Andrew Fish - Erasmus Hobart and the Golden Arrow

Erasmus wasn’t fooled. ‘You mean discuss it over some hot irons, do you?’ he said. He swung the makeshift weapon in a wide arc. Gisburne leant back to avoid being scorched, then moved his right foot back to balance himself.

‘You’re only making it worse for yourself,’ said Gisburne.

Erasmus wondered briefly at how bad it had been to start with, but the advantage now seemed to be his and he took a step forward and waved his hot metal dangerously close to the knight’s face. Gisburne took another step backwards, tripped over the anvil and fell, catching his head on the edge of the bench. Erasmus knelt down and examined his foe – he appeared to be unconscious. Smiling, he rose and turned to the door, only to find the way blocked by two armed guards. He waved his hot iron in front of him and was just beginning to advance when the armourer, having returned to his forge whilst Erasmus’ back was turned, threw a bucket of water over him. Erasmus stood for a moment, blinking and watching the steam rising from his now-useless weapon then, knowing he was beaten, he let it drop to the floor.

Chapter Six Contents Title Page ERASMUS HOBART and the GOLDEN ARROW Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-one Chapter Twenty-two Chapter Twenty-three Epilogue About the Author Credits Copyright About Authonomy About the Publisher Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Erasmus examined his surroundings with disdain. If he’d been asked to rate the dungeon he was in he wouldn’t have given it five stars – three rats would have been more appropriate. This was not because he thought it was fairly average for mediaeval accommodation, but because that’s how many rats he’d counted in the first few minutes of his confinement. The straw didn’t show any obvious evidence of housekeeping and, with the only light coming through the grille of the trapdoor above, the view was little to write home about. What made it worse was the fact he had to share: there were at least half a dozen prisoners in the pit and, going by the smell, some of them had been there for some time.

An old man with an unkempt beard sat in a corner staring at the wall. After a while he began to argue with it, and two other men, sitting quietly together in a corner, shook their heads with sad familiarity.

Erasmus himself was sat in the middle of the room where he had landed. He was still winded from the fall but, surprisingly, his arms and legs seemed intact. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, the first thing he noticed was that the dungeon probably merited a higher rating on his rat scale and the second was that the straw seemed somewhat unevenly distributed, with a greater part of it piled underneath the trapdoor. Obviously, somebody had moved the straw into place in order to spare any subsequent unfortunates the same pains they themselves had experienced.

He looked around the dungeon, trying to identify a likely candidate for his mysterious benefactor. There was a young man sitting in one corner, mending his boots with something that appeared to be rat-gut and a needle improvised from a bone; a surly, bearded man who glared at everything – rats, people and walls – but made no attempt to argue with anything and, surprisingly, a young woman, who sat patiently at one side of the room, with a smile which spoke of someone who knew something nobody else did. Feeling that a bit of conversation that wasn’t punctuated with sword-thrusts might be nice and that he probably ought to get away from the trapdoor before the next arrival, Erasmus stood up, made a show of tidying the straw for the next visitor then, still limping slightly from the impact, joined the woman by the wall.

‘Afternoon,’ he greeted her casually. ‘Mind if I join you?’

‘It don’t look like I’ve got much choice,’ said the woman, ‘us being stuck in the same ’ole an’ all.’

‘I can sit over there if you’d prefer,’ said Erasmus, pointing to where the old man was crouching by the opposite wall. Having had no satisfaction in his argument, he was now picking up loose pieces of straw and making a little mound next to his feet.

‘Sit where you bleeding like,’ said the woman. ‘I don’t give a tinker’s cuss.’ Erasmus suspected the woman probably wasn’t responsible for the impromptu crash-mat.

‘Have you been here long?’ he said.

‘That’s an old one. Why didn’t you start with “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”’

‘That’s an old one where I come from too,’ said Erasmus. ‘Sorry, I’m not trying to…’ He searched his mind for a mediaeval equivalent for ‘chat you up’.

‘Get in me britches?’ the woman provided.

‘I was going for something a little more polite.’

‘Polite,’ the woman laughed. ‘You’re a posh ’un, aren’t you? What they stick you in ’ere for – you eat with one of them new-fangled fork things?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Erasmus was genuinely confused.

‘They ’ung a man for that a few months back,’ the woman continued. ‘Only things made by God should touch ’is bounty they said. ’Course, ’e was eating the King’s deer at the time, so that might ’ave ’ad something to do with it. Personally, I don’t see what’s wrong with ’em.’

‘With what? Deer?’

‘Forks, of course. I mean you eat your pottage with a spoon, don’t you – you aren’t expected to scoop it up with your fingers and I’d love to see the man who could cut a loaf of bread without a knife.’

‘There are some,’ said Erasmus, unable to resist the automatic urge to educate people.

‘You what? You’re pulling my leg.’

‘In China,’ said Erasmus. ‘They focus all their energy into the edge of their hand and use the force to split logs.’

‘China? That in foreign?’

Erasmus tried to think what the woman would recognise as a name for China. ‘Cathay?’ he hazarded – she shook her head. ‘Yes, it’s foreign,’ he said.

‘Know a bit about foreign, do you?’

‘We travel a lot where I come from.’

‘Well you ain’t gonna get much travelling done in ’ere. You ever seen a cell like this?’

‘Not from the inside, no,’ said Erasmus. ‘We’re a bit more civilised where I come from.’

‘Sounds like you chose to come to the wrong country. Mind you, it’s not all bad.’

‘No?’

‘No, sometimes the pottage ’as fresh carrot in it.’

‘Oh,’ said Erasmus.

The woman looked him up and down appraisingly.

‘You know, you can get in me britches if you want,’ she said quietly. ‘I reckon a woman ought to be glad to ’ave a civilised man like you. Better than the rough sort you get round ’ere, anyway.’

Erasmus flushed red and, although he was sure it was too dark for the woman to tell, she seemed somehow aware of his embarrassment.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘is a woman offering ’erself not done where you come from?’