A King's Trade (11 page)

“Thankfully, however,” Twigg said with a sardonically amused leer, “our earnest reformers wish to do their chiefest work among our semi-savage
poor,
not the well-to-do. So far, that is. More wine?”

“Uhm, aye…but!” Lewrie replied, impatient with the niceties. “Let
that
lot get their hooks in me, and I'm done for, Mister Twigg!”

“You are surely ‘done for' do they
not,
Lewrie,” Twigg sombrely pointed out. “Where else could you find aid?”

“Well …” Lewrie said after a deep breath, shrugging without a single clue. “Damn my eyes.”

“Exactly,” Twigg said with a sage simper. “How was the ride up from London?”

“Just bloody lovely!” Lewrie snapped. “Bucolic, and…”

“I meant the state of the
roads,
and the
weather,
Lewrie!” Mr. Twigg snapped back in exasperation. “'Less there's a thunderstorm and washed-out roads, there's daylight enough to get us down to London and lodgings…where I may write to those I believe most-able to give you aid. No time like the present, what? If pouring rain, we'll take my coach, if not, my chariot. Much faster. Your hired ‘prad' I'll stable here and have my groom send down, later. Leading an indifferent horse at the cart's tail will only slow us down. Eat up, and we're off.”

“Do you really think we'll be able to…?” Lewrie asked in awe of Twigg's alacrity, and in great relief that, dubious as he was, there was
one
ally willing to save him from a “hemp neck-stock.”

“Hope springs eternal… all that,” Twigg responded, roughly shovelling in a last bite or two, taking a last sip or two of wine.

Damme, but this is going to irk, but…
!Lewrie thought; under the circumstances, there was nothing else for it.

“Then I thank you most humbly and gratefully, sir,” Lewrie was forced to say. “However things fall out, I will be forever in your debt.”

“Yayss…you
will
be,” Twigg drawled with a superior expression on his phyz, and his eyes alight in contemplation of future schemes.

A chariot…Jesus!

Oh, it had seemed perky enough, at first. Just a rapid jaunt, what? The sporting blades of the aristocracy and the squirearchy were simply
daft
for speed, and bandied about the names of famous coachmen who made their “diligence-” or “balloon” coaches fly on the highways of the realm. Some of them would offer substantial sums to take the reins from an indifferent (and bribable) coachee for a single leg of a coach trip. They knew the names of the famous whip-hands, and bragged about a mere handshake from a hero coachee as one would boast about a meeting with a champion jockey or boxer, forever comparing records of how quick Old So-And-So shaved five whole minutes from a run ‘twixt The Olde Blue Rabbit tavern and the Red Spotted Pig posting-house, or some such rapid run of umpteen-ish miles, and the odd casualty bedamned.

If an urchin or two, one of the cheap fares who rode on the top or clung to the footmen's seats atop the boot, were bounced off and got turned into imitation cow-pies in the road, then so be it. If the slow and unwary hiker got trampled, well…it only made for a better tale at journey's end!

Chariots were even better, for well-to-do young bloods could be,
had
to be, the drivers, and, but for a hallooing chum or two in the wee open compartment with them, any accident wouldn't claim any innocents, who just might know a lawyer and sue for damages! Chariots were “all the go” and “all the crack,” meant to be whipped into breathtaking speed, and there was nothing grander!

Lewrie had, rather inconveniently, forgotten all that.

And dour old Zachariah Twigg, so precise and Oxonian a fellow of the older generation, surely his chariot and matched team of horses was merely a retired fellow's affectation…wasn't it?

Unfortunately, no. Once aboard, Twigg had revealed a new facet to his character. There was a mischievious glint to his eyes, an evil little chuckle under his breath, and a sly smile on his lips as he took the reins in one hand, a long whip in the other, and turned into a Biblical Jehu.

They were off in a flash, headed downhill for his estate's gate quicker than a startled lark, making a fair rate of knots even before they passed the gate in the inner wall surrounding Spyglass Bungalow, moist dirt and gravel flying in twin rooster-tails from the madly-spinning wheels. At the highway, Twigg didn't slow
that
much, either; they shot out into the road, other traffic bedamned, “heeled” over on one wheel, and slewing about like a wagging cat's tail!

“Brisk…ah ha!” Twigg exulted as they thundered along,
really
beginning to gain speed.

“Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh!” Lewrie replied, unable to form words, if he cared a whit for his teeth and tongue, as the chariot drummed, banged, and juddered. His
portmanteau
bag and valise at his feet, between his legs, were bouncing so high that he had to press his knees together if he cared a whit for his “nutmegs,” as well.

Down the long, slow rise they tore, the chariot's axle starting to
keen
about as loud as Lewrie wished
he
could. He would have been wide-eyed and gape-mouthed in utter terror, if doing so would not end with a mouthful of muddy road, or the loss of an eye from gravel flung up from the team's rear hooves.

“On, boys! On!” Twigg cried, cracking his whip over the horse team's heads.
“Marvellous,
ah ha!” Followed by a madman's cackle.

“You're a bloody shite-brained…!” Lewrie tried accusing, but the chariot took a jounce or two, wheels
above
the ground, and it only came out as another series of “duh-duh-duh-duhs!” Twigg was swaddled up in an old, shabby overcoat,
an ancient (wind-cutting) tricorne hat jammed low on his brows, with a muffler about his neck and halfway up to his nose; he was getting spattered, but it might not matter. Alan, though…his heavy grogram boat cloak was no use at all, for it flew behind him like a loose-footed lugsail, the gilt chain riding high on his Adam's apple and damned-near strangling him. What was happening to his pristine white waistcoat, shirt, neck-stock, and his very best uniform coat he didn't want to even contemplate.

Lewrie looked ahead of them (with one slitted eye, it here must be told) just in time to screech, “Watch out for that… Oh, Christ!” as Twigg swerved their chariot over almost to the verge of the highway to miss an offending haywaggon drawn by a yoke of plodding oxen, that flashed past in a twinkling, so quickly that all Lewrie could sense of their near-collision was an ox-bellow, a startled cow-fart, and a waggoner's thin cry of “Yew
bloody
damn'…!”

And, by the time they'd slewed back into their proper lane, the light pony trap coming the other way had had time to move right over, and they missed that'un by
yards!

“Aah…ha ha ha!” Twigg exulted, his long whip cracking, and Lewrie shut his eyes and tried to summon up a prayer.

Twigg, damn him!, drove as if the Devil was at his heels (which in Twigg's case, Lewrie thought, was an apt description!) chortling and whooping delight like Billy-O; like an ancient Celt warrior, mead-drunk and painted in blue woad, out to smash through a Roman legion, just one more good charge for good, sweet ancient Queen Boadicea; like Pharaoh raced in pursuit of that damned Moses, upon discovering that the wily bastard had decamped for the Promised Land
without
finishing his mud-brick quota, and had absconded with a dozen of his favourite concubines to boot! All Pharaoh could expect from Dissenter religionists!

All Lewrie could do was hang on for dear life to the front and the side frame and light screening wood, and try hard not to get thrown clean out of the infernal machine, have his “wedding tackle” knackered by his luggage, or lose his only change of clothing, entire! A time or two, on the flat stretches (without competing traffic, though Lewrie wasn't going to peek to determine that), it was even hard to breathe at their mad pace. Facing forward, it felt like he was aboard the quickest frigate ever built, going “full and by” into the apparent wind in a half-gale. Of course, the muck flung up from the team made breathing difficult enough.

Finally…after what seemed an interminable term in Hell, the drumming of horses' hooves slowed from a Marine drummer's “Long Roll” to summon a crew to Quarters to rather sedate, and distinctive clops.

He, at last, dared take a peek ‘twixt the fingers of one hand, the one he used to rake mud-slime from his eyes, and was amazed to see that they were on the Tottenham Court Road, just about to the crossing where it became Charing Cross.

“We're here,” Twigg commented with a grunt of satisfaction, and a peek at his pocket watch, as if he'd just beaten his old record for a “jaunt” to town. Indeed, they were; Lewrie's addled senses re-awoke to the sights, sounds, and smells of bustling London. Twigg had removed his ancient tricorne (now much the worse for wear) and had replaced it with a natty new-styled hat; his grimy muffler now lay at his feet, as did his old overcoat, revealing the “country squire” suitings he'd had on during dinner. He looked clean as a new penny-whistle… damn him!

With a twitch of his reins, Twigg swung them onto Oxford Street, headed west. “I will drop you at your father's gentlemen's hotel and club, Lewrie,” he told him. “You are sure to get lodging there…and at a significant discount, I'd wager, hah? Right round the corner to mine own house in Baker Street. Convenient, that, for our purposes.”

“Should I dine with you tonight, then, sir?” Lewrie asked, flexing his hands, now that there was no need to cling to the chariot with a death-grip.

“Not a bit of it!” Twigg barked, back to his old, imperious self. “There's too much for me to do, tonight, to put your salvation on good, quick footing.
Eminent
people with whom to dine, and consult over victuals, hmm? Speed's the thing, before any news from Jamaica makes you a
pariah,
subject to arrest, hah!”

“What a pity,” Lewrie said, tongue-in-cheek, now that he could trust using it without the end of it getting snipped off on a deep rut and a bounce. Which statement made Twigg glare down his nose at him.

“It would be best for you if you kept close to your lodgings, Lewrie,” Twigg instructed. “No gadding about. No drunken sailor's antics, for a time. And I'll thank you to keep your breeches buttoned up snug, as long as we're here, sir. Let us not give your anonymous tormentor any
more
grist for his, or her, mill. And, the influential men and women whom we wish to espouse your cause are a
prim
lot. Even the slightest whiff of new scandal or dalliance, and you'll lose what hope they could offer you,
n'est-ce pas?”

“Lor', wot a caution ye are, yer honour, damme if ye ain't, har har!” Lewrie returned in a mock lower-deck accent, fed up with Twigg's top-lofty scorn. “Nary e'en
one
saucy wench, nor drap o' gin, neither, yer honour, sir? Why, wot's th' world comin' t', I axs ye? Tsk tsk.”

“And yet you
must
make a fool of yourself,” Twigg said, sighing in exasperation, his eyes and lips slit; one
might
have also heard him almost growl in frustration.

“Sorry, sir. My nature, I ‘spose,” Lewrie said, sobering.

“Well, keep a taut rein on your…nature,” Twigg snapped back. “I'd keep you caged in a basement or garret, if I could, but I suppose at
some
point, your potential patrons will
have
to see you, and speak to you…more's the pity. Whilst in your lodgings, I suggest that you polish the tale you told me of how your crime occurred, and make it
damned
short. I'll send round a list of queries your sponsors are, to my mind, most likely to make to you, and include suggestions as to how best to explain yourself.

“And, when they see you, Lewrie… should they, that is to say,” Twigg added, his acidic aspersion dripping, “I adjure you to display a proper
gravitas
suitable to your station, and circumstances. One might even practice
righteousness
in a mirror…though I doubt you're that familiar with it. Play-act a ‘tarpaulin sailor,' perhaps, all blunt, and tarry-handed. Rehearse responses of wide-eyed honesty to the most probable questions they might put to you… a list of which I'll send round… damned short responses, it goes without saying. Do you give your… saucy nature free play even for a moment, such as your last, witless fillip, and I assure you that you're truly lost.”

A short turn north in James Street, a tack westerly to Wigmore Street, and they were at last arrived at the corner of Duke Street, and Twigg drew them to the kerbings before a splendid converted mansion that now boasted a discreet blass plate by the entry that announced the place as the Madeira Club, Lewrie's father's “gentlemen's hotel.”

“Hellish-fond of their ports,” Twigg said with a sniff. “Sup in. Do
not
stray to your usual low haunts,” he brusquely ordered as Lewrie
most
-thankfully alit on solid, un-moving, ground. The doors opened and a liveried porter came down the steps to help carry his traps. “I will be in touch with you, anon. And for God's sake, Lewrie! Have yourself a good, long bathe, sponge your uniform, or purchase a new'un. You are as filthy as a Thames-side mud-lark!”

With that to cackle over, Twigg whipped up and away, leaving Capt. Alan Lewrie muttering under his breath, and slowly dribbling road-slime on the sidewalk.