Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  My father Sir Harry had seen to it that I was taught in all the gentlemanly arts of field and stream, so that I could find my way in darkness all over our countryside — aye, or in such light fogs as we have in Warwickshire; but it needed London eyes to penetrate the shroud that over-hung the river and the hamlets hereabouts. At that I think the ‘prentice smelled the way as much as conned it. We could not even see the great light burning on the Tower, nor yet the glow that should have overhung the City from the lamps at doors and from the link-boys’ torches.

  The ‘prentice led along lanes toward the river and it was like a journey into some infernal region, though they say that Hell is hot and that was a night so cold at first as to make it difficult to hold the reins. There were no sounds. Now and then a dim light, sickly in the fog and deepening in loneliness, suggested where a house might be. Walls loomed up here and there and I remember gates that seemed to go by dripping in the dark, as if we were motionless and all the world were drifting on an unseen tide. The frosty ghosts of elm-trees looked as if their tops were bent beneath a weight of Heaven that had fallen in.

  The very dogs were silent. Once a donkey, unseen in a hollow like a witches’ coven, brayed at us so sudden and affrighting that the skin went snaking up and down my spine; and, when the brute ceased, silence was as terrifying as the godless clamour had been. I was in a state to flee from my own shadow. Berden was no better, only he denied it afterwards lest I should hold him in disparagement. All that kept either of us going was the thought that we must not let Jack Giles the ‘prentice see us cowardly, and I doubt not that Jack, who knew his way in a London fog as rats know cellars, would have been scared out of his wits, nevertheless, if he had not thought we two were bold.

  So we three fortified each other with a bankrupt credit. None spoke — not even I and Berden when we waited and the ‘prentice scouted in the fog for landmarks, finding his way back to us by listening for our horses’ stamping on the frozen mud.

  But at last we heard the river sucking and sobbing at rotten banks and I felt more at home, having heard such music along Avonside at the end of a long day’s otter hunting when I found myself thirty miles from Brownsover and only river noises for a guide. But there is mystery along the Thames by night that transcends any I have met with, even at the seashore, and I might easily have believed with Berden that the ghosts of dead men were awalk, had I not feared my own fear more than any other danger and so dared not think of anything except the task in hand.

  And then I thought of this, that often has given me a sort of counterfeit of courage when the true stuff failed: mine enemy feared equally with me, and thus I stood on terms with him. It is a mean and ungodly humour that another’s difficulties can encourage; yet, if meanness is, why blink it? I was cousin that night to all the cowards since the world began, yet not hugging my cowardice. I loathed it. And in truth, I met a worser coward, along with two brave fellows whom I was loath to upset with such scant ceremony.

  We could not see our horses’ ears for the thickness of the fog, but at last we heard the sound of water lapping against the bilge-strakes of a moored boat and knew by that we had found Stiles. He heard us. In a voice that sounded far-off, though it was close at hand, he cried out:

  “Willy! Hey there, Willy!”

  He believed we were his own men coming, and I heard him bid the two he had with him go show us where the plank lay between boat and shore. I heard the plank squeak as they set their weight on it and came to look for us. They chose the wrong direction, thinking we should come along the road from Stiles’s house.

  “Did you get the springald, Willy? Did you take the token from him?” Stiles called out.

  But by that time I had given the reins to Jack to hold and Berden and I were feeling our way on foot along the bank. I fell in once and climbed out dripping, for the bank was parlous and not frozen deep enough to bear my weight. The ducking angered me, so that it helped Stiles not at all. I found the plank at last, groping on hands and knees, and rushed it, Berden and I jumping for the boat’s hold blindly at the peril of our lives.

  I fell on baskets wrapped in canvas, and the next thing I had Stiles by the throat, he stabbing at me with a Spanish dagger. But he only cut my coat. Berden, struggling up from where he had fallen, rapped him with the folded parchment warrant and said something about lawful custody; then, stuffing the warrant away in haste, he caught Stiles’s elbows from behind — something that if he had done it first and thought of ceremony after, might have saved me a bruise or two.

  Stiles was not so stalwart as he looked, nor half so valiant as he tried to seem that morning in the City. He used his dagger petulantly like a woman with a bodkin and cried quarter before he was hurt. Nor had he dignity. He went down on his knees to us. He cried out he would pay a rich man’s ransom, as should make us independent of Queen’s wages. When I took one of the short cords from Berden’s sword-belt and tied his arms behind him he screamed like a hare, although the rope no more than bit his skin. Berden, fumbling in the fog, was too late gagging him with a forearm thrust between his teeth, and he screamed a second time, as though we might be killing him. I heard his two men come running bade Berden cried: “Throw the plank into the river!” I did that without thinking, realizing too late that now we had no proper means of reaching land. It occurred to me to cut the boat adrift and take our chance of friend or enemy down-river, only I did not care to lose the horses and I thought of Jack the ‘prentice. So I stood with one foot on the boat’s edge and, aspiring to a gruffness that my voice refused, I shouted:

  “Stand in the Queen’s name!”

  Two sturdy figures loomed out of the fog and one of them heaved a lump of frozen mud at me that missed and made a great splash in the river. I had brought no pistols, nor had Berden, but I bade him take one from the prisoner, if such he had, and in a moment Berden fired, but purposely aimed high, hoping to scare the men away. But they were bold men. One of them came leaping from “the bank legs foremost and I might have had him on my swordpoint, which would have split him like a herring. Even now I rather wonder that I spared him in that excitement, having challenged fairly in the Queen’s name and having, moreover, the right to preserve our prisoner from the rescue. But I have seen much wonderfuller sparings since then, aye, and in the heat of battle when the culverins were belching, so I think God had a hand in it, although there are so many differences these days about doctrine that I doubt a bishop could explain the truth of it to anyone’s satisfaction. I only know I might have killed, and had excuse as well as lawful right, yet did not.

  The man landed on the boat’s edge with a sailor’s cunning, and on such a rage as if he stormed a Spanish galleon. It was an easy trick to shove him overside. He went down splashing like a porpoise in a net, as splutterful of blasphemy as fish afrying. Like any sailor, he loved risk of sword-thrust better than a wetting.

  Then the other came, as gallant as the first — a shadow hurled out of the fog, his hanger whistling as he aimed at me. Him I had to handle roughly. He had fought in many a sea engagement. Later I learned from him the trick of falling on the shoulder-blades and kicking upward at an adversary — a trick that the Dons say shows our barbarous ill-breeding.

  I was jealous of that seaman’s ardour and I bear him no ill-will for having kicked me half-a-boat’s length, though I carry a scar yet underneath the short hair, where my head struck smartly on a thwart. He followed up with spirit and we fought, we two, like catamounts among the luggage, each with a hold on the other’s wrist and our faces set so close that we could dimly see each other’s in the fog. I liked him, and I tried to break his neck, and he mine.

  I had the better of him at last and bade him yield, my knee thrust in his belly so that he could hardly swear for lack of wind. And by that time Berden had the alderman so trussed that he could safely leave him, so he came and tied the sailor’s arms when he had kicked his hanger overboard. Then he was all for drowning him along with his fellow.

  “Time presses,”
said Berden. “There will be another score such hellions down on us as soon as they have done with Jaques. We can’t take prisoners. We have no spare horse.”

  But I could hear the other fellow gasping, with his grip on the edge of the boat as he tried to climb in, and I bethought me that a gentleman in London lacking servants of his own might better have been born into another’s service, since then lacking breeding also, he should feel dishonour less. And I suspected that such loyal fellows as those two seamen might haply change their colours if they should understand that their erstwhile master was a traitor to the Queen’s grace. So I pulled the other fellow in and threw him down beside his mate, which was no light task, he fighting all the while. And when I had breath enough again I spoke them fairly.

  “My honest men,” I said, “I’ll spare you for your courage because England needs such merry men. And if you still think Stiles worth following when you know the truth about him, you shall both go free — or else with him into the Marshalsea to share his punishment. If not, you shall have your choice of serving me or finding a master better to your liking. Joshua Stiles lies under warrant of arrest.”

  They gave in sulkily, the wet one swearing brimstone oaths. But they passed their words. They struck hands on it when I had untied the other one’s arms. The one gave his name as Futtok and the other Gaylord — Sussex and Lincoln. There and then I bade them show us how to reach the river-bank dry-shod and they made a gangplank of the boat’s thwarts, bringing the boat closer in-shore by easing the warp that held her nose upstream.

  Then I bade them show me where the alderman had stowed his documents (though Berden was all for hurrying away at once before the twenty should descend on us). It was well I thought of it. The alderman had got a canvas bag, stuffed full of treasonable matter as it transpired later, between his knees and was writhing as he lay, trying to heave the bag overside. I guessed rightly that it held the evidence that the Lords in Council needed. That thought bringing forth its like, I presently suspected that the boat held other treasonable luggage; so before we left I opened a good gap between the seams, at risk of breaking off my sword-point, for the oak was tough. I thought the evidence might lose no authenticity by lying under water for a while; and when we were all ashore I loosed the warp and threw that in the river on top of the sunken boat, so that when the twenty seamen should come to report their brush with Jaques they should look for the warp and, not finding it, should suppose that the alderman had run away and left them to their fate.

  We gagged the alderman with one of his own stockings that I cut away above the shoe, and I gave him the roan to ride, taking up Giles the ‘prentice on the mare behind me. Berden had to take the two seamen up behind him, and Giles carried the bag of papers, so we were better than well loaded and in no shape to make speed. Besides, the horses were restive from having stood so long in the cold, and the sailors could not ride, so we made slow progress toward the Marshalsea, the lad Jack picking the way for us with senses that no other than a Londoner possesses, recognizing waymarks that to me were only blots of deeper fog.

  Presently Stiles made shift to bite the stocking through and to spit it forth, and when he spoke I listened to him with curiosity, warning him that he should fare ill if he cried for rescue. He had got back some of his assurance, having noted our lack of a following and our fear of pursuit. I suspected he knew who Berden was, although he did not speak to him by name.

  “Lad,” he said, spitting the wool from his teeth, “I am a widower and childless. Bear that in mind. You do an honourable man injustice, and yourself no good thereby, for though they may lock me in the Marshalsea they will hardly keep me. My friends are powerful. The Lords in Council will beshrew you, after I shall have won forth. They will not like to let live the lad who wrought their underhandedness. They offer you now, it may be, a handful of pence for a dirty treason — but what thereafter? Were it not wiser to deal handsomely with me and win a fortune?”

  But the trimmest tongue in England could not have persuaded me that night.

  “You seem to me a likely enough youth,” he said when he had spat forth a few more strands of wool. “No knowledgeable man would blame you, lad, for not knowing you are being gulled. But you will be a Paul’s man presently, when they have cast you off — a penniless adventurer, dining more often than not with Duke Humphrey, at anybody’s beck who has a shabby stroke of work to offer — a bravo, ready to be bought to riot — a cajoler of drinks and broken bread in taverns — later in the pillory, your ears nailed. Last of all, the gallows. Dozens have met that fate, who started by doing treasonable work for Burghley or that caitiff Walsingham.”

  I was curious to learn the price at which he thought me purchaseable. “I have a love and I would marry her,” I answered.

  “Dowerless, I doubt not,” he retorted. “Set me on my ship down-river, and you shall marry your love and make her fortunate.”

  I let him talk on, glad to keep my thought on anything except how wet and cold I was.

  “You told me,” he said, “you are the son of Sir Harry Halifax. But he is dead. Where is your home in London?”

  Without giving that a thought at all I answered I lived at the house of Roger Tunby.

  I think that was the greatest surprise of all that night, both to him and to me and Berden. “Zounds!” he exclaimed. “Has Tunby betrayed us? Then we are indeed undone!” For a few minutes after that he was silent, but he was a weak man, he could not contain his anger, which indeed had carried him already out of bounds. “Tell Tunby this from me,” he blurted suddenly, “that though he ruins me, and it maybe others, there are others yet who will bring him to a dire end!”

  Berden contrived to nudge me, encouraging me to tempt the alderman to say more. But truth, I did not know how to go about it, and after a silence Berden offered to befriend him for a good round sum of money. But the alderman could see through that pretence as easily as I did: Berden would have pocketed the bribe, if he could get it, without selling more than his civility. The Queen had no more trusty servant when it came to final issues, and though he liked to line his pocket, no more than semblance of his friendship was for sale.

  “Small need to cozen you with money. I will have you hanged!” Stiles answered.

  That uncivil speech brought silence on us all, I full of thought of Roger Tunby, wondering about the old chuff, marvelling that he should act so loyal to the Queen yet be so treasonable, and admiring such great subtlety of Providence as could toss me at my first essay into this whirlpool of intrigue, to make my own way or drown. I’ faith, it seemed to me, nor have I ever changed my thought on it, that Nature herself is in league with all of us to prove our merit and to purge our rottenness. If we have stuff in us of the sort of which Drakes and Effinghams are made, lo, opportunity lies greedy at our feet; and be we miserable caitiffs, endless chains of unpredictable coincidence ensnare us to our end. But most of us, I think, are made of good and bad, of cowardice and courage, so that we now act manly and now meanly according to which side of us is prevalent.

  The fog shut down on us more thick than ever, so that even Jack Giles nigh lost his reckoning and I began to weigh alternatives: as whether we should seek warmth and shelter in a tavern to await the morning, or go forward at the risk of footpads. But I thought of Sir Francis Drake again and shelter seemed not so tempting, nor the footpads so fit to be dreaded.

  And I suppose we looked more capable of fighting than we were, since none molested us, although I saw men lurking in the fog and once or twice our alderman appeared to think of slipping from the saddle to take his chance among the lurking rogues, planning to buy their aid, no doubt, with promises. But I warned him:

  “Dead or alive,” said I, “the warrant reads! Dead or alive you shall reach the Marshalsea!”

  He dreaded death. So, what with riding headlong for a while, and young Jack spying a tavern signboard that he recognized, we found the Marshalsea at last and drew rein by a great gate, where the fog was so dense that we could hardly see
the iron bars. A watchman with a halberd and a candle-lantern challenged and appeared more fearful of the guard we bade him summon than of us, for he ordered us away to hell or any other bed we favoured.

  Him we made afraid of us with most uncivil speech until he called the guard at last. But their officer was clamorous indignant at our demand that he should go and wake the Keeper of the Marshalsea. We had to threaten him, too, and it was long after midnight, and we frozen, when the Keeper came at last, not over-sober and as quarrelsome as any toss-pot at the summons from his warm bed. Berden was afraid of his authority, but I had not had Berden’s long experience of such men’s spite. Said I:

  “You do your duty or you’ll learn what wrath is; for I’ll hale Lord Burghley from his bed to take you to task for this night’s insolence!”

  He made small trouble after that, although he spoke me scurvily and tried to send us off without his signature; but Berden would not let him have the warrant otherwise, and so we rode away at last, myself well satisfied with having angered him, but Berden anxious and not pleased with me for having boasted I would pull the Keeper’s beard were the gate guard not too many to make that sport profitable.

  We had no warrant for the seamen, so we brought them with us, two on the one horse that the alderman had ridden.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Of Berden’s Reliability

  THEREAFTER we found Lord Burghley’s house with even greater difficulty than we had found the Marshalsea, because a light wind, chilling our bones, disturbed the fog into swirling fumes around us. The mud grew slippery and our horses afraid of falling, so that we were as bewildered as cattle on market-day.