The Monsoon (3 page)

Sultan was a black stallion, groomed until he shone in the pale sunlight. Horse and rider were magnificent.

It was obvious that he’d come to check the arrangements for his impending marriage. The nuptials were to be held here rather than in the bride’s home chapel, for other important ceremonies were to follow.

These could only be held in the chapel of the Nautonnier Knights.

He stopped at the front door of the chapel and stooped low in the saddle to peer inside, then straightened and rode slowly around the side of the building to the vestry door. He looked about carefully then stared straight at Tom. Tom froze. He and the other boys were supposed to be down at the river mouth, helping Simon and his crew with the salmon nets. The itinerant labourers, whom William hired for the harvest, were fed almost entirely on salmon. It was cheap and plentiful, but they protested at this monotonous diet.

The apple-tree boughs must have concealed Tom from his brother’s keen gaze for William dismounted and hitched Sultan to the iron ring beside the door. He was betrothed to the middle Grenville daughter.

It was to be a splendid marriage, and their father had haggled for almost a year with John Grenville, the Earl of Exeter, to agree the dowry.

Black Billy’s in a lather to get at her, Tom thought derisively, as he watched his brother pause on the chapel steps to slap the dust from his glistening black boots with the heavy lead-weighted riding-crop he always carried.

Before he entered the chapel William glanced in Tom’s direction once more. His skin was not black at all, but light amber in colour.

He looked more Mediterranean than African, Spanish or Italian, perhaps.

However, his hair was jet black, dense and shining, scraped back sleekly from his face and secured in a pigtail with a black ribbon plaited into it. He was handsome, in a formidable, dangerous fashion, with that thin, straight Ethiopian nose and the flashing dark eyes of a predator. Tom was envious of how most young women became flustered and fluttery in his presence.

William disappeared into the vestry and Tom rose to his feet. He whispered to his brothers, “He’s gone! Come on! We’ll go back-” But before he could finish there was a scream from the chapel.

“Mary!” exclaimed Tom. I thought she had run, but the little dilly is still in the reV “Black Billy has caught her,” gasped Guy.

“Now there’ll be troubleP said Dorian gleefully, and leaped up to get a better view of the excitement.

“What do you think he’ll do.”

“I

don’t know,” said Tom, “and we aren’t waiting to find out.” Before he could lead them in a precipitous retreat down the gill, Mary burst out of the vestry door. Even at that distance her terror was obvious. She ran as though pursued by a pack of wolves. A moment later William charged out into the sunlight, following the fleeing girl.

“Come back, you little slud” His voice carried clearly to where they still crouched behind the wall. But Mary snatched up her skirts and ran all the harder. She was heading straight towards the wall where the boys were hiding.

Behind her, William freed Sultan’s reins and swung up easily into the saddle. He sent the stallion after her at a full gallop. Horse and rider overhauled the running girl swiftly.

“Stop where you are, you dirty little whore. You’ve been up to no good.” William leaned over with the heavy riding-crop in his right hand as he caught up with her.

“You’re going to tell me what you’re doing here.” He slashed at her, but Mary dodged away. He wheeled the stallion to “follow her.

“You aren’t going to escape me, bitch.” He was smiling, a cruel, cold smile.

“Please, Master William,” Mary shrieked, but he swung the crop again. It hissed in the air and she ducked under its arc with the agility of a hunted animal. Now she was running back towards the chapel, ducking through the apple trees, with William after her.

“Come on!” whispered Guy.

“Now’s our chance.” He sprang up and tumbled down the steep side of the gill, Dorian behind him, but Tom still crouched by the wall.

He watched in horror as his brother caught the running girl again and rose in the stirrups over her.

“I’ll teach you to listen when I tell you to stop.” He lashed at her again, and this time the crop caught her between the shoulder-blades. Mary screamed at a higher pitch, a cry of agony and terror, and collapsed into the grass.

The sound of that shriek chilled Tom’s spine and set his teeth on edge.

“Don’t do that!” he said aloud, but William did not hear.

He stepped down out of the stirrups and stood over Mary.

“What mischief were you up to, drab?” She had fallen all in a welter of skirts and bare legs and he hit her again, aiming for her terrified white face, but Mary threw up an arm and took the lash across it. It raised a bright scarlet weal and she blubbered and writhed at the pain.

“Please don’t hurt me, Master William.”

“I’m going to beat you until you bleed, and until you tell me what you were doing in the chapel when you should be in the scullery with your greasy pots and pans.” William was smiling easily, enjoying himself.

“I didn’t do no harm, sir.” Mary lowered her hands to plead with him, and could not lift them again fast enough to meet the next blow that caught her full in the face. She V howled and the blood rushed into her swollen cheek to colour it flaming scarlet.

“Please. Please don’t hurt me any more.” She buried her injured face in her hands and rolled over in the grass trying to get away from him, but her skirt was tucked up under her.

William smiled again as he saw that she was naked beneath it and his next blow was delivered with relish across the soft white skin of her buttocks.

“What were you stealing, bitch? What were you doing in there?” He hit her again, and left a scarlet weal across the back of her thighs.

Her scream struck Tom just as cruelly as the crop had sliced into her flesh.

“Leave her, damn you, Billy,” he blurted out, struck by an overpowering sense of responsibility and pity for the tortured girl.

Before he had even thought about what he was doing he was over the wall and racing to Mary’s rescue.

William did not hear him coming. He was absorbed in the sharp, unexpected pleasure he was experiencing from punishing this little slut. The sight of the scarlet lines on her white skin, her flailing, naked limbs, her wild shrieks, the unwashed animal smell of her all roused him keenly.

“What were you up to?” he roared.

“Are you going to tell me, or shall I beat it out of you?” He could hardly restrain his laughter as he laid a vivid scarlet stripe across her bare shoulders and watched the muscles beneath the soft skin spasm in agony.

Tom crashed into him from behind. He was a strap, ping lad for his age, not much shorter in height or less in weight than his older brother, and he was strengthened by his outrage and his hatred, by the injustice and cruelty of what he had watched, and by the memory of a thousand hurts and insults he and his brothers had suffered at Black Billy’s hands. And he had the advantage this time of complete surprise.

He struck William in the small of the back, just as he was balanced on one leg, in the act of kicking the girl into a better position to receive the next blow from the riding crop He was flung forward with such force that he tripped over his victim and went sprawling, rolled over once and crashed head first into the hole of one of the apple trees.

He lay there stunned.

Tom bent down and yanked the trembling, blubbering girl to her feet.

“Run!” he told her.

“As fast as you can!” He gave her a push.

Mary needed no urging. She went off down the path, still weeping and howling, and Tom turned back to face the wrath of his brother.

William sat up in the grass. He was not yet certain who or what had knocked him down. He touched his scalp, pushing two fingers into the dark wavy hair, and brought them out smeared with blood from the small cut where he had hit the tree. Then he shook his head and stoa d up. He looked at Tom.

“You!” he said softly, almost pleasantly.

“I

should have known you’d be at the bottom of this devilry.”

“She’s done nothing.” Tom was still too buoyed up by his anger to regret his impulse.

“You might have wounded her sorely.”

“Yes,” William agreed.

“That was my purpose. She deserved it well enough.” He stooped and picked up the crop.

“But now she’s gone, it’s you I shall wound sorely, and take the deepest pleasure in doing my duty.” He cut left and right with the weighted crop, which made a menacing hum in the air.

“Now tell me, little brother, what it was that you and that little whore were playing at? Was it something foul and dirty that our father should know about? Tell me now, before I have to whip it out of you.”

“I’ll see you in hell first.” This was one of their father’s favourite expressions, but despite his defiance Tom was bitterly regretting the chivalrous impulse that had propelled him into this confrontation. Now that he had lost the element of surprise he knew himself hopelessly out matched. His elder brother’s skills were not confined to his books. At Cambridge he had wrestled for King’s College, and all-in wrestling was a sport without rules, except that the use of deadly weapons was frowned upon. At the fair in Exmouth last spring Tom had seen William throw and pin the local champion, a great ox of a man, after kicking and punching him half out of his mind.

He considered turning and running. But he knew that on those long legs, even wearing riding-boots, William would catch him within a hundred yards. There was nothing for it. He took his stance and raised both fists, the way Big Daniel had taught him.

William laughed in his face.

“By Peter and all the saints, the little cockerel wants to make a fight of it.” He dropped the riding-crop, but let his hands hang at his sides as he moved forward lazily. Suddenly he shot out his right fist. He had given no warning of the blow, and Tom only just managed to jump back. However, the fist grazed his lip, which swelled and immediately leaked the salty slick taste of blood into his mouth. His teeth were stained as though he had been eating raspberries.

“There we go! The first drop of claret spilt. There will be more, I warrant you, a cask of it before we’re finished with this business.” William feinted with the right again, and when Tom ducked away he hooked at his head with the other hand. Tom blocked, as Big Daniel had shown him. William grinned.

“The monkey has learned a few tricks.” But his eyes narrowed: he had not expected that.

He fired the same fist again, and Tom ducked under it then seized his brother’s arm at the elbow in a desperate two hand grip.

Instinctively William pulled back, and Tom used the momentum to spring forward instead of resisting and, at the same time, to kick out wildly.

Again he caught the other off balance, and one of his flying kicks landed squarely in his crotch. The breath went out of William in a who of of pain, and he doubled over to clutch his injured parts with both hands. Tom swirled round and ran off down the path towards the house.

Although his dark features were still contorted with pain, when he saw the younger boy go, William straightened, forced himself to ignore the pain and launched himself after him. He was hampered by his injury, but even so he bore down inexorably on the fleeing Tom.

When Tom heard the racing footfalls coming up on him, he glanced over his shoulder and lost a yard. He could hear his brother grunting, and imagined he could feel his breath on the back of his neck. There was no escape, he could not run away from him. Instead he dropped to the ground and rolled himself into a ball.

William was so close, and coming on so fast, that he could not stop. The only way he could avoid Tom was to jump over him. He cleared him easily, but Tom rolled on to his back in the middle of the muddy path, and reached up to grab William’s ankle while he was in mid-air. He held on with the strength of terror, and the man crashed down in the path on his face. For that instant he was helpless, and Tom scrambled to his feet, was on the point of racing away again, when his anger and hatred took over from his good sense.

He saw Black Billy sprawling in the mud. The temptation was too much for him to resist: for the very first time in his life his elder brother was at his mercy. Tom pulled back his right leg and took a full swing of the boot.

He caught William in the side of the head just in front of his ear, but the result was not what he had expected.

Instead of collapsing, William let out a roar of rage and clutched at Tom’s leg with both hands. With a heave, he flung the boy into the bracken beside the path then hauled himself to his feet and launched himself at Tom before he could recover.

He straddled his younger brother’s chest, then leaned forward to pin his wrists to the ground above his head.

Tom could not move, and could hardly breathe as William’s full weight crushed his ribs. William was still gasping and wheezing, but slowly his breathing eased, and he began to smile again, a twisted, painful smile.

“You’re going to pay for your fun, puppy. You’re going to pay in a heavy coin, that I promise you,” he whispered.

“Just let me get my breath back and then we’ll finish this business.” The sweat dripped from his chin onto Tom’s upturned face.

“I hate you!” Tom hissed up at him.

“We hate you. My brothers, everybody who works here, everybody who knows you, we all hate you!”

Abruptly William released his grip on one of Tom’s wrists and slashed him across the face with a vicious backhanded blow.

“For all these years I’ve been trying to teach you manners,” he said softly, “and you never learn.” Tom’s eyes filled with tears of pain, but he still managed to gather a mouthful of saliva and spit it at the swarthy face above him. It splattered across William’s chin, but he ignored it.

“I’ll get you, Black Billy!” Tom promised, in a painful whisper.

“One day I’ll get you.”

“No.” William shook his head.

“I think not.”

He smiled, “Have you not heard of the law of primogeniture, little monkey?” He landed another filli-blooded, openhanded blow against the side of Tom’s head. The boy’s eyes glazed, and blood appeared below one nostril.