‘He is looking to increase it threefold, Bertrand.’
‘Then he had better hobble Hyperion and the other runners because that is the only way he will have a hope of success. The horse is so thin and undernourished.’
‘Yet hungry for victory,’ observed Milo.
‘Just like us,’ added a scowling Wymarc.
The sound of a distant chiming silenced them. Midday was marked by the bell for Sext. The horses were prancing in a ragged line, but each time the starter raised an arm to set them off one or two broke mutinously away and had to be coaxed back into position. With each nervous second, the tension grew among riders and spectators alike.
Milo Crispin, Wymarc and Bertrand Gamberell were on a hillock a small distance away from the course. Each of the Norman lords was astride his destrier, sturdy animals bred for stamina, strength and reliability, but none had entered a warhorse in the race. They had carefully selected their best coursers, smaller horses with greater pace and nimbleness. Five riders had shed their armour to lighten the load on their mounts. Amalric, the sixth, wore his customary tunic and gartered stockings. He was the only bearded rider.
They were on the edge of the forest at Woodstock, part of a thick band of luxuriant woodland which extended almost without interruption from the hills above Burford to the forest of Bernwood in the neighbouring county of Buckinghamshire. Woodstock was part of the royal demesne and, as such, protected by savage forest laws.
Only the privileged standing of the Norman lords allowed them to hold a race on land where anyone else would be accused of trespass and punished with severity.
As the riders struggled to bring their horses into line at the start, the noonday bell continued its sonorous boom in the background as if registering its disapproval of anything so frivolous as a mere horse race. The course was a straight mile long with enough undulations to test any rider. There was a leafy copse some two hundred yards before the halfway point. Onlookers had an excellent view of the race except for the fleeting seconds when the horses would be invisible in the trees. Two wooden stakes, set wide apart, marked the finishing line.
Milo and Wymarc had each provided a man to act as judges in the event of a close finish. Ordgar and his friends also waited near the end of the course.
Recent rain had left the ground soft and treacherous. When the starter eventually brought down his raised arm to set the race in motion, two of the horses slithered in the mud before they sped away.
Hyperion, by contrast, neighed loudly and rose up on his hind legs to pummel the air with shining hooves. By the time he condescended to join the race, he was thirty yards adrift of the others. Neither his rider nor his owner was alarmed by this state of affairs. They knew Hyperion’s mettle. He would soon overhaul his rivals.
One of Wymarc’s horses, a bay mare, was the early leader and it made him yell with joy. Milo was pleased to see his two runners close behind. Amalric’s colt was also giving a good account of itself, covering the ground with long, graceful strides that belied its spindly appearance. After his delayed start, Hyperion was narrowing the gap remorselessly.
Wymarc only had eyes for the bay mare in the lead.
‘I’m going to win!’ he shouted, slapping his thigh.
‘Do not celebrate too soon,’ warned Gamberell.
‘I’ll beat you at last, Bertrand.’
‘The race is not over yet. My money still rides on Hyperion. He will not let his master down.’
Milo Crispin said nothing. His face remained impassive.
When they reached the copse, Hyperion had almost caught up with them. The six horses plunged into the trees and were briefly lost from sight. Radical changes occurred before they reappeared. The bay mare had dropped back to third position. One of Milo’s horses, a sleek grey with a slashing stride, now led the pack with Amalric’s chestnut colt on his heels. Wymarc was distraught and let out a moan of disappointment as his mare lost even more ground.
But the most dramatic change concerned Hyperion. He flashed out of the copse with such speed and purpose that it was only a matter of time before he passed the others. The black stallion, however, had an advantage denied to his rivals. After his dash through the trees, he was now without a rider.
Bertrand Gamberell was jerked out of his complacence.
‘My man has been thrown!’ he protested.
‘Then he is out of the reckoning,’ said Milo.
‘No! The race is void!’
‘You have lost, Bertrand. Take defeat with good grace.’
‘Hyperion has not been beaten fairly.’
‘He has been beaten,’ gloated Wymarc. ‘That is what matters most.
Your black stallion is not invincible after all.’
‘I demand another race!’ insisted Gamberell.
‘Let us see who wins this one first,’ said Milo.
They were approaching the last furlong now. The grey was still leading but the chestnut colt was slowly drawing level. Wymarc’s bay mare was completely out of it. Surging past all three of them, Hyperion then swung off the course and galloped crazily towards the forest.
Fearful that the animal might injure itself, Gamberell dispatched a man after him at once.
Under his skilful control, Amalric’s mount was now racing neck and neck with the grey. From their vantage point on the hillock, it was impossible for the three men to tell which of the horses would pass the wooden stakes first, but Ordgar and his friends had no doubts. Exhorting their champion on over the final hundred yards, they let out such a collective cry of triumph that the result was all too evident. The chestnut colt had won the day. Five experienced Norman riders had been beaten by a Saxon youth.
Torn between delight at Gamberell’s defeat and annoyance at his own, Wymarc did not know whether to grin or glower. Milo was irked by losing but gave no outward sign of this. Their companion ignored the result of the race. He was much more concerned to establish why Hyperion had thrown his rider and besmirched his hitherto spotless record. Kicking his destrier into life, Gamberell cantered towards the copse. Milo and Wymarc went after him at a more leisurely pace.
The sun was warm on their backs, the birdsong melodious in their ears. As they picked their way through the trees, they saw that Gamberell had already dismounted. He was standing beside the fallen rider in a clearing. The man was lying on his back with his head at an unnatural angle to his body. His neck had patently been broken in the fall. Even Wymarc found sympathy stealing into his heart.
Bertrand Gamberell stared angrily up at them.
‘The race is void!’ he snarled. ‘I refuse to pay.’
‘It is a matter of honour,’ reminded Milo.
‘Honour!’ He pointed to the corpse. ‘What honour is there in this?
My man was given no chance to win.’
Wymarc shrugged. ‘He was thrown, Bertrand. It is very unfortunate but it does not invalidate the race. Your rider should have stayed in the saddle.’
‘He did — until someone knocked him out of it.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Milo.
Gamberell indicated the stream of blood that was trickling from beneath the prostrate figure, then used a foot to turn the man over.
Milo and Wymarc reacted with horror at the sight. Gamberell cursed.
The rider had clearly not been thrown by his horse in the copse.
Embedded in the middle of his back was a dagger.
Chapter One
They could not believe that it was still afternoon. It was more like the dead of night. The sky was so dark and menacing that it seemed as if it would drop down at any moment like a gigantic blanket to smother them in its unforgiving blackness and wipe out all memory of their existence. It was the worst possible time to be caught in open country. Ralph Delchard was leading the cavalcade at a brisk pace but there was no way that they could outrun the storm that was coming.