Beauvallet (25 page)

‘Ay, go swiftly, villain!’ he apostrophised Don Diego. ‘Waste no time, for you will have Mad Nick behind you, never doubt it! Cullion and coystrill! Oh, an eater of broken meats, a very pungent rascal! It would do one's heart good to slit the villain's nose. I shall suggest it to my master in due course.’ He heaved a
sigh. ‘Master, as I see it, you would do well to break out of ward swiftly. Here's roguery afoot. If I can but get speech with my lady, and know what they will be about! A plague on all women!’

An hour of patient loitering rewarded him. Dominica at last appeared, accompanied by her maid, and bound, as Joshua had hoped she might be, to hear Mass at a neighbouring Church. She cast a passing look at him where he lounged, but it was unrecog-nising. As well it might be, for there was little trace of swaggering Joshua in the sober, clean-shaved personage she saw. He wore a buffin gown as might some needy clerk; gone were the ambitious mustachios, gone the beard that Sir Nicholas was wont to call his
pique de vent
, gone, too, the strutting carriage. A meek individual followed my lady at a discreet distance to Church.

She chose an unoccupied bench at the back of the Church. Joshua waited until old Carmelita was bowed over her rosary, devout and unseeing, then slid on to the bench and edged gradually closer to my lady.

Her eyes were open, looking straight before her. She became aware of Joshua and turned her head. She was inclined to be angry at his encroachment: that he saw by the spark in her eyes. He looked fully at her, laid a finger to his lips and beckoned her surreptitiously nearer.

She did not know him; she stiffened; her look should have abashed him. He was at a loss; he dared not move nearer to her lest the maid should be roused from her devotions, or the lady withdraw. He looked imploringly, and she turned her shoulder. A hasty glance round him showed him only a few people busy at their prayers. He bent his head and whispered: ‘Lady,
Reck Not
! ’

His quick eyes peeped up at her; she had heard; she was looking keenly at him now. Again he made that little beckoning movement. She let fall her missal, bent to pick it up, and in the doing of it shifted her position till she was close beside him.

He pretended to mumble prayers, telling over the beads of a rosary. ‘Lady, you do not know me. I am Joshua Dimmock. My beard is off. What of that? Caution! Caution!’

She stole a glance at him, met the upward flash of his shrewd grey eyes. Recognition sprang into her own. She bent her head and put the clasped hands up to hide her face. ‘You! Oh, what do you know?’

‘He is in ward. Courage, señorita! I am here to discover what plans are laid for you. Does Tuesday hold good yet?’

‘Saturday,’ she whispered back. ‘Tomorrow. He sent you? You have contrived to get speech with him?’

‘Nay. Be of good heart, lady, and keep faith. He will break free yet.’

She gave a long sigh. ‘I have led him to his death.’

Privately Joshua was in complete agreement with her. ‘It was noticeable,’ he said later, ‘that she seemed to have little idea of having led me thitherwards. But I let that pass.’

For all his secret convictions, vicarious dignity would not permit him to let the lady think that she had had any hand in this escapade. His answering whisper contained some austerity. ‘I have yet to learn, señorita, that my master is led by aught save his own inclination. Let it go. I am avised of your movements; it but remains for me to get speech with Sir Nicholas.’

Her eyes flickered to his face. ‘Is it so easy? Can you do it?’

‘It will not be easy,’ said Joshua severely, ‘but certainly I shall do it. Be of good cheer; trust me, and trust my master. No more of this. Dangerous dealing!’ He edged away along the bench, and she was left to her seeming prayers.

She was oddly comforted by this talk with Joshua. He spoke with an assurance he was far from feeling, but she was not to know that. She might doubt still, but she now had hope, for if Joshua, who knew Beauvallet so well, could be sanguine, she too, might expect a happy issue.

He was not perhaps so sanguine as he chose to appear, but for the timorous man he declared himself to be, he was very cool. A squalid tavern in the meaner part of the city now housed him; if he could but get a sight of his master he would have only one regret, and this the loss of his brave mustachios.

‘Alack!’ he told himself mournfully. ‘I who was, I believe, a personable man, now look like some starveling scrivener.’ He spat into the kennel. ‘So much for that. It boots not to bewail my lost mustachios; they are very decently interred. The loss of a fair beard I can better support: one may call it a fortune of war. But the mustachios are another and more serious affair. Something of the cock of Beauvallet's own, I apprehend. I wore them with a good grace. A plague on all shaven lips! But this is to talk more and no more. I do not repine.’ He walked on towards his lodging. ‘Now what, I must ask myself ? Do you come out of that stronghold, master? Nay, we must admit it to be an impossibility.’ He threw out his chest and strutted a little. ‘Ha! A word we do not know. We maybe have some few wiles left that they may still blear the eyes of these Spanish dawcocks.’ He abated his pace and abandoned the swagger. ‘Yet I own myself to be very pigeon-livered in this matter. You may say I had his word he would escape if he were taken. Maybe we brag a little – a very little.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘Master, if I knew of a way – but I make no doubt a way will present itself to me. I must lie close, as I am bid, and keep good watch. To do else might be to o’erset deep laid schemes. Courage, Joshua!’

The question of Dominica's departure next occupied his busy mind. He scented mischief there, bristled at it like a dog, and shook his fist at an imaginary Don Diego. ‘Mark me well, we will carbonado you finely yet, Master Hemp-Seed! Sir Nicholas, you would do well to let your guards taste of your mettle at once, for I mislike the complexion of this whole
matter. Let us consider. How long might a coach take to reach Vasconosa? The roads are bad. True, but we have had no rain, and there will be no mud for the coach to founder in. They are to change horses, as I learn, at every stage. Ten days, maybe, swift going. For a man riding hard, as we might ride? Ah, that is another and very different affair.’ His pace quickened. ‘There is the question of horses. We must go privily to work and discover at what stages one can buy nags upon the road. The plague is on it, I have had to abandon Sir Nicholas’ fine mare. Now, if Sir Nicholas were to appear of a sudden, as I believe he may do? What will be his cry? Horses, Joshua! True. And how shall we answer? Certain, it is meet that I lay out some money on a couple of good nags to be in readiness. Ah, what it is to have a head! Master, if I but knew where you lie, and how they use you!’

He would perhaps have been comforted had he known that Sir Nicholas lay in a very fair apartment, and was most courteously used. He might have all he wanted for the mere asking.

Don Cristobal came to visit him each day, and was at pains to be polite. It was from him that Sir Nicholas learned of the messenger sent off to France to inquire more particularly into his identity. When he heard that he gave an irrepressible laugh. Certain, the net was closing in. Don Cristobal understood the laugh to imply no more than a scornful amusement, and did not wonder at it. His attitude throughout was of painstaking civility. The difficulties of his position were felt keenly by him, and he was anxious that – in the event of the Chevalier coming off triumphant – his prisoner would have no cause to complain of his treatment in ward.

He had many talks with the Chevalier, and the more he saw of him the more convinced he became that Perinat had made some ridiculous mistake. Don Cristobal could not conceive that a man who knew himself to be in such danger could wear
so care-free a countenance, or could crack light-hearted jests at every turn. Some signs of unease there must surely have been had the man been El Beauvallet indeed. He ventured upon one occasion to hope that all would go well for the Chevalier, and hinted at the Inquisition, watching Beauvallet keenly as he spoke.

He got nothing by that. The black brows flew up in a kind of artless surprise; the smile only grew the more amused. ‘
Sangdieu!
’ said Beauvallet in mock alarm. ‘I hope so, too!’

It was very evident that he had no doubts about it. Don Cristobal felt that he had passed another test satisfactorily.

The Chevalier soon requested that he might be allowed some exercise. Don Cristobal had to admit this to be a reasonable desire, and made arrangements to grant it. Beauvallet was permitted the indulgence of walking in the courtyard for an hour each day, closely attended by the two guards who waited on him.

There was more to this request than a mere desire for exercise. Sir Nicholas, hurried to the barracks at night, had as yet had no opportunity to take in his surroundings. To walk in the court would give him a chance to get a plan of the building in his mind, which was necessary to a man whose brain was busy all the time with schemes for escape.

He knew already, from a glance out of his chamber window, that his prison was upon the first floor. His window overlooked a quiet street that was flanked on the opposite side by a blank wall. He wasted very little time here. Even if the bars across the window had been weak enough to pull out, the room was too high above the ground for a man to attempt the drop. Escape did not lie that way.

When his guards came to escort him out to the court he found that his room gave on to a stone corridor, or cloister, with tall open arches overlooking a paved courtyard. The
barracks seemed to enclose this court in a square, and as far as Beauvallet could see the corridor ran right round, with doors opening off it upon the inner side. A quick glance up and down as soon as he came out of his room discovered a spiral stairway to the left, set in the width of the wall where the corridor turned at right-angles to run along the south side of the court.

The guards directed Beauvallet away from this stair, and went with him down the long corridor to the further corner, and round on to the north side. Sir Nicholas judged the length of the corridor to be as near ninety or a hundred feet as made no odds. On the north side was a large stairway, evidently the principal stair in the building, coming up from the arched gateway to the soldiers’ quarters.

They went down it, and Sir Nicholas found himself in the open courtyard, with the sun beating down upon him. To the north an arch led to the street. There were sentries on guard there. To one side of this arch was the stairway down which he had come; to the other was a closed door.

They paced slowly round the court. The ground floor owned just such another corridor as was found on the floor above. There was another storey, Sir Nicholas ascertained, but the corridor was enclosed here, and had windows set, perhaps, eight feet apart all round the square, each with its little semi-circular balcony, so typical of the Spanish house. Above was the flat roof and the chimney-stacks.

Sir Nicholas continued his promenade between the two guards, and chatted amiably with them, as his custom was. They had eyed him in round-eyed wonder at first, and had been suspicious of him, seeing under his gay exterior a very dreadful pirate, but those feelings had not lasted long. It was the opinion of the guards that the pleasant gentleman was being wrongfully imprisoned. He never gave the least sign of a wish to escape, was merry in his talk, and, in their eyes, was too
much of a gentleman to be an English sea-robber. They were quite willing to talk to him, and saw no harm in his questions. He displayed a casual interest in the Guards of Castile, and was surprised to hear how many of them were gathered in this place. However, it was no wonder, he supposed, and looked around him appreciatively. ‘I dare swear you might house an hundred more in a place this size.’

‘Why, señor, if it comes to a pinch, more than that,’ one of the soldiers told him. ‘There are rooms up aloft’ – he nodded towards the second storey – ‘that stand as bare as my hand.’

The other man was inclined to cavil at this. ‘Not many more,’ he said. ‘There are the stables, and there have to be rooms set aside for stores. The place is not so big as would seem, señor. Why, the armoury alone, over yonder, takes up a great space, and no men housed there, and you have the guard-room as well upon this level.’

‘But you might surely house an hundred upon one side of the building alone,’ objected Sir Nicholas. ‘Four sides – nay, I forget: the gateway takes away from one side. Three sides, then, all fit to house an hundred men.’

‘Nay, nay, there are the Governor's quarters to consider,’ said the guard.

‘Ah, of course!’ said Sir Nicholas blandly. ‘I had forgot that he lived here.’ He looked rueful. ‘I give him joy of it. For my part, I find it a dreary place.’

‘Well, señor, you are unfortunate,’ he was told. ‘The Governor does well enough, with a very pretty garden to walk in and a score of fine rooms, I warrant you.’

Sir Nicholas began to talk of something else. The disposition of the Governor's quarters and the whereabouts of his garden was all he wanted to know now, and he would go his own way to work about that. He complained of the scorching sun, and brought his walk to an end. When Don Cristobal came to
visit him later in the day, and inquired whether he had taken his exercise, Sir Nicholas thanked him, but believed that for the future he must confine his walks to the corridor.

‘I find it rather too sunny, señor. Heyday! I would M. de Lauvinière's messenger might bestir himself a little.’ He observed Don Cristobal's troubled look, and smiled. ‘Nay, do not look so worried, señor. I must be content with the corridor, and this grim incarceration cannot last for many weeks.’

‘Why, Chevalier, I should be loth – certainly the sun beats down very hotly. I do not think there could be any objection to your walking in my garden for a space every day. I will arrange for it.’

‘But this is too kind, señor! Indeed, I shall take no hurt in the corridor. I should not like to trespass into your garden,’ Beauvallet said.

‘No trespass, señor. Consider it agreed upon. I am held responsible for your well-being, and I am assured his Majesty is anxious to make this unfortunate time as pleasant for you as maybe. Is there aught else I may do for you?’