Beauvallet Read online

  The lackey at the door ran after. ‘Señor, the lieutenant –’

  ‘To hell with the lieutenant!’ said Sir Nicholas. ‘Drive on!’

  The coach rumbled out of the gate and turned at right angles into the street.

  The lieutenant, Cruza, hurrying out of the house, was just in time to see it disappear round the corner. ‘What – the Governor!’ he cried.

  The lackey rubbed his perplexed head. ‘Señor, the Governor would not wait. He sounded very hasty, and unlike himself.’

  ‘The Governor would not wait?’ Cruza stared uncompre-hendingly.

  There came a shout from within. ‘Stop that man! Stop that man! The Governor is here, gagged and bound! Stop that man! ’

  ‘Sangre de Dios, he is away!’ cried the lieutenant, and went bounding out through the archway. ‘For your lives after that coach!’ he shot at the sentries. ‘The prisoner is in it! Off with you!’

  But when two labouring soldiers came up with the slow-moving coach there was no one inside. El Beauvallet had vanished.

  Nineteen

  Outside the wall that enclosed the Governor's garden Joshua waited, safe in the shadows. He had a coil of rope in his hand, and had hitched his dagger round so that he might easily come at it. He shivered from time to time, started at small noises, and was finely scared by a marauding black cat. Recovering from this fright he watched the cat slink off, and was moved to shake his fist at it. ‘What, you doxy! You’ll creep up to give me a fright, will you? You may thank my need for quiet that I do not spit you on the end of my knife.’ The cat disappeared over the wall. ‘Ay, over you go, featly as you please, upon your naughty business,’ said Joshua bitterly. ‘If a man might get over that wall so easily I should be the better pleased.’ He set himself to listen again, but could hear only the rustle of the light wind through the trees. ‘Can he make it?’ muttered Joshua. ‘I do not doubt, no, but I confess I shall be the more at ease when I see you safe beside me, master. Ha, what's this?’

  He listened intently, heard the sound of voices on the other side, but could not catch what was said. A door slammed, he heard the gravel scrunch under a heavy boot, a sound as of a grounded halberd, and a murmur of voices.

  Dismay consumed him; he was in a fret to be gone from his post, to be up and doing, at least to know more. If Sir Nicholas had broken free he could never escape this way, with men posted in the garden. And how to warn him? Joshua wrung his hands in impotent despair. ‘God's me, God's me, this is to ruin all! I am in no doubt now that you have broken free, master, but why so slow? Ah, why, why? You will walk into this trap. This is not Mad Nick's way to let others be before him. What mischance? Trapped, trapped!’ He looked right and left. ‘To warn you – think, Joshua, think! I am no loose-living cat to go jumping walls.’ He bit his nails in a frenzy, glanced up at the wall, shook his head hopelessly. ‘Naught to do but to wait. But if he hath broken loose what makes he there? Will he fall upon these men in the garden? What, weaponless to pit his strength against I know not how many men with pikes? And here stand I mammering! Nor dare do else!’

  He stood still, listening, sweating, dreading at once the sound of a capture in the garden, and the approach of some loiterer, or, worse, a guard in the street.

  He stiffened suddenly, and peered into the darkness. A light step sounded, approaching fast. He began to walk away down the street, as though bound upon some errand.

  The footsteps were coming closer, rapidly overhauling him. He stole a hand to his dagger, and went steadily on his way. If this was a guard he was coming on his death.

  He was overtaken, felt a grip on his shoulder, and spun round, dagger out. A hand caught his wrist in mid-air, held it clamped hard. ‘Death on thy soul, Joshua! learn to know your master!’ hissed Sir Nicholas.

  Joshua almost fell to his knees. ‘Master! Safe! safe!’ he whispered ecstatically.

  ‘Of course I am safe, fat-wit. Put up that knife. A horse is all my need.’

  ‘Said I not so!’ Joshua was moved to kiss his hand. ‘Said I, what will be my master's cry? Why, what but Horses, Joshua! They are hard by, sir, saddled and ready.’

  ‘God ’ild you, then. Lead me to them. The hunt is up in good sooth, and we must win clear away tonight.’ He gave a little chuckle. ‘A rare night's work! Where's my lady?’

  ‘Gone these four days, master, and that squirting ahead of her.’ Joshua led him down a side-alley, walking fast. ‘I had speech with the noble lady, and bade her be of good cheer, and keep faith. Then I saw her leave Madrid with the old lady, and learned they were to waste no time upon the journey. I warrant I have been about the town a little! How came you out of that hold, master?’

  He was told, very briefly, and rubbed his hands over it. ‘Ay, that is the way it goes. Ho-ho, they have our measure now, if they had it not before! But I submit, master, that we have to consider a little. Having lost their prisoner what will they do?’

  ‘Send hot-foot to the Frontier, and the ports,’ said Sir Nicholas.

  ‘True, master, and we take the Frontier road as far as Burgos.’ He shook his head. ‘Still very barful. But we will not be amort. We have the start of them, and they will not look for us at Vasconosa. Tarry here awhile, sir. No need to show yourself.’ He had stopped at a street turning. ‘I go to fetch the horses.’

  He was back soon with two fine jennets, each with a light pack strapped to the saddle.

  ‘Boots, man!’ said Sir Nicholas. ‘Have you my sword safe?’

  ‘Never doubt me, sir!’ said Joshua complacently, unbuckling a pack. ‘Your boots are at hand. I have thought of everything. I am not one to be bestraught by disaster.’ He unearthed a pair of top-boots, caught up the shoon Sir Nicholas had kicked off, and stowed them away.

  The long boots were pulled on, the spurs swiftly fastened. Sir Nicholas vaulted lightly into the saddle. ‘On then, my Joshua!’ He laughed, and Joshua saw that his eyes were alight. ‘A race for life this time!’ he said, wheeled about, and drove in his heels.

  The two sentries came panting back to the barracks, and to Cruza, feverishly awaiting them. ‘Gone, señor!’ they gasped.

  ‘Fools! Dolts! He was in that coach!’

  ‘He was gone, señor.’

  Cruza fell back. ‘Holy Virgin, witchcraft!’ He hurried in to where his superior waited. Don Cristobal, unbound now, shaken, but composed, received him with a questioning lift of the brows.

  ‘Señor, he was not in the coach when the guards came up with it. It is witchcraft, foul devil's work!’

  Don Cristobal smiled contemptuously. ‘If you would say we have been finely tricked you speak nothing but the truth,’ he said acidly. ‘Would he sit still in the coach to await capture? Turn out the guard!’

  Cruza shot an order to a goggle-eyed sergeant, waiting close by. ‘Señor, can it be that it is El Beauvallet indeed?’

  Don Cristobal slightly rubbed his bruised wrists. ‘He did me the honour of telling me so with his own lips,’ he said. He moved to the table, and dipped a quill in the ink-horn. ‘One man to take this writing to Don Luis de Fermosa, to request him to order out the alguazils to search the town. The prisoner cannot have gone far.’

  Cruza wrinkled his brow at that. ‘Señor, will he not make for the Frontier?’

  Don Cristobal dusted his paper with sand, and read it over before he answered. As he folded and sealed it he said calmly: ‘He must procure a horse for that, Cruza, and we know that he has no money.’ He gave the paper into his lieutenant's hands, and turned to his valet. ‘A hat and a cloak, Juan.’

  The valet hurried away. Cruza ventured another question. ‘Señor, where do you go?’

  ‘To the Alcazar,’ replied the Governor. ‘To learn his Majesty's pleasure in this matter.’

  Access to Philip was at first denied him. The King was private in his closet, and would see no one. A word in the King's valet's ear produced the required effect. That privileged person went off in a hurry, and presently Don Cristobal was summoned to the presence