The Snow Driver/Chapter 6

HE man addressed as Renard answered the navigator's courtesy with a bow. He had the assurance of one who makes himself at home in all company, yet the manner of one born in a high station. Carrying his head a little aslant, what with his beaked nose and his fur necklet he did somewhat resemble the fox that his name signified.

“This youth, my masters,” he went on, “is known to me and others as a follower of a certain person of the court. It is in my mind that his patron desired the death of your ship captain, and so despatched this Thorne upon his mission of mortality. 'Tis said others have fallen by his blade in the duello.”

His words were tinged with a foreign accent, and he seemed to find in them food for a jest. At any rate he smiled, his thin face saturnine in the dusk.

“Who sent you?” demanded Chancellor the outspoken.

“The king,” responded Thorne as bluntly, “by my lord of Stratford.”

“Ah,” observed Master Renard, “a moment ago you did not deny that Durforth had not the honor of your acquaintance.”

The armiger looked at him silently, bending the slender steel between his fingers, paying no attention to the gash in his shoulder.

“And as you do not deny it now,” the newcomer pointed out, “'tis passing strange that you should name Durforth a traitor. Nay, is a man a traitor because he spills wine in a hedge tavern? Or—and you are a soldado, a bearer of arms—do you hold him doomed because he resents a slight?”

Still Thorne was silent, alert as if he faced a new antagonist whose speech was no less deadly than the tall man's steel.

“Lacking other evidence,” Renard concluded, “it must appear that you picked a quarrel with Master Durforth, who is embarking upon the king's business. Did any one lay such command upon you?”

Thorne perceived at once the shrewdness in this questioning. Renard must have heard from Durforth of the death of D'Alaber. Nothing was more certain than that the Spaniard desired vengeance for the death of his follower. And Renard had several gentlemen in attendance, with a score of men-at-arms within call.

To make known that Edward was dying and the Papists all but in power might give excuse for a general drawing of weapons in which Chancellor and Sir Hugh who had no men at their backs would be slain.

“'Tis a hanging matter you have embarked upon,” resumed Renard lightly, “but”

“No 'buts' my lord!” The armiger laughed. “Either I am a murderer, dealing death for so much silver in hand, or I am a gentleman affronted in his cups. If the second, my quarrel is my own affair and you are cursedly inquisitive; if the first, why summon up the bailifs [sic] to hale me into jail, there to await the king's justice,”

“The lad stands upon his rights,” assented Chancellor gruffly. “Durforth miscalled him in the tavern. Let him go.”

Cabot had been questioning the surgeon, and now turned, palpably relieved.

“Aye no harm has been done to either. The hurts are slight. Come, my masters, a glass of wine. The ships sail before dawn with the tide.”

“I pray you,” put in Renard,“come up with me to the manor house where we shall fare better.”

He spoke briefly to two of his men, and Thorne, who watched them in the deeping dusk saw them move off toward the tavern and the waiting coach. With a stifled exclamation he strode forward, coming between Chancellor and the old navigator. “Master Cabot, do you know with whom you drink?”

“Surely,” smiled the navigator, “with the Lord Renard, preceptor of the Princess Mary Tudor.”

“And a Spaniard who is no mean cosmographer—who hath no love for us of England.”

Sebastian Cabot was old, and loved quiet better than angry words; moreover he was governor of the Mystery and Company of Merchants-Adventurers of London, newly formed. He had labored greatly to outfit and man the three ships, and the last thing he desired was a quarrel with the powerful envoys from Spain at the court.

He rested his hand on the arm that Chancellor held out, and made answer not so much to Thorne as to the others who listened in astonishment to the charge of the young armiger.

“Nay, we would have lacked many things in this venture, had not my Lord Renard given us aid, in weighty advice. He hath been diligent in our council for which we are beholden to him.”

Y NOW they had come to the street where Renard's lackeys with lighted torches awaited them, with the merchants of Orfordnesse and those who had come from the ships. These bowed respectfully to the old navigator, who, leaning upon the arm of the pilot, looked around in benign satisfaction.

“Gentlemen, it is seemly that we should bid farewell to these navigants in such a pleasant hour.”

The vague unrest that had clouded his lined features at Thorne's accusation disappeared; his eyes brightened and his voice rang out with something of the assurance of other days when he had stood on his own poop.

“Let no factions arise in your company, my masters; if you differ in opinion, submit the question to the council of officers of the captain-general, Sir Hugh. Remember, when you reach the new lands, to take precautions against attack.

“The natives you will see, perchance, have no knowledge of Christians or their ships. If you take one of the savages on your ships, entreat him in friendly wise, give him food and apparel and set him safely ashore.

“When you go ashore, leave mariners to guard the and venture not to any city of the pagans save in numbers sufficient for your protection and with swords and firelocks in hand. If a storm arises, agree upon a meeting place where your ships may join together if you are parted.”

Then, turning to the people of Orfordnesse he lifted his hand.

“And you, sirs, who keep to your own coast, bethink ye that these navigants go of their own will into the perils of the sea, and the uncertainties of pagan lands. We hazard a little money upon Fortune; they risk their lives. For those who, by God's will, are not to return to this coast, whose sepulcher shall be the sea or pagan earth, let us offer our prayers.”

He bent his head and the folk of Orfordnesse, amazed at his gentle words, followed his example in silence, harkening to the spluttering of the torches, the mild rustle of the wind in the foliage and the sighing and muttering of the distant breakers. Perhaps it was the first time they had ever prayed for men who were yet living.

HORNE waited until the last of the gentry had gone off in the coaches of the manor house, attended by linkmen. Then he allowed the inn keeper, who had a liking for gossip, to wash out the cut in his shoulder and wrap wet cloths around it. Which being done, he called for his horse.

“Alack, Master Ralph, thou'lt not ride, wi' thy shoulder hacked and bloodied.”

Master Ralph, pacing the yard betwixt pump and threshold, offering no response, the fellow tried another tack.

“The gentry be mortal angered at ye, angered as ever was! Thou'lt not be for London town, where the worshipful lords would set thy body on a gibbet. Or it may be a wrack, or e'en fire and the stake.”

Abruptly—so quickly that the worthy keeper of the White Hart quivered in the ample region of his stomach—the armiger stopped his walk, close beside him.

“Where is the nag?”

The other muttered something about the horse being foundered and his men all beside themselves, what with the king's gentlemen and the Spanish lord.

Thorne took up the lanthorn which Fulke had fetched with him.

“Nay, I'll wait upon myself.” And, glancing back a moment later, he was amused to see his stout host legging it around the tavern.

Reflecting that he had gained, over night, a reputation for violence, he sought the stables and halted to peer within the carriage house at the line of stalls in the rear. The horses were stamping and restless but he could not see any stable knaves.

Thoughtfully he set the lanthorn down between his feet. The delay in bringing his horse out, the uneasiness of the beasts in the staffs, the alarm of the tavern keeper, all this bred in Thorne an undefinable suspicion.

He was at some pains to make certain by listening and watching the shadows in the stable that no retainers of the Spaniard were awaiting him here.

He was alone in the stable, but not at ease in his mind. Instinct urged him to turn and run through the door, or at least to look around. Instead, the armiger unbuckled the clasp that held his cloak at the throat. Still grasping the loosened ends he stepped forward, over the lanthorn, and let the long riding cloak fall. So it covered the light, and the stable was in darkness that same second.

Thorne stepped to one side, his soft leather boots making no sound on the trodden earth, and laughed aloud. From one of the windows behind the carriages a pistol had blazed and roared, filling the place with smoke and setting the horses frantic.

“A popper is no weapon for the dark, my masters,” he cried. “Come in, with your cutters. The door is open.”

As he spoke he shifted position again, drawing his rapier and considering how to get himself out of this trap with a whole skin. With his injured arm extended to the full in front of him, and his sword drawn back ready for a thrust, he moved toward the entrance, through utter blackness. At once his groping fingers touched something that moved and started at his touch.

His rapier went out, and was turned aside by an iron corselet. In the same second a pistol went off under his chin, the ball thudding into wood behind him. The explosion sent a myriad sparks dancing across his sight, and the powder stung his cheek. Swinging his blade over his shoulder he struck with the pommel, feeling it smash against a man's head.

A heavy morion clattered on the ground and his assailant staggered back. Coughing and gasping from the powder fumes, Thorne leaped through the door and ran across the inn yard. A cart shaft tripped him, and he stifled a groan as his injured shoulder struck a heap of manure.

Before he could get to his knees he heard men run past him. Others, who had found the lanthorn, were searching the stable. He lay where he was until the first of his pursuers had gained the highroad. Then he crawled around the wagon and between evil-smelling ordure to the hedge that he knew formed the fence around the field wherein he had fought Durforth an hour ago.

Following this he reached a thicket and paused to brush himself off and listen. Horses were being taken from the stable and saddled, and riders were pounding away on the road. Men were shouting at the tavern—questions to which muffled answers were flung back.

Some one cried out that thieves were at the horses, and a lieutenant of my lord Renard's harquebusiers swore in two languages that the thieves had got away.

“You are clever, you who serve the Fox,” Thorne mused. “But your master will give no thanks for this night's bungling after he was at pains to draw away the other gentlemen and leave you a clear field.”

Old acquaintance with the White Hart and the village served him well now, for, avoiding the highroad, he walked down a path that led to a spring and from thence to a homestead.

Crossing the fields, he headed up Orfordnesse Hill, and so came presently to the cottage of his father.

IFTING the latch, he stepped into the utter darkness of a room. As he was swinging shut the door, a rush-bottomed chair creaked and a voice addressed him.

“So, sirrah, your lust for blood is still insatiate? Have you come to add your father to the number of unfortunates that have fallen to your sword? Or do I now behold you in the rôle of a simple thief? Nay, I know your step.”

The armiger closed the door gently and felt his way around the table to an empty chair. Master Thorne, he judged, sat alone within arm's reach. Since the fire on the hearth was cold and the candles all unlighted he knew that the old cosmographer was grieving over the events of the last few hours.

The familiar smell of the room, of leather and musty parchments, stirred in him the memory of other evenings when he had sat at ease by a roaring fire while Master Thorne talked of ships and strange lands and ever of the sea.

“Sir,” he said. “I must be gone within the hour with certain garments of mine. Do you propose to give me away to Renard's retainers?”

“I hand over no man in my house. But how will you win free? The soldiery is upon the road and the village is being searched. I met a company of riders who did maintain that you had set upon and foully slain two of their number in a tavern brawl.”

Warning his father not to make a light Thorne felt his way up the narrow stair to his room under the roof, the room that Master Thorne had promised should be kept for him against the time of his return.

And everything was as he had left it. Opening a clothes chest, he drew out a soiled woolen doublet, and hose and light buskins that had served for hunting in other days. Going down with his possessions, he stumbled and uttered an exclamation of pain when his shoulder struck against the stair post.

“Art hurt, lad?”

“Gashed a trifle. 'Twill not keep me from the business of ridding the earth of him who did it, the rogue Durforth.”

“Wert ever a wildling, Ralph. I—I had told my people in Orfordnesse that they would see you upon the deck of a king's ship. But now”

The anxiety that had been in his voice fell cold, and he kept silence while the youth changed to the old garments. It caused Ralph no little ado and pain to ease the stiffened doublet over his shoulder and he favored his hurt by keeping on the good linen shirt that he had worn to Orfordnesse—a circumstance that he had reason to regret afterward.

Meanwhile Master Thorne had been cogitating, and, while his son wrapped up the blood-stained riding attire into a bundle, delivered himself of his thoughts:

“You may not return to the village; the folk in the manor house would turn you off, if they did not clap you into jail; the highway is closed by my lord Renard's men. So, are you for the woods, where the outlaws and half-plucked gallows birds lurk? Have you a horse?”

“Where I am going no horse may serve.”

The armiger felt his way out of the cottage and returned presently without his bundle, explaining briefly that he had hidden it in a hay rick.

“So that the men of the Fox will not come upon it when they search this place, as they will. My sword—” he hesitated, reluctantly—“nay, do you keep it, an you will”

“But”

“The blade is cleaned. Hang it in scabbard on the wall and put dust upon it. 'Twill bring no shame upon the house,” he added.

“'s light, fool! Wilt have need of sword; aye and firelocks i' the forest?”

“The Fox would put such a price on my head that your runagate rogues of the woods'd have me out of there in a trice Nay, all roads are closed but one. I'm for the ships.”

Master Thorne leaned forward, striving to catch sight of his son's face in the gloom.

“Not Sir Hugh's ships?”

“Aye, Sir Hugh's ships. When do they sail?”

“With the morning tide, lad. The officers go out to their vessels at midnight. But, Ralph, how will you join their company? They need no more gentlemen adventurers and, faith, Master Cabot would not have such a roisterer as you.”

“Nor would Durforth, that is certain. But I have a plan; nay, it must keep, for time presses. Renard's men may pay us a visit within the hour. So, harken to what hath befallen me, for you must bear these tidings to London.”

Slowly, that the old man might understand everything, and in few words that he might remember, Thorne related all that had taken place at Greenwich.