Dewey Lambdin - A King`s Trade

He clucked his tongue, shook the reins, and heeled his mount to motion, once more, up that welcoming gravelled drive, between the bare-limbed trees that would in summer shade the wide lane with fresh green leaves. There were dozens of abandoned nests in those limbs that told him that a springtime arrival would be greeted by the singing of hundreds of birds. Nice birds, who hadn't a clue how dangerous the master of those trees could be, poor things.

Set downhill on all sides round the house (Indian bungalow) was an inner wall of about six feet height, topped with round-cut stone… atop which Lewrie could espy the glint of broken glass!

That's more like it, he cynically thought; Aha!

Inside the inner wall (fortification?) lay a lawn, unbroken by any trees or shrubs where an interloper might shelter. Lewrie knew a fort's killing-ground when he saw one, and began to hunt for a hidden ditch or moat, a masking glacis, a redan or ravenel or two where the sharpshooters, or the grapeshot-loaded small cannon, might be placed at time of siege. Off to the left of the villa-bungalow was a coach-house of a matching stucco-and-stone, though with an "humble" thatched roof, that led back into the inner enclosure; up against the wall, as if the hayloft above the stalls and tack rooms held loopholes for marksmen! It was only in the immediate vicinity of the house that greenery was allowed. Lewrie took note that a handsome coach stood outside the stable doors, a groom or coachee swabbing the road's mud off it, and a servant tending to a team of four matched roans. Getting even closer, Lewrie could make out a large, enclosed equipage, a lighter convertible-topped coach for good weather and short jaunts, and a sporty two-horse chariot inside the building, as well.

Come at a bad time? he asked himself; Does Twigg have company? A guest's coach, its team led out for oats and water, gave him a small shiver of new dread, for said equipage could belong to an official from a King's Court, and Twigg's imperious letter the excuse for him to be lured into a trap! He wouldn't put such past him, for Twigg had always played people false, whether friend or foe!

"Ha ha, go it, girl! Heels down, that's the way!" came a voice from behind the house, and, down the cobbled stableyard from behind the house came the clatter of hooves, the shrill "Yoicks!" and imitations of a foxhorn's "tara-tara!," as a pair of ponies appeared, both loping (but no faster!) no matter the urgings of their riders… a small lad and a girl child, the boy appearing no more than ten, and the girl not yet a gangly teen. They whooped their way out of the stableyard, onto the gravelled drive, under the portico to cross Lewrie's "hawse," then headed off 'cross the lawn for another exhilarating circuit of the inner wall, about the house!

Behind them, afoot, came a brace of adults; a rather handsome woman in a dark riding ensemble, and a much older, spindlier, man in a drab brown suit of "ditto," white shirt and stock, and brown-topped black riding boots, and waving a crop over his head. Smiling, beaming with enjoyment and pleasure.

Twigg? Lewrie gawped to himself, gape-jawed for true; he never smiled, not a day in his mis'rable life!

But it was him, to the life, the spitting image of that coldly calculating "chief spider" behind a myriad of bloody-handed schemes on the King's enemies. And, at that moment, as he shaded his eyes with a hand to his brow-the one holding the whip, o' course!-Mr. Zachariah Twigg could be mistaken for the nicest sort of genial, and wealthy, country squire who couldn't swat a wasp without regrets.

"Aha!" Zachariah Twigg called out, sounding so welcoming that Lewrie, for an instant, thought himself the victim of a sorry supper and a bilious dream. Or, wishing that he was! "Captain Lewrie, you have arrived, ha ha! Alight, and let me look at you, me lad!"

Spur away! Lewrie warned himself; Spur away, now, and ride like Blades! Though he was so taken aback that he meekly let his horse go onwards at a sedate plod to the cobblings of the stableyard, drew rein, and swung down as a groom came up to accept the reins and tend to his rented horse.

"Honoria, pray allow me to name to you one of my young acquaintances from the Far East, and the Mediterranean, Captain Alan Lewrie of the Proteus frigate… Captain Lewrie, my daughter, Mistress Honoria Staples. I'd introduce you to my grandchildren, Thomas and Susannah, but I fear they're having too much fun with their new ponies, ha ha! A stout fellow, full of pluck and daring, is Captain Lewrie, my dear, an energetic and clever champion of our fair land, and a perfect terror to Britain 's foes, from our first encounter to the present!"

"Your servant, ma'am," Lewrie managed to respond, at last, with a gulp and bob of his head as he doffed his hat to her and gave her a jerky bow, feeling so deliriously put-off that he nearly blushed to be so gawkish and clumsy, like a farm labourer introduced to a princess, all but shuffling muddy shoes and tugging his forelock.

Clever, daring… plucky? Lewrie felt like goggling to hear an introduction such as that from Twigg, of all people; God above… me?

"A comrade of old, of course," Mrs. Staples replied, bowing her head gracefully, and beaming in seeming understanding. "Your servant, Captain Lewrie, and delighted to make your acquaintance. And… you have old times to take stock of, I'm bound, Father? The children and I should be going, then… may I get them off their new ponies," she stated with a merry twinkle, "though you and Johnathon… my husband, Captain Lewrie… a man as fond of springing surprises on people as Father… spent far too much on them."

"You'll not dine here, my pet?" Twigg cooed, looking devilish-disappointed that they would not. Damn his blood, but he was almost… wheedling] Or doing a damn' good sham of it.

"I told cook we'd be back by one, and there's just time for us to get home before everything goes cold," his daughter chuckled, holding up a lace-gloved hand to her children as they completed their lap of the grounds. "Rein in, children, and alight! You've shewn Grandfather your presents, and we must go. I mean it! No, you mayn't ride them back; they're too fractious, yet. It will rest them to be led at the coach's boot, unsaddled."

"Brush and curry, then stable them proper, once you're home, as well, my dears," Zachariah Twigg fondly cautioned. "See to your beasts first. You look after them, and they'll look after you. Remember, you are English, not cruel Dons or Frenchmen."

"Yes, Grandfather," the children chorused, though unhappy about leaving, or dismounting. Quick as a wink, the team of roans was back in harness and the handsome closed coach led out into the drive, ready for departure.

"See you all on Sunday, my dears," Twigg promised as he hoisted the children in, then handed in his daughter, giving her a peck on the cheek like the doting-est "granther" in all Creation. "Church, dinner, then we'll all go for a long ride together, after."

Twigg, in church, hmm… Lewrie silently pondered, wondering if even the most enthusiastic missionaries, desperate for congregants, in the worst stews of Wapping or Seven Dials, would dare have him.

"Delighted to meet you, ma'am," Lewrie offered, again. "And you, sir," she replied, though distracted by keeping both her rambunctious, chatter-box offspring in check. Then, off the coach clattered at a sedate pace, with the ponies trotting in-trail.

"Well, that was… s'prisin'," Lewrie said with a droll leer, once the coach was out of earshot.

"Think I spent all my life lurking in the world's dark corners, 'thout a private life outside of service to King and Country?" Twigg snapped. "Frankly… yes," Lewrie baldly stated, lifting one eyebrow. "But not a patch on yours, Lewrie," Twigg shot back, purring in his old, supercilious fashion, looking down his long nose. "You have spread your 'presence' so widely, and indiscriminately, about the earth, 'tis a wonder you had time for a public life, haw haw."