Pay the Devil - Jack Higgins [63]
11
Clay leaned against the window, a cheroot between his teeth, and gazed out through the iron bars to the park, sixty feet below. For more than an hour he had watched the road, waiting for something to happen, but nothing stirred.
Smoke rose into the air from the cottages of Drumore hidden by the trees, and somewhere in the distance a dog barked as it chased a rabbit through the undergrowth. He turned as Dennis groaned. The boy sat on the edge of the narrow bed, head in hands, shoulders hunched dejectedly. “God save us, Colonel, but me head’s going to burst into a thousand pieces at any moment.”
Clay patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. “He packs a hard punch, lad, there’s no denying that.”
Dennis tried to smile and touched his smashed and swollen mouth gingerly with the tips of his fingers. “What’s going to happen to us, Colonel? Will we hang?”
“Having had no previous experience of English justice, I can’t say, but I understand rebels against the Crown have been known to come to that end.” Clay smiled down at him. “No sense in worrying about it yet. There’s always hope. Perhaps Kevin will come to put himself in your place?”
“To burn the house down is more likely,” Dennis snorted. “And there’s plenty would follow him. He’s had enough troubles as it is, trying to hold some of them back until the day fixed for the general rising next year.”
“So you don’t think he’ll come?” Clay said.
“I’ll see him in hell before I let him take my place.” There was a new firmness in the boy’s voice, indicating that at least he had passed over into manhood. “He wouldn’t stand a chance, not with this Varley affair hanging over him.”
Clay nodded somberly. “You know it and Kevin knows it. The point now is what will he do?”
He turned back to the window and stiffened.
A pony and trap had moved in through the gates below and halted outside the lodge. Shaun Rogan handled the reins, and the stable boy, Joseph, sat beside him.
The old man shaded his eyes with one hand as he gazed up toward the house through the pale autumn sunlight, and then he said something to Joseph. The boy jumped down to the ground and came along the drive at a jog-trot.
Clay said quietly, “Your father is down at the main gate.”
Dennis got to his feet and stood there, swaying slightly. “Is he alone?”
Clay shook his head. “He came with the stable boy who brought him Sir George’s message. He’s just sent the lad up to the house while he waits. He’ll be trying to arrange some sort of truce, I fancy.”
Dennis moved beside him and they both craned their necks and tried to see what was going on down at the front entrance. After a while, Joseph appeared and ran back. They could see him talking quickly and nodding his head and then Shaun Rogan picked up the reins and started toward the house. He halted about forty yards away and waited.
Clay and Dennis turned as the key grated in the lock behind them. The door opened and Burke moved inside. He was holding a pistol in one hand. “Outside, both of you,” he said. “Shaun Rogan seems to think we might be pulling some kind of a trick on him. He wants to see you in the flesh.”
He led the way along the corridor, Clay and Dennis following, two armed men behind them. Dennis still seemed unsure on his feet, and Clay placed one arm about the lad’s shoulders and steadied him as they descended the great staircase into the entrance hall.
The front door was open and half a dozen men armed with shotguns stood outside. Sir George was waiting a few yards away from the bottom of the steps, looking toward Rogan.
Burke halted Clay and Dennis at the top of the steps and went down to speak to Sir George. Except for the subdued murmur of their voices, silence reigned, and then several rooks lifted out of the branches of the beech trees beside the boundary wall and wheeled above them, calling angrily.
Clay’s eyes narrowed and he glanced casually at the guards. None of them took any notice and he turned again to the beech trees, wondering who was hiding there and what they intended.
Sir George took a pace forward and called,