Bernard Cornwell - 1356 (Special Edition)

‘Why, for God’s sake?’

‘Because I’m wasting my time,’ Thomas said bitterly.

‘You’ve reached this far,’ Keane said, ‘so why give up now?’

‘And why the hell are you with me? You should just go and fetch that reward.’

‘Oh Jesus, if I have to sit through another year of Doctor Lucius’s lectures and listen to that miserable worm Roger de Beaufort I’ll go mad, I will. They say you make men rich!’

‘Is that what you want?’

‘I want to be on a horse,’ Keane said, ‘riding the world like a free man. A woman would be nice, or two. Three even!’ He grinned and looked at Thomas, ‘I want to be outside the rules.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I’m never sure because I was never good at counting, but it’s probably eighteen by now. That or nineteen.’

‘The rules keep you alive,’ Thomas said. His damp clothes were chafing and his boots had broken a seam.

‘The rules keep you in your place,’ Keane said, ‘and other people make the rules and thump you if you break them, which is why you broke them, yes?’

‘I was sent to Oxford,’ Thomas said. ‘Like you I was meant to be a priest.’

‘So that’s how you know the Latin?’

‘My father taught me from the first. Latin, Greek, French.’

‘And now you’re Sir Thomas Hookton, leader of the Hellequin! You didn’t keep to the rules now, did you?’

‘I’m an archer,’ Thomas said. And an archer without a bow, he thought. ‘And you’ll find I make the rules for the Hellequin.’

‘What are they?’

‘We share the plunder, we don’t abandon each other, and we don’t rape.’

‘Ah, they said you were remarkable. Did you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘A hound? Two perhaps? Giving tongue?’

Thomas stopped. They had left the river and were walking faster because they had entered a chestnut wood that hid them from prying eyes. He heard the small wind in the leaves, a woodpecker far off, then the baying. ‘Damn,’ he said.

‘Could just be hunting.’

‘Hunting what?’ Thomas asked, then moved to the wood’s edge. There was a dry ditch, and beyond it neatly bound stacks of chestnut stakes that were used to support vines. The terraces of the vineyard curved away and down to the river valley and the sound of the dogs, there was more than one, came from that low ground. He ran a few paces into the vineyard, keeping low, and saw three horsemen and two hounds. They could have been hunting anything, he thought, but he suspected their quarry was an archer’s hand. Two were holding spears. The hounds had their noses to the ground and were leading the horsemen towards the chestnuts. ‘I forgot about dogs.’ Thomas said when he was back among the trees.

‘They’ll be just fine,’ Keane said with a blithe confidence.

‘They’re not after your right hand,’ Thomas said, ‘and they’ll have our scent by now. If you want to leave me this would be a good time.’

‘Christ no!’ Keane said. ‘I’m one of your men, remember? We don’t abandon each other.’

‘Then stay here. Try not to get savaged by a hound.’

‘Dogs love me,’ the Irishman said.

‘I’m relying on the idea that they’ll call the hounds off before they bite you.’

‘They’ll not bite me, just you see.’

‘Just stand there,’ Thomas said, ‘and be quiet. I want them to think you’re alone.’ He leaped for the low branch of a tree and, using the huge muscles made by the war bow, hauled himself up till he was hidden among the leaves. He crouched on a branch. Everything depended on where the horsemen stopped, and surely they would. He could hear them now, hear the heavy fall of the hooves and the faster sound of the dogs who were racing ahead. Keane, to Thomas’s astonishment, had fallen to his knees and was holding his clasped hands high in prayer. Much good that would do him, Thomas reckoned, and then the hounds were in sight. A pair of grey-coated wolfhounds with slavering jaws who raced towards the Irishman, and Keane simply opened his eyes, spread his arms and clicked his fingers.

‘Good doggies,’ the Irishman said. The wolfhounds were whining now. One had laid itself at Keane’s knees, the other was licking an outspread hand. ‘Down, boy,’ Keane said in French, then scratched both dogs between the ears. ‘And what a fine morning it is to be chasing an Englishman, yes?’

The horsemen were close now. They had slowed their horses to a trot as they ducked beneath the low branches. ‘Goddamned dogs,’ one of them said in astonishment at the sight of the wolfhounds succumbing to Keane’s blandishments. ‘Who are you?’ the man called.

‘A man at prayer,’ Keane answered, ‘and good morrow to you all, gentlemen.’

‘Prayer?’

‘God has called me to His priesthood,’ Keane said in a sanctimonious tone, ‘and I feel closest to Him when I pray beneath the trees in the dawn of His good day. God bless you, and what are you gentlemen doing abroad this early in the day?’ His black homespun gown gave him a convincingly clerical appearance.

‘We’re hunting,’ one of the men said in an amused tone.

‘You’re not French,’ another said.

‘I am from Ireland, the land of Saint Patrick, and I prayed to Saint Patrick to quell the anger of your dogs. Aren’t they just the sweetest beasts?’

‘Eloise! Abelard!’ the horseman called his hounds, but neither moved. They stayed with Keane.

‘And what are you hunting?’ Keane asked.

‘An Englishman.’

‘You’ll not find him here,’ Keane said, ‘and if it’s the fellow I’m thinking you’re after then surely he’ll still be inside the city?’

‘Maybe,’ one said. He and his companions were to Thomas’s left, Keane was to his right, and Thomas needed the horsemen to be closer. He could just see them through the leaves. Three young men, richly dressed in fine cloth with feathers in their caps and long boots in their stirrups. Two were holding wide-bladed boar-spears with cross-pieces just behind the heads, and all three had swords. ‘And maybe not,’ the man said. He kicked his horse forward. ‘You come here to pray?’

‘Isn’t that what I said?’

‘Ireland is close by England, isn’t it?’

‘She’s cursed by that, right enough.’

‘And in town,’ the rider said, ‘a beggar saw two men by the Widow. One in a student’s gown and the other climbing aboard a shit-cart.’

‘And there was me thinking I was the only student who got up early from bed!’

‘Eloise! Abelard!’ the owner of the dogs snapped their names, but the hounds just whined and settled even closer to Keane.

‘So the beggar went to find the consuls,’ the first man said.

‘And found us instead,’ another man said, amused. ‘No reward for him now.’

‘We helped him to a better world,’ the first man took up the tale, ‘and perhaps we can help your memory too.’

‘I could always do with help,’ Keane said, ‘which is why I pray.’

‘The hounds picked up a scent,’ the man said.

‘Clever doggies,’ Keane said, patting the two grey heads.

‘They followed it here.’

‘Ah, they smelled me! No wonder they were running so eagerly.’

‘And two sets of footprints by the river,’ another man added.

‘I think you have questions to answer.’ The first man smiled.

‘Like why he wants to be a crow,’ the dog’s owner said. ‘You don’t like women, perhaps?’ The other two horsemen laughed. Thomas could see them more clearly now. Very rich young men, their saddlery and harness were expensive, their boots polished. Merchants’ sons, perhaps? He reckoned they were the kind of wealthy young sons who could break the city’s curfew with impunity because of their fathers’ status, young bucks who roamed the city looking for trouble and confident that they could avoid the consequences. Men who had apparently killed a beggar so they would not need to share the reward with him. ‘Why does a man want to be a priest?’ the horseman asked scornfully. ‘Perhaps because he isn’t a man, eh? We should find out. Take your clothes off.’ His companions, eager to join the sport, kicked their mounts forward and so passed under Thomas’s branch. He dropped.