The Tainted Coin (13 page)

“Till he awakes,” I laughed.

“Aye. By then we’ll have done what’s needed an’ be gone.”

Just before the twelfth hour, when the forest was dark and the field between us and the manor near so, a second figure approached the shed. The two faced each other for a moment, and perhaps spoke, but ’twas too dark to see. Then the first man departed and the newcomer took his place. I dimly saw the fellow bend toward the shed, but if he spoke or not I could not tell.

“Changed the guard over who’s in the hencoop,” Arthur said. “Must be someone important. Whoso put ’em in there don’t want ’em to get away.”

“Amice Thatcher is in the shed, I think.”

“My guess, too,” Arthur agreed. “Think it’s dark enough?”

“Not yet. We’ve waited three hours. Another half-hour will not do us harm.”

When it was so dark that I could no longer see the shed or the man who stood beside it, I whispered to Arthur, “Let’s be off,” and together we climbed the stone wall and crossed the field. Nettles grew in the stones of the wall, and when I pulled myself over the top my hands found them. This was not an auspicious beginning to the business. Arthur must have found the nettles also. I heard him mutter a curse as we dropped to the other side of the wall.

The wheat stubble was wet and pliant under our feet. We made no sound crossing the field, and even the sheep, huddled together for the night near the center of the enclosure, paid us no attention.

When we first came upon the field I had seen that near the shed was a gate. I had decided to avoid it and its squealing hinges, and vault the wall, as we had done leaving the forest. But the thought of another encounter with nettles persuaded me to try the gate.

It was a crude affair, made of coppiced poles and fastened together with lengths of hempen cord. Such cords also formed rough hinges and, unlike iron, offered no protest when used to swing the gate open. I pushed against the gate, and Arthur followed through the opening and across an open space until a barn hid us from the shed and the manor house.

The house was perhaps twenty paces from where we stood. I could hear voices from within, and candlelight flickered from two of the windows, which were of glass. If the man standing beside the shed was allowed to raise an alarm, those in the house would surely hear. Whatever we did must be silent.

Perhaps a change of plans was in order. If I circled behind the second barn I could approach the shed and its guard from the direction of the house. If I made no effort to be silent or conceal my appearance the guard would turn his attention to me. Perhaps he would think his lord was making a last inspection of the prisoner in the hencoop before taking to his bed. While I approached Arthur might sneak up behind the guard, and seize him with a hand across his mouth. Then, with Arthur’s dagger at his throat, he might be persuaded to keep silence while I opened the shed to free Amice Thatcher and her children. If the fellow seemed unwilling to cooperate there would always be Arthur’s club to fall back on. If we could keep the fellow conscious he might be persuaded to answer some questions after I released Amice and the children.

I whispered the scheme to Arthur and he nodded agreement. The clouds had begun to clear, although there was no moon, and so by starlight I could faintly see Arthur glance regretfully at his cudgel. It might yet be put to use.

The toft was muddy from the day’s drizzle and I feared the guard might hear the ooze sucking at my feet while I crept around the second barn so as to approach him from the house.

I reached the house unnoticed and was halfway from the manor house to the shed when I saw the guard stand erect from where he had been leaning against the hencoop.

“That you, m’lord?” he said.

“Aye,” I lied. May the Lord Christ forgive me.

“Come to see all’s well with the maid?” the guard asked.

“The maid”? His words startled me. Amice Thatcher, attractive as the widow was, was no maiden, and was furnished with two children to prove it so.

There was little time, however, to consider the man’s words. I saw Arthur’s dark shadow creep from behind the barn as I approached the guard. I worried that there might be enough light that the guard would see that I was not the man he expected, so slowed my pace to be sure that Arthur would clap hands about the fellow’s throat and mouth before he might take alarm.

The guard was a small man, short and slight of form, and Arthur well suited for the task given him. He seized the fellow with one arm about his neck, a hand over his mouth, and lifted him, kicking wildly, into the air. I leaped forward, and together we flung the fellow face-first into the mud. I heard his muffled splutter through the muck and Arthur’s thick hand.

Chapter 9

“S
ilence!” I hissed. “Be silent and no harm will come to you.” Well, no harm but for a faceful of mud.

The guard did not immediately cease his struggle, but neither did he cry out, which, even with Arthur’s hand over his mouth, he might have done. When he lay still, or nearly so, I motioned to Arthur to turn his face from the mud, drew my dagger, and held it before his eyes.

“Remain silent and I will not use this against you,” I said.

The starlight was dim, there in the mud between the shed and barn, but what light there was gleamed from my blade. I knew the fellow could see it.

“You understand? Blink your eyes twice if you agree.”

The man blinked twice, and I told Arthur to free the guard’s mouth, yet otherwise keep him tightly restrained.

“You thought I was your lord,” I said. “Who is that?”

The guard made no reply, so I thrust my dagger before his eyes again and repeated the question.

“I’m not to say. Not where the lass can ’ear. She’s not to know who has her, nor where she is.”

I raised my dagger to his eyes again and tried to appear resolute.

“Rede,” he finally said. “Sir Philip Rede.”

“Who is in the hencoop? Who do you guard?”

“Dunno.”

I frowned and held forth my blade again. The fellow may not have seen my scowl, but he saw the dagger.

“Some maid is there,” he mumbled. “Dunno her name.”

“And you are to be sure she does not escape in the night?”

“Aye.”

“Hold your dagger to this knave’s throat while I see who is imprisoned here,” I directed Arthur. He drew his dagger from his belt and laid it across the guard’s neck. I saw the man wince, and his eyes widened as he felt the touch of the blade.

The shed door was fixed shut with a wooden plank dropped into slots on either side. It was a simple matter to lift the bar, set it aside, and swing the door open. The interior was as black as Sir Simon Trillowe’s heart. If a woman was there I could not see her.

“Come out,” I whispered. Had I known who was to emerge, I might have dropped the plank across the door and fled.

“Who is there?” a feminine voice whispered.

“’Tis Master Hugh.”

Silence followed, but after a few heartbeats the voice said, “Who?”

Amice Thatcher was not in this shed. Some other woman was imprisoned here. “I am Hugh de Singleton… come to release you. Make haste. We may soon be discovered.”

Who it was who was held in the shed I did not know, but no lass should be used so. I felt, rather than saw, the approach of the hencoop’s inhabitant. The door was low, and I backed away from it as a slender form bent to pass through the opening.

“Has my father sent you?” the lass asked.

“Nay. Who are you? Who is your father?”

“I am Sybil. Sybil Montagu. My father is Sir Henry. If my father has not sent you to free me, who did so?”

“Here is no place for conversation. We must be away before we are discovered. This fellow,” I pointed to the guard who yet lay in the mud, Arthur close upon him, “may soon be relieved by some other.”

“What’ll we do with ’im?” Arthur whispered.

“You may as well slay me,” the man whispered. “If you do not, Sir Philip will when he finds the maid gone.”

“What? For your incompetence you will die?”

“Aye. Just slit me throat with that dagger. I’ll not cry out.”

Arthur, his muscular forearm yet about the man’s neck, gazed at me with open mouth, to hear a man plead for death.

“Sir Philip’ll hang me, or have ’is lads beat me till I’d be better off dead.”

I thought on his words. I had no wish to cause a man’s death at the hands of a cruel lord.

“He’ll come with us, for now,” I said.

I had come to this manor seeking Amice Thatcher and found Sybil Montagu. I had not before heard of her or her father, and was loath to interrupt searching for Amice while I dealt with this new entanglement.

Sybil followed me to the gate, Arthur and the guard behind. We had no cord to bind him, so Arthur kept his left arm about the man’s neck, and with his right hand held his dagger against the fellow’s throat. He offered no resistance as we crossed the field of wet stubble, but not so the maid.

“Ow. Where do you lead?” she protested. “This field is wet. My feet are cold.”

“You would prefer to be dry in yon hencoop?”

When we reached the wall opposite the manor I considered the nettles, and felt tenderly along the stones until I found a place which seemed free of the stinging foliage.

It was not. I lifted Sybil to the top of the wall. She reached a hand to steady herself and found nettles I had missed. She yelped, cursed me for a dolt, and fell in a heap over the wall. I heard the guard chuckle.

“What yer laughin’ about?” Arthur demanded.

“Sir Philip got more than ’e wished for when ’e seized that one.”

“Help me up,” the lass commanded from over the wall. I clambered over, finding the nettle patch again, and assisted the maid to her feet.

The forest was dark and wet, and I wished to be gone from the place, but I also wished to know who Sybil Montagu was, and why Sir Philip Rede had seized her and confined her in a dilapidated hencoop.

“What means this,” she fumed, “tossing me over the wall?”

“I ask your pardon. ’Twas not my intent.”

“Now I am wet and cold,” she complained.

“As we all are,” Arthur said. “An’ muddy, also.” He had pushed the guard over the wall behind me, then scrambled over himself. I heard no curses from either man. They must have escaped the nettles.

“Why did Sir Philip Rede shut you in that hencoop?” I asked.

Sybil did not immediately reply, but the guard did. “’Cause ’e couldn’t stomach ’er in the house no longer.”

“You were a guest of Sir Philip’s?”

“Nay,” Sybil said. “Didn’t know his name till now, nor where I was. The scoundrel took me from my father’s manor and demands a ransom.”

“Ah… how much does he demand?”

“Fifty pounds.”

“Wouldn’t pay,” the guard said. “Sir Philip sent armed messengers to demand the ransom. Sir Henry told ’em he had two sons left, an’ the hammer an’ anvil to make more daughters.”

“They threatened to slay me if my father would not pay,” Sybil sniffed.

“Her tongue be so sharp, Sir Philip couldn’t abide ’er in the house no longer. Put ’er in the hencoop till ’e could decide what to do with ’er.”

“How long,” I asked, “have you been in the hencoop?”

“Three days. Now you must take me to my father.”

“Reckon ’e don’t want ’er either.” The guard was a voluble fellow when he thought himself free of his lord’s wrath, even so he yet had a dagger at his throat.

“You mind your tongue, knave!” Sybil snapped.

“Where is your father’s manor?”

“South Marston.”

When I did not respond Arthur said, “I know the place. ’Tis but a few miles from Swindon. Went there with Lord Gilbert once.”

“We’ll not travel that way this night. And ’tis no time for a maid to be upon the roads if it can be avoided. You’ll come with us to Abingdon and we’ll see tomorrow about returning you to your father.”

“I wish to go home now!” Sybil stamped her foot, but the effect was lost on the damp, leafy mold of the forest floor.

I was becoming vexed with this petulant damsel, and began to feel some sympathy for Sir Philip. She was a nuisance to him, and now to me.

“You will go where I tell you. I did not come to this place to free you from your captor. I had other business, which is now put out of joint because I must deal with you.”

“What’ll we do with this fellow?” Arthur asked. Arthur yet held his dagger close to the guard’s neck, and clasped the man’s right shoulder with his other hand. “If we release ’im he’ll likely raise the alarm to save himself from ’is lord’s wrath, an’ them as are in the manor house’ll be upon us before we’re halfway back to Abingdon.”

Similar thoughts had troubled me. “Sir Philip will be furious with you for allowing us to overcome you and make off with the lass?” I asked the guard.

“Aye, he will that,” he replied, and unconsciously rubbed his neck near where Arthur pressed the flat of his dagger.

“So if we release you, you will hasten to tell him what has happened so to deflect his rage, will you not?”

“Sir Philip’s ire don’t pass so easy as all that. Likely he’ll hang me.”

“So what is to be done with you?”

“I left the club back at the shed,” Arthur said. “I could find another, an’ swat ’im ’cross the head, gentle-like, just so’s to raise a welt. Then ’e could go back when ’e woke up an’ tell ’is lord ’twas the club next the shed what felled ’im. By the time ’e awoke an’ returned to the house we could be on the horses an’ near Abingdon.”