Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 05] - Nanette

by Patricia Veryan

  Suspecting himself rumbled, he said lightly, "Don't think she'll wear the willow for me, do you?"

  The boy said nothing but brought from his pocket a much-folded sheet of paper and held it out, his eyes large with importance.

  Taking this document, Harry unfolded it and looked upon a far grimmer poster, ominously headed with a royal 'G. R.' The reward stood now at an unprecedented Two Thousand Guineas, and to the crimes of Kidnapping, Assault, and Brutality, were added the cowardly, murder of the gallant father of his victim. The details must wring the hardest heart in the land, and his description now included the item that his face was severely scratched, wherefore he would very likely grow a beard to cover those telltale marks. His heart sinking, Harry muttered, "Not much doubt who I am, is there?"

  "They've took the niceness out of your eyes, sir. And made your mouth turn down 'stead of up."

  "Thank you." And all too aware that his life was held in this child's hands, he pointed out quietly, "Two thousand guineas is a great amount of money."

  "It be," the boy acknowledged with an odd dignity. "But we Romanys do know Devil Sanguinet. He served our people crool. Me granfer says they've made him out good, and if they'd lie about that, the whole lot's likely wrong."

  This evidence of sagacity cheered Harry, and he asked for advice on the state of the hunt. He was warned not to go near the seacoast and that the country from here to Devonshire was being beaten for him by both the populace and the military. "Ye'll be took and hung in a hour, sir, does ye not turn about for Lunon—or the north."

  If Harry was sure of anything, it was that his friends were fighting for him; but it was very evident that Bolster had been all too correct when he'd said it would take time. The murder, of course, had brought in the full power of the King's justice… and there would certainly be international ramifications. His one chance was to get out of the country—to start life anew… "Them scratches," the boy was muttering uncertainly. "You didn't never really hurt the gentry-mort?"

  "Good lad! No, I never so much as raised a hand…" Harry stopped, his thoughts on a sunlit clearing, the scene coming so vividly to mind that the boy wondered at the wistfulness in his eyes. "Well, and I'm a liar," he admitted, "for I boxed the lady's ears."

  A broad grin spread over the small, dark face. "Were she obstrep'rous, sir? Me dad boxes Mum's ears be she obstrep'rous. Not as she minds nohow, for they always cuddly-kiss afterwards."

  "She was… just a mite obstreperous," Harry smiled. "Yet I dare to think she forgave me, though we did not—ah, cuddly-kiss."

  They shook hands, man to man, and calling, "I hope ye gets clean away! Kooshti divvus!" the boy ran lightly after his companions.

  The woods seemed very lonely when all sounds of the children had died away. Staring at the sparkling riffles of the stream, Harry at last faced the truth. He could not hope to reach either the coast or Cancrizans Priory. Nor could he very much longer journey alone. His arm must have medical attention, for the dry burning of his skin was not, he feared, from the sun. Reluctantly, he put pride away. The time had come when he must call on his friends for help.

  It grew very warm in the late afternoon, but Harry pushed on, having decided to attempt a wide northerly loop and swing south again towards the homes of Lucian St. Clair, the Earl of Harland, and Lord John Moulton, at any one of which he was sure to find sanctuary. Of the three great houses he preferred Lucian's Beechmead, for he knew the Viscount and his bride would still be away and thus unanswerable for shielding him. He was commencing to feel oddly confused at times, however, and with the advent of dusk, blundered clumsily into a large group of searchers he should have easily avoided. For the next two hours he played a desperate game of least-in-sight with them. Only the darkness saved him; and as their shouts faded, he was forced to rest until the frantic hammering of his heart and the searing in his lungs eased. Huddled among the reeds beside a turgid stream, he gripped his throbbing arm and panted heavily. Never again would he be able to enjoy the hunt, for he was commencing to know too well the helpless panic of the hunted. When he started off once more, he was periodically shaken by chills though his skin seemed on fire. He stumbled on until the lights of an isolated farmhouse loomed before him. A cart covered by sacking stood under a rickety lean-to, a large black dog snoring beside it. To venture closer was to risk discovery, but he was too exhausted to care. He headed for the cart, stepped over the dog, crawled inside and, pulling the sacking over him, was lulled to sleep by the snores of the inept canine sentry.

  "What d'you mean—killed him?" exclaimed the apothecary indignantly, putting down his saw. "Ain't s'much as laid a finger on him yet!"

  His accuser, a short, round, balding individual given to innocently raised brows and a meek hesitancy of manner, peered more closely at the man who sprawled in the chair of the dusty little shop, right arm trailing over the side, bearded face sunk onto his chest, and long legs extended before him. "Looks t'me," he blinked, "like ye've lost the customer I brung ye, Stanley Crimp. Gentleman's been and gone and died on ye, sure enough!"

  "A sight you know of it, Bert!" Mr. Crimp's thin claw of a hand reached for his customer's wrist nevertheless and, having located a pulse, mirth lit his cadaverous features as he proceeded to straighten his greasy hair, then tie a soiled apron about his middle. "Gentleman—is it? That's a laugh!"

  "Gentleman," reiterated Bert, folding his hands over his round little stomach and regarding his tall companion solemnly.

  Mr. Crimp deposited needles, thread, lint, a large wooden hammer, and various other surgical supplies on the battered table beside the chair. "If you think a 'gentleman" would be caught dead in those shoes—or that jacket… then you ain't seen many of the breed!"

  Seating himself on a nearby chair and rocking familiarly back and forth on the uneven legs, Bert said an aggrieved, "I seen enough to find one for you though, didn't I? Resting on the step o' Macauley's fish shop he was—along o' all the cats in Winchester."

  Pausing in his preparations, the apothecary enquired if 'old mother Macauley' had seen this ungentlemanlike behaviour, whereupon Bert nodded. "Out she come, a'clobbering at him with her broom, and screeching as he's gin raddled, which he wasn't."

  Crimp chuckled. "What'd he do?"

  "He bowed," shrugged Bert loftily. "Wotever would you of expected?"

  "Bowed . . ?" gasped Mr. Crimp. "To… old mother Macauley?"

  "Very flash," Bert nodded, jumping up and emulating the bow with exaggerated drama. "Gent born—ain't no doubt." Returning to his unstable perch, he mused, "P'raps he's lost his fortune at play…or killed his man in a doo-ell, or…" He broke off, his rheumy eyes widening, and meeting that scared look, Crimp's own expression became alarmed. "Here!" he whispered, "You don't think . . ?"

  Bert stood and tiptoed nearer to the chair. "He could be, Crimp! Oh… Gawd . . ! They do say as he shoved a knife clean through the poor cove's liver and lights! And the poor Frenchy—a fine, high-born gent, furriner or no! Perfecting of his ravaged child!" He bent to scan the suspect, breath held in check. "But—they say in them posters as how he's got scratches on his face."

  "Well so he might have—under that beard. And—see here . . !" The apothecary crept to the far side of the chair and, lifting a rag from the bared arm that rested there, beckoned to his friend.

  Bert looked and grimaced, and for a moment they stared at one another.

  "Two… Thousand Guineas!" breathed Bert, eyes bright with avarice.

  "Hurry up!" urged Crimp. "If he ain't the guilty party—no harm done. If he is, he'll be slowed down considerable when I'm finished, I can tell you!"

  Bert was already scurrying away but turned at this, to call in an urgent stage whisper, "You won't never do him in?"

  The apothecary pursed his lips doubtfully, then brightened. "It makes no never mind. Reward's the same, warm or stiff."

  Heaving a sigh of relief at this happy reminder, Bert was gone.

  Mr. Crimp eyed his patient curiously, reached forwar
d, and with great caution parted the short dark beard that curled about the pale features. Slight as it was, the touch roused Harry. He blinked up at the man who crouched over him and demanded an indignant, "What the deuce d'ye think you're about?"

  Mr. Crimp jumped back and, snatching up his saw, gulped, "I—I was… forgetting, sir, whether or no you's-said you would be wanting a shave!"

  "Shave?" Flinching, Harry hauled himself upward. "With—that?"

  The apothecary glanced down at his saw and uttered a nervous laugh. " 'Course not! That's for—"

  "Good God! You dirty blackguard! You were going to hack my arm off!"

  "Well now, it's got to be done, ain't it?" said Crimp reasonably. He lifted the straps at the side of the bolted-down chair. "You just rest easy and tell me where you want us to take you after I—"

  "Devil I will!" Harry waved him off. "You're not going to strap me down, cut my arm off, nor take me anywhere, confound you!"

  The apothecary patted his shoulder in a consoling way, but his cunning eyes slid to the side. Following that glance, Harry jumped up, grabbed the hammer, and tossed it across the room. "I prefer laudanum, if you please! Not that I'd give you the chance to administer either!"

  "Don't often have to use my hammer," sighed Crimp, his thousand guineas receding rapidly. "They usually faint when I get to the bone."

  "Or die, more like!" Harry shuddered.

  Crimp protested this statement with vigour and then assured his patient that it was his own welfare that was being considered. "Can't run from a thing like that." He indicated the injury with the travesty of a sympathetic smile. "Longer you leave it, worse it'll get. In a day or two, it'll be much too late, even if you was to take it to the shoulder!"

  "I'll tell you what I'll take, and that's my leave of you, sir!" Harry picked up his jacket and strode purposefully toward Crimp and the front door.

  For a wild second the apothecary contemplated brute force. His patient was far from being in plump currant—still, he was tall, and the set of his shoulders such as to dampen any valorous inclination to uphold law and order. Crimp compromised, therefore and, seizing a bottle from a side table, adjured Harry to toss off a couple of balls of fire and he'd scarcely feel a thing. Harry declined this offer, but submitting to the logical advice that the wound must be cleaned and re-bandaged, reluctantly sat down again. At once the crafty apothecary, not one to give up without a struggle, warned of the dangers attendant upon refusing to be strapped in. "The least wriggle," he said earnestly, "and one slip o' my hand—" The glitter in the Ravisher's nasty narrow eyes silenced him, however, and he set about his task. He possessed a marked lack of either skill or compassion, with the result that Harry held his breath briefly, then let it out in a blistering review of Mr. Crimp's antecedents. Bert, the apothecary realized, had been correct after all. Only a gentleman could swear with such fluency!

  Watching him, Harry lapsed into a weary silence. He had been fortunate in his choice of overnight accommodations, for he'd woken to find the cart jolting along the sunlit lanes towards Winchester. He'd slipped out some distance from the old town and, finding a stream and sheltering trees, had bathed, endeavoured to make himself look somewhat more respectable, and walked through the sparkling morning until he'd sat on the doorstep of the fish shop and met Bert—which he began to think a mixed blessing. His doubts solidified as Crimp tied the ends of the bandage agonizingly.

  "Damned clumsy dolt!" he raged. "Did you spend your time attending to what you're about instead of constantly gawking out of the window…"

  The apothecary gabbled a defence, but Harry, his own glance having shot to the murky casement that overlooked the street, suddenly realized that all the sights and sounds attendant upon a busy market day had ceased. Suspicion tightened his nerves. He left the chair and stalked to the window. Not a soul was visible, yet he could swear he heard voices in a subdued murmuring that contained a hint of excitement. He swung around even as the apothecary rushed him, the heavy hammer flashing at his unguarded head. He jumped lightly to the side and, as the hammer whizzed past his cheek, slammed home what Lord Bolster would have acclaimed 'a leveller'. Mr. Crimp's feet almost left the floor as he arched backward, coming tidily to rest in his treatment chair.

  "Very obliging of you… old fellow," said Harry. He swiftly buckled the straps about the unconscious man and snatched up a grubby towel to serve as a gag. They were waiting for him to come out, of course. That miserable little toad-eater Bert must have gone for the Watch. He ran to a half-open door at the side of the room and entered a small, littered parlour. The few articles of furniture were stained and sagging, and a grey piece of sheet, racked over the one window, filtered out the daylight. A curtained opening gave onto an odorous kitchen, to the right of which was the promise of a bolted door. Harry started to it, but paused and sprinted back to the parlour. Cautiously, he peered around the edge of the sheet. He was looking into a narrow alley between the buildings. To the left several men crouched, one holding a rake, and the others variously armed with clubs, farm tools, and muskets. To the right, where the alley joined the street, he could glimpse the fringe of a crowd, the men peering eagerly toward the front door of the shop. Even as he watched, he caught sight of the crown of a hat moving below the window and drew back, grimly aware that he was surrounded.

  A voice outside rose in a hoarse whisper. "Peel! They want—" And another voice hissed, "Quiet! Dang ye!"

  For an instant Harry frowned at a greasy hat that adorned the sorrowful sofa. "Nothing ventured…" he thought, and with characteristic zeal for this hopeless challenge, raced into the front room. Crimp was uttering gurgles and thrashing about. Harry pulled free his grimy apron, tied it over the apothecary's head, then tied a drooping jacket over that. Taking up his own jacket, he eased into it and grabbed the lopsided chair. Howling at the top of his lungs, he heaved it through the front window and raced into the parlour again, spurred by a great shout of excitement from the front. He jammed the greasy hat onto his head, ran to the back door, and shouted, "Peel! Peel! Be ye thar?"

  "Aye!" An eager fist pounded at the door. "What's to do?"

  Harry shot the bolt even as the front door crashed open. He flung the door wide. "We got him!" he roared. "Come quick!"

  The first upstanding citizen peered at him and hesitated momentarily but was borne along by the eager tide. They poured into the from room, where total chaos appeared to prevail; shouts of "There he is!", "Kill the ravisher!", "'Hang him!", intermingling with adjurations to "get him outta that chair!" and a lone but more practical, "Where's Crimp?". In a flash the small house was a mass of striving, shouting, cursing men. Harry allowed them to sweep past and edged unobtrusively into the alley. Running to the corner, he all but collided with a muscular individual in an embroidered smock and, seizing his arm, shouted triumphantly, "We got the perisher! We do be fixin' to hang him!" The stranger gave an enthused cry and rushed on.

  Harry breathed a sigh of relief, but as he walked along the wider cobbled thoroughfare he heard the sound he had dreaded, the terrible, mindless yowling of an angry mob. His heart thundering, he pulled the greasy hat lower over his betraying green eyes and turned down the next alley. Only a few people were visible here; a man who ran by, dragging on his coat, his face alight with anticipation; a vendor hawking brooms; a woman far to the end of the alley, lackadaisically sweeping a worn doorstep. Longing to run for the trees that beckoned so invitingly beyond the old buildings, Harry dared not even hasten for fear of attracting attention. God! How they howled! He began to sweat as the sound came nearer. When he passed the woman, she lifted a tired, wan face and bade him good day… He mumbled a response and raised his hat. It was a mistake, and a bad one. She stared, shrank, then let out a piercing shriek. The far end of the alley was suddenly filled with a surging tide of enraged humanity. Harry essayed a mad dash for the trees, the shouts behind him rising into a bestial roar that made his blood run cold. He was almost to the last house when three men raced around the corne
r ahead, three men wearing a familiar black and gold livery, and each carrying a serviceable-looking cudgel. They slowed, and sauntered toward him; and Harry halted, panting, "Treed… by God!"

  From behind came the pounding of countless feet; the ravening clamour that was death, cruel and shameful. "Better to go quickly," he thought and, advancing on Sanguinet's men, was met by one who sprang ahead of his fellows. Harry easily eluded the flailing club and struck once with all the power of his legendary right. The face disappeared, only to be replaced by another and a fist like a ham, shooting for his jaw. He tripped over the fallen man and thus the fist whistled past, and he seized that muscular arm and pulled his assailant into a profane collission with the onrushing third man. A swift sense of danger and he splun around desperately, but a descending hand clutching a rock caught him above the right temple, and he was on his knees, half blinded, his head exploding. Vaguely, he was aware of rough hands dragging him to his feet; a stifling, lunatic confusion; a sharp agony as someone wrenched at his left arm; a shrill voice shouting for a rope. He struggled feebly, but a fist drove at his face and, powerless to duck, he reeled to the impact and sank again, consciousness fading.

  "Murderer!… Filthy woman stealer!… Hang the dirty bastard!"

  Through the sick weakness and pain, he knew a dull regret. Who'd ever have thought he would finish like this? Hanged in some wretched little alley in the dear land of his birth… Whatever would Mitch think . . ?