Sea Change (35 page)

'You can rely on this one.'

'I think not. The brat knows too much already for you to protect my anonymity. Besides, what could have brought you here — other than that story of lost love I told Spandrel in Berne?'

'You could be out of the country long before anything was sworn against you.'

'Exile and hiding. What riches you do promise me.'

'Not riches, perhaps. But the best we can contrive.'

'And your reward? A long lease on Phoenix House, perhaps.'

'Perhaps.'

'But Spandrel's mother allowed to live out her days in peace. And Spandrel spared a miscarriage of Dutch justice. That's the sum of it, is it?'

'Yes.'

'The sum of all things.' Mcllwraith sighed and looked past them across the rolling canopy of the Forest. 'Walpole's a keen huntsman, so they tell me. And it seems he no more wants for foxes than for hounds. He breeds the one as he breeds the other. What a grasp of economy the man does have. You're right, of course, Spandrel. My quarrel's with the father, not the son.'

'You'll let the boy go?' asked Spandrel, hope blooming suddenly within him.

'It seems it's either that or kill him. And I'd sooner hang for murdering the First Lord of the Treasury than his son. You may take it I—'

'Mcllwraith!' It was Wagemaker's voice, raised in a shout of alarm. 'We're discovered.'

Mcllwraith swung round even as did Spandrel and Estelle. There, below them, hurrying up the track, came a troop of infantry, their musket barrels glinting in the sun. Discovered they had clearly been. Or betrayed.

'Well, well,' said Mcllwraith. 'It seems my mind's been made up for me.'

CHAPTER FORTY

Under Siege

'Stand where you are!' came a shout.

For a second, Spandrel thought the order was directed at all of diem. Then he realized that Tiberius Wagemaker was the real target. He had started up the stairs, a pistol clutched in his right hand, glaring upwards as he climbed. 'They've done for us, Mcllwraith,' he bellowed. 'Spandrel and that she-devil.'

'Halt or we fire!'

But Wagemaker did not halt. It seemed to Spandrel that he did not even hear. Nor did he see, as they could from the roof, the musketeers taking aim below him.

'Halt, I say!'

Wagemaker raised his pistol, cocking it as he did so, and pointed it at Spandrel. In the same instant, there was a barked order and an explosion of musket shots.

Several of the shots took Wagemaker in the back. He arched backwards and fired into the air, the roar of the shot swallowing a last, grimacing cry. Then he fell, striking his head against the stairs behind him before plunging to the ground with a heavy thud like that of a laden sack being tossed from a barn-loft.

'Don't move,' said Mcllwraith quietly, lowering his pistol out of sight behind the parapet. 'And say nothing unless I tell you to. I reckon Wagemaker's shown us what's likely to come of acting hastily.'

'You three on the roof!' The musket-smoke cleared to reveal the stout figure of a heavily braided senior officer. 'I'm Colonel Negus, Deputy Lieutenant of Windsor Castle. I have reason to believe an oppidan of Eton College, Master Edward Walpole, is being held here against his will. I require and demand his immediate release.'

'You'll find the boy in the room below,' Mcllwraith shouted back. 'And you'll find the key to the door in the pocket of the fellow your men have just shot.'

'What's the boy's condition?'

'He's alive and well enough, though none too happy.'

'It'll be your neck if he's come to any harm.'

'I dare say it'll be my neck either way, Colonel.'

To this Negus did not respond. He sent two men scurrying over to Wagemaker's body. As they began searching his pockets, Mcllwraith said to Estelle in an undertone, without turning to look at her, 'Have we you to thank for this, Mrs de Vries?'

'Yes,' she softly replied. 'The landlady of the Roebuck named you as the last person to live here and a rumoured lover of Dorothea Wagemaker. I'd already guessed you were still alive and that's when I realized William suspected you were holding the boy here. William was in the tap-room at the time, unaware of what I was doing. I paid the stable-boy to ride to Windsor Castle with a message for Walpole's brother, Horatio, whom he sent there yesterday to organize a search.' She paused, then added, 'I'd thought they might arrive sooner.'

'All this… negotiating… was just a delaying tactic, then?'

'Partly. But I bear you no ill will, Captain. I'd have been happy to—'

A sudden commotion below marked the discovery of the key. Negus sent his adjutant forward to open the door. He disappeared from their view, but they could hear the rattle of the key in the lock, followed by a creak of the door on its hinges.

'We were supposed to be in this together,' said Spandrel, slowly recognizing the deception to which Estelle was calmly admitting. 'We were supposed to trust one another.'

'But you didn't trust me, did you? If you'd told me where we were going and why, it mightn't have come to this.'

'That won't do,' objected Mcllwraith. 'How did you know Walpole had despatched his brother to Windsor? He told you, didn't he? And he also told you to send a message to him there if and when you succeeded in gleaning the boy's whereabouts from Spandrel. So, if Spandrel had told you from the outset what was in his mind, you'd only have betrayed him the sooner.'

'What a hard woman you think me, Captain.'

'What a hard woman you are.'

'We could have ended this as I'd hoped,' said Spandrel, seeming to see in his mind a dream slipping away from him. 'We could all have escaped, with no harm done. There was no need for…'

'A military resolution,' said Mcllwraith. 'Need or not, though, that's what we're to have. And in short order, I imagine, now they have the brat.'

At that moment, Edward Walpole appeared below, limping slightly as he walked towards the soldiers, supported by the adjutant. He cast a glance across at Wagemaker's body, then up at them on the roof, as he went. It was not a glance in which either mercy or gratitude was to be readily detected.

Colonel Negus led the boy away, patting his shoulder as he talked to him. Their discussion lasted several minutes, during which not a word was spoken on the roof. Spandrel stared at Estelle, daring her to look him in the eye. But she trained her gaze firmly on the scene below. Then Negus strode back to his position, leaving young Walpole in the care of someone who looked to be a doctor.

'Captain Mcllwraith!' Negus called.

'Aye, Colonel?'

'Where's your other accomplice?'

'Taken to his heels, I assume.'

'Your companions there are Mrs Davenant and Mr Spandrel?'

'So they are.'

'Send them down. Mrs Davenant first.'

'As you please.' Mcllwraith moved clear of the head of the stairs, waving Estelle forward.

The walkway was so narrow that she could not avoid brushing against Spandrel as she passed him. But still she kept her gaze averted. He watched her walk slowly to the gap in the parapet and turn to start her descent.

At that moment, Mcllwraith moved smartly forward, raised the pistol and clapped it to her temple. 'That's quite far enough, madam,' he said, cocking the trigger. 'You surely don't suppose I'm going to let you go.'

'Don't do it, Captain,' Spandrel cried. 'She's not worth it.'

'There I must disagree, Spandrel. It seems to me she's eminently worth it, especially considering that killing her's unlikely to increase the severity of my punishment.'

'Lower the pistol,' shouted Negus. 'At once.'

'I can't oblige you there, Colonel,' Mcllwraith replied. 'And if your men open fire, I should say they're as likely to blow Mrs Davenant's head off as mine. I advise you to stay your hand.'

'Let me go, Captain,' said Estelle, too calmly to sound as if she was pleading.

'Why should I?'

'Because, if you let me live, I can save William from the gallows. Kill me and you condemn him to hang alongside you.'

'And will you save him?'

'If you give me the chance to, yes.'

'No doubt I can have your word on that.'

'Would my word mean anything to you?'

'Not even if this tower was built of bibles.'

'I swear it, even so.'

'You're right anyway, damn it, whether you swear or no. A ball through your head is a noose round Spandrel's neck. And I'm as sure as you probably are that Negus will have been instructed to take me at any cost — even your life.' Mcllwraith lowered the pistol. 'Go down and join your friends, madam. And remember your promise.'

'I shall.'

Spandrel watched her as she slowly descended the stairs, disdaining to put a hand to the wall to steady herself, an eddying breeze stirring her hair beneath the hat and tugging at her dress. As she reached the first landing and turned, she glanced up at him, but her eyes were in shadow and what her gaze might have conveyed he could not tell. Then she went on down, without a second upward glance.

'Spandrel may follow,' called Negus.

'Do as the man says,' said Mcllwraith. 'You're better off down there than up here.'

'Will you surrender, Captain?' Spandrel asked as he moved to the head of the stairs.

'Do you think I should?'

'Walpole told me he'd have his son's kidnappers hanged, drawn and quartered.'

'Aye. And their heads left to rot on spikes at Temple Bar, no doubt. If that should happen to me, Spandrel, will you climb up there one dark night, take mine down and give it a decent burial, for the sake of the miles we rode together?'

'Yes, Captain. I will.'

Mcllwraith smiled. 'Good man. I'll do my best to spare you the need. Now, look lively on the stairs. We don't want Colonel Negus to suspect you of collusion with the enemy.'

Spandrel started down. He looked up twice during his descent, but Mcllwraith was not watching him. He seemed to be scanning the horizon, his eyes narrowed against the sun.

It was no more than thirty yards from the foot of the stairs to where Colonel Negus was standing. In the few moments it took Spandrel to cover the distance, he became aware of a difference in the manner of his reception compared with that of Estelle. She was some way off down the track, with young Walpole, the doctor and a junior officer. Around the group they made hovered an atmosphere of solicitude and deference. But for Spandrel there was only Negus's stern gaze and gravelly voice.

'Place this man under arrest, Captain Rogers,' he said to his adjutant. 'We're unsure as to his allegiance.'

A pair of burly soldiers seized Spandrel by the arms and led him aside. He did not resist. He did not even protest. It was only what he had half-expected. As to what it portended, he could not find the energy to imagine.

'Captain Mcllwraith!' he heard Negus call. 'Discharge your pistol into the air, lay down your sword and descend the stairs with your arms held aloft.'

'I'm a soldier like yourself, Colonel. I don't surrender lightly.'

'Your position is hopeless.'

'Aye. So it is. Whether I surrender or no.'

'Give it up, man. You've not harmed the boy. That'll count in your favour.'

'With God, perhaps. But not with Walpole. I advise you to withdraw your men.'

'Surrender, Captain, or prepare to be stormed.'

'You'll never take me, Colonel. And you'll lose most of your men in the attempt.'

'I'll bandy words with you no longer.' Negus turned to his adjutant. 'Captain Rogers—'

'Wait, sir,' said Rogers. 'What's he doing?'

The two soldiers holding Spandrel looked round at this, enabling Spandrel to do the same. He did so in time to see Mcllwraith scrambling up the roof to the chimney and round to the far side of the stack.

'The man's mad,' declared Negus, his patience exhausted. 'Deploy your best marksmen and end this, Rogers.'

'I'll decree the ending of this, not you, Colonel,' shouted Mcllwraith. He threw his gun down the roof to the walkway, then pulled something from inside the chimney-pot and fumbled in his pocket.

'Finish the man, Rogers. Now!'

'Yes, sir. But—'

There was a flash of some kind from where Mcllwraith was standing, then a duller, trailing flame.

'He's lit a fuse, sir. Do you think—'

'My God, he must have mined the chimney. Fall the men back. Quickly!'

The realization of what Mcllwraith was about communicated itself to the troops before Rogers could even issue an order. Once he did, they began a withdrawal down the track that soon became a pell-mell retreat. Spandrel's guards, intent upon saving themselves, left him where he was, staring up at the gaunt figure on the roof.

Mcllwraith's coat flapped behind him in the breeze, his bare, grey-maned head lit by the sun. Though he could not be certain amidst the confused shouts and pounding footfalls, it seemed to Spandrel that Mcllwraith was laughing with genuine amusement at the scene below him. Then he stopped laughing. And slowly, with seeming relish, drew his sword. The sunlight glinted on the blade. Mcllwraith held it out before him, as if to meet the charge of some other, invisible swordsman.