towards the clearing's edge. He stopped.
"We are not here to hurt you," he said. "We thought you might need help."
"Are you a surgeon?"
The maid's voice was odd, or struck him so. He hardly understood what she had said. There was a note like scorn.
"You're from the north," said Samuel Holt. "Who needs a surgeon?"
"He's had her teeth," the girl said. She glanced at her companion, and both men moved forward, gently. William, with a jolt, saw blood underneath the hands, blood moving on the chin, on to the neck and breast. "She's been bleeding hours."
"Her teeth?" said William.
"There's a village," Holt said. "I'll help her up on to my horse. Mr. Bentley will take you."
The girl turned her head to William, and the cloak hood fell aside. Another jolt struck him as he looked close into her eyes. She was young, and lustrous, and distracted. But her eyes, though troubled, locked on his, and held them. They were brown, and deep, and speaking, beneath thick eyebrows in an oval face, and he felt somehow robbed of sense, as if a charge of heat had gone between them.
"He has gone there," was what the maiden said. "To the village, there's an alehouse, he'll get men. We ran away. They'll kill us."
Then the other maid collapsed. As she fell into a heap in the mud her hands dropped and her face was uncovered. It was white and bloodless, with violent bruises and torn, broken lips, barely parted. But as she lay her mouth fell open wider, and it was filled with blood, that dribbled down her cheek. Her gums were empty, blood rising in the ragged sockets where her teeth had been. Just three left at the back on one side, on the other four.
"I know a place," said Samuel, quietly..
Three
In Hampshire, now, Charles Warren and Charles Yorke were near the end. Of their road and suffering, Yorke hoped, but . he feared another end might be in store. They had come miles, and every yard a torture and a beating. His face was whipped to pieces, one eye blind, his cheekbone numb the last hour or more. He had been in and out of consciousness himself, but his older friend behind had borne the brunt of blows and taunts and whipping, and of startings with the points of many swords. At one stage Warren had slipped sideways with a sudden, weighty rush that Yorke had been incapable of preventing, and it had caused great whoops and yells of jubilation.
The horse, bone-weary after many miles across soft muddy fields and dense leafy pathways leading to the west, had mercifully stopped. Yorke had twisted round as best he could, to see Charles Warren's legs arched round the belly, his feet above the back, lashed with thin, biting line. Underneath, he could make out the trunk and head of Warren, with his lashed wrists dangling down towards his chin. Had he been in his senses he must have screamed, the pain would have been unbearable. But he made no sound.
The men did, the smugglers, free traders, savages. They yelled and yipped, kicking their horses round about the tired one, lashing and poking at the body hung below. Almost absently, one or another of them would take a slash at Yorke's own face, but he felt little pain except for his companion, which was a different thing. As the horse was lashed into a stumbling forward pace, the back hooves struck poor Warren's head, first one and then the other, rocking it back and forward, side to side, at every kick. Until he, Yorke, began to roar and shout and rock so hard the horse put down its head in fear and refused to go another step. Much as the drunkards raged and beat him, Charles Yorke would not desist, until at last some of them dismounted, and pushed Warren back upright on the horse's back and held him there until he showed some life. The rain had stopped, but they dashed water in his face from a puddle in the grass and smacked and fanned him with their hands. Like Yorke, Warren was bareheaded, neither wig nor hat remaining. They caught each other's eyes, but did not speak.
How long did it go on? Neither of them knew. Yorke judged it must be nearly midnight when they stopped, but that was a notion, only. They were on a wide heath, still windless, with a waning moon above them as the grey bulked cloud dwindled. The horsemen, less noisy, not so boisterous, moved off some distance, which gave them hope, but neither of them spoke, still. Both had fought before, with desperate and determined men, but nothing they had ever known had been like this mad vindictiveness.
What now? Bottles were passed they heard the clinkings but the scene had lost the aspect of a gin-house or a sailors' drinking den. Was this the place they were to meet the men behind the rumpus, the secret powers that they'd hoped to gull? Both men knew beyond a doubt that they had lost that gambit, whatever lay behind the failure. Betrayal was the likeliest, betrayal or some first-class spying work. From loss of blood, ill-usage, hunger, Charles Yorke felt coldness creeping into his bones. Behind him his companion, rock-hardness melting into mere humanity, began to shiver violently.
Still no sign of movement from the huddled wild men Still no sign or sound of anyone's approach. Yorke mused on his good uncle, up in Surrey, and wondered if he would ever see him or his home again. And he brooded on betrayal.
"I have heard of it, admitted," said Sir Arthur Fisher, moving forward from the blazing logs. "Heard of it, but never thought it might be true. Truly, my friends, we live in foul times."
Samuel Holt and William, still damp although their outer layers of protection had gone to be force-dried, nodded as if sagely, clutching mulled pots of metheglin. Men had brought the maids down from the horses, women had carried them inside for care. Sir Arthur, Sir A, as he insisted had called for more fire, dry blankets, drinks and food. There had been wood smouldering already in the hearth, but it was soon blazed up, while servants bustled round with great solicitude.
William, after introductions, had been treated with most easy courtesy, while Holt explained the situation to the baronet briefly, dwelling rather on the problem of the mountebank than the injured girl. William, who on the journey from the copse had elicited almost nothing save the maidens' names and their deep fear of being sought out and attacked anew, questioned if there might be some way indeed their place of refuge could be fathomed by the man. Sir A deemed it most unlikely, as they had not been followed, but called in his steward Tony, a quiet, watchful, stiff-built sort, and told him to maintain a guard and have the gatehouse discreetly manned. The maidens' names were Deb and Cecily.
It struck Bentley, watching Sir A and Samuel talk together, that there was a strangeness between them that was on Samuel's side more prominent. Their host was a tall man of considerable age, quite elegant, but remarkably warm and intimate. He had greeted Samuel as a confidant, but Samuel had stayed stiff, with circumspection even in his smiles. But then, thought William, Sam Holt's an odd fish; I've already come to that conclusion, haven't I?
The housekeeper, a fat and homely creature he'd looked upon indulgently when she'd come in all a-bustle and officious, soon proved herself formidable indeed. She had not only cleaned Cecily and eased her pain, dosing her with tinctures and the normal remedies, but she had spoken long and hard with Deborah, extracting information. She gave an account of all of it without a trace of censure or surprise, even on the most appalling details of the operation, and spoke most vehemently of Deb's fears for the near future: in short, her strong conviction that the mountebank would hunt them down.
"Oh nonsense, Mrs. Houghton," cried Sir A. "How could he find them? Far more likely that he will take his chance to flee. These young gentlemen confronted him, did they not? He's unlikely to imagine they will abandon the poor creatures to their fate."