Dark Hunter Episode 43

Sir Anthony examines the papers. “Is it a cipher, do you think?” he says. “I have heard of them but never seen one.” Of course. “May I have a look, sir?” The monks in the scriptorium at Gloucester occasionally wrote in cipher to amuse themselves and one of them explained the simplest of forms, where the vowels are replaced by the nearest consonant. But it does not take me long to realise that is not what has been employed here.

“It is not obvious. May I take it and try to discover the words?”

Sir Anthony hesitates, but finally nods. “Keep it safe.”

He hands it over and we look at the other paper below.

This one we can read and it chills us to the bone, for here are the numbers of soldiers lodged in the town and the castle, even if they are different now from what was true several months ago when the traitor compiled them. And beneath is a description of the various places where the wall is weak.

Sir Anthony looks very pale in the misty light.

“We need to catch that knave.” He looks round each of us squires with his brows lowered and his lips pressed tight. “And not one of you must mention these papers, do you hear? Edmund, I would ask for your silence too.”

Sir Edmund nods.

“The gates are shutting, sir.” Stephen pulls at his nose, which he always does when he’s disturbed in his mind.

An old man staggers bow-legged to a nearby tent carrying firewood. He sits down heavily outside it, lamenting loudly that he hasn’t had time to find much. Sir Anthony beckons over the woman who told us about the purse, but she just shrugs when he asks her where the devil Henry might be.

“Why is he not here? There’s nowhere else he can be now.”

Sir Anthony chews his lip. He turns to the woman again. “What does he look like? There’s no reward until we catch him, you know that?”

She shrugs again. “Big. Bigger than any of you. But there be nothing much on him, like a stick. ’Bout your age.”

She nods at Sir Edmund. “Hair the colour of a dun horse all over his head and chin.”

I’m sure I’ve passed him a dozen times, but that does not help us now.

Sir Anthony tells us to go our own way, walking through the town to look for him. I do not think this will yield anything but say nothing.

There is something I want to try, though alas it means parting with more of my own money at the baker’s shop. I run down, chafing at the tail of people stretched along the street and talking up rumours till they become giants and walk off by themselves.

But, at last, I climb back up the hill and approach the old man still complaining outside his tent.

I squat down beside him and show him the pastry. “I thought you might like this since you had so little time outside this morning.”

He eyes it with a tremble of his lip. Then, quick as the flick of a cat’s tail, snatches it and starts eating. It is not at all pleasant to watch him, but I must be patient.

He finishes and belches loudly, sending a disgusting waft of meaty air in my direction.

“Was Henry Cranston outside this morning?”

He smiles without mirth. “Is you one o’ the sojers looking for him?”

“Did somebody tell him?”

He inclines his head a little, which I understand to mean yes.

“What did he do then?”

“He don’t be liking sojers.”

“Why not?”

He clucks to himself, a broad grin on his face. “He is taking the king’s money and leaving the king’s army before the great battle. The king is not liking that, you see. He’s not liking that at all. Henry is coming here, to be living quietly.”

“So, he went somewhere else. Do you know where?”

“Why you be asking? What’s Henry done? He is a rascal of a man, right enough. Always taking people’s food when he thinks you’re not looking.”

“Yes, we think he took something that wasn’t his and we just want to know where he took it from.”

The old man nods.

“He’s not saying where he’s going, just stopped his fishing and went towards the river. He used to be living over towards Scremerston. Maybe he is going back.” He looks beyond me, lines deepening. “Or to his sister’s house. In Tweedmouth. Emma, she’s called. Married an Armstrong there. Henry doesn’t like him, but he has tender feelings for her.”

I rise. “Thank you.”

I am almost going to say he will receive some of the reward for Henry’s capture, but that is a whole other story I should not tell until we are safe again.

I need to find Sir Anthony, but it is Will I uncover first, talking to some wench on the corner of Briggait. He tells me to look along the wharves without turning his head from the girl, who gazes at him with the moon in her eyes.

I want to tell her to have a care. Hastening on down through the Watergate, I dive into the noise and bustle of the riverbank.

Henry would need money to get across the Tweed by boat and I doubt he had any. But the tide is only recently turned, so he could easily get across the river. I can certainly ask if anyone saw him.

I look around and at last I spy Sir Anthony talking to the burgess Walter Goswick. He sees me, too, and raises a hand, so I go to join them, picking my way through boxes, the hurrying of men.

I see no point in wasting time. “Will you come over to Tweedmouth with me, sir?”

But it is Goswick who replies. “Have you got wings under your cloak, young man?”

I smile, but inside it irks me he should think me such a fool. “Yes, of course, sir. I mean, no, I don’t. I suppose we’ll need a boat?”

He turns around and studies the water, which is becoming deeper by the minute.

“That you will.”

This one we can read and it chills us to the bone, for here are the numbers of soldiers lodged in the town

More tomorrow.