Captain Fantom

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Recall how her brother pursued his revenges after you. He was so strong in hatred that your memory of it frightened you long after he himself was dead. What more natural than that he should describe his woes to his family and name the author of them? Did she not show interest in your German campaigns?’

  ‘Aye, she did. She questioned me most closely,’ I recalled.

  ‘That would be her way to make certain you were the very man. For when you plan to set a rope round someone’s neck, you will take care to find the right neck!’

  ‘And all this? Her submission to me, her silence in my absence, this was part of her plot?’

  Lauder shrugged.

  ‘Who knows how carefully she plotted? May be she did not plot at all but, finding herself seduced and pregnant, and considering later by whom – the man who had ravished her brother’s bride and poisoned his life, not to mention killing her own husband – she looked round for ways to take revenges and found this one. Most ironical!’

  ‘Ironical?’

  ‘Aye. That Fantom, who has committed so many ravishings scot-free, should die for one he did not commit.’

  I walked round the room in agitation.

  ‘She will not go so far,’ I insisted. ‘She will make me suffer but not so much.’

  ‘She waited till you were unprotected before striking,’ said Lauder.

  ‘She is bearing my child!’ I shouted.

  ‘Well, as to that, like any poor wee married man, you have only the lady’s word. Where the wolf has made a breach, the fox and ferret may easily go.’

  The door opened before I could decide how I felt about this monstrous allegation. The court was reconvened.

  I hardly bothered to listen to the court president as he declared me guilty and sentenced me to death. I was too busy looking for Annette but she had not stayed for her triumph. Perhaps her conscience would not let her. How could a woman so abuse a poor man?

  It is strange what sinful traps our human hesitation can lead us into. Before, when I was merely arrested and awaiting trial, I could have escaped at the expense of one man’s life only. Now that I was condemned, however, I would need to kill four or five in order to break free.

  I protested again that the placing of such a large guard on my quarters was a slur on my honour, but this seemed only to amuse. I was waiting for the sentence to be confirmed – or quashed – and while normally Rupert would have been the one to do this, now it was for the King himself. I still had hopes of Rupert for all that. He was popular among the soldiers and though he had made some powerful enemies, he also had a large number of powerful friends. But his behaviour now (so I was told) was based on a sense of deep grievance rather than diplomacy and merely confirmed him in the King’s disfavour, who had already commissioned Lord George Digby as Lieutenant-General of his forces in the north. God help all poor soldiers I

  Visitors, principally Lauder, kept me abreast of this news so it came as no surprise to have the sentence confirmed and to be told that a date had been set but five days distant for the ceremony. I made claim that, as an officer, I had the right to die by shooting, but so strong was their fear of my reputation as a hard-man that they would not countenance it. Indeed there were some (Lauder said) who would have liked me beaten to death with cudgels to make sure of the job, but such barbarisms disgusted the greater part.

  You will understand how during this time I watched and waited for an opportunity to escape, but I was held so strait that for all my ingenuity none came. My guards always appeared to me in pairs and though in the last resort I was prepared to assault them both with my bare hands, I knew that this was but a fair way to be borne to the scaffold on a stretcher. I begged Lauder to smuggle in a weapon to me, but he refused, saying that he was closely searched at my door and to be found with a concealed weapon would but join him to me on the gallows. I have before noted this distressing tendency in Lauder to put his own well-being before that of his friends. The old virtues are fast disappearing from the earth.

  Of Mistress Annette there was little news save that Lauder was now able to confirm absolutely what he had earlier surmized, that she was certainly the beautiful boy’s young sister. Their mother, a noted beauty more French than Belge, had been in Queen Henrietta Marie’s entourage till her marriage and had obtained a similar post for her daughter, during which service she had met young Matthias whose bones were now enriching the soil around Edgehill. The family fortunes had been in disrepair and D’Amblève’s proposed marriage to the German girl had been based as much on her wealth as her beauty. Unfortunately in his obsession with taking vengeance on me, he had ignored his obligations to his family and, instead of adding to their store, had depleted it completely by the time of his death. I realized now the depth of Annette’s feelings against me. It was not merely the family honour that I had hurt but the family purse.

  I regretted Annette deeply. She was a girl after my own heart. I still had a deep-down hope that she would not let this matter go as far as the gallows. After all, she was carrying my child – that must count for something! But it was no use relying on such sentimentalities.

  Lauder let himself be persuaded as far as this for me, that he would keep Petrarch saddled and provisioned for me each night of the four that now remained between me and the rope. As for money, once I could get to my Oxford cache I would be well provided, and a few days spent going from one city to another where I had left money hidden would see me a wealthy man.

  But I still had to escape. Two more days passed and the vigilance and number of my guards seemed to increase daily. Any faint hope of Annette’s interference disappeared when Lauder came to me that evening with the news that she had miscarried. Well, I daresay she was glad of it. How do you bring up a child to tell him that you had his father hanged?

  My escape must be made now, I resolved. Tomorrow on the eve of my execution the guard’s vigilance would be at its peak.

  ‘Lauder,’ I said. ‘You will not bring me a weapon?’

  ‘I have said so,’ he answered, regarding me with something like sympathy in those wintry blue eyes. It filled me with an even greater sense of my own peril. Lauder dispensed sympathy like God dispensed manna, only in the case of utmost necessity.

  ‘But the horses are ready?’ I said, anxious lest his despair at my plight should have made him neglect this task.

  ‘For what use it is, they’re both ready,’ he answered.

  ‘Thanks for that, old friend,’ I said. ‘Now give me your hand for in this life we may not meet again.’

  ‘I shall come tomorrow,’ he protested.

  ‘Nay,’ I said, grasping his hand firm. ‘Tomorrow I must make my peace with my Maker. I shall thank him sincerely that I had a friend like you.’

  He squeezed my hand tight. I swear there were tears in his eyes. There certainly were next moment as I kneed him in the balls, and immediately, lest his eighty-odd years had rendered him insensitive in that area, brought my best silver sconce down on the back of his head.

  I felt most virtuous as I let him fall gently to the floor and started removing his tunic. I was the nearest thing to a friend he had ever had and he would have suffered grievously later to think that selfish consideration of his own safety had prevented him from helping me.

  By the time I had put on his tunic, cloak and hat, all of which were fortunately very distinguishable, if only by reason of their shabbiness, the old Scot was beginning to recover. I helped him to his feet, sat him at a table with his back to the door and gave him wine in the sconce I had hit him with. His grizzled pate was a giveaway, so I rammed on his head a long nightcap I used to wear against the cold which is very bitter in these draughty colleges. Then, dimming the lamp, I rapped on the door and as the guard cautiously opened it I said to Lauder in my best Scottish accent, ‘Guid night to you, Fantom. Best say your prayers, man, and ask the Laird’s forgiveness.’

  Lauder, still dazed, drew deeply on the wine. From behind he looked the very picture of a man in some pe
rturbation of spirit.

  Now came the moment of crisis when I had to step out of the darkened room. There was no hope to continue the deceit. All my intention was to grab for Lauder’s sword and pistol which he was made to put against the wall before entering, and hope to fight my way out. My room was at the head of a little staircase and I knew that besides the guard at the door, at least two others stood at the foot of the stairs. It was not a good prospect, but better than the rope.

  Then Lauder did me a last service. The wine must have cleared his head a bit and he attempted to stand. That was too much. With a low moan he slumped sideways and crashed to the floor.

  ‘He has taken poison!’ I cried, forgetting my accent. But it didn’t matter. Fearful of losing his prisoner to death, the guard rushed into the room and knelt over the twitching body. He realized his error just soon enough to turn his head round and receive my boot full in the face.

  I buckled on Lauder’s sword and spanned both the Scot’s and the guard’s pistols. Then, holding these beneath my cloak, I went down the staircase, moving sideways and slowly as an old man would in this narrow passage.

  At the foot of the stairs an archway led into a cloister walk and here three more guards stood, warming themselves at a charcoal brazier. They were armed with pike and musket and their weapons presently stood against the cloister wall. They sprang to attention as I approached – Lauder would have been a stickler for military correctness on his visits – and I had no difficulty at all in planting a ball in each of the two nearest. But the third was a nimble devil and before I could get to him with my sword he had seized his pike and put the brazier between himself and me. I would have preferred that he had grabbed his musket for I would have taken my chance with a single ball, but this was a big strapping fellow, clearly trained to the pike, and though it was nearer ten than the sixteen feet a campaign pike ought to be, yet it was a great distancer of a man with a sword.

  There was little time to spare. The shots would soon bring others. I attempted to circle round the brazier, meaning to run for it as soon as I got in the clear, but he was having none of that and with a couple of terrifyingly dextrous passes of his weapon kept me pinned in the archway.

  ‘Fellow,’ I said. ‘Wouldst be rich?’

  ‘Nay, sir,’ he said in a very nasty kind of way. ‘And how shall you repay me for a brother’s life?’

  ‘Brother? One of these?’

  I looked at the two shot sentries, neither of whom was dead though soon like to be. One of them was cast in the same mould as the big pikeman.

  ‘He still lives,’ I said and bending down, I grasped him by the collar and pulled him upright.

  ‘But not for long,’ I continued. ‘Soon he will burn.’

  And I threw him across the brazier.

  With a wild yell, the pikeman leapt forward to rescue his brother. I ran him through the shoulder and the two wounded men and the brazier fell in a heap on the stone flagged walk, scattering red-hot charcoal everywhere. Other men were approaching now, shouting and waving weapons. But they knew not what was amiss, and while they sought for an enemy, I in my quartermaster’s insignia was able to stroll out of the college, mount Lauder’s nag which was tied up by the porter’s lodge and ride into the darkness.

  Lauder had been as good as his word. The old bastard must have had some confidence in me after all. Petrarch and Athene were ready for departure and they neighed with pleasure to see me – and perhaps in protest at waiting so long. I embraced them, mounted and made my way swiftly through the dark streets to Sir Olwyn Matthias’s house. A lesser man might have had thought of revenges but not I. All I wanted was the store of money which I had cached in his stable wall.

  Leaving both my horses some yards from the house lest the inmates of Matthias’s stable should call to them, I entered making soothing noises and went straight to my hiding place. The stone swun out easily. I reached in my hand and felt both therein and in my own stomach a great emptiness. My money had gone.

  ‘Christ’s fingers!’ I snarled. ‘The bitch has robbed me!’

  Had my money been there, I should have taken it and gone. Time was short and though there were more important considerations for the garrison than my capture and execution, yet would all the guard-posts be alerted to my escape in very short time. But so enraged was I by this mean theft of a soldier’s wages, honestly earned, that I went straight to the house, made short work of a small window on the ground floor and was on the stairs before I began to feel uneasy at my folly. But still I pressed on. Sir Olwyn was little to fear as my ball through his foot had lost him a couple of toes and turned him lame, though not to the improvement of his temper I guessed. The servants were far removed at the back of the house. Swiftly I made my way to Annette’s quarters and entered.

  She lay in her bed, her face lit only by the glow of the flames from the sweet-smelling wood burning in the grate. I suddenly recalled Lauder telling me that she had miscarried and strange to say I felt my conscience heavily smitten to trouble her at this time. But she was awake and had seen me. Sitting up with the sheet held tight against her neck, she said without surprise, ‘You have come to kill me.’

  ‘Nay, madam,’ I said. ‘More important business than your life fetches me here. I want my money.’

  ‘Money? Which money?’

  I approached with my sword drawn and thrust the point into her pillow.

  ‘No trifling,’ I said. ‘The money which I hid in the stable. You have taken it. Come, madam, I know you for treacherous and vindictive, but I had not taken you for a thief.’

  ‘I know nothing of your money! Nothing!’ she cried. ‘Except that it will have been dishonestly obtained by the greatest rogue the world has ever known.’

  I began to believe her, but I was so enraged that I seized the sheet from her hands and dragged it away, as though she might have my wealth hidden beside her. But what I saw surprised me more. She was naked. I had seen her so but once before and even in my rage I admired once more the perfection of her body. And then something struck me. I am no medical man but when it comes to female physiology I have some expertise.

  ‘Lady,’ I said. ‘What marvel is this? Was it but today that you miscarried of a six month child? You are marvellously recovered!’

  She did not reply but made a grasp at the bell-pull which would summon her servant. I easily prevented her and brought my face close to hers.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘That too was a lie. A cushion up your skirt to give my judges the ocular proof of your slanders. What a long and cleverly planned malice this has been! And with me at the point of hanging, the “child” can go and Mistress Matthias can be herself again!’

  She denied nothing. There was nothing she could deny. She lay there, silent, expecting death. Instead I did to her what she had falsely accused me of and she did not resist but lay quiet all the time.

  ‘There, madam,’ I said afterwards. ‘Go now to your chirurgeon and complain. Let him be as surprised as I have been! So now we have all had our revenges.’

  ‘You still live,’ she said coldly.

  ‘And shall I die because your husband was a soldier and your brother was a fool?’ I demanded.

  ‘You have killed for slighter reason I do not doubt,’ she answered.

  ‘Ay, and wars have started for slighter reason, and kingdoms have been lost for slighter reason. But shall you and I and all manner of people living in peace under the law govern our lives by these slight accidents? Nay, lady. I have killed a man for killing my horse, which I loved more than that man. But if every woman in this land who has lost a husband or felt her family injured in this war should seek to hang one for it, why the forests would crack like muskets at the weight of the bodies. All of us may kill for rage, and some of us must kill for money, but only God should kill for revenge.’

  ‘I shall pray for it,’ she said.

  ‘And I against it,’ I said. ‘Who knows how it shall end?’

  Who indeed? At that moment the door burst
open and Sir Olwyn appeared in his night-gown, his face puce, his sword brandished over his head. He hopped towards me, swinging his heavily bandaged left foot through the air. So I shot him in the other.

  ‘You did not take my money?’ I said to Annette.

  She shook her head. She was extraordinarily lovely even though the features of her brother now showed strong in my eye. I might have gone to her again had not Sir Olwyn been rolling and groaning on the floor.

  ‘Goodbye then,’ I said. ‘Think of me.’

  Well, you’ve got to say something, haven’t you?

  1646

  Bristol

  It is a clear indication of how the war was going that getting into Bristol was ten times harder than getting out of Oxford. Why I should wish to get into Bristol at all requires some explanation.

  After my escape I had found it fairly easy to make my way where I would in this troubled land. I avoided large groups from either army and stayed in no one place for any length of time. All I wished to do was collect the wealth I had hidden and leave the country. The disappearance of my Oxford cache I had put down to bad luck. Some ostler or stable-lad had chanced on my hiding-place and thought himself fortunate. Well, I had expected this in one or two cases.

  But I soon discovered as I went from cache to cache that either ill fortune was pursuing me beyond the bounds of logical expectation or some more sinister force had been at work. They were all empty without exception. Bristol was the last place where I had laid up any store and my only hope was that this at least remained intact. Normally a man of my talents could easily have found provision in the countryside he passed through, but so often had all these towns and villages been scoured by successive armies that the people were suspicious, uncharitable, and ready to strike first and question afterwards. While my small store of ready cash lasted, all was well, but without the chink of coin all help was soon denied except to force – and that I wanted to avoid. A man who had survived my recent dangers would be foolish to end with some yokel’s pitch-fork through his belly, and I recalled Lauder’s emphasis that there had been three Queens of Spades.