Gideon's Angel (14 page)

I relaxed my grip on her arms and I shook my head, at a loss for what I should now do and rueing the day my vanity drove me on this hopeless adventure. “We’ve got to get inside. And you must tell me everything—I mean
everything
. Both our lives may depend on it.”

Her hands reached up and pressed over my heart. “Richard, do not be angry. I will explain all. And your brother has given me a letter for you.” And she pulled away, attempting to console me in her role as courier as she began to dig into the purse at her waist.

I stayed her hand. “No, not here. We’re going back to my inn, and staying out of sight until I can think of a way out of all this.”

Chapter Nine

A
S
M
AGGIE AND
I entered the room, Billy’s slack-jawed expression quickly gave way to a wide leer. He stood up from the bed with a jump and made a little bow of his head. “Ma’am!”

“Marguerite,” I said, “This is Billy Chard—a friend.” Maggie gave me a confused look, undoubtedly curious about the nature of my comrade. “Billy, why don’t you go downstairs for a spell. Marguerite and I have... things to discuss.” Billy said nothing but grabbed his hat and, giving me a wink, laid his forefinger aside his nose as he went out the door.

“Friend?” said Maggie. “He looks like a footpad.”

“He is a footpad. Dangerous people for life in dangerous times. He’s also my army, for the moment.”

“Don’t you wish to embrace me?” She looked hurt at my coldness.

I tried to soften what must have been now a longstanding mask of grimness. “Forgive me, Maggie, forgive me. I look at you and still cannot believe my eyes that you’re here. But, sweet Jesus, it’s great folly for you to have followed me. You don’t understand the situation I find myself in, and now I must look after you as well.” I did want to embrace her, to gather her up and melt into her bosom. But already, a hundred questions were running around my head and every one needed answer. “Maggie, sit down on the bed.”

I dragged a stool over and sat in front of her, grasping her hands. “Now you must tell me how this all came about. Who has told you how to find me?”

Her face was already beginning to flush scarlet. “You believe I needed help to find you? It was not difficult to pick up your trail. I merely described you to the coachmen, said you were ‘
Monsieur
Falkenhayn’, and made it to Rouen a day after you left that place. Not very many ships going to Plymouth and it was a simple matter to find out which one you had embarked on. As luck would have it, another was leaving in two days. And I was on it.”

I shook my head in exasperation. “But why, for the love of God? I’m on the run, pursued by the army, and I’ve only been back one week. What did you hope to accomplish, woman?”

She pulled back. “I hoped to
accomplish
nothing. I wanted only to find you and to be with you. I told you that myself before you left. I said don’t leave me in Paris. Did you doubt my resolve?”

“I did, Maggie, I did. And I wish to God you had thought better of it.”

She fixed me suddenly with a cold eye. “I’ve come all this way to help you... to be with you. Don’t you dare try to send me away.”

“You have a stout spirit to have gotten this far. But I can’t lie about how dangerous it is even now. And I can’t tell any more about the business without putting you in harm’s way.”

She leaned forward again and seized my wrists in both hands. “I’m already in it. It’s my fight too, and I possess the stomach for it. I was not about to sit in Paris while you lead the rebellion. Sit and wait for God knows how long.”

I pulled back at her words. A good guess on her part? Or had my enterprise already been discussed far and wide? “What do you know of a rebellion here, Maggie?”

Her face flushed again, her brown eyes shining as she answered. “It’s the talk of all the court. That our agents have been sent here to light the fire, to bring down the Tyrant. That is when I understood why you had left me.”

I stood up and walked to the window. “Does no one know the meaning of secrecy anymore? For the love of Christ!”

“It is knowledge shared only in small circles there in the Louvre, not general news, my love.”

I turned back to her. “And do you not think that Cromwell has eyes and ears in the court? By God, he does. And now they know all.”

She threw her hands up and brought them down on her lap. “It wasn’t I who spread the word! How dare you cast blame on me when all I wanted was to be with you.” She ripped at the purse that hung from her waist, snapping the leather strap. “Here is the letter from your brother. Or do you want me to send that back too? He didn’t even know if I would find you, but wanted to take a chance nonetheless.”

I had forgotten the letter. I reached out and took the little square packet from her shaking hand and broke the wax seal. It was indeed my brother’s hand, and I began to read. He addressed me merely as ‘Sir’ and proceeded to relay news of various business transactions and a goodly dose of how the weather was and if it would be an early springtime. It was signed ‘William’. I held it out towards Maggie.

“Did he say anything more? Just this?”

“No.”

It was only then that the scent of apples wafted up to me from the paper.

I grabbed the tinderbox off the little table on the other side of the chamber. Sparking it up, I lit the lamp that stood nearby. Maggie rose from the bed and followed me, despite her rage, curious about my frantic reaction. I gently held the opened letter just above the flame of the lamp, slowly moving it to and fro, the page rapidly heating. And sure enough, like the biblical handwriting upon the wall, words in pale sepia magically blossomed on the page, written in my brother’s hand and between the lines of his black-inked nonsense about the weather. I heard Maggie’s subdued rush of breath as she stood at my side. And I read the real message that now stood out boldly.

Brother:

The woman who bears this letter claims to know you. From our short conversation I do not doubt this. As you did not tell me where you were bound, I could not share this intelligence with her and if she has found you it is only by the grace of God. As we two may not see each other for some time yet to come, I seized upon the opportunity to pen these words. And they are heavy ones, I must tell you. I have learned that the estate of Israel Fludd has already been settled and that his will was most specific in the disposition of his land and chattels. He has left all to your Arabella. There, that is it then. She has regained the Treadwell home for her and the children, and the babe to come. This is a blow you must bear up under, my brother. Seek solace from the gentle lady who bears this note, one who claims great love for you, sir. And, if it is not too late, and God’s hand still rests upon you, I beg you to return to France with all speed. That is where your life must take you. Farewell.

I placed the letter on the table and sat upon the stool. I felt very empty and very foolish for my pride. Arabella knew how to look after herself in time of war. How else had she managed without me for all those years? I was a cuckold who had assumed his wife had been taken against her will. I recalled her words to me not one week ago:
Leave well enough alone and all will be well.

Why had I not listened with both my ears that day?

You do not ask me, husband, whether it was by my will or against my will?

I felt Maggie’s hand upon my shoulder. “What’s wrong? Tell me what he says.”

“Wrong? Nay, it’s good news about my wife. She has come into some money, it seems.”

“I do not understand.”

I rubbed my forehead and stood. “It’s not important. We have more pressing troubles here and now. Such as what we’re to do with you. You can’t wander around the town, alone and unescorted.”

She grabbed my arm and turned me towards her. “Then you will need to escort me, damn you.”

I grasped her gently by the shoulders. “Look at me! I’m being pursued by someone. Someone in the army. He knows I’m in Exeter and... I have slain his brother.”

She didn’t bat an eye. She reached up and stroked my shaggy beard. “We’re here to fight, you old fool. Not run. Tell me what I have to do but don’t tell me to leave you again.”

I was tired. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes and I pulled her into my chest as if to squeeze the life out of her. “I’m running out of schemes, Maggie. And time as well.”

I felt her squeeze me back. “You are Richard Treadwell, not Andreas Falkenhayn. And you have work to do here. Let me be your helpmate.”

I was silent as she embraced me, until finally I heard myself say aloud, “Very well. Tell me where you’re lodged.”

“I am at the coaching house, near the bridge at the south gate.”

“Then I shall take you back there now. You must stay inside until I have a better idea of what is happening in the town. I have a meeting with the others tomorrow night. But you must stay out of sight, for now at least. Understood?”

“Tell me what I must do and I will do it.”

H
OW COULD
I not have spent the night in her arms once I had brought her back to her chambers? I had precious little else to hold up my spirits while my enterprise crumbled around me with each passing day. Billy had shrugged when I told him she was my mistress who had followed me from Paris. “Better than a black dog,” he said. I suppose little about me could surprise him at this point. I told him to stay around the inn and watch for the militia. “Aye, and then do what, Mister Eff?” he had said cheekily. I told him just to keep out of trouble and that we would meet up in the morning. “At least one of us will have a good night!” he called back to me as he walked down the stairs to the tap room.

All my fears and worries emptied into her as we tussled that evening, devouring each other as we had not for many weeks. But the whole of the time I held her, there was still the faint waft of distrust between us about what we each had revealed and what we had concealed. I finally drifted off, her head upon my chest, her long chestnut hair covering my mouth and chin. A deep sleep, undisturbed by my Beast, or nightmares, or any cares of the waking world. And come cock crow, we both awoke in the orange glow of sunrise, and she was upon me again. We lay there, afterwards, and slowly my reverie blew away and the stony truth of my situation invaded once again.

“Who was it that you killed?” she asked as we lay there.

“An officer of the Plymouth militia.”

“My God, Richard, why?”

“Trust me, I had little choice but to kill him. And his brother pursues me even now. Gideon Fludd, an officer of Parliament’s dragoons.”

She reached for my hand. “And what is going to happen here, in Exeter? Where are the others in the conspiracy?”

“You should not know these things. It doesn’t bode well, I can tell you.”

“Are you telling me it’s over before it has even begun?”

I swept the hair from her face. “Maggie, there’s more to it. This Gideon Fludd is not just a Parliament man. He is deep into bad things. Dark things. He has some power of the black arts... conjuring and such.”

Maggie giggled. “Surely not? You’re saying he’s in league with the Devil? What, a Parliament man—a Puritan no doubt—practising magic?”

“Maggie, I have seen—” and I had to pause, stumbling for the right words. “I have seen his creatures... his familiars. They’re stalking me; I know it in my heart. I’ve never been more sure.”

She reached over and squeezed me. “You’re sore vexed, my love. The weight of these last days has tired you. It’s no wonder you think you’re seeing phantasms. But nothing has happened yet, has it? Only children and old women believe in goblins and demons.”

I was sad for her in her ignorance. “I’ve seen such things in my life I do wish I had never seen. I am seeing them again now. You have to understand that there are things in our world that do not belong here, wondrous but terrible things. Billy Chard has seen the beast that follows us, he will tell you. This is no phantasm or fancy of the mind, my love. And I would spare you from it.”

“You’re frightening me.”

“I know. And you need to be frightened. Don’t underestimate this evil. Look, this evening I’ll learn whether I can continue with my plans. That is why I need you to stay here today—do not venture out. I will come for you this evening. Promise me you will not follow me. If events go ill, I won’t be there to help you. If they get me, for God’s sake don’t remain. Get on a ship for France without delay.”

She pulled herself up on her elbows and stared into my face. She was delving into my mind, I knew, and few women could accomplish that. She was one of them.

“If that is what you want, then I will do it,” she said quietly.

I
RETURNED THAT
morning to the little inn where Billy stayed, determined to obtain answers from Dyer and his comrades. But it would have to wait for the evening and Billy and I spent the whole of the day closeted in the little room, playing at cards and him telling stories.

“I’m hungry,” he said as he played with his hunting hangar while he kept watch at the window of the room.