By the time they arrived, the Levantine had departed, taking with him the wealth of Tremellion, hidden in the body of a stinking, unobtrusive cart.

  He had valued the treasure at somewhat less than two thousand six hundred marks.

  Then explained to Ranulf how hard it would be to dispose of. How long it would take. The risks he would run. The markets he must investigate, abroad. The best he could offer – and was bound to say there’d be little enough profit in it for him – was twelve hundred marks. Though by all that was just, it should have been eleven.

  According to de Vallen, Ranulf Falkan had announced himself well satisfied with the deal. ‘The man’s a robber, but aren’t they all? And at least the Levantine paid smartly, and in gold. You’ll all get the shares we agreed before we leave.’

  Six words queued for issue from Baynard’s tongue. Where is it now, this money? But de Vallen was already pleading to be free of Guthric’s grip. ‘None of us have ever touched it, save Ranulf. It’s still in that side room, where he and the Levantine—’

  Falkan nodded to the soldier. ‘Break your way in. See if you can find it. And on the life of our helpful de Vallen, I hope you can.’

  Silence then, as they watched the man-at-arms club at the door with a heavy stool. Silence as he kicked his way inside. Silence as Guthric squeezed tighter, hoping to
hurt. Then a yell of discovery – ‘Three sacks of coin, my lord! Don’t know what they’d amount to, but they’ve a weight to ’em, God knows!’

  * * *

  Quillon was sent to collect the wagoner and miller. He’d dunked them in a horse trough till they’d choked, then dragged them to the stables and tied them to a tethering bar. When he brought them again into the presence of Baynard Falkan they were sober and shivering and scared.

  Indicating the wagoner, Baynard said, ‘Take him to hitch up the horses. Cut two dozen lengths of cord, each a yard or so long. Then wait near the wagon; I’ve passengers to be boarded.’

  As Quillon propelled the unfortunate man from the room, Baynard stared down at the terrified owner of Tresset’s Mill. ‘You’ve a name?’

  ‘Gwilym, my lord. It’s all I’ve been known as since—’

  ‘It’s name enough,’ Falkan told him, ‘to be hanged by. And you will be hanged, Master Gwilym, unless I hear the ring of truth in your words. Now, tell me this. How does it come about you offer refuge to these knights? Have they used this place before, Master Gwilym? Are you extravagantly paid to harbour such high-born thieves?’

  The miller fell promptly to his knees, shaking his head in frantic denial, words spilling from fear-dry lips. ‘I was never allowed a say in it, my lord. ’Twas Sir Ramelar’s wish, he’s the master of these lands, an’ the mill, Master of Tresset an’ all the country around. He just sent word to me, told me he’d ’ave need of the place, an’ I should be here alone. Normal times there’s a lad who assists me—’

  ‘Look over there. Get to your feet and tell me if Sir Ramelar is among those in the corner.’

  The miller wiped his eyes, wiped his mouth, peered at the captive knights. Then he turned in misery, as if he knew his case was lost. ‘Forgive me, my lord. I wish I could say he was there, but—’

  ‘Examine the wounded. Investigate the dead. You’ll find them scattered all about the room. Well, get on with it, damn you!’

  Gwilym veered from body to body, whimpered with fright as he stooped to check one of the corpses. Then he called plaintively to Falkan. ‘He’s found, my lord. Though you’ve – what I mean is, someone’s killed him.’

  ‘How much did he pay you, Master Gwilym?’

  ‘Never paid me at all, my lord. I swear it, sire! It weren’t Lord Ramelar’s way.’

  Falkan gazed at him, believed him, then nodded curtly, allowing the man to see he’d been spared the noose. Gwilym fumbled behind him and sank slowly on to a bench. He was no longer part of the bloody events that had splashed the dull normality of his life.

  * * *

  The women were guided, the prisoners herded from the mill. They mingled in a sorry group in the yard, the knights employed to load their dead and wounded in the wagon. Quillon and the man-at-arms then pinioned the passengers’ wrists, using the two dozen lengths of cord. Meanwhile, Guthric growled quietly to the wagoner. Whatever it was he said, it left the man gibbering, and the horses were lashed into the night, taking with them the cargo of whores and whorehounds…

  * * *

  One hour more, and the attackers had withdrawn from the Tresset Mill. They carried with them the three sacks of coin – how pitiably small, compared with the wealth of Tremellion. Skirting the linn, they called to the two injured soldiers at the head of the falls, then waited for the storm-soaked men to rejoin them.

  Ignoring his companions, Falkan turned his thoughts inward. Assuming Ranulf had escaped, avoided the pitfalls of the night and would soon recover his malevolent spirits, the elder son of Tremellion would also remember the Cornish domain was his. Impoverished now – the treasure bound for the distant markets of Europe, the coins guarded close by Baynard – but nevertheless, the castle belonged to Ranulf, and to him would accrue the income from the lands.

  He would recruit again, then ride to claim what was his.

  So what to do for the best, Baynard mulled. Conceal the money? Return to the fortress, raise what help he could, then defy his brother?

  Or accept the law as it stood; allow Ranulf to govern Tremellion – and meantime fulfil Sir Geoffrey Falkan’s promise. Take the money across the world to Palestine, why not? Deliver it to the Crusader overlords in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. And by doing so, if God and Magnat-Vaulmier were willing, meet again with the girl who’d touched her lips to his, the comely Christiane.

  * * *

  He announced his intended plan to Constable Guthric. ‘I’d have you with me, my friend, though we’ll not see England again for a while, if ever.’

  ‘My place has been here at Tremellion,’ Guthric said flatly. ‘But that because of Sir Geoffrey. Now that he’s gone – well, what else would I do, but honour that good man’s wishes? Besides, if I stayed at the castle, it’d only be in the hopes of killing your brother. Let’s get the money to Palestine first. Like the swine he is, Ranulf’ll keep.’

  Later, Baynard spoke privately to Quillon. ‘The licence I promised you – it will not, I think, be acknowledged by Lord Ranulf. In lieu of it I’ll give you sufficient coin with which to purchase a half-mile stretch, on both sides of a river. I suspect you’re quite a fisherman, Master Quillon. Both by day and night.’

  ‘Never go out at night,’ the poacher told him. ‘Lose myself in the village, I would, at night. Terrible sense of direction.’

  ‘Well, now, that’s a skill we might… Tell me, Master Quillon, have you ever been to sea?’

  ‘Nor wouldn’t want to.’

  ‘Dreamed of lands more exotic than our own?’

  ‘Can’t say I ’ave, m’lord. Though I’ve a mind to visit London.’

  ‘Heard the stories travellers relate about the women on the sunny isle of – of Cyprus?’

  And Quillon leaned forward, saying no, but he wouldn’t be averse to hearing.

  * * *

  With a gold mark worth some eighteen times its equivalent in silver, the three sacks of coin weighed close on sixty pounds. Leaving the Tremellion money untouched, Baynard used his own paltry resources to pay for a six-man garrison and two household servants, retaining them until August of that year. If Ranulf appeared by then, claiming possession of the castle, the soldiers and servants were to offer him their allegiance. Otherwise, they were free to choose for themselves; wait unpaid beyond August, or lock up the castle, leave it to God’s own will and the weather.

  Reassuring them, he said, ‘It is my belief you’ll not go unemployed. If I know my brother at all, he burns to be Lord of Tremellion.’

  He then sent Guthric to recruit a score of able-bodied men from the fields and farms that dotted the domain. They were a motley band, but they came uncomplaining, knowing they owed ten days’ free work a year to their overlord.

  Baynard issued the men with horses and weapons, told them what he required of them, then bade a silent farewell to the ghosts of Sir William Falkan, the Lady Elena, the cloudy-eyed warrior Sir Geoffrey. He could not promise the ghosts he would ever return to their haunt, though he vowed to deliver the traded wealth of what had once been theirs. Or surrender his life in the attempt…

  * * *

  Five days later, with as yet no sign of Ranulf, the young Tremellion led Guthric and Quillon south to the port of Plymouth. The sixty pounds weight of gold was distributed equally between Baynard, the constable, and the newly entitled sauvegarde, each man responsible for a strapped pair of saddlebags, with ten pounds of gold in each boiled-leather satchel.

  Mishearing, Quillon had asked, ‘I’ll be what, m’lord, your safeguard?’

  It was close enough, and Baynard Falkan had nodded. ‘That’s what you’ll be, Master Quillon, though not just mine. You’ll offer whatever protection you can to the constable and, more important than either of us, to the money. You’ll obey me in everything, is that understood? And show equal obedience to Guthric. In all other things I shall see to your welfare, and respect the title you earned back there at the mill.’

  Quillon had thought about it, juggled it in his mind, decided
he could see himself as – yes, a springy form of address it’d be, Lord Falkan announcing, ‘I must first consult with my constable, and my safeguard.’

  On the ride from Tremellion – following the same path on which Sir Geoffrey had died; the only well-travelled route southward to Plymouth – the twenty recruits were sorry Lord Falkan had been murdered. Yet, all things being equal, they were lucky this year, for Sir Baynard would only need them as far as the port. After that they’d be free to go home, get back to their cattle and crops. As for the young knight, the burly Saxon, and the poacher who’d somehow squirmed into Falkan’s favour, they were welcome to their future, whatever it might be. Lunatics, all three of ’em, daring to step off the edge of England’s coast!

  Part Two

  The Peninsula

  Chapter Nine

  It was said that King Richard had summoned more than one hundred ships to meet him in July, in the Mediterranean seaport of Marseilles. It was rumoured that the shipyards of England were crying out for carpenters, offering as much as fourpence a day to men who knew their trade. Word had it that entire forests had been levelled, all the southern ports dinning with the noise of preparation. The shriek of handsaws, clubbing of hammers, rattle of wagons as they delivered the casks of nails, barrels of pitch, lengths of sailcloth, oiled against the rigours of the sea.

  Plymouth showed the reports and rumours to be true. There were nineteen vessels ready to leave with the tide, another three under construction in the yards. Swarming with activity, the atmosphere of the docks might well have been described as one of patriotic pandemonium.