by Jude Chapman
Her attacker had punched Tilda about the face with as many punches it took to turn it into pulp. The way she was cradling her arm meant it was broken. She opened one eye to a swollen slit, groaned, and reached out with her good hand.
“For mercy’s sake, give her something,” Drake said.
“I tried,” her chambermaid wailed. “She willna’ take it until she’s talked to you.” She pushed the draught into his manacled hands.
Tilda found solace in the crook of his arm, the chained links of his shackles rattling beneath. She took one sip and tried to speak. “Drink first. Then tell me.” He dribbled the liquid past bloodied lips. She swallowed obediently, afterwards pushing the goblet away.
“Yernel,” she managed to say. “Wants the yernel.”
“What did she say?” Randall asked.
“Tol’ Malric … din’ hab it.”
“The rest,” he ordered.
After drinking, she crooked her finger closer. “Yervase. My brother … tha’s why. Mastard, may ‘e murn in ‘ell.” Not much later, her eyelids closed and she went limp in his arms.
He removed himself tenderly and said to her chambermaid, “I’ll send Aveline Darcy. Keep plying her with this. Don’t let her awaken.”
She curtsied. “Aye, sieur.”
They descended the back staircase, Drake clanking the distance. In Hogshead’s undercroft, Randall put a solid hand on his shoulder and motioned his sergeant to wait outside. They sat on one of Tilda’s coffin-sized crates.
“You have another journal?” Rand said. “Tilda’s?”
Drake settled tiredly against the wall, the chains heavy in his lap. “Remember when Graham wounded me with Drake’s knife?”
“Outside the alehouse. You were sharing drink with your father’s captain. A lengthy conversation, I’m told.”
“You were having me watched?”
Rand smiled broadly.
“God damn you, Rand Clarendon, you were having me watched.”
“Damn your cock, fitzAlan, that’s why you’re still breathing. The journal saved your backside.”
Slack-jawed, Drake stared at the ceiling, still irked. “You were having me watched.”
“So,” Rand said, “if I can translate what Tilda said: the advances she extended to the sons of the barons were backed by Gervase des Roches, who just so happens to be her brother.”
Reluctantly Drake looked over at Rand. “Seems so.”
“He reneged, then.”
“Seems so.”
“Leaving Tilda holding the debt.”
“You’re good at this, Sheriff. Anyone ever tell you?”
“Yacob ben Yosel … ’twould seem he wasn’t practicing his penmanship for his benefit alone … in which case, the only recourse for Tilda and Rachel is to demand immediate repayment.”
“From a ruined barony, aye.”
“So you say.”
“Sinking good coin into bawdyhouses? Finding their investments gambled away? Being saddled with obligations they can scarcely repay? And profligate sons who filched the rest? The Saladin Tithe prior? Scutages in between? Rents to the crown? And God knows what else?”
“You made your point. All right, then. They’ll throw up their hands and plead poverty. Then what?”
“You forget. Ben Yosel supported loans from Exeter to Dover. And Tilda extended credit through a network of brothels and gambling houses from Cornwall to Kent … but only to the most worthy of men … nobles and sons of nobles investing in those same brothels and gambling houses.”
“And so,” the acting sheriff said, “all along England’s coast, castles and manors will topple, one after the other, nothing to stop the momentum, unless …” He let the sentence hang in midair.
“Aye,” Drake said. “It’s the ‘unless,’ isn’t it?”
Rand finished the sentence. “Unless by coincidental and providential intervention, someone offers restitution in exchange for allegiance. But who?”
“You have innocence down to a fine art, Sheriff.”
“John,” the sheriff said, nodding. “For whosoever owns the southern coast of England … owns England.”
“What took you? Anyone you chanced upon in the street would tell you John.”
“By the God above, how are we going to prove any of this?”
Drake sat forward, the chains jangling. “We?”
“Do you know who killed Jenna? And why?”
“Even if I knew for certain, which I don’t, folk would make her out a harlot.”
Rand studied him and respectfully nodded.
“Now you know it wasn’t me who assaulted Tilda, you can take these damnable things off. They’re chafing the scabs from the other times.” Drake pushed out his manacled hands and waited for the appearance of a key.
The eyes of the acting sheriff sparkled. “Graham is missing. Plus there’s a confession that lacks a signature.”
Drake threw back his head and allowed himself to be led away.
Rand’s sergeant was standing guard outside. Drake importuned Randall, “You’ll send Aveline?”
“Aye. I’ll send her. And after I get you locked down, I’ll find whoever this Malric is …”
“Baldric. The man you’re looking for is named Baldric. He’s the giant who helped Rufus and Seward take me captive. What are you going to do about Gervase?”
“Install you in the same cell where he now resides.” Rand answered Drake’s look of surprise. “Aye, Gervase des Roches strolled into the office of the treasury bright and early this very morn, claiming a case of the grippe put him abed these past days. So far, he admits to nothing. But after he’s been quartered in the same cell as a known murderer and mutilator … sorry … brother of a known murderer and mutilator, who’s to say.”
Drake smiled broadly. It wasn’t because he appreciated the humor but because eyes beheld a vision that neither Rand nor his sergeant saw: his twin image, bruise for bruise.
They timed their joint attack with fitzAlan precision. Drake threw up his shackle-encased wrists, hopping with the momentum, and rapped Randall on the point of his chin. Rand fell like a rock. Stephen dispensed with the sergeant using the pommel of his sword. The sergeant fell like a rock. Winchester’s finest, sworn to uphold the king’s peace, had been incapacitated by two knights on the run.
Stephen need say only one word to remove the gleeful smile from Drake’s lips. “Aveline.”
* * *
At the alehouse, Hell was frothing at the front gate.
Aveline’s brothers were out for blood, didn’t matter whose. A couple of well-connected punches left Drake and Stephen dazed, but after Agathe Darcy sidestepped her vapid sons and shouted something about journals and a giant, they gathered their wits right soon. Drake grabbed Stephen and shouted for the river. They covered the ground on foot, racing through the mud-slopped streets of Winchester.
Drake went ahead while Stephen stayed behind to cover his back. Drawing sword, he ducked through the open portal into the hut.
The darkness of the hovel blinded him after bright sunshine. The hut looked the same as he remembered except for three additions. Where a fortnight ago Drake had plodded over a dirt-packed floor, now he trod lightly on oaken planks. Where a fortnight ago, the only furniture had been a slipshod trestle and a couple of stools, now a finely hewn table and chairs with arms and high backs stood in their place. Where a fortnight ago Drake had shared fermented cow dung with an uncouth giant, now Aveline was seated on one of those master-crafted chairs, bound and gagged. She tried to speak, but the panicked look in her eyes said everything.
The floor creaked behind him. Drake spun around. Stephen stood in the doorway, a poniard swept menacingly across his throat and Baldric gripping him as a shield. “Ah,” the giant said, “two for the price of one.”
Drake glanced back at Aveline, her arms straining inside their bonds and her complexion awash in fear. The pawn, the prize, and the innocent in this deadly game.
“Throw the sword down
, Drake!” Baldric drew a thin line across Stephen’s throat; blood welled and dripped. Aveline screamed a muffled scream.
Wrath charged through Drake’s mirror image. With an elbow thrust, Stephen released himself from the fleshy bonds of his captor. His steel blade clattered to the floor. Dancing with the same impetus and the same fluidity, Drake threw Stephen his sword, Stephen swept forward, and Drake somersaulted toward Baldric. Baldric’s defense was not as elegant but more effective. He kicked out and lowered his arm. His fist thumped Drake on the skull, the same spot where Aveline’s skillet found its mark the night before. Drake went down on his elbows. Blood flooded his eyes. He squinted ahead. The hilt of the poniard was within reach. His fingertips touched the carved ivory handle. A massive foot stomped his knuckles. He yelped in agony, and the point of a sword descended sharply between his shoulder blades.
“I’ll run him through!” Baldric’s warning was for Stephen.
Drake yelled, “Don’t listen to him!”
Baldric kicked Drake in the throat, silencing him. Above him, the standoff came to a head. In Stephen’s hesitation, Drake sensed failure. Baldric lunged forward and cut left. A collision of blades heralded calamity. A lion sword clattered to the floor. Stephen cried out and pitched over. More blood spilled onto the oak flooring. Stephen was out cold and courting doom. Drake decided to join him.
Chapter 28
WHEN DRAKE CAME TO, EVERYTHING was painfully familiar. Body in a fetal curl. Ropes cutting into wrists. Fingers tingling with numbness. Feet roped to hands. Baldric hadn’t lost his touch. “Welcome back from the dead, Drake!”
Smelling charred meat and scorched onions, Drake squeezed his eyes to contain the pounding in his head. A fetid stench permeated the air. When he opened his eyes, the hut gyrated in blood-red hues. Trussed up the same as Drake, Stephen lay beside him, his eyes sealed and blood slathering his sword arm.
It was a mistake for Drake to sit up. Everything spun faster. He propped himself at the juncture of two walls. Aveline gazed down on him, her eyes terrified above the biting gag. He could have kissed her. He wanted to rescue her. The prospects looked bleak for both.
“When did Stephen get back into town?” Baldric asked innocently. “Or did he never leave?” He laughed at the invective Drake threw out.
Instinctively Drake reached for his dagger. The empty scabbard at his back drew his attention to the tabletop, where two swords and two daggers lay alongside a lost blade gilded with a damascened dragon. Beside the weapons lay the journals Drake brought to exchange for Aveline’s life. Next to the journals lay two coiled ropes. His muscles cramping under the tight restraints, Drake shifted with the pain. “What …,” he croaked. “What are you going to do with the journals?”
Baldric finished searing a slab of meat in the clay-lined fireplace. Smoke swirled to the four walls, burning eyes and obscuring scant light filtering in through the single window. Slapping the blood-running carcass on a platter, he scooped greasy onions on top and carried his supper to the table. “Sell them to the highest bidder.”
He started on a fresh flagon of wine and a loaf of barley bread. Baldric had all the time he needed to do whatever he planned to do. No one was riding to their rescue since no one knew where to find them, except possibly the sheriff, who was efficiently manacled to his sergeant inside a coffin-sized crate sealed with a dozen halfpenny nails in the undercroft of the Hogshead Tavern.
Drake’s numbed fingers searched the empty scabbard. Secreted behind an inside flap was a misericorde, honed sharp. Meant to deliver the mercy stroke to a fallen knight on the battlefield, something Drake had never been called upon to do, the weapon was needed this day to save two fallen knights. He glanced at Stephen. His face was the color of chalk and his breaths were ragged. “Now what?”
“Do away with the entrails.”
“Hang me and Stephen.”
“Or throw your carcasses in the river.” His eyes went to the window. “As soon as night falls.”
“And Aveline?”
“No choice but to take her with me.” The chortle said he had more in mind for her than a simple end to her worldly woes. Her eyes closed. She seemed to swoon. But soon her eyes opened and searched out Drake. Reading the undertone, Baldric skittered his eyesight between the two. “She’s smitten with you.”
“She hates my guts. Called me despicable this very morning. Isn’t that so?” he asked her.
She responded with a sarcastic moan, artful given the gag.
“Was that ere you poked her, or after?”
“You’re in the presence of a lady.”
“Drake, you misjudge me. I live by a code of knightly chivalry, I do. My own.” Chortling, he sliced off another piece of meat and chewed thoughtfully. “This is a sad day, truly. I counted you as a friend. Or would have, if you hadn’t been such a meddlesome whoreson.”
“And the others? Were they meddlesome whoresons as well?”
“They were no trouble at all.”
“You wanted the tribute money for yourself.”
“Payment in lieu, so to speak, while I was riding hither and yon.”
“Did Graham and the others trust you?”
“They trusted no one but were about as secretive as striped bulls on a field of snow. Made it easy for a man the likes of Baldric la Forêt to uncover their doings. And were only too glad to include me in their camp when they decried a vile manslayer.”
Drake shifted with discomfort. “And so you knocked me senseless, skewered Maynard, took my sword, put yours in my hand, and cried murder most foul.”
Again, he chortled. It was all fun and games, merriment and joy for the mercenary, while it was life and death for Drake and Stephen.
Noises rustled outside the window. The crackling of dry grass, a graze against shrubbery, the squish of mud, a splash of water. Drake groaned. And groaned again. Stephen joined him in the macabre chorus.
“Not my style to hack off a man’s testament to the world,” Baldric said, grease dribbling from his mouth, “but it has a certain persuasive power. They were eager to confess the sins of their lives, and I was disposed to send them to their Maker, pure of body and heart.”
Aveline’s eyes were silver-smooth ponds under a full moon, and alert to Drake’s every movement.
“But not Drogo.”
“Drogo emptied his guts before I need make the point.” Baldric spit onto the floor. A quarter of the steak had disappeared down his gullet. “Wrangled a bit of cooperation from Tilda’s protectors to set you up mighty fine, and then I dispatched them straight to perdition since dead men tell no tales.”
“And Graham?”
“Now there’s one bastard I haven’t caught up with. Slippery as a worm in a dung heap but a man about to complete what he bungled a fortnight past.” He squinted out the window. Shadows were deepening. “By killing you and your brother at full dark.”
Drake said, barely in a whisper, “And Jenna?”
“Oh aye, Jenna, pretty little thing. ’Twasn’t my doing.”
Drake twisted his bound legs to the opposite wall and caught Stephen’s heavy-lidded eyes tracking his movements. “You wanted the journals. You knew there were two.”
“So I did.” Half the steak had been consumed along with half the bread.
The misericorde had cut halfway through the rope. Drake felt the twine uncurling against his wrists. “Not for yourself. You can’t read.”
“So I don’t.”
“How did you know I had them?”
“You’ve seen Tilda. I gave her little choice but to tell me. You’re a sneaky one, Drake, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Tilda didn’t know about Yacob ben Yosel’s ledger. She didn’t know …”
“Enough Drake! You’re making my head ache.”
The only sounds to break the silence were the lick of the hearth fire and the breaths of four people standing at the precipice of Hell.
“I’ll soon be carrion. At least send me to my
grave knowing why.”
Baldric used his eating knife to pick gristle from between his teeth. “Doesn’t matter why. When you and Stephen are gone to your Maker, and Graham left to take the blame, the villainy will be laid bare. The sheriff can go about his affairs, and all will come to an end once and for all, no more questions hanging off folk’s lips.”
Drake squirmed into a different position, groaning to cover the reason for his movement.
“Stop shifting about, Drake. You’re making me jumpy.”
“This wasn’t your idea, to get the journals and hang us.”
Silence.
“Someone’s paying you.”
More silence.
“Maybe you haven’t heard: Gervase is presently a guest in the Winchester Gaol.”
“Gervase who?”
Time passed. No one spoke. Three-quarters of the steak had disappeared down the giant’s gullet, along with half the wine and most of the bread. The setting sun plunged the hovel into leaden shadows that intertwined with the smoke of the pit. Reflecting Drake’s own exhaustion, Stephen stirred and moaned. Aveline strained for freedom. A whimper—a last appeal for mercy—purred at the back of her throat.
“Worry not, lass, ’twill all be over soon.”
Time ran out. Baldric wiped his mouth with a sleeve and scraped back his chair. The firelight unveiled a demonic mask as he stood over Drake. “See you in Hell, Drake. For you will get there afore me.”
He cut the hemp binding his legs, grabbed ahold of the tunic, and dragged him to his feet one-handed. Baldric was never to know that this single action drove the misericorde through the last remaining strand of rope.
A fiend from Hell screamed. Drake swung his arm up and plunged the misericorde beneath the giant’s breastbone. The blade found its mark with a single thrust. “Say halloo to the Devil, and tell him I’ll be there ere long!”
Stunned by the cruel twist of fate, Baldric stared blankly at his killer. Drake withdrew the misericorde. Blood spurted from the big man’s belly like wine from a full barrel. The cheeks of his swollen face drained of all color. His eyes popped open in disbelief. In a rictus of gut-wrenching pain, he tightened his fist on Drake’s tunic and slowly raised his arm.
