Philippa Gregory - Meridon

‘Not now,’ I said unwillingly. ‘They’ll be back when they’ve stopped the coach. They’re not stupid.’

Will leaped up. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Here! Your clothes!’

He reached into the blackberry bush, stamping his feet and cursing in a whisper when the briers scratched him. Then he turned his back in incongruous chivalry while I got dressed. I crammed my hat on my head, and wrapped my cloak around me.

‘Home to Wideacre,’ Will said decisively.

‘I’ve got to fetch Sea,’ I said.

Will checked, looked at me to see if I was jesting.

‘We cannot!’ he said. ‘We cannot risk retracing our steps, going back the way we’ve come. We should strike across the park now, go west, double back later.’

‘I want Sea,’ I said stubbornly. ‘Sea will get us home. And you’ll want your horse.’

‘They’d send them on…’ Will started.

‘Not they,’ I said certainly. ‘I’m finished with the Haverings for all time. They’ll not send on as much as a pocket handkerchief of mine. I’m getting my horse out of their stables before they know their pigeon’s flown the coop.’

Will hesitated, looked from my resolute face to the streets of the city which were getting noisy and busy as the sun rose.

‘I’m not going without Sea,’ I said.

‘Oh very well,’ he said sullenly, and we strode out of the coppice shoulder to shoulder without a spark of passion or even affection between us. Cross as cats.

39

We saw a hackney coach going down Park Lane and we hailed it and bundled in. Will counted his silver in the pale light through the window to see if he would have enough to meet the fare without flashing his gold guineas around. He was always as cautious as a yeoman, Will Tyacke.

I leaned back against the dirty squabs of the coach and sighed. ‘How much have you got?’ I asked.

Will pulled out his gold coin by coin and carefully counted. ‘Ninety-eight guineas,’ he said. ‘You lost all your stake, didn’t you?’

‘Aye,’ I said smiling at him under my half-closed eyelids. ‘I like to play like a gentleman.’

‘You play like a cheat,’ he said instantly. Then he cocked his head. ‘What was that?’

I dropped the window and we listened.

There were shouts from behind us, I heard a voice say: ‘Hey coachman! Wait!’

Will’s face was white. ‘They turned,’ he said. ‘What now?’

‘We outpace them!’ I said.

Before he had a chance to protest I grabbed his handful of guineas and stuffed them in my pockets. I went head-first out of the coach window clutching the door frame and up on to the box beside the driver like a street urchin.

‘What?’ he said. He was already pulling up his horse in obedience to the shouts from behind.

‘Go on!’ I yelled.

He gawped at me.

I put a fistful of guineas in his hands. ‘Card-sharpers,’ I shouted over their noise. ‘They don’t like losing. And they’re blown. Keep this old nag going and there are twenty guineas for you at the end of the ride!’

He glanced quickly behind. Only the captain and a couple of men had kept up. They would not catch us if the damned nag between the shafts could go faster than a knock-kneed stumble.

‘Faster!’ I said.

The man broke into a wide broken-toothed grin. ‘Twenty guineas?’ he asked.

‘Thirty!’ I said.

He flashed his whip over the horse’s back and the creature, startled, broke into a shambling canter. Will, sticking his head out of the window, could see we were drawing away from the gamblers.

‘Howay!’ he yelled.

I laughed aloud.

Then I looked to the front.

Some damned hay-wagon was blocking our way. It had turned on its side and there were half a dozen men scurrying around trying to right it, a couple of idle milkmaids pausing to watch, and four or five link boys.

The hackney could edge around the wagon if the people would give us space but they were all over the road. I looked back. Captain Thomas was red in the face but he saw we were stuck. I saw him smile.

‘Stop thief!’ he yelled, damn his strong lungs.

I thrust my hand deep in my pocket.

‘Let me pass, lads!’ I yelled. ‘Look here!’

With a great broadcast sweep I flung the coins in my pocket – guineas, silver, coppers – wide into the sky. The urchins and the milkmaids dived to the ground out of our path. The men righting the hay cart looked blankly at me and then chased after the rolling coins.

‘Drive on!’ I ordered. Another handful of coins as we got through and, as from nowhere, beggars and street-walkers and urchins and thieves were all out of their doorways and lodgings falling over each other in their haste to chase the money.

‘Sarah!’ Will exclaimed, anguished.

I laughed. ‘Look!’ I said pointing back.

Captain Thomas had pushed someone in his haste to get through the crowd and the man had pushed back. What had been a little scramble was now a promising street-fight. The man had punched Thomas roughly in the shoulder and had hold of his coat collar and would not let him pass. I danced up and down on the box waving farewell and holloaing.

‘Goodbye, pigeon-plucker!’ I yelled in triumph. ‘Goodbye, curtal! Goodbye, you glim-glibber! You poxy tatsman! You hog in armour!’

The hackney whirled around the corner and threw me off balance. I fell down to the seat and grinned at the driver.

‘Drop us at the corner of the mews behind Davies Street,’ I said, and he nodded and drove where I ordered.

‘A fine night you’ve been having,’ he observed.

I stretched luxuriously, thinking of the deeds safe, and Will safe, and me safe away from the Haverings and the Quality life at last.

‘A fine night,’ I agreed.

The coach drew up at the corner and Will tumbled out. He shook his head at me. ‘Good God, Sarah!’ he said. ‘That was near all the money I had!’

‘I promised the driver thirty guineas if he got us away,’ I said. ‘Turn out your pockets, Will.’

The driver came down from the box as Will and I went through every pocket in our coats and breeches. We mustered seventeen guineas and some coppers.

‘I won’t hold you to it,’ he said. ‘Seventeen is fair, I’ll have that off you.’

He helped himself to the coins out of Will’s reluctant palm and drove off, beaming.

Will’s face could have modelled for an etching of a countryman fleeced in the big city.

‘Sarah that was all our money!’ he said. ‘How d’you think we’ll get home?’

‘Ride,’ I said cheerily.

‘And go hungry?’ Will demanded. ‘We’ve little money for food.’

I gleamed at him. ‘I’ll steal it,’ I said. ‘Or you can call up a crowd and I’ll ride on the street corners.’

Will’s cross face collapsed into laughter. ‘Oh you’re a rogue,’ he said. ‘By rights I should never bring you to Wideacre, they’re an honest crew there and you are a brigand!’

I laughed back, then we turned and walked side by side down the cobbled street to the stables.

It was early still, and quiet in these back streets. In the distance there was the noise of milkmaids and the water-carrier; at the end of the road the night-soil cart went past with a stench blowing behind it. The city was not yet awake. Only working people, with the hardest jobs, were up this early.

The groom was waiting for us, his eyes wide at the state of me, and the state of his best suit, and Will with his shirt hanging out the back.

‘My lady…’ he said helplessly.

‘I’ll have to keep your suit,’ I said pleasantly. ‘But I’ll send you money for another and for the service you’ve done me this night, when I get to my home.’

‘To the house?’ he said hopefully.