The Traitor of St. Giles by Michael Jecks

ague, sweating and throwing up. Piers’s wife had fetched the physician, who had inspected Jack’s urine for fully an hour, then his most recent stool, before declaring solemnly that the boy needed to stay in bed, get bled, and eat only food and drink for a hot, dry humour. Then he ran off to fetch the necessary potions. In the meantime it was obvious that the boy must remain in his cot in the hall. He could hardly lift sacks of flour in his present state.
    His day was ruined, Piers brooded, and all because of that good-for-nothing brat. Jack was nearly eleven, or so his father had said, almost a man. Piers had never taken days off when
he
was an apprentice. An employee abed was no use to him. Yet while he irritably listed Jack’s faults, the anxiety wouldn’t leave him. The baker was fond of his apprentice and, much as he tried to conceal the fact from himself, he was worried about the boy.
    He was just contemplating the next few days without Jack when he came across a man standing in the middle of the road.
    ‘Sir, sir – have you seen a knight on this road?’
    Piers eyed the panting fellow doubtfully. From his pock-marked face to his tatty hose and tunic, made of the cheapest-looking cloth, this man looked more like a draw-latch or some other form of felon than a traveller. ‘No one. Why?’
    ‘My master, he’s gone missing!’ It was William Small, Sir Gilbert’s companion.
    ‘He’s probably gone to have a shit,’ Piers said dismissively.
    ‘It can’t be that. He went last night,’ William said. ‘Anyway, he wanted me with him.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Don’t look at me like that, man. I’ve guarded him all the way from London because he feared attack, and now he’s disappeared!’
    Piers was about to speak when a call came from the woods. ‘What in
God’s name
?’ It was a shuddering howl of anguish, mournful and doom-laden.
    ‘Christ Jesus!’ Piers said, fingering his rosary.
    ‘God’s cods!’ said William with feeling, and drew his dagger. ‘Come on, help me.’
    Piers jumped down and dug about in the back of his cart, dragging free a pair of cudgels – good, strong blackthorn clubs that could break a man’s skull. He cast an anxious look at his cart, fearing that it might be stolen, then grimaced and made off after the sailor.
    The woods here were thick and overgrown. Brambles tore at Piers’s hose, snagging at threads and wrecking them. He glanced down fretfully, knowing how his wife would rail at him for making such a mess of his clothing, but then smiled grimly. There was little likelihood that she would worry too much about them when she realised he had lost a morning’s work chasing about in the woods after someone who could well have knocked him on the head.
    ‘This way!’
    The baker was no fool. He knew that life was full of risks, and also knew that the man he was following could well prove to be the advance member of a gang of trail bastons, but no gang of thieves would bother to rob him. He wasn’t carrying money and if felons wanted to get rich they’d attack someone nearer the road. No one would steal a cart of flour. Unless they intended stealing his horse . . .
    He hesitated. He was already some distance from the road, and he couldn’t see his cart or horse anymore. Chewing at his lip, he listened to the crashing of the other man as William sped forward. Another gloomy cry broke on the air, and now Piers could recognise it as a dog howling dolefully. He felt torn, unsure which way to go. To his right was a gap – he could see the sunlight falling on a pretty, buttercup-strewn glade – and deciding he could move faster across such a clearing, he made for it.
    Long grasses rustled past his knees. His feet felt as though they were sinking into a thick carpet of the softest silk. Up ahead was the source of the noise, and Piers hurried along, his eyes fixed on the darkness beneath the trees from where the noises appeared to issue.
    Thus it was that he didn’t see the lump