The Splintered Kingdom (34 page)

‘Consorting with the enemy are we now, Tancred?’ he said as they halted before us. ‘Or are you going to tell me you didn’t know?’

‘Know what?’ I asked.

‘We’re arresting all the travelling merchants and pedlars who are still in the town, and seizing their goods forthwith. The order was given earlier this morning.’

I frowned. ‘For what reason?’

‘To prevent them selling news of our numbers and disposition to those across the dyke. Already three men have confessed to being
spies in the enemy’s pay. No doubt the rest will do so in their turn just as soon as we can question them properly.’

‘Why haven’t I heard of this?’

Berengar shrugged. ‘How should I know?’ He fixed Byrhtwald with a stern gaze, although if the Englishman was at all perturbed he did not show it. ‘Now, if you’ll make way, I intend to apprehend this man and take him to the castle.’

I did not move. ‘Who gave this order?’

‘Fitz Osbern himself placed me in charge of the task.’

‘He didn’t mention any of this to me,’ I said. ‘I was speaking with him not half an hour ago.’

‘And because of that you assume that I’m lying?’ Berengar sneered. ‘You think he considers you so worthy of his attention that he must keep you informed of his every decision? After what happened, you’re lucky he hasn’t put you in chains and cast you into the deepest, dankest pit he can find. At the very least he must realise how misplaced was his faith in you. It took him long enough. We all saw it long ago.’

He glanced at his five companions, who were all sniggering. By now I had grown used to such childish scorn, and this time I refused to rise to it. Berengar swung down from his horse and marched in front of me, drawing himself up to his full height.

‘Unless you want to join your English friend, I suggest you get out of my way,’ he said.

We stood eye to eye. He was slightly the taller of the two of us, with, I reckoned, a longer reach that would give him an advantage if it came to a fight, but his greater girth would surely slow him down and make him clumsier on his feet.

‘If you want me to move, you’ll have to make me,’ I said.

He gave me a questioning look, as if he had expected that his words alone would be enough to make me stand aside. As if I cared for any instruction that came out of his mouth. Uncertain what to do, he held my stare for a few moments, before slowly a smile broke out across his face and, forcing a laugh, he turned to his friends.

‘He thinks he can stop us.’ He raised his tone for all to hear,
throwing his hands wide as if beseeching the crowd to witness my obstinacy. ‘He thinks he can defy Fitz Osbern’s bidding!’

A few of the market-goers were turning their heads to watch, but most were staying well back. Even if they didn’t know enough French to understand what was being said, they surely sensed that this was something they wanted no part of. A woman hustled her children away down the street, glancing over her shoulder nervously as she went. A farmer and his son who were driving a herd of pigs towards the pens on the other side of the square decided not to try to pass us but rather to take the longer route through the side streets.

‘This has nothing to do with Fitz Osbern,’ I said to Berengar. ‘This is about your pathetic feud with me.’

He spat on the floor, narrowly missing my foot. ‘I have no feud with you,’ he said, not entirely convincingly. ‘You’re worth about as much as a sheep’s turd as far as I’m concerned. Now either go from here back to the ewe’s arse that shitted you out or I’ll spill your guts on to the street for all these people to see.’

‘You could never kill me,’ I said. ‘You draw your blade and I’ll run you through before you can so much as let out a scream.’

He drew closer, so that I could feel his warm, reeking breath upon my cheeks and see the pockmarks covering his face. ‘I’m not afraid of you, Tancred. Others might stand in awe of your reputation, but I see you for what you are. You’re no different to the rest of us, nor, when it comes to it, any less mortal. If you stand aside then I will stay my hand. Otherwise I cannot promise you anything. It is your choice.’

Laying one hand upon the round disc of his sword-pommel, with the other he gave a flick of his fingers as a signal to his friends. They dismounted, drawing their blades as they formed a half-ring around me and Byrhtwald. Behind us lay the trader’s cart together with Cwylmend, who was still chewing contentedly, oblivious to everything that was going on.

‘This wasn’t wise, lord,’ Byrhtwald said.

I hardly needed him to tell me that. ‘What would you rather I’d done?’

To that he had no answer. From his belt hung a long hunting knife. I’d never seen the Englishman fight and so I had no idea how skilled with a blade he was, but he would have to be exceptional indeed if the two of us were to win out over the five of them. The way the colour had all but drained from his face did not inspire much confidence. If Berengar truly wanted to kill me, then he would not get a better chance than this. Yet I could hardly back down and leave the pedlar to his fate, and even if I did I wasn’t convinced that Berengar would hold true to his word and spare me. Not after everything that had passed between us of late.

‘Have your men put away their weapons,’ I said to him, hoping that he didn’t sense my anxiety. ‘We can settle this between ourselves.’

His fingers curled around his hilt. ‘It’s too late for that. Perhaps if you hadn’t set about trying to disgrace me in front of my men, it need not have come to this.’

‘Disgrace you?’ I repeated. ‘You were the one who started this quarrel. You’re the one to blame for—’

I never got the chance to finish. His sword was free of its sheath in a heartbeat. Barely had I time to work out what was going on than he was rushing at me, swinging the blade wildly across my path, roaring with unrestrained fury. I threw myself to the side just in time as sharpened steel cleaved the air where I had been standing, before lodging itself firmly in the frame of Byrhtwald’s cart. As Berengar struggled to free its edge from the timbers, I staggered to my feet, drawing my own weapon in time to meet the challenge from one of his men. With a scrape of steel on steel I parried his blow, forcing his weapon down and out of position while I stepped forward and slammed my free fist into his jaw. Bright blood dribbled down his chin as, thrown off balance, he staggered sideways, tripping over the bench with the ointment jars and ending up sprawled on his back in the dirt.

I didn’t wait for him to rise or for any of Berengar’s other friends to bring their blades to bear. Instead I rushed behind the cart. A collection of copper cooking pots sat on top of the canvas; I lifted one of them and hurled it at Berengar’s head, as, red-faced and
with gritted teeth, he tried to work his sword free from the timbers into which it had become stuck. He saw it coming, ducked, and the pot sailed over his head, missing him by a hair’s breadth and clattering upon the ground. Abandoning his sword and drawing his knife instead, he approached around one side of the cart while two of his companions came around the other.

Knowing that I couldn’t fight all of them at once, I ran. A number of side streets and alleyways led away from the marketplace and I made for one of those, pushing past those who were in my way, doing my best not to fall over the crates and barrels stacked upon the ground. Chickens flapped wildly, shedding feathers as they strayed across my path. Everywhere men were shouting; behind me came a scream and I glanced over my shoulder to see Berengar and his men shoving a young woman out of their way. Some of the market-goers took refuge behind their carts and their stalls, while others were running, abandoning their wares and their animals at the sight of naked steel.

Berengar shouted at them to stop me, but they knew better than to risk their lives in something that was none of their concern. I rounded the end of the row of stalls, pausing for the barest heartbeart to kick over a low table stacked with baskets of wet-glistening eels and other fish.

I was wondering where Byrhtwald had gone when I heard the Englishman shouting to me from further up the street. Leaving Berengar and the others to negotiate the fallen table and baskets, I rushed after him. He was nimbler than his years and his squat stature suggested, diving in between the stalls, fighting his way through the throng. Ahead lay the farrier’s workshop, from which clouds of white charcoal-smoke were billowing out across the street.

‘This way!’ Byrhtwald said before darting through the smoke and down an alley that led between the forge and the tanner’s place.

I charged after him through the clouds, shielding my face, for all the good that seemed to do. My eyes stung with the smoke and the heat, but I was quickly through it—

And straight into the flank of an ox, one of a pair hauling a
wagon loaded with timbers up the alley. The beast snorted indignantly and its owner yelled at me in words I didn’t understand, but I had no time to stop and apologise, even if I could remember the right English phrase. No sooner had I recovered my senses than I was turning, breaking once more into a run, only for my forehead to meet the end of one of the planks, which was jutting out across the side of the wagon. Stunned by the blow and cursing in pain, I lost my footing on the soft ground, and found myself lying amidst the mud and the cattle dung. Blood, warm and sticky, trickled across my brow and down between my eyes. Dazed and not entirely sure what had happened, I put a hand to it and my palm came away smeared with crimson streaks.

Somewhere in the smoke shadows moved about. The man with the cart and oxen had stopped but now there were voices and he was being hurried on. One of the shadows resolved itself into the shape of a man. At first I thought that the pedlar had come back for me, but then the figure stepped closer and as I blinked to clear my sight I saw his face, fixed as it always was in an expression of hatred and spite.

Berengar. He stood over me, sword in hand. The tip of the blade he pointed towards my chest in warning, lest I had any thoughts about trying to get up. I hadn’t; my head was pounding and already I thought I could feel a lump forming. My own blade had fallen from my grasp when I fell, and lay easily more than an arm’s length away, in one of the puddles that had formed in the wheel-ruts. Too far for me to be able to reach in the time it would take for Berengar’s sword-point to come down.

‘At last the great Tancred a Dinant finds himself at someone else’s mercy.’ He spat in my face; I blinked and turned my head in time but that only meant his phlegm struck my cheek rather than my eye. ‘Have you anything to say?’

‘Only that if you kill me you’ll have my men to answer to,’ I said, with more confidence than I had any right to, given the situation. ‘As soon as they find out what you’ve done, they’ll hunt you down like the worthless dog you are. When they catch you, they’ll string you up from the nearest tree, tear out your guts and
enjoy watching you squirm as they roast them in front of you. They will—’

‘Quiet!’ He moved the tip of his blade a fraction closer to my neck; I felt the cold steel touch lightly upon my skin. ‘I do not fear your men, any more than I fear you.’ But a tremble in his voice betrayed his uncertainty.

‘What about Fitz Osbern?’ I asked, changing tack, doing my best to hold my nerve. I couldn’t afford to show any weakness. ‘He won’t take kindly to blood being spilt in his streets.’

With every moment that passed I was growing more desperate. I hoped at least that Byrhtwald had managed to get away, that he was bringing help, until I noticed him being held by one of Berengar’s knights – Frederic by name, as I recalled – with a knife at his throat. He met my gaze, an apologetic look in his eyes.

‘Fitz Osbern is too far gone in his cups to care,’ Berengar was saying. ‘He has more things to worry about than the death of one man who defied his word.’

I was not convinced that Fitz Osbern would be so callous; one way or another justice would be dealt. Unless Berengar planned to flee the town altogether, he would struggle to avoid it. Even if he managed to evade those who would avenge me, he would still have God to answer to eventually. Perhaps those same thoughts were what was causing him to stay his hand now, or at the very least to doubt himself. He stood unspeaking with clenched jaw, his gaze fixed upon me. I counted each breath I took, wondering if it would be my last, waiting for the finishing blow that never came, until eventually I could hold my silence no longer.

‘Are you going to kill me, then? Or are you simply going to stand there?’

I meant it as a challenge, but the words came out less strongly than I would have liked.

‘Don’t think I won’t do it,’ said Berengar. ‘I only want to enjoy this moment so that I remember it for a long time to come.’

As he spoke these words, behind him through the smoke appeared the form of a horseman. Berengar had no time even to turn around
before he found a spear levelled beneath his chin, the flat of the head brushing against the underside of his jaw.

‘Put away your sword, Berengar fitz Warin,’ the horseman said, and never had I been more glad to hear that voice, for it belonged to Lord Robert. ‘Do it carefully, too. I wouldn’t want my blade to accidently slip and bury itself in your throat.’

Berengar hesitated. He had a wild, cornered look in his eyes. For a terrifying heartbeat I thought he might decide to take his chances, and kill me even if it meant meeting his own end.

‘Do it,’ Robert repeated, and then to the others said: ‘Unhand the Englishman.’

Thankfully the moment passed. Not once taking his eyes from me, Berengar grudgingly withdrew the blade, tossing it to one side, where it fell in a puddle. It was not quite what had been asked of him, but it sufficed nonetheless. The captain of Robert’s household, Ansculf, picked it up.

Relieved, I breathed deeply for the first time in what seemed like an age, letting the air fill my chest.

‘Get up,’ Robert barked at me, a little harshly I thought, given that I was the injured party. ‘And you,’ he said to Berengar, ‘get yourself and your men gone from here, and be thankful that I’m letting you leave with your head still attached to your neck.’