Face Down among the Winchester Geese (24 page)

"No,” Walter said. “If he went to Hampshire, he had private business there.” He nodded, as if her question had confirmed his own conclusions. “'Tis a likely route. The road called the London Way is a principal thoroughfare. Even a coach can get through, at least as far as Winchester."

But he stopped at the Lambeth horse ferry, to rule out the possibility that Robert had crossed the Thames there and was making for the southeast coast with which he was most familiar. Once Dover and the other Cinque Ports had been ruled out, they continued on toward Staines.

Susanna had never ridden in one of these newfangled coaches before. Few people in England had. There was space enough inside for two people to sit side by side, back and front, but even with cushions padding the wooden benches, every rut and bump in the road jarred the passengers viciously. More than once she was bounced high enough to bang her head on the underside of the roof and drive her teeth together with a painful jolt.

The farther from London they traveled, the less likely they'd be to find the highway in good repair. Once the road surface began to deteriorate, Susanna feared, the coach would become a bone-rattling torture chamber. If a wheel broke, they'd be stuck.

But she could see the method in Robert's choice of this vehicle to transport the Lady Mary. Behind the drawn curtains, occupants remained hidden. Folk who saw a coach pass by would assume that some prestigious person traveled within, perhaps the queen herself. All would give way.

At each crossroads, Sir Walter stopped and asked questions. By the time the coach crossed the Thames at Staines Bridge and traveled the few miles to Bagshot, where the road diverged, one branch leading to Winchester and another to Southampton, he seemed certain which way Robert had chosen.

"'Tis likely he'll journey as far as Winchester in the coach, then abandon it to travel one of the narrower byways to the coast. To Southampton or Portsmouth, or any of a hundred little hamlets along Southampton Water and the Solent."

Susanna had been silent a long time, thinking. At last she spoke. “If we catch Robert, he'll be hanged, drawn, and quartered as a traitor.” If he had been as disloyal as Sir Walter claimed, not just to her but to queen and country, no one could save him. The most they could hope to achieve was the Lady Mary's rescue.

Sir Walter turned to look at her, a desolate expression on his face. “He is my friend, Susanna. I take no joy in this pursuit.” He seemed about to say more, then shook his head.

They did not stop for the night, but kept doggedly on. Twenty, even thirty miles a day was a reasonable distance to cover on horseback, but a coach could not go that fast. The slow-speed chase continued, night bleeding into day and day turning again into night as their journey took them ever southwest. They clattered through Guildford, then another ten miles to Farnham, and from there Winchester was still a full day's journey.

The first coach had gone before, for people noticed it, but Susanna began to wonder if Robert might not have perpetrated some elaborate hoax. Did an empty vehicle lead them astray while Robert and the Lady Mary, mounted on fresh, fast horses, rode hard for the coast?

They drew near Winchester just as the morning curfew bells began to ring in the city. “Every day at four,” Sir Walter told her as she jerked out of an uncomfortable doze and blinked in the darkness. “And again at eight at night."

How like him, she thought, to know such little details.

Flint-surfaced streets gave them a brief respite from rough roads, but Sir Walter wasted no time asking his questions. Once he had answers, he chose not to hire local guides, instead relying on milestones to guide them on the road south from Winchester.

The London Way had often been used for large baggage trains and royal progresses, but not so the road they now traveled. Twisting and turning, it led them deep into the Hampshire countryside. Sir Walter insisted upon as much speed as they could manage and in the early morning light the outriders soon called out that they'd spotted dust rising in a great cloud ahead, the sure sign of another vehicle. They came up behind it a few minutes later.

Leaning precariously out of the opening above the door, Susanna strained to see, then pulled herself back inside and spoke to Sir Walter. “Fulke is driving. He cannot have had much experience with the vehicle. And he does not want to leave England.” Vanguard and the Andalusian jennet were tied to the back of the coach.

With a nod of agreement, Sir Walter took his turn to lean out and look, shouting commands to the driver before he resumed his seat. “Hold tight,” he warned, grasping two straps attached to his side of the interior. Susanna did likewise on hers. “We'll draw abreast and try to force Fulke off the road."

They thundered on, dangerously fast even if they'd been on a major highway in good repair. On this road the effort seemed suicidal. Susanna prayed they did not encounter a farm wagon coming the other way. There might be just room for the two coaches to drive side by side. There would be none to spare.

Inch by inch, they pulled level with the other vehicle, until Susanna could look directly into Robert's coach. She met the Lady Mary's frightened gaze first, through the drawn-back leather curtain. Then her attention fixed on her husband.

He produced a pistol, primed and ready to fire.

For a moment, Susanna did not think he recognized her, for he lifted the weapon, aiming it toward her.

Only when he looked her straight in the eye did he falter. He froze in the act of firing.

That delay cost him dearly. A moment later, a rough patch in the road flung the two coaches together. Wheels connected with a horrifying, grating noise and a screech of protest. They bounced apart, then came together a second time with a resounding crash.

Propelled off the hard bench seat, Susanna struck her head on the doorframe hard enough to produce stars. Dazed, she was still in a confused state when the coach began to tip, to tumble. Before she could gather breath to scream, it had left the road, turned over, and come to rest tilted halfway over on its right side.

Susanna lay still, sprawled awkwardly on the seat, every muscle in her body aching. The sky, she thought, looking out through a window that was now above her, appeared to be in entirely the wrong location.

"Susanna? Susanna, are you all right?"

Walter's concerned voice washed over her like a wave, forceful, tugging at her, yet nothing she wished to respond to.

The feel of his hands caressing her face, then running lightly over her body to check for broken limbs, could not be as easily ignored. “Stop fussing, Walter."

She meant to snap at him, but the words came out as a mere whisper. Susanna frowned. She did not believe she was seriously hurt. Just winded. No more bruised than she'd already been. To prove that to herself, she struggled to an upright position.

Pain lanced across her scalp, but it did not last.

Gingerly, she felt the lump that contact with the side of the coach had made on her forehead.

Then she looked at Walter. He was much the worse for wear, a long tear in his once pristine doublet. His bonnet missing entirely. But he was smiling at her in relief. “Praise God,” he murmured.

The sound of a shot shattered the moment, and then a shout.

"Sir Walter!” One of the outriders called out. “He's getting away!"

"Robert,” Susanna whispered, and watched Walter's grim expression return.

He scrambled out of the wrecked, upended coach and she followed, needing assistance only for the last leap to the ground. The other vehicle had ended up against a tree on the opposite side of the road. The Lady Mary was just emerging from within.

"He's on Vanguard, madam,” Fulke's familiar voice said.

"The horse was not hurt in the crash?"

"Tether broke."

The horses attached to Susanna's coach struggled in the traces, and one appeared to be injured. Fulke and Walter turned their attention first to freeing them, then to catching Walter's gelding and the mare he'd borrowed for her from the queen's stable. Both were loose and spooked, released by the outrider when he'd fallen from his horse while trying to get out of the way of the coaches.

Robert had shot the other outrider, wounding him badly enough that he could not continue his pursuit. Susanna did what she could for him, while the men dealt with the horses. In short order, Walter was ready to ride after his old friend.

"Not without me,” Susanna told him.

"I need you to stay with the Lady Mary and the wounded man."

"The Lady Mary,” that noblewoman said staunchly, “rides with you.” Her eyes glowed with excitement.

If she had suffered worse than the same bumps and bruises the rest of them had endured, there was no sign of it.

"We have no time to lose,” Walter reluctantly conceded, “and I am loath to leave you women here unprotected."

They went on—Walter, Susanna and the Lady Mary, Fulke and one of the outriders—while the coachman stayed behind with the injured man. Fulke lost no time telling them all he knew, but Robert had revealed very little beyond their ultimate destination. Spain.

"Where did he mean to abandon the coach?” Walter asked him.

"In a cave near here. Big enough to drive right into, he said. Said no one but the smugglers would ever know it was there."

"He must have a ship waiting at anchor,” Walter decided. “No doubt he meant to take the Lady Mary aboard in the guise of a wife. Give out that she was ill and ‘twould be no great matter to explain keeping her out of sight."

The Lady Mary could add only a bit more to the story, but she shuddered visibly when she got to the part about her marriage to the king of Spain's mad son.

Robert did not go into the port of Southampton, but instead rode along the east side of Southampton Water, past Netley and Hamble, known smugglers’ strongholds according to Walter, eluding his pursuers all the way onto Titchfield land, near where the New Forest began.

"Burseldon ferry can take him across Southampton Water to Calshot Castle,” Walter said grimly. “He might arrange passage there, his most logical destination Brittany. Once across the Narrow Seas, though, he can easily journey on to Spain."

"Why assume he has abandoned his original plan?"

Susanna asked. “If he had a ship waiting to take him all the way to Spain—"

"That, too, is possible. Both Spithead anchorage and St. Helen's Road anchorage lie off the coast to the east, and smugglers lurk in every bay and creek, both on the mainland and on the Isle of Wight, ready to take a man to whatever port he desires, so long as the pay be sufficient."

Robert rode as far as Titchfield Haven, then boarded a passage boat. It had already begun its crossing, carrying both Robert and his horse out onto the choppy waters at the mouth of Southampton Water, by the time Susanna's party arrived in pursuit.

Walter soon arranged for another boat, but when they reached the wide mudflats on the opposite shore, only Vanguard remained to be apprehended.

Robert was well away once more, this time all alone in a small, sturdy rowing boat. Susanna watched in dismay as it bobbed on the rough water, slowly making headway against the waves.

"The prevailing winds blow toward Southampton from die southwest,” Walter said. “It takes a good breeze from the east before most ships set sail, and missing that wind can cause a delay of weeks, even months, if a ship sails with an escort."

"What are you saying?"

"That the wind is favorable. Many vessels are leaving port just now. He might board any of them. Or be struck and capsized in traffic. Come. We will be able to see more from above."

Calshot Castle was little more than a small blockhouse with a round tower, surrounded by a gun terrace. It had been built by the queen's father, old Henry VIII, to guard the Solent against invasion.

The waters below seethed with activity. Ships setting off on long ocean voyages filled the vista with their great square sails. Some were white, but most were brown, and a few appeared to be a blackened gray. Over the water came the sharp sounds of boatswains’ whistles, combined with the creak of masts and the clank of more anchors being lifted from the depths.

Robert's rowboat skimmed across the water now, moving rapidly away from shore. When Susanna shielded her eyes against the sun and squinted, she could see that he had his feet braced and was putting his back into pulling the oars in long, steady sweeps. If he had been jostled in his coach even half as much as she had over the last few days, every stroke must bring excruciating pain.

Spray struck him full in the face as he glanced over his shoulder to judge the distance between himself and the nearest ships in the Solent. His destination? She could not tell.

"Salt water flows north just here, creating a channel between the mainland and the Isle of Wight. The Solent is rife with strong eddies and powerful currents. If that boat does capsize, Robert will surely drown.

The words were said with a flat finality, but Susanna did not accept them. Could not accept them. “He knows how to swim."

"'Twill matter little."

They could no longer see well. Too much distance lay between land and fugitive, and larger vessels now emerging from Southampton Water on their way out to sea blocked Susanna's view of the rowing boat. Was Robert attempting to overtake one of the departing ships, some of which were now moving rapidly, the wind behind them? Or was he bound for some smuggler's haven, as Walter had suggested? Five miles away from Calshot Castle, across the water, she could just make out what appeared to be two small stone blockhouses on the north coast of the Isle of Wight. Hills rose behind them, creating the illusion that the island was larger than it was.

When Susanna looked again at the Solent, searching for Robert, her heart lurched. She could no longer locate the rowboat. “Where is he? Did it capsize?"

But Walter had also lost sight of his quarry when larger vessels blocked it from view. Though they strained and squinted, neither they nor the others in the chase party ever caught sight of the small boat again.

To all intents and purposes, Sir Robert Appleton had just vanished off the face of the earth.