“That is too like the repute of Thomas Culpepper to be other than Thomas Culpepper,” the young Poins said. “I will go meet him.”
He started to his feet, loosed the sword in its scabbard; but the Lincolnshire man had his halberd across the gateway.
“Pass! Shew thy pass!” he said vindictively.
“I go but to meet him,” Poins snarled.
“A good lie; thou goest not,” Hogben answered. “No Englishman goes into the French lands without a pass from the lord controller. An thou keepest a shut head I can e’en keep a shut gate.”
None the less he must needs talk or stifle.
“Thee, with thy Kat Howard,” he snarled. “Would ’ee have me think thy Kat was my kitten whose name stunk in our nostrils?”
He shook his finger in Poins’ face.
“Here be three of us know Kat Howard,” he said. “For I know her, since for her I must leave home and take the road. And he knoweth her over well or over ill, since, to buy her a gown, he sold the three farms, Maintree, Durford and Sallowford—which last was my father’s farm. And thee knowest her. Thee knowest her. To no good, I’se awarned. For thou stoppedst in thy speech like a colt before a wood snake. God bring down all women, I pray!”
He went on to tell, as if it had been a rosary, the names of the ruined women that the holes in his pikehead represented. There was one left by the wayside with her child; there was one hung for stealing cloth to cover her; there was one whipped for her naughty ways. He reached the square mark in the centre as the figure on the road reached the gateway.
“Huzzay, Squahre Tom! Here bay three kennath Kat Howard. Let us three tak part to kick her down.”
Thomas Culpepper like a green cat flew at his throat, clutched him above the steel breastplate, and shook three times, the gatewarden’s uncovered, dun-coloured head swaying back and forward as if it were a loose bundle of clouts on a mop. When they parted company, because he could no longer keep his fingers clenched, Hogben fell back; he fell back, and they lay with their heels touching each other and their arms stretched out in the dust.
II
Nicholas Hogben was the first to rise. He felt at his neck, swallowed as though a piece of apple were stuck in his throat, brushed his leather breeches, and picked up his pike.
“Why,” he said, “you may hold it for main and certain that he have not had Kat Howard down. For, having had her down, a would never have thrown a man by the throat for miscalling of her. Therefore Kat Howard is up for all of he, and I may loosen my feelings.”
He spat gravely at Culpepper’s feet. Culpepper lay in the dust, his arms stretched out to form a cross, his face dead white and his beard of brilliant red pointing at the keystone of the arch of Calais gate. Poins lifted his hand, but the pulse still beat, and he dropped it moodily in the dust.
“Not dead,” he muttered.
“Dead!” Hogben laughed at him. “Hath been in a boosing ken. There they drug the wine with simples, and the women—may pox fall on all women—perfume themselves so that a man goeth stark raving. I warrant he had silver buttons to his Lincoln green, but they be torn off. I warrant he had gold buckles to his shoen, but they be gone. His sword is away, the leather hangers being cut.”
“Wilt not stick him with thy pike, having, as he hath, so mishandled thee?”
“O aye,” the Lincolnshire man shewed his strong teeth. “Thee wouldst have Kat Howard from him. But he may live for me, being more like to bring her to dismay than ever thee wilt be!”
He looked into the narrow street of the town that the dawn pierced into through the gateway. Two skinny men in jerkins drawn tight with belts were yawning in a hovel’s low doorway. Under his eyes, still stretching their arms abroad, they made to slink between the mud walls of the next alley.
“Oh, hi! Arrestez. Vesnez!” he hailed. “Cestui à comforter!” The thin men made to break away, halted, hesitated, and then with dragging feet made through the pools and filth to the gateway.
“Tombé! Voleurs! Secourez!” Hogben pointed at the prostrate figure in green. They rubbed their shins on their thin calves and appeared bewildered and uncertain.
“Portez à lous maisons!” Hogben commanded.
They stood one on each side and bent down, extending skinny arms to lift him. Thomas Culpepper sat up and spat in their faces—they fled like scared wolves, noiselessly, gazing behind them in trepidation.
“Stay them; thieves ho! Stay them!” Culpepper panted. He scrambled to his feet, and stood reeling, his face like death, when he tried to make after them.
“God!” he said. “Give me to drink.”
The young Poins mused under his breath because the man had neither sword nor dagger. Therefore it would be impossible to have sword play with him. He had, the young man, no ferocity—but he was set there to stay Thomas Culpepper’s going on to England; he was to stay him by word or by deed. Deeds came so much easier than words.
“Squahre Tom!” the Lincolnshire man grunted. “Reckon you have no money. Without groats and more ye shall get nowt to drink in Calais town, save water. Water you may have in plenty.”
With a sigh the young Poins unbuckled his belt to get his papers.
“Money I have for you,” he said. “A main of money.” He was engaged now to
