after a moment he held up the tube again and this time as the powder inside exploded, something small and hard shot out of the end of the tube. Josse heard a thump as it embedded itself into one of the trees.
‘What was that?’
‘Just a stone. Want to see it again?’ John was smiling broadly now and Josse found that he was too.
‘Aye!’
‘It’s nowhere near accurate,’ John said as he mixed his powder, ‘and in these small amounts the propulsive force isn’t very great, but just think of the potential.’
‘I prefer not to,’ Josse said gravely. Watching these experiments was all very well but already he understood why John had to protect this incredible secret. And why Hisham should have sent his warriors so far to get it back.
John had prepared his tube again and was on the point of putting the flame to it. Then a dark figure appeared from between the birch trees. He carried a sword and a knife and he was advancing down the slope into the dell. He said, ‘You should not have made yourself so visible, Brother Ralf. Your loud sounds and flashing lights have drawn me to you like a moth to a candle.’
Josse was not wearing his sword. He was armed with nothing more lethal than his knife. He stood at John’s left shoulder, just behind him.
‘You have your knight with you, I see,’ said the man. ‘No matter. I recognize him and I shall kill him too, for he murdered my companion Tancred.’
‘Your Tancred would have killed me!’ Josse protested, adrenaline making his voice loud and fierce. ‘It is not murder when a man kills in self-defence.’
‘No, indeed, but Tancred is dead all the same.’ The man was close now. It could only be a matter of moments before he was within sword’s length.
‘Go back, William,’ John said. He sounded surprisingly calm. ‘You are here only because Leo Rubenid pays you to do his foul deeds. Paradisa would suffer an unspeakable fate were she to be returned to him, as you very well know. Can you not find pity in your heart for her and let us be?’
William shrugged. ‘I do as I am commanded,’ he said coldly. ‘If people suffer, it is not my concern.’
‘How do you plan to get her all the way back to Outremer, even if you manage to kill me and Josse here and then remove her from an abbey full of nuns without anyone stopping you?’ Still John sounded calm.
‘I know where she is sleeping,’ William said coldly. Josse felt a shiver of dread. ‘I can be inside that room and render her senseless before she knows what is happening. Then down to the coast and a ship in which to sail home. Bound, gagged and locked in a cabin to which only I have the key, there will be no escape for her.’
‘You have it all worked out,’ John said, still in that reasonable voice. Only Josse, standing right beside him, could tell what an effort it was.
‘Of course,’ William replied. ‘I am a professional, hired and well paid to carry out my task. I do not intend to forfeit the remainder of my reward.’
‘You speak of a living, breathing woman.’ Now there was emotion in John’s tone. ‘Have more respect!’
William laughed. ‘Respect? Picture her in a few months’ time when the scum of the ports of Outremer have been through her. She’ll be naked, humiliated, filthy, poxed and foul. There won’t be anything left to respect then.’
Josse sensed John go tense. ‘In that case,’ he said, calm once more, ‘I shall just have to kill you.’
The bang and the flames followed so quickly on his words that Josse could not work out how he had done it. But William lay on the ground with a small hole above his left eye. It was rapidly filling up with blood.
John flung down the brass tube and swooped down on his victim. ‘Is he dead?’ Josse demanded.
‘No. He is still breathing, but shallowly.’ Without turning round John held out his hand. ‘Your knife, please, Josse.’
He was proposing to slay an unconscious man. That could not be. ‘No,’ Josse said quietly. ‘I am sorry, John. I cannot provide the weapon that murders a defenceless man.’
John had spun round, his face furious. ‘But you just heard him say what he’ll do if he escapes! Would you have my death and the knowledge of what will happen to Paradisa haunting you as William slays you?’
‘We will bind him and take him to Gervase de Gifford for judgement and punishment!’ Josse cried. ‘That is the right thing to do, John. I will not be a part to this cold-blooded murder which-’
William thrust himself up off the ground. With incredible speed he clasped John firmly around the neck and, rapidly moving his knife from his left hand to his right, slashed it at John’s wounded throat.
He is going to kill him before my eyes, Josse thought.
Then there was no more time for thought.
He drew his knife and with all his weight and power behind it drove it down into William’s chest, coming in from immediately to the right of where John lay clasped against him.
He must have struck the heart.
William’s knife fell away from John’s throat and the encircling arm relaxed and dropped with a soft thud to the ground. John got slowly to his feet. He stood staring down at the dead man for a few moments. Then he turned to Josse and wordlessly put his arms around him.
John packed up his satchel while Josse covered William’s face with the man’s cloak. There were now two of them to bury; William and Tancred had been companions in life, so it would be a charitable gesture to bury them side by side. I’ll make sure I mention it to the Abbess, Josse thought. He felt cold, strangely distant from all that had just happened, and the wound in his upper arm was hurting so much that he wanted to moan.
Presently they climbed out of the dell and walked back to the Abbey.
Twenty-One
There was no need to make their way back inside the walls by whatever clandestine means John had worked out. Lights were burning and the gates were wide open.
Josse made out the figure of the Abbess, at the head of a group of monks, lay brothers and nuns. The men were armed with sticks or clubs and Sister Martha was wielding her trusty pitchfork.
The Abbess strode out through the gates, her expression stern and fixed.
Oh, dear, Josse thought.
With John Damianos beside him, he walked towards her.
Helewise had thought at first there must be a storm brewing. Awakened by a loud crash, she assumed it to be thunder, only it came again and it didn’t really sound quite like thunder…
She lay drowsily in her bed, on the point of falling asleep again — it was, after all, only thunder — when suddenly she was filled with a stab of such horrified fear that it shot her up into a sitting position. It was as if something quite terrible was going to happen and she knew it without any doubt. The sense of foreboding was so undeniable that she got up, dressed swiftly and hurried outside.
Others had also heard the strange sounds and ventured out into the chill pre-dawn air. Sister Martha and Sister Ursel had unfastened the little spyhole in the gates and were peering out. From the rear gate down to the Vale came a party of monks and lay brothers led by Brother Saul and Brother Urse the carpenter, carrying an axe.
‘I can see two men approaching over there in the distance — ’ Sister Ursel pointed — ‘but there were lights out there, my lady!’ she gasped. ‘Brilliant, flashing lights! The dear Lord alone knows what devilry is going on, but-’
‘Sir Josse and the young man are missing from their beds,’ said Sister Euphemia’s clear voice. She strode up to Helewise’s side. ‘My lady, the nun on duty in the infirmary felt a draft and noticed that the small door at the far end of the ward was ajar. She checked on her patients and found the two beds empty.’
I knew, Helewise thought. I knew there was danger. But somehow something did not seem quite right…
‘Open the gates, Sister Ursel,’ she said calmly. ‘We shall go out and help them.’
‘It might be dangerous, my lady,’ protested Sister Martha. ‘Should you not let the rest of us go while you stay here where it’s safe? They could be battling with vicious enemies!’ She was clutching her pitchfork in her strong hands as if she just could not wait to plunge it into whoever had the effrontery to threaten Josse.
