The King's Bounty

by Sara Fraser

  Suiting the action to his words, Hellfire George stepped down from his box and was immediately lost to view. Jethro glanced about him to see if anyone was paying attention and, satisfied that the passing crowds gave him no heed, he moved forward. Almost instantly, the tiny preacher came to him.

  ‘Come brother, come and receive the blessed laying on of hands from the Lord’s humble servant.’ He placed his hands on Jethro’s shoulders and pressed him downwards so that he could whisper, ‘Did you say Turpin Wright, cully?’ His whiskers tickled roughly against Jethro’s ear.

  ‘Yes, he sent me. He wants to see you. It’s urgent,’ Jethro whispered back.

  ‘Tell him to come to the smithy tonight,’ the preacher instructed, then shouted aloud, ‘Pray to the Lord God, you poor sinner. Only He can save you. Only He has the power to cleanse your black soul.’

  To the chanted chorus of hallelujahs and amens, Jethro stepped back into the passers-by and was swallowed up by them. Unknown to either Jethro or the ranter there had been one interested viewer of their brief exchange; Jackie Smith, muffled in an old bottle-green watchcoat, with a battered straw hat hiding his shaven head. He also slipped into the passing crowds and followed the young man’s tall figure. Jethro felt in his coat pocket for the few pence he had left. He passed a cooked meat stall and the rich, hot, spicy smells of frying sausages and black puddings, pigs’ trotters, and sliced liver caused his stomach to lurch and his mouth to water. He had eaten nothing since the half-bowl of rabbit the previous evening and many hours and long hard miles of travel separated him from that meagre supper.

  A motherly, plump-featured countrywoman had stopped to rest her basket of goods on a convenient window ledge. Jethro halted and brought out his remaining coins.

  ‘What ’ull thee ’ave, my ’andsome?’ The woman chuckled, but her small eyes were calculating.

  ‘I’ll take some cheese, good mother,’ he told her. ‘And you can sell me a couple of onions as well.’

  ‘The wenches ’ull not like to kiss thee, if thee ates these old onions, I’ll tell thee. They be powerful hot to the tongue I’ll promise.’

  He smiled at her. ‘The only girl I’ve seen that I’d want to kiss this day is you,’ he said, and winked at her.

  She cackled delightedly and cut him a large chunk of moist golden cheese. ‘Get on wi’ thee. Th’art a young rip. I’ll wager you’d far sooner kiss summat like that ’un over theer than an old ’ooman like me. Though, mind you, a few years back I was a lush armful for any man, I’ll tell thee.’ She cackled again and her shrewd eyes twinkled as the young man stared appreciatively at the passing woman.

  It was the yellow-kerchiefed ranter, only now her face had lost its sullenness and her lips smiled and her cheek was flushed as she talked to the tall blond-haired and mustachioed young man who walked beside her. Jethro felt a spasm of envy for the man’s good fortune in knowing such an attractive creature, then turned back to the market woman.

  ‘Ere! I’ll gi’ thee these onions for thy cheek,’ she smiled . . .

  Jethro thanked her and walked on, pushing the cheese and onions into his coat pockets. With his last money, he bought two penny loaves from a bread-seller and headed away from the town. A small figure stealthily dogged his steps.

  When Jethro reached the thicket where he had left Turpin Wright, there were only isolated travellers on the road. The young man looked about him, then, fumbling with his laced cod-piece at the front of his breeches, he went into the woodland as if to relieve himself.

  Once under the shelter of the trees’ still thick foliage of dying brown and yellow leaves, he made his way through the undergrowth. Jethro found the flattened bracken where he and Wright had lain, but the man had gone. He began to quarter the woodland, calling softly.

  ‘Turpin? Turpin, it’s me!’

  He had been searching for some minutes when there came a faint outcry which was abruptly cut off before it could gather volume. He ran towards the sound, kicking aside the heaps of fallen leaves and tearing through the thorns and branches of clinging brambles. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a flurry of movement. It was Turpin Wright and another man locked together in silent combat, rolling over and over on the soft layers of dead and rotting vegetation. Before Jethro could reach them, Turpin Wright had pinned his opponent beneath him and was holding a knife to his throat.

  He looked up as Jethro pounded to him, and panted, ‘I spotted this bleeder followin’ you . . . You wants to take more care, cully.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Jethro questioned. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Oh ahr.’ The convict pulled away the broken straw hat from where it had jammed over his prisoner’s face. ‘I knows this little ferret only too well . . . Doon’t I, sweetheart?’ He reached with black-nailed fingers and twisted the man’s ear until it seemed it would tear from the shaven head. The man opened his mouth to scream and the blade of the knife slid in warning across his throat. He clamped his tongue between his yellow teeth and writhed in silent agony.

  ‘It’s little Jackie Smith!’ Wright spat out. ‘He’s a stock-buzzer by trade, that’s all he’s got the guts for, pinching bloody handkerchiefs and faking the Kinchin-lay. He tried fanning the pockets of a cove in Ludlow a few weeks since and the traps took him. Twenty-three times he’s bin nabbed, to my knowledge. They was agoin’ to top him along a me and a few others this time.’ He twisted Smith’s ear, wrenching his head from its pillow of earth. ‘Warn’t they, Jackie, lad,’ he taunted through clenched teeth. ‘They was agooin’ to top you along o’ the flash coves. The only time you’se ever bin in good company in your bleedin’ life. What was the matter, Jackie? Warn’t there nobody you could turn nark on this time, to save your scrawny neck?’

  ‘No, Turpin! No!’ The man gasped in torment.

  ‘Leave him be!’ Jethro spoke sharply. ‘He’s done us no harm, there’s no need to torture him so.’

  Wright snarled a curse and released the bleeding ear. Smith’s head thumped back on to the dirt and he lay gasping for breath, his eyes shifting from one face to the other and his lips pulling back in their peculiar grimace.

  Jethro bent over him. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Smith’s eyes grew cunning. ‘Nuthin’, marster! I didn’t know anybody was in the wood . . . I’se bin runnin’ since we got away from the convoy. I wus on Turpin’s chain, he’ll tell you . . . We all got away together. I didn’t know he wus here . . . Honest, I didn’t . . . I swears it! On me mam’s grave, I swears it!’ The words spouted from him, flecks of spittle spraying from his slack mouth.

  ‘You dirty lying little barstard,’ Wright growled, and sat back, moving the knife to the man’s genitals. ‘I takes my oath, Jackie Smith, that if yo doon’t give us the truth, I’ll cut your balls off and ram ’um down your mouth . . . And if you reckons I’m bluffing, then remember Ranny Powell . . . Or ’as you forgotten ’im? Now tell us how you got rid o’ your bracelets, and how you come by that coat and hat, and how you knew I was ’ere in Bishops Castle?’

  Smith’s weathered face blanched and through dry lips he croaked, ‘Easy now, Turpin, easy. I’ll tell you everythin’.’

  ‘Good! Then tell, an’ remember, one bloody lie and you’ll not be a man no longer.’

  ‘It was Seymour made me do it,’ Smith burst out. ‘I had to tell ’im, or he’d ha’ killed me.’

  ‘How much does he know?’ Wright demanded.

  ‘He knows you got rhino hid somewheers around ’ere. An’ he knows you got pals in this town. That’s all he knows, I swear that’s all he knows.’

  ‘And you?’ Wright shouted. ‘What was you supposed to do?’

  ‘I was told to find yer and join up wi’ yer,’ the man gabbled. ‘Then when I’d found wheer the rhino was stowed, I was to tip the wink to Seymour.’

  ‘Wheer’s the bugger now?’

  ‘In the town theer,’ Smith said hurriedly. ‘Waitin’ for me to come back.’

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ Wright brutally cuffed
the little man, who lapsed immediately into terrified silence. Turpin levered himself up from the trembling body beneath him and stood erect, shaking his head musingly. Then, to Jethro’s surprise, he began to laugh.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Jethro asked. ‘Have you gone mad?’

  His companion sobered abruptly and rested his hand on Jethro’s shoulder. ‘Doon’t worry, my friend. I’ve not gone Dolally Tap,’ he answered quietly. ‘It just struck me as funny, that prize bugger Seymour getting greedy for my rhino.’

  ‘Is it true?’ Jethro demanded. ‘Have you got money hidden?’

  Wright pursed his lips in warning. ‘Allus remember, matey. Little pitchers has big ears,’ he said, and suddenly whirled his wrist chain around his head and brought its doubled links whipping across Smith’s temple. The man’s head jerked horribly at the impact and Wright knelt by his side. He pushed open one closed lid, exposing the white, glistening eyeball.

  ‘It’ll be all right to talk and make some plans now,’ he told Jethro coolly. ‘This bugger ’ull be out cold for an hour or more.’

  Chapter Five

  Night fell and the market was over for another week. The country people went back to their villages and hamlets, their farms and isolated cottages. The wandering traders packed their pots, pans, bolts of cloth, flimsy wisps of silk, and assorted gew-gaws and headed for the next town, the next market. The lucky animals were driven along the lanes by their new masters who would let them breed and eat for a few more months, or even years. Others lay bloody and flayed under the slicing knives and chopping axes of the butchers, or snorted fearfully and rolled their eyes as they waited to be brought to the still busy slaughterers. The small town lapsed slowly into its customary torpor until the next market day should arrive; and soon only the flicker of light behind closed shutters, the solitary footsteps of a man returning from his work and the occasional burst of laughter or snatch of song coming faintly from the town’s taverns showed any life in the dark streets.

  George Jenkins’ smithy was some distance from the town, a tumbledown huddle of sheds standing alone over the brow of a hill, on a lane leading off the road to Montgomery and to Wales. Sarah Jenkins, Hellfire George’s only child, took the bright yellow cloth from her hair and shook out the thick loose coils until the rich chestnut fell in long rippling waves of colour about her neck and shoulders. She lit the rushlight which gave dim illumination to the interior of the living shed. Then she busied herself at the crude charcoal-burning iron stove on which a savoury-smelling mutton stew bubbled greasily. The shed’s walls were part stone, part brick, part wood, the whole jumbled haphazardly as if the builder had taken the materials at random and carelessly flung them together. Its long sagging-roofed interior was partitioned at each end by unplaned warped planking to form sleeping cubicles, one for the man and, at the other end, one for his daughter. The stove was placed across from the door and above it a small hole had been punched through the roof to let the fumes of fuel and food escape. When the wind blew, as it did tonight, from the west, the smoke was blown back into the room, forming a thick fug which left greasy deposits on the earthwashed walls and the broken boxes and chairs that furnished the living quarters. All around the walls were nailed garishly coloured tracts, taken at random from the Old and New Testaments. It was one of these that met the young woman’s fine green eyes as she glanced up from the stove.

  ‘CHARITY SHALL COVER THE MULTITUDE OF SINS . . . BOOK OF PETER.’

  Sarah Jenkins clucked her tongue against her white teeth and her handsome face twisted momentarily in scorn.

  ‘It would take a deal of charity to cover that old hypocrite’s sins,’ she muttered, thinking of her father, then went from the room to stand outside in the rubbish-strewn yard. She lifted her arms above her head and stretched to ease the stiffness in shoulders and back.

  ‘Why did I ever come back here?’ she wondered discontentedly.

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could see the squat outline of the ramshackle forge, its open front a gaping black yawn across the yard, and next to it the low, windowless brick hovel which her father had mysteriously barred and locked three days before and forbidden her to enter. Her curiosity was roused afresh as she looked at the hovel and she sauntered across to it, her tall well-shaped body moving with a natural grace and her skirts held high on her long slender legs to prevent their red doth trailing in the deep layers of mud and dung.

  At the hovel she paused for a moment, listening carefully for any noise in the lane beyond the smithy that could denote her father’s return. Once satisfied that she was in no danger of discovery, she bent, drawing the thick, glossy coils of hair from her ear, and pressed it to the deep crack running diagonally across the rough, nail-studded door. The faint rasping gurgle of half-choked breathing sounded clearly through the crack. Sarah waited, hoping to gain some insight as to who, or what, was within. Twisting her head, she whispered through the crack.

  ‘Who is it in there? Tell me who it is. Don’t be afraid, I want to help you if I can.’

  She listened for a reply, but none came. Only a faint moan and again the gurgles of breath.

  ‘Be damned to it!’ She turned from the door in irritation. ‘I’ll have it out with the old sod, this night,’ she vowed to herself. ‘I’ve a right to know what it is he’s up to. He’ll not find me so meek and frightened of him as my mother was, poor soul.’

  Sarah had been in service as a housekeeper for a gentry family up in Cheshire for some years, and had only returned to keep house for her father, following her mother’s death, a few months previously. Those months had been more than sufficient for her to confirm what she had always suspected. That beneath George Jenkins’ pious, God-fearing façade, there flowed strange and evil currents. She was by no means an innocent herself, but she did not enjoy seeing wickedness hidden under a cloak of piety. The tramp of feet and the murmur of voices sounded from the lane. Quickly Sarah recrossed the yard and when her father opened the door of the living hut, she was seated on a broken-backed chair gazing with chin resting on hands at the glowing heap of charcoal.

  His tiny figure strutted into the centre of the room and his foot thumped down hard on the rammed-earth floor once, twice, three times.

  ‘Now, father, there’s no use you stamping your foot at me,’ she told him calmly. ‘I’m not my mother. You’ll not frighten me with your tantrums.’

  The ranter’s eyes reddened in temper and his delicately shaped hands, calloused and hardened by his work, clenched and unclenched rhythmically. Strangers seeing the smallness of George Jenkins, laughed and doubted when told he was a blacksmith, comparing him mentally with the great muscled men in their fringed leather aprons who normally worked at the forge and anvil. Those who knew him quickly warned the strangers to hide their scoffing doubts. For Jenkins possessed within his minute frame an almost demoniac strength; and there was no man in the county who could swing the heavy sledgehammers as long and skilfully, or handle the beasts brought to be shod as easily, as could Hellfire George.

  ‘Why did’st thee sneak off from the meeting, daughter?’ His huge voice boomed the question as a threat.

  ‘Because I didn’t choose to stay!’ she rejoined spiritedly. ‘I’m sure there were quite enough hypocrites and Jack o’ Bedlams there, as it was. It didn’t need me also to make a show of myself.’

  He tugged at his black whiskers and his reddened eyes held murder.

  ‘In the blessed Book o’ Job, it says, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words wi’out knowledge?” That’s what you’m adoin’ now, you shameless strumpet! Speakin’ wi’out the knowledge of what it is to worship the Lord most High wi’ a pure heart.’

  Before she could answer, a man’s voice called from the doorway. ‘Make haste, George! Let’s do what we come ’ere to do.’

  ‘I’ll spake to thee later, you Jezebel,’ Jenkins warned his daughter.

  He rummaged in a wooden box that flanked the stove and took from its innards half a wax ca
ndle. Lighting it from the flickering rushlight, he left the room, shielding the flame with his hands.

  In the forge, Jenkins took off his black coat and dirty white cravat. In his shirt-sleeves, he arranged a sledgehammer and cold chisels on the work bench. He pointed to the great anvil in the centre of the floor.

  ‘Put thy leg on there, Turpin. I’ll get rid of that ankle-iron first.’

  Turpin Wright nudged Jethro and handed him the knife which he had been pressing against Jackie Smith’s back.

  ‘’Ere, matey, tek this and if this bugger makes one move, then stick him.’

  Smith’s lips bared his yellow teeth. ‘I’ll not move, Turpin,’ he tried to speak lightly. ‘You con trust me. I’m your true friend.’

  Wright nodded. ‘I knows that well, Jackie. Specially when I’se got a blade at your throat,’ he answered dryly.

  Hellfire George hefted the sledgehammer and moved to the anvil. The candle flame threw grotesque wavering shadows across the tiny smith and he seemed to grow taller and broader.

  ‘Now, cully. Keep still,’ he ordered, and as easily as if it were made of twigs, he swung the huge iron sledge high, and brought it down on the ankle iron at the point where the ring of metal was joined. There was a sharp, clanging crack and the fetter split neatly into two halves.

  Turpin Wright opened his tight-shut eyes and gaped at his leg in wonder.

  ‘Rot me bleedin’ balls!’ he breathed. ‘I never felt a thing.’

  ‘No, my bucko! That’s because I’m the finest ironworker you’m ever likely to meet up wi’,’ the ranter boasted.

  Jethro was also impressed. ‘I think that you’re speaking the truth when you say that, Master Jenkins. I do indeed.’

  So engrossed were the men with what they had witnessed, that none of them heard the faint rustle of petticoats brushing along the side of the forge wall. Sarah, unable to contain her curiosity as to who her father’s mysterious visitors were, had crept across the yard and was listening at a spot in the wall where a brick had fallen, leaving a hole.