The King's General (45 page)

And then there came that sound for which I waited, piercing the silence with its shrill intensity. Not an oath, not a man's voice raised in anger. But the shocking horror of a woman's scream.

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Across the landing, through Ambrose Manaton's empty room, to Gartred's chamber that lay beyond. The wheels of my chair turning slow, for all my labour, and all the while calling, "Richard... Richard..." with a note in my voice I did not recognise.

Oh God, that fight there in the moonlight, the cold white light pouring into the unshuttered windows, and Gartred with a crimson gash upon her face clinging to the hangings of the bed. Ambrose Manaton, his silk nightshirt stained with blood, warding off with his bare hands the desperate blows that Robin aimed at him, until, with a despairing cry, he reached the sword that lay amongst his heap of clothes upon a chair. Their bare feet padded on the boards, their breath came quick and short, and they seemed, the two of them, like phantom figures, lunging, thrusting, now in moonlight, now in shadow, with no word uttered. And "Richard..." I called again, for this was murder, here before my eyes, with the two men between me and the bed where Gartred crouched, her hands to her face, the blood running down between her fingers.

He came at last, half clad, carrying his sword, with Dick and Bunny at his heels bearing candles, and "An end to this, you damned idiots I" he shouted, forcing himself between them, his own sword shivering their blades, and there was Robin, his right wrist hanging limp, with Richard holding him, and Ambrose Manaton back against the farther wall, with Bunny by his side.

They stared at each other, Robin and Ambrose Manaton, like animals in battle.

Robin, seeing Gartred's face, opened his mouth to speak, but no words came; he trembled, powerless to move or utter, and Richard pushed him to a chair and held him there.

"Call Matty," said Richard to me swiftly. "Get water, bandages..." And I was once more turning to the landing, but already the household were astir, the frightened servants gathering in the hall below, the candles lit. "Go back to bed," said Richard harshly. "No one of you is needed save Mistress Honor's woman. There has been a trifling accident but no harm done."

I heard them shuffle, whisper, retire to their own quarters, and here was Matty, staunch, dependable, seizing the situation in a glance and fetching bowls of water, strips of clean linen. The room was lit now by some half dozen candles. The phantom scene was done; the grim reality was with us still.

Those tumbled clothes upon the floor, Gartred's and his. Manaton leaning upon unny's arm, staunching the cuts he had received, his fair curls lank and damp with Weat. Robin upon a chair, his head buried in his hands, all passion spent. Richard tending by his side, grim and purposeful. And one and all we looked at Gartred on ne bed with that great gash upon her face from her right eyebrow to her chin.

It was then, for the first time, I noticed Dick. His face was ashen white, his eyes ransfixed in horror, and suddenly he reeled and fell as the blood that stained the clean "ite linen spread and trickled onto Matty's hands.

Richard made no move. He said to Bunny, between clenched teeth, his eyes averted from his son's limp body, "Carry the spawn to his bed and leave him."

Bunny obeyed, and as I watched him stagger from the room, his cousin in his arms, I thought with cold and deadly weariness, this is the end. This is finality.

Someone brought brandy. Bunny, I suppose, on his return. We had our measure, all of us. Robin drinking slow and deep, his hands shaking as he held his glass.

Ambrose Manaton, quick and nervous, the colour that had gone soon coming to his face again. Then Gartred, moaning faintly with her head on Matty's shoulder, her silver hair still horribly bespattered with her blood.

"I do not propose," said Richard slowly, "to hold an inquest. What has been, has been. We are on the eve of deadly matters, with the whole future of a kingdom now at stake. This is no time for any man to seek private vengeance in a quarrel. When men have sworn an oath to my command I demand obedience."

Not one of them made answer. Robin gazed, limp and shattered, at the floor.

"We will snatch," said Richard, "what hours of sleep we can until the morning. I will remain with Ambrose in his room and, Bunny, you shall stay with Robin. In the morning you will go together to Carhayes where I shall join you. Can I ask you, Matty, to remain here with Mrs. Denys?"

"Yes, Sir Richard," said Matty steadily.

"How is her pulse? Has she lost much blood?"

"She is well enough now, Sir Richard. The bandages are firm. Sleep and rest will work wonders by the morning."

"No danger to her life?"

"No, Sir Richard. The cut was jagged, but not deep. The only damage done is to her beauty." Matty's lips twitched in the way I knew, and I wondered how much she guessed of what had happened.

Ambrose Manaton did not look towards the bed. The woman who lay upon it might have been a stranger. This is their finish too, I thought. Gartred will never become Mrs. Manaton and own Trecarrel.

I turned my eyes from Gartred, white and still, and felt Richard's hands upon my chair. "You," he said quietly, "have had enough for one night to contend with." He >, took me to my room and, lifting me from my chair, laid me down upon my bed.

"Will you sleep?" he said.

"I think not," I answered.

"Rest easy. We shall be gone so soon. A few hours more, it will be over. War| makes a good substitute for private quarrels."

"I wonder..."

He left me and went back to Ambrose Manaton, not, I reflected, for love to share! his slumbers, but to make sure his treasurer did not slip from him in the few remaining | hours left to us till daylight. Bunny had gone with Robin to his room, and this also, I.| surmised, was a precaution. Remorse and brandy have driven stronger men thafl| Robin to their suicide. j What hope of sleep had any of us? There was the full moon, high now in th C;| heavens, and you, I thought, shining there in the hushed gardens with your pale col**! face above the shadows, have witnessed strange things this night at Menabilly- "^| Harrises and Grenviles had paid ill return for Rashleigh hospitality....

The hours slipped by, and I remembered Dick of a sudden, who slept in dressing room next door to me, alone. Poor lad, faint at the sight of blood as he I been in the past, was he now lying wakeful like me, with shame upon his conscience^ I thought I heard him stir and I wondered if dreams haunted him as they did me, ano^l he wished for company. "Dick," I called softly, and "Dick," I called again, but the" was no answer. Later a little breeze rising from the sea made a draught come to r room from the open window, and playing with the latch upon the door, shook it fr so it swung to and fro, banging every instant like a loosened shutter. He must she deep, then, if it did not waken him.

The moon went, and the morning light stole in and cleared the shadows, and still the door between our two rooms creaked and closed and creaked again, making a nagging accompaniment to my uneasy slumbers.

Maddened at last, I climbed to my chair to shut it, and as my hand fastened on the latch I saw through the crack of the door that Dick's bed was empty. He was not in the room... Numb and exhausted, I stumbled to my bed. He has gone to find Bunny I thought. He has gone to Bunny and to Robin. But before my eyes swung the memory of his white anguished face, which sleep, when it did come, could not banish from me.

Next morning when I woke to find the broad sun streaming in my room, the scenes of the hours before held a nightmare quality. I longed for them to dissipate, as nightmares do, but when Matty bore me in my breakfast I knew them to be true.

"Yes, Mrs. Denys had some sleep," she answered to my query, "and will, to my mind, be little worse for her adventure until she lifts her bandage." Matty, with a sniff, had small pity in her bosom.

"Will the gash not heal in time?" I asked.

"Aye, it will heal," she said, "but she'll bear the scar there for her lifetime. She'll find it hard to trade her beauty now." She spoke with certain relish, as though the events of the preceding night had wiped away a legion of old scores. "Mrs. Denys," said Matty, "has got what she deserved."

Had she? Was this a chessboard move, long planned by the Almighty, or were we one and all just fools to fortune? I knew one thing, and that was that since I had seen the gash on Gartred's face I hated her no longer.

"Were all the gentlemen to breakfast?" I said suddenly.

"I believe so."

"And Master Dick as well?"

"Yes. He came somewhat later than the others, but I saw him in the dining room an hour ago."

A wave of relief came to me, for no reason except that he was safely in the house.

"Help me to dress," I said to Matty.

Friday, the twelfth of May. A hazard might have made itthe thirteenth. Some sense of delicacy kept me from Gartred's chamber. She with her beauty marred and I a cripple would now hold equal ground, and I had no wish to press the matter home.

Other women might have gone to her, feigning commiseration but with triumph in their hearts, but Honor Harris was not one of them. I sent messages by Matty that she should ask for what she wanted and left her to her thoughts.... I found Robin in the gallery, standing with moody face beside the window, his right arm hanging in a sling. He turned his head at my approach, then looked away again in silence.

"I thought you had departed with Bunny to Carhayes," I said to him.

^We wait for Peter Courtney," he answered dully. "He has not yet returned."

"Does your wrist pain you?" I asked gently.

He shook his head and went on staring from the window.

'When the shouting is over and the turmoil done," I said, "we will keep house together, you and I, as we did once at Lanrest."

Still he did not answer, but I saw the tears start in his eyes.

T We nave loved the Grenviles long enough," I said, "each in our separate fashion, 'he time has come when they must learn to live without us."

They have done that," he said, his voice low, "for nearly thirty years. It is we who 3K dependent upon them."

These were the last words we ever held upon the subject, Robin and I, from that day nto this in which I write. Reserve has kept us silent, though we have lived together tor five years.

The door opened, and Richard came into the gallery, Bunny at his shoulder like a stladow.

I cannot understand it," he said, pacing the floor in irritation. "Here it is nearly noon and no sign yet of Peter. If he left Carhayes at daybreak he should have been here long since. I suppose, like every other fool, he has thought best to ignore my orders."

The barb was lost on Robin, who was too far gone in misery to mind.

"If you permit me," he said humbly, "I can ride in search of him. He may have stayed to breakfast with the Sawles at Penrice."

"He is more likely behind a haystack with a wench," said Richard. '

'My God, I will have eunuchs on my staff next time I go to war. Go then, if you like, but keep a watch upon the roads. I have heard reports of troops riding through St. Blazey. The rumour may be false, and yet..." He broke off in the middle of his speech and resumed his pacing of the room.

Presently we heard Robin mount his horse and ride away. The hours wore on; the clock in the belfry struck twelve, and later one. The servants brought cold meat and ale, and we helped ourselves, haphazard, all of us with little appetite, our ears strained for sound. At half-past one there was a footfall on the stairs, slow and laboured, and I noticed Ambrose Manaton glance subconsciously to the chamber overhead, then draw back against the window.

The handle of the door was turned, and Gartred stood before us, dressed for travel, the one side of her face shrouded with a veil, a cloak around her shoulders. No one spoke as she stood there like a spectre.

"I wish," she said at length, "to return to Orley Court. Conveyance must be found for me."

"You ask for the impossible," said Richard shortly, "and no one knows it better now than you. In a few hours the roads will be impassable."

"I'll take my chance of that," she said. "If I fall fighting with the rabble, I think I shall not greatly care. I have done what you asked me to do. My part is played."

Her eyes were upon Richard all the while and never once on Ambrose Manaton.;: Richard and Gartred... Robin and I... Which sister had the most to forgive, the most to pay for? God knows I had no answer.

"I am sorry," said Richard briefly, "I cannot help you. You must stay here until, arrangements can be made. We have more serious matters on our hands than the.' transport of a sick widow." '> Bunny was the first to catch the sound of the horse's hoofs galloping across the ' park. He went to the small mullioned window that gave on to the inner court and>, threw it wide; and as we waited, tense, expectant, the sound came closer, nearing to | the house, and suddenly the rider and his horse came through the arch beneath the'ij gatehouse, and there was Peter Courtney, dust-covered and dishevelled, his hat gone, his dark curls straggling on his shoulders. He flung the reins to a startled waitingl groom and came straightway to the gallery.

"For God's sake, save yourselves, we are betrayed," he said.

I think I did not show the same fear and horror on my face as they did, for although j my heart went cold and dead within me, I knew with wretched certainty that this was| the thing I had waited for all day. Peter looked from one to the other of us, and hisa breath came quickly.

"They have all been seized," he said, "Trelawney, his son, Charles Trevannion>| Arthur Bassett, and the rest. At ten this morning they came riding to the house, the« sheriff, Sir Thomas Herle, and a whole company of soldiers. We made a fight for it,| but there were more than thirty of them. I leapt from an upper window, by Almighty:| Providence escaping with no worse than a wrenched ankle. I got the first horse t O| hand and put spurs to him without mercy. Had I not known the by-lanes as I know rnyl own hand I could not have reached you now. There are soldiers everywhere. Th Cj bridge at St. Blazey blocked and guarded. Guards on Polmear Hill."