A Crowning Mercy. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ scarred and ugly. It was a broad face, hard as leather, with a broken nose. At his side was a sword, in his belt a pistol, and he looked from Campion to Scammell. ‘She’s yours?’

      ‘Indeed, sir!’ Scammell sounded nervous. The man frightened him.

      ‘Only the best, eh? She’s the answer to a Puritan’s prayer, and no mistake. I hope you know how damned lucky you are. Does she have it?’

      ‘No!’ Scammell shook his head. ‘Indeed, no!’

      The man stared at Campion. ‘We’ll talk later, miss. Don’t run away.’

      She ran. She was terrified of him, of the smell of him and the violence that he radiated. She went to the stable-yard that was warm in the sunlight and sat on the mounting block and let the kittens come to her. They rolled about her hand, fur warm and sharp clawed and she blinked back tears. She must run away! She must go far from this place, but there was nowhere to go. She must run.

      There were footsteps in the archway to the yard. She looked left, and there was the man. He must have followed her. He came swiftly towards her, his sword clanging against the water trough, and before she could move he had seized her shoulder and pushed her once more against the wall. His breath stank. His leather soldier’s jerkin was greasy. He smiled, showing rotten, stained teeth. ‘Now, miss, I’ve come all the way from London so you’re going to be nice to me, aren’t you?’

      ‘Sir?’ She was terrified.

      ‘Where is it?’

      ‘Where’s what, sir?’ She was struggling, but was helpless against his huge strength.

      ‘God’s bowels, woman! Don’t play with me!’ he shouted, hurting her shoulder with his hand. Then he smiled again. ‘Pretty little Puritan, aren’t we? Wasted on that bladder of a man.’ He stayed smiling as his right knee jerked upwards, forcing her legs apart, and he pushed it up between her thighs, reaching down with his free hand for the hem of her skirt.

      ‘That’s enough, mister!’ The voice came from her right. Tobias Horsnell, the stable-man, stood easily in a doorway, the musketoon that was used to kill sick beasts held in his hand. ‘I doubt this be good, mister. Let her go.’

      ‘Who are you?’

      ‘I’m the one who should be asking that.’ Horsnell seemed unconcerned by the man’s crude and violent air. He twitched the gun. ‘You take your hands off her. Now what be this about?’

      The man had stepped back, releasing her. He brushed his hands as if she had been filthy. ‘She has something I want.’

      Horsnell looked at Campion. He was a thin man, his wiry forearms burned black by the sun. He was taciturn in household prayers, though he was one of the few servants who had learned to read and Campion had watched him laboriously mouth the words of the Bible. ‘Is that true, Miss Dorcas?’

      ‘No!’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t even know what it is!’

      ‘What is it, mister?’

      ‘A seal.’ The man seemed to be gauging whether he would have time to pull the pistol from his belt, but Tobias Horsnell kept his musketoon steady and his voice neutral. ‘Do you have the seal, Miss Dorcas?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘There, mister. That be your answer. I think you should go.’ The musketoon added force to his polite suggestion and Horsnell kept the weapon levelled till the stranger had left the yard. Only then did he drop the muzzle and give her a slow smile.’ ‘Twasn’t loaded, but the Lord looks after us. I hope you told the truth, Miss Dorcas.’

      ‘I did.’

      ‘Good, God be praised. He was an ungodly man, Miss Dorcas, and there be plenty like him outside these walls.’

      She frowned at the words. She had spoken little with Tobias Horsnell, for he was a man who stayed away from the house except for prayers, yet he seemed to have divined her intention of running away. Why else would he have stressed the dangers outside Werlatton’s estate?

      She smoothed the collar of her dress. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘You thank your Lord and Saviour, miss. In times of trouble He’ll be at hand.’ He had stooped to pick up and fondle one of the kittens. ‘I could tell you tales of His mercy, Miss Dorcas.’

      ‘And tales of His punishment, Mr Horsnell?’

      It was a question she would never have dared put to her father, nor would her father have given her the answer that his stable-man now gave. He shrugged, and spoke as matter-of-factly as if he were talking of hoof-oil or dung shovels. ‘God loves us, miss, that’s all I do know. Wind or blow, Miss Dorcas, He loves us. You pray, miss, and the answer will be there.’

      Yet she knew the answer already and had been too blind to see it. She knew what she had to do. She had to do what the strange man had failed to do, what her brother had failed to do, and what Samuel Scammell had failed to do. She must find the seal and hope that it would be the key to a door which led to freedom. She smiled.

      ‘Pray for me, Mr Horsnell.’

      He smiled back. ‘Nigh these twenty years, Miss Dorcas, I’ve done that. Reckon I won’t stop now.’

      She would find the seal.

5

      Campion began that same evening, announcing that she would tidy up the mess which the stranger had made in her father’s study. The man had gone, saying he would visit Isaac Blood, though it was Blood’s signature on a letter of introduction that had let him into Werlatton Hall. He had shocked Ebenezer and Scammell by the violence and savagery of his search, but he had gone as quickly and mysteriously as he had arrived. The seal did not seem to exist.

      Scammell was pleased that Campion seemed to be emerging from her week-long oppression. He unlocked the study door and offered to help her. She shook her head. ‘Do you have the key to my room?’

      He gave it to her. He looked past her at the mess she had first glimpsed when the man had seized her in the passageway. ‘It’s a big job, my dear.’

      ‘I can manage.’ She took the key to the study too, shut the door, and locked herself in.

      Almost at once she realised that her impetuosity had led her into a mistake. This room had been searched more than once and it was unlikely that she would discover anything that her brother or Scammell had missed, yet now that she was inside she was overcome with curiosity. She had never been allowed in this room on her own. Her father had spent hour after hour in it, far into the night, and as she looked about the spilled wreckage she wondered what he had done in here. She wondered whether the scattered papers and books would yield a clue, not to the mystery of the seal, but to the mystery of her father. Why had a Christian man scowled through life? Why had he been so angry with his God, so brutal with his love? It seemed to her, standing in the musty smell of the room, that this was also a secret which needed to be uncovered if she was to be free.

      She worked all evening, leaving the room only once to stalk stealthily to the kitchen. She fetched two apples, some bread and a lit candle with which she could light the thick candles on her father’s table. On her return СКАЧАТЬ