Georgette Heyer (11 page)

  'Why, how is this?' Charles said. 'I assure you I do very well where I am.'

  She began to spread a napkin on the hay and to lift out of her basket pasties, white bread, and a stone-bottle of wine, sealed with black wax. While the King ate and drank, she continued kneeling beside him, alternately bewailing his hard lot, and begging to know how she might help him. Since there was no way in which she could help him, he found her a little tiresome, but answered with great patience. At last, observing the white ness of his hands, she exclaimed that that fault at least could be remedied, and promised to make a decoction of walnut leaves and water to stain his skin to a reechy complexion.

  Later in the afternoon, her husband visited the barn, with a soldierly-looking man at his heels, who proved to be his lately imprisoned son, come home that very day upon parole from Shrewsbury. He seemed as though he would have been very glad to have helped the King, but as he was confined to a five-mile radius of his home there was no assistance he could render him. He was greatly shocked at the miserable clothing the King wore, and at the condition of his shoes; but being a slighter, smaller man, nothing in the way of a change of raiment that he could offer him would fit the King.

  When darkness fell, he fetched the King out of the barn, and took him into the house, Mrs Wolfe having sent the servants out upon some pretext or another. Supper was laid before Charles, and when he had eaten, Mrs Wolfe found a pair of long white stirrup-stockings to put on over the torn pair he was wearing, and stained his face and hands with walnut-juice, telling him he need not fear to wash his skin, for the stain would not soon wear off.

  While this was doing, Mr Wolfe kept watch, obvi ously, from the starts he gave at every unexpected sound, and his frequent glances towards the clock, dreading lest the servants should return before their time, or some late visitor arrive and discover the King under his roof. As soon as it could be thought safe, he conducted the King out of the house by the back way and took leave of him, and then, hardly waiting until Charles and Richard were out of sight, hurried back to see that no trace of the visit should be left.

  The King was a good deal refreshed by his long sleep, and the food he had eaten, but his feet were if anything more painful than before, and covered with blisters. He could not help limping, but he made no complaint, and invariably answered Richard very cheerfully whenever he spoke to him.

  They did not talk much, both being by nature taciturn, and the King just now weighed down by the burden of thoughts which Richard could not comprehend. He allowed Richard to lead him where he would, caring indeed very little where they went, so hopeless had the dream of his ultimate escape to France become.

  By common consent they avoided Evelith Mill, but when, after about four miles of very rough walking, they came to the little river which ran past it, a new problem presented itself: how to cross it?

  Richard, who had hitherto taken the lead upon all occasions, the King following obediently in his wake, was at a loss. Charles roused himself with an effort, casting a measuring glance athwart the stream. 'Can you swim?' he asked.

  Richard shook his head. 'Nay, master, not I!' he said, with a shudder. 'Alack, what is to become of us? We be bound to go across the bridge at Evelith!'

  'Nonsense, why should we?' said the King. 'It is but a little river, and since I can swim I'll engage to help you across.'

  Richard, whose nerves on dry land nothing could shake, crossed himself with such a moan of dismay that the King burst out laughing. 'Nay, nay, I dursn't,' he said. 'I'll drown, for sure!'

  'Drown in that rivulet?' mocked the King. 'Come, give me your hand, chicken-heart! I won't let you drown.'

  He waded into the stream until he stood waist-deep in the middle, and paused there, holding out his hand for Richard to grasp. Richard hesitated upon the brink, but upon the King's laughing at him again, set his teeth, and entered the water. It never came above their middles, and they soon reached the farther side, the King drawing his shrinking henchman on irresistibly, and Richard clinging to his hand with as frenzied a grip as though he were indeed on the point of drowning.

  They squeezed the water out of their breeches as well as they could, and went on, but the discomfort of wet clothes clinging about his limbs was an added ill the King found hard to bear. If the journey to Madeley, with the prospect of a safe passage into Wales ahead of him, had been hard to accomplish, this back ward journey was ten times harder. His swollen and bleeding feet forced him to go slowly, and it was near dawn when Richard paused in his tracks to say that they had come within sight of Boscobel House. 'And I do think, my liege,' said Richard, 'that maybe I should go on alone to be certain sure there's none but William and his good wife within. It would be a rare foolish thing to bring your honour all this way only to walk into a trap.'

  'Do as you please,' the King said wearily.

  'I'll leave your honour in the field alongside the house,' said Richard, 'and go wake William.'

  The King returned no answer, but dragged himself on in Richard's wake through a hedge into a meadow smelling of cow-dung. Here Richard left him, under a tree, and went on as quickly as he could towards the wicket gate which led into the garden of the house.

  The King sat down, leaning his back against the tree, and closed his eyes. It seemed a long time before he heard in the distance the click of the gate and the sound of a quick footstep. It sounded too quick and too light to belong to Richard, and he struggled to his feet, seized by swift alarm. The moonlight showed him the outline of a man approaching the tree, with two other, thicker outlines in his wake. He stood still, his hand clenching the broom-hook, which had served him all the way as a staff.

  The foremost figure had reached him, and was holding out his hands that gleamed white in the moon light, 'Sire, sire!'

  The King let the broom-hook fall. He leaned forward, straining his eyes to see the newcomer's face. He put out his hands, and caught the ones stretched towards him, holding them in a hard grasp. 'Carlis?' he said incredulously. '
Carlis?'

  'Yes, yes, my liege! Oh, my dear master, what have they done to you?' Major Carlis cried, and dropped to his knees, carrying the King's hands to his lips, and bathing them with the sudden rush of his tears.

The King bent over Carlis, still grasping his hands, himself much moved by this unlooked-for meeting. 'Carlis, Carlis, I thought you dead at Worcester! How came you here?'

  'Faith, sir, by devious paths!' the Major replied unsteadily. 'I still wonder at finding myself alive, since I believe I and some few others were the last men out of Worcester. But there's no killing an old campaigner, as your Majesty knows!' He rose from his knees. 'Let us take you in, sir; here is my old acquaintance, Will Penderel, come to beg that you will be pleased to honour his house with your presence.'

  'That is very prettily said,' remarked the King, his voice, though weak with fatigue, betraying a flicker of humour.

  'Oh, I have often thought of turning courtier, sir,' the Major said, leading him towards the house, one hand still clasping his, and the other strong arm passed sustainingly about his waist. 'Run on, Will, and see if your good-wife is up yet, for I think we shall have need of her.'

  William returned no answer, but forged ahead with long strides, while Richard brought up the rear of the little procession.

  When they reached the house, they found that William had not found it necessary to bid Dame Joan come down to the kitchen. At the first word of the King's arrival with Richard, she had nipped up out of her bed, and by the time he stood upon the threshold, she had kindled a fire on the still-warm ashes in the fireplace, and slung an iron cauldron half-full of water from the big hook that dangled from the chimney.

  Carlis brought the King immediately into the kitchen, which was a big low-pitched room, lit by a few tallow candles, and a lamp hanging from one of the massive oak-beams.

  The good-wife, who was a neat, comely woman, with the ruddy cheeks and calm eyes of the country dweller, bobbed a curtsey, at first a little shy of such an exalted guest; but when she dared to look up at Charles she saw how young he was, how wet, and muddied, and how haggard, and forgot that he was a King, and whisked about to pull a chair up to the fire, saying over her shoulder: 'Bring the poor lad to the fire, sir. Will'am, do you close that door, and see that the shut ters be bolted tight! My sakes, did that feckless Richard lead you through a midden, sir? There, now, never fear! You are safe here.'

  'You see, sir, that you are come amongst friends,' Carlis said, a gay note in his voice oddly at variance with the look of shocked pity in his keen eyes.

  The King sank down into the chair, smiling with an effort upon his hosts. 'I thank you, I thank you,' he murmured.

  Carlis, who had cast one swift appraising glance at him as soon as he had come into the lamplight, turned sharp on his heel, saying cheerfully: 'What have you in your larder, Dame Joan?'

  'Little but bread, and some cheese, alack the day!' she replied.

  'Why, that's food for a prince!' he said. 'I warrant when his Majesty has tasted of your cheeses he will desire no better. Come you with me, Richard, on a foraging expedition. Bustle about, man!'

  'Ay and I will make a posset,' said Dame Joan, running an experienced eye over the King. 'I don't doubt you will have taken a chill, sir, as wet as you are. But a posset will drive it out, never fear! Will'am, don't you be standing gaping, but fetch a jug of small beer to me straight!'

  'Where is my Lord Wilmot?' the King asked anxiously.

  'He's safe enough, my liege, in a very honest Cath olic gentle-man's house, over to Moseley. Will'am will be fain to tell you about him presently. Do you draw close up to the fire, now, and warm yourself !'

  The King obeyed her, watching her as she moved about the kitchen, first setting a place for him at the table, then peeping into her cauldron, or snuffing a candle that had begun to gutter. She smiled comfortably at him when she chanced to meet his eyes, and when Major Carlis and Richard came back into the kitchen with provender from the larder, bade them place all upon the table, and pull off his Majesty's wet shoes and stockings. It was Carlis who performed this office for him. When he saw the condition of the King's feet, he stayed for a moment, looking down at them, his mouth rather grim under his neatly curled moustachios. Dame Joan came up with a basin of warm water, and told him to get up from the floor, for she wished to bathe his Majesty's feet. The Major rose, saying with determined cheerfulness: 'We must find a dry pair of shoes for you, sir.'

  This, however, was easier said than done, there being none in the house to fit the King. In the end, having washed away the mud and the bloodstains, and cut the blisters, Dame Joan was forced to put hot embers into the old shoes to dry them.

  Meanwhile, the King made a hearty meal, washing down the bread and cheese with a posset of thin milk mixed with small beer. At his request, William Penderel sat down on a joint-stool and told him as much as he knew of Lord Wilmot's movements. He spoke slowly, and at first seemed to hesitate a good deal, but when he found that the King only laughed at certain freedoms of speech, he grew more at ease, and very soon was giving Charles a graphic, though laconic, account of the whole affair.

  It was evident that John Penderel had found my lord a tiresome charge.

  'When your honour was gone with Richard into Spring Coppice,' said William, 'John carried my lord off, meaning for to take him to Shores', at Hungerhill, but my lord misliking the place, – 'deed, and it's a poor enough roof to set over a great lord's head – he bethought him that maybe John Climpson, which is an honest man, would shelter his lordship; and that failing –'

  'How so? Would he not receive my lord?' inter rupted the King, between mouthfuls.

  'Ay, he would, and my lord have been as right as a ram's horn there, but his lordship would not conde scend to it.'

  The King's eyes gleamed. 'Was my lord so nice, then? Go on, man! Tell me the whole!'

  William scratched his chin, saying diffidently: 'I be not wishful to offend your honour, but seemingly my lord's one as would find fault with a fat goose, by what John told us. He was hard put to it to get his lordship under cover for the night, his lordship scorning to set foot in the first dwellings John carried him to, and mistrusting Reynolds of the Hide, on account of his being a very poor man, and his house close upon the highway. So then John bethinks him of one Mr Huntbach, which is a gentleman mighty well-affected to your honour, and lives at Brinsford. Maybe his lordship would have been pleased to rest there, but by ill-hap, passing Coven, they had news of a troop of horse in the town, which put my lord into a fright, him being one as thinks every bush a boggard, as the saying is. Then they see some men on the road, which was friends, but my lord would have it otherwise, and got to thinking the country side was rising on all your honour's party. A terrible time John had with him, for sure.'