They turned onto it, and the darkness seemed to swallow them whole.
They had ridden for hours already. After they followed this narrow bridle path awhile, batting limbs out of their faces, Tom said, “I mislike the looks of this area, my lord. I think it best we turn back to the road.”
“I would agree with you, Tom, but unfortunately, this is the sort of trail I must take for now.”
Just as he finished speaking, they came upon a small clearing, a former swine pasture filled with a cluster of untidy dwellings. It could be nothing but a common-land settlement, consisting of squatters’ cottages and hedge-alehouses in this lonely part of the Weald.
One larger structure with a second story dominated the small group. Its three broad bays seemed to huddle under a sagging thatched roof. Its yard was large enough to hold the stock of the drovers and carriers most likely to stop at such a house. Minor sounds came from inside, but only one small light in a window proclaimed that anyone was at home.
As they approached, Gideon found the swinging sign he had noticed before, bearing the undignified figures of a fox and a goose.
He pulled Penny to a halt and Tom moved alongside.
“You can’t be planning to stop here, Master Gideon! Even if the sheets be free of lice—which they will not—the place is sure to be a thieves’ den!”
“I’ve no doubt you’re right, but this will have to do tonight. I cannot return to the Abbey, and I will ask no friend to shelter me.” He could have added that now that his elation had worn off, he would be happy to accept the first pile of straw that came their way. He couldn’t drag himself another mile. “Besides, if the keeper of this house is not too particular about his guests, he cannot object to a pair of suspicious strangers. He will not want to call down the law upon his house.”
“But, milord—”
“There must be no ‘my lord’ or ‘your lordship’ here, or I shall be discovered straight away.”
“What
can
I call you then?”
With his face concealed by the dark, Gideon smiled at Tom’s shocked tone. “You may call me ‘sir.’ For the time being, I must be plain Mr. Brown.”
“As if that’ll fool a set of cutthroats longer than it takes to pinch your purse! My lord, I beg you to ride on!”
“I am in no mood for argument, Tom.” Gideon knew that fatigue had lent an angry edge to his voice, but he could no longer deny that his very bones were spent. He was not accustomed to feeling pain or tiredness, but the accumulation of his wound and the constables’ blows had taken their toll. He could no longer ignore the desperate nature of his situation. He needed rest and time to think.
He had expected a low grumble from Tom, who must always capitulate, though he would usually let his displeasure show. So he was surprised to hear in a low, meek tone, “Yes, sir.”
“There’s a good man,” Gideon said, when he had recovered from his surprise.
They turned their horses into the yard. When no ostler came forward to take them, Tom dismounted to raise the house. After a spate of increasingly vicious knocks, he finally managed to stir the innkeeper. As Gideon slowly eased his aching body out of the saddle, he heard the throw of a lock and the creak of a sagging door.
In a harsh voice, Tom demanded a room for his master, bedding for himself, and stabling for their horses.
“It’s rooms you’ll be wantin’, is it?” In the dark, their host raised a lantern over his head until its faint beam encompassed them both.
He must have noted the quality of their horses and Gideon’s clothes, for his manner underwent a rapid change.
“You here! Avis!” he called back into the inn. “Come take care of these gen’lemen’s horses!” He rushed out to shoulder Gideon’s portmanteau.
A curious haste was in his actions. Gideon was used to the bowing and scraping that generally greeted his rank. But this innkeeper wasted no time in bows. He bustled them inside his dimly lit house.
“You can sit here in the parlour—I’ve got a nice fire goin’—and let our Avis tend to your horses. He’s handy with a nag.” He called again to the sleepy boy who had stumbled in from the corridor beyond the kitchen, “Walk them two horses, and put ‘em in the stalls near the door to the cellar. Give ‘em a good rubbin’, too, before you bed ‘em down.”
The boy went to do as he was told, and their host turned back to them, his face a study in wary curiosity. “It’s a pleasure to greet you gents. The name’s Lade, and this is my house. Looks as if you’ve been doin’ some hard ridin’ for this hour of the night. Did ye meet wif trouble on the road?”
“No trouble,” Gideon said.
He took a look about. The dingy room they were standing in appeared to be the inn’s only parlour, and it only scantily furnished with a table, three benches, and a pair of chairs. A fire illuminated the far wall. The rest was lit by a spluttering tallow candle in a shallow earthenware dish.
He took a chair by the table, noting the stains of meat grease on the floor. “I want a mug of your best ale and a good meal.”
“I can give you better than that. I can offer you gents a bottle of the finest French wine. You won’t get another one like it this far from the coast.”
Gideon was hardly taken aback to discover smuggled wine in this out-of-the-way place. Free-trading was rampant along the coast, and even the cellars at Rotherham Abbey had been stocked by carriers making nocturnal journeys from Rye. An occasional bottle even made its way as far as London.
He had already surmised that his host did some trafficking in illegal wares. Mr. Lade had mistaken him for a gentleman of the road, seeking shelter after a robbery, no doubt. Why else would a well-dressed horseman take a room in an inn of this class?
“A glass of your wine would be welcome, and a mug of ale for my servant. He can take his supper in here with me.”
“My— !” With a startled protest, Tom caught himself just in time. “I should take a look at them horses, sir. Beau may have took a few scrapes.”
“See to them—then join me in here.”
Tom departed gratefully, but the innkeeper’s gaze had already shifted. He had noticed Tom’s slip and the deference in his manner and must have realized his guests were no ordinary pair of robbers. “I’ll bring you that wine,” was all he said. But this time, he bowed himself out.
Gideon watched him disappear down the dark corridor to the kitchen. The inn was laid out in the form of an ell with a small square in front, containing this dingy parlour, a drinking-room, and some rickety stairs, and a leg-like wing that bordered the yard. Presumably the chambers ran along the wing upstairs, with the innkeeper’s rooms, stables, and storehouses below. On Gideon’s way inside, he had noticed a separate brewhouse in a corner of the yard. A few husky voices came from the drinking-room next door. The sound of a woman’s laugh told him that Lade had someone to help him with his chores.
The very femininity of that laugh made Gideon think of Isabella, but there was nothing to comfort him in the thought of her. In fleeing, he had removed himself from her just as certainly as his father had hoped he would. That he had done so out of necessity did not change the fact that he would be unable to see her until he had proved his innocence. He could only pray that she would sympathize with his refusal to be caught and wait for him before bestowing herself on someone else. And he hoped he could rely on Mrs. Kean to help her believe that he was not the murderer his peers accused him of being.
For the moment there was nothing else he could do. Isabella could be nothing to him right now but an inspiration, a symbol of the comfort he would receive when he had discovered the truth behind his father’s murder. He would use his memory of her face as a talisman, if only he could, but he found that her features eluded his desperate attempt to recall them to mind. His body still yearned for her, but wanting her was a torment he could ill afford.
In frustration he turned his attention again to his poorly-lit surroundings. The parlour had nothing in the way of comfort in it except for the dwindling fire. There should have been plenty of faggots available in these woods to feed a blaze, with the help of an occasional bit of coal stolen from the iron smelters working in the Weald. The furniture was all of plain oak with not a single cushion amongst the chairs.
If what he had wanted was a hair shirt, here it was.
Lade returned just then with a bottle that glowed a rich, burgundy red, two earthenware mugs, and a murky finger-bowl.
He placed the bowl on the table before pouring Gideon his wine. As Gideon reached for the chipped mug, his host said, “How ‘bout a toast to his Majesty before ye drink?”
Gideon stopped, with the mug suspended halfway to his lips.
Lade was watching him closely. Gideon took a moment to study his angular features, the wary gaze, the crooked nose, and a puckered scar that marred one cheek.
The man was tall and lean, with long, clumsy bones. He seemed to be missing a few of his teeth. Gideon could almost feel Lade’s bated breath as he waited for him to drink his wine. His tension infused the air with an acrid smell.
Lade had offered him a reason to explain his stop in such an unlikely place.
Slowly, with his eyes fixed on his host’s face, Gideon reached his free hand and pulled the finger-bowl near the edge of the table. Then he raised his mug.
“To his Majesty.” He drank, making a show of holding his mug over the water.
A satisfied gleam lit a spark in Lade’s eyes. “So, that’s the way of it, is it? Well, you’ll not be meetin’ wif any troubles here. There be no troops about. Nor any prignappers, neither. And I’ll never squeak beef on ye. You can bet on that. I know my business, and it’s to make you coves as comfy as you like—so long as you tip me my earnest, that is.”
A few of his colourful expressions passed Gideon by, though he had caught the gist. He had overheard similar speech in London, in the seamier parts of town, and he knew it for thieves’ cant. The boys of his childhood acquaintance had often tried to imitate it when their elders weren’t around. He had indeed landed himself and Tom in a den of thieves.
Tom had been forced to assume the role of highwayman to free him. Now, he had branded them both as Jacobites, too, in their host’s eyes at least. That had been the meaning behind the finger-bowl. To drink to the king “over the water” was to drink to James Stuart in exile in Lorraine.
For the rest, he had not missed the meaning of Lade’s final words. Money always spoke a language of its own.
He reached into his pocket and tossed the man a silver piece. “There will be another like this if you take good care of our horses and give us two good, stout beds with clean linen. I’ll be wanting hot meals for us both.”
Lade’s face brightened again at the sight of the coin. He caught it nimbly, then tested it between his teeth.
“That’ll be right, then. I always likes a bleedin’ cull. I’ll get you and your man that grub.”
As he disappeared into the kitchens, Gideon considered their situation. And, for a moment, despair made him think he had made a mistake by fleeing the law.
But truly he had been left with no choice. Sir Joshua’s examination in his chambers had been conducted with the same determined disbelief as his earlier questioning. The group of witnesses he had bothered to quote had been chosen for one reason only—to help him obtain a conviction. With Sir Joshua as the magistrate presenting the evidence to the assizes, he would have no hope of a defence.
And now Gideon had landed in this gruesome spot, mistaken for a Jacobite or a highwayman—or both. He could almost smile at the irony—that he, who had never been enthusiastic in his politics, should be taken for a traitor to King George.
Even his father had been more cool-headed than that. Lord Hawkhurst had never taken up arms in James’s cause, no matter how loyal his sentiments had been. Perhaps he had reluctantly concluded that to bring the Stuarts back into England would plunge the country into another bloody civil war, when James insisted, as he surely would, on a Roman faith. Gideon believed that himself, while regretting the necessity of accepting a dull-witted, turnip-loving foreigner on the English throne. He was willing any time to drink to the Chevalier St. George—the only title the Pretender was ever likely to have. Gideon would even drink to him as king, if it would throw his landlord off the scent.
Nevertheless, he wondered if he had helped himself by convincing a stranger that he was not only a thief, but a traitor, too. Alone for the first time in many days, he sank his face into his hands.
No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,
The dreaded East is all the wind that blows.
A Sylph too warned me of the threats of fate,
In mystic visions, now believed too late!
A constant Vapour o’er the palace flies;
Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise;
Dreadful, as hermit’s dreams in haunted shades,
Or bright, as visions of expiring maids.
Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires,
Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires:
Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes,
And crystal domes, and Angels in machines
.
Down to the central earth, his proper scene,
Repaired to search the gloomy Cave of Spleen.
CHAPTER 9
It was in this position that Tom found him, just minutes after he had satisfied himself that Beau’s scratches had been salved and both mounts had been well tended. The boy Avis had pleased him with his scrupulous handling of the horses, until he had artlessly informed Tom that a mysterious “Mr. Jack,” who had kept a room at the inn until he had ended his days at “Paddington-Fair,” had taught him to care for his own horse— “a rum prancer.”
Disturbed by the boy’s vocabulary, Tom had left him with the intention of warning his master that they had better leave this place before their throats were slashed. Finding Gideon in a posture of obvious despair, however, undid his resolve. He decided to hold his tongue until St. Mars had refreshed himself.