The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [245]
But about this Furzey seemed confident. ‘They were when I left them,’ he said. ‘That’s for sure.’
‘We leave here at midnight,’ Penruddock ordered his men. ‘We’ll surround the house and move in before dawn. That’s the time to catch them off guard.’ He turned to Furzey. ‘You will remain here until morning.’ Having completed his orders, Colonel Thomas Penruddock bade his cousin goodnight and went to an upstairs chamber and lay down.
But he did not sleep.
Alice Lisle. This was the third time she had come into his life. Once when she murdered his father; once when he had found her with the king; and now, caught with traitors. This time, surely, would be the last: the completion.
Retribution. It was not only his father. She represented everything he hated: those sour Puritan looks, that humourless self-righteousness; the Puritans, it seemed to him, believed that God’s kingdom was only served by the cruel destruction of all that was lovely, chivalrous, gallant. Alice Lisle the Cromwellian, the regicide, the thief of other men’s estates, the murderer. This was how he saw her. How could it be otherwise?
Yet as he lay there, a colonel surrounded by his troops, with all the authority of the kingdom behind him, Thomas Penruddock found that he was conscious above all of his power. The evil old woman down at Moyles Court seemed in his mind’s eye no less hateful, but small and frail. Like some vicious old fox that has terrorized an area for many seasons, she was in her decline now and all nature called for her to die. He was not going to destroy the woman, he told himself; he was just going, as one goes to a guttering candle, to snuff her out.
Peter Albion had taken longer than he expected and Betty had almost given up when at last, just as it was getting dark, he arrived. He looked tired. At the suggestion that they might ride on across the Forest to Moyles Court that night he looked dismayed; and Betty was just wondering what to do when Stephen Pride arrived.
‘I thought you’d still be here,’ he said. ‘I got a message for you.’
He’d had to think hard on the way. If he told Betty the truth, that her mother was in danger, he was afraid she might go running back to Moyles Court whatever anyone said. So he’d prepared a lie – not a very good one, but he thought it would do.
‘I just sent the groom back to your mother. Met him at Boldre bridge. I told him you were here. She says to stay. She doesn’t want you riding across the Forest at night.’ The obvious relief on Peter Albion’s face told him he need say no more.
‘Thank you, Stephen.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t think my cousin Peter has any desire to ride more today.’
The young man smiled too and Pride nodded his head politely. A handsome young man, he thought. Just right for Betty. It seemed to him that Betty might think so too. ‘I’ll be getting home then,’ he said as casually as he could and rode back to the lane.
A minute later he was urging his pony forward as fast as he could, up the lane towards the quiet little ford. Soon after, he had crossed it and was making his way swiftly up the long track that led to the western heath.
There was no time to lose. Jim might be out there, ahead of him somewhere. And at Moyles Court Dame Alice had probably already received her visitors. Had the trap been sprung by now? Late at night was more likely, he thought. Such things were usually done late at night.
His heart was beating fast. He felt a little light-headed as he came out on to the edge of the western heath by Setley. It was many a year since he’d gone rushing about all day and all night like this. His physical exhaustion seemed to have evaporated, though. He was too nervous and too excited to be tired.
The stars were gleaming brightly now. He decided to cut straight up north, skirting Brockenhurst, then take the track that led out above Burley. That was the way Jim would be going. He pushed his pony along. Thank God it was a sturdy little creature. That pony could carry him all day … and all night.
He skirted Brockenhurst. Ahead of him