Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2) (7 page)

Bess nodded. ‘Emmanuel and Edmund rode to the King when His Majesty raised the standard at Nottingham.’

Bess ached whenever she thought of her love, lost for ever, and her heart with him. And yet even the aching was something to which she could cling.

‘God’s wrath is England’s fire,’ Lord Heylyn said. ‘Drink!’
he yelled again, eyes blazing as he looked towards the door for sign of his servant returning. Then he turned back to Bess, big hands gripping the ends of his chair’s arms so that the knuckles were bloodless. ‘Then your mother is well?’

‘Quite well,’ Bess said, aware she had raised her voice for the old man’s benefit. ‘For all her own efforts towards the war. We were besieged. Before Christmastide. Mother led a sortie and fought the rebels herself.’ Her grandfather’s eyes widened at that, which was hardly surprising, Bess thought. ‘I was delivered of my son whilst we were besieged. Little Francis.’ Another name to squeeze her heart, for the loss of her father and the missing of her baby. ‘Edmund returned and—’

‘Broke the siege and sent the rebels to Hell,’ her grandfather finished. ‘I am not so far removed from the world that I do not hear stories that are worth hearing.’ His left eyebrow lifted. ‘A child out of wedlock, hey? And what did Sir Francis make of that, I wonder?’

‘We had made our vows,’ Bess said, her hackles rising. ‘The ceremony was all arranged and we would have been wed before little Francis was born if not for the country turning on their king. We had my father’s blessing.’

‘Indeed.’

The servant hurried in with two wooden cups, presenting one to Bess before delivering the other into a trembling hand that had been outstretched since Bess had heard the man’s steps across the hall boards.

‘So your mother raises two boys and one is a hero, the other a traitor,’ Lord Heylyn said, putting the cup to his lips and slurping the warm wine. ‘That’s what you get if you marry without regard to breeding.’ He let that hang in the air between them and Bess got the sense he was testing her, perhaps willing her to take umbrage.

Well, she would not bite.

‘My mother married the man she loved. As I would have done had Emmanuel lived,’ she said simply. ‘My brothers are
not the boys you remember but grown men. They follow their own paths. As for Tom, it is true that he has fought with the rebels, God save his soul, but he has suffered terribly. Hatred and the hunger for vengeance blinded him, Grandfather, as hatred is wont to do to men.’

This barb was well aimed, it seemed, for the old man’s eyes flickered and narrowed further still, and a faint tremor ran through his body from leg to face.

‘You are here about
them
, aren’t you, Elizabeth? Your boys,’ he said, bringing the cup to his lips again, inhaling before slurping more spiced wine. ‘Those devils used to thieve my apples. Damned natty lads.’ He dragged his shirt sleeve across his mouth, leaving a faint red stain on the linen.

‘I need your help,’ Bess said, looking into the flames that leapt in the hearth. And suddenly she felt like a fool on a fool’s errand, for why would this old man, whom she had not seen since she was a little girl, deign to help her? Was she even now (and a mother too) the same callow fool who had encouraged Tom to court Martha Green when she should have condemned the courtship? And look what had come of that.

‘Why would I help you?’ Lord Heylyn asked. She could feel his eyes on her like hot coals, though she yet watched the fire. ‘Your mother turned her back on me many years ago, before you were a mewling red monster at your wet-nurse’s breast. She’s not lacking in gall, your mother, but I
am
surprised she thought sending you here would avail your family anything. I would have said she’d too much pride for that.’

Bess felt as though one of those withered apples were lodged in her throat. She feared that by calling on the earl she might be betraying her mother.

‘My mother does not know that I am here,’ she said. ‘No one does.’

‘And the boy shivering in my hall?’

‘A friend. Joseph Lea. The son of a tenant farmer and now musketeer in the Shear House garrison.’

The thick brow above the earl’s left eye lifted. ‘What elevated circles you move in, girl. You really
are
like your mother.’ Bess did not deny it. ‘She will spit fury when she learns you are here,’ he said, a glint – like the scales of a fish just beneath the water – flashing across his old eyes. ‘I would like to see her face when she finds out.’

‘Will you help me?’ Bess said again.

‘Help you?’

‘See my family whole again.’ It will never be whole again, she thought, fixing her eyes on his. But there was a wound that might be healed. ‘I will bring Tom back. I will see my brothers standing together again as they should be. As they always did.’

‘And you think I can help you in this? You are misguided, girl.’ He drained the cup and reached over to place it on a table, wincing with the movement. ‘Your mother chose Rivers over me.’ He sat back, swiping the air with a big hand, so that Bess got a glimpse of jewelled rings. ‘That was done long ago. You have come here too late. I have no need of you, girl. Wine!’ he roared, slamming a hand onto the arm of his chair. ‘Where the devil are you, Merrett, you damned saunterer? And a member mug. I need to piss!’

‘My father is dead. Does he yet cause you offence?’

‘It is nothing to me,’ he said, though his eyes said different.

‘Then I have wasted my time,’ Bess said, standing.

‘Sit down, Bess,’ her grandfather said.

‘Why? I have work to do and our business is concluded.’

‘Sit down.’

‘Why, my lord?’ she said, the title all but spat.

‘Because I have not finished looking at you, girl,’ he said, patting the air with a hand. ‘How do you suppose to lure the young wolf back into the fold? And what will you do with him if you manage it?’

Bess held his eye and, deciding she had nothing to lose, sat back down.

‘You are a wealthy man, Grandfather.’

‘Wealthier than I appear,’ he admitted. ‘But I have found in times of war no prudent man should beat the drum about his fortune. Not unless he wants to piss his money away on muskets and horses for soon-to-be-dead men.’

‘I want you to buy Tom a royal pardon,’ she said, the very idea sounding preposterous now she had given it voice. ‘Such things must be possible. For a man of your standing.’

But to her surprise the old man did not laugh or scoff. He steepled his ringed fingers as Merrett came in with a leather pitcher and a chamber pot, which he tried in vain to place surreptitiously behind his lord’s chair before refilling his cup. Then he came to Bess but she shook her head.

‘I played the part in King James’s court,’ the earl said then, almost grinning. ‘Hell’s beast but there were some young blades back then.’ He drank. ‘Most are long dead now of course. But his son,’ he said into his cup, ‘his son is a different man. I know him not.’

Bess made to rise again but her grandfather’s hand bid her wait.

‘For all that His Majesty has requested me at court many times. You are not the only one who wants my money, Elizabeth.’ He pinned her with those deep eyes that must once have made women’s hearts flutter but now rested upon plump cushions. ‘You still have not told me why I would help you.’

‘You hold no sway at court,’ Bess said.

‘My money does,’ he riposted. ‘Money always commands an audience.’

This was true enough, Bess thought, and so she would answer him.

‘You would help me because perhaps you are tired of being alone,’ she said. ‘Or because you are old and doing good might ease your conscience before it is too late.’

The old man stood up now and picked a log from the basket by the hearth. ‘I have been alone a long time, granddaughter,’ he said, weighting the last word, ‘and am resigned to dying here …’ he glanced around the dimly lit room, ‘in this house.
I want no part in the quarrel that has got men so excited.’ He shook his shaggy head. ‘The fools do not know what war is, for if they did they would not be so eager for it.’ He bent, placing the log in the fire with a trembling hand which he did not remove until the log was just as he wanted it. ‘I have seen war and have no appetite for it,’ he said, straightening and looking at her again, firelight playing across his face, bronzing his grey hairs and beard. ‘Should the rebels beat the King, gain their great victory and turn the world on its head, what would I care? Pray tell, girl. I shall be gone soon enough. I have no family whose place in this world I am bound to preserve.’

‘We are your family,’ Bess said, unsure if the old man sought her pity or her anger. ‘You cannot undo what was done long ago, but you
can
help me. Together we might, God willing, give my mother back her sons. Tom and Mun are enemies and should not be. Your blood runs in their veins, Grandfather. Help me bring Tom back before he is killed in some muddy field or strung up for a traitor.’ The words sickened her but she could not hide from the fate Tom was courting. She feared her mother could not survive another such tragedy. Or perhaps Bess feared for herself. ‘If Tom knew the King would pardon him he would come over to us,’ she said, realizing that she still gripped the now empty cup in her right hand, ‘and we might be a family again.’ She did not know if this last was true, but she had to try to believe that it was, had to make her grandfather believe it, too.

Still staring at her, the old man scratched his cheek. ‘You remind me of her,’ he said, then he walked to the back of the room and stood with his back to Bess as the fire ate into the new log which cracked and spat in the silence between them. She thought he was studying the books, several of which she recognized from her mother’s library at Shear House: tomes by Sir Thomas Browne, John Donne, Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick. But when he turned back to her he was holding an apple, one of the hundreds from the crowded racks below
the books. ‘It takes about twelve years to grow an apple tree from a pip to its first fruiting,’ he said, examining the apple as though he had never seen one before. ‘It is a labour of love. It requires enormous patience.’ He thrust his old thumbs into the apple where the stem emerged, splitting the fruit into two equal pieces. Then he pressed the halves together so that the apple looked whole again.

‘I will help you, Elizabeth,’ he said, putting the apple to his nose and inhaling. ‘I will buy your brother a pardon and you will give me your word that your mother shall never know that I have had a hand in the thing, or that you were ever here.’ Bess nodded and for the first time a smile found its way onto the old man’s lips. ‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘yours will be the hardest task, scouring this bleeding land for sight of the lad.’

‘I’ll find him,’ Bess said, excitement flaring in her blood at the reversal.

‘Perhaps you will. I will have a useful man accompany you, for the road will be dangerous. No place for a young woman.’

‘I have Joe,’ Bess said, glancing towards the door.

‘That wet-nosed boy out there? Nonsense. The man I am thinking of is resourceful and reliable. He will be your escort. Your … bodyguard.’ He tossed the two halves of the apple into the fire. ‘I would protect my investment,’ he said, walking to the door as the apple hissed and bubbled in the flames. ‘Merrett! Have the guest rooms prepared. My granddaughter and her skinny pup will be our guests tonight. And send someone for Dane! I don’t care if he’s drunk, up to his ogles in some whore’s notch or swinging from a gibbet, but I want him here by noon tomorrow.’

‘My lord, thank you,’ Bess said as he walked back over to his chair by the fire. He bent and picked up the chamber pot, waving his other hand at her, a grimace nestled amid his unkempt beard.

‘Now give me some peace, girl,’ he said sharply. ‘For I need to piss.’

‘
WELL, I WOULDN
’
T
wipe my arse with it,’ Trencher said, slamming the newsbook down onto the rough-hewn table and taking a lit taper from Robert Dobson who, his pipe clamped in his mouth, began digging filth out from his fingernails with a ballock dagger. The big-bearded trooper seemed not in the least interested in anything that was going on. ‘“Communicating the intelligence and affairs of the Court, to the rest of the kingdom”?’ Trencher mocked, voicing the statement written beneath the newsbook’s title. ‘I’ve heard more truth in a cow’s fart.’

Weak dawn light seeped in through the farm kitchen’s window. The manuscripts which the secretaries had been so busy working on the night before still lay on the desks beside ink pots and quills, though the men themselves were absent.

‘Unfortunately, Trencher, not everyone shares your opinion of
Mercurius Aulicus
,’ Captain Crafte said, glancing at Tom as though seeking some assurance that the men in the room were really the right sort for the job at hand.

Tom did nothing to persuade him that they were, said nothing to smooth the lines etched in the captain’s brow. Let the man work for it.

With one hand Matthew Penn pulled up a stool and with
the other grabbed the newsbook and brought a candle closer. He opened the printed pages and started to read. He had barely begun when Weasel cuffed him across the back of his head.