The Prisoner

by James Darke

  But if it came to a shot then it would be the shortish man in the hat that would take the bullet.

  ‘From what army, Captain?’

  ‘Aye, and stand your ground there.’ They were sliding in closer than he wished to see them. Morgana was becoming even more restless.

  ‘We be all loyal men and true.’

  ‘Of what side?’

  ‘The same as you,’ said another of the men.

  ‘King or Parliament?’

  There was a clear hesitation. ‘Parliament, Captain.’

  It was a fairly safe guess in the eastern parts of the land.

  ‘Where have you fought?’

  Again a hesitation. Ferris saw faces turning to look at each other. Then the leader replied. ‘Marston Moor, Captain.’

  ‘With which leader?’

  ‘Fairfax.’ The name faster. More certain.

  ‘Who stood on your left in the line?’

  ‘It was . . .‘

  ‘Which Fairfax was it you were with?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Which Fairfax?’

  ‘The older.’

  ‘Not good enough, friend. It was Sir Thomas or it was Lord Fairfax. The former was on the right, near to Long Marston. The other stood ‘twixt

  Manchester and the Scots. I was there.’

  ‘And now you’re here, friend,’ replied the leader. ‘And here you’ll fuckin’ stay.’

  Ferris drew his Spanish pistol, already with the miquelet lock on half-cock. Aiming and firing quickly, picking the leader for his target. Despite

  the poor light, the range was close enough for him to feel confident of scoring a hit.

  The ball smashed into the robber’s neck, kicking him flat on his back in the mud at the centre of the bridge. Legs flailing, a scream beginning, choking on his own blood.

  Immediately Ferris holstered the smoking hand gun, drawing his sabre with a flourish, setting his spurs to Morgana.

  His hope had been that the men would have fallen back from him, dismayed by the death of the man he had shot. But they were more brave or more desperate than he had guessed and they surged forwards against him with a low, animal cry of anger.

  ‘Back, dogs!!’ he yelled, flailing with his sword at them. Amid the mêlée he caught the sound of running feet, and he knew the other two were sprinting down the hill behind him.

  It was a bitter fight.

  Five of them against one. But he was well mounted and had the advantage of his military training and experience. It was possible that the men were deserters, running from enlistment. Men turned thieves and killers by harsh

  necessities.

  The first of them to come against him was killed instantly. He wore a floppy hat, like his dying leader, and the brass-hilted sabre hacked through it. Through matted hair and scalp, burying itself in the top of his skull. The man cried out at the ferocious blow, twisting and falling.

  Wrenching the sword from John’s hand, nearly spraining his wrist. The robber fell to his knees then rose again, running in small circles like a

  headless chicken, crying out in a reedy voice, the sword still buried in the top of his cranium. The last glimmerings of evening light caught the

  bloodied blade, making it dance and shimmer like some bizarre head-dress. Blood and brains slithered over the villain’s face.

  A third man grabbed at the bridle, though John tried to kick him away.

  ‘Bring the bastard down!’ yelled a deep voice, taut and ragged with fear and excitement.

  Morgana was whinnying her terror, lashing out behind and putting one of the attackers down on his back, clutching his thigh and cursing loudly. John drew his own knife, seeing the glitter of steel all around him, cutting at the arm that held the bridle, but someone parried the blow. There were hands on his leg, trying to unseat him and he felt a sharp blow in the top of his left thigh.

  With the mare held, he was better off her back, and he managed to swing his leg up and over the pommel, punching at the nearest face. Feeling the

  satisfaction of bone splintering beneath his fist and a yelp of pain.

  For a moment he thought that the remainder might be put to flight. There was one hanging on the horse’s head, eyes white and frightened at the animal’s anger. Another getting up a few paces back, rubbing at his leg, bent double. A third was holding his face, crimson jetting between his

  clenched fingers. The leader was still, his floppy hat at his side. The fifth man was now sunk to his knees, the sabre still lodged in his skull, his life to be counted in fleeting seconds. And the sixth man, holding a thin-bladed flensing knife, point low, in a fighter’s crouch.

  ‘Go and I’ll spare you,’ called Ferris, left hand reaching cautiously for his own wound. Touching the back of his left thigh, coming away sticky and warm. But the wound seemed shallow.

  ‘Fuck you, coz,’ said the man with the knife, circling him, feet shuffling in the wet mud. ‘We’ll have you down and opened from pate to gizzard for what you done.’

  ‘Aye, stick the bugger,’ hissed the one at the mare’s head.

  ‘Let go the horse. Come aid us,’ added the man with the injured leg, hobbling towards John, a broad butcher’s knife in his right hand.

  Despite all it was still four against one. Even the man with the broken nose was showing signs of being eager to enter the fray again, wiping away

  the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  John tried to watch all four, turning constantly, his own horn-hilted dagger flicking at the nearest man. Though he kept a brave face on it, in his heart he knew that his chances in such a fight were not good.

  Morgana was released and galloped off down the road towards Hertford, disappearing in the mist and gloom of evening, the sound of her hooves fading and becoming inaudible. Apart from heavy breathing and the shuffling of boots in the dirt, the only sound was the bubbling of the water that flowed beneath the little bridge.

  ‘All at one, lads,’ muttered the robber whose nose had been broken.

  John was watching for his moment. The thief turned to look at his fellow next to him, taking his eyes off their victim.

  Ferris was quicker than a striking adder. He darted forwards, fast and light, the point of the blade seeking out the man’s stomach, slicing through cloak and jerkin, past the linen undershirt. There was warm blood spurting on the back of his hand from the force of the deadly blow. As he withdrew his dagger he deliberately twisted his wrist to give the thrust more lethal effect.

  ‘Jesus and the angels, I’m fuckin’ done,’ cried the man, dropping his own knife and grabbing at himself, looking down unbelieving at the amount of blood that gushed from his sliced belly.

  Three down and dead or dying.

  John saw the balance tilting in his direction and new hope was flooding through him - when there was a blinding flash of pain and he felt a great

  blow at the back of his head. Darkness seemed to spill up from the earth and wrap itself around him. He saw, as if time was slowed, his fingers opening and his blood-slick knife dropping into the dirt. There was a yell of exultation from behind him. Through the rushing blackness he guessed that one of the robbers had picked up a large stone from the side of the road and hurled it at him. With devastating success.

  ‘No . . .‘ he said, his voice silent in his own ears.

  ‘Mary . . .‘ he tried.

  Then the cold wet dirt came sweeping up and hit him on the side of the face.

  The kicks to his ribs did him little harm through his thick clothes, but they did, for a few moments, bring him back to a kind of consciousness. His

  eyes blinked open and he saw the three figures crowding around him, jostling each other as they lashed out at his inert body.

  ‘Bastard, bastard, bastard,’ chanted one of them in a vicious monotone, keeping time with the words and the blows of the boots.

  Then John Ferris saw an odd thing.

  So odd that his brain refused to believe it and he decided th
at it was some bizarre vision of impending death.

  One of the three men disappeared from view, his neck sprouting a great jewel. A green jewel that spouted dark blood.

  A second turned and . . . and then there was a clunk of wood on bone. He fell, also vanishing from John’s eyes, and there was a rattling sound as if some stick had dropped on the road.

  Hooves. A horse cantering in their direction.

  The last man. No, there were now two of them. They had reinforcements, John thought, hopelessly.

  But one was floating in the air. Held aloft by the other. Screaming and begging for mercy. John blacked out again for a few seconds and when he

  again opened his eyes there was nobody in sight.

  But he heard a loud, dry snap, like a man setting his heel to a stubborn branch. A gurgling sound that stopped. A loud splash. It was all very

  puzzling. Darkness beckoned and it seemed very welcoming to John Ferris. Just as he slipped finally into it he saw the oddest thing of all.

  A face was bending over him, smiling at him.

  But the face was as black as jet.

  Black.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was night.

  Either it was night, or he was in some kind of a cave. No, it was night. The rain-clouds had cleared away and John Ferris was able to make out some stars, twinkling faintly above his head. As he slowly recovered consciousness he was aware that he was out in the open, under trees. He could hear the light wind through the spring foliage. And smell the damp mould of the forest.

  A fire was burning brightly a few paces from him, small branches crackling and glowing. And there was the pungent smell of something cooking

  in a round iron pot that hung over the flames.

  ‘Rabbit,’ he guessed.

  ‘That’s the way of it, friend. Old brother coney simmering away for us.’

  The voice was rich and deeply resonant. Like a preacher at the further end of a long tunnel, echoing. John raised himself up on one elbow, then winced and lay down again, almost overwhelmed by a great wave of nausea.

  ‘That would be the head, friend. Lucky you were that those dogs didn’t break it like the shell of an egg. Close they came.’

  John closed his eyes, reaching up and tenderly touching the back of his skull, just behind the right ear. There was a lump there that felt’ as though someone had slipped the egg of a large goose beneath the skin.

  ‘Lie still and rest. You have been far from this world for some hours.’

  ‘What is the clock?’

  The voice hesitated. ‘I think something around three in the morning. The coney is near done.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You do not recall.’

  ‘There was. . . what is the clock?’ Ferris vaguely thought he’d asked that before, but there was a painful throbbing behind his eyes and his brain felt muzzy, as though it was wrapped in a London fog.

  ‘It is around three. I think there is some hurt to your mind, friend.’

  ‘Yes. I cannot see clear. I was on my horse making for home.’

  ‘Where is home?’

  He kept his eyes tight closed. Feeling better that way. ‘It is. . . Marston. . . No, Cambridge.’

  ‘You were on the road from Cambridge, ahorse for Hertford town.’

  ‘Ah, that is it. I live in Hertford. With my mother and father.’

  ‘Your name, friend?”

  ‘I am John Ferris, late Captain in the army of the Parliamentary forces. I fell and hurt my arm. My horse! Where is Morgana?’

  ‘Safe, Captain Ferris. She came and watched as I carried you here. I tethered her to a great oak a little distance off and . . . she . . . has . . .‘

  The words seemed so far away.

  Ferris slept again.

  When he woke he felt a little better. He opened his eyes cautiously and saw something out of the oddest of dreams. There was the first light of the false dawn illuminating a clearing in a forest. The fire he recalled from before still burned well, and there was still the faint scent of the cooked rabbit. Through the oaks he could make out the bay shape of his mare.

  But none of that caught his eye like the figure who knelt by the fire, looking gravely in his direction.

  ‘Am I woken?’ asked John.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And . . . and are you black as ebony?’

  The man nodded, smiling, showing a great cavern of gleaming white teeth. Ferris blinked and sighed. ‘Then I am truly woken. . . but I am greatly confused.’

  ‘Will you eat, Captain Ferris?’

  ‘Captain no longer. But I would be most pleased to break my fast. The sickness has passed and I am somewhat better.’

  ‘I shall give you a. little of the stew. But not too much on an empty stomach.’

  ‘I am most ravenous. I feel as if I have eaten naught for a week.’

  ‘Only a night and a day and another night, Master Ferris.’

  It took a few moments for the blackamoor’s words to sink in.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You slept with that blow to your pate. Slept most of the first night. Woke for a while. And slept all the next day and night.’

  ‘And you . . . you stayed here with me, Master . . .? I do not know even your name. God’s wounds but I owe you my life and I. . .‘

  The black handed him a tin plate filled with rich stew, and a horn spoon. Calming him with a smile. ‘Easy, Master Ferris. Easy. I will tell you something of what came about while you break your fast.’

  ‘Your name, first.’

  ‘York. Brutus York.

  He was the second black only that John Ferris had seen in his life. The first had been a negro dwarf in the service of Lord Fisher of Maxwell. His name had been ‘Antonio’ he recalled.

  ‘Give me your hand, Brutus York, and know that you have a friend for life in John Ferris of Hertford.’

  The man was immensely powerful. As tall as John, but broader built, with a handclasp that felt as if it could shatter marble.

  The rabbit smelled delicious and he set to, nearly burning his lips on the first mouthful. Pausing only to ask the black to tell him something of himself, and of what had come to pass two nights ago.

  ‘I was captured in Africa by a Portuguee slaver, when but a child. That was some nineteen years ago. He sold me to a Serbian merchant who sold me

  to a chandler from Dieppe. From there I passed to a countess in Copenhagen. She used me well. Still a slave, but master of her in the night.’ Again that engaging grin.

  Ferris had heard stories of the vast size of the, privy member of the black males, and he guessed what Brutus’ tasks had been for this titled lady.

  ‘Then to London. First to Hull. The lady tired of me. I was sold to the master of a schooner. He sold me first to a merchant from Scotland. A man who . . . who wished to use me as the countess.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Ferris, knowingly. He’d heard of such men, believing them to be afflicted of some blasphemous sickness. ‘What did you do?’

  Brutus ladled out more of the stew for him. In the background he heard Morgana snicker softly.

  ‘What did I do, Master Ferris?’

  ‘Aye. Call me John, and I shall call you Brutus, as friends should.’

  ‘I snapped his neck for him as easy as a maid breaks wet thread. Then I came to London, afoot. There to a man of the law who took the money I gave him and freed me. I have the papers here. He said to carry them always.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Aye. The buggerer had gold in his purse. I took it.’

  John Ferris sucked thoughtfully on a narrow bone. Feeling his strength returning to him by the second. ‘You did rightly, Brutus, as payment for his most vile usage of you.’

  ‘I was going away from London. There is little work there for me.’

  ‘And you saw those villains attack me?’

  The black nodded, squatting back on his heels. He wore thin breeches, cut off above the knee. And a battered pair of black boots. A
jerkin of dark wool that he had tied about his chest with a blanket of grey. His hair was cut short, close to his skull, like a man who normally wears a wig.

  ‘I did, John. John.” He tasted the name a second time, as if he rolled it around his mouth to draw out the full savour. ‘There were six. A hand and a finger,’ holding out two huge hands.

  ‘I slew some. But my memory is blurred as smoke. How many?’

  ‘It was the sound of your pistol that brought me first from hiding. I had seen these rogues and been chary of them. He took the ball in the throat and died. Another you killed with your sword.’

  ‘Through the head?’

  The negro nodded vigorously. ‘Aye, John, setting him to leaping about like a poleaxed calf. He died ‘ere I came out. Then one was stabbed to the

  guts and fell spilling his lights in the dirt.’

  John Ferris finished the plate of stew, licking it clean, feeling the pleasant warmth in his stomach. Still puzzled how a whole day had slipped by unnoticed. There was a seed of worry that he had not been able to keep his word and return home within the two days. But little could happen in such a time in their own town.

  York ticked off the three corpses on his broad fingers. ‘Then you were down and off the horse. A coward’s blow. A stone from behind, John, laid you low, and gave you that fearsome lump on your pate. They fell to kicking you, and lucky it was that they chose not to slit your throat at once. I came upon them. . .‘

  ‘And?’

  ‘One I slew with my own dagger as I came in. He died fast. A second with my club, here,’ pointing to a massive cudgel, its end roughly, rounded.

  ‘I recall seeing one of the dogs flying without the aid of angel’s wings,’ grinned Ferris.

  The black smiled in response. ‘He flew and then sadly broke his back on landing.’

  ‘The bodies?’

  ‘It will be days ‘ere they find them. And there will be scant concern for such gutter-hearts. I heaved each from yonder bridge and let the water carry them where it will. I care not.’

  ‘Nor I. And. . . Brutus, I thank you again from the well of my heart for sparing my life. My parents will make you right welcome and I would be honoured if you would come with me to Hertford and meet them, and share our board.’