By the time I had regained my feet, my squire was weeping and panting, spent and still kneeling over the body of a man whose upper regions had been transformed into a mash of chopped meat. Thomas’s hands were red to the wrists, as if dipped in paint; but the blood was not his, God be praised.
All four men were down. The fight from first to last had taken only a couple of dozen heartbeats. The first man I had struck down had tried to crawl away from the fight and now sat half a dozen paces away, facing away from me, howling in agony, clutching his half-severed foot as it pumped blood to join the black flow in the centre of the street. I shambled across to him, growling, my left arm completely numb, and took his head off with one low hard sweep of Fidelity. As I stepped back from his squirting neck stump, and watched his head roll bumpily into the torrent of filth in the centre of the road, I realized that my anger had led me into making a mistake: I needed information. Turning, I saw that the second man, whose throat I had skewered, lay sprawled on the paving slabs, the rain falling relentlessly into his still open eyes. The deluge was beginning to wash the blood from Thomas’s victim, but the knife-mangled neck that was revealed made it clear he would never speak again. The cudgel man whose bowel I had pierced was still alive, but only just. His face was a waxy yellow, knotted with pain, and he was breathing in short, hard gasps. I knew he too had only a few moments left in this world – and I badly needed him to talk to me.
I knelt beside him and gently smoothed the wet hair from his forehead, out of his eyes. The rain fell like spears. I put my mouth to his ear. ‘What is your name, sir?’ I said quietly in French. ‘And why did you seek to attack me?’
He seemed not to notice my questions, although his breathing slowed a little – the end was very near. I repeated my questions, slightly louder this time, giving his shoulder a gentle shake. And this time, he managed to turn his head and look at me. ‘Forgive me,’ he panted.
‘Tell me your name, and whom you serve and I will forgive you,’ I said. ‘Tell me now.’
‘For … forgive me,’ he forced out again. ‘We had our orders from the Master. You had … to die. But I ask your forgiveness, Sir Alan … for the sake of Our Lady, Our Mother, the ever merciful Queen of Heaven, forgive me.’
For all that he had been trying to kill me a few moments before, I did feel pity for him. I was moved by his unusual way of begging for forgiveness. He slumped against my body, his breathing ragged, pumping, the pain riding him. I said: ‘I forgive you; but tell me whom you serve? Who is this Master you speak of – and why does he wish me dead?’
The man gave no reply but let out one long shuddering breath. He twitched once, his head fell forward, chin on breast, and his immortal soul left the cage of his body.
I laid him down as gently as possible in the street, made the sign of the Cross above him, and looked over at Thomas. He was still kneeling beside the corpse he had made, the rain splashing in the gore puddles around him. I levered myself to my feet, my back and shoulder shrieking with pain.
‘Come, Thomas, we must go. Before long the Provost’s men will come and we are strangers here, and foreigners to boot – we will be seen as enemies. I do not want to answer questions in the King’s dungeon about these men’s deaths; questions that I cannot answer. Let us leave their souls to Almighty God, and their bodies to the Provost’s men.’
Extremely bad weather, my bruised body and a stinking cold – brought on no doubt by our violent exertions in the rain that day – kept me housebound for the next week. But I did not grudge the inactivity; it gave me time to think.
I was no longer convinced that Robin was the ‘man you cannot refuse’. Twice now I had been attacked by men who sought my death; on each occasion the men involved in the attack were of the same quality: trained soldiers, most probably knights. I had been close to Robin for six years, and even assuming that he sought my death – which I did not really believe – if he had a company of murderous French knights at his beck and call I was certain that I would have had some inkling of them. So these were not Robin’s men, they belonged to somebody else: somebody they referred to as ‘the Master’. Presumably the Master and the ‘man you cannot refuse’ were the same man, and he was not Robin.
On the other hand, Robin had silenced Murdac, and had tried to prevent me from pursuing the man who ordered my father’s death. So Robin might well have some connection with this murderous Master – but what?
My reasoning could go no further.
There had been no word from Brother Michel – but I was not overly concerned. From Maurice de Sully’s point of view, I was a man enquiring into a twenty-year-old crime – it would not be high on the list of duties that needed attending to. And I had confidence that Brother Michel was a man of his word and that he would find an opportunity for us to meet with the Bishop. As he had said, I must be patient.