Read Online Kingmaker: Broken Faith by Toby Clements - Free Book Online

anger.
    ‘We should make them dig room for two more,’ she says. ‘Three, even.’
    John pretends he does not hear. He turns to Thomas.
    ‘What I want to know,’ he starts, ‘is how you learned to do all that.’
    He mimics the action of drawing a bow.
    ‘You were always good with a bow, I’ll grant you that, but to kill men, like that?’
    He blows out.
    ‘And it looked like you’ve done it before,’ he goes on, ‘and all those cuts and scrapes and what-have-yous, all over your body when you turned up. And that dint.’
    He taps his temple.
    ‘You don’t get those writing up the gospels.’
    Thomas can tell John nothing. They are silent for a long while, watching the boys dig. Adam climbs into the pit with them to help. The day wears on. When the boys have dug so deep into the earth they are up to their thighs, John stops them. He gets them to roll the dead men – naked now save for their braies – into their grave and then to shovel the black earth in on top. No one is sure about leaving any cross to mark it.
    ‘Plenty of people’d have just swung them in the river,’ John says. ‘Or dragged them into the next Hundred. Let those bastards over there take care of the coroner. Least we buried them. Will you say a few words, brother? Save us paying the priest.’
    Thomas is lost for a moment. He stands over the raised mole of earth and is struck by the sense of having done this before. He asks the Lord to look down favourably on the men they are burying and to forgive them for what they have done, and for any other sins they may have committed in this life and then he asks for their time in purgatory to be appropriate and that when they are cleansed of sin, that the saints and martyrs will be on hand to receive them in heaven and guide them to the new Jerusalem. He crosses himself, and the others except for Elizabeth do likewise, and the crows in the trees above caw loudly as sunset comes.
    ‘Now what are we going to do with these two?’ John asks.
    The two boys stand in their shirts and hose and linen caps and again Thomas is tugged at from within. Of what do they remind him? Of whom do they remind him? He cannot say, only that while Elizabeth wants them dead and John wants them gone, he feels some sort of responsibility for them.
    ‘If you put them out, then you put me out too,’ Thomas says.
    There is a silence. Thomas sees John glance at Elizabeth.
    ‘Good riddance,’ she says.
    John looks at her.
    ‘Let them stay tonight, if they wish,’ he says. ‘Then tomorrow, we’ll see.’
    That night Thomas does not have nightmares, but the pain in his head wakes him before dawn, before the others are awake. One of the two boys is whimpering in his sleep, having a bad dream, and Thomas nudges him with his boot. The boy shifts, seems to wake, then slips back into sleep.
    Thomas goes outside to wash his face in the stream. He comes to a decision, and returns to the farmhouse and shakes the first boy awake.
    ‘Come,’ he says, ‘gather your stuff.’
    Then he wakes the other boy and he, too, gets his coat and as they are leaving, Thomas turns and sees that Adam is awake and watching. He raises his hand and Adam nods and then Thomas takes the two boys to the stable where they saddle their horses.
    ‘Where are we going?’ the younger of the two asks.
    Thomas doesn’t reply.
    ‘Can we take our bows?’ the older boy asks. He gestures towards the pile of stuff Adam stripped from the dead men: their clothing, boots, various knives, swords, the seven bows, ten arrow bags, some pieces of armour and an unsteady tower of helmets.
    Thomas shakes his head and the boys accept it. They are waiting to be killed, he thinks. They think I will kill them, and perhaps I should. But then he does not, and while they watch he takes a jack from the pile and holds it up only to discover that it is no ordinary jack. Within its usual flax and linen padding are strips of metal. He cannot help but smile: they might not turn an