by Talbot Mundy
“You may have Mildred,” he said, working his jaws like a nut-cracker.
“I fear me,” I said, “you are too late, Tony, to make that amend. Your treason, if they prove it, oversets all gifts of yours. And that is only me you have made your bid for. Lords in Council look for substance in an offer ere they meditate on terms.”
“What will you?” he demanded.
“Who else is in the house?” I asked him, sharp and sudden.
He blinked at me.
“Whose suit is Mildred wearing?” I demanded.
His flinty old eyes looked cunning and afraid, but he made no answer.
“Why did you leave the high-road and come to Tibbetts’s, though you were in haste to reach London and shipping?”
“Breakfast,” he mumbled, “and rest. No good inns, not hereabouts.”
“Who else is in the house?” I asked again. “Whom came you hither to talk with?”
He was weakening. My own fear was that Mildred, taking pity on him, might put word in that should restore his obstinacy, but she trusted me and said nothing. Tony was thinking of Tibbetts, as I judged by the use that he made of his eyes, and I could see old Tibbetts trying to make signals to him from a corner, where he pretended to be sorting sheepskins. I moved in such way as to mask that signalling.
“Tony,” I said, “no man worries about weasels when a fox is in the barnyard. Haply if you show where the fox is, such weasels as you and Tibbetts might go scot-free. Clap me on the scent of him, and I will give you credit.”
Still he hesitated. Treacherous as an adder, he did not dare to trust me. I had to threaten him.
“Tony,” I said, “if you force me to look for the man — and I know where he is, for I heard him — I can save you neither from the rack, nor from the axe.”
He yielded then, but as he did, some straying whisp of manliness found lodgement in his thought:
“And Zachary?” he asked. “Will you speak for Zachary? Old Zachary needed money for the cess. He has done nothing. He knows nothing, poor old Zachary.”
He was likely enough lying, but I let it pass, saying Zachary was no affair of mine, nor naught else so be I captured a Queen’s enemy. If Zachary were trap, and Tony trapper, well and good; they should share the credit. And I pulled the warrant out for extra suasion, they not knowing what was written on it.
There was a race then which should be the first to bring the stranger forth, I fearing he might prove after all to be only a wandering priest with a price on his head; though I might have spared myself that moment’s discontent by remembering that such a velvet suit as Mildred wore hardly should come from a wandering priest’s wardrobe.
I did not watch them open the priest-hole, being minded they should bring their man forth and tell their own tale, so that later I might say on oath that they brought him forth, free-willing. The sailors and the ‘prentice-lad, I was confident would confirm my testimony, but of Jeremy I was not so sure; his tale might differ from mine unless some means were found of so impatronizing myself upon his humour as to make him loyal in the face of fear or profit. However, as I looked at him he took his flute and played a tune right comically, which I took to be a good sign; and indeed it gave me a thought how signalling might be accomplished between him and me without anyone else the wiser. Many a time since then we have used that simple trick to excellent advantage and the ultimate discomfort of the Queen’s foes.
Zachary and Tony were a long time bringing their man forth; doubtless they were instructing him as to the story he should tell, which troubled me not at all, since he should tell it later, I supposed, in a place where lying calls for a degree of stubborn fortitude that few possess. And while I waited, gazing at Mildred, turning over in my mind expedients for lodging her in some safe place before even Berden could learn of it, I marked not only her silence. She was troubled — nor not troubled about Tony; for, had it been Tony’s plight that vexed her she would have told me. She was trying to answer my fond looks with equal warmth, yet wanting success, her true affection being bridled by another thought; or so it seemed.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “we start life ill together with a confidence half-given. Speak or be silent; it is all one, so only that you know I trust you and that trust is mutual between us.”
I had hit the mark. She looked as grateful at me as if I had salved some smarting injury. And truth, I would have added kisses to the salve before my men, not given though I be to letting others know my inwardness, nor liking to see others making public show of what is best done privily, nor not from shame but because of sacredness; but then Tony and Zachary came, with their man between them, and I knew why Mildred had been troubled.
He was dressed all in black, without sword or jewellery, and he lacked a barber; but there were reddish whiskers curling on his face. But he was handsome. And he was so of a size with Mildred, and so resembled her in outline, that in a half-light, and if they were dressed alike, he almost might have been her shadow. There resemblance ceased. He was a foxy-looking fellow with an actor’s gift of playing parts, so that as he walked toward me I could see him studying me and drawing on the character that he thought might suit my mood. By the time he reached me he was a brave man looking to me for magnanimity. I thought it clever, but it threw me more on guard than if he had made frank use of the craftiness that I first detected.
Tony and Zachary stood back. The stranger bowed to Mildred, then to me. He had a courtly manner, faintly suggestive, it might be, of France, and for a moment I think he hesitated as to whether he should speak to me in French, but I could see he was English, and he had a subtle gift for reading thought, so that he made not that mistake.
“They tell’ me,” he said, “you are Master Will Halifax. I am John Coningsby at your service.”
The name meant nothing to me. I was bent on hiding my perplexity. His name was not written on Berden’s warrant. I ad no commission that entitled me to take him prisoner. But suddenly I recalled how I had signed the Association Bond, which bound me in solemn covenant with every honest man in England to do justice against the Queen’s enemies wherever I might meet them. Parliament had recognized the Association Bond. I was within my legal rights. I was superior to Berden. Nor had I need of the warrant for the taking of Tony Pepperday. Until that minute the Association Bond had not meant more to me than loyal sentiment, since nothing much came of the Bond but talk and drinking of the Queen’s health and a dog’s death to the King of Spain, wherever gentlemen might meet.
“From whom are you hiding, Master Coningsby, and why?” I asked him.
“Have you the right to demand that of me?” he retorted, his eye estimating me and my men and the distance to the open door beyond us. But he had no chance to escape.
I answered, I was not for standing fully on my rights, but that he should come with me to London and there give such account of himself as his respect for Queen’s ministers might cause to seem advisable.
“Will you ride free-willing, or with your feet tied under a horse’s belly?” I asked him. Then, since he did not answer: “Is your horse in Zachary Tibbetts’s barn?”
He nodded. I sent Jack Giles to confirm the truth of it. Then:
“Tony,” I said, “do you denounce John Coningsby?”
“Aye,” Tony answered; and I saw Mildred bite her lip, to think that Tony should so promptly save his own neck at another’s cost. But there was no other way for Tony to have saved himself. I did not doubt now that by accident I had uncovered a treason greater than any that Tony had devised. “I denounce him,” said Tony, “as one who escaped abroad with the Lords Neville, Percy, Arundel, Throgmorton, Paget and others. He has come back practising to help them to invade the realm in the King of Spain’s behalf, and on behalf of the Scots Queen. The Duke of Guise is to land in Scotland. Neville, Percy, Arundel, Paget and the others are to land at different places on the south coast.”
I turned to Mildred. “Sweetheart,” I asked her, “knew you aught of this?”
She shook her head, and I guessed the truth was that she had taken pity on the man. Doubtless he had told her he was hiding from his private enemies. I saw it all now: Tony, growing frightened, had planned to flee the country, but as usual he was playing both sides, and he had come thither trying to convince John Coningsby that he was only going to London for a visit, hoping Coningsby might never learn of his flight but should procure reward for him afterwards, if rebellion and invasion should succeed. But Coningsby was reading Mildred’s face and mine. He had overheard our confidences and he thought he saw me in a fine dilemma.
“Mistress Mildred Jackson,” he said, bowing, “hesitates between the truth and untruth. I will aid her memory, since she has aided me — aye, with full knowledge of her father’s motive and mine also; she is wearing my velvet suit, in which she would have escaped to Flushing, in order that they who chance to see her, and who know me, may report that I am no longer in England.”
Mildred touched my arm. “Do you believe him, Will?” she asked me.
I was half-offended that she thought she had need to ask. But John Coningsby mistook my shake o’ the head for a sign of doubt and tried to press advantage.
“Your sweetheart will look pretty on the rack!” he said. “They will question her in turn when they have done with Tony. Aye, and they will rack you also, when I tell how she was in league with me, and you with her!”
I bethought me of the Earl of Leicester — a Lord of the Council who might sway the others and accept that simple means of venting his displeasure of me. Men said he slew Amy Robsart, who had done him no worse wrong than to marry him secretly. I thought him unlikely to hesitate to use malice on me, against whom he had the bitter sort of grudge that such as he, flattering themselves they ape Almighty God, cherish against the sons and grandsons of the men they quarrel with.
Nevertheless, though I did not doubt his promise to accuse both Mildred and me, and though Mildred turned white with dread and indignation; aye, and Tony pricked his ears, as ready as a spring to turn the tables on me, I thought I would rather suffer racking than play the meacock before Mildred and my own men. I laughed.
“You shall learn whether your threat has spoiled our appetites,” I said, and took seat at the table, urging Mildred to do likewise. “Eat!” I said to him. “Eat heartily. For as you draw near London thinking of the headsman’s block on Tower Hill you are like to take small comfort of the wayside victualling!” I might have spoken him less in the Lord Harry style if I had foreknown how sharp my own discomfort was to be.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
How Jeremy proved loyal and Benjamin Berden fell to second place.
NOW the difference, as I see it, between noble and common natures is in essence that though either may accomplish any given task, the former will avoid indignity to others if he can, whereas the latter will assert his own importance by inflicting shame. And though I have sometimes failed through my own fault, as I propose to tell before these memoirs are all written, in order that whoever reads may profit from this confession more than others may have suffered at such times as I forgot in momentary heat my father’s counsel and my own respect, nevertheless I have sought all my life long, without many lapses, to keep myself included in the former category.
I have done a long tale of secret errands for the Queen, not all bloodless nor void of scandal, because princes are not choosers but must counter treachery in equal sort. And I have learned this, in which Sir Francis Bacon, aye, and the Queen herself agree with me: that when abhorrent deeds are necessary, as in affairs of state must happen now and then lest worse should come to pass, it is the highest statecraft to employ thereon an individual of kindly and noble character; else what is bad enough already will develop into something far worse.
The common hangman is not to be trusted even at the hangman’s trade. It needs a gentleman to do ungentle business, who will accept no bribe, nor take one lawless step too many.
Thus when I explain why, knowing this John Coningsby was something less than honest, I accorded him as civil conduct as I might without inviting jeopardy. I gave him Jeremy’s sorrel horse to ride, nor no indignity of trussing, though my seamen could have used such rope-work as the devil and all his angels could have hardly undone. But the sorrel was no such nag as a desperate man could gallop on to freedom, and I am no glutton for assurance; reasonable safety is enough. I was minded to ride slowly so that Berden might come up with us.
Futtok, Gaylord and the ‘prentice lad I was confident were my men wholly. If I should continue worthy to be their master, they would follow me on courses howsoever perilous. Their lack of livery and a month or two’s hard training in the saddle were all that lay between them and my satisfaction — matters I could remedy in London, since I now had money.
But of Jeremy I was not so sure yet. He appeared grateful, and gratitude is an open channel into which fidelity may pour. But I thought it without the pale of probability that luck should furnish me with four good servants in as many days; and though a proverb warns us not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I had had caned into me a line of Vergil — Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes (Beware of the Greeks, especially when they bring gifts.) — that has always seemed to me to hold a mint of wisdom. I was minded to put Jeremy to further test without his knowing it.
Two other thoughts I had in mind: I would test mine intuition that assured me of Coningsby’s importance to the Lords of the Council, I judging him to be a culverin well-loaded with intrigue against the realm and likely to betray the nature of his charge if given opportunity, since he was desperate. The second was, that I would ride alone with Mildred for mine own contentment.
So I ordered Tony to ride foremost along with Futtok and Gaylord. But to the lad Jack Giles I gave the following instructions: he should ride with Jeremy and Coningsby a short while, making opportunity to mention, as it were at random, how that Jeremy had only been my man an hour or two. He should then speak of my having had from Jeremy a token, possibly the Scots Queen’s, which Jeremy might have to account for to the satisfaction of the Lords in Council; he should ask how Jeremy came by it, accepting by way of answer any lie that Jeremy might please to tell. Thereafter he should spur forward and ride with the other three, leaving Jeremy and Coningsby to ride alone together.
I brought up the rear with Mildred, happy as larks to ride together out of earshot of the others, she as confident as I that life was dawning rosy for us both. We chatted of the future, she deciding I should ultimately be the Lord High Admiral of England, since she liked the sound of it. But I liked better the title of Lord Secretary Halifax, since I had seen Lord Burghley like a spider at the centre of the web of state. And so laughing, there were passages of love between us; but it was hard to believe that she had coiled her hair up under her green hat with the feather in it, and wore her riding mask, and now that the long cloak covered her figure; it was only her hands and feet, and something sweet about the corners of her mouth, that told she was a woman.
We kept well to the rear, for I knew that if Coningsby should try to escape on the sorrel I could catch him easily. And remembering how often Mildred and I when we were younger had ridden our countryside, reading it aloud to one another as we rode and better liking Nature’s book of green leaves than the dryer school-books, I reminded her how often she had viewed an otter, or a curlew’s nest, or a vixen slinking home with somebody’s fat capon for her cubs, more unerringly than I could. And I challenged her for sake of happy memory to match her quickness against mine that morning.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “watch Coningsby. Mark whatever passes between him and my man.”
So we rode as to a Maying, she and I, she full of confidence in me because I had come to her like a prince in a fairy tale, with a magic warrant in my hand that touched men and made them prisoners. She trusted me to save Tony’s neck for him; nor spoke we any more of that, I being not so confident and therefore averse to touching on the matter. Truth was, I let trouble take care of itself, for the rain had ceased
and I was merry; all the birds were singing; it was a fresher morning than when I rode beside Will Shakespeare, albeit marvellous muddy, and every puddle likelier than not to be a hole in which a horse could flounder to his girth. So it was she, not I, who saw John Coningsby draw something from inside his doublet and pass it to Jeremy Crutch, who hid it in his saddlebag; my horse had set a foot wrong and was floundering out of a hole, but Mildred told me of it instantly.
I was two-minded then, whether or not to ride alongside Jeremy and make him show me what he had. He had a good horse; he could easily escape. But I decided presently that he was making too much of a show of confidence with Coningsby, which I judged he would have been too shrewd to do if he had contemplated treachery to me. It was Coningsby, I thought, whom he was cozening, and if he overplayed it Coningsby, nevertheless, had no alternative but to trust him now that the package, or whatever it was, had changed hands. I decided to wait, to give Jeremy an opportunity to prove fidelity to me. ’Twas well I did.
As we rounded a bend in the road I saw that the worst had happened that could possibly be shaken out of fortune’s bag! The Earl of Leicester’s men were coming back toward us, cantering. Doubtless they had learned that Tony’s party had not passed that way and they were now bent on seeking him in Tibbetts’s or some other farmhouse on the road from Brownsover. They had already seen us. They had counted us. There was no way of avoiding them, nor any use in trying to hide Mildred.
Jeremy fled then like a bird from an opened trap. One of the Earl of Leicester’s men let fly a bullet at him. As he set his horse to leap the hedge beside the road Jeremy laughed gaily, and waved his hand, which I took for insolent contempt of me. I could have shot him; he was within easy range and the shot not difficult, but I saved my dry powder and bullet, foreseeing trouble with the Earl of Leicester’s men.