Hal cursed; the English garrison from Riccarton had not been part of their plan – though it was clear to Hal that it had been an integral part of Lamprecht’s.
The guards closed in; there was a wild whirl of grunts and the belling of steel on steel. Sparks flew from the blades and a spear from the shadows, flung at Hal by a desperate hand and falling short to skitter madly along the rutted track.
Sim’s roar was so close it made Hal’s ear buzz and he jerked back as a sword came at him, managing to fend it off with the dirk, though the blow numbed his arm and all but ripped the weapon from his grasp.
He ducked, spun, slashed and felt the blade catch, heard a howl. A blade slithered at him and he only just managed to turn sideways so that it slid through his tunic, leaving a strange cold line under his ribs. The man behind it stumbled on, unable to stop and off balance so that Hal’s knife thrusts, three quick viper strikes in his unprotected neck dumped the man onto the muddy track.
Kirkpatrick was snarling like a pit-fighting dog in a mad jig with two guards. More were coming up and the bobbing lights of their lanterns were clear; behind, Hal heard curses and the crypt door splinter, half turned to see the last flare of flame as more guards stamped out the fish-oil flames of the thrown lantern and freed the entrance into the chapel cemetery.
They were in deep trouble, Hal knew, as two men came at him. He stepped, half-turned and slammed a shoulder into the nearest, sending him reeling back and cutting him with a slash. Then something hit him on the back of the head and the world wobbled, a place of whirling dirt and muddy water.
He found himself on his hands and knees, forced himself to rear upright, slashing wildly, feeling the back of his head start to burn, hearing the roar of his own sucking breathing. His mouth was full of the salted metal tang of blood and he felt the sudden talon grasp of fingers on his shoulder; he wondered, almost idly, what had happened to the Dog Boy.
The hand wrenched him round and he swung weakly, felt his knife hand clamped and a voice hissed:
‘It’s me. Sim. Leave off that.’
Then, in the misted haze of his head, Hal heard the bawling of cattle and almost laughed. Sim, on the other hand, was cursing and dragging him sideways; the pair of them fell in the mud and rolled over as black shapes clattered past, bellowing their annoyance. A slim, dark shadow yelped and nipped at their heels.
Hal shook himself back to the road and the night and the mud, in time to see the little black cattle, horns like curved scimitars, stampeding off down the road in a scatter of mud and water and English garrison.
‘Time to be away,’ said a calm voice – Dog Boy – and they wraithed off into the night, Dog Boy calling up his cattle dogs as he went. By the time lack of breath forced them to stop, he was frowning, for one of the pair had not responded.
‘I fear it is killed,’ he growled. ‘Good Beauchien,’ he added, patting the other.
Beauchien, Hal thought and laughed, then winced at what that did to his head. Sim was fussing round his ribs and muttering, so that Hal realized, with a sudden shock, that he had been badly cut. Kirkpatrick nodded admiringly to the Dog Boy.
‘Timely appearance,’ he said. ‘That trick wi’ the kine saved our hides, certes.’
‘I had the wit of Lamprecht’s intent too late,’ Dog Boy said mournfully apologetic. ‘I am sorry.’
‘What wit?’ Sim demanded, peering at the dark stain along Hal’s ribs and tutting disapproval.
‘The daftie boy,’ Dog Boy said. ‘He wanted the shell from yon pardoner’s hat but it was only later that I realized he had asked for it before and also been refused.’
He stopped and stared at the slowly comprehending faces.
‘Lamprecht came here before and the daftie boy saw him. I am betting sure the pardoner went to see Jop – and then went to find us and the Earl Robert. I dinna ken why, but I was sure no good was in it.’
A plaintive bawling snapped the silence and Sim cursed.
‘Stirk Davey’s coos are scattered,’ he moaned. ‘The Riccarton English will be sooking the juice off steaks afore the morn’s done – and we are out by a pretty penny.’
Hal thought that a harsh judgement on a timely use of charging cattle, but his head hurt so much that he felt sick and could not speak for a long time. When he did, it was not cows that he spoke of.
Instead, his question fell on them like a crow on a dead eye, made them realize who was missing.
‘Where’s Lamprecht?’
CHAPTER FOUR
Lincoln
Nativity of Christ (Christ’s Mass Day), 1304
Steam from horses and riders blended with the fine gruel of churned up mud and snow in a sluggish mist that was filled with shouts and grunts and clashes of steel so that the men behind Bruce shifted on their horses.