by Jack
‘Silence!’ roared the clerk, whereupon the hubbub subsided.
‘If the defendant or her representative wins,’ continued the magistrate, ‘Providence will have decreed that her version of events was the truth, whereby the plaintiff must pay her one thousand golden guineas as recompense for the inconvenience, in addition to court costs. If the plaintiff wins it proves he told no lie, and the defendant must honour her promise by marrying him. She will also pay costs.
‘According to common law,’ he added, ‘women, the elderly, the infirm of body, and minors may name champions to fight in their stead. On the allotted day the combat is to begin before noon and be concluded before sunset. The litigants must be present in person. Before fighting, each litigant must swear an oath disclaiming the use of gramarye for advantage in the combat.
‘Whoever wins the contest,’ Judge Rotherkill concluded, ‘wins the case. Until the matter is decided in this manner, the plaintiff and the defendant must neither see nor speak with each other. The duel must be fought before the end of this month — Dorchamis the Dark. If it fails to take place, both parties will be held to be in contempt of court and fined accordingly. If one party fails to appear and field a champion, they will lose the case.’
There was no time to collect one’s thoughts; the judge had spoken, and the usher hurried both groups out of the courtroom so that the next candidates might enter.
* * * *
In the overcast skies the clouds were pressing down as if more snow was threatening. Mazarine and her companions were keen to depart with all speed from the town, where knots of gawkers and loiterers stared at them inquisitively as they exited the building. They repaired to the sleigh without delay.
‘Swords!’ Professor Wilton exclaimed disgruntledly as he stepped into the vehicle. ‘Swords! Trials by combat at common law in Erith are generally carried on with quarterstaffs!’
Wakefield closed the door, Tofts blew his horn officiously and off they slithered once more. As Laurelia unwrapped parcels of bread and cheese and Professor Wilton handed around small bottles of cider, Mazarine said without hope, ‘I cannot afford to hire a skilled swordsman. My guardian will win.’
‘Not at all!’ said Professor Wilton. ‘We will find a champion for you, dear lady. Never fear!’
‘We have two weeks!’ said Wakefield. ‘We shall begin the search straight away!’
‘That Judge Rotherkill is an utter beast,’ said Laurelia feelingly. ‘Fancy leaving it to fate to decide, and so brutally!’
‘At least he did not order me to go back to Kelmscott,’ said Mazarine.
The journey home proceeded uninterrupted save for the obligatory halt before Tybeck Span, and they returned to Clover Cottage before noon.
* * * *
CHAPTER FIVE
True justice is elusive, caught in truth and falsehood’s dance;
But equity is rarely found when all is left to chance.
That night at Kelmscott House, the earl and seven of his cronies reclined by an enormous blaze in the Long Gallery, discussing the day’s proceedings. After doing justice to an eight course meal, they settled in for a long night’s drinking. Two butlers were kept busy running up and down the stairs to the cellar, fetching more bottles and firkins. No music or singing was called for; the earl was not partial to such entertainments, but there was much bragging and telling of bawdy jokes until the small hours of the morning. So intent on their carousing were these merry gentlemen that they failed to notice certain scufflings and shiftings in the wainscots and corners, but when at last they lost consciousness, sprawled in various undignified positions across the furniture with legs akimbo and open mouths dribbling, the strange little servant Thrimby appeared from behind a tapestry wall-hanging and, by the light of the dwindling fire, regarded them with some disdain. To himself he muttered,
‘You pukin’ fools wot snore like drains,
With milk for blood and bone for brains,
Think ye that Thrimby will stand by
Submissive? Nay! I prophesy,
As Mazarine doth seek strong arms
For to defend her from your harms,
Then will I find the one she needs
And ye may rot like blighted weeds!’
With that, he scooped some ashes from the hearth and strewed them over the person of the senseless earl. For good measure, he also removed one of his master’s shoes and threw it on the fire before leaving the room. As it blazed it sent stinking fumes into the room, making the snorers cough in their sleep.
One person had borne witness to this from an ill-lit corner. A young laundry-maid, though exhausted from her day’s labour, had been unable to sleep. She was worried by the presence of the drunken louts on the premises. Once, late at night, not long ago, one of the earl’s inebriated cohorts had barged into the servant’s quarters and tried to molest her; she had managed to escape and hide, but the memory, the fear, was indelible. She felt miserable, too, without Mistress Blythe in the house. Well-practised in silence she stole through the house in Thrimby’s footsteps, to see what he would do next.
The wizened creature proceeded to the side door, then out through the conservatory — plucking a few weedy leaves here and there as he passed — to the stables. There, curled up in a pile of straw against the warm body of a sleeping horse, lay the under-gardener’s boy. Peeping through a chink in the walls the laundry-maid saw the youngster awaken and sit up, while Thrimby spoke to him. She strained her senses to catch his words.
‘Ye must repeat the message three times,’ Thrimby was instructing, ‘then drop in these sprigs of wormwood and dandelion and sweetgrass. Now speak up loudly, mind! None of yer mumblin’! Afterwards depart, and make it quick, and make no sound and do not look back. Can ye do this?’
Clearly terrified, the boy emitted no sound.
‘If you do not go, no one will,’ said Thrimby, ‘for it goes hard wi’ me to leave these premises. Do not be afeared! If ye do as I say, naught will ‘arm ye.’
‘What is the message?’
‘Say this: ‘I call thee, Lord Fleetwood, wherever ye stray.
Your love be in danger on this very day
She needeth a champion as never before
Make ‘aste, never sleep till ye ride to ‘er door.’
The boy nodded tightly.
Thrimby took a small flask out from the tattered depths of his clothing and thrust it roughly towards the lad. ‘Take this. If ye feel cold the drink will warm ye. Go now.’
‘Now? At night?’ The lad stared, aghast.
‘The best time.’
‘But ‘ow will Lord Fleetwood be found?’ asked the boy. ‘No one knows where ‘e bides!’
‘Leave that to me and mine,’ said Thrimby. ‘There be ways o’ finding folk. There be ways o’ sendin’ messages across Erith. Fear not. Play your part and word will get through.’
Shivering with cold or fright the lad scrambled to his feet, wrapped his woollen coat about him and disappeared into the night.
The laundry-maid felt a sweet sleepiness stealing over her; reassured, now, by the notion that Thrimby had matters in hand. Yawning, she made her way to her pallet in the attic.
Next morning she could hardly wait to snatch a moment alone with the under-gardener’s boy.
‘I saw you with Thrimby. Where did you go last night? What did you do?’
The lad paled, and shifted restlessly. ‘I went through the snow to the pool in the dell, down past the old apple-orchard,’ he murmured, ‘and there I knelt at the brink and leaned my head over. There was bits of ice floating in the black water. It was like a broken looking-glass. I could see me face starin’ back at me.’
‘Sain thee!’ said the laundry-maid, drawing back and gazing at him round-eyed, as if she had never beheld him before. “Tis a wonder you did not catch your death o’ cold!’
‘I had to say a rhyme that Thrimby made me learn,’ said the boy, ‘and I threw in some leaves. That were all.’ He looked troubled, and fidgeted wi
th his fingers.
‘That was not all was it? What else happened?’ The girl edged closer, glancing warily over her shoulder in case of eavesdroppers.
‘I shouldn’t ha’ turned around. It gives me evil dreams.’ After hesitating a moment, the lad continued, ‘As I walked away, all I could think of was, Don’t look back! Don’t look back! But at the last moment I did look back and I saw something rising from the water, but oh! I cannot speak of such a sight, beautiful as a dream but so queer and wrong-like that I knew in me ‘eart it were perilous to look any longer! I wanted to scream but knew I must not make any sound, so I ran home as fast as me poor tremblin’ legs would carry me.’
‘Sain thee!’ the laundry-maid repeated. ‘I ain’t never going near the apple-orchard dell again!’
‘Me neither,’ said the lad.
* * * *
The day of the duel was set for the last day of the month, the thirtieth. Mazarine had requested that the period of preparation be extended to its furthest limit, to allow her enough time to find a champion. She had, however, failed in that quest. Possessing only a mere pittance of an income, she could not afford to hire any swordsman at all, let alone a skilled and famous mercenary from the outlands such as the earl had employed, claiming that he himself was too infirm of body to participate in the contest.
‘When the time comes,’ Mazarine said to Wakefield, ‘will you speak for me on the field of honour and avow I have no representative?’
‘I will if necessary,’ said Wakefield, ‘but instead, allow me to be your champion. I am a passable swordsman.’
‘I will not allow it!’ said Mazarine. ‘Meaning no disrespect to your prowess, Master Squires, but what chance has any citizen against a professional swordsman? You and Laurelia are to be married, and that’s an end of it. What a foolish notion, though kindly meant!’
‘Yet if you have no champion you have no hope,’ said Wakefield.
‘There is always hope,’ replied Mazarine, though she did not believe it. In truth she was resigned to her fate, a state of mind which bestowed upon her an air of serenity. It was obvious that Lord Rivenhall would win the contest by default and she would be forced to marry him one dreary morning, thus putting her entire inheritance in his hands. Before nightfall of her wedding day, she decided, she would dress herself in beggar’s rags and trudge on foot all the way to her old home in the north, where she would find work as a nameless kitchen maid — an honourable profession, if a lowly one.
Unbeknownst to Mazarine and her friends, while they had been searching for a champion who would risk his life for little or no fee, Steward Ripley — henchman to Mazarine’s erstwhile guardian — had by flattery and ruse, managed to gain the confidence of Tansy, the maid-of-all-work employed in the Wilton household.
Tansy was a simple lass who loved her employers. In her breast a slow fire of anxieties smouldered and Ripley knew how to fan them all to flames. She wondered: Might she, Tansy, be replaced by the lady’s-maid Odalys if Mistress Blythe’s stay were lengthened? Would Laurelia be arrested for harbouring a fugitive who should by rights be dwelling beneath her legal guardian’s roof? Would Miss Blythe’s presence bring the entire household into disrepute? Would Master Squires fight a duel and be killed, leaving Laurelia forever bereft of her true love?
The masterful Steward Ripley could sweep away all the causes of Tansy’s qualms, he told her, if only the maid could secretly keep him supplied with information concerning Clover Cottage and everything that went on there, until the day of the duel. There might be one or two other ways in which she could help, as well.
After much persuasion, half relieved, half scared, Tansy agreed to comply.
The appointed hour swiftly approached.
* * * *
A wintry gale came blowing across the crystalline landscape, roaring in a thousand voices. To fight the bitter cold, enormous fires heated the Long Gallery of Kelmscott Hall where, on the night of the twenty-eighth the earl was imbibing grape brandy and playing at dice with his cronies.
‘I say, Rivenhall,’ said one gentleman, ‘that ward of yours seems pretty cool and confident.’
‘Indeed, Cluny? I had not noticed. I never see the minx, y’know. It is against the court’s edict.’
‘She appears a self-assured wench, though. What d’ye make of it?’
‘Why, I make nought of it. What is your meaning?’
‘My meaning is, surely she would not be so unruffled if she had not hired, in secret, some swordsman whom she believes will defeat your man, Henry what’s-his-name.’
‘Henry Ide of Knightstone. My man is famous, Cluny, surely you have heard of him!’
‘Quite. And I’d warrant your wench has found someone equally as famous, else why so smug?’
The earl laughed forcedly, dismissing the suggestion as ludicrous, but after that moment he fell quiet and sat staring broodily into the fire, cradling his wine cud in his hands. The jovial gentlemen were still carousing at midnight when without explanation their host left them, summoned his Chief Steward, and shut himself in the library with him. Dozing or inebriated, his cronies hardly missed him; those who noticed his absence cared little, as long as they could continue to drink his brandy.
Next day Ripley passed a secret message to the Wiltons’ maid, Tansy. On the eve of the duel the girl, with pounding pulse, followed his orders and mixed one of the apothecary’s galenicals with the dogs’ supper. Named ‘Wilton’s Surpassing Remedye for Sleeplessnesse’, it was made from agrimony, cinquefoil, elder, linden, passionflower, poppy, purslane and hemlock ...
* * * *
That night at Clover Cottage the wind rattled the doors and moaned in the eaves. The entire household was asleep in bed when the window to Mazarine’s bedchamber was quietly opened from the outside, and the earl climbed in. Though tipsy, he was sufficiently in control of his faculties to be able to move stealthily. The dogs, motionless in deep slumber or death, failed to hear or scent the stranger.
Mazarine woke with a start when the intruder clapped a hand across her mouth. Leaning so close to her that his ringlets and the ends of his hat-ribbons tickled her face he whispered, ‘Now hear this, you little fool. First thing tomorrow morning you must officially agree to this cursed marriage, or your friends will suffer. There is no need for this duel. Do you understand? Nod and I will let you speak. Cry out and I will hurt you.’
Mazarine pretended to be too dazed with sleep and fright to comprehend, though her cunning adversary saw through the ruse. He commenced to make further threats, his murmurings muffled by the wind’s shrieks and lamentations, which masked, too, the hoof-beats — faint at first — of a rider drawing near.
At the rear of the cottage Ripley, lurking in wait with the earl’s horses, heard nothing over the creaking of bare branches and the soughing of icy airs; neither did he see the young man on the far side of the building, who flung himself down from his steed’s back and strode with uneven gait to the threshold.
In the grip of her captor, Mazarine struggled. Just then there came a loud hammering at the front door.
‘Hold your tongue!’ the earl whispered, clamping his hand more firmly over Mazarine’s mouth. ‘Do not give me away! My men are surrounding this house and at my order they will set upon anyone I choose to name!’
Over the sighs of the wind Mazarine, frozen in her captor’s grip, heard Professor Wilton’s footsteps as he trotted along the passage to the door, then the click of lock and latch and the sound of his voice jovially raised in greeting:
‘Lord Fleetwood! Unlooked for and heartily welcomed!’
On hearing this name pronounced, Mazarine felt her blood race.
‘Come in, pray!’ cried the apothecary. ‘How odd — I wonder why the dogs did not announce your visit! By the Star -— they are still sleeping, the lazy creatures!’
Under his breath the earl cursed. ‘If you betray me, Mistress Blythe, I will give the signal for my fellows to kill your leman,’ he said softly. ‘That is, if I do not
slay him myself. Do you understand?’ This was worse than any other threat. Fearful for Hawkmoor’s life, Mazarine nodded. The earl subtracted his paw from her mouth and, drawing his sword, stood facing the closed door of her bedchamber.
A moment later Professor Wilton rapped on the other side of the portal.
‘Wake up, Mistress Blythe! Lord Fleetwood is here to see you!’
The earl touched his finger to his lips and shook his head warningly.
‘Tell him I cannot,’ Mazarine called out weakly from amongst her pillows. She climbed out of bed and stood shivering on the floor in her bare feet, her nightdress ruffled by cold gusts from the open window.
A brief consultation took place outside her door, followed by the beloved voice of Hawkmoor saying, ‘Mistress Blythe — Mazarine! Pray come out to me, for I have ridden hard this night to reach you!’
