Norton, Andre - Novel 08 (28 page)

 
          
 
Fitz moved for the only safety he knew. He
leaped back through the open door of the breakfast room and wrenched at the
window fastening. Someone tore at him even as he dropped over the sill. He sped
down the terrace stairs into the garden. There were plenty of hiding places to
choose from—but he knew none of them well enough to dare take cover. He could
be smoked out if they took to beating the brush. This was the time to test his
half plan of the afternoon. Without hesitation he ran toward the cottage of the
Hawtreys.

 
          
 
Ye Parliament of
England
,

            
You lords and commons, too,

            
Consider well what you're about,

            
And what you're going to do;

            
You're now to fight with Yankees,

            
I'm sure you'll rue the day,

            
You roused the sons of liberty,

            
In
North America
.

 
          
 
—YE PARLIAMENT OF
ENGLAND

 
          
 
Racing down the gravel path, Fitz strained his
ears to hear shouting from the house he had left. But still unpursued, he
doubled around the end of the stableyard and pounded up—almost winded—into the
tiny dooryard of the Hawtrey cottage. Before his fist could fall on the door
panels, it was opened and he stumbled into the fire-lighted room.

 
          
 
George Hawtrey shot the bar across the door as
Fitz clutched at the high back of the settle. Granny Hawtrey and the man who
shared her possession of the hearthstone looked up with no vestige of alarm or
surprise.

 
          
 
"
Blood "

 
          
 
Fitz involuntarily looked at his two hands,
but no stain showed on his fingers.

 
          
 
"Did ye kill him?" the man by the
fire asked in a calm, conversational tone as he knocked out his pipe against
one of the bricks.

 
          
 
Fitz swallowed twice before he shaped his
answer with dry lips. “I don't
know "

 
          
 
"Well iffen ye did, Jack Ketch will be
a-sniffin at yer heels fer sure. Iffen ye didn't, ye'll have m'lord a-doin' o'
th' same thing. O'
th
' two o' 'em, I'd choose me
Ketch. He'll be a sight more merciful."

 
          
 
"How did
you "
began Fitz. The man indicated his hostess.

 
          
 
"Ask her. She said as how ye'd be
a-comin' in, jus' loike ye
wi
' all th' hounds a-baying
behind ye. Well, Granny, an' wot do we now?"

 
          
 
"Get him away." She nodded toward
Fitz. "George, bring the clothes. And you, Jem Lovel, you'll see him a
piece on the road—the road the 'gentlemen' use."

 
          
 
The man's bushy eyebrows wriggled. "Will
I now, Granny? An' who will be a-sayin' he'll keep his tongue tight 'twixt his
jaws after? Th' 'gentlemen' be choosy— that they be!"

 
          
 
Granny Hawtrey laughed. "Jem Lovel, you
and I know the 'gentlemen' and their little ways
. '
Twon't
be
the first time one of this young gentleman's
service was helped overseas by those we can lay name to. Put him on the
gentlemen's road—and don't come back with ill tidings after. Ah, George, you
took long enough.
Here, kinsman."
She pushed
across to Fitz the bundle her grandson had brought her.
"Back
into the corner with you and on with these.
They'll give the fox a
different coat and maybe throw the hounds off scent."

 
          
 
With some fumbling aid from George, Fitz drew
on rough clothing which smelled of the stable. It was a tolerable fit and must
have been the working suit of one of the Court's grooms. Only the square-toed
boots were a little loose. Fitz hoped that he would not have to run in them.

 
          
 
His wig was gone and his unruly thatch of
short hair stood up on his skull like wheat stubble. Granny frowned at that and
sent George to fetch a kerchief which she twisted about the Marylander's head
like a gypsy scarf. Jem watched, teetering from heel to toe, his hands clasped
behind him.

 
          
 
"Dirty him up a mite," he ordered.
"He's too clean, he is. That's right, boy."

 
          
 
George drew a finger across the sooty brick
and dabbed at Fitz's face.

 
          
 
"After he runs about a bit—that'll be as
good as a mask, it will. Well, Granny, time we
shoves
off. Got good wishes for us an' this night's work?"

 
          
 
She made a swift gesture in the air, sketching
some sign between them, to which he replied with a bowed head. But she caught
Fitz's hand and peered into it intently before she would let him go.

 
          
 
"You'll not be back," she told him.

 
          
 
"I have no wish to be—save to see you
again," he returned.

 
          
 
"That is not to be," she shook her
head. "My bed's ready and airing for me in the churchyard. And I make
plans for George. It is time that the
Lyons
are
gone from
Starr—we have been here too long. The strain has run out, the soil is sour. Go
from Starr,
Lyon
, but do not take Starr with you!"

 
          
 
"That, also, I have no wish to do."

 
          
 
She dropped his hand. "Good hearing.
Naught of you
is
truly Starr—though
Lyon
you may be. George!" The boy came out
of the shadows.

 
          
 
"He's
Lyon
, too." She pointed with her chin to
her grandson. "Should he come to you someday remember that, kinsman!"

 
          
 
Fitz put out his hand and grasped the one
George hesitatingly extended.

 
          
 
"Come to
Maryland
and I'll prove how green my memory can be.
We can use your breed overseas!"

 
          
 
Granny sighed and half closed her eyes.
"Done and well done," she said, half to herself.
"Now—out
with you before Jem grows pricky with waiting."

 
          
 
Fitz stooped and kissed her smooth cheek.
There was a faint spicy scent about her. She smiled and her lids drooped shut.
He went out the door to join the impatient Lovel.

 
          
 
Jem must have known the reaches of
Starr Court
grounds as well as he knew the lines on his
own hard-palmed hand. He slipped through trees on a path which Fitz
painstakingly followed. Once, both crouched by a carriage drive and watched two
riders thunder by in the half-dark. Jem chuckled.

 
          
 
"Beatin'
th
'
bounds, be they? Lawks—mighty clumsy they be about it, too. But when they do
have
th
' keepers out—then we'd best be out o' reach,
cully."

 
          
 
He hurried their pace and took more devious
ways than ever, until at last they came out on the banks of a stream where Jem
crouched down and ran his hands through the water, feeling for something lying
under its surface. At length he gave a grunt of satisfaction and fetched up a
length of dripping rope which he pulled toward him. Out of the dim shadows of
the small river came a boat. Jem climbed in and Fitz tumbled after him. Lovel
shoved off with the oars almost without sound and began to row with the
current.

 
          
 
Fitz had no way of measuring time. It might
have been hours or only long minutes before they sighted the pale arch of a
bridge spanning the water. Jem grunted again and swung in toward shore,
allowing their craft to drift, and pulling on the overhanging willows to guide
them along the bank. They slipped under the dark roof of the bridge, and Jem,
with a thrust of his arm against the water-worn stone of a pier, sent them
straight ashore. Muttering an order to Fitz to hold on to a small wharf, he got
on land, tied the boat, and beckoned Fitz to come. Two steps up the wharf led
them to a door set flush with a wall. Jem pounded twice on this, waited a
moment, and then thumped a third and a fourth time. Without a single protesting
squeak or creak it opened, and Fitz, Lovel's hand on his elbow, stepped into
velvet blackness.

 
          
 
There was the snap of a tinderbox, and a pale
flame suddenly glowed, was put to the stub of a candle and held aloft.

 
          
 
"Ye're late!" The owner of the
candle was only half a face in its short light, and that half was none too
welcoming.

 
          
 
Fitz felt Jem's shrug. "I was kept.
Strawn gone?"

 
          
 
"Strawn gone?" mimicked the candle
holder.
" 'E's
bin gone this 'alf 'our, m'lad. We
ain't playin' games 'ereabout—as well ye know, Jem. An' wot 'ave we 'ere
now?" The candle swung at Fitz.

 
          
 
"Some one as has t' take th' right
road—quick, too."

 
          
 
"Oh, 'e does, does 'e? An' who is a-goin'
t' show it t' 'im? Strawn ain't a-goin' t' be back this fortnight.
Th' Runner 'as bin a-peerin' about a little too free loike.
No, Strawn, 'e's a-layin' low fer a spell."

 
          
 
Jem bit his thumb. For the first time he
seemed a little disconcerted.

 
          
 
"This
be
a
pickle," he confided to the world.

 
          
 
"Ain't it?" agreed his host
heartily. "But it ain't one o' my spicin', Jem. An' I'll thank ye t' git
out o' my sight."

 
          
 
"There's
Hennery "

 
          
 
" 'E's
gone,
too, slipped out las' night. 'E didn't loike
th
' law
smell as 'as bin a-blowin' 'ereabout this week past. Take
th
'
sprout down t' Evans an' let 'im pass 'im along th' other route. 'Tis all ye
can do."

 
          
 
"All right, all
right."
Jem flapped his hands. "Come on, lad," he flung
over his shoulder at Fitz.

           
 
They went back to their boat, but Lovel didn't
push off at once. Instead he played a bit with the oars as if uncertain.

 
          
 
"I don't like it," he confessed at
last.
"Law sniffin' 'round an' all.
We
goes
downstream an' maybe we runs into a net. Someone must
'ave bin talkin' improper. No, we don't go downstream—we
goes
up again!"

 
          
 
Having made this decision they started rowing
against the current, back the way they had come. But Jem had no intention of
retracing their full journey of that night, for, before Fitz's shoulders began
to ache too much, he pointed the skiff shoreward and splashed through the
shallows to bring them to land again.

 
          
 
On the other side of a screen of willows there
was the thread of a path, clear enough to follow in the moonlight, and Lovel
turned into it at a pace which made Fitz scurry. The path brought them out on a
woodland trace in which cart tracks were deeply cut. Jem glanced at the moon,
drew a deep lungful of the rising wind, and plunged along the uneven footing
between the tracks.