IT WAS POURING with rain by the time I reached my inn, another summer storm. Dressed as I was in only shirt and jerkin, I was soaked through. The man I had bribed to get us a place at the inn invited me to come through to the kitchen and sit by the fire, hoping no doubt for another coin. I was glad to take up the offer; I needed somewhere to think hard about what the man at the other inn had told me.
I stared into the flames as they rose. A foundry had burned down in Rolfswood two decades before, and two men had died. From her words at the Bedlam Ellen had seen a fire, seen at least one man burn. Could this have been some accident she witnessed that had driven her out of her wits? But then where did the attack on her fit in? Despite the fire I felt chilled. What if the deaths of the foundrymaster and his assistant had not been accidental? What if Ellen had seen murder and that was why she was hidden away in the Bedlam? It began to seem that Barak had been right to warn me of danger.
The thought crossed my mind of not journeying to Rolfswood after all. I could return to London and leave things as they had always been. Ellen had been safe, after all, for nineteen years; if I meddled with murder I could bring danger down on her again.
The flames in the fireplace were growing higher. Suddenly they lit, from below, some words on the fireback that made me start back and almost fall from my stool.
Grieve not, thy heart is mine.
A middle-aged woman pouring ingredients for a pottage into a bowl at the kitchen table looked at me in surprise.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ She hurried across. ‘You have gone very pale.’
‘What is that?’ I asked, pointing. ‘Those words, there, do you see them?’
She looked at me oddly. ‘You often get words and phrases carved on firebacks in these parts.’
‘What does it mean? Whose heart?’
She looked more worried than ever. ‘I don’t know, maybe the maker’s wife had died or something. Sir, you look ill.’
I was sweating now, I felt my face flush. ‘I just had a – a strange turn. I will go upstairs.’
She nodded at me sympathetically. ‘’Tis the thought of all those Frenchies sailing towards us, it makes me feel strange too. Such times, sir, such times.’
Chapter Sixteen
THE NEXT DAY, our fourth on the road, was uneventful. It was hot and sunny again, the air muggy. Fortunately the rain had not lasted long enough to damage the roads. We passed through more country of wood and pasture, reaching Petersfield towards midday and halting there to rest.
We moved on through a countryside that was starting to change; the ground beneath us chalky, with more open fields, rising steadily as we climbed into the Hampshire Downs. There was ever more activity on the highway, many carts that stopped to let us pass at the sound of our drummer’s trumpet. Once we saw a company of local militia training in a field; they waved at us and cheered. I began to notice tall structures on hilltops, thick posts supporting piles of wood soaked in tar, always with a man standing guard – the beacons that would be lit should the enemy fleet be sighted, which I knew ran in a chain across the coastal counties.
At one point a post rider in royal colours passed us, and for once it was the soldiers’ turn to pull aside. Barak’s eyes followed the rider as he disappeared in a cloud of dust; I guessed he was wondering when a letter might come from Tamasin. He gave me a quizzical look. Last night he had noticed my agitated state on my return to our room, but had seemed to believe me when I said I was only chilled from my soaking. I remembered the fireback and suppressed a shiver. It had been an extraordinary thing to see just when I had been thinking of abandoning my investigations into Ellen’s past. I did not believe in omens, but it had unsettled me deeply.
Towards six we halted again outside a field. As on previous evenings a local man had been posted to wait for us, a pile of brushwood beside him for the soldiers’ bedding. The drummer had sounded a slow, steady beat for the last hour, for the men were tired. Looking ahead to the front of the column, I saw that Leacon’s shoulders were held tight, his head hunched down. He spoke to the man by the field, ordered Snodin to lead the men in, then rode back to us.
‘I am afraid, gentlemen, you must spend the evening in camp. We are outside Buriton: the man tells me it is full to bursting with travellers and carters. No chance of a place at the inn.’
‘You mean we’ll have to sleep in this field?’ Dyrick asked in outraged tones.
‘You can sleep in the roadway of you like, sir,’ Leacon answered shortly, ‘but I will offer you a place in our camp if you wish.’
‘We should be grateful,’ I said.
‘I will see if I can find a tent for you.’ Leacon nodded to me and rode off. Dyrick grunted. ‘We should arrive at Hoyland tomorrow morning, with luck. I’ll be glad to get away from these stinking soldiers.’
‘And you were telling me how you sprang from common stock, Brother Dyrick. After this journey we all stink the same.’