by Andre Norton
“Yes, sir.” Burdened with her piled tray, Nan hurried back to the kitchen. “The gentleman wants his coachman.”
Cook shrugged. “Then go call him; you have still a tongue in your head. He bedded down in the stable quarters last night. Not what he was used to, that one—turned his nose well up, Josh said.”
Nan bundled her apron about her arms like a shawl and braved the cold of the courtyard, slipping into the stable. Joshua swung around at her coming. “What you want?” he demanded.
“The gentleman wants to speak to his coachman.”
“I'll give him a holler. You get back in before you freeze stiff, girl.”
But Nan sensed it was no care for her comfort which had made the ostler say that. He had never shown anything but a kind of sly contempt for her since her coming to the Red Hart.
She darted back into the warmth of the kitchen. Matt had not been there as usual, mucking out the stable. Neither had she seen Noel, the younger of the two boys whom Joshua both ordered and knocked about. And there had been something about the ostler which made her more uneasy than usual.
But Cook had plenty to do; the table in the parlor must be full cleared and Nan and Emmy share the washing up. Well, she knew she would get the rough side of Cook's tongue if she delayed that.
The coachman tramped through the kitchen, nodding loftily to Cook who must earlier have fed him, and went on to the forepart of the inn. In a short time he was back. “The master wants hot bricks,” he announced.
“They never be going to set out in this?” Cook said in surprise. “Not with the young lady and all?”
“They ain't thinking of being set on by no smugglers neither,” the coachman replied. “I told ‘em what a boil your mistress is a mixing here, and they want none of it. She is a hen-witted female to set herself up against the like of Havers. My master, he's been a-going to Rye on business these ten years or more. He's heard plenty of tales and not nice ones either. Them as don't make trouble, don't have it dumped back on ‘em. So we're off.”
Cook stood where she was, watching wordlessly the coachman's exit. Her face was set.
“Like that is it?” she asked herself. “Jos, he's been spreading the word fast—and how far, I wonder, now? Nan"—she looked from the door which had closed behind the coachman to the girl—"you was out to the stable. Did you see Noel there?”
Her heart beating faster, for she already guessed the meaning behind that question, Nan shook her head.
Cook nodded. “I thought as much. Jos, he never has liked taking orders from the mistress. Not that she hasn't always treated him as fair as her father did. All right, get the bricks to the fire, Emmy, and hot them up good. You, Nan, go tell Mistress—” She hesitated and then added, “Mind you, I have no real thing to say, but tell her that Noel is nowhere in sight. Best be warned, if a warning is needed.”
Nan fled down the hall. She felt both cold and shaky. She remembered too much of what it had been like when Da’ stood up to the Gentlemen. Was it all going to happen again?
Aunt Prudence was in the small chamber with the wounded man. Those two who had ridden in with him stood against the wall, watching her lay a wet cloth on his forehead as he muttered and pulled at the covering over him.
“It's fever,” she was saying as Nan came in. “Best one of you ride for the apothecary. At least he can tell you what can be done if he will not come himself. What do you want?” she ended more sharply as she sighted Nan.
“Cook sent me. The gentlemen and the lady—they are leaving. Jos told their coachman about"—she waved a hand to the bed—"they think Havers will cause trouble. And—well, Noel wasn't in the stable—'least I did not see him. Cook thinks—”
Aunt Prudence laughed suddenly. “If you have any other ill news, do keep it to yourself now, I beg of you. Yes, given that information, Havers will indeed be down upon us.”
“If you have a wagon, Mistress, perhaps we could—” the younger man spoke for the first time.
“If you move him, like as not he will be dead within the hour,” Aunt Prudence returned bluntly. “Also do you think you could leave here and that not be known? It depends now on chance—and that is not good.
“The windows—draw and bolt the shutters,” she ordered. “We must make do as best we can. It depends on Matt, whether he is my servant or Jos's. Also whether the Lieutenant's son can summon any aid for us. I made it plain in my letter—
“Now"—she waved Nan ahead of her—"I must see to these parting guests who wish themselves well away from other people's troubles.”
Once outside the door she dropped one hand on Nan's shoulder, and with her other, searched out a key from those which hung on a hoop at her waist. “Take this"—she slipped the key free—"and go to my father's chamber. Find his fowling piece and his two pistols, also any shot for them you can. Bring them speedily to the parlor.”
The room had a musty smell and was very cold, but it was in order, for Aunt Prudence herself cleaned and dusted there once each month. The fowling piece was so heavy Nan had to drag it across the floor; all her experience with fetching and carrying had not prepared her for this weight. She found the pistols, two of them, long and heavy, too, just inside the chest lying on top of her grandfather's cloak. There was a bag of shot and a powder horn; she hurriedly assembled them all but had to make two trips to carry them down to the parlor.
The grind of coach wheels sounded on the cobbles— those bound for Rye were leaving. It was not until tomorrow morning that the stage from Rye would come by. Perhaps Aunt Prudence could send to the Manor. But that would not do much good. The Squire was up to London with his lady, and Nan suspected that none of his men would come to aid at the inn without his orders.
As she leaned the fowling-piece muzzle up against the table, Aunt Prudence came in. Nan handed her the key. “This was all I could find.”
“Well enough. Now get your cloak, girl. You and Emmy are to go across to the Hodgins’ cottage—”
Nan shook her head. “No.”
For a moment she thought Aunt Prudence might box her ears for such open impudence. Then instead, she sighed. “I suppose you feel you have a right. But this is no game we play, Nan. Havers’ men are rogues, no matter what is said of Gentlemen.” Aunt Prudence's tone made a lie of that title. “I would not have you here when they come.”
“I will not go!” Nan summoned up determination. “There must be something I can do. Carry a message to the Manor—”
But Aunt Prudence swiftly gave her the same answer her own good sense had given earlier. “To what purpose? The Squire is not there, and none of his servants would lift a finger. There is this you can do. Get on your cloak, and take up a basket, as if you were sent upon an errand, and go down the road to Malmsey's. Say to Granny that I have sent you for feverfew. By now all in the village—if Jos has done the work I believe he has—know well we have here a wounded man to be tended. If Granny asks you questions, say that the King's dragoons are on their way here to protect him, for he is an officer of some consequence. While you go, watch well for any sign that we are spied upon.”
Nan nodded and went. A little more than a half hour later, she was back.
“Well?” Aunt Prudence took the dried herb packet from her basket.
“I did not see anyone. It was as if all have gone from the village. I told Granny about the dragoons. She said, ‘Bad cess to them redcoats.’ But she winked at me when she said it.”
“They'll all take care in the village that they have nothing to do with what happens. Well, I could expect no more. But Havers will not come before nightfall; his kind slink in the darkness. Emmy has gone. You can make yourself useful to Cook now.”
The big kitchen seemed full of corner shadows. Cook made a clashing with kettle and pans, but there was a curious emptiness. She shot a look at Nan. “If you had the sense of a newborn calf, wench, you'd take off with Emmy.”
Nan's chin came up. “I don't see that you've run,” she retorted.
To her surprise, Cook laughed. “I'm not one for running, not with all m’ weight. Anyways, I've been with Mistress since I was smaller and thinner ‘n you. She and her da’ before her were good to me. 1 don't see as how this is the time to go skittering off and leaving her. Not with this to hand!” She touched finger to the handle of a mighty meat cleaver. “Jos and Noel are gone though. Rats scuttle fast enough. Let ‘em. Now you get to work a-chopping them winter apples. I'm not setting away any work, and we've mouths to be fed here still.”
They ate in the middle of the gray day. The snow had stopped. But the wind arose, whistling drearily around the eaves of the inn. The Excisemen, who had brought their officer, had barred all the shutters, and Aunt Prudence herself had locked all the doors in the late afternoon. The men had been out to feed the horses, only to report that the animals were gone, the stable empty.
Aunt Prudence did not seem surprised. But she took to looking at the big watch now and then as she walked restlessly through the rooms, when she was not at the bedside of the wounded man. He was sleeping, though Aunt Prudence roused him once to swallow a potion she brewed from her own stock of healing herbs.
Night came early and fast at this time of the year. Nan stole up to the second floor of the inn to peer out the windows as yet uncovered. There was no sign of life in the village, save some smoke being wind-driven as soon as it lifted from the chimneys. She could not even make out any tracks in the snow along the road. Like those in the Red Hart, the villagers were waiting.
“What are you doing here, girl?”
Nan almost cried out. The man had come into the dark from behind her so quietly she had not heard him. Then she saw his face and knew him for Master Leggitt.
“Just looking. There's no one around.”
He pushed her away from the window. “They ain't taking chances, them down there. You be the Mallory girl?”
“Yes.”
“Then you ought to know how Havers deals"—he stopped short—"There, I don't mean to make you think of that.” He sounded as if he were ashamed of his outspokenness.
“You don't—make me think, I mean. Of course I remember,” she answered quickly. “Do—do you think it is true— that the dragoons will come to our defense?”
“Maybe.”
But he did not sound very confident, Nan thought, with more than the cold of this unheated room sinking into her now. “You think maybe Matt did not go or take the letter?”
“There's one thing I tell you true, girl,” he returned. “If young Chris Fitton gets that letter into his hands, there will be action. He's right fond of his da'—there being just the two of them. He's getting schooling, he is—has a mind to make something of himself. But he's been staying with Lieutenant Fitton for nigh a month now, and I ain't never seen two who were so close. Seems like what one thinks, why, the other knows ‘fore he says it. Yes, I would say young Chris would be on his way—did he get that letter! There ought to be three, four of our men at the station—and there's the King's dragoons—”
“Look!” Nan pointed past him. But already that shadow she was sure she had seen was gone.
“What did you see?” Leggitt demanded.
“Down there—by that tree. I thought I saw something move.”
“There's a deal of wind shaking those bushes. Could be you saw just that. But you tell ‘em below that I'm staying here to watch.”
Nan hurried down the stairs. She was sure she had not seen any waving branch, rather that someone had slipped from one bit of cover to another.
Delivering her message, she found that Aunt Prudence was seated beside the wounded man, a shielded candle making poor effort to light the room. She was knitting steadily, much as Nan had seen her sit many times of an evening in her own parlor. But on the table beside the candle lay one of the pistols loaded and cocked as Nan well knew.
Chris Fitton crouched against the bushes and put his hands to his mouth. His fingers were so cold they were stiff, and blowing on the ice-matted wool of his mittens did little good. The inn was a big black bulk in the twilight. He could not see the slightest sign of light. Surely if his father had been as badly hurt as the latter reported they would not have tried to move him!
Ever since he had left the clumping dragoons about a mile back and had ridden on faster ahead, he had known that he must be cautious, as wary as if he were a fox with hounds on his trail. He had left his horse hidden in the brush so that it would be easier to get to the inn unseen. At least Sergeant Johnston knew his father well enough to be willing to turn out his men when the warning came.
He had to get in the inn, though he remembered what he had gleaned in the way of information from the boy who brought the letter. This Havers had half the country so a feared of him that no one would stir a hand to help. At least the woman had taken his father into shelter, and maybe she—
Chris measured the distance between the opening to the courtyard and his present hiding place. He ought to be able to make that easily, if he was surefooted enough not to slip in the snow.
And he did, though he slipped on the cobbles within and went to his knees, scrambling up again quickly. He had the buildings in mind, just the way Matt had told him. To his right now one of those tightly shuttered windows must be that of the room where his father lay. He set his shoulder to the wall and hitched along it. At the second shutter he gave a low whistle on three notes.
There was a pause, and then he whistled again, daring to rise this time to his full height and strike twice on the shutter. The sound was so loud in this very quiet courtyard that he shrank even more against the wall, listening.
All at once over his head there was an answering thump of fist against the other side of the shielded window. Then through that barrier he heard a muffled voice, “Who?”
“Chris Fitton!”
“Get to the stable,” he was ordered. “There is a door there.”
Chris moved with the best speed he could summon, remembering Matt's directions, seeking the horse-scented darkness of the stable. There was already a crack of light, dim but still to be seen. He headed directly for that, as a door swung a little wider and he caught sight of Leggitt, holding a shielded lantern in one hand and peering out into the straw-strewn gloom.
Moments later Chris stood at the foot of the bed. Though there was a candle set on a nearby table, he could see little of his father's flushed face. But that dark head turning on the pillow and the continual mutter of speech too low to be clearly heard made the boy doubly anxious.
“He—he is very ill?” Chris tried to ask in his normal voice, not to show his fear.
“It is the fever.” The tall thin woman with the set face changed the wet cloth on his father's forehead.
Chris clutched hard at one of the bedposts, his voice rising high. “Can't—can't you do something!”
She did not even look at him, her attention was all for the man. “What we can do, we have done.”
“There's a doctor in Rye—”
Now she did look at him. “He cannot be moved. Nor do I think that now you could bring the doctor to him either.”
Chris remembered. “You mean—because of them?” He gestured toward the wall with the shuttered window.
Before she could answer, the door behind him opened, and he looked quickly over his shoulder. A girl stood there, carrying a tray with a small cup and a jar on it. She moved swiftly to the bed, walking as if she did not wish to spill what she carried.
“They have been seen,” she said in a low voice. “Master Leggitt wants him.” She nodded toward Chris.
“You had better go for now,” the woman said. “There is nothing you can do here at present. If he wakes to know you, I shall send for you at once.”
Reluctantly Chris went, but the girl pattered after him. “This way"—she beckoned him on as she passed him in the hall.
Chris came blinking into a big kitchen. Master Leggitt sat gnawing at a lump of bread and cheese. He took a long drink of ale from a tankard to help him swall
ow before he spoke to Chris.
“You say that the dragoons are coming. It may be that they are going to walk into a trap. There is only one road in, and Havers and his gang could lay hidden at any of a dozen places along it. Our men wouldn't have a chance.”
“You think they'd dare attack the dragoons?”
“Havers will,” the Exciseman said. “He hates Master Leg-gitt with a black hate—has sworn half a hundred times he'll see him dead to pay for his brother, as the Lieutenant took for hanging. He is no common porter or henchman, look you. The whole of this part of the countryside is afraid of his bullyboys. I think why he has held off rushing us so far is because he wants to get any help sent us into the bargain. To win a victory over dragoons as well as Excisemen will prove that he is as great a man as he thinks he is—make his rule here that more safe. We can't let the dragoons ride in unknowing of the danger.”
“There is a way—”
Both of them were startled, for it was the girl who had spoken. For the first time Chris really looked at her. She was thin and tall—rather like the woman who nursed his father—her hair braided up under a plain maid's cap, her dress that of a chambermaid with not even small pretensions toward any fashion. With longish nose and a wide mouth, she was not such as anyone would look at twice. Only her eyes were different. Now they were fully open and looked greenish as might a cat's in the glow of the fire.
“What do you know then?” Master Leggitt demanded.
“There is a side way; it runs through the woods. Men cannot ride it, but they can walk it, leading their horses—”
“If it is known then, Havers will have it watched also.”
“But it is not known to any save those who live hereabouts. I do not think he will expect any local person to give the dragoons a guide.”
“He would see any venturing forth from the inn.” Master Leggitt rested chin on fist, watching her narrowly.
“Perhaps—perhaps not. There is snow, master. If one were dressed in white and dropped from a window to the back, using great caution, there is a chance.”