Nicholas lay on his back, staring up into the first hint of star flicker. He clasped his hands behind his head, murmuring into the growing darkness. “Then there is a different matter entirely, involving someone else you have all surely heard of,” he said. “The Marquess of Dorset is being held hostage in France after having once attempted escape. It’s his own damn fault he’s there in the first place, but some months ago his mother recalled him, having finally made peace with King Richard.”
Even Wolt had heard of the king. Pleasantly stuffed with bread, cheese, bacon and light ale, he put his thumb in his mouth and closed his eyes.
The gentle hum of voices reverberated as the night deepened. The wind was shuffling in the trees. “The wind murmurs and moans along the shore,” Jerrid said, curling tight beneath his thin blanket and thicker cloak. “But tomorrow may bring danger. Or it will bring a small boat and Dorset the passenger, if he and we are lucky.”
Harry thought a moment. “Dorset’s mother was the queen,” he decided.
“Until her marriage was discovered bigamous.”
“When she flounced into sanctuary.”
“But,” Nicholas said, “last year the lady was told something in secret concerning her younger sons, the king’s sons declared illegitimate but who then disappeared. Some thought them dead.”
Jerrid laughed, half smothered within his cloak. “When their mother was told differently, she immediately tried to persuade her various relatives to leave the ignominious Tudor camp and return to King Richard’s court. Dorset obediently attempted exactly that, but was betrayed, captured on the French borders and taken back into French custody. Another of Urswick’s fingers in the pies of conspiracy.”
Rob was interested. “And this so called differently, what the lady were told, m’lord? And what would it be, that secret, then?”
“That secret remains a secret, my friend, and I have no intentions of telling you about it,” Nicholas answered softly. “It is a matter at present too dangerous, and the lives of others would be at much risk. Eventually it will all become known, though not yet. But now we have word that Dorset will make another attempt to escape back to England. And so we are here for two men. One is a tentative friend, the other a committed enemy.”
“Dorset was an enemy but now he ain’t,” muttered Rob from the shadows beside his brother. “This bugger Urswick weren’t no enemy but now he is.”
“We’ll have to try not to kill the wrong one, then,” grinned Harry.
Jerrid laughed. “Changing sides according to one’s temporary benefit, one’s temper, one’s sudden hopes or sudden affronts, well that’s the English way it seems. There’s half the English nobility have made their fortunes and their titles by changing sides every few years. Loyalty? That can change too, with a little bribery or a few threats, real or imagined.”
By the following morning, a thick fog had rolled in from the sea. The little village of Lympne was swathed in low cloud and even the church steeple could not find its way to heaven. No welcome for men choosing to sleep out of doors, it was therefore within the tiny local tavern’s half-timbered attic that Nicholas slept that night, disturbed by fractious dreams and his companions’ snoring. So it was to a moonless and clammy mist that he woke dry mouthed, and set off downstairs to find a jug of ale and clear his head.
It was simply luck. But luck can rule the world.
Four men were leaving the stables, leading their mounts and slipping out under cover of night in a fog that obscured the stars. Sheltered by the doorway, Nicholas watched, suspicious. Only one voice, blurred by distance and caution, muttered, “We’ve an hour, no more, before the tide changes. So move yourselves or we’ll miss him.”
Within minutes Nicholas shook his uncle awake. “I must remember to thank my wife,” he said, pulling on his cape, gloves and baldric. “She disturbed my dreams and sent me downstairs at the perfect moment to hear what I believe is the answer we’ve been waiting for. Up, all of you. We’ve an appointment on the coast, and very little time.”
“Our hopeful Marquess arriving after all?”
Nicholas shook his head. “No. If Dorset arrives at all, then once on English soil there’s no one meeting him except ourselves. What I overheard were four furtive ruffians expecting a secret arrival under cover of dark. It’s Urswick I hope to meet now.”
Half a mile beyond the cottages and lanes, Nicholas called halt on the scrubby cliff edge before trudging the downward path to the gravel banks below. The party had dismounted, ready to lead their horses, careful of rock fall or the slip of mud beneath tired hooves. And more insidious now; the risk of missing a boat out at sea, unseen in the gloom of rolling damp.
But then over the sounds of the sea Nicholas heard at once the breathing and the fumble of waiting men. He turned, pivoting, calling to alert his companions, his long knife immediately in his hand well before the first man reached him. They came out of the mist, a sudden dash from the bush tangled undergrowth. Three men, three knives, three pairs of muscled arms, boots kicking and the tearing of fustian on brambles. But they were three men outnumbered, since Nicholas led a group of five, not counting, as he did not count, the boy Wolt who was quickly out of sight beneath the trees.
The attackers used ambush and surprise. Forced backwards with a knife thrust into his eyes, stumbling, rebounding, Nicholas smashed the blade away with his own. His arm bent back by a man less tall but twice as wide, Nicholas gave ground, immediately grasping the second knife hidden within his belt, jabbing it to the back of his assailant’s neck. The man lurched, staggering as the knife ripped down and along his shoulder blade. Then David took him from behind.
Two more ran at Jerrid, Rob and Harry. Nicholas yelled, “It’s a diversion. Finish them – quick.”
Jerrid, laughing, yelled, “No more scars please, Nick m’boy. I’ll slaughter this bastard first, then come help with yours.”
Nicholas swerved, one leg forwards to dislodge and trip, feet dancing, slipping over the grassy hollows, yelling back, “I’ve no need of you. See to your own.”
The clash of steel on steel, and Harry shouting, “Filthy scut, dare cut my brother and I’ll shove your scrotum up your arse,” Then, “Come on, Rob. Can’t we throw the bugger off the cliffs?”
Only moments later Nicholas and Jerrid, panting hard, looked down at the two sprawled and bloody corpses. The third, although wounded, had finally sliced at Jerrid’s thigh, wrong footed him, then thrown down his knife and run. Harry had started to follow, then saw his brother injured and hurried back.
“This was a diversion.” Nicholas wiped his knife on one of the fallen men’s backs. “We were five strong men, young, and dressed much as these wretches were themselves. Not worth robbing nor the risk of three against five. So! Why attack?”
“But you told me four men left the tavern stables for the coast.” Jerrid pulled out his kerchief and roughly staunched the bleeding from his thigh. “So a diversion, but a strange one.”
Nicholas kicked over the body of the dead man at his feet, rolling him face up. He proceeded to rummage through the man’s clothes within the rough tunic, shirt and boots, feeling for packages, but found nothing hidden. Then he nodded to Harry. “Give a good look to the other,” he said. “Perhaps I’ve no cause for suspicion, but I’m suspicious all the same. Now I regret not having chased down the wretch that fled.”
“If these were Urswick’s men,” said Jerrid, “they’d have avoided us, not purposefully drawn our attention.”
Nicholas shook his head. “No. They knew exactly who we were, and these three risked their lives, planning to hold us up while the fourth man galloped away either to meet the boat, or already with Urswick’s letter safe inside his shirt.” He marched over to where Wolt shivered in the shadows, dutifully clutching the tethers of the horses. Nicholas took his horse’s reins, leading it back to where Jerrid still sprawled on the grass. “You can’t ride yet, uncle, but I can. David, come with me. I know the direction, and even in this murk I can follow a speeding horse and hear it too.”