spotted that these men held swords.
The pock-faced knight drew himself up in his saddle and gestured towards the woman standing with the interpreter behind him. ‘This peasant claims that she saw you here last night. Do you deny this?’
I said nothing. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that I might have been seen.
‘She swears that she saw you fighting,’ he went on. ‘Here, on this street, with another knight. Is this true?’
‘I was attacked,’ I burst out, which on reflection was not the wisest thing to say, for straightaway I knew he would take that as an admission of guilt, but I had committed myself and had no choice but to press on. ‘I was defending myself.’
He lifted his head slightly, so that he looked at me along the length of his nose. A faint smile spread across his face. ‘Do you know’, he asked, ‘what the penalty is for bearing arms against another in the king’s own city?’
‘Tell me.’
‘The penalty …’ he said slowly, as if to ensure that I did not miss a word, ‘is no less than the forfeiture of your sword-hand.’
I swallowed, and wondered whether this was the time to run. I knew it would be a useless gesture, though: they were mounted and would easily catch me, and it would only reinforce my guilt in their eyes.
‘Give me your sword,’ Pock-face growled.
I held it by the steel and carefully, so as not to cut myself, held it up to him, hilt first.
He looked questioningly down at me as he took it. ‘You carry a naked blade in the streets,’ he said.
‘My scabbard is there,’ I said, and I pointed to the patch of snow which now covered the place where I remembered dropping it.
He looked where I was pointing, and then back at me. The contempt in his eyes was clear.
‘It’s the truth,’ I insisted. ‘Everything I have said is the truth.’
‘You will come with us,’ he said. He gave the signal to two of his men, who swung down from their saddles and grabbed me roughly by the shoulders. I tried to shake them off but they held firm, twisting my arms behind my back.
‘Malet will hear of this,’ I said through gritted teeth as they began to march me up the street. ‘He will have
‘Wait!’ a voice called.
The knights stopped. I turned my head, though my shoulders were held. The voice had come from amongst the crowd.
The circle of onlookers parted as a man, dressed in a fine-looking cloak of black wool, rode forward. His face was angular, his nose prominent; he looked about the same age as myself or a little older. I had the feeling that I had seen him before, but I could not place when or where. He sat tall in the saddle as he came towards us. From his belt hung a scabbard, decorated along its length with scarlet gemstones, with an intricate design of golden lines weaving between and around each one.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked me, his voice stern. Behind him rode a man of more modest dress — a servant, I presumed. He was thin, with a large boil on the side of his neck and skin so pale that I wondered if he hadn’t ventured outside of doors in some while.
‘Lord,’ said Pock-face. ‘If you will forgive us, we are taking this man to the town-reeve. He is not to be spoken to-’
‘My name is Tancred a Dinant, lord,’ I interrupted him.
The man fixed his eyes upon me, though not in an unfriendly manner. ‘You know my father?’
‘Your father?’ I said, before realising how it was that I recognised his face. Indeed now that I saw it, the resemblance was clear, not just in his angular features but also in his high brow and the slope of his shoulders.
‘Guillaume Malet, seigneur of Graville across the sea. You know him?’
‘I am a knight in his service, lord.’ As far as I could recall, the vicomte had made no mention of any son. Of course that by itself meant little, for why should he have done so?
‘My lord,’ said the pock-faced one, a note of despair in his voice. ‘If I may say, this is not the time to be making idle conversation. We are-’
‘What business do you have with him?’ asked the man who called himself Malet’s son.
‘He is accused of bearing arms in anger against a fellow Frenchman.’
‘You have witnesses to this?’
‘We have one, lord,’ said another of the knights, a portly and rough-kempt man who looked too large for his mount. He pointed towards the aged woman; she shrank back into the crowd.
‘One witness,’ Malet’s son said. ‘But she is English, and a woman at that.’
‘Others can always be found,’ Pock-face replied mildly. ‘This is not a matter to be dismissed lightly.’
Malet’s son turned to me. ‘And what do you say? Did you bear arms against a countryman?’
I hesitated, tempted this time to deny the accusation outright, so that he might be more inclined to help me. But if I did that, then the others would see that I had openly perjured myself — an offence which was potentially as bad, if not worse than a breach of the peace.
‘I was attacked, lord,’ I said, repeating exactly what I had said before. ‘I was only defending myself.’
He nodded slowly, and I felt my heart sink; that surely had been the wrong answer to give. He looked at his manservant, who merely blinked and shrugged in return. ‘Have you considered that he may be speaking the truth?’ he asked at last.
‘Whether he is or not,’ said Pock-face, ‘he was seen using weapons in the king’s own city!’
‘And where is the man he was seen with? He can speak for himself, I presume.’
The knight opened his mouth, but then fell silent, instead glancing about the rest of his men.
‘Well? Where is he?’
‘My lord, he is not-’
‘So,’ said Malet’s son, his voice suddenly harsh, ‘neither do you have true witnesses to this event, nor, as far as I can see, was harm done to anyone present here.’ He turned to the men flanking me. ‘Release him.’
‘You cannot do this,’ said Pock-face.
Malet’s son glared at him. ‘I will do what I wish, or else I will go to your lord, the town-reeve, and inform him of your insolence. Now release him,’ he repeated with greater force. ‘I’ll deal with him myself.’
Pock-face said nothing as he stood still as stone, his face reddening. Eventually he waved an arm and his two men lifted their hands from me, before remounting their horses. I glared at each of them as I rubbed my forearm, easing the pain where they had twisted it.
‘Give him back his sword,’ Malet’s son said.
Pock-face’s eyes were seething as he tossed it down. It landed in the snow; I bent down to pick it up and watched as the five men began to ride off back up the street, in the direction of the markets at Ceap.
Pock-face was the last to leave. ‘The reeve will know of this,’ he called.
‘As well he might. And when you tell him, make sure to mention the name of Robert Malet. If he pleases, he may take the matter up with me.’
Pock-face snarled and then dug his heels in, riding back to join his men. The crowd had swelled in numbers since last I saw; several dozen had now come out of their houses to watch.
‘Go,’ Robert said to them, waving an arm at the same time to send them away. He leant down from his mount to speak to me. ‘I’ll seek an explanation for all of this in due course. For now, however, we should return to my father’s house.’ He glanced about. ‘You have brought a horse with you?’
‘No, lord,’ I replied.
‘Then, Tancred a Dinant, we shall walk.’ He swung down from his saddle, and then signalled for his manservant to do the same as he patted his mount on the neck and took up the reins.
I nodded, not knowing what more to say. For I now owed debts to two members of the Malet house, and neither, I sensed, would be easily paid.
