A Summer of Discontent

Their conversation was cut short by a warning yell from Cynric. Meadowman fumbled for his sword, then fell backwards to land with a gasp of pain on the rutted trackway. Cynric whipped his bow from his shoulder and nocked an arrow into it, looking around wildly. As a crossbow bolt thudded into the ground near the horses’ hoofs, a stout staff miraculously appeared in Michael’s hand and Bartholomew drew his dagger. When a second bolt hissed past his chest, perilously close, Bartholomew’s horse panicked and started to rear and buck. Knowing he would be an easy target in his saddle, the physician abandoned his attempts to control the animal and slipped to the ground, anticipating the sharp thump of a quarrel between his ribs at any moment.

* * *

It was all over very quickly. Cynric drew his long Welsh dagger and spurred his pony into the undergrowth. Moments later he emerged with the crossbowman held captive. Meadowman sat up and grinned sheepishly, indicating that it had been poor horsemanship that had precipitated his tumble, not an arrow. Michael held his staff warily, ready to use it, while Bartholomew tried to calm his horse.

‘And the rest of you can come out, too,’ growled Cynric angrily, addressing the thick bushes that lined one side of the causeway. ‘Or I shall slit your friend’s throat.’

Evidently, Cynric’s tone of voice and gleaming dagger were convincing. There was a rustle, and two more men and a woman emerged to stand on the trackway. Still clutching his knife and alert for any tricks, Bartholomew studied them.

They were all olive skinned and black haired, and their clothes comprised smock-like garments covered in a colourful display of embroidery. Bartholomew imagined they were itinerant travellers from the warm lands around the Mediterranean, who drifted wherever the roads took them, paying their way by hiring out their labour in return for food or a few pennies. They looked sufficiently similar to each other for Bartholomew to assume they were related in some way, perhaps brothers and sister.

The three men were heavy-set fellows who sported closely cropped hair and a week’s growth of beard that made them appear disreputable. One of them stared at Cynric, his eyes wide with childlike terror, and Bartholomew saw that although he possessed the strong body of man, his mind was that of an infant. The woman moved closer to him, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder to silence the beginnings of a fearful whimper. She was tall and, although Bartholomew would not have described her as pretty, there was a certain attractiveness in the strength of her dark features.

‘There is no need for further violence,’ she said in French that held traces of the language of the south. ‘You can see we are unarmed. Just take what you want and let us be on our way. We have no wish to do battle with robbers.’

Michael gaped at her. ‘It may have escaped your notice, madam, but you were shooting at us, not the other way around.’

The man who was still perilously close to the tip of Cynric’s knife turned angry eyes on the monk. He was the largest of the three, and had a hard-bitten look about him, as if he was used to settling matters with his fists. He wore a peculiar gold-coloured cap that was newer and of a much higher quality than his other clothes. Bartholomew wondered whether he had stolen it, since it seemed at odds with the rest of his clothing.

‘That is a lie!’ Gold-Hat shouted furiously. ‘We heard you coming, so we hid in the undergrowth to wait for you to pass. Then your servants spotted us and immediately drew their weapons.’

‘That is not what happened!’ exclaimed Michael, astonished. ‘We were riding along in all innocence, when you started loosing crossbow bolts at us.’

‘You fired first,’ said the woman firmly. ‘We are not robbers.’

‘You look like robbers,’ said Meadowman bluntly. He inspected their clothes with the uneasy, disparaging curiosity of an untravelled man encountering something with which he was unfamiliar.

‘I will not stand here and listen to this-’ began Gold-Hat angrily, and rather rashly, given that Cynric’s dagger still hovered dangerously close to his neck. The woman silenced him with a wave of her hand — although the prod of Cynric’s weapon may also have had something to do with the sudden cessation of furious words — and turned to Michael, addressing him in a controlled and reasonable tone of voice.

‘We are respectable folk, who have come to Ely to hire out our services for the harvest. The priory owns a great deal of land and casual labour is always in demand at this time of year. We are not outlaws.’ She looked Michael up and down as if she thought the same could not be said for him.

‘Do I look like the kind of man to rob fellow travellers?’ demanded Michael, tapping his chest to indicate his Benedictine habit. ‘I am a monk!’