"Aye, Colonel, it is," Lyle said, forcing calm into his tone as best he could. "How did you...?"
"Oh, the footman pointed you out to me," Maddocks explained. The deep creases at the corners of his eyes became more pronounced. "I know he should not - and believe me when I say that he did not wish to unmask you, so to speak - but I fear I can be persuasive." His brow furrowed slightly. "But how, Sir Ardell, did you know who I was?"
"You wear no mask, sir," Lyle replied, confounded.
"But we have never met. Not in person, leastwise."
Sweat prickled at Lyle's neck. His cheeks felt suddenly clammy beneath the black and gold disguise. "Someone mentioned you were here to keep us all safe, Colonel. And you carry weapons at a masque. It is not so taxing to deduce your identity." He let his eyes flicker briefly across Maddocks' shoulder, where the lion roared in black thread. "Your strength brings you fame, sir."
Maddocks shrugged, playing the game of self-deprecation poorly. "Ah, well, it is good to know my services are appreciated." To hide his reddening cheeks, Maddocks turned slightly, showing Lyle to a bench at the far side of the small room. "I must say, I am surprised to find you here, Sir Ardell."
"I am not so dour as you might suppose," Lyle replied cautiously, thinking back to the letters they had found in Mason's possession.
Maddocks laughed as they sat down, white teeth glowing beneath the coarse bristles of his moustache, and raised his palms in supplication. "I meant nothing by it, sir, truly. But since your good lady wife..." he trailed off as awkwardness overtook him.
So Early's wife had died, Lyle thought. He dipped his head. "I have not found pleasure in many things, tis true," he said, for once needing no pretence. He swallowed the lump that had thickened at the back of his throat. "You were looking for me, Colonel?"
Maddocks nodded. "How fares business, sir?"
"Business?"
"It is my business to keep your business safe, Sir Ardell. Major-General Goffe has entrusted me with a mission of great importance. The safety of his supporters across the Downs is paramount to him. I would speak to those I must protect. This evening seemed a good time to introduce myself, though I confess it is difficult."
Lyle took the hint, but tapped a finger against the corner of his feathered mask. "My apologies, Colonel, but I like to maintain the charade at all times. What is the purpose of a masquerade if our faces are exposed? I would not insult our host by removing my guise." He noted Maddocks' disgruntled shrug, allowed himself a tiny smile, and continued. "But I will tell you that business is well, thank you. The trade thrives, I thrive. The hills hereabouts are ideal for pasture."
"And you've received no trouble?"
"Trouble?"
"Bandits, Sir Ardell," Maddocks replied earnestly. "Brigands. Footpads. Call them what you will."
"Vermin."
"Aye, vermin," Maddocks echoed, eyes gleaming as though they belonged to a fox. "To be exterminated."
"Please God."
"They've not harassed your work?"
Lyle paused for effect. "Oh, they have, to be sure. And it's affected my profits, I don't mind telling you." He gazed across the bench at the colonel, imagining what Grumm might say if he knew he were stringing the Mad Ox along in this manner. "One in particular."
Colonel Maddocks sat back, balling his fists. "The Ironside Highwayman."
Lyle nodded. "The same, sir. By God, I shall skin him alive when he is caught. String the knave up by his entrails."
"Not if I catch him first," Maddocks replied darkly.
"Do you think you will?"
The door swung inward suddenly and both men fell silent as a couple bowled in from the ballroom. They seemed to hang off one another like a pair of old soaks outside a tavern, before the woman, resplendent in billowing blue and yellow, took her young companion by the wrist and dragged him through another door and out into the labyrinthine passageways beyond.
"Be sure of it, sir," Maddocks said when the couple's laughter had faded. "It is purely a matter of time." He stood suddenly, issuing a tight bow. "Part of my task is to make myself known to those I am charged to protect, so I am pleased we are now acquainted. But now I must see to the men. One can never be too careful."
"You do not think Lyle will strike tonight, though, Colonel?" Lyle said, staring up at the soldier. "Not here."
"One can never be certain where that villain is concerned." Maddocks blew out his cheeks, wide nostrils flaring. "I am not fond of masquerades, Sir Ardell. In my view, the likes of that young pair," he indicated the far doorway through which the laughing couple had vanished, "are little more than preening popinjays and wanton harlots. The very epitome of that which we fought to eradicate." He offered a weary shrug. "But they are valued by my masters, and I must see that they are left in peace by this nation's less desirable elements. There are those who would steal the very shoes from their feet, let alone the jewels from their fingers and necks."
"It is a rich prize, I readily concede," Lyle replied, labouring his incredulity, "but there is as much cold steel here as warm gold. The Ironside Highwayman is a mongrel of the road. Such a dog would not bite so large a beast, Colonel."
Maddocks gave a rueful smile. "He is no common villain, Sir Ardell. He cares not for mere thievery. His targets are the new elite. The people of the rebellion. Those whose stars rose as the old regime's fell. Men such as Sir John. Men like us. If I were him, I would be sniffing out this place like a fox eyeing the largest hen-house in the land."
Lyle stood, extending a velvet-gloved hand for Maddocks to shake. "He'll not get past the likes of you, sir."
"You flatter me, Sir Ardell."
"You are not to be trifled with, Colonel, and he knows it. And there are others here. Hippisley himself marched with Cromwell, did he not? Hinton Ampner is this night filled with the men who made the rebellion. Won it." Grumm's disapproving face resolved in his mind's eye, and he inwardly smiled, adding, "Heroes all."
"Well it is kind in you to say," Maddocks said, making for the doorway that would take him back to the ballroom. To the surprise of both men, the door burst open before he reached it, through which blundered a tall man draped in voluminous robes the colour of salmon, his face obscured by a long, hooked beak that was studded with nuggets of pink and yellow glass.
"Colonel Maddocks!" the newcomer exclaimed in a loud voice that echoed about the small antechamber. "All is safe and well within our humble walls, I trust?"
Maddocks bowed, deeply this time, his face splitting in an obsequious grin. "Safe and well, Sir John, naturally." He waved a hand in Lyle's direction. "I was just saying as much to Sir Ardell."
Lyle took to his feet. "Sir John Hippisley?"
"Ha!" Hippisley barked, slapping his silken thigh in delight. "Do not indulge me so, Sir Ardell! You know me well enough, despite this infernal beak. Worn at my goodwife's suggestion, and rued every moment since."
Lyle felt his mouth contract around his tongue as the saliva dried to dust. He realised he was holding his breath and forced himself to release it lest it affect his speech. "It is an admirable disguise." He hurriedly dredged what he knew of the wool merchant from the back of his racing mind. "And we are not so well acquainted that I might instantly know your voice. Not yet, least wise. I fear I do not often have cause or need to leave my estates."
Hippisley nodded, the aquiline nose bobbing in a manner that reminded Lyle of a peculiar pink bird he had once seen in a Parisian circus. Though that animal had stood entirely on one of its thin legs, while the one before him seemed to hop excitedly from one to the other. "Quite so, quite so. But I trust our friendship - and our respective business interests - will flourish side by side, Sir Ardell. Tell me, do you enjoy yourself this night? My little soiree is to your liking?"
"I am enjoying myself greatly, Sir John," Lyle said, beginning to relax now that Hippisley seemed content with his identity. "The good colonel was just assuring me of his intent to rid our fine county of that base rogue, Samson Lyle."
Maddocks cleared his throat, bowing as he shuffled backwards. "I will take this moment to excuse myself, gentlemen, if it please you. Patrols to see to, you understand."
"Of course, Colonel Maddocks, of course," Hippisley said gravely, watching the soldier disappear into the great hall. He turned to Lyle when the door had clunked shut in his wake. "I fear he will lose his mind over that man."
"Lyle?"
"The same. Maddocks makes it his life's work to catch the so-called Ironside Highwayman, but I can tell you that bringing Major Lyle to ground will not be easy. He was a renowned fighter. And I hear he became a master swordsman during his time in exile."
Lyle was astounded at the man's familiarity, given the fact that they had never met. "You knew him?"
Hippisley shook his head. "No, but I am acquainted with many of his old friends." He was a big man, broad as well as tall, so that when he leaned forwards conspiratorially it seemed as though a the whole room dimmed. "The story goes that he fought with Henry Ireton - God preserve his eternal soul - in Ireland. Smashing the papists as was his right and his duty before God."
"Amen to that," Lyle intoned.
"Quite so. But I heard that he lost his nerve. Saw one too many death."
Lyle felt instantly sick and he swallowed back the bile that always singed his throat when Ireland was mentioned. One too many death? Whole towns sacked, their people put to the sword. The smell of smoke and sulphur and roasting bodies came to him like a living nightmare. He breathed deeply, the pungent fumes of the masquerade suddenly as fresh as a meadow by comparison. "What happened?" he heard himself say.
"Argued with Ireton, stormed out of camp, made ship back to England," Hippisley said bluntly. "That was in the last weeks of '51. But Ireton's messengers reached the motherland first, and when he arrived he was arrested for desertion. He escaped, of course, and fled to France."
Christ, Lyle thought, but that was a frighteningly succinct description of the gauntlet he had been forced to run. The journey across the Irish Sea had been a vomit-washed hell, the ride from the northwest of England had been wet and cold, and then he had been run to ground and beaten bloody by the men who had been his subordinates until that moment. When finally he had extricated himself from the dank confines of his cell and found the terrified Bella, they had walked barefoot through marsh and over hill, crossed the snowy peaks that formed England's spine, and made it to the coast where they had stowed away in the hold of a cargo ship bound for the continent. They had been shadows of their former selves by then, half-starved, weather-ravaged and trawling the very depths of despair. He swallowed thickly and somehow conjured an amused grunt. "What exquisite irony. An arch rebel forced to cower in France with the last of the Cavaliers. Forced to swerve both sides of the divide."
"Quite so!" Hippisley bellowed happily. "Deserved nothing less."
"He deserved the noose."
The master of the grand estate seemed to appreciate that, for his pink plumage juddered as he laughed, deep brown eyes twinkling above the beak. "One day, please God."
"But why is the rogue back?" Lyle asked, unable to stifle his intrigue at the breadth to which his notoriety had evidently stretched. "Why risk returning? Especially now that Cromwell rules so completely through his major-generals. Is it true that he was done a grievous wrong?"
"Not a bit of it, sir! Soldiers were sent to his estate to the east of here, charged with confiscating the knave's assets. He was a traitor, after all. His goodwife was home." He dropped his voice to a clandestine murmur. "There was an altercation and, I'm sorry to say, she was killed. Trampled by the horses as she tried to keep them at bay. A terrible accident."
In that moment Samson Lyle could have wrung Hippisley's neck as though he were the very bird he portrayed. "Accident, sir?" he said, every ounce of strength poured into restraining his ire. "It sounds like murder."
No sooner had the words left Lyle's mouth than he knew he had overreached himself, for Hippisley's shoulders were suddenly squared like a defensive barricade, his eyes somehow darker. "Does it now?" he retorted coldly, the mirth all gone. "Then I commend you to keep your thoughts to yourself in company such as this. It was ruled an accident."
Lyle took a small rearward step. "My apologies, Sir John. It was wrong of me to suggest."
"Wrong of you to think, Sir Ardell. Suffice to say, however," Hippisley continued, apparently content with the retraction, "that Lyle believes you are right. He returned last year. Rides with two others, one a woman of all things! Both are masked, though he is not. They target members of the ruling class. Judges, soldiers, lawmakers, tax collectors, businessmen, merchants. The common sort love him, as the peasantry are wont to do. William Goffe, as you'd imagine, would rather like to see him dance the Tyburn jig."
"As would I," Lyle intoned gravely.
"Quite so, my good man, quite so." Hippisley clapped his hands together, the big palms slapping loudly despite their covering of kid skin, and he made for the door to the ballroom. "Now, I must not neglect my guests, though I know not who they are behind their guises, and you must come too."
Lyle tensed. "Very kind in you, Sir John, but I would not be such an encumbrance on my gracious host."
"Not a bit of it, sir! You said yourself that you do not often leave your estates. This is the opportunity to meet folk that might be of interest to you. Those of a like mind and mutual interests. This is why I have been permitted to hold such an event, after all."
Lyle could only nod. How could he refuse? And now he would be escorted about the crowd, directed from one foe to the next, each with their own tale of how the Ironside Highwayman had menaced them, how he should be gibbeted on the highest point of Butser Hill as a warning to others. Each man and woman would look into his eyes, and one, he knew, would eventually recognise him. With creeping trepidation he followed the big man into the main hall. People still mingled, chattered, ate, drank, danced and brayed to the high ceiling. A few heads turned to appraise them, eyes glinting with intrigue. He noticed one woman, resplendent in green and silver, took particular interest, her almost black eyes bright within a mask that had been styled to resemble the face of a cat. She held his gaze for a second, the eyes at once unreadable and intense, and it took all his willpower to tear himself away.
"Might I ask, Sir John," he said as he moved in the wake of Hippisley's imposing frame, "if Sir Frederick Mason is here? I have been meaning to speak with him for some time upon a certain matter."
Hippisley paused, turned, drew breath to speak.
"Sir John!" a man exclaimed with startling breathlessness, bursting from the crowd. He was a servant, wearing the ubiquitous kingfisher livery of the house, and his face, uncovered, was flushed and glistening with sweat.
Hippisley swung the long beak on him. "What is it? Well, spit it out, man!"
The servant stared at the floor. "We are running low on the good claret, sir."
For a moment it looked as though Hippisley might explode in rage, but his broad chest suddenly deflated as he sighed in exasperation. "Must I deal with everything myself?" He turned to Lyle. "Forgive me, Sir Ardell. I will return forthwith."
Lyle nodded rapidly, thanking God for His timely intervention. He might have been denied Hippisley's answer, but at least he would avoid the inquisitive gazes. He watched Hippisley stalk away, now alone in a sea of people, the thrum of the dance like waves lapping all around.
Lyle took the opportunity to flee, making for the antechamber from whence they had come. He needed to clear his head, walking straight to the ugly exterior door that he had guessed would open out into the gardens. It was not locked, the bolt sliding back with a deep rattle, and he stepped quickly into the night air.
The area immediately surrounding the house had been landscaped and planted with various kinds of shrubs and bushes. There were several rows of what he guessed to be fruit trees running through the lawns, their branches naked under the moonlight, and a maze of ivy and honeysuckle sprawled over a complex o
f trellised fences. Beyond that was the high, moss-clothed wall, keeping the garden separate from the rest of the large estate, and Lyle instinctively walked towards it, wanting to be as far from the heady masquerade as possible.
The sounds of the ball faded as he strode into the night. The air was crisp and fresh, chilling his nostrils and throat, making him feel as if he could finally breathe freely. He paced steadily through a miniature orchard of wizened apple trees, the ground slick beneath his boots, until he came to the ivy-woven trellis, moving to the far side so that he could not be observed from the house. There he paused, tilted back his head at the night sky, wondered how best to abort this evening's reckless task now that it had been shown to be borne purely of hubris. The stars winked, mocking him. He removed his mask, worked his jaw to free it of the stifling feeling the disguise had engendered, and blew a warm gust of air through his nostrils. He knew he needed to find Grumm before he could do anything, so, with another steadying breath, he turned.
"I'm surprised you found the time to attend this evening, sir, given your busy schedule," Felicity Mumford said. "Robbing honest folk, and such.” She sniffed daintily. “Still, at least you appear to have bathed for this engagement."
"Madam, I..." Lyle spluttered, replacing the mask despite the terrible knowledge that it was all too late.
She grinned. "Fear not, Major Lyle. I had rather hoped I would meet you again. Though I confess I am surprised it is so soon".
"Thank you," Lyle said, lowering the pointless disguise. He stared at her. In her hand was her own mask. It was green and silver, like her dress, the eye holes turned up at the corners in a distinctly feline manner. "You saw me in the hall."
"I did. I knew it was you. Could tell by your eyes." She ran her free hand through hair that had been freed of the coif she had worn when first they met. The gesture mesmerised him. "Who are you supposed to be? I cannot imagine you were invited in person, sir, for where would they send the invitation?"
Highwayman: Ironside Page 6