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The men were all silent and deep in thought as they went. As he considered the little information that the farmer had been able to give them, Simon found himself shivering, straining under the influence of the greatest passion of rage he had ever felt. It was not just the senseless brutality of the trail bastons, it was seeing the horror-struck girl. Her absolute terror at the sight of him and Black seemed to show the degree of her suffering. He kept returning to the same question: who could do this? Who could inflict such pain on a girl so young; who could shatter the lives of a little boy and his sister; who could produce such misery and live with himself afterwards?

It felt as though the breath came in hot rushes, as if he was inhaling flames, and he sat tall and straight in his saddle as he rode, as if his anger had doubled his strength and energy.

The hunter rode beside him with a stolid, hunched mien, riding smoothly and effortlessly, but when Simon glanced over at him he could see that Black was as angry as he himself. He stared ahead, hardly blinking, his dark eyes fixed on the road ahead as he went, and he reminded Simon of a cat, a cat that has just seen a shrew and is slowly stalking it with the intense and total concentration of absolute absorption. But the anger was shown by his quick movements, by the occasional snapping turns of his head as he glared into the woods on either side, as if daring them to hide the men they hunted, and by the sudden, swift, snatching of his hand as he grabbed at his short sword, as if he was caught every now and again by a desire to pull it from its scabbard and kill.

Keeping up their fast pace, they soon covered the short distance to the place where the attack had happened, and when they came close the farmer’s son slowed and pointed. Up ahead and to the left of the road, they could see smoke rising from among the trees.

“That must be it,” he said, pointing and staring in fascination. When Simon looked at him, he could see that the man was trembling – not in fear for himself, but in a calm horror at the thought of the sights that would lie beyond the line of trees surrounding the travellers’ camp. Even through his anger, and his desire to avenge the girl and the boy, Simon felt the youth’s trepidation.

“You have guided us well, and I thank you for it. Go home now. We will continue and send back word when we know what has happened.”

With a grateful glance, the farmer’s son nodded, wheeled his horse and made his way back home. Simon and his tracker watched him go, then started off towards the distant smoke, moving slowly and carefully and keeping a wary eye on the trees on either side.

“Bailiff,” said Black quietly after a few minutes.

Hunh“

“I don’t suppose you’d like to send me home too?”

Simon glanced over at the sombre man riding alongside him, and for a moment the two gazed at each other with complete understanding, then as if they had communicated perfectly with a single, penetrating look, they whipped their horses and galloped towards the smoke, like cavalry towards the battle.

Chapter Sixteen

As they came closer to the smoke the bailiff felt it hard to keep going. Guessing at the sights that would confront them beyond the lines of trees, he wanted to slow so that Black would be the first to see the view, as if that could reduce the shock and the pain. He found that he could hardly keep his eyes on the way ahead. It was as though they wanted to avoid the scene, and he found himself watching the trees on either side, staring at the track, looking up at the sky, anywhere, in preference to the camp itself.

Black was riding as though in a trance, hunched and unmoving in his saddle, with one hand gripping his reins and his other lying loose on the saddle in front of him. This would be Simon’s first exposure to the ferocity of a trail baston attack, he knew, but not his own. Black had travelled in his youth, before he followed his father into Farming and hunting, and had gone as far north as York with merchants, helping them to move their goods from own to town in their unceasing attempt to sell their wares.

Once – God, he could still remember it as if it was yesterday! – they had come across a camp where an attack lad taken place. He had only been, what, two and twenty? And he had been exposed to sights that he would not have believed possible before. He had been so shocked that he could not speak for days afterwards, and had not slept properly for weeks. Now, as they trotted up the slight rise that led to the camp site, he felt the old anger again, the sheer rage that any man could do such things to his fellows. The last time he had been too young to catch the men responsible, too young to be able to help, and, as a stranger to the area, unwanted in the posse, but he had followed the men as they chased after the gang, purely to assuage his anger by watching the revenge of the local men.

They had not been able to find the gang. The posse had chased after the gang for days, but, at last, they had lost the trail deep in a forest and had been forced to return, the whole group dejected from their failure. That was part of the reason for his depression at losing the killers of the abbot. He, too, had been unavenged for his miserable end. This time Black was committed. They would not escape him; he would hunt them down and destroy them, not only for this attack, but for the abbot and for the poor dead men and women he had seen when he was twenty-two. He looked over at Simon. How would he cope with it, he wondered.

Simon’s anger was giving way to fear as they drew closer, fear of the sights hidden by the trees. He had been shocked and horrified to see what had happened to the abbot, but this attack seemed even worse already, after seeing the effect on the young woman and her brother, and he withdrew into himself as they rode, as if he could hide from the sights ahead.

When he glanced behind, Simon realised that he was not alone in his feelings of trepidation. The others, all sturdy men well-used to the sight of dead and injured men and animals, men ready and prepared to kill a wounded beast out of kindness to stop its misery, were riding bunched together in a group, no longer strung out along the road, as if they all felt the need for the mutual support and comfort that only their numbers could bring. They rode with the fixed expressions of men that were fearful, but who would continue with what they knew would be a deeply unpleasant task, as if they knew that only by their dedication could they prevent a repeat of the attack.

Simon turned back to face the road again and set his jaw. If the men could ride with that level of commitment, so could he. He glanced swiftly at Black, who was riding with the same fixed frown on his face, then stared at the road again with a small feeling of desperation. He felt as if he was alone in his feeling of fear, that the others were free of concern and that he alone was scared of what lay ahead.

As they came up to the trees, they slowed to a walking pace. The road led past the camp, and they had to turn off into a small lane to get to it. They meandered down the lane, all feeling their tension and apprehension growing. Simon felt that the men of the posse had a curious mood of estrangement in their unity, as if they were all grateful for the company of their friends, but were all absolutely alone with their thoughts, each standing isolated and apart from the other as he rode, as if they were retreating into themselves for the strength to carry on to the campsite.

The lane curved and wound its way to the camp, but through the occasional gaps in the trees Simon could see the dark and gloomy hills of the moors ahead, so they were heading south. He saw that Black was already trying to make sense of the mess of tracks in the trodden dirt of the lane. He seemed to feel Simon’s steady gaze on him and looked up for a minute, but there was no recognition in his eyes, only an angry glittering. He turned back to his quiet investigation.

It was the smell that Simon noticed first – not the bitter, musty tang of an old fire, but fresh smoke from a fire of cured wood, and the smell made him frown and glance at Black again. Surely they weren’t still there? The trail bastons would have left by now, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t wait and camp at the scene of their latest attack, would they?