Gideon's Angel (9 page)

“I cannot believe it still,” he huffed as we walked uphill, his stick stabbing into the soft pungent earth. “Why have you risked your life to come back here? Have you forgotten your sentence?”

I had not forgotten. Nor had I forgotten how William had loyally given me counsel during my trial. I would have been executed—suffering a traitor’s death—had he abandoned me to the wolves. Yet I could not reveal all to him, not yet. “I had to see Arabella and the children again. That’s the truth of it. And to see England again.”

He stopped and looked at me. “Do I look like some calf-headed sot? You’ve shown precious little concern until this moment. You can’t cozen me. You’re rampant in some intrigue; I would stake a wager on it... You pitiful goddamn fool.”

“Very well, then. I’ve been here but two days and seen more than enough. The country is gone to ruin. No work, no money, and men not free to speak their minds without fear of having their tongues bored through. And I’ve seen my home—and Arabella.”

My brother shook his head in disbelief. “You’re indeed a fool. That was a selfish prank, Richard. How could you have acted so rashly? If you’ve been seen, it is she who will bear the consequences.”

“She has already borne the consequences! I have seen she is with child! Tell me you did not know she had been violated, brother.”

He looked at his shoes, wordless.

“Tell me why you couldn’t stop that? Or stop the house from being sold. Tell me!”

William started walking forward again, his head down. “She concealed the pregnancy from me until but a fortnight ago. I swear to you I’ve watched out for her. But she refused to leave the property she yet held. Your house and land was sequestered and sold before I could raise a hand. It was arranged quickly. You do not know how sorry I am for all that has happened.”

“What’s done is done. But you can tell me about Israel Fludd, then. I do not remember the name in these parts.”

“He followed his brother here, a Norfolk man, Major Gideon Fludd, of Okey’s dragoons. They both have fought for Parliament these last few years and Israel holds a captain’s commission in the Plymouth militia.”

I nodded, my mind already moving to dark places. “And this Gideon. I have seen him in Plymouth. What is his part in this villainy?”

“He holds much power here. I don’t know how he rose so fast but he’s the whip for all our backs. The mayor’s in thrall to him and he does what he likes with his dragoons. The army is the power now. I’ve heard that Colonel Okey has sung his praises to Cromwell and the Council and given him free rein in Devon to establish order and stamp out any Royalist plans. Which brings us back to your intentions here, my brother.”

I grunted in reply.

“It’s better I don’t know,” he said as we reached the fallen stones of the bailey.

“This Gideon Fludd,” I said, “he has the look of the overly righteous about him. And there’s something in his face that unsettles me. I don’t know what it is...”

I could still not forget how my talisman had tugged at my chest when I set eyes upon Fludd. As if it was trying to pull me away.

William gave a hoarse laugh. “You’ve marked him well. He and his brother are Fifth Monarchy men.”

“And what are they? Another group of radicals bent on tearing down what’s left of this place?”

“Aye, that is closer to the truth than not. They and those of their creed hold no church but they’re convinced that we live in the end of days as was foretold in the Book. They believe that King Jesus will come and establish the new Kingdom of God here and now.” He rubbed at his chin. “No, I misspeak—it’s thirteen years hence—in 1666. That is when the Lord is to come again. But they have to get the house ready, you see, for the Second Coming. Gideon is convinced he is a saint doing the Lord’s work.”

“The world is gone mad.” I looked out over the spire of St. Maurice, over all the houses that lay below and rested my back against the cold moss-covered wall of the long-perished stone keep. “I must see my boy. May I come up to the house?”

William mumbled some incoherent protest and then said, “Richard, that is not wise and you know it.”

“Not this night. Tomorrow. I’ll come around the back. To the window in father’s old chamber.”

“And what shall you do in the meantime?”

“Keep out of sight,” I lied.

My brother pursed his lips in frustration. “Very well, then. I shall be waiting for you tomorrow eve. Richard, I pray your boldness doesn’t bring the army down on us. I beg you not to stir the hornet’s nest, for all our sakes.”

“Brother,” I said, “fear not. It is I that possesses the sting.”

I
CROUCHED IN
a copse, enveloped in my cloak, and watched my house. The moon was still high and bright and I had waited until the last of the lights had been snuffed out. My horse I had tied up some distance away on the edge of the wood and I had walked onto my land, skirting the barns and cottage and flanking my way so that from where I hid, I could see the rear courtyard and pump. And there I had waited as the night grew old.

Israel Fludd had raped my wife and stolen my home. Yet I swear I had come to accomplish something other than revenge. I had come to regain something that was mine, something that
could
be regained. For underneath the tiles in the buttery, I had secreted a leather wallet before my last campaign. Inside it were letters of exchange, drawn from the Amsterdam goldsmiths and worth some five thousand gold ducats—a few thousand pounds at least. The fruits of my years in the German wars. Once redeemed, I could at long last do some good for Arabella and the children. But I needed no one to tell me what rashness my plan was.

The kitchen casement window lock was still broken after all these years, and I felt the frame swing inside as I pushed. With little elegance, I pulled myself up over the sill into the pitch black room and brought my knees up before slowly dangling my legs inside. I listened, my arse still balanced on the window frame. And then I was down, on my feet, and in my home once again. I waited as the pitch gave way to shadows, and then objects, as my eyes grew accustomed. I could just make out the little iron-strapped door that led to the buttery and I quickly crept across the kitchen.

The smell of musty wine and ale and old crockery filled my nose as I entered the buttery, moonlight spilling a shaft across the floor. I remembered which tile hid my prize and counted in from the outside wall. Dirk in hand, I stooped and worked out the tile from the floor. After what seemed an age, I felt a jiggle of movement and levered the blade underneath. The clay stone came up into my hand and I then reached down a foot or so into the damp earth below. It was still there. My fingers wrapped around the crusty leather and I drew it out of its tomb.

Thrusting the wallet into the little satchel about my shoulder, I replaced the tile as it had been. I brushed dust and dirt over the floor to conceal what had happened. A light startled me as soon as I re-entered the kitchen. Before I could make the window, a man filled the doorway. He held a horn lantern with one hand and a long cavalry pistol in the other.

“You’ve picked the wrong house to rob, thief,” he said, almost amused, as if he had caught a child stealing pies. He took a pace forward and I stood fixed, my mind calculating whether I could make the leap before he got his shot off. “You were as quiet as a rat but not every man sleeps even at this hour. And I have very, very good ears.”

He did not know me. How could he? But I had seen him before. It was the man I had seen in the square. It was the face of Gideon Fludd. But this man had long blond hair and it now struck me that though William had told me that Israel and Gideon were brothers, he had neglected to tell me they were twins.

“Do you know whose house you’ve broken into, little man?” Israel Fludd raised the pistol a bit higher. He was fully dressed, shod in his riding boots, and it was clear he had not been napping when I arrived. As I stood there, the anger grew. Anger because I had failed and because he had caught me.

“I do know. I am in
my
house, sir, and I have come for what is mine.”

Even in the dim glow of the lantern, I could see a look of confusion cross his face. This quickly gave way to a smile and an intake of breath as the realisation broke upon him.

“Of course! The great Malignant has returned! Now the mystery of yesterday’s visitor becomes clear. The foolish woman said you were some foreign fellow. You’re a bold one, I give you that.”

He stepped fully into the kitchen and I backed up a step. “I shall enjoy handing you over, sirrah, and this time you won’t escape the Lord’s justice. Get on your knees and be quick about it!”

I made up my mind there and then not to be taken alive. And if I was to suffer my end this night I would take him with me. I still gripped my dirk but there was little chance of getting to him without getting a hot pistol ball in my chest. He started babbling that a great burning brand was coming soon to scorch and cleanse this land of my kind. My left foot bumped against a milking stool and I knew I had but one opportunity to save myself. I started to bend my knees to obey his order, but as I went down, I snatched the stool and in one motion flung it high at his head.

Even as it left my hand, I was head and shoulders down and moving forward to take him. The pistol fired as soon as I leapt, but the sound and flash was not followed by pain. He had missed. And then I was upon him, throwing both of us down to the floor. He was half my age and even as I pinioned his right arm, he gripped my knife hand with his left. Straight away I could feel his strength beginning to overcome mine.

I sought to break his grip and plunge my blade into him. But the dirk was slowly turning in towards my own chest. I released his arm and seized his long golden locks at the top of his head. And I lifted and struck his skull upon the stone tiles. Again and again. His grip on my wrist faltered, and I dropped the dirk and tore another fistful of his hair, both of my arms yanking and then bashing his head upon the floor as I straddled him. The lantern, sent spinning, but still alight, shone against the far wall, and so I could not see his face. But I remember crying out, “This... is for... Arabella!” as I pounded and I heard the bones break in his head. My hands were wet and warm with his blood. Fludd had now let go of me, but still I beat his skull like some washerwoman on her rock. At last, I let his head drop with a sickening sound and feel, like a sack of pottery shards being set on the floor. It was only then that I heard his serving woman calling out from somewhere in the house.

The Lord Himself knows, I would have killed Israel Fludd sooner or later, but this was a matter altogether different. This woman had seen me yesterday. I retrieved my knife in my shaking hand and stood, leaning against the doorframe. The glow of candlelight spread into the hall and I crouched back into the kitchen, kicking the lantern across the room. I pushed myself back into the wall, not breathing. I heard her cry out as she saw Fludd lying there and then I glimpsed the woman, in her white linen shift, as she leaned over the body. I was on her in an instant, my right hand clamped around her mouth, and pulling her in backwards, against my chest. The candelabra crashed to the floor and I felt her harsh gasp against my hand as she screamed. And then I raised the blade towards her throat.

My head was shouting that I had to protect Arabella and the children, I had to. This thing had to be done. I hesitated, the tip already touching her skin. But I dropped the dagger, balled my fist, and struck her as hard as I could. And then a second blow that sent her sprawling. She didn’t move. Now I had truly thrown the dice. So long as she had not seen me, I might yet make an escape. But I had to make this all look the work of some housebreaker, some masterless apprentice turned thief in the night—and murderer. I approached Fludd’s corpse. Thinking to search his pockets for valuables, I found nothing. But his hand bore a signet ring which I tore off and pocketed.

I made my way into the hall, feeling through the darkness. I knew my house though, and reached the closet chamber at the front. The three windows afforded sufficient moonlight for me to rifle about the table and cupboards, and I seized two purses of coin, tearing up the room as I did so, pulling the rug off the table top and throwing drawers upon the floor. I shoved some silver into my satchel, and so too a good silver salter and tankard. In one of the cupboards, my hand fell upon a metal disc, too large to be a coin, and I picked it up. It was the size of my palm and rather thin, but heavy. I thrust it, sticky with blood, into the satchel and dashed out of the room back to the hall.

Out the back door, I was soon flying for the little wood a hundred yards away. My head reeling, I stumbled through the trees and down to where I prayed my horse still waited. It was still there, shivering in the night chill. I waded out into a little brook that ran through the copse, stooped down and splashed the freezing water upon my hands and then my face and head. I rummaged through the satchel, tossing away the pewter and silver but keeping the little purses of coin and the strange metal disc. Suddenly, I stopped and swore aloud. I had forgotten to retrieve my dirk from the kitchen floor. It lay there still, waiting to be found, its wooden grip stained in blood. But the blade bore no inscription, and not a soul knew that it was
my
weapon. I would have to leave it be.

Standing there, knee deep, I thought of Arabella. There was no doubt she would know in her heart the dreadful moment she was told, that it was I and no one else who had done this sorry deed. I prayed she would keep her wits if questioned by the militia. She would have to. And I would have to leave Plympton far behind, maybe forever. But not without seeing my son.

W
ILLIAM MUMBLED SOMETHING
about skulduggery as he grunted and heaved me up through the casement into father’s old chamber. “By God, you look fearsome,” he said, finally getting a glimpse of my face. “Before you say a word, Richard, I need you to tell me you had nothing to do with Israel Fludd.”

I did not answer my brother but instead walked to the table and sat myself in father’s high-back chair, and removed the satchel from my shoulder.