“We are servants of the Lord Edward,” he cried, “back from the Holy Land, thanks be to God and all the saints.”
The leader of the troop spurred his horse down the slope. His heavy, weather-beaten features cracked into a smile as he took the parchment and held it up to peer at the red wax seal fixed to it. The seal bore the royal crest, three pards of Anjou rampant.
“The Lord Edward?” he grunted. “No such person, my friend.”
Hugh’s brow furrowed. The sea-sickness had made him slow on the uptake, and it took a moment for him to realise the vintner’s meaning.
“King Henry is dead?” asked Richard. The vintner gave a slow nod and tossed the letter back to Hugh.
“Dead these past seven weeks,” he replied shortly. “He made a good end, they say, and died peacefully at Westminster. Poor old man. He’s better off among the saints. Long live King Edward.”
He stared hard at Hugh and Richard, who chorused their response.
“Long live King Edward!”
Hugh’s mind spun. The death of King Henry was no surprise: he had been in poor health when Hugh left England, four years gone. Yet the irrational part of him expected Henry to live forever. He had sat on the throne for over fifty years, the only king Hugh had ever known.
Now Edward was king. He wouldn’t know it for months, until envoys from England could reach him in the Holy Land. They must have been despatched already.
Once, Hugh would have welcomed the prospect of King Edward. He was in the prime of life, strong, warlike and ambitious, a proven leader in the council chamber and on the battlefield. Generous to his friends, terrible to his enemies.
Which am I?
Hugh did not know, and the uncertainty made him anxious. He had fallen out of favour after failing to arrive in time to save the prince from a Syrian assassin. Edward killed the man with his bare hands, not before suffering wounds from a poisoned dagger. By some miracle he survived the operation to cut away the diseased flesh.
“You’re wet through,” remarked the vintner. “Get yourself in front of a fire before the chill sets in. I recommend the Saracen’s Head in the town. The ale is decent, food passable, beds reasonably clean. A girl or two can be whistled up if you want them.”
He glanced briefly at Richard. “Or boys. The landlord caters to every taste.”
With that, he swung his rouncy about and led the troop off, back to the castle. Hugh, who could sense Richard’s bristling indignation, tried not to laugh as the horsemen cantered away. The young man usually dished out the jokes and was rarely made the butt of them.
“Insolent dog!” he growled, fists clenched by his sides. “I ought to haul him from the saddle and thrash the bastard in front of his men!”
For a moment Hugh was tempted to let him try. Richard would benefit from a few hard lessons in reality and getting beaten to a pulp by the vintner – a hardened old soldier if Hugh ever saw one – would certainly knock off a few rough edges.
It wouldn’t do. Richard was the nephew of John Giffard, baron of Brimpsfield and a powerful lord of the Welsh March. If anything fatal befell the lad, Hugh would be made to answer. He was under enough of a cloud already.
“Peace,” he said, laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The vintner is an ugly old man and jealous of your fair looks, that’s all. He’s English, and the English have ready tongues. Get used to it. Otherwise we will be picking fights from here to Westminster.”
Richard calmed down a little. He still looked sullen, but the dangerous light had gone out of his eyes. Hugh breathed an inward sigh of relief.
“Good. Come, let’s find that tavern. You can have the girls, I’ll play at dice with the boys.”
The boy’s mouth twitched. “God bless you, Longsword,” he replied. “You can always make me smile.”
“Master Longsword,” Hugh reminded him with gentle emphasis.
* * *
They were back on the road the next day. Hugh had left the Holy Land with plenty of money, and enough remained to buy two fast horses for the ride to London. Prudently, he had kept this reserve of cash in a money-belt under his tunic. It had sustained them in the last weeks of their voyage, after Richard gambled and drank away the rest.
Hugh wanted to make all speed and insisted on riding out at the crack of dawn. Even after months on the road together, Richard had never adjusted to this habit. He was in bed with two young whores, who screamed when Hugh burst into the room.
“Just another half-hour, curse you!” Richard yelled, even as Hugh threw his clothes at him.
“Time waits for no man,” Hugh cheerfully replied. “Nor does my purse, or the business of the king. We are king’s men, my lad, not travellers on holiday. Ladies.”
He bowed to the girls and flipped them an extra shilling from his purse. They shrieked and fell to fighting over it; in other circumstances Hugh might have stayed to watch, but duty called.
Richard barely grunted a word as they sped north on the king’s highway. Not only did he resent being hauled out of bed at an ungodly hour, but he had stayed up too late and swilled too much dark brown ale. It turned out the vintner had underplayed the quality of the drink at the Saracen’s Head, so-called after the wizened head of a Saracen slave impaled on a stake next to the door.
Dawn mist rose thickly off the ground. It obscured the woods as they flashed past, natural home of outlaws and broken men. Even here, on the main route between Dover and the capital, the roads were not safe. The long years of civil war had shattered the rule of law in England, and left the kingdom plagued with bands of robbers. Some were runaway soldiers, others deprived of their homes and families and forced to live as hunted animals in the wild.
At least that was the situation when Hugh left England. He doubted things were much better now, and wasn’t prepared to take the chance. The memory of his hellish experience at the hands of the outlaws of Sherwood was still vivid, seven years later.
Some brigands never slept. The horsemen had reached a crossroads, marked by a stone well, when an arrow skittered across the road. It buzzed past like a giant wasp, striped black and yellow with red fletches.
Hugh’s horse whinnied in fight and reared back on her haunches. He fought down his panic, bunched the reins in his left hand and ripped out his sword with the other.
“Turn!” he yelled at Richard, a few yards behind him. “Turn and follow me! Go straight at them!”
Hugh had been ambushed on the road before, and knew it was useless to flee. A decent archer would shoot down his horse or put an arrow in his back. The best option was to face the robbers head-on. They were cowards, mostly, and would scatter like frightened deer in the face of determined opposition.
Mostly…
He shut down his thoughts, swung his horse about and rode straight at the treeline. Once, the woods had been cut back a bowshot-length from the roadside to discourage bandits, but in recent times they had been allowed to grow back again. The edge of the forest was barely ten yards ahead. Hugh could see the hooded figures lurking just inside, a bowman reaching for another arrow from his quiver.
“Deus Vult!”
Bent low over his horse’s neck, Hugh roared the war-cry of the crusaders. It was meant to strike fear into the hearts of Saracens. Now he used it against fellow Christians, if a band of murderous outlaws could be described as such.
The bowman in the woods was fast. He stood his ground in the face of the charging horsemen, notched, drew and loosed with smooth precision. The arrow, another striped wasp, thumped into Hugh’s shoulder. It sliced through his woollen cloak and stuck into the light mail shirt he wore beneath. He tore the shaft free with his left hand and threw it away. His horse, at full gallop, carried him into the trees.
Men scattered before him. He slashed at the archer, who raised his bow, double-handed, to parry the cut. Hugh’s sword chopped clean through the rough elm. His target ducked and scrambled away.
The battle-joy rose inside Hugh. He plunged after the fleeing outlaws
without a thought to his safety. They darted and leaped among the trees and tangled undergrowth, five or six men in dark green.
A shadow fell over him. An arm snaked round his neck. Cold steel pressed against his throat. Hugh flung himself sideways. A man’s voice shrieked in his ear as they both went down and landed with a crash.
They rolled, clawing at each other. Hugh caught his attacker’s wrist before the knife could stab home. He yelped as sharp teeth bit into his ear lobe. A bony knee drove into his groin.
Pain and terror combined to lend him an extra burst of strength. With a grunt of effort, he flung the man off him and struggled to his feet, doubled over at the pulsing agony in his crotch.
The outlaw had risen onto his haunches. He was young and agile. Hugh guessed he had dropped from the branches of the copper beech over their heads.
They were alone together. The outlaw’s comrades had vanished into the depths of the forest with Richard in hot pursuit.
Hugh had dropped his sword in the struggle. He quickly snatched it up before the outlaw could spring at him.
The boy didn’t move. He was probably younger than Richard, with a downy fuzz on his thin cheeks. Starved and angry, his eyes feverish, tattered rags hanging off a bony frame.
This one is the runt of the litter, though Hugh. He will be lucky to see the autumn.
Despite his bruised balls, he felt a twinge of pity for the young wolfshead, destined to end on the gallows or starve in a ditch.
“Run away, lad,” he said. “Run back to your mother while you have the chance.”
The outlaw rose. He was tall, half a head taller than Hugh. As well as the knife, he carried a wickedly sharp hatchet, tucked into the coil of rope that served him for a belt. He passed the knife to his left hand and drew out the hatchet.
“Boy,” Hugh said softly. “Don’t be a fool.”
The forest seemed to go still. Hugh locked eyes with his opponent, trying to make him see sense.
The outlaw uttered a high-pitched keening noise, like the whistle of a kettle on the boil, and charged. He loped towards Hugh on long, ungainly legs.
Hugh easily dodged the flailing hatchet. It would be easy to kill. Far too easy. His opponent turned with almost comical slowness. He waited patiently, sword held loosely in his right hand.
Another yell, and again the hatchet came whirling at him. He dodged, parried, refused the counterstrike, gave ground.
The duel reminded him of his fight with Sir Robert d’Eyvill, seven years gone. Then Hugh had been the clumsy, hopelessly outmatched fencer, humiliated and left to die. For some reason Robert had spared his life. If the man was still alive, Hugh meant to track him down and repay the compliment.
As they fought, he gave the boy some advice. “Save your breath,” he said conversationally. “Move your feet. Don’t just lunge at me. That’s better. You’re young, but in bad shape.”
His calm tone drove the boy wild, as Hugh knew it would. The blue eyes blazed with futile anger, yellow teeth bared in a snarl. A few moments longer, and Hugh would knock him out. He would wake up with a sore head and, if he had any sense it all, a fresh perspective on life.
The ground shook. Hoofs clattered behind him.
“Deus Vult!”
Richard’s voice, raised in a howl. Horse and rider flashed past. Fresh blood splattered across Hugh’s face. He grimaced and wiped the stuff away.
“No!” he shouted. “Leave off, in Heaven’s name!”
Too late. Richard didn’t hear him. His dirty sword flashed down and split the outlaw’s skull like a ripe apple. The momentum of his charge carried him to the far edge of the little glade. He wrestled his horse to a halt and turned her about, panting, steam rising from her flanks. The young man’s face was flushed with excitement, veins pulsing in the side of his neck, eyes alight with the joy of killing.
“Three!” he crowed, holding up three fingers. “That makes seven to two in my favour, master!”
Hugh stared grimly at the dying youth, stretched face down in the dirt. Richard had insisted on keeping count of the number of men they killed on the journey home to England. Until today it was four-two in Richard’s favour. Three men he slew in tavern and street brawls, one in a duel fought over some girl in the backyard of a tavern in Sofia.
Hugh had killed two men in self-defence, or so he told himself. One was a German who objected to Richard’s use of loaded dice, the other a drunken, pot-bellied Gascon with duelling scars on both cheeks. His preferred method was to stab men in the back, so Hugh got his retaliation in first.
He rammed his sword back into its sheath and turned around without a word. His horse stood just outside the glade, cropping the grass. Silence reigned as he went to fetch her.
“Did I do wrong?” cried Richard. “You could show a little gratitude!”
Hugh stroked his beast’s muzzle and counted to ten under his breath. A burst of temper would achieve little. Richard wouldn’t understand, and he was perfectly in the right. Any servant who saved his master from a murderous outlaw – not that Hugh had needed saving – deserved thanks.
“You did very well,” he said. “These men were common thieves. They deserved no mercy.”
Hugh said nothing more on the last stretch to London. He couldn’t blame his companion for slaying the outlaw. Richard had meant well, which was a refreshing change from his usual attitude. Besides, outlaws were fair game.
Even so, Hugh couldn’t wipe the memory of the boy’s face. The desperate terror in his eyes. His doomed courage in attacking a man who could have cut him down in seconds. When he thought of the boy, lying face down in a puddle of gore, Hugh saw a mirror image of himself.
Such thoughts did no good. Hugh had always been prone to introspection, as useless as it was unavoidable. And potentially dangerous. He was a spy and an assassin, a blunt weapon for kings. He could not afford to indulge in conscience.
Almost an hour after the skirmish in the woods, the first whiff of the Thames reached Hugh’s nostrils. The stench was vile as ever – all the smells of the city, mixed with its own distinctive odour – but welcome. A Londoner by birth, Hugh had never thought to breathe in the air of the capital again.
Soon they were out of the woods and riding through open farmland. Farmsteads and lone cottages flashed past, workers toiling in the fields. Now they were on the road to Lambeth, forced to slow their pace by the increased stream of traffic.
Hugh was content to amble along. Before him rose the outer walls of London, a thick line of grey masonry bound by the murky waters of the Thames. Tiled rooftops, along with a church spire or two, rose beyond the wall. Hugh and Richard had to force their way through the stream of drovers, merchants, pedlars, tinkers, mendicant friars, livestock, beggars; all the flow of life pouring in and out of the greatest city in England.
Hugh’s companion was his old cocky self. He was impossible to keep down for long, and his angelic features shone with excitement at the noise and bustle all around them.
This place will swallow you whole, my lad, Hugh thought sourly.
London might have been built to consume the likes of Richard Giffard. There was no pleasure, vice or flesh-pot known to man that could not be found inside its ancient walls. Unless Hugh looked sharp, Richard would be dead inside a month.
Or he might be appointed Mayor within the year. Charming young rogues can meet their ruin here, or make their fortune.
He thrust these worries aside. They had an appointment at the Tower with the most powerful men in the kingdom. Perhaps that would serve to concentrate Richard’s mind. If not, nothing would.
Hugh’s hand strayed to his belt. He carried a letter inside a packet in the lining. The letter was sealed with King Edward’s own seal, and Hugh was under strict instructions not to open it.
He was often tempted to have a look inside. There were several methods of opening a closed letter without damaging the seal, and closing it again. As a trained spy, Hugh knew them all.
His mind drifted bac
k to the last time he spoke with Edward, in the city of Acre.
The king lay upright on a couch, his back propped against a bolster stuffed with wool. Edward was still recovering from the wounds inflicted by the assassin’s dagger.
It was high summer in the Holy Land, and golden sunshine lanced through the high arched windows of the antechamber. The air was still and stifling, only made bearable by a slight breeze wafting in from the sea. Acre was a port city, one of the tiny handful of strongholds left to the Christians on mainland Outremer.
The future king had lost an alarming amount of weight. Naturally thin, he was now skeletal, luminescent white skin stretched tight over his angular frame. He perspired constantly, even with a Saracen slave on hand to fan him.
Hugh knelt beside the couch. “Lord,” he said gravely. “I did all in my power to reach Acre in time and warn you of the assassin. I was delayed by events beyond my control.”
A painfully long silence followed. Hugh was distracted by the anguished barking of a dog in torment. Edward had ordered the animal to be strung up, alive, alongside the body of the Syrian who had tried to kill him. Both hung from a gallows mounted on the highest tower of the landward wall, as a warning to the Saracens.
Edward’s slightly laboured breathing was the only sound in the chamber. Hugh could sense the hostile gaze of Eleanor, the prince’s consort. She stood beside the window, arms folded, glaring in silent accusation at Hugh.
Eleanor was tall and slender, dressed in a light blue sleeveless surcoat, her lustrous black hair confined in a net under a white coif. She was not beautiful, at least not to Hugh’s taste. Her mouth was small and haughty, her chin sloped, her nose too long.
Edward clearly thought otherwise. He and his wife were utterly devoted to each other, bound by a mutual passion that bordered on the obsessive.
Hugh wished Edward had left her in England. Eleanor thirsted for revenge on those who had tried to kill her precious mate. Deprived of immediate satisfaction, she looked for someone to blame instead.
The Hooded Men Page 2
