From inside his coat Golias drew his sheath knife. “We’d better blood her to clear her brain,” he suggested.
I had already concluded that he was not being as callous as he had at first seemed. “Modern medicine,” I remarked, “holds that the patient is bled most successfully through the jugular. Tilt her head back, Lucius.”
With a squeal she sat up. “I suppose you think it’s funny to be tied up and thrown out of a coach, and have to lie in a dirty ditch for hours. And with my best dress on.”
“Of course, you’re upset. We didn’t understand,” Golias soothed her. “Let me add that I think it was mighty clever of you to get yourself untied.”
“’Twas, Wasn’t it? And I didn’t call for help neither.” She smiled at him, then gave of her sunshine to the rest of us. All she wanted was to be appreciated, and it had dawned on her that the role of heroine could be just as dramatic as that of a sufferer. “Did I tell you they had a gag on me, too?”
All this talk aside from the purpose was more than Lucius could bear. “You haven’t got a gag on now, Mrs. Jenkins. For God’s sake tell us what happened!”
“You mean after we saw you and your friend this morning?” That was a sneak punch, and it left poor Jones gasping. Having punished him for his impatience, she smiled again and went on. “Well, the stage was early and would have waited for us, but my lady wouldn’t eat breakfast under the same roof where you was, and I can’t say I blame her, though I did blame her, being famished. So we left right away, and there’s nothing worse than joggling a stomach lonesome for victuals in a coach with a bad wheel, I can tell you. It wasn’t until we reached the relay point way this side of Thebes that we ate, and I was most ready to swoon before — ”
Lucius clenched his fists in agony. “Please,” he mumbled.
She rode over that feeble interruption. “Well, I must say it was a good breakfast when we got there, for I can’t remember three nicer mutton chops, and I’d be glad to eat ’em again any time. Thanks be to gracious that it wasn’t on an empty stomach those men stopped the stage, threatening everybody with pistols, and took us out and put us in a coach of their own. I’d’ve swooned for sure.”
Evidently unable to trust his voice, Jones looked at us appealingly. “How far from the relay point?” I asked.
“It must have been about an hour, because those mutton chops was just beginning to ride easy.”
“That would be about the middle of that foggy stretch,” Golias calculated, “where the road bores through the fen near Hereward’s old hangout. How many men were there, Mrs. Jenkins?”
“There was four, and one of them had the strongest arms when they went around a body to pick her up. He tasted sort of good when I bit him, too, but that other one that had holt of me to put the gag on was nasty.”
“Not all men rank with mutton chops as provender,” Golias averred, “and it’s probably just as well. I take it that the other two you mentioned were binding and gagging your mistress.”
“Yes, when they dumped me in the coach my lady was already there, which is to be expected, I suppose. Servants must wait their turn.”
“If they took the trouble to put you in the coach, why didn’t they keep you there?” I wanted to know.
“Instead of my lady? Well, there ain’t any accounting for tastes, and then she didn’t kick one of them on the backside just as he was leaning out the door to talk to the driver. It turned out the door wasn’t fast shut, and — ”
“I thought you said you were all tied up.”
“Well, I was.” She tried to wipe some mud from her cheek and only succeeded in smearing it. “Now when your legs — excuse me, limbs — is hitched together, you can’t boot a man in the bum with only one foot, but there ain’t anything to keep you from doing it with two, if so be you can reach him. He stepped on my toe when he got up to lean out the window, which made me mad; and being rolled over by the back wheel after I kicked him made him mad, so he started hauling me out even before he got his wind back enough to swear with it. Down I go into the ditch and off goes the coach.”
“Did you recognize any of the men?” Golias asked.
She got to her feet, and we rose with her. “I don’t keep that kind of company. Not that I keep any company just now — steady, you know — though I’ve had plenty of offers.”
“But,” Lucius burst out, “didn’t you hear them say anything? Haven’t you any idea who they were or why they perpetrated this outrage?”
“I was waiting to see if any of you was going to ask that.” She beamed with self-satisfaction. “If my Lord Ravan didn’t want to be known as the villain who had his men misuse me and my lady — though her not so much — he shouldn’t have given one of them a letter sealed with his ring, which I’ve seen many a time when he paid me, and always very handsomely, too, I must say, for carrying love notes from him to you-know-who. Anyhow the fellow I kicked must have lost it on the road along with those two teeth, and thinking just of me, you see, he didn’t notice it. Neither did I, until the wind blew it into the ditch with me, and even then I didn’t open it until I got my hands loose.”
15
A Change of Route
THE NOTE which Mrs. Jenkins then produced didn’t say much and nothing explicit. Addressed to Elias Hoseason, it contained only the words: “Keep watching what you were told to watch. I am detained. Bring anything of value to where I would be if I could, and wait there.” There was no signature, but there was a design pressed in wax. Examining it, Jones also identified it as Don Rodrigo’s seal.
Dropping the piece of paper, he grabbed Mrs. Jenkins by the shoulder. “Where was the coach going? Was it to the City, or some estate of his, or where? Speak up, damn it!”
For once too overawed to gab, she began to whimper. “Don’t, Master Lucius! I ain’t the one that done it.”
“Easy, fellow,” I said. “She can’t talk if you scare her to death.”
For the moment he was out of his head. I don’t think he recognized me when he whirled to face me.
“Can’t you see he’s got her — that swine has got her? I have to find them and kill him!”
“They’re not together.” Golias, who had picked up the note, thrust it before Jones’ eyes. “That’s why he had to send this. Now will you be quiet and help us figure things out?”
As he reread the missive, some of the wildness left Lucius’ face. “He does say he’s detained, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” I assured him. “Hang on to that idea while we try to find out something. Did they say anything at all worth repeating, Mrs. Jenkins?”
She had recovered her self-possession. “Well, one of ’em said she’s a beauty, though whether he was talking about me or my lady I don’t know, and it ain’t for me to guess.”
I tried not to look pained. “Did they say anything that gave you an idea where they were going?”
“No.” She looked frustrated at being pinned down to a monosyllable. “That is — no.”
“Your witness,” I said to Golias.
“Let’s go back before the kidnapping,” the latter suggested. “It’s clear from the text of Ravan’s note that he had ordered this Hoseason to watch for a chance to abduct Lady Hermione. Finding that she was traveling Watling Street, he apparently got ahead of her and waited for her where the heavy fen mists made the hold-up relatively simple. But how did she happen to give him such an excellent opportunity? Why did you take to the road in the first place?”
“That’s it!” Lucius came to life. “I meant to ask that myself.”
“Well, you should’ve done it instead of scaring a body out of her wits,” Mrs. Jenkins observed. “Well, I left home because she did, as old Hawthorn couldn’t use a lady’s maid, at least not for honest purposes — and he needn’t think it would’ve done him any good for him to come high stepping and clucking around me, the rascal. As for my lady, she packed up, and without telling old Hawthorn, who won’t like such goings on, especially for the sake of a penniless bast
ard. Anyhow she packed up, because she thought Master Lucius here was going to the City.”
“What!” Jones cried. “Why, when I left home she wouldn’t even speak to me.”
“Well, she said she’d found out that my Lord Ravan had lied to blacken your character, and she was following to tell you she was sorry for believing him.”
“Oh!” The word came out as if it were knocked out of him.
“Well, back there at Upton,” she went on, “my lady found out that my Lord Ravan maybe wasn’t lying; but she didn’t want to go back home until old Hawthorn had cooled off about her running away, so she decided to visit friends in the City, which I was just as glad for, never having been there. Weeping and wailing all the way, she was, and — ”
“That’s enough,” Golias said.
She blinked and looked indignant. “You asked me to tell you.”
“Now I’m asking you to stop,” he pointed out, “and if you don’t, we’ll find that gag and replace it.” He turned to Jones. “Pull yourself together, Lucius. What could be so important that it would keep Don Rodrigo from joining a lady after having taken the trouble to have her abducted?”
Jones made an obvious effort to get his mind moving in spite of the misery which was clogging it. “He would only stay away,” he said, talking to himself but aloud to help himself concentrate, “for the king. Of course!” He didn’t exactly brighten, but keenness replaced his look of hopeless suffering. “He must have had to go to court either because the king wants him for something or to mend his fences and keep his place as the royal favorite.”
“Good,” Golias said. “But that doesn’t tell us where Lady Hermione is.”
“No,” Lucius agreed; but instead of relapsing into despond, he hardened his jaw. “He has a dozen or so castles and manors and might use any of them. The only way to find out her whereabouts is to get him to tell. And I think we can locate him shortly.”
“If he isn’t at court, we should at least be able to get on his trail there,” Golias nodded. “Let’s get started.”
At the next inn, a few miles down the road, we made arrangements for Mrs. Jenkins to take the coach back east. We then pushed on to Carlion, partly to lose her and partly to help pass the time before the west-bound stage — which we had decided to take, the expense notwithstanding — was due.
Carlion was an interesting-looking place, but I didn’t get to see much of it. Soon after we had arrived at the inn from which the stages left, Golias made it a point, as he usually did, to look up the landlord and pump him for information. In a few minutes he came hustling back to our table.
“We’ve got to eat in a hurry,” he told us.
“What’s the rush?” I asked. “Have they changed the schedule?”
“We’re not going to Ilium, or down Watling Street at all,” he said. “The word is that the king isn’t in the City, but is holding court at a summer palace of his, not far from Parouart. That’s north and west along a branch road.”
Fortunately the meal we bolted, abetting our potations and day of exercise, made us sleepy. Anybody who seeks rest in a stage coach needs all the soporifics available. However, I hadn’t yet discovered that when I climbed in, pleased to find but one other passenger.
“See you in the morning,” I said, snuggling into a corner and closing my eyes.
“Right,” Golias yawned. “These crack lines make the miles get out of the way, so we’ll be there by breakfast time.”
It didn’t take a hundred yards to jolt me out of my visions of coziness. In the end I was never so glad to leave a vehicle or less capable of doing so. I felt like a network of charlie horses, as I dismounted and peered through the dirt in my eyes at Parouart.
In a general way the place reminded me of the old part of New Orleans. The buildings had the same secretive air. If anything the streets were narrower, though, and certainly they were busier and noisier. For the time being my sightseeing went no farther. I wanted a wash and food.
“What do you plan to do first?” Golias asked Jones, when breakfast and the ale with which we chased it made us more ready for action.
Lucius lifted his head from his hands. “Find a cutlers where I can have my sword sharpened,” he said. “Then, while they’re working on it, I’ll go to the Hell Fire Club. I’m not a member, but several who are were classmates at the university. Being up to snuff on court doings is an article of faith with them, so they’ll know if Don Rodrigo’s with the king. There may also be some gossip about his recent activities.”
Golias nodded. “We’ll meet you back here at the Fir Cone, then. Shandon and I have to get new outfits, so we can look presentable at Xanadu.”
That was to my liking. The clothes I had got from the outlaws were only three weeks old, but we needed a rest from each other. Although the shirts we ordered were too frilly for my taste, I rather fancied myself in an outfit on the style of that worn by Jones. It was drabber than Golias’ gold jacket with lipstick-red trimmings, but a maroon coat riding over lime-colored pants was still louder than anything I could have worn with comfort in Chicago.
“The only trouble,” Golias remarked after we had been fitted for shoes, “is that they’ll probably want cash — and plenty of it, too, in view of the rush alterations we’re demanding — when they deliver our stuff this afternoon.” He flipped a small coin. “We’ll be lucky to have this left.”
“Gosh, what’ll we do? Do you think you could make some money singing for the arch king, like you did for what’s his name — Hrothgar?”
“Not unless you tied him up first. Jamshyd no longer sees eye to eye with me on entertainment — if anything does still entertain him, that is. We’ll have to try something else.”
“How about hocking Lucius’ ring?”
“No. He values it, and it shouldn’t be necessary.”
Presumably resolved into a ways and means committee, he was silent as we walked back to the inn. Not having any other ideas to contribute, my own attention had the freedom of the city. It was therefore I who saw the young woman seated in an open carriage halted before a store, just ahead of us and across the street. Either the careless breeze or her own careful hand had pushed her skirt up above her knee.
I closed my eyes and looked again to make sure. Golias didn’t appear in the mood to indulge idle curiosity, but I remembered my resolution to enquire about people in the Commonwealth who seemed noteworthy.
“Who’s the babe in the carriage?” I asked. “If that shank she’s exhibiting doesn’t look like gold, I never saw any.”
“What? Oh, that’s the Kilmansegg.” Golias took another step, stopped, then led the way on an altered course. Jaywalking, we passed that glittering leg on a line that would bring us to the opposite sidewalk barely past the team hitched to the carriage.
Gawking at the girl, who seemed to be pleased that the value of her underpinning was recognized, I was startled when the near horse suddenly squealed and bucked. I had just time to see Golias slip his knife into his pocket with one hand, as he leaped to grab the head reins with the other. He had a struggle, for the horse he had stuck wanted to get away from there and communicated its urge to its mate. The girl didn’t help. She screeched at the top of her voice, making the beasts still more panicky.
“Shandon!” Golias yelped. “Come and hold them.”
I thought he needed my help and was dismayed to find myself in complete charge of two horses who were trying their best to stand on their hind legs. “Never mind that girl now,” I shouted, for Golias had darted toward her. “Get that damned driver!”
The racket she was making, which increased instead of diminishing after Golias approached her, had luckily attracted the driver’s attention. Dashing from the store, he jumped to his seat and caught up the reins.
“Let go! Right now!” Golias roared to me.
I didn’t know whether I really should let go until the driver had had time to get the team under control; but in addition to being glad to do so, I figured Golias knew
best. Releasing the reins, I sprang clear, none too swiftly. The horses, finding the lines still slack, lunged forward. It didn’t look like a runaway, but the driver would have his hands full for a block or so. I didn’t blame him for cursing me, though I couldn’t see why the girl, having all she could do to hang on, kept shrieking hysterically back at us.
Unless, of course, she had seen Golias dig that nag. I looked around to swear at him for playing such a fool trick and to tell him we ought to get out of there before the police came around to investigate; but he was way ahead of me. Or rather he had reversed his field, and was about to charge down an alley.
“Shandon, come on!” he barked. When he turned to yell this, I caught a glimpse of something. Then I really gave my best speed to catch up with him. Eventually I did so, even though he did have three legs to my two.
Golias was delighted with himself, but I didn’t like the business. Consideration for the decencies may not always have been my longest suit, but stealing an artificial leg seemed downright mean. I jabbed a thumb at the thing with its dangling fragments of straps, newly severed.
“What in hell did you do that for?”
He chuckled. “Even though it’s hollow — and a good thing, too, or I wouldn’t have been able to snatch it — it can be pawned for a nice sum. This isn’t plate or alloy, my boy; it’s as much the real thing as if Midas had touched it.”
“Who’s Midas? No, never mind that now. I know we need money and all that, but did you have to pick on a cripple?”
He refused to be abashed. “She’ll get another shank — maybe diamond-studded next time — and if she wasn’t one-legged, she’d think of another piece of swank. Quit worrying about her. Besides, rank ostentation is punishable under Delian Law.”
“She was sure putting it on display,” I admitted. I felt better now that I had been told the girl was wealthy enough to buy another gold gam. I grinned a little. “How did you get her peg off so quickly? Didn’t she give you any argument at all?”
“As a matter of fact, no. The horses were bucking, but the carriage was staying so comparatively still that she thought she could afford to swoon when she saw me coming, as she imagined, to the rescue. Come on. Let’s cash in on this at Barabas’ before a member of the watch catches us with it.”