Sword and Song

by Roz Southey

  “Charles can’t hit a barn door!” Hugh said grinning. “He may have a good sense of rhythm but his sense of direction is dreadful!”

  I left them with dignity, climbing up the rise then jogging across to the track. I was beginning to regret the picnic almost as much as I’d enjoyed it. Sitting in the warm sunshine with good friends and the woman I loved had lulled me into a kind of warm sleepiness from which it was difficult to return. But I was going to have to stir myself – get myself ready for the long ride into town and the stepping through into the other world. To put an end to this mess once and for all.

  The track was longer than I’d remembered. The trees kept the worst of the sun off my head although the air below them was thick with midges that itched on my face and in my scalp. I waved them away. The sun was lower than I’d anticipated – how long had we indulged ourselves?

  At the road, I turned left – we’d come from the right and I knew there was no tavern that way. If the coachman was roaring drunk, sobering him would take some time. I’d have to make arrangements for Catherine too. In heaven’s name, why had we delayed so long?

  Tall overblown hedges on either side were rampant with cow parsley, honeysuckle and reddening rosehips, tall seeding grasses and trailing brambles. The road was potholed and rutted, the hard earth surface disintegrating in the dry weather. We’d had one of the hottest Junes in living memory, and it hadn’t rained a great deal since. The road twisted and turned in the peculiar way country roads do; I glimpsed sheep in the fields and one or two wilting, yellowing crops. I started at shadows, and rabbits rustling among the brambles.

  A pair of geese strutted out into the road in a sudden rush, necks held stiffly. I hesitated – in my admittedly limited experience, a goose can be extremely unfriendly. But they flapped off into bushes and I rounded a corner to see a spread of buildings in front of me.

  The Black Pig, the tumbledown cottage – they were both there, with a barn besides. But they were all ruined. The roofs had fallen in, bar a few rotting rafters over the cottage; the windows of the Black Pig were broken, and a sturdy rowan tree had grown up inside, pushing its branches through gaps in windows and door. All that was left was the ghostly presence of letters painted across the façade, and a half-rotted sign that must once have swung above the door. The sign had fallen into a water butt and the paint had long since mostly peeled away, leaving just the pig’s snout and a tree in the background. It looked as if it had once been someone’s prize pig, fat and bloated and complacent.

  I stood under an oak tree and contemplated the ruin. The coachman, Alyson had said, had been familiarising himself with the country roads – he’d found the picnic site easily enough. So why had he not known the Black Pig was a ruin, and had been, by the looks of it, for twenty years or more? And if he hadn’t known, why hadn’t he returned as soon as he found out, to tell us so and make new arrangements?

  One of the servants in Alyson’s house must be in on the plot. And if a guest was involved too, the servant didn’t need to be an indoor servant. The coachman was stocky – and he was the only one of the servants good honest careful lawyer Armstrong had not personally interviewed and approved.

  And he had Catherine.

  I started running back along the road.

  36

  Ancient ruins can be very picturesque places – take your drawing pad with you at all times.

  [A Frenchman’s guide to England, Retif de Vincennes

  (Paris; published for the author, 1734)]

  A whine. Something flicked past my eyes. I stumbled to a halt. Geese squawked furiously. Dear God, the geese! Something – someone – had spooked them. Someone in the hedge, in the field, among the old ruins.

  Someone shooting at me.

  And I was standing stock still like an idiot! But if I ran, I’d be an easy target...

  I flung myself at the hedge. A second shot, high above my head. He had two pistols. At least I’d startled him into firing too quickly, before he could aim properly.

  I crashed through a rotting, broken-down fence into a dense tangle of saplings. This had once been coppice; the spindly shoots grew up in dense bundles from low stumps. The attacker was further away than I’d thought. By the wall of the ruined barn, in deep impenetrable shadow, I could just see his movements as he furiously reloaded. I had seconds to reach him and it wouldn’t be long enough. I shouted and ducked down. The fellow was excitable; he loosed off another shot. The ball went over my head again.

  I ran at him, tramping through brambles that caught at my clothes, scrambled over another, more sturdy fence. He must realise he didn’t have time to reload again; he turned and ran. A lithe, slender figure, in dark coat and breeches. At the corner of the barn, I tripped over something, grabbed a tree trunk to steady myself. He’d abandoned one of the pistols.

  The squeal of a horse. Hooves clattering on a road.

  I heard the thud of the horse’s hooves receding into the distance as I came out into a farmyard. Tavern and cottage on my right, barn on the left. Weeds sprouted through cobbles, stunted, distorted saplings twisted from broken-down walls. Suddenly conscious I was exposed, I retreated to the deep shadows of the barn.

  Nothing. No one. The attacker must have been alone.

  I went back to the coppice, twisted one of the saplings from its stump and prodded cautiously at the abandoned pistol. It was a cheap affair, nothing on it to identify its owner, no convenient coat of arms. I left it, afraid it had been abandoned because of a misfire.

  The low sun was in my eyes as I ran back along the road. We needed to find shelter. Somewhere we could easily defend. And our problems multiplied if we had to spend a night in the open. We had food and drink, and pistols, but we were not warmly dressed, least of all Esther. And no one at Long End would miss us until late tomorrow – they all thought we were staying the night with the Blacketts.

  The track loomed up ahead. My scraped side was aching where I’d been stabbed; I was labouring for breath. Midges swarmed around me. The track seemed endless and –

  There was movement behind one of the trees. I spun – and saw Hugh, sighting at me along his cocked pistol.

  He lowered the pistol. “We heard shots. What happened?”

  “The Black Pig’s ruined. Has been for years by the look of it.”

  “The coachman’s one of the plotters?” he asked instantly.

  I nodded. “There’s one of the others here too. Shot at me, then rode off. Where are Esther and Heron?”

  They were still in the dell, close behind the tree that had sheltered Esther. She’d draped the rug over her shoulders to hide at least part of her pale dress, and held one of the duelling pistols; Heron, beside her, had his sword drawn. I would have run a mile rather than face him with that look on his face.

  “I brought this on myself,” I said. “I thought I was being clever using our outing to cover my visit to Newcastle. But we’ve walked into a trap.”

  “What about Catherine?” Esther said in horror.

  I had no answer to that. “We need shelter,” I said. “And somewhere no one can take us by surprise.”

  “A local farm?” Hugh asked.

  “Too risky. How could we be sure we could trust their occupants?”

  “But what’s the alternative? We can’t walk.” Hugh was looking at Esther’s shoes; if she had to walk more than across a room, they would probably cripple her. And that unwieldy dress was made for an elegant turn or two in a drawing room, not for a hike down country lanes.

  Heron said unemotionally, “I do not believe I will be able to walk far either.” A muscle in his cheek worked as he spoke; it plainly cost him to admit this weakness.

  “I think the best thing to do is to take shelter in the Black Pig ruins.” I cultivated a tone as cool as Heron’s to try to discourage argument. “With several pistols and a sword, it may prove defensible. I’ll walk on, try to find help. If I can get hold of a horse, I can ride on to Blackett’s house, and bring him back with a band o
f his servants.”

  “You’re not going alone,” Hugh said.

  “I am. You’re staying with the others.”

  “Damn it – ”

  “It does make sense,” Heron said. “In my present state of health, I doubt I’d be a match for a young fit assailant. And Mrs Jerdoun cannot match a man for strength.”

  “I don’t like it,” Hugh said obstinately.

  “Neither do I,” I agreed. “But what else is there to do?”

  We filled our pockets with the more portable foodstuffs and followed the track back to the road. Heron walked slowly, and I thought that determination alone would probably carry him through. Esther was a different matter – she was limping after only a few yards.

  The lowering sun didn’t reach between the tall hedges on either side of the road; we seemed to be walking along a tunnel of rapidly gathering gloom. I walked in front, the loaded pistol uncomfortable in my hand, anxiously scanning every possible place someone might hide. Hugh brought up the rear, pistol cocked and ready to fire. Between us trudged Heron and Esther. We made slow progress – by the time we reached the Black Pig, the sun touched only the very tops of the trees.

  I looked at the ruins with growing trepidation. Was this a good idea? Once we were inside the buildings, there would plainly be no escape. I gestured to the others to wait, climbed the fence into the coppiced wood and followed the flattened trail I’d made earlier until I came to the second fence. The empty yard stretched ahead of me: the tavern on my right with the tumbledown cottage attached to it, the ruined barn on the left. The yard seemed to debouch on the far side on to a track running at right angles to the road; when I reached the track, I saw that it joined the road to the right – to the left it ran along the edge of fields towards a distant glimpse of the river.

  The ruins were deserted.

  The tumbledown cottage looked the best bet for shelter; most of the roof in one corner seemed to be intact. I pushed open the door. Windows in the far side were blocked with planks of wood. Broken remnants of ploughs and harness glinted under the sunshine coming through the slateless rafters; in the corner where the roof remained intact, one heap was covered with a horse’s blanket. Underneath the blanket was an odd assortment of goods – two bottles of wine, a hunting gun, a bag of money, a battered goblet that looked as if it might even have come from a church. A wrapped parcel turned out to hold bread and cheese. Someone had been using this as a hideout.

  I fetched the others; we crowded into the cottage. A mouse ran across one corner even as we looked around. Esther sighed.

  “I’ll get started,” I said. “The sooner I’m on my way the sooner I’ll be back – ”

  We all heard the noise at the same time, paused, listening.

  “Animals?” Heron whispered.

  Hugh trod silently to the door, eased it open. Voices. From the road. “Friend or foe?” he whispered.

  I signalled to Esther and Heron to stay where they were and sidled out into the yard. Hugh slipped out after me. The voices were a distant mumble. The soft sigh of a horse, the rattle of harness.

  At the corner of yard and track, I peered round the cottage towards the road. Hugh flattened himself against the wall behind me. I glimpsed the rear end of a horse, the spread of a greatcoat over its back, a man’s head turning...

  I drew back.

  “Well?” Hugh demanded.

  “It’s the coachman,” I whispered. “And there’s someone else with him.”

  “Who?”

  “Can’t see.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Shh.”

  It was no good; it was all a mumble – they were keeping their voices low. But I suddenly heard the coachman say, “Well, don’t blame me.” The horse shifted. I ducked back.

  “They’re moving.”

  A clatter of hooves dying away. Had they gone? I risked another look round the wall and ducked back, grabbing Hugh. “Quick – move! The coachman’s coming this way.”

  We dived back for the cottage; Esther and Heron were at the door and I bundled them back in.

  “Hide! Quickly!”

  Heron pushed a pistol into my hand. “It’s loaded. Take care.” This time I took the weapon; positioned myself to one side of the door. Hugh took the other side, Heron stood behind me. Esther retreated to the far corner of the cottage, pulling the rug as closely around her as she could. It barely covered half of the wide hooped skirts.

  I eased the door open, watched the thin slice of cobbled courtyard visible through the gap. A dirty-coloured grey horse came into view, ridden by the coachman, who was wearing a heavy coat of the type such men usually use to protect themselves in bad weather. As he swung himself down from the horse, I caught a glimpse of a pistol in his belt.

  He reached to unfasten something from the saddle. Then he was striding for the cottage. I pulled back, gestured to the others to be quiet. Through the narrowest of slits, I watched him approach. He’d dropped the humble air, was purposeful. Looking at his sneering face, I wondered how we’d ever thought him anything but a thug.

  He pushed at the door. He saw me at once. I brought up my pistol. “Stand still!”

  He lunged at me. Sunlight glittered on a knife. I smelt his breath, all beer and onions, saw him snarl –

  Then he threw up his hands with a strange gasp. The knife clattered to the floor.

  Heron pulled back his bloodstained sword.

  37

  I beg you not to tell my wife, but we were held up on the road yesterday by a fellow who demanded our money. I lost three guineas by it and another traveller lost a hundred!

  [Letter from Retif de Vincennes, to his brother, Georges, 16 July 1736]

  Heron was remarkably cool considering he had just killed a man. As we all stood in shock, he bent stiffly to pull at the coachman’s coat. “Help me take this off him. It will cover Mrs Jerdoun’s dress.”

  I laid my pistol safely on the floor and Hugh and I manhandled the coachman. Thankfully, there was not much blood, but he was heavy and unwieldy and we struggled to turn him over. The coat was bloodstained but Esther hung it about her shoulders without hesitation. It covered her back but her wide hooped skirts still showed palely at the front.

  “You could remove the hoops,” Heron suggested.

  Esther shook her head. “Then there would simply be yards of loose material hanging to the ground.”

  Hugh nudged me aside. “What now?”

  “We must get out of here. The other conspirators may come back and when they find this fellow dead – sir, what are you doing?”

  Heron was crouching beside the body and unfastening a bag from the coachman’s belt. I heard the chink of coins. He slipped the coins into his own pockets. “If he is found with his belongings rifled, it will look as if he was killed by a robber.”

  “What about the horse?” Esther asked. “A robber would take that as well.”

  “I need that,” I said. “I can use it to get to Blackett’s.”

  “No, you can’t! If you’re caught with it, it will be assumed you killed the coachman.”

  “We’ll have to hide it!” Hugh said. “Put it in the barn.”

  I shook my head. “There’s no door. I’ll turn it loose in the fields.”

  “Take its saddle off,” Heron recommended. “A saddled horse running in a field will attract attention, an unsaddled animal will not.”

  “Meanwhile,” I said, “get the body under cover of the blanket with the other stuff – it won’t deceive anyone for long but seconds might be vital.”

  I left them dragging the body across the floor and went outside. The horse was restless but docile and let me unfasten buckles and pull the saddle from its back. I hid the saddle in the barn and led the horse off towards the coppice. I intended to cut through the coppice into the field beyond but I’d forgotten the fence; rickety it might have been but my attempts to break it down failed miserably. Worried over the length of time it was all taking, I led the horse down a
narrow gap between the barn and fence, hoping to find a gate or broken rail.

  Behind the barn were the ruins of a wall, surrounding what looked to be an overgrown orchard of apple trees, laden with fruit. I found a gap where a leaning tree had broken down the fence, gave the horse a slap on its flank. It cantered off into the field.

  I heard a shout from the cottage.

  I went back at a tearing run, plunging through nettles between barn and fence. Two figures were struggling in the dusk-shrouded yard. Heron was one of them – the other, a smaller, slighter figure, was wrapped up in greatcoat, hat and mask. They were punching at each other. Or trying to, rather. Heron connected with one blow but the fellow twisted away and took it on a shoulder; the villain himself was merely swinging wildly.

  I stumbled over Heron’s sword, lying at some distance – it must have been knocked out of his hand. I dipped for it, and ran at the pair, roaring. Heron stepped back nippily; the other fellow took one look at me bearing down on him and fled towards the coppice. I ran after him. He was supple, vaulted the fence and crashed through the trees.

  I was clambering over the fence when I heard Hugh yelling. He was running across the yard from the track. Esther was in the doorway of the cottage, pistol in hand.

  “More!” Hugh gasped. “A man on the road! We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “Can we not defend the cottage?” Esther demanded.

  “There are holes in the roof,” I said. “They could climb the walls and fire down at us. We’ll have to run.”

  Hugh glanced involuntarily at Esther, in her hooped skirts and high heels. She said, “I cannot run.”

  “You’ll have to.” I handed Heron back his sword. “Hugh and I will distract them. Head down the track towards the river. See if you can find help.”

  Heron was still breathing heavily from his fight. He was damnably weak, I thought, and wondered how much exertion he was capable of. He nodded silently.

  I jogged to the corner of cottage and track, Hugh hard on my heels. Peering round the corner, I realised how fast the dusk was gathering – the trees around the road were gloomy and impenetrable. There was a horseman on the road, wrapped in greatcoat and hat; he was staring back down the road towards the coppice. Then he kicked at his horse’s flanks, urged the animal on along the road, out of our sight.