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.
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
