Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2) (25 page)

Bess sat at a small table that was chipped, stained and littered with tobacco, looking around the smoke-filled room at the other patrons of The Leaping Lord. Joseph was still outside seeing to the horses and Dane had gone to find the latrine, and Bess tried her hardest to not look as though she had never been in such a place before. Not that the half-dozen smoke-wreathed old men and the dogs on the rush-strewn floor took any notice of her. Two of the old men were playing dice, three were mumbling over their cups and one was alone and looked to be either dead or fast asleep. As for the dogs, one had come to sniff at her skirts when she first walked in, but had lost interest and wandered off to flop back down with a yawn.

The last time she had seen Tom, when the snow had lain thick on the iron-hard earth and Mun had fetched their brother down from Gerard’s Wood, she had found him much changed. She had heard how he fought at Kineton Fight, how he had been wounded in the battle and mutilated by looters as he lay with the corpses in the aftermath, frozen half to death. He had told her of the kind family who had taken him in and nursed him back to health and how they and other good folk had been ill-used by the King’s men. They had talked by the fire long into the night as Tom’s bones thawed, and he had mentioned The Leaping Lord, had to Bess’s astonishment told them that he had worked there for room and board, hefting barrels and cleaning tables.

Come the morning Tom had gone, been driven off bloody and beaten by the men of the Shear House garrison. Now Bess touched the grubby table before her, as though tracing upon it the ghost of her brother’s hand, as though she could connect with him through it.

The smell of tobacco and wood smoke was undercut now by the sweet aroma of food, a pie perhaps, wafting from the kitchen, and Bess realized she was hungry.

‘What will it be?’ a young woman asked, jolting Bess from her thoughts. She looked up to see a face that she knew would
draw men’s eyes for all that she doubted women would call it pretty.

‘Wine. Whatever is good,’ Dane answered before she could, appearing behind the serving girl and still lacing his breeches to his doublet. ‘Three cups. Our friend will be along soon.’ The young woman nodded and walked off, parting a haze of pipe smoke that was lit by a shaft of dusk light coming through a window.

‘At least the lad can manage looking after the horses,’ Dane said, sweeping his misshapen broad-hat from his head and pulling up a stool to sit opposite Bess, ‘so he’s not entirely without use.’

‘Don’t be cruel,’ Bess said. ‘He may not be a killer but that is a virtue not a fault.’ She leant in so that she would not be overheard. ‘Joseph volunteered to escort me even though the major of the house will punish him when we return. He risked his own position for me—’

‘Because he is in love with you,’ Dane interrupted, and Bess felt a wave of guilt wash over her. ‘But of course you know that,’ he added, one dark eyebrow arching. ‘Why else would you have a wet-behind-the-ears boy along for the ride if not for the fact that he was the only one foolish enough to volunteer? Because he worships you and will prove it by getting himself killed for you if the occasion presents itself.’

Bess was appalled by this but Joseph was coming and so she shushed Dane with a glare.

He paid no notice. ‘Does he even know how to fire that blunderbuss?’ he asked.

‘Would you have me show you, Dane?’ Joseph asked, standing tall behind him, his own eyes hardening.

Dane waved a hand but did not turn round. ‘Sit down, lad. We’ve wine coming. I dare say it won’t be up to much but it’ll be better than nothing.’ But Joseph did not move and so Dane twisted round on his stool and sighed wearily. ‘Sit down, will you? You’re drawing attention to yourself.’ In truth no one had
so much as looked their way, but Joseph glanced at Bess, who gave the slightest nod of her head, and sat down between them, scowling.

I am in the company of children
, Bess thought, as the serving girl came back to their table with three cups and a tall jug of wine. She placed all on the table and turned away, but Bess, thinking there was no reason to delay – particularly given her tiresome company – seized the moment and called her back.

‘You want some food?’ the young woman asked, gesturing at a young boy to come forward with a pitcher and basin for them to wash their hands. ‘We don’t have much in but I can do you a dish of quails and sparrows and we have a handsome rhubarb pie.’

‘Maybe a little later, thank you,’ Bess said, nerves like moths fluttering in her stomach. ‘I am looking for someone and hope you might be able to help. A young man who has lodged here,’ she said, not mentioning that Tom had worked there cleaning tables, because the notion was still almost incomprehensible to her. ‘His name is Thomas. Tom to his friends.’

The woman started, the indifference on her face replaced by concern. Bess saw something else in those worldly blue eyes too. ‘And who are you?’ she asked, glancing at Dane and Joseph, taking them in properly for the first time. ‘I’ve not seen you in here before.’ She folded her arms across her large bosom in a pose that embodied London itself, cautious and defensive.

‘I am Thomas’s sister Elizabeth,’ Bess said with a smile that felt awkward on her face, ‘and these are my travelling companions, Mr Dane and Mr Lea.’ Even if this woman knew Tom, and it was clear that she did, Tom might have said anything about his family, might have said he despised them. ‘We have ridden over two hundred miles to find Tom. The last time I saw him he told me he had stayed here on occasion.’

‘That is true,’ the young woman said. Dane had washed and
dried his hands and now Joseph was washing his as the young boy held the heavy basin. ‘But he’s not here now.’

Though she had not dared hope Tom would be lodging at The Leaping Lord still, Bess’s heart sank at the confirmation.

‘He was here some weeks ago. Haven’t seen him since and don’t expect to neither.’ In Bess’s peripheral vision she saw the surprise on Dane’s face, as though the man was amazed they had come even this close to finding Tom.

‘How is … was he?’ Bess asked. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘forgive me. What is your name?’

‘I’m Ruth,’ the young woman said. ‘I run the Lord since the landlord passed recently. Just after your Thomas left, as it happens.’ She ran a hand through greasy blonde hair. ‘At least, I’m running the place until the real landlord Mr Sayer comes for his rent.’ She picked up the coins which Dane had spread on the table, putting them in a purse at her waist. ‘He was much changed, your Thomas,’ she said.

Your Thomas too, Bess thought but did not say.

‘This damned war changes them all,’ Ruth said. Her skirts were too big for her and there were dark pools beneath her eyes, so that Bess suspected she was either ill or exhausted from taking over the running of the inn after the landlord’s death.

‘Mistress, ’scuse, mistress!’ Another grimy-faced lad had appeared and was half looking back towards the kitchen. ‘Cook needs to see you,’ he said, knuckling his snub nose. ‘Think he’s burnt the pie again.’

Ruth swore, shaking her head, and Bess put a hand on her arm before she could walk off. ‘Can we speak later?’ she asked. ‘About Tom.’ Ruth’s last words had been like a nail in Bess’s heart and yet she needed to hear more, though not in front of Dane and Joseph. ‘We shall be lodging here tonight if you have rooms.’

Ruth seemed to consider this, locking eyes with Bess as though she were looking for Tom in her.

‘We have rooms,’ she said. ‘Snout will show you to them. I’ll be up when the last one has buggered off,’ she added, thumbing back towards the table with the two men playing dice. ‘But don’t hold your breath. I’ve much to do.’

‘We’re going to need more wine,’ Dane said, handing her the jug, which surprised Bess because she had not yet touched a drop. Ruth did not look surprised though. She nodded, took the jug and headed off to the kitchen.

It was late when Ruth knocked on Bess’s door. Now the two of them sat in the gloom, Bess on the end of her bed and Ruth on a small creaky stool, the darkness shifting with every draught that rippled two sooty candle flames. Bess was suddenly aware that her hands were twisting together as though she were washing or warming them, and her teeth were digging into her bottom lip. She was thirsty too, even though she had recently finished a cup of small beer.

‘He had been wounded at Kineton Fight,’ Ruth said, ‘like so many of them.’ She held a clay pipe between finger and thumb, a tendril of smoke rising lazily from its bowl.

‘Yes, I saw him after.’ Bess recalled Tom’s pitiful state when Mun had brought him shivering into the house: his hollow cheeks and the ridge of his collarbone against his shirt. The stub that was all that remained of his ring finger since the looters had cut it off. ‘He came home,’ she said. ‘Briefly.’

‘This was his room sometimes.’ Ruth looked around as though seeing the room for the first time. Then her eyes came back to Bess and suddenly Bess knew what she had seen in the woman’s face earlier.

‘We were lovers,’ Ruth said, and though Bess had known it the revelation shocked her to her core. She had thought Tom still grieving for Martha Green, but the notion of her brother being with this tavern wench, not just for a quick fumble as was men’s wont, but that there might have been more between them …

‘Does the thought so horrify you?’ Ruth asked.

Bess knew she had stiffened, felt that her muscles were rigid. ‘It’s just that my family … our family is—’

‘Rich,’ Ruth finished for her. ‘And I am a lowborn shoemaker’s daughter. And yet Thomas chose me, chose this flea-ridden inn over his family and your grand house.’

‘He was grief-stricken. Angry,’ Bess said, knowing her own anger showed in her hot cheeks now. ‘You know nothing of us. Of our family.’

‘I know about Martha,’ Ruth said softly. ‘I know that Tom loved her. More than he could ever love me. I know how she died.’

Bess felt her stomach sink. It seemed wrong that this stranger should be familiar with her family’s tragedies. It was strange hearing her talk of Martha.

‘You needn’t fret, for he doesn’t love me,’ Ruth said, her gaze slipping from Bess for a moment. Then she lifted her head and the challenge was back in her eyes. ‘So your family can have no worries of another unlucky match.’

‘But you love him?’ Bess said.

Ruth hitched her bodice higher over the white flesh of her bosom and smiled. But there was only sadness in it. ‘What does it matter what I feel?’

Bess’s mind fumbled for words. ‘These are hard days,’ she said. ‘My family has suffered much. As for myself—’ but she stopped then and shook her head lightly, unable to bring herself to talk of her father and Emmanuel. This tavern girl already knew too much of their business. ‘My only desire is to find Thomas and bring him back to his family,’ she said.

‘Thomas serves a noble cause. He is needed,’ Ruth said. She drew on the pipe and parted her full lips, allowing the smoke to coalesce in front of her face.

‘His only cause is vengeance,’ Bess said. ‘He seeks only blood and will get himself killed if I cannot persuade him to come home.’

‘You would have him fight for the King like his brother,’ Ruth accused.

‘I would have him not fight at all,’ Bess replied honestly. ‘He has fought enough. They both have.’ Ruth gave an almost imperceptible nod at that, as though she too was weary of this war that should have been over one way or the other. ‘I left my boy. He is just a babe and every day apart is a knife in my chest. I must find Tom and return to my son.’ And with those words, and because she had been in the company of men but was now with a woman, Bess felt tears flood her eyes. They spilled down her cheeks and Ruth, who Bess supposed must have thought her a privileged, weak-hearted fool, stood up and came to sit beside her on the bed.

Ruth raised a hand and swept Bess’s hair back from her face, tucking it behind her right ear. ‘You must miss your little one terribly,’ she said.

Bess did not answer. She was trying to gather herself. She felt ashamed to be laying her heart bare before this stranger. And yet, Ruth was not a stranger. Could not be if Tom had shared so much with her.

‘He left to rejoin his regiment,’ Ruth said, pulling her hand away, watching a tendril of pipe smoke curl up into the darkness as Bess dabbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘I told him to stay here. He could have joined the Trained Bands, served with the city garrison. I would have taken care of him.’ She shrugged, then offered the pipe to Bess who shook her head. ‘The army is camped at Richmond. At least that’s where our boys were the last I heard. Lord Essex will move against Reading next.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘You ought to be careful around here. Your friends could find themselves recruited, or worse, if anyone finds out who you are. You are a long way from home, Miss Rivers.’

‘I am not afraid,’ Bess said.

‘That’s as may be,’ Ruth said, her eyes sharpening, ‘but I don’t want you staying here again.’

Bess nodded. ‘We’ll leave at first light.’ Their eyes remained locked for a long moment before Ruth stood and went to the door. There she stopped and turned back and Bess would have sworn there were tears in her eyes now.

‘I hope you find him,’ Ruth said. Bess nodded and tried to smile as Ruth closed the door behind her, causing the candles to gutter. Then Bess was left alone and she sat for a long time simply looking around the small, grimy room, wondering how her brother had felt in that same place, having turned his back on them all. She let her eyes roam across the ceiling cracks and the stain in the plaster on the wall opposite. She examined the dark knots in the creaky floorboards and the tiny holes in the woodworm-riddled bed head, her eyes drinking in every detail because in doing so she felt a little closer to Tom.

In the morning they left The Leaping Lord, bound for Richmond, and when they found Sir William Balfour’s regiment they spent five shillings and sixpence on bribes, two shillings on one corporal alone, for the privilege of traipsing through the camp unchallenged seeking any information they could get.

But no one knew anything about Thomas Rivers.

The pistol’s muzzle dug sharply into his back between the shoulder blades, forcing him forward, and then again so that he turned glaring, his fists balled at his sides.