The Vizard Mask

by Diana Norman

  'Captain Sir Ostyn Edwards?' said Nevis.

  'I am, sir.'

  'In charge of the Cary Valley troop of the Somerset Militia?'

  'And proud of it, sir.' Sir Ostyn put his arm around Penitence.

  'Ordered by Commander Feversham four days ago to destroy the bridge over the rhine at Chedzoy so as to deny it to the enemy and still deliberating on how to do it when the enemy crossed it yesterday?' Nevis's eyes regarded the sky.

  'T'wasn't. . .' Penitence felt Sir Ostyn's stout arm slacken.

  'Mistook a hollow tree trunk in a hedge for artillery and called on his men to retreat, as it turned out, into real enemy fire?'

  Sir Ostyn's arm dropped away from Penitence's shoulders.

  'Poured rapid fire into advancing enemy all night to discover when dawn broke that he'd peppered the sails of Somerton windmill?'

  Sir Ostyn said nothing.

  At last Nevis looked at him. 'Now fuck off to Taunton.'

  Lieutenant Jones and some of the Lambs lined up to cheer a destroyed Sir Ostyn as he and his troop disappeared into the last of the sun underneath Barnzo's still-hanging body.

  Penitence tried to remember where she'd put the Bridgwater merchant's pistol. She was going to be raped or killed, probably both. Her death would mean Benedick's. She had never felt so frightened but if she could remember where she'd put her pistol she'd go down fighting. She was as terrified for Prue as for herself and her son; the girl didn't deserve what was going to happen to her now. Nobody deserved what was going to happen ... In the kitchen chimney. That was it. She'd become irritated as it clanked against her knees while she'd helped Prue prepare soup during the long hours of waiting for Dorinda to come back.

  Stay away. At the thought of Dorinda, Penitence felt tears come to her eyes. Keep safe. But I wish you were here. You and me together.

  Leaning over the pot she'd felt the pistol hit her knees again and had put it on the sooty shelf inside the chimney. If Nevis's men hadn't thought to look in the chimney, it was still there.

  She heard a whimper. Prue had been pushed into the middle of the courtyard in a circle of soldiers.

  Penitence staggered as the shoulder of Nevis's horse nudged her forward. She looked up. Nevis's hands were on the pommel of his saddle. He was apparently riveted by the condition of his horse's right ear. 'There's two ways of doing this, Mistress Hughes.'

  'I'm not hiding anybody,' she said, and knelt down. 'Please, sir, please, I'm not hiding anybody.' She had turned liquid with fear. There wasn't anything she wouldn't do if he would only not let happen what he was going to let happen.

  'One way,' he said, 'is to give your abigail to my men until you tell me where and who you're hiding.' He smiled and turned his head so that he looked at her. 'Or I can set fire to the house.'

  'Please,' she said, 'please.'

  From somewhere came anger. An odd, almost unrelated anger, for the reduction decent people suffered at the hands of monsters like this man on the horse above her.

  How dare he unman poor, amiable Sir Ostyn and his militia because they couldn't kill? They were crop-growers, children- raisers, they made things - they didn't have time to leam how to destroy efficiently. How dare he take away a harmless life like Bamzo's, how dare he threaten atrocity on Prue, on her. How dare he hate women.

  'You bastard,' she said and ran for the kitchen.

  She got to the chimney in time to see that the pisol wasn't there before they caught her and dragged her back to the courtyard. Her bolt had released the men to action and Prue, lost somewhere under a crowd of them, was screaming. Penitence screamed with her as she kicked and spat at the two men who held her back.

  And stopped.

  'That's not nice, lads. Don't do it,' said a voice that managed to carry and remain conversational at the same time. Somebody new had ridden, unheard, into the courtyard.

  'I heard women screaming,' said the voice, chattily, 'and I said to the Brigadier: That must be old Nevis up there, let's call in. And he said: It looks a decentish place, why not spend the night there? He'll be here in a minute, by the way. Help the lady up, Muskett.'

  Prue, clutching the torn basque of her dress to her breasts, was helped to her feet by a sturdy soldier in buff uniform. Nevis's men edged reluctantly back, wild animals driven back from a carcase by flame. They looked from the speaker on his horse to their major on his. The newcomer had the red and yellow flashes of the Somerset Militia on his collar and sleeves but he was no Sir Ostyn; there was a whip behind the sociability of his tone; besides, he held a pistol - carelessly and as if he didn't know he had it, but steadily - pointed in their direction.

  Unnoticed in the shadows, a great peace descended on Penitence. The other soldier who'd come in with him held a flare which lit up his face; she was eighteen again and he looked as he'd looked in a Rookery alley, smiling on her attackers as if he loved them.

  And I loved you. Then and ever since. So much. With incredulity and pain she couldn't remember why she'd wasted twenty years away from him. Oh, God, what do I look like? She so forgot the situation they were all in that she put up a hand to adjust her hair - and found two of Nevis's soldiers still trapping her arms in theirs.

  They might be on the same side but these two limbs of the army weren't losing any love for each other. The Viscount of Severn and Thames was holding off a nasty situation with personality, two men and a pistol. It isn't over yet. Take care, my dear. She'd caught a glimpse of Nevis's face. He hates you.

  At that moment Henry received reinforcements. A younger man on a handsome horse came trotting into the courtyard at the head of a cavalcade of officers: 'Is supper ready, Torrington? Where is this place? Who owns it? Ah, Nevis; the corpse told me it must be you.' Somebody was already taking down Barnzo's body.

  She knew this man too, though not enough to recall the name — a theatregoer, had done something disgraceful. She was saved. More important, Benedick was saved — if she could manipulate the situation aright. To do that she had to contrive what she longed for anyway, to be alone with the Viscount of Severn and Thames.

  Nevis was sullen: 'The owner's a hell-hag. She's hiding a rebel. I was just going to get her to say where.'

  The name.

  She took a deep breath and pitched her voice across the courtyard. 'Sir John Churchill.' This was James's second-in- command in the West.

  He looked round and squinted in the attempt to place her. At his side the Viscount of Severn and Thames had become very still. She shook off the men who held her and walked forward into the light of the flare, trying to look like the actress she had once been and not the exhausted harpy she felt now.

  'Peg Hughes, by God. What by all that's wonderful do you here?'

  'This is my house, dear,' she drawled. 'The Prince bought it for me. And I have been trying to convince this deranged oaf that I am not entertaining Monmouth in it. Win a pair of gloves, my dear, and send him away.'

  He was charmed to hear theatre slang. He had been stage- struck, she remembered now. Always at the theatre. He'd attacked an orange-girl one night and Otway had called him out for it. He was introducing her to his staff: 'Gentlemen, the dearest friend' — he winked — 'of our hero Prince Rupert, and finest actress of her generation. The stage's not been the same since she and Nelly left the boards.' He made her feel ninety, though he was about the same age. 'Your precious instinct led you astray here, Nevis. Peg, may I also present Colonel Oglethorpe of the cavalry? And Viscount Severn and Thames? You were interested in the theatre at one time, Torrington. You must remember Peg Hughes.'

  There was a pause. 'I do indeed.'

  Penitence looked up into the face of Henry King, and fainted.

  She came to as he carried her up the stairs. Prue was lighting the way and the soldier Muskett was bringing up the rear. This is ridiculous. She was, she knew, near exhaustion but to become so weak when she looked at him as to faint ... nevertheless, the sheer luxury of being in his arms was something she wasn't going to forgo by insisting
on walking. Everything had gone out of her but the physical remembrance of him. She put her cheek against his neck and felt his throat move. And you remember me too. The air about them thrummed.

  'You've got fatter,' he said.

  She grinned because she hadn't. She moved her head so that her skin brushed against the stubble of his chin. He was breathing hard, and not just from expending energy: 'Jesus Christ.'

  Prue opened the door to the bedroom and a small snowstorm of feathers rose up in the draught.

  'What the hell's all this?'

  Lust subsided as the nightmare of the situation came back. He put her down. She said: 'Major Nevis was searching for the rebel.'

  'What did he use, cannon fire?' He caught sight of the petticoats with their obscene holes still hanging from the tester rail. 'I'll kill him.'

  'Henry, I need help.' She struggled for coherence. Muskett was standing in the doorway, Prue was lighting candles in the room. 'I want Prue to go downstairs and bring me some food and drink. I want Muskett to go with her; it's not safe for her to be left alone.'

  Prue looked dreadful. A trickle of blood from her nose had dried on her top lip. She'd managed to tie her torn basque together enough for decency but it showed bruises on her shoulder. 'Are you all right, Prue?' Penitence asked. 'Did they hurt you?' Of course she's not all right. Of course they hurt her. The girl was suffering reaction; the candleholder in her hand was shaking but she was regarding the man who'd saved her from rape with something approaching worship.

  Penitence lowered her voice so that Muskett shouldn't hear: 'And the bandages, Prue. I left them in the courtyard. But don't let anyone see you bring them.'

  The girl nodded and left. With a glance at the Viscount, Muskett followed her.

  As fast as she could Penitence began heaping on the bed the things she would need in the hidden room; light, covering, water ... 'Hold this please.' She passed the Viscount a bowl and ewer.

  Slowly he set them down on a table. 'I gather from this that you lied, do I? You are hiding a rebel?'

  'Not Monmouth,' she said. 'It's your son.'

  She was in a hurry and desperate to recruit his help or she would never have told him like that. She'd had dreams in which she told him. Sometimes it was as retribution: This is the son you abandoned when you abandoned me. Sometimes with sorrowful bounty: See the son I have been nurturing for you. But if the son wasn't to be dead when he discovered he had one she must move fast. She didn't even look to see how he took the news, but tied everything except the ewer in a sheet. She just said: 'When I knock to be let out, press Eve's nipple', pressed it herself and started clambering through the hole, dragging the bundle after her.

  She heard him say: Won't she mind?' as, once in the room, she turned, took the ewer of water off the bed and shut the panel.

  The cluster of holes in the wall showed that candles were lit in the hall where she could hear the great table only used for feasts being dragged to the centre of the room. There must be so many officers to be given supper that the dining-room was too small for them. I hope they've brought their own food. She wondered if her taper would be bright enough to cast a beam through the gargoyle's orifices that could be seen in the hall. She had to risk it. She needed light.

  Benedick lay where she'd dumped him; his breathing was irregular and he was very cold. The room smelled of urine and vomit. For a moment she dithered, undecided which of his needs to deal with first, then set to work.

  After a while the panel slid back and the Viscount's long legs came over the sill followed by the rest of him. 'Muskett's guarding the door.' He looked around. 'God Almighty.'

  'Shh,' she begged, though the noise from the hall below where army sutlers were setting the table would cover any exclamations coming from a gargoyle's mouth. 'Lift him up.' As she put a folded blanket on the floor to act as a mattress under the still-unconscious Benedick, she saw the three of them in a delayed nativity: Joseph, Mary and a large baby Jesus in this taper-lit stable. It was another irreplaceable moment she had no time to savour. 'Look at his head. How bad is it?'

  She'd cut the boy's hair away from the wound showing a straight path of torn flesh.

  He held the taper near the wound and peered. 'I think he was lucky. The bullet grazed his skull, probably cauterizing it as it went. But it gave him a hell of a thump. He'll not be compos mentis for a bit.'

  'He swallowed some sips of soup,' she said. She took the rolled strips of cloth he'd brought and began bandaging, watching him studying Benedick's face. Her movements made the light from the taper flicker, distorting the boy's features. He'll see the resemblance. It was too marked not to be noted. She saw it all the time. 'Will he be all right?'

  'Dark room, rest, liquid food.' He shrugged as he looked around. 'You seem to have thought of everything. Except what they'll do to the two of you if they find you sheltering a rebel. Have you thought of that?'

  She didn't understand him. 'He's my son,' she said. 'Our son.'

  The noise from the hall coming through the air-holes was getting louder as officers gathered to eat. They heard Churchill's voice calling for the Viscount of Severn and Thames: 'Where's Torrington? Still tending our hostess?'

  'Fucking the bitch more like,' said somebody else. It was Nevis's voice. Penitence noted that, though Churchill had reprimanded the man for his treatment of her, he hadn't sent him away.

  'I thought he was courting the Portlannon girl,' said somebody.

  'No marriage contract says you can't fuck a beautiful actress.'

  'Turns my stomach just to sit down with militia.' Nevis again. 'If we'd left it to them, the King would've lost his bloody throne.'

  'Most, I grant you,' said Churchill's voice, 'but if it hadn't been for Torrington and his North Somerset men I'd have lost my life.'

  By her side, the Viscount grunted. 'I must go. I'll leave Muskett on the door. You'll be safe enough.'

  So he's going to get married. She watched him squirm through the panel. 'Henry.'

  His face appeared in the square. 'Yes?'

  'Is the rising all over? Has the King won?'

  He nodded. 'It's all over.' His eyes went to the figure on the floor. 'Bar the killing.'

  She sat staring at the square of light long after he'd gone away. He didn't even ask Benedick's name. If she thought about it she would weep. But she couldn't think about it; she was too damned tired.

  Gently, she laid her son's head on its side on the pillow. He was warm and clean, at least; it was as much as she could do for now. She took up the taper and crawled through the hole with it. She put the panel back, blew out the light and fell asleep.

  Hours later she woke up to the sound of horses and men moving in the courtyard below her window. There were low voices outside her door, then it opened. 'It's me.'

  She knew it was. She brushed feathers out of her face and hair. He came and sat on the bed. 'We're being deployed to chase what's left of the rebels. Monmouth's been sighted heading for the New Forest. I'm ordered after him.'

  You're not leaving me here with Nevis.'

  'No. Nevis is to join the rest of the Lambs at Taunton.' As she sighed with relief, he said: 'Just who is it you've got in there?'

  'Benedick,' she said. 'He's known as Benedick Hurd.' She thanked her God that he'd used the name by which he'd been christened rather than the Benedick Hughes which was how he'd been known at court. It was unlikely that anyone would identify the Major Hurd who had allied himself with Monmouth as Peg Hughes's son and Rupert's foster-son.

  'For God's sake, Boots. Hurd's one of Monmouth's cavalry commanders. Half the country's hunting for him.'

  She'd had no idea. Her son still seemed a child to her. 'What are we going to do? How can I get him away?'

  'You're not - until he's conscious. Then we'll see.'

  'You'll come back?'

  'It looks as if I'll have to.' He slammed his fist on the mattress, and feathers fluttered around them. 'For Christ's sake, Boots, there was no need of all that cock and
bull to present him as my son. I wouldn't have given you away.'

  'But he is your son.' She heard her voice, ineffective and whispering, a snake's hiss, the echo of women down the ages foisting somebody else's child on to the innocent, trusting, helpless male.

  And he said, the Viscount said, Henry King said: 'How could you possibly tell?'

  She looked at the line of his head and shoulders against the glow from the window. Twenty years had taught him nothing. His distrust of her was so great that the attraction he felt for her must be regarded as an aberration. He'd spent all his years in Louis XIV's prison — and probably most of them since - fighting the memory of the whore he'd been ungentlemanly enough to fornicate with, yet unable to forget her.

  I knew who you were the moment I saw you. How could you not know me? There was no act she could perform, no display of virtue that he would ever believe, because he wanted to believe her and the very wanting damned him in his own eyes and society's as a fool.