Deliver us from Evil (22 page)

Robert's head to stroke his cheek, then tousle his hair. 'If you will take me,' he said, '
I
must reach Bartholomew Close.' '
I
do not know the way.'

'So your accent betrays. But
I
am native-born to this city; and though
I
am blind,
I
have a sense of the streets. Lead me where
I
point and, God willing, we shall both be safe.' He began to walk forward where Robert led, then paused a moment. '
I
thank you,' he said softly. But he said nothing more; and together, blind man and beggar boy, they walked through the night.

They were not taken by surprise again. Robert led the blind man away from the darkest streets and, though they were passed once by the torches of the watch, they hid in the shadows and were unobserved. By the time they neared St Bartholomew's, the sky was lightening through the clouds to the east, and from the nearby markets rose the hubbub of trade. Robert stared about him, seeing livestock everywhere - cattle, pigs, sheep; he paused to listen to their noise and breathe in their scents, which seemed to him as sweet as perfumes, for they bore to his nostrils unsummoned memories of home. The blind man turned and brushed his palm against Robert's cheeks. 'You are crying,' he said. He frowned. 'Tell me,' he asked, 'if you are not from London, what cause was it that led you here, so far from your home?'

Robert did not answer. 'We must hurry,' he murmured vaguely, 'it is growing very light.' He began to lead the blind man forward again, stumbling through the straw and slime until they had almost crossed the market place, and were standing by the arch above Bartholomew Close. Robert looked back at the pens of cattle one last time; and then suddenly he froze, and shrank against the wall.

'What is it?' the blind man asked. 'Are we discovered?'

Robert swallowed. His throat felt too dry to answer. He watched as Lightborn and Milady walked together, gliding past rows of butcher's carcasses as though stepping on air, their eyes burning, their nostrils wide, scanning the market place from left to right, and he shuddered as he realised that they were surely hunting him. He had learned their secrets, he thought, he had seen too much; and now Lightborn was regretting he had ever let him go. Robert glanced down Bartholomew Close. He wondered, if he ran, whether he would make it unseen; but then he looked into his charge's sightless eyes, and he realised he could not abandon him, not so near - and perhaps so far - from his goal. Robert stared back at the blood-drinkers. They were standing on the edge of the market place now, looking all around, and for a moment he thought he was seen, for Lightborn's eyes seemed to pierce the shadows of the close; and then he turned, and spoke into Milady's ear. Robert held his breath; but they did not step towards him. Instead, they turned and were soon lost amidst the milling crowds. Disbelievingly, Robert watched them go; and then he remembered what Lightborn had told him, that although they could smell the blood of every living thing, his alone bore not a trace of scent. Robert laughed; and his companion gripped hold of him, as though sensing his relief. Still, though, the blind man did not say a word, not even to ask who the hunters had been, and his demeanour remained as impassive as before. Together, they walked down Bartholomew Close.

Halfway down the street, the blind man whispered directions to his guide. Robert led him to the address, and knocked quietly on the door. It opened and they slipped inside. A man, his face very pale and drawn, greeted them. 'We were certain you were taken,' he said. 'The militia have been out in force upon the streets.'

'Then we must thank the unceasing gaze of Providence,' the blind man answered, 'and its agent, this boy, who found me and, like a true emissary of God, has guarded me and brought me here to you this night.'

'You only met him this night?' His companion looked appalled. 'But he may betray us . . .'

The blind man cut him off. 'He will not.' 'How can you know?'

'Because . . .' The blind man's eyes rolled; and they seemed suddenly to Robert the index of a great and limitless mind which, without having seen him, could nevertheless see; and without having heard his tale, could still understand. 'Because he is a fugitive,' he whispered, 'like me, from the destruction of our cause and all our hopes.' He reached out for Robert; he stroked his face. Then he turned to the man who had opened the door. 'Now take us, please, to where we may be safe.'

The man led them up a series of stairways to a room at the very top of the house. It was small; but its entrance had been hidden within the opening of a hearth, and Robert prayed that he would be allowed to stay there - he did not think the blood-drinkers would find him in such a place. The man who had led them to the hidden room must have sensed his nervousness, for he patted him on the back. 'Guard your master well,' he ordered. 'He has been a great and loyal servant to the

Commonwealth, and
I
would not see him murdered for his good services.' He crossed to the stairway, then paused by the door. '
I
pray you will both be safe here,' he murmured, bowing his head. 'God bless you, Mr Milton.' Then he hurried down the stairs; and Robert and the blind man, whose name he had at last discovered, were left together alone.

For days they hid; then weeks, and then months. There were times when Robert almost wished he had been forced to leave, for Mr Milton's habits were sober and severe: he rose early, and Robert would read to him from the Bible, then from assorted books in his library, in various languages. English, Latin, Italian or Greek. In this way, Robert continued his studies; and he found Mr Milton a more exacting teacher than Mr Yorke had ever been, for the blind man's learning seemed as vast as the ocean, and his scorn of Robert's laziness as cold and profound. Robert soon loathed him; and it would often seem the hours were being drained through a sieve as he sat reading languages he barely understood, his eyes flayed raw by endless blocks of print. Slowest of all were the afternoons; for if Mr Milton's language was harsh, so also was it witty and satirical, but after lunch he would sit alone to write, despite his blindness, and Robert would find himself missing even the abuse. He had been put to the study of Hebrew; and though he discovered he had an aptitude for the language and could soon read it easily enough, he found it easier still to watch the buzzing of flies and to dream, always dream, of the world he had lost, and of where Emily might be.

He rarely spoke to Mr Milton of these thoughts. Once, though, on the day when King Charles entered London and all the city was a din of celebrations, Robert asked his master if he did not feel despair. The blind man answered with a grisly smile. 'Despair like you felt on our first meeting, when you claimed that you were eager for death?'

Robert nodded. 'If you like,' he replied.

'It is true,' Mr Milton admitted, 'that all that
I
have worked for is collapsed; and indeed, so utter appears the ruin that
I
have sometimes wondered if the very firmament is not rotten, and the earth's base built on nothing but trash. For it has often seemed to me' - he paused, and stroked his hand across his heart - 'that God has spat in my face.'

There was silence, save for the distant roar of the crowd and then the sound of cannon-fire saluting the King. 'Only sometimes?' Robert asked cautiously.

Mr Milton nodded. 'Indeed. And much less so now.' 'Why?'

'Because
I
have seen the proof of what God teaches us, that strength shall grow from those who are weak.' 'And what is this proof?'

Mr Milton smiled so faintly that his lips barely moved. 'Why, the proof, Robert - the proof is yourself

'Me?' Robert stared at him in astonishment. 'But
...
I
don't understand.'

'You continue true to what you have lost.' The blind man sighed, then reached out to brush Robert's arm; when he spoke again, it was with a sudden unexpected urgency and passion. 'Never betray such a resolution,' he begged. 'Swear it.
I
feel free to ask you such a thing because it is the same lesson which you have taught me. Among so many faithless, you continue faithful - among so many false, you continue unmoved. Do not change the course you have laid out for yourself, Robert, nor swerve from it, however great the sacrifice may be, and however dark the trials.'

'However dark . ..' Robert closed his eyes. He thought he saw Lightborn before him, handing him the knife, pointing to the bloodied, one-eyed man on the floor.
'Do it.'
The words seemed to echo a thousand times, louder and louder, until Robert started as though waking from a dream. He blocked his ears, then stared again into Mr Milton's eyes. 'It is true,' he acknowledged softly, '
I
shall not let my parents' dust lie scattered forgotten, nor the face of my friend start to fade from my mind.'

'
I
know it,' answered Mr Milton. He squeezed Robert's hands. 'And from such an example,
I
draw strength of my own.'

The memory of such words long endured in Robert's mind - even on the hottest, most stultifying days, when he wished that Hebrew had never been written and he longed for freedom, for his native fields and open skies. Still Robert treasured his master's admiration; for Mr Milton had been the spokesman for his father's great cause, and a worthy one, he thought, the equal in courage and will to Captain Foxe. In darkness the blind man sat, and compassed round with dangers; yet though at any minute there might come the knock upon the door, and then exposure, imprisonment and perhaps a traitor's death, he remained undaunted and his resolution unbowed. Indeed, for all the unease Mr Milton betrayed, he might have been sitting in some college library; for he lived and studied with the utmost calm. Only when writing did he display emotion; for he would sometimes pause and seem oppressed by turbulent thoughts, and when he returned to his manuscript he would scribble fast as though to exorcise some dread. Robert longed to know what the theme might be: it was some poem, he guessed, but when Mr Milton was not working he would keep the papers locked away, and Robert was reluctant to betray his trust. He had asked once, but Mr Milton had merely grunted. Since that time, Robert had kept his curiosity to himself.

In August, as the summer heat mounted, so also did the danger. Once or twice, Robert slipped out on to the streets to see what news and rumours he could scavenge, but he felt no sense of freedom, no thrill of liberation at having escaped from the closeness of the room. For there was a blood-lust abroad, such as he remembered from the village green of Woodton, and he shuddered that the same thirst should be so palpable once again. Towards the end of the month, when it was ordered that Mr Milton's writings be publicly destroyed, Robert wandered through the crowds, scanning the familiar looks of glee on their faces as they watched the hangman stoking his fire, dropping book after book into the smoky flames. To Robert, such destruction seemed blasphemy enough; but as everyone in the crowd was greedily aware, the hangman would soon have more than books on which his art might be displayed. For the time was approaching when the leaders of the Commonwealth were to be officially condemned: fifteen of them, selected by Parliament, would then perish on the scaffold for their treachery to the King. But which fifteen? Robert looked about him again at the eager crowds. He doubted, if Mr Milton were to be named in the list, that he would remain hidden for long. Mobs had a nose for the blood of the condemned, Robert had seen that for himself: victims would always be sniffed out in the end. And if they did come - the soldiers, and the executioners, and the hungry crowds - then he knew what he would do; for he had learned his lesson well. Better to fight than be taken -better to fight and die than be tamely killed. Defending Mr Milton, he thought, he might expiate his guilt: when he had watched, and done nothing, on Woodton's green.

Two days passed at a slow, prickling, crawling thing's pace. Each sound from the street seemed magnified: each cry, each footstep. Sometimes, men would come climbing up the secret stairs: friends of Mr Milton, bringing him the news that there was no news, that Parliament had still not named the fifteen guilty men. Each time, as they approached, Robert would see his master reach for his manuscript and clutch it to his chest, as though it were his child; and Robert found himself wondering all the more what it might be that seemed so precious, and yet so secret too. He dared to ask Mr Milton a second time; but again, his master grunted and gave him his grisly smile. 'In good time,' he answered, 'it may be you will read it, and learn much from what it says.' But he said nothing more; and Robert knew better than to press the matter. He turned back to his studies. He was reading ancient history: the tales of heroes who had avenged terrible wrongs at the cost of everything, even of their lives - sometimes even, Robert thought, of their principles and their souls.

The evening dragged on. Slower and slower, the minutes passed. The news was expected any minute; had been expected, indeed, all that day. Still it did not come. Through the window, Robert watched the sun start to set. He rose and pressed his ear to the door. Silence. 'Sit down,' ordered Mr Milton. His voice was utterly impassive. Wordlessly, Robert shrugged and turned back to his books.