Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(30)
Chapter 4
A DEATHLIKE STILLNESS hung over the eerie corridors of the gaol. Then a heavy door slammed, its bolt rattled, and the sound of scuffling feet and an ominous dragging broke the quiet. Hicks started from his slumber. Beads of cold sweat dappled on his brow, and he stared with fear-glazed eyes into the shadowed and contorted face bending over him.
“Nay! Nay!” he blubbered pleadingly as he fought the tangled blankets and thrust up fat, pudgy fingers to ward off the ghost of his dreams looming above him.
“Blimey, Hicks, settle yerself!”
The shadow straightened and became more of a man. Hicks blinked as he focused on the group standing before him. Awareness finally penetrated his mind, and his pinched stare turned to one of gaping surprise as he noted their condition. John Craddock gestured to the prisoner.
“The bloody beggar tried to escape, ‘e did.” He managed to swagger only slightly. “ ’E gave us a run ‘fore we caught him.”
“Run!” Hicks snorted. With a heave of his massive body, he rolled to his feet and surveyed his beefy crew. Craddock nursed a split lip, Hadley displayed a blackening eye, the third guard tested his sore jaw. “Lor‘ help ye if ’e ever turns to fight!”
A smirk of satisfaction marked his thick lips as he mused on Ruark’s sorry state.
“So! Ye thought to cheat the ‘angman, did ye?” The gaoler chortled, and there was a gleam of cruelty which brightened his small, beady eyes. “Ye can bet yer old doxy won’t care a mite if I lay me stick to yer back now.”
Ruark returned mute defiance to the man’s challenge. His bruised and bloody face had been beaten, but was as yet undaunted.
Mister Hadley tenderly touched his discolored eye. “Ah, she weren’t no old doxie, mate. She were a real beaut, she were, and him hot after ‘er. Wouldna mind meself ’aving a piece o‘ that.”
Hicks cocked his eye to Ruark. “She got yer blood up a mite, eh? An‘ there ye were wedded an’ not bedded. Serves ye right, ye ruddy blighter.” He lifted his cudgel and poked at the prisoner’s shoulder. “Come on, tell us her name. Maybe she’ll be wantin‘ more of a man than what ye are. Come on. Tell us.”
Ruark’s scornful reply was bitter, harsh. “Madam Beauchamp, I do believe.”
The bloated jailer stared at Ruark a long moment, slapping his stick across the palm of his hand, but the jeering taunt on the other’s face did not retreat from the silent threat.
“Put ‘is lordship in ’is chambers,” Hicks ordered. “And leave ‘is braces on. I would na want him ter hurt ye’s. ’E’ll be taken care of soon enough.”
It was two days later, early in, the morning, when a loud pounding on the door again caused the snores of the head gaoler to end in a choking gurgle. Hicks rolled him self upright in the bed and after a rumbling belch cleared his throat. He let his ire at being so rudely roused sound in the tone of his bellow.
“Aye, ye blundering lout!” he roared. “Would ye strip the plank from its ‘inges? I’m up!”
Hicks thrust his short, rotund legs into his breeches and without tucking in the long tail of his nightshirt stumbled across the room to throw aside the bar on the iron door and tug the heavy portal open. As the guard stood aside, Hicks stared with mouth agape as he saw Mister Pitney, his large bulk filling the narrow passageway. In his brawny arms were a bundle of clothing and a basket well laden and with such a delicious aroma it set the gaoler’s mouth to watering.
Pitney thrust into the room. “I’ve come from Madam Beauchamp to see to the welfare or her husband. Will ye allow it?”
Though asked as a question, it was much more of a command, and Hicks knew he had little alternative but to nod and fetch the keys. As he took them from the peg, he gave the man a once-over scrutiny, and his pudgy face compressed into a smirking leer.
“Whate’er it was ye did to the bloke, ye did it good.”
The tan brows lifted in question, and Hicks snickered.
“We had to chain the beggar to the wall, else see ourselves done in. He’s come on like a raving madman. Ain‘ even touched a morsel o’ the food ye been sending. Just takes ‘is bread and water like ’e did afore and just sits ‘ere glarin’ at us when we brings what ye’ve sent. If ‘e could reach us, ’e’d kill us, or see us kill him which would be the way o‘ it for sure.”
“Take me to him,” Pitney rasped.
“Aye,” the gaoler shrugged. “That I will.”
The scurryings and squeakings of rats, disturbed by the light, intruded upon the silence of the dimly lit cell. Pitney waited for some stir of life from the motionless form sprawled on the ragged cot, and he was quick to observe the chains fastened on the lean ankles and wrists and the length of chain which ran to the wall from the iron collar secured about the prisoner’s neck.