The door-bar had barely clunked down into its socket when Tilla heard someone outside hammering on the wood and yelling, ‘Open up! Man needs a drink!’
Onion-breath called, ‘We’re closed!’ at the same time as Cass cried, ‘Help us! We’ve been — ’ It ended in a scream as Onion-breath stepped across and hit her in the face.
Too late, he remembered about Tilla’s knife. As he staggered backwards, staring at her in disbelief, there was a crash from across the room. The door, frame and all, collapsed inwards with two men on top of it.
The men tried to get up but were knocked aside by drinkers clambering over them to flee into the sunlit alleyway. The old man in the corner rose from his seat and staggered out after them.
Onion-breath was slumped beneath one of the tables. He was not moving. Tilla stared at him. Was that it? Was that how easy it was?
A voice was saying, ‘Are you all right, miss?’
She leaned back against the wall, waiting for her heart to stop thudding.
‘Miss?’
She knocked the hand away from her arm, then realized it was meant in friendship. ‘Sorry,’ she said to a curly-haired youth she vaguely recognized. She was aware of a strong smell of horse as he took the bloodied knife from her hand.
The second rescuer was still sprawled along the length of the door, largely because Cass was on top of him, wiping blood off his chin with her skirt and crying, ‘Lucius! Oh, Lucius, my love, where are you hurt?’
Tilla rubbed her eyes in confusion. What was Lucius doing here? And was that the Medicus’ stable lad?
Lucius was not so badly hurt that he could not cling to his wife and gasp, ‘Cass! When we saw that thief running down the street with your bag I thought — ’
‘Oh, my darling, you’re so brave!’
The stable lad looked at the reunited couple, then at Tilla. ‘Master Lucius knocked the thief down and took your bags back, miss. Then he made him tell us where he got them. I don’t know if everything’s in them.’
Tilla moved one hand to indicate the body of Onion-breath. The lad stepped across the fallen door and bent to peer at him.
Lucius lifted his head and noticed Onion-breath for the first time. ‘What happened to him?’
‘It is the sort of thing that happens in a place like this,’ said Cass, suddenly decisive. She got to her feet and took the knife from the stable lad. ‘None of us saw anything.’
Tilla was still staring at the body, vaguely aware of Cass bustling about with water and a cloth. The stable lad touched her arm. ‘We ought to go, miss’ he murmured.
Tilla looked up. Lucius seemed to be suffering from no more than a bitten lip. His wife had a red mark on her cheek that was already beginning to swell. ‘That will teach you,’ Lucius announced to Onion-breath, ‘to mistreat the wife of an honest farmer.’
‘Yes,’ said Cass. She handed Tilla the knife, now clean, and picked up the striped bag that the stable lad had retrieved. ‘I would like to go home now, please, husband.’
They stepped out into the narrow street. Apart from a long rope and a stray dog, it was empty. Evidently the ropemakers had decided not to see anything either.