Sea Change (34 page)

He set off, breathing fast but walking as slowly as he had said he would. The undergrowth thinned as he reached a track leading to the tower entrance — a broad, stout-hinged door at the foot of the staircase. Looking back along the track, which soon curved out of sight, Spandrel guessed that it led to the house. Glancing down, he saw recent boot-prints in the mud, proving that Blind Man's Tower was not as neglected as some supposed. He turned and started towards the entrance. Still nothing stirred. A woodpecker began to hammer at a trunk somewhere close by. A rook flapped lazily from one tree to another above him, cawing as it went.

He reached the door. There was no knocker and rapping at it with his knuckles made little impression through the thick panels. He pounded at it with his fist and raised a muffled echo within, but no kind of answer. Then he tried the handle. The door was locked, as he had assumed it would be. He stepped away and stared up at the arrow-loops above him — then stumbled back in astonishment at the sight of a face staring down at him from the roof.

'Who the blazes are you, sir?' came the imperious demand. 'I—' 'Stand where you are. I'm coming down.'

He was a thick-set, red-faced fellow in a threadbare coat and stained waistcoat, a narrow-brimmed hat worn low and crookedly on his wigless head. He was carrying a fowling-piece under one arm that threatened to trip him at every stage of his unsteady descent. If not actually drunk, he was clearly far from sober. Spandrel had never met him before, but there was something familiar about him. And very soon the reason for that familiarity was revealed.

'I own this tower. And the land around it. You're trespassing, sir, and you'll explain yourself, if you please.'

'You're Mr Tiberius Wagemaker?'

'I am.'

'My name's Spandrel. William Spandrel.'

'Never heard of you. You don't look like a Forester to me.'

'I'm from London.'

'Then you can take yourself off back there.'

'I've come a—'

'Mr Wagemaker?' Estelle's voice carried up to them from the trees. Spandrel turned and saw her walking purposefully towards them. When he turned back, Wagemaker was smiling.

'Is this lady with you, Spandrel?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then perhaps I should go to London more often. Your servant, ma'am.' Wagemaker plucked off his hat and essayed a stiff-backed bow, presenting a patchily shaved head for their inspection. 'You have the advantage of me.'

'I am Mrs Davenant, Mr Wagemaker. Mr Spandrel and I are here on a mission of mercy.'

'Mercy, you say?' Wagemaker creaked upright and replaced his hat. 'I shouldn't have thought you'd have any difficulty extracting that from the hardest of hearts, madam. And mine must rank as one of the softest for many a mile. How can I help you?'

'Mr Spandrel is my brother. I am a widow, as is my sister, who has a son at Eton.'

'A credit to the family, I'm sure.'

'He's been—' Estelle turned aside, apparently needing to compose herself. 'He's been kidnapped.'

'Kidnapped? Good God.'

'We think he's being held somewhere in the Forest,' said Spandrel.

'Have you informed Colonel Negus?'

'We're not acquainted with the gentleman, sir.'

'Deputy Lieutenant of Windsor Castle. If the Forest's to be searched—'

'The kidnappers have sworn to kill the boy if we approach the authorities,' said Estelle. 'We've had to let the college believe he's simply run away. Whereas, in truth…' She paused to take the calming breath that she so evidently seemed to need. 'The ransom is beyond our family's means, Mr Wagemaker. Our sister is beside herself. She fears she will never see her son again. Nor will she, unless we can find the place where they've confined him before the ransom falls due.'

'When does—'

'May Day,' put in Spandrel.

'And today is the twenty-eighth,' said Estelle dolefully.

'We're doing our best in the short time available to us,' Spandrel continued. 'Searching every disused or out-of-the-way building in the hope of finding him. Blind Man's Tower was mentioned to us at the Roebuck in Bagshot as meeting both of those requirements.'

'So it does,' said Wagemaker. 'Built by my grandfather, to celebrate the Restoration. I've, er, had no use for it in recent years. The strange thing is, though…'

'Yes, sir?' Spandrel prompted.

'Well, my housekeeper — an idle baggage, it's true, but sharp-eyed when she wants to be — reckons she's seen strange men in these woods over the past couple of days. I came up here this afternoon to take a look. No sign of anyone. Until you turned up.'

'There are fresh boot-prints yonder,' said Spandrel, pointing down the track.

'Probably mine.'

'I'd say they were the prints of more than one pair of boots.'

'Even so, you can see for yourselves the tower's empty. I keep it locked. And I'd swear no-one's so much as tried to force the door.'

'Do you have the key about you, Mr Wagemaker?' asked Estelle.

'Yes, but—'

'I'd esteem it a great favour if you'd let us look inside.'

'You would? Well, in that case…' Wagemaker fumbled in his waistcoat and produced the key — large, old and rusty. 'Anything to oblige a lady.' He propped his fowling-piece against the staircase, stepped past Spandrel to the door and slid the key into the lock. At first it would not turn, but after pulling the door tight against the frame — and deepening the colour of his face alarmingly in the process — Wagemaker succeeded. He turned the handle and pushed the door open. 'I'm sorry to say the only living creatures you're likely to find in here are mice and spiders, but you're welcome to see for yourselves.'

The door gave directly onto a dusty, cobwebbed chamber as wide and about half as deep as the tower itself. The floorboards were bare and large, jagged gaps in the plaster on the walls revealing the brickwork beneath. There were doors in each corner of the room, standing open to smaller rooms at the rear. The fireplace was a bare hole from which a fallen bird's-nest and other debris had spilt across the floor.

Spandrel stepped inside, disappointment already leaching away his hopes. Then he heard it: a scuffling, shuffling noise, followed by something midway between a moan and a whimper. 'Is there someone here?' he called. And for answer a figure half-fell, half-rolled into view in the doorway of the back room to his left: a youthful figure in plain shirt and breeches, his hands and feet tied, his mouth gagged.

'God's blood,' said Wagemaker. 'It's the boy.'

And so it surely was, though not the boy Estelle had said they were looking for. Spandrel hurried towards him, aware of Estelle's footfalls on the boards behind him.

'Have they harmed him?' she said breathlessly.

'I don't think so.' Spandrel stooped over the boy, resisting the urge to recoil from the stench of urine. 'Never fear, young sir. We're here to help.' He prised at the knot securing the gag as the youth's wide, frightened eyes stared up at him from beneath a fringe of sweat-streaked hair. After a moment, Spandrel gave up trying to untie the knot, took out his pocket-knife and cut through the cloth. 'You are Edward Walpole?' he asked, pulling away the gag.

'You didn't say your sister had married a Walpole,' called Wagemaker from the front door. 'And it's strange you don't seem to recognize your own nephew.'

'We can explain, Mr Wagemaker,' said Estelle, turning back towards him.

'No need, madam.' Wagemaker smiled. 'I already know.' Then he pulled the door shut with an echoing crash. And darkness engulfed them even before they heard the key turn in the lock.

The only light on the ground floor of Blind Man's Tower was a glimmer between the front door and its frame and a still fainter glimmer down the chimney. Spandrel moved across the room to the door and put his eye to the keyhole, but Wagemaker had made sure the escutcheon was back in place. There was nothing to be seen. And seemingly nothing to be done. Their attempt to rescue Edward Walpole had ended in them joining him in his imprisonment.

'Didn't you know that fellow was one of them?' snapped the boy, some of his father's arrogance revealing itself despite the dire straits he was in. 'There's a Scotchman in it too. And some other slinking rascal.'

'We did not know,' said Estelle softly.

'Did my father send you?'

'No.'

'I thought not. He'll have chosen people who know what they're about.'

'Perhaps,' said Spandrel. 'But we found you. And I doubt anyone else can.'

'What help are you to me?'

'Not much. Nor to ourselves, it seems.'

'Mr Wagemaker plays his part very convincingly,' said Estelle.

'Why have they done this to me?' There was a petulant note to young Walpole's voice that Spandrel sensed he would soon find irksome, understandable though it was.

'They're trying to force your father to do something he's determined not to do,' said Estelle.

'Papa can't be forced.'

'They think otherwise.'

'What have they said they'll do to me?'

'They've said they'll kill you,' put in Spandrel.

Silence fell, long and heavy. Spandrel made his tentative way back across the room and began trying to untie the knotted ropes at the boy's wrists and ankles. But the knots were tight and in the darkness he could make little of them.

'You have a knife.' Edward Walpole had not been cowed for long. 'Cut them.'

'I was about to.' Spandrel took out his knife and went to work. 'But I'll have to be careful I don't cut through you as well as the ropes.'

'Hurry up, can't you?'

'You'll gain nothing by railing at us,' said Estelle.

'Will I not?' There was a thud as the boy kicked the wall with his pinioned feet, followed by a rustle of falling plaster. 'My father is the King's first minister. I can't be treated like this.'

'Perhaps you should have explained that to your kidnappers,' said Spandrel, sure though he was that young Walpole had done so just as often as he had been given the chance. 'Now, hold still.' Reluctantly, the boy did hold still. 'There. You're free.' Spandrel pulled the ropes away.

'Free of these ropes, but not this prison. What's to be done, damn it?'

'How often do they visit you?' asked Spandrel levelly.

'That fellow — Wagemaker — brings me bread and water. I can't tell at what intervals. I can't tell anything' — the boy's voice cracked — 'in this confounded darkness.'

'Calm yourself, Edward,' said Estelle gently.

'I'm Master Walpole to you, madam.'

'As you please.' There was an icy edge to Estelle's voice as she continued. 'Well then, Master Walpole, be so good as to keep to yourself any further reproaches of us that may come to your mind. We will all have to wait as patiently and as calmly as we can.'

Silence fell once more. But Spandrel reckoned it would not last for long. 'There might be something worth trying,' he said, rising to his feet and feeling his way round the wall to one of the bricked-up windows. There he stopped, took out his pocket-knife and gouged at the mortar between two of the bricks with the point of the blade.

'What are you doing?' called Estelle.

'Trying to scrape out enough mortar to dislodge a brick.'

'Do you think you can?'

'Eventually.' Mortar began to patter at Spandrel's feet. 'I doubt Wagemaker employed master craftsmen when he had this place sealed.'

'How long will it take?'

'I don't know.' Spandrel looked over his shoulder, sensing Estelle's presence close behind him, but seeing nothing. 'I may as well find out, though. Unless you have any better ideas.'

'I don't have any better ideas.' There was a touch of her hand at his elbow. 'But I'm sure there's a way out of everything — if you look hard enough.'

'One day there won't be. You know that, don't you?'

'One day. But not this day.'

'If you think you can do it, why don't you get on with it?' came a familiar whine from behind them.

'Out of the very mouth of babes and sucklings,' murmured Estelle.

'And spoilt brats,' added Spandrel, turning back to the wall.

Spandrel had loosened one brick, but was still a long way from dislodging it, an uncountable portion of time later, when Estelle called from the front door for him to stop.

'I think I can hear someone outside,' she explained. 'Footsteps. Voices. I'm not sure.'

But by the time Spandrel had joined her at the door, she was sure. And so was he. There was a burble of conversation. Who was speaking or what they were saying was not distinguishable. Then a boot scraped against the doorstep and the key was thrust into the keyhole. They moved back as the door opened.

The flood of daylight was at first dazzling. A figure loomed in the doorway, haloed by the glare. 'I'd bid you good afternoon,' came the voice of Captain James Mcllwraith. 'But I fear it's not likely to be good for any of us.' He was holding a pistol in his right hand, which he proceeded to cock and point, not at Spandrel, but at Estelle. 'Particularly you, madam.'

'What became of your gallantry, Captain?' said Estelle, smiling defiantly at him. 'Imprisoning boys and threatening women is sorry work indeed.'

'As you say. Sorry work. But in a glad cause.'

'You'll pay for this,' said young Walpole, who for all his defiance hung back in the doorway of the rear room. 'You whoreson villain.'

'Another word from you, sir,' said Mcllwraith, 'and I'll have my friend here tie and gag you again.' Tiberius Wagemaker loomed at his shoulder. 'Just one word, mind, is all the provocation I need.'

Edward Walpole stared dumbly at his captors, tempted to answer back, it was clear — but knowing better than to do so.

'What are we to do with you two, then?' Mcllwraith pondered the point. 'The rat and the vixen we find in our trap. Have you succumbed to her charms again, Spandrel?'

'We have to talk to you, Captain,' said Spandrel. 'That's why we're here.'

'You are talking to me.'

'Alone.'

'Oh, alone, is it? So that Mrs de Vries can pour another sweet lie into my gullible old ear? I don't think so.'

'We risked our lives by coming here.'

'So you did.'

'Won't you grant us one small favour in return?' Spandrel looked Mcllwraith in the eye. 'A private word, Captain. It's not much to ask.'

'Don't trust them,' said Wagemaker.

'I don't trust you.' Mcllwraith sounded more than slightly testy. His strange alliance with an old enemy had clearly not been ordained in Heaven. 'But still I speak to you. Very well, Spandrel. You and Mrs de Vries go up to the roof. I'll join you there for your “private word”. Lock the door behind them, Wagemaker. And stand by. Plunket!' A lean, narrow-faced fellow dressed like a scarecrow and closely matching young Walpole's description of a 'slinking rascal' appeared from round the corner of the building as Spandrel and Estelle stepped outside. 'Get back to the road and keep watch. And make it a keener watch than you managed earlier.'

'Yes, sir.' Plunket took off at a lope along the track.

'After you, madam.' Mcllwraith uncocked the pistol and waved Estelle towards the stairs. 'And watch your step. Wagemaker is behindhand with his repairs.'

Spandrel followed Estelle up the stairs. There was a muttered exchange between Mcllwraith and Wagemaker that he could not catch. Then the captain started after them.

The roof was a shallow pyramid of lead, centred on the chimney, with a walkway round all four sides behind the castellated parapet. Windsor Forest defined the horizon in every direction, green and deep and hazy in the mellowing sunlight. The sun was drifting through a cloud-rack away to the west and from its position Spandrel judged that the afternoon was turning towards evening. There was a chill to the air, though whether enough to account for the shiver he saw run through Estelle he rather doubted.

'Cold, madam?' Mcllwraith, standing at the top of the stairs, had evidently seen the same thing. 'Or nervous?'

'Neither, Captain. A touch of vertigo, I rather think. I'm prone to it.'

'Then you shouldn't climb so high, should you?'

'I like to conquer my weaknesses, not be governed by them.'

'So I've seen. Now, this private word of yours, Spandrel. We'll make it quick, if you please. Mrs de Vries may not be nervous, but I have the impression Wagemaker is.'

'Does he know you killed his brother?' asked Spandrel.

'Oh yes. I told him myself. Little love lost there of late, apparently. The brothers had fallen out. Over this, as a matter of fact. The Forest. Walpole's been installing his favourites here just as he's been installing his whores in St James's. And those favourites have ridden roughshod over local rights and traditions. Tiberius blames the likes of Lord Cadogan, who's building a palace to rival Blenheim over at Caversham, for all his misfortunes. And the Jacobites have enabled him to dignify his resentment as a noble cause. There's no shortage of Jacobites around here, thanks to old King William's periodic expulsions of Catholics from London. The Earl of Arran lives nearby. And Lord Arran, as I'm sure Walpole knows from his perusal of Sunderland's papers, is thick with the Pretender.'

'This rising they plan cannot possibly succeed,' said Estelle.

'Not as things stand. But after Tuesday's edition of the London Gazette reaches the coffee-houses and taverns of England, it may not be so certain.'

'He won't do it, Captain,' said Spandrel. 'That's what we're here to tell you. Walpole won't give in. Tuesday's Gazette will make no mention of the Green Book.'

'We'll see as to that.'

'All you'll see,' said Estelle, 'is his son's blood on your hands.'

'I've no wish to harm the boy, in need of a thrashing though he clearly is.'

'What you wish is beside the point. What will you do, when Walpole defies you?'

'He won't.'

'He will. Trust me, Captain. I know him. As you so charmingly put it, I am his whore. His nature is clearer to me than it can ever be to you. He is immovable. He loves Edward. But he loves power more. And he will not give it up.'

'Then he'll have to—'

'You see?' Estelle stared intently at Mcllwraith. 'You'll kill the boy, won't you? Or Wagemaker will. Or Plunket. Or the Earl of Arran's gamekeeper. It doesn't matter who. Someone will do it, rather than admit defeat and let him go free.'

'I cannot foretell the future.'

'We can. Tell him about your mother, William.'

'He says he'll have her hanged as a thief, Captain,' said Spandrel. 'After I've been hanged as a murderer.'

'And he means it,' said Estelle. 'He's only stayed his hand for fear of forcing yours.'

'And what does he say he'll do to you, madam?'

'He does not say. But he knows one of us must have told you what the Green Book contains.'

'How big a bribe he was paid, you mean? How much room he had to make in his pocket? I wouldn't worry your beautiful head too much about answering for that. If it comes to the point, I'm sure Spandrel here will manfully bear the responsibility, being the noble fool that he is.'

'It is my responsibility,' said Spandrel bleakly.

'There you are. It's back to the bedroom in safety for you, madam. Back where you belong.'

'Walpole takes nothing on trust,' said Estelle. 'He won't give me the benefit of the doubt.'

'You'll pardon me if I lose no sleep over that.'

'I hardly think you'll have much sleep to lose, with the forces Walpole can command on your trail. But that's beside the point. I'm not asking for your pity.'

'That's as well, since you'll get none from me.'

'I only want you to understand that we're here on our account, not Walpole's. We're here to save his son — and to save ourselves.'

'And you too, Captain,' said Spandrel. 'He doesn't know of your involvement. And he needn't. If it ends here.'

'In meek surrender? Is that your proposal?'

'You don't want murder on your conscience. That's what it'll be. Plain murder. And of a boy. An innocent boy, what's more, however guilty his father may be.'

'I told you, Spandrel. It's him or me.'

'Then it's him. I don't believe you're ruthless enough to go through with this. But he is. I told you. You can't win.'

'Only choose the manner of my defeat? That's no course for a soldier.'

'Release the boy,' said Estelle. 'We'll say we don't know who you are or where you've gone. I promise.'

'I know how reliable your promises are, madam.'