Maureen Ash - Death of a Squire

His thoughts were interrupted by the return of his companions. Later Jack realised that he should have known something was amiss by the way they came in almost silently, with not a word of greeting or a look at each other. But, at the time, his thoughts were elsewhere and only the game they had brought in-two small hares, a hedgehog and a badger-caught his notice briefly. Nor did he pay much attention when they started a small fire and damped it down with turf after burying the game, wrapped in leaves, beneath the flames. It wasn’t until the food was done, barely cooked but edible, that he observed there was something shifty about the way his two cohorts were eyeing him across the fire.

“What’s up?” he asked, his hand straying stealthily to the dagger at his belt.

“Nothin’, Jack,” replied Warin, the older of the two, a tall thickset man with a nose that had been slit for stealing. “We were just wondering what you reckon on doin’ now.”

“What need is there to do anything?” Jack responded. “We’re safe enough here and there’ll be plenty of game in the woods to do us through the winter. What do we lack with food in our bellies and a dry spot to lay our heads?”

“There are other bands in Sherwood,” put in the other bowman eagerly, a youngster named Geraint, who had escaped into Sherwood when the hue and cry had been set after him in Nottingham after he had killed a man in a drunken brawl. “In the southwest; we could join one of them. Short Shank’s maybe. He’s always looking for men that are good with a bow.”

“Aye,” said Jack. “That’s because he can’t pull one himself.”

The jest did not produce a smile on the faces of the two men. They looked first at each other, then at him. Finally Warin said, “We’re not of a mind to stay here, Jack, not all winter long. Aye, it’s snug enough, but there’s no ale, and there’s no women.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “For a week or two, maybe, but not for the long months ’til spring. We’ve decided, Geraint and me, that we’ll head south. Join another band, or forage on our own, if need be. We’ll not spend the winter pent up in here like monks in their cubbyholes.”

Jack stood up. “Well, you’d best go then. I’ll not deny I’d expected more loyalty from you, but ale and women are as powerful a lure as any to a man. I wish you good fortune.”

Still the two men stood there and the tenseness in their stance made the hackles rise on the back of Jack’s neck. His hand found his dagger and he pulled it free, but his movement was not quick enough. Both Geraint and Warin had arrows nocked to their bows, the barbed tips pointing at his chest.

“We’ve no wish to harm you, Jack,” Warin said, “but we’ll need a little silver to pay our way until we’ve earned some of our own. Ale does not come cheap even if women do, and I doubt whether Short Shanks will provide us with either unless he sees we have something to share that will prove our good faith.” He motioned with his head and Geraint moved a little to one side. “Now, we knows that you has silver here, for you would not have left it behind at our old camp if you had stowed it there, so here it must be. And we wants it.”

“What makes you think I have any silver at all?” Jack asked, trying not to sound intimidated. “The pickings have been lean these last months.”

Warin laughed, a dry hacking sound. “If you hasn’t any, then that’s your misfortune, for if you come up with nowt, then I reckon as how we’ll have to kill you. All we’re asking of you is what we ask of any we rob-pay up or give us your life. Now that’s fair, ain’t it, Jack?”

As Geraint took another step, Jack took his chance and threw his knife at Warin, diving to one side as he did so. As he rolled he snatched at a thick length of tree branch, hearing an arrow thud into the log on which he had been sitting moments before. Straightening, he saw that Warin had fallen face-first across the fire and Geraint, white with fear, was in the act of fitting another arrow to his bow. Jack swung the branch, loosing it as it reached the apex of its arc and it slammed into Geraint’s left arm, knocking him backwards into a stumble so that his arrow misfired and flew low, piercing the meaty part of Jack’s thigh. Ignoring the pain, Jack was on the bowman in a trice, knocking him to the ground and pushing the tree branch across the young man’s neck. It took only a few moments’ struggle before he ceased to move, his windpipe crushed.

As quickly as he could, Jack rolled, cursing the stab of pain that shot up into his groin as he did so, to see if Warin had recovered. It was with a sigh of relief that Jack realised the older archer had not moved. Already an acrid stink was beginning to fill the air from the scorching of his flesh and clothes. Jack pushed him off the burning embers and turned him over. The dagger had taken him clean in the heart. He was as dead as Geraint.

When Fulcher pulled himself from the riverbank he travelled quickly and quietly back to the place where Green Jack had been making his camp on the day that Fulcher and the others had left the band, praying it had not been moved in the interim. It was full dark now and the wet rags he wore clung to him like freezing fingers of river weed, bringing shivers to his body whenever he paused to catch his breath and bearings. He kept the Templar’s dagger in his hand, wary not only of being discovered by Jack’s men, but of wolves. Once or twice he glimpsed a shadowy shape moving amongst the trees, but they drifted away at his approach, proving to be only small animals as fearful as himself. Above him a nearly full moon shone a silver light through the bare branches of the trees, showing him the path he sought clear like a snail’s track through the forest. The rain had ceased but it had grown colder, and there would be frost before morning. He hoped he was either warm or dead by then. He might be both, perhaps. The teachings of the church warned that the flames of hell were as hot as the heart of the sun.

When he came to the dell where the camp had been situated, he took care not to let his presence be known until, by peering through the surrounding foliage, he could see a few people were still gathered there. Only women and children seemed to be huddled in the small glow of a dying fire, but then he noticed that on the periphery of the dim circle of light were two of the younger men of the band, sitting hunched over on the ground and staring into the dark. All looked forlorn and miserable, and there was no sign of Jack or any of his bowmen.

Fulcher straightened and walked into the enclosure. At the noise of his approach, a few of the women started up in fear, clutching their children to them, while the two men bolted upright, one clutching a stout wooden club in one hand while the other brandished a piece of rusted iron that had once protected the wheel of a cart.

“Peace,” Fulcher said as he went up to them, mindful of their nervous glances at the dagger in his hand and of the fear on the faces of the two boys, as well as the countenances of the women.

“We didn’t know the bowmen were going to shoot at you, Fulcher,” one of the young men blurted out, the one with the old shard of wheel rim clutched in his fist. “Jack only told us we was to lure the Templar to our side of the river and then we’d get to hold him for ransom as well as loose you from Sheriff Camville. ’Twould be a double victory, he said, with plenty of silver paid as ransom for the Templar. I swear, he never said aught of playing you false…”

“He’s telling the truth, Fulcher, ’though I don’t suppose you’ll believe me,” one of the women interjected. She had most likely once been very pretty, but now weeping sores covered her face and neck, and her hair, a matted tangle of grime, hung lank around her shoulders. “Jack told us just what Will said-the women and those of the lads who weren’t one of his trusted bowmen, that is. Said it would be a great victory over the sheriff to get you out of his clutches and hold the Templar for ransom besides. Black-hearted liar that he is, we believed him. Even cheered him for being so bold on behalf of you, an old enemy. Well, do to us what you will, Fulcher. Our men are gone, all except for Will and young Thomas here. There’s no one to hunt, or keep us safe. We’ve naught to face but starvation or being eaten by wolves. If you’ve a mind to kill us, at least it’ll be a quick death.”