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BOOK: Georgette Heyer
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  'Good mother, if all my subjects were as honest as your sons I had had no need to fight for my kingdom,' he replied. 'I know not how I can ever redeem the debt I stand in to you all, but here is Charles Stewart his pledge that redeem it he will.' He kissed her cheek as he spoke, and rose up from his knee.
  'My liege,' she said, with tears dimming her sight, 'you have warmed this old heart of mine. God bless you and keep you safe!'
  'Master, it is time and more that we budged,' Richard said. 'We have nine miles to go, and the night very dark.'
  'I am ready,' the King answered, and put the battered hat on his head again, and picked up Yates's broom hook. The three men whom he would not allow to accompany him knelt to kiss his hand, and bid him God-speed. Richard opened the door, and after looking cautiously up and down the lane, nodded to the King to pass out into the darkness.

Four

'Who Goes There?'

Madeley was situated east of the Severn, and could be most easily reached from Hobbal Grange by the highway leading through Tong and Shifnal, but as Richard Pend erel knew that some of the rebel troops were quartered in both these places he proposed to the King that they should make their way across the fields, and down the less frequented lanes with which the country was inter sected. The King agreed to it, but it was not long before he was regretting his complaisance. At all times unused to rough walking, he found the journey over meadows and through coppices difficult. He was continually missing his foothold in the dark, or stumbling over a tree-root, or a mole-hill, and at every step the tightness of the shoes he wore caused him real pain. A little in advance of him, Richard plodded on, with his tireless, graceless gait, some times remembering to turn, and help the King through a hedge, or over a deep-cut ditch, but often forgetting that the King was not a country-born fellow, nor one whose body had been hardened from childhood to such exertions.
  Charles made no complaint; he was, in fact, a little out of patience with himself for blundering so often, and for feeling so acutely the discomforts of ill-fitting shoes, and a rough shirt. Once he was compelled to call to his guide not to go so fast, for he had fallen behind and was in danger of losing Richard altogether; but when Richard stopped, and came back to lead him more carefully, he managed to crack a jest at his own expense.
  Richard's dread of encountering some late wayfarer made him choose to go over the open country, even when a track offered. To the King, it seemed as though he selected the most difficult route he could find. Some times brambles would claw at his coat, or throw out long prickly stems across the path to entangle his feet, and tear holes in his stockings; at others, he would find himself walking into a tree that loomed up suddenly before him, or splashing ankle-deep through a puddle of muddy water. Once his hand brushed a clump of nettles, and the smart and itch of it was an added ill so petty and yet so maddening that he swore aloud.
  Richard hushed him quickly, warning him that they were passing close by a cottage.
  'The devil take the cottage and all inside it!' said the King savagely, licking the back of his smarting hand. 'I have put my hand into a cursed bed of nettles!'
  It was plain that Richard thought this a trivial matter. He said soothingly: 'The itch will soon go. If there were light enough, I would find a dock-leaf for your honour to rub on you. 'Tis wonderful how a dock-leaf eases nettle-sting.'
  This remark exasperated the King, but just as he was about to return an acid answer, the humour of the situation struck him, and he began to laugh. Richard, forgetting the respect due to Royalty, grabbed his arm, and gave it a little shake. 'Give over, give over! Ye will have the neighbours out on us, as sure as check, my liege!'
  They went on for another mile. The King found nothing more to laugh at, but had instead some trouble to keep himself from groaning at the pain of his cramped and blistered feet. He had never been so tired in his life; his head swam, and sometimes seemed to be a long way from his body, so that he walked uncertainly; his hat felt like an iron band, tightening about his forehead, and when he shifted it he got no easement thereby. He set his teeth, and limped on, but every step hurt him, and at last he was unable to endure it any longer, and called to Richard to halt.
  Richard stopped at once, and turned to find that the King had sat down on the damp ground. He knelt beside him, anxiously asking if he were ill, or had hurt himself.
  'No,' Charles said faintly. 'If you have a knife, give it to me!'
  'A knife?' repeated Richard stupidly.
  'Yes, a knife!'
  'What would your honour want with a knife?' Richard asked, fearing for a distorted moment that the King was out of his senses.
  'To slit these shoes, fool!'
  Relieved, Richard put a hand into his pocket, and produced a jack-knife, which he gave to the King. Charles pulled off his shoes, and slashed them across and across. It cost him a good deal of pain to put them on again, but he managed to do it, gripping his underlip between his teeth as he pushed his raw heels down into them. He gave the knife back to Richard, and struggled up again, saying with an attempt at cheerfulness: 'Now I have room to move my poor toes. Lead on, Trusty Dick!'
  'I do fear it be hard going for your honour,' Richard said, concerned for his evident exhaustion. 'You'll be glad of a bed at Mr Wolfe's, I warrant.'
  'I shall indeed,' Charles replied.
  They went on, the slits in the King's shoes at first affording his swollen feet some relief, but soon causing him a new pain, since they let in mud and small sharp stones.
  After an interminable trudge up hill and down dale, during which Richard was occasionally at a puzzle to find the way, they came to a rough lane, which Richard recognized as a track joining the highway to Madeley at Evelith Mill. The hour was by this time far enough advanced for him no longer to fear meeting anyone on the road. For his own part, he would have preferred to have continued across country, but he thought the King would find it easier to walk along the highway, pitted with holes though it was, and so helped him over a hedge into the lane, telling him, to encourage him, that they had only five more miles to go.
  The King did not answer him. He seemed to himself to be plodding through a nightmare from which he must soon awake. He was so remote from reality that when his struggling brain asserted,
I am Charles Stewart,
King of England
, the phrase conveyed no meaning to him. It was a mere string of foolish words which drummed irritatingly in his head. From time to time, he made an effort to drag his mind from the only realities of his aching body, and lacerated feet, and to think of the future; but again his brain betrayed him, reiterating dully,
I must get me to France
, which seemed as wildly impossible a thought as that this weary frame could belong to that same Charles Stewart who had led an army into battle on Wednesday, the third day of September, in the Year of Our Lord, One Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty-one.
  He tried to think how long ago that had been, and in the end was forced to ask Richard what day of the week it now was. When Richard replied that it was Thursday, he said fretfully that Richard was mistaken, but after he had thought it over for a while, he real ized that Richard was right, and that it was indeed only twenty-four hours since he had been riding through the night with Wilmot and Talbot beside him, and Buckingham close behind, making some joke about an ox for the King's supper.
  Richard, who was now walking beside him, suddenly touched his arm, and pointed ahead. A new moon, which had just risen, shone in a bare patch of sky like a sliver of silver, but it was not that which had attracted Richard's attention.
  At the foot of the hill they were descending, the dark hulk of a building could be seen. A light shone through the chinks of the shutters on the ground floor, and the sound of voices could faintly be heard, mingled with the purling of the mill-stream.
  'Go softly, my liege,' Richard whispered. 'Seemingly the miller has company. But so late as it is – Mind, master, if we come upon any stranger, do you stay mumchance!'
  They trod on as quietly as they could down the hill to the wooden bridge across the stream at its foot. A gate gave access to the bridge; it scrooped harshly on its hinges as Richard pulled it open, and made him curse under his breath. He let it go, not daring to risk a second scroop as he shut it, but it was set at a slight angle, and swung to behind him with a clap that brought the miller out of his house, calling in a deep bass voice: 'Who goes there?'
  Richard shouted over his shoulder: 'Friends, home ward bound!'
  'If you be friends, stand and show yourselves!' commanded the miller, advancing towards the bridge.
  Richard seized the King's hand, whispering to him, 'Run!' and set off as fast as he could up the lane on the farther side of the bridge. The sound of heavy-footed pursuit drove them on, splashing through deep puddles, and stumbling over the wheel-ruts, until the King, tearing his hand away, gasped: 'Over the hedge!' and himself, summoning all his remaining strength for the effort, leaped over the low hedge into a ditch on the other side, and lay prone there.
  Richard followed suit, and for some minutes they lay recovering their breath, and listening for sounds of the miller's approach. When it became apparent that he had abandoned the chase, and gone back into his house, Richard became urgent with the King to continue their journey.
  'I had rather you buried me where I lie,' Charles sighed, between jesting and earnest. 'I can go no farther.'
  Richard sought his hand again, and tried to pull him up. 'Nay, nay, master, never say such foolishness! Come now, there's only a little way to go, and you may rest your fill.'
  The King gave a groan, but struggled to his feet. The danger they had run into at Evelith Mill made Richard afraid to adventure farther along the highway. He again took to the fields, but he did not realize how spent the King was, and was presently aghast to see him sink down upon the ground, half fainting. It was only with difficulty that he persuaded him to struggle on a little farther, promising him better going in just a few more minutes.
  The rest of the journey was only accomplished thanks to Richard's dogged persistence. It was no longer a matter of King and subject between them. To Richard, the King had become just an exhausted young man whom by hook or by crook he was determined to bring to safe shelter. When he collapsed, saying that he cared nothing for his fate if only he might lie still, Richard coaxed him to his feet with assurances that they had only a few hundred yards still to cover: when he commanded Richard to leave him, Richard rated him for folly, and laughed to scorn his despair of ever making his way to France. The preservation of the King's person was to Richard a matter of such para mount importance that he was unable to comprehend the crushing sense of defeat which made Charles think himself better dead than wearing out his life in exile. Dimly he could perceive that a deeper agony than the pain of lacerated feet had the King in its grip: but since he could not comfort a grief he did not understand, all that was left for him to do was to care for the King's body.
  It was midnight when at last they reached Madeley, and came in sight of Mr Wolfe's house, an old mansion standing beside the road through the town, and surrounded on three sides by fields, and great timber barns.
  The King, who had limped the last mile in silence, roused himself upon Richard's informing him that they had reached their goal, and bade Richard leave him in the field where they now stood, and go on alone to the house. Richard looked rather doubtfully at him, but Charles sat down in the lee of a hedge, saying wearily: 'You must discover first whether he is willing to receive so dangerous a guest in his house. Ask him if he will give shelter to a distressed Cavalier, a fugitive from Worcester. I will await you here.'
  It seemed incredible to Richard that any loyal Englishman could be unwilling to shelter his King, but he had discovered by this time that there was a streak of obstinacy in Charles, so he did not argue the matter, but went off obediently to rouse the house hold.
  All was in darkness, but the door was opened pres ently, in answer to his repeated knocking, by a thin woman with a cap tied under her chin, and a shawl huddled over her night-gown. She looked frightened, and her weak, kind eyes started at Richard in the light of the guttering candle she held in her hand.
  He asked her respectfully to rouse Mr Wolfe, and to inform him that an honest servant of the King was wishful to see him.
  The candle shook in her hold. She said in a whisper: 'I am his daughter. Oh, do you bring news of my brother?'
  'Nay, I know naught of him, mistress. I mun see Mr Wolfe.'
  She said rather helplessly: 'He is abed.'
  'I mun see him,' Richard repeated.
  She let him come into the house, and softly closed the door behind him. 'I will rouse him. It is not ill news?'
  'Nay.'
  'Stay here,' she told him, and went away up the stairs like a troubled ghost.
BOOK: Georgette Heyer
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