Andrew Swanston - The King's Return

Outside the church, Josiah was waiting for them. He greeted them cheerily. ‘Good morning, gentlemen. How was your journey?’

‘Uneventful, thank you, Josiah. And yours? You’ve made good time.’

Josiah looked sheepish. ‘Mottershead and ’orses don’t get on very well, Mr ’Ill. I like to keep my feet on the ground, so I set out last night and walked. Easy enough along the river.’ He showed no sign of fatigue, despite having walked twenty miles without sleep. ‘I’ve found an inn with decent stables. Best leave the ’orses there if we’re going into the marshes.’

Josiah showed them to the inn where they agreed an exorbitant price for fodder and stabling, before setting off on foot towards the marshes to the north of the town. Despite being well situated on the London-to-Dover road, Dartford was much as Josiah had described it. Poor, rough and ravaged by war and disease.

Suspicious eyes watched them go by, the shabby cottages were little more than hovels and there were beggars on the streets and dung heaps on the street corners. A miserable place. Thomas wondered what on earth the king had made of it when he had ridden through it a year earlier. It was a relief to leave the town and enter the marshes.

They took a path between the reeds, running northwards and just wide enough for them to walk in line abreast. Within five minutes they were out of sight of the town. Here and there they saw sheep grazing where the reeds had been cut and grass had grown, but otherwise they had only curlews and gulls for company.

‘You were right, Josiah,’ said Thomas, ‘it’s a bleak place.’ He shivered. ‘And it’s much colder here. Have you noticed?’

‘Bleak it is, sir. The sooner we find Miss Stewart the better. What exactly are we looking for?’

‘Any sign of life,’ replied Charles. ‘Cottars, habitations, travellers. We know there are cottages on the marsh. One of them may hold Madeleine. We just have to find it. Keep looking around. These reeds could hide a dozen cottages and a hundred men with ease.’

‘We may be seen first,’ pointed out Thomas.

‘Indeed we may. It’s a risk we’ll have to take.’

They saw nothing until they came to a fork in the path. There Josiah spotted a crust of bread which had been tossed to the side of the path leading to their right. He picked it up and broke it in half. ‘Stale, but not mouldy. A day or two, I should think.’

‘Right. We’ll follow the man who didn’t want his breakfast.’ Charles was clearly relieved to have found a sign of life, even an old crust, and led them off at a brisk pace.

About four hundred yards further on, he dropped to his knees and signalled to them to do the same. ‘A cottage ahead,’ he whispered. ‘Keep down and I’ll take a look.’

They did as they were told while Charles crept forward. He was soon out of sight around a bend in the path and below the tops of the reeds. When he returned he was upright again. ‘Just a deserted hovel. No sign of life. Let’s go on.’

During the afternoon they came upon three more empty cottages, their owners out on the marshes, and saw a number of cottars with their sheep in the distance. Only once did anyone come close, when Josiah’s sharp ears picked up the sounds of approaching voices before their owners came into view. They dropped quickly into the reed bed and watched a party of travellers go past. It was impossible to tell who they were or where they had come from, but theirs were Kentish voices and they were probably harmless.

‘Better safe than sorry,’ said Josiah, as they emerged wet and muddy from the marsh.

Thomas made a feeble effort to brush mud off his trousers. ‘Better dry than dirty. Unless we’re going to spend the night out here, we’d better turn back now. We’ll stay at the inn and try again tomorrow.’

‘It grieves me, but I fear you’re right,’ agreed Charles. ‘We won’t find anything in the dark except watery graves.’

Still Josiah showed not a hint of fatigue and led them unerringly back to the town at a fast pace. So fast that by the time they reached the inn, even Charles, whose swords were weighing heavily, needed food and rest. Thomas simply wanted to wash the mud off himself and his clothes and to sit quietly with a bottle of something for company.

At the inn, Josiah went to make sure the horses had hay and water while Thomas and Charles enquired about beds. There was just one – large enough for two but not for three. Josiah would be on the floor. They agreed another outrageous price with the landlord – a sharp-faced little man with the look and charm of one who has spent much of his life in gaol – and ordered the best he could offer for their dinner. If Josiah was put out by the news that he would be sleeping on the floor, he did not show it. A night without sleep and twenty-five miles or more on foot had dented his good humour not a scrap.

While they waited for their dinner, the weaselly landlord eyed them suspiciously. Thomas doubted if he had ever had three men like them in his inn. His usual customers would be local drinkers and travellers on their way from Dover. They had come from London on two horses. One of them wore two swords and another was as broad as he was tall and carried a stout stick. They must seem an odd little group.

Before long, the man’s curiosity got the better of him. ‘And what might you gentlemen be doing in these parts?’

Josiah answered without hesitation, as if he had been expecting the question. ‘Important business. Important and private.’

‘Business, eh? And what sort of business would that be?’

‘Private, I said. Now go and attend to our dinner.’

‘And bring another bottle of this miserable stuff,’ said Charles, holding up an empty bottle.

When dinner eventually came, it looked filthy. Three plates of what might once have been parts of an underfed sheep, accompanied by a green mess of turnip and cabbage, all swimming in a brown liquid. It tasted as filthy as it looked and had to be forced down with liberal doses of thin claret.

‘Ye gods,’ said Charles, belching loudly, ‘that was as revolting as anything I’ve ever been served, even by you, Thomas.’

‘I didn’t know you was a cook, sir,’ said Josiah.

‘I am not, Josiah. Mr Carrington is being unkind.’

‘I see, sir. Don’t forget you’re sharing a bed with him tonight.’

‘Would you like to change places, Josiah? I could sleep on the floor.’

‘No thank you, sir. I’m used to floors.’

Their room was as mean as their dinner. The bed – no more than a dirty blanket and a thin straw mattress on a wooden pallet – Thomas and Charles shared with an army of biting insects. Had they not been too exhausted to care, they would have slept little. Josiah simply curled up under his coat on the floor and in no time was snoring peacefully.

They were awake at dawn and, after a sluice down with rainwater from a butt behind the inn, found the landlord in the kitchen.

‘Good morning, gentlemen. Slept well, did we? More important business today?’

They ignored the questions. ‘Get us some breakfast, man, and we’ll be off. We’ll be back for the horses later,’ ordered Charles.

‘And make sure they get hay and water,’ added Josiah. ‘I’ll know if they haven’t been fed.’

Thomas examined his hands, which were covered in red bites. ‘I know the lice have been fed. Let’s be away before they are hungry again.’ Within a few minutes, they had washed down slabs of cold mutton pie with watery ale and were making for the marshes.

They took the same path as far as the fork, where this time they turned left. Early morning mist was rising off the marshes and twice they put up flights of ducks. As the mist cleared they saw smoke from a fire and soon heard voices. Crouching low, they approached as close as they dared and peered through the reeds. Two cottars were cooking their breakfast on an open fire before setting out for their day’s work in the marshes. As men hiding Madeleine would not be lighting fires and talking loudly about sheep, they circled the cottage and continued on.