Penitence barely heard him. She stared straight ahead, every nerve intent on the man beside her who had gone as still as death. Now you know because a man has told you so. You wouldn’t believe me.
Nevis was still trying to get a rise out of Henry. ‘The king’ll be interested to know one of the peers of his realm has got a son that’s a Monmouth.’
She felt Henry bring his attention back to the present. ‘But you see,’ he said reasonably, ‘we were afraid he’d disgrace the family name and join the Lambs.’
Oh, bless him. She saw Nevis’s thumb cock the left-hand pistol. Don’t shoot him. The man stayed where he was for a while. He seemed to be thinking. He laid the uncocked pistol carefully on the table. He stood up, felt above his head to the tester rail, levered himself up on the bed and kicked backwards. His boot heel stabbed into Martin Hughes’s head. Blood spurted in the old man’s grey hair. It was the most calculated, casual bit of violence Penitence had ever seen. Nevis’s face didn’t change: ‘To keep him quiet while we go to the hall,’ he said. ‘Jones will come soon and we’ll take you two fornicators to Taunton.’
It was odd to hear the Puritans’ much-loved denunciation ‘fornicators’ in the mouth of a member of a regiment renowned for its colourful cursing. It seemed to be the worst Nevis could call them. He was brought up like I was. She’d placed him. He was that most dangerous thing, a revolter against his background; he had thrown in his lot with the sinners, but could find no joy in their sinning unless it was cruel.
The viscount offered her his right arm and she took it. Waved on by Nevis’s pistol they crossed the bedroom to the door.
Like her, the viscount appeared to be dwelling on his death, for he suddenly shouted: ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.’
‘Ecclesiastes 9,’ said Penitence automatically.
‘Shut your mouths. I’ll not have fucking preaching, I’ll not have it.’ Unable to see that bland face, Penitence could hear the hysteria in Nevis’s voice.
Now Henry had switched to the psalms. ‘Length of days is in your right hand.’ He’d got it wrong. It was ‘length of days is in her right hand’. He had her arm pressed tight against his side and was steering her too far to the right so that she stumbled against the bedside table.
She got a glimpse of Martin Hughes’s pained, open eyes and the blood on his hair. Henry’s right hand let go of her left one and jerked before taking it again.
Nevis came behind them. The candle he was managing to carry threw the shadow of the feather in his hat on to the wall ahead of them. ‘The pistol’s pointing at your doxy, Captain,’ he said.
Among all the fears of what would happen, Penitence felt an unexpected and searing regret that she was to end up notorious. It seemed to her at that moment that all she’d ever wanted was respectability. Like a wood in bowls she had been thrown down life’s alley askew; instead of a straight run she had wobbled from side to side, inevitably ricocheting from one disaster to the next. She wouldn’t even die married. A doxy. Ruperta, I’m so sorry. Aphra would write a play of it. Oh God, this was one’s life flashing before one’s eyes.
‘Well, well,’ said Henry. ‘A son.’ He was speaking only to her.
Immediately she stopped drowning. It was the two of them alone in a boat. Nevis’s filthy monologue behind them was the background sound of sea.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ He was aggrieved again.
‘What?’
‘Right away, when you knew.’
‘I didn’t know where you were. How dare you reproach me.’ Of all times, how could he infuriate her like this.
‘You could have made enquiries at court.’
‘We d-d-d-didn’t move in c-court circles in Newgate.’ Oh damn.
The muzzle of a pistol poked into her spine so that she stiffened. ‘Get into the hall.’ Once in, Penitence was made to go and light the candles in the windows while Nevis kept one pistol against the viscount’s back and the other trained on her. Her hand trembled so that she could barely strike the steel. When she’d succeeded, she was told to open one of the lights ‘so’s we can hear Jones’. The viscount was sent to sit down under the window next to her while Nevis stayed by the stairhead. ‘There’ll only be two horses, you fornicators. Mine’s down by the gates. Jones has got his. You’ll be taken across the moor and through Taunton on the end of fucking ropes.’
‘Newgate?’ asked Henry of her.
‘For debt.’
‘Ah.’ She waited for him to say he was sorry for all she’d suffered; instead he said: ‘That’s two swords the boy’s had off me. What happened to the first one I gave you?’
‘We sold it,’ she said and was glad to say it. Incongruity added to unreality. Did she sit under the beautiful windows of her own hall, talking of the past with a madman while another waited to lead her to infamy and death? Or was it a dream?
Would I have gone to Newgate if it hadn’t been for him? She had blamed him for it so long that it was difficult to remember. It didn’t matter now anyway.
‘It was a good sword,’ said Henry. Now she realized. He was trying to keep her cross in order to stop her being frightened. He was failing. Every nerve was listening out for the sound of a horse outside.
‘Shut your fucking fornicating mouths,’ said Nevis, disconcerted at losing his audience. ‘One more word from you and the bitch is pulled into Taunton naked.’
‘Spanish,’ said Henry. ‘Or did I get it in Morocco? Anyway’ – he settled down more comfortably against the wall – ‘I remember the swordsmith telling me what a fine regiment the Tangiers was, considering it took only those who didn’t have the brains to join any other. Insisted on shagging only the best camels, he said…’
No, don’t. He was deliberately trying to enrage the man, as he had her – for what purpose this time she couldn’t imagine.
Nevis’s face stayed as neutral as ever but out of his mouth came a stream of vituperation, much of it against militia captains who’d never seen a shot fired in anger and ran when they did.
Penitence was amazed that two men could consider the denigration of each other’s regiments an insult. What does it matter?
It was then she noticed the rat. A wavy rat, which was impossible, but grey like a rat. It bobbed for a second against the ornate banister of the stairwell next to Nevis’s foot where he stood at the top of the stairhead. A wavy rat was no more extraordinary this night than anything else. She didn’t question it. She was very tired. If she went to sleep perhaps she would wake up to find herself back at well-regulated, well-respected Awdes, with Rupert. I’m so sorry, Rupert.
‘Goats now,’ said Henry. ‘They weren’t so particular about goats…’
Stop it. He’ll kill you.
The cocked pistol in Nevis’s hand shook as he stepped forward. The hole of its muzzle became larger and so magnetic that as it bobbed her eyes went up and down to follow it. ‘You arrogant bastard. You never had to work for anything. All your food and your carriages and your commission, what did you do for it but fornicate.’
He was inching forward all the time, and Penitence knew he would shoot if Henry wasn’t quiet.
And Henry wasn’t quiet. He was spouting Proverbs at the top of his voice, louder than ever: ‘Steel sharpeneth steel; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his enemy. Sharpen it in the name of the Lord.’
Again he was misquoting, but by now she’d spotted the rat again. She saw it rise up and become Martin Hughes’s grey head. He was coming up the stairs behind Nevis. The top stair creaks. She tried to will the information towards him. He’ll hear you. Of course, that was why Henry was making such a noise.
‘Whosoever shall smite thee on thy cheek, smite him on his.’
The Lord never said that. Besides, the old man held no weapon. What could he smite with? She wanted to join in the diversion by shouting something, anything, but she had gone back twenty
years. Her words had blocked and her head nodded like a fool’s in the effort to get them out. Instead, she stamped on the floor.
Now it was they who were frightening Nevis. His eyes had widened and she could see hers and Henry’s wildness reflected in them. There was a sort of power in losing control and she no longer tried for words but screamed, the scream of the lamb before the wolf, the terror beyond terror.
And she saw her great-uncle tiptoe unsteadily up behind Nevis and stroke him on his neck. It appeared almost a touch to attract the man’s attention, so gentle a movement that Nevis didn’t shoot. He put up the uncocked pistol as if to brush something off his collar. It disappeared in an outburst of blood. Some bung seemed to have shot out of Nevis’s neck under pressure. The blood sprayed black in the moonlight; they could hear it rapping against the pistol and splashing on the floor. Martin Hughes fell back to avoid it.
Then Nevis pulled the trigger; a reflex action. The shot was towards the fireplace but he was already sinking to his knees like a slaughtered ox. He looked puzzled.
Henry leaped forward and pulled up Nevis’s cloak as a shield against the blood. ‘Well done, Uncle.’
‘I smote the son of Belial with the edge of the sword,’ said Martin Hughes.
‘You certainly did.’
He’s been expecting this. She couldn’t understand what had happened. Her lover and her uncle congratulating each other.
‘Is he dead?’ she asked.
‘Don’t stand there like a sodding lily, Boots. Get a bucket of water. Lots of buckets. We’ve got to get rid of the blood before Jones comes.’ He looked up at Martin Hughes, who was still clinging on to the stairhead. ‘We can’t kill Jones too, unfortunately. We couldn’t explain two deaths. We’re going to have enough trouble explaining this one.’ He turned back to Penitence. ‘Move, woman. And don’t step in the blood, for God’s sake. We don’t want footprints all over the place. Go on, move.’
‘But why is he dead?’
He looked pleased with himself. ‘Show her, Uncle.’
Shyly, as if proffering a sweetmeat, Martin Hughes held out his hand. Set in the bend of his forefinger was a curved, steel blade. For a moment she couldn’t see what it was; his whole hand was blood. ‘I have cut down the unrighteous.’
‘It was on the table next to the bed,’ said Henry. ‘How the hell Nevis didn’t see it, I’ll never know. It was practically sitting up and waving. I managed to knock it near Uncle’s right hand as we went out of the door.’
She’d put it there. She’d picked it up off the table on the day she’d handed out the other knives to the harvesters and received the news that Mudge Ridge had escaped from Ilchester gaol. Meaning to put it back with the others, she’d been interrupted by… what was it… hearing Martin Hughes’s breathing coming from the gargoyle, and run upstairs. It had been on the table so long it had become a fixture she hadn’t noticed.
She was sent to loose Nevis’s horse from where it was tethered by the gates, but though she slapped its rump time and time again, it wouldn’t gallop off. For the time being she took it to the farm, until they could think what to do with it, then joined the others in the hall.
Nevis was wrapped in his cloak and then the lovely rug that had lain near the fireplace. Henry checked the house to see where the man had got in and repaired the damage while Penitence lit more candles in the hall. They all three worked frenziedly, chucking water over the blood, mopping, then squeezing the pink water into the buckets, fetching more water. It was impossible to understand how a man’s body could have held so much blood. It had shot everywhere, on to the stairhead, the walls, into the moulding of the banister rail. Diluted by water it was gradually lifted from the floor, though at the cost of making the boards look as if they’d come up from the sea, but it would take days before every splash of it could be found in the cracks of the walls.
And there was no time. Already she was amazed that a night could last so long. If Jones hadn’t come yet, he would certainly come at dawn.
While they worked, Martin and Henry argued about what to do with the body. Penitence wasn’t consulted. Death was men’s business. They talked about it in a businesslike way. She was amazed by her great-uncle’s composure. She supposed she had no idea of him. He could teasel a son of Belial before breakfast every day for all I know. She laughed at the thought even as she shook.
Henry King shot her a look. ‘There’s no time for hysterics.’ He leaned on his mop. ‘All right, we’ll put him in the secret room.’
‘No!’ She screamed it.
Henry said: ‘Boots, there isn’t time for anywhere else. We’ll wall it up tomorrow, tight as a tomb.’
‘Not in my house. Not in my house. Not in my house.’
‘All right. All right, Boots. It’ll have to be the moat. And it’ll have to be quick.’
She held the candle while the two men dragged the carpet down the staircase and then along the screen passage to the front door. By the time they’d got there Martin Hughes was puffing so badly she had to help him push while Henry pulled the body up over his shoulder. Her hands were splayed in the effort of forcing them to touch the carpet. Out. Get out of my house, you thing, you dreadful thing.
‘Well need a weight.’
Between them she and Martin rolled one of the heavy flower urns along on its base across the cobbles, spilling earth and marigolds. Its crunching was so loud she couldn’t hear anything else. What if Jones comes now? Outside the courtyard she looked to the east. It might be her fear, but it looked one transparency lighter than the rest of the sky.
At the drawbridge she kept a cowardly look-out so that she didn’t have to see the business of lashing the urn to the body.
She heard the splash and saw the ripples waft the water-lilies below the drawbridge up and down.
It wasn’t until then that she could think. ‘You must go,’ she said to Henry. ‘You’re supposed to be in Bridgwater. Jones will know you killed him. They’ll find his horse at the farm. Go now.’
‘Jones won’t know anything. It depends what Nevis told him. We can bluff it out.’
‘We can’t bluff the horse,’ she sobbed. ‘Take it and go.’
‘No.’
She pulled herself together. This was going to require cunning. She wiped her eyes and smoothed back her hair. ‘If we can get them to think Nevis has never been here…’
‘He would have told them where he was going.’
‘It doesn’t mean he arrived.’ We’re actors. Deception is our middle name. They had fooled everybody – everybody except Nevis – once. How to repeat the trick? Think. Into her head, God-sent, came a deep, ungodly voice from long ago. ‘Do you remember Ma Hicks?’
For a second the tension on his face faded. ‘The only woman I ever really loved.’
‘Do you remember when they were shouting for an encore, she said: “Never mind about ‘encore’, make the buggers do it again?” Let’s do it again.’
She began running back into the house. Questions and answers chased through her brain. Where had they put Nevis’s hat? Would it be bloody? It was a black hat, blood wouldn’t show. They both wore the same sort of cloak. Henry is taller. You can’t easily assess the height of someone on a horse. He’s dark. Nevis is fair. Was fair. Mist, we need a morning mist.
Reaching the hall, she raced to the window. It had got just chilly enough towards morning to create vapour; there was a veil-like quality to air that was slowly achieving greyness.
Nevis’s hat had rolled off his head as he fell and lay against the banister of the stairwell. On the underside of the brim there was a gleaming splash on the matt felt but with luck nobody would be near enough to notice.
Outside, the two men were brushing away the spillage from the urn. Panting, Penitence began pulling Henry across the drawbridge. ‘Get the horse. Get the horse.’ The drive seemed like a lit stage-ramp pointing straight at them.
Henry swung her back to the shadow of the gatehouse. ‘Don’t be a fool, Boots. I�
��m not leaving.’
‘You’ve got to.’
‘There’ll be suspicion. You can’t face that alone.’
‘There won’t be if Nevis is seen riding away from here.’
‘There’ll be suspicion,’ he said again. ‘Questions. They might drag the moat.’
‘They won’t.’ How to make him go. How to get him safe.
Then she knew.
She pulled away and looked up at him: ‘You’ve got to go. You’re putting me in danger.’
‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘I’m better off without you,’ she said. ‘Martin Hughes goes back into the secret room until the countryside is quieter. Nevis is seen riding away from the house, so he can’t have died here. I shall be safe if you go now. Jeffreys will protect me.’
He hadn’t seen Jeffreys’s face. She could work on his jealousy. Anything, anything to get him away.
Immediately he became casual. ‘I suppose he will,’ he said, ‘for a price. It depends on whether you want to pay it.’
‘It’s a small price.’
‘Not to me.’ He had never admitted his jealousy, for that matter he had never said he loved her. He was telling her now. ‘Boots, not to me.’
‘Well it is to me,’ she said. She smiled. ‘I’ve paid it before. It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. It’s a sale. It keeps food on the table and people out of prison. It got me this house. It means I can keep this house and my daughter.’ The tension broke and she was hammering on his chest and screaming. ‘You’re putting my daughter in danger. Why don’t you go? I don’t want you here. I’m a whore, don’t you see? It’s what I’m good at.’
She couldn’t see his expression because the wobble of reflected dawn light on the water played through the floorboards of the bridge up on to his face.
He began to walk away from her towards the drive and she dragged along behind him. Well done, Peg Hughes. Welcome another twenty years without him. She doubted if she’d survive them.
The Vizard Mask Page 67