The Devil's Surrogate Page 3

  'Damn all of them to hell!' Thomas Handiwell slammed his tankard down onto the bar of the Black Drum and glared at the small assembled company. 'Call themselves men and talk about freedom, yes,' he sneered, 'but ask any one of them to go against their so-called lords and masters, even when we have evidence of their guilt, and they run and hide their faces!'

  'My men report that at least four of them have joined up with this Crawley fellow,' Captain Timothy Hart said quietly. 'It would seem they respond to gold rather better than they do to duty, but then I cannot really blame them, those who'll not join us, that is. The Graylings are a rich and powerful family, by all accounts, and they doubtless have rich and powerful friends.'

  'Aye, that they are, and that they surely do,' Handiwell muttered, 'but I'm damned if I'll stand by and let any man's supposed birthright or wealth flout basic laws and human standards. They can't simply snatch innocent people from the roads as if they were no better than common slaves!'

  'And what of your friend, this Mistress Merridew?' Hart enquired, blinking his watery eyes as the first shaft of sunlight suddenly penetrated through the east facing window like a bright sword shaft thrusting into the gloomy barroom. 'Should we not have heard something from her by now? I fear they may have taken her as well.'

  'Damn the foolish wench,' Handiwell snapped, but there was a note of tender concern in his oath. 'I warned her against the venture, and warned her to stay back and run if there was trouble.'

  'Maybe she tried and simply could not run fast enough,' Hart suggested.

  Sergeant Paddy Riley nodded, sagely. 'Ain't easy fer a lady to run fast in skirts, and not that much better if'n she wears breeches, I'd say. Running ain't woman's work, that's what my ma used to tell me, anyway.'

  'Thank you, sergeant,' Hart retorted a bit acidly, 'your homespun family philosophy and wit are hardly called for here, I think.'

  'Maybe not, sir,' Riley replied, unabashed by the intended rebuke, 'but there's maybe a few homespun skills that would be welcome. Sean Kelly and meself could get ourselves in there, I reckon, unless they've got a whole regiment of those bastards wandering around the woods.'

  'And what good could two of you do?' Hart asked impatiently. 'All that would likely happen is you'd get caught, or shot, and that would leave me with two less men. We've already lost Hollis. Isn't that bad enough?'

  'Certainly it's bad, captain sir,' Riley said. 'I've known Hollis since he first joined up, as it happens, and a nicer lad you couldn't wish for, not even when he was in his cups, but that's a soldier's lot and we all accept it when we take the shilling. On the other hand, sir,' he continued, leaning forward in his chair, 'maybe this Grayling place isn't quite the ground for ordinary soldiering, eh? No self-respecting general would commit his troops into woods like those, not when every tree and every bush could be hiding a musket primed and ready. No, captain, begging your pardon, there's a time and a place for everything, and a reason for some, and woods were made for poaching, just as sure as me name is Patrick Michael Flaherty Riley.'

  'And just as sure as you probably grew up feeding your family on rabbits that didn't belong to you, sergeant?' Handiwell interjected, quite unable to keep the grin from his face despite the gravity of the situation. 'Kelly too, perhaps?'

  'Without it we'd have all starved, and without being caught I reckon neither of us would be in this damned army, begging your pardon, sir,' Riley retorted, but his own grin belied the supposed apology in his words. 'The two of us could slip in there, I reckon, though we'd need to be borrowing some more suitable clothing. These damned tunics are far too bright. Something nice and drab would do the job, I think.'

  'I'll see what I can find for you,' Handiwell said without waiting for further comment from Hart. 'Meantime, perhaps Anne would be so good as to see what might be available for breaking our fast. This could be yet another long day, if I'm any judge of these things, and it could be many a long hour before any of us gets the chance to eat again, at least when it comes to a decent hot meal.'

  Paddy Riley nodded. 'It might also be a good idea if we took the young Blaine boy along with us,' he suggested. 'He seems to know this country better than most know the back of their hands.'

  'But he's only a scrap of a lad!' Anne Billings protested, halting in the doorway on her way to the kitchen.

  'But a cunning wee lad, to be sure,' Riley said. 'Believe me, young Toby will be more use than a whole company of troopers out there in those woods and he's less likely to come to any harm than either Kelly or meself. The boy's a survivor if ever there was one, and believe me mistress, it takes one to know one.'

  To the surprise of both Hannah Pennywise and James Calthorpe, the little side door of the church was unlocked and the handle turned easily in the old woman's grasp. She looked back at the young man's petrified face, and grinned. 'Careless of the bastards, I'd say,' she declared in a harsh whisper, 'but we'd better go careful, nonetheless. It may be some sort of trap. That Crawley devil is no fool even if Wickstanner is, and his sort don't go around leaving doors unlocked as should be locked, not by mistake, anyways.'

  James gripped the unfamiliar weight of the pistol in his right hand and swallowed hard as he tried to stop himself from trembling. 'Perhaps I should go first,' he volunteered gallantly. 'I've got this, after all.'

  'And I've got this one, don't forget,' Hannah muttered, drawing the smaller pistol from beneath her shawl and shaking her head. 'No, you stay behind me, my young lad. The world won't miss one more old woman, but it hasn't got so many bright young men it can afford to waste one so willingly, and while my Matilda will no doubt mourn my passing, in the long run she'd mourn yours more. Besides,' she grinned, 'while they're wasting time trying to pot me, it'll give you a chance to take proper aim, and I daresay you can shoot straighter than me?'

  'Um, well, I don't know,' James stammered. 'I mean, I've shot a pistol before, of course, but never, well, never at anything that was alive and moving.'

  Hannah's eyebrows lifted. 'What, not even a rabbit? No, I suppose not. Too many hours at your schooling I reckon, and a father with no need to put free meat on the table. Ah well,' she sighed, 'just you make sure and take good aim when the time comes. Make sure your first shot counts because you won't have time for a second. And don't,' she added grimly, 'try shooting the bastard in the head. Far too small a target, and it can move too quickly. Aim about here.' She prodded James so fiercely in his stomach that he let out an involuntary gasp. 'Then, if you aim too low,' she chuckled, 'you'll like as not shoot his bollocks off. Stomach or balls, it's all the same, and when one of them goes down making all sorts of noise, the others, if they're there, get less brave, and maybe that'll give us time to reload.'

  'You seem to know a lot about these things, Mistress Pennywise,' James said falteringly.

  Hannah grimaced and winked up at him. 'These eyes have seen a sight too many things over the years, and this head has maybe taken in at least twice as many as ought to be good for a person's sanity. Now, enough of this talk and let's see what's skulking on the other side of this here door, shall we?'

  Slumped into the corner of the damp smelling crypt chamber, Harriet fought desperately to shut out the images and recollections of the way in which Crawley had used her, and the way in which, when he had spent himself, he had simply discarded her like an unwanted jacket and strode from the room. Perhaps death would be far preferable to this horror, she thought. The brute had said the way in which he and his men hanged their victims was quick and painless, although how he could be certain of the latter assertion she had no way of knowing. Yet even death by slow strangulation had to be better than this death of a different kind, the slow and tortuous murder of all her beliefs and values.

  With a groan that became a sharp gasp as the wicked metal barb dug into her tongue, Harriet forced herself up into a sitting position. Her wrists were once again shackled at either side of the thick waist belt, but her arms were of little more use to her now than when they had been fastened behind her
back. Her ankles remained shackled by the short chain, which had now been attached by means of a length of thick rope to a heavy ring set into the stonework a few feet from where she sat.

  Above her head pale light managed to filter in through the narrow and grimy strip of glass, glowing green as it forced its way past the weeds and grass which grew up against it on the outside, so that the entire chamber took on a spectral atmosphere that was as depressing as it was frightening. Somewhere out there lay the real world, the world Harriet knew and which, until such a short time ago, held as its worst prospect a marriage to Thomas Handiwell to save Barten Meade from bankruptcy, and her father from the poor house hospital the army had set up with so much trumpeting, but which Parliament had failed to maintain with sufficient funding. Now, it seemed, if she ever got out of this horror chamber, all that was left her was to stumble naked in her chains to Crawley's scaffold, to die as Matilda Pennywise at the hands of a perverted rogue, probably to the jeering accompaniment of most of the village men folk. If only, she prayed, there was any way she could let someone, even Crawley himself, know of this awful travesty and tell people that this was not even a mistake but a deliberate act by Thomas Handiwell's own daughter. The world had gone mad. Greed and fear, superstition and myth - what price now the bright new age of reason? What price now on the life of a poor wench whose only sin had been to miss church in order to care for a sick father and a struggling farm?

  'By the eyes of Hester, what devil's work is this?' The sight that greeted them in the main church visibly stunned Hannah Pennywise, not known for being a woman who was easily shocked.

  James Calthorpe put out a hand to steady her, at the same time waving the pistol in a defensive arc about them. Nothing moved, however, and the thick walls and glass meant that even the sounds of the morning birdsong failed to penetrate the oppressive silence. James let out a long breath and took a faltering step forward, his eyes growing larger and rounder as he stared down at the corpse.

  The black cassock and the long and slender, almost feminine, fingers told him the body was that of the minister, Simon Wickstanner. Apart from that, it could have been the corpse of any priest, for where there should have been a head there was now only the ripped and bloodied stump of a neck, the pool of blood covering the stone floor in all directions emphasising the fact that the head had not been removed easily or cleanly.

  'Monsters!' Hannah breathed. 'The dark ones have sent for their revenge, make no mistake about it!' To James's surprise, the old woman crossed herself and closed her eyes, her lips moving in a silent prayer.

  'No,' he announced, regaining some semblance of composure. 'No, this is not the work of any monster, not unless you count the monster who now lies dead before us. Look, Mistress Pennywise.' He jabbed a wavering finger at the ladder, and pointed up to where the rope dangled, a small and bloodied noose at its lower end.

  Hannah eventually forced her eyes open again, and gazed upwards. 'What...?' she began, but then a light began to dawn in her eyes. 'But how...?' she muttered.

  James shook his head as if in bewilderment, but his educated and fertile brain was already deducing. 'Suicide,' he breathed. 'The bastard hanged himself!'

  'But where's his damned head?' Hannah looked wildly about them.

  James grunted. 'It'll be here somewhere.' He stared upwards trying to picture the scene. 'The fool tried to make his end quick,' he muttered. 'There's an execution method known as "the drop", in which they drop the victim and the jerk of the rope snaps the neck, killing him instantly. Only, if they make the drop too long...' his voice trailed off.

  'He made it far too long then, by the looks of it,' Hannah grasped the implication of James's statement with a turnabout leap that staggered him. 'Ripped his fool head clean off... except it ain't that clean.' She turned to grasp James by the arm, her bony fingers digging into his flesh through his thin jacket. 'We have to go! Come lad, let's get out of here!'

  'But what about Matilda?'

  Hannah hesitated. 'Not now,' she urged, pulling him back with surprising strength. 'If she is still here, there'll be locked doors for sure, and Crawley and his damned murdering henchman won't be that far away, but we cannot risk being found here like this. ''Tis one thing to shoot that black-hearted bastard if he tried to cheat us on the ransom, but another to be found here with a dead priest, no matter how wicked that priest might have been in life. Nay lad, I tell ye, we'll court more trouble than even I can face down if they find us like this. Better to run now and let someone else make the discovery. Besides,' she added, her eyes narrowing, 'even Crawley won't risk trying to hang my Matilda just yet, not once news of this gets out. Folks around here are a lot of things they shouldn't be, and aren't much of what a body might wish them to be, but at least they're respectful, so they won't go along with no hanging, not until they've given this sod a decent Christian burial, whether or not he deserves it.'

  'But she may be only a few steps from where we stand now,' James protested.

  Hannah nodded, but her resolve was as firm as ever. 'Aye, like as not she is, and there she'll stay, at least for now. We get ourselves into a fight with Crawley meantime, and he'll find a way to blame us for all this mess. People say I'm a witch, and when blood flows and vicars start jumping off ladders with ropes around their scrawny gizzards, well, someone has to be at fault and I knows only too well who'll be first up for the blame, believe you me!'

  'Just a few minutes, please!' James begged, but the old woman was adamant.

  'No,' she hissed, 'not now. Come on, you young idiot. Remember what they say, "he who runs away, lives to fight another day".'

  'But surely that should be, "he who fights and—"'

  'Bollocks! Go tell your own grandma to suck eggs, but leave this old woman to know what she knows and just get the hell out of here while we still can!'

  Ross McDonald considered himself a Scot, even though his parents had left the land of his birth when he was but a few months old and he had never since returned there. He also considered himself a very fortunate young man, being paid to do a job he knew many of his contemporaries would have volunteered to do for free. However, he was also certain of one very important thing - very few men could have performed his duties quite as efficiently as he did, and neither could they maintain the air of detachment that was the essential ingredient in a good slave handler and trainer.

  No matter how beautiful the female, no matter how pitiful or how brash even, Ross treated them all in the same fashion; maintaining a rigid discipline within himself he was then able to impose upon his charges. Even when he finally took a girl - be it for the umpteenth time, or be it an actual deflowering as had been the case with this new arrival, Sarah - he did it primarily as he did everything else, and only when he had begun to take his victim down to depths she had previously never known existed, then and only then might he permit himself the luxury of actually enjoying the act.

  He smiled contentedly to himself as the second barn came into view through the thinning screen of trees. The building had lain derelict for many years and its restoration had been Ross's idea, and then his personal project, carried out with the enthusiastic backing of his employer, Roderick Grayling. The furthest structure from Grayling Hall itself, and still more than a mile-and-a-half from the nearest estate boundary, this Conditioning Centre - as Ross had himself named it - was still the object of some mockery by his fellow trainers, or at least by those of them who had yet to put its facilities to the proper test.

  The C.C. had to be used properly; it was a waste of time bringing the girls out here for just a few hours and then returning them to the main barn, where they would once again be accompanied by their peers and the general hubbub of their shared misery in surroundings that, if not exactly comfortable, would at least have begun to take on a familiar and reassuring atmosphere. As far as Ross was concerned, that reassurance had to be earned, and would be all the more appreciated when a girl had spent at least two or three days in the isolation of his centre subjec
ted to the various devices his peculiarly inventive Scottish mind had created.

  After a protracted session in the C.C., even the most truculent slave would become docile and cooperative. Even girls who had been raised in the most affluent circumstances would willingly crawl on their knees and abase themselves in all manner of potentially profitable ways to avoid repeating the experience. A prudent Scot if ever there was one, and a man not given to wasting time any more than he was given to wasting money, Ross exposed each newcomer to a short session in the C.C. However, a prolonged spell in this centre was always eventually necessary, as had been the case with Kitty.

  After the short session, when the girl returned to the main establishment, his expert eye soon told him which captive would need further full conditioning and which one was already so chastened by even that short exposure that her training would continue without trouble. There was little point in any of his charges trying to fool him in this respect, and he was also never fooled by a temporary state of shock.

  Titty Kitty, despite her apparent willingness to slip into her new role, was a case in point. Yes, she would already go down on her knees and use her mouth to bring any man to arousal and orgasm, and she would apparently enjoy using her generous tits to masturbate anyone who told her to, yet she still retained a streak of individuality no master could tolerate in a pleasure slave.

  Now the other girl, Sarah... Ross sighed, and then smiled. Yes, this one was a different kettle of fish entirely. A demure virgin upon her arrival, even his rough deflowering had failed to elicit the sort of terrified reaction expected of girls of her class and upbringing. Instead, she seemed to have slipped away into another world, into a trancelike existence where little seemed able to penetrate.