while Thomas, Roland would assume, would be captured by the city guard of Montpellier. ‘Where are these shit- wagons?’
Keane led him westwards. The first house doors were opening. Women carried pails to the city wells, and a stout girl was selling goat’s milk beside a stone crucifix. Thomas kept his wounded hand hidden beneath his cloak as Keane led him through alleys and small streets, and past yards where cattle bellowed. The city’s church bells were ringing, summoning the faithful to early prayers. Thomas followed the Irishman downhill to where the streets were uncobbled and the mud stained with blood. This was where cattle were butchered, where the city’s poor lived, and where the stench of sewage led them to a small square in which three carts were parked. Each cart had a pair of oxen in harness, and their beds were filled with big-bellied barrels. ‘Jesus, but rich people’s shit stinks,’ Keane said.
‘Where are the carters?’
‘They drink in the Widow,’ Keane pointed to a small tavern, ‘and the widow is a tough old biddy who also owns the wagons, and the wine is part of their wages. They’re supposed to leave when the gates open, but they tend to linger over their wine, which is a surprise.’
‘A surprise?’
‘The wine is just horrible. Tastes like cow piss.’
‘How would you know?’
‘That’s a question worthy of Doctor Lucius. Are you sure you want to do this?’
‘How the hell else do I get out of the city?’
‘The trick of it,’ Keane said, ‘is to wriggle between two of the barrels. Just worm your way in to the centre of the cart and no one will ever know you’re there. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to wriggle out.’
‘You’re not hiding with me?’
‘They’re not looking for me!’ the Irishman said. ‘You’re the fellow they want to hang.’
‘Hang me?’
‘Jesus, you’re an Englishman! Thomas of Hookton! Leader of the Hellequin! Sure they want to hang you! There’ll be a bigger crowd than Whore Sunday!’
‘What’s Whore Sunday?’
‘Nearest Sunday to the Feast of Saint Nicholas. The girls are supposed to give it away that day, but I’ve not seen it happen. And you’ve not a lot of time.’ He stopped as an upstairs shutter opened across the small square. A man looked out, yawned, then vanished. Cockerels were crowing all through the town. A pile of rags stirred in a corner of the square and Thomas realised it was a beggar sleeping. ‘Not a lot of time at all,’ Keane went on. ‘The gates are open so the wagons will be rolling soon enough.’
‘Sweet Jesus,’ Thomas said.
‘You’ll smell more like Judas Iscariot when you’re done. I should jump on now, there’s no one watching.’
Thomas ran across the small square and pushed himself up onto the rearmost wagon. The smell was enough to fell a bear. The barrels were old, they leaked, or rather oozed, and the wagon’s bed was inch-deep in slime. He heard Keane chuckle, then took a deep breath and forced his way between two of the vast tubs. There was just space between the rows for a man to be concealed beneath the barrel’s bulging bellies. Something dripped on his head. Flies crawled on his face and neck. He tried to breathe
shallowly as he wriggled his way to the centre of the cart where he pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. The mail coat with its leather lining offered some protection from the slimy muck, but he could feel the filth seeping beneath the mail to soak his shirt and chill his skin.
He did not need to wait long. He heard voices, felt the wagon lurch as two men climbed up to perch on the foremost barrels, then the crack of a whip. The cart jerked forward, its single axle squealing. Every jolt banged Thomas’s head against the seeping side of a barrel. The journey seemed endless, but at least Keane had been right about the guards, who must have simply waved the three carts through the city’s gate with no attempt at an inspection because the wagon did not stop as it went from the shadows of the city to the sunlight of the countryside. Keane was walking just beside the oxen, chatting happily to the drivers, and then the cart gave an almighty lurch as it was driven down a bank. Liquid slopped in the barrels and some spilled over onto Thomas’s back. He cursed under his breath, then cursed again as the wagon juddered across some ruts. Keane was telling a long story about a dog that had stolen a leg of lamb from Saint Stephen’s monastery, but suddenly spoke in English, ‘Wriggle out now!’ The Irishman went on with his tale as Thomas inched backwards through fresh muck, every jolt of the cart driving the filth deeper into his clothes.
He threw himself off the back, landing on the grassy ridge between the track’s wheel ruts. The wagon, oblivious that it had held a passenger, rumbled on. Keane came back, grinning. ‘Jesus, you look just terrible.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I got you out of the city, didn’t I?’
‘You’re a living saint,’ Thomas said. ‘Now all we have to do is find horses, weapons, and a way to get ahead of Roland.’
He was in a sunken lane between two high banks beyond which were olive groves. The lane dropped to a riverbank where the first cart was tipping its barrels into the water. A brown stain drifted downstream. ‘And how do we find horses?’ Keane asked wistfully.
‘First things first,’ Thomas said. He slapped at a fly, then climbed the roadside bank and walked north through the olives.
‘So what’s first?’ Keane asked.
‘The river.’
Thomas walked till he was out of sight of the three carts, then stripped off his clothes and plunged into the water. It was cold. ‘Jesus, you’re scarred,’ Keane said.
‘If you want to stay beautiful,’ Thomas said, ‘don’t be a soldier. And throw me my clothes.’
Keane kicked the clothes into the river rather than touch them. Thomas kneaded them, trampled them, scrubbed at them with a rock till no more stain coloured the water, then he plunged the mail coat in and out of a pool, trying to rid the links and leather of the stink. He ducked his head a last time, ran fingers through his hair, and climbed onto the bank. He wrung out the clothes as best he could, then put them on still wet. He carried the mail coat. It would be another warm day and his shirt and hose would dry fast enough. ‘North,’ he said curtly. The first thing was to find the men-at-arms he had left at the ruined mill.
‘Horses and weapons, you said?’ Keane asked.
‘How much are they offering for me?’
‘The weight of your right hand in gold coins, I heard.’
‘My hand?’ Thomas asked, then understood. ‘Because I’m an archer.’
‘That’s just the beginning. The weight of your right hand in gold and the weight of your severed head in silver. They hate English archers.’
‘It’s a small fortune,’ Thomas said, ‘so I dare say the horses and weapons will find us.’
‘Find us?’
‘Soon enough folk will wonder if I escaped the city, so they’ll come looking. Till then we keep going north.’
Thomas thought of Genevieve as he walked. She had been terrified when he first met her, and why not? A pyre had been made outside her prison and she was supposed to have been burned as a heretic, and the prospect of that holy fire was a scar in her memory. It would be torturing her now. He assumed she and Hugh were safe for the moment, at least until Roland could find Bertille, but what then? The virgin knight was mocked for his rectitude, but he was famed for being incorruptible, so would he meekly exchange Genevieve and Hugh for Bertille? Or would he think it his sacred duty to give Genevieve to the church so it could finish the business it had started so long ago? Thomas desperately needed to reach Karyl and his other men-at-arms. He needed men, he needed weapons, he needed a horse.
They were following the river northwards. The sun rose higher and the olive trees gave way to vineyards. He could see five men and three women tilling between the terraces a mile or so away, but otherwise the countryside was empty. He kept to the low ground where he could, but always heading towards the hills. Roland, he thought, would be at least five leagues away from the city by now. ‘I should have killed him,’ he said.
‘Roland?’
