Richard, leaning back comfortably in the high backed chair, legs still stretched to the blaze, watched Edward Thripp beneath half closed lids. “I need no confessions and have no interest in your life at sea. I have come to help, not to hinder,” he said, voice soft. “But that’s an aim which depends, to some extent, on the story you will now tell me. And the truth I see in it.” His eyes snapped open. “Indeed, I have no intention of judging, nor am I interested in the tedious immorality or otherwise of violence on the high seas. I am unlikely to be shocked. The stories I’ve heard at court and from the highest in the land are no doubt as sordid and as unpleasant as anything you may tell me.” He leaned forwards so abruptly that Thripp flinched. “I shall neither sob to the constable nor plead with the sheriff. But I wish to understand whatever may be urgently required by your daughter at this time, whom you appear to have sent travelling some distance in the company of three villains who could not, I imagine, be described as the ideal chaperones for an innocent young girl.”
“This man’s daughter?” interceded Cuthbert. “Not likely to be innocent, is she? I can tell you that the girl – ,” but he paused. The expression he met from Richard surprised him and he lowered his gaze to his knees and lapsed into silence.
“And if there’s need of a lawyer to make a case at trial,” Thomas said at once, “I may help either willingly, or by necessity. But first I need the truth.”
“And I have,” added Richard, leaning back again, “a well proved capacity for detecting truth, exaggeration, and lies, sir. Now, if you will start, I can then move, if necessary, to intercept your daughter.”
“She’s well gone.”
“Then you had better be quick and to the point, sir.”
Chapter Sixteen
His doublet, skirted and pleated, had once been velvet, scarlet perhaps with a sheen of crimson. But now the cloth had worn to a flat and almost colourless drape, faded by sun and scoured by salt winds. The padded sleeves were slashed in yellow satin but there were holes in both elbows and the frayed ends of velvet hung from the hem in sad pink tufts. A sleeveless over-gown was equally threadbare, creased and dirty, black broadcloth with a smell of fish, tar and brine. It swung half way down his massive thighs, but there stopped with ragged apology. The shirt beneath was now filthy and bedraggled and his hose were shapeless and one knee was unravelling, but his boots were solid leather, his belt was strong and notched where knives had been wedged through, and he wore a fancy leather baldric though the sword and its scabbard were gone.
Edward Thripp scratched his chin and its scrubby spikes of beard and then sank it back inside the grime of his shirt collar. He stared at his unexpected visitors, standing legs apart as though balancing on the deck of a ship, and said, “A fellow with the grace to look after my little Jem is a friend to me, Master Wolfdon, and I thank you. But I warn you, were it the king and all his merry men with their swords in my face, I’d not back down or answer impertinent questions nor accept threats and warnings. All my life I’ve done as I’ve wanted, and though this is proving a time of struggle, I’ll do that struggling in my own damned fashion and not answer to anyone else.”
“I’ve no quarrel with that, sir.” Richard shook his head. “Your choices are indeed your own to make, as mine belong only to me. But it’s your daughter I’ve come to see, and her absence interests – and perturbs me.”
Thripp’s chuckle gurgled like the seepage into a cess pit. “Want to bed my girl, do you, Dickon the Bastard? She’s old enough to make her own decisions too, and living with me has taught her all the possibilities that brings. Loving. Hating. Adventure. It’s a game she’s understood since she was in nethercloths.”
Cuthbert Thripp finished his wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You see the vulgarity of my wretched family, sir?” Staring at Richard, he glowered. “A vile thief for an uncle. A whore for a niece.”
“Enough.” Richard turned to Cuthbert, speaking softly. “I am not Mistress Thripp’s guardian, but if you ever say such things again, sir, I shall force you to answer for it, either with sword or fists.”
Cuthbert shrank back but Edward Thripp leaned forwards, large rough hands to his hips. “A man I like, it seems, Master Wolfdon,” he cackled. “You and I, sir, will deal famously. I’d invite you along on my next voyage, but no doubt you’re a man of the land.”
“Of the land, of the city, and unfortunately, of the court,” Richard answered. “But our dealings depend on several matters not yet discussed. Firstly, I need to know where Jemima has gone and whether she is in any danger.”
Edward Thripp’s expressions changed, danced, changed back and scurried across his face like mice in the pantry. “Not your business, sir. Mine alone,” he announced loudly. “Bedded or unbedded, you’re not wed. My daughter is my business.”
It was Katherine who interrupted. She stood and hurried forwards, clasping her hands and gazing hopefully at her recent benefactor.
“May I explain, sir?” she said in a hurry. “Master Thripp had urgent business in Dover which he is unable to finalise himself. It would be too dangerous for him, but he’s sent dear Jemima with three strong men to guard her, coin for the best food and hostelries, and explanation of how to transact this business for him. But I am,” she flushed, wringing her hands together, “most worried on her behalf. The danger is still there, and Jemima is quite unused to galloping across country and facing such terrible possibilities with just three ruffians as protectors.” She turned immediately back to Edward Thripp, and frowned. “Nor is dearest Jemima in the least involved, let us say, with Master Wolfdon, sir. Your assumptions and accusations are unfounded and unjust.”
“Pooh,” said Edward. “I don’t care, woman. Jemima can look after herself. She’s the most intelligent woman I’ve ever known in my life, and that’s quite an accolade considering how many females I’ve known. My little dove is a clever girl, and a brave one. I have every faith in her.”
Richard paused, stood, took up the wine jug and filled both his own, Thomas’s and Edward’s cups. He ignored Cuthbert. “And inferior burgundy,” he said quietly, “I advise you to replace whatever lies in your cellar. But I also advise something else far more important.” He drank slowly, staring at Edward over the brim. His eyes were cold and watchful. Finally, when Edward remained silent, he said, “My advice is this,” with an edge of threat, “that you forget the secrecy and the bravado, sir, and inform me exactly where Jemima has been sent. I have every intention of following her. I will either help her complete your own instructions – or, should the task seem inadvisable or too dangerous to me, I shall bring her home safely.” He drained his cup, and continued, “I trust you do not object, sir. Your objection will not stop me or change my resolve in any manner. But it would make our partnership somewhat more awkward.”
“Oh, damnation,” said Edward Thripp with a gulp as he finished his own wine. “And yes, it’s a miserable damned wine and barely deserves to be called Burgundy. Blame Cuthbert.” He slammed the empty cup down on the little adjacent table, which shook. “But you don’t know Jemima. You misjudge her, sir. If anyone apart from myself can do this task I’ve set her, then it’s my girl who can. Danger? Well, yes, but she’s well protected. My men wouldn’t dare harm her or let anyone else do so.”
Richard strode to the hearth, leaned one arm against the great oak lintel, stared down and kicked the shrinking flames into new life. Cuthbert, with a hurried scrabble of feet and chair legs, moved out of the way. Thomas remained at a distance, waiting for Richard to say what he wished.
But Richard looked only into the new spitting blaze of the fire. “I am not Jemima’s husband nor her relative, sir,” he still spoke softly. “But I have been her guardian for the past two months since she’s been a guest in my home. And I am willing, under those circumstances, to help both her, and yourself. If you cannot accompany her, and choose to send her with three villains from your own ships, then you should be glad enough to have someone of my own reputat
ion.”
Thomas had sat entirely silent. But now he looked up. “And what is the danger, Master Thripp, which is too great for your own adventure, and not too dangerous for your daughter?”
“I know what it is,” said Edward with a sudden bounce as he marched to the door, shouted for more wine and stamped back to his guests. “It’s those damned corpses in the attic. You think I’m a bloody murderer, don’t you. Don’t trust me with my own daughter. Think I’m an idiot felon who slaughters females when no one’s looking.”
“Would anyone be looking?”
Thripp ignored Thomas. He stared at Richard. “I’ll have you know, sir, neither on land nor sea have I hurt a woman and I’ve brought happiness to many. As for men, well, I’m called pirate, but I harry the ships of Spain and France, not those of our friends.”
“Spain is, I believe, classed as friend at present, and an ally of our king, although the previous queen might not agree.” Richard paused, then added, “Even France, although the perennial enemy, is not at war with us now.”
“Enemies, both,” spat Edward. “And rich ones at that. But if you think me the suspect who stuffs his captives in his own attic, then you’re a fool. I had no idea, and never been climbing into that roof cavity. Why would I, I’d like to know.”
“You are, of course, a suspect amongst others.” Richard smiled slightly, just a twitch at the corners of his mouth. “But there are several, and it may interest you to know that one of my principal suspects is my own father.”
Thripp grinned. “That wretched old scoundrel George Wolfdon’s brat, are you? I might have known.” He sniggered slightly, and sat down with a bump on the nearest stool. “Well, I’ll have you know I’ve stolen cargo and I’ve killed men. But never from the English. You think me cold-hearted? I’m none of that. I love my daughter.”
“Yet you entrusted her, alone, to the escort of three uneducated pirates.”
“They won’t touch her and she knows it.” Edward glared back down into his shirt collar. “Those men know what every captain will do, and what I’ve always done. No bastard on board one of my ships dares disobey me, I’ve had men stripped, thrashed, then tied together and tossed overboard.”
Thomas hiccupped and Richard turned, staring again at his host. “A man of patience and mercy, then. So tell me, merciful Captain Thripp, where your daughter has gone, and why. What is she doing that you are afraid to do yourself?”
“I repeat, sir, the handling of my daughter is down to me, not you,” Thripp snorted, “since I’m the father and you, for all your grandeur, sir, are a virtual stranger. But no doubt you mean well, or so it seems, and perhaps can help.” He sat, feet wide apart, on the low stool by the fire, elbows to his knees and the flaming reflections turning his eyes as crimson as blood. “It started earlier this year when the spring winds blew in and the winter tides calmed. First sailing of the year, I took ship with a cargo of weapons for a man I know, though I’ll not give his name, to be delivered to a gang of Bretons waiting across the water. At the same time, there was a smaller cargo of what you might call soldiers, heading to north Africa under the guise of pilgrimage.”
“Catholic rebels to be armed for a return into Protestant England? Or slaves for sale in Africa?”
“Call it as you see it,” Thripp nodded, unperturbed, “though not my choice nor my cargo. But I had every intention of delivering fair and square. Once sailing on the north African coast, that would give me good access to southern Spain, and that’s where I do the business I choose myself, which is availing me and my lads of some of the goods and coin that the Spanish adventurers bring back from across the other side of the world, pretending it’s theirs. But I reckon it’s as much mine as theirs, since they stole first what I intend stealing after.” He paused, shaking his head. He wore no hat and his dark hair, grey streaked, was long, uncut and uncombed. It smelled of salt. He sighed, continuing, “Well, it didn’t end like that. Not one part of the plan came as it should. First there was bad weather. I barely got to Brittany, and threw off all the cargo, intending to wait out until the squall passed on. But the rebels were sick and likely dying, and the Bretons waiting for delivery of the weapons, they turned up too soon with ideas of their own.”
“You carried a dangerous cargo. You might have expected trouble, I imagine. Or did you instigate it yourself in order to keep all profits, sir?”
“There was fighting,” Thripp said, studiously avoiding Richard’s gaze and instead once more speaking down to the sweaty inner edge of his shirt. “My men had the upper hand, but it got bloody and a number of the others were killed. My canons were washed ashore. The cargo of weapons – misappropriated, you might say, were grabbed by some and handed around to others, saved from the storm but not from thieves. It was an unholy mess.”
“Catholic priests waiting for armaments? An unholy mess? Protestant sympathies then,’ murmured Thomas, grinning.
Richard interrupted. “And the ship was purposefully scuppered?”
“I’d lost both cargoes,” Thripp muttered. “With no way of saving my own hide from my backers. Neither are peaceful men and I’d blown their profit, blown the cargo and blown the chance of getting to the Spanish coast for the raids we’d planned. With Spanish gold, I might have paid the bastards off. But the ship was damaged. I had only one choice left.”
“To scuttle the ship, pretend dead, and pick up the pieces afterwards?” Thomas had heard of many other cases similar, and had prosecuted some himself.
Thripp leaned forwards and spat again into the fire. He stared a moment at the sparking logs and rising flames, then leaned back. “They’d have killed me, both of them,” he admitted, voice sinking. “I’d soon have been hanging from my own yardarm, and left my daughter an orphaned pauper. I did as I had to. At risk of my own life, I waited for the wind to change, then sailed the keel straight into the Breton cliffs. Those men already dead were on board, and floated off in their own good time, proving a shipwreck and all hands drowned. Then me and my crew, those remaining, we travelled inland.”
Richard regarded him, sipping his wine in silence. Thomas growled, “And you deny you’re a pirate, sir. Worried about leaving your daughter a pauper? Yet that’s what you did, since this wretched nephew of yours falsified papers and claimed this property.”
“I know it,” Thripp said, glaring. “Though the dirty little pig-snout swears it was an honest misunderstanding. But I’ve no recourse to law, since I’d be in gaol myself if I showed my face to any judge.”
Having thrown every servant from the hall in order to discuss in private, now Edward hauled himself to his feet and stomped to the table, grabbed the second wine jug, and filled his own cup. Thomas said, “I will, thank you.”
“Help yourself,” said Thripp. “Far as I’m concerned, you shouldn’t even be here.”
“You may be mighty glad of me,” Thomas pointed out, “since I am the one who has uncovered your nephew’s theft of the family house and was about to return it to your daughter’s property. I may one day help your own case, if you need me, ask me politely, pay me, and arouse my interest.” But he helped himself to the wine, poured more into Richard’s cup, ignored Cuthbert who had started, high voiced, to complain about injustice but was silence with three baleful glares and a hiccup from Katherine, and returned to his chair.
Richard nodded to Edward. “Go on, sir.”
“I spread the news of my ship sunk with all hands, then went inland, did business in Brittany and travelled on into France,” Thripp said between gulps. “I made money, spent it and made more. I waited until I reckoned folk would believe me well dead even without a body floating to shore. Then I bought a rowing boat, little more than a pair of planks nailed together, and me and my four remaining lads we loaded up the coin we’d made, and set out for Dover.”
“And Mistress Jemima?”
“We were seen, soon as set foot in Dover. Seen, recognised, and chased. One of my men was killed at my feet. So we went into hiding, and hid the
treasure too.”
“Treasure?”
“Not so much. But enough for a new ship, once I felt safe enough to start off again, and clear the threat of Staines and Babbington.”
“So the men you swindled and cheated are the delightful Baron Staines, and the Beast of Kent, Red Babbington.”
“They might be.” Edward Thripp once more addressed his shirt collar.
“And they both now know you alive, their cargoes jettisoned or stolen, and have both notified the law and sent their own fighting men to bring you in?” Richard nodded, eyes narrowed. “And into this danger, you’ve sent your daughter?”
Thripp winced. “Lord Staines, well maybe he don’t know I’m alive yet. I’ve not heard from him but likely he’ll hear soon and I’ll have a gang sent up from the cheaps to threaten or kill me. But Red Babbington don’t go running to the law. It’s his armed men after my hide. I need my hidden coin to buy myself out of trouble. But I’ve no way of getting back to Dover alive.” He glared around the hall, eyes turning cinnabar in the firelight. “She offered. She’s a brave girl, is my Jemima. And there’s no one will recognise her and Babbington won’t follow a maid he’s never seen in his life before.”
“No doubt,” Richard said, standing abruptly. He drained his cup, and looked to Thomas. “Dover, Tom? Or shall I ride alone?”
Katherine, surprised, also stood in a hurry and stepped forwards. “I know exactly where she’s gone, sir, and would gladly join you. I can ride and I’d never complain of discomfort. I’ve not a coin to pay my way, but will repay favours as ever I can. I might be needed, sir, once dear Jemima is found. If she should be ill, wounded, or in any way desperate for female companionship and understanding – ”
“I apologise madam, but I’m already way behind her,” Richard shook his head. “You’d slow us further. Indeed what you say is sensible enough. But I won’t take the risk of arriving too late.” He turned to Thomas. “But you’re coming, Tom, so buckle on your sword.” And then, finally looked to Edward Thripp. “Well sir, I find your behaviour appalling at every step and in every manner. You say Jemima is protected by men you trust, but if you trusted them truly then you’d have sent them alone, and not needed to risk Jemima’s life. Clearly you’d expect them to run off with your treasure and never return. Not so trustworthy, perhaps.”
The Deception of Consequences Page 18
