The Long Sword(9)

            Both of them flipped their cudgels from hand to hand.

            They didn’t even ask me for money.

            I settled my weight, and as the nearer of the two tossed his cudgel again, I struck.

            He missed his grab at the cudgel, and he was stabbed. I used the blade in his body as a lever to move his weight into his friend’s path – if such men have friends – and I left the dagger there and passed with my right foot, and the screaming man collapsed over his partner’s blade in his chest, and the last of them cut at me and missed.

            We were at an impasse.

            He swung at me, half-hearted swipes from out of distance. And then he began backing away, and I followed him.

            He was no fool. A soon as I followed him, he stepped in and swung.

            I was ready and in time, and I stepped off line and avoided the blow, turning him.

            He cut again, angry and afraid.

            I moved with the blow, followed it, and caught his wrist; he pulled back sharply, and I rammed his elbow over his own head and threw him to the ground.

            My own dagger, which I hadn’t drawn, flowed into my hand.

            I was standing on his wrist, as the Order taught, and as I had lowered my weight my knee may have already cracked a rib or two.

            But I’d just had an interview with Father Pierre, I had other things on my mind, and I’d just killed two men.

            I put my knife at his throat. ‘Saint John commands you to change your life,’ I said. I rose, sheathed my dagger while watching him, and walked away down the alley. The second man was already dead – my stab to the heart had indeed gone straight in.

            I prayed.

            I didn’t see the third man get up. But I was aware, painfully aware, that I had killed two men. Letting the third live was a poor consolation to the other two. And yet …

            My hands shook.



            My hands were still shaking when I reached the tavern. It is odd that always I react in fear after a fight is over. Sometimes, especially if there is a crowd, I’m terrified before a fight. Luckily, the fear never gets into my head while I’m fighting. But by the time I made it back to the table with the priests, I could barely walk, and my breathing was shallow.

            I took a sip of wine and had to go outside and throw up my dinner.

            Glorious. All glorious. Isn’t it?

            I expected Juan or Fiore to come find me, crouched in abject misery by the stables, but it was Anne who came with a cup of soft cider and a hot, wet cloth.

            ‘I’m sorry, my sweet,’ I said.

            She smiled. In fact, I think I scared her. ‘What happened?’

            ‘Men attacked me.’ I drank the cider and it stayed down.

            ‘Did they abuse you? Take your purse?’ She put a hand to my head in the way of mothers the world over.

            ‘No,’ I said. ‘I killed them.’

            She didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing, being wise. After a while, Juan leaned out the door of the inn and then came out and saw me, saw Anne, and bowed. ‘Ah, Sir William, the priests must be abed, and crave your letters.’

            When I passed him, he had the good grace to say ‘Sorry, Brother!’ Juan was never a prude about women. And he knew Anne from before.

            But I bowed to Anne and mumbled something, used her cloth to wipe my face, and went inside, where I managed to say something civil to the two Scotsmen, one from Hexham, and one from the Western Isles, a place called Mull, which seemed such a commonplace name that it made me laugh. But, according to him, there’s a great monastery there, and a nunnery, out on the very edge of the Great Western Ocean. Truly, God is great.