Georgette Heyer (54 page)

  'Alas, brother, I fear you have a kindness for Malig nants!' mourned the King.

  'What I say, and hold to, is this!' said Symons, wagging a finger at him. 'If the King had kept his foot out of Scotland, he would have done better, for do you know what they did to him there? They held his nose to a grindstone, which was the Covenant, and the more fool he to suffer them! But a ragged colt may make a good horse, and if any gainsay it he shall have a cup of ale thrown in his face!'

  'A man of Belial!' groaned the King, covering his eyes with his hand.

  'Will you hold your peace?' whispered Phelips indig nantly. 'You'll bring yourself to ruin, sir!'

  'Retro me, Sathanas!' said the King in a hollow voice.

  'You're out, sir: that's popish stuff !' murmured Colonel Gounter.

  Time wore on. By ten o'clock Symons had passed from querulousness to a mood of rollicking good fellowship and showed no sign of abating his hospi tality. Since the King had ridden forty miles that day, and must ride as far upon the following day, it became a matter of some importance to get him to bed. His glass was still being replenished, and as regularly passed to Colonel Phelips, who was hard put to it to know how to dispose of its contents; and whenever he made a movement to retire, his host thrust him back into his chair, declaring he should not let him go, for he was a good fellow in spite of his cropped head.

  Finally, Colonel Gounter solved the difficulty, by ousting Tom Gounter from his place on Symons's left hand, and sitting himself down there in his stead. Plucking Symons by the sleeve, he whispered to him: 'I wonder how you should judge so right! The fellow is a Roundhead indeed.'

  'It's as plain as a pack-saddle,' replied Symons, wisely nodding his head. 'But to see a canting Puritan so dagged would make a cat laugh! Do you mark him? He is as drunk as David's sow!'

  'So he is,' agreed the Colonel, refusing to meet the King's eye. 'But he is a melancholy fellow! If we could get him to bed, the house were our own, and we could be merry.'

  'By God, you are right!' said Symons, much struck by this idea. 'But how to be rid of him? He sits there as full as a piper's bag.'

  'Leave it to me: I think I know how to persuade him.' The Colonel got up, and walked round behind Symons's chair to the King's. He bent over him, and spoke softly in his ear. 'Will you come, sir? It's time and more that you were abed.'

  'But I have never been so well-entertained in my life!' objected the King.

  'I don't doubt it,' agreed the Colonel. 'But you have a very hard ride before you, sir.'

  The King laughed, but rose. Colonel Phelips followed suit, announcing that he kept no late hours. Symons, deciding that it behoved him to escort his guests to their chambers, lurched out of his chair, and would have gone with them, had not Wilmot intervened, calling attention to his glass, and telling him that he was hanged that left his drink behind him. While Symons disposed of what was left of his ale, Colonel Gounter removed the King and Phelips out of his sight, and took them upstairs to a chamber where there was a truckle bed at the foot of a roomy four-poster.

  'This is what comes of my lord's whim and crotchets!' exploded Phelips. 'We should have taken his Majesty to Mr Hyde's, and so I held from the start!'

  'And you'll hold to it, buckle and thong, to the end,' remarked the King. 'I would give much to see your brother-in-law's face if ever he discovers the truth, Colonel Gounter!'

  'I promise you, he will be ready to cut his throat, sir,' replied the Colonel, helping him to pull off his coat. 'But you may sleep here in safety, for there is none would think to look for you in this house. Tomorrow, at daybreak, we must set out for Brighthelmstone, where I have left my merchant to see all prepared against our coming.'

  'If only we do not again miscarry!' said Phelips.

  The King's slumbrous eyes rested thoughtfully on Gounter's face, a smile lighting their darkness. 'I do not think we shall miscarry,' he remarked.

When Colonel Gounter went to rouse the King at daybreak, he found him sleeping peacefully with his cheek on his hand. Phelips was already up and dressed. He saw Gounter looking half in wonder, half in admiration, at the King, and gave a grim little smile. 'I told you he was of a different kidney from my lord,' he said. 'Did ye think to find him wakeful that has half England hunting him through the length and breadth of the land? Not he! he has not stirred since he dropped his graceless head on the pillow. It's I who have slept a dog's sleep, starting at every rat that gnawed behind the wainscot.' He stood looking down at the King, with a mixture of severity and lurking affection in his face. 'Well, you may take him, and welcome!' he said gruffly. 'He has brought my bones to water with his wilful spurts. And now, when I look to be rid of him and the whole dangerous busi ness, what must he demand of me but that I shall risk my neck in London to provide that moneys may be sent to meet him at Rouen!'

  'Will you do it?' enquired Gounter.

  Phelips smiled sourly. 'If a man's fool enough to let that lad put his spells on him, he must give himself up for lost, no help for it! He'd coax Noll Cromwell himself, if he did but come face to face with him, plague take him!' He bent over the bed, and laid his hand on the King's shoulder, and shook it. 'Rouse up now, sir!'

  The King stirred, and opened his eyes. When he saw Phelips leaning over him, he smiled sleepily, and stretched himself. 'What, Robin, is it dawn already?' he murmured.

  'Ay, long since, sir, and Gounter here waiting to carry you off.'

  The King sat up. 'I was ever a very sound sleeper,' he said apologetically.

  Colonel Gounter, conscious of Phelips's sardonic eye upon him, looked across the bed at him, and said frankly, 'Yes, I am lost and care not a jot what may come of it.'

  Phelips gave vent to a short laugh. 'I told ye!'

  But when he parted from the King on the Downs above Hambeldon, he gripped that slender hand to his lips in the most uncourtier-like fashion, and said in a voice that was thickened by emotion: 'God keep you safe, sir, and bring you to your throne at last!'

  'God keep you safe also, Robin, and when I come to my throne, let me see you!'

  'I shall do so, and hope it may be soon. Have a care to him, Gounter!' Phelips said roughly, and saluting, rode off at a smart trot.

  'And now,' said the King, 'the last stage in my adven tures!'

  'I trust so, sir. But it is in my mind that we are too great a company to escape notice. With your good will, I would have my cousin leave us as soon as we reach Stanstead, and my lord's servant too, if he is not to take ship with you.'

  'What!' exclaimed the King, with a comical expres sion of amazement. 'You will never go without Swan, Harry!'

  'Yes, yes, I think I must do so,' replied Wilmot seri ously. 'I shall not be without a servant for long, after all, and he would not do to go to France with me.'

  'But, Harry, do you look to me to wait on you? I give you fair warning I shall not do it!'

  'Now, my dear master, I beg of you, leave jesting!' Wilmot implored him. 'You may count yourself safe, I daresay, but I shall not do so until I see you set foot on French soil. I do trust, Colonel Gounter, that you mean to lead us away from the highroads?'

  'I do indeed, my lord.'

  'Ah! No dinner,' said the King. 'I would someone would protect me from my friends.'

  The Colonel's eyes twinkled. 'Content you, sir, you shall have your dinner, for I have put a couple of neats' tongues in my pockets, which you may eat of when you will. I have also made provision for your Majesty to rest awhile, if you would be pleased to do so, at a very loyal gentleman's house at Beeding, which is near to Brighthelmstone.'

  The King said, with a glancing smile: 'My friend, is there anything you have forgot to make provision for?'

  'I hope not, sir,' answered the Colonel, frowning in an effort of memory. 'Upon consideration, I thought it well to arrange for your going into some secure house while I ride ahead into Brighthelmstone to assure myself that it is safe for you to enter the village.'

  'I thank you, Colonel, and begin to wonder how I came so far without you to manage my affairs.'

  The Colonel flushed. 'Your Majesty had others to serve you.'

  'Yes, many others,' said Wilmot, 'but he speaks truly: you have done excellent well, my dear sir!'

  'I have tried to do my duty,' replied the Colonel briefly, and made an excuse to fall back to ride beside his cousin.

  At Stanstead, Tom Gounter kissed hands, and rode away to his own home. Robert Swan kissed hands too, but although he uttered a prim hope that God would preserve his Majesty, it was only when he bade farewell to his master that a tremor of emotion shook his voice. 'My lord,' he said, overcoming it, 'I have placed your lordship's lace-bands between your handkerchiefs in the trunk, and laid the Holland shirt over all. And the roots for the cleaning of your lordship's teeth will be found wrapped in a napkin, alongside your lordship's comb, and the phial containing the musk, which we have not broached.'

  'Harry,' said the King, when Swan had ridden away, 'if I did not mean to claim that clean shirt the instant we set sail for France, I swear I would have your head! Do you know what there is in my bundle?'

  'Alas, very little, dear sir!' said Wilmot, sadly shaking his head.

  'You say sooth!' returned the King with deep feeling.

  Colonel Gounter, a good deal amused by this interchange, begged leave to remind the King that if they were to reach Brighthelmstone that evening, they had no time to waste. The three men accordingly rode on, Gounter acting all the time as guide.

  The way led across country, and the only people they encountered, until they drew near Arundel, a little after mid-day, were country-folk, who displayed no interest in them. Even Wilmot's fears began to be sensibly allayed, and after a few hours of riding over lonely uplands his spirits became quite gay. But as they came abreast of the steep hill leading down into Arundel, the noise of hounds baying reached their ears, and in another instant a company of horsemen came into sight, riding at full-butt towards them.

  The Colonel, who had caught a glimpse of the foremost rider, a stocky man with very smartly curled mustachios, and a voice of brass, said quickly: 'In amongst the trees, and dismount!'

  The King at once swung his horse round; Lord Wilmot followed him, and by the time the hounds swept by in full cry, the three travellers were hidden from the huntsmen's view, all of them standing on the ground, and gripping their horses above the nostrils to prevent their betraying them by neighing.

  If any of the hunt had noticed three travellers on the road they were either too much absorbed in their sport to wonder at their sudden disappearance, or they supposed them to have ridden down the hill into the village. They galloped by without a check, and were soon out of sight over the brow of the hill.

  The Colonel removed his hand from his horse's nostrils, and said devoutly: 'Thank God! Did you see the man who rode first behind the hounds, sir? He was none other than Captain Morley, who is the governor of the Castle, and as rabid a schismatic as you may find in the whole of England!'

  'Oddsfish, was he indeed?' said the King. 'I did not much like his starched mustachios!'

  He spoke merrily, and did not seem to be at all disconcerted by his narrow escape; but Lord Wilmot's peace of mind was shattered. His gaiety fell away from him, and when the little village of Houghton, just south of Amberley, was reached, and the Colonel proposed to the King that he should stop for some beer at the ale house, and there eat his neats' tongues, he reprimanded him sharply for suggesting such a thing.

  But the King, being both hungry and thirsty, hailed the suggestion with acclaim. 'If you are afraid, ride on, Harry!' was all the answer he had for Wilmot's protests.

  Wilmot flushed angrily, and said in a low voice: 'If I am afraid, it is upon your account! Do you think I would leave you?'

  'Nay, I did but jest,' Charles said soothingly.

  'If you would jest less and give more heed to the danger you stand in, I might be spared some part at least of the anxieties you make me to undergo!'

  'Alas, poor Harry! I use you damnably,' said Charles.

  He sounded remorseful, and the caressing note in his voice won Wilmot over; but he stopped at the ale-house for his dinner. As a concession to my lord's fears, he ate it in the saddle; but Colonel Gounter, an appreciative spectator of his King's methods of getting his own way, remembered Robert Phelips's words, and smiled to himself.

  When they had finished the bread and neats' tongues and drunk their beer, they rode on, crossing the Arun by Houghton Bridge, and proceeding due east, in the direction of Bramber. They reached Bramber between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, and were riding down the street, past the first thatched cottages, when they discovered that the village was full of soldiers.