“Er…good afternoon,” Jane said, placing herself in front of them, aware that she must look harassed and dishevelled and not much like a lady of standing. “Did…did you want shelter for the night? Is the White Hart in Clicket full? Rixons might be a better place for you—we’re in confusion here. My grandson’s wife has been brought to bed and…and we are worried…we can’t very well…”
Clayman brushed all this aside. “We have a warrant for the arrest of two men wanted for complicity in a serious plot against Her Majesty’s person and realm. Their names are Tobias and Robert Allerbrook, father and son. Are they here? Is this man one of them?” He pointed at Stephen.
“I am Stephen Sweetwater, Mistress Allerbrook’s nephew,” said Stephen. “I am staying in the house. Tobias and his son Robert are my cousins.”
“They’re not here,” said Jane. She raised her chin. Clayman’s bullying tone had warned her not to seem vulnerable. He was not the kind to pity weakness or even age, if it looked pathetic. She must somehow impersonate a lady of position and authority even though her knees felt as though they were melting. “They were in London but my…my son Tobias wrote that they were going on to visit friends in France. They can’t be involved in a plot, anyway! That’s absurd!”
“I agree. It sounds most unlikely,” said Stephen coolly.
“Indeed! We think otherwise.” Clayman slid his feet out of his stirrups, preparatory to dismounting. “We must search these premises—house, outhouse and fields. I warn you not to hinder us—”
He stopped short as a shadow swept over him. Then something plummeted out of the sky and landed struggling at the feet of his horse.
The falling object consisted of a buzzard with an adder in its grasp. The adder in turn had fastened its fangs in the buzzard’s throat and the bird was dying. It lay twitching, wings spread in the dust and a little blood oozing from the poisoned wound. The snake, very much alive, still twisted in the raptor’s talons. Clayman’s horse, horrified to see a snake only three feet from its front fetlocks, reared up with a squeal and plunged sideways, and Clayman fell off.
He landed well clear of the snake, but lay gasping and winded, for a moment unable to move. Gervase’s own horse had shied back, but as Gervase still had his feet in his stirrups, he kept his seat. Having steadied his mount, however, he dismounted, drew his sword and swept the snake’s head off. At the same moment Clayman recovered himself and got to his feet, whereupon the gander shot out his neck and tried to peck the intruder. The attempt failed because Clayman, scarlet with fury and embarrassment, moved faster. He seized the bird by the neck and wrung it.
One of the men started to laugh, but the laughter stopped short. Clayman identified the source of the snigger and threw the dead gander to him. “Take charge of that. We’ll take it back to Taunton to eat later.”
“Excuse me, Captain,” said Jane. “That bird belongs to me.”
“You can call it a fine for attempting to assault a member of Her Majesty’s militia. Is that snake dead?”
“Yes, sir.” Gervase was brisk and expressionless. “Buzzards and hawks sometimes overreach themselves, grabbing prey that’s too much for them.”
Clayman, still scarlet, visibly quivering with fury, dusted himself down. His men watched him uneasily, knowing the signs. “This place is an anteroom to hell! Heat, burnt hillsides, flies that bite, cows and geese that scheme against men, snakes falling out of the sky! Madam!” He glared at Jane. “Bid your grooms see to our horses. We will search the house. Every room and every alcove, no matter who is there already, or why. Now!”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A Savage Business
1586
“Don’t provoke them,” Stephen whispered to Jane, standing at her side while they both watched the soldiers with mounting terror. “It would be dangerous.”
“This is hateful!” said Jane, trembling.
This search was a far more savage business than the one carried out by Herbert Clifton long ago. The chapel was invaded. The locked chest was broken into without anyone even asking for the padlock key, and the discovery of embroidered vestments with a crucifix and a statuette of the Virgin beneath them was greeted with shouts of “Hah, popish symbols!” from three of the men and “Confiscate them!” from Clayman.
After that, parlour, hall, study, kitchen and servants’ quarters were torn apart. Presses were flung open. Dairy and kitchen were ransacked, food and drink seized and messily consumed on the move by men who were hot, hungry, thirsty and angry.
Jane and Stephen followed them about, both wondering how far this search really would be carried, whether decency would halt it at the door of Philippa’s chamber or whether these men had gone beyond decency. The man who had killed the snake glanced at Jane apologetically as he went past, but he did not try to restrain his comrades. She recognized him as the young soldier who had once brought a letter to Allerbrook, but he wasn’t trying to behave like a friend of the household now. Wise of him, no doubt, she told herself.
However, when they had finished with the ground floor and were striding toward the bedchamber stairs, she broke away from Stephen’s restraining hand and ran to block the way.
“Captain Clayman! Please! My grandson’s wife, Philippa, is having her child up there. If you must search, then do so, but I beg you, show a little respect. Try not to disturb Philippa.”
“Out of the way!” said Clayman.
The soldiers thrust her aside and poured up the stairs. Jane followed. Stephen, catching up with her, said grimly, “I said it was useless. But if they harm Philippa…somehow I’ll see they’ll regret it if I have to complain to Walsingham himself!”
Upstairs, the sounds of anguish from Philippa’s room made Stephen stop short, stricken. Jane once more threw herself into Clayman’s path. “This is the lying-in chamber. Can’t you hear? Have you no shame? I will open the door so that you can look through it and see for yourself what is happening, but no honourable man can enter that room. What would your wife say, or your mother? What…?”
“I will search this room as I would search any other!” Clayman snapped. “Step aside!”
Gervase protested for the first time. “Sir, surely we shouldn’t intrude on this? A woman in childbirth…”
“Don’t argue with me!” shouted Clayman. “And remove that woman from the doorway!”
Gervase obeyed, but as he did so, he looked into Jane’s face and in his warm chestnut eyes she once more saw apology. He drew her aside, firmly but not roughly, and held her while the others marched in through the door. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said. “Please don’t try.”
He was right, of course, just as Stephen was. “I know. But I must still go to her,” said Jane. “Unhand me.”
He nodded and released her and she followed the soldiers into Philippa’s room.
The women round the bed were staring at the invaders in outrage. “What is this?” Letty demanded wrathfully. “How dare you? Men! Can’t you see…?”
Philippa’s amber skin was grey-tinged and her face was sunken. Stephen had followed Jane through the door, but stopped just inside. Jane, glancing back at him, saw tears in his eyes. Clayman, still aflame with anger, paid no heed to any of them. Gesturing to his men to open the clothespress and the chest beneath the window, he marched straight up to the bed and tossed the curtains about, to make sure that no one was standing on a corner of the bed with folds of the bedhangings drawn around him.
There was nothing. Then Adam Clayman knelt on the floor and lifted the flounce that hid the aperture under the bed.
“Let me stay to see my wife through this. Under guard if you like, but let me be with her till this is over! Can’t you see the state she’s in? Please!”
“Please!” came the soft, tormented echo from the bed. “Please let Robert stay. It may not be for long. I think I’m going to die. The child won’t come out. Let him stay. I need him. Please, please!”
“No,” said Clayman savagely, and with a jerk o
f his head told the men who were holding Robert to take him away. He turned to Jane. “It seems, Mistress, that you were lying! And so was your nephew!” He glared at Stephen. “You said your son and grandson were not here. I am placing all three of you under arrest. You hid Robert Allerbrook. Where is Tobias?”
As Robert was dragged out, Jane had seen the despair in his face. She felt the same. Her world was collapsing. Long ago she had made herself a private promise to love and care for her home and those she loved. She had taken chances to keep that oath. She had taken risks for love itself, with Carew. In her way, she was as much of an adventurer as Stephen had ever been, as Tobias and Robert apparently were. So far, she had usually won. At least she had survived. But here, finally, was defeat.
She could hear them forcing Robert down the stairs. Clayman, standing in front of Stephen, was once more demanding to know where Tobias was. Ahead of all of them—Robert, Stephen and herself—lay prison cells, trials and death, the manner of which she did not dare to contemplate. If she could find a way to die before then, she thought frantically, she had better take it. She hoped the others would do the same.
“My cousin Tobias really is in France,” Stephen was saying calmly. “As for Robert, you clearly meant him no good, so my aunt Jane said he wasn’t here. He’s her grandson! He was in this room with his wife, in the circumstances you see. I held my tongue because I considered it rude to call my elderly aunt a liar. What would you have done?”
Clayman looked him up and down, and Stephen, staring him out, held out his left hand with the amber ring still in place upon it. “You know the meaning of this?”
“What? What is it?”
“Please look at it, sir.” Stephen drew the ring from his finger. “Kindly examine the engraving inside the band.”
Clayman, glowering and puzzled, took it from him. There was a pause while he held the ring in the light and studied it. Then he handed it back. “So Walsingham is your master. You are in his pay.”
“That is so,” said Stephen. He did not look at Jane, or acknowledge her sharply indrawn breath. Privately he thanked God that Robert was out of earshot. “I can assure you,” he said smoothly, “that I have no reason to suppose that my cousins are involved in any wrongdoing. Since my return from London earlier this year, I have in fact sent information to Sir Francis concerning two Devonshire households where there are Catholic sympathizers. Frankly, I find it very hard to believe that there are conspirators in my own family. I fancy Aunt Jane does, too.”
There was a pause. Philippa moaned and the women gathered around her were suddenly intent, glancing over their shoulders at the other drama in the room, but too concerned about the girl on the bed to do anything but tend her. Clayman, meanwhile, was at last hesitating.
“My nephew’s telling the truth! I’ve never heard of any conspiracy! It’s all a lot of nonsense! Conspiracies indeed!” Jane followed Stephen’s lead and tried to sound scandalized. “I said Robert wasn’t here so as to stop you taking him away from Philippa at such a time. I would have lied to God himself to prevent that! And I wanted to keep you soldiers out of this room. You shouldn’t have entered it. You should not! This is a respectable household and your intrusion here is improper!”
“There I must agree. None of us men should be here,” said Stephen. “I can assure you that my aunt knows nothing of any conspiracies.”
Wells, looking with distress toward Philippa in her travail, said in anxious tones, “Sir, I hardly think this elderly lady can be a conspirator. I’d say she’s just a misguided grandmother, and her nephew, of course, is obedient to her. The warrant doesn’t name Mistress Allerbrook, does it?”
“She’s been sheltering dangerous fugitives!” Clayman pointed out.
Philippa screamed. Nell cried, “The babe’s coming. Yes, it’s coming. Oh, God be praised, I see ’un’s head….” Jane, galvanized, actually thrust Adam Clayman out of her way as she rushed to Philippa’s aid. Clayman would have pulled her back, but one of the other men barred his way and in broad west country tones, protested.
“Sir, let be! Wells is right. She’m a proper lady—oh, and maybe a doting grandma but I’d wager she don’t know aught about any plots. And if this here fellow is really Walsingham’s own man—well, is it likely that if he knew anything, he’d keep it to hisself, relatives or not? Walsingham’s men don’t, from all I’ve heard. Too scared of him, folk say.”
Clayman had the look, by now, of a bull surrounded by a pack of baying dogs. But Jane, ignoring him, was stooping over Philippa and all the women were exclaiming. Stephen, too, had stepped in front of Clayman, and the captain’s own men were edging away from this scene of female mystery. A bloodstained cloth slipped off the bed and fell at Clayman’s feet, causing him to step back in loathing. He snarled.
“God’s death, let’s get out of here! We’ve got one of them, anyway. He’ll be for London and the Tower! You two!” He pointed at a couple of his soldiers, one of them Gervase Wells. “Search the rest of the rooms up here. You just might find the other one! I don’t believe he’s in France!”
He strode out. Jane, turning to pick up the fallen cloth, found herself briefly face-to-face with Wells. Softly he said, “If everything—heat, flies, the snake, all those things—hadn’t made him so angry, he might not have searched this room at all. He’s a respectable man really, only he’s hasty.”
“That’s a great comfort,” said Jane sarcastically.
“I’m sorry,” said Wells. He added, “I pray all will go well with the young woman and the child.” Then he went.
Manhandling Robert down to the hall had taken some time. Stephen, racing after him, caught up as his son-in-law was being forced out the main door. “The family will do their best for you, Robert! Be of good heart!”
“You be careful,” said one of Robert’s captors over his shoulder. “Offering succour to a traitor’s no way for an honest man to behave.”
Stephen, strategically, withdrew and found Alice crying in a corner of the hall while Tim and Paul Snowe tried to quieten her. “They’ll do some more searching, I think,” he said to them, “but they won’t find anyone this time. Just don’t get in their way. I’m going back upstairs to see how Philippa is.”
Upstairs, jubilation was taking over and Nell was exclaiming with sheer delight. “Go on, Mistress Philippa…again…yes, go on…! That’s it…a girl! Oh look, what a lovely little girl. There, there. It’s all over, my love, it’s over….”
“It’s not!” Philippa gasped. “It’s…not…I’m still…”
“God’s teeth, she’m right. It b’ain’t over!” Letty squealed. “There’s another coming!”
“Twins?” gasped Jane. “No wonder she was so big.”
“Twins it is!” said Eliza excitedly. “The other one’s comin’ already! And this un’s coming easy.”
A short time later Jane was holding a boy-child in her arms and Philippa, shaking and exhausted, was at last released from her agony. “You’re going to live,” Jane said to her. “And you have twins, a boy and a girl. What will you call them? Did you and Robert talk of names?”
“Sybil for a girl,” Philippa whispered. “After my grandmother. Robert for a boy—Robin for short, so as not to make a muddle with two Roberts. But he never saw them! Robert never saw them! They’ve taken him away, haven’t they? Haven’t they?”
“Hush, dear Philippa, quiet now. You mustn’t give way. You could shrivel up your milk, and the babes will need it.”
“Great-Aunt Jane…!” Philippa clutched at her. “Will you go after them? If they take Robert to London will you go, too, and plead for him? Try to bring him back to me. He ought to see his children. I want him to see his children. Will you try?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Looking into a Pit
1586
“Did you betray them to Walsingham?” Jane asked. “Tell me.”
“No,” said Stephen. “Someone else had already stolen into the midst of the conspirators and Walsin
gham knew their names and the details before ever I reached London.”
“I want to see Walsingham myself,” said Jane. “Can you arrange it?”
They were not in the parlour, but sitting in Jane’s bedchamber, to which she had summoned her nephew the morning after Robert’s arrest. He hesitated and she gave him a grim look.
“If not, why not? Since you’re one of his men. I may tell you that I have half guessed at it, ever since that night when we listened at the door of the chapel downstairs. You were so determined to find out what was afoot, like a hound on a scent. You had no fear of arrest when you went to London with Toby and Robert and I remember you agreeing, the day that Tobias and Robert arrived here, fleeing, that there were few houses where Walsingham does not have a spy. I realized all along you knew more than you would say.”
He looked at the amber ring on his left hand. “I really did try to save Toby and Robert, but I was too late and in any case, they would have none of it.”
“Why did you agree to work for Walsingham? Who recruited you?”
“Someone I met in Plymouth, when I first came back to England. I agreed because of the way my father died…. Aunt Jane, please don’t cry.”
“I hate this—hate it! I don’t want my family mixed up in these religious and political confusions anymore, but you all keep doing it. You won’t stop! You…!”
“Please,” said Stephen, and knelt to put his arms around her. Her body felt stiff. “I promise you that I did not betray my own kin. Now, I think I’ll be able to get you an interview with Walsingham, but can you do the journey? You’re not far off seventy. You can ride short distances, but this would be two hundred miles!”
“Make me a litter!” said Jane. “The Snowes built one for Blanche to go to Robert’s christening in. Even with a litter, we can do at least twenty-five miles in a day. There’s plenty of daylight at this time of year.”
The House of Allerbrook Page 42