I dropped the useless pole as Arthur appeared at my elbow. “What was that?” he whispered.
I told him, bid him follow, and together we hastened to the gable end of the house and sat low against the wall, watching and listening, to learn if the sentry might awaken.
The moon was now risen nearly above the bare topmost branches of the trees. We could no longer work at opening the door. Any man who stood there in the moonlight would be seen from a hundred paces away.
I motioned again to Arthur, stood, and crept to the rear of the house. I whispered to Arthur that he should remain at the corner of the house, watching for the guard, who might yet awaken, while I sought some place on this western, shadowed side of the house where daub might have fallen from the wattles.
There was a door here, also, but if the front door was barred, surely the rear would be, so I had given little thought to breaching the opening. I went to the door first, however, and saw there two planks nailed across the door. No man would silently pry them from the opening.
There were several places at the rear of the house where over the years rain, lashed by a west wind, had caused daub to crumble and fall free of the house. I selected one of the larger of these perforations, inserted my dagger at one end, and began quietly to cut through the wattles. It was but a matter of a few minutes and I had cut through a length of wattles nearly as high as my arm is long. The thin twigs were decayed from contact with rain, and pulled free of the interior daub more readily than I had expected.
This work I did as silently as possible, but Amice heard me, of course, and when I had drawn the wattles free of the gap and pushed the daub inside the house away, she whispered a warning from within the hole.
“’Tis you, Master Hugh? Be on guard. I heard a man circle the house not an hour past.”
Amice had no sooner spoken than Arthur was at my elbow. “That guard woke up,” he whispered.
If the fellow approached the house and inspected the door closely he would see the poles, one broken, which I had used in a failed attempt to force the door. If he walked behind the house he might see the hole I had punctured in the wall.
I thought briefly we might crawl into the house and hide there, hoping this sentinel would see neither the poles nor the opening in the wall. This notion I quickly abandoned. If he saw either the poles or the hole and raised the alarm, we would be trapped in the house with Amice and her children.
Five or six paces behind the house was a thicket where perhaps a tenant had at one time built a hutch. This had collapsed over time, and a clump of bushes had grown up amid the ruins. This vegetation was the only shelter I could see in the toft. I grasped Arthur’s arm and ran toward it. We were briefly visible in the moonlight as we ducked from the shadow of the house to the thicket. If the approaching watchman was alert he might see us, and as we hid in the foliage I expected him to cry out. He did not.
We waited and watched and soon heard the fellow talking to himself as he circled the house. He appeared around the corner of the dwelling, clutching the broken pole. His words were indistinct, but what I could hear seemed to question the discovery of the broken branch and how it came to be at the door of the house.
A few more steps and the fellow would be aside the break I had carved in the wall. I waited to see what he would do if he found it, having no way to prevent the discovery.
When he came to the breach he fell silent for a moment, laid the pole aside, and knelt to peer into the black interior of the house.
“What’s ’ere?” he said, speaking again to himself. Then louder, “You, in there… you there?”
He did not wait for an answer, but crawled into the hole. He was halfway through when I heard a muffled thud and saw the fellow cease moving and lie flat.
“Come,” I said to Arthur, and ran for the house.
The watchman lay still and silent in the hole. I grasped his heels and pulled him from the opening. He was as peaceful as a corpse, and stank, and I wondered what had befallen him. I learned soon enough.
“Master Hugh?” Amice whispered.
“Aye. Send your children out, quickly, then follow.”
The two children crawled from the house and Amice followed. “What happened to him?” I asked, looking to the watchman.
Amice stood and whispered an explanation. “They left an iron pot in the house, for want of a privy. I hit ’im with it.”
The watchman began to stir. Even a stroke across the head from an iron pot will not put a man to sleep forever. Well, it might if Arthur delivered the blow, but not if a frail woman did so.
The man must be prevented from giving alarm. Arthur carried the hempen cord. I bound the guard’s wrists tight behind him, and his ankles I tied to his wrists. Alfred’s surcoat was threadbare and easily torn. I ripped a sleeve from the garment, stuffed a fragment into the guard’s mouth, then tied the remainder tightly about his mouth. I told Arthur to take the man’s shoulders while I grasped his knees, then I bid Amice and her children follow.
We carried the sentry to the chapel. I hoped the door would be unbarred, and so it was. We deposited the man upon the flags, shut the door behind us, and fled the town. If the fellow was not soon able to free himself from his bonds, or shout for help with a mouth full of tattered wool, we would be able to escape at least as far as Marcham, where the church might again become a refuge.
The sleeping watchman was not a slender fellow. Carrying him had caused my wounds to ache, but there was no time to seek relief.
The moon illuminated the forest where Bruce and the palfrey awaited. Arthur lifted the children to the palfrey, one before him and one clinging to his back, and I drew Amice up to Bruce’s rump, there to cling to me behind the saddle. Her perch was precarious and I breathed a prayer that I would not need to spur Bruce to a gallop. The woman could never retain her seat if I did so.
A mile north of East Hanney the road crosses a brook upon a narrow stone bridge. As we approached Bruce sensed the water and I realized that our beasts were thirsty. We dismounted, led them from the road to a place where the bank sloped gently to the water, and allowed them to drink their fill. They were surely hungry, as well, but I could do nothing about that.
We remounted and rode on toward Marcham. As we did I learned from Amice what had happened to her since she and her children were taken.
“Infirmarer said the children was makin’ too much noise, disturbin’ them as was ill… that’s why we was thrown out of the hospital,” she said. “But they wasn’t troublesome. I made sure we was no bother to anyone. He said as how someone complained to the abbot, an’ the abbot told ’im we must go.”
“When you were taken from your house, what then?”
“’Twas as you said. Them as took us wanted to know where John found coins an’ jewels an’ such. Told ’em I knew not. Didn’t believe me.”
“You’ve been in that plague house since?”
“Aye, most of the time. Told me we’d be set free when I named the place where the treasure was hid. How could I do that? I don’t know. Second night we was held, little Tom begun to weep, an’ the watchman heard. Spoke through the door for me to quiet ’im. I tried, but ’e was right fearful… place was so dark at night, an’ we was hungry. Next day them what took us come again, asked if I was ready to tell ’em where John’s treasure was. I couldn’t, so one stayed with the children while the other took me across a field and into a wood. Feared what ’e was about, but I went. Feared what would ’appen to Tom an’ Randal did I not. We come to a pit dug in the forest, covered over with branches. The man said we’d be put there if I couldn’t keep the children quiet. Told ’im I could do that was they not so hungry.”
“But you were not harmed?”
“Nay. I told the children what would become of us if they were not silent. They’re old enough to understand bein’ put in a pit is worse’n bein’ prisoner in a house… even an old house what leaks when it rains.”