The Last Knight (11 page)

Uddersfield was a town on the verge of becoming a city. In over a century of peace, buildings had sprouted outside the old siege wall. The chimes of its tower clocks rang over the countryside—one of them a few seconds slower than the rest.

We followed the river road in, past rope makers, coopers, smithies, and a rawly stinking dye yard. As we approached the great gate, I paused to admire the sweeping arc of the wall over the river. Once it had been part of the city defenses, but now small boats slipped between its supports and fishing lines descended to the water. The shade beneath a bridge is always a good place to fish.

Hooves and cart wheels clattered on the cobblestones that paved the road in front of the gate. As soon as we passed through it we encountered a mob of street sellers offering fruit, hot meat pies, pins and ribbons to take home to the wife, a guide to your dock, sir, or your inn, or wherever you need to go, just ask Mart.

Two brightly painted players stood on opposite sides of the street extolling the virtues of their troupe’s entertainment and shouting out the name of the inn where they worked. A couple of women, almost as heavily painted as the players, lounged on the steps—they didn’t have to shout to announce the service they were selling.

One looked me over, and I smiled without fearing I might raise her hopes. Fisk had washed and mended my clothes, but I looked far too rough to afford her time. Fisk might seem a possibility.

I turned to make sure he was passing temptation by, and found that Fisk and Tipple were no longer at my heels. I reined Chant to a stop, ignoring the curses that rose as traffic slowed around me, and stood in the stirrups looking about. There, in a shadowy alley, Fisk sat on Tipple’s back, talking to a man whose gaudy rags and missing hand proclaimed his profession as surely as the players’ painted faces.

I maneuvered Chant through the crowd toward them. The press of bodies thinned, but ’twas still too noisy to hear what Fisk was saying.

The beggar shrugged and shook his head.

Fisk took a few coins out of my purse, which I hadn’t lent him, and dropped them into the beggar’s cup. “Pass it on, if you see him.”

The beggar shrugged again and settled back at his post, rattling his cup with a practiced air. Fisk turned Tipple back toward the street, almost colliding with me.

“Sir, ah…” He held out my purse. “I saw that fellow in the alley and I thought we should start asking about Long Tom.”

I tied the purse back on my belt—although I wasn’t sure why I bothered. “Next time, ask for my purse instead of…Oh, never mind. Did you learn anything?”

“Doesn’t know Long Tom, never met him, never heard of him.” Fisk sounded irritatingly cheerful for someone reporting total failure.

“That’s odd,” I commented as we rode down the street. “I’d think a beggar would know his competitors, even in a town this size. Was he a local?”

“It doesn’t matter. Jack Bannister used to say that the beggars know more of what goes on in a town than the sheriffs. I’m sure he knows Long Tom perfectly well.”

I gazed at Fisk’s smug expression in bafflement. “But he
didn’t
know him.”

“He
said
he didn’t. No guild member will turn one of his brothers over to a stranger. But he’ll pass the word, and sooner or later Long Tom will find us.”

“Beggars have a
guild
?”

“Of course,” said Fisk. “A tight one too. They pay a tithe, like anyone else, and in return the guild redeems them if they get in trouble with the law, supports them if they can’t work, the usual things. And a few unusual—beggars are more vulnerable than most.”

“Supports them if they can’t
work
? I thought they turned beggar
because
they couldn’t work.”

“Begging is work,” said Fisk curtly. “Cursed hard work. That’s another thing the guild does—it keeps amateurs and riffraff out of the trade.”

“Like you?” I hazarded a guess. For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but…

“I was younger then,” said Fisk. “A lot younger. Now what kind of room do you want, Noble Sir? Cheap, but clean and respectable; cheaper and clean, but not respectable; even cheaper, but neither clean nor…”

’Tis annoying to have a squire who knows the contents of one’s purse.

We settled for clean but not respectable, and Fisk found such a place with remarkable ease for someone who had never been in Uddersfield before.

The rest of the day we wandered about the city, paying beggar after beggar to tell us that they’d never heard of Long Tom. I was beginning to think the stable lad had been mistaken, but Fisk seemed confident that “the message will get out.” As we worked from the docks through the fruit and fish markets, through the craftsman’s yards and into the shops and homes of the merchants, I realized that Fisk was orienting himself in the city—that while I could tell east from west by the sun and the sea breeze, but hadn’t the least idea where our inn was, Fisk was building a street map in his mind.

The acrid, fatty stink of the soap makers’ yard blended with the scent of fresh bread at the bakeshop where we purchased mid-meal, and I spent twenty minutes wandering around the horse market pens. There was a sorrel stud with a deep chest and strong withers that I’d have recommended to Father if there was any way he could get the message in time. If he would have accepted my advice. Since there wasn’t, and he probably wouldn’t, I left the horse to whatever lucky fellow could afford him.

Looking around, I discovered that I’d lost my squire again. He wasn’t in the square that opened off the horse yard, so I ran my eyes over the shop signs. Not the brass workers’, surely, or the chandler’s, or the saddler’s. An herbalist, a spicery, a…yes!

I made my way to the bookseller’s and found Fisk, nose deep in a book whose title proclaimed it to be a retelling of the Miros ballad cycle. Looking over his shoulder, I discovered that Fisk was reading not the ballads, but the introduction.

“You read introductions? No one reads those things!”

“Jacobin usually translates ancient plays,” Fisk murmured absently. “I’m curious to see why he’d do a ballad cycle. He once wrote that ballads were nothing but ‘the wretched meanderings of modern minds, and only the ancients—’”

“It’s only five gold roundels, sir,” said the bookseller.

Fisk came back to the real world with a start and returned the book to its table. He left the shop briskly, but the look he cast back over his shoulder reminded me of the last look I’d given the chestnut stud.

It hasn’t escaped me that my squire is far better educated than he likes to admit, mayhap better educated than myself. It did escape me why he didn’t admit it, but ’twas no use to pry with a creature as untrusting as Fisk.

That evening I decided to go to one of the plays I’d heard extolled at the gate, for I don’t often get a chance to see one.

Fisk hesitated when I proposed this, and I asked if there was danger in roaming the streets at night. The inn where the play was to be held was in a respectable part of town, but our inn was not. Yet Fisk said ’twas safe enough, and by the time we reached the inn yard I had forgotten all about it.

Intermittent clouds veiled the moons, which don’t seem to shed as much light in the city as they do in open lands. The inn yard was lit by dozens of torches, flickering in the breeze that whispered between the buildings.

A good-sized crowd had gathered—merchants, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and their wives. But I still followed Fisk’s advice when he suggested I tuck my purse inside my doublet. It may be cowardly to shrink from trouble, but ’tis foolish to invite it.

Plays are best after dark—the torchlight conceals the tawdriness of the actors’ costumes, and glass jewels glow bright as the real thing. The flickering light works its magic on the players’ faces, too, transforming the exaggerated paint to make these ordinary folk seem more than human.

The story was highly unlikely: The Gifted and lovely heroine, who was being pressured to wed a local baron, discovered that one of their village headsmen was in league with pirates who planned to capture a shipment of gold ore as it passed through the humble hamlet. ’Twas exciting, despite its silliness, and I applauded with enthusiasm when they’d finished.

For all that, I was troubled as Fisk led me through the darkened streets toward our inn. The wealthy baron had been almost as villainous as the headsman, and when the damsel and her heroic lover had defeated the pirates’ scheme, they fled to a town, seeking protection from the baron’s wrath. A play like that could get the players whipped off a noble’s estate. Of course, if they offered it in the countryside, the villainous suitor would become a wealthy merchant or a tax collector—a creature who is never popular.

I had turned to say as much to Fisk, wishing to hear his opinion, when a hand grasped my collar and a knife blade appeared across my throat, cutting off speech, movement, and breath. I swallowed and felt the sharp edge slit my skin, so tightly was the blade pressed. I resolved not to do that again.

A twitch at my belt revealed the loss of my dagger. For one mad second I wished I’d worn the sword that was currently back in our room—not that they wouldn’t have taken it just as easily.

“Nobody move,” a soft voice muttered in my ear. I had no intention of moving, or even speaking enough to tell him where my purse was until that knife blade backed off.

Shifting only my eyes, I saw the silhouette of a second man, holding Fisk in the same position. My heart hammered with the need to move, to fight, to do something…. I could all but hear Fisk’s comments on such an idiotic impulse.

Then the man behind me shifted, but the knife never wavered, and rough-skinned hands tugged my wrists behind my back and bound them with scratchy twine. I found being bound strangely heartening, for if they intended to slit our throats, they’d not trouble to tie us up.

“My purse is in my doublet,” I murmured, trying to ignore the blade. “Left side.”

A soft snort reached my ears. “This isn’t a robbery, Baron. Don’t piss yourself over it.”

Then what under two moons was it? I swallowed again, and wished I hadn’t as something warm trickled down my neck. I thought of several moves I could make, but most of them entailed kicking and running, which would gain me nothing but a slit throat.

Then the knife lifted away, and a rough sack that smelled of oats was pulled over my head. In the darkness I probably couldn’t have seen through the coarse weave anyway, but they took no chances—a strip of cloth bound my eyes closed and secured the sack in place.

A sharp prick in the ribs told me where the knife was now, but even without that silent message I wouldn’t have tried to fight. Between the cloth that blinded me and my bound wrists, I was helpless. But I didn’t have to like it.

“You took your time finding us. I was beginning to think I’d have to send a town crier.” Fisk, sarcastic enough to cut cloth. I might have found that reassuring, except I’ve come to realize that Fisk is particularly sarcastic when he’s scared right down to the soles of his boots.

Soft chuckles emerged from the darkness, and my wits suddenly caught up with what Fisk had said: The beggars’ guild had found us.

The two men guided us, stumbling, for quite a long time, over cobbles that felt rougher than they had before. Walking blind in the hands of our captors was horridly unnerving, and they stopped several times to spin me around, so I couldn’t tell the direction of the turns we made. They had pulled up my hood. Anyone we met would see nothing out of place unless they looked closely, and the knife that hovered near my ribs would have kept me from crying out—but we encountered no one.

Several dogs barked as we passed the yards they guarded, and once I smelled the distinctive, sour odor of a pigpen, but I couldn’t have retraced our path. Then the hands that gripped my elbows held me still, and the soft voice murmured, “Eight steps down, Baron.”

They helped me down the wooden stair, and I heard Fisk’s steps coming down the planks behind me. At the bottom they pulled me forward, and I tripped over a doorsill and onto a wooden floor.

The men who’d brought us left without a word—I heard the door close behind them. I was about to speak to Fisk, to find some way to untie each other, when a new set of footsteps came from the other side of the room.

I stiffened, for if this was some new threat there was nothing I could do about it. The cloth that bound my eyes jerked, then loosened, and the sack was lifted away.

I blinked, wishing I could rub my eyes. Only two candles lit the cellar, and though the ceiling almost brushed my head, the walls stretched away till they lost themselves in darkness. From the size of the room, I thought we must be beneath a warehouse—“borrowed,” no doubt, for the occasion, since the man who stood before me, in gaudy beggar’s rags, couldn’t possibly have owned such a building.

There was gray in his thinning hair, but the lines around his eyes were only visible when he smiled, a little wryly, as he went to unbind Fisk’s eyes. “I apologize, sirs, for the inconvenience, but you’ll understand that a humble man like me gets nervous when he hears that strangers are asking for him.”

I eyed his stocky, ordinary body—he was shorter than Fisk. “
Long
Tom?”

A spark of mischief lit his eyes. “It refers to…another part of my anatomy.”

Fisk emerged, blinking, from another oat sack. “You could have asked us to meet with you.”

I was relieved to hear that the cutting edge in his voice had vanished, despite the fact that we were still bound. Since Fisk seemed to understand these strange events better than I (at least I hoped he did!), I relaxed a bit myself.

Long Tom strolled over to the sturdy table that held the candles and Fisk’s and my daggers—the only piece of furniture in the room. He leaned against one corner and eyed us shrewdly. “Well, you’re here. I hope it’s something worth my while—you do realize that I’m not going to be able to work for the rest of the time you’re in town? Longer, if you go to the sheriff. You could cost me a lot of money, young sirs.”