The fugitives sword, p.11
The Fugitive's Sword, page 11
part #1 of Lord's Learning Series
His shaking fingers met nothing.
Heart now wedged in his gullett and pounding furiously, he groped again, and his fingers closed on the leather straps. Weakened by relief, he had to use both hands and all his weight. He braced his feet against the back of the hearth, almost swinging from the pack, but it would not move. Desperate now, he called to the Englishman.
“P-please sir, can you pull me back? I am not st-strong enough alone to—”
He had not finished the words before two strong hands gripped his waist and he was flying backwards, dazed by the sharp pain of his head smacking into the brickwork, but the pack came free. He landed half in and half out of hearth with the heavy bag on his chest and a small avalanche of soot falling with it covering him like black snow.
Then the pack was lifted and Jorrit struggled to his feet, one hand pressed against the lump that was coming up on the back of his head. The Englishman had opened the pack and was pulling out bags of tobacco, discarding them as if they were worthless. Then he stopped and opened one. Only it was not tobacco. Jorrit saw what it was and swallowed hard.
“You did well,” the Englishman said as he resecured the bag he had opened, put it and the tobacco back and carefully closed the pack. He looked at Jorrit and there was no anger there now. “You did very well.”
Although his body was still trembling, Jorrit’s heart was bigger, and he lifted his chin higher.
But he was wondering why the Englishman had brought so little tobacco to Breda and instead had chosen to bring in gunpowder.
Chapter Seven
The remainder of the morning Jorrit spent running around for the Englishman. He had washed off the worst of the soot and been given a coat which was almost to his feet, to cover the rest so he didn’t look too filthy.
As there was not so much as before, it did not take long to sell the tobacco and after it was done Jorrit waited patiently to be paid for his work as the Englishman ate dinner in De Haring. They were in the same room where Jorrit had hidden the pack, but where now a welcome and warm fire blazed in the hearth. The warmth and quiet after the early start and ordeals he had faced that morning made Jorrit, whose head still throbbed, want to yawn and he wished he could curl up and sleep.
The pack itself was on the far side of the room from the fire, behind the table where Jorrit sat opposite the Englishman, watching him eat. But Jorrit’s gaze kept creeping towards the pack. He could not forget what he had seen in it and if an ember from the fire—
“Daydreaming again?”
Jorrit started and looked quickly back to the Englishman who was holding a slab of bread on which he had just placed both ham and cheese.
“I was wondering if you needed me for anything else, sir.” Jorrit was very sure it would not be safe to betray that he knew what was in the pack.
“You look hungry. Have you eaten today?”
“I was up too early,” he admitted. “I had hoped to fish for breakfast but then I saw you.”
The Englishman held out the well garnished bread.
“Then eat.”
Taken by surprise, Jorrit stared at the outstretched hand and the Englishman laughed.
“Your eyes look nearly as big as your stomach. Eat, Manduce. I’ll not make you wash it down with vinegar like the Gastrolaters.”
Jorrit had no idea what the Englishman was talking about, but he understood at least that he was being offered food. He took the bread carefully and was wolfing it down as the Englishman used his knife to cut another slab from the loaf. But then the door opened, and the knife was suddenly no longer just for cutting bread and cheese. It shifted in the Englishman’s grip, a ready weapon.
Klaasen came in and closed the door behind him. He was carrying a jug of beer and two cups.
“It might be that we have another problem,” he said.
The Englishman went back to cutting his bread.
“You should tell me then.”
“With him here?” Klaasen gestured towards Jorrit with the hand holding the cups and set the jug on the table. Jorrit stopped chewing. The food in his mouth was instantly flavourless. He swallowed it quickly, put the uneaten portion carefully on the table and jumped up.
“I will go outside,” he said quickly, wiping his hands on his thin woollen breeches and scurrying around the end of the table.
The Englishman’s hand caught his arm and Jorrit froze.
“Sit and eat.”
Jorrit wanted to squirm free and run for the door, but instead he slid back onto the bench and picked up the bread, taking another bite. He did not want to be here when these smugglers talked of their secrets. Once the Englishman had gone back to wherever he came from, Klaasen might well think that Jorrit had learned too much. Then another more terrible thought occurred—the Englishman might have realised that Jorrit had seen the black powder. He tried to chew and swallow but instead nearly choked.
“He says he can’t come,” Klaasen said, pouring beer into the cups. Jorrit could smell it was a strong brew. “He says that we’ll have to take it to him.” Klaasen pushed a cup towards the Englishman. “You’ll have to take it to him. After dark.”
“That was not the plan.” The Englishman stabbed the point of his knife into the wood of the table. “I need to leave as soon as it gets dark. I have people waiting for me. If I am late, I may not be able to get out.”
Klaasen shrugged.
“There are other ways to leave. The palisade the Spanish had blockading the river was washed away after the rain last week and for now small boats can get in and out by night with care. But if you want to go back and tell the man who sent you that you put your own safety ahead of seeing this through, I’ll not try and dissuade you.” He grinned, but it lacked any humour and made Jorrit think of a wolf.
The Englishman said nothing. He pulled the knife from the table and attacked the ham. There was a cast to his face, as if he wished it was Klaasen he stabbed at and not the meat.
“You could always send the young’un there,” Klaasen suggested, nodding towards Jorrit. Then his grin widened.
Jorrit choked on his bread and started coughing.
Please no. Not that.
The Englishman stopped cutting at his meat and looked at Klaasen.
“You could go.”
“Not me. I have to stay here. You know that. Besides, you were full of how this was your task. How you were the one trusted with it. That you were man enough to see it through. Are you changing your tune now?”
Anger flashed visibly in the turquoise eyes, like a cold blue lightning.
“I will see it through,” the Englishman said.
Klaasen sat back a little and looked pleased.
“Then you will have to trust me to find you another way out of the city.” He pushed the cup again. “Here. Een dranck, bitter of soet, geeft vrolijkheidt en moedt.”
“I have no need to drink to find courage,” the Englishman retorted, “besides, that is only beer, not wine or strong spirits.”
That made Klaasen laugh loudly.
“Perhaps so, but it seems to me you lack the courage to drink it anyway.” He took his own cup and drank deeply, making a sound of satisfaction as he put it down and wiping his lips with the sleeve of his coat. “It makes me wonder if you are the man you claim to be or just a milksop like him?” Klaasen nodded towards Jorrit, whose ears were burning.
The Englishman’s jaw tightened. He picked up the beer in his free hand and drank it off, tipping all but the dregs down his throat and slamming the empty cup back to the table. He said nothing, merely tilting his head to one side and holding Klaasen’s gaze as if in challenge.
“You like it well enough then?” Klaasen said and reached over to refill the cup and then his own, which Jorrit noticed was still half full. “Then let us drink to our success and the downfall of all heretics.” He tipped his cup and drank deeply.
The Englishman followed suit and Jorrit knew that this was not going to end well. Mustering all his courage he got to his feet.
“I need to go now. It is alright. I will not ask for any coin today. I see you are busy and—”
The Englishman crashed his empty cup onto the table right in front of Jorrit and made him jump. The cold gaze was as unrelenting as ever.
“Sit down. I will have need of you later and here,” he picked up his cup and poured a goodly splash of beer into it from the jug half-filling it, “you have earned this.”
Afraid to do otherwise and regretting his stupidity in drawing any attention to himself, Jorrit drank the beer. It had a heavy taste of grain and a tang of hops, but it was much stronger than the small beer he was usually given to drink, and it left his tongue protesting. When he put the cup down both the men were grinning at him as if he had done something that amused them. The Englishman slapped him on the back as a man might a comrade.
“That is the way to go.
Back and side go bare, go bare;
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good beer enough,
Whether it be new or old.”
He poured more and Jorrit had to drink it, but then, thanks be to God in heaven, the Englishman turned back to Klaasen.
Head swimming a little, Jorrit was grateful that he seemed to be forgotten. He had been tired before but having eaten now he had to stifle a yawn. With food in his stomach, the beer behind it and the warmth of the room he found it increasingly hard to stay awake. Putting his arms folded together on the table as a pillow, he rested his head on them. The two men didn’t seem to notice, and their voices rose and fell as they talked about a woman they had seen. They laughed now and then as if they had become the best of friends. Jorrit closed his eyes just for a moment…
The next thing Jorrit knew he was being shaken roughly awake.
“Ad unguem, upsie freeze,” the Englishman’s voice had an odd precision to it, as if he was shaping each word with extra care. “You drank to your fingertips and have slept like the seven encaved saints of Ephesus—or perhaps their dog. I recall one of them was a John, but I do not remember there being a Jorrit. However, now you must rise because it is time to work.”
Outside the window the sky was darkening and the fire in the hearth was embers. There was no sign of Klaasen, although on the table were the remains of the meal and at least two more jugs than had been there before. The Englishman must have followed his gaze.
“We drank,” he said shortly, “Also to the fingertips and truly upsie.”
“You are drunk,” Jorrit said, the appalling truth shaking him out of the last daze of his slumber.
The Englishman produced a tinder box and painstakingly lit a candle. It took him three attempts to bring the flame to the wick. A smile of satisfaction slipped onto his face as he finally managed it.
“Not as drunk as Klaasen, I am pleased to say, who had to be tipped into his bed and it barely past twilight.” He laughed a little too loudly and long and Jorrit shivered.
“But you have work to do…”
“I do,” the Englishman agreed. “I do or the whole point of me being here will be irrev—” He stopped and then started again. “Irrevocably blunted.” Then he frowned. “And that is, I think, what Klaasen was hoping. I am not sure he is as loyal as he says—or perhaps just not as brave. I even wonder if he sent the message as he said or simply invented a reply that suited him.”
The Englishman crossed to the window and opened it, his white hair silvered by the candlelight and lifted into feathery strands by the stiff breeze that came from the river.
“Bring my pack. You will carry it and I will be as your chamber door, ready to defend you should any wish to relieve you of the burden.”
Jorrit wanted to say no.
More than he had ever wanted anything in his life before, he wished for the courage to say no. The very notion of carrying what he knew now to be gunpowder left him feeling tight chested and weak in the knees. But more terrifying yet was the thought of what the Englishman would do to him if he refused. So instead of any protest, he bent and picked up the pack, settling it on his back, grateful that at least it had less weight to it than it had before.
They left by the window, the Englishman carefully closing the casement behind them, and made their way along the narrow path where Jorrit had fled that morning. But once away from the inn, the Englishman pressed further into the buildings on the edge of the docks before he turned and took a path that would lead into the heart of the city. Scuttling in his wake, Jorrit saw how his hand stayed on his sword. As they went Jorrit could hear the Englishman singing softly.
“Love maketh lean the fat men’s tumour,
So doth tobacco.
Love still dries up the wanton humour,
So doth…”
He broke off and gave a low laugh.
“I think that is not so fitting now. This calls for something bolder.”
Jorrit was not so sure about that, but a few moments later as they went along the dark streets where the only illumination came from the windows of the houses, the Englishman was quietly singing a different song.
“Farewell, adieu, that courtly life,
To war we tend to go;
It is good sport to see the strife
Of soldiers in a row.”
As he sang, he emphasised the beat of the tune and his pace seemed to match to that. Almost, Jorrit thought, as if the Englishman was singing his legs along.
“How merrily they forward march,
These enemies to slay;
With hey, trim, and tricksy too
Their banners they display.”
They reached another road and the Englishman stopped singing and paused to get his bearings.
“How is it you speak English? Are you of English stock? A heretic?”
Jorrit was taken by surprise and answered without thinking. “I don’t know, sir. I was a foundling. Taken in by Moeder Machteld who keeps a home for foundling and orphan boys. But I had a nurse who was English, and she taught me and Seppe until she married and went to Woerden.”
“Seppe?”
Hearing the name made Jorrit regret speaking it as the familiar bands of grief tightened about his heart.
“He was my best friend. We did everything together. He died in the summer.”
The Englishman started walking again so suddenly that Jorrit had to run a few paces to catch up.
“How merrily they forward march,
These enemies to slay;
With hey, trim, and tricksy too
Their banners they displ—”
A sudden hand pulled Jorrit roughly aside and then thrust him into a narrow alley. The Englishman now had his sword out and he stood between Jorrit and the street, back pressed to the wall to keep in the shallower shadows there. Then Jorrit could hear voices and see the swinging dance of lantern light and the even tramp of ordered feet that bespoke a patrol of soldiers.
The soldiers were clearly not anticipating any problems because they were talking and even laughing as they passed the mouth of the alley and never even glanced towards it. But seeing them, Jorrit realised with the force of revelation how much danger he was in. How it would be if he were found to be carrying a pack which was half-full of gunpowder in company with a man who had come into the city from without. The Englishman, he now knew for sure, was not just a tobacco smuggler and that meant Klaasen was not either and that meant…
“Come on.” The Englishman had already moved off. Glancing after the soldiers as he left the alley, Jorrit saw they had already vanished from sight around a corner.
“Now shall we have the golden cheats,
When others want the same;
And soldiers have full many feats
Their enemies to tame.”
Jorrit wondered where they were going and what the Englishman planned to do with the gunpowder. But he knew it would be foolish to ask. Instead, when the Englishman paused for breath in his song, Jorrit asked: “What is a heretic?”
For a few paces he thought he would get no reply and the Englishman would start singing again.
“A heretic is anyone who worships God in a different manner to your own. They may use different words, make different gestures or—Heaven forfend—even hold a slight variance with you as to the precise nature of the Almighty and how one should live to please him. Which makes,” the Englishmen said, his tone pensive, “most everyone a heretic as no man and his neighbour can precisely agree on that.”
“But doesn’t the Bible—?”
“Were the Bible plain and clear, then theologians would never dispute, and the world would be a—” The Englishman stopped talking and Jorrit glanced around listening, thinking they must be near some source of peril. But a moment later the Englishman took up his song again.
“With cucking here and boming there,
They break their foe’s array;
And lusty lads amid the fields
Their ensigns do display.”
They were in a part of the city Jorrit did not know so well. Here the wealthier merchants kept their shops and houses, and the streets now were better lit as householders put lanterns outside their doors. Soon it would be curfew, and everyone would be indoors, and darkness would descend, but for now there were a few people still about—men of status walking with a servant or two at their back. The Englishman did not seek to avoid being seen but he kept aside so those who belonged here had no cause to protest his presence. Jorrit supposed they must look like two ‘prentice boys or labourers making a late delivery.
“The drum and flute play lustily,
The trumpet blows amain,
And venturous knights courageously
Do march before their train.”
The Englishman stopped beside what seemed to Jorrit to be a bookshop or perhaps a bookbinder’s, although it was hard to tell as the windows were shuttered and any wares securely hidden from view until morning. A moment later the Englishman had vanished from the lit street along a passageway beside the shop that was in complete blackness and Jorrit had to follow him, guided only by the softly singing voice.
