The King's Bounty

by Sara Fraser

She led him through the green baize double doors to where her mother, an older, plumper version of herself, sat at the round table which was placed before the window of the richly furnished room.

  ‘Welcome home, my dear boy,’ Mrs Ward smiled. ‘For this is to be your home whilst you are in England.’

  David felt that it was all a dream. That the delicately cut morsels of white bread and rich golden honey and butter, the savoury hams and potted meats, the thickly-iced fruit cakes and the scented fragrant dishes of China tea were all figments of his fevered imagination. The feather-light opaque porcelain dishes, saucers, plates, and cups seemed things of no substance; and he found himself repeatedly pinching his patched grey-trousered thighs to reassure himself that the expensive oil-paintings on the walls, the rose-coloured carpets and hangings, and the pastel brocade chairs and chaise-longues were all real. As real as were the two women who fussed over him and pressed titbits upon him. The warmth of the log fire in its decorative grate made him drowsy and he smiled bemusedly at his companions. At Jessica, so sweetly beautiful with her blonde hair dressed in the Grecian style, and her flowing high-waisted peach gown whose almost sheer folds showed off to perfection the dainty curves of her shapely body; and at Mrs Ward, her mother, so like his lonely boyhood dreams of what a mother should be, in her vast snowy mobcap and white lace-ruffled dark dress smelling of lavender and rose-water.

  David finally managed to convince both of his hostesses that he could positively eat no more of the cherry cake, and drink not a single sip extra of the tea or the fine Madeira wine which they offered him. His inner and outer comfort filled him with a sense of tremendous well-being, but also made him very very sleepy. He forced himself to remain awake and asked,

  ‘And the Captain, where is he at this time?’

  ‘Papa is due back at any day,’ Jessica told him. ‘He has been in Worcestershire. There was some difficulty in obtaining the Ballot men.’

  ‘He is well, I trust?’ David beat off a wave of tiredness and went on politely. ‘I look forward to meeting him again.’

  ‘Indeed he is well, David,’ Mrs Ward told him. ‘And will be most disappointed that he was not here to greet your arrival himself.’

  ‘Tell us about the war, Davy,’ Jessica begged eagerly. ‘Were you in many battles and sieges? Have you ever seen the Iron Duke in person, or spoken with him? Are the girls very pretty in Spain and Portugal?’

  He held up both hands in laughing protest. ‘Please, Jessie. One question at a time.’

  ‘No questions at this time!’ Mrs Ward’s kindly face was concerned. ‘For I can see clearly that the poor boy is most dreadfully tired. I insist that you go to your room and rest for a while, David my dear.’

  ‘Oh but Mama!’ Jessica pouted.

  ‘Be silent miss,’ her mother told her sternly. ‘I think it most inconsiderate of you to pester and badger poor David when he has only just completed a most arduous journey . . . No! I will brook no argument from either of you. You will have all the time in the world to talk, now that David is to stay with us.’

  ‘But I cannot impose upon your kindness in this way,’ David began.

  ‘Young man,’ Mrs Ward would not let him continue. ‘If you do not stay with us for as long as you are here in England, I shall be mortally offended . . . You have no other family now that your poor guardian is dead, therefore we are your family now. So off to bed with you and not another word! Not one!’ she scolded fondly.

  Gratefully the young man surrendered to her kindness and also to his bone-deep weariness. He followed the soldier servant who came at the summons of the table bell, up the stairs to his allotted room. David lay back on the soft lemon-scented bed covers and before the servant had finished unstrapping and removing his boots, David was sunk in a sleep of utter exhaustion.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It took William Seymour days of hard travelling to reach Winchester, hampered as he was by the constant rain and sleet which turned the muddy, rutted tracks he used into quagmires. Nevertheless, he was not dissatisfied. He had managed to average over twenty miles a day, and that was cross-country for the most part. He kept well away from the turnpike roads and stage-coach routes, not wanting to risk being seen, and perhaps remembered, in those places where news travelled fastest and was exchanged. An officer who deserted his regiment, as he had now done, would be bound to create a stir of interest and speculation through those circles whose business it was to know of such things, and undoubtedly inquiries would eventually be made concerning him. Therefore, after extorting some money from the reluctant Thomas Marston, Seymour had headed overland for Portsmouth, using drovers’ lanes and bridle paths and avoiding the towns. He had slept in isolated farmhouses and hedge-inns, where people normally asked no questions, so long as a man had money to pay for his needs.

  It was midday when he sighted the town and he reined in his horse to consider his next move. He knew that Winchester lay about twenty-five miles from his final destination—Portsmouth—and with the miserable weather, which even now, at high noon, blanketed the horizon in dark drizzle and cold mists, he did not relish the prospect of travelling on. He touched his spurs to the muddied flanks of his horse and went slowly towards the town. Keeping to the side streets, he made his way to the southern districts where, in a twisting alley, he came upon a small black and white half-timbered inn.

  ‘Dammit! I’ll get food and a bed here and go on to Portsmouth tomorrow,’ he decided, and dismounted, shouting as he lifted his bulging saddlebags from the crupper, ‘Ostler? Ostler? Where are you, damn you?’

  A small ragged barefoot boy came at a run.

  ‘Take my horse,’ Seymour ordered. ‘I want him well rubbed down, then fed and watered.’

  The boy knuckled his forehead and led the tired beast to the stables at the rear of the building.

  The landlord was bowing in the doorway. ‘Good noonday, your honour. Is it good food and drink you’re wanting? If so then the White Swan is the very place to get it.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Seymour stared frostily at the innkeeper. ‘Then perhaps I’d best go on to the White Swan, for this place resembles nothing more than a dung-eating carrion crow.’

  For a moment the man’s broad fat face was nonplussed, then he laughed ingratiatingly. ‘Oh, but you’ve a ready wit, your honour! That’s easily seen.’

  Seymour brushed past the man and entered the low-roofed taproom, leaving the man bowing behind him. The innkeeper followed, still bobbing his head. The cavalryman found the man’s manner increasingly irritating.

  ‘Is trade so bad, that you must jerk about me as if you were a marionette and I a puppet-master?’ he snapped brusquely.

  The obsequious smile never faltered on the innkeeper’s features and he moved to stand beside the long mahogany counter that half-filled the small room. Inwardly he was cursing . . .

  ‘Yes you haughty bastard! Trade is damned bad, or I’d show the likes o’ you the bloody door, and sharp about it too.’

  The only other occupants of the room were two men who sat in the high-backed wooden settle to one side of the blazing fire, opposite the counter. At Seymour’s entrance, they exchanged a meaningful glance and studied the newcomer with covert interest.

  Seymour removed his high-crowned beaver hat and unclasped his military riding cloak from his shoulders, throwing both articles together with his saddlebags, carelessly across the nearest of the several small tables that were dotted about the room.

  The two onlookers mentally evaluated the cost of the clothing the newcomer was wearing. Well-cut plum-coloured coat and waistcoat, dove-grey breeches, gold-tasselled Hessian boots, his linen and cravat lace-ruffled and fine. One of the men nudged the other and said, so low that only they could hear, ‘He’s a well-heeled ’un, John.’

  The other winked one shrewd eye in reply.

  Seymour walked to the fire and warmed his hands at the flaring, spitting logs. Then, for the first time, looked at the men on the settle.

  ‘It’s cold,
nasty weather, gentlemen,’ he remarked.

  Like Siamese twins they nodded and smiled in concert. ‘Indeed it is, sir . . . Indeed it is.’

  ‘Landlord?’ Seymour shouted. ‘Bring me a glass of your best brandy.’ Then invited politely, ‘Will you gentlemen join me in a glass?’

  ‘That’s very civil of you, sir.’ The speaker rose to his feet and bowed. ‘Allow me to introduce myself and my friend.’ His accent had a slightly foreign intonation. ‘My name is Aaron Levi, and may I present my friend, Juan da Costa.’

  The second man then rose and bowed. Seymour bowed back.

  ‘My compliments to you both, gentlemen. My name is William Seymour.’

  ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, sir . . . Delighted! Please!’ Aaron Levi waved a beringed hand at the chair facing the settle-seat across an oblong table. ‘Will you do us the honour of joining our company?’

  Seymour accepted. His two new acquaintances were very similar in build and features. Both wore their grey hair fairly long, smoothed down on to their heads with sweet-scented pomades . . . Both had plump, swarthy, clean-shaven faces dominated by large fleshy noses and small black eyes. Both wore many-jewelled rings and large diamond-studded cravat pins, and their sombre clothing, with pantaloons trapped beneath high-low boots, was of excellent quality. Seymour put them down as rich merchants. In the first respect he was correct. Both men were wealthy. In the second respect he was very wrong. Aaron Levi and Juan da Costa were notorious in the gambling hells of London, where they were better known by their sobriquets as the ‘Hebrew Star’ and ‘Portugal John’. They were two of the most ruthless and skilful cheats and sharps ever to flourish in the haunts made fashionable by the Prince Regent and his profligate circle.

  The landlord brought in the glasses of brandy and the three men toasted each other.

  ‘Do you reside locally, sir?’ Portugal John asked politely.

  ‘No, I’m travelling through. I have some business to attend to farther south,’ Seymour told him, and in turn asked the pair what they were doing in the area.

  ‘We are merchants in gemstones and jewellery,’ Aaron Levi smiled disarmingly.

  ‘You are not English, are you?’ Seymour pressed them, his agile mind wondering already if this meeting could be used in some way to fatten his own very slender purse.

  ‘No, sir, we are not,’ Portugal John smiled, showing false dentures fashioned from gold and ivory, then continued smoothly. ‘At present we reside in Amsterdam, but we are “Marranos”. That is to say we are Spanish Jews whose forefathers were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula many years ago by the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella.’

  ‘Most interesting,’ Seymour nodded, and finished his drink. ‘Will you have another, gentlemen?’ He pointed to their glasses.

  They accepted, and in return when those brandies were gone invited Seymour. Some time went by in this pleasant way and then, when in his turn Seymour called for more drinks, Aaron Levi objected.

  ‘No, no, good sir! You must allow me to call the drinks. It is my turn.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Seymour ejaculated. ‘It’s my turn.’

  ‘No indeed, sir!’ Aaron Levi expostulated. ‘I really must insist that it is mine.’

  They began to wrangle over it, and Portugal John entered the argument by claiming that it was no one’s turn but his. Seymour laughed aloud, the flow of brandies and the warmth of the room making him feel relaxed and careless.

  ‘Let us not quarrel, gentlemen,’ he said expansively. ‘There is no need for dispute. We have the ideal means of deciding who is to pay, right here on the table beneath our noses.’

  Both men regarded him with puzzlement. He laughed again at their expressions and pointed to a small round leather cup standing on the end of the table.

  ‘The dice, gentlemen! We’ll throw the dice and the loser shall pay.’

  His companions looked doubtful.

  ‘I don’t know . . . You see our faith does not allow us to gamble,’ Portugal John began.

  ‘Come now, gentlemen?’ Seymour feigned amazement. ‘How can it be called gambling? A little hazard between ourselves for a glass or two of brandy . . . Goddammee! I’d not call that gambling!’

  The more reluctant they appeared, the more determined Seymour became that they should play, and he badgered them until they finally agreed.

  ‘Very well, sir. We will play, but only for this one drink,’ Aaron Levi said.

  They all threw the dice in turn and Seymour lost. Portugal John shook his head.

  ‘I feel, Cousin Aaron, that we really should give this gentleman another throw. After all, when we are the guests of a nation of sporting men, it is only common courtesy to comply with their customs and habits.’

  ‘But the Rabbi Sholem?’ Levi demurred. ‘What would he say?’

  Portugal John winked roguishly. ‘The Rabbi Sholem, good old man that he is, is many miles from here across the German Ocean. What he does not see will not hurt him. Besides, I find that I am enjoying this sport. It is a change for us to take a little risk with the laws of chance, is it not? And exciting also . . . I like it.’

  ‘Well said!’ Seymour applauded. ‘Spoken like a sportsman, dammee!’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps you are right . . . Surely there cannot be anything sinful in indulging in such a harmless practice and taking amusement from it . . . We will play for a while,’ Levi agreed.

  ‘Good! Come, gentlemen!’ Seymour scooped the pair of dice into the leather cup . . . ‘And just to make it even more interesting, why don’t we wager a few shillings on each throw . . . It will add savour to the game.’

  The two men opposite him exchanged shocked stares, then, as if taking a big decision grinned at each other and nodded.

  ‘I agree!’ Portugal John exclaimed, then added jokingly, ‘That is, if my Cousin Levi here will promise me that he won’t tell the Rabbi Sholem what we have done, when we return to Amsterdam.’

  Levi chuckled, his face aglow with his sense of daring to pluck forbidden fruits. ‘Very well, Juan, it is a bargain. I will say nothing, if you won’t.’

  They playfully clasped hands to seal their pledge, and Seymour, impatient with these two timid fools, shook the dice so that the ivory cubes rattled hollowly inside the leather cup.

  ‘A crown piece says that I shall throw the highest score, gentlemen.’ He cast the cubes to bounce across the stained wood of the table.

  His companions glanced at each other, their eyes showing their contempt for this new victim and then gave their full attention to the fallen dice.

  *

  The play followed the classic pattern with Seymour winning a little, then losing more, then gaining the advantage in throw after throw. All the time the stakes rose higher and higher. Portugal John appeared to be losing heavily and at last he burst out angrily,

  ‘Madre mia! I think God must be angry with me. My luck is terrible. Absolutely terrible.’

  Aaron Levi, who was winning a small amount, chuckled with pleasure. ‘It does my heart good, Cousin John, to see you lose at something for once in your life . . . This is a good lesson for you. I haven’t forgotten that business in Antwerp when you did me down.’

  Portugal John reacted furiously to that statement. ‘What do you mean by saying that, Cousin Aaron? Tell me, what are you trying to insinuate?’

  Levi also grew angry. ‘Insinuate? I insinuate nothing, cousin, I speak openly. You cheated me in Antwerp and now I am having my revenge.’

  ‘Why you . . .’ Portugal John lunged at the other man and, grasping him by the cravat, shook him violently. Levi fought back, gasping and coughing for air as the linen tightened about his fat neck. Seymour rose from his seat and bent across the table to thrust the scuffling pair apart. As he did so, Aaron Levi’s hand slipped unseen under Seymour’s chest and substituted another set for the dice in the leather cup. Once the switch had been completed, they allowed Seymour to force them back into their seats, flushed and panting from their exertions. Levi wa
s the first to speak.

  ‘I know a way to settle this, Cousin Juan.’

  ‘Oh, do you indeed?’ Portugal John sneered.

  ‘Yes I do.’ Levi took from an inside pocket a flat leather wallet and opened it to display some folded papers. ‘There!’ he said triumphantly. ‘There are notes drawn on banks in London, in Amsterdam and in Antwerp . . . Call any amount you wish and I will match it and cast the dice for it. I think you cheated me that day in Antwerp, and I believe that God above will give me justice by letting me win the wager.’

  William Seymour could not take his eyes from the well-filled wallet. His mind raced as he computed what could be done with such an amount.

  ‘Very well, I accept the wager!’ Portugal John’s excited voice broke the cavalryman’s train of thought.

  ‘Then name the amount,’ Levi challenged.

  ‘Now gentlemen, I trust this wager is to be open for all to join in?’ Seymour queried.

  Both men were so intent on each other that they barely glanced at him.

  ‘Of course Mr Seymour. If you wish to participate, you are very welcome,’ Portugal John answered. ‘I do not mind who wins, so long as it is not Cousin Levi.’ The last sentence was uttered with vehement dislike.

  ‘And I feel the same way about Cousin da Costa,’ Aaron Levi retorted.

  William Seymour felt wild joy swell within him. Always a reckless gambler, today he felt that the dice were his to command. The brandy had increased his habitual readiness to take risks to an almost insane degree. He went to his saddlebags and took from one of them the purse of gold coins that Thomas Marston had given him. Twenty sovereigns clinked in the soft pouch, and he put them with his pile of winnings and pushed the entire total into the centre of the table.

  ‘There are forty-seven pounds, gentlemen. Will you meet it?’ His companions nodded grimly and each laid out notes and coins for similar amounts.

  Aaron Levi took the cup, and shook hard and threw.

  ‘A trey and a six,’ he shouted happily. ‘That’s nine, gentlemen, and hard to beat.’