The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (37 page)

“Aye, I have seen service. But a man is always wise to put such excitements behind him while he still can.”

“There are many who would agree with you sir. Might I ask your name?”

“Indeed you might but I would expect yours in return.”

“A fair bargain, and as a show of good faith why don’t I offer mine first. I am Jonathan Noyce, a servant of King James, whose royal person was so rudely endangered not two days past.”

Quick knew of the man – his reputation as the country’s most successful priest taker was second to none – the mere mention of his name was enough to put the fear into any Catholic. “In which case Holbeach is most likely to be your destination. From what I have just heard, there are enough Papists hiding there to keep you in business for some time to come.”

“You are well informed sir, but alas you remain a well-informed stranger, for your side of the bargain has yet to be met.”

“I am Peter Quick, one time soldier, as you so correctly surmised, but now making ends meet in the wool trade.”

“You had cause to be at Holbeach?”

Quick shook his head. “I had hoped to discuss this year’s fleeces but found the house besieged and was informed by a soldier that the traitors responsible for the attempt on the king’s life were holed up within. In the circumstances it did not strike me as the most profitable port of call for a man in my trade.”

“And I trust you are no friend of the Catholic?”

“I care not which religion a man chooses to secure his entry into heaven but when it comes to assassination and treachery in the name of God, then that is a different matter.”

Noyce had spent the whole time studying Quick. “You certainly do not meet the description of the men we are seeking. In which case we shall let you pass. We shall not rest until we have brought each and every one of the plotters to justice. No matter where they hide, I shall find them. But be warned, sir, this is no time to be seen expressing sympathy towards Papists.”

“Your words shall be heeded, sir. As for your searches, I wish you well and would now be pleased to be let by. I have lost business already today and can ill afford losing any more.”

As Quick rode away the relief of evading capture quickly evaporated, and to his alarm there remained an ominous sense of entrapment. It took him only a little time more to realize that his involvement in the affair was far from over. With the tenacious Noyce now on the plotter’s trail, it could only be a matter of time before those not killed or captured at Holbeach were taken, and any incriminating materials in their possession recovered. Paramount among these concerns were those blasted priests and the plotter’s treasury. If Noyce and his men reached them before he did, then all his efforts thus far would be in vain. He had no option but to ignore his own advice and ride towards where the sound of their guns might soon be heard.

*

“All of this is your handiwork?” asked Quick of their new surroundings. The move had been as sudden as it had been unexpected. Once satisfied that the way was clear, Owen had led them in an early dawn dash from their hiding place to the nearby kitchen, where the removal of the stone slab beneath the cooking hearth revealed the entrance to a tunnel.

Owen’s shake of the head was barely perceptible in the lamplight. “I cannot claim credit. This is an old drain, built to carry water from the moat which once surrounded the house. They filled in the ditch long ago but this was left behind.”

Out of sight, out of mind, thought Quick; if only the same rule applied to them. The moat may have long gone but the tunnel was still damp, and in places water trickled through the green slime covering the walls.

Owen knew full well that if they were to stand any chance of escaping the house, then the tunnel was their only hope. With Noyce on the job it would be only a matter of time before their hiding place was discovered and, with or without him on their scent, Quick was only too happy to leave the confines of those dreadful walls. They continued their passage for what seemed an age, before the closely bonded bricks gave way to timber walls. “I dug this part,” said Owen. “Surfacing at the end of the original drain would place you in open ground, so I extended it.”

They had not been in the wooden portion of the tunnel long when progress came to a halt. Owen climbed a short distance up a ladder and opened a trapdoor just wide enough to let in a chink of light and to allow him to check the way out was clear.

The trapdoor was concealed within the earth floor of a smithy. The blacksmith was absent, but the coals in his forge were content enough to give off a gentle glow without him. Owen closed the hatch while Quick took in his surroundings. Dozens of horseshoes, great and small, were hanging from nails in the beams above their heads; the middle of the floor was occupied by an anvil resting its heavy weight on a block of wood, and the many tools of the blacksmith’s trade were scattered about.

Placing the bag of coins on the anvil Quick crossed to a window and, peering out, was relieved to see nothing more than an empty yard, overlooked by a few ramshackle sheds. The tunnel had put a good musket shot between them and the house, but he would have been even happier to see a pair of horses tethered close by. The best hope seemed to rest with the long building on the other side of the yard, which from the halved doors looked to be a stable.

“There are still two men in the house,” said Owen.

“I think there will be a good few more than two in there now.”

“I mean the priests, Mr Quick. The men who accompanied me in the flight from Holbeach House.”

Quick let the sacking drop back across the window. “Do they have coin, or any other materials of importance with them?”

“They have nothing but food and drink with them, and precious little of that. All of the money was left in my charge. Its presence seemed to make them uncomfortable.”

“They would learn to feel more at home with it as bishops,” said Quick, trying not to let his relief at the answer show. “But there will be no chance of promotion now. You know as well as I that they will be taken before long. We must look to our own salvation, which I fear is far from assured.”

Owen was standing beside the anvil and casually brushing his fingers across the crescentic ridges created by the coins in the bag. “Could we not buy their liberty? This was intended to finance a rebellion, to pay for the taking of lives. Could it not be put to a better use and pay for their lives?”

In what appeared to be an almost involuntary action Quick pressed down on the bellows and momentarily excited the coals in the forge. “Silver might help a man remain at liberty,” he said, watching the flames die away before pressing down again. “It will fix safe passage at sea or secure victuals enough for the voyage, but it will not buy back liberty once lost, at least not when the shackles have been fastened around the limbs of a failed assassin of the king.” He pressed the bellows once more before stepping towards the anvil. “But I am afraid there is another reason why your friend’s captors will not be receiving their thirty pieces of silver.” With that he removed the bag from Owen’s caress. “The coins are coming with me.”

Owen took a step back as though offended. “But my instructions were to ensure that the money be put to the service of our cause.”

“That cause is lost.”

Owen looked confused. “We do not know that. Others may have made good their escape. We should decide together to what use the money could be put.”

“Believe me, Mr Owen, the cause is lost. I saw some killed and others taken at Holbeach House, and today the same is going to happen here. As you said, this money was to finance a rebellion. With the survival of the king there will be no rebellion, and so the money will go along with me.”

“Without authority such an act would be thievery. Is that what you are, Mr Quick, a common thief? You arrived in our company late and seemed to be a stranger to all. Did you join us merely so that you might profit from the failure of the exercise? There is money enough there to make you a very rich man, Mr Quick.”

“If I was a thief, I would have killed you before now.”

“I do not believe you would have, sir, not while you needed me to get you out of the house.”

Quick recalled the lengths to which he had gone to keep the searchers away from Owen. “Let us not debate who got who out of the house. I have been tasked with the recovery of those coins. They are to be returned to the donor unspent, that is all.”

“So you are an agent of the Spanish?”

“Yes, but not those of whom you are thinking.”

“I do not understand. The Spanish provided the funds for the rising. Those are silver reales in that bag. How can you talk of—”

There was a noise from the yard. Quick guessed it to be the scrape of a spur against a cobblestone. He put his forefinger to his lips and gestured for Owen to conceal himself beside the brick chimney. Dashing to the window he looked out to see two soldiers, muskets canted over their shoulders, wandering in a casual fashion across the yard. They were checking the buildings for fugitives; one would wait by the door while the other entered briefly, before returning with a shake of the head. A glance at Quick’s face as he moved away from the window was all Owen needed to know that their prospects had taken a down-turn. Any uncertainty about how bad things were was immediately dispelled when he was ordered to reopen the trapdoor.

“We are to return to the house?”

“We can hide in the tunnel while they search this place.”

“But we won’t be able to properly conceal the lid from below,” said Owen, as ever the perfectionist.

“It is a risk we must take, now get the cursed thing open.”

With his feet on the ladder Owen began his short descent, but his head had barely disappeared from view when, like a Jack-in-a-box, it popped back up into the room. “There are men in the tunnel!” he gasped, as he cleared the hole.

“Noyce,” spat Quick. “He has found the entrance. The man lives up to his reputation, damn him.”

There could be no doubting it. Quick, who was now lying on the floor and peering into the tunnel, could see a lantern moving towards them, perhaps half way along the tunnel. His head was barely clear of the void when a shot rang out. With the trapdoor slammed shut he dashed to the anvil. Owen saw his intent and, without bidding, joined him to lift the heavy lump of iron. With the anvil lowered on to the closed trap door both men, anticipating the arrival of men below them, stood back. The move was a wise one, for, moments later, a ball exploded through the timber and embedded itself in the roof.

“One door closes,” said Quick, as he returned to the window.

“And another door opens; isn’t that how the proverb goes? I see only one other door. Are you really intending to go out there?”

“We have no choice. There are still very few men nearby. But we have to move quickly; news will be on its way out from the tunnel.” Quick checked his weapons – the pair of horse pistols he had been careful to carry from the house. As he prepared them for firing, the door bowed inwards, the impact pushing out clouds of dust from between the boards. But it didn’t give.

“Break it down,” barked a voice from the outside.

There was a flash and a crack from Quick’s pistol and a cry of pain from the man in front of the door, followed by the receding clatter of boots on cobbles. The return of fire was not long in coming. Musket-balls thudded into the outside wall, some of them punching narrow shafts of light into the building before bouncing off the back wall.

It was clear from the volume of incoming fire that more men had arrived in the yard. Quick let go another shot and made to reload his pistols, only to discover that there were just two more lead balls in his pouch. If their chances of escape were poor before, they were almost non-existent now. He returned his attention to the contents of the smithy.

“There is a crucible over there, which means there must be a shot-mould also.”

Owen began to search a bench and its attendant shelves, rooting through tools and all manner of smithing paraphernalia. “Here it is, and also some lead,” he said, handing over a fist-sized ingot.

With one hand working the bellows – forcefully this time – Quick continued to observe the movements of the men in the yard. There were many more of them now, some of them probably from the tunnel, from which there was little sign of activity. His next instruction came as a shock to Owen, even in their extraordinary circumstances. “Empty the coins into the crucible and put it on the coals.”

“But you mean the lead sir, surely?”

Quick threw him a determined glance. “No, the coins, put the coins in the crucible. Do it now!”

“You have seen the devil out there, is that it. You need a silver bullet to kill him?”

“Something like that, now do it.” Whether the unflappable Owen had spoken in jest or not, the reality wasn’t that far from the truth, for Quick had just seen Noyce arrive with his men.

Owen reluctantly righted the upturned crucible and commenced to empty the coins into it, there was just a trickle at first, as though someone had cut a hole in a purse.

“All of them,” yelled Quick.

The choke on the bag was released and a shower of silver fell into the bowl. Using a pair of tongs, Owen manoeuvred the heavily laden vessel into the coals, which were now glowing like the interior of a volcano thanks to Quick’s continued effort with the bellows.

A second shot was delivered from the window, leaving Quick no option but to abandon the bellows while he reloaded with his last remaining shot.

“You said you were an agent of the Spanish,” said Owen, picking up on their interrupted conversation.

“I am an agent in the service of his Catholic Majesty King Phillip of Spain,” he said, dropping in a ball and ramming it down on to the powder. “His Majesty has no connection to those financing your rebellion.”

“But surely they were members of the Royal court? I heard Sir Robert say as much.”

Quick shook his head. “The men with whom your friends had dealings are a rebel group acting outside of the court.” He took another shot with the pistol and grimaced as a ball passed through thin timber close to his head. “They are nobles who lost riches and influence when England and Spain signed a peace treaty not two years past. Their intention was to implicate the Spanish court in the plot and, in so doing, bring about another war.”