Abbot's Passion by Stephen Wheeler Page A

have been but I simply wasn’t having it. Not twice in one afternoon. I looked quickly about me. The road here was narrow, little wider than a track.
    I could see that by turning Clytemnestra side-on I would be able to block it thus giving Gilbert a chance to escape even if it meant I was caught in the process. This is what I now did with a good kick of my boot into Clytemnestra’s flank causing her to make a quarter turn. As soon as she did this I shouted over my shoulder:
    ‘Gilbert run! Save yourself!’
    He didn’t move.
    ‘Did you not hear me, boy? I said run!’
    Still nothing.
    ‘Gilbert!’
    ‘I’m trying master!’
    Behind me I could hear him struggling with the mule kicking for all he was worth at Agamemnon’s flanks but getting nowhere. The damn fool mule simply wouldn’t leave its mate. And now it was too late for the man was up out of his ditch with one hand on Clytemnestra’s halter.
    ‘Keep back!’ I said. ‘I warn you, I’m armed!’
    I fumbled inside my robe for my knife but I was all fingers and thumbs and the man easily knocked it out of my hand. So instead I kicked out and managed to land a blow in the man’s chest making him stagger back.
    ‘ Oof! ’
    ‘Aha!’ I cried. ‘You see? You see? I have you now, you dog, you swine, you c-’
    I stopped.
    ‘Wait a minute. I know you.’
    The hood may have concealed his features but it couldn’t hide his limp. I pointed at him stupidly.
    ‘You’re the glove-seller. You’re Hamo.’
    At the mention of his name the man seemed to shrivel. Then he started to shake uncontrollably. He pulled the hood off his head to reveal he was indeed the man half the county was looking for. With tears flowing down his cheeks, Fidele’s murderer slowly sank to his knees and wept like a baby.
     
    While Hamo sat on the ground I tended the wound on his leg. It looked painful and from the way he was wincing at my touch I’m sure it was. The flesh of the shin was torn and there was a huge black and blue bruise where Fidele had whacked it with the iron bar. I cleaned the cut as best I could and bound the limb with strips of linen from my satchel.
    ‘I don’t think it’s broken or you wouldn’t be able to put any weight on it,’ I said. ‘It needs resting. I don’t suppose there’s any point telling you to keep off it for a few days?’
    The look he gave me answered that one. By now his tears had dried into grimy streaks down his cheeks. He was filthy. He looked as though he had been out in the open all night, which he probably had been.
    ‘You’re one of them monks, ain’t ya? In the marketplace yesterday. I remember.’
    ‘Yes I was there. And I remember you too.’
    ‘I didn’t kill that monk,’ he said quickly.
    ‘No? In that case why did you run away? You’ve got a tongue in your head - quite a sharp one as I remember. Why didn’t you use it?’
    ‘And they would have believed me, wouldn’t they? His papal high-and-mightiness and that dozy reeve. They was stitching me up like a kipper. I had to get away.’
    I carried on bandaging his leg, the question that had been plaguing me uppermost in my mind:
    ‘How exactly did you get away?’
    He eyed me warily. ‘I had help.’
    ‘That much was obvious. Who from?’
    ‘That would be telling.’
    ‘Not by me.’
    ‘Mebbe not you.’ He looked pointedly at Gilbert who had been listening to every word.
    I finished bandaging his leg. ‘Well that’s the best I can do under the circumstances. Are you hungry? I imagine you are.’
    ‘I bagged a hare yesterday,’ he said touching his longbow.
    ‘That won’t sustain you for long.’
    I got up and went over to Clytemnestra’s saddlebag. Gilbert scurried after me.
    ‘Master, should we be feeding him?’
    ‘Why not? We’ve plenty.’
    ‘But he’s a murderer.’
    ‘Even murderers have to eat.’
    He frowned. ‘Shouldn’t we simply arrest him and return him to the abbey?’
    ‘Just at the moment he’s my patient. When he’s no longer my