The first to move was Crabb who, without warning, slammed his bandaged shoulder into the Dutch leader, throwing him off balance. But as the man fell, he fired his pistol wildly. There was a spurt of flame, a deafening report and then everyone jumped at once. Another pistol went off, causing someone to scream in agony, whereupon in seconds the roadside became a battlefield. All Betsy could do was grab Alida and pull her to the ground. Then both women were scrambling under the coach while the fight surged about them.
And what a fight it was! The two remaining Dutchmen had jumped from their horses and were closing in. Mullin, outnumbered as he was, pulled out his ebony truncheon and began laying about him. Blows fell, men grunted and cursed. Then Betsy’s eyes flew to Crabb.
The big man was transformed: not into a wrestler but a knuckle-fighter, worthy of any Bankside contest. He had dropped the rope, and with his free right hand he struck out. With a single blow he downed the nearest man to him, then half-crouching, turned to meet the next. But as the fourth man darted forward there was a glint of steel. Betsy shouted, then saw that it didn’t matter. Barely glancing at the dagger his assailant wielded, Crabb seized the man’s arm and bent it savagely. There was a crack of bone, a screech and the fellow dropped, clutching himself in agony. Crabb stooped, wrenched his dagger from his hand and whirled about … barely in time.
Weakened but still struggling, Mullin was about to fall. His assailants were not only the Dutch leader, now on his feet again, but the last man too. Locked in a bizarre embrace, the three lurched about the moonlit roadside, arms working. But even as Mullin’s knees buckled, blows slamming into his body, Crabb lunged. The dagger pierced the nearest man, who gave a cry and staggered away. The leader scarcely had time to look round before Crabb’s fist thudded into his face. Without a sound he keeled over and lay still.
And suddenly, it was over. Panting, the two agents stared at each other: Mullin on his knees, his face bloody in the moonlight, Crabb wincing with pain. His sling had come loose and his wounded arm dangled. Grunting, he tried to lift it … then sat down heavily. It had taken little more than a minute.
Shakily, Betsy got herself out from under the coach and stood staring round at the sight. Aside from Crabb, four men were on the ground: two lying dazed, two sitting. One whimpered as he clutched his broken arm, while the one Crabb had stabbed sat very still, gasping. Then with a start she remembered Lacy – whereupon Mullin spoke.
‘He was hit … the second pistol shot.’
She turned to the captain, still on his knees. He nodded towards the coach… and there was Lacy, slumped against a wheel. His chest rose slowly, his bound hands upon it. Even in the semi-darkness Betsy could see the blood … a trickle that seeped from his cloak, staining the ground beside him.
There was a thud of boots, and all of them looked round sharply to see the coachman take to his heels, sprinting away up the deserted road. In seconds, the gloom swallowed him up.
With a groan Mullin tried to rise, then flagged. So Betsy stepped up close and helped him. His periwig had fallen off, there was blood at his mouth and bruises on his cheeks, but to her relief he didn’t seem to have taken grievous hurt. Meeting her eye, he jerked his head towards Crabb.
‘Go to him. I’ll see if our friend’s alive.’
Slowly he walked over to Lacy. There was a rustle of skirts, and Betsy found Alida by her side. Wide-eyed, the girl seemed to be taking in the situation. When she gestured to Crabb Betsy nodded, and the two hurried over to the big man.
‘If you’ll tie the sling again, I’ll be fit enough,’ he said, looking up. ‘Though I fear I’ve undone the surgeon’s good work.’
‘Don’t fret, Wrestler.’ Hitching her skirts, Betsy knelt beside him. ‘There are other surgeons – or failing that I’ll sew you up again myself. I’m no slouch with a needle.’ She glanced round. The captain was standing over Lacy … and slowly he shook his head.
‘I fear our friend won’t be able to enlighten us further,’ he said. The others looked, and saw for themselves: Lacy was dead.
‘But what troubles me now is, well …’ looking at each of them in turn, Mullin gestured to the horses.
‘Who’s going to drive the damned coach?’
Chapter Eighteen
IN THE END nobody drove. Instead the party travelled the rest of the way to Rotterdam on horseback.
For Betsy, the ride was almost a relief after the turmoil they had been through. At least she wasn’t cooped up inside a stuffy, bone-shaking coach, or being threatened with pistols. It was a long time since she had sat on a horse, but when their predicament became clear she agreed. The coach, Mullin said, was now a hindrance: driving it through the narrow streets of Rotterdam required skills even he didn’t possess. Crabb had only one usable hand, and the coachman had fled – so the solution was obvious. The party would take their assailants’ horses, and leave them to their own devices.
‘What other choice have we?’ the captain demanded. ‘We’ll unhitch the coach-horses and drive them away. Then we’ll release these men so they can walk back to Delft – as they would have made us do.’
He indicated the Dutchmen. Two – the party’s leader, and the one who had ended Lacy’s life – were now conscious, disarmed and sitting with hands bound. The others – one wounded by a dagger thrust, another with a broken arm – looked in no condition to travel.
‘He’s the one who shot Lacy,’ Mullin said, pointing. ‘Let him explain it all – I care not to whom. By the time they reach the town, we’ll be in Rotterdam. When they return to help their friends, we’ll be aboard ship – and I for one can’t put to sea quick enough!’
So it was decided. In a short time, Betsy and Mullin transferred their baggage to three of the small, nimble horses their captors had ridden: Spanish jennets, Mullin said. Crabb mean-while, his good hand doing the work of two, unhitched the coach-horses. With much shouting and slapping of rumps, he then drove them off into the night, sending the fourth riderless horse after them. So it only remained for the party to get mounted – apart from Alida.
The girl had watched the preparations in silence. But once they were ready she grew agitated. Mullin took her aside and coins were produced, yet though the girl took them she was unhappy. She stood shaking her head mournfully, until at last Betsy went to embrace her.
‘Tell her she’s been a true friend – a treasure,’ she said. Then, as Mullin interpreted for her, she turned and walked to the horses. To her surprise there was a lump in her throat, as she and her fellow-intelligencers at last rode away from the scene of the débâcle. Their would-be captors, now on their feet, watched them depart with baleful looks. But Alida did not wait. When Betsy looked round, she saw the girl walking up the road without looking back.
Now, riding by moonlight, the three broke into a trot along the highway, Betsy and Crabb working hard to manage their skittish mounts. They went at the best pace Crabb could manage, for the big man was not only in pain: he was as unused to riding as the horse was to bearing a man of his size. Mullin, of course, though bruised and battered, sat easily in the saddle, reining in impatiently to let the others catch up. Eventually they settled on a steady pace, stirrup to stirrup, which allowed them to talk – and to wonder at last why they had been tricked by Madam Katz. For a cruel trick was what it appeared to be, until Mullin told a different tale.
Before leaving their assailants behind he had taken a minute to question the leader, using his own pistol to threaten him. And since, after all that had happened, the man didn’t doubt he would use it, he had spoken readily enough. Now, the captain relayed his account to the others.
‘She sent them – our charming friend Marieke Katz!’ he said grimly. ‘The one who spoke English works for her husband; the others are ruffians he rounded up at short notice. They were told to follow us, waylay us in open country and bring us back – and there’s more.’ He shook his head. ‘Can you countenance this? They were also supposed to let Lacy escape!’
Crabb took in
the information in puzzled silence, but Betsy’s mind was busy. Holding tightly to the reins, she faced Mullin. ‘Do you mean that Madam Katz is somehow part this conspiracy?’ she asked incredulously.
‘I confess I don’t know.’ Mullin kept his eyes on the road. ‘I suspected she might be an agent for de Witt, or someone else at the Hague … though what she wished to gain by these measures I can’t fathom. Yet it explains why she was so eager to lend me the coach.’ He put on a wry look. ‘It pains me to admit it, madam, but you were right to be suspicious.’
‘Then, let’s turn it about,’ Betsy said thoughtfully. ‘If what your informant says is true, it looks not only as if the woman knows what we were doing in Delft, it also appears that she wanted Lacy’s plans to succeed. Why so?’
‘Why indeed?’ Mullin shrugged. ‘This game may be somewhat deeper than you or I thought, Crabb,’ he said, with a glance at the younger man. ‘Or perhaps there are things known to men higher up than your master – things they chose not to tell him.’
Crabb looked troubled. ‘I’d swear Mr Lee knows naught of any circle here, apart from his own agents,’ he said. ‘In the same way that I knew nothing of Gorton, though he was under my nose in the King’s Bench all the while, watching Venn.’ He frowned at Mullin. ‘If someone else has a stake in seeing the King murdered,’ he went on, ‘I can’t guess who it could be, apart from fanatics like Lacy.’
Betsy gave a start. ‘The words Gorton spoke, before he died,’ she murmured. “Tell her I didn’t squeal”, and “I always loved her….”’
But at that Mullin snorted. ‘Now who’s fashioning tales?’ he demanded. ‘You don’t think Gorton was speaking of Madam Katz? That’s preposterous!’
‘Then what was he doing in Delft?’ Betsy countered. ‘And how did he come to be released from the King’s Bench, so soon after I was? I never believed his tale about being jealous of Venn. Someone ordered Gorton to kill the man after he was seen talking to me.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘Yet I did believe him, when he claimed he knew nothing of Prynn and the others. And why would he, if he was working for someone else entirely – someone who had such power over him, that he would do murder? The man had little stomach for killing – you said it yourself.’
Now Mullin too fell silent. Both men gazed at Betsy, but while the captain’s face showed disbelief, Crabb’s was filled with admiration. ‘Why, I believe she has something!’ he exclaimed. ‘Gorton, that foppish fellow who never looked as if he belonged in prison …’ He eyed Mullin. ‘As for Madam Katz – if she’s up to her neck in some mischief, it’s a pity you didn’t dig further when you went to her house. If we’d known—’
‘Known what?’ Mullin broke in irritably. ‘Even if this were true, you think such a woman would give herself away – especially to an Englishman?’ He frowned at Betsy. ‘Not that I agree with your fanciful theories – though I won’t dismiss them entirely. Once at sea, we might speculate further – our task now is to get to England. Then you two should report to Williamson, while I ride on to Datchet. Lay the whole murky business before him, and let him tease it out.’
‘Oh no you don’t!’ Betsy snapped. ‘I know you, Mullin. You picture yourself galloping to the racecourse to save the King’s life. You’ll give a fine performance, then drop to your knee to receive His Majesty’s thanks while we kick our heels in London! No doubt you’ll expect a handsome reward – well, flap-sauce, sir! Once we’re on English soil, I’m coming to Datchet with you. I’ve earned the right, have I not?’
And with that, she dug her heels into her horse’s flanks and shook the reins. The animal snorted and leaped forward, and in a moment she had outdistanced the two men. Then she drew rein and, readying herself for a verbal tussle, turned in the saddle; but when Mullin came up, he was wearing a thin smile.
‘As you wish, madam,’ he said coolly. ‘But first, you’d better pray that the sea is calm, for once we reach Dover, the last thing you may wish to do is ride another horse. Now, would you care to look at those lights ahead? For if I’m not mistaken, that’s Rotterdam!’
Once they were at the port however, both luck and the wind were on Betsy’s side. For by dawn, when she, Crabb and the captain had spent their last guilders and finally boarded a packet boat, she was too exhausted to care whether she got seasick or not. Instead she slept through the entire voyage, waking to the cries of seagulls. And when she looked, the cliffs of Dover were ahead, gleaming in bright sunshine.
She was home.
Chapter Nineteen
IT WAS THE ride of Betsy’s life and, long before it was over, she had made herself two promises. The first was that she would never sit on a horse again as long as she lived; the second that she would cease being a crown intelligencer at the first opportunity. But for the present, her chief concern was how to keep pace with Marcus Mullin.
‘From Dover to Datchet is more than ninety miles, by my reckoning,’ he said. ‘That’s two days’ hard riding, at the least. And if you fall behind, madam, you must look to yourself, for I will not stop!’
And that was why, within an hour of arriving back in England, Betsy found herself standing beside the stirrup of one of the two spirited horses the captain had hired. Since they were both almost penniless, Peter Crabb paid for the mounts with sterling he had kept in reserve. Still weak from his wound, the young man accepted the impossibility of his riding to Berkshire. Taking most of the baggage, he would make his way to London by other means and report to Joseph Williamson. Betsy and Mullin, meanwhile, would travel fast and light. How things might move in the coming days, neither of them knew; their fear was that they were already too late to stop the assassin from doing his terrible work. So on a windy morning the three of them parted, in the drab surroundings of a stable yard in Dover. For Betsy it was a sad moment.
‘Take care of yourself, Wrestler,’ she said brightly. ‘And get a surgeon to tend your arm.’ Then she startled the young man by kissing him on the lips. Mullin, already mounted, was holding the reins of her horse. Betsy looked about for a mounting block, then found herself lifted high into the air. Peter Crabb sat her in the saddle and stood back, assuming his stolid look… but now, she knew him better. Taking the reins, she smiled and urged her mount forward. The young man raised his good hand as they turned into the street, then was lost to sight.
And so it began: the most desperate and exhausting journey she had ever undertaken. Luckily the weather was fair and the road passable. They took the highway westwards through Kent, making at first for Ashford. Here, after many hours of riding, Mullin allowed a short halt, but only to feed and water the horses. Betsy’s plea for a rest, let alone food, met with a blank expression. Not until the late afternoon, when they had skirted the southern edge of the North Downs as far as Lenham, did he finally draw rein. Already, dusk was falling.
‘I’d hoped to reach Maidstone by dark,’ he said. ‘But the way grows dim …’ He glanced at Betsy. She was so tired, so dusty, stiff and sore, that she had ceased to wish for anything but to stop and rest. When she raised her eyes, she expected little mercy – so the other’s words came as a welcome relief.
‘There’s an inn here,’ he said, waving his hand at the tiny village square. ‘But as we’ve no money, we’ll have to use our wits. Are you game for a little rough work?’
Wearily she nodded. ‘I don’t care if I lie in a stable,’ she replied.
Bedding down in a stable, however, was not what Mullin had intended. Instead Betsy found herself in the inn’s best chamber, eating a supper of good soup followed by a roasted pullet. Aching in every muscle, she then lay down upon the wide bed while Mullin paced the room, frowning to himself.
‘You’ve done well – better than I expected,’ he allowed. ‘But we must make better time tomorrow. I’ve no idea if our quarry has reached Datchet yet … I’m certain he took ship at least a day before us. But he doesn’t know we’re on his tail, so we have the advantage of surprise.’ He stopped pacing. ‘Will you be ready to ride, when I wake you?’
She signalled her assent, though she was uneasy about Mullin’s escape plan. His idea was to leave the inn in the small hours, without paying. ‘And if someone wakes?’ she queried. ‘What will you do, wield your truncheon?’
‘I doubt it will come to that. Our only danger is the ostler: he sleeps in the hayloft. However, I sense he’s a man who enjoys a mug, so …’ The captain leered at her.
Betsy lay back. In spite of herself, she had grown to think very differently of Marcus Mullin since their first meeting at another inn, in Nieuwpoort. It seemed a lifetime ago … With a yawn, she turned to him.
‘You must sleep too,’ she murmured. ‘And I don’t mean on the floor. If you promise to be a perfect gallant and forbear to maul me, you may share this bed. It’s certainly big enough.’
‘Why, dear madam!’ Mullin’s eyebrows rose. ‘I’d thought to offer the courtesy of a bolster, placed between us. But if you prefer another body to warm you, then I must oblige. Indeed, should you find …’ Then he trailed off. Betsy’s eyes had closed, and already she slept.
But minutes later she was awake; or at least, it felt like only minutes. She sat up – and flinched as a hand was placed over her mouth. ‘Not a sound, remember.’ Mullin’s voice came softly out of the dark. ‘Carry your shoes with you. The way’s clear, but be ready to run if I call out. Understand?’
When Betsy nodded, he removed his hand. And, moments later, wrapped in her cloak, she was following him out of their chamber and down a creaking staircase. Mercifully they were not challenged, even when Mullin unbolted the inn’s door. Then they were out in the night air, with nothing but the distant bark of a dog to disturb the stillness.
‘We must lead the horses,’ he whispered. ‘Once we clear the village, I’ll saddle them. You can put your shoes on then.’
‘What about the ostler?’
‘Sleeping like an infant, courtesy of strong ale laced with brandy. Come, we’ve a long ride ahead. By the way, here’s breakfast.’ Mullin pressed something into her hand, wrapped in a cloth. So, without further delay, she followed him into the stable in her stockinged feet. The horses recognized their riders, and it was but the work of a minute to loose them and get them outside. Then, weighed down with trappings, the two led the animals along the quiet moonlit street, until the last cottage was passed. There by the roadside they made ready, while behind them Lenham still slept.
The Judas Blade Page 16