It wasn’t Jack’s. In that first moment, that was all I could take in.
Jack had turned the assailant on to his belly, the face pressed into the earth, and he was tying the man’s wrists behind his back with a leather thong.
‘I punched him and knocked him out,’ Jack panted, ‘but he’s not hurt otherwise.’
I stared down at the still form. I noticed that my hands were empty, and that a pool of blood was welling up in the middle of the man’s back, staining the cloth of his tunic. In the centre of the red patch, the handle of my knife stuck up.
‘Yes, he is,’ I said softly.
I began to shake, covering my face with my hands. Jack gave an exclamation, and I heard the sound of ripping material. Then he said, ‘Lassair, you need to look at this.’
‘I can’t!’ I whispered. ‘Oh, God, what have I done?’
Then Jack was beside me, holding me by the shoulders. ‘He just threw a knife at us,’ he said harshly. ‘You acted in self-defence and to protect me. That is no crime. Now, tend his wound.’
I did as he told me.
When I pulled out my blade, the blood flowed so fast that I was afraid the man would die. Then I became purely a healer, instructing Jack where to apply pressure while I prepared a length of gut, and then how to hold the man still while I closed the wound. He was coming round, and screaming in agony.
‘Untie his wrists,’ I said to Jack.
‘No.’ He sounded implacably stern; quite unlike the man I was starting to know. ‘He threw a knife at us, Lassair. He’s dangerous and skilful – had you not pulled me down, one of us would now be dead.’
He was right.
Jack turned the man over and forced him to sit up. Then he slapped his face once, hard. ‘Why did you drown her?’ he demanded. ‘Did someone order you not to leave any witnesses alive?’
The man stared up at him, his face full of hate. He spat out a mouthful of bloody spittle, then said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Jack gave him a shake. ‘You’ve been following us. You tried to kill us. You won’t leave here alive unless you tell me why.’
Suddenly I heard something. ‘Jack, there’s someone else out there,’ I said urgently.
Jack shoved the man back down on the ground and got to his feet. Swiftly he pushed his way through the undergrowth on the far side from where we’d entered the thicket, and through the tangle of branches I saw him circle round. I guessed he was going to jump whoever was out there from behind.
I waited.
Then Jack came crashing back, pushing before him a tall shaven-headed man with dark close-set eyes. I’d seen him before, but in that moment of fear and danger, I couldn’t place him.
But Jack knew exactly who he was. He had twisted the bald man’s arms behind his back, and from the expression on the man’s face, he was causing considerable pain.
‘So you thought to take your chance while I was out in the wilds, did you?’ Jack said with icy fury. He wrenched the man’s arms again, and he suppressed a cry. ‘You sent your killer to throw his knife and pin me to a tree in the depths of the fens, where nobody would find me?’ Another wrench and this time the bald man yelled in pain. ‘I should kill you right now, and the dregs you paid to do your work for you.’ He gave the wounded man at his feet a savage kick.
‘Jack,’ I said warningly.
He’d forgotten I was there. Now, he turned his head fractionally to look at me. ‘Don’t waste your pity on the likes of these two,’ he said coldly. ‘One of them is a hired murderer -’ he kicked the wounded man again – ‘and the other -’ he twisted the bald man’s arms so violently that he was lifted off his feet, his mouth wide in a silent scream of agony – ‘is Gaspard Picot.’
Picot … Then I knew who the bald man was: the sheriff’s nephew. He’d argued with Jack as we were leaving Cambridge with the veiled lady.
A lifetime ago.
The silence extended, broken only by Gaspard Picot’s ragged breathing and the harsh panting of the man on the ground. I said, ‘Are you going to kill them?’
With an exclamation of disgust, Jack extracted another length of leather from inside his tunic and bound the bald man’s hands behind him. Then he kicked his legs from under him, so that he collapsed against the man he’d hired to kill for him.
‘No,’ he said shortly.
Then he strode out from the thicket, waded back across the stream and, gathering the grey’s reins, mounted. I hurried after him, struggling to get on to Isis’s back and kicking her into a canter; Jack had already ridden away.
I caught him up. ‘You’re not – surely you’re not just going to leave them there?’ He said nothing. ‘Jack, they could die!’
He turned to me, his eyes alive with fury. ‘That’d be two less enemies, then.’
I didn’t know how to respond. I was out of my depth, for Jack was dealing with something with which I had no experience.
I reined Isis back, slipped in behind Jack’s grey and we rode back to Aelf Fen.
SIXTEEN
Rollo enjoyed being on board Gullinbursti. The weather was fine and sunny, and a good store of provisions had been laid in before leaving Miklagard. The crew did not stint themselves when water and food rations were handed round.
Rollo understood why Skuli had needed another crewman. The ship had been designed for twenty-four oarsmen, twelve on each side. The rigours of the outward journey had led to the loss of three men, leaving twenty-one; an odd number. Now the eleven pairs rowed with two empty places, but Skuli, impassive at the tiller, seemed content.
The voyage south-west across the Sea of Marmara was not taxing. The water remained calm, and, for much of the time, the wind blew from the north, enabling the use of sail. The crew, aware that Rollo was convalescing, did not push him. At times when they were required to row, however, he was determined to show himself ready to labour as hard as any of them. For a couple of hours during the first day of sailing, he sat at his oar, watching, learning and putting his new skill into practice. It had been the right thing to do; having shown that he was willing to work, and did not intend to play on the fact that he was recovering from injury, the crew responded by treating him with consideration.
He discovered that he could converse with them readily enough. Brought up in an environment where many tongues were spoken, he had developed early on an ability with languages. The speech of his new companions resembled the tongue in which he conversed with Lassair and her countrymen. Rollo began to learn his fellow crewmen’s names: Eric, big and brawny, the ready laugh and the beer belly that spread out over his wide leather belt disguising the fact that he was as hard as iron; Tostig, tall and wiry, who sang to himself as he worked; Hakon, who loved to observe the seabirds and the fish, and who stared into the night sky seeking patterns and portents; the brothers Torben and Anders, who spoke almost exclusively to each other.
They tied up early that first day. They had set out at dawn, and everyone was ready to rest. They had stayed close to the northern shore, and now, as the afternoon shadows grew long, the master directed them to a stretch of pebbly beach, backed by grassland and a band of pine trees. There was no sign of any village, hamlet or even an isolated habitation.
Gullinbursti was hauled up the beach, and, once secured to the master’s satisfaction, the crew could relax. Rollo, hot and soaked with sweat, watched as, to a man, they stripped off to their bare skins and plunged into the water. They called out to him, encouraging him to join them. He didn’t need to be asked twice.
As night fell, the master and his crew gathered round the fire that had been lit within a circle of stones, both fuel and hearth stones scavenged from the shore. The red-faced man named Brand, the ship’s cook, was busy over an iron pot that bubbled over the flames, and, looking inside, Rollo could make out chunks of salt fish and vegetables; the latter were undoubtedly fresh, since the ship had so recently been in port. He was filled with admiration for the crew’s efficiency. There they were, on an unknown beach hundreds of miles from home and the men’s known world, yet the well-practised routine meant that within a very short space of time, they were sitting round a fire with hot food to eat and a mug of good, heartening drink to hand.