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 girclass="underline" “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.”