By Sylvian Hamilton Read Online Free PDF Page B

ignoring the huddled body.

    'What
was he in for?' Straccan asked the alehouse keeper.

    'His
mates buggered off without paying their score.'

    'Why
did he stay?'

    'Pissed.'

    Straccan
hauled him up, so light a weight that he staggered back, braced as he
was for something more substantial. He carried the body to the
alehouse, laid it on a bench, fetched water and a rag, and wiped the
blood and muck from the face. A darkening lump was swelling from the
edge of an eyebrow up into the hair. The man groaned, tried to sit up
and was violently sick. It was a couple of days before he could stand
again, and meanwhile he lay on straw in the stable-loft at Straccan's
charges.

    When
Bane emerged from the nightmarish vertigo that had kept him,
kitten-weak, on his back, Straccan packed him on his led mule and
rode to Peterborough. At the abbey gate he said, 'This is as far as I
go.'

    'I'm
in your debt,' Bane said.

    'Forget
it.'

    'I'd
like a chance to work it off.'

    'I
don't need any help,' Straccan said curtly.

    'Roads
aren't safe. Two's less like to be set upon than one.'

    'I
can take care of myself.'

    'Expect
you can, Master. So can I, when I'm sober.'

    'Anyway,
I wouldn't want a piss-artist around.'

    'I'm
not,' said Bane, stung. 'It was rotten bad beer!'

    'That's
what they all say,' said Straccan. He took the mule's leading-rein,
rode in under the arch of the abbey gates and didn't look back.

    His
business there took longer than expected, for His Reverence the
Abbot, abed with gout, would see no one until he felt better. Three
days later when Straccan rode out again, an insubstantial figure
detached itself from the mud-splashed wall and limped barefoot after
him. Near the town gate the rider stopped and let the man catch up.
The swelling over his eye had gone down but that side of his face was
all bruise, the same yellowing purple as the threatening morning sky
which promised storm.

    'What
are you called?' Straccan asked.

    'Hawkan
Bane.'

    'Well,
Hawkan Bane, you don't owe me anything.'

    'No?
Reckon you owe me, then.'

    'What?'
Straccan laughed. 'How's that?'

    'You
saved my life. I'd've probably died. They'd've let me lie in the mud
and drown, if I didn't freeze first. So it's up to you to look after
me now! On Tuesday I ate my coat and yesterday I ate my shoes. Now
all I've got left's this shirt, and if I sell that for food too, I'll
go bare-arsed. So I'm your responsibility!'

    'I
never heard such crap in my life,' said Straccan, 'but I admire the
cheek of it, I suppose. What use could you be to me?'

    'I
can do things. You'd be surprised.'

    'Surprise
me.'

    'I
can cook. I can mend, tend livestock. I'm skilled with wounds, fevers
and such. I can read and write a little, and reckon. I can kill your
enemies and entertain your friends.'

    Straccan
snorted. 'Sounds like a reference for a wife! Can you really read and
write?'

    Bane
bent and wrote in the mud with his finger: God, Kynge, Engelond.
Straccan peered at the words as the mud absorbed them into itself
again. 'Fair enough,' he said. He nudged his horse gently with his
knee and it walked on slowly, with Bane holding the stirrup and
limping beside. 'So what did you do before you were brought to such
straits?'

    'I've
travelled,' said Bane. 'I was a soldier.'

    'Where?'

    'France.
I was with King Richard at Gisors. I was left for dead there. The
night-frost stopped me bleeding to death and a woman helped me –one
of the scavengers that loot the dead after any battle. But she took a
fancy to me. She was all right.'

    'I
was there,' said Straccan. 'My horse was badly hurt: I thought he'd
die, but he didn't. I took a pike-thrust through the thigh. It's
still stiff in foul weather.'

    'A
horseman?' Bane was startled. 'What were you, a sergeant?'

    'No.
I am a knight. And must be on my way, so go you yours, and let go my
stirrup.'

    'Let
me along of you for a week! If you still don't want me, then I'll go
my way!'

    Four
years later he was still with