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

steel in his hand. A dagger.
    So Crake had changed his mind, after all, and sent one or more of his hired henchman after them to finish the job. Perhaps ex-soldiers, ex-mercenaries, hearts like flint. Come from the late religious wars in France, where they would have witnessed, or enacted, the foulest massacres. What would it be to them, to cut four children’s throats in this isolated copse, and bury them deep under the leaf litter? It would be nothing to them. And who would ever know?
    Nicholas’s heart raced fit to burst. His fingers curled around one of the half-rotten sticks above him. His only available weapon, to defend himself and his three sisters against hardened killers.
    The henchman remained behind the tree.
    Nicholas drew the stick free and crawled out of the shelter as silently as he could. Leaves rustled, a twig cracked, but it was soft and damp and made little noise. He was across the clearing in a trice, rounded the tree, and delivered the hardest blow he could to the broad leather-jerkined back in front of him.
    The stick snapped in two.
    The figure turned, hurriedly returning his privy parts into his breeches.
    ‘Master Nicholas!’
    ‘Hodge!’
    Hodge thought Nicholas had struck him in indignation at his relieving himself so near to his sisters. Nicholas, babbling with joy and relief, said he thought Hodge might be a mercenary come from the late religious wars in France, which only baffled Hodge the more.
    ‘And I saw you carrying a dagger!’
    Hodge frowned and then pulled something from his jerkin, tucked in above the belt. It was a fire steel.
    ‘We can have a fire!’
    ‘Ay, sir,’ said Hodge. ‘Though I do have a small knife too. And a pannikin, and some eggs and mushrooms. I stole the pannikin and the eggs from the farm, under the very nose of that crookback dungheap Crake back there, God rot his stones. But since it was Sir Francis’s pannikin anyhow, I thought he’d not mind.’
    ‘No,’ said Nicholas. His throat felt tight. ‘No, he’d not mind.’
    ‘Well,’ said Hodge, trying to sound cheerful. ‘Let’s have our breakfast then.’
    Soon he had a fire going, with hunks of bread warming on the end of twigs. He split open some beechnuts and squeezed out just enough to oil the pannikin, then got to frying the eggs and mushrooms. Field mushrooms and platter mushrooms and jew’s ear and lawyer’s wig. It was the time of year for them. They ate them straight from the pan with grimy fingers, and spirits rose a little.
    Lettice wiped her mouth. ‘Well done, Hodge. You are now promoted groom of the household.’
    ‘Well,’ said Hodge proudly. ‘While you were learning Latin and Greek and double Dutch and whatnot, Hodge was about the fields trappin’ partridge and hares and such, makin’ fires and cookin’ mushrooms. He don’t speak much Latin now nor will he ever, it’s safe to wager, beyond your hocus pocus in the Mass. But he knows how to fry a mushroom, even with no butter about him.’
    He advised them to take down the shelter and hide all traces of where they’d slept. They bashed down the old sticks with noisy glee. He shook his head. That wasn’t what he meant.
    He went and stood at the edge of the copse, looking out down the road. He heard girlish shrieks of laughter behind him. Yet there was no sadder fate than an orphan’s. He should know, he was one.
    They had no chance. One small breakfast of eggs and mushrooms might lift their spirits for an hour. But their lives were ruined, and they were too grand folk in their laces and bodices and linen caps and nice neat shoes to know it yet. What to do? In the end, that verminous Crake was right. They would be best off in the poorhouse, even with the narrow wooden beds and the fevers and the gruel for supper.
    It was their only hope.
    Susan retired behind a bush, and when she returned, the others gasped. She had sliced off her fine long hair, that glowed almost red in the sun. Mere patches and tufts remained, with