"Relics" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vaughan-Hughes Pip)

Chapter Four

My eyes were raw with the salt of the deacon's blood and my own blood was roaring in my ears as I threw myself out of the west door and onto the pavement of the Cathedral Yard. It was not late, and people were still abroad, clerics bent on some errand, strollers arm in arm with friends or sweethearts. My mind was empty of any thought save that of escape, and I ran towards the nearest figure, waving my arms and yelling for help at the top of my voice. But the man, a merchant, stared at me for a moment, his mouth open in a parody of shock that would have been at home on a misericord. Then he turned and ran from me, shouting incoherently as he went.

Wait, wait,' I called after him. 'Deacon Jean is dead! Sir Hugh killed him! Help me!'

Now the other people in the Yard were staring. A woman screeched once and fell to her knees. I was still running, but seeing the horror on the faces before me I slowed to a stagger.

'Good people, fetch the Watch! There is a murderer in the cathedral! Fetch the Watch now!' I was hardly aware of my own voice: it sounded thin and reedy. Stretching my arms out to the kneeling woman and her escort, a stocky man in livery, I caught sight of myself.

Jean de Nointot's blood, still hot, was steaming in the freezing air. The sleeves of my habit hung, soaked and heavy, and my hands were dark and shiny. I found I was still holding the hand of St Euphemia, and the bright gold was gore-splattered. Then another voice, loud and full of authority, rang behind me.

'Stop that man! In the name of Bishop Ranulph, stop him! Murderer and thief – hold him fast!'

It was Sir Hugh, and he was not laughing now. I glanced back. He stood under the arch of the west door, tall and commanding, pointing a long white finger. He started to walk towards me. I turned again. People were beginning to edge forward, forming a loose crescent that was closing slowly.

'He is the murderer! He's a butcher,' I pleaded. 'He is bloody. He has a knife!'

'Poor Deacon Jean caught him stealing the hand of St Euphemia,' Sir Hugh shouted. 'See, he has it. Beware, he is possessed! He cut at the deacon like a beast. I saw him tear at his guts with his teeth!'

The fine lady toppled forward in a dead faint. Some of the men had drawn blades. But I was far more terrified of the man behind me than of the frightened folk ahead. I bolted, running straight at the stocky man-at-arms who knelt by his fallen lady. His eyes bulged with fright and he threw himself out of my way. The people nearest scattered too. Legs pumping, I was across the Yard in an instant, and ran up the first street that opened before me. I was lucky: this was Silver Street, a narrow thoroughfare that led away from the cathedral precinct and the Bishop's palace. Unlike the Yard, the street was empty, and I raced down the cobbles unhindered. I heard angry shouting behind me, but no one seemed to be following. But as the street began to curve, following the contours of the hill, I turned into a narrow alley that sloped steeply down towards the river. I dimly remembered that it came out not far from the Crozier. If I had a thought in my head other than escape, it was to wash myself of the foul, clinging blood that clung to me and chafed me as I ran. At that moment I knew I was doomed, but I did not wish to meet my end fouled with the stink of another man's death.

My steep and precipitous descent soon had my legs scissoring in wider and wider strides, and my arms flailed as I tried to keep my balance on the slippery cobbles. Before I knew what was happening I had catapulted from the mouth of the alley and was running headlong across Long Reach, the wide street that bordered the river on this side. There was a yell, a clatter of hooves and the high whinny of a frightened horse, and I found myself sprawled next to a high-sided cart. The horse, a big old beast, was lunging in its traces and regarding me sidelong with one bloodshot eye. A man was standing on the front of the cart, yanking on the reins and almost doubled over with the effort of shrieking curses at me.

In a blind panic I wriggled away from the crazed man and his horse, scrambled to my feet and fled down Long Reach towards the bridge, a dim, crook-backed shadow perhaps fifty paces away. There were other people on the street. This was a busy place of commerce by day, but after dark was trawled by bawds and harlots, and a few of them now watched me with vague interest as I hurtled past, a young cleric in wet robes, carrying some sort of artificial hand.

The hand. I had forgotten what I was clutching, but now I felt the weight of all that gold. Something rattled slightly within it. I stuffed it down my habit. As I ran, it began to slip down between my skin and the woollen undershirt I was wearing, leaving an icy trail, as if a huge slug were crawling down my body. Finally it came to rest on my stomach, held in place by the rope belt cinched round my waist. I felt its fingers cupping my belly, cold and reproachful.

Here was the bridge. I slowed down: there were more people here, people who might know me. Many students lived, like me, in the shabbier districts on the east side of the river, and their taverns were here on this side. I stopped, and leaned, panting, on the end of one of the bridge's stone parapets. I could smell myself: fresh blood, horse-shit and refuse from the street, and the sharp tang of fright. Touching my face, I felt a scabby crust of congealed gore. Thus masked, my friends would not recognise me, I thought now. But recognisable or not, I looked like a fiend escaped from hell. No safety lay in this disguise.

My mind, frozen by shock and the panic of flight, began to thaw. Like blood returning to numb limbs, reality crept back, painfully. I found myself taking stock of the situation. There had been a murder. I was to blame. No, that wasn't right. I had been blamed. The knight was the killer, but was leading the hunt for me. Because the hunt must be on. I had escaped so far. I had to explain what had really happened… No. Ridiculous. My word against the Steward. I was dead. No! I was alive, and perhaps I could remain so.

This debate with myself took mere seconds, but already people were stopping, staring in my direction. With no plan but a growing desire for life, I took a deep breath and set off across the bridge. I looked neither left nor right, and tried to keep my steps regular and slow. If I could reach my lodgings I would have clean clothes, a little money. But perhaps that wasn't a good idea. Sir Hugh had known my name – why not my lodgings? I shook my head, trying to clear it of the returning hum of panic.

It would take me two or three minutes to reach Ox Lane. For some reason there was no hue and cry behind me: through some quirk of good fortune I seemed to have eluded pursuit. Perhaps Sir Hugh had led the chase the full length of Silver Street, thinking I was making for the tannery district and the water-meadows beyond. But as I dithered, my steps less sure now, the great bells of the cathedral began to toll. The sound, pure and deep, rolled out across the town. This was no call to prayer, no striking of the hour. It was a death-knell, and an alarm. St Euphemia's hand stroked my guts like a baleful premonition.

I had no time to think now, only to act. I sprinted the few paces to where Ox Lane cut across Bridge Street, stopped short of the corner and peered round. The lane was dark and seemed empty, so I ran for the door to my lodgings. Opening it cautiously, I saw nobody in the hall. Taking the stairs two at a time I reached the top landing, badly out of breath. Panting and smarting from a stitch in my side, I pushed open the door – there was no lock – and stepped into the dark room.

Except that the room was not dark. A candle was burning in the pewter holder by my pallet. And on the pallet sat a man.

My heart lurched. I could actually hear it bang against my ribs, so quiet was the room. Fright had mastered thought, and I leaped backwards, only to meet the edge of the door, which had swung half-closed behind me. Now my weight slammed it shut and I was trapped on the wrong side, fumbling with the old latch, which as usual had seized for want of the dab of tallow I always meant to give it, but never did. My back was to the figure on the bed, but part of me waited numbly for the blow to fall, glad not to be facing my death. 'I have been waiting for you,' said the presence behind me.

My hand stopped its convulsive scrabbling. Everything was suddenly very still and silent. I inhaled the mildew reek of the thatch, felt a stinging in my face where I had mashed it against the splintery pine of the door. Very slowly I turned around and edged to one side, until I had my back to the wall.

'If you don't breathe soon, your eyes will pop out of your head, pop, pop.' I knew that voice, and it was not Sir Hugh. It was Will.

And I did breathe, a horrible, ragged gasp. Another breath, and I was choking, down on all fours with Will pounding my back. I had been sick, and my room smelled worse now, if that were possible. Little points of coloured light were dancing before my eyes. There was a cold, heavy sensation in the pit of my stomach and I ducked my head for another heave. But it was only St Euphemia's hand. I crawled over to my pallet and lay still.

'Jesus, Patch! You're hurt!' Will was kneeling beside me, running his hands over my robe. He was muttering in his haste. 'All this blood. I thought you'd fallen in the river. Where are you wounded, Patch? Come on!' I sat up, and brushed him away.

'It isn't my blood, Will. Get off me. What the hell are you doing here?'

Well then, for fuck's sake whose blood is it?' said Will, ignoring me.

All at once I had to be free of my gory habit. I jumped up and began tearing at the knot in my belt. The cord was soaked and had tightened, and my thumbnail broke before the thing came undone. I pulled it away, and with a clank the golden hand dropped from between my legs like some grotesque birth. Will gasped and I saw his face go white as he backed away down the pallet. 'Mother of God!' he whispered.

Meanwhile I had struggled out of my habit, which settled on the floor in stiff folds as if some part of me were still wearing it. Throwing open the lid of my trunk, I grabbed a dirty flaxen shirt that I had stuffed there some weeks earlier and began scrubbing myself There was water in a clay jug on the floor, and I poured it over my head, hardly noticing that it was freezing cold. I scrubbed some more, Will staring with great round eyes at the naked madman who had recently been his good friend Petroc. Then I attacked the trunk again, flinging clothes over my shoulder until I had what I needed.

I soon had myself dressed in a pair of baggy grey woollen britches, a linen undershirt and a brown fustian tunic. The small bag of coins I kept hidden in the thatch I tied into a corner of the shirt and tucked it down around my groin. At the bottom of the trunk was my old sheepskin jerkin, very worn and moth-eaten and only packed for sentimental reasons. I had outgrown it a little, but pulled it on anyway: it would be warm, at least. I had my sandals. Now all I required were garters, and I had none. So I tore another dirty shirt into strips and began to bind my calves with them.

In the meantime Will had been watching me, his intelligent face frozen in a mask of confusion. He was owed an explanation, and so, while I wound the makeshift garters up my legs, I tried to give one. 'The Steward found me again,' I began. 'Sweet Christ! He attacked you!' Will broke in.

'No, not me. He took me to the palace, and then to the cathedral. He told me the Bishop wanted St Euphemia's hand for something-' and I touched the thing with my foot,'-and told me to fetch it from the altar. Then Deacon Jean caught me.' A sob rose with my gorge. I gulped it back. 'Deacon Jean caught me, and Sir Hugh killed him. Cut his throat like a lamb. Pretended I'd done it. Made me run.'

Wait a minute, Patch,' said Will, carefully. 'Sir Hugh killed a deacon? Why?'

'God's guts, Will! Why? He's a madman – there is no "why"! He killed the poor priest, and he's killed me, too. I'm running, but there's no fucking point, is there?'

And there's the hand,' Will said, his calm cutting across my growing panic. "You kept the hand.'

'I did.' I sat down on the bed. 'I found it in my own hand when I reached the bridge. I thought of chucking it in the water, but that would have been a sin.' I laughed mirthlessly. There's no room for a bigger stain on my soul, brother.'

To my surprise, Will rose, picked up the relic and, using the wet and bloody shirt I had used to wash myself, began to rub the stains from the golden fingers. 'It's very beautiful,' he said, softly. 'He told you the Bishop wanted it?' I nodded. And the deacon refused?' he asked.

'No, no.' I shuddered, a spasm that caught me off guard and set my teeth chattering. 'He was happy for Sir Hugh to have it. He was friendly. All he did was ask what the Bishop needed it for. And then…' I saw again the fountain of blood, and retched. 'Softly, Patch. Did he try to kill you as well?'

'No.' It was true. The Steward had not lifted a finger against me. 'I ran, and he laughed at me, mocked me. Told me I'd made a terrible mess.' I fought down another dry heave. 'I got outside, and tried to raise the alarm. Then he appeared and accused me. He was spotless – you saw what I looked like. So they turned on me, and I ran.'

Will had finished polishing. He held the hand up to the candlelight, and it gleamed warmly, as benign a thing as it had been on the altar. 'I don't think the Steward is mad. He is playing a game, as he did before. What happened in the palace, Patch?'

'Nothing. The Steward had business with the Bishop. He presented me to him.' "You met the Bishop, Patch?' Will was incredulous. Yes. He looked like a buzzard. Has a nasty laugh.'

'I know what he looks like,' said Will. You've stumbled into something, my dear old friend. God knows what, but you've got to get away right now.' And with that he hauled me to my feet. 'Do you know where you'll go?' he asked, looking me hard in the face. I blinked. I'm going home,' I said.

I don't really remember the next few minutes. I know that I tried to leave the hand – I felt it might go better for me if I made some effort to return it, perhaps through Will. 'Terrible idea,' he said. 'There is a trade in such trinkets – there's a fortune in gold and gems here. And the relic… what price the hand of a martyr?' I was to keep the relic, to sell or to bargain with. It was priceless, after all, but its value as gold bullion alone would probably be enough to buy all of Dartmoor. He bound it to my chest with a linen scarf, which my mother had given to me when I became a novice. St Euphemia's touch was oddly comforting, but the metal dug into me in awkward places. It would be maddening, I knew, but there was no time to think of that now.

Will's plan, if it could be called such, was simple. I would leave Balecester dressed as I was, a peasant to any curious eyes. Once I had put a day between the city and myself, I would put on my habit and be a monk once more. Monks were revered or reviled by country folk: in any event, they generally left us alone. It was the best protection I could hope for. My tonsure was a problem, however, and Will paced for a moment. Then he picked up my water jug and held the base over the candle's flame for a minute. The clay was soon coated with a layer of lampblack, and Will wiped this off with one hand and, before I could protest, began smearing it on my shaven pate.

'Lucky you went to the barber last week, my boy,' he said. Tour hair is no more than black fuzz, and this will look like more of the same, I hope. Don't forget to wipe it off

I was not about to put my habit back on, though. 'There's more blood in that thing than I have in my own body,' I told him.

Well, you'd better have mine, brother,' Will replied, and he pulled off his robe and rolled it long-ways, binding the ends together to make a great, heavy ring. I hung it across my body. It was bulky and hot over my rough clothes, but I said nothing. Meanwhile my friend was standing in his tunic and breech-clout. 'If you could loan me a pair of britches, I'd be eternally grateful,' he said. I gestured at the trunk. He rummaged, and found a tattered thing that nonetheless proved to fit. It was strange to see Will dressed like a layman, and seeing my expression, he winked at me. 'I feel like a real person again, Patch,' he said. 'That sack may be good for the soul, but it lacks grace.'

Then he blew out the candle and pushed me from the room. The stairs were still empty as we crept down them. Will stopped me at the door with a look, opened it and peered out. 'No one about,' he breathed. Then we were in the street and walking, arm in arm, two friends out for a stroll. We headed away from Bridge Street, towards the wall, beyond which a smear of tumble-down houses faded into hovels and then into the patchwork fields that stretched for miles out into the flat lands to the south and east. I would head south, skirting the city, and then turn west, into the wooded hills. It would mean crossing the river, but upstream where it was more narrow.

The cathedral bell had ceased its tolling, and there was no sign of a manhunt in these poor streets. 'They've forgotten about me,' I muttered to Will. 'I expect they realised they were making a fuss about nothing.' The thin joke tasted like ashes in my mouth, and I wished I'd kept silent.

Well, next time kill the Bishop,' said Will. I looked at him in surprise, and he grinned back. There was something alert and wolfish in his scarred face that I had not noticed before. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?' I said.

The grin disappeared. 'I'm enjoying your company, brother, because I fear it will be the last time I shall do so,' he answered. 'And I have the feeling that we're spoiling someone's nasty plan, and I'm enjoying that as well. But if that hog of a Steward catches us, we're fucked. I'm not going back either, Patch. Christ knows I'm a sorry excuse for a cleric, but I won't serve a master who has knife-men and lunatics in its pay. I've seen things in this city. I've been up and about while you dreamed of Cicero.' What are you talking about? What things, Will?'

'The Bishop's men running here and there, up to no good. Don't tell me you've noticed nothing.' I shook my head miserably. 'Not a thing,' I admitted.

'Christ, Patch, you dreamer.' There was no rancour in his voice. You've been living inside your bloody books, man. Now you've bumbled right into the heart of something. Listen.' He paused, and lowered his voice even further.

'Surely you've heard that His Holiness is demanding one-fifth of the English Church's tithes?' I nodded. 'Good,' he continued. And you can probably guess that the bishops aren't too happy.' I shrugged: politics didn't interest me in the least, especially now that my neck was practically in the noose. 'But listen, Patch. Even that share of the tithes is an ocean of gold. You met the Bishop tonight. He's no priest, he's a lord, and a rich one. Interests, brother. They need to be protected. By people like the Steward.'

He still had hold of my arm, and must have felt my flesh shrink at the mention of Sir Hugh.

'Don't be afraid, now,' he said gently. You'll be safe. Once we're over the wall, we'll disappear.'

Why are you telling me all this, about His Holiness and gold?'

'Because I've heard the name of Deacon Jean de Nointot before. He was cosy with Legate Otto. It seems that Otto was cultivating allies within the diocese, and de Nointot's loyalties were to Rome.' 'So what?'

'So it's an open secret that Otto has been promising advancement to those who take the Pope's side against the bishops – not just here, but all over the kingdom. De Nointot is – was – young and ambitious. He was a viper in the Bishop's bosom.'

The thought of the Bishop's bosom made me chuckle despite myself.

You're laughing. Excellent. But what I'm telling you isn't so far-fetched. De Nointot is out of the palace's way, his blood is on the hands of a young nobody – sorry, Patch, but do you disagree? – and the Bishop has a witness, to wit, his own Steward. Quite a pretty story, with all its ends tied up tight.' 'But the hand, Will – what about the hand?'

'Motive, you thickhead. They catch you soaked in gore, with the hand on you. No need for questions.' 'But why me?'

You told me yourself – he was looking for greedy people last night.' 'But I wasn't greedy.'

'Absolutely. You were trustworthy. A lamb, not a wolf. No room for two wolves in Kervezey's plan.'

We walked in silence after that. My feet felt like two stones, and my heart made a third. I could find no argument against Will's theory. I was a dupe, and a scapegoat. All the thoughts I'd had in the palace, about power and favour, and how I'd been singled out for advancement, came back to me, and I almost moaned aloud at the horror of it all, but most of all at my own stupidity. I had let pride blind me and make me ignore my instincts about Sir Hugh. And after all, how could I have put myself in the hands of such a man? I was in no manner worldly, but I was not a babe in arms. And now Will had been caught in the smoke of my damnation.

He was by no means a perfect cleric, or a model student, but his wit was the sharpest I had ever encountered, and he soaked up learning without any effort at all. Granted, he was addicted to nocturnal escapades of one sort or another, and no stranger to the bawdy-houses I had so recently dashed past on Long Reach. He had precious few illusions about anything, but I had always thought he would find quick advancement in the Church – a bishop by thirty, as we would sometimes joke. Now he was slinking away from all that, at the side of someone the whole country would soon know of as the foulest murderer of the age. I paused and grabbed his sleeve.

You've done nothing, brother,' I said. 'No one need ever find out you met me tonight. Let me give you back your habit – and then please leave me. I will not be responsible for your destruction as well as my own.'

But Will only laughed again, a little hollowly. You haven't been listening, Patch. This is about popes and bishops, but mostly about money. We're gnats. We don't count at all. I'm your best friend: if Kervezey doesn't know it yet, which I'm sure he does, he'll know it by tomorrow. My life in the Church is over, and probably my life on this earth if I stay here. It's not your fault. You just used the Crozier's back door when you should have used the front.' 'But you would have been a bishop by thirty!' I burst out.

'Haven't you noticed that I've been less than diligent of late, even by my standards? I have been fighting with myself. My faith never was very strong – I'm sure you knew that – and now I fear it has completely left me. I'm a sinner; it's in my bones. And I hate this bloodless life, brother – hate it. I was no more born to this than to lord it over bales of wool like my God-bothering dad.' You mean you'll break your vows?' Aye.'

'And do what? Christ, Will, they'll cut your ears off just for that, let alone for helping me.'

'I'm heading north. Perhaps I'll tap my dad for some money on the way – perhaps not. But I've been planning for a while, and the plan is to seek my fortune. I'll find a free company to join, and then away to France and the wars.'

'Jesus Christ!' My voice rose, and my companion cautioned me with a look. A soldier? You? You're a cleric, brother. What in hell's name do you know of soldiering?'

'More than you.' That at least was true. Will loved to fight, had spent his childhood scrapping and brawling through the streets of Morpeth and was a well-known hellion here in the city.

You won't be finding dozy drovers and fat watchmen over in France, you know,' I went on. 'They'll chop you to bits quicker than a lamb at Easter.'

'Better than the death-in-life I've been leading.' He paused. 'I could never be a priest. I might have made a scholar. But the Cathedral School is finished anyway, Patch.' What do you mean, finished?'

'The Masters are packing up. They're moving to Oxford. Have you really not heard any of this? Magister Jens, all of them. There's a real school starting up there.'

'That's just gossip.' I knew about it, of course. Scholars were drifting together all over Christendom. Our teachers had told us of the new places of learning at Paris and Bologna, and the same thing was rumoured to be happening at Oxford. And we were just a school, constrained by the Church and firmly under the Bishop's thumb. He could make it comfortable for teachers and students as long as it suited him, but schools like ours came and went according to the whims of the mighty. I had dreamed of going on to Paris, or Bologna, or even Oxford. That dream was dead now. But if Will was right, perhaps our days in Balecester had been numbered anyway. 'It feels as if it's all falling to pieces behind us,' I muttered.

'Perhaps we were the only things holding it up,' Will agreed. After that, there didn't seem to be anything else to say.

But now the city walls were in sight, rising up to block our way. Ox Lane ended just ahead, and there was no gate. Fortunately for us it had been years since Balecester had been threatened by war, and the walls were neglected. They were high, but sheds, lean-tos and the odd house had been built against them, they were crumbling in places, and there weren't enough Watch-men to patrol their whole length. I had often wandered this way, and I knew that it would be simple to get up to the parapet. The other side was more of a problem: a sheer drop four times the height of a man. But the shanty-town that spread out from the city on the south had crept up to the walls, and there were plenty of refuse piles and rotten roofs to break a fall.

We ran the last few yards, more from bravado than anything else – there were still no signs of a hunt behind us. In the moonlight the wall's dilapidation was obvious: the Roman bricks that made up its lower courses were crumbling and the mortar was gone, the dressed stone from the Conqueror's time was no longer smooth and straight, and vertical cracks shot up every few feet where the foundations were sinking. I steered Will to the left.

'There's a woodpile along here somewhere,' I told him, and sure enough, a big stack of split logs appeared around a curve, stacked against a buttress. We threw ourselves at the wood, scrambled up without much difficulty, and found that the slope of the buttress made a convenient ramp to the top of the wall. Up on the parapet, the crenellations stretched away toothily on each side. We crept along, keeping our heads down, peering over every few feet to find a soft landing place. 'See anything?' said Will.

'All I can see is the easy way to a broken neck,' I muttered in reply. Then I caught sight of something far off along the wall to the east. 'Lights, man! On the wall!' Will had seen them too.

And now there were sounds from behind us. Feet on cobblestones. Torches flickered at the distant end of Ox Lane. They seemed to drift slowly in our direction.

We scuttled along the battlements like a pair of rats, bobbing up to look for a place to jump, ducking down and running. We both sensed that we could be seen against the moon-washed sky, and the mob in Ox Lane was near enough for us to hear voices. Or perhaps it was other hunters in other streets. There seemed to be nothing near the foot of the wall on the outside: maybe the city had been pulling down houses, or one of the fires that seethed through the squatters' shacks had cleared away the rotting shelters that usually huddled right up to the bricks. We would have to jump now, and take our chances. I hunkered down to let Will catch up with me, but as I leaned against the chilly stone my nose caught a whiff of something unpleasant. I peeped over, and there below me rose a dark mass, rising up to the height of a tall man against the wall and spreading out on all sides. Will appeared at my side. 'Look there, man,' I croaked. 'Dunghill.'

Will peered in his turn. When he turned back, he was grinning. 'Just look at that great big pile of shit,' he said. I stared at him for a second, and then we were both cramped with laughter, trying to stifle it with hands stuffed into mouths, pounding each other and the stone battlement. We laughed as only those who have a choice between the gallows and a long fall into ripe shit can laugh. Then we jumped.

It felt like a long way down. I noticed air hissing past my ears, and a griping tingle of expectation in my feet. Then I landed, and sank to my knees in soft, warm, sucking matter. An instant later, Will arrived beside me. The stench was unbearable down here. We were imbedded in a monstrous heap of dung, kitchen rubbish, offal from butchered animals -the mound was like a towering carbuncle on the face of the shanty town, filled to bursting with all the poisons and fetor of that filthy place. From the miasma that rose around us, I gathered that human as well as pig, cow and horse-shit had a place here. My legs were becoming unpleasantly warm – hot, even – and I tried to drag myself out. It felt like quicksand below me, drawing me down into the pile, and I braced myself for another try. Will was cursing and struggling. I felt hot slime ooze between my toes. Something was trying to wiggle between my sandal and the sole of my foot. I yelped, and threw myself forward. My hand struck something sharp. Now I was hanging forward over the pile. For a second I thought I was still trapped, and then the weight of my body dragged me downwards and out, and the front of the mound gave away. Will and I tumbled head-first down the slope, clods of horror bouncing around us, until a thick wall of brambles and last year's nettle stalks caught us at the bottom. I found I was still clutching something: a pig's jaw. I flung it away. Will reared to his feet, and I followed.

'Patch, oh Patch,' he rasped, and hawked mightily. 'I think I kissed a dead cat.'

'That must be what Purgatory feels like,' I said. 'But the Devil himself would leave us alone in this state.'

We were in a dark, stinking bower formed by the skeleton of a large apple tree which had fallen onto the roof of a dilapidated shanty. Years of live and dead briars, goose-grass, nettles and bindweed had grown up and died back, forming a dismal, snarled wall. We pushed our way through as best we could, squeezing ourselves along the crumbling side of the shanty where the thick lattice of dead apple boughs was thinnest. Will was through and I had almost fought clear when footfalls sounded high above us on the wall, and then the gabble of angry, frustrated men. I froze. A torch appeared between two battlements, then another and another, the guttering orange light skittering down the dunghill towards me. I pressed myself into the rotten wood, and the light fluttered past me. I was in the deep shadow of the apple's trunk, just out of reach of the trembling, searching fingers of torchlight. 'Move on, Jack. That's a neckbreaker, down there.'

'Didn't I fucking tell you? He'll have got down onto one of them tannery roofs further along.'

The light went out as suddenly as it had appeared. I waited until the hunters' voices were a faint snarl in the distance, then pushed through to join Will on the other side. His eyes were very wide and white in the gloom.

That lot are off to the tanneries,' he said, pulling pieces of bramble from his arms. 'If we skirt along to the right for a bit, we'll get to the river upstream of town. That puts the whole city between us and them.'

'They chased me down Silver Street,' I agreed. 'Maybe Sir Hugh believes I made for the water-meadows.'

'So we'll follow the river upstream. It will lead us to the Fosse Way. Watling Street cuts across it and will take you to London. I'll go with you as far as the crossroads, then go north. Coming?'

I shrugged. You'll be safer there, at least,' Will pointed out. 'Hide in the crowds. Then find a ship and go abroad: Flanders, perhaps. Yes, indeed, Flanders!' His voice held a little warmth now. 'My father has business partners there. They will help you. A plan, Patch, a plan! Trala!' And he slapped me lightly across the shoulders.

'Save yourself, Will,' I told him. What would I do in Flanders?' At that moment, as the dunghill stench crept around me with the memory of how I had shrunk, like vermin, from the torchlight, I felt myself at the end. 'I'll give myself up. Perhaps the courts will believe my story – it is, after all, the truth. Anyway, they'll hang me quick, and Sir Hugh will be cheated of his fun.'

You are no coward, Petroc,' he snapped back. 'So move yourself. Now!'

There were shadows all around us, darkness that gave forth the stink of death and decay. Death was behind – death was surely all around. But ahead? 'I don't speak Flemish,' I muttered.

'Don't worry. I'll teach you all the necessary profanities,' said my friend, and headed off into the night. I followed: there was nowhere else to go.

We were in some sort of street, lined with low huts which, judging by the lumpy shapes picked out by the moonlight, were built of cob or perhaps just mud. There was no one about, and no lights showed in the dwellings around us. The mud beneath us was thick with rubbish and shit: animal and human, judging by the smell. We had started off at a quick walk, but soon we were running, trying to keep from the puddles and little streams that seemed to criss-cross our path. Once we surprised a herd of pigs that were sleeping in the middle of the street. Will saw them first and swerved, but I had no choice and leaped, the fear of landing on an enraged hog driving, for an instant, every other fear from my mind. We left their resentful squeals behind, and soon enough the huts thinned, and we were among fields. The moon shone on the rows of winter vegetables and the first green shoots of spring, and the air grew sweeter. Ahead I could make out a line of trees, great spreading shapes that must be the willows lining the river's banks.

The street, such as it had been, had narrowed to a track between the raised fields. I remembered how the land had a slow roll here, some gentle dips and ridges, unlike the water-meadows downstream, which were as flat as a counter-pane. It was friendly country. My breathing began to slow a little. We slowed to a trot, then a walk. By and by the track dipped and we saw the river before us. A few paces from the bank another track crossed ours and we took it, heading upstream.

'There's a road up ahead about three miles,' said Will. 'It'll take us to the Fosse.'

I did not like the idea of the Fosse Way. The great road, built by the Romans many ages past and still the main route from west to east, would be crammed with traffic of all kinds. We would have to travel by night, of course, unless we cobbled together some sort of disguise. But I did not feel capable of deceiving anyone. Again my thoughts turned to surrender, but the night air smelled sweetly of cow-parsley and wild garlic and I said to myself: 'Not yet, not yet.'

The first hint of morning showed on the horizon as we reached the road Will had described. It was a wide, well-surfaced trackway, hedged on both sides. We came upon it through a gap in the hedge and scrambled up onto it over a wall of neatly cut stones. I glanced down and noticed a number, XI, carved sharply into one block, clear in the last light of the sinking moon. So the Romans had built this road too. What odd people they must have been, numbering and ordering the world. But their neat lives had been no more immune to chaos than mine.

A fox ambled away from us up the way, and we followed. The moon fell abruptly behind the thick wall of oaks that had replaced the hedge to left and right. It was suddenly very dark, but there was a faint glow overhead. We walked fast in grim silence until the sky had lightened to the colour of ash, that strange time the instant before dawn when everything is dead and cold, and the magic that conjures a new day out of the void of night seems to have failed. We were visible now. I saw that Will's face was drawn and set. A few paces on, and he paused and pointed. 'See there. That's the Fosse.'

I looked, and saw a break in the tree line, perhaps half a mile distant. Beyond, the land opened out, and I saw patches of fields and woods. In places a faint dark streak was visible against the rolling land: the great road. It seemed dreadfully exposed.

We'll get to the end of the trees, and see who's abroad,' said Will. 'But they will be scouring all the roads, man,' I said.

'This far from the city any men will be on horseback,' said Will. 'There won't be many of them, and we'll hear them coming. We'll stay out of sight today, though – but wouldn't you like a bite to eat?'

In truth I had not considered hunger. My stomach felt like a cobblestone in my chest, and the thought of swallowing food made me queasy. Will, however, was made of even stronger stuff than I had imagined, for he began to ramble on about breakfasts. Salt pork and smoked fish, small-beer and hot bread appeared in the air before me as he spoke, and despite myself I smacked my lips. My belly rumbled and came to life. Soon we were both cackling like schoolboys, rubbing our guts as ever more furious gurglings rang out in the lane. It was time for the birds to awaken, and it was easy enough to believe it was our hungry bellies that had roused them from their nests. I wondered, for a moment, whether the past night had not been a foul dream, and I was now awake.

I was about to suggest that we jump into the river to wash away the grisly reek of the dung-heap when all of a sudden I stopped dead. Something was amiss. It was as if we had stepped through an invisible door into a silent room. The birds, pouring out their songs in front and behind us, were silent on each side. The river had looped back on itself and to our right the lane touched upon the outside edge of a deep, lazy curve of water. To the left, a line of old oaks and may trees stretched ahead to where the land opened up and the lane met the Fosse Way, a few hundred yards off. Will looked about him, all laughter vanished from his face. I dropped to one knee, following some deep-hidden instinct. Then the sky filled with beating wings and the may trees burst open and flung a great horse out into the lane. With the horrible clarity of deep nightmare, Sir Hugh de Kervezey's pale face seemed to float above the gigantic, plunging beast. I felt no glimmer of surprise. As in the nightmare that returns again and again in the same form, so I felt not fright but a horrible resignation.

The man's right arm whipped round. As I saw that he held a flail, the iron bar on the end of its chain struck Will, who seemed frozen in mid-flight, catching him across the back of his neck. I heard his skull burst and he dropped like a sack of bones and meat. He was gone, I knew, even before the shock of it took me. I blinked as if moonstruck as huge hooves danced over his body; then the horse was above me. Sir Hugh stared down at me, his mouth drawn back in a skull's white grin.

'Do you surrender, Petroc?' He swung the flail before my face, a faceted rod of iron that shone dully. 'I hope not. Better dead than alive, eh, boy? Eh? Eh?' And with each barked word he urged his mount a nervous, high-stepping pace nearer to me. Behind me was the river. I could see Will's lifeless, muddy feet framed by the legs and belly of the horse. Closer and closer swung the flail as Sir Hugh jabbed his spurs, one evil graze at a time, into the lathered flanks. I made a desperate grab for the flail, felt the smooth metal slide through my hand and lurched forward, off balance. Suddenly my nose was against the knight's leg and I clutched at it, sliding down the cloth until I was hanging from his stirrup. I must have turned his foot, for I saw the spur, a sharp gilded beak, open a deep gore in the horse's side. The beast gave a shriek and reared, spun and reared again. Sir Hugh shouted a curse and tried to shake me loose, digging his spur again into the spurting wound. The horse shrieked again and bucked. I felt Sir Hugh slip in his saddle, then I was under the horse and I was tangled, for an instant, in its back legs. It was like being caught between two living millstones. The breath was forced from my chest and I was sure every bone inside me would be ground to dust.

Then the horse, no doubt panicked to feel himself wounded and now hobbled, gave a last shriek and threw his bulk sideways. But the grass of the roadway had run out, and the three of us, a writhing puzzle of men and beast, plunged abruptly into the freezing river.

A dark swirl of water, bubbles and limbs surrounded me, seemed to chew me up like a vast mouth. Blind, I breathed water and choked. An implacable weight was pinning me against stones, crushing my breast, and I knew that I was dying. Sadness rushed into me, became the river. I was drowning in regret. The weight vanished and I floated in blackness. As my life guttered out, my last, absurd, thought was of an old, one-eyed sheepdog I had loved as a child, barking and barking, begging me to play.