The Best of Men (80 page)

“I think they’re very brave to hold out on such short supplies,” Beaumont replied.

“Do you. Oh well, a little fasting can be a healthy thing.”

Beaumont fixed his gaze on Digby’s stomach. “For some, perhaps. You sent for me, my lord,” he said to Falkland.

“Yes. I wish us to talk in my quarters tonight, after Council. I fear it may prove to be a late night, gentlemen. And now I must attend to His Majesty’s request,” Falkland told them, and he galloped off.

“Mr. Beaumont,” said Digby, “might we broach another issue, of import to us both?” Beaumont nodded, quietening his black stallion.
“I had predicted that you would behave badly towards Isabella, yet I kept my mouth shut about it, knowing she would tire of you in time. She is tired of you now, and I would prefer that you stop pestering her.”

“With respect, my lord, she should tell me so, not you.”

“Why would she want to see or speak to you again? You have mistreated her affections as a mistress by abandoning her for an unaccountable length of time, and you will never marry her, so let this be the end of it.”

“I
will
marry her, if she so chooses,” Beaumont said, looking straight at him.

“My dear sir,” exclaimed Digby, genuinely flabbergasted, “even if you think yourself serious – and even were she interested in your offer – there is not the remotest possibility that you could carry through with it. Be honest with yourself, if not with me,” he said, laughing, “you don’t know what it is to love for any longer than your prick can stand.” Beaumont smiled, but said nothing. “I suppose you expect Isabella is still burning with passion for you, though you would be quite wrong,” Digby went on, trying to provoke some other reaction in him. “All your life you must have been spoiled for female company. Women are attracted to you as they are to some foreign dish they have not sampled before.” He paused again, riled by Beaumont’s lack of fire. “You may not know, but my father was Ambassador to the Spanish Court and I was born in Madrid. Although I am fluent in your mother’s language, I left too young to remember much of the country. Yet I would hazard a guess that faces like yours must be ten a penny over there.”

“As faces like yours are here, my lord,” Beaumont said, with the same bland smile.

Digby had to chuckle. “
Touché
! Mr. Beaumont, I bear you no ill will, for you are merely one in the list of Isabella’s conquests, and I cannot blame you for falling under her spell. I am eager for us to be friends. Don’t let a temporary difference come between us. And I am
most indebted to you for tending to my leg,” he added. “If you were not born a nobleman, you could have made a great doctor.”

“You’re too generous, my lord,” said Beaumont, and rode away leaving Digby puzzled as to who had got the better of whom.

After his exchange with Digby, Laurence wanted to howl out loud. While immune to Digby’s spiteful personal jabs, he had been cut to the core on hearing that Isabella had given up on him once and for all. What a fool he had been not to see her before leaving for London and ask outright for her hand in marriage. He had indeed neglected her, and now it might be too late to mend his mistake; though he would have to try.

The Council of War dragged on into the morning, and it was not until afternoon that Laurence was summoned to Falkland’s billet, a windowless cottage, hardly fit for a Secretary of State. The air was thick with smoke from the fireplace, where Stephens was turning some pigeons on a spit.

Laurence saw the terrible strain, more pronounced than ever, in Falkland’s eyes. “Forgive my delay, Mr. Beaumont,” he said. “As you might expect, there were divisions in Council as to how we should take Gloucester.”

“What has His Majesty chosen to do?”

“We shall besiege it. Prince Rupert will supervise the laying of mines.”

“How will he fire mines in this wet weather? They’ll be flooded.”

Falkland made no response to this; he was examining Laurence gravely. “Sir,” he said, “but for you our King might still be in peril from the conspiracy. And in the affair of Colonel Hoare, you showed both valour and a devotion to me that I lack words to thank you for. I once offered to free you from my service, and you declined. Now I insist that
you accept. I wish you to rejoin Lord Wilmot as soon as you can. He has orders to scout the area about Oxford, lest Parliament send any rescuing party to Essex’s aid.”

“I could be more helpful to you here.”

“No, sir, you have more than fulfilled your obligations to me. You know how much I have always hated the business of espionage, and I would not willingly engage anyone I respected in it.”

“I believe you, yet I think there’s more to it than that.” Falkland glanced aside, his expression so legible that Laurence needed no explanation. “You intend to fight in the siege.”

“It is my duty.”

“It’s not duty that’s driving you, my lord.”

“Should I not face the same dangers as other men of my age, simply because I am one of the King’s ministers?” demanded Falkland, his voice becoming shrill. “I have not yearned for peace out of a lack of courage. If anything I should be prepared to venture my person yet
more
readily than other men.”

“I don’t doubt your courage, my lord, but it would be a serious mistake to –”

“I did not ask for your advice, sir. Stephens, Mr. Beaumont is about to go. You may bring my plate after you have seen him out. Greet Wilmot for me when you see him,” he told Laurence, “and God speed.”

Outside, the sky had the colour of slate. Rain poured down, and the ground was slippery with mud. Laurence untethered his dripping horse and led it off, and as they trudged through the camp he apologised to it, not in English but in Spanish, for having stolen it from a sunny home and brought it to a damp hell. Why was hell portrayed as hot, he wondered, when this constant drizzle in half-darkness felt so much worse? He would give anything for a blast of sun on his skin.

What a vital distinction there was, he thought, for good Christians like Falkland, between the cowardly escape of suicide and embracing
certain death in an honourable fight. Falkland might choose the latter and consider himself free of sin or dishonour, whereas in Spain Laurence had attempted both within the same day, unconcerned by belief in any Divine judgement. Even upon reflection, it would have made no difference to him if he had died by his own hand, or by that of a petty thief on the road to Cadiz. In the end, out of instinct, he had chosen to live; yet he could still remember vividly how it was to peer over the precipice, into nothingness, hungering to jump.

That night, as the gypsies made camp, the women whisked Juana away, and since no one else said another word to Laurence, he watched from a distance as the men put up their threadbare tents and dug a fire pit in which they quickly conjured up a blaze. Soon the women brought out cooking pots and started to busy themselves with supper. Juana was not amongst them. Later, a boy brought him a bowl of stew for which he should have been grateful, but the mere smell made his gorge rise.

After their meal, the gypsies entertained themselves with songs, dirge-like melodies accompanied by flute and guitar, while Laurence distracted himself less happily, feeding the contents of his bowl to their yapping dogs. He was angry with Juana for abandoning him, yet he had to be patient: thus far, her people had treated him better than she had been served by most
gadje
.

When the music faded, the women scoured out their pots with sand and chased the children into the tents for the night. It was then that Pedro rose from the fireside and strode over to the place where Laurence was sitting.

“If I wake tomorrow and find you here,” Pedro told him bluntly, “I am going to kill you.”

Laurence stood up to his full height; the top of Pedro’s head did not reach his shoulder. “Why should I deserve that?”

“For what you have done to our sister.”

“I brought her back to you.”

“But she is not the same.”

“What the hell do you mean?” demanded Laurence, taking a step forward.

Pedro shouted a few words in his own tongue and half a dozen men ran over, armed with long knives and a decrepit-looking musket. Pedro grabbed the gun and trained it on Laurence. “I have changed my mind,” he announced. “You will leave now.”

“I want to talk to her.”

“You will never see her again,” Pedro spat back. “By all the saints, I’d like to blow a hole in you and fill it with my own shit.” He gestured to the others, and all of them sloped away.

If they would not permit him to see Juana, Laurence thought furiously, they must be keeping her from him against her will. Retreating behind a pile of boulders, he charged his pistols and strapped on the Toledo sword; and he waited again, controlling the urge to rush down on the camp immediately and drag her off.

When even the dogs were quiet, he stole over to the women’s tent, a mere canopy of cloth supported by sticks. Juana was sleeping curled up beside a younger girl, as she had often slept next to him. He pressed the nose of his pistol to her cheek and nudged her awake. She gave him a startled frown, yet came without a murmur, which reassured him, and she followed him to the lonely place where he had been sitting earlier.

“What did you tell them?” he asked in a whisper.

“That you forced me to be your mistress, in exchange for travelling with me,” she replied, her eyes averted.

For an instant, he could not breathe; she might as well have thrust a knife into his flesh. “What need had you to say that?”

She touched her belly, lightly; and he recalled her in Granada, standing by the window. A visceral instinct swept over him: for the first
time he wanted desperately to be a father; but more desperately, he wanted her. “In a few months,” she said, “everyone would find out. And it was nearly the truth.”

“I didn’t force you, Juana. You know that very well.”

“Oh no?” She assumed an exaggerated version of her mendicant’s whine. “The kind gentleman may take her to Paris, and to Spain if it suits him. But he will desert her when she becomes too much of a burden. She will not fuck him, as most other women do, so she’s not worth his trouble. Admit,” she said in her own voice, “that you intended to leave me behind at the convent in Pamplona. I had to come and find you, and give my body to you, or else you would have shaken me off as a dog shakes off its fleas.”

He shrank inwardly; she was not entirely wrong. “Then why did you swear afterwards that you would never leave me?”

“What could you expect? You were protecting me. And if I had to be sullied by a
gadje
, you were above the rest: handsome, and honourable in your own fashion.”

“
Sullied
? Is
that
what you felt?”

She hesitated, her mouth trembling. “I was ashamed, because I liked it. Even in Granada, I liked it. As I liked you.”

“So come with me! I promise I’ll do anything I can for you – you and our child.”

“No. I belong here.”

“But I love you,” he protested, making a start towards her.

She cowered back, as if he might hurt her. “Monsieur, you are a fool. You cannot love whoever you wish.”

“Did you never love me?”

“Never. Now you must go. It is only because I told Pedro how you saved my life that he has not taken yours tonight.” She gave a quick sob. “We did not create this world, Monsieur, but we must abide by its rules. For my people you are
marime
!”

“And the child? Is it polluted, too?”

“The child is
mine
,” she said, crossing her arms over her stomach.

He took off the Toledo sword, and from his saddlebag withdrew the stolen purse, and tossed them at her. “As are these.”

“I don’t want them. They will bring me bad luck.” She bowed her head, turning away. “Goodbye, Monsieur. Our journey together is finished.”

She ran for the camp, and he knew that it was truly finished between them.

He heard the dogs barking; in a short time, the men would also wake. A vengeful idea flashed into his mind, and he went to where the horses were tethered. Taking the saddle off his own weary mount, he threw it across the back of Pedro’s stallion and fastened its girth. Shouts were already echoing from the tents as he led the beast over to his isolated place, strapped the sword to his saddle and stuck his pistols in their holsters. The purse he stuffed back into his saddlebag; if she had no interest in it, he was not about to leave it for Pedro. Gathering up his bag and slinging it over the pommel, he heard more angry cries. Then an ill-aimed shot cracked over his head, frightening the horse, which reared violently. As it plunged down again, he hoisted himself into the saddle and dug spurs into its sides.

He did not recall how he arrived at the coast or how long it had taken him, though he must have ridden at breakneck speed, for the stallion’s coat was flecked with foam. To the east, the sun was piercing through a bed of thin clouds that would burn off with the heat of day. Dismounting, he looked down at the jagged rocks and tide below, and then out over the sea, watching the gulls soar and swoop amongst the crashing waves. What next, he thought: he was unmanned, cut adrift with nowhere to go and no will to preserve himself. He had even come to the very end of Spain.

From his saddle, he took one of the pistols with which he had dispatched so many men. Kneeling down in the dirt, he thrust the barrel deep into his mouth, but gagged at the oily taste. Applying it instead to his temple he cocked it, reflecting on the absurdity of fate: after struggling to survive countless dangers these past six years, he was choosing to die by his own hand.

He depressed the trigger slightly, all that was needed, though in the final moment his hand must have jerked aside, for the ball blasted past his ear, deafening him. Numbly he rose, pulled the other pistol from the saddle and cocked it, to try again. Yet he found himself transfixed by the sight of Cadiz on the far horizon, a haze of walls and turrets; and he fired the second shot, aimlessly, into the lightening sky.

“May it p-please God that our supplies of ammunition arrive in time from Oxford,” His Majesty, said, as the meeting of Council drew to a close. “And sleep well, gentlemen, for tomorrow we do battle.”