Cauldron of Fear (34 page)

'Well, I
suppose we could have,' he replied, 'if we'd had maybe a dozen more
men and weren't too worried about losing maybe half of them as
well. Like I told the officer gentleman earlier, those woods are
their ground and they probably know every inch of it.

'On top of
that, me darlin', we had no way of tellin' just how many of the
beggars we were up against.'

'I thought I
counted about six shots when they all fired,' Toby said.

Riley nodded,
knowingly. 'Me too, lad,' he agreed, 'but I'll bet you couldn't
tell me if they was the same six muskets each time, eh?' Toby
considered this and then shook his head. 'Well, there you have it,'
Riley continued. 'There could have been as many as a dozen of them
in there.'

'But you and
the other trooper got two of them,' Toby pointed out.

'And they may
well have got us before we got any more of them,' Riley retorted.
'If you ask me,' he added, dropping his voice to a whisper, 'this
whole bloody thing was asking for trouble. The young captain had
that half right, if nothing else. You go blundering into someone's
back yard uninvited you shouldn't expect them to make you feel a
whole lot welcome!'

'Then what
happens next?' Toby asked. 'Miss Harriet is still in there,
somewhere.'

Riley wrinkled
his forehead and pulled a wry face. 'Not my decision, sunshine,' he
said. 'That's for the officers to sort out. We're just other ranks,
you and me. Keep our powder dry and our cocks washed and leave the
thinking to those as are paid for it.' He winked and grinned. 'Oh,
and by the way,' he added, 'I saw what you did back there. Very
brave, son. Ever thought of joining the army?'

'Well... yes,'
Toby replied, trying to hide the blush of pleasure he could feel
welling up.

Riley let out
a snorting laugh. 'Well, don't,' he said. 'You seem like you've got
too much sense for all this rubbish, so think again, unless the
idea of letting some fancy pants get you killed appeals to you more
than it should.'

The sight of
Ellen Grayling, sitting astride her stallion, smirking with her
usual superior air, came as no surprise to Harriet when Artie
dumped her unceremoniously on the grass before the two horses, but
when she sat up again and looked at the young woman on the horse
beside Ellen, she felt a strange chill crawl up her spine.

Even with the
girl's elaborately made-up face, the family resemblance was
unmistakable and Harriet new instantly that this was the cousin she
had never met, but there was something more, something about the
curiously vacant expression on Sarah's face and the way she sat her
horse as if she were not really there, but somewhere deep inside
another world, far away and totally cut off from what was
happening.

'So, it
is
you
behind all this,
Lady
Ellen!
' Harriet said, trying in vain to get
to her feet. 'Well, you won't get away with this, I can tell you
that. We already suspected you were involved and Master Handiwell
and the soldiers will soon be here.'

Ellen Grayling
leaned over in her saddle and regarded Harriet with a look of
malicious amusement. 'Is that so?' she said languidly. 'Well, my
dear Mistress Merridew, for your information we have more than two
dozen men employed on this estate, all of whom are well trained in
the use of arms. No doubt you heard the sounds of musket fire a
little while back, yes? Well, I'm reliably informed that Master
Handiwell and his sorry little band have now retreated, minus at
least one of their original number. I don't think they'll be
bothering us any more.'

'They'll be
back,' Harriet snapped. 'Master Handiwell has sufficient evidence
to lay charges against you and all your friends.'

'Even his own daughter?' Ellen retorted scathingly. 'Or
haven't you told him of your suspicions in that direction? Ah, I
see you're surprised I know about that. Well, you shouldn't be, my
dear. The walls of the
Black Drum
have very keen ears at times.'

'That little
vixen, Beth, I suppose?' Harriet said. She tried to think back,
wondering if she and Ann Billings had mentioned Jane's name
anywhere where her maid might have overheard them, but her memory
refused to focus.

'Among others,
maybe,' Ellen replied easily. 'Not that it matters who now, anyway.
No, the main thing is that you are here. Say hello to your dear
cousin, why don't you? I'm sure she can hear you, though I'm afraid
she seems a little distant at the moment.'

'What have you
done to her?' Harriet demanded, turning her attention back to
Sarah.

Ellen sniggered. 'Nothing she hasn't enjoyed, though I'll
admit I didn't give her a great deal of choice in the matter.
Arthur, untie
Mistress
Merridew's ankles if you please, and help her to her feet.
She'll have to walk back with us, after all. If only I'd thought, I
could have furnished her with a mount to match her sweet
cousin's.'

As soon as her
legs were free Harriet scrambled upright, thrusting away Artie's
efforts to assist her. Still enmeshed in the net and with her arms
pinioned and all but useless, she stumbled across to Sarah and
peered up into her vacuous face.

'Sarah?' she
cried. 'Sarah Merridew! Look, it is I, your cousin Harriet. Are you
all right?' Sarah blinked slowly and looked down, but her eyes were
still glazed, her pupils dilated.

'Harriet?' she
said eventually, her voice wavering. 'Ah yes, my dear cousin. Are
you well?' Her face at last began to show some signs of animation,
a series of peculiar twitches that started in her cheeks, spread to
her painted lips and finally reached her eyelids, which began to
flutter.

Harriet
rounded on Ellen. 'She looks drugged!' she exclaimed accusingly.
'What have you given her?'

Ellen smirked.
'No drug I think you have ever tasted, Mistress Merridew,' she
reposted, 'but a powerful one, nonetheless. Here, let me show you.'
She wheeled her horse about, almost knocking Harriet sideways as
she did so and reached out with her riding crop, using it to lift
part of Sarah's long riding skirt up and away. For a second or two
Harriet did not understand, but then, as her brain understood what
her eyes were showing her, she recoiled in horror.

'Monstrous!'
she shrieked, backing away. 'Utterly monstrous! You will surely
hang for this infamy, Ellen Grayling. You and your friends!'

'I think not,
my dear sweet thing,' Ellen replied, allowing the black fabric to
fall back and cover the evidence of Sarah's enforced debauchery.
'Your friend Handiwell will no doubt try to come to your aid, but
he won't get farther than the house itself, which will surely be
his next approach. My dear brother will undoubtedly send him
packing with a flea in his ear and, if he fails to understand the
legalities of his position, then he will surely realise that his
pitiful little force is sorely outnumbered. By the time he can
persuade the authorities to send reinforcements - if indeed he can
at all - it will be far too late.

'Besides, even
with a hundred troopers he will still need a warrant to search this
estate, and our family has more influence than you might imagine
and people in high places who rather approve of what we do here. As
a matter of fact, your dear cousin met one of those very people
only last night, and he was greatly appreciative of the
entertainment she helped provide for him.'

'Your terms,'
Harriet said, trying desperately to change tack now, if only to buy
a little more time, 'stated that you would release Sarah in return
for a certain sum in gold. I have that sum with me now, or am I to
assume that you have no intention of honouring your word?'

'You're a fast
learner,' Ellen sneered. 'Of course you have the money, otherwise
why would you have come, mm? But the money is secondary and, if it
will make you feel any better, I shall see to it that it's returned
to Master Handiwell in good time.

'No, the idea
all along was to get you here, and your cousin's arrival was simply
a means to effect that. Had she not turned up we should have had to
find some other way before too long, and I must say I thought all
this was just a mite over gilding the lily, but no matter, you're
here now.

'And the
timing is quite opportune in another way, too. You, my dear
Mistress Merridew, are going to help us deal with another small
problem. A certain party has been growing just a little too
suspicious for comfort of late, and discrediting him would put an
end to his busy bodying interference. Of course, you know our dear
Reverend Wickstanner, don't you? A particularly unpleasant little
oik, to say the least. Quite useless as a man, of course, but he
has an unpleasant talent for snooping around and prying into things
that don't concern him and, unfortunately for him, he overheard a
conversation between two of our grooms a few weeks ago. Nothing
very incriminating, but just enough to whet his appetite, and it's
come to our notice that he's been asking around - discreetly, he
thinks - trying to find out more. So far, fortunately, he's not
gotten very far, but his type are persistent in the extreme and
tend not to let go of something once they've got their teeth into
it. No doubt you've heard or seen what's been happening to the
Pennywise girl? That's Wickstanner's doing, though he's had to call
in that so-called witchfinder to do his dirty work for him, the
spineless little worm.'

'I don't see
what Master Wickstanner has to do with all this,' Harriet declared
uncertainly. 'I like him little more than you apparently do, but I
have no dealings with the fellow. I have enough on my plate without
becoming involved with his business.'

'And not even
enough time to attend Sunday services, I hear,' Ellen chuckled.
'Which fact, among a few others he's concocted, would be enough to
give him grounds to turn his attentions to you, once he's finished
with Matilda Pennywise.'

'He wouldn't
dare!' Harriet exclaimed, horrified at the suggestion. 'In fact, he
has overstepped the mark already with what he has done to
Matilda.'

'Undoubtedly,'
Ellen agreed, 'but who is there to tell him so? Maybe Master
Handiwell, but he's been preoccupied with trying to save your dear
cousin here and now; with you disappearing as well, I doubt he'll
give the wretched girl another thought, not until it's far too
late.'

'Word is,'
Harriet said defiantly, 'that the man Crawley intends to hang her
tomorrow morning and Master Handiwell and Captain Hart are well
aware of that. Whether I am still missing or not, they will take
time to put a stop to that, I am sure.'

'I'm sure
that's their intention, yes,' Ellen rejoined, 'but intention and
execution are two differing beasts at times and, in this case, I
think the execution will be of a different kind to the one Master
Handiwell envisages.

'But enough
talking; there is work to do and we are two miles from where we
need to be to do it properly. Arthur, remove that net, manacle our
guest's hands securely and make sure you remove that pistol I
believe I can see hiding under her shirt. We wouldn't want any
nasty accidents on the way back, would we now?'

'Even the
Grayling family are not above the law of the land!' Thomas
Handiwell stormed. 'You've had a man shot and killed, Captain Hart,
and but for good fortune more of us could have died in that
cowardly ambush.'

'Agreed,
Master Handiwell,' Hart replied hesitantly, 'but I know what they
will say if we do go to the hall and confront them. We have no
proof it was Grayling's men who fired upon us, and from the map you
showed me earlier, their estate is so vast that these robbers could
easily have been there without Grayling's knowledge.'

'I think not,
though,' Thomas growled. 'And we cannot just skulk around here and
do nothing. It was bad enough before, but now Harriet is almost
certainly in their clutches. We have to go and challenge them,
perhaps unsettle them enough that they'll release the two
womenfolk.'

'If the
Graylings indeed do have the two young ladies,' Hart said, 'then I
should think the last thing they are likely to do would be to
release them so that they are then free to testify against
them.'

'Then what would
you
advise, captain?'

Hart chewed
nervously on his lip and paced slowly up and down on the gravelled
courtyard. He and Thomas were alone by the inn stables, the
soldiers all having taken the horses in to rub them down and feed
them. Some distance away, Toby Blaine sat perched upon the corner
of one of the troughs, a mug of ale clutched in his two hands.

'The only
course I can think of, Master Handiwell,' Hart said at last, 'is
for one of us to ride back to Portsmouth and lay the facts before a
magistrate, first thing in the morning. Perhaps if we went together
and, while you arrange for a warrant, I'll talk to Colonel
Brotherwood and ask him to let me have perhaps a half company
detachment of men.

'Warrant or
not, if we march up to Grayling Hall with our present strength they
may decide it's simpler to shoot us all down. They certainly seem
to have the firepower for it.'

'And
meantime,' Thomas retorted, 'they spirit away the Merridew girls
and there's no evidence for us to find tomorrow.'

'Certainly,
it's possible they might try something like that,' Hart agreed,
'but I could send Sergeant Riley and one man to keep watch on the
place. Riley is a seasoned veteran and a former poacher, I
understand. There are few men I'd sooner trust for such a
mission.'

'He seems very
reliable,' Thomas conceded, remembering how the Irish sergeant had
reacted so coolly during the ambush. 'But it could be dangerous,
sending just two men in there.'