The King's Marauder (5 page)

“
That
old? Lordy!” Abigail exclaimed in surprise.

“And, if ya’d seen th’ tavern afore me an’ Maggie re-did it, you’da known that the Old Ploughman’s nigh older than the church!” Will Cony said with a laugh. “It ain’t called th’
Old
Ploughman fer nought.”

“As old as me coffee, Abigail!” an elderly follow cried out, raising a laugh, and the girl went to his table to begin joshing with him and his mates.

“Ya been doin’ th’ sword-play ev’ry day, too, Cap’m Lewrie?” Cony asked as he stirred some of the fresh cream into his tea.

“In the afternoons, after a
good
long rest,” Lewrie told him, scoffing his attempts. “Heavy Navy cutlasses, against Desmond or Furfy, for about a half-hour. All I can manage, yet,” he said with a shrug. “Yeovill, Pettus, and Jessop have taken up the drill, too. Bored, I expect. Since my father keeps such a large staff, even when he’s not here, there’s little for them t’do, and Yeovill can’t even get within
smellin’
distance of the kitchens, ’less Mistress Furlough’ll take a meat chopper to him. It’s a damned pity, ’cause she’s only a passable cook. Roast, fry, boil, repeat if necessary, hah! Takin’ breakfast here’s the best meal I see.

“Then, I’ll have t’saddle up that fractious damned horse, and trot back uphill,” Lewrie gravelled between bites. “Like today, Anson has been ridden so little since I sent him up to Father’s stables that he just
won’t
go at a walk. Trot, lope, canter … ouch!”

“Speakin’ o’ ancient Britons, sir,” Cony slyly said, “ya ever hear of an ambler? They were very popular, back when yer tower and th’ church, and th’ village were young. Ya don’t see ’em much anymore … but, there’s a smallholder a few miles from here who still breeds ’em, an’ sells one, now an’ again.”

“What’s an ambler?” Lewrie asked, perplexed.

“Why, it’s a horse, sir!” Cony said with a grin. “They’re stout an’ cobby, sorta shaggy-lookin’, with big hooves like a Clydesdale, an’ just as plumy-hairy round th’ fetlocks, but they’re not over eleven or twelve hands at the withers, and as gentle as baa-lambs. Best of all, they’ve got a peculiar gait like no other horse. They
pace
at a fast walk … how they got their name … and can go for hours an’ hours, an’ th’ rider might as well be sittin’ in a rockin’ chair for all ya’d know, steady as a rock.

“Now, it may be ol’ Mister Doaks’d rent ya one for a few weeks, just ’til yer strong enough t’manage yer own horse,” Cony suggested. “What say I ride over this afternoon an’ speak with him, sir, and if I can strike a deal, I’ll bring one up t’th’ house t’morra mornin’ for you t’try.”

“We could try one out, aye,” Lewrie agreed after a ponder. “Do ye think a pound note’d suit him?”

“Bring ya change
back,
Cap’m Lewrie,” Cony promised.

*   *   *

“’Tis good I
didn’t
bet ya a shillin’, sir, for I’da lost,” Cony said as they stopped by a gnarled old oak tree. “That’s a full mile ya done this mornin’, an’ Maggie’s sureta throw in a beef steak t’reward ya! Want t’go a bit more?”

“A furlong more, maybe … to the stile yonder,” Lewrie decided.

“Yer on, sir!” Cony quickly agreed and they paced off once more, leading their mounts. They made that furlong to the stile, then drew to another stop, with Lewrie panting a little. He reached down to massage his right leg which still felt weak, but this morning, at least, it did not ache quite as loudly as the day before. He led “Peterkin” round alee and contemplated the brute.

The rented ambler
was
a shaggy thing, with hair almost as long as Scottish red cattle, its coat mottled grey with long white mane and tail. Its back was broader than an average saddle horse, so his usual saddle would not suit, and for two shillings more Cony had rented this older-style saddle with a prominent horn, a taller and wider cantle at the rear, and broader stirrup straps. He had tried out mounting up at the house’s stables, still using the mounting block, adjusting the length of the stirrups to fit him, but now …

“Ye goin’ t’cooperate, Peterkin?” Lewrie asked it.

The ambler swivelled its head round to look at him and gently whickered, but stood stolid and still, with no tittups.

“Right, then,” Lewrie said, steeling himself for sudden pain, and reaching up for the saddle horn. He lifted his left leg and got the toe of his boot in the stirrup and levered himself up and over, and winced … but not as badly as before. He clucked and kneed the horse into a walk, then a trot, then a lope, then … the ambler began its “amble”, as if cantering or galloping were lost arts. “My God!” Lewrie hooted, “it’s goin’ like a Cambridge coach!”

Cony had to set his horse at a lope to keep up with him, and the last three-quarters of a mile to Anglesgreen went by in a twinkling! Then, after his breakfast, though still using the mounting block, he set Peterkin to his mile-eating pace right off, and it really was a very smooth, jounceless ride up the rising lanes to home, the smoothest of his life.

“I think I love this thing!” Lewrie crowed as he drew rein at the house, and everyone, even Pettus, who was not much of a horseman, wanted to try the ambler out.

*   *   *

Will Cony couldn’t ride up to accompany him every morning, but Desmond, Furfy, or Sir Hugo’s hired groom, Fowlie, could go along with him on his morning hikes. Fowlie usually rode, leading the ambler as far as Lewrie could walk, then rode with him the rest of the way, but Desmond or Furfy usually led their own mounts to walk alongside him. Both were extremely fond of their own breakfasts at the Old Ploughman, and the chance to flirt with Abigail, Patrick Furfy got tongue-tied and blushed, but Desmond, with a true and merry gift of gab, did the best with her, making the girl’s eyes sparkle and laugh out loud.

“And that’s how Will and Maggie got together,” Lewrie cautioned, “flirtin’. Ye ready for marriage, Desmond?”

“Well, I s’pose a man could do worse, sor,” his Cox’n said with a wince at the mention of the word. “Marryin’, though … Gawd! Who’d have a poor sailor f’r a husband?”

“Maggie Cony,” Lewrie teased.

*   *   *

Each morning, Lewrie forced himself to go a furlong more than the day before, and in the afternoons, after a fortnight, he added a walk about the property, down to the stables and barns, the paddocks and pens, and out to the edges of the cleared land round the house. Bisquit was his company on those strolls, eager for new scents, and a thrown stick … even if the dog did sometimes confuse Lewrie’s walking stick for a toy a time or two, tugging at it to encourage their game. Bisquit would also get distracted by the squirrels or rabbits, but he was, in the main, a good dog and always loped back to Lewrie’s side when called.

What to do with the hours between the trip to the village and the stroll, though? Lewrie had all his personal weapons, and in his father’s office-library there were enough firearms to field a dozen soldiers, so he added shooting competitions near the foot of the hill to the South, down near the rill, with a rise beyond that as a back-stop. Muskets, fusils, fowling pieces, Hindoo Moghul
jezzails,
blunderbusses, and all sorts of pistols were tried out, and even Jessop and Pettus and Yeovill became passable marksmen.

He
could
have gone hunting in the woodlots, had there been any game worth shooting. He was no longer a Chiswick tenant, denied fish or game which all belonged to the landlord. He was the son of a freeholder on his father’s acres. Furfy, though, quickly found the rabbit warrens and snared a few each week, and Jessop got rather good at potting squirrels with a fusil musket.

When it rained or snowed, though, Lewrie had little to occupy his time. He would read by a crackling fire, with Bisquit drowsing by Lewrie’s chair, or across his feet, and Chalky, his cat, nodding close to the grate, or spraddled cross one arm of his chair, always with one wary eye out for the dog’s doings.

On one of his strolls down to the stables, he saw the junior groom hefting gallon pails of water in each hand, and lifting them up and out to show Fowlie how strong he was, and Lewrie got two of them and filled them with rocks, increasing the weight until he could hold them out and pump them over his head, or swing them back and forth, and found that when he crossed heavy naval cutlasses with Desmond or Furfy, his blade felt no heavier than a butterknife. Needless to say, his footwork at cutlass drill still was lacking.

*   *   *

Harvest festivals, church ales, and supper dances came round, and Lewrie did get invited to some, even Sir Romney Embleton’s and at Governour’s house a time or two, but he still had need of his walking stick and did not dance, still had need of Peterkin the ambler horse, hot, steamed towels to wrap, round his thigh, and willow bark teas at least twice a day.

The village’s surgeon-apothecary hired by Sir Romney Embleton, Mr. Archer, came to cheek up on him every now and then, and he had offered laudanum to ease Lewrie’s aches, but Lewrie declined. By November, the aches were not all that bad, and only came when he over-extended himself.

Christmas came and went, and Lewrie had Fowlie return the ambler to his owner, Mr. Doaks. He could manage Anson, again! With more exercise, the horse had become more biddable to go at a walk, and when he was put to the trot or canter, it didn’t hurt at all.

At long last, one morning a few weeks before Easter, Lewrie led Anson all the way to the village, on his own feet without need of his walking stick, with Bisquit frisking along with him.

“Good mornin’, Will … Maggie,” he said as he and the dog breezed in. “Good mornin’, all.”

“Mornin’ to ya, sir!” Cony chirpily greeted him. “We’ve some fine ham f’r yer breakfast this mornin’. And, I reckon yer dog’ll be wantin’ a slice’r two, as well.”

“Here, Will,” Lewrie said, handing him the walking stick. “I’ve no more need of it. Ye can hang it over the fire, or use it for kindlin’. I hiked all the way, today,” he boasted. “Oh, I’ll ride back, but only ’cause it’s perishin’ cold this morning,” he added after he’d taken a seat at his usual table.

“Huzzah, sir!” Will Cony crowed. “I
told
ya walkin’ it away’z th’ cure for ya. Wot Mister Archer’d call ‘thera’ … good for ya! Ya ready t’go up to London an’ Admiralty, soon’z the weather breaks, I’d expect?”

“The first dry day we get, aye!” Lewrie assured him. “Hey, pup! Want some fried ham? Yes? Ah, you’re a good ’un!”

CHAPTER FIVE

“Good luck, sir,” Pettus said as he helped Lewrie into his boat cloak and handed him his hat in the Madeira Club’s anteroom.

“Not much’ll come of this first visit,” Lewrie told him, shrugging off too-high hopes. “All I can manage will be t’let ’em know I’m still alive, healed up, and available. I’ll probably be back before mid-day. But thankee for the good wishes, anyway.”

It was another breezy and nippy morning, and Lewrie had the club porter whistle up a one-horse hack. He
could
walk all the way, but damned if he would!

Lewrie alit and paid off the coachee in front of the arches of the curtain wall at Admiralty, then hitched a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked into the courtyard. It looked to be the typical busy morning, for the courtyard was full of slowly pacing officers and hopeful Midshipmen, and the tea cart was doing a thriving business, in sticky buns and sausages, handing out mis-matched mugs and cups as fast as they could be filled.

“Top o’ th’ mornin’, sir,” a grizzled old tiler rasped at him as he approached the doors. “Though I wouldn’t get me ’opes up too ’igh, Cap’m. ’Less ye come at their biddin’, ye’ll ’ave a long wait, an’ there’s ’underds in there waitin’.”

“Morning to you, too,” Lewrie said with a faint smile of remembrance. For as long as he could recall, the tilers at the Admiralty were a surly, nigh-insulting lot, former Bosuns or Bosun’s Mates who had become un-maimed Greenwich Pensioners, and old fellows who took great joy in bossing officers about. He was
almost
back in service!

Lewrie checked his hat and gloves and boat cloak with the porters, and faced the infamous Waiting Room, which was elbow-to-elbow full, with nary an empty chair to be seen. With so many warm bodies there, the Waiting Room gave off its own particular heat, and smells faintly tinted with salt, tar, and sweat. It must have rained sometime in the wee hours, for Lewrie could also discern the odour of wet wool. Damned if it all smelled … nautical!

He plastered a calm smile on his face to show confidence, and slowly paced the room ’til he spotted one of the First Secretary’s, Mr. William Marsden’s, clerks.

“Good morning, sir,” Lewrie said, trying to recall if this one was the “Happy-Making” clerk or the one who dealt with the disappointed. “Captain Sir Alan Lewrie. I wonder if you might see this letter to the Secretary for me, informing him of my availability?”

“Of course, sir,” the clerk agreed, then broke away to go up the stairs to the offices above.

Right after his hike all the way to the village on foot, Lewrie had penned a letter to Mr. Marsden, saying that he would be coming up to London, in hopes of an interview. This letter would tell Marsden that he was in town and … waiting.

He managed to find a seat after a minute or two, thanks to one very young Lieutenant who thought it a good idea to surrender his to a senior officer who just
might
be taking command of a ship in active commission, and in need of his skills. He even gave up his copy of the
Tatler
!

The magazine proved handy. No matter how long he’d been in the Navy, no matter how many officers he’d served with, there never was a
one
of them in the Waiting Room that he knew in the slightest when he was there. Lewrie determined that he would sit and read ’til the mid-day rush for dinner, then depart with the throng and go back to the Madeira Club for an afternoon nap.

I might skip tomorrow,
Lewrie thought as he turned pages;
Else I look as desperate as those gammers over yonder.

Though he did not know their names, there were some familiar faces in the Waiting Room. The two “gammers” were Lieutenants in their mid-to-late fourties, salty “tarpaulin men” who still sported queues as long as marling spikes at the napes of their necks, who haunted the place on a daily basis. And, damned if there wasn’t the very same Midshipman who was rumoured to have been calling every day going on three whole years! No-hopers, all, men with no “interest” or patronage who most-like had no income beyond their half-pay, even some Post-Captains and one Rear-Admiral were there this morning, burned permanently brown and as creased as old parchment by long years of previous sea-duty, but now, for one reason or another, un-employable.