The fair-haired lad swears, then pauses and thinks for a moment. “Well, there’s no time to get more. You’ll have to take him as he is. Unless, just a minute, I’ll see if the wardrobe mistress has something we can spare.” He upends the barrel next to a partly open door, and indicates that I should sit on it.
I raise my voice above the din coming from beyond the door. “I think I’ve paid you enough to have something you can’t spare, Master Guinevere.” He grins, and strides away towards a dark stairway. I peer through the door, and come face to face with Robert.
It is obvious at once that he is beyond recognising me. He is half lying on the rough bench, propped against the door jamb. A soldier stands next to him. I stare in dismay. I had not expected the contents of my little flagon to render the Scots senseless quite so quickly. All around the tavern they are slumping across the tables or falling to the floor. Their guards drag them upright in agitation, but let them fall again as the uproar from outside takes on a more threatening note. “Best see if the captain needs help out there,” says Robert’s guard to another soldier. “I’ll stay and guard the back here. These lads ain’t going nowhere. Reckon as this landlord’s going to face a bit of questioning about what he puts in his ale.”
I watch as another Scot tips face forward into his tankard, and wonder if perhaps I should not have sent instructions for an additional pint of usquebaugh to be added to the barrel. It had seemed a reasonable precaution at the time, but I had been relying on a slightly slower onset of oblivion for the men, and had assumed that Robert would have at least some use of his legs.
At the far side of the alehouse a window smashes. Under cover of the falling glass I whisper, “Robert!” He does not respond, but the soldier guarding him glances at me. His companions are all heading towards the commotion at the front, but he is resolutely standing his ground. “Oy, you!” he says and seizes my arm. At that moment the mob bursts in.
Chapter 24
People are fighting all around me. An elbow jabs me in the back. A tankard hits me on the head. When a soldier nearby hauls a rioter off a table, the man’s flying legs knock me off my feet. I start to crawl towards the back door. The soldier is no longer on guard there. Robert is lying across the threshold, his eyes wide and glassy.
“Dead and gone.” A young man who smells of drink is staring down at him. “Bloody sad, ain’t it.” He is wearing an apron, and looks like one of the alehouse servants. His voice is filled with drunken sentiment.
“Yes it is. Help me carry his body out.”
Unquestioningly, the young man obeys. He takes Robert’s shoulders whilst I take his feet. Robert’s limbs are light as sticks. It is all the more shocking because my own limbs remember how heavy he was, in the days when I nursed him in the forest.
We carry him out of the back door and across the stableyard. “There.” I jerk my head. “Put him in that stable.”
The young man backs over the muddy stones, bent double, belching serenely. I walk bent double too, dizzy from the blow to my head. In the stable is the armaments cart. There is no one about.
“Put him in that cart. Yes there, on top of the matchlocks. Thank you so much.” I let the young man lift Robert whilst I take out one of my few remaining shillings. “Here, buy yourself something. I’m most grateful to you.”
The young man shakes his head. He gives a sedate, tottering bow. “Your servant, mistress,” and he pitches forward unconscious into a trough of hay.
Almost at once, Master Guinevere reappears, bearing a red skirt and bodice and a flowing golden cloak. I stare at them in dismay. “Now we shall be truly inconspicuous,” I tell him.
“It was all I could find in a hurry. The costume trunk was locked and the wardrobe mistress has the key.”
Clumsily we cram Robert into the outfit. I stand back and inspect him. It is impossible. He looks ridiculous. I pull off my own cloak and exchange it for his. I pull the black hood over his head and cover his face with my veil. Then we arrange him so that he is sitting with his head drooping towards his knees in the back of the cart. Now he looks like an old woman, stooped and black-clad. On the other hand I, in the flowing golden cloak, look like a trollop.
I fear that at any moment the driver of the armaments cart may reappear. How long can it be before the captain decides he needs matchlocks against the rioters? I turn to thank Master Guinevere and bid him farewell, but he is already gone.
I overturn the youth who is lying in the hay trough, and seize armfuls of hay to cover the weapons, then lead the two horses towards the stable door, and climb up on to the cart. With what seems an alarming amount of noise, we trundle forward into the rain. I stop. The couple from the outbuilding are standing in the middle of the yard, watching us.
“What are you doing with that cart, mistress?” the man enquires in a suspicious voice. There is a crash and the back door of the alehouse slams open. We all turn, as Master Guinevere staggers out with another limp figure in his arms. It is the young boy who sat opposite Robert in the cart and wept. Like Robert, he is unconscious. His feet trail through the mud and his head flops against the player’s shoulder.
“Managed to get another one out,” Master Guinevere pants. “Oh.” He stops as he sees the couple. The woman is backing away towards the side of the alehouse, as if to summon help.
I look swiftly from one to the other of them. “Please… in the name of mercy…”
They hesitate, and glance at one another, then the woman whispers, “God save them,” and the man comes forward to help lift the young Scot into the back of the cart. The boy clatters down amongst the weapons.
“Thank you. Thank you so very much.” I climb over into the back and take off my golden cloak. Master Guinevere hurriedly wraps the boy in it, then lays him in a corner of the cart, next to Robert. The rain is beating down now. “I’ll get you my own cloak, mistress,” he says.
“I thank you, but there is no time.” I heap hay over the boy’s slight figure. The golden cloak is a similar colour to the hay, and he is barely visible. I grab two matchlocks from the back, and clamber into the driving seat again. “God will bless you, sirs, madam.” I hope this will indeed be so. I have little confidence in my standing with the Almighty at this moment. I click my tongue and flick the reins over the horses’ backs, and we move off.
It is easier than I had anticipated to push through the screaming, fighting mass of people, with the horses and cart. These horses are more used to barging through crowds than gentle Meadowsweet is. The problem comes when I reach the edge of the crowd, where a barricade of soldiers is trying to contain the now tiring rioters. As I emerge from the mass of people, and speed up slightly, one of the soldiers sees me. Unfortunately it is the cart driver.
“Hey! Hey! You there!” He raises his shortsword and rushes at me. I whip up the horses, grab one of the matchlocks and fumble with my tinderbox in a hand already grappling with the reins. When I try to light the fuse, the reins slide out of my grasp. I aim the weapon above the charging soldier’s head, and the gunpowder explodes deafeningly.
Whether I am indeed deafened, or whether the whole scene truly does go silent, I cannot say. What I can say is that a huge woodpigeon plummets out of the sky and thuds to the ground behind me. Feathers drift in the air, and the horses bolt out of control down the hill, with the cart bouncing after them.
I am almost unseated. I hold on to the sides of the cart, and lean forward to catch at the reins as we career round the first sharp bend. On the valley floor people flee from our path, shrieking with fright. I hear an explosion behind me, and risk another glance over my shoulder. Instead of pursuers, I see that the hinged tailflap of the cart has fallen down, and that matchlocks are sliding off the back.
I re-establish control of the horses as we enter Chiney Lane. I grip the reins in my sweating hands, wind them round my fingers, move my backside more securely on to the seat. The horses are still tossing their heads and snorting, and their shoulders jog together uneasily as they weav
e to and fro, but the frenzy is over.
“Hey!”
“You there!”
I jerk round in my seat. Two elderly men outside the Mare Maid are shouting at me. I stare straight ahead and keep going.
“Stop her!”
Word is being passed along the few people at the side of the street. Two more men step out into my path – young, drunk men. One of them grabs at the harnessing, unsettling the rhythm of the horses again. He swings round, losing his footing, and I am forced to stop the cart or he would have been pole-axed by the shaft.
“Get off!” I shout.
“Why’m I stopping her?” asks the drunk plaintively. The two old men arrive at a limping run, panting and gasping.
“The grimalkin’s tipped ower,” yells one. “She’s well nigh on her back, poor old bugger. Can’t yer tek better care of yer granny than that?”
I look round. With the thrashing movement of the cart Robert has fallen sideways and slid down. His thin ankles are sticking out from the bottom of his red gown. The black cloak still envelops the rest of him. Faint groans come from within it. Of the other young Scot there is no sign.
“Oh, sweet Jesu!” I gasp. I wonder how far back along the road he fell out.
“Nay lass, don’t tek on so. She’ll not have hurt herself.” The first old man tries to climb up on to the cart, and fails.
“Would you please hold the horses?” I ask the drunk, and once more climb over into the back of the cart on legs that will scarcely hold me. Straight away I can see what has happened. As the firearms slid out, the hay shifted backwards, and it now covers the boy in a great mound. The mound moves slightly, so I sit on it, and pull Robert back into a sitting position.
From the depths of his hood he says in a slurred voice, “’Tis a right mirksome day, Beatrice.”
“Indeed it is…” I pull the hood further down over his face, and jam him into position against the wooden upright of the cart.
“What’s she say?” enquires the second old man. He heaves himself up into the back of the cart. I notice that one remaining matchlock is poking out from the hay. I move my feet so that my skirts cover it, and pray that the man who is holding the horses at the front is too drunk to see the two firearms in the footwell.
“Pray don’t trouble yourself, good sir,” I urge the old man. “My poor grandmother… I fear she is over-tired.”
He pats Robert’s shoulder. “It’s all right, mother. Don’t fret. Yer just toppled ovver. Best get her home and give her a cup of broth, eh lady?”
I tuck the black veil firmly into Robert’s hood. “I thank you. I shall indeed do that. It’s been a long day.”
The old man eases himself back to the ground, and fastens up the tailflap at both sides. I turn to step back into the driving seat and instead come to a halt. The drunk, strangely steady now, has raised one of the matchlocks and is pointing it at me.
“Sir…” I stare at the shiny barrel. I can smell the gunpowder.
“’Tis a pity,” he says, raising the barrel further and squinting along it. There is a great silence. No one else moves. He rests a foot on the spoke of a wheel to support himself. It has the reverse effect, as the cart shifts slightly. “’Tis a pity,” he repeats, giving a little jump to catch up, “when things aren’t as they seem.”
I clasp my hands together and try to speak calmly. “I’m afraid I don’t understand you, sir.”
“See these highways?” He makes a wide gesture with one hand in the general direction of the bridge and The King’s Strete. “Quiet as anything they seem, don’t they?”
I nod.
“But they’re not.”
“No?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “They’re full of robbers. You do right to carry these things to defend yourself, lady.” He throws the weapon back into the footwell, then staggers as he attempts to remove his foot from the wheel. “You take care.” He rights himself. “Good day to you.” He hands me the reins and lurches off down the street.
I draw a long, shaky breath, and climb back into the driving seat.
“Goodbye.” I wave to the two old men and set the cart moving. I have wasted too much time. Pursuit cannot be far behind, despite the remarkable speed we have made through town. The soldiers will have had to find their horses, mount up, perhaps arm themselves with other matchlocks from elsewhere. They will have done all that by now. They will be setting off. I let the horses trot for a short distance, to steady them, then we speed up as we approach the arched bridge over the river. I look back up the hill at the castle, and think of John imprisoned there. He will be saved, without my help. The bishop, or the vicar, will intervene to have him released. Yet it feels very bad to gallop out of Lancaster leaving him behind. He doesn’t need my help in the way that Robert does, but he does need me, as I need him. Feeling distraught at what I am doing, I whip up the horses and let them run.
Chapter 25
They catch up with us at Kerne Forth. It is purely by chance that I have pulled off the highway and into the edge of the woods to light the lanthorns. The darkening sky and overhanging trees have been a cover for us, but as the afternoon draws on, and the cloud and rain come down worse than ever, it has become difficult to see at all.
The two men in the cart have been well out of their senses for most of the journey. The boy has whimpered occasionally, and once a burst of crazed laughter came from Robert, but mostly I have felt cut off from them, up here on the driving seat. The thought that they might be quietly dying back there has been frightening. Now, with the lanthorns flickering, I climb into the rear of the cart again to look at them. They both stink. I peer at Robert. He is too still and quiet. His skin is warm, and he is breathing, but his inhalations are shallow and hasty, a huffing for breath, as if he dreamt a rope round his neck.
“Robert.” I touch his cheek. “Can you hear me?”
The youth next to him is coughing. I remove the hay from over his face. He groans and tries to sit up. “Hush,” I whisper. “Hush now.” Robert remains motionless. I loosen the laces of his red bodice and put my ear to his chest, to listen for his heartbeat. It is drumming. I wonder in panic if some terrifying and unforeseen effect from the henbane and usquebaugh potion has occurred. Surely his heartbeat should be slower. I say softly into his ear, “You’ll be home soon, Robert.”
It is puzzling that the pounding of Robert’s heart is still in my ears when I climb back into the driving seat. It takes me a moment to realise that the sound is hoofbeats. Frantically I extinguish the lanthorns and ease the cart deeper into the forest, along a path so narrow that branches scrape the sides. The rain rattles in gusts through the leaves and runs down my skin inside my clothes. I circle the cart round a large oak tree which has created its own clearing, and sit shivering, watching the highway, which is just visible from here in the leafy twilight.
Several riders are approaching. The highway is up a slope, and the further trees are outlined against the sky. Also outlined are the riders when they come, eight or ten soldiers travelling at a canter, their angled sword-hilts elegant, threatening silhouettes.
I wait a long time after they have gone. All around me trees creak in the rising wind. I no longer dare look to the sides of me, for I know that things can see me which I cannot see.
It is completely dark by the time we emerge from the trees. I set off slowly. We must not catch the soldiers up. I wait until it is time to turn off the main highway and into the woods that lead towards Hagditch and the sea, before I dare light the lanthorns again. When we have gone some distance down the smaller track, I stop to let the horses drink at a beck. I take out my damp tinderbox to ignite the lamps’ greasy wicks in their curve of translucent horn. It takes a while to get them going, with the wind blowing and the rain coming down. Tense with exasperation I tilt the flame to and fro to melt the wax clogging the tiny air holes. I am ready to cry with tiredness and frustration. At last the lanthorns take, and I hook them back on to the sides of the cart. The boy is unco
nscious again now, and Robert remains so.
As we pass the southern tip of Mistholme Moss, a wind like tempered steel cuts across the flat bogland. I lower my head against the buffeting. I can no longer feel my fingers on the reins, and the lobes of my ears ache as if the blood had frozen in them. Finally we reach the path that runs down through a gap in the cliffs, south of Mere Point, and on to the saltmarsh foreshore. I can hear the roar of the tide retreating somewhere out there in the darkness. I slow the tired horses to a careful walk over the slippery rocks. The cart jolts and slithers. We round the cliff and come to the first of the caves. It gapes black, halfway up the cliff face. This would have been the best cave in which to hide – deep, dry and protected from the wind – but I know I cannot drag Robert and the boy up there on my own. Also, there is nowhere to conceal the cart. We move on, round the pools with their brackish smell, round the winter-bleached thrift and salty grass, phantom shapes in the rocking light of the lanthorns.
The second cave is at shore level, within a cleft that will hide the cart. The horses whinny and toss their heads as I halt them at the cave entrance. I have neither time nor energy to unharness them, and it is scarcely worthwhile anyway, since their work is far from done. I’m thankful for the rain which has fallen in hollows in the rocks, providing fresh water. I release them from the shafts, and they drink, and crop the dried drifts of eelgrass which have washed up. The wind is less fierce here, and the sound of the sea more distant. Now I must get food and drink for the men, and also find out where the soldiers are. One way or another I must get Robert and the boy away, if not to Scotland, then at least to the Augustine monks at Cartmel, though they might no longer be safe even there, if the soldiers are searching this far north. What I cannot think about yet is my own fate. I wonder whether John is safely back at the parsonage, and whether I still have any choices left.
I climb down, unhook a lanthorn and shine it into the back of the cart. Robert’s eyes are open. He is staring at me.
North Side of the Tree Page 17