Malise spotted the serjeant in charge by his maille and his attitude, bawling orders left and right, his bucket helm under one arm and his surcote dark with rain and bright with the badge of de Valence.
‘Have some men and a woman gone out the gate?’
The serjeant turned at the sound of the voice, saw the dark, dripping figure and thought at once of a wet weasel in a dark wood.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded, only half interested. The men he had were all call-outs, barely of use even when placed behind merlons. God help us if the Scotch come at us out of the dark, he thought …
‘Sir Malise Bellejambe.’
That snapped the serjeant’s head round and he stared more closely at the wet weasel. It was possible this man was a nobile. Just possible enough to allow caution in dealing with him.
‘Well,’ the serjeant said and added, with a hint of scathe, ‘my lord. Nothing has gone through this gate. Nor will it, coming or going.’
‘The deid kert.’
They both turned to the voice and the owner of it blinked from under his soaking hood, looking from one to the other uncertainly and wishing now that he had never spoken.
‘The what?’
Gib heard the tone of the serjeant and wished even more fervently that he had kept his lips snecked on the matter. But it was out now, so he stammered out the truth of it: the dead cart had been manhandled out through the open gate just before everyone had arrived.
‘You opened the gate?’ the serjeant demanded and now Gib heard the growling thunder, so that he started to sweat, despite the rain.
‘Aye, for a brace of auld chiels. I telt them the gate could not be opened, for the alarm was sounded. So they said they would leave the bliddy thing, for they were not inclined to roll it back the way they had come.’
He looked imploringly at the serjeant, willing him to see the shock of it.
‘I didnae want a pile o’ corpses blocking up the way and stinking my door all night.’
‘Ye opened the gate,’ the serjeant replied in a disbelieving knell of a voice.
‘I said they would not be allowed back,’ whined Gib, ‘but they laughed and answered that it was a fine excuse for their wives and they would spend the night at the Forge.’
Malise knew the Forge, a smithy just across the ford set to capture the passing trade. It provided a howf for travellers too late to gain entry to the town and was a notorious stew, providing drink and food and whores, even in times like these. More so, he added to himself, for folk trapped beyond Berwick’s walls needed to lose their fears in drink and lust. Even the women.
‘They were rebels,’ he explained to the frowning serjeant, ‘who have freed a prisoner from the castle and are now headed for escape. If you provide some men, we can overtake them …’
‘Open the gate?’ thundered the serjeant. ‘Again?’
‘In pursuit …’ Malise began and the serjeant closed one eye and scowled.
‘Aye, you would like that, I am sure, if you were a rebel spy. Get me to open the gate and spill in a lot of your friends.’
‘I am Sir Malise Bellejambe …’
‘So you say.’
‘He is, though,’ Gib interrupted helpfully and withered under the glare. ‘The Witch-keeper.’
Now the serjeant knew who the man was: the jailor of the witch in the cage; an idea struck him.
‘Is she the one sprung, then?’
Malise, all nervous impatience, nodded furiously and the serjeant, wiping the rain from his face, thought with agonizing slowness and then nodded.
‘You can go alone,’ he said, ‘out the postern. If there are only two old men and a woman, you should have little trouble. Mind – you will not be allowed back in this night.’
No one will, he added to himself, watching Malise scuttle to the small door set in one of the large ones. He gave a nod and the man unlocked it with a huge key while Malise fretted at his slowness; it was barely open before he wraithed through it.
‘Fair riddance to you,’ the serjeant declared and spat, listening to the comfort of the lock clunking shut.
She rolled, stiff and shivering, off the cart and accepted the rough sodden sacking which Hal stripped off and gave to her.
‘Time we were not here,’ Kirkpatrick muttered, looking back towards the distant gate; Isabel nodded, and then looked dubiously at the huge steel-pronged arbalest Hal handed her.
‘It is spanned. All ye need do is slot a bolt in it,’ he said and handed her one with a look as sharp as its point; she nodded again, feeling the dragging weight.
‘Move yerselves,’ Kirkpatrick hissed and Isabel paused once more and signed the cross over the tipped-forward cart of lolling dead.
‘God be praised,’ she said.