He raised his sword again, parrying the steel thrust against him, but his knife now hung limp, his wounded left hand trembling. One assailant again raged forwards with a sudden shout and surge, the knife aiming for Nicholas, his face and his eyes.
Then the voice behind said softly, “Safe to back off now, boy. Step back quick. We’re here now.” Rob and Harry moved in, clutching at Nicholas, helping him back against the wall as Jerrid’s sword slashed down, straight through one heaving shoulder, killing the other man instantly. Jerrid faced the last man as Rob freed David, quickly slicing through the ropes. Harry said, “And Alan, my lord? He were afore us.”
Nicholas’s voice was hoarse. “Up – there,” he murmured. “Upper stairs. Go – help.” He wiped the blood streaming into his eyes from the long wound across his forehead and slumped down, leaning against the wall and releasing his grip on both sword and knife.
Jerrid looked back over his shoulder. “Rob, get upstairs and find Alan. David, stay with our boy. Harry – here.”
Jerrid and Harry killed the last man between them. David knelt over Nicholas. “He’s fainting. Deep wound to the head. Lost a finger and might lose another. Exhaustion of course. But nothing to threaten his life.”
Jerrod moved beside him. “Why the devil did he come so scarce accompanied and ill equipped?”
David looked up and shook his head. “Myself and Alan – it should have been enough, my lord. The message was a joke – his lordship barely took it seriously.”
“He don’t take nor life nor nuffing serious,” frowned Harry.
Which is when Emeline appeared breathless in the doorway and said in a rush, “Where is he?”
“Here, my dear.” Jerrid nodded down to where Nicholas sat, half conscious. But as Emeline hurried to kneel beside her husband, through the shadows behind with a thump and huge reverberation, a heavy set man tripped, hurtling down the stairs, and reaching out with both hands. Emeline turned in a swirl of muddy hems and faced the newcomer. He growled and pushed her aside with a wild kick at Nicholas. Emeline picked up the stool which had rolled on its side at her feet, swung it with all her force, and hit the newcomer over the head. He crumpled with a guttural sigh.
Jerrid clapped his hands. “Excellent, my dear lady. Well done.”
“He wanted to kick my husband,” agreed Emeline, once more on her knees beside Nicholas.
Alan Venter was behind, racing down the stairs, saw the newly prone adversary beginning to stumble back to his feet, and grabbed him around the neck. “Bastard Francis bastard Prophet,” he muttered, which appeared to be an effort at explanation. He looked up at Jerrid. “Him and another. His lordship killed the one but Prophet is a harder bastard to trounce. Do I kill the bugger, my lord? Or hand him over to the constable?”
“Since the constable don’t appear to be around,” decided Jerrid. “Best kill the bugger.”
Alan did.
Mister Prophet stared upwards at the sword which swept towards him, and opened his mouth to yell. He was dead before the sound emerged, his neck sliced in two. The mess leaked, splintered bone and the ravaged bloody brain lying exposed. Nicholas was half back on his feet and trying to focus. With her kerchief covered in his blood, Emeline had been cleaning his face when the baroness as Martha heaved into the doorway, staring in dismay at the bodies strewn around them.
“Good gracious,” exclaimed the baroness with several steps backwards. “I feel a little superfluous.” She stared a moment at the carnage, heaved, put her kerchief to her mouth and turned away.
“Water,” said Martha, already rolling up her sleeves. “There must be a bowl here somewhere. A water butt? Cloths, bandages, a sheet to rip into strips? How many are wounded?”
“Nicholas,” said Emeline at once, trying to stop him from staggering to his feet. “And perhaps David, though just rope burns. And maybe that horrid man lying choking over there.”
The tiny dark space shed its shadows, figures quickly moving into coherent and visible symmetry. Somebody found a bowl, then a water hug. Martha knelt, adjusting her skirts.
“My lady,” Jerrid addressed the baroness. “This fight is over, and well won. A single adversary lives – there,” he indicated the groaning man, “but it seems Nicholas was alone at first, facing four, perhaps five men by himself. He’s wounded. We need to get him out of here.” But Lady Wrotham faced the doorway, and would not look back.
“Adrian?” Nicholas muttered, heaving himself upwards.
“Outside with some foreigner,” Emeline said. “Does he know nothing of this?” She shrugged, both her hands to her husband. “Now stay still, my love. You’re badly hurt.”
“Not so bad.” Nicholas blinked through blood and the insistent tying of ragged bandages. “Sore head. Sore hand. Nothing more. But if one of them is left alive, keep him alive. I need someone to question. There’s more to this than I knew before. I need to know the rest.”
David stood, brushing fish scales from his clothes, speaking to Jerrid. “We’d gathered in the alehouse, awaiting Sir Adrian. I saw Prophet in the main drinking room, just slipping out the door, and I followed him. Four of them jumped me, dragged me up here and trussed me like a capon for the pot. It was a trap, set and sprung. They were waiting for his lordship to come after me. He did, but by then I was unable to help him. Lord Nicholas fought against four of them, wounded one, chased one off, but was already badly injured.”
Nicholas insisted faintly, “Not bad. Not so good. But not bad.”
Alan was still catching his breath. “By the time I arrived, damned Francis Prophet and some other dirty bugger turned up too. I chased Prophet upstairs, trying to make sure his lordship didn’t have yet another slavering bastard against him.”
“Prophet – most dangerous,” Nicholas said, again trying to rise.
“But now dead,” Jerrid told his nephew. “Alan’s work, with a little help from your wife.”
Emeline smiled and clutched at her husband’s unwounded hand. “I didn’t do much. I wish I could have done more.”
Nicholas, sight still blood blurred, stared up around him. “Now the place seems to be filled with females,” he said vaguely.
“Please stay quite still, my lord,” said Martha with magisterial command, “while I shall tend to these nasty cuts. I have no ointments with me, but a torn sheet makes fine bandages. We don’t want to be left with any more scars, now do we!”
Chapter Fifty-Four
“The Tower,” Jerrid said. “I want the best. The boy’s sick. It’s too far back to the Strand; an hour even on horseback. But no dirt lane barber will do, nor some grub streaked doctor more interested in hurrying off to his supper. The Tower is the best organised palace in the country, and there’s a doctor and his assistant there worthy of ministering to councils and kings.”
“But my lord, in these old clothes? They will think us beggars,” David frowned. “The Tower is the busiest as well as most efficient – but also the best guarded.”
“They know the Chatwyn name.” Jerrid shook his head, leaning down to help Nicholas stand, yet half falling in his arms. “Brackenbury knows Nicholas and Symond both. After all, my brother was once on the council, and young Nick has a reputation with those who know. You’d best ride ahead, Witton. Tell them we’re coming and why. I’ll get the boy mounted and follow you.”
Nicholas remained on the stool, his head back against the wall. He now wore a crown of bandages. His left hand was tied within a thick cloth mitten, yet the blood seeped through. Emeline stood next to him, her hand on his shoulder. The baroness had retreated to the doorway. “I shall go down and reassure my daughter,” she said. “But since we’re on foot, we shall follow at a distance.”