In an instant, all was chaos and fury. Sim and Jop strained and staggered, knocking over the brazier with a clatter, spilling hot coals in a glowing mockery of rubies; Kirkpatrick, cursing, started forward, was hit by the struggling pair and knocked sideways and over the kist.
Hal hauled himself up, saw the smoulder of old rushes and started stamping on the bloom of flame. Sim and Jop finally crashed into the bed, fell on it, broke the poles and rolled on to the floor. There was a thump and a roar, then Sim rose up and staggered back a step or two.
‘Ease up, Jop,’ he bellowed. ‘Doucely, man – we mean ye no harm.’
‘Murderers. Thieves. Lamprecht …’
Kirkpatrick fought the panic in him – the noise of the fight, the shouting, Hal’s mad stamping on flames was all fit to wake the dead in the crypt. Jop roared forward in a rush of fear and Sim, caught off balance, went sideways. Kirkpatrick, fast and unthinking as a hornet in a fist, whirled and struck.
Jop gave a coughing grunt, swayed a little with a look of amazement on his face as he stared at where Kirkpatrick had punched him … not a hard blow …
Then the dagger thrust to his heart felled him, and like a tree he crashed to the rushed floor, his head bouncing hard enough to let everyone know he was dead.
Hal’s feet finally stopped stamping on the flames.
‘Christ be praised,’ he murmured, shocked.
‘For ever and ever,’ Kirkpatrick intoned reverently, then wiped the dagger clean on Jop’s tunic, pinched out a coal smouldering in the man’s hair and straightened.
‘Murder was no part of this,’ Hal accused.
‘It is now,’ Kirkpatrick answered, his sneer bloody in the light and there was no denying the logic of it, which made Hal click his teeth shut.
‘We should be away,’ Sim interrupted, then jerked as the bell boomed out again, loud as the doors of Hell opening.
‘Christ’s Bones …’ hissed Kirkpatrick.
‘Lamprecht,’ Sim spat and Kirkpatrick’s curse was pungent.
‘We should be away from here,’ Hal warned, but Kirkpatrick was already at the door and the others followed him. At the lintel, Kirkpatrick paused, turned and kicked the overturned brazier so that the last coals spilled out, the soft flaring chasing him out of the room.
They moved swiftly into the dim of the hall, where their shadows scored the walls in a mad dance. Someone loomed out of the dark, making Hal shout with surprise.
‘Hold,’ called a voice and Kirkpatrick whirled and struck, rat-swift and hard – save that his wrist was suddenly shackled. He gave a roar and a jerk, but Sim held the grip.
‘Christ’s Wounds,’ he spat. ‘Would ye kill a priest now?’
The wee priest, woken and brought to the body of the chapel by the noises, had fallen in his shock and sat looking up in horror at the glittering dagger and the gripped wrist that stopped it coming down on him. Sim let it go, moving swiftly to put himself between the dirk and the priest, whom he hauled up by the front of his robe, staring down into the little man’s anguished twist of a face.
‘Do ye ken me?’ he demanded and had to repeat it before the priest blinked and focused on him.
‘Ye are thieves an’ violators o’ the house o’ God … oooff.’
The air was driven out of him by Sim’s belly-blow and a second massive fist crashed behind his ear and sent him slamming to the ground.
‘Good,’ Sim said and Kirkpatrick moved to go round him. Hal caught the man’s elbow and hauled him back.
‘Mak’ siccar,’ Kirkpatrick hissed and Hal jerked roughly on the arm he held.
‘No need. You heard the man – he does not ken who we are and so can tell them nothin’. Have you no’ had killing enough?’
‘He has lots he can spill …’ Kirkpatrick hissed back, trying to tear himself free.
‘Not blood this night,’ answered Hal grimly and locked his stare with a hard one of his own.
The boom of the pounded door opening racked them from the moment; Kirkpatrick cursed and they were off like hares for the crypt door, scurrying through as smoke spilled out of Jop’s room behind them, stumbling down the crypt stairs and between the kists, then out into the rain-washed night, where they sucked in air and a mirr of rain soft as the lick of a fawning dog.
There was no moon, no stars, just the wet of the grass beneath their feet; then behind, flames flicked and Hal realized that Kirkpatrick had tossed the lantern aside in the crypt. Beyond that, a dull glow showed where the church burned.
The guards had come up fast, for they had been waiting, night after night, in hourly expectation of capturing the creeping, sleekit Wallace, and the dull clanking of the church bell had spilled them out, ready armed. They were holding axe and sword – one had a spear – with heater shields, maille and helmets so they thought they had the edge on three men in drover’s rags with no more than knives.