“Peace, Dorinda,” I told her. “You need not fear me. You have not done me such harm that I need pursue you.”
Though I would take care never to have a meal with that regiment, for fear of being poisoned.
She cocked her head & regarded me with her strange eyes. “You seem to have risen in the world,” she said.
“And you have not,” said I. “I would have expected to find you in a palace, surrounded by a circle of half-naked lads singing of your beauty & carrying you golden cups of amber wine.”
She laughed at this. “If I am poor,” said she, “it is entirely as I deserve.”
“Your last employment did not prove as profitable, then, as you hoped?”
She glared. “You didn’t help, you & your thieving.” Then, coming close & lowering her voice: “After the ransoms from Stayne + his friends came, Basil decided to break up the troop. Each was to be paid according to the terms of our agreement, & the money divided before us all. But we were offered a choice—either the silver + a share of the other rings & jewels, or we could take the money as a draft on one of the Pilgrim’s monasteries. This was a safe way to shift money about, & Basil had done such a thing previously when we had moved our camp, & no harm had come to us, & none of the money was lost. So I took the bill, thinking I would recover the money when I got to Selford, but Basil had cheated us, & I found the note was worth nothing. I am a fool, therefore, & deserve my poverty for failing to take the coin when it was right there before me.”
So there we have the origin of Sir Basil’s fourteen thousand royals, much of it money he had cheated out of his own followers. Truly it must be admitted that he was refreshingly free of principle.
“Sir Basil has paid for his crimes,” said I. “He & Hazelton are both dead.”
“Hah!” she said, half in surprise, but on the whole she seemed to regard this news without satisfaction. “How did they die? Some militia raised by Stayne?”
I told her that Basil died on his own dirk & Hazelton was hanged. Lest she have any remaining loyalty or affection for her former captain, I left out my own part in the business.
“So perhaps you are lucky after all,” said I.
She gave me a baleful look, & gestured at the kitchen, the cold drizzling rain, the sad specter of half-rotted turnips & half-spoiled mutton lying on the tables ready for the stew-pot. “Do I look lucky?” she asked.
“Luckier than Sir Basil’s victims,” said I.
“It was that bloodthirsty knife of his,” she said. “It turned his mind.”
So Dorinda thinks it was not the renegado’s quarrels, or his vanity, or his greed, or his vengefulness that turned him outlaw, but the possession of a cursed knife.
I have no prejudice one way or another, but I am glad I never possessed that dirk. It seems to me that I am already pursued by a curse in the form of a nymph, & have no need of another.
I see that this letter has returned to a subject I seem unable to escape, that of the Lady of the Chill Waters. Yet I may at present be immune from her attentions, for she told me on our most recent encounter that her vengeance would not follow me into battle, that there was peril enough in war should I be fool enough to find it. So it seems that as a member of the Utterback Troop I may be safe from her for a while, as well as being surrounded by an armored bodyguard may save me from the vengeance of Stayne. All I have to do is somehow survive whatever battles may lie in the offing.
I find I have related all the news, & I will bring this despatch to an end. Sooner or later we will march to Selford, & from there take ship to Longfirth, & I hope I may find you one place or another, so that we may have a night or two of merry-making before the cannons begin their thunder.
I remain, as ever, your recalcitrant servant.
(From the Ae. recalcitrare. I made it up.)
Q.
* * *
I was not to meet Kevin in Selford, as he had gone to Ethlebight to see to the laying-down of a new pinnace he was building to replace one lost in the attack of the reivers. He now had the money to do it, for the prize court had ruled on the Lady Tern, and the ship and cargo were now ours. The ship had already been leased by the navy, and was now abuzz with dock workers preparing her for the sea. The cargo of spices was sold very quickly, and the Crown was happy with its twenty-percent commission. My share of the money for the most part remained in the banks, though I did purchase some comforts for my journey, and invested again in some of the Crown’s debt, which I purchased at a discount. As the Estates General had met and voted in the new taxes, I calculated that the government would be solvent later in the year.
Royal Stilwell sat off Innismore, swinging at its buoy, still awaiting the judgment of the court. The repair-work on the stern was plain to see, and the royal arms that graced the transom had been presented by Kevin to the Queen as a trophy of war.
The city was abuzz with the news that the young Queen Laurel, believed to be Clayborne’s prisoner, had given birth to a boy, and that the infant had been crowned King Emelin the Sixth by the usurper, who then proclaimed himself Lord Regent. Queen Berlauda’s government, of course, pronounced the whole thing a hoax. I sensed nevertheless that the city profoundly pitied Laurel and the babe, though such sympathy was expressed with discretion, least the speaker end up before the Siege Royal.
Utterback’s Troop was obliged to wait in Selford for ten days before being carried across the sea, and I tried to visit my friends. The Roundsilvers were absent—her grace’s sister was lying-in at the family home near Ruthers Gowt, and they had gone to attend the birth. I passed by Allingham House in hopes that Amalie might remain though her husband was banished, but she and Stayne were gone, and workmen moving in the furniture of the proud new tenants, a self-satisfied burgess and his plump wife. I asked one of the servants if Amalie’s child had come, but he knew nothing.
I took care where I walked, but I had left the city a Butcher’s son and returned a trooper in a buff coat, with a sword at his side and a plume in his hat. A paid assassin or sneaking crack-hemp might well find me too formidable to approach. The city was full of soldiers who would render me aid were I attacked, and I tried to keep soldiers always in sight as I went about the streets.
I stayed at Wenlock House with Lord Utterback, but I saw little of him, as his time was taken up with paying calls on the lords and captains who made up the army’s higher tiers. So, I followed his example, though at a somewhat lower stratum, and made merry with the Cannoneers, the Companie of Butchers, and Blackwell’s troupe of players.
One day we were reviewed by the Queen, and with some of the Trained Bands made a parade on the Fields of Mavortis east of the city. The Queen watched from her carriage, with some of her ladies and the handsome Ambassador of Loretto. The princess Floria shared another carriage with her mother. I doubt that they recognized me as I came trotting past on my noble and vicious charger, Shark, though I gave them a flourish with my sword as I brought it up to salute.