Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 05] - Nanette (41 page)

"Gentleman," reiterated Bert, folding his hands over his round
little stomach and regarding his tall companion solemnly.

Mr. Crimp deposited needles, thread, lint, a large wooden
hammer, and various other surgical supplies on the battered table
beside the chair. "If you think a 'gentleman" would be caught dead in
those shoes—or that jacket… then you ain't seen many of the breed!"

Seating himself on a nearby chair and rocking familiarly back
and forth on the uneven legs, Bert said an aggrieved, "I seen enough to
find one for you though, didn't I? Resting on the step o' Macauley's
fish shop he was—along o' all the cats in Winchester."

Pausing in his preparations, the apothecary enquired if 'old
mother Macauley' had seen this ungentlemanlike behaviour, whereupon
Bert nodded. "Out she come, a'clobbering at him with her broom, and
screeching as he's gin raddled, which he wasn't."

Crimp chuckled. "What'd he do?"

"He bowed," shrugged Bert loftily. "Wotever would you of
expected?"

"
Bowed .
. ?" gasped Mr. Crimp. "To… old
mother Macauley?"

"Very flash," Bert nodded, jumping up and emulating the bow
with exaggerated drama. "Gent born—ain't no doubt." Returning to his
unstable perch, he mused, "P'raps he's lost his fortune at play…or
killed his man in a doo-ell, or…" He broke off, his rheumy eyes
widening, and meeting that scared look, Crimp's own expression became
alarmed. "Here!" he whispered, "You don't think . . ?"

Bert stood and tiptoed nearer to the chair. "He
could
be, Crimp! Oh… Gawd . . ! They do say as he shoved a knife clean
through the poor cove's liver and lights! And the poor Frenchy—a fine,
high-born gent, furriner or no! Perfecting of his ravaged child!" He
bent to scan the suspect, breath held in check. "But—they say in them
posters as how he's got scratches on his face."

"Well so he might have—under that beard. And—see here . . !"
The apothecary crept to the far side of the chair and, lifting a rag
from the bared arm that rested there, beckoned to his friend.

Bert looked and grimaced, and for a moment they stared at one
another.

"Two… Thousand Guineas!" breathed Bert, eyes bright with
avarice.

"Hurry up!" urged Crimp. "If he ain't the guilty party—no harm
done. If he is, he'll be slowed down considerable when I'm finished, I
can tell you!"

Bert was already scurrying away but turned at this, to call in
an urgent stage whisper, "You won't never do him in?"

The apothecary pursed his lips doubtfully, then brightened.
"It makes no never mind. Reward's the same, warm or stiff."

Heaving a sigh of relief at this happy reminder, Bert was gone.

Mr. Crimp eyed his patient curiously, reached forward, and
with great caution parted the short dark beard that curled about the
pale features. Slight as it was, the touch roused Harry. He blinked up
at the man who crouched over him and demanded an indignant, "What the
deuce d'ye think you're about?"

Mr. Crimp jumped back and, snatching up his saw, gulped, "I—I
was… forgetting, sir, whether or no you's-said you would be wanting a
shave!"

"Shave?" Flinching, Harry hauled himself upward. "With—
that
?"

The apothecary glanced down at his saw and uttered a nervous
laugh. " 'Course not! That's for—"

"Good God! You dirty blackguard! You were going to hack my arm
off!"

"Well now, it's got to be done, ain't it?" said Crimp
reasonably. He lifted the straps at the side of the bolted-down chair.
"You just rest easy and tell me where you want us to take you after I—"

"Devil I will!" Harry waved him off. "You're not going to
strap me down, cut my arm off, nor take me anywhere, confound you!"

The apothecary patted his shoulder in a consoling way, but his
cunning eyes slid to the side. Following that glance, Harry jumped up,
grabbed the hammer, and tossed it across the room. "I prefer laudanum,
if you please! Not that I'd give you the chance to administer either!"

"Don't often have to use my hammer," sighed Crimp, his
thousand guineas receding rapidly. "They usually faint when I get to
the bone."

"Or die, more like!" Harry shuddered.

Crimp protested this statement with vigour and then assured
his patient that it was his own welfare that was being considered.
"Can't run from a thing like
that
." He indicated
the injury with the travesty of a sympathetic smile. "Longer you leave
it, worse it'll get. In a day or two, it'll be much too late, even if
you was to take it to the shoulder!"

"I'll tell you what I'll take, and that's my leave of you,
sir!" Harry picked up his jacket and strode purposefully toward Crimp
and the front door.

For a wild second the apothecary contemplated brute force. His
patient was far from being in plump currant—still, he
was
tall, and the set of his shoulders such as to dampen any valorous
inclination to uphold law and order. Crimp compromised, therefore and,
seizing a bottle from a side table, adjured Harry to toss off a couple
of balls of fire and he'd scarcely feel a thing. Harry declined this
offer, but submitting to the logical advice that the wound
must
be cleaned and re-bandaged, reluctantly sat down again. At once the
crafty apothecary, not one to give up without a struggle, warned of the
dangers attendant upon refusing to be strapped in. "The least wriggle,"
he said earnestly, "and one slip o' my hand—" The glitter in the
Ravisher's nasty narrow eyes silenced him, however, and he set about
his task. He possessed a marked lack of either skill or compassion,
with the result that Harry held his breath briefly, then let it out in
a blistering review of Mr. Crimp's antecedents. Bert, the apothecary
realized, had been correct after all. Only a gentleman could swear with
such fluency!

Watching him, Harry lapsed into a weary silence. He had been
fortunate in his choice of overnight accommodations, for he'd woken to
find the cart jolting along the sunlit lanes towards Winchester. He'd
slipped out some distance from the old town and, finding a stream and
sheltering trees, had bathed, endeavoured to make himself look somewhat
more respectable, and walked through the sparkling morning until he'd
sat on the doorstep of the fish shop and met Bert—which he began to
think a mixed blessing. His doubts solidified as Crimp tied the ends of
the bandage agonizingly.

"Damned clumsy dolt!" he raged. "Did you spend your time
attending to what you're about instead of constantly gawking out of the
window…"

The apothecary gabbled a defence, but Harry, his own glance
having shot to the murky casement that overlooked the street, suddenly
realized that all the sights and sounds attendant upon a busy market
day had ceased. Suspicion tightened his nerves. He left the chair and
stalked to the window. Not a soul was visible, yet he could swear he
heard voices in a subdued murmuring that contained a hint of
excitement. He swung around even as the apothecary rushed him, the
heavy hammer flashing at his unguarded head. He jumped lightly to the
side and, as the hammer whizzed past his cheek, slammed home what Lord
Bolster would have acclaimed 'a leveller'. Mr. Crimp's feet almost left
the floor as he arched backward, coming tidily to rest in his treatment
chair.

"Very obliging of you… old fellow," said Harry. He swiftly
buckled the straps about the unconscious man and snatched up a grubby
towel to serve as a gag. They were waiting for him to come out, of
course. That miserable little toad-eater Bert must have gone for the
Watch. He ran to a half-open door at the side of the room and entered a
small, littered parlour. The few articles of furniture were stained and
sagging, and a grey piece of sheet, racked over the one window,
filtered out the daylight. A curtained opening gave onto an odorous
kitchen, to the right of which was the promise of a bolted door. Harry
started to it, but paused and sprinted back to the parlour. Cautiously,
he peered around the edge of the sheet. He was looking into a narrow
alley between the buildings. To the left several men crouched, one
holding a rake, and the others variously armed with clubs, farm tools,
and muskets. To the right, where the alley joined the street, he could
glimpse the fringe of a crowd, the men peering eagerly toward the front
door of the shop. Even as he watched, he caught sight of the crown of a
hat moving below the window and drew back, grimly aware that he was
surrounded.

A voice outside rose in a hoarse whisper. "Peel! They want—"
And another voice hissed, "Quiet! Dang ye!"

For an instant Harry frowned at a greasy hat that adorned the
sorrowful sofa. "Nothing ventured…" he thought, and with characteristic
zeal for this hopeless challenge, raced into the front room. Crimp was
uttering gurgles and thrashing about. Harry pulled free his grimy
apron, tied it over the apothecary's head, then tied a drooping jacket
over that. Taking up his own jacket, he eased into it and grabbed the
lopsided chair. Howling at the top of his lungs, he heaved it through
the front window and raced into the parlour again, spurred by a great
shout of excitement from the front. He jammed the greasy hat onto his
head, ran to the back door, and shouted, "Peel! Peel! Be ye thar?"

"Aye!" An eager fist pounded at the door. "What's to do?"

Harry shot the bolt even as the front door crashed open. He
flung the door wide. "We got him!" he roared. "Come quick!"

The first upstanding citizen peered at him and hesitated
momentarily but was borne along by the eager tide. They poured into the
from room, where total chaos appeared to prevail; shouts of "There he
is!", "Kill the ravisher!", "'Hang him!", intermingling with
adjurations to "get him outta that chair!" and a lone but more
practical, "Where's Crimp?". In a flash the small house was a mass of
striving, shouting, cursing men. Harry allowed them to sweep past and
edged unobtrusively into the alley. Running to the corner, he all but
collided with a muscular individual in an embroidered smock and,
seizing his arm, shouted triumphantly, "We got the perisher! We do be
fixin' to hang him!" The stranger gave an enthused cry and rushed on.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief, but as he walked along the
wider cobbled thoroughfare he heard the sound he had dreaded, the
terrible, mindless yowling of an angry mob. His heart thundering, he
pulled the greasy hat lower over his betraying green eyes and turned
down the next alley. Only a few people were visible here; a man who ran
by, dragging on his coat, his face alight with anticipation; a vendor
hawking brooms; a woman far to the end of the alley, lackadaisically
sweeping a worn doorstep. Longing to run for the trees that beckoned so
invitingly beyond the old buildings, Harry dared not even hasten for
fear of attracting attention. God! How they howled! He began to sweat
as the sound came nearer. When he passed the woman, she lifted a tired,
wan face and bade him good day… He mumbled a response and raised his
hat. It was a mistake, and a bad one. She stared, shrank, then let out
a piercing shriek. The far end of the alley was suddenly filled with a
surging tide of enraged humanity. Harry essayed a mad dash for the
trees, the shouts behind him rising into a bestial roar that made his
blood run cold. He was almost to the last house when three men raced
around the corner ahead, three men wearing a familiar black and gold
livery, and each carrying a serviceable-looking cudgel. They slowed,
and sauntered toward him; and Harry halted, panting, "Treed… by God!"

From behind came the pounding of countless feet; the ravening
clamour that was death, cruel and shameful. "Better to go quickly," he
thought and, advancing on Sanguinet's men, was met by one who sprang
ahead of his fellows. Harry easily eluded the flailing club and struck
once with all the power of his legendary right. The face disappeared,
only to be replaced by another and a fist like a ham, shooting for his
jaw. He tripped over the fallen man and thus the fist whistled past,
and he seized that muscular arm and pulled his assailant into a profane
collission with the onrushing third man. A swift sense of danger and he
splun around desperately, but a descending hand clutching a rock caught
him above the right temple, and he was on his knees, half blinded, his
head exploding. Vaguely, he was aware of rough hands dragging him to
his feet; a stifling, lunatic confusion; a sharp agony as someone
wrenched at his left arm; a shrill voice shouting for a rope. He
struggled feebly, but a fist drove at his face and, powerless to duck,
he reeled to the impact and sank again, consciousness fading.

"Murderer!… Filthy woman stealer!… Hang the dirty bastard!"

Through the sick weakness and pain, he knew a dull regret.
Who'd ever have thought he would finish like this? Hanged in some
wretched little alley in the dear land of his birth… Whatever would
Mitch think . . ?

"Let him up! Outta my way! Move, you coves! Let him up!"

He was hauled upright and strove mightily to lift his head
but, even when he achieved this, could discern only a vague blur. Yet
the voice had sounded oddly familiar, like a half-remembered dream. He
blinked and was able to see a horseman with broad, powerful shoulders
and a coarse-featured face, the small eyes glinting mockingly down at
him.

The man leaned forward in the saddle and, his thick lips
twisting into a leer, enquired, "Wanta confess your sins afore you
die—sir?"

A rough hooting and shouts of laughter, and Harry was shaken
and buffeted so that speech failed him and he was unable to utter his
defiant response.

"You don't know who I be," sneered the rider, "so I'll tellya
as I works fer the Sanguinets. And Monsewer Claude wants to know—
number one, where you put the lady. And—number two, how you fired that
there pistol when you—"

"It's not… too difficult," Harry interposed thickly. "You—just
curl your finger… 'round the trigger, and—"