Michael JECKS - The Oath

‘Simon? Look, behind Jack. Can you see that man who seems to be trying to hide?’

Simon peered out, and nodded. ‘Oh, don’t worry about him, Baldwin. He’s the man who advised me to meet the fosser who saw Sir Stephen throw the dagger in the grave. He has been with me ever since.’

‘Oh,’ Baldwin said, and the two walked out into the open. Then, as some drizzle began to fall, Baldwin pulled at his cloak’s hood to cover his head. As he did so, he saw the man in the shadows make an urgent gesture, and all his years of training made Baldwin step back again, just in time to avoid the dagger that was thrust forward, almost scarring his breast. He grabbed the wrist with both hands and wrenched it. The man grunted in pain, and Baldwin swung the fellow around in an arc, over his right thigh, to fall on the ground. Instantly he planted his boot on the man’s chin while hauling hard on the knife-hand. ‘Simon!’

Simon sprang to Baldwin’s aid. Then he felt a snatch at his own cloak, and heard the slithering of cloth being cut by a razor-sharp blade. Spinning on his heel, he came face to face with Robert Vyke, who had a knife in his hand.

‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ Simon shouted in fury, looking down. ‘Not my cloak again ! Do you know how much this cloak cost me?’ And then he realised that the dagger had not been wielded in jest. ‘Put that knife away, fellow, or I’ll rip out your liver and feed it to the hound!’

Baldwin looked up at Simon with exasperation. ‘Simon, he’s a footpad. For the love of the Blessed Virgin, just prick him with your sword and be done with it.’ He set his jaw and stared down at the writhing face under his boot. ‘Let go of the dagger, you fool, if you don’t want me to break your arm.’

Otho stared up at him with a look of disdain, but the relentless pressure on his outstretched arm was too much. ‘A’right!’ he grunted, and released the blade.

Simon was still glaring at Robert Vyke. ‘What is the matter with you, man? Put the blade away or I’ll have to do as my friend suggests. Dear Christ in Heaven, look what you’ve done to my cloak! You will buy me a fresh one before the day’s out, I warn you.’

‘Vyke,’ Baldwin said patiently, ‘drop the dagger or sheathe it. I care little which you do, but if you continue to hold it like that, I will cut your wrist from your arm.’

Robert Vyke had been in battles now. He had fought alongside the King against knights and squires, and he had not died, but that had been a confused mêlée, a mad, slashing battle. If he had been an assassin, he would have killed Simon already, before Baldwin and Otho had come to blows, but it was something he could not do. He couldn’t just stab a man in the back. He closed his eyes, swore to himself and stepped away, thrusting the knife back in its sheath. ‘I couldn’t do it.’

‘Do what?’ Simon demanded.

‘Kill you.’

Simon’s face twisted with incomprehension. ‘Why would you want to do that? What have I done to you?’

‘Not me. Not us. It’s what you’ve told Sir Stephen Siward,’ Robert said. ‘He told us.’

Baldwin took his boot away. It left a raw patch on Otho’s jaw-line. ‘Told you what?’

‘That you two were going to have me arrested – because I’d been with the King. I didn’t want to believe it, but he said you were going to stop me leaving the town, that I’d have to kill you to leave here.’

Baldwin looked at him, then at the crowd gathering in the road, the three faces peering out from the tavern itself, the shock on young Jack’s face, and at Wolf’s bared teeth as he loomed over the now alarmed Otho. ‘You really thought you could murder two grown men in broad daylight and escape?’ he asked, and shook his head at their folly.

The day had started so well, too, and now he was forced to run; it was enough to make a man spit blood!

Sir Stephen Siward finished rolling his blanket, swung his pack over his back, and hurried through the door. The garrison accommodation here was fairly modern, a chamber set above a large hall, where the men could rest in their spare time. Leaving by the door, he gazed about him sharply, before quickly going down the stairs and out to the inner ward. His horse was already waiting, and a hostler with the patient look of a cow chewing the cud, stood holding the reins while Sir Stephen bound his belongings to the saddle. There was a packhorse, but he would leave that for now. Perhaps he could send a message for his servants later, to have them follow him. Perhaps. For now, the only thing of which he was certain was that he should be away from here as quickly as possible.

And then he saw them. ‘Damn their cods!’ he swore viciously under his breath as the Bailiff and that damned knight from the ditches of Devon walked in through the doors. He moved around behind his horse as the two entered the ward and crossed to the stairs which led up to the hall, and then he swiftly mounted, snatched the reins up, spurred his beast, and was off, across the ward and out through the first gates.

They were doddypolls, the pair of them. Unandgitfull, [51] dim, dickheads buzzards. Why they had to chase him down, pursuing him for no purpose, he had no idea, but he was not going to make their capture of him any the easier, if he could help it.

Lashing his horse’s flanks, he spurred the beast on, past the last gate to the castle and out into the busy streets. Here he must bellow and roar to have people move from his path. He did not want to hit someone, since it would hold him up, perhaps even injure his horse. A hog stood in the middle of the road, snuffling amid the faeces and garbage of the kennel, but he merely aimed his horse at it and leaped over, the horseshoes striking sparks from the cobbles where he landed. There was a pair of men chatting in the road, but they bolted when he came past although, from the shriek, one was caught by a flailing hoof.

It did not affect his mount. The beast thundered on, blowing heavily through nostrils that were opened wide, chest filling and emptying, and Sir Stephen felt sure that they would escape. Those two mopish fog-brains would find it hard to have a horse mounted with speed, and by the time they had, he would be a league away.

He hurtled down the last stretch to the bridge, and was over it in an echoing hammer of boards. And then he was onto the softer, safer road surface, and here he gave a loud cry of exultation, lashing his mount to greater efforts as he took the road south.

Simon heard the rattle of hooves and went to the door just as the knight shot out through the gates.

‘Baldwin! He’s gone!’ he shouted, and then ran out, down the stairs, bellowing as he went, ‘My horse! The bay rounsey, and Sir Baldwin’s too, saddle them now! Now !’

Gripping his sword, he pelted over the ward, and then watched keenly while two hostlers hastened to his horse, four others standing and gaping. ‘In the King’s name! Fetch Sir Baldwin’s horse and saddle him!’

Baldwin was at his side now, swearing as he stared at the gate whence Sir Stephen had escaped. ‘We should have realised he might do that,’ he muttered.

Even as he spoke, Otho and Robert ran in, Herv panting a short way behind them. Otho ran past Baldwin, calling, ‘We saw the bastard. We’ll come with you.’

‘I don’t think we need your help,’ Simon said pointedly.

Otho looked at him. ‘Really? We have more need to catch him and prove we’re not felons than you, Master Bailiff. We’re coming.’

Simon was not prepared to argue. As he stood irritably tapping his foot on the ground, waiting for his horse, Otho and the others grabbed their own horses from the stable, saddled and bridled them in little time, and were ready to mount almost before Simon and Baldwin.