The priest shook his head. “No, you do not understand, I have a message, given to one of my parishioners this morning. It is for you. And I believe it is urgent.”
The priest paused and inhaled deeply as his breathing slowed. “It mentions the brigand Sheriff Camville is holding prisoner, and a boy. Perhaps the lad that one of the men-at-arms on the gate told me you are looking for.”
Bascot’s head snapped up and Ernulf spun around from where he was adjusting the girth on one of the horses. “What is the message?” Bascot said tersely.
“It is a written one. Here, on this piece of parchment.” The priest held out the soiled scrap of vellum to the Templar.
Bascot unrolled it. Only a few words were printed in the middle of the torn and jagged square, the writing ill formed and the ink thin and splodgy.
If you wants the boy alive bring Fulcher to the crossing by the oak at None. Come alone.
At the bottom was a rough sketch of a wolf’s head.
“Who gave this to you?” Bascot asked the priest.
“As I said, one of my parishioners-”
“A man known to you?” Bascot’s tone was sharp and short.
The priest nodded. “It was handed to him this morning as he entered the church for Mass. The man who entrusted it to him said it was to be given to one of the priests, and given quickly, as there was a life at stake. He made particular mention that the priest who received it was to be told that it was for the Templar monk who serves the sheriff of Lincoln. My parishioner naturally thought that someone was ill, maybe dying, perhaps one of your brethren. He brought it to me directly.”
The monk looked uncomfortable as he saw the anger building in Bascot’s face. “It was unsealed, Sir Bascot. I did not know its import when first I read it, but the message itself speaks of evil threats. I came as fast as I could.”
“What does it say?” Ernulf asked. Since the serjeant was not literate, Bascot read it out and showed him the drawing that had been added. His friend’s face hardened with an anger that matched his own.
“The man who gave this to your parishioner, what did he look like?” Ernulf barked at the priest.
“I do not know,” the priest admitted. “I was told he was a rough fellow who was standing by the door of the church. After I read the message, I went to look for him, but he was gone.”
“Where is this crossing, Ernulf?” Bascot asked the serjeant.
“Can only be the one where the Trent borders the sheriff’s chase. There is a slight curve in the river there, to the west. An easterly spur of Sherwood Forest comes down hard on the other side.”
Bascot strode to the door, looking up at the sky as he tried to put his thoughts in order. Rain had begun to fall, and the grey lowering clouds that had earlier hung in the sky like dirty pregnant sheep had coalesced into a solid mass the colour of old pewter. It was now late morning, None just a little more that two hours hence. An hour’s ride, even in such inclement weather, should bring them to the spot that the message had designated.
Bascot moved back inside the stables. Ernulf, the man-at-arms, the priest and a pair of grooms were all watching him. “Ask Sheriff Camville if I may see him directly, Ernulf, if you would, and also Lady Nicolaa. I will be in the hall directly.”
As the serjeant turned to go, Bascot moved as quickly as his leg, now aching from a night without rest and the activities of the morning, would allow, to where the chest that held his belongings stood. Inside, along with his own spare tunic and the only other pair of hose that Gianni owned, was his Templar surcoat. He laid it carefully on the pallet beside the chest before calling to one of the grooms to bring him his helm and shirt of mail from the armoury.
Twenty
Gianni looked cautiously around him. The camp to which he had been brought was quiet, the trees that encircled the clearing looming overhead in the early morning gloom like a great ill-fitting ceiling. Wisps of fog drifted eerily through the branches, the shapes flat as though a giant hand had pressed them. Sleeping bodies lay everywhere, some entwined together for warmth, others rolled into a foetal ball as though wishing never to leave their womb of sleep. In the middle of the clearing the remains of the fire that had been lit the night before barely smouldered, only tiny wisps of smoke reluctantly puffing as the embers underneath finally died.
The boy tried to see if there were any guards posted, but the darkness was too deep at the edge of the trees. Cautiously he stretched out his legs and, when his movement was not detected, he tested the security of the rope that bound his leg to the bole of a nearby tree.
He had been brought here the day before, after the captor that had scooped him up in the sheriff’s chase had run with him thrown over his back for what seemed to Gianni like a long distance. Then, after being bundled into a boat and ferried a short way on water, he had been foisted up again on the shoulder of the man and carried through trees whose branches had slapped at his back and shoulders before he was dumped roughly on the ground and the sack that had covered his head removed.
The clearing had been brighter then, with the fire burning energetically from well-seasoned wood that emitted little smoke. Over the flames a carcass of a deer had been roasting, the fat sizzling as it dripped into the fire, sending off a delicious aroma that caused Gianni’s already churning stomach to push bile up into his throat. There had been a lot of people in the clearing, mostly men, but a few women also, all roughly dressed and dirty. Little notice was taken of his arrival until the man that had captured him, and still held him by the arm, dragged him through the press towards another man who sat up higher than the rest, on a rough chair carved from wood and decorated with garlands of ivy.
“This is the Templar’s servant,” his captor said to the man, and Gianni at last looked up and saw that the person who had taken him from the forest was one he had seen before, the day he had gone to the village with his master. It was Edward, the reeve’s nephew. “Strolling through the woods all by himself, he was. I thought as how he might be of some use to you, Jack. Perhaps get a bit of silver if that Templar monk wants him back bad enough to pay for his return or, if not, maybe to use as a servant for yourself.”
The man in the chair had looked down at the prize he had been brought. He was not a big man, but his appearance caused Gianni to feel a frisson of fear. Like the chair, his person was decorated with stems of ivy, most of the leaves brown and curling. The vines were wound around his arms, threaded through his belt, and a circle of them was woven into the pointed cap he wore on his head. His face, like most of the other men who had started to crowd around, was bearded, his a thick dense thatch of a dark golden colour that curled tight to his jaw and down his neck until it disappeared beneath the ragged collar of the scarred leather jerkin he wore. From beneath eyebrows that were as scant as his beard was thick, eyes of dark hazel looked at Gianni, the intense stare reminding the boy of one of the hawks in the mews at Lincoln castle when it was inspecting a gobbet of meat offered by the falconer.
“The Templar’s servant, you say, Edward?” the man called Jack said. His voice was quiet, but there was menace in it.
“That’s right, Jack. I thought him a right good catch to bring you.” Edward’s voice was puffed up with pride in his accomplishment.
Jack leaned back, his hand resting on the thick oak staff that leaned against the arm of his chair. For a long moment he stared at Edward, and the silence grew in the clearing as he did so. Gianni could sense fear begin to grow in the man beside him, evidenced in the nervous twitch of Edward’s fingers where they gripped his arm.