Pip Vaughan-Hughes - Relics

'In truth, I never did see a lady before this moment,' I said at last.

She had thrown a green cloak around her shoulders and fastened the jewelled clasp across her breast, drawing it close. Now she picked up her sword-belt, buckled it and slung it over her left shoulder so that the point of the sword hung mid-way down her thigh. Then she swung her heavy man's cloak around her. The sword was hidden from sight.

'Can I wear your hood?' she asked. You can have my hat. And since I am, at long last, one of the gentler sex, you can carry my satchel as well.'

With the hood over her head, clasped tight beneath her chin, she was all but masked. I put on the green hat, feeling a little ridiculous. 'If you are ready, we had better go,' I said.

We crept back across the aisle and peered round the main door. There was no one in the square, so we slithered out and hurried into the shadows. There was no light yet in the sky, no false dawn. We still had time.

We walked as before, slipping from shadow to shadow, slinking over cross-streets, keeping silent. I calculated that we had only a little way to go. I saw St Pierre before us, and surely that must be the bulk of the Great Gate away in the distance? I took Anna's hand and quickened my pace.

We crossed over another street and heard loud voices and singing not so far away. Anna squeezed my hand. 'That's good,' I muttered. 'They will draw the Watch.'

We had reached the next line of buildings when Anna tripped over something and cursed softly. From the doorway of the shuttered house came a loud rasping and scuffling. I pulled Anna to me and was about to set off running, believing we had disturbed a dog or worse, a sleeping pig, when a voice, the slur of Bristol made thicker with drink, lashed out of the darkness. 'Bloodworm!'

The bowman from the wharf stepped out. The rasping had been the iron-bound haft of his axe scraping on the doorstep. Now he clasped it and half-drew it from his belt. His other hand was on his misericorde dagger. Whatever entertainment the night had held for him had not improved his visage. Behind him another form stepped out, and another.

'I've my mates with me now, little boy, and you have only your tart.' "What is it, Benno?' The second man was a bowman too from his leather wrist-guards. He wore a short-sword. The third man had a nail-studded cudgel already swinging in his hands.

'It's the little foreign sodomite who I was telling you about. And a whore. You little prick! Where are your lovely friends now, eh?'

'I don't know what you mean,' I said. My mouth was bone-dry. I felt Anna's hand slip from mine.

You do. You know what I mean,' said the bowman. 'I mean this.' And he pulled axe and dagger from his belt with an apelike jerk. The other man's sword scraped from its sheath. Not oiled for a spell, I thought, with a part of my mind that seemed already to be leaving my body. The other part had, it seemed, taken over, and I found I was holding Thorn against my leg as I had earlier, when Anna had played her game with me. Then I was entirely there again. I saw that Benno wore a thick old leather jerkin and some sort of padded under-tunic. His mate with the sword wore a sheepskin surcoat. The third man had a mailed hood pushed down around his neck. 'Come on then, you little shit,' croaked Benno.

'Anna, run for the boat,' I yelled, and, tearing my cloak from my shoulders, wrapped it around my left arm with a couple of flicks. But Anna did not run.

'Leave us be, filth,' she said, and her voice was as cold as the Sea of Darkness.

'Ho ho!' cackled the man with the sword. 'Hark to your mouth! When we're done with your precious little customer I'll put that mouth to use, darling.'

Benno rolled his shoulders and drew a deep breath. It was coming. I settled myself on my feet and brought Thorn up, loose at the end of a straight arm, as Rassoul had taught me. 'Run, Anna!'

But it was too late. The three stepped towards us in one movement. With a sudden shout, Benno swung his axe. I stepped back and stooped to get inside his reach. And then the axe was no longer in his hand, but jumping away down the cobblestones. Pale light seemed to shoot out of his throat, but it was Anna's sword, and she held him upright on its tip as the blood poured down the blade and onto her hand. Then she jerked it out and Benno's life hissed wetly out of the hole and away into the darkness above us. He tottered, and sat down suddenly on his arse. Then he was on his back, his eyes as blind as boiled eggs. His friends stopped. Everything stopped. The tart's killed Benno,' whined the cudgel-man.

'Fuck!' screamed the man with the sword, and leaped at us. Perhaps he was going for Anna, perhaps for me, but she stepped wide and he rammed me with his shoulder, spinning me round. He had his balance again, and the point of his sword was up and pointing at my chest. He stamped.

'Ha!' he yelled, and stamped again. He meant to back me against the wall and skewer me there. He lunged, and I brought up my cloak-wrapped arm like a shield. The blade caught in its folds and, twisting, I trapped it. He tried to tug it out, his eyes on Thorn, pointed now at his face, just out of my reach. With his free hand he tried to grab the blade, but I saw his move and lashed out. The blade bit between two fingers and parted his hand almost to the wrist-bone. He howled, and threw himself back, trying again to free his sword. He was strong, but the blade must have been notched, for it was held fast by the cloth. I felt the full weight of him through the sword lashed to my arm, and felt his balance go. I swung with all my might, and he staggered sideways and crashed into the wall. He let go his sword, but too late. I punched Thorn up under his breast-bone, and hit him with the length of my body. The breath burst from him, rotting teeth and rotten wine, and the stink of his sheepskin like a cloud around my face. I felt his chest convulse once, twice, and rammed the knife in harder. I wanted this to end. I wanted him to end. And with another heave he died, and slumped against me. I tugged on Thorn but the blade was stuck fast, so I stepped back and let him crash to the ground. As I stooped to take his sword I heard the scuffling of feet behind me, and a guttural curse.

Anna and the cudgel-man were circling each other in the middle of the street, some way away. She had thrown off her cloak. The man was scared, but fear was leaving him, and something like murderous amusement was taking over. I saw that he had picked up Benno's misericorde, and held it in his left hand. He seemed oblivious to me and to his friend. Anna's face was a blank. I dared not move, in case I distracted her attention. She held her sword stiff and steady. Every now and again she gave the end a flick. But I saw that her feet were in danger of being wound up in the hem of her tunic. She knew it too, for she kept her steps small and precise. The cudgel-man, though, was growing brave. He began feinting at her, now with the cudgel, now the knife, making her step back and risk a fall. All at once she seemed to decide that this must end. Waiting for a feint with the knife, she stepped to the side and flicked again with her blade. The knife-arm went limp and the man cursed and stepped backwards. Anna shifted her grip and lunged, but too far: her tunic caught at last and she sprawled.

But she still held the sword, and the man was hurt. He was not quick enough and she rose to one knee, the blade up again and pointing. And then another shape erupted from the dark side street and hurtled into the cudgel-man, who one instant was choosing his blow and the next was flat on his back. I was there in another instant, and Anna behind me, but by that time the rescuer from the shadows had stuck his thick, narrow knife through the cudgel-man's eye.

I stepped back. Anna's sword was up and ready for the stranger, who rose to his feet after working his knife back out of the dead man's skull. He wore a plain black surcoat and a hooded cape. The hood was up. He wiped the dagger on the cudgel-man's shirt.