Stormbird

31

Jack stepped back, squinting at the line of mortar he’d pressed against the brick. With a steady hand, he ran his pointed trowel along the line, taking satisfaction from the way the walls were growing. As the long summer days began to shorten, he’d persuaded Paddy and Ecclestone to join him on the job. Neither of them had needed the work, but it had given him pleasure that they’d still come. Paddy was up on the roof, banging nails through the slates with more enthusiasm than skill. Jack knew his friend had sent some of his coins home to Ireland, to a family he hadn’t seen for many years. Paddy had drunk away a heavy portion of the rest in every inn and tavern for miles around. It was a blessing that the Irishman was a reasonable drunk, given to singing and sometimes weeping, rather than breaking the tables. Jack knew his old friend was uncomfortable with having wealth of any kind. For reasons he could not completely explain, Paddy seemed determined to burn through his fortune and be penniless once again. It showed in the weight he’d put on and the sagging skin around his bloodshot eyes. Jack shook his head sadly at the thought. Some men could not be happy, that was all there was to it. There would come a day when Paddy had lost it all and was reduced to beggary, that much was certain. Jack hadn’t said anything to him, but there would be a bed for Paddy then in the house they were building, or perhaps a warm barn on the land where the big man could sleep. It was better to plan for that, rather than see his friend freeze to death in a gutter.

Ecclestone was mixing more of the lime, horsehair, sand and water, with a cloth wrapped around his face to counter the acrid fumes. He’d bought a tallow shop in town, learning the trade of candles and rough soap with a small staff of two local lasses and one old man. By all accounts Ecclestone was doing well with it. Jack knew he used his famous razor to cut the blocks of flecked white soap, while the girls looked on with horrified expressions. At times, a crowd would gather at the shop doorway, men and women who knew his exploits, come just to watch the terrible neatness of his cuts.

The work might have gone faster if they hadn’t spent so much time laughing and talking together, but Jack didn’t mind that. He’d employed three local men to raise the timber structure, cutting joints and pegs with the skill and speed of long experience. Another local man had supplied the bricks, each with the maker’s thumbprint pressed into the clay as it dried. Jack thought he and his two friends would have the rest finished before winter, with the house as snug as a drum.

The new building was nowhere near as large as the one he’d burned down. The magistrate’s land had been cheap enough with just blackened timbers standing in the gardens, but it hadn’t felt right to build another mansion. Instead, Jack had laid out a place for a small family, with two big rooms on the ground floor and three bedrooms above it. He hadn’t told the other two, for fear of their laughter, but news of his exploits in London had brought the interest of more than one unmarried woman. He had his eye on one baker’s daughter in particular, from the local village. He thought a man could probably do worse than have fresh bread all his life. Jack could imagine a couple of boys racing around and swimming in the pond, with no one to run them off the land. It was a good thought. Kent was a beautiful county, right enough. He’d even considered renting a few local fields to grow hops. Some of the inns in town had begun selling various brews as Jack Cade’s ale. It made sense to consider providing them with the real thing.

Jack chuckled to himself as he picked up another brick and slapped wet cement on to it. He’d be the proper man of business then, with fine clothes and a horse to ride into town. It wasn’t a bad fate for a brawler and his mates.

He heard the tramp of marching men before he saw them coming up the long drive. Paddy whistled a warning overhead, already beginning to climb down. In response, Cade felt an old tremor in his stomach before he remembered he had nothing to fear, not any longer. He’d lived his entire life with the thought that the bailiffs might come for him one day. It was somehow hard to remember he’d been pardoned for all his crimes — and careful not to commit another. These days, Jack tipped his hat to king’s men as he passed them in town, seeing their knowledge of who he was in their sour expressions. Yet they couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Jack laid his trowel down on the brick courses, tapping the seax in his belt from old habit, to reassure himself it was still there. He was on his own land, legally bought. Whoever they were, he was a free man, he told himself, with a written pardon to prove it. There was a wood axe not far off, with the blade buried in a stump to stop it rusting. Jack eyed it, knowing he would be happier even so with a decent weapon in his hand. It was a thought from the man he had been. It was not the thought of landowning, respectable Jack Cade, half-engaged to be married, or at least thinking about it.

Paddy reached his side, blowing lightly after his scramble down from the roof. He held a hammer in his hand, a short length of club iron and oak. He pointed it at the soldiers.

‘Looks like a couple of dozen, maybe more, Jack. Do you want to run?’

‘No,’ Jack said shortly. He crossed to the axe and levered it out of the wood, resting his right hand on the top of the long ash handle. ‘You heard the new sheriff has come from London. I don’t doubt he’d like to see us haring off through the fields, but we’re free men now, Paddy. Free men don’t run.’

Ecclestone came to stand with them, wiping a streak of yellow-white lime from his cheek. Jack saw he had his razor concealed in a hand, an old habit he hadn’t allowed to fall into disuse over the previous months.

‘Don’t do anything stupid, lads,’ Jack muttered as the line of marching soldiers came closer. He could see the sheriff’s banner fluttering on a pole among them and he couldn’t help but smile, thinking of the last one.

The three friends stood tall and surly as the soldiers fanned out, forming a half-ring around them. The man who dismounted at the centre wore a short black beard and stood almost as large as Jack and Paddy.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said, smiling. ‘My name is Alexander Iden. I have the honour of being sheriff to this county.’

‘We know you,’ Jack said. ‘We remember the last one as well.’

A shadow crossed Iden’s face at that reply.

‘Yes, poor fellow. Would you be Jack Cade, then?’

‘I am, yes. You’re on my land as well, so I’ll be thanking you to state your business and be on your way. As you can see from the house, I have work to finish.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Iden replied. As Jack watched, the man drew a long sword from the scabbard at his waist. ‘You’re under arrest, Jack Cade, on orders of the Crown. The charges are unlawful assembly, treason and murder of the king’s officers. Now then, will you go quietly to London, or will you go hard? Tell me now; it’ll be the same either way.’

Jack felt a great calm come over him, a coldness that stole from his gut and made his arms and legs feel numb. He felt a surge of anger at the way he’d trusted the London lords and noblemen to keep their word. They’d written down the pardon and sealed it! Written words; words with authority. He’d had a local clerk read it to him half a dozen times, as solid and real as anything in the world. After his return to Kent, Jack had lodged it with a moneylender in town and he’d asked to see it twice since then, just to run his hand over the dark letters and know it was true. Even as his heart thumped in his chest and his face flushed, he held on to that slender reed.

‘I’ve been pardoned, Iden. A paper with the queen’s own seal and signature on it sits in a strongbox in town. My name is on it and that means you can’t touch a hair of my head.’

As he spoke, Jack raised the axe, gripping the shaft with both hands and pointing the big blade towards the sheriff.

‘I have my orders,’ Iden said with a shrug. He looked almost amused at the outrage he saw in the rebel. ‘You won’t come peaceably, then?’

Jack could feel the tension in his two friends. He glanced at Paddy and saw the big man was sweating profusely. Ecclestone stood as if he’d been carved, staring balefully at the sheriff’s throat.

‘You two should walk away,’ Jack murmured. ‘Whatever this oath-breaking fool is after, it ain’t you. Go on.’

Paddy looked at his friend as if he’d been struck, his eyes wide.

‘I’m tired of running, Jack,’ he said softly.

All three had been given a glimpse of a different life those last few months, a life where they didn’t have to go in fear of king’s officials and county men watching them and making them beg for scraps. They’d fought in London and it had changed them. Ecclestone and Paddy looked at each other and both shook their heads.

‘All right then, lads,’ Jack said. He smiled at his two friends, ignoring the soldiers staring them down.

The sheriff had been watching the exchange intently. As the three men showed no sign of surrendering, he made a chopping motion with his hand. His soldiers darted forward with shields and swords ready. There had been no warning but Jack had been expecting a rush and he swung wildly with his axe, smashing past a shield to crush the ribs of the first to lay a hand on him. The man screamed, a sudden and shocking sound in the garden.

Ecclestone moved fast, turning his shoulders and slipping between two mailed men as he tried to reach the sheriff. Jack shouted in grief as he saw his friend hacked down in one great blow, the sheriff’s sword cutting him deep at the neck. Paddy was roaring, his big left hand tight in someone’s jerkin as he used his hammer to smash a soldier’s face and head. Jack continued to swing and strike, knowing already that it was hopeless, that it had always been hopeless. His breath came hard. He sensed the soldiers around him were trying not to land a fatal blow, but one of them caught him in the back with a blade, stabbing wildly. He heard Paddy grunt as the Irishman was knocked from his feet, his legs kicked away from him as he was struck from the side.

Another knife went between Jack’s ribs, staying stuck there as he wrenched away from the pain. With a sense of wonder and shock, he felt his great strength vanish. He crashed down, quickly kicked and battered into a daze, with his fingers broken and his axe wrenched away from his grasp.

Jack was only half-aware as they dragged him up for Sheriff Iden to stare at him. There was blood on Jack’s face and in his mouth. He spat weakly as strangers held him in an unbreakable grip. His friends had been cut down, left in their own blood where they had fallen. Jack swore as he saw their bodies, cursing the king’s men all around him.

‘Which of you fools stabbed him?’ Jack heard Iden snap. The sheriff was furious and the soldiers looked at their feet, panting and red-faced. ‘Damn it! He won’t live till London with that wound.’

Jack smiled to hear that, though it hurt him. He could feel his life pouring out on to the dusty ground and he was only sorry Ecclestone hadn’t cut the new sheriff’s throat.

‘Tie this traitor on to a horse,’ Iden went on furiously. ‘God, didn’t I say he should be taken alive?’

Jack shook his head, feeling oddly cold despite the warmth of the sun. For an instant, he thought he heard the high voices of children, but then it was gone and he sagged in the arms of the men who held him.