Epic Historial Collection (138 page)

He roared with pain and collapsed on top of the girl. His face banged against hers. Suddenly he could hear men shouting, lots of them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Walter fall as if he, too, had been clubbed. The knights released their hold on Maggie. William looked at her face and read shock and relief there. She started to wriggle out from under him. He let her go and rolled away fast.

The first thing he saw above him was a wild-looking man with a woodsman's ax, and he thought: For God's sake, who is it? The father of the girl? He saw Guillaume rise and turn, and in the next instant the ax came down hard on Guillaume's unprotected neck, its sharp blade cutting deep into his flesh. Guillaume fell on William, dead. His blood spurted all over William's tunic.

William pushed the corpse off him. When he was able to look up again he saw that the mill had been invaded by a crowd of ragged, wild-haired, unwashed men armed with clubs and axes. There were a lot of them. He realized he was in trouble. Had the villagers come to the rescue of Maggie? How dare they! There would be some hangings in this village before the end of the day. Enraged, he scrambled to his feet and reached for his sword.

He did not have it. He had dropped his belt in order to rape the girl.

Hugh Axe, Ugly Gervase and Louis were fighting fiercely against what looked like a huge mob of beggars. There were several dead peasants on the ground, but nevertheless the three knights were slowly being driven back across the threshing floor. William saw the naked Maggie, still screaming, forcing her way frantically through the melee toward the door, and even in his confusion and fear he felt a spasm of regretful desire for that round white backside. Then he saw that Wulfric was fighting hand to hand with some of the attackers. Why was the miller fighting the men who had rescued his wife? What the devil was going on?

Bewildered, William looked around for his sword belt. It was lying on the floor almost at his feet. He picked it up and drew the sword, then took three steps back to stay clear of the fighting a moment longer. Looking past the fracas, he saw that most of the attackers were not fighting at all—they were picking up sacks of flour and running out with them. William began to understand. This was
not
a rescue operation by outraged villagers. This was a raiding party from outside. They were not interested in Maggie, and they had not known that William and his knights were inside the mill. All they wanted to do was rob the mill and steal William's flour.

It was obvious who the raiders must be: outlaws.

He felt a surge of heat. This was his chance to strike back at the rabid pack who had been terrorizing the county and emptying his barns.

His knights were overwhelmingly outnumbered. There were at least twenty attackers. William was astonished at the courage of the outlaws. Peasants would normally scatter like chickens before a band of knights, whether they outnumbered the knights by two to one or ten to one. But these people fought hard, and were not discouraged when one of their number fell. They seemed ready to die if necessary. Perhaps that was because they were going to die anyway, of starvation, unless they could steal this flour.

Louis was fighting two men at the same time when a third came up behind him and clubbed him with an ironheaded carpenter's hammer. Louis fell down and stayed down. The man dropped the hammer and picked up Louis's sword. Now there were two knights against twenty outlaws. But Walter was recovering from the blow to his head, and he now drew his sword and entered the melee. William raised his weapon and joined in.

The four of them made a formidable fighting team. The outlaws were driven back, desperately parrying the flashing swords with their clubs and axes. William began to think their morale might crack and they might flee in disorder. Then one of them shouted: “The rightful earl!”

It was some kind of rallying cry. Others took it up, and the outlaws fought more fiercely. The repeated cry, “The rightful earl—the rightful earl!,” struck a chill into William's heart even as he was fighting for his life. It meant that whoever was commanding this army of outlaws had set his sights on William's title. William fought harder, as if this skirmish might determine the future of the earldom.

Only half the outlaws were actually fighting the knights, William realized. The rest were moving the flour. The combat settled into a steady exchange of thrust and parry, swipe and dodge. Like soldiers who know that the retreat must be sounded soon, the outlaws had begun to fight in a cautious, defensive style.

Behind the fighting outlaws, the others were carrying the last of the flour sacks out of the mill. The outlaws began to retreat, backing through the doorway that led from the threshing floor into the house. William realized that whatever happened now, the outlaws had got away with most of the flour. In no time at all the whole county would know that they had stolen it from under his nose. He was going to be a laughingstock. The thought enraged him so much that he pressed a fierce attack on his opponent and stabbed the man through the heart with a classic thrust.

Then an outlaw caught Hugh with a lucky jab and stabbed his right shoulder, putting him out of action. Now there were two outlaws in the doorway holding off the three surviving knights. That in itself was humiliating enough; but then, with monumental arrogance, one of the outlaws waved the other away. The man disappeared, and the last outlaw stepped back a pace, into the single room of the miller's house.

Only one of the knights could stand in the doorway and fight the outlaw. William pushed forward, shouldering Walter and Gervase aside: he wanted this man for himself. As then swords clashed, William realized immediately that this man was no dispossessed peasant: he was a hardened fighting man like William himself. For the first time he looked into the outlaw's face; and the shock was so great he almost dropped his sword.

His opponent was Richard of Kingsbridge.

Richard's face blazed with hatred. William could see the scar on his mutilated ear. The force of Richard's rancor frightened William more than his flashing sword. William had thought he had crushed Richard finally, but now Richard was back, at the head of a ragamuffin army that had made a fool of William.

Richard came at William hard, taking advantage of his momentary shock. William sidestepped a thrust, raised his sword, parried a slash and stepped back. Richard pressed forward, but now William was partly shielded by the doorway, which restricted Richard's attack to stabbing strokes. Nevertheless Richard drove William farther back, until William was on the threshing floor of the mill and Richard was in the doorway. Now, however, Walter and Gervase went at Richard. Under pressure from the three of them he retreated again. As soon as he backed through the doorway, Walter and Gervase were squeezed out, and it was William against Richard.

William realized that Richard was in a nasty position. As soon as he gained ground he found himself fighting three men. When William tired he could give place to Walter. It was almost impossible for Richard to hold all three of them off indefinitely. He was fighting a losing battle. Perhaps today would not end in humiliation for William after all. Perhaps he would kill his oldest enemy.

Richard must have been thinking along the same lines and presumably he had come to the same conclusion. However, there was no apparent loss of energy or determination. He looked at William with a savage grin that William found unnerving, and leaped forward with a long thrust. William dodged it and stumbled. Walter lunged forward to defend William from the coup de grâce—but instead of coming on, Richard turned on his heel and fled.

William stood up and Walter bumped into him, while Gervase tried to squeeze past them. It took a moment for the three to disentangle themselves, but in that moment Richard crossed the little room, slipped out and banged the door shut. William went after him and threw the door open. The outlaws were making their escape—and, in a final humiliating stroke, they were riding off on the horses of William's knights. As William burst out of the house he saw his own mount, a superb war-horse that had cost him a king's ransom, with Richard in the saddle. The horse had obviously been untied and held ready. William was struck by the mortifying thought that this was the second time Richard had stolen his war-horse. Richard kicked its sides, and it reared up—it was not kind to strangers—but Richard was a good horseman and he stayed on. He sawed on the reins and got the horse's head down. In that moment William darted forward and lunged at Richard with his sword; but the horse was bucking, and William missed, sticking the point of his blade into the wood of the saddle. Then the horse took off, bolting down the village street after the other fleeing outlaws.

William watched them go with murder in his heart.

The rightful earl, he thought. The rightful earl.

He turned around. Walter and Gervase stood behind him. Hugh and Louis were wounded, he did not know how badly, and Guillaume was dead, his blood all over the front of William's tunic. William was completely humiliated. He could hardly hold up his head.

Fortunately the village was deserted: the peasants had fled, not waiting to see William's wrath. The miller and his wife had also vanished, of course. The outlaws had taken all the knights' horses, leaving only the two carts and their oxen.

William looked at Walter. “Did you see who that was, that last one?”

“Yes.”

Walter was in the habit of using as few words as possible when his master was in a rage.

William said: “It was Richard of Kingsbridge.”

Walter nodded.

“And they called him the rightful earl,” William finished.

Walter said nothing.

William went back through the house and into the mill.

Hugh was sitting up, his left hand pressed to his right shoulder. He looked pale.

William said: “How does it feel?”

“This is nothing,” Hugh said. “Who
were
those people?”

“Outlaws,” William said shortly. He looked around. There were seven or eight outlaws lying dead or wounded on the floor. He spotted Louis flat on his back with his eyes open. At first he thought the man was dead; then Louis blinked.

William said: “Louis.”

Louis raised his head, but he looked confused. He had not yet recovered.

William said: “Hugh, help Louis into one of the carts. Walter, put Guillaume's body into the other.” He left them to it and went outside.

None of the villagers would have horses, but the miller did, a dappled cob grazing the sparse grass on the riverbank. William found the miller's saddle and put it on the cob.

A little while later he rode away from Cowford with Walter and Gervase driving the ox carts.

His fury did not abate on the journey to Bishop Waleran's castle. In fact, as he brooded over what he had learned he got angrier. It was bad enough that the outlaws had been able to defy him; it was worse that they were led by his old enemy Richard; and it was intolerable that they should call Richard the rightful earl. If they were not put down decisively, very soon Richard would use them to launch a direct attack on William. It would be totally illegal for Richard to take over the earldom that way, of course; but William had a feeling that complaints of illegal attack, coming from him, might not get a sympathetic hearing. The fact that William had been ambushed, overcome by outlaws, and robbed, and that the whole county would shortly be laughing at his humiliation, was not the worst of his problems. Suddenly his hold over his earldom was seriously threatened.

He had to kill Richard, of course. The question was how to find him. He brooded over the problem all the way to the castle; and by the time he arrived he had figured out that Bishop Waleran probably held the key.

They rode into Waleran's castle like a comic procession at a fair, the earl on a dappled cob and his knights driving ox carts. William roared peremptory orders at the bishop's men, sending one to fetch an infirmarer for Hugh and Louis and another to get a priest to pray for the soul of Guillaume. Gervase and Walter went to the kitchen for beer, and William entered the keep and was admitted to Waleran's private quarters. William hated to have to ask Waleran for anything, but he needed Waleran's help in locating Richard.

The bishop was reading an accounts roll, an endless list of numbers. He looked up and saw the rage on William's face. “What happened?” he said, in a tone of mild amusement that always infuriated William.

William gritted his teeth. “I've discovered who is organizing and leading these damned outlaws.”

Waleran raised an eyebrow.

“It's Richard of Kingsbridge.”

“Ah.” Waleran nodded understanding. “Of course. It makes sense.”

“It makes danger,” William said angrily. He hated it when Waleran was cool and reflective about things. “They call him ‘the rightful earl.'” He pointed a finger at Waleran. “You certainly don't want that family back in charge of this earldom—they hate you, and they're friends with Prior Philip, your old enemy.”

“All right, calm down,” Waleran said condescendingly. “You're quite right, I can't have Richard of Kingsbridge taking over the earldom.”

William sat down. His body was beginning to ache. These days he felt the aftereffects of a fight in a way he never used to. He had strained muscles, sore hands, and bruises where he had been struck or had fallen. I'm only thirty-seven, he thought; is this when old age begins? He said: “I have to kill Richard. Once he's gone, the outlaws will degenerate into a helpless rabble.”