A Midsummer Tempest (12 page)

The captain’s tone grew more amiable. “They’d not have known, there. ’Twas but this day we entered. Semaphores’ve stood idle and trains been frightened off whilst fighting was in these parts.” His alertness never slackened. “Well, come on down. I’ll need to bring you in for questioning. Have no fears if ye’re honest. Why, no doubt General Cromwell himself’ll wish to talk with you.”

“Vun moment, pleasse, vile ve make de enchine ready—Ah!”

Pressure was back at the full. Rupert threw in reverse drive. The locomotive clanked into motion.

The captain yelled. Muskets barked, not only from around the paving wherever cover was to be had, but from the sidetracked vans. Bullets clanged off the boiler and whined away.

Two soldiers darted out of shelter of a crate. They hurled themselves against a horsecart. Will saw their intention. His blunderbuss belched orange flame, inky smoke, leaden hail. The wagonbed shielded the men. They shoved the vehicle across the tracks and shook triumphant fists. “Do your worst, heretics!” one taunted.

“I’ve naught to do it with,” Will keened, clutching his discharged weapon.

The tender struck the wagon. Wooden frame crunched beneath iron wheels, to block and jam them.

“Out, out, men!” the captain cried. “Ring them in! If they surrender not, slay them!”

Fearless in their faith—or shrewdly gauging that they
would meet no more serious gunshot—the Roundheads swarmed from both sides. Rupert drew saber and slashed at the ropes securing the ale barrel. A welter of soldiers hurried to form a line on the pavement beside the track.

Rupert dropped his blade and seized the cask. Muscles swelled to rip his shirt down back and front. In one swing he raised the great object over his head and hurled it among those Puritans.

He was a very light drinker. Will alone had not much diminished thirty-six beer gallons. Counting the oak itself, some four hundred pounds struck ground.

Staves splintered and flew on an outward volcano of brew and foam. The sundering crash was followed by screams, gurgles, and strangled ungodly curses.

Rupert retrieved his saber and was in the air before the barrel smote. Landing on shattered flagstones, blade aloft,
“En avant!”
he roared, and led Will through a chaos of drenched, overbowled, lurching, beer-blinded or half-drowned Ironsides.

More darted from behind locomotive and tender. Three of them, fast runners, sped at a slant to intercept the fugitives near the stationhouse. One, who had not used his musket in the volley, brought it up. Rupert shot him. It was no mortal wound; to hit with a pistol at that distance was rare. But the man sank to his knees, hugging a broken shoulder. His companions had their swords out. “Thou to the right, Will, me to the left,” Rupert called. He attacked. A spark-showering blow knocked the Roundhead weapon loose. On the return, Rupert laid the man’s thigh open. Meanwhile Will hurled an otherwise useless blunderbuss at the nose of his opponent, which made it easy to disable him too when they closed.

On past the station, into the dusk. “They’ll rally and be after us,” Rupert said in rhythm with his feet. “Reinforcements; dogs if they can get ’em; surely guides, willing or not, who know this country. Those’re wildwood hills before us. Be thou our leader.”

“We’ll need moare than woodcraft, my loard,” the other answered.

A MOUNTAINSIDE. FULL NIGHT.

Somewhere in the thick wet tangle of forest, a stream clucked. Louder came snap and crash as Rupert fought his unskillful way through brush which his companion parted easily. Faint but clear tolled the voices of hounds.

“Dood ok ondergang!”
Rupert panted. “I’d liefer meet a line o’ Switzer pikemen than these damned claw-twigged withes. How canst thou find thy path? ’Tis black as an Ethiop’s bowels.”

“Fiand it we boath must,” replied grimness from the murk. Thunder boomed. “E’en if yon rain comes zoon to wash out our slot, ’tis too laete. Tha’ be on our track itzelf, broaken limbs an’ trampled shrubs.”

“My doing,” Rupert admitted. Pride flashed back into him. “I’m a hunter, not a poacher.”

“Aye,” Will snorted. “Thou ben’t woant to slip on a deer unbeknowanst an’ fell him by one quick shot. Nay, thou’lt chaese him a-hoa’seback till ’a can drag his weight no further. There be a Frenchy naeme for each staege o’ his terror an’ weariness, not zo? Well, Prince, naeme them in thyzelf tonight!”

That anger brought Rupert up short. “Forgive me,” he said. “I meant no offense to thee—was only trying to excuse mine own clumsiness.”

“Aaahhh. …” Will’s resentment faded. “How can I rail at a man big enough to talk thus? I was a-feared for, well, not just my carcass, loard, but ten kids in Somerset … aye, their mother too.”

“Thou canst evade the chase.”

“An’ thou canst not. Come along. What we got to do be fiand yonder beck I hear, wade down it a ways for to break our trail, take squirrel hospitality o’ernight, an’ hoape—can this be done in time—Hoy! Almighty God! Look!”

Light burst on Rupert’s left hand. Ruby, bronze, gold, emerald, turquoise, sapphire, amethyst, it streamed from the jewel facets, forth to bring gaunt unshaven faces, matted hair, sweat-tunnels through coal-dust, vivid against the middle of the night, and to blaze back out of eyes.

“Tha elven ring,” rattled in Will’s throat. “Help’s nigh.”

“Or damnation is,” Rupert mumbled. “Thy plan might well save us. This’d go … a different way.”

Thunder bawled anew. Wind soughed ever louder in leaves, boughs creaked. “Hark’ee,” Will said, “cavalrymen liake thee an’ me, moare callouses on zoul than even arse, our kiand miaght well fiand they’ve ’listed under Nick’s banner. But Mis’ess Jennifer, dost thou really zuppoase ’a could maeke
her
his recruitin’ zergeant?”

Rupert stared for a heartbeat into soft incandescence before he responded most quietly, “Thou’rt right. Well follow where the ring aims.”

That proved to be almost a backtracking, diagonally down the mountain. In any other direction, the jewel began to dull. In this, its brilliance made travel easy. Nonetheless, hounds and horns pealed closer amidst the noises of approaching storm.

And so I rest my faith on Jennifer,
Rupert thought. Aloud: “I think not the ring’s simply discovered whatever ’tis we’re seeking. Else we’d’ve known on the way hither. Nay, what power it has must’ve drawn something toward us—”

“Which war not too far away, as’t chanced,” Will added; “but than, tha West’s where moast magic lingers. Robin Goodfellow toald me things miaght happen thus. … Hoo, heare comes our rain!”

Some lightning glare had blinked through foliage. Abruptly it seared past leaves etched white over black, while thunder cannonaded and wind bore forward the first mighty rush of water. Drops flung past branches were so swift and cold that they burned.

Woods gave on a patch of grass and blossoms. There stood a building, single-roofed, of no unusual size or form though sufficient for two stories and—it could just be seen—with beam-ends carved in fanciful shapes.

Rupert jarred to a halt. “Who’s raised a house like that in wilderness?” he exclaimed.

“Nobody, loard. Nor will it stay heare long.” His follower urged him ahead. Rain cataracted across them.

At the massive, bronze-studded front door they stopped. Above it was fastened a bush; above that, a
signboard rocked under its bracket. “A tavern, zarvin’ wine,” Will observed through the uproar. “Nay, wait. What’s this? A flowerin’ thornbush, in tha midst o’ zummer?”

Rupert’s eyes were for the sign. What light there was revealed how a bird of rare beauty, plumage long and like gold tinged with flame, carried a branch of cloves to a nest it was weaving. “A phoenix near its death and resurrection,” he said. “I’ve never met that namepost—”

“Tha Oald Phoenix,” Will breathed. “Tha inn whereof Puck toald me … yesternight? No liafetimes moare agone nor thic?”

“Ho-ah!” The call was nearly lost in wind, rain, thunder. Out beneath flaring heaven trotted a band of men and dogs.

“The Roundheads!” Rupert snatched at sword, moved quickly to cover the luminance on his left hand.

Will tugged his tattered sleeve. “Bide, my loard,” the dragoon said in awe.

“Come on, come on!” The Puritan leader waved his own blade. “On after them, or e’er this gale they’ve raised by wicked wizardry sponge out their track!”

The pursuers toiled across the glade and vanished among darknesses beyond.

“They sensed us not,” Rupert stammered, “nor spied the very house—”

“Tha’ got no ring off Mis’ess Jennifer,” Will answered. “Let’s us two try what drink be found inzide.”

He took hold of a handle molded in form of an elephant’s head and trunk. The door swung smoothly open. Rupert led the way through. As he crossed the threshold, his jewel fell to an ordinary luster. For this while, its work was done.

THE TAPROOM OF THE OLD PHOENIX.

W
ILL
closed the door behind himself, barring every hint of storm. Windows likewise were tightly shuttered. The men kept right hands at hover near sword hilts and glared about.

But the chamber was altogether peaceful. Indeed, the strangest thing was its homelikeness. It might be somewhat wider than was common for a country inn, but if so, that was not by much. Massive ceiling beams, subtle-grain oak in floor and wainscots, long central board and benches, a few small tables with straight-backed seats, were familiar. In a handsome stone fireplace a blaze danced to its own merry boom and crackle, casting forth pinewood fragrance as well as warmth, flanked by several armchairs which were intricately carved and ivory-inlaid but whose cushions had plainly comforted many a body over the years.

The contents of the room were perhaps more unusual, as if sailor patrons had brought gifts from a whole world. Upon the mantel rested a giant hourglass and two seven-branched candlesticks of twining brass. The light from these were joined by that from tapers sconced around the walls. Their gleam picked out a number of pictures whose kinds, styles, and subjects made a somehow harmonious turmoil. On the right side stretched a mahogany bar with a brass footrail and surprisingly up-to-date beer pumps, guarding racks of bottles and drinking vessels. A nearby door must lead to the kitchen, since lingering savorinesses drifted thence. In the adjacent wall, opposite the entrance, another opening gave on a corridor and staircase. Beside this lifted a high, crammed set of bookshelves. Next to it, a desk held writing materials and two globes.

Rupert’s glance gulped the setting as it hunted the
persons. They were not many: a barmaid, a man and woman seated at the fire, another couple at one of the little tables. Their conversations chopped off when the Cavaliers appeared. Yet the regard they gave was neither hostile nor wary; it was frankly curious.

The man by the hearth sprang erect and hurried toward the latest arrivals. “Good eventide, good sirs. Be very welcome,” he greeted. His voice was deep and rich, bearing a trace of West country accent.

Rupert looked hard at him. “You’re the … proprietor … of this Old Phoenix?” he asked.

The man nodded. “What may your wishes be?” He raised a palm, smiling. “Nay, let me guess. Ye’ve fared through rain, in striving and distress. A bath, dry garb, hot food, a cup of cheer, a bed, then breakfast, ere you go from here.”

Still Rupert considered him. While more quick on his feet than most, he was stocky beneath an overlay of plumpness. His face was round, rosy, snub-nosed, brown eyes a-twinkle, chin clean-shaven; only his complete baldness made it memorable. His garb was equally nondescript, though of superior material. Yet something about him breathed an air at least of Puck.

“Our purse is lean,” Rupert warned.

The landlord made a dismissing wave. “We take no money here.” At their astonishment he laughed. “If Faerie gold turns into autumn leaves in mortal wallets, what’s your gold to us?”

Rupert stiffened. “This is a kittle place we’ve blundered into,” he told Will under his breath.

“But friendly,” replied the dragoon, now standing almost at ease.

“Aye, to those who seek us out,” the landlord said. “Fear never paying such unholy price as might be taken in the Venusberg. My sole reward for hospitality is meeting folk like you, within whom burn the stars of many worlds and destinies. I love to watch them meet and hear them yarn.” Seriously: “Indeed, I may not really touch their lives. Methinks, for instance, ye’ve escaped some peril. Well, ye could not have come upon this house had there not been another refuge for you.”

“A brook an’ treetop,” Will nodded. “Me, I’ll choose
your bed.” To Rupert: “Fear not. It war
her
toaken led us heare.”

The prince shook himself. “Aye.” With a stiff grin: “Maybe I’ll grow used to trollery.” To the landlord: “I thank you much, and offer you our names. I am Prince Rupert, exile from the Rhine, and this my comrade is Will Fairweather.”

The other bowed. “I’ve many names,” he answered. “Let you say Taverner. Now follow me upstairs. Hot water waits, soap, towels, grooming gear, and change of clothes. Ye must return them when ye leave tomorrow; yours will be ready, clean and dry and mended. We’ve eaten here, but you’ll be brought roast beef and what pertains to it, to dine at ease while settling privately what your desires are. A room is fitted for each one of you. I hope your wish will not be ‘Straight to bed.’”

“Nay, we’ll return”—Rupert gave a salute of courtesy to the rest who were present—“and make acquaintances.”

As Taverner led them out, past the bar, Will half choked and Rupert himself broke stride. That was not due to the woman behind the counter; chubby, cheerful, gray hair in a bun, she was like a female version of the landlord, and might well be his wife since she wore a wedding band. But from here, one got a direct view of the hearth.

“Thic wench in yonder armchair,” Will whispered. “Hoo, hoo, hoo!”

“Whoe’er she is, she’s not for likes of thee,” Rupert cautioned.

Taverner might have heard, since he remarked over his shoulder: “Ye’ll find your fellow guests tonight forthcoming. We get some surly ones; but mostly not. Here all alike are far beyond their worlds, and none may leave by any other door than that wherethrough he entered, nor bear off much more than rest and cheer and memories. Thus, in a way, whatever happens here has not quite fully happened. That’s a freedom whereof no few avail themselves. Pray, come.”