The Roots of Betrayal (28 page)

Suddenly, Parkinson heard a scuffling behind him. He turned—just in time to see the shutters close.

“Damn you!” he cursed, kicking hard at them. They did not open. “Kimpton!” he roared. “Open the shutters!” He called in vain. Kimpton was lying in a pool of blood. Carew had swung around and climbed into another embrasure, and had re-entered the second floor in darkness. He had seen Kimpton's silhouette against the door, grabbed him, cupped his hand over his mouth, cut his throat, and let him fall. He now had his shoulder against the shutters, blocking Parkinson from re-entering. He jammed his dagger into the catch, holding the shutters fast. “Open these shutters, you dog!” shouted Parkinson. Then he fell silent, realizing that Carew was on the other side.

Carew waited, gasping, touching his abdomen, and feeling the wetness of the blood. He tried to quiet his breathing. He wanted to listen. When Parkinson tried to descend by the rope, he would cut it. Parkinson would fall onto the jagged edges of the stonework below. But as Carew listened, he heard more footsteps on the stairs and saw more flickering lights. The remaining gunners were coming in search of him. He limped across the room and opened another set of shutters and climbed into the embrasure there, and lowered himself from the edge by his arms until he was hanging from his fingers. The pointed top of the embrasure of the first floor was now level with his shoulders. Fighting the pain in his abdomen and leg, he began to swing his lower body to and fro—and when he had enough momentum, he let go, falling into the first-floor embrasure. Picking himself up, he turned and lowered himself again, dropping onto the octagonal plinth on which the tower was built. He pressed himself to the stone in the darkness and shuffled around to where his rope hung down, directly below the embrasure where Parkinson was shouting.

Inside, Parkinson's men were afraid and confused.

“Captain Parkinson,” called William Knight from the staircase, a torch in one hand and a sword in the other. “Captain, are you there?” He darted across the doorway and held the torch aloft. Peeping around the jamb he could see nothing in the room. He glanced at Bill Turner, also holding a torch and a sword, and entered tentatively. He heard a kick against the shutters and moved to see who was there. He saw the dagger fastening the catch. “Bill, come here. Cover me.” As soon as Turner was near, Knight set down his sword and pulled out the dagger, undid the catch and opened the shutter.

“Kill him,” snarled Parkinson as he climbed back through. “Find Carew and kill him. I want him dead within five minutes.” Holding his torch, he strode to the doorway and stepped over Serres's corpse. He looked up the stairs and down. “Bring me Carew's head.”

“Where is he?” asked Turner. “Tell us and we will find him.”

“I wounded him. Look for the blood,” shouted Parkinson.

Knight looked at the captain's ruined face; he wanted to point out that he too was bleeding heavily. There was also blood on the roof, blood on the stairs, and pools of blood around Coad, Kimpton, and Serres—but he said nothing. When Parkinson was this angry, there was no saying what he might do.

Outside, Carew flicked the rope and dislodged the grappling iron. It fell with a heavy muffled clang in the yard. He hid in the shadows until he was certain there was no one there. Then he began to wind the rope.

“Where's Fletcher? Where's Coad?” demanded Parkinson, standing beside Serres's dead body in the doorway to the second-floor room.

“Coad is dead—on the roof,” replied Knight. “Carew cut his throat.”

“And Fletcher went to warn Widow Reid,” said Turner. “He hasn't come back.”

“Bloody coward!” shouted Parkinson. “I'll lock him up for a month.” He looked at Knight and Turner, both holding torches. There was a moment of complete silence, in which only the wind whistling through the shutters could be heard. “What are you waiting for?”

Knight started to look around the room, in each of the partitioned areas.

“You, go and fetch the rope he's been using,” said Parkinson to Turner. “It's hanging from the roof.”

Turner stared at Parkinson in frightened astonishment. He put a hand to his wrinkled forehead. “There are only the three of us left. What if he is…”

Parkinson struggled to control his anger. “Lean out of that embrasure near you,” he hissed, “and cut the rope you find there. That will stop him escaping. When you have done that, we will go up on the roof together. And if he is not there, that means he is not in the upper part of this tower.”

Turner did as he was told. He placed his torch down carefully and climbed through the window with some awkwardness. He felt around to the left, then to the right. He checked both sides again. There was a long pause. After a minute, he started to crawl back into the room. “There's no rope there, Captain Parkinson.”

As Turner and Knight looked at Parkinson's grim face in the torchlight, they heard a distant, knocking sound. The sound of wood on metal.

“What's that?” said Knight, looking at Parkinson. “The prisoner?”

Parkinson waited, listening further. “Go down and find out.”

Knight hesitated. “By myself?”

“Yes, by your God-abandoned self. Why am I surrounded by cowards?”

Knight left the room and started to creep downstairs.

Turner picked up his torch. “Sir, there is no rope outside. At least none I can feel.”

Parkinson looked at the door. “Knight!” he shouted. The red-bearded man had not gone far and soon reappeared in the doorway. “From here on, we stick together. We will search this tower inside and out, starting from the top. All three of us. I will lead. Knight, you watch our backs. Turner, you follow in the middle.”

The three men started to climb the staircase, all clutching torches in one hand and swords in the other. Parkinson took each step very slowly as he neared the top, listening for any sound of the pirate. With a couple of steps still to go, he stopped and silently gestured for Turner to take his torch, allowing him to go on ahead unseen. He drew near to the top step and pressed his back against the wall, holding his sword ready for a quick thrust. His left arm he held up as protection. But no blow came. He eased himself into the doorway and then through. The next moment he moved swiftly away from the door and swept his sword along the top of the roof over the staircase. No one. “Come up,” he commanded, trying to look around the roof in the darkness. Turner emerged with the torch and then Knight, each looking apprehensive. Parkinson took his torch again and saw the body of Coad lying against the wall. He examined the crenellations all the way around; there was no sign of the rope. “It must have been a hook,” he said “He must have shaken it loose after he went down.”

“Does that mean he has gone?” asked Turner.

Parkinson held up a hand. He could hear the sound of knocking on wood again. Except that now there were two knocking sounds: one louder than the other. One was coming from within the fort, the other from the beach.

“What is he doing?” asked Turner.

The three men stood there with their torches, listening to the sounds. In the magazine Clarenceux had found the remains of a broken barrel and was smashing at the lock with one of the staves. On the far side of Widow Reid's cottage, Carew was smashing the bottoms of the boats moored there.

Eventually, Parkinson realized what was happening. “He's scuttling the boats.”

“Why?” asked Knight.

“To cut us off—or perhaps to draw us out of the fort.”

“Why would he want to do that?” asked Turner.

The torchlight was bright against Parkinson's bloody face as he listened and thought. “He expects us to send for help from Southampton Castle. Without the boats we cannot. At least, not safely. If we send a man alone by land, Carew will ambush and kill him. And then the next man.”

“This is going to go on all night.” Turner sounded ready to give in.

“The three of us could take him by land,” said Knight.

Parkinson said nothing to either of them.

“In the name of sweet Jesus Christ,” murmured Turner. “This is a one-man siege.”

“At least we know now where he is,” said Knight.

Still Parkinson said nothing.

The knocks coming from the spit were slow now. About ten seconds passed between each heavy thud on the wood. Those in the basement were much lighter and more frantic, made with a smaller piece of wood.

“What do you think, Captain?” said Knight.

“Clarenceux cannot break out. As for Carew—he has lost a lot of blood. He is tired so he wants us to go out there.”

Turner shut his eyes and, still holding his torch and sword, turned and discreetly made the sign of the cross.

“Do we…shall we all go together?” asked Knight.

Parkinson looked macabre in the torchlight, with the thick flap of skin hanging from his pockmarked cheek and blood all over his face. “If he was dying, he wouldn't be trying to scuttle the boats. Knight, you will guard the gate. Turner, you will go to him with a torch and start talking—ask him what he wants, anything. Use your experience—negotiate a truce. You distract him and I will creep close in the darkness. He's got nowhere to hide.”

Parkinson ducked and made his way down the stairs, followed by Turner and Knight. He stepped over Serres's body and continued down to the door leading to the magazine. He paused, listening to the knocking sound from within. He felt the key on his belt and jingled it. The knocking stopped.

“Carew?” Clarenceux said from within.

“Carew's mortally wounded. Stop knocking—or we'll come in there and silence you ourselves,” replied Parkinson.

Clarenceux said nothing.

Parkinson strode out of the tower and through to the gatehouse passage. There he gestured to Turner to go ahead. Turner reluctantly went out onto the drawbridge. Parkinson and Knight followed him. “You wait here,” Parkinson said to Knight in a low voice. He handed him his torch. “Turner, you go ahead. I will follow.”

Turner started to walk out into the night. Parkinson waited fifteen seconds and set off into the darkness, keeping low, veering to one side. He watched Turner make his way slowly toward where the boats were pulled up. Despite being fifty feet away, he could still hear Turner's footsteps over the waves; the cascading shingle made a lot of noise. He tried to time his own feet to coincide with Turner's.

It was only a hundred yards across to the jetty. Between them there were the two cottages. Parkinson waited until Turner was near the buildings and then, stooping, he hurried across to take cover behind them, creeping around the back wall to watch as the man approached the boats. He saw the torchlight and Turner's face in the glow. Two upturned boats lay on the shore; another was half sunk in the water beside the jetty.

Carew was not there.

Turner stopped and turned. He stood on the jetty, listening to the crashing of the waves. In the shadows, Parkinson realized he had not heard the knocking sound since Turner had left the fort.

After a couple of minutes more, Parkinson stepped forward from his cover by the cottages, near enough so Turner could hear him but not so near he was illuminated in the torchlight. “There are only three boats here. There were four. He's on the water. Can you see him?”

Turner lifted his torch high and looked around, across the dark water, chilled by the wind, and the thought of Carew out on the sea somewhere, watching them. “No, I cannot see anything except waves.”

“Look again, carefully. He cannot be far.”

A yell came from behind them, back at the fort. Swords clashed.

Parkinson swore, drew his own blade, and started to run. His feet crunched on the shingle. Knight had dropped his torch on the drawbridge; by its light, Parkinson saw Carew lunge forward and stab him, then whip back his blade and slash him across the face before stabbing him a second time, sending him falling from the drawbridge into the moat with a splash. Carew looked toward Parkinson and the sounds of footsteps on the shingle. Calmly he reached up with his sword and cut the ropes for lifting the drawbridge, so Parkinson could not climb up onto the projecting beams. Then he went inside the castle, shutting the gate behind him and pulling the drawbar across.

Parkinson ran on to the drawbridge. “Open this door. I am the queen's Keeper. I have the right to enter freely.” He stood fuming, as the clouds parted and the half-moon shone briefly on the scene. Turner also arrived and his torch cast Parkinson's shadow on the gate.

Suddenly there was a rattle of chains above them as the portcullis came down. Parkinson only just stepped back in time to avoid being skewered on its teeth.

“Damn you!” he hissed.

Carew watched them from the upper window of the gatehouse, clutching his wound. He was having difficulty moving now. He had rowed as fast as he could from the jetty at the moment he had seen the torches in the gatehouse, and the effort had caused his wound to bleed more. Running as fast as his leg would allow him across the shingle had made him dizzy for a moment before he attacked the guard on the drawbridge, and he had felt dizzy again after forcing himself up the gatehouse stairs. He watched now in the sincere hope that Parkinson and Turner would abandon the fort. He saw their torches move across the beach. A few minutes later they found the small boat, as he had intended; Turner even waded out and hauled it up onto the shingle. But neither man got in. They spent a long time simply talking, too far away for him to hear what they had to say. Eventually Turner passed the torch to Parkinson and got into the boat by himself. Parkinson stomped off over the shingle to the cottages. Turner vanished into the night.

Carew leaned back in the darkness. He felt weak and sick. He did not want to get up, but he knew he had to. He still had not seen any keys, although he had no doubt where they were—hanging from Parkinson's belt. He rose to his knees and then, holding the wall, struggled to his feet and went down the stairs to the gatehouse passageway. He listened. He felt cold.
John
Prouze
was
sent
away
with
a
message. Parkinson is in or near the cottages and one man has just left in the boat. That's three. One dead man in the moat, four; another on the roof, five. One dead man on the stairs, six; another on the second floor, seven. One man more—one man would make it eight. The fugitive—where did he go?