Nicholas Hogben was the first to rise. He felt at his neck, swallowed as though a piece of apple were stuck in his throat, brushed his leather breeches, and picked up his pike.
'Why,' he said, 'you may hold it for main and certain that he have not had Kat Howard down. For, having had her down, a would never have thrown a man by the throat for miscalling of her. Therefore Kat Howard is up for all of he, and I may loosen my feelings.'
He spat gravely at Culpepper's feet. Culpepper lay in the dust, his arms stretched out to form a cross, his face dead white and his beard of brilliant red pointing at the keystone of the arch of Calais gate. Poins lifted his hand, but the pulse still beat, and he dropped it moodily in the dust.
'Not dead,' he muttered.
'Dead!' Hogben laughed at him. 'Hath been in a boosing ken. There they drug the wine with simples, and the women—may pox fall on all women—perfume themselves so that a man goeth stark raving. I warrant he had silver buttons to his Lincoln green, but they be torn off. I warrant he had gold buckles to his shoen, but they be gone. His sword is away, the leather hangers being cut.'
'Wilt not stick him with thy pike, having, as he hath, so mishandled thee?'
'O aye,' the Lincolnshire man shewed his strong teeth. 'Thee wouldst have Kat Howard from him. But he may live for me, being more like to bring her to dismay than ever thee wilt be!'
He looked into the narrow street of the town that the dawn pierced into through the gateway. Two skinny men in jerkins drawn tight with belts were yawning in a hovel's low doorway. Under his eyes, still stretching their arms abroad, they made to slink between the mud walls of the next alley.
'Oh, hi! Arrestez. Vesnez!' he hailed. 'Cestui à comforter!' The thin men made to break away, halted, hesitated, and then with dragging feet made through the pools and filth to the gateway.
'Tombé! Voleurs! Secourez!' Hogben pointed at the prostrate figure in green. They rubbed their shins on their thin calves and appeared bewildered and uncertain.