‘Where’s Jack Cade?’ he wheezed at them.
‘In your pond,’ Ecclestone replied. ‘He saved you, your honour. And he caught your sons and kept his word. And it won’t matter a damn, will it? You’ll send your bailiffs and we’ll all be taken and have our heads on a spike.’
The burning house still huffed and spat, but they all heard the noise of hooves on the road, drifting to them on the night air. Alwyn Judgment heard it at the same time as Jack Cade heaved himself out of the pond with a moaning sound that carried almost as far.
‘Take the boys away, Paddy,’ Rob Ecclestone said suddenly. ‘Take them towards the road and leave them there for his men to find.’
‘We should run now, Rob. Only chance is to run like buggery.’
Ecclestone turned to his old friend and shook his head.
‘Just take them away.’
The big Irishman chose not to argue with that look. He gathered them all up, taking the oldest by the scruff of the neck when he began to struggle and shout. Paddy cuffed him hard to keep him silent and half-carried, half-dragged them away across the garden.
The magistrate watched him uneasily.
‘I could promise to let you go,’ he said.
Ecclestone shook his head, his eyes glittering in the light of the flames.
‘I wouldn’t believe a word, your honour. I’ve met too many of you, you see? My mates and me will hang anyway, so I might as well do some good first.’
Alwyn Judgment was opening his mouth to reply when Ecclestone stepped forward with a razor held just right in his hand. With one slash, he opened a gushing line in the man’s throat and waited only a heartbeat to be sure before he walked away.
Jack Cade was staggering across the garden when he saw his friend kill the magistrate. He tried to shout, but his throat was so raw and swollen that only a hiss of breath came out. Ecclestone reached him then and Jack was able to rest some of his sodden weight on the man as they headed away from the burning house.
‘Paddy?’ Jack grunted at him, shivering.
‘He’ll find his own way, Jack; don’t worry about that big sod. He’s almost as hard to kill as you are. God, Jack! I thought you were finished then.’
‘So … did I …’ Jack Cade groaned at him. ‘Glad … you killed him. Good man.’
‘I am not a good man, Jack, as you well know. But I am an angry one. He should not’ve taken your boy and he’s paid for it. Where to now?’
Jack Cade heaved in a great, constricted breath to give his answer.
‘Hangman’s … house. Going to set it … on fire.’
The two men staggered and stumbled their way into the darkness, leaving the burning house and the dead magistrate behind.
The morning was cold and grey, with a light drizzle that did nothing to wash the oily soot from their hands. As the three men came back to town, Jack would have walked right into the crowd gathered in the town square. It took Paddy’s big hand pushing him against a wall to stop him.
‘There’ll be bailiffs in that crowd, Jack, looking for you. I have a coin or two. We’ll find an inn or a stable and wait out this meeting, whatever it is. You can come back when it’s dark again, to cut your boy down.’
The man who looked back at him had sobered up somewhere during the long night. Jack’s skin was swollen pink and his eyes were deeply bloodshot around the blue. His black hair had crisped and gone light brown in patches, while his clothes were in such a state of filth that even a beggar would have thought twice before trying them.
He still wheezed a little as he took a breath and rolled his shoulders. He removed the hand from his chest almost gently.
‘Listen to me close, Paddy. I’ve got nothing now, understand? They took my boy. It’s in my mind to cut him down and put him safe in the ground up at the church. If they raise a hand to me, I’ll make them regret it. I ha’n’t got nothing else, but I’d like to do that last thing this morning before I fall down. If you don’t like it, you know what you can do, don’t you?’
They glared at each other and Ecclestone cleared his throat loudly to interrupt them.
‘I reckon I saved your life getting you away last night,’ Ecclestone said, rubbing his eyes and yawning. ‘I don’t know how you’re still standing, Jack old son. Either way, that means you owe me, so come and sink a pint, then sleep. There are stables nearby and I know the head lad. He’ll turn a blind eye for a bent penny; he’s done it before. We’ve no business walking into a crowd that have probably gathered to talk about the houses on fire last night. I don’t want to state the bleeding obvious, Jack, but you stink of smoke. We all do. You might as well hang yourself now and save them the trouble.’
‘I didn’t ask you to come with me, did I?’ Jack grumbled back.
His gaze searched past them, out of the alleyway to the light of the square. The crowd were noisy and there were enough people to hide the body creaking on the rope. Even so, Jack could see it. He could see every detail of the face he had raised, the boy who’d run from the bailiffs with him a hundred times, with pheasants hidden in their coats.
‘No. No, it won’t do, Rob. You stay here if you want, but I have my knife and I’m cutting him down.’
He stuck out his jaw, his red eyes gleaming like the woken devil. Slowly Jack Cade raised one meaty fist, a great hairy lump that had all the knuckles pushed in, so it seemed a hammer as he waved it in Ecclestone’s face.
‘Don’t stop me, I warn you now.’
‘Christ,’ Ecclestone muttered. ‘Will you walk with us, Paddy?’
‘Have you lost your wits, along with him? Ever seen a crowd in a rage, Rob Ecclestone? They’ll tear us to rags, from fear. By God, we look like the dangerous vagrants they say we are!’
‘So? Are you coming or not?’ Ecclestone said.
‘I am. Did I say I wasn’t? I can’t trust you two to do this on your own. Jesus protect all fools like us, on fool’s errands.’
Jack smiled like a boy to hear them. He patted their shoulders and beamed.
‘You’re good mates when a man is down, lads. Come on then. This needs doing.’
He straightened his shoulders and walked towards the crowd, trying not to limp.
Thomas watched in something like awe as Baron Highbury blew a horn and his troop of horsemen charged down a slope. In the cold of the morning, the horses steamed and came fast, like molten silver pouring out of the trees. The French knights chasing his group of archers were caught flat, their flank smashed apart by Highbury’s lances. In just a moment, they went from hunters intent on their fleeing quarry to desperate men, hemmed in by the land and crushed by Highbury’s hammer blow. Thomas yelled in savage pleasure to see them fall, men and horses spitted on sharp points. Yet Highbury’s men were outnumbered even as they charged and Thomas could see more and more French knights thundering in. The charge slowed and became a vicious mêlée of swords and swinging axes.
‘Strike and away,’ Thomas whispered. ‘Come on, Highbury. Strike and away.’
Those three words had kept them going for two weeks of almost constant fighting, taking a terrible toll on both sides. There were no songs sung in the French lines any more. The king’s column moved with scouts and merciless purpose through Maine, burning as they went. They left behind them villages and towns wreathed in black smoke, but they paid a price for every single one. Thomas and his men saw to that. The reprisals had grown more brutal every day and there was true rage on both sides.
Highbury had bought him time to get clear and Thomas thanked God for a man who acted as he thought a lord should act. The bearded noble was driven by something, Thomas had learned that much. Whatever crime or atrocity he was repaying, Highbury fought with manic courage, punishing anyone foolish enough to come in range of his great sword. The men loved him for his fearlessness and Baron Strange hated him with a fierce intensity Thomas could not understand.