By the time they were all up safely on the farther bank, Hob’s feet had gone quite numb. The day was declining rapidly toward evening, and in any event it was necessary to build a fire to dry off their shoes and warm their feet. Molly consulted with Aylwin and decreed that they should camp for the night by the Dawlish, which would at least provide running water.
They pulled the wagons into a semicircle, the outer curve facing the wind, and Molly sent Hob and Nemain to gather armloads of dry brush, mostly dead gorse and heather. The greater part of the men went foraging for branches, and Jack and Aylwin and another of the bigger pilgrims went deeper into the woods and came back dragging a section of fallen tree, two feet in diameter and the length of a tall man.
Three fires were soon laid. Molly produced flint and steel from the last wagon, and soon little tonguelets of flame were peeping up through the twigs and brush at the bottom of the mounds of interlaced wood. The travelers stood about, huddled and stamping, as the smaller branches caught, then the larger. The wood was not entirely dry, because of all the recent snow, and there was a billowing of smoke. Soon the big log in the center blaze began to ignite, and Hob stretched his hands happily toward the heat.
Here and there a pilgrim would lean on his staff and stand on one foot; the other foot was extended toward the fire. The redolence of steaming wool and leather was now added to the aromatic scent of woodsmoke, the crisp clear air of the woods with its touch of pine, the cold-water breath of the Dawlish.
Some of the provisions packed at Osbert’s Inn were brought forth; a simple meal of dark bread and onions was prepared, washed down with water from the stream. Molly carried a small barrel of grain in the last wagon, and Jack fed the animals from this: an amount insufficient to satisfy, but enough to stave off weakness for a day. Molly arranged her journeys in one- and two-day stages in winter, when there was no forage to be had. In this way she moved from station to station, friend to friend, patron to patron, for it was impossible to carry enough in the wagons to feed the three beasts.
Once again the women retired to the wagons. Jack set watches about the clearing. Hob, too young for guard duty, joined those men off watch by the fire. The boy lay down as near as he dared to the dancing yellow glare. He left his sheepskin coat on but took off his shoes and rolled himself up in a blanket, and lay staring into the flames. Behind the crackling of the fire was the mumbling Dawlish, and once the hooting of an owl, and soon a chorus of snoring from the men ranged round the fire. Hob slept, half-aware of the changing of the watch, and soon the night passed into morning.
CHAPTER 8
DAWN REVEALED A HIGH ROOF of thin pearl-gray cloud, in furrows like the peasants’ fields, moving slowly against the still-black treetops. The fire, now ash and ember, was built up again. Molly provided a cauldron, and the company sat to a breakfast of porridge and water and bits of the hard cheese they had taken from the inn.
They were away early, eager to compensate for yesterday’s late start. Two tracks led from the ford on this side: one that went eastward, the one that Ranulf had recommended, and one that plunged south, running along the Dawlish for a while, and then swerved to the southeast, following forested clefts in the mountains, heading generally toward Durham and York. It was this latter track that they were to follow, and Molly cautioned Aylwin not to let his company of pilgrims stretch out ahead of the wagons as they had done yesterday, for the woods to the south were reported to be infested with the bandits that the king’s regarders had swept from the forest north and west of Osbert’s Inn.
Jack Brown then, with Nemain and Hob as interpreters and a great deal of gesticulation on Jack’s part, attempted to impart a rudimentary plan of defense from attack to the unmilitary Carlisle men: a circular formation, men on the outside, staves at the ready, striking at any who came near, and women grouped within the circle of their men. The whole group was to begin a slow shuffle back to the wagons, where the women were to climb inside, the men to put their backs against the wagon sides. They were told to concentrate on defending themselves from any attack that came nigh them, and to stay where the wagons would protect their backs, and to let Jack do the main work of repelling the bandits. At this last many looked skeptical, yet none was rude enough to contradict.
FOR A TIME, as camp was broken, the travelers looked thoughtful, even glum, as they considered Jack’s instruction. Soon, though, the brisk walk in the crisp winter air, the subtle winter sunlight striking down through the naked trees, the chatter of birds seen and unseen in the branches, lifted their hearts. They were in deep forest now. Imperceptibly their pace increased, increased; soon they were strung out through the woods, the earliest of the party out of sight of the wagons whenever the road curved to avoid an ancient tree or rocky outcrop.
They had been traveling only a short while, during which Hob had had to scatter ash only once, when Molly began to grow uneasy. She turned and twisted on the seat, peering in both directions into the forest.
“Hob,” she said at last.
The boy came back to her and reached for the bag of ashes, thinking that she wanted more traction on the hard-packed snow.
“Nay, lad, give me the lead rope, and run forward and tell Master Aylwin to halt. His people to wait in the road, and we coming up to them. Tell him it’s a bad thought I have about this road and no mistake, and it’s safer we’ll be together.”
“Yes, Mistress.” He handed up Milo’s lead rope, and began to trot forward. He just had time to become aware that all the birdsong had stilled, when there was a shout from forward, where Aylwin walked with the lead pilgrims.
At that same moment Hob heard a hiss and thump behind him. He slid to a halt, and turning about saw a speckle-fletched arrow sprouting from the wagon’s forward left wheel, the shaft still blurred and humming with the vibration of its spent force.
Half a heartbeat was lost to frozen surprise, and then Molly kicked the brake shut and tossed the lead rope in Hob’s general direction and stood on the seat to open the forward hatch. She drew forth a bow and quiver, slung them on her shoulder, drew her skirts up a foot or two through her belt to give her legs free play, and seized the rope ladder that hung from roof to seat. She swarmed up the swaying rungs with remarkable alacrity.
The half-barrel–shaped roof of Molly’s big wagon had a two-foot-wide flat strip down the center. There were rope loops fastened to the roof on either side of the walkway strip, and Molly grasped these and hauled herself to the rooftop, grunting a little. She stood up and, balancing on the walkway, began to bend a linen bowstring to her bow: an Irish bow, slightly recurved at the ends, shorter than the Welsh longbow.
The pilgrims were in disarray, but each member of Molly’s troupe knew exactly where to go and what to do in such an attack. Hob’s guidance with the lead rope was a help to the sweet but unintelligent Milo, but the ox would also obey the reins held by Molly, up on the wagon seat. When not in use, the lead rope was trailed back and slipped into a notch on the wagon board; the knot on the rope’s end held it in the notch. Now, as Molly was gaining the roof, Hob ran back and snatched up the rope, dropped it into the notch on the fly, and continued on to the back of the wagon. Here was Nemain with a similar rope that led from the axle of her little wagon. She dropped it into a notch in the tailboard of the big lead wagon, and Hob closed a wooden clamp on it and jammed a stout oaken pin through a hole in the clamp, locking the rope in. Jack had already fastened the rear wagon to the middle one in similar fashion.
Now no bandit could seize a bridle and turn a wagon off the track, into the forest, for with all brakes set each wagon acted as an anchor to the others. The ropes were too thick to cut easily. A few moments’ study of a clamp would show anyone how to free the rope, but in a battle, with Jack ranging at a fast limp around the wagons, carrying his skullsplitter war hammer, three heartbeats’ distraction meant death or maiming to an attacker.
Nemain sprang through the back door into the main wagon, closely followed by Hob. Nemain went right to the
war hammer in its wooden clips on the wall and lifted it free with some effort. Hob threw open a chest and gathered up eight or nine arrows. He took a coiled spare bowstring and thrust it into his pouch. The coated linen bowstring left a slight residue of beeswax on his hand and through the tumult of excitement this foolish detail bothered him: he wiped his fingers on his shirt. He slammed the chest lid shut. The two squeezed past one another, Nemain to the back door to hand the hammer to Jack, and Hob to the front hatch, to bring Molly the clutch of arrows. On his way through the wagon he stopped before a group of three shields on the walls: round targes, two feet in diameter, the center boss bearing a spike. He snatched one from the wall and skimmed it toward the back of the wagon for Nemain to pass to Jack. He pulled down the other two and tossed these through the hatch onto the wagon seat and crawled through himself, the arrows in one hand.
The noise of the attack had been muted in the wagon and now the shouts and clangs burst about his head. He heard the snap, snap of Molly’s bow, the hum of Molly’s arrows, screams from the roadside brush. One targe had a strap in addition to the arm brackets: he slung this shield over his back, to protect himself; the other he skimmed up onto the roof. He began to climb one-handed, the clutch of arrows in his right hand. The rope rungs flexed and wobbled beneath his feet, but Hob was agile and blessed with an excellent sense of balance. In a moment he was head and shoulders above the roofline.
What came into view at that moment burned itself into his heart: many years later he could still bring it before his eyes, vivid as life. Past the targe he had just thrown onto the roof, past the swell and bunch of Molly’s muscular calf, white as baptismal-font marble, decorated with a little blue river and tributaries formed from broken veins, he could see a bandit, a ragged golden-bearded grim-faced man, nimbly climbing to the wagon roof, and she all unaware. One knee in its tattered green hose was braced on the roof edge, one grimy hand gripped the rope loop, and the other stretched toward Molly’s ankle to topple her from her perch.
With a shout Hob summoned all his force and stabbed downward with the bunch of arrows. One arrowhead penetrated the man just behind the wrist, between the long bones of the forearm, nailing the arm against the roof; another cut the web of skin between thumb and forefinger; the rest went wide, the sharp points stuck fast into the wood.
The brigand gave a bellow of pain, and then a moment later a shriek as he wrenched his arm free, the arrow still transfixing his forearm. Molly spun about and matter-of-factly swung a kick to his jaw with her heavy wooden-soled shoe—even above the din of fighting Hob could hear the thud—and the outlaw vanished over the side.
Hob looked up at Molly. Her expression was calm, distant, emotionless as a mask, or one of the carved saints in St. Germaine’s chapel. But she bent and gave Hob a slap of approval on the shoulder, seized the cluster of arrows fast in the roof, and ripped them free. She thrust them into her quiver as she straightened; her head whipped from side to side, her narrowed eyes scanning the roadside trees and brush for sign of a crouching archer, for a new mark at which to shoot.
Hob scrambled the rest of the way onto the roof. The boy caught a glimpse of Gold-Beard as he reappeared, hunched over his wounded arm, scuttling for the cover of the roadside gorse bushes. Hob picked up the second shield and took station to Molly’s left and a little in front of her. He held with his hands to the brackets on the shield back that a grown man would slip his left arm through. He held the targe in such a way that Molly was at least partially covered, as he was himself. He had to be active and supple to maintain his position, for she turned about quickly every few moments, so to shoot to either side of the wagon.
From up here Hob could snatch glimpses of the fracas from all sides as he leaped about, ducking and bobbing, trying desperately to keep the shield before Molly, who swung this way and that, placing her shots with brisk efficiency, as calm and careful as though feathered death were not whistling past her at every moment.
Up forward he could see that the pilgrims had at last remembered Jack’s instruction, and bunched themselves in a loose ring with their staves held high and the women in the center. The whole group was shuffling back down the trail toward the protection of the wagons, moving in unison as Jack had showed them, a clumsy but effective way of preserving their formation while retreating.
The Carlisle tanners were no warriors, but they were well fed, and sturdy from their demanding work, while the wolf’s-heads were poorly armed and half-starved. The pilgrims rained blows on their nearest attackers with their staves and succeeded in keeping them at bay, at least for now; besides, most of the outlaw band was engaged in attempts to gain possession of the wagons, where the most wealth was to be found.
The mass of broad-brimmed hats, seen from the wagon roof, reminded Hob of a patch of mushrooms, and he began to giggle a bit and forced himself to stop. He was too excited to be very afraid, but he felt a bit as he did when he drank too much barley beer: a little dizzy, a little light-headed.
Molly spun about, and Hob, following, was once more facing aft. Nemain was crouched inside the rear door, with a smaller version of Molly’s bow. She was not in his sight, but he could see black-tailed arrows, arrows that Molly had fletched with crow feathers, spit at an angle from the rear of the big wagon they stood upon. The shafts whirred away, first to this side of the road, then to the other. Nemain was watching the second and third wagons, and at the same time peppering the bushes, shooting to whichever side Jack was not guarding. There was less power in her bow than in Molly’s, but it was an effective harassment of the attackers, and she was there to raise the alarm if a bandit made for the rear wagons.
“Last and left!” Nemain’s high clear voice sang through the rumble of men shouting, and Jack, below, hitched the shield farther up his forearm so that his left hand was empty. He tossed the hammer from right hand to left and put his freed right hand on Mavourneen’s rump. He vaulted over the little beast and the drawshafts to land on the left side of the wagons, a prodigious leap, and made for the rear of the second wagon, moving swiftly, his limp barely noticeable. As he went he switched the hammer back to his right hand and shook the shield down his left arm; his left hand once more took a grip on one of the brackets.
Two men huddled at the back of the little wagon, fumbling with the clamp that held the mare’s lead rope in the notch. With a curse the shorter one drew a knife and began to saw at the thick rope, but by then Jack was upon them.
The war hammer swung up and over and down with a whum, ending in a dull thumping crack: the short bandit’s collarbone had snapped beneath the blunt face of the weapon. He yelped; his arm dropped limp and the knife fell at his feet. The second man abandoned the rope clamp and whipped out a dagger. Hob, peering past the shield he held before Molly, saw the blade flash high, and drew a quick breath: he meant to shout warning to Jack. But an eyeblink later the hammer, sweeping in the wide lateral arc of its backstroke, singing in its passage through the air, irresistible, sank its crow-beak thirstily into the brigand’s throat. He collapsed without a groan; he thrashed upon the ground, choking on his own blood.
The first man stood hunched, his left hand holding his useless arm immobile against his side: the grating pain of a broken collarbone is not to be ignored, and he had lost all interest in the world outside his body. He began to shamble toward the woods, and Jack, with the practicality of the experienced soldier, did not waste another moment with him; he knew he would do no more mischief that day.
ARROWS WERE SLEETING PAST THEM, high on the roof, yet Hob was conscious of no fear, but only that his mouth was very dry, and he would have given anything to stop for a moment and drink water. He caught another glimpse of the pilgrims’ struggle, just as an outlaw scuttled in, stabbing with his heavy knife; the pilgrim he had attacked collapsed inward into the group. Cudgels rained blows about the bandit’s head and he ran backward a few steps to rejoin the ring of desperate men who encircled the pilgrim group. A couple of the Carlisle men took their fallen friend
under the arms and dragged him along with them in their slow progress back to the shelter of the wagons.
The mare and the little donkey shifted and danced in their traces, their eyes showing white and their ears flicking backward and forward in an attempt to keep track of each menacing sound, but the dead weight of the braked wagons kept them from bolting. Milo, whatever his other shortcomings, was wonderfully stolid in the face of noise and confusion; his eyes rolled here and there as shapes sprang from the forest, his ears turned to every scream and bang of combat, but he stood like a carved ox in his tracks, and waited for his Hob to return.
MOLLY’S ARROWS had taken effect: Hob could see forms slumped in the bare bushes and partially hidden by tree trunks, black-feathered arrows protruding from chest or throat, and the hail of arrows from the forest had all but stopped.
Hob looked over the side. Jack circled the wagons tirelessly. His limp was more pronounced, but still he moved with speed, rushing to meet any who dashed from the brush toward the wagons. The bandits ran by twos or threes toward the wagons as one or the other summoned the courage for an attack, but were so disorganized that they seemed unable to mount a concerted rush.
Jack was a franklin’s third son who had taken service first with this knight and then with that, learning his trade from his comrades as he marched and fought. Natural strength and agility had made him a seasoned and relentless combatant. Now he was a match for any but a belted knight. A member of a hereditary military aristocracy, trained ruthlessly from childhood in the care of equipment and horse, the use of weapons, riding, a thousand tricks of combat: a Norman knight could leap into the saddle with a half-hundredweight of chain mail on his body. One of these would surely make short work of Jack. But anyone else, anyone less formidable than one of those professional killers, stood little chance against Jack’s strength, Jack’s skill, Jack’s murderous hammer.
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