Barbara DENVIL - Blessop's Wife

Tyballis was at her shoulder. ‘I can see another. Down there, look, close to the house. I think it’s Hetchcomb.’ Andrew came across to her, keeping his back to the shutters. She whispered to him, ‘That vile man thinks he’ll take us over like he did last time. But this time you’re here. He’s going to get a shock.’

‘Perhaps,’ Andrew said softly, ‘but remember, my love, this is not our last chance. If this fails, we can still wait out the night. But if we try this plan at all, it must be soon, before the light fails.’

‘Not long to twilight,’ Ralph nodded.

Felicia had put Gyles to bed in her own chamber. She crept back quietly and went to stoke up the fire. Jon sat by the hearth, his chin in his hands. Luke was sitting on the bed. He stared at the cauldron, muttering, ‘Boiling and hissing. The devil’s wicked work.’

‘This water’s near hot already,’ Casper squinted one-eyed into the steam.

‘As soon as it boils, bring it here to the window,’ Andrew ordered.

Ellen was piling her stones while Harry explored, collecting anything heavy enough to serve as a missile. ‘That’s my chamber pot,’ said Ralph. ‘Put it back.’

‘We survive this, you can crap outside under a bush like every other bastard in London,’ objected Casper, still gripping his axe.

Andrew and Ralph held their swords unsheathed, the others wielded knives. Luke was using his to clean his fingernails. Felicia stared at her blade with dislike. ‘You’ve carved meat with it before now,’ Tyballis told her.

Felicia frowned. ‘Not off a man.’

‘Hush,’ Andrew put a finger to his lips. ‘They are moving.’

Down amongst the garden’s shadowy greens, four men had gathered. Three carried bows. All seemed furtive, glancing to the house and then to the long path leading back towards the main road. Their captain quickly joined their muster, his hands to their shoulders. He kept his voice low. From above it was impossible to hear what he said, but each of his men nodded in response.

‘It is Hetchcomb,’ whispered Tyballis.

‘Mister Cobham, they’re planning something,’ Ralph whispered. ‘If they dare come closer up to the house, well, now we’re ready for them.’

They came. Creeping under cover of bush and tree, they followed Hetchcomb. Abruptly he pointed towards the double doors and at once two of his men swerved, heading for the hall’s main entrance. Hetchcomb and the other two, keeping tightly together, approached the central window. One of the archers raised his bow and slotted an arrow to the nock.

Andrew’s voice was little more than a breath. ‘The cauldron now – boiling or not – bring it. We ignore those at the doorway. Concentrate on these three below us. Just one step nearer.’

He signalled immediately. The shutters suddenly came crashing down and the window was thrown open as Casper and Andrew tipped the great cauldron of water directly down. The screams were instantaneous. Hetchcomb and one of his archers were drenched in scalding liquid, leaping and howling as they rushed back. The third man swore and darted out of range.

Casper laughed. Ralph, peering over his head, said, ‘First shot to us.’

‘Two of them are running,’ Tyballis called from her place on the other side of the window, her face, damp and pink, emerging from the steam. ‘But one is still there – look – staring up at us. His face is horribly scorched.’

‘Hetchcomb,’ Ralph said, peering down. ‘He starved us when he was here before. Let the worm burn.’

The captain stood as though pinned to the ground, a blasted tree struck and broken by lightning. His upturned face, shining in the sinking sunlight, was a glistening slither of ruined flesh. His eyes were bloody and his lips fell away as though melting from his mouth. The other man howled and screamed as he ran. But Hetchcomb remained silent. Felicia came and stood beside Tyballis, looking over her shoulder. ‘The pain has sent him mad,’ she whispered. ‘But that hideous villain nearly killed my poor babies. Let him suffer.’

The solitary standing figure wavered at the knees and slowly sank, drowning in the waves of foliage around him until he lay curled amongst the bushes, his knees drawn up to the ruin of his chin. His bleeding eyes were open but he did not move.

‘I believe he is dead,’ Andrew said softly. ‘His heart, perhaps – or enough water down his gullet to boil him from within.’ He turned, looking suddenly around the room. Then he frowned, pausing a moment as though looking for something he did not see. Everyone except Luke was now clustered together, peering through the window, pushing for the chance to see a little more. Luke continued to sit alone on the bed. He was crying.

‘And the others down there,’ Elizabeth said, ‘what of them buggers as pushed indoors?’

‘I intend finding out.’ Andrew crossed quickly to the open door, speaking over his shoulder. ‘Casper, come with me. The rest of you stay here. Felicia, will you see to Luke? Tyballis and Ralph, keep watch by the window. Elizabeth, you’re a good-enough shot. One stone, and aim for Hetchcomb. I want to know if he’s dead before I get down there. If he moves, call me.’ There was no longer need for silence. This time Andrew’s running footsteps resounded down the stairs.

The two who had breached the doors, now stood inside, uncertain in the hall’s shadows. One held his bow high, the arrow to the nock and aimed at Andrew’s chest. ‘Stop there, you shit,’ the man growled. ‘You’ve gutted my mates, but you’ll not get me so easy. Say your prayers, for they’re the last ones you make.’ The archer drew back his bowstring.

Andrew had stopped three steps up. He said, ‘Casper, get the other one,’ and at the same moment his sword point entered the bowman’s eye. The blade arched smooth and slid directly through the eyeball with a black squelch. The arrow clattered to his feet as the man died. Andrew pressed his metal deep, then stepped back and wiped his sword on the dead archer’s fallen body. ‘I never understand,’ he murmured to himself, ‘why men choose to speak before attacking. Such delay is most unwise. Who do they seek to impress?’ He turned to Casper who was swinging his axe. Already his assailant was on his knees as the axe sliced through the man’s neck. The head toppled, chin to chest, held to the body only by gristle and a shattered splinter of spine.

Casper nodded at Andrew. ‘Ain’t so easy beheading a fellow, after all,’ he remarked. ‘I sees why them executioners generally make such a muck of it. Usually takes them two or three hacks, they says, and I heard of six or more. Well, now I gets it. Necks is tougher than you’d think.’

‘Nevertheless, my friend,’ said Andrew softly, ‘I believe you have made an adequate attempt. The man is quite definitely dead.’

‘Well,’ admitted Casper with some pride, ‘reckon would take a mighty big bandage to stick that skull back on again. But the bugger’s made a right mess of your floor.’

‘At the moment,’ Andrew said, ‘that is not my principal concern. Outside now, my friend. There is someone else I’m looking for.’

‘Right,’ agreed Casper, ‘there’s two more little turds out there, though one burned rotten. And there’s that lousy captain of your’n.’

‘None of those bother me in the least.’ Andrew strode through the open doors and looked around his garden’s twilit gloom. Hetchcomb’s corpse was a pale grey bundle in the damp, his eyes, now milky, still gazing upwards. But the shadows were merging as the last of the sunshine disappeared behind the treetops. ‘It is someone else entirely I want now,’ Andrew said.

Casper was immediately behind him, his boots silent in the soft earth. ‘Ain’t no one else here,’ he objected. ‘What you want now?’