‘That’s a good shirt!’ Hew complained.
‘Not so good now.’ Lachlan peered at the cut on his head. ‘You will feel it in the morning.’
‘I feel it now,’ said Hew. ‘And I should like to go to sleep.’
‘I do not doubt it,’ Robert answered grimly. ‘Nonetheless, we must go to the bar. You must not appear to have been fighting. For do not doubt that Hacket’s men will come.’ Lachlan pressed a towel against Hew’s head. ‘Hold hard, and stop the bleeding. Else I will have to stitch it, and I have no wish to hear you whimper like a girl.’
‘You are so very sure,’ objected Hew, ‘I cannot take a stitch.’
‘True enough,’ Lachlan said, ‘that though you speak like a lass, you fight like a man. No offence.’
‘Though you fight like a man, you talk like a limmar,’ snorted Hew. ‘None taken.’
‘You have a fair few bruises there.’ Lachlan examined Hew. ‘And a low hit to the back. Next time you pass water, look for blood.’
‘And if there is blood?’ pursued Hew.
Lachlan shrugged. ‘Mebbe, you might die,’ he guessed.
‘Jesu, thank you. Is it too much, to hope for a surgeon?’ grumbled Hew.
‘For certain, it is too much. Did I not tell you? We must cover up the fight.’ He rummaged through Hew’s saddle bags. ‘Clean clothes! Then what it is to be a gentleman! Put on another shirt and coat, and come downstairs. Annet will swear blind we were not out tonight. Pull your cap well down, to hide the bandages.’
‘I thank you,’ Hew said awkwardly, holding out his purse.
Lachlan shook his head. ‘I do not want your money.’
‘I thought it was for money that you fought,’ objected Hew.
‘You mock me, sir. And I have saved your life; that does not mark a gentleman,’ Lachlan answered quietly.
‘In truth, I know that, Robert, and it is not meant,’ said Hew. ‘Tis simply that I do not understand. Why should you save my life? For as you said yourself, it is for money that you fight.’
‘That’s true enough. And yet there is another cause – not yet faith or honour, that you rate so high – why a man might fight,’ Lachlan mused.
‘Aye? Then what is that?’
‘Pleasure!’
Lachlan burst out laughing at the horror on Hew’s face, leaning forward to take up the purse. ‘No, you are right. Money is the main cause. Money’s good. We shall spend this spoil together, on French wine.’
Hew protested, ‘Be my guest, but only, let me sleep!’
‘Jesu, you are slow. Did I not tell you, that you must be seen?’
Lachlan helped to dress him in another suit of clothes and rammed the clean cap smartly on Hew’s aching head.
‘We shall get you drunk, or at best, seeming drunk, that will explain why you are somewhat worse for wear. Do not wriggle like a bairn,’ he scolded as Hew winced. ‘Remember that you are not hurt.’
‘Tis hard enough that, with every part hurting,’ scowled Hew.
‘Come then, let us drown the pain,’ Lachlan said more kindly.
His strategy proved sound, for no sooner were they seated at the bar when the Conservator appeared, flanked by the town guard. ‘There has been a brangling in the street, and the perpetrators fled. I wondered what you knew of it,’ he inquired abruptly. Hew felt hot and dizzy, and the sticky patch of blood was sticking to his hat. He wondered if it had begun to seep through.
Lachlan answered for him. ‘My master is a little worse for wear. He has drunk a good deal of the claret wine. Is that not true, Annet?’
Annet nodded. ‘He has been at it all night.’
‘What happened?’ Hew questioned weakly, finding his voice through the fog.
‘Two of Archie Chandler’s men were set on in the street. One cut through his hand, almost to the bone.’
‘That sounds,’ said Hew, ‘like a defensive wound.’
Hacket glared at him. ‘Understand, it will not do,’ he answered heavily. We allow no fighting here.’ Suddenly, he softened. ‘Aye, you do look rough. Tis foolishness to drink so much; your belly will be raw still from the sea.’
‘So I have warned him,’ Lachlan mentioned dryly. ‘He is raw through and through, and he will not be told.’
Hacket started. ‘Do you let your servant speak so? Do you let him drink with you?’ he asked Hew in astonishment.
‘He is not . . .’ Hew checked himself. ‘He is not accustomed to the service of a gentleman. I have yet to break him in.’
‘Aye? Well do it, soon,’ the Conservator advised him. ‘And God speed you on your way.’
‘Am I then your servant?’ Lachlan demanded once Hacket had left.
‘So it would seem. God help us both,’ muttered Hew. ‘Tell me though, why should I trust you?’
‘Why should you not?’
‘Because you are a man for hire.’
‘You are a rare lawyer, sir,’ Lachlan retorted, ‘that won’t stand for hire. And yet you take your pleasure in the fight.’
‘You mistake me,’ Hew said softly. His bones ached, he felt dizzy, and a little sick. ‘For I swear, I take no pleasure in the fight.’
‘No? I saw you draw your sword without a qualm. You would rather have cut off his hand, than relinquish your purse.’
‘That was instinct,’ Hew protested. ‘I had no desire to hurt the man.’
‘Aye? A soldier’s instinct. You have fought before. I saw the scars. Someone cut you with a knife. The wounds were stitched.’
‘Aye, it’s true, that someone tried to kill me once.’
‘I’ll warrant, then,’ said Lachlan shrewdly, ‘someone died.’
‘As it happens, someone did,’ Hew stood up and sighed. ‘Though not in the way you suppose. Robert, you misjudge me. And I am prepared to admit, that I have misjudged you. You are not in any way what I expected of a servant. As servitude goes, you are not very good at it. I, for my part, dislike playing master. Nonetheless, you saved my life, and if you want it still, the place is yours. Tomorrow I shall leave for Ghent. Here is money; hire fresh horses. I will pay you by the day. Now, though, I am going to bed. And, for all the world, I would not be disturbed before the morrow. You are right about one thing.’
‘What is that, sir?’ Lachlan asked grinning.
‘I am raw to the quick,’ his new master groaned.
Chapter 19
De Windmolen
There were four or five inns in Ter Neuzen, each of them marked with its own painted sign – the Bittern, the Heron, the Hart, the Blue Boar – that gave hope of comfort and welcome to all. In Scotland, the taverns were shuttered and closed, and marked after dark by a few grudging lamps, where naming and signs were unknown. And yet the promise of a warmth and welcome free to all had soon worn thin, as they were turned away from every door.
‘They cannot all be full,’ Hew grumbled, in the cobbled courtyard of the Golden Orb. It had seemed to him in any case a place of last resort, of dubious repute on the seedy side of town.
Robert Lachlan grinned. ‘I think it more than likely they are not. They dinna like the English much.’
‘We are not English,’ Hew pointed out. He felt hungry, tired and cross, vexed by the charade that passed for hospitality among the lowland Dutch.
‘Or, indeed, the Scots. They may have had some trouble,’ Robert said evasively, ‘with soldiers passing through the town.’
‘What sort of trouble?’ Hew inquired.
The soldier shrugged. ‘The common sort. They brangle in the bar, and do not pay the bill, and such. I will try a little harder, at the next, to plead your case.’
And at the next, the Rose, he made a brave attempt, to win through shameless flirting with the lass behind the bar, who put up a fine-spirited defence. At last he left her, laughing, and reported back to Hew, ‘No luck.’
‘Why not?’ demanded Hew. The sky was growing dark, and he felt the pull of suppertime.
‘Her mistress will not hear of it. The last S
cottish soldiers who lodged here riddled her cheese with lead shot.’
Hew gaped at him. ‘Why, in pity’s name, would the soldiers shoot the cheese?’
‘They didna shoot it,’ Robert explained patiently. ‘They filled it up with shot. It is a common trick. The cheese is brought out to the table whole, on little carts. They weigh it first and after, and the customer is charged by weight for what he takes. The soldiers strive to limit the discrepancy, by making little riddles with their knives, that they fill up again with stones or musket shot. This last lot overreached themselves, and sent the cheese back heavier than when it came. Her mistress, says the lass, was not best pleased.’
Hew began to wonder whether Robert was a hindrance, rather than a help.
‘Perhaps it might help more, if I spoke to them in French,’ he sighed. ‘Let us try the next one, here, the Swan.’
‘Or mebbe not the Swan,’ Robert answered quickly.
‘And why not the Swan? Have you brangled in the bar, or made riddles in the cheese?’ demanded Hew.
‘Neither, I do promise you. Yet there is a matter of the lass behind the bar. It is remotely possible that she has borne my child,’ the soldier answered sheepishly.
‘Of which you gave no warning when I took you as a guide,’ Hew said with a groan. Have you any other secrets up your sleeve?’
Robert did not answer this. ‘I think, in view of all, we must venture out of town. According to the most obliging lassie in the Swan, there is another tavern on the Antwerp road, that is clean and comfortable. It is along a country track, and takes us from our way. I fear I cannot vouch for it.’
‘If you are not known there, then that is for the good,’ Hew replied severely. ‘Since it is growing dark, then let us set our course for it, and once we have arrived there, see that you behave yourself.’
Robert fell in behind him, with a meek and quiet countenance Hew doubted would last long, and they took the low road west. The inn was four or five miles out, in deep flat swathes of countryside, with little else in sight. It stood beside an old, dilapidated barn, upon a piece of land that once had been a farm, where now a clutch of lonely chickens scratched. Beyond were fields of cabbages and rye, with a single wooden windmill on the other side, from which the inn, predictably, had taken both its name, and the picture etched crudely on its painted sign, De Windmolen. Hew suppressed a smile. How many inns and taverns bore that weary name, that bordered on canals and looked on quiet streets? Hundreds, he supposed. Robert stopped. ‘I dinna like it,’ he said bluntly. ‘It is too remote.’
Hew felt a wave of irritation. ‘What matters if it is remote? We shall be peaceful here.’
‘Too peaceful,’ murmured Robert. ‘You forget, there is a war. And when there is a war, people never are at rest. We are too far from the town.’
‘Then what do you suggest? We have exhausted Ter Neuzen and Sluis. And it is now too dark to go much further on.’
‘Aye, very well,’ Robert said reluctantly, ‘but do not drop your guard.’
In contrast to the inns in town, they were welcomed by the keeper and his wife, and their daughter of sixteen, a comely girl who wore a broad-brimmed hat, as though she had been working on the farm. They were shown a whitewashed room, which overlooked the fields. Since the outlines of the windmill sails were shadowed on the walls, the inn was aptly named. The room was plainly furnished, in a simple, country style, with two small lits de camps, two stools, and blankets of bright blue. An earthen jug and candlestick were set out on the window ledge, beneath the wooden shutters open to the moon. The evening air was chill. Hew nodded at the girl. ‘It’s very clean.’
‘The Dutch are always clean,’ Robert said dismissively, as though it were an irritant, that ought to be excused. ‘There is no lock here, just a bolt. Do not leave anything of value in the room.’
‘There are no strangers here but us,’ Hew pointed out. He unpacked his bag, and hung up his cloak, yet kept his purse and letters close inside his shirt. The soldier nodded, ‘Well and good. Do not take off your sword.’
‘You are too suspicious,’ Hew complained. ‘I see nothing wrong.’
‘It is not always to be seen,’ said Robert enigmatically. ‘Tis more a whisper, hint or scent, that puts you on your guard.’
Hew did not take him seriously. A man who spent his life upon the other side must find it hard to trust. The welcome of the place was plain enough to see, and no other hope of shelter was on offer for some miles. The bruises he had suffered at Campvere still throbbed, and he felt tired and cold. He closed the wooden shutters upon the chill night air. The room, for all its cleanliness, still lacked a decent fire. There had been a bright warmth in the lower hall, and the smell of baking meat, that lured him like a lapdog to the hearth. ‘Tell the lass, the room is fine, and we are pleased to take it. Let us go and eat.’
The bar below began to fill, and the lass was serving supper in a corner by the hearth, shuttered from the drinkers who were gathered round the bar. The men were Flemish farmers, of broad and brawny stock, oddly grim and taciturn. One of them, perhaps, was the miller from the mill, the others hands and labourers, from the fields and farms. None glanced up as Hew and Robert settled by the fire. Robert shifted restlessly. ‘I do not like it, for it is too quiet here.’
‘Because there are no roaring boys? The clamour and the squalor you are used to in the town? Be grateful, we have found a sober, decent place,’ argued Hew.
‘Mebbe,’ Robert pondered. Suddenly, he grinned. ‘There is a saying in the Dutch, Voor herberg, achter bordeel, that means inn at the front, whorehouse behind.’
‘You think there is a brothel here?’
‘I very much fear that there is not,’ the soldier confessed. ‘It means that things may not always be quite as they seem.’
Hew looked around, but saw little to alarm him. He wondered if the drinkers had returned here from a funeral, or else they were a much more sober breed of Dutchmen, that were not given over to rash merriment or mirth. Yet they caused him no offence, and accepted none from him, and it was far from clear what Robert’s worry was. He suspected lack of sport, for Robert Lachlan’s weakness was to be spoiling for a fight; he would not be content with a gentler pace of life.
‘I fear you must resign yourself to have a quiet night. What do they have to eat?’
Robert called the girl, whose smile made welcome contrast to the drinkers at the bar, and spoke with her at length.
‘The ordinair is eel,’ he reported briefly, ‘stewed in a green sauce.’
‘So little,’ teased Hew, ‘in so many words.’ Robert did not rise to this. ‘Or else there is rabbit, with prunes. That costs a guilder more.’
‘The rabbit, then. And you?’
‘The rabbit, if you’re paying.’
‘Two rabbits, then, and white Rhenish wine,’ suggested Hew, who did not feel like red.
Robert relayed this message, to which the girl replied. He reported with a frown. ‘They have no wine but Spanish.’
‘The Spanish then. Yet does it signify?’ asked Hew.
Robert answered thoughtfully. ‘Possibly, though likely not. It need not mark allegiance. For here, as a rule, an inn may not sell both, for fear they are tainted and mixed. Excepting that, they may serve Rhenish white and Spanish red, that cannot well be mixed, yet according to the girl, the red is Spanish too. And since they sell the Spanish, they do not sell French. Yet if you do not mind the Spanish then it does not signify.’
‘I do not mind it,’ answered Hew. ‘Two rabbits, and a jug of Spanish white, will see us well enough.’
‘I will stick to ale, sir, if you will. I have no wish to drink tonight, for we may want our wits.’
‘For what might we want them?’
‘I never drink, sir, while I work. A sober wit will see you safe to Ghent, and that is my intention. Once we are in Ghent, I will drink the taverns dry.’
‘Fair enough,’ sighed Hew. Robert’s watchfulness was beginning to unsettle hi
m, and he began to start at the creaking of the door. It was true that the ambience was oddly dull and dour, and that the drinkers at the bar seemed as mirthless as the grave. Hew sensed this was a place where no one would get drunk. In contrast, though, the serving lass came bustling to and fro, with a warm and bright good nature that brought the room some cheer, and the rabbit from the kitchen came steaming in its broth, with its hind legs split and roasted and a dish of buttered greens.
‘These people,’ muttered Robert, ‘are curiously fond of eating buttered kale.’ He pushed aside the cabbage in disgust. Nonetheless, the meal seemed to relax him, even as it failed to have the same effect on Hew. The wine was thin and reedy, and had a bitter taste, and as he ate and drank, he had the feeling he was watched by a figure at the bar. Robert, for his part, gave no sign he had noticed, until Hew chose to remark upon it.
‘Oh aye?’ the soldier turned his head. The man at the bar returned his stare, steady and belligerent.
‘Well, now, so we are.’ Robert wiped his mouth, stretching lazily. ‘I will go and have a word with him.’
For the first time that evening, he seemed properly at ease. Hew realised he was warming to a prospect of a fight. What turned out to be a blessing in the alley at Campvere no longer seemed so welcome on the journey down to Ghent. ‘If you are come to fight,’ he warned, ‘then you will want for work.’
‘You do mistake me, sir,’ Robert Lachlan said, ‘if you think I look for trouble. The truth is that I know that man. I fought with him at Ghent.’
‘With him, or against him?’ Hew inquired astutely.
‘As it happens,’ Robert answered, ‘both. He speaks our tongue, in a fashion, for the man is Welsh.’
‘Then let us go together,’ Hew proposed, ‘and ask him why he stares at us.’
‘Best not to, sir, for that you are a gentleman. He will not talk to you. In truth, he is an ill-bred cur. His morals are elastic, like the Welshman’s hose.’
‘What do you mean?’ laughed Hew.
‘The Welshman’s hose is stretched, to any size or shape.’
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