King's Gold

He picked up the skirts of his robe, winked at Ham, and then began to trot up the road. The last days had been tedious, rather than tiring, and he was not tired. Soon he felt his muscles begin to ease, and he could pick up the pace a little, and actually run. It felt marvellous! The air was cool in his lungs, like a draught of clear water, and he felt his legs come alive. At the gates, he could see Paul and John arguing, demanding that the bridge be lowered, and the gates opened . . . and then, as he reached the wooden causeway himself, he heard a hideous shriek that turned his blood to ice.

The shriek was followed by shouts of alarm, bellowed orders . . . and then he heard the unmistakable clamour of battle: the rattle and clatter of steel on steel, the clash of blade against blade, the whoosh of arrows, like a formation of geese close overhead.

‘No! No!’ he shouted, and forgetting his own safety, he ran all the faster, making his way to the gates.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kenilworth

There was a loud shout from outside the gate as John saw the entrance closing. ‘Hoi! Hoi! Wait for us, you slugs!’

‘Keep back!’ one of the sentries at the gate bellowed.

‘What is going on?’ Squire Bernard the porter demanded. ‘I won’t have that gate kept open any longer than I need to, damn your souls!’ He was staring at the gates, and then, as John and Paul began expostulating from outside, and the porter gesticulated wildly to have the gates shut, Stephen saw the other men from his group. Fifteen of them, all looking to him for guidance. Two up near the main hall, another sidling nearer from the stables, others dotted all about the yard, expectantly watching, waiting for their weapons.

Their weapons that were in the cart.

A second man appeared, clad in a pale cream tunic. ‘Squire, your gate is still open,’ he called. ‘What is the reason for this?’

‘Sir Jevan, these men want to keep it open until their cart is inside.’

‘Do they look like messengers, then? Or spies? Close the gates!’

Stephen met his brother’s eyes, and then, muttering, ‘Oh, God’s ballocks!’ grabbed at his dagger’s hilt, shoving it deep into the squire’s back.

Squire Bernard span on his heel and stared at Stephen, his hand scrabbling for his own dagger, then reaching up to scratch at Stephen’s eyes. Stephen stabbed again, twisting the dagger in the porter’s breast, the man’s blood running freely, hot and revolting on his hand, along his wrist to the elbow. He pulled the blade free and stabbed twice more, remembering the old lesson: Never let a man loose, who could still have life and strength to attack you.

His brother Thomas Dunheved smiled. ‘I am glad to see you. We wondered whether you would be here in time.’

And then there was a shout, the bell began to ring in earnest, and arrows began to slam into the ground all about them.

Luke saw the drawbridge fall, and he could make out figures struggling in the courtyard beyond in a hideous scene of slaughter.

John and Paul were hacking with their swords, trying to enter, but a lance was thrust out, and Paul gave a hoarse cry, all but toppling from his horse. John went to him, but then he too roared in pain, put his hand to his flank, and moved away, stabbing down with his sword. Another man appeared with a bill, and swung it at John, who only just managed to evade it, before he and Paul wheeled and began to ride away. As they passed Luke, he saw that Paul had a great spreading rose of blood on the front of his tunic beneath his throat, and his eyes were already half-closed. He was dying. John had his hand at his side, and there was more blood there, and then they were past him, and Luke felt sick. He stopped, fighting for breath, as another man staggered towards him on the bridge, his mouth wide in a soundless scream, and fell to his knees as though in supplication.

Luke heard that hideous bird’s feather flight, and saw the two barbed heads spring from the man’s breast. Two arrows, each a good yard long, and the man’s mouth closed slowly as blood trickled from the corners, and he fell to his side even as Luke ran forward to give him the viaticum and hear his final confession, if he were able.

Behind him, Luke heard the cart approach, and he turned and gestured wildly. ‘No, Ham – get away, you fool! Get away!’

Stephen gave a grunt of pain. The arrow had glanced off his belt, by a miracle, but then slid in under his skin at his hip and remained there, quivering.

The two were in the narrow gap between a storeroom and the outer curtain wall of the castle, a nasty, piss-ridden little space that had only one benefit: it was hard for the guards to see them to shoot them. It was the merest bad fortune that had led the arrow to strike Stephen here.

Thomas saw his brother’s pain and darted to his side, breaking off the fletchings, and tugging the arrow through quickly. He glanced at the wound. ‘You’ll live,’ he grinned.