Bone of Contention (43 page)

“That would do it,” Bell said, lips thinning grimly. “That would be an offense against the king’s peace.”

“And considering the weather, not so hard to create. I would say someone told Salisbury’s men that this house is near empty—or they have seen it for themselves. Would it not be only common sense for them to ask for shelter because of the rain? I am surprised they did not do so sooner.”

“I can guess the reason for that,” Bell said. “To demand better lodging the first day it rained would have made them seem like proud whiners. As it was, in Court the king’s toadies were saying that no bishop should need so large a meiny, and that there would have been room for them had there been fewer. But Salisbury had his defenders, and the sentiment from the uncommitted barons was that it was shameful not to find room for them. I think they were told to endure for a day or two in the hope that the dissatisfaction in Court would force the king to make some arrangement for them.”

“I see. But since no relief was forthcoming, they might just have lost patience.” She paused, bit her lip, and went on slowly, “I think Arras tried to warn them their discomfort was being deliberately inflicted to make them react. He said ‘tell them not to go there,’ but you know what he looked and sounded like. They wouldn’t listen to him.”

Bell stood up. “They will listen to me,” he said.

Bell seized his cloak and went out the back door, feeling more hopeful because the rain had stopped again. He intended to cross over to the churchyard of St. Peter’s and make clear to whoever was in charge that they had been left without shelter in the expectation they would commit some outrage. He had some authority as the papal legate’s knight, and in this case was prepared to use it. And the fact that the downpour had stopped might make his order more palatable.

Magdalene went with him. Bell opened his mouth once to protest that it would do his authority no good to be in the company of a woman, however, he dared not leave her alone in Count Alain’s house where Ferrau might be among the men, although they had not seen him. At the churchyard, he thought, he would tell her to wait outside the gate for him or go into the church, and he hurried out without speaking.

It was already too late. As he and Magdalene rounded the corner of Count Alain’s lodging, a man burst out of the front door holding his head as if he had been hurt. His tunic was torn; one sleeve was gone and the right breast, where his house badge might have been, was flapping over so it could not be seen. Most of his face was hidden too, and he was bent to the side as if his ribs hurt. He staggered across the lane, suddenly beginning to scream for succor for Salisbury’s men.

Bell rushed toward him, shouting for him to hold his tongue, but the man released his head to draw his sword, swung around lithely with no sign of pain, and launched a terrific blow. Bell ducked and slipped in the mud, going down on one knee. Magdalene shrieked and ran forward, pulling off her cloak in the hope of tangling the man’s sword in it, but he did not press his attack on Bell. He had already turned back toward St. Peter’s, calling for help against his pursuer and shouting that Count Alain’s men were beating the deputation who had come to ask for shelter.

“Wait! Wait!” Bell shouted, on his feet again, sword drawn, also running toward the churchyard. “Do not go! It is a trap.”

Too late again. Several idlers who had been standing by the churchyard gate watching to see the result of their comrades’ appeal for shelter rushed out into the street. One snatched up a cudgel, another drew his belt knife, both ran toward Bell. The third shouted back to those in the churchyard that their friends had been greeted with blows and insults. The news was repeated, and in two heartbeats other men began to run through the gate into the street. Behind them a growing noise rose from many voices shouting protests and curses and retelling the news still again.

Bell managed to avoid the two coming at him because they were distracted by their deputation rushing out of Count Alain’s door calling for help. Bell’s voice was lost in the shouts of rage from the men now pouring out of the churchyard, and from Count Alain’s men cursing those who fled for attacking them without cause. Both parties crashed together, a variety of weapons in hand.

The man who had started the upheaval had disappeared into the growing crowd. Bell continued trying to make the men nearest him hear sense, although he knew it was useless. He also scanned the faces of those closest to him, hoping he would recognize one of Salisbury’s officers who could help him. Hopelessly, he began to flail around with the flat of his blade, yelling, “Remember the king’s peace, you fools! Put up your weapons!”

It was hopeless, and he knew it, but it was not in him to do nothing, and then faintly, because the pitch was so high, he heard a woman scream above the shouting of the men.

“Magdalene!” he bellowed.

Around him, the two groups crashed together, trapping him in a wall of men in front and behind. More curses of rage and howls of pain were interspersed with thuds and thunks as weapons made contact. The riot had gone too far to be stopped. Bell continued to bellow for Magdalene, pushing and pulling men out of his path, striking some who tried to struggle against him, straining this way and that for a sight of her hooded cloak.

He had not heard another female cry, but he was panting with terror, only realizing now that the man who caused the riot by shouting for help from Salisbury’s men had been Ferrau. He had been so caught up in rage and anxiety during his pursuit that the glimpse he had had of the man’s face had not come home to him. And he had left Magdalene to face the murderer alone.

* * * *

Magdalene had skittered out of the way of the oncoming men as soon as she saw that Bell was on his feet, sword in hand, and that his attacker had no advantage over him—in fact had abandoned him. She heard the man cry out again of the mistreatment visited on Salisbury’s men and the response from the churchyard. She muttered a few curses under her breath, but she had no intention of trying to stop what was happening. All she wanted to do was find a safe place to wait out the riot she could see developing.

Her first thought had been to go into the church, but there was no way she could pass through the growing crowd of furious men rushing out of the churchyard gate and reach Castle Street. And then the number of men coming out began to dwindle and she realized she could get to the church through the churchyard, once it was empty. She ducked and dodged around the men on the fringe of the conflict, not that she feared the men would be interested in her or wish to hurt her—they were all too intent on relieving their misery and frustration by beating Alain of Brittany’s people—but because she feared being knocked to the ground and trampled.

Magdalene had almost reached her goal, a place where the wall would shelter her, not too far from the gate, when a man’s shout of triumph almost in her ear made her start violently to the side. Her upper arm was seized in a grip that wrung a cry of pain from her, and she saw the man’s free hand rise, holding a blade poised to strike. She screamed loud and long, wordlessly at first, then forming the word “help.”

Ferrau paused and grinned, enjoying her terror. “I did a public service by killing Carl Butcherson, but you couldn’t leave well enough alone,” he said, pulling her nearer, close enough for her to hear him over the noise of the crowd. “Had to go listen to the looby, didn’t you?”

His knife hand rose higher. Magdalene struggled wildly but could not get free. She screamed for help again, but her voice was choked with fear.

“Hoy!” A man’s rough voice overrode her muffled cry as the speaker staggered out of the churchyard gate. His eyes were bleary, his gait uncertain, his brow wrinkled in a puzzled frown. “What’cher doin’? Don’t knife a woman no matter what she done.”

With the words, he lifted the cudgel he carried, but Ferrau was quicker. He took a swift step toward the man, dragging Magdalene with him, but he tilted the raised knife away from her. Then he brought it down hard, with the clear intention of burying it in the man’s neck. His drunkenness saved his life, for in the same moment he staggered sideways right into Ferrau so that the knife struck his shoulder instead of his throat and lodged under his collarbone. He screamed and waved his cudgel wildly, wrenching himself away from the pain and twisting Ferrau’s knife from his hand.

The cudgel struck Ferrau a glancing blow. In the same moment, Magdalene tore free of his loosened grip and ran for the churchyard, hoping there were other stragglers there or that she would be able to get into the church and find the protection of the priest. But the church door was too far away and the churchyard seemed empty now.

Ferrau was virtually on her heels with the fallen man’s cudgel in his hand. He struck at her. She dodged between and around sodden tents, barely leaping over some soaking wet bedrolls that threatened to trip her. She knew that if she fell or was caught again, she was dead.

The cudgel swished again. Magdalene leapt away, heard Ferrau laugh, saw that she was being herded away from the church door. Behind a low, drooping tent she stopped to catch her breath, swinging around to face him and keeping the tent between them. Her eyes flickered from side to side as she sought a path to escape. Ferrau flourished the cudgel and grinned at her.

“Better way to kill a woman than a knife anyway,” he said. “Stand still and you’ll never feel a thing. I’ll hit you on the head, not break your bones first like I did to that little Culham bitch. She got with child apurpose to tell her father I’d done it.”

“It’s useless to kill me,” she gasped. “Bell knows.”

“Loose-mouthed bitch!”

As he spoke, he suddenly leaned forward over the tent and struck viciously toward Magdalene, but she had been watching him warily. She had breath now and jumped backward, screaming again at the top of her lungs.

“No use yelling for your fancy man,” Ferrau snarled. “Salisbury’s men’ll kill him.”

He lunged toward her, only to have the tent collapse under him so that he staggered forward off balance. Magdalene turned and ran, but in the open space in the center of the churchyard, where the men had had their cookfires, he was close enough to catch at her sleeve. She turned and threw the cloak she was still clutching into his face and won free again. But he was still between her and the church door.

She ran again toward the tents, knowing he could catch her more easily in the open space. But this time her luck had run out. Before she could dodge behind the canvas shelter, her foot caught in a bedroll. She staggered, catching at the tent for support, feeling it sway and begin to collapse under her hands, feeling the cudgel rise behind her.

“Enough!”

The bellow loosened Magdalene’s knees and she sank right to the ground, pressed against the tent’s wet side. The cudgel swished by her, deflected by the edge of the tent, barely striking her shoulder. Her face was pressed into the canvas in her attempt to make herself the smallest target, and she could see nothing.

“Draw,” Bell snarled, his voice close now and slightly breathless, as if he had been running or fighting, “or I will copy your custom and kill you from behind.”

“Not before I kill her,” Ferrau shouted, and leapt right over Magdalene, the cudgel poised over her. “Drop your sword or I will break her to pieces.”

Magdalene heard the soft squelch and thud as Bell’s weapon hit the ground. “No!” she shrieked and squirmed back, right on to Ferrau’s feet. She knew from bitter experience that the angle was wrong for the full force of a blow from a stick or a strap to fall on her. Then she twisted around, seizing Ferrau’s ankles so he could not kick her away.

As she wriggled closer she felt something heavy pass over her. Ferrau cried out and toppled backward. Legs hit her back and Magdalene knew that Bell had launched himself at Ferrau, knocked him down, and fallen atop him. She heard the cudgel strike but felt nothing, so she knew it had struck Bell, and then she felt Ferrau convulse and heard him scream. She saw the cudgel flung away, but Ferrau shuddered again. Then his legs twitched feebly and were still.

A knee in much-muddied but once red hose came down almost on her hand. Magdalene released her grip on Ferrau’s ankles. The other leg that had burdened her lifted, and she squirmed away.

“Are you hurt, Magdalene?” Bell asked anxiously, his voice only raised a little because the roar of the riot was muffled by the churchyard wall and the tents around them.

She turned over and sat up. “No, only bruised a little. Are
you
hurt? I heard the cudgel hit you.”

“There was no force in the blow. I am hurt only in my pride.” He sighed. He was sitting too, but out of the mud, atop Ferrau. “I have never felt such a jackass in all my life. I do not even know whether it is right or wrong that the king should curb Salisbury’s power, and I let myself get so caught up in stopping the bishop’s men from attacking Count Alain’s that I forgot it was Ferrau who was inciting them and that he intended to kill you.” He sighed again.

“He still has an eating knife,” Magdalene warned Bell. “He will try to use it as soon as he comes to his senses.”

Bell looked at her and smiled. “He will never come to his senses again. He is dead, Magdalene.” He looked down at his right hand, which Magdalene now saw was stained red, but his lips did not lose their satisfied curve. “He should have met me sword to sword. Perhaps he would have survived that, but with a knife in my hand,
I
kill.”

Magdalene stared at the bloody hand and then at the body on which Bell was sitting so casually. She shuddered, imagining how the scene would look to other eyes.

“Clean the knife and put it away,” she said, struggling to her feet. She reached down, grasped Bell’s unbloodied left hand, and pulled urgently at him. “Wipe your hand, too. A little mud will hide the blood.”

“Why should I hide it? He was a murderer four times over—five times if you count Sutton’s daughter’s maid. I—”