That was a thought to make my heart thunder. I could feel a sweat breaking out on my forehead at the idea of it. In my mind, it was easy to imagine the blade being drawn across my throat, and if I really thought about it, I could imagine the blade raking across my spine after severing my veins and windpipe and all the other stuff that shows up as gristle in a beheading. I almost disgorged at the thought.
‘Hoi, keep that brute under control!’ Knife-Strop said, and I realized my beast had wandered back towards Moll and was nuzzling at her mare’s tail. I wrenched the reins around as best I could, and the damn thing jerked his head, almost pulling the leather from my hands. Meanwhile, the two guards were laughing, one pointing at my mount’s obvious excitement, and then my monster pranced, reared, jerked himself from side to side, and did everything to dislodge me other than buck. I found myself clinging on for dear life, while the cursed animal did all in his power to evict me, until he tired of the game. By then I was facing back the way we had come. There, far in the distance, was a rider, I saw. He was approaching at speed, and I thought I could perhaps kick this recalcitrant nag into a momentary obedience, and escape quickly in the direction of the man following, but before I could do more than let the idea slip across my mind, Knife-Strop appeared before me. He wore a broad grin, but there was no mistaking the cold menace in his eyes as he nodded his head back the way we had been heading. I managed, on the third attempt, to have the horse turn and begin to walk joltingly again towards Clapham.
We reached the village in the middle of the afternoon. The rider behind us had not been in a hurry, because he had not caught up with us. I was weary, irritable and, most of all, sore. It had been a warm ride, and the dust of the road was choking me. I wanted nothing more than a simple drink to wash away the miles I seemed to have swallowed on the journey.
‘Where is he?’ Moll asked eagerly.
There was a single street running through the centre, and a sprawl of buildings spread out from it, with a decent pasturage and fields visible, bounded by a series of small woods. Near the church ahead of us, I could see some idlers at the front of an old building with the appearance of a happy inn. I guided my horse as best I could and dropped thankfully from the saddle.
‘Wait!’ Knife-Strop said sharply.
‘I don’t care if you throw your knife into me,’ I said. ‘I am tired, hungry and thirsty, and I’m going in here.’
The two may have thought of sending a knife into my back, but the idea just then was less alarming than the thought of riding past this alehouse.
There were three fellows outside, one standing, the other two sitting on a bench with their feet to the road. All had the appearance of peasants at the end of the working day: weary, suspicious, acquisitive, as though they could believe anything evil of us, and probably did. They had that look of men who would happily knock me on the head to see what was in my purse. Yes, I know, I was in a bad mood already, and feared that I might not last the day, but even so, these three were not the sort to send a warm feeling of bonhomie to my heart. One had a terrible squint, and his neighbour only had a thumb and forefinger on his left hand. It looked as though someone had taken off the rest of it with an axe. Well, accidents will happen in the countryside, I’ve heard. Especially when a fight breaks out in a tavern, or when a man discovers his neighbour in bed with his wife.
I put them from my mind. Just now, being knocked on the pate would make for a welcome respite from riding with the two gorillas.
The innkeeper was a big, bluff fellow with an accent I could barely comprehend. In the end, I took the simple approach of pointing to his barrel and demanding a quart. Soon I had a large, foaming jug of ale, and had just lifted it to my lips when a quiet voice behind me all but made me burst the liquid forth like a dragon spurting fire.
‘Humfrie!’ I managed at last.
‘What is this?’ he asked. ‘I thought we said I would stay here and protect the boy, and …’
‘No time for that now. The woman outside is his mother now. She was his wet-nurse, but now she has married his father. The dead priest? He married them.’
‘What of the other two?’
‘They are Seymour’s men, set to guard her, and to keep me with them.’
‘Both have the look of fighting men,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘Yes, and I think they were intending to kill me as soon as they have the boy.’
‘We’d best keep you from them, then.’
‘I just want to be rid of them, and the boy. Is Peg here?’
‘No. I sent her away yestermorn. She was little use here, and I didn’t want her setting up trade in my sister’s house.’
‘Oh. No, of course. I see.’ I drank deeply of the ale. Humfrie took the jug from me and swallowed, and I finished it off. ‘Good! Let’s get the brat, deliver him, and then I can get home and back to real life,’ I said. Momentarily, a vision of the mess of my house sprang into my mind. Blount had described a broken door, belongings all hurled higgledy-piggledy, everything broken or destroyed. I had a sad vision of Hector lying in the midst of the destruction, and it made me steel myself angrily. If I had been armed, and if the two outside had not been quite so large, I might have gone out and attacked them. As long as Humfrie joined me, of course. ‘Let us go and fetch the boy. The sooner they have him, the sooner I’ll be rid of them.’
Humfrie told me which house to go to. ‘You can’t miss it. I’ll follow you and make sure that the two don’t attack you on the way,’ he said.
I walked out again. The two were standing. Knife-Strop, having passed his reins to the other, seemed in the process of coming to fetch me. ‘You took a long time,’ he growled. Moll was still in her saddle, and gave me a nervous smile as though she had been worried that I had fled and taken the boy with me.
Ignoring them, I walked to my own beast and eyed him. He rolled an evil eye to me and stood still, as though contemplating snatching his reins from my hand, but I was not bothered. I pulled him and strolled my way down the street. The others remounted.
Humfrie had told me to look for a cottage of cruck construction. It was the only one, he said, that had solid oak timbers at either end, all curved towards the thatch. I soon saw it, further along the roadway, and headed straight to it, binding the horse to a tree near a trough. He bent his head and began drinking.
It was a small cottage, just one room below, and a small apartment built into the roof space reached by a hazardous staircase. I doubted it had changed much in the last two hundred years. From the smell of the place, it had been around at least that long. But it was warm and cosy with a fire smouldering gently on the hearth, and a pottage bubbling gently above it. I called out, and a voice answered from the garden behind. There I found a woman with a severe face under her wimple scattering grain to a number of chickens. The boy was with her.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded.
‘I am a friend of Humfrie. I asked him to bring Ben here for his protection.’
‘So you say,’ she snapped, and dropped her basket to pull out a long-bladed ballock dagger. It swept past my belly and I squeaked in alarm. She was clearly her brother’s sister. Except she had fewer inhibitions about using violence – and he was a murderer!
‘Ask Ben!’ I said, and I don’t deny that my voice was pitched rather higher than usual.
She said, ‘Well?’ over her shoulder, and the boy, thankfully, indicated that I was indeed his friend.
I was against the wall by now, with my hand placed on my belly in case there was any blood. I hadn’t felt it cut into me, but a fellow never knows. It’s better to be safe than collapse. ‘Mistress, you could have killed me.’
‘There’s little point unsheathing if you aren’t going to use it,’ she said. I’ll swear she was disappointed not to be laying me out in my own gore on the ground. She grimaced as she shoved her dagger into a sheath at her belly. I was relieved to see it go.
‘Master Ben, come with me. Your nurse Moll is outside.’
&nbs
p; ‘What, here?’ he said, and for, I think, the first time without a dog to tickle, I saw him smile. It made me think of Hector, and how he would never be stroked again, never sit beside me and rest his drooling mouth on my best hosen, never steal my breakfast …
Ben ran outside, and I followed at a more leisurely pace, the woman uncomfortably close behind.
‘Moll!’ he cried happily, and threw himself at her. There was clearly no lack of affection between the two, and, I confess, it was heart-warming to see them. Moll pulled him up to her, as best she could, and seated him on the mare’s withers, and then she gave me a broad smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply, and turned her horse around.
Humfrie was at my side when I turned.
The men were already passing around the tavern, and I watched as they disappeared from view, seeing that the little cloud of dust followed them. They were not returning.
I said a heartfelt, ‘Phew!’
‘What?’
‘It’s a relief to be rid of them. The boy and the woman. I had thought I would be caught for … well, for the accident with Anthony Seymour, but in the end it seems that I’ve been saved.’
‘Aye.’
‘You don’t look convinced.’
‘I’m not.’
I frowned at him. He had a habit of looking on the bleak side of life, and on occasion it was wearing. ‘You look on things in that manner, if you wish. Personally, I intend riding home and seeing what has happened to my house. It was trashed by Seymour and his men, and I’ll have to see what I can rescue. Are you coming back to London?’
He had a horse which he had hired from another inn south of the river, and it took little time for him to take his farewell with his sister. Soon we were jogging along on the road north-east again. Neither of us was comfortable, but at least there was satisfaction in knowing that each of us was growing as sore as the other.
There was a small village on the way, which I had noticed on our way down. Just beyond it was a small stand of trees. When I mentioned before the risks of ambush and being attacked, it was here that I was first thinking of such events, and as we approached, my horse grew skittish. He threw his head up and pranced in a very pronounced manner, as though something had scared him. Humfrie held up his hand when I began to berate the animal. He slipped silently from his saddle, throwing me the reins, and crouched low. Stepping forward, he felt the ground and rubbed some soil between his fingers, sniffing at it. Then he threw a look behind us before plunging into the undergrowth where there was a patch of lower shrubbery.
Soon he returned, and, taking back his reins, he mounted in a hurry. ‘Come, we need to hurry.’
‘Why?’
‘His body isn’t yet cold.’
I gaped at that. ‘Whose body? What are you—’
‘You remember the two guards with the woman and little Ben? One of them is back there with his throat cut. His blood’s all over the roadway. We’ll cut around here,’ he said, leading the way. My mount had to be urged on, but at last he complied, and we were on our way.
I was trying to find the words to express my feelings. ‘There was an ambush? There are outlaws about here?’ I gazed about me with increasing panic. ‘We could be murdered at any time, and—’
‘Master Jack, be still! Don’t you realize? Someone else killed one guard, but escaped with Ben and Moll. What does that tell you?’ He had a long face at the best of times, but now it lengthened further as he became increasingly grim. He continued, ‘Someone wants the boy and his mother to be taken to be questioned. It must be the enemies of Lady Elizabeth.’
‘Have you heard of the arrests?’
He looked at me, and as I spoke of the matters that had sprung up, especially the arrest of Lady Elizabeth, his mouth dropped, giving his face the appearance of a depressed mule. ‘Is there news of her?’
‘Not that I have heard, but since they have taken almost all of her household, it can only be a short while before they arrest her too. She has been in the Tower before. I am sure she will survive that, but I am worried about her.’
‘Aye, so her enemies have taken the boy to prove that she was incontinent and committed adultery with Thomas Seymour.’
‘But the boy was not his. He was Edward Seymour’s son.’
‘You think that matters? They’ll torture them both to get the answers they want, so that they can execute Lady Elizabeth.’
I could see this, now that he spoke. It made sense. Someone had paid the guard to betray his master, and take his mistress and the boy. Oh, and slaughter his companion. I must do what I could to prevent a disaster. If my strongroom was still secure, there was money in there for me to find a new life. I could leave London, perhaps take a boat to France, and live well enough with the money I had.
‘We have to catch them,’ Humfrie said.
‘What?’
There are times when Humfrie can be as pig-headed as a … as a mule.
‘What, do you mean go after them?’ I asked.
‘The man has the woman and the boy.’
‘But they are in no danger, surely,’ I said.
‘Someone killed one of their guards,’ he said.
‘But maybe he was going to attack them? The other guard protected them?’
‘The dead man didn’t draw a weapon. He was slain unawares. That means his companion killed him.’
‘Unless it was Moll? Your sister was quick to pull a knife on me, and perhaps Moll is formed from the same mould?’
He looked at me without commenting.
‘Perhaps,’ I babbled, ‘he was killed by his companion, because his companion realized he was a threat to Moll and Ben? He stepped in to protect them, and even now they hurry back to London. He is taking them to Seymour to make sure they are safe.’
‘Or he killed his companion, and Moll and the boy fled from him, knowing he was going to kill them next.’
‘Why would he—’
‘He might catch them at any time. Or they might.’
‘They?’
‘He likely had an accomplice. Someone not on horseback, but who was around here during the attack. Someone who could hang back and attack anyone else passing him.’
‘Eh?’ I glanced about me. ‘Wait! Where are you going? Humfrie! Stop!’
I had not asked which of the men was lying dead, and it was some surprise to realize it was Knife-Strop. The other was clearly alive still and well, because I could see him.
Humfrie, convinced that we may not be far behind the man, was setting a furious pace, and it was only when the horses were close to expiring, unused to such harsh treatment and racing, that we saw them: two men, both large and strong-looking. The guard, of course, I recognized, but it took some galloped yards to realize who the other man was.
‘That’s the man claiming to be Hal Westmecott!’ I shouted.
‘Claiming?’
‘The man who told me he was the executioner, the man who got me involved in the mess from the beginning,’ I said. ‘He told me to find his wife and child, but that was a lie, just to persuade me to do his bidding, the bull’s pizzle!’
‘So what does he want with the woman?’
‘I thought he was working for Seymour, but perhaps he’s working for someone else? The Queen wants anything she can get to ruin Lady Elizabeth’s reputation, after all,’ I said. ‘He must be working for her, and he’s taking Moll and Ben to her to be questioned.’
Humfrie shot me a look. ‘We have to stop them and save Moll and Ben.’
‘How? I don’t even have a dagger!’ I said.
He pulled his ballock knife from his belt and held it out to me. I tried to grab it, but … Look, if you think I’m just incompetent, let me remind you that I was galloping on a horse, being bumped up and down with every pace he took, and that Humfrie was riding at the same pace. The knife was bouncing around like a pea on a drum, and our hands just didn’t connect. I felt a quick pain and yelped as his razor-sharp blade cut my finger, and then the knife went whirlin
g behind us.
Humfrie gave me a long stare of contempt. Then, ‘Keep close to me!’
He lashed his beast’s flanks with the flat of his hand, kicking to increase the mount’s speed, and crouched. I tried to emulate him, bending low over my horse’s neck, but that was more to avoid the risk of a bullet than to go faster.
Humfrie hurtled on, and we were gaining on the quartet. They were riding at a decent pace, but not stretching themselves, and then I saw Hal, or whatever his name was, suddenly turn in his saddle. He caught sight of us immediately, and I saw his jaw drop. In an instant, he had grabbed the sleeve of the man at his side and drew us to his attention. That man turned, and I saw him pull my pistol – yes, he was going to loose my own blasted pistol at me! – and take aim. He clearly snatched a shot, because I saw the pistol jerk in his hand, but he cannot have wound it, else he hadn’t loaded it or checked the priming, because it did not fire. As if thinking he hadn’t pulled the trigger hard enough, he tried it again, and then clearly cursed and flung it away, pulling out his sword and spurring towards Humfrie.
Nothing loath, Humfrie dragged his own sword free, and soon the two were at it hammer and tongs. Meanwhile, I stopped my mount, slid from the saddle and retrieved my pistol. I was right, I saw: the mechanism had not been wound. Quickly, I set the key to the cog and twisted, then remounted, thrusting the gun into my waistband. Hal was some distance away now, and I set off after him.
You may think this was brave. All I can say is, if the man Humfrie was fighting bested him, he was not a fellow I wanted to meet, and just now the ringing clashes of their swords was very clear to me. I was happier leaving them far behind.
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