The Last Crusaders: The Great Siege by William Napier Read Free Book Online

govern yourself, boy. Forit will not be easy to keep body and soul together, the four of you, in your new life on the road. As vagabond children of a traitor. A short life but not, I fear, a very merry one.’
    He pulled his horse around.
    ‘Turn them loose! Fire the barns!’
    ‘And the house, Sire?’
    ‘The barns would be sign enough. Leave the house.’
    Some of the villagers looked mutinous as the barns and outbuildings of the Ingoldsby farm were put to the torch, and the four children were driven off down the street. Men clutched hoes and billhooks, women’s faces were dark with anger. But what could mere peasants do against a dozen mounted men-at-arms?
    Crake observed it all with cynical penetration. If only the children could have been finally disposed of … But there were limits. Catholic priests on missions from France might be caught and lynched promptly enough, and night-time visitations from a foreign order of Catholic knights were certainly sufficient cause to argue treason. But you could not simply dispose of heretical Catholic children, as the Israelites slew the children of the Amalekites.
    The law of England was harsh but fair. He would have to let them go. Penniless, without friends or family, they would not last long.

5
     
    The children passed away down the lane and into the open country under the gaze of a hundred villagers. Smoke drifted overhead from the burning barns. Flames crackled. Rooks rose indignantly from the tall elms.
    ‘Here!’ called out Crake at the last moment. ‘Something for your journey.’
    To everyone’s astonishment, he pulled a small but weighty leather purse from his cloak and tossed it down to the boy. Then he wrenched his horse around and trotted back up the hill. At the head of the lane, he turned in his saddle and watched them go.
    The children stumbled on for they knew not how long. Perhaps they would wake up and find it had been a nightmare. The short October day drew to a close and the sky darkened over their heads. A wind came up and whipped the leaves about in maddened flurries beneath the trees. They did not wake up.
    After a time, little Lettice said, ‘What will we have for supper? Is it to be only bread?’
    ‘We will ask at a farmhouse. Perhaps we can buy something more.’
    He drew Crake’s purse out and unknotted the strings as he walked and peered inside. Then he looked up.
    Susan was observing him closely.
    ‘Is it well?’
    He re-tied the strings, he wasn’t quite sure why, and stowed the purse away again.
    ‘Very well,’ he said quietly. ‘If I had a sling.’
    Crake had thrown him a purseful of pebbles.
    ‘I know what is in it,’ said Susan. ‘It is a favourite jest of Crake’s. He often throws purses of stones and pebbles to paupers, to see them run and grub in the dust. He finds their desperation amusing. But he says it is a parable, to teach them not to put their trust in gold.’
    ‘The man is a monster.’
    ‘God will make him pay.’
    ‘ I will make him pay. One day.’
    ‘You cannot usurp God.’ She hesitated and then added, ‘It was not your fault. What happened to father.’ She swiftly wiped an eye.
    Nicholas said nothing. His heart was as locked up as a casket.
    They came past a barn near a lonely farmstead, but a huge dog barked and tore at its chain as they approached, and Lettice and Agnes refused to go any nearer. Finally they made shelter in a small copse, Nicholas laying a row of sticks against a fallen treetrunk and then covering them crosswise with brushwood. They slept fitfully in this makeshift wooden tent, damp and desperately hungry, like shivering puppies.
    Nicholas was lying awake in the bleak grey dawn when he heard footfalls in the leaves nearby. Someone knew they were there. He put his hand over Lettice’s mouth. Her eyes flared wide. He put a finger to his lips, and motioned her to tell Agnes.
    He peeped out of the shelter, just in time to see a burly figure step behind a broad oak tree, the glint of