Chapter 30: Pin Prick

(Lady Alwen narrates)

I cannot move my head. The Count has me pinned to the block, his knife at my throat. I was so close to death, trusting my life so explicitly to my dear husband who has come prepared to die to rescue me. The executioner deserved to die for what he did to poor Stephen. There was no just cause for his untimely death. He was an innocent victim of the greed of those who will make or break kings for their own advancement or advantage. There was no trial, no witnesses called to testify against his summary conviction, and no charges even read out. It was murder pure and simple and the perpetrators must and will be brought to book and pay for this crime and any other.

But I fear I am greatly confused by the cries of the various players involved. Clearly Will has brought his archers from the Castle. I cannot see them, but news of them sweeps through the crowd from within the Inn, as they are seen emerging from the woods by the leet, but in their turn they seem to have been nullified by the traitor bowmen controlled by John of Wakefield, a rival archer that Will has often told of in relating different incidents during the years on the road. The Lord Wellock, and his thirty men I can just see from where the Count presses my head to the block. Somewhere behind me, by all account there are the six or seven Black Knights that I saw yesterday. They have returned, yet I thought they were turned away, perhaps not as enemies but because there was no room at the Inn? But why return yet sit out their waiting for ... what?

Now more Black Knights arrive, about twenty of them, but although they carry black shields and have swords drawn, they do not have helms, only cowls reminiscent of Monks or Friars. They are not a faction of the Knights behind the Count and I, as they are on our side. They surprise and surround Wellock’s mounted men and, urging their surrender at sword point, many of Wellock’s adherents immediately toss their weapons to the ground.

The Count has up to now held me gently, much more so than would be expected by a desperate and dangerous fanatic, bent on replacing the King with another. Even the knife he holds to my throat, though appearing close to my skin, is in reality an inch or so away and no threat, but held in front of me it must appear to be deadly. The Count is crouching down behind me and the oaken block, as though he has heard of the prowess of my husband’s use of the longbow, and he winces strangely in his contortions as if he is some extraordinary discomfort in his crouching.

With the arrival of the armed Friars, I feel the Count relax behind me. Without hesitation, I move the needle with my tongue, a needle which I have held in my mouth since the guards collected poor Stephen and myself from the brew house this morning. I allow it to protrude beyond my lips and, biting down hard on it with my teeth, jab the point firmly into the Count’s hand and he jumps up enough to present Will with a worthwhile target.