At last, when Francis considered the time was ripe, he ventured to ask Captain Carr about his campaigns. They had met in the grounds of the Prince’s palace near the quarters of the Orange guards. Carr’s companions turned away from him, but Francis stayed at his side in order to lead the warrior back to the beginning of his career in Count Mansfeld’s army. He tried to make it appear a military interest, but Alan Carr was not deceived. He knew that the young lieutenant had acquitted himself very well in the King of Denmark’s brief failure of a campaign. He knew he had come to the notice of the Prince of Orange and he had recently learned that Francis Leslie was nephew to Colonel Ogilvy, an officer of great distinction but little ambition, who had not reached the rank of general though he was very well thought of an all sides. The names raised memories he had rather forget.
‘Come, come,’ Captain Carr said testily. ‘This excessive interest in my career is feigned, sir. Some gossip hath been pouring a lewd story in your boyish ears.’
‘Not so, sir,’ Francis answered, equally annoyed. ‘But I know that you chose to enlist with the Count some ten or eleven years ago, as did many other Englishmen –’
‘Many rogues, villains and other undesirable characters, you would say?’
‘Indeed, sir, I would not. Many worthy gentlemen wishing to embrace a career in arms at a time when England under his late Majesty was at peace.’
They turned from each other, rather to Francis’s relief, for he felt his control slipping and the last thing he wanted was a quarrel.
But Captain Carr, throughout his unhappy career under Mansfeld, had sought quarrels and usually thrived on them. His skill as a swordsman or a pistol shot was considerable. He was known to be dangerous. Often he had been given money to spare a weak opponent in a duel. Sometimes he had killed, seldom in hot blood but in a cold anger that could be lethal. Occasionally he had lost a duel but still made a profit from it, exacting a sum for medical care and another to deny and hush up an illegal encounter.
So now, feeling a true anger, he turned back and said, provocatively, ‘Your name, young man, is Leslie?’
‘It is,’ Francis answered, facing round in his turn.
‘Son of a Sir Francis Leslie, a scholar at Oxford?’
‘That is so.’
‘That is so,’ Carr mimicked. ‘I wonder greatly if it be so, indeed. But let that lie.’
Anger flared again in Francis, but he held it back.
‘You are nephew to Colonel Ogilvy?’
‘I have told you so.’
‘Who had a sister, one Katherine, who married the said Sir Francis?’
‘My mother! Who died journeying hither to friends!’
Francis forgot the fellow’s insolence in his eagerness to discover what he had tried for so long to find.
‘If you ever met my Lady Leslie at the Court of King James where my – where Sir Francis says she visited; if you knew her friends by name or where they live in this country. These friends she was to visit, but died on shipboard …’
His confused appeal was stifled by the look of pure evil on the other’s face. Power to strike, to wound, injure perhaps fatally, was now in Alan Carr’s hands. He used it unsparingly, with glee in the doing.
‘Oh yes, my young sir, young base-born cur, young by-blow of your lovely, easy mother. Nay, do not grow white at the shock! I am not your father. That was a fishmonger’s son from Fife, fellow-student of the false Leslie, who gave you his name. But I might well have fathered you another sibling, in addition to the pair she bore the pious knight –’
‘You lie!’
Francis was beside himself. The insult, repeated, enlarged upon, had been enough to loose his fury. There could be no retreat now.
‘Have a care how you speak to me, you whelp! I do not lie. She was my mistress, that prime beauty, your mother. Friends! What friends could she find here? Who would claim friendship with one who ran errands, as she did, for my brother and his wife, guilty both of foul murder!’
‘You lie, you lie!’ Francis shouted, in agony as his opponent’s words burned into his understanding. He was beyond endurance, caution or any thought but revenge, punishment for a slander made more terrible by the fear it might be true. True, because it explained so horribly the strange lack of clear facts about his mother’s last days.
His repeated insult had its effect. Captain Carr made his usual swift, cold calculation. So much to frighten off, so much to conceal a duel. An unpractised boy, easy to defeat. He whipped out his sword with one shouted word of warning.
He had chosen his ground a few seconds before, turning behind a thick well-clipped hedge on to a squared plot of grass. He anticipated a short fight, an easy victory, an unseen retreat from the corpse he expected to fall from his blade.
But Francis responded in a lightning flash. And he was young, strong, a very skilful swordsman, a spirit directed solely to the destruction of this unspeakable enemy. In three minutes Captain Carr was fighting for his life.
Francis fought carefully, using his whole skill, backed by his whole heart. He remembered his uncle’s words now and he knew they were justified. This fellow was dangerous indeed. He employed tricks Francis needed all his fresh wits to defeat. But Carr was an ageing man, he had begun the fight with too much confidence. And as he began to give ground, as Francis pressed him, calculating with calm certainty when to bring on the desired climax, Alan Carr knew fear for the first time in many years.
The end followed almost at once. A false step, a wild thrust and his blade was on the ground, the young man’s point was at his breast.
Will Stubble’s voice rang out.
‘Down, master! Down!’
Francis dropped. A shot rang out, the bullet flew above his head. There was a roar of anger from Will and a scream of pain from the would-be murderer. Then, as Francis scrambled to his feet and men poured into the sheltered place, Will, panting, gathered a smoking pistol from the grass, handed it to him and cried, ‘I could not stop him, sir. He snatched up his blade in his left hand, threatened me with it and ran. But he had not the use of his right arm. I think it was broke …’
‘By you, Will! Our life score is even again, it seems!’
But the Prince’s guards were about them both, demanding an explanation of this unseemly brawl. Since there was no simple explanation he could give these men Francis submitted to what amounted to an arrest. He did not yet understand in what a serious plight he stood.
Chapter Fifteen
But he was not left in ignorance for long. Duelling was as much against the law in the Dutch province as it was in England. The combatants could not escape some sort of punishment if they were taken in the act. A man who killed his opponent was likely to hang, unless he could plead convincingly that he had been greatly provoked and had not drawn first but was defending himself and his honour.
‘I have escaped alive once more, but ruined notwithstanding,’ Francis cried in despair, as he and Will walked away with the guards. ‘Oh, Will, Will, why do I act the fool and villain every time my accursed temper rules me?’
‘I think, sir,’ Stubble said in a very sober tone, ‘you were driven into this fight by an evil man and had best make speed to inform the colonel of the true facts before rumour makes them out even worse than they be.’
‘How could they be worse than they are? I wounded him, did I not? In the arm when I disarmed him?’
‘No, sir, for he pulled out his pistol with his right hand to fire at you. He would have put a ball through your head had I not seen his purpose.’
‘Aye, you have saved me again,’ Francis told him. ‘But it might have been better to have let the fellow succeed.’
However, with some more urging from Will he did begin to take comfort, not with any hope of escaping altogether from a just punishment of his folly. At any rate he was not confined after he had told his story.
Later that day Colonel Ogilvy confronted his nephew in a state of fury so unlike his usual calm reasonable self that Fra
ncis felt plain terror and an urge to run away and hide.
But he managed to stand before the colonel, submitting to the verbal storm, making no excuse, not even able to give his own account of the duel since his uncle gave him no opportunity to speak. In the end the latter grew out of breath and sinking back into the chair he had sprung from to attack his nephew, he groaned out, ‘What’s to be done with such an arrant fool? I’ve a mind to let the law run its course with you! Have you nothing to say for yourself? Nothing to put in place of the tale of murder that hath been brought to me?’
Francis found his tongue again at this. He burst out, ‘The man lives! He fled knowing his guilt! It was a fair fight till I disarmed him and he dropped his sword. I went to run him through as he deserved, but he pulled out a pistol and fired at me. If Will had not called out to me and struck up his arm his bullet would have despatched me. I wish it had!’
He was almost in tears for guilt and shame and the total loss, as it seemed, of his uncle’s good opinion, which he saw no means of reviving.
Colonel Ogilvy turned to Will, who had stood by in an agony of impatience to justify his young master.
‘You, Corporal,’ the colonel said, in a tone that brought Will to attention. ‘You saw this quarrel. What is your account of it?’
‘I was waiting at a distance, sir,’ Will answered. ‘Not wishing to eavesdrop upon the gentlemen. It was plain they began to grow angry, though I know nothing of the cause. My master cries out, ‘‘You lie, sir!’’ and the other denies it, whereat my master says again, ‘‘You lie! A filthy lie!’’ or some such strong term, sir. Then Captain Carr draws and Lieutenant Leslie follows on the instant and they move out of sight and I follows and they’re at it in deadly earnest, both meaning to kill, if you’ll pardon me, sir. This Captain Carr must have been a fine swordsman in his time, but the young master –’
‘You need not press his skill upon me,’ Colonel Ogilvy interrupted, very sternly, but with a look in his eyes that showed Will he was relenting at last. ‘Do you agree with Lieutenant Leslie’s account of the fight? This last entirely illegal act of Captain Carr in having a primed firearm upon his person in the Prince’s Palace grounds?’
‘Why yes, sir,’ Will answered, very happily, for he recognised the hopeful defence that might withhold grave punishment from his master, who still hung his head, trying to keep back the unmanly tears that might yet break him down.
‘Thank you, Corporal Stubble,’ Colonel Ogilvy said. ‘You may leave us now, but wait at the street door to attend your master home and send my man to me in a few minutes to take a message to the Prince.’
When Will had left the room the colonel said, ‘Sit down, Francis. This is a sorry business, but it seems you have a case in your favour, apart from youth, inexperience, rash impetuosity. What was this quarrel? What cause? What lie?’
‘I approached him for possible news of my mother,’ Francis said. He could hold out in secrecy no longer. Tears filled his eyes as he spoke. ‘I have been seeking such ever since I came here. I knew who he was, this fellow Carr. You told me in part. But he accused my mother of being involved in the Somersets’ crime. Worse still he boasted of his – connection with my mother.’
‘So you called him a liar and so it went on.’
Francis bowed his head. So it had been forced to go on and now the whole sordid tale would be bandied about and laughed over and he had done nothing to protect his poor mother’s honour and good name, but quite the opposite. He could not bear it! He sobbed aloud.
‘Tut tut, boy,’ his uncle said, not unkindly. ‘I think properly presented, the Prince may be brought to consider this a useful deed on your part. This Captain Carr is not unknown to me, as I told you before. Mansfeld welcomed him at first, but found him bad tempered, corrupt and evilly disposed. There are others who agree with that opinion. Will you put yourself in my hands to find a way out of this tangle? Stay indoors quietly, see no one, make no more sensational moves, perform no more acts of daring, legal or illegal, until I see you again?’
‘Oh sir,’ poor Francis said, quite unable to stop the tears that now streamed down his face. ‘I am not worthy of this kindness. I do grieve indeed that I have been such an ill-conditioned fool as to bring you all this trouble and disappointment.’
He went down on his knees to his uncle, who took his hand to lift him to his feet. Francis kissed the hand, repeating, ‘I am indeed sorry for troubling you,’ but added, with a growing return of confidence, ‘though I am not sorry I defeated that lewd fellow! I think he deserved to die!’
Colonel Ogilvy gave a great laugh at this.
‘Go to, young firebrand!’ he cried, getting up to clap his nephew on the shoulder. ‘Off with you to your lodgings and tell your Will Stubble if he does not keep you close till this matter be settled I’ll have him flogged over a barrel. Now go, for my man must be at the door and I have my message to write.’
The outcome of the colonel’s efforts was as satisfactory as could be expected in the circumstances. Francis was taken before the justices where his account of the duel was accepted when not only Corporal Stubble’s evidence backed it up, but that of two onlookers who also came forward on behalf of the young man. Nevertheless a heavy fine was imposed for ‘making a brawl, not only in the province of the Prince of Orange but actually upon the princely property’.
This grieved Francis very much, for he had no money to speak of, since his pay had still not been paid. It meant that he must once more beg from Colonel Ogilvy, who in his turn was in arrears from England.
But relief came unexpectedly in this respect. King Charles did at last send an instalment of his sister’s marriage allowance, long overdue, together with a contribution for the long-suffering soldiers. So Francis was able to settle rather more than half his fine and his Uncle Arthur put forward the rest as a loan.
‘Which I look to receive back in a reasonable time, nephew,’ the coloned said, adding sternly, ‘And you need not look so pleased at the outcome of your criminal foolishness! I doubt me we have seen the end of it. That rogue has left the town, no doubt, but he will not forgive his defeat. Moreover, his downfall is absolute at a time when he thought to succeed with Aldborough. He will go to any length for revenge. Also His Highness may have prevented your paying the more severe penalty of imprisonment, but it is certain he will not receive you again at his Court and may insist you leave the country forthwith.’
‘Not receive! Leave the country!’
Francis was appalled. All through the days of uncertainty, of peril he did not fail to appreciate, he had comforted himself with the thought that he had, however wrongfully, saved his beloved Anne from the unwanted advances of a villain. He had promised himself that he would rise in his profession, become he dared to hope eligible at last to make his own advances for the lady’s hand. Lord Aldborough had been kind, certainly always courteous, on each occasion they had met. The noble lord had treated him as a gentleman, so why not, when he had proved himself, as a future son-in-law?
These happy dreams persisted for a day or two until a stern notice from the Prince directed him to leave the country within forty-eight hours on pain of death if he disobeyed by remaining. The order did not apply to Will Stubble, who had a message from the English troop to which he and his master belonged, to report to a certain Captain Fotherwill for further orders.
‘We part then, Will,’ Francis said, cast into fresh despair.
‘Not for long, sir,’ the corporal affirmed, following this assurance with a stream of oaths, growing in strength and bawdiness until Francis warned him he was liable to unspeakable and crippling pains if he was overheard in this puritan land.
‘As to that, sir,’ Will replied, ‘am I not crippled enough from my shrunken thigh, to allow me leave to visit my home? Should I not be discharged? If they would send me to march now and fight it would be plain murder and I will tell this Captain Fotherwill so to his face.’
‘But gently, Will, gently. I know the captain. He
is a gallant gentleman. Put your case softly, do not mention my name and perhaps we may meet again in England after all.’
So Will packed his master’s belongings and made a separate bundle of his own. They clasped hands and parted, after which Francis went to Colonel Ogilvy’s lodgings to take another difficult farewell. He carried in a separate parcel the dress uniform he had worn so proudly at his first meeting with the Winter Queen. He wore the suit he had arrived in the year before, now a little tight across the shoulders and in the leg, for he had developed muscle during the ardours of the campaign. He was no longer a boy, but a young man, though still growing.
‘There may be some other will come to take my place,’ he said sadly, laying down the package on the colonel’s table.
‘I think you may return sooner than you expect,’ Colonel Ogilvy said. ‘You have heard no doubt that His Grace of Buckingham hath arrived, hence our belated but very welcome funds. There is a message too for our Queen that she will use the money prudently and not fling it abroad as she is wont, usually to the undeserving.’
‘There are many who impose upon Her Majesty,’ Francis said, showing indignation, but not denying the truth of his uncle’s report. ‘Such as the fortune-teller, my Lady Eleanor Douglas.’
‘Maybe, maybe,’ the colonel answered. ‘The duke has now to invest His Highness with the Order of the Garter, which he hath brought with him. The ceremony is fixed for tomorrow. It is a sad pity you will be by then upon the high seas.’
‘Alas!’ Francis cried, regretting not so much the ceremony, for all its promised brilliance, as the sight of his lovely Anne outshining in sheer natural beauty all the jewelled, silken entourage of the Princess of Orange.
‘The Duke is preparing another expedition by sea, as I told you,’ Colonel Ogilvy resumed. ‘He is back with his old problem but now they tell me he firmly intends to thwart Richelieu in France, not the Emperor in Spain. He will need men, experienced if possible. Such are not easy to find.’
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