Traitor (28 page)

He handed it to Dee. ‘Ask Mr Oxx to find a messenger in the morning.’

‘Cecil will not be happy.’

No, Shakespeare knew that. His letter would not be at all well received.

Close by the Dogghole, four fence posts had been driven into the ground and a rope strung around them to form a square, ten feet by ten feet. A crowd of the dispossessed was gathered around it, perhaps eighty strong. They were noisy and riotous. Drink was already being taken, despite the early hour. Men, women and children had appeared from their secret sleeping places in barns and copses. They smoked pipes of woodland leaves and clasped beakers of strong liquor and ale. They cheered and barracked the empty square, and had brawls of their own as they waited expectantly for the entertainment. There would be blood and broken bones here this day. Perhaps a death. That was worth waiting for.

The embers of last night’s fire had been stoked up and those fortunate enough to have food were cooking it: songbirds or their eggs, young hedgehogs, skinned weasel, rabbits, broth, potage of foraged leaves, roots and rancid meat found on the forest floor. Others were busy placing bets on the fight. The bets were not on the outcome, which was reckoned by all a certain win for the thin and wily Spindle, but the duration of the fight and the nature of Woode’s injuries.

‘Ten to one a busted arm! Four to one a gouged eye!’

‘Even money a broke nose!’

A short distance away, inside the Dogghole, Ursula slapped Andrew’s face. It hurt, and he sat back with a jolt.

She laughed. ‘You look pigging awful. I never saw a boy so cup-shotten as you last night.’

‘My head. I can’t fight.’

He was sitting on a three-legged stool, his shoulders slumped.

‘Well, if you don’t, you’ll have more than the catchpoles and constables to run from. Get out there and do your best.’

She pinched his nose to make him open his mouth, then pushed in a hunk of bread. She held a beaker of ale up to his face. ‘Drink. Wash it down. It’ll stop your shakes.’

He wanted to be sick again, but tried chewing as ordered, then took a sip.

‘That’s not so pigging bad, is it? Now remember what I told you. Spindle will fight dirty. He’ll trip you, stamp on your balls and gouge your glazers. He might be pike-thin but he’s a mean, slippery gullion. You’re a strong lad, too, though, and you’re bigger than he is.’

Suddenly the doorway darkened. Staffy was ducking in, then rose to his immense height. ‘Is he ready, Ursula Dancer?’

‘Ready as he ever will be. Don’t let Spindle hurt him too bad, Staffy. He’s like a big pigging baby and I doubt he’s ever had a fight in his life before.’

‘It’s out of my hands. The challenge has been made. You’re the one who let it come to this, Ursula Dancer. If he wants to stay with us, he’s got to see it through.’

‘You’re wrong, Staffy. This isn’t my doing.’

‘Maybe so, Ursula, but you should have steered clear of Reaphook. He’ll use anything to stir his followers. Well, I’m going to have it out with him, and soon. That’ll be the next
challenge fight. There isn’t enough space for both of us in this fraternity.’

Andrew was only half listening. He grimaced and chewed. His head and body ached, but he was clear about what was happening. He should be up and running, not sitting around waiting to be mashed. But if he didn’t have the strength to run, how was he to fight?

‘What if I don’t
want
to stay with you?’ he said weakly as he managed to swallow the last bit of bread. ‘If I go now, you’ll have no more trouble on my account.’

Ursula shook her head. ‘If you go now, you’ll have handed victory to Reaphook. Anyway, how you going to survive on your own? You can’t feed yourself and you can’t even steal. If you don’t have a band around you to look out for you, teach you what’s what, you’ll be swinging from a tree within a week.’

‘I told you. I’ve got to get to London. That’s where I live. My family’s there. They’ll look after me.’

‘And it’ll be the first pigging place the law looks for you. If you’ve done a hanging felony, they’ll send a catchpole up to London to bring you back.’

A cheer went up from outside the filthy, crumbling building. Staffy nodded sharply. ‘That’s enough talk. Spindle’s arrived. Get your boy out there, Ursula.’

Spindle was weaving from side to side, parrying and ducking imagined punches. As Andrew and Ursula approached the fighting-square, the crowd murmured, but Spindle did not turn to look at them.

All the eyes in the audience were on Andrew, sizing him up. Was he worth a wager? Could he spring a surprise? Their scornful faces said No.

‘Fight for your life, Andrew Woode,’ Ursula whispered
urgently in his ear. ‘Even if you’re down and bloody, show your courage.’

Andrew stumbled forward as if in a waking nightmare. Suddenly, the rope was held up and he was pushed under. He was in the fighting-square. He turned and tried to crawl back out, but half a dozen hands pushed him in again.

Ursula looked on with trepidation. Suddenly Reaphook was at her side, leering. He grabbed her arm.

‘We can stop this now, dell. It’s your choice.’

Ursula recoiled from the harsh voice in her ear and the iron grip of his hand. She tried vainly to shake him away. ‘Pig off, Reaphook.’

He pulled her to him. His breath smelt of ale and meat. ‘Open your legs, give me what’s mine and I’ll save your young friend. I laid the challenge, I can stop it.’ His other hand went to her skirts, grabbing at her through the coarse tatters.

She shied away from him again. She had a knife in her hand, and thrust its point at his belly. ‘Reaphook, I swear I’ll do for you.’

He laughed and pressed his belly into the point of the knife. ‘Then he’ll die in there. Your choice. Watch Spindle do for him. He’s got my orders: no quarter. Only one gets out alive.’

Staffy was now in the middle of the square, his enormous bulk dominating his surroundings. He had his six-foot ash staff gripped in his right hand. He didn’t have to hush the crowd. They went quiet at the mere sight of him. Even Spindle turned round and ceased his shadow-fighting.

‘You know why we’re all here,’ Staffy boomed. ‘We’ve got a fight, called by young Spindle. He reckons he’s got a quarrel with a newcomer named Andrew Woode. There’s only one way to settle it. I’m the Upright Man of this band and I say the fight is over only when
both
boys agree it’s over. Now let’s see if Woode is as hard as his name. Fight on. Nothing barred.’

An old woman screeched, ‘It’s like putting a week-old chick against a fighting-cock.’

Staffy ducked under the cord and out of the square. As he moved towards Ursula, Reaphook pulled away from her and slunk off.

The two boys were alone in the fighting-square, facing each other over a distance of five feet. Spindle had rags wrapped tight around his fists and around his feet. Andrew looked incongruous in the remains of his black college gown, spattered with mud and a few remaining daubs of red paint. Spindle began weaving his shoulders again, grinning that endless grin, as though his mouth had been permanently frozen in the shape of an upturned horseshoe. He swaggered towards Andrew, winked at him, then punched him in the stomach. Andrew doubled up, winded.

‘Go down on your belly, lick the dirt off my feet and I might let you live.’

Andrew gasped for breath. ‘You win. I never wanted this fight.’

‘Well, you got it. And I win when I say I’ve won.’

As he spoke, he wheeled on the balls of his feet and lashed out backwards with his right foot, cracking hard with his heel into Andrew’s shin. Andrew yelped and fell backwards against the rope. Spindle hadn’t stopped turning. He came around with his fist, which caught Andrew’s temple a crunching blow. The older boy’s knee jerked up and smacked hard into Andrew’s balls. Andrew howled and crumpled to the dusty ground.

The crowd roared approval. ‘Cut him, Spindle. Cut him and cook him.’

Spindle put his foot on the side of Andrew’s head, wedging it against the stony earth. He put all his weight on it and twirled around, grinding the head down, wrenching Andrew’s ear.

Ursula turned to Staffy. ‘Make him stop.’

‘I can’t.’

Spindle was dancing around the square, feinting punches and kicks. Andrew was lying still on the ground, blood seeping from his torn ear. Spindle went back to him, knelt at his side, grasped his balls and squeezed them with a grip like a smithy’s vice.

‘Do you like that?’

Suddenly Andrew lashed out with his elbow and tried to scrabble away. The blow didn’t hurt Spindle, but it caught him by surprise and he loosened his grip. Andrew crawled to his knees, his face twisted with pain. Spindle jumped to his feet with the agility of a cat, then kicked upwards, hitting Andrew an uppercut blow to the chin with his bony, bandaged foot. Andrew sprawled backwards, his head smacking down with a juddering crack.

The blood-hungry crowd laughed and jeered.

Spindle was angry now, enraged by Andrew’s blow. The lurid cries of the onlookers intensified his bloodlust.

‘I’ve had enough of this game,’ he said.

Across the square, Ursula locked eyes with Reaphook. He was smirking. She could bear it no longer and moved forward, pulling up the rope to the fighting-square. If Staffy wouldn’t put a stop to it, she would. But Staffy’s enormous hand grabbed the back of her ragged chemise and dragged her back.

She struggled to get free, but he was too strong.

‘No, Ursula Dancer. I’ve protected you these many years, but not this. You can’t interfere in a challenge fight. If it’s his time to die, so be it.’

Spindle had produced a knife. It was long and narrow with a dull blade but a bright, honed edge. He was pulling Andrew’s hair back and the blade was at his exposed throat. His voice was hoarse, quiet and gloating in Andrew’s bloodied ear.

‘Used to work at the shambles, didn’t I? No difference between bowelling a sheep and a man. I’ll drain your blood and cut you into joints, ready for the pot.’

The crowd hushed in taut expectation. The gamers who had wagered on this outcome kept a close watch on those who had taken their bets to be sure they didn’t run.

‘One little slice,’ Spindle said.

His raised his eyes and looked towards Reaphook for a signal. Reaphook nodded. Spindle grinned back.

‘One little slice and a rush of lovely blood …’

A
PIERCING WHISTLE
shrilled in the morning air. The frenzied shouting of the crowd ceased instantly, leaving only an alarmed murmur. Eyes turned away, scouring the landscape. In the distance, they could hear dogs barking.

The vagabonds knew what it meant. The whistle had been blown by their lookout. The townsfolk, farmers and their hired hands were coming to drive them on. They had been expecting this for many days.

Spindle’s blade hovered like a dragonfly over Andrew’s tender skin, but the audience was already dispersing.

‘I think I’ll save this pleasure for another time.’ He slid the knife away and thrust it into the waist of his breeches, then pulled Andrew to his feet. ‘Arm yourself.’ He pulled one of the fighting-square posts from the ground and flung it to Andrew.

Instinctively, Andrew caught the pole. Ursula was at his side now, looking at his injured ear.

‘You’ll live,’ she said. ‘Come on, come with me.’

Spindle was curling the fighting-square’s rope around his shoulder and gathering the posts to hand out.

Staffy banged his staff on the side of a crate. All eyes turned to him. ‘Order now. We’ve got the men, but we must have order.’

‘We’re standing and fighting, yes?’ Reaphook snarled.

‘Mr Reaphook, shut your mouth and listen. We fight if I say so.’

‘Only—’

‘Mr Reaphook, if you say another word, I will push my staff down your gullet until it comes out your arse. Now go – take the eastern flank and wait for my word. I’ll hold the centre and the west. As soon as I know their numbers I’ll flag the signal. Black, we fight; white, we disperse.’

Reaphook was about to say something else, to protest, but Spindle touched his arm and shook his head. Together, they turned away and began rounding up men. Spindle glanced at Andrew, as if wondering whether to include him in his squadron, then looked away.

This band of men, eight-strong, spread out towards the rising sun with the blue-velvet figure of Reaphook in the centre, sickle in hand. They had staves, old billhooks, knives and clubs. One man powdered an arquebus and tried to light the match as he followed them at a fast trot. They were a ragged company in a strange assortment of clothes. Some looked tough, some frail. The rest of them, men, women and children, gathered close around Staffy.

‘Get up on the roof, Ursula Dancer. Tell us what you see.’

Staffy held out his enormous hands as a stirrup for her foot, then raised her to the broken, perilous roof of the Dogghole. Nimbly, she scrambled up. Standing with one foot on an exposed rafter, the other on the top of the wall, she shielded her brow with her small hand and looked northwards from where the barking seemed to have come.

‘What do you see?’

‘Men, mastiffs on leashes. They’re stretched out across the field. Coming this way.’

‘How far are they?’

‘Two furlongs, moving fast. I see bows and pikes and bills. Hagbuts, too. Half a dozen hagbuts, I’d say. Some men riding. More dogs at their hoofs. Archers, six archers.’

‘How many all told, Ursula? How many?’

‘Twenty-five … no, thirty-five. Six, seven horsemen.’

Staffy banged the empty keg again. The attackers were too well armed; the vagabonds would be overwhelmed. He tied a grubby white kerchief to the end of his staff and held it aloft, waving it.

‘Bills and pikes are one thing,’ he said to those around him. ‘Bowmen and mounted shot are another. We retreat. Go your own ways. We’ll meet at the white horse, where I will decide our next move. Good fortune to you all.’ He turned back to the roof and helped Ursula down. ‘Come on, Ursula Dancer, we got to go and quick. You take the boy. Look after yourself, girl.’

She looked at Andrew, and his bruises and cuts, and shook her head in resignation.