Season of the Fox (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 2) (18 page)

Steel nipped at the flesh of his left shoulder. Faucon danced to the side, tempting his attacker to follow. The fool did. Faucon’s foot met the man’s knee with enough force to knock his leg out from beneath him. As this one toppled, he shifted, sword flashing as he drove its tip into the next man’s throat. His assailant dropped, well on his way to death.

Yanking his sword clear, Faucon danced back. There were four yet afoot, but the man he’d stunned swayed helplessly behind his companions, his face darkened with blood.

Two came at once. He pivoted, slamming his shoulder into one as he caught the other’s blade with his gloved hand and twisted. The man’s sword flew. From the corner of his eye he saw the third man swing his weapon toward his unprotected neck.

Faucon bent his knees and swiveled. The blow glanced off his upper back, cutting into flesh and cloth and sending him staggering. One knee barely touched the earth before he was rising and turning. As he did, one of his attackers dropped before him, blood gushing from his throat the way it had from Bernart earlier this day. The warm wet spray spattered Faucon’s face.

Another piercing whistle tore through unnatural quiet in the alley. In an instant the three who could yet walk were gone, leaving behind their dead or dying companions.

Panting in exertion, Faucon leaned against the wall behind him and shrugged his shoulders. They both moved without pain, telling him that nothing of import was injured, although he would surely ache on the morrow. Still, blood trickled down his back, sticky and warm, staining another man’s garment. He made a face, guessing it would take needle and thread to repair both him and Sir John’s tunic.

As Temric FitzHenry, or Richard Alwynason, crouched to wipe his knife blade on the fallen man’s tunic, the older warrior looked up at Faucon. “I was told to make no sound as I came,” he said, his tone amused. “May I assume it’s safe to speak now?”

“Aye, you may, but I think I’ll speak first,” Faucon said with a grateful smile as his rescuer came to his feet. “By God, I’m glad you agreed to meet with me this night. If the day comes when you have such a need, know that I am yours.”

The knight who was not a knight almost smiled at that. “For the sake of my half-brothers who love you, glad I am I was here to assist. Although I think the news you crave of them should wait for another meeting. Brother Colin was none too happy at being commanded to stay away. Once he’s got you, I expect he’ll busy himself tending to your needs.”

Then the knight toed the man whose throat he’d cut. “Tell me, Sir Crowner. Shall we raise the hue and cry, and chase down these evildoers?”

“As this shire’s Crowner I pronounce their killings justified,” Faucon replied with a breath of a laugh, then he sighed. “I would just as well throw these two into the nearest cesspit. I’d rather they weren’t identified.”

“How so?” Temric asked.

An explanation was the least he owed this soldier. “The one who sent these dogs did so believing that the outcome would be in his favor no matter how this encounter ended. If I died, he would be rid of me and all I represent to him. He would then be free to replace me with a man of his own choosing. But he was equally prepared for me to live on past this attack. Now that I have, he’ll expect me to come for him, making accusations of attempted murder. He’ll meet my accusations with cries of besmirched honor, then challenge me when I’m not yet ready to meet him sword to sword. But, if his men are identified, I’ll have no choice in the matter. If I don’t make the expected charges, I’ll seem a coward.”

“Ah,” the older man replied in understanding, “thus costing you the respect of every man in the shire.”

Faucon nodded. To lose the respect of those in this shire so soon in the term of his appointment meant he’d never command the authority he needed to do what was expected of him. And if he failed at his tasks, he’d not only disappoint his great-uncle, he’d lose his twenty pounds a year.

“As you can see, this man believed no matter what happened, he would be rid of me,” Faucon repeated. “The only factor he hadn’t considered when he sent his men to follow me to Stanrudde was that there might be someone here who could come to my aid.”

As the words left Faucon’s mouth, the bits and pieces he held so precious shuffled, moving until the tale they told began to unfold. He grinned, at last understanding why the coins had been left on the board. Aye, who, indeed, was the fox and who the hare?

The older knight freed a harsh breath. “Well, as far as these two, I think you’re in luck. It just so happens there are a few men inside the alehouse I suspect know how to make such offal disappear. I’ll pay them on your behalf, guarding your anonymity, and happily take in trade your promise of future aid. Although it’s a poor trade on my part, I think. I cannot imagine ever needing such assistance now that I have given up the warrior’s life to become a city man. Good night to you, Sir Faucon. I’ll send Brother Colin to you.”

Much to Faucon’s surprise, this usually humorless man offered him a smile. As Temric’s mouth lifted, the shadows rearranged themselves, flowing over the rough lines of his face, highlighting the rise of his cheekbones and bend of his nose. His eyes were but a bare gleam.

“At the moment, I find myself thinking it may be a good thing to know a Crowner, but not such a good thing to be one, at least not in this shire. Rannulf was wise to refuse the position. If my guess is right as to who hunts you, I think you’d be well advised to hire someone to help watch your back.”

Then Temric disappeared into the darkness at the back of the alleyway.

Brother Colin’s stillroom, where the monk made the concoctions he used in his healing, was hardly more than a shed which stood near the end of the abbey’s infirmary. Long and narrow, it had a tile roof and wooden walls. The half dozen tallow lamps the monk had set out so he could see to Faucon’s injuries offered more than enough light to show his Crowner every corner of this amazing place.

Only one wall was bare, that being one of the narrow end walls. It had been painted with the image of their Lord healing the leper. A small prie-dieu stood against the painting, no doubt the place where Colin offered up his private prayers in those instances when his work kept him from joining his brothers.

Faucon could see little of the other three walls. Bunches of herbs, each one offering up its fragrance or stink, filled the length of every beam and hung from strings tacked to the tops of the walls. Beneath this leafy ceiling ran line after line of narrow shelving. These shelves were jammed with tiny pots and ewers, stacks of nested bowls and small spoons, mortars with their pestles, and wee wooden boxes, the sort that apothecaries used. Beneath the lowest shelf, the base of the walls was cluttered with sacks of who-knew-what.

A long table took up the center of the chamber. Combs of beeswax as well as pots of goose grease and tallow filled one end. Aligned along its center were three small braziers, a metal bowl sitting atop each one. The only sign of the equipment Colin used for distilling his concoctions was the copper vessel at the far end of the table. Since the still needed fire to do its work, Faucon guessed that the monk did the actual distilling stood outside the shed.

Stripped to his braies, Faucon sat on a short bench and plied his spoon as he ate the alewife’s lamb stew. It was fragrant and tasty, if not very warm. God bless him, Colin had appeared in the alley with a stoppered jug of ale and stew in a small wooden pail, which he’d insisted on carrying Faucon’s meal for him in deference to his injuries.

Once they’d arrived in the stillroom, Faucon hadn’t waited for Colin to find him more than a spoon. What need had he for a bowl when the pail worked well enough? As for the ale, Colin had insisted his Crowner use a cup for that. Faucon had agreed only because that made the rich dark liquid easier to savor. Indeed, he was enjoying it almost as much as the brews made by the alewife in the village of Priors Holden.

“This isn’t nearly as deep as I expected,” Colin said, as he washed away the last of the blood from the wound on Faucon’s back. “It’s more scrape than cut. That said, you’re missing a goodly patch of skin back here. It’ll burn as it heals and leave a strange scar, I fear, although I have an unguent that’ll help a bit with that.”

The monk had already stitched the cut in his Crowner’s upper arm. He’d even applied some wondrous potion to the area that had deadened pain before he’d started sewing. That alone won Faucon’s respect and unending gratitude.

“Did I not tell you?” Faucon replied, finishing the last of the stew. “The worst of the whole encounter is that yon tunic isn’t mine.” He pointed his spoon toward Sir John’s sodden garment, fearing it was ruined now that it was both bloodstained and watermarked. The walk to the abbey had been long enough for the fabric to clot to his wound, and Colin had needed to soak the area before he could remove the tunic. “I cannot return it to the man who owns it both stained and torn.”

That made the monk laugh. “In the morning, I’ll see to your garment, making sure it’s mended and cleaned for you while you make your visit to our shoemakers. I’m sure the abbot can find you a tunic to use on the morrow, that is, if you vow not to allow more brigands to attack you and ruin that one as well.”

As he said that, Colin laid a hand on Faucon’s right shoulder. “If you are able to visit Peter on the morrow, I think you’d best stay in Herebert’s church long enough to offer our Lord a bit of thanks. Both injuries on the left! You won’t be away from the tools of your trade for long, if at all. My only concern is how to wrap it, for it will surely seep,” he finished, speaking more to himself than Faucon.

Turning to a tall basket that leaned against the far wall, the monk asked, “So, are you going to tell me what happened tonight?”

Faucon laughed, draining his cup, then lifting the jug to squeeze the last drop from it. “After you tell me if Hodge is wed and if has he any heirs.”

Colin pulled a length of linen from the basket, nicked it with a knife then tore it. The fabric whirred softly as it separated, doing so in a straight line. “He’s a widower as of half a year ago,” he said, as he continued to tear bandages, “although I find it hard to name him so when his was hardly a marriage. Master William arranged the union for Hodge, choosing Maud, the widow of our previous pleykster, so she might train him in her husband’s trade. Hodge was an honest lad, and hard working. Yet, despite that he strove mightily, he ever remained the least of William’s apprentices. He couldn’t understand the value of what Mistress Elinor and her women produced. And because he couldn’t, he consistently undersold their products. William was right to find him a more straightforward trade to master.

“As for heirs, nay, Hodge has none. Maud was a toothless crone when they wed, all her own heirs having passed before her. Hodge became more son to her than husband, and he was good to her until she finally left this earthly vale.

“Now, you tell me your tale,” the monk demanded, albeit mildly as he brought his strips of linen to the table.

As Faucon’s bits and pieces once more shifted, this time falling into what was becoming a pleasing pattern, he smiled and shifted to straddle the end of the bench as Colin indicated. “Tonight’s little spat was a message from Sir Alain. He’d prefer that I cease to be a servant of the crown in his shire.”

That startled a laugh out of the monk. He shook his finger at Faucon. “Did I not warn you at our first meeting that our lord sheriff wouldn’t much like your appointment?”

Faucon grinned. “So you did, and you weren’t the only one to offer up words of caution. Lady Marian of Blacklea told me she expected Sir Alain to eat up my bones. Do you think she’s right?”

The monk eyed his Crowner for a moment, then gave a slow and negative shake his head. “Although I might have agreed with her two weeks ago, I’m no longer so certain.” Then he winked. “Although you do look like death. You’re more spattered than Bernart.”

Faucon laughed. “Wind your bandages around me, old man, then let me find that corner you promised me.”

Faucon groaned as he awakened. He was indeed sore, but he blamed most of his aching on that new bed of his at Blacklea. It was making him soft. In just two weeks he’d forgotten how to rest easily on an earthen floor with nothing but a straw-stuffed pallet between him and the dirt. Lifting off his mantle, which he’d used as a second blanket, he pushed aside the thin sheet of wool that Colin had offered, then sat up and squinted. The stillroom door stood wide, letting in both dawn’s light and morn’s chill air.

Although the sun had barely risen–dawn came later now that Winter was almost upon them–the business of the world was already at hand. Small birds darted back and forth across the opening, chittering and commenting happily to each other over the richness of the dying herb garden that spread out before the stillroom door. In the distance, hammers on anvils were already tapping out the beat of the city’s heart. Closer to hand, donkeys brayed and sheep bleated. Someone whistled a cheery tune.

Faucon grinned. And he yet lived. He came to his feet, his mantle in hand, then rotated his injured arm and smiled. Not only did he move, he moved well. He shifted his shoulder blade and winced. All things considered, it was a good day. But then, he’d never doubted that Colin knew his trade.