A Woman of the Road Page 4

  Our Third Merry Companion

  I awoke to the chirping of birds while lying by the spitting fire. During the night, someone had taken care to cover me with a blanket.

  “Today,” Jeffries said, standing over me, “we seek our third and final companion.”

  “Beg pardon?” I asked groggily.

  Though he and Aventis seemed sober as saints, I found that my head rang as with the bells of St. Paul’s. I struggled to throw off my coverings. Now what was all this about a third member?

  “I wish to find him as much as you do,” Aventis told Jeffries. “But where? He could be near his seat in York, or at any gambling house in England.”

  “I have received a report,” said Jeffries, “that he is to be found in Harlow. As Gad was seen there last week, his master will not be far.”

  “Ah, that narrows our range,” said Aventis. “That village is not great, so he should be discovered easily.”

  “It is nigh impossible to hide a man of his girth,” said Jeffries.

  “And foppery!” added Aventis.

  The two men erupted in laughter. I had no notion of whom they spoke: only that he appeared as a rather stout peacock.

  “Let us go,” Jeffries ordered. Happily, I had not undressed last night. I snuck off for a moment to “conduct my own affairs,” then mounted alongside he others.

  Once we reached the Newmarket Road, I saw it was heavily trafficked—mainly by those on foot. They must have learned the ways of our kind, for they did not journey in a bunch; rather, they were spread out so that if we set upon them, those the farthest from us might raise a hue-and-cry. Yet after his triumph with the bishop, Jeffries had no need to ply his trade and even raised his hat to passersby.

  As we entered Harlow, we passed the old stone church, those Tudor shops I remembered, and even a fine long bridge constructed of stone.

  At the end of one narrow street, we stopped at an alehouse for a bite of bread and ale. I was glad, for I had not breakfasted and my supper of the night before had been primarily liquid. I noted Aventis ate little and even bowed his head in prayer before commencing his meal. Unlike Jeffries’s attempt at grace, his seemed to be genuine.

  “Still the devout?” Jeffries asked.

  Aventis smiled. “What harm can it do?”

  I thought it rather curious that a man who rode with the captain showed such signs of piety. Still, I shrugged my shoulders. Let him recite all the Gospels if he wielded a sword so well!

  Once we were sated (and it took a whole loaf for me), we sauntered into the street, where I saw that the villagers gave us a wide berth. Either Jeffries was known throughout Essex, or our telltale costumes gave notice of what we were.

  Harlow was pleasant enough, though rather dull compared to London. I thought that in the main, I would prefer to stay in the woods. As we strode down a dusty thoroughfare, we saw an woman mumbling to herself, carrying on as lively a discourse as if she had a companion.

  Jeffries shook his head.

  “Pray that the Witchhunter General does not track her,” he said.

  “Hopkins is gone,” said Aventis. “Have you not heard?”

  “Good riddance,” said Jeffries. “It is incredible what some folk believe.”

  “About us too,” said Aventis.

  I nodded, thinking he referred to our band. At last, after passing a tailor’s, smithy, and shoemaker’s, Jeffries and Aventis froze.

  “Look!” Jeffries cried, pointing to a broad bay Shire tied up by a small cookhouse.

  “I know that mount as I know myself!” Aventis said.

  I half ran to keep up with their long strides until they swung their way in. But what a melee awaited us!

  A lad clad all in blue was threatening a cook with a whip, while that flour-coated fellow brandished an upraised pan. What must have been the lad’s master bellowed at the cookhouse owner, all the while taking bites from two roast chickens he held up with both hands!

  “—and I must insist that one shilling apiece for these fowl is . . . I so hate to use the term, but it is . . . highway robbery! I’ll pay no more than 10d!”

  “Sir,” the proprietor begged, his bald head shiny with sweat, “I think you’ll find that a shilling is the going rate in London—”

  “Are we in London, sir?” his enraged customer asked. This man was more mountain than flesh, as wide as he was tall. On his head was a long blond periwig spilling past thick features which included a bulbous nose now red with anger. The overturned jug before him told of his most recent exploits.

  “Gad, strike him!” he ordered the liveried lad.

  This Gad drew back his whip prior to cracking it at the cook, but the latter deflected it nicely with a quick turn of his pan.

  “Am I to be thus insulted?!” the master roared. “A fine gentleman like myself, freshly returned from my manor—” He straightened his wide lace collar which matched his patterned sleeves, his coat of so many colors it might have belonged to Joseph. He stomped his enormous boots against the wood floorboards, then made a surprise move by withdrawing two dice from his doublet.

  “Let us play for the bill,” he told the proprietor. “If I throw two sixes, you win. Anything less than eleven, I win. If the left die shows more than the right, the victory is mine. If opposite, it goes to you.”

  “I—” said the owner, scratching his head. “I do not comprehend the rules.”

  “Simple if one’s not a simpleton,” the man said with a shrug.

  “Enough nonsense!” shouted the cook from beneath his small white cap. “Pay up or we’ll have the law on ye!”

  “Friends!” The giant shouted over my head to my two companions. “Will you stand there unmoving while my honor is being impinged?”

  “Of course not, Carnatus,” said Jeffries.

  “You can count on us,” said Aventis.

  I stood there uncertain until Carnatus glared down at me.

  “I’faith, I am with you!” I cried, and we five, including Gad, stood against the owner, two cooks, a maidservant, and even some patrons.

  I spent the next few minutes ducking as the following flew past my head: a leg of mutton, a side of beef, a tart oozing with pear, and a line of pewter plates. When I could, I withdrew my new blade, discerning through the flying foodstuffs that my friends were likewise assailed. Gad, poor devil, took on so much flour he looked fit for the roasting pan!

  “Get him!” cried a customer, pointing at Carnatus. “He disturbed my bread and cheese!”

  “He is a thief in gentlemen’s clothing!” said a second, and hurled his sharp eating knife. Carnatus managed to deflect this with a wave of his glove and sent the blade flying straight into a jug of wine. This naturally shattered, spewing its contents like blood across the table.

  I, to my shame, held the poor serving girl at bay.

  “I am truly sorry,” I told her.

  “It is not your fault,” she said. “Only that horrible giant’s.”

  We both watched as Jeffries threw a roast ox head at a cook. Even he recoiled at the sight of his own flying fare.

  “You will pay what you owe!” cried the owner, moving toward Carnatus with a knife that could carve a whole ox.

  “Perhaps not!” said Aventis, unsheathing his sword and holding the angry mob back.

  “Best that we go!” cried Jeffries. His hat, formerly topped with feathers, now bore a fat pear on its crown.

  I needed no encouragement: I fled into the street, followed by Jeffries and Aventis, where townsfolk, having heard hearing the ruckus, were already assembled.

  “Let us quit this place!” cried Aventis, shaking the remains of pie from his cloak.

  “Not without these!” said Carnatus, bolting out of the cookhouse with Gad at his heels and a chicken in each hand.

  Gad untied our horses, then leaped behind Carnatus as we galloped off in a body. I scraped some soup from my cheek as I leant forward like a jockey.

  “Scofflaws!” I heard from behind us. “Thieves! Div
ers! After them!”

  But no clatter of hooves pursued us, which did not surprise Aventis.

  “Ha!” he shouted to me, “who will they send? The watch? Those doddering fools can barely walk, much less ride!”

  I smiled as we thundered through Essex county, past Newmarket and back to our cave. We all dismounted as one.

  “What an adventure!” Jeffries crowed. He removed the pear from his hat and bit into it, content.

  “Carnatus has been avenged,” said Aventis, bending his thin form toward our new companion.

  “I thank you all,” said Carnatus, taking a mouthful of fowl. After he’d swallowed, he cried, “For this, I did not pay a single shilling!”

  “So should we always be rewarded,” Jeffries nodded. “Are we not ‘knights of the road’?”

  I merely grinned, but this seemed to trigger something greater in the other three. They gathered on the grass in a tight circle, unsheathing their swords and raising them.

  “In the spirit of Claude du Vall,” Jeffries said solemnly, “we vow to stand together, companions to the last.”

  Their three blades came together with the sharp clank of steel. As I stood aside, I felt as much an outsider as Gad.

  After the company broke, Aventis strode into the cave, then approached with that silver jug along with five golden cups.

  “To honest thieves everywhere!” he cried, filling the cups to the brim and handing them all round.

  “I’ll drink to that!” said Jeffries.

  “As will I!” said Carnatus.

  “I’ll be dam’d if I don’t!” said Gad.

  I spoke up sheepishly.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” I added, staring up at Carnatus: he had so many ribbons and laces that he looked out of place hiding in the woods. He would have fit far better into Charles’s court at Whitehall.

  Jeffries noticed my apprehension.

  “Carnatus, this is Megs,” he said, by way of introduction. “Though young, he has already proved himself by robbing Lady Castlemaine!”

  “A bold feat!” the giant roared, his wig settling under his hat.

  He is a true high tobyman,” said Aventis. “Quite skilled with pistol and sword.”

  “Well, I would not—” I began.

  “Pfft!” Carnatus cried. “How can you object? There is no praise greater than flattery!”

  He clinked his cup against mine.

  “Ah, how foolish of me?” cried Jeffries. “What kind of captain am I? I had a friend in Waltham who prayed at the foot of holy relics. Or, I should say, ‘preyed,’ eh Megs?”

  I smiled as Jeffries removed one . . . two . . . then a third heavy bags from the cave.

  “Now that we are all present,” he said, “let us divide the spoils.”

  I could see the gleam of avarice in Carnatus and Gad’s eyes.

  After slicing open the bags, Jeffries revealed a pirate’s chest’s worth of gold.

  “Aventis, Carnatus, Gad, and Megs,” he said, slapping a mound of guineas into each of our outstretched palms. “Naturally, Megs gets double since he was present and aided the venture.”

  I looked down at my two hands. I had never possessed so much gold! How the coins glistened in the sun, each calling up to me with the promise of a new life.

  “Thank you, captain,” I said, my voice quavering with emotion.

  “You earned it, lad,” he said, patting me on the shoulder.

  “Let us have a big huzzah for Megs!” cried Aventis.

  “HUZZAH!” the company shouted. “Huzzah and huzzah for Megs!”

  I bowed deep in gratitude—I who was so unused to praise.

  “I will just put these away—”

  I nodded toward the cave, gesturing with my guineas, but in truth, I sought a place to hide my tears. I knew it might be baseless and perhaps a fool’s dream, but for the first time in my life, I felt a part of something—something bigger than myself. Making sure to wipe my eyes dry, I rejoined my friends outside, where Carnatus was in the midst of telling a gambling tale.

  Throwing a Main

  The next morning, I made sure to rise early and walk to the edge of the woods. Unbuttoning my breeches and sliding them down, I squatted low and prepared to empty my bladder.

  “What a damn’d strange stance!” a voice cried from behind me.

  With more alacrity than a startled squirrel, I vaulted upright, pulled up my breeches, and with clumsy fingers, endeavored to close them. I was relieved not to find wetness, but aghast lest Carnatus had discovered what he should not. Happily, all was well, for he unbuttoned his breeches and unloosed a powerful stream.

  “Pray, do not let me halt you!” he roared, slapping me on the back. “We are all men here.”

  “I-I confess to being ashamed,” I stammered.

  “In God’s name, why?” he asked.

  “Well . . . you are so … endowed . . . that I fear my own member would pale beside your own.”

  “Of course!” Carnatus smiled. “I perfectly understand.”

  He readjusted his costume and strode, whistling, back toward our camp.

  My muscles untensed with such haste that I nearly fell to the ground. Bracing against the trunk of a beech, I panted like one who had just run a league. I must never, I determined, be observed in such a position again!

  As I walked back to the others, I fought to alter my countenance so that by the time I arrived, it reflected relative calm.

  “Men,” said Jeffries, addressing our whole crew. “It is my opinion it will benefit our health, after the uh—” he looked at Carnatus, “—‘incident’ in Harlow, if we, to be short, get the hell out of Epping.”

  Carnatus rolled his eyes as the rest of us nodded. Gad proved a welcome addition, for he worked to prepare the horses. After a breakfast of wild-caught berries, I found to my surprise that the more time I spent in the saddle, the less pain assaulted my thighs. Fourteen-and-a-half leagues later, when we arrived at Hounslow via the Great Western Road, I felt mere pangs in my legs as opposed to the stabbings of a dagger.

  “Lads,” Jeffries whispered, as he led us into a hollow at a bend in the wide road. “Though we are rich enough, if some prey wanders into our path, what kind of thieves would we be not to take it down?”

  “Damn’d bad ones!” said Carnatus.

  “Unworthy of the name,” said Aventis.

  “We weren’t be chirping-merry,” Gad affirmed.

  As we watched, waited, and listened, I found myself shaking in the cold spring afternoon. Indeed, some massed gray clouds above seemed to threaten rain. Before the deluge could descend, we heard a distant rumble—not of thunder—but that of iron wheels. Looking over my horse’s head, I could just discern eight others, belonging to two now-close coaches! The first was crafted of gilt and bore a large seal—along with four standing guards. The second trundled behind, looking poor and plain by comparison.

  “On them!” Jeffries cried, leading the charge. As he wheeled his mount into their path, Aventis shouted:

  “No! Stop!”

  Still, Carnatus and Gad leapt to what must be their work, binding the guards and driver with cleverly slung rope. While Aventis, eyes closed, remained behind in the hollow, I trotted my mount up to Jeffries’s.

  “Good day to you, missus,” he bid an old woman in the first coach. She was fiercely shielding a boy, aged perhaps eleven. “Who is this fine fellow?” he asked, smiling down at the lad.

  “Only the son of your king,” the woman glowered.

  Jeffries instantly lowered his pistols, while Carnatus and Gad scrambled to undo their knotty work.

  “My good woman,” Jeffries said from his saddle, doffing his hat, “I deeply beg your pardon. May God shed his light on this child and see that his life is worthy and long.”

  The boy, dressed in opulent blue, stuck his head with its long curly hair out the coach window.

  “And who would you be?” he asked Jeffries.

  “I-I am a captain, late of service to your father.”


  The boy arched his dark brows.

  “How do you do him a service by holding up his relations?”

  This was, I can swear, the first time I saw Jeffries blush.

  But the boy wasn’t finished.

  “My name is James Scott,” he said, “but you may address me as duke. For I will be so two years hence. The very first Duke of Monmouth.”

  “God’s wounds!” I heard Carnatus groan.

  Jeffries regained his composure.

  “Good duke,” he said, “since your grandfather’s terrible death, men like me have done what we must. Alas, war and treason consumed all we had.”

  Jeffries bowed his head in a rare show of sorrow.

  “I do not condone your trade,” the future duke said. “But at least you are a gentleman.” He gave Jeffries a hard stare: then turned to me, Gad, and Carnatus. “I trust we shall meet again,” said the boy, “and you will bow to me as your master.”

  The driver and guards took up their posts as he gave an imperious wave. It was almost out of habit that we raised our pistols to ensure a quiet departure.

  Aventis rode up to join us, his face white as he threw off his mask.

  “Good Lord,” he said, “did you not recognize the seal? Let us desist in future from robbing the king’s issue.”

  “But he has so many!” Carnatus shouted.

  “And not a one legitimate,” Jeffries added.

  “The last thing we should do is to offend His Majesty,” said Aventis. “He is no tyrant like Louis but hates to be made a fool.”

  “Which ‘e is,” said Gad.

  The rest of us looked at him with amazement.

  “Ain’t ya heard the latest? ‘He never said a foolish thing, Nor ever did a wise one.’”

  “That is unfair,” said Jeffries. “Did he not return from Breda to take the throne?”

  “And free us from all things Cromwell!” said Carnatus. “Gad, come here directly. I’ve a notion to box your ears!”

  Gad approached his master, head drooping, but Carnatus, after raising his arm, merely threw off the lad’s cap and tousled his hair.

  Still, Aventis did not smile. His black eyes stern, he resumed his lecture.