Lord John and the Private Matter (Lord John Grey #1) 7

Still, if it came to a conflict of allegations between himself and Stapleton, there was no doubt who would be believed, and Stapleton obviously realized that, as well.

What he didn’t realize, just as obviously, was that Richard Caswell was one of the flies in Mr. Bowles’s web. Grey would wager half a year’s income that that fat little spider with the vague blue eyes knew the name of every man who had ever walked through the doors of Lavender House—and what they had done there. The thought gave him a cold feeling at the base of the neck, and he shivered, drawing his coat closer in spite of the mildness of the night.

A sudden slap at the window beside him jerked him upright, pistol drawn and pointed. No one was there, though; only the smeared print of a hand, excrement-smeared fingers leaving long dark streaks on the glass as they dragged away. A clump of noxious waste slid slowly down the window, and the guffaws of the night-soil men mingled with the bellows of the coach’s driver.

The coach heaved on its springs as the driver stood up, and then there was the crack of a whip and a sharp yelp of surprise from someone on the ground. Nothing like avoiding notice! Grey thought grimly, crouching back in his seat as a barrage of night soil thumped and splattered against the side of the coach, the night-soil men hooting and gibbering like Barbary apes as the coachman cursed, clinging to his reins to stop the team from bolting.

A rattling at the coach’s door brought his hand to his pistol again, but it was only Stapleton, flushed and breathless. The young man hurled himself onto the bench across from Grey, and tossed a scribbled sheet of paper into his lap.

“Only two,” he said brusquely. “The Antioch, sailing from the Pool of London in three weeks time, or the Nampara, from Southampton, day after tomorrow. That what you wanted?”

The coachman, hearing Stapleton’s return, drew up the reins and shouted to his horses. All too willing to escape the brouhaha, the team threw themselves forward and the coach leapt away, flinging Grey and Stapleton into a heap on the floor.

Grey hastily disentangled himself, still grasping the slip of paper tightly, and clambered back to his seat. Neil’s eyes gleamed up at him from the floor of the coach, where he swayed on hands and knees.

“I said—that’s what you wanted?” His voice was barely loud enough to carry over the rumble of the coach’s wheels, but Grey heard him well enough.

“It is,” he said. “I thank you.” He might have put out a hand to help Stapleton up, but didn’t. The young man rose by himself, long body swaying in the dark, and flung himself back into his seat.

They did not speak on the way back into London. Stapleton sat back, arms folded across his chest, head turned to stare out of the window. The moon was full, and dim light touched the aquiline nose and the sensual, spoilt mouth beneath it. He was a beautiful young man, to be sure, Grey thought—and knew it.

Ought he try to warn Stapleton, he wondered? He felt in some fashion guilty over his use of the man—and yet, warning him that Bowles was undoubtedly aware of his true nature would accomplish nothing. The spider would keep that knowledge to himself, hoarding it, until and unless he chose to make use of it. And once he did—no matter what that use might be—no power on earth would free Stapleton from the web.

The coach came to a stop outside Stapleton’s lodging, and the young man got out without speaking, though he cast a single, angry glance at Grey just before the coach door closed between them.

Grey rapped on the ceiling, and the driver’s panel slid back.

“To Jermyn Street,” he ordered, and sat silent on the drive back, scarcely noticing the stink of shit surrounding him.

Chapter 17

Nemesis

In frank revolt, Grey declined to consume further egg whites. In intractable opposition, Tom Byrd refused to allow him to drink wine. An uneasy compromise was achieved by the time they reached the first posthouse, and Grey dined nursery-fashion upon bread and milk for supper, to the outspoken amusement of his fellow coach passengers.

He ignored both the jibes and the continuous feeling of unease in head and stomach, scratching ferociously with a borrowed, battered quill and wretched ink, holding a lump of milk-sodden bread with his free hand as he wrote.

A note to Quarry first; then to Magruder, in case the first should go astray. There was no time for code or careful wording—just the blunt facts, and a plea for reinforcements to be sent as quickly as possible.

He signed the notes, folded them, and sealed them with daubs of sooty candle wax, stamped with the smiling half-moon of his ring. It made him think of Trevelyan, and his emerald ring, incised with the Cornish chough. Would they be in time?

For the thousandth time, he racked his brain, trying to think if there was some quicker way—and for the thousandth time, reluctantly concluded that there wasn’t. He was a decent horseman, but the chances of his managing a hell-bent ride from London to Southampton in his present condition were virtually nil, even had he had a good mount instantly available.

It must be Southampton, he thought, reassuring himself for the hundredth time. Trevelyan had agreed to three days; not enough time to prevent pursuit—unless he had planned on Grey being dead? But in that case, why bargain for time? Why not simply dismiss him, knowing that he would soon be incapable of giving chase?

No, he must be right in his surmise. Now he could only urge the post coach on by force of will, and hope that he would recover sufficiently by the time they arrived to allow him to do what must be done.

“Ready, me lord?” Tom Byrd popped up by his elbow, holding his greatcoat, ready to wrap round him. “It’s time to go.”

Grey dropped the bread into his bowl with a splash, and rose.

“See that these are sent back to London, please,” he ordered, handing the notes to the postboy with a coin.

“Aren’t you a-going to finish that?” Byrd asked, sternly eyeing the half-full bowl of bread and milk. “You’ll be needing your strength, me lord, and you mean to—”

“All right!” Grey seized a final piece of bread, dunked it hastily in the bowl, and made his way to the waiting coach, cramming it into his mouth as he went.

The Nampara was an East Indiaman, tall in silhouette against a sky of fleeting clouds, her masts dwarfing the other ship traffic. Much too large to approach the quay, she was anchored well out; the doryman rowing Grey and Byrd toward the ship called out to a skiff heading back to shore, receiving an incomprehensible bellow in return across the water.

“Dunno, sir,” the doryman reported, shaking his head. “She means to leave on the tide, and it’s ebbin’ now.” He lifted one dripping oar, briefly indicating the gray water racing past, though Grey could not have told which way it was going, under oath.

Still queasy from rocking and bumping for a night and half a day in the post coach to Southampton, Grey was disinclined to look at it; everything in sight seemed to be moving, all in contrary and unsettling directions—water, clouds, wind, the heaving boat beneath them. He thought he might vomit if he opened his mouth, so he settled for a scowl in the doryman’s direction and a significant clutching of his purse, which answered well enough.

“She’ll be away, mebbe, before we reach her—but we’ll try, sir, aye, we’ll give it a go!” The man redoubled his efforts, digging hard, and Grey closed his eyes, clinging tight to the scale-crusted slat on which he sat and trying to ignore the stink of dead fish seeping into his breeches.

“Ahoy! Ahoy!” The doryman’s shriek roused him from dogged misery, to see the side of the great merchantman rising like a cliff before them. They were still rods away, and yet the massive thing blotted out the sun, casting a cold, dark shadow over them.

Even a lubber such as himself could see that the Nampara was on the point of departure. Shoals of smaller boats that he supposed had been supplying the great Indiaman were rowing past them toward shore, scattering like tiny fish fleeing from the vicinity of some huge sea monster on the point of awaking.

A flimsy ladder of rope still hung from the side; as the doryman heaved to, keeping the boat skillfully away from the monster’s side with one oar, Grey stood up, tossed the doryman his pay, and seized a rung. The dory was sucked out from under his feet by a falling wave, and he found himself clinging for dear life, rising and falling with the ship itself.

A small flotilla of turds drifted past below his feet, detritus from the ship’s head. He set his face upward and climbed, stiff and slow, Tom Byrd pressing close behind lest he fall, and came at last to the top with his body slimed with cold sweat, the taste of blood like metal in his mouth.

“I will see the owner,” he said to the merchant officer who came hurrying hugger-mugger from the confusion of masts and the webs of swaying ropes. “Now, by the order of His Majesty.”

The man shook his head, not attending to what he said, only concerned that they not interfere. He was already turning away, beckoning with one hand for someone to come remove them.

“The captain is busy, sir. We are on the point of sailing. Henderson! Come and—”

“Not the captain,” Grey said, closing his eyes briefly against the dizzying swirl of the cobweb ropes overhead. He reached into his coat, groping for his much-creased letter of appointment. “The owner. I will see Mr. Trevelyan—now.”

The officer swung his head round, looking at him narrowly, and seemed in Grey’s vision to sway like the dark mast beside him.

“Are you quite well, sir?” The words sounded as though they were spoken from the bottom of a rain barrel. Grey wetted his lips with his tongue, preparing to reply, but was eclipsed.

“Of course he ain’t well, you starin’ fool,” Byrd said fiercely from his side. “But that’s no matter. You take the Major where he says, and do it smart!”

“Who are you, boy?” The officer puffed up, glaring at Byrd, who was having none of it.

“That’s no matter, either. He says he’s got a letter from the King, and he does, so you hop it, mate!”

The officer snatched the paper from Grey’s fingers, glanced at the Royal Seal, and dropped it as though it were on fire. Tom Byrd set his foot on it before it could blow away, and picked it up, while the officer backed away, muttering apologies—or possibly curses; Grey couldn’t tell, for the ringing in his ears.

“Had you best sit down, me lord?” Byrd asked anxiously, trying to dust the footmark off the parchment. “There’s a barrel over there that nobody’s using just now.”

“No, I thank you, Tom, I’m better now.” He was; strength was returning after the effort of the climb, as the cold breeze dried the sweat and cleared his head. The ship was a great deal steadier underfoot than the dory. His ears still buzzed, but he clenched his belly muscles and glanced after the officer. “Did you see where that man went? Let us follow; it’s best if Trevelyan is not given too much warning.”

The ship seemed in complete confusion, though Grey supposed there was some method in it. Seamen scampered to and fro, dropping out of the rigging with the random suddenness of ripe fruit, and shouts rang through the air in such profusion that he did not see how anyone could make out one from another. One benefit of the bedlam, though, was that no one tried to stop them, or even appeared to notice their presence, as Tom Byrd led the way through a pair of half-height doors and down a ladder into the shadowed depths belowdecks. It was like going down a rathole, he thought dimly—are Tom and I the ferrets?

A short passageway, and another ladder—was Tom indeed tracking the officer by smell through the bowels of the ship?—and a turn, and sure enough: The officer stood by a narrow door from which light flooded into the cavernous belowdecks, talking to someone who stood within.

“There he is, me lord,” Tom said, sounding breathless. “That’ll be him.”

“Tom! Tom, lad, is that you?”

A loud voice spoke incredulously behind them, and Grey swung round to see his valet engulfed in the embrace of a tall young man whose face revealed his kinship.

“Jack! I thought you was dead! Or a murderer.” Tom wriggled out of his brother’s hug, face glowing but anxious. “Are you a murderer, Jack?”

“I am not. What the devil do you mean by that, you pie-faced little snot?”

“Don’t you speak to me like that. I’m valet to his lordship, and you’re no but a footman, so there!”

“You’re what? No, you’re never!”

Grey would have liked to hear the developments of this conversation, but duty lay in the other direction. Heart thundering in his chest, he turned his back on the Byrds, and pushed his way past the ship’s officer, ignoring his objections.

The cabin was spacious, with stern windows that flooded the space with light, and he blinked against the sudden brightness. There were other people—he sensed them dimly—but his sole attention was fixed on Trevelyan.

Trevelyan was seated on a sea chest, coatless, with the sleeve of his shirt rolled up, one hand clamping a bloodstained cloth to his forearm.

“Good Christ,” Trevelyan said, staring at him. “Nemesis, as I live and breathe.”

“If you like.” Grey swallowed a rush of saliva and took a deep breath. “I arrest you, Joseph Trevelyan, for the murder of Reinhardt Mayrhofer, by the power of …” Grey put a hand into his pocket, but Tom Byrd still had his letter. No matter; it was near enough.

A trembling vibration rose under his feet before he could speak further, and the boards seemed to shift beneath him. He staggered, catching himself on the corner of a desk. Trevelyan smiled, a little ruefully.

“We are aweigh, John. That is the anchor chain you hear. And this is my ship.”