“Will you just for God’s sake tell me if any are missing?” Grey’s urgency was taking on a sense of nightmare, the sort of dream where one strove to make progress through some sucking bog, only to encounter the walls of an endless maze.
“No, your honor.” Before the words were fully out of the groom’s mouth, Grey was striding back toward the folly, the sense of nightmare growing.
It wasn’t Siverly’s alarm at his presence that he’d sensed on the steps of the folly. It was acute, impending danger, a sense of harm. He was running now, ignoring the groom’s shout behind him.
He took the steps of the folly in two great strides, smelling it before he saw it, what he must have smelled faintly before, but so much stronger now, and his foot came down in the blood and slid out from under him. He waved his arms, staggering to keep his balance, and fetched up hard against the railing of the folly, breathless and choked with the smell of it, the whiff of death now full-blown and reeking at his feet.
24
Clishmaclaver
JAMIE HAD BORROWED A BOOK FROM PARDLOE’S LIBRARY, A pocket edition of Homer’s Iliad, in Greek. He’d not read Greek in some years, and thought perhaps to renew his acquaintance with the language, but distraction of mind was interfering with his concentration.
Not thus the lion glories in his might,
Nor panther braves his spotted foe in fight,
Nor thus the boar (those terrors of the plain;)
Man only vaunts his force, and vaunts in vain.
He’d last spoken Greek in Ardsmuir prison, trading bits of Aristophanes with Lord John over a makeshift supper of porridge and sliced ham, the rations being short even in the governor’s quarters, owing to a storm that had kept regular supplies from being delivered. There had been claret to wash it down with, though, and it had been a cordial evening. He’d taken care of the bits of business that needed to be done on behalf of the prisoners, and then they’d played chess, a long, drawn-out duel that had lasted nearly ’til dawn. Grey had won, at last, and had hesitated, glancing at the battered sofa in his office, clearly wondering whether he might offer Jamie the use of it, rather than send him back to the cells for an hour’s sleep before the prisoners rose.
Jamie had appreciated the thought, but it wouldn’t do, and he’d set his face impassively, bowed correctly, and bade Lord John good night, himself rapping on the doorframe to summon the dozing guard.
“Merde,” he said under his breath. He’d been sitting on the bench outside the inn, gazing down the road with the book open on his knee, for God knew how long. Now it had come on to rain, and wee drops stippled the page, brushing soft against his face.
He wiped the page hastily with his sleeve and went inside, putting the book in his pocket. Tom Byrd was sitting by the hearth, helping young Moira Beckett wind her fresh-dyed yarn. He’d been making sheep’s eyes at Moira, but at the sound of Jamie’s entrance, his head swiveled round like a compass needle.
Jamie shook his head slightly, and Tom grimaced, but then turned back to Moira.
“D’you know what time it is, Miss Beckett?” Tom asked politely.
“About half-three, so it is,” she replied, looking a little startled. Jamie suppressed a smile. She’d turned her head to look out the window at the light, just as Jamie had when Tom asked the question. The notion that anyone would not be able to know what time it was by the light was clearly foreign to her, but Tom was a Londoner bred and born, and thus never out of hearing of the bells of one church or another.
“I s’pose his lordship must be having a good visit with his friend,” Tom offered, looking to Jamie for confirmation.
“Aye, well, I hope he had a more cordial reception than I did.” Grey had left for Glastuig just after ten; it was no more than a half hour’s ride. Five hours was surely a portent of something, but whether it might be good news or bad …
He shook his head and went upstairs. He sat by the window and opened his book again, but could not bend either eye or mind to the tragedy of Hector’s ignominious death.
If it came to him having to go back to England with Grey’s body and deliver him to Pardloe … he might just take Quinn at his offer and run, he thought. But surely the wee fool would have been on his guard, knowing what had happened to him? After all—
He sat up straight, his eye catching the flicker of movement far down the road. It wasn’t Grey, though; it was a man on foot, half-running, with the hitching, lolloping gait of one forcing himself past his bodily limits.
He was down the stairs and out the door, Tom Byrd on his heels, by the time the runner came within hailing distance, and they rushed to him, supporting him.
Quinn was deathly pale, drenched in sweat, and gasping for breath.
“I think ye’d best come, Jamie. Your friend’s killed Major Siverly, and the constable’s after arresting him.”
THERE WAS A KNOT of people standing on the lawn, most of them gesticulating. There was a man in a sober cloth coat and good cocked hat who seemed to be in charge of the proceedings—Jamie supposed this must be the constable. Most of the other folk there were obviously the servants of the house, all talking at once and waving their arms. And in the midst of it all stood John Grey, looking vastly irritated.
He was disheveled, his hair coming out of its plait, and there were smears of mud on his uniform—Tom Byrd willna care for that, Jamie thought automatically. He was right; beside him, Tom gave a small squeak of outrage, and Jamie put his hand on the lad’s arm to keep him quiet.
Making his way cautiously toward the little knot of people, he kept out of sight as much as he might, until he should determine how best to be of help. From twenty feet away, he saw that Grey’s wrists were bound together in front of him and that the dark smears on his boots and breeks were blood, not dirt.
Grey was saying something, his voice pitched loud to be heard over the clishmaclaver, but Jamie couldn’t make out what he said. Grey turned away from the constable, shaking his head in disgust—and his eye caught Jamie’s. His face went from anger to calculation in an instant, and he made a brief, violent shooing gesture with one hand. “Go away,” it said, clear as day.
“What are they going to do with him?” Tom whispered urgently in Jamie’s ear.
“I dinna ken.” Jamie faded back a step or two into the shrubbery. “They’ve arrested him, Quinn said. Maybe they’ll take him to the local gaol.”
“They can’t do that!”
He glanced at Tom, whose round face was set in indignation, fists clenched at his sides.
“Aye, well, wait and see.” Thoughts were running through his mind, trying to make out what it was Grey wanted him to do.
“Go out where he can see ye, wee Byrd,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the scene. “They’ll let ye near him, I think, as ye’re his servant.”
Tom gave him a wild look, but then drew himself up and nodded manfully. He stepped out of the shrubbery and walked toward the group, and Jamie saw Grey’s expression of annoyance and anxiety ease a little. His own eased, as well; he’d guessed right, then.
There was a good bit of palaver and some shoving, the servants trying to keep Tom Byrd away from Grey. The young valet stood his ground, though, and Grey added his own insistence, scowling and gesturing at the constable with his bound hands. The constable looked slow and suspicious, but he had an air about him of authority; when he lifted a hand for silence, the magpie chatter ceased.
“You’re this man’s valet, ye say?” Jamie could just hear, above the patter of rain on the leaves and the servants’ muttering.
“I am, sir.” Tom Byrd bowed deeply. “Will you let me talk to him, please?”
The constable glanced from Tom Byrd to Grey, then back. He stood in thought for some moments, but then nodded.
“Aye, go ahead. You lot!” He lifted his chin imperiously at the servants. “I want to speak to the person who found the body.”
There was a general shifting and glancing to and fro, but then a maid stepped out of the
throng, pushed by two of her fellow servants. She looked wild, her eyes showing white like a spooked horse, and her hands wrapped in her apron, strangling it.
“Was it you found your master, then? Go on, now, there’s naught to fear,” the constable said, in a tone that he probably thought was reassuring. He might as well have said that he proposed to take her straight to the hangman, for the maid wailed in terror and threw the mangled apron over her head.
One of the men with her appeared to be her husband, for he put an arm around her and stuck out his chin—trembling, but out, Jamie noted with approval—at the constable.
“She did, then, your honor, and it’s quite put her out of her wits with the shock, as ye see.”
“I see,” the constable said rather brusquely. “Well, who the fook else saw what happened? You?”
“Oh, not me, oh, no, your honor,” said the husband, turning white and stepping back, making a sign against evil. His wife shrieked, feeling his sheltering arm depart, and cowered. Her friends among the servants obligingly set up a companionable keening to keep her company, and the constable set his jaw like a bulldog against the racket, lower teeth set hard in his upper lip.
While the constable conducted his laborious investigations, and the rain began to fall more heavily, Jamie saw Grey draw Tom Byrd aside with a jerk of his head, then bend close to his ear, clearly giving instructions, glancing now and then as he did so at the shrubbery where Jamie stood hidden.
He thought he made out from the incoherent babblings of the maid that she’d found the master in the summerhouse, and as the constable seemed indisposed to go and look for himself, Jamie eased out of the shrubbery and went quietly round the back of the little wood.
More than one person had run through it; he could see that from the fresh-broken twigs and trampled ferns. He skirted the damage delicately and stole quietly up to the rear of the summerhouse. It was made with latticed panels, these interspersed with open sections, which were barred with an ornamental railing, with latticework below. Tall as he was, he could just manage to peer through this latticework by standing on his toes.
The first thing he saw was not Siverly’s body, but the weapon. It was the same odd, knob-headed club with which Siverly had attacked him, and he crossed himself at the sight, with a peculiar feeling that was not satisfaction but more awe at God’s sense of justice.
Grey had recognized the thing from his description; had told him it was a war club, a weapon made by the Iroquois. Hardwood, and, in the right hands, a very deadly thing. Evidently, Siverly had run into someone who knew how to employ it—the knob at the end was thick with blood and hair, and … His eye tracked across the wide swath of blood that lay smeared over the floor of the summerhouse and came to rest on an object that he knew must be Siverly’s head, only because it could be nothing else.
The man was lying with his head toward Jamie, the rest of his body largely invisible. The blow had caved in his skull to a shocking extent; white bone showed, and rimming the wound was a pinkish ooze that he knew to be brain. He felt his gorge rise and turned round hastily, shutting his eyes and trying not to breathe, for the smell of blood and death was thick in his nose.
There was little to be learned here, and sooner or later someone would come; he couldn’t be found lurking near the body. He stole quietly out through the wood, turned right, and circled round the house, coming out of the gardens near the drive, just in time to see Lord John being taken away. The constable had commandeered a wagon from the estate and rode his mule alongside, keeping a sharp eye on his prisoner. The prisoner himself sat straight as a ramrod on the wagon’s seat, looking extremely cross but self-possessed. Jamie saw him say something to the constable that made the latter rear back, blinking, but then glower at Lord John and make an abrupt gesture to the wagon’s driver, who clicked his tongue to the horses and set off at a trot that nearly toppled John Grey off his perch, unable to catch himself with his hands bound.
Jamie felt an angry spasm of kinship at the sight; he’d known such small cruelties when he’d worn fetters. He murmured a deliberate curse toward the constable and walked out onto the drive, where the servants were clustered accusingly round Tom Byrd.
They all fell silent at sight of Jamie, falling back a little. He ignored the lot of them and jerked his head at Tom, saying merely, “Come with me, Mr. Byrd,” as he turned away down the drive.
Tom followed promptly, and while there was a hostile muttering behind them, no one hindered their departure.
“I’m that glad you come up when you did, sir,” Tom said, hurrying a little to come even with him and glancing back over his shoulder. “I thought they were a-going to take me to pieces—and so did they.”
“Aye, well, they’re like dogs whose master’s died,” Jamie said, not unkindly. “They dinna ken what to do, so they howl and snap at one another. What did his lordship tell ye, wee Byrd?”
Tom was pale and excited but had control of himself. He rubbed his sleeve across his face to wipe away the rain and settled himself to recite Lord John’s message.
“Right, sir. To begin with, the constable—that was the constable, the loud fat man—is taking his lordship to Castle Athlone.”
“Aye? Well, that’s good—it’s not?” Jamie asked, seeing Tom shake his head.
“No, sir. He says the justiciar has gone to France, and whoever’s in charge will either keep him locked up or make him give his parole, and that won’t do.”
“It won’t? Did he say why not?”
“No, sir, there wasn’t time. He says you must come and get him out, quick as ever you can.”
Jamie rubbed a hand over his face, brushing water out of his eyebrows.
“Does he, then,” he said dryly. “Did he suggest how I was to do that?”
Tom half-smiled, despite his worry.
“No, sir. He says to tell you that he trusts in your native wit and ferocity to accomplish this. I’m to help you,” he added modestly, with a sideways look up at Jamie. He put a hand to his middle, looking portentous. “His lordship gave me his dagger to keep for him.”
“That will be a great help,” Jamie assured him gravely. “Dinna stick anyone with it unless I tell ye, though, aye? I dinna want to have to save ye both from the hangman.”
The rain was coming down harder now, but as they were already wet through, there was little point in hurry, and they strode along without talking, the rain pattering on their heads and shoulders.
25
Escape from Athlone
QUINN HAD NOT GONE BACK TO GLASTUIG WITH THEM; they found him crouched by the fire with a glass of arrack in his hands, still shivering. He got up when he saw Jamie, though, and came outside at the jerk of Jamie’s head.
The rain had stopped, at least for a bit, and Jamie led the way down the road so they might talk unheard. In a few words, he acquainted Quinn with the news of John Grey’s arrest, which caused Quinn to cross himself piously—though Jamie could see from his face that he did not regard this as particularly unwelcome news.
He’d known pretty much what Quinn’s reaction was likely to be and had decided what to do about it.
“Ye still want that cup, aye?” Jamie asked Quinn abruptly. “The Cupán Druid riogh?”
Quinn looked at him, wide-eyed, and grasped him by the arm.
“Ye’ll never mean ye’ve got it, man?”
“No, I have not.” Jamie detached his arm, though without violence.
“But ye know where it is.” Quinn’s restless eyes had stilled, fixed intently on his, and it wasn’t a question.
“Aye, I know. It’s well beyond anyone’s reach, is where it is. I told the abbot to put it back where it came from, and to the best of my knowledge”—which is considerable, he added silently to himself—“he did.”
Quinn’s lips pursed in thought. “Someone will know,” he said. “All the monks had to know when they dug the poor fella up—they’ll remember where he was planted, too.”
“Aye. Well, ye want to
go and ask them, do that—but ye’re no going until we get John Grey out of Athlone.”
Quinn’s strange light eyes bulged a bit.
“Out of Athlone Castle? Man, are ye demented?”
“Aye, I am,” Jamie said crossly. “But I mean to do it, anyway.”
“Why? The man’s not only English, not only your captor—he’s a fecking murderer!”
“No, that he’s not,” Jamie said, with decision. “He may be a good many disagreeable things, but not that.”
“But they found him standin’ over Siverly’s body, and the blood fresh on his boots!”
“I saw, aye?”
Quinn fumed visibly. “Why the devil d’ye think he didn’t do the man in, then? Ye heard what he had to say about him and all his talk about bringin’ the fellow to justice. Ye don’t get more justice than a bullet through the head!”
There was no point in telling Quinn that Siverly’s death—however administered—wouldn’t have been justice in John Grey’s book, save it had been preceded by a court-martial.
“He didn’t,” Jamie repeated stubbornly.
There was also no way to explain to Quinn what he knew to be true of John Grey. That being that the only circumstance in which Grey might possibly have killed Siverly was if he was in fear of his own life—and had that been the case, he would have said so. To Jamie, at least, via Tom Byrd.
He wasn’t going to argue the point, though, and not only because it would be futile. There was also the consideration that if Grey hadn’t killed Siverly, someone else had. And there were relatively few persons known to have been nearby, one of whom was Quinn. He couldn’t think why Quinn might have done such a thing, but thought it wiser not to point that out, given that he proposed to continue in company with Quinn for the next wee while.
“I’m going to Athlone, and ye’re goin’ with me.”
“What? Why?” Quinn cried, indignant. “Where d’ye get off, dragging me into it?”
The Scottish Prisoner: A Novel Page 27