Georgette Heyer (4 page)

  The host, roused from deep sleep by a thundering upon the door, soon thrust his head out of an upper casement, and demanded querulously who was there. He was with difficulty persuaded to come down, and when he did presently unbar the door, he was startled to perceive by the light of his lantern a host of horsemen in the road. He stood goggling, the lantern unsteady in his grasp. He heard the creak of saddle-leathers, the clank of spurred heels alighting on the road, and held the lantern higher to peer fearfully at men stretching cramped limbs, at weary, sweating horses, and, most fearfully of all, at a figure astride a great grey gelding. In the wavering lantern-light, the King seemed a giant to the bemused innkeeper, who stared up at him with starting eyes, and blanched cheeks.

  Darcy's hand on his shoulder made him jump. He began to stammer out disjointed entreaties and protes tations.

  'Oddsfish! The poor man must think us a band of cut-throats!' said the King. He leaned forward a little, and asked: 'Friend, can you give us food and drink?'

  The man's gaze, travelling round the dimly seen group, widened in a new horror. He shook his head, but presently, reassured by the Lord Talbot, found his tongue, only, however, to say that he had no provi sions for such a company, no, nor enough for any one amongst them. In the end, he brought out ale, and half a loaf of bread, which Buckingham handed up to the King saying: 'Your ox, sir.'

  The King dug his strong white teeth into the crust. While he demolished the bread, some of his followers seized the opportunity to tighten bandages round flesh wounds, while others besieged the innkeeper for ale. The Lord Talbot, fretting to put more distance between the King and Cromwell, stood with enforced patience beside his horse until the last crumb of the bread had disappeared. The King finished his ale, dropped a gold piece into the tankard, and handed it down to Darcy, waiting at his stirrup. Talbot mounted his horse, saying: 'We have no time to lose, sir. We must go on.'

  Hooves scraped and clattered on the road; before the innkeeper's wondering eyes the troop melted gradually into the night, until he was left, clutching the King's tankard in his hand, listening to the hoof beats growing fainter in the distance, and still smelling the lingering scent of leather and of horseflesh.

  The King's party rode on through the night. Occa sionally a horse would stumble in some pit; a man would curse; or a trooper, reeling with weariness in the saddle, jerk himself awake; sometimes the way would be lost, and found again only after a halt exacerbating to nerves on the jump. For a mile or two beyond the ale house, the King's spirits had seemed to revive, but very soon he grew silent, so deeply abstracted that when Wilmot spoke to him he seemed not to hear.

  A few stars shone between the cloud-drifts overhead; once a watchdog barked in a farmstead crouching beneath the shoulder of a little hill.

  Mile after mile slid past; Himley and Wombourn were left behind, and the road curved westwards towards the village of Upper Penn. Here Charles Giffard called a halt, and his servant, Yates, took on the leadership. The troop plunged into a lane so narrow that there was no room for more than two men to ride abreast. The clouds, parting, allowed the faint starlight to show the way. Once Talbot called sharply to Yates, asking whether he were sure of his direction.

  At a hamlet, which Yates said was Wightwick, the road from Bridgnorth to Wolverhampton crossed the lane. They turned into it, and once more the straggling cavalcade closed up to ride four abreast. The horses were stumbling now from exhaustion; one or two were going dead lame, but were forced on.

  Again Yates led the troop off the great road, into another lane bordered by banks and ragged hedges.

  'God send this fellow knows where he is going!' remarked Buckingham, who had taken Wilmot's place beside the King. 'There is a damned reek of cow-byres. Are you awake still, sir?'

  'I am not sleepy,' the King replied.

  ''Sblood, you're more than human, then!' Buck ingham said. He shifted his bridle into his right hand, and laid the left on the King's knee. 'Shall I go with you, cousin?' he asked softly.

  'No. Save yourself, George. I shall do best alone.'

  'You cannot go alone: there must be someone to wait upon you. You are the King.'

'I shall keep Harry near me.'

  Buckingham removed his hand. 'You know well Wilmot likes danger only until he comes face to face with it,' he muttered. 'Why do you choose him? Do you doubt me?'

  'No,' the King said wearily.

  'If you had trusted me today with the command that should have been mine, you would not now be flying for your life!'

  The King was silent. Buckingham, who knew well that defensive taciturnity, fell back, and allowed Derby to ride by the King's side.

  'Can I trust these men you are taking me to?' Charles asked abruptly.

  'I believe them to be very loyal to your Majesty. This fellow who is conducting us is brother-in-law to them, Giffard tells me. They are poor Catholics, and have no cause to love the sectaries. I found them honest. There is, moreover, a secret place in the house, where your Majesty may lie hid.'

  The King nodded, and said no more. The lane, which was twisting and very rough, plunged suddenly into the darkness of a great wood. A faint grey light in the east showed the dawn to be creeping upon them. Giffard saw it, and held a few moments' anxious discourse with his servant, at the end of which he begged the King to leave the lane, and take to the woods and the fields.

  'It will soon be daylight, sire, and your Majesty must not be seen with this escort. I have spoken with my man, and if your Majesty would be pleased to follow us we will lead you to another house, not so remote as Boscobel, but, I dare pledge my faith, as secure.'

  'How far is this house? Where is it?' Derby demanded.

  'It is now only a matter of six or seven miles distant, my lord. The house is a manor in my uncle's demesne, called White-Ladies. It is mine own home; and a faithful kinsman of mine lodges there as well, also John and George Penderel, whom your lordship knows.'

  'Oh! Two of the five honest brothers? Well, let it be as you advise – if his Majesty so wills it.'

  'Do with me as you please,' the King said. 'I should like to come out of the saddle as soon as may be.'

  'Only trust me, sir!' Giffard said, distressed by the fatigue in the King's voice.

  'Why, so I do! Lead on, good friend.'

  The King urged his reluctant horse forward as he spoke, and entered the skirts of the wood beside Giffard.

  A tangle of bracken made the going difficult at first, and occasionally a low-hanging branch, unseen in the dimness, would sweep some unfortunate gentleman's hat from his head; but in a little while the trees grew more sparsely, dwindling towards the open, undulating country to the north. Up gentle hills, down into rich valleys, now thrusting through gaps in thin hedges, or fording swollen streams, the King's party pushed on, dreading lest the dawn should discover them to some labourer going early to work in the cow-byres.

  The light was stealing above the horizon when they came again into very woody country. For the first time the King failed to hold his horse together when it stumbled. The grey recovered, and the King said, with a faint laugh: 'Fie, I must have been asleep!'

  'Be of good heart, sire,' Giffard said. 'There is White Ladies, straight before you.'

  'Thank God for it!' Derby said, riding close beside the King. 'Your Majesty is spent.'

  'No more than yourself, my lord,' the King retorted, with an effort at cheerfulness.

  The Manor of White-Ladies, a half-timbered building erected beside the ruins of a monastery, was built in the form of a quadrangle, and enclosed by a wall in which an old gabled gate-house was set. Francis Yates had already dismounted, and was hammering on the solid oaken door. Presently the latticed casement above was opened, a head protruded, and a voice demanded sleepily: 'Who's there?'

  'It's me – Francis!' Yates called up to him. 'Come ye down, George Penderel, come ye down, man, and let us in!'

  'What has befallen? Who is with you?'

  'Haste ye! It's the King!' Yates said.

  'The King!' The voice sounded stupefied; and then grew sharper: 'I'll come! I'll come! Lord ha' mercy!'

  The head disappeared; in a few moments the glow of a light shone through the casement, and then vanished. Footsteps clattered down bare stairs, bolts and chains creaked and jangled. The door was opened by a man dressed scantily in a shirt and hodden grey breeches, and holding up a horn-lantern in one hand.

  The King rode through the gateway into an open enclosure, and dismounted stiffly. In his wake streamed his escort, until the enclosure, which seemed to be partly wild and partly cultivated, thronged with men and horses.

  A casement in the house was flung open, and a shrill female voice desired to know the reason for such a commotion. Yates shouted above the noise of tram pling horses that it was the King, and Mrs Andrews must come down at once to let him in.

  'A very faithful woman, sire: the housekeeper,' Giffard told the King.

  A sharp exclamation broke from Mrs Andrews. She called: 'Then all must be lost! Wait till I slip on my kirtle! I will be with you anon. Woe's the day that brings his blessed Majesty here, for I know well what it must mean!'

  She drew in her head, but others were awake in the house by this time, and the door was opened a bare couple of minutes later by a man wearing a frieze cloak over his night-rail, and with his feet thrust into odd shoes. He held a branch of candles aloft, and presented such a comical appearance that the King began to laugh.

  Charles Giffard said quickly: 'George! It is the King!'

  George Giffard's startled gaze sought his kinsman's face for an instant; his hand, holding the candlestick, shook, and a little hot wax spilled on to his fingers. The trifling pain seemed to recall his wandering wits. He pulled the door wide, trying to bow, to keep his cloak close about him, and to bear the candles steadily. 'Your Majesty!' he stammered. 'Forgive – I am all unprepared!'

  The same shrill voice which had accosted the troop from the upper window sounded on the stairs; Mrs Andrews came stumping down, and across the raftered hall, scolding and commanding in one breath. Let them usher his sacred Majesty in immediately, addlepates that they were! Would none think to blow up the fire without telling? Must a poor woman be everywhere at once, and not a man amongst them with more wit than might be trussed up in an eggshell?

  She snatched the candles out of George Giffard's hold, and set them on the table, and began bobbing curtseys as the King came in, with Derby, Talbot, Lauderdale, Wilmot, Buckingham, and the Gentlemen of his Bedchamber crowding after him. The big hall was suddenly full of men. A boy who had crept halfway down the stairs to gape at the unexpected guests, rubbed his sleep-drowned eyes, as though to rub away the unquiet vision of faces swimming before him in the flickering candlelight. He had never seen such a noble company, and half-thought himself dreaming. The paved hall echoed to the clank of spurred heels, and the knocking of scabbards against the homely furniture. Everywhere he looked, he saw plumed hats, and lovelocks, rich baldricks, and fine lace. Then he became aware of Mrs Andrews drop ping curtseys before a man who topped by half a head any other in the hall, and stared pop-eyed at the sight of that redoubtable dame mumbling kisses on to a white hand held out to her. It made him rub his eyes again to hear her say: 'God bless your Majesty!' for he thought that a King would wear a crown and robes, not a buff leather coat, splashed with mud, like this tall Cavalier, with only a blue riband and a great, sparking jewel on his breast to distinguish him from any other in his train.

  Then the King vanished from his sight, swept into the parlour by Mrs Andrews; and a fresh wonder burst upon the boy's starting gaze. A big grey horse, mired to the belly, was led into the hall. Bartholomew discov ered, listening intently to the snatches of sentences, that this was the King's horse, and supposed that King's horses had to be more nobly lodged than their fellows. But soon he began to understand that for some reason the King's horse must not be seen by any outside the house. Mr George Penderel was eagerly questioning one or two of the Cavaliers; and Bartholomew, clutching the balusters, and leaning forwards the better to hear, caught words and disjointed phrases that conveyed to his intelligence that somewhere there had been a great battle fought, that all was lost, that the King's enemies were searching for him, and that in some way or other it was the fault of the Scots.

  He was not allowed to stay any longer upon the stairs, for Mrs Andrews came bustling into the hall, and no sooner spied him than sent him running for billets of wood to lay upon the fire she had kindled in the parlour.

  When he went timidly into the parlour with his burden, he found it overfull of gentlemen consuming biscuits and sack, and hardly dared to edge his way to the fireplace. They were talking very earnestly, all of them standing except the King, who sat in an armchair by the fire, leaning against his cloak, which was spread over the wooden back. He had a biscuit in one hand, and held in the other a pewter tankard, which quite shocked Bartholomew, for it was well known that the King ate off golden plates, and had meat at every meal. He seemed to be very hungry too, and when he spoke it was with his mouth full. Kneeling before the fire, his billets still hugged to his chest, Bartholomew gazed up at the dark, harsh-featured face, framed by a mass of tangled black locks, and realized that the King, incred ibly, was a man, who could be hungry, and thirsty, and tired, and mud-stained, like any other man.