XXII

Of that mad ride through Spain Joshua never afterwards spoke without a shake of the head, and a gesture of incredulity. “You ask me how we compassed it?” says he. “I will tell you very simply, I do not know. We were out of Madrid featly enough, none saying us nay. Why should they? My master wore the collar of the Golden Fleece about his neck, a fine gaudy thing, to rank with our Garter, so I believe. That weighed with them, I warrant you. If any speered after us, why, we were on the King’s business, and you may believe we tarried not to see how they stomached that.

“We rode through that first night without drawing rein. I thanked Jupiter⁠—a very potent planet in my affairs⁠—that there was some faint moonlight, else had we been shent. Past some town⁠—you would not know it, and nor did I⁠—clouds came up, and we were left to flounder among the ruts and the boulders. As I remember, we lost the road twice between that stage and the next. I was near to breaking my head against low-hanging tree-branches, lost, then bogged in some swamp. ‘How fares your honour?’ sing I out into the darkness. ‘Merrily, merrily!’ calls Sir Nicholas back to me. What can be done with such a mad-wag? We were casting about to find the road, stumbling here, foundering there, with all Spain hunting us to the rearward. But ‘Merrily, merrily!’ quoth Sir Nicholas, and I doubt he thought so. Did he lose the road? What matter for that? Trust him to nose out the north; it was enough. The dawn came up, and a sharp wind with it, enough to cut one in two. I was never more glad of the daylight. We struck the road⁠—God’s light, there was little enough to choose between it and the open country!⁠—pushed on, the horses nigh done. My nag went lame: small blame to him. We fetched up at the next stage, walking the last league. You may be sure we had put a-many between us and Madrid.

“My head was a-nod, and my eyes full of dust. What matter for that? ‘How fares you honour?’⁠—‘Excellent well,’ quotha, as though he were upon a day’s hunting. Ay, and a hunt it was, and he the hart. Yet I do not deny he hunted too, a quarry of his own, and maybe gave more thought to that than to the hounds behind him. So did not I, but I own myself to be a very meacock creature, besides which the salt fell towards me in an unlucky spill at that inn, and such a happening cannot be regarded as fortunate. For all that I kept a good heart. There was a certain prophesy made concerning me which led me to suppose I was not destined to die upon a gallows, or at the stake. Moreover, if you go upon a venture with Mad Nicholas you had best leave fear behind you.

“We stayed but to break our fast at the stage. Maybe they looked curiously at the inn. As I remember, there was a weasel-beaked fellow mighty sprag to beagle out our business. He made little by that. We ate but a running-banquet there; no sleep for us yet, by your leave. A mouthful snatched, a cup or two of wine to slake our throats, and away we went again. I remember I bestrode a leathern-mouthed Almaine⁠—a devil to ride, but a devil to go. Sir Nicholas had a Barb under him, a fine fleet beast, but mine would have gone for double the distance. Let that pass. We went at full stretch, no rest for man or beast. Thus it is to go abroad on Sir Nicholas’ affairs. But I do not complain. ‘God save you, sir!’ cry I, and I was reeling in the saddle. ‘Will you ride till Doomsday?’ We drew rein then, at the next stage. ‘We have a fair start of them,’ says my master, stretching up his arms. ‘I’m for bed.’ I warrant you I dropped where I stood, and so slept.

“It was all of a piece. We suffered a check here, an ill-chance there. At one stage there were no nags to be had. We wasted a matter of six hours: precious time if you are hunted men. But Sir Nicholas carried all off with a high hand. I shivered to hear him, but it served, it served. He had not been master of a ship’s crew for naught, do you see? We took what horses we would, scattered the ducats here and there. Did a man refuse to sell? A murrain on the fellow! if he would not sell in all honesty he must be robbed. To speak sooth, when it was thus shown him he would, in the general way, sell. Our need? Why, we went upon the King’s business. Did they ask for proof? We waved a folded paper in their silly faces. (It was an inventory of some shirts and other matters sent to the washer woman, I believe, but they were not to know that.) It sufficed. Our errand? Why, there was a dangerous pirate let loose, a very fiend in human shape. Who was this one? Ho, who but El Beauvallet himself! What a stir was there! We were off whiles the dizzards chattered over it.

“We suffered a bad check somewhere south of Burgos. There was not a horse to be had that was not full of windgalls, or past cure of the staggers. We lay up at an inn⁠—a very noisome hole it was, but we took little account of that. It was there we came near to our undoing, but it passed, it passed. There came the sound of a horse ridden hard. I could see the watchful look in my master’s eye; he bore a fidgeting sword in his scabbard those few minutes, nor was my dagger restful in its sheath. A man went by our inn in a cloud of dust. When it cleared he was away, but I know the look of a soldier, do you see? He was rocking in the saddle: well he might if he had o’ertaken us! For we had not gone at a jog-trot, as you may imagine. He was not on our track. Nay, nay, unless I am much mistaken he was bound for the Frontier. We might have stood in his path and mowed at him; he would have paid no heed. All his orders were to stop the Frontier pass. For that matter I believe we might have declared ourselves all along the way, and had better service. The common folk make a hobgoblin of my master, and fear him like the plague⁠—the grandees not far otherwise, from all I could observe.

“Well, we made it in seven days, and might have made it in less, I believe, but for that check south of Burgos. Odds lifelings, but I was glad to leave the post road behind us at Burgos, and strike northwest to Vasconosa. It was to shake off the hounds, you understand, for those that went not to the Frontier would make Santander, as we judged, and that lay to the east of us. A wild, mad journey, and a miracle that we came off, say I!”

Miracle or not, they did indeed come to Vasconosa at dusk upon the seventh day. There was some sort of an inn there, but little else in the village but a few hovels, and the Great House.

Joshua did good work there while Sir Nicholas washed the travel-stains from his person, and changed his dress. He was trimming his beard when Joshua came up to his room. Joshua came strutting, and looked wisely.

“We have beagled out some few matters, so please you, master. The Great House we have seen, and I learn the family came in late last night. Nothing’s to be heard of them yet. We may easily come at the house; there are a dozen ways through the gardens, and no guards save at the gatehouse, and the stables. Naught to fear, they think. Why no, if they had not El Beauvallet stalking them.”

“What of our road?” interrupted Sir Nicholas, combing his beard to a point. “Could you discover the way?”

“Never fear me, master. There will be some ’cross country work to be done yet, over the hills, but we may go on a fair track, so I understand, as far as Villanova. You ask me how I might find this out without betraying matters not for the tapster’s ears? Very simply, sir. I am loud in my complaints that there is no road but the one in these parts. In the south, say I, we are better served. That put our dawcock on his mettle, I warrant you. ‘Ho!’ says he, ‘I’d have you know there is the road that runs to join the post-road a matter of ten miles to the east of the Great House, and another which runs past the hunting-lodge in the forest to Villanova.”

“We found Villanova on the map,” said Sir Nicholas. “What is this hunting-lodge?”

“Be sure I asked, master. It need not concern us, being no more than a summerhouse that yon popinjay, Diego, uses for his sports. More sports than you might think, master, I dare swear. It lies a matter of five miles from here, and the track comes out not a hundred yards from this inn. I have conned it. Now it seems to me, master, if you are to steal your lady away, I had best have the horses tethered in the spinney hard by the Great House, and so make that track as speedily as may be possible.” He saw that Sir Nicholas had put on a clean ruff, and plucked a poking-stick from out his doublet. “So please you, sir, we will poke out the folds of the ruff a little. Will you have me procure a third horse with a lady’s saddle?”

Sir Nicholas frowned into the mirror. “I dare not take the risk,” he said after a moment’s thought. “We want no questions asked, no tongues set wagging. I’ll have my lady up before me as far as to Villanova.” He glanced out into the fast gathering darkness. “Dark enough for me to venture,” he said. “Can you find that track at need, my man?”

“I have it safe in my head, master.” Joshua put up the poking-stick. “But I would know, sir, what plan you have in mind.”

Sir Nicholas rose up from his chair. His eyes twinkled. “Marry, so would I know, Joshua,” he said frankly.

Joshua shook his head severely. “This is no way to go to work, master. What, do you think to have the noble lady away this night with never a plan in your head?”

“I know not. I’ve a-many plans, but I move in the dark, my friend, and I have need to nose about a little. Maybe I shall get her off tonight, if opportunity serves; maybe I shall hold my hand a while. We will take the horses in case of need. See a fresh pair saddled, and tell what lie leaps most readily to your tongue.”

Joshua prepared to depart. “I shall take leave to say, master, that a man has to be nimble-witted to keep pace with you,” he remarked, and went out.

Sir Nicholas did not inquire what lie had been told when he came down twenty minutes later. Joshua had two good horses at the door, and the landlord seemed satisfied. Sir Nicholas swung his cloak over his arm, and sallied forth.

They had not far to go to the spinney Joshua had located. It ran on a low wall, crumbling and ivy-grown, which shut in the gardens of the house they sought. The wall was easy enough to come over. The horses were tethered in a thicket, a hundred yards or more from the road. Sir Nicholas set a hand on the low wall, and vaulted lightly over; Joshua climbed after him.

They found themselves behind a yew hedge that bordered a paved walk. There were openings cut in it, and through one of these they went, to the pleasaunce.

Ahead of them the house loomed up in the darkness; they could see a light burning through an open window on the ground-floor, and another in a room above-stairs. For the rest there seemed to be no sign of life in the house, or else the windows were shuttered.

“Stay you in the lee of that hedge,” Sir Nicholas whispered. “I am off to see what is to be seen.” He slipped past, and was across the pleasaunce before Joshua could expostulate; bareheaded, a hand on his sword-hilt.

Joshua saw him reach the shadow of the house, and lost him then for a space. Evidently he was making a reconnaissance of those dark windows. Joshua shivered and drew his cloak more closely about him.

There was no sound behind the shuttered windows, nor any light discernible. The place seemed to be strangely quiet, or else this side of the house was not much inhabited. Sir Nicholas stole along until he stood beneath the one unshuttered window. Flattening himself against the wall, he peeped cautiously in.

The window stood wide to the cool evening air; the room seemed to be a sort of winter parlour, very elegantly furnished. In a chair half-turned from the window sat Doña Beatrice de Carvalho, reading from a gilt-bound volume.

Sir Nicholas considered her for a moment. Then with a little shrug of fatalism he set his hands on the sill and noiselessly swung one leg over.

Doña Beatrice, yawning over her book, heard a tiny sound, the click of a scabbard against the stone wall. She turned her head towards the window, and for once was startled out of her composure. She let fall her book.

“I give you a thousand good-morrows, señora,” said Sir Nicholas pleasantly, and came gracefully into the room.

Doña Beatrice recovered herself. “My dear Chevalier!” she drawled. “Or should I say my dear Señor Beauvallet?”

“But were you in doubt?” said Sir Nicholas, one eyebrow up.

“Very little,” she said. She lay back in her chair, placidly regarding him. “You are a remarkably bold man, señor. I protest I like you. But what do you hope for here?”

“To be frank with you, señora, I am here to carry off your niece,” said Sir Nicholas. He walked to the door, opened it, and looked out into the passage. There was no sign of anyone stirring. He shut the door, and came back into the room. “And if your charming son is at hand I shall be happy to cross swords with him,” he added.

She gave a low laugh of pure enjoyment. “You are delightful,” she assured him. “But do you think I shall sit quiet while you perform these deeds?”

He smiled disarmingly. “Why, as to that, señora, I am afraid I shall have to use you rather roughly,” he said. “It is not my custom to war with women, and I should be loth to have you think me a brutal fellow, but I fear I shall have to tie you up and gag you.” The smile grew. “Be at ease, I shall not hurt you.”

She was perfectly at her ease. “Holy Virgin, a desperate man, I see! What possessed you to come in at this window, Señor Beauvallet?”

“It was the only one that stood open,” he replied lightly.

“You might have chanced on my son, señor, instead of me.”

“I had rather hoped that I might,” agreed Sir Nicholas. “I am out of luck.”

Her eyelids drooped. “Yes, señor, you are out of luck; more so than you know,” she said.

“Am I so, señora?” The blue eyes were watchful now.

“Sadly, I fear. You will have to be content to talk to me. I confess I could not have hit upon a more entrancing way of spending this tedious evening. You see, I am alone in the house but for my servants.”

“You astonish me, señora,” said Sir Nicholas, politely incredulous.

“Pray you search the house if it will set your mind at rest,” she invited. “I am a creature quite without guile. This is a most amusing situation, do you not find?”

Sir Nicholas sat down on the edge of a small table near at hand. He began to play with his pomander, but his eyes never left the lady’s face for all they were so careless-seeming. “It is unexpected,” he admitted. “But then, as you no doubt know, señora, my genius lies in dealing with the unexpected. Where, dear lady, has your son taken Doña Dominica?”

She was prepared for that. “Rather, señor, he has gone in search of her. Yesterday, not ten miles from here, our equipage was set upon by brigands, and my niece carried off.”

“Brigands is exactly the word I should myself have chosen,” nodded Sir Nicholas, dangerously sweet. “I understand now why you are in so much agitation, señora. A grievous thing to have your cherished niece carried off.” His voice changed; he let fall his pomander, and Doña Beatrice saw that the laughing eyes were like twin swords. “Come, señora!” he said briskly. “Give me credit for some little measure of wit! Where has he taken her?”

“My dear Señor Beauvallet, if he had taken her you would surely not expect me to tell you,” she pointed out.

Sir Nicholas’ brain was working swiftly now. “I think you have told me all I have need to know,” he said. “There is a certain hunting-lodge not five miles from here, is there not?”

The faintest shade of alarm, or perhaps is was only of annoyance, crossed her face. It was enough for Sir Nicholas, watching like a hawk. “My thanks, señora.” He stood up. There was no smile in his eyes now; they were blazing, and the fine mouth was set hard.

“You know more than I do, señor,” she shrugged.

He stood looking down at her for a moment; she gave a little laugh, and looked away. “I know,” said Sir Nicholas softly, “that I shall have rid the earth of a very knave when I rid it of Don Diego de Carvalho. As for you, señora⁠—” He broke off, and threw up his head, intently listening. The sound of horses, approaching fast, was heard. He took a quick step forward, and before she could move had a hand hard clamped over Doña Beatrice’s mouth, the other gripping her shoulder. There was a sound of trampling round at the front of the house, and at that moment Joshua’s alarmed face peeped over the windowsill.

The black brows lifted interrogatively.

“Master, master, King’s men!” whispered Joshua.

He nodded briefly. “Rip me up your cloak. Quick, man!” His hand left Doña Beatrice’s shoulder, and flicked the handkerchief from the sleeve of his doublet. Without ceremony he forced it into the lady’s mouth. Not afraid, but cynical still, she was able to admire in a detached way his coolness, and to reflect that she could hardly recognise him now for the same man who had ruffled it so gaily in Madrid. He had a ruthless look now; there would be quick death for any who crossed his path tonight.

Joshua threw his torn cloak into the room. A thunder of knocks on the front door in the distance set him shivering again. “For God’s sake, master⁠—!”

Sir Nicholas answered never a word. With swift, sure movements he twisted one of the strips of cloth tightly round Doña Beatrice’s gagged mouth, and tied it. Another encircled her body, pinning her arms to her sides. She made no resistance; over the bandage her eyes looked mockingly. If the King’s men were at hand now El Beauvallet was doomed.

There was a hurry of footsteps in the passage, servants were running to the front door. Sir Nicholas bent, passed the third strip round the lady’s wide skirts, and hobbled her tightly.

“In the King’s name!” The peremptory voice reached the parlour; evidently the front door was open now.

Sir Nicholas smiled grimly. “Now, señora!” he said, and lifted her up bodily. She was no light weight, but he carried her easily to the window. Her eyes no longer mocked; they looked startled now, for this was indeed the unexpected.

“Take the lady!” said Sir Nicholas, and lowered her into Joshua’s arms.

“Beshrew your heart, master!” whispered Joshua, staggering under the burden. “Are you mad in very sooth? Come away, sir! For the love of God come swiftly!”

“I come,” said Sir Nicholas, and climbed lightly over the sill. He dropped to the ground, lifted his prisoner from Joshua’s straining arms, and carried her off over his shoulder across the dark pleasaunce to the low wall, and the spinney beyond.

“We are sped! we are sped!” almost moaned Joshua. “And you lug the wrong lady off with us! What now, master? Whither?”

“To that hunting-lodge,” said Sir Nicholas through his teeth. “We shall leave the wrong lady in the spinney. I do not think they will look for her there in a hurry.” He dumped Doña Beatrice down on the wall, climbed over, and lifted her up again. She was carried to the thicket where the horses stood, and set down in the middle of it. Sir Nicholas untied his horse and gathered the bridle in his hand. A moment he looked down at Doña Beatrice, glaring up at him. “Señora,” he said, “do not repine at the discomfort of your situation. Had you been a man I should have killed you.”