by Hall, Ian
We strutted ourselves for the ladies, and even fought half-hearted swordfights for their entertainment, but as the day passed, I knew I had to make my choice. My plan involved me getting a woman into my bed, and locking the door. Having waltzed around their company for an hour or so, I fastened my attention on a rather buxom blonde called Persephone. I gave little attention to her looks, but fawned enough that she drank from my cup whenever I offered it to her lips.
Looking up from the object of my lust, I noticed the room had become a bordello; men pairing off with one and sometimes two women. Then lusty laughter rose in pitch as the first man strode off to the stairway, his doxy in tow.
I waited for another to leave, then pulled Persephone to me. “You want me, you want me so bad. Let’s go to bed.”
Yeah, yeah, a bit basic, I know; but I had one eye on the clock, and I had to have a perfect alibi.
I made a bit of a show, and got the desired cheer from the rebels and even Sir Henry, who looked up from the exposed bosoms of the woman on his knee.
I spent more time divesting Persephone of her clothes than I had the night before, and when we’d got down to skin tones, we frolicked for a while, rolling and kissing on top of the bed before I slipped my hand between her legs.
But at the end of the day, she lay in roughly the same position as the maid had twenty-four hours earlier; legs apart, arms wide, my seed in her belly, and two rapidly healing puncture wounds on her delightful neck.
It took me about an hour to locate the wagon; safely locked in a stable behind the Bronze Cannon, on the outskirts of Peterborough. Six men sat on or around it.
I found the guard captain and more men inside the tavern. I smiled as Abigail walked around the tables, beer tankards in her hands, serving the foaming ale.
Abigail winked as she passed me. “All is well.” I walked casually around, as if trying to see someone I knew, then back outside again.
After a few moments, Abigail slipped beside me. “The ale is tampered with, don’t drink.”
I turned around, puzzled. “You drugged it all?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I had to be certain to get everyone. It’s not fast-acting, but once they’re asleep, it’ll take a thunderstorm to wake them.”
“Good girl,” I said as she ducked back inside.
There seemed little to do but wait, so I found a perch in the stable and looked on to the wagon. The chest had been covered by a tarpaulin, pulled tight by many ropes.
Abigail appeared, a tray of tankards in her hands. “Compliments of the Captain,” she said, passing them out to the grateful men. “He says you’ll be relieved shortly.”
Then after about half an hour, as I waited, she came in again. “Sorry, fellows, there’s been a change in plan. The rest of the buffoons are the worse for drink. You’ll have to guard for a while longer. But here’s your reward. Captain’s compliments.”
Chapter 29
Decenber 4th, 1553… again
Up, Up and Away
I watched from my high vantage point in the rafters of the stable; the guards gradually settled against the wagon, or sat on the ground to rest, becoming gradually sleepier as they did so. Within half an hour, they all snored their heads off.
I jumped down and landed on the dusty stable floor just as the door opened, Abigail slipping inside. “All done,” she said, her face flushed with excitement. “What’s the plan?”
“We get the gold on its way to London.”
“On its way?”
“Well, basically we just need to get the journey started. I don’t think we can carry it all to Sloan House in one night.”
We turned to the wagon, and I drew my knife to cut the cords.
“Wait.” She approached the covered chest. “Can we cut into it from below? That way they might not suspect for days.”
I laughed at the audacity, then looked around for a suitable tool to perform the task. After a while we found an axe, and soon were chopping into the underside of the wagon, directly under the chest.
Vampire strength is one great advantage over mankind, and we used it well that night. Okay, one of the pouches broke as we chopped too deeply, but the rest just fell from the underside of the wagon like sweets from a broken piñata.
We put ten pouches into sacks I’d brought, and took them across country; roughly 300 pounds per person on each trip.
Four trips, we’d done it, the gold sat in a hedgerow ten miles south of Peterborough.
We returned one last time to pick up the loose gold, and tidy away the broken pieces of wood and chest. One last look behind me, and we were gone; back to the hedgerow, and another stage of the journey done. By the time the sky showed the first signs of light, we’d taken the gold as far as Bedford. Abigail would just sit on it like a bird on a nest until the following evening, so we found an old barn we thought deserted, and got her settled in.
“See you tonight,” I said, and kissed her cheek.
Back to Leicester, back up the wall, and into the sleeping arms of Persephone, sparing only the time to clean my boots.
The next day we slept late, and the sun streamed in the windows. Suddenly my door got hammered on. “Alright, alright,” I moaned as I padded to open it.
Samuel Rayburn stood outside, looking as tired as I felt. “Sir Henry wants us all downstairs.”
“What for?” I asked, my bleary eyelids sticking together convincingly.
“Meeting, old boy. We’re off to Coventry.”
“Wonderful,” I whined.
He grinned past me to the naked body on the bed. “Did you have a good night?”
“The very best, my man. The very best.”
So I dressed, leaving Persephone undisturbed on the bed, and got myself downstairs. There were a good number of our rebellion already there, all very bleary-eyed. With no breakfast, we mounted and set off. The ride to Coventry proved mainly silent, the company either ruminating on their past evening’s conquests or just calming the rages of hangovers.
I drank Spanish wine as Sir Henry spoke at two large taverns in front of two suitably decently sized groups. After he’d finished, we passed around pamphlets, and encouraged them to continue to push the message to their friends and similarly-minded thinkers.
I knew the other me had Elizabeth holed up in Walterston, but around her, the country seemed to be rising without her.
We stayed the night in Coventry, but again, with the evening spent in drunken revelry, we retired early, so it proved easy for me to get away.
That night we finished the transport of the gold, and got Abigail ensconced back at Sloan House. By the time I’d returned to Coventry, I actually felt exhausted, so didn’t need to feign the condition the next day as we rode back to Leicester.
As the group of us arrived at the front of Sir Henry’s mansion, I noticed the approach of the wagon and its escort.
“The gold is here!” Sir Henry shouted loudly. He galloped off, supposedly to offer additional protection on its last two hundred yards of its journey.
We all cheered its arrival in the courtyard, and Sir Henry Grey made a suitably lavish show of cutting the ropes that held the chest to the wagon.
The captain of his guard held out the key with the ribbon still attached, and Sir Henry opened the chest. I sidled to one side to get a good look at his face.
He frowned slightly, then looked at the guard captain, then back at the empty chest. “What’s the meaning of this?”
The captain climbed nimbly onto the wagon, and took a look, then jumped down, and inspected the underside of the chest. “My lord, I know nothing of this.”
Sir Henry’s boot caught him right across the chin, sending the captain stumbling into our horses, then he fell to the ground where he lay motionless.
“What’s the meaning of this, I say!” he roared. The guards looked sheepish. “The gold is gone, you fools! You’ve been robbed!”
He spent the next two hours in the main dining room, slapping each soldier individua
lly, asking questions of the gold’s transport, demanding they search their memories for any time the wagon had not been under guard.
To my surprise, none mentioned the good sleep they’d had in Peterborough.
“The French,” he eventually said, clasping his hands behind his back, pacing around the room. “The bloody French.”
None of us dared question his deductive powers.
“No one even seen the gold,” he snarled. “They loaded the chest onto the wagon by hoist. There can be no other explanation. French have cheated us. Bastards!”
I shook my head slightly. His actual reasoning didn’t make sense, if the French hadn’t actually handed the gold over, then how did he explain the holes under the chest? But I wasn’t about to say anything. I felt far too smug to start any arguments.
There were no ladies added to our number that night, just a solemn steady binge of drinking that lasted into the small hours.
Sir Henry finally made a sullen, cloudy appearance. “We ride home at first light, gentlemen.” His face looked full of disappointment. “I will call you if your swords are needed come March.”
Oh, that had been the first time he’d dropped the actual date of the planned rebellion.
I walked slowly up to my dark room, a candle in my hand, surprised completely by a form, sleeping in my bed. As I neared, I made out blonde hair.
Persephone had stayed all day.
I stripped and fell in beside her to find her body warm and thoroughly inviting. She stirred as I passed my hands over her, and soon her lips had sought and captured mine.
With no necessity to get out of my handy window, I lingered on her this time. Our lovemaking proved a natural release of tension I’d been holding in over the last few days. I kissed her with more emotion than I felt, and when we joined together, the bed rocked beneath us, as we tried one position after another.
At the height of our passion I gently bit into her neck; I’d done it a thousand times before. She gasped in ecstasy as I drained the viscous liquid from her artery, her hips bucking under me as her sex quivered against my penis, the drawn-out process probably the longest come she’d ever had.
The shimmer started almost immediately.
I initially thought of some calamity downstairs, then I detected the lack of pulse in Persephone’s blood, I pushed myself away as the room began to blur.
“No!” I railed, forcing myself from the bed, staggering back into a quicksand, the walls shaking. I couldn’t believe I’d been this stupid, so forgetful.
I stood in the midst of the melee, my back arched, my head cast upwards. “No! This can’t be happening!”
Tears ran down my cheeks as I closed my eyes to the inevitable.
I felt the wind around my naked body. All that work, all that preparation, and I’d blown it all for one feed from a pretty neck.
Then as I heard the rushing of time whiz past my ears, I felt sick.
My head seemed to split open, my insides gushing into the void that surrounded me.
Then I felt solid ground beneath my feet.
Wood.
I opened my eyes carefully. The bed. The dead body.
I hadn’t went back… gone back… forward: whatever!
I rushed to the bed, and felt for a pulse; none. Her body lay limp against the pillows.
It wasn’t as though I hadn’t done it before; I’d killed many times. But I’d never been so callous, feeding twice in as many nights; for all her energy in bed, she must have had a frailty unseen to me. Or I’d just been too needy, too rough.
With an instant plan in mind, I put my dagger between my teeth, tossed her body over my shoulder, and scrambled down my familiar route. At the bottom of my climb, I peppered her body with knife strokes, knowing I’d hit each of her major organs at least once. Then I ran for an hour, heading roughly northwest. At last I came across the intended aim of my flight; the dark seascape of the North Sea, the waves gently drifting onto a black beach.
Not wishing to spend any more time than I needed to, I stripped quickly, and with Persephone’s body in my arms, ran headlong into the waves, fully exhaling as I did so. I kept going until I reached more than sand beneath my feet. Stopping at the rocky bottom, with the waves maybe a hundred feet above me, I slowly let her body go, pushing her to the bottom, and wresting loose a few boulders to rest on her body to keep it submerged.
As I walked back to shore, I recalled my first time under water; like the scene in Highlander, when Sean Connery tips Christopher Lambert into the lake, and he wades ashore, amazed at his not having been drowned.
I ran back to Leicester and tidied away Persephone’s clothes and trappings, dumping them in a bog, many miles away.
With heavy heart, I rose the next morning. Yes, I know I’d killed before, but I’d never taken easily to indiscriminate killing, and this one could have been described as accidental at best.
My adventure had ended with me being rich, yes.
I’d enough gold for many years, and a house to live in. But I’d almost lost it, almost been sent back to the present.
I took to my horse amid my peers of equally dismal mood.
I rode back with Samuel Rayburn and George Kingston, and although I’d have loved to bolt forward and not waste two days, I sat in their company; my penance for my most recent crime.
When I returned to Sloan House, Abigail and Cora met me at the door.
For once in all my months in the fifteen hundreds, I felt at home.
Chapter 30
11th December, 1553… again
Back to Old Clothes
My granddad had a saying, usually after a vacation, or a long weekend of relaxing; “Back to old clothes and porridge”, meaning, the vacation officially over, and work and normality reluctantly had to be faced.
The next morning, after spending a sleepless night in my own bed, I rose with a purpose.
“We must keep our heads down,” I announced to the ‘girls’ at breakfast. “The recent adventure has been exciting, yes, but we could have been caught out at any time.”
Cora kept silent, but Abigail agreed wholeheartedly.
So for the next few weeks, I kept away from my gentleman’s clubs, and we spent our evenings hiding the gold in various places in the house; behind walls, under floors, the usual suspects.
Although I did fancy the idea of visiting Lady Jane for Christmas, the idea of spending the worst months of the year in a draughty Edinburgh room soon evaporated such dreams.
Then one morning, I approached Abigail. “Have you ever thought about turning Cora?”
That stopped her in her tracks. “Turning her?”
“Yes, making her one of us, officially.” Her puzzled expression proved I’d obviously landed on a subject she’d given absolutely no thought to.
“She is a good herbalist.”
I shook my head. “And a good lover, too?”
“Oh, heck yes.” She nodded quickly.
“And she’s got that kind of girl-next-door look about her.” I again got the puzzled look. “She’s very good looking, but doesn’t stand out in a crowd.”
“Yes!” she said definitively.
“And that can prove very handy in some situations. Imagine running the gold with her as a vampire?”
“It would have been far easier.”
“And the end with Fallon; that’d be easier too; the more power on our side, the better. He’s got two vampires holding me by the arms. We’ve got no idea what happens to them after Fallon takes the three arrows.”
I could see the nod begin.
“There you go,” I said grabbing her by the shoulders. “It’s almost agreed then.”
Abigail nodded firmly. “When do we do it?”
“Tonight.” I walked away. “I’ll go get her ready.”
I left Abigail openmouthed in my wake and went in search of the girl. I found her in the kitchen, helping Sylvie with some meat cutting thing. “I’d like a word with you, Cora. In the sitting room.”
>
“Yes, Sir Richard.” I left her to wash her hands, and walked quietly into our sitting room. Indiscriminate paintings on most walls, large bookcase on the wall opposite the windows.
Behind the bookcase; five thousand French gold pieces.
I sat in one armchair, and when Cora appeared, I directed her to the matching one, just five feet away.
“Good morning, my dear,” I began as she arranged her skirts before her. “I have an urgent subject to talk to you about.”
“Yes, Sir Richard?”
“You are familiar with the fact that Abigail and I are not quite your normal kind of people, aren’t you?”
She gave a very sexy grin; definitely vampire material. “You certainly are very passionate.”
I rose and began to walk around her armchair. At first she tried to follow me, but suddenly stopped and met my eyes as I passed.
“Abigail and I would like you to join our kind.”
“I don’t understand.”
I stopped behind her chair, leaning over her, pressing my hands down on her shoulders. “You have to be certain, as joining us means you leave some of humanity behind.”
“Will I be like Abigail?” she asked simply, twisting her head to look at me.
I dropped to kiss her, letting my tongue drop into her open mouth.
“Will you still make love to me?” she gasped.
“Oh, fuck yes,” I mouthed back, suddenly desperate to get between her thighs. Then I pushed myself from her, and marveled at the instant heights that she could inspire me.
“Tonight, Cora.” I stood, trembling behind her. Then I gave both my head and my senses a good shake. “Spend the whole afternoon in the bath, Cora. Instruct Sylvie to break out the best salts and scents we have.”
I walked from the room, and almost bumped into Abigail. “It’s done, I’ve told her.”
She sniffed gently. “And you are inflamed beyond your usual levels.”
“She just does that to me, I can’t explain it. She’ll make a great Strogoi.”