5 A Very Murdering Battle (4 page)

Daniel was no stranger to a musket. During his time in the ranks, he’d learnt to handle it with speed and precision. When the soldier made another lunge at him, therefore, Daniel parried the bayonet then used his own to thrust it deep into the man’s stomach. All the fight was instantly drained out of his opponent and he slumped to the ground in a heap, groaning piteously. Doors and windows were opening. Curious heads popped out. Daniel didn’t pause to answer any questions. Dropping the musket on the ground, he took to his heels again and zigzagged through the streets of suburban Paris until he felt he was completely safe. It was only when he slowed to a walk that he realised how cold it was. The temperature appeared to have plunged dramatically since he’d left Flynn’s house. Warmed by his headlong flight and by the exertion of the duel with the soldier, he now felt the wind whipping at his face like a cat-o’-nine-tails. The first flakes of snow began to fall.

A shock awaited him. Pulling his cloak around him, he went in search of an inn where he could stay before acquiring a horse the next day. Eventually, he came to a short stretch of open country. When he reached a copse, he plunged into the trees for safety, looking over his shoulder as he walked along. It was a bad mistake. The next moment, he collided with something large and unyielding, forcing him to bounce backwards and blink in astonishment. He looked up and saw that he was confronted by a mounted soldier. In spite of all the effort he’d made to escape, Daniel had been caught. His initial impulse was to turn tail and flee but there was something odd about the man. He made no attempt to arrest or attack Daniel. In fact, he didn’t move an inch and neither did his horse. Both remained motionless. When Daniel reached out to touch the animal’s frosted muzzle, there was no response. He was overwhelmed with relief. Daniel hadn’t been caught, after all.

Soldier and horse were two more casualties of a winter that had already claimed untold victims. They had, literally, frozen to death and were now no more than ghostly statues among the trees. In all probability, they’d been there for days before being discovered. If he stayed indefinitely, Daniel feared that he was likely to join them as a grotesque winter sculpture. He needed shelter. Brushing past the two corpses, he hurried on as he sought a warm place to lay his head for the night.

Amalia Janssen had never been short of admirers. Her striking beauty and her shapely figure aroused a great deal of interest and a number of suitors came forward. She would not simply make an ideal wife for the man fortunate enough to marry her, she was given additional lustre by her father’s renown. Emanuel Janssen was famous throughout Europe for his tapestries. Such was his pre-eminence that his skills had been sought by no less a person than Louis XIV, King of France. To have Janssen as a father-in-law was a distinct bonus. Amalia, however, was deaf to all entreaties. When gifts arrived at the house for her, she always made sure that they were returned with a polite rejection. Blandishments of all kinds were showered upon her but in vain. She’d already made her choice and it was a sacred commitment. In her opinion, every potential husband faded into nothingness beside Daniel Rawson. He’d saved her life, won her heart and enriched her horizons in every way.

Since they spent so much time apart, they kept in touch by correspondence. During the campaign season, Daniel’s letters were few and far between, saying nothing about his whereabouts or about the conduct of the war. Though they tended to be short and written in haste, they were always couched in love. For that reason, Amalia had kept every letter and – whenever she had time on her hands – she read them in sequence, watching their friendship evolve over the years into something that was indissoluble. Seated in the parlour of her home, she was enjoying the correspondence yet again when Beatrix knocked and came into the room. She was a chubby woman approaching forty, with plain features and a lack of charm that had kept any serious male interest at bay. Putting her own disappointments aside, she took a sincere delight in Amalia’s good fortune and had a deep admiration for Daniel Rawson. She was as much a friend as a servant and Amalia always confided in her.

Beatrix observed the piles of letters tied up with blue ribbon.

‘There’s no need to ask what you’re reading,’ she said with a chortle.

Amalia smiled. ‘Daniel’s letters bring me such joy.’

‘And so they should. I just wish that there were more of them.’

‘It’s difficult to write when he’s on the move, Beatrix, and he’s very careful not to give away too much information in case they fall into the wrong hands.’ Amalia grimaced. ‘I can’t bear the thought of that happening. These letters were meant for my eyes alone.’

‘You’ve read bits of them out to me,’ recalled Beatrix.

‘I don’t look upon you as a stranger. Besides, you were there when Daniel first came into my life. You’ve witnessed everything that’s happened between us.’

The servant beamed. ‘It’s been a privilege to do so, Miss Amalia.’ Her face darkened. ‘Anyway, I didn’t come to disturb you. I simply came to tell you that I think I saw that man again.’

‘You
think
you saw him or you
did
see him?’

‘I’m fairly sure that it was him.’

‘And I’m equally sure that you’re mistaken,’ said Amalia, easily. ‘I look out of the window just as much as you and I’ve never seen this phantom gentleman.’

‘He’s not a phantom,’ protested Beatrix. ‘He’s as real as you or me.’

‘And what was he doing?’

‘Looking at the house, that’s all.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Well,’ said Beatrix, uncertainly, ‘not really. He’s never there long enough.’

‘I fancy that you’re imagining the whole thing.’

‘I’m not, I swear it!’

‘Then why has nobody else in the house spotted this man?’

Beatrix shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘How many sightings have there been?’

‘I’d say it was three or four – all in the last few days.’

‘Well,’ said Amalia, ‘I’m sure you believe that you saw this man but I find it hard to conceive that anyone would be foolhardy enough to stand in the road when it’s freezing out there. What possible reason could anyone have for doing it?’

‘Who knows, Miss Amalia? I just find it so upsetting.’

Amalia put a consoling hand on her arm. For all her apparent solidity, Beatrix was a nervous woman who was upset too readily. There’d been occasions before when her lively imagination had conjured up threats that never really existed, leaving her needlessly perplexed. As a result of those experiences, Amalia always took the servant’s dire warnings with a degree of scepticism. They rarely had any real substance. In this case, there was a crucial factor to take into account. Like Amalia and her father, Beatrix had hardly been able to leave the house for weeks on end. Being trapped indoors for so long could be playing on her mind. The few people who passed the house did tend to glance at it. Amalia concluded that Beatrix had read far too much into someone’s casual interest. The fact that the servant couldn’t even describe the man properly suggested that there could have been more than one person showing an interest in the house, and that they’d blended together in Beatrix’s imagination into a single entity. At all events, Amalia saw no cause for alarm.

‘Stop fretting,’ she said. ‘There’s nobody out there, Beatrix. When we lived in Paris and our house was being watched, we were all very much aware of it. But I don’t have that sense of being under surveillance here. You’re worrying when you don’t need to. Besides, you’re perfectly safe in here. Including father, we have four men in the house. Doesn’t that reassure you?’ Amalia gave her an affectionate pat. ‘Your problem is that you spend too much time looking out of the window. There’s nobody out there, I promise you. If there had been a man watching the house, one of us would have seen him as well. Yet we didn’t, did we?’

Beatrix shook her head and accepted defeat. She must have been mistaken. Amalia had convinced her. Nobody was keeping the house under observation. Why on earth should they? She could sleep soundly again.

* * *

The man waited until night before he crept up to the rear of the house. Moving stealthily to the workshop, he rubbed frost from a window so that he could peer in. All that he could make out in the gloom was the shape of the various looms. Even in the punitive cold, he managed a quiet smile.

Daniel Rawson didn’t even know the name of the place. When he stumbled upon the inn, it was pitch-dark and the sign swinging creakily above the door was covered in snow. It was an old building with irregular walls, beams that had subsided in the course of time and oak settles polished to a high sheen by the impress of a century of backsides. There was a smell of damp and several indications of decay. All of the doors let in a draught. The flagstones on the floor undulated dangerously. Yet none of it bothered Daniel. Because he’d found shelter from the snowstorm outside, he was ready to forgive the inn its many shortcomings.

When he held his hands to the fire, he began slowly to thaw out. A glass of brandy helped the process and encouraged him to remove his hat and take off his wet cloak. Since the place was fairly empty, the landlord was glad of his custom. He was a big, bearded man of middle years with a gloomy outlook on life.

‘This weather will be the death of me,’ he moaned.

‘It’s done none of us any favours,’ said Daniel. ‘All France is suffering.’

‘Nobody’s stayed here for almost a month.’

‘Well, you’ll have a guest tonight, my friend. I need a room.’

‘You can take your pick, monsieur.’ He moved towards a door. ‘I’ll call the lad to stable your horse.’

‘I have no horse,’ said Daniel, stopping the landlord in his tracks. ‘That’s to say, I
did
have one but the poor creature slipped on the ice and broke a leg. I had to put him out of his misery.’ It was a plausible lie and the other man accepted it. ‘Can you tell me where I might buy another mount tomorrow?’

‘There’s only one place I know and that’s a mile or more back in the direction of the city. It will be a long trudge on foot, especially if this snow keeps falling.’ Self-interest brought a faint smile to his lips. ‘You might have to stay here longer than you thought.’

That was the last thing Daniel intended to do. He was still on the very outskirts of Paris and wanted to get away as soon as possible. Having left two dead soldiers behind him, he knew that there’d be a thorough search for him. In one sense, the snowstorm was a boon because it would slow down any pursuit. At the same time, unfortunately, it would also hamper his escape. He felt able to take the risk of staying one night at the inn but lingering there any longer would be to court danger. It was some time since he’d last eaten, so he ordered himself a meal and sat at the table nearest the fire. Edible rather than appetising, the food was served by a dark-haired woman in her twenties with a swarthy complexion and a glint in her eye. After sizing him up, she gave Daniel a sly grin. As she leant over to put the platter in front of him, she let her breast brush gently against his shoulder. He ignored the signal.

The landlord was curious. ‘Were you going towards Paris or away from it?’

‘I had business in the city.’

‘I wondered why you had no luggage with you.’

‘I’m travelling light,’ said Daniel, ‘because I expected to be back home this evening – and I would’ve been had my horse not fallen.’

‘What type of business might you be in, monsieur?’

‘It’s one that takes me to a lot of inns like this. I’m a wine merchant, though I dread to think what I’ll have to sell. The last harvest failed and the frost has split the vines. There’ll be precious little profit for me this year.’

It was a disguise that Daniel had often used in the past. His forged papers were in the name of Marcel Daron and he knew enough about wine to hold his own in a discussion with the landlord of an inn. They talked about prices and compared their individual preferences. All the time, however, Daniel was conscious of being watched by someone. Though he couldn’t see her, he suspected that it was the serving wench. Deciding to go to bed early, Daniel was shown upstairs by the landlord. There was a
rough-hewn
quality about the accommodation. Luxury was not on offer. Given the choice of five rooms, he chose the one above the bar because some of the heat from the fire came up through the cracks in the ceiling and the gaps in the floorboards. Left alone with a candle, he went to the window, opened the shutters and looked out at the yard. Snow was still falling and a gust of wind blew it in on him. He quickly locked the shutters again.

When Daniel tested the mattress, he found it hard and lumpy but there were thick woollen blankets to keep out the cold and his cloak could act as an auxiliary layer. The creak of the floorboards outside warned him that someone was coming and his hand went by reflex to the pistol holstered under his coat. There was a tap on the door then it opened to reveal the serving wench. Because she was holding up a candle, he was able to take a closer look at her. While her hair was greasy, the woman was not unattractive. She had a pleasant face, a well-formed body and a crude charm. One hand rested on her hip as she grinned boldly.

‘Do you have everything you want, monsieur?’ she enquired.

‘I think so,’ replied Daniel.

‘It’s going to be a cold night.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid that it will be.’

‘Would you like an extra blanket, sir?’

‘No, thank you. I can manage with the ones I already have.’

‘There are other ways to keep warm,’ she said, lifting a provocative eyebrow. ‘Would you care for some company?’

‘It’s a tempting offer,’ he said, politely, ‘but, as it happens, I’m very tired. I’ll be asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.’ She was crestfallen at the rejection. ‘It’s no reflection on you, mademoiselle. Under other circumstances …’

Anxious to dispel a misunderstanding, she stepped into the room.

‘I hope you don’t mistake me. I expected no reward.’

‘I never thought that you did.’

‘Please don’t think ill of me.’

‘I’d never do that,’ said Daniel with an appeasing smile. ‘It just happens that I am very tired.’

‘Then I’ll leave you alone,’ she said, backing away and pointing a finger down the passageway. ‘But if you do change your mind, my room is at the end.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

As soon as she’d gone, Daniel propped a chair against the door so that it couldn’t be opened. While he didn’t have the slightest inclination to go to
her
room, he sensed that she might come to him again in the night and try to slip under the blankets. It was best to obviate that possibility. In former days, when he was a roving young soldier, he would have shown more interest but that life was behind him now. He already had a woman to warm his bed for him. Thoughts of Amalia Janssen were a blanket in themselves and they gave him infinite satisfaction. His precaution was wise. Not long after midnight, he heard footsteps padding along outside, then someone tried the door. When it refused to budge, more pressure was applied but the chair held firm. The disappointed serving wench eventually went back to her room.

Conditioned by years of practice, Daniel slept lightly. It was well before dawn when he heard riders approaching in the distance. Out of bed at once, he lit the candle then crossed to the shutters and unhooked the latch. Listening carefully, he picked out the sound of three horsemen and knew that they were heading for the inn. When they got closer, he eased one shutter ajar so that he could peer down into the yard. Three men arrived, reining in their horses and dismounting before tethering them. They marched purposefully towards the main door and one of them banged on it with the butt of his pistol. In the stillness of the night, the noise was ear-splitting. Daniel moved swiftly. Folding up two of the blankets, he stuffed them under the remaining one to give the impression that someone was sleeping in the bed.

He opened the shutters and saw that, if he tried to flee through the window, he’d have to negotiate the slippery roof of the storeroom below. That would be tricky in the dark. Yet if he left by means of the room at the end of the passageway, he’d be able to drop straight down to the ground with no intervening obstruction. Hat on and cloak over his arm, he moved the chair from the door and went out, closing the door behind him. Still with the candle in one hand, he walked to the room at the end of the passageway and used his toe to tap on the door. Then he let himself in and shut the door behind him. Roused from her sleep, the woman sat up in fright until she realised who her visitor was. Her face was split by a welcoming grin and she extended both arms in welcome. Her desires would be fulfilled. The handsome guest had come to her, after all. To her chagrin, however, he only stayed a matter of seconds. Opening the shutters, he tossed his cloak out, raised his hat to her then clambered through the window. She heard a thud as he landed in the yard. Her promise of pleasure had disappeared, leaving her torn between dismay, annoyance and a sense of betrayal.

Grumbling at every step, the landlord came downstairs and wished someone would stop beating a tattoo on his front door. He pulled back the bolts and opened the door wide. About to berate the unwanted caller, he changed his mind when his candle illumined three uniforms. He’d been hauled out of his bed by angry soldiers.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

‘We’re looking for someone,’ said one of the soldiers, pushing him aside so that he could enter. ‘We’re hunting a killer.’

‘Well, you won’t find him here. This is a respectable inn.’

‘How many guests do you have here?’

‘There’s just the one at the moment.’

‘Is it a man or a woman?’

‘It’s a man,’ replied the landlord, ‘but he’s no killer.’

‘When did he arrive?’

‘He came on foot earlier this evening. He’s a wine merchant whose horse broke a leg and had to be destroyed.’

The soldier looked upwards. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s probably sitting up in bed, wondering what all the noise is.’

‘Take us to him,’ ordered the soldier.

‘You can’t just barge in here,’ protested the landlord.

‘We can do as we wish,’ said the man, grabbing him by the elbow and hustling him towards the staircase. The other soldiers followed. ‘And if we find that you’re harbouring a fugitive, we’ll arrest you as well.’

‘But I’ve done nothing wrong, I swear it.’

‘Get upstairs.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the landlord, obediently, ‘but you’re making a terrible mistake, I assure you. I’ve worked in this trade all my life. I know how to weigh up a customer at a glance. This gentleman is not the one you seek. I give you my word.’

Bundled upstairs, he was pushed along the passageway until he indicated a door. The soldier then shoved him aside and nodded to his companions. One of them snatched the candle from the landlord while the other opened the door. Both of them charged in and stood over the bed, using their drawn swords to prod at the blankets. When there was no response, one of them threw back the top blanket to show that there was nobody in the bed.

‘Where the hell is he?’ bellowed the man with the candle.

The explanation came in the form of departing hooves. They raced to the window and flung open the shutters. Down in the yard, a cloaked figure was riding off on one of their horses and towing the other two behind him. After yelling in vain at him, the three soldiers vented their fury on the landlord.

Daniel, meanwhile, made good his escape by courtesy of the French army.

Something was missing in the workshop. Emanuel Janssen had any number of commissions and enquiries from potential customers were coming in all the time. Both he and his three assistants were kept busy at their respective looms but they no longer laboured with the same controlled excitement. What was lacking was the sense of enormous pride they got from working on the tapestry for no less a customer than the Duke of Marlborough, the heroic captain-general of the Allied forces who’d trounced the mighty French army time and again as he protected Dutch territory and interests. On his return from England, Janssen had been able to describe the breathtaking scale and magnificence of Blenheim Palace. Marvelling at what they heard, his assistants were thrilled that a tapestry to which they’d contributed in greater or lesser degree would hang in a place of honour at Marlborough’s home. It made them come to work each day with a spring in their step.

It was different now. They were merely producing tapestries for wealthy Dutch merchants or rich politicians, few of whom had any real taste. Instead of having a whole battlefield on which to leave their artistic mark, they were confined to smaller scales and more mundane subjects. Nicholaes Geel, the youngest of the assistants, complained bitterly about the poverty of their customers’ imaginations. Even Aelbert Pienaar, the oldest and most tolerant of Janssen’s employees, regretted that he couldn’t work on something more inspiring. Kees Dopff was unable to speak his mind because he’d been born dumb but he overcame his handicap by developing a series of eloquent hand gestures and facial expressions. Like his companions, he was profoundly disappointed now that work on the Battle of Ramillies was finally over. Dopff was a small, thin, reserved man in his early thirties with billowing red hair that defied the attentions of comb and brush. He was the most naturally gifted of the assistants and, living at the house, was more or less a member of the Janssen family.

When Amalia came into the workshop, the looms were all working noisily away but she sensed a lack of enthusiasm in the staff. Pienaar gave her a warm smile and Dopff provided a nod of welcome. Geel, however, broke off to give her a cheerful wave. He was a tall, slim, sinewy young man similar in age to Amalia and he watched her with an adoration he found difficult to hide. Always friendly towards him, she offered him no encouragement whatsoever and Geel accepted that he could never hope to compete with someone like Daniel Rawson. But that didn’t stop him from feeling a surge of pleasure every time she came anywhere near him. Janssen strode across to his daughter, noting that she was dressed to go out.

‘It will be freezing out there,’ he warned.

‘I can’t stay imprisoned here for ever,’ she said, ‘so I’m going for a walk with Beatrix. We need a few things from the market.’