The Rebel’s Daughter (8 page)

“
Not
Monmouth’s, perhaps.” He arched an eyebrow at her. “But he
is
Jonathan Wolfe’s
man. Master Ffoyle doesn’t deserve your anger,
Mistress.”

“
I
know.” She folded her arms tightly across her chest, as if to keep
her fury inside. “Father’s the one I’m angry with, for leaving us.
For making Mother so distressed she has made herself ill. For
taking Aaron away from her when everyone knows he’s her
darling.”

The rhythmic clop of hooves continued
along the dirt road, and the birds sang in the trees above them.
Bayle did not react to her bitter tirade, as if he knew she needed
to say the words that she had kept pent up aloud. He simply kept
the reins loose across one bent knee, his foot on the guard, and
his gaze straight ahead.

“
Do you
think we’ll find them?” Helena asked at last, her voice
small.

“
Whether
we do or not,” he replied slowly. “Loxsbeare Manor is no longer
your home.”

“
What
are you saying?” She clasped her hands tightly in her lap.
How could this be
happening?

Her great-grandfather, Julius
Woulfe, had built the house for his fifteen-year-old bride when the
first King Charles occupied the throne some sixty years before. In
an effort to make the nervous
girl’s transition to married life easier, and the
prospect of her twenty-four-year-old groom less terrifying, he
named their new home after the village near Tiverton, where she was
born.

His son, Thomas, Helena’s grandfather,
possessed a more artistic nature than his Puritan father. He had
the interior white plasterwork painted with swathes of leaves and
flowers that trailed up the staircase and across the tops of
doorways.

“
Now the
Duke has been defeated, the soldiers will come,
Mistress.”

The thought of soldiers trampling through
her home made her grip the rough wood of the cart so hard that
splinters cut into her hand.

Her rage subsided, and her breathing
slowed down somewhat, as her rational side took over. Everything
had changed and harping back to the past would not help them now.
The thick branches above them swayed and collided in the wind,
throwing off the remains of the last storm to sprinkle the cart
with droplets of cool water.

Helena took a deep breath. “Then you had
better stop calling me Mistress.”

Chapter 5

The sound of steady
hoof
-beats
approaching brought Hendry’s gaze to the wrought iron gates that
separated the courtyard from St David’s Hill. He leaned on his
broom, grateful for a break in the hot and arduous task of sweeping
the cobbles, watching as Samuel Ffoyle rode into the courtyard and
summoned a groom.

The youth moved with insolent slowness
until Samuel reprimanded him for being kept waiting.

The groom had come into his elevated
position since the departure of the original incumbent for
Monmouth’s army. However hard he tried, Henry couldn’t like
Benjamin.

Henry propped his broom against the
nearest wall and fell into step beside Samuel. “Is something wrong,
Master Ffoyle?” he asked as they mounted the steps side by
side.

“
Not
here,” Samuel barked, ushering him to where his mother, clothed in
a cream gown from neck to toe and bathed in a shaft of light,
waited in the entrance hall like a nervous wraith.

On catching sight of them, her face
closed, as if in anticipation of more bad news.

Samuel bowed over her hand, though he
wasted no time on preliminaries. “Lady Elizabeth. Monmouth’s army
has been routed, and the king will show no mercy to known rebels.
You must leave here at once.”

“
My
husband could return at any time, Master Ffoyle.” She withdrew her
hand from his, and lifted her chin, defiant. “I cannot possibly
leave.”

“
Somerset is swarming with troopers.” Samuel persisted.
“Devon will be too, in a day or so. My lady, if you don’t depart of
your own volition, you may find yourself taking flight with only
the clothes on your back.”

“
We must
listen to Master Ffoyle, Mother.” Henry placed a hand on her
shoulder. “He would never give us bad advice.”

She stared about wildly. “Where would we
go? We have no family, and no friends who aren’t part of this…?”
she broke off, her true feelings about the rebellion suppressed
even now, though Henry knew what she had been about to say. “Master
Ffoyle will help us.” Henry took in Samuel’s calm yet determined
expression, adding. “My father asked you to do this?”

Samuel nodded. “There’s no time to
explain, but I promise we’ll talk later. You must pack up
everything you need. Hide your valuables, or send them away with
someone you trust.”

“
You are
the only one we can trust, Master Ffoyle.” Henry said, aware he
sounded bitter, but he couldn’t stop himself. He felt redundant,
inadequate, with his father, uncle and brother off fighting for a
cause of which he too could have been a part. Even Helena had
followed her own impulses; and where was he? Caretaking an empty
house occupied by a distraught woman who scorned his
care.

While Henry reassured his mother, Samuel
had taken command of the servants. Handing his hat and cloak to a
footman, his gaze swept the lofty entrance hall as if marshalling
his thoughts. “Three of my carts are on their way to take your
goods to my home. Bring anything you don’t wish the King’s men to
plunder or destroy to this hall, and I’ll organise the servants to
begin packing.”

Plunder
or destroy?
The words made Hendry’s bowels
cramp, but he kept silent. He must not show weakness
now.

“
Henry,”
Samuel looked down at him from his massive height. “You and Helena
must dress yourselves in simple clothes; no silks or taffetas. You
must pass for local farming people and…”

“
Helena
is not here,” Henry interrupted, flushing. “She left for Somerset
just this morning.”

Shame rushed through him at the memory of
having thrown his arms around Helena and begged to go with her. He
had meant it at the time. But when the watching servants had
dispersed, and he was alone again with Lady Elizabeth, he realised
it had been an empty wish. The thought of meeting armed soldiers
eager for blood turned his stomach.

Samuel dropped his arms and stepped
closer, frowning. “Somerset? Alone? Why?”

“
Nathan
Bayle is with her,” Mother said, as if that made it
acceptable.

“
They’ve
gone to find Father and the others,” Henry said, his voice
flat.

“
I see.”
Samuel pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Well, Bayle knows the
plan, so when they return,” he paused, the word
if
hanging in the air between them, “he
knows where to come.”

A shadow passed the window. There was the
sound of multiple cartwheels rumbling into the
courtyard.

“
Ah. My men are here.” Samuel hauled on the
front door and addressed someone Henry couldn’t see. “When the
carts are loaded, cover them and conceal them in the stables. Don’t
leave them in the yard, as they would be seen from the road.” With
a curt nod to Henry he bounded down the front steps.

“
Master
Ffoyle, what about Helena?” Henry called after him.

Samuel halted at the bottom and turned
back. “Pray for her.”

His mother recoiled with a sharp cry, then
hurried away into the house, calling frantically for Betty and
Ruth.

Henry found himself alone in the hall,
unsure of what to do next. He had taken an oath to take care of
Loxsbeare and his mother, and yet they were about to abandon their
home. Would his father ever forgive him?

As he stood there arguing with himself,
two servants emerged from the stewards room, struggling with a
heavy oak chest they manhandled out of the front door. Samuel
followed behind, his arms laden with ledgers and two gold
candlesticks. The estate accounts were almost as valuable as the
contents of the chest.

Hendr
y’s stomach knotted again. The
Woulfes were really leaving Loxsbeare. For how long? Until the
panic had died down - or forever?

A maid came running into the hall, only to
halt in front of him when she caught sight of his face.

He straightened and brushed past her, taking
the stairs two at a time.

* * *

At a small village called
Staplegrove, Bayle stopped to buy small beer and allow the horses
some rest. There, as in every village they passed through since
entering Somerset, news of
Monmouth’s defeat was on everyone’s lips. Small
groups of villagers huddled round the public pump and crowded the
inn, repeating what they had heard to anyone who would
listen.

Helena climbed down to stretch her legs,
while Bayle removed wheat stalks entangled in the cartwheels. Some
locals struck up a conversation with him.

Others, less eager to talk, tried to
ascertain whether they were strangers who might either threaten
their existence, or bring more news. Once Bayle had convinced them
that he and Helena were of the second category, they clustered
around him to demand what they knew.

“
Troopers 'ave been through “ere already today.” An elderly
man with wrinkled, sunbaked skin told them.

“
Where’s
the patrol now?” Bayle asked.

“
They
took off through those fields over there, after a couple o' poor
wretches on t ‘other side of that wall.” He pointed a dirty finger
down Fore Street, back where they had come. “But I don’t think they
woz rebels. they had 'orses with 'em.”

Thanking him, Bayle jerked his chin at
Helena, who scrambled reluctantly back into the cart. Her back was
stiff from being bumped against the unyielding wooden seat. Her jaw
was so sore, she could swear her teeth had worked themselves loose.
“Are all Somerset roads so narrow and bumpy?”

Bayle gave a wry smile. “I’m afraid
so.”

Helena kept further complaints to herself
as they passed through villages with names like Cheddon Fitzpane,
West Monkton, Adsborough and Thurloxton; a route with which Bayle
appeared familiar, since he did not stop to ask for
directions.

Helena scanned the fields with narrowed eyes,
half expecting to see ragged and blood-splattered figures crawling
through the undergrowth, or peering out from behind trees.

She saw no one.

The landscape remained quiet and still,
the empty fields basking in the afterglow of the early evening.
When hunger intruded, she picked at her package of bread and sliced
meat, handing morsels to Bayle.

Daylight faded into a pink and yellow
evening. The road ahead was a wide, flat plain with empty fields on
either side; a few low trees scattered in the distance.

The sun sank behind the horizon, and the
temperature dropped swiftly.

She was about to ask if they would spend
the entire night traveling, when a cluster of buildings
materialised out of the gloom on the road ahead.

A squat church with a thin spire rose
behind a row of houses. A range of hills shrouded in mist rose in
the distance. But the village, if that’s what it was, contained
little else.

The rumbling cart entered a deserted main
street. Bayle pulled to a halt below a sign that sported a white
bird in flight, the bottom half obscured by dirt and
grime.

An upper storey overhung the ground floor
in which small, square windows with bottle glass panes and deep
sills dotted the façade at various heights. Soft yellow light
streamed out of the lower windows onto the road, while the sounds
of chattering voices within mingled with the clatter of pots and
plates.

“
Where
are we?” Helena whispered, her hunger awoken by enticing cooking
smells that hung in the air.

“
Weston
is about five miles on the other side of that marshland.” Bayle
pointed toward flatlands outlined by clumps of trees. “We’ll stay
here tonight. There’ll be soldiers all over the roads into
Bridgwater by tomorrow.”

“
Would
they bother with us, do you think?”

“
Whatever their intentions, we are at their mercy. Remember
not to show any interest in the rebels. Churchill’s men will be
well-organized after the initial chaos of today, and every soldier
in the county will be searching for fugitives.”

“
Do you
regret coming with me?” she asked, hauling her pain-filled body
onto the road.

“
We’re
here now,” he said, without looking at her. “By tomorrow or the
next day, pray God, we may be home again, but I fear the
countryside has seen nothing of the King James’s vengeance
yet.”

* * *

Astride a hay bale inside the stable door,
Henry stretched his arms above his head and tried not to groan as
his muscles protested.