A Midsummer Tempest

XIII

Rain had washed the air glittering clean. Each leaf stood vivid against sun-spattered shadow. Birds rejoiced.

It was mild and getting warmer.

Rupert and Will halted at a spring. Water gurgled through a sward which the latter traveler bent to feel.

“Plenty dry to lie on an’ catch no wheezles,” he reported. “We should sleep snug like in yonder flyin’ inn.”

“Oh?” Rupert half smiled, half yawned. “Didst thou sleep? I’m nigh as disappointed as Mistress Pulcher.”

“Marry, nay. Never a wink, believe me.” Will spoke dreamily. “Again an’ yet again, a gallop on tha sweetest o’ mares. What pity thou got to exercise no moare than thy tongue. Let me tell thee—”

In swift irritation, Rupert snapped: “Spare me an old swiver’s tale. Be glad I spent my time learning what I did. It may prove all that’ll keep thy weasand unhaltered for bragging.”

“I be zorry, your Highness,” Will apologized. “I should’a remembered how tha liakes o’ thee must stay awake an’ afoot for to ward zilly sheep like me. Uneasy hies tha head what caeres for clowns.”

Rupert calmed. “No matter. I ought not to have bared teeth at thee in that wise. But we’re both worn to the bone. Two days and nights without rest! Surely’twas a magic in the hostel which let us keep strength.

Since we left it—” Both men sat down. “A-a-ah-h-h. Corporal Gabriel himself couldn’t blow reveille for me till afternoon at earliest.”

“What do we do than?”

“We’ll to the coast. A matter of fifty or sixty miles, albiet slow ones since we must fare warily. I think we’ll get food, shelter, and help from common folk, for love of the King. With luck and diplomacy, passage across the Channel. In Holland I’ll coax money from my kindred for continuing on southward.”

Will’s drowsiness retreated. “Than thou’lt follow—Oberon’s rede—an’ not zeek tha Royal camp right off?”

Rupert nodded. “Aye. Those twain from the morrow did persuade me. The woman particularly spoke of horrors that it clogs my throat to utter. True, her history of this hundred-year is not precisely the same as what we know—yet far too close. I’d be traitor indeed, did I act as if unaided man may snatch a happier outcome from the jaws flensing our poor land.”

“What did they prophesy?” Rupert shuddered. “Worse than a Cavalier defeat. The King himself beheaded.”

Will’s jaw stuck his Adam’s apple. “Can’t be, my loard!” he gasped. “Why,’a…’a be tha King!”

“The Stuarts grow no armor on their necks. In truth, the man and maiden told me, this regicide will… did prove, in their worlds, to be but the first through centuries to come. And always the same thing follows, terror, tyranny, those who claim to speak for the people standing on their backs to do it. In England, at last, a restoration—” Rupert hesitated. “Mark, I say no ill of the Prince of Wales; he’s a bright, likely, and likeable youth. But year upon year of exile would corrupt him. His reign would be merry but ruinous. Why, there’d even be war against the Dutch, who befriended me and mine. And they’d smite us on the sea, aye, sail up the Medway with a broom at their admiral’s mast-head for scorn. And thus, after the second Charles, erelong his whole dynasty is cast off a throne whose pillars are rotted irredeemably weak…”

Rupert’s fist smote the turf, to thump in its softness. “By God’s own lightnings, it shall never be, if quest of mine may help!”

“An’ miane, my loard,” said Will quietly. “An’ maybe Jennifer’s.”

Rupert looked heavy-eyed at his ring. “How does she fare?” he wondered. “Not ill, I trust. She may have been chastised, but surely now has rest.”

“As we do too.” Will lay flat, throwing an arm across his face. After a moment, during which he stroked the silver asp while gazing down wood-land corridors, Rupert followed the example.

It was sparsely outfitted. A few books, some half-done embroidery, a vase which had held flowers, an etching of the infants Jesus and John with their mothers, were touches of herself; a chest from olden times was riotously carved; the rest of the furnishings stood prim. Mid-August heat broiled and blazed through the windows.

She stumbled. Prudence Whitcomb caught her, quavering, “There, lamb, poor lamb, lean on me again.”

Jennifer gripped the woman’s arm till fingernails left welts. It did not seem she could have that much strength remaining. Her hair hung lank and tangled around a face which was mostly skull; the green of the sunken eyes was washed out and red-rimmed, in the dark caverns where they lay parched; her gown was stiff and reeking with the sweat of days.

“Move!” said the Roundhead soldier at their backs. He stamped the floor. “If she stops, she’ll fall.”

“And sleep.” Prudence glowered over her shoulder. “Or swoon. Thou’lt haul her awake by shakings, shoutings, drenchings, as through all these past days and nights. And still thou callest thyself a man!” She spat at his feet.

“I’d not call thee woman, old harridan,” he retorted. “Were’t not for thy comfort, this witch would long since have yielded.”

Jennifer moaned and reeled on, upheld by her attendant, around and around the walls.

“Witch?” Prudence screeched. “Thou’lt meet witches in truth, Righteous Gerson, when hell receives thee.”

“I’ll first see her hang in this world, I think; and belike thee too, hag, who abetted her willfulness. Had Sir Malachi not commanded thy presence—”

“Knowing the goatishness of… him—” Prudence jerked a thumb in the direction of the bed, “and thine, I’ll wager, underneath that tin sanctimony—” Jennifer’s feet tangled.

Prudence barely caught her. “She must sit down.”

“But may not sleep,” the guardsman said. “When we’ve worn away thine own meddlesomeness, crone—”

“That’ll come more from the crawling of my flesh, that I must take my rest in sheets which Sim’s befouled, than from thy milk-souring malice, Gerson.”

There went a stirring beneath the blankets, and the undergroom thrust his hedgehog pate above them. “I hear my mistress longing for my mattress,” he gibed.

Prudence sniffed, turned her back, and helped Jennifer to a seat. Sim emerged, yawning and scratching. A louse crept from his shirt. He caught it, cracked it between his teeth, and strolled to stand before Jennifer’s empty stare.

“Is my lady ready to speak, pretty pray you?” he sniggered.

“Nay.” The girl’s answer could barely be heard. “Ah, well, no haste for my sake. Here’s an easy task, and a pleasurable when’t comes to rousing you.” His look glinted at the black-and-blue pinch marks which covered her arms and neck and what the disheveled gown showed of her bosom. “Drowse whene’er you will.” He stretched, belched, farted, and gaped. “Meanwhile, Righteous, thou may’st go off watch, soon’s thou’st brought us food and drink.”

The soldier nodded. He was at the exit when Jennifer’s body slumped back in the chair, her head lolled loose. Sim laughed and snatched a handful of hair. Prudence clawed at him. He grunted. A push sent her staggering. He slapped the prisoner’s cheeks, one, two, one, two. “Awake, awake, behold the gladsome day,” he caroled. “Tonight thy horned lover comes for thee, not so, witch? Say, who aided thee to stick those horns on him? Wake up, wake up!”

“Na-a-ay,” Jennifer whimpered.

He released her. She crumpled to the floor. “I’ll speak,” jarred forth. “Let me sleep, dear God, I’ll tell you anything if you’ll let me alone.”

Prudence knelt to cradle her. “Well, hurry!” the servant yelled. “Fetch your damned master.” Gerson swallowed, flung open the door, and sped off down the hallway.

“So she’s broken at last, hey?” Sim lounged against a bedpost and picked his nose. “What a shame.”

“Aye, now thou goest back to the dungheap that begot thee,” Prudence said. “Bowels of Christ, whate’ere made a man I thought was just order this done to a helpless maid?”

“She’d plenty help from below,” Sim declared.

Jennifer sobbed, though no tears were left in her.

Sir Malachi Shelgrave hastened in. “Has her contumacy indeed ended?” he exclaimed. Planting himself above the girl: “Art ready to confess thy vileness?”

“Torture wrings forth words, sir,” Prudence pleaded. “Mere words.”

“Torture?” Shelgrave lifted his hands. “What art thou babbling of? This is my ward. Never would I spill a driblet of the blood she shares with my wedded wife. For her correction, the saving of her soul, I commanded she be kept awake, that she might meditate on her sin until she repented; no more than that, as thou thyself art witness.” To Jennifer: “Now tell me what happened and what’s toward.”

She raised her sunken face. “If I may sleep,” she mouthed.

“Indeed, indeed. Thou shalt have every peace that nature craves, and thy body will heal with thy spirit, when once this venom has drained out of thee. Hearken—sleep not yet; hearken, I say! I’ll take thy Bible oath that the testimony thou givest is true and complete, free of any least evasion or falsehood. Dost understand? By thy hope of salvation must thou swear.”

“I understand.… I think.… I know not what I think,” she whispered harshly. “Oh, bring the Book, uncle, I’ll swear on it a hundred times over, if I may but afterward make it my pillow.”

It was a large and somber-paneled room, full of heavy furniture. Folios, quartos, excellent pictures, a bust of Cato the Elder, a hearthfire did not much relieve the austerity. Windows stood open to blue dusk and a sound of crickets.

The owner sat at his desk, writing with one of the new steel pens by the glow of one of the new glass-chimneyed lamps. A knock brought up his high, gleaming head. “Come in,” he called.

The butler entered to announce: “The Reverend Nobah Barker, sir, assistant pastor of our church in Leeds.”

“I know him,” Shelgrave said dryly. “We would fain be closeted. Let no man interrupt ere supper-time, though it were General Cromwell’s very self.”

He stood to shake his visitor’s hand. “Welcome, my friend.’Twas good of thee to come.”

“Thy note held intimation of a duty,” was the nasal reply. While Barker was a comparatively young man, stooped shoulders, round paunch, and shuffling gait would have fitted an older one. In a long, lantern-jawed face, his eyes were twin hail-stones beneath the flat brown hair. Against his garb, which was otherwise black, the clerical cravat showed more grubby than white.

“Affection has its duties, has it not, as does that fellowship we share in Christ?” the host said. “I could have asked the help of many else; but thee I know and trust. Sit down, sit down. Here’s coffee newly shipped from Genoa, within this pot above its spirit flame—a fresh invention of our wondrous age. Thou takest cream and sugar, I recall.”

“Let us not chat too much of worldly things,” said Barker, accepting the edge of a chair.

Shelgrave pinched lips together. “It helps me keep the Devil off my mind. He’s prowling near, and I must battle him whilst unwise rivals seek to shackle me. How few I dare rely on! Mine own kin—”

“Who? Jennifer? I saw her not in church this Sunday past. They told me she’s been ill.”

“A loathsome cancer I’ve no certainty that e’en the sharpest razor may excise. And yet my duty is to essay it. A duty still more powerful than this—to God and country and our holy cause—drives me the selfsame way. But meanwhile, Nobah, discretion’s of the essence. I’ll explain.”

Having filled the cups which waited on an end table, he sat down opposite his guest.

“Thou’st shown me favor and hast aided me, as elder of our humble congregation, since first thou heard’st me preach,” Barker said. “I am right grateful that thou hast been the instrument whereby God’s grace has helped unworthy me to rise.”

“The merest step, from deacon to assistant. I’d see thee go much further if I can. But now I stand in direst need of help.”

“Thou’lt have it, godly Malachi. Thou’lt have it.”

Shelgrave’s knuckles whitened over the frail cup handle. He stared past the other. “Let me speak blunt,” he said. “A man in great pain or a man in great danger has no wit for honing words on; he can but drive them into the target by what might is left him; and I am both those men.

“Hark’ee. I told thee in confidence how Rupert, prince of bandits, was held captive here till they could fetch him to London.” (Barker jerked a nod.) “That’s a sigil of my faith in thee, Nobah. I knew thou couldst be an influence over my household folk should any of them show signs of blabbering; for we dared not risk somebody like his madcap brother learning where he was and mounting a raid of rescue… Well, he’s escaped.”

“God’s mercy smite that Assyrian—like this!” Barker shouted. The great gesture of his hand would have been more dramatic had it not held a cup. Coffee billowed across his face.

Shelgrave hardly noticed. “And worse,” he groaned, “ ’twas by seduction of my ward—aye, Jennifer Alayne. She aided him.”

Barker, who had pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve, stopped mopping himself. “Indeed? Oh, horror!…

Yet say on, poor man. Lay forth the shame in full, each word, each stroke, that I may know how Satan worked through him and counsel thee. How did his wiles prevail? In what wise did he deal with her? How often?”

“Would it had been simple fornication! But nay, she’s a maiden still.”

“Ah-ha! Italian ways? Go on, go on!”

“I tell thee,’twas no common fleshly lust. She swears on the Book, by every oath I can compose, Rupert and she have never touched more than lip to lip.”

“Oh.” Barker resumed his scrubbing.

“And I’m assured, now those willful lips are finally unbarred, she speaks truth. I’ve come to know her. She’s pious in her half-Popish fashion, would never perjure herself—might indeed have escaped suffering, had she sworn at once to some plausible demi-truth which I do believe she’d’ve had the wit to devise on the spot. Besides, what broke her will was prolonged sleeplessness enforced, a tool wherewith I’ve had experience. I wish the good men pursuing witches on the Continent knew more about this means.’Tis better than rack or wheel, if used aright.”

“And hale, she’ll feel more fear at execution.”

“Hold!” Shelgrave snapped. “They’ll not hang her… Well.” He hunched himself in self-possession. “Let me be brief; later thou canst hear the full account. It seems a man of Rupert’s, slinking after him like a dog, lured Jennifer into setting him free; and this man had been put to it by those heathen sprites which haunt our wilds and ruins.” At Barker’s shock, he nodded. “Aye, she named none less than Oberon and Titania; and sure it is, chasing him, my men and I were pestered by phantoms. That was after I caught Jennifer trying to slip back into this house… Though I’ve wrenched the story from her, Rupert remains at large. No word of him, either recaptured or rejoining the enemy. But’twould be rash to postulate the crows have picked his bones.”

“What then about him and his midnight legions?” Barker asked. His shivering congealed into resolution.

“Nay; righteousness is fearlessness. More coffee?”

Shelgrave let him pour, while rising to unlock and open a drawer in his desk. “The demons counseled him to seek magical aid in Mediterranean lands or waters,” he continued. “She can’t recall details, being but poorly read. However, I think we’d best suppose he’s off in that direction. The danger of his success is as worth freetting over as a possible outbreak of plague. To guide him, he got a ring, whose stone shines brighter as he comes close to what may help him: bottled hellfire, no doubt. She was given one too, which has the same property.” He made a smile. “Behold how God can work also through the instruments of evil!

This was the clue which led me to her guilt. Here.”

He held it forth.

Baker dropped his cup into his lap. “Eeh!” he wailed. “Cast it away, that fearful thing, away!”

“I took thee for a man of courage, Nobah,” Shelgrave said.

The divine flushed. “Forgive. It was a nasty, swift surprise, like clasping of a well-known hand to find that suddenly the fingers are all snakes.” He stood—the cup smashed—pointed at the ring, and intoned, “Thou forging of Beelzebub, beware! Let heaven’s levin blast thee in its wrath!”

Drip, drip said the coffee from his breeches.

“Prithee, peace.” Shelgrave put the ring aside, gripped his guest’s shoulders, eased him back into a chair, stood above him, and spoke rapidly, reassuringly: “See here. We’re men of practicalities, thou and I, as well as pieties; we know what part of both our work and our reward lies in this world. If God Himself, as I say, did use that unholy object to reveal unto me the extent of sin and guile—as the golden calf showed Moses how our ancestors had fallen—why, is’t not a sign of His? Does He not mean for us to use this maggot out of the Devil’s flesh to gnaw the under-devil Rupert?”

Barker squinted a long while up at him before answering, “Thou hast a plan. I know thee, Malachi.”

“That I do, and thou’rt at the core. Listen. When sad, misguided Jennifer wears the ring,’twill always light and guide her whithersoever best serves the enemy’s fell purpose—or would, were she traveling freely.

I’ve studied magic, as one must study a disease to find the cure. It has a blind, mechanic quality; in itself, it no more distinguishes friend from foe than does a loaded cannon.

“Well, then. Does it not stand to reason, both rings will point at the same goal? Let her follow hers, and Rupert follow his—both ought to show plain signs, after their wearers have reached the Midworld Sea—why, inevitably as moths to a candle flame, those two will be brought to a meeting point. Now if she’s under the guard of trustworthy fighting men—bearing in mind Rupert’s a fugitive, who at most has one or two desperadoes at heel—”

“But Rupert is of royal blood as well,” Barker objected. “He’ll first to Holland, and fetch many friends.”

“I’ve thought on that, and doubt it,” Shelgrave said. “He may indeed go there for some funds, though that’s an impoverished court of exiles which his mother maintains. However, the Dutch are mostly Calvinists, who’d recoil in horror, aye, arrest him, did he reveal what his mission really is. And he’d not spend time trying covertly to gather a troop who would go along. Remember, not only is he himself impetuous, his King Charles cannot hold out for many more weeks unaided. Therefore, he’ll sacrifice recruitment for the sake of haste—and, as I say, come to his destination with no following worthy of mention. Oh, I could be mistaken. Those who go after him should proceed with care. But I feel sure they’ll find that a small, determined band can take him.”

Barker gulped. “I have a feeling thou intendest me to lead this expedition, Malachi.”

“That I do. I’m too well-known, have too many affairs, mine absence would too soon be marked. Moreover, none save I can keep a hatch on the news of Rupert’s escape; I know what persons in this household I can use to frighten silence into the rest; if London sends after him too early, I can write back that he’s ill and must not travel. The word that he’s loose would shake our armies.”

“And do thee little good in Parliament,” said Barker shrewdly.

“Well, I own there are spiteful backbiters who’d dearly love to drag me down. They must not; for most of the work remains undone to which the Lord has appointed me. Besides, Jennifer… herewith I give her a chance to win redemption, whereas if her misdeeds became public knowledge whilst Rupert is free, I fear nothing could save her from being hanged for a witch. And, finally but fondly, Nobah, I think of thee. Thine opportunity.”

Shelgrave intensified his gaze on the seated man and continued with slow-voiced earnestness: “Thou hast a godly soul which hell can’t swerve, and understandest witchcraft’s darkling ways, so’twould be hard to hoodwink thee by spells. Moreover, thou art like a son to me, the son wherewith the Lord has not seen fit that I be blessed; unless, like Abraham—Set that aside. A triumph such as this will open every road to thine advancement. In time, thy preaching could make Europe quake.”

Barker moistened his lips. “But traveling’cross country, just with her,” he husked, “to meet at last… not merely devils… him?”

“Thou wilt have company, his eight stout guards,” Shelgrave promised. “Thou know’st them well for strict and valiant men. There’s Righteous Gerson and his younger brother, Sword-of-the-Lord; Jashubilehem Brown; Goforward Meeker; Increase Waterman; Uriah Prickett; Nehemiah Scudder; Zerubbabel Throckmorton—all good men. They’ll lay Prince Rupert low and bring him home, or else his wicked head for London gate.” His words were kindling the dull eyes below his. He shouted forth: “And Nobah, think what glory will be thine!”