Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

The Earl of Avebury, Sandman decided, would probably live in just such a walled estate, a great swathe of aristocratic country cut off by bricks, gamekeepers and watchmen. Suppose the Earl refused to see him? His lordship was said to be a recluse and the further west Sandman went the more he feared he would be summarily ejected from the estate, but that was a risk he would have to take. He forgot his fears as the coach lurched into a street of modern brick houses, the horn sounded urgently and Sandman realised they had come to the village of Reading where the coach swung into an inn yard to find the new horses waiting.

'Less than two minutes, gentlemen!' The two coachmen swung down from their box and, because the day was getting warmer, took off their triple-caped coats. 'Less than two minutes and we don't wait for laggards, milords.'

Sandman and the archdeacon had a companionable piss in the corner of the inn yard, then they each gulped down a cup of lukewarm tea as the new horses were harnessed and the old team, white with sweat, were led to the water trough. A sack of mail had been pulled from the boot and another took its place before the two coachmen scrambled up to their leather-cushioned perch. 'Time, gentlemen! Time!'

'One minute and forty-five seconds!' a man called from the inn door. 'Well done, Josh! Well done, Tim!'

The horn sounded, the fresh horses pricked back their ears and Sandman slammed the coach door and was thrown into the rear seat as the vehicle lurched forward. The elderly couple had left the coach, their place taken by a middle-aged woman who, within a mile, was vomiting from the offside window. 'You must forgive me,' she gasped.

'It is a motion mighty like a ship, ma'am,' the archdeacon observed, and took a silver flask from his pocket. 'Brandy might help?'

'Oh, Lord above!' the woman wailed in horrified refusal, then craned and retched through the window again.

'The springs are soft,' the archdeacon pointed out.

'And the road's very bumpy,' Sandman added.

'Especially at eight and a half miles an hour.' The archdeacon was busy with watch and pencil again, struggling gainfully to make legible figures despite the jolting. 'It always takes time to settle a new team and speed, which we lack, smooths a road.'

Sandman's spirits rose as each mile passed. He was happy, he suddenly realised, but quite why, he was not sure. Perhaps, he thought, it was because his life had purpose again, a serious purpose, or perhaps it was because he had seen Eleanor and nothing about her demeanour, he had decided, betrayed an imminent marriage to Lord Eagleton.

Lord Alexander Pleydell had hinted as much the previous evening, most of which he had spent worshipping at Sally Hood's shrine, though Sally herself had seemed distracted by her memories of Sergeant Berrigan. Not that Lord Alexander had noticed. He, like Lord Christopher Carne, was struck dumb by Sally, so dumb that for most of the evening the two aristocrats had merely gaped at her, sometimes stammering a commonplace until at last Sandman had taken Lord Alexander into the back parlour. 'I want to talk to you,' he had said.

'I want to continue my conversation with Miss Hood,' Lord Alexander had complained pettishly, worried that his friend Kit was being given untrammelled access to Sally.

'And so you shall,' Sandman assured him, 'but talk to me first. What do you know about the Marquess of Skavadale?'

'Heir to the Dukedom of Ripon,' Lord Alexander had said immediately, 'from one of the old Catholic families of England. Not a clever man, and it's rumoured the family has monetary troubles. They were once very rich, exceedingly so, with estates in Cumberland, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Hertfordshire, Kent and Sussex, but father and son are both gamblers so the rumours may well be true. He was a reasonable bat at Eton, but can't bowl. Why do you ask?'

'Lord Robin Holloway?'

'Youngest son of the Marquess of Bleasby and a thoroughly nasty boy who takes after his father. Has plenty of money, no brains and he killed a man in a duel last year. No cricketer, I fear.'

'Did he fight the duel with swords or pistols?'

'Swords, as it happened. It was fought in France. Are you going to make enquiries about the whole of the aristocracy?'

'Lord Eagleton?'

'A fop, but a useful left hand batsman who sometimes plays for Viscount Barchester's team, but is otherwise utterly undistinguished. A bore indeed, despite being a passable cricketer.'

'The sort of man who might appeal to Eleanor?'

Alexander stared at Sandman in astonishment. 'Don't be absurd, Rider,' he said, lighting another pipe. 'She wouldn't stand him for two minutes!' He frowned as if trying to remember something, but whatever it was did not come to mind.

'Your friend Lord Christopher,' Sandman had said, 'is convinced his father committed the murder.'

'Or had someone else commit it,' Alexander said. 'It seems likely. Kit sought me out when he heard you were investigating the matter and I applaud him for doing so. He, like me, is avid that no injustice should occur next Monday. Now, do you think I might go back to my conversation with Miss Hood?'

'Tell me what you know about the Seraphim Club first.'

'I have never heard of it, but it sounds like an association of high-minded clergymen.'

'It isn't, believe me. Is there any significance in the word seraphim?'

Lord Alexander had sighed. 'The seraphim, Rider, are reckoned to be the highest order of angels. The credulous believe there to be nine such orders; seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and, at the very bottom, mere common angels. This is not, I hasten to assure you, the creed of the Church of England. The word seraphim is thought to derive from a Hebrew word meaning serpent, the association is obscure yet suggestive. In the singular it is a seraph, a glorious creature that has a bite like fire. It is also believed that the seraphim are the patrons of love. Why they should be such I have no idea, but so it is said, just as it is claimed that the cherubim are patrons of knowledge. I momentarily forget what the other orders do. Have I satisfied your curiosity or do you wish this lecture to continue?'

'The seraphim are angels of love and poison?'

'A crude, but apt summary,' Lord Alexander had said grandly, then insisted they go back to the taproom where he had again been struck dumb by Sally's presence. He stayed till past midnight, became drunk and verbose, then left with Lord Christopher, who had drunk little and had to support his friend, who staggered from the Wheatsheaf declaring his undying love for Sally in a voice slurred by brandy.

Sally had frowned as Lord Alexander's coach had left. 'Why did he call me stupid?'

'He didn't,' Sandman had said, 'he just said you were the stupor mundi, the wonder of the world.'

'Bloody hell, what's the matter with him?'

'He's frightened of your beauty,' Sandman had said, and she had liked that and Sandman had gone to bed wondering how he would ever wake in time to catch the mail coach, yet here he was, rattling through as glorious a summer's day as any a man could dream of.

The road ran alongside a canal and Sandman admired the narrow painted barges that were hauled by great horses with ribboned manes and brass-hung harnesses. A child bowled a hoop along the towpath, ducks paddled, God was in His heaven and it took a keen eye to see that all was not quite as well as it looked. The thatch of many roofs was threadbare and in every village there were two or three cottages that had collapsed and were now overgrown with bindweed. There were too many tramps on the roads, too many beggars by the churchyards, and Sandman knew a good number of them had been redcoats, riflemen or sailors. There was hardship here, hardship among plenty, the hardship of rising prices and too few jobs, and hidden behind the cottages and the ancient churches and the heavy elm trees were parish workhouses that were filled with refugees from the bread riots that had flared in England's bigger cities, yet still it was all so heart breakingly beautiful. The foxgloves made thickets of scarlet beneath the pink roses in the hedgerows. Sandman could not take his eyes from the view. He had not been in London a full month, yet already it seemed too long.