Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

No one would bother to investigate the rights and wrongs of this. It was a tavern brawl and an enlisted man had killed an officer. The army would have no mercy.

Barney noticed the owner of the tavern giving instructions, in the West Flemish dialect, to a teenage boy who hurried away a moment later. ‘They’ll be sending for the city guard,’ Barney said.

Carlos said: ‘The men are probably stationed in the city hall. In five minutes we’ll be under arrest.’

Barney said: ‘And I’ll be as good as dead.’

‘Me, too,’ said Carlos. ‘I helped you.’

Ebrima said: ‘There’ll be scant justice for an African.’

Without further discussion they ran to the door and out into the marketplace. Behind a cloudy sky, the sun was setting, Barney saw. That was good. Twilight was only a minute or two away.

He shouted: ‘Head for the waterfront!’

They dashed across the square and turned into Leiestraat, the street that ran down to the river. It was a busy thoroughfare in the heart of a prosperous city, full of people and horses, loaded handcarts, and porters struggling under heavy burdens. ‘Slow down,’ Barney said. ‘We don’t want everyone to remember which way we went.’

At a brisk walk they were still somewhat conspicuous. People would know they were soldiers by their swords. Their clothes were mismatched and unmemorable, but Barney was tall, with a bushy red beard, and Ebrima was African. But it would soon be night.

They reached the river. ‘We need a boat,’ Barney said. He could handle most types of craft: he had always loved sailing. There were plenty of vessels in sight, tied up at the water’s edge or anchored in mid-river. However, few people were foolish enough to leave a boat unprotected, especially in a city full of foreign troops. All the larger craft had watchmen, and even small rowing boats were chained up with their oars removed.

Ebrima said: ‘Get down. Whatever happens, we don’t want people to see.’

They knelt down in the mud.

Barney looked around desperately. They did not have much time. How long would it be before the city guard began to search the riverside?

They could free a small boat, breaking the attachment of chain to wood, but without oars they would be helpless, drifting downstream, unable to steer, easy to catch. It might be better to swim to a barge, overcome the watchman, and raise the anchor, but did they have time? And the more valuable the craft, the more intense would be the pursuit. He said: ‘I don’t know, maybe we should cross the bridge and take the first road out of town.’

Then he saw the raft.

It was an almost worthless vessel, just a dozen or so tree trunks roped together, with a low shed in which one man might sleep. Its owner stood on deck, letting the current carry him, using a long pole to steer. Beside him was a pile of gear that looked, in the twilight, like ropes and buckets that might have been used for fishing.

‘That’s our boat,’ said Barney. ‘Softly does it.’

Still on his knees, he slipped into the river. The others followed.

The water got deeper quickly, and soon they were up to their necks. Then the raft was almost upon them. All three grabbed its edge and hauled themselves up. They heard the voice of the old man yelling in shock and fear. Then Carlos was on him, wrestling him to the deck, covering his mouth so that he could not call for help. Barney managed to grab the pole he had dropped before it was lost, and he steered the boat into midstream. He saw Ebrima rip off the man’s shirt and stuff it in his mouth to silence him, then pick a length of rope from the tangle and bind the man’s wrists and ankles. The three friends worked well as a team, Barney reflected, no doubt because of the time they had spent jointly managing and firing a heavy cannon.

Barney looked around. As far as he could see, no one had witnessed their hijack of the raft. What now?

Barney said: ‘We’re going to have—’

‘Shut up,’ said Ebrima.

‘What?’

‘Be careful what you say. Give nothing away. He may understand Spanish.’

Barney saw what he meant. Sooner or later the old man was going to tell someone what had happened to him — unless they killed him, which none of them would want to do. He would be questioned about his captors. The less he knew, the better. Ebrima was twenty years older than the other two, and this was not the first time his wisdom had restrained their impulses.

Barney said: ‘But what will we do with him?’

‘Keep him with us until we’re out in the fields. Then dump him on the river bank, bound and gagged. He’ll be all right, but he won’t be found until morning. By then we’ll be well away.’

Ebrima’s plan made sense, Barney thought.

Then what would they do? Travel by night and hide in the daytime, he thought. Every mile farther away from Kortrijk made it more difficult for the authorities to find them. And then what? If he remembered aright, this river flowed into the Scheldt, which went to Antwerp.

Barney had a relative in Antwerp: Jan Wolman, his late father’s cousin. Come to think of it, Carlos, too, was related to Jan Wolman. The trading nexus Melcombe — Antwerp — Calais — Seville had been set up by four cousins: Barney’s father, Edmund Willard; Edmund’s brother, Uncle Dick; Carlos’s father; and Jan.

If the three fugitives could reach Antwerp, they would probably be safe.

Darkness fell. Barney had blithely assumed they would travel by night, but steering the raft was difficult in the dark. The old man had no lantern and, anyway, they would not want to show a flame for fear of being spotted. The faintest imaginable starlight penetrated the clouds. Sometimes Barney was able to see the river ahead, and sometimes he blindly ran the raft into the bank and had to push off again.

Barney felt strange, and wondered why, then remembered that he had killed a man. Odd how such a dreadful thing could fall from his consciousness, only to return as a shock. His mood was as dark as the night and he felt edgy. His mind returned to the way Gómez had fallen, as if life had left him even before he hit the floor.

It was not the first time Barney had killed. He had fired cannonballs from a distance into advancing troops and had seen them fall by the dozen, dead or fatally wounded; but somehow that had not touched his soul, perhaps because he could not see their faces as they died. Killing Gómez, by contrast, had been a horribly intimate act. Barney could still feel the sensation in his wrist as the blade of his dagger first met and then penetrated Gómez’s body. He could see the gush of bright blood from a living, beating heart. Gómez had been a hateful man, and his death was a blessing to the human race, but Barney could not feel good about it.

The moon rose, and shone fitfully through gaps in the clouds. During a period of better visibility they dumped the old man at a spot that seemed, as best they could judge, to be far from habitation. Ebrima carried him to a dry place well above the river, and made him comfortable. From the boat, Barney heard Ebrima speak to the man in low tones, perhaps apologizing. That was reasonable: the old fellow had done nothing to deserve this. Barney heard the chink of money.

Ebrima got back on board and Barney poled away.

Carlos said to Ebrima: ‘You gave him the money you won from Gómez, didn’t you?’

Ebrima shrugged in the moonlight. ‘We stole his raft. It was his living.’

‘And now we’re broke.’

‘You were broke already,’ Ebrima said sharply. ‘Now I’m broke too.’

Barney thought some more about pursuit. He was not sure how energetically they would be chased. The city authorities did not like a murder, but victim and perpetrators were Spanish soldiers, and the Kortrijk town council would not spend much money chasing foreigners who had killed a foreigner. The Spanish army would execute them, given the chance, but once again Barney wondered whether they would care enough to organize a murder hunt. The army might well go through the motions and give up quite soon.