LVI

 

 

IT HAD BEEN wise to leave that open space. Or, rather, it had been deeply unwise to enter it. Now, as the remaining knights and serjeants ran back along the path, some of them began to understand that entering these woods at all had been a terrible mistake.

Their suspicions were confirmed just yards into the thicket. The serjeant named Renaut stumbled over a length of rope, which he was sure had not been there on the way in. His crossbow fired uselessly into the branches above and he stumbled to his knees as a pair of knights – Gilles D’Arconcey and William de Clomot – pushed past. There was a clunk, and a long zzzzzzzzzzzzzip. Renaut feared the worst. Others tumbled into the back of him. As he lifted his head, he saw a huge wooden spar – the shaft of the plundered wagon – swing out of the dark thicket and across the path as if on a great hinge. Its great weight smashed into the two knights, who’d both been running full tilt. D’Arconcey was knocked flat on his back and lay stunned before Renaut, but de Clomot – who had stopped dead as if against a stone wall – somehow remained upright. The shaft swung back, and de Clomot with it, weirdly suspended. Then Renaut saw the row of crude iron spikes that lined the shaft. And the blood. Stumbling on the rope had triggered the trap. But it had also saved him.

There was a scramble to head back the way they had come. This path meant death. All knew they needed to get off it – to find another route out. But the thicket that pressed around appeared too dense to pass through.

Renaut had not been the last to get away. Behind him was Odo – a big man, less fleet of foot than the others, but harder to stop once he got moving.

He never got that chance. Renaut heard a curse, then a crash, and glanced back. Odo had fallen and was scrabbling for his crossbow on the damp, mouldy earth, a look of terror on his face. “Something’s got me!” he cried. “Something’s got my foot!” Renaut stopped, conflicting impulses fighting within him. Then a dark shape rose up from the damp undergrowth. Renaut raised his crossbow, realised it was no longer primed, fought with it – too late. He saw the glint of a poleaxe as it was swung, and heard the thud as its spike hit Odo in the back. Then, before Renaut could call to his fellows, the shape had gone, swallowed up by the thicket. Mouth dry, heart thumping, he pounded along the path and ran into them huddled at the clearing’s edge.

“I saw him!” he hissed in a hoarse whisper. “Back there. Odo...” He realised, as he said it, that the man now also had Odo’s crossbow. He primed his own, hurriedly; then, before any of them got the idea into their heads to go after him, added, wild-eyed: “He melted back into the bush – like he was part of it.”

Richard de Saulieu stepped forward, his expression stern. “He’s just one man. He can’t be everywhere. And we know he’s behind us now.” He scanned the perimeter of the clearing. Part way around, to the right, was an opening in the undergrowth – the entrance to another forest path. “There...” He pointed. “We take that and double back to the road. Then we’ll get the hounds and flush him out like a beast.”

Without another word, he dashed across the open space and disappeared. The others followed close behind, running low, starting at shadows, Thomas Le Maupas guarding their back.

No sooner had they plunged down this path than Renaut heard another stifled cry behind him. It was Thomas.

Renaut felt sick. Thirteen men had walked into this forest – nine knights and four serjeants. There were now only three. He knew they had put themselves in a trap, that Fulke had wasted his fellows’ lives. But he trusted de Saulieu. And de Saulieu was right – their enemy couldn’t be everywhere. They were now on their way out of the catastrophe.

Up ahead, just past de Saulieu, he saw grey open sky. The end of the path. They were close to the road now, and to their waiting horses.

De Saulieu pushed a branch out of his way. There was a creak, and then something no bigger than a cat swung down from the trees and struck de Saulieu in the head. He snapped back suddenly at the impact, helm spinning off into the twiggy undergrowth, blood and teeth flying through the air. After a moment, his knees buckled and he crumpled in a heap. The last of the knights, Bernard de Pouilly, stepped forward to help his friend, bemused, unaware quite what had happened. But as the shape swung up past Renaut’s face, he understood.

Renaut’s first instinct was that the thing swooping over the forest path was some kind of bird. Something big – a raven, perhaps, or a buzzard. Now, as the black object slowed and began to swing back, he saw. The enginer’s anvil, suspended on two lengths of thick rope. He called out to de Pouilly in alarm. De Pouilly turned from his fallen comrade to Renaut, looked up, and – too late – saw the great block of iron hurtling back towards him. It smashed his face like an egg.

Renaut ran, then, crashing off into the undergrowth, away from the path, trying desperately to cut through to the daylight of the road. Twigs and brambles scratched his face and tore at his clothes as he waded through the impossible tangle, his crossbow still clutched in his hands, still primed. Behind him, now, he heard another movement. He hoped it was one of his fellows – one who was not yet dead – but he did not stop to look back. He panted and thrashed, the footfalls crunching behind him, gaining on him, speeding along the path he himself had cleared. Tendrils wrapped around him, grasping at him, holding him fast – he realised with horror he had blundered into a thick, impassable briar.

He remembered the crossbow. He fought against clinging, woody stems, surcoat ripping, and turned and levelled his weapon at the fast advancing black shape.

The bolt was missing, fallen in the chase.

He heard a bow shoot – not his. Something thudded into his chest. Then all went black.

Renaut’s last moments on earth were spent hanging in a dead thorn bush like the prey of a butcher bird.