Epic Historial Collection (9 page)

And there were only two gates.

“He'll probably go back the way he came,” Tom said to Agnes. “I'll wait outside the east gate. Let Alfred watch the west gate. You stay in the town and see what the thief does. Keep Martha with you, but don't let him see her. If you need to send a message to me or Alfred, use Martha.”

“Right,” Agnes said tersely.

Alfred said: “What should I do if he comes out my way?” He sounded excited.

“Nothing,” Tom said firmly. “Watch which road he takes, then wait. Martha will fetch me, and we'll overtake him together.” Alfred looked disappointed, and Tom said: “You do as I say. I don't want to lose my son as well as my pig.”

Alfred nodded reluctant assent.

“Let's break up, before he notices us huddling together and plotting. Go.”

Tom left them immediately, not looking back. He could rely on Agnes to carry out the plan. He hurried to the east gate and left the town, crossing the rickety wooden bridge over which he had pushed the ox cart that morning. Directly ahead of him was the Winchester road, going east, dead straight, like a long carpet unrolled over the hills and valleys. To his left, the road by which Tom—and presumably the thief—had come to Salisbury, the Portway, curled up over a hill and disappeared. The thief would almost certainly take the Portway.

Tom went down the hill and through the cluster of houses at the crossroads, then turned onto the Portway. He needed to hide himself. He walked along the road looking for a suitable spot. He went two hundred yards without finding anything. Looking back, he realized that this was too far: he could no longer see the faces of people at the crossroads, so that he would not know if the man with no lips came along and took the Winchester road. He scanned the landscape again. The road was bordered on either side by ditches, which might have offered concealement in dry weather, but today were running with water. Beyond each ditch the land rose in a hump. In the field on the south side of the road a few cows were grazing the stubble. Tom noticed that one of the cows was lying down at the raised edge of the field, overlooking the road, partly concealed by the hump. With a sigh, he retraced his steps. He jumped the ditch and kicked the cow. It got up and went away. Tom lay down in the warm, dry patch it had left. He pulled his hood over his face and settled to wait, wishing he had had the foresight to buy some bread before leaving the town.

He was anxious and a little scared. The outlaw was a smaller man, but he was fast-moving and vicious, as he had shown when he clubbed Martha and stole the pig. Tom was a little afraid of being hurt but much more worried that he might not get his money.

He hoped Agnes and Martha were all right. Agnes could look after herself, he knew; and even if the outlaw spotted her, what could the man do? He would just be on his guard, that was all.

From where he lay Tom could see the towers of the cathedral. He wished he had had a moment to look inside. He was curious about the treatment of the piers of the arcade. These were usually fat pillars, each with arches sprouting from its top: two arches going north and south, to connect with the neighboring pillars in the arcade; and one going east or west, across the side aisle. It was an ugly effect, for there was something not quite right about an arch that sprang from the top of a round column. When Tom built his cathedral each pier would be a cluster of shafts, with an arch springing from the top of each shaft—an elegantly logical arrangement.

He began to visualize the decoration of the arches. Geometric shapes were the commonest forms—it did not take much skill to carve zigzags and lozenges—but Tom liked foliage, which lent softness and a touch of nature to the hard regularity of the stones.

The imaginary cathedral occupied his mind until midafternoon, when he saw the slight figure and blond head of Martha come skipping across the bridge and through the houses. She hesitated at the crossing, then picked the right road. Tom watched her walk toward him, seeing her frown as she began to wonder where he could be. As she drew level with him he called her softly. “Martha.”

She gave a little squeal, then saw him and ran to him, jumping over the ditch. “Mummy sent you this,” she said, and took something from inside her cloak.

It was a hot meat pie. “By the cross, your mother's a good woman!” said Tom, and took a mammoth bite. It was made with beef and onions, and it tasted heavenly.

Martha squatted beside Tom on the grass. “This is what happened to the man who stole our pig,” she said. She screwed up her nose and concentrated on remembering what she had been told to say. She was so sweet that she took Tom's breath away. “He came out of the cookshop and met a lady with a painted face, and went to her house. We waited outside.”

While the outlaw spent our money on a whore, Tom thought bitterly. “Go on.”

“He was not long in the lady's house, and when he came out he went to an alehouse. He's there now. He doesn't drink much but he plays at dice.”

“I hope he wins,” Tom said grimly. “Is that it?”

“That's all.”

“Are you hungry?”

“I had a bun.”

“Have you told Alfred all this?”

“Not yet. I'm to go to him next.”

“Tell him he must try to stay dry.”

“Try to stay dry,” she repeated. “Shall I say that before or after telling him about the man who stole our pig?”

It did not matter, of course. “After,” Tom said, as she wanted a definite answer. He smiled at her. “You're a clever girl. Off you go.”

“I like this game,” she said. She waved and left, her girlish legs twinkling as she jumped the ditch daintily and ran back toward the town. Tom watched her with love and anger in his heart. He and Agnes had worked hard to get money to feed their children, and he was ready to kill to get back what had been stolen from them.

Perhaps the outlaw would be ready to kill, too. Outlaws were outside the law, as the name implied: they lived in unconstrained violence. This might not be the first time Faramond Openmouth had come up against one of his victims. He was nothing if not dangerous.

The daylight began to fade surprisingly early, as it sometimes did on wet autumn afternoons. Tom started to worry whether he would recognize the thief in the rain. As evening closed in, the traffic to and from the town thinned out, for most visitors had left in time to reach their home villages by nightfall. The lights of candles and lanterns began to flicker in the higher houses of the town and in the suburban hovels. Tom wondered pessimistically if the thief might stay overnight after all. Perhaps he had dishonest friends in the town who would put him up even though they knew he was an outlaw. Perhaps—

Then Tom saw a man with a scarf across his mouth.

He was walking across the wooden bridge close to two other men. It suddenly occurred to Tom that the thief's two accomplices, the bald one and the man in the green hat, might have come to Salisbury with him. Tom had not seen either of them in the town but the three might have separated for a while and then joined up again for the return journey. Tom cursed under his breath: he did not think he could fight three men. But as they came closer the group separated, and Tom realized with relief that they were not together after all.

The first two were father and son, two peasants with dark, close-set eyes and hooked noses. They took the Portway, and the man with the scarf followed.

He studied the thief's gait as he came closer. He appeared sober. That was a pity.

Glancing back to the town he saw a woman and a girl emerge onto the bridge: Agnes and Martha. He was dismayed. He had not envisaged their being present when he confronted the thief. However, he realized that he had given no instructions to the contrary.

He tensed as they all came up the road toward him. Tom was so big that most people gave in to him in a confrontation; but outlaws were desperate, and there was no telling what might happen in a fight.

The two peasants went by, mildly merry, talking about horses. Tom took his iron-headed hammer from his belt and hefted it in his right hand. He hated thieves, who did no work but took the bread from good people. He would have no qualms about hitting this one with a hammer.

The thief seemed to slow down as he came near, almost as if he sensed danger. Tom waited until he was four or five yards away—too near to run back, too far to run past. Then Tom rolled over the bank, sprang across the ditch, and stood in his way.

The man stopped dead and stared at him. “What's this?” he said nervously.

He doesn't recognize me, Tom thought. He said: “You stole my pig yesterday and sold it to a butcher today.”

“I never—”

“Don't deny it,” Tom said. “Just give me the money you got for it, and I won't hurt you.”

For a moment he thought the thief was going to do just that. He felt a sense of anticlimax as the man hesitated. Then the thief turned on his heel and ran—straight into Agnes.

He was not traveling fast enough to knock her over—and she was a woman who took a lot of knocking over—and the two of them staggered from side to side for a moment in a clumsy dance. Then he realized she was deliberately obstructing him, and he pushed her aside. She stuck out her leg as he went past her. Her foot got between his knees and both of them fell down.

Tom's heart was in his mouth as he raced to her side. The thief was getting up with one knee on her back. Tom grabbed his collar and yanked him off her. He hauled him to the side of the road before he could regain his balance, then threw him into the ditch.

Agnes stood up. Martha ran to her. Tom said rapidly: “All right?”

“Yes,” Agnes answered.

The two peasants had stopped and turned around, and they were staring at the scene, wondering what was going on. The thief was on his knees in the ditch. “He's an outlaw,” Agnes called out to them, to discourage them from interfering. “He stole our pig.” The peasants made no reply, but waited to see what would happen next.

Tom spoke to the thief again. “Give me my money and I'll let you go.”

The man came up out of the ditch with a knife in his hand, fast as a rat, and went for Tom's throat. Agnes screamed. Tom dodged. The knife flashed across his face and he felt a burning pain along his jaw.

He stepped back and swung his hammer as the knife flashed again. The thief jumped back, and both knife and hammer swished through the damp evening air without connecting.

For an instant the two men stood still, facing one another, breathing hard. Tom's cheek hurt. He realized they were evenly matched, for although Tom was bigger, the thief had a knife, which was a deadlier weapon than a mason's hammer. He felt the cold grasp of fear as he realized he might be about to die. He suddenly felt he could not breathe.

From the corner of his eye he saw a sudden movement. The thief saw it too, and darted a glance at Agnes, then ducked his head as a stone came flying at him from her hand.

Tom reacted with the speed of a man in fear of his life, and swung his hammer at the thief's bent head.

It connected just as the man was looking up again. The iron hammer struck his forehead at the hairline. It was a hasty blow, and did not have all of Tom's considerable strength behind it. The thief staggered but did not fall.

Tom hit him again.

This blow was harder. He had time to lift the hammer above his head and aim it, as the dazed thief tried to focus his eyes. Tom thought of Martha as he swung the hammer down. It struck with all his force, and the thief fell to the ground like a dropped doll.

Tom was wound up too tightly to feel any relief. He knelt beside the thief, searching him. “Where's his purse? Where's his purse, damnation!” The limp body was difficult to move. Finally Tom laid him flat on his back and opened his cloak. There was a big leather purse hanging from his belt. Tom undid its clasp. Inside was a soft wool bag with a drawstring. Tom pulled it out. It was light. “Empty!” Tom said. “He must have another.”

He pulled the cloak from under the man and carefully felt it all over. There were no concealed pockets, no hard parts. He pulled off the boots. There was nothing inside them. He drew his eating knife from his belt and slit the soles: nothing.

Impatiently, he slipped his knife inside the neck of the thief's woolen tunic and ripped it to the hem. There was no hidden money belt.

The thief lay in the middle of the mud road, naked but for his stockings. The two peasants were staring at Tom as if he were mad. Furiously, Tom said to Agnes: “He hasn't any money!”

“He must have lost it all at dice,” she said bitterly.

“I hope he burns in the fires of hell,” Tom said.

Agnes knelt down and felt the thief's chest. “That's where he is now,” she said. “You've killed him.”

IV

By Christmas they were starving.

The winter came early, and it was as cold and hard and unyielding as a stonemason's iron chisel. There were still apples on the trees when the first frost dusted the fields. People called it a cold snap, thinking it would be brief, but it was not. Villages that left the autumn plowing a little late broke their plowshares on the rock-hard earth. The peasants hastened to kill their pigs and salt them for the winter, and the lords slaughtered their cattle, because winter grazing would not support the same number of livestock as summer. But the endless freeze withered the grass, and some of the remaining animals died anyway. Wolves became desperate, and came into villages at dusk to snatch away scraggy chickens and listless children.