The Vizard Mask (83 page)

'Ay, and for that thou diest.'

He forced her down on the bed, calling her a strumpet, and as the pillow went over her face she knew it flashed through his mind from some barbaric reservoir within him to press until she couldn't torment him any more. He mastered it within the second.

A high falsetto spoke unseen from the wings telling Othello that Iago had contrived the situation from malice and that Desdemona was innocent. The major-domo had offered his services as Emilia and was reading from a precis composed by Penitence allowing Othello to go into 'Behold! I have a weapon' and then to 'I kissed thee ere I killed thee'.

The body she knew so well fell on hers. 'No way but this, killing myself to die upon a kiss.' And he was kissing her; no professional actor would have kissed like that — it was too distracting, let alone being barely decent. She was aware of nothing but him, the applause was a background, like far-away thunder.

Her body was so part of his that she felt the tap on his back, somebody knocking at the gate of their secret garden. It was Jeffreys trying to get in. The scene had inflamed him; it was his right to lie down on Desdemona - he'd provided the dinner. 'You have maddened me, my dear,' he said, as he helped her up. 'Let us steal away for some time to ourselves.'

The Viscount got up, stretching: 'I fear it would be stealing, my lord. I see Mistress Hughes and I must reveal our secret. Come, madam.' He pulled Penitence to her feet and put his arm round her, bringing her to centre stage and raising his voice: 'Mistress Hughes has consented to be my wife. We are to marry as soon as my duty is over at Bridgwater. Aren't we, sweetness?'

She knew what he supposed he was doing; protecting her with his name when he left her with Jeffreys and his retinue, as he would have to in a minute if their plan was to succeed. It was past two o'clock already.

She doubted if he knew what he was doing in fact; marking his territory so that nobody else should have her in his absence. Worse, he'd humiliated the Lord Chief Justice in public. He didn't see Jeffreys's face — in accord with the plan, Muskett had come up saying the horses were ready and they were late returning to Bridgwater for duty. From this moment everything must be conducted at a rush.

Only she saw Jeffreys's furious blush of humiliation that his plan for the night had not just been foiled, but foiled in front of all the friends who'd known what it was.

Jeffreys wasn't one of the court wits who could seem to shrug off the fickleness of one woman — however much he might punish her in verse later — as long as there was another to take her place. That a woman was affianced had meant nothing to such as them; they would take her just the same. But Jeffreys came from a lower-class, higher-church stratum of society than theirs; he was a bourgeois; his women had to dote on him while he had them, and on him alone — they must not have given their hand to another man practically under his nose. He'll never forgive me. She saw the hatred come into his small, boar's eye, not for the Viscount but for her, who'd led him on.

The Viscount was speaking to Kirk, laughing and slapping his back like a boy: 'See me frighten the sentries, Percy? What do you say? I think I'll stay in costume and frighten all the ones who've fallen asleep on duty as I ride back. That'll make the lazy sods sit up.'

Jeffreys bowed to Penitence. 'Madam, be good enough to order my carriage brought to the door.'

It was apparent to eveiyone that such entertainment as there'd been was all the Priory was going to provide. The night's fornication was cancelled, unless it could be had in the carriages on the way back to Taunton. Perhaps this was why the Viscount's suggestion was appealing. Everybody was for dressing-up and scaring the sentries on the roadblocks across the moor. Lampblack was produced and most of the men and at least two of the women were smothering their faces in it, winding their scarves round their heads in imitation of Othello's turban.

Sir Nicholas Fenton had gone so far as to take off his trousers and, to the horror of Lady Portland, was blacking his penis. 'That'll fright the sentries.'

Everyone repaired to the courtyard where the carriages waited. Jeffreys clambered into his. Penitence ran to it to say goodbye but the Lord Chief Justice refused to look at her. He called to Kirk, who was standing nearby: 'Withdraw your men, Colonel, we shall need them in Taunton tomorrow. Leave this mistress to be guarded by her husband. I wish him well of her.' He jabbed his coachman in the back with his staff and was driven off, leaving the other drunks to crowd in the three remaining vehicles.

Nevis was shifting from place to place, checking faces.

Penitence had set aside a punch as a stirrup cup. She ran to fetch it and in going with it from guest to guest kept their attention away from the Viscount and his casual remark that he must fetch his sword from his tiring-room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his robed and turbaned figure retreat into the screen passage and disappear up the newel staircase.

It came down a minute later, buckling on its sword, the black face invisible in the dark of the passage and only the brilliants in the turban catching the reflection of the carriage lamps in the courtyard.

Muskett helped him up on his horse and then got up on another. Penitence handed him the stirrup cup. 'Good luck with the sentries,' she said. When he'd drunk, he gave her back the cup and she felt his fingers stroke the back of her hand for a second before he shook the reins and his horse walked forward to join the queue of departing guests at the gatehouse.

Nevis stood on one side of it and Lieutenant Jones on the other, both of them with a lantern held high, scanning the faces as they went by. Kirk was arguing with him: 'If you've been through the house, then he's not here. We'll need the men in Taunton tomorrow — from the look of Jeffreys' complexion he'll hang the whole town. It's an order, Nevis.'

Servants carrying lampions were riding ahead of the carriages, each one slowing down until Nevis nodded them through and Jones slapped their horses' rumps to send them on their way. Behind the next carriage Othello and Muskett were approaching the gatehouse.

The Portmans and Sir Ostyn bade subdued goodbyes. 'You didn't tell me as you were betrothed to a viscount,' Sir Ostyn reproached her.

'I didn't know I was,' she told him.

He peered at her. 'You don't look too viddy, maid. Do ee want me to stay?' He meant it kindly, and she refused as courteously as she could. Just go.

Gilbert the major-domo was supervising the loading of his wagons by the kitchen and came teetering in and out of the courtyard to tell her what couldn't be found and what would have to be fetched the next day. He was worried and as affronted as his master: 'You've upset him. I said there'd be tears before bedtime. It's all very well, dear lady, but it isn't you that gets Gilbert you're a varlet and a boot at your head.'

She peered over his shoulder to see what was happening at the gatehouse. There was a delay. Nicholas Fenton leaned down from his carriage - it was the last - to scream his thanks and show her his black genitals. She nodded at them, 'Very nice, Sir Nicholas,' her eyes on the hold-up where Nevis's lantern was practically scorching the lampblack on Othello's face as he examined it.

Please God. If they were discovered now she had added Henry to the list of those who would stand before Jeffreys in the dock.

They were through. The lantern had lowered. Nevis had nodded. Jones had slapped the rump of Othello's horse and now the rump of Muskett's. Kirk was following the two of them. Nevis was following him. His men were forming into a phalanx ready to march off. Thank you, God, thank you, thank you, thank you.

She stood on the bridge of the moat waving as the last of the major-domo's wagons lumbered through the gates at the bottom of the drive to join the cavalcade as it wound its way to the moonlit causeway. She watched the twinkling line until distance extinguished its lights one by one. At Middlezoy, with luck, two of its riders would peel away from it and ride like hell towards Bridgwater and the coast. There would be so many roadblocks to negotiate. Most of the sentries would know Muskett - and they knew the Captain-Viscount's horse. Would they let them by?

She wondered how she had the strength to go on worrying. She was empty; no emotion left, yet the part of her that had gone with the man now crossing Sedgemoor still had the ability to be afraid.

The quiet of the night was soothing; her ears vibrated with the noise she had lived with for the past few hours.

She had regained her Priory. She should have had the drawbridge chains repaired so that she could shut out Jeffreys's brutish world for ever. As it was, she bolted the gatehouse before she did a circuit of the house to make sure Nevis had left nobody behind. The topiary chessmen had retained some of the heat of the day and exuded the sweet smell of yew; the tobacco flowers Rupert had imported from the Americas to remind her of Massachusetts came into their own at night and added to the scent of roses and lavender and bruised grass.

A white shape was peering out from behind one of the chessmen. She made herself run at it — and found it was a pair of drawers. Sir Nicholas's. Further on she stumbled over a snake and gasped. But it was the dildo.

She had disturbed a bird; she heard a rustling in the bushes down by the moat, and found herself hurrying. She shut the terrace doors of Rupert's study and locked them, then walked quickly round the rest of the house until she'd regained the courtyard. It was dark, the major-domo had removed all the candles he'd brought and lit none of hers. The moon was still high, but under the shadow of the eaves she had to feel for the lock on the doors of the two wings and try a couple of keys from her chatelaine before she turned them. She had left the doors unlocked on purpose — it showed she had nothing to hide.

She groped her way in through the hall door, locked it behind her and ran her left hand along the screen until it touched the newel post of the stairs. Her high heels clacked loudly into the silence of the house and the top rise of the stairs creaked, as it always did. She put her feet more carefully in obedience with the growing instinct to keep everything quiet.

Unusually, her hall was hot — the major-domo had insisted on lighting the fire - and smelled of meat, tobacco and scented resin. Moonlight curved over her feet as she stepped through its reflection on the floor to open one of the lights and let in the night air. She stood at the window looking over Sedgemoor, wondering how Benedick would feel crossing the moor where so many comrades lay buried. Make sure you don't join them, my son.

A barn owl flapped past on white, lazy wings, causing her to start back, and behind her the gargoyle screamed.

It kept on screaming as she hared along the passage to her room, threw herself on the bed and ran her fingers over the bedhead searching for Eve's nipple.

There was a flickering light when the panel drew back and she could hear movement. 'Henry? What's the matter?'

'Your bloody uncle or whatever he is, that's who's the matter.'

She could see into the room now. A rushlight stood on the floor near Martin Hughes's bed. Martin himself had hunched himself into a corner and was uttering monotonous screams, his eyes bulging as he stared at what Penitence had to admit, if you'd just woken up, would be a shock. In an up-thrown light the Viscount looked a tall demon from Hell. She wriggled into the hole, seized the rushlight, emerged with it and lit one of her bedroom candles. With its aid she found a pot of lanolin grease and some lamb's-wool which she took back with the rushlight and handed in to the Viscount. 'It's all right,' she said soothingly to her great-uncle. 'He was disguised. You're safe now, thanks to him. We'll get you away soon.'

'Did the boy get away?' Henry scrubbed lampblack off his face.

'He got away from here. Oh, Henry, there's such a long way for him to go.'

'He's got Muskett. Muskett'll see him through.'

'Yes. I miss Muskett.' She'd become dependent on the man.

'He'll be back. He'll see the boy on to the yacht and then he'll come back for me.'

'But when you go back to Bridgwater they'll know you hadn't made the return journey. They'll have only seen Muskett riding back.'

'Good God, woman, where's your faith in the English militia? For one thing they're too bloody inefficient to know I haven't already slipped by them. For another, they'll have changed the sentries. The morning duty will think I came back for more you-know-what the same night. Which,' he winked at her — he'd recovered his poise - 'is not a bad idea.' He finished wiping the lampblack of his face, and turned to Martin Hughes, whose screams had subsided to a chesty wheeze. Henry poured him a beaker of water from the ewer and held it to the old man's mouth. 'Look well on me, Master Hughes. I am to be your great-nephew-in-law. God help me.'

'Shshh,' Penitence begged him. 'Keep your voice down.'

'Why? Didn't you check the house? I heard them all go.'

'I don't know why, just keep your voice down.'

'Is there any food left? We'd better get this poor old sod fed.' He was pleased with himself. She'd seen similiar euphoria in Hart and Lacy and Kynaston after a good performance. Known it herself, for that matter.

She had to force herself down to the kitchen. Never before had she felt afraid of the house, but her recent guests had left it menacing and alien.

Jeffreys's cooks had been charitable enough to leave some scraps and she took them, with a jug of wine, back to the bedroom where Henry had got the old man out of the panel door and laid him on the bed, gently talking to him to reassure him after his fright. From the way Martin fell on the food it was obvious he was better. With a shock, Penitence realized she had fed neither him nor Benedick all day. It seemed dreadful to her that she'd sent her son into such danger on an empty belly.

'And I got Jeffreys off your back, didn't I?' Henry was still triumphant. 'Or off your front — whatever the bastard's preference.'

'You did.' He had no idea. Jeffreys would hate her for the rest of his life. And you can't have too few enemies in that class.