Fair Blows The Wind Part 17

We sat down across the table from each other. The confusion in my thoughts cleared. In believing I was destroying a monster, I had created a worse one. In speaking of his strength, I had made him seem more fearful than he was, and frightened all who would oppose him.

He bought good wine and filled a gla.s.s for me, and the beef we had was the best, the tenderest cut of all. He served me from his own blade and laughed, his face flushed from wine and laughter.

"Oh, you have done it, Chantry! There's a string of bawdy houses that I've long wanted. Ill-kept places, but fat with profits. Now they have asked my protection, and they shall have it. Oh, they'll have it, all right, and a fat payment through the nose for it, too!

"Come! Drink up, Chantry! And be rid of those men of Cutting Ball's! You'll not need them more. And as for him, this will destroy him, too, or nearly so!"

As we ate he ticked off the things the unwonted publicity had brought to him. There were some men he had threatened who had not been convinced of his strength, yet before he needed to prove it, my piece had appeared and done the task even better.

"Much thanks, Chantry! By the Lord Harry, I am glad I did not kill you!" He reached into his sash and tossed a sack of gold upon the table. "There! Have that! It is little enough for what you have done!"

"Keep it," I replied shortly. "I'll have none of it, for I meant to destroy you."

He laughed again, his eyes bright with malice. "Of course you did! Think you I do not know that? But bother the reason! It is the effect that matters, and the payment there is small enough for what you have done."

There was nothing to do but put a good face on it and think of what I should do next. Cheerful as he was, I could only doubt what he believed, for whatever effect this might have upon evildoers, it was sure to result in some sort of action by those in authority. Unless, of course, they were too occupied with Ireland and worried about Spain to bother with the evil at their doors?

"I have also read The Merry Damber!" Leckenbie said. "It is a good piece, too! You had some tricks there even I had not thought of! Stay about London, Chantry, do! For you will only make things the better."

He gnawed on a bone, then put it aside. "Look you, Chantry, I am no fool. I know this dodge will not last forever, but by the time it has worn itself out I shall be rich. Yes, rich! And I shall have those about who need me but who are themselves in power. I will buy an estate, I will hire some such a one as you to say that all your words are balderdash, and will show myself a respectable gentleman. I will keep a carriage-for such will soon be the fas.h.i.+on, believe me-and I shall ride to the hounds and be knighted. You will see! My poor father was a country squire, and a good man, most of the time, but he was never knighted or noticed by anyone.

"And two years hence, Tatton Chantry, I will no longer be heard of as such I now am. Two years I shall lie quiet while all this is managed by others. Then I shall reappear, hang a few of those who still oppose me, and within the third year I shall be received at court.

"I have plotted well the route I shall take, and a better one can't be found. I tell you this now so you can see it begin to happen. Unfortunately," he smiled, "you'll not be about to witness the climax. Although I shall miss you. I shall, indeed."

"You will never do it, Leckenbie," I said quietly. "Before then I will show you up for the villain you are."

He chuckled. "Do what you will, the result will not be changed. Not one whit. Besides, what can it get you? A few s.h.i.+llings here, a few s.h.i.+llings there. Trifling sums, and the poorest of livings. Whilst I shall be rolling in wealth."

He leaned over the table toward me. "Already I have friends! I have power! There are those who sit high in the land who will pull strings for me! Do you think I can be taken? That I shall ever end in Newgate or Tyburn? I am too much needed. When they need something done, I see that it is done, whether here or across the water.

"At this time I am a tool to them, to be used. But soon I shall change positions with them. Then they shall be the tools and I the user."

"You are ambitious," I said, "and ambition may destroy you."

"Aye. 'Tis a gamble, is it not?" The humor was gone from his eyes. "I know well the chance that I take, and the need they have of me. I must take each step with care. But you yourself have helped me, for they will read what you have written and measure my usefulness against what you have claimed for me. Now they will need more money when they come to me."

He pushed the gold toward me again. "Take it. Gold is a useful servant that never talks back. Had I hired you this could have gone no better, nor come at a better time."

He rested his powerful forearms on the table. His wrists were the thickest I had ever seen and his hands gave a sense of awful power. He was, in his own brutal way, a handsome man. His face suggested power and strength.

He motioned to the waiter. "A bottle of sack," he said. "Your best!"

"Look you," he said suddenly. "I like you not, nor you me, but yet you could help me. You are shrewd, and you fight well. Not well enough," he added, "but well. Join me. I do not plan that you should become a thief, but rather an agent."

"A tool?" I suggested wryly.

"We are all tools in one way or another." He leaned toward me. "England is changing. Any man with his eyes and ears open knows it. We are coming to power. You shall see.

"Spain is all-powerful now, but Spain has come upon wealth in the wrong way-too much, too quickly. It will destroy her. Slow growth builds caution into a man or a nation, but sudden wealth is a spoiler. Now gold comes to her by every s.h.i.+p, and the living is easy. The great fighting men who graduated from the ranks of the army that fought the Moors will disappear. The politicians and the courtiers will take over-the gentle ones, the conniving ones! They will rook the fighters out of all they have won. Men like Cortez, Pizarro, Alvarado, and De Soto will disappear, and in their place the weak ones, the ones grown fat on easy wealth, will come to power.

"We are a young country, yet very old. We have the men and we have the s.h.i.+ps and we will win. There are s.h.i.+ps to be built, and equipment to be supplied to the s.h.i.+ps. The press gangs will be after men and more men."

"What has all that to do with you?"

He shrugged, smiling. "I shall control it. The supplies will be bought from me or through me. As for the press gangs, I shall direct them."

"You?"

He laughed. "Who else? Who could do it better? Of course, if we should happen to press into service a few of the gentry who did not want to go ... we can always make an arrangement."

"And I?" I asked. "What role have you planned for me?"

"To write when I need something written. You have made me out to be a king of thieves. Now I wish another broadside turned out. This one will deny that I am a thief, but will imply that I am a man of great but mysterious power. That I merely have a wide knowledge of what takes place and have been able to recover stolen goods from time to time. Protest that I am a good man but one who has great power in many quarters."

"I see. The thieves and the bawds have already had their message. Now you want to clean up the picture of yourself while implying you have still greater power."

"Exactly. And of course, when people come to me to recover their stolen goods, I shall recover them ... for a price. I am sorry about the cost, but the man who reaches the thieves must be paid."

"And you will have it both ways. A friend to the thieves and a recoverer of stolen goods, and well paid by both."

He laughed with genuine amus.e.m.e.nt. "See how easy it is? In the end I shall be knighted and perhaps will stand for Parliament.

"For you see, I shall also be serving Her Majesty. Even now there is talk in Spain of a great fleet of s.h.i.+ps, an armada to sail against England. My spies tell me this, and I pa.s.s it on to those close to Her Majesty so that she also knows."

"To Walsingham?"

He laughed again. "Perhaps!"

"And is he your protector?"

The laughter died. "Protector? I have no protector! I need none! I stand alone!"

Yet it seemed to me there was a false note in the statement, and when I finished my sack and parted from him he stared sullenly after me. I believe I had reminded him of something he wished to forget.

Cutting Ball's men fell in around me. That worried me a bit, for how far could I trust Ball? And why, even at Greene's behest, should he serve me in this manner? For that matter, who and what was I to Greene?

I would do well to keep a loose sword in my scabbard. I was thinking of that when suddenly a voice spoke from an alley. "Tatt? I must see you." It was Padget.

"At the Boar's Head." I spoke softly but hoped he heard me, continuing on without missing a step. There had been anxiety in his tone, and I knew he was my friend. What now, I wondered. What more could come?

Much, I realized well. I wished no a.s.sociation with Rafe Leckenbie or his kind. It might be true that what I had written had done him good rather than ill. Some might read it as an evidence of his power, but others would know better, for a thief exposed is a thief soon taken.

When Cutting Ball's men left me at my inn and vanished into the night, I took a side door into a dark alleyway and went on to the Boar's Head. There were few about, and Tosti sat alone toward the back of the room. I went to him.

"You keep late hours," I suggested.

"I am received of a message," Tosti said. "For you."

"Why not directly to me?"

He shrugged. "I do not know. The man came to me. I did not like him but he was not one to trifle with. You were to come to a certain place, and you were not to be followed."

"And for what?"

"There is one who wishes to speak to you of a private matter. He would give no name."

"I do not like it, Tosti."

"Nor I, my friend, but I think you have no choice. I think this man has power, for his messenger was a soldier-or had been. He carried himself well and knew what he was about. One who can command such a person is no ordinary man."

"All right." I made a decision suddenly. After all, I carried a sword and a dagger. "I shall see him."

I was directed to a street of quiet elegance. Entering the gate, which stood open, I went to the door and used the bra.s.s door knocker.

The door opened almost at once and a man stood facing me-no doubt the one who had delivered the message to Tosti. "You are ... ?"

"Tatton Chantry. I was asked to come here."

"This way." He indicated a door at the end of a short hall. As I stepped inside, he looked past me. The street was empty, as I well knew. Then he led me down the hall, rapped lightly at a door, opened it, and stood aside.

The room I faced was rectangular and lined with shelves of books. There was a fire on the hearth. A man of something over medium height stood near a table, an open book before him. As I entered he did not look up but turned a page, and read a bit more.

"Please be seated." He looked up then, but not at me. "John? A bit of malmsey for me." He glanced then at me. "And for you?"

"The same," I said. "It is a rare wine."

"Aye, so it is." He sat down opposite me and crossed his knees. "You know it?"

"We sometimes drank it at home," I said. "My father would have a bottle of it from time to time."

"Ah? And your father was?"

"My father," I said.

I knew the man at first glimpse, but he did not know me. Something about me disturbed him, a hint of familiarity, perhaps? I must have changed much in the past few years, but he almost none at all. The same white hair, the identical features, as if carved from marble, and the same wide, intelligent eyes. "Do I know you?" he asked suddenly.

"No," I replied.

The less of me he knew, or anyone else, the safer I would be. With a hint here, a hint there, a man might well be traced.

"You are younger than I expected," he ventured, frowning a little. "You're little more than a boy."

"Age is ever an indefinite thing," I said, "and perhaps the poorest way to estimate or judge ... except in wine, and even there one finds exceptions."

He had done me a favor once, and I was disposed to do one now for him-if the situation permitted. I could not forget that moment at the inn when he had spoken for me and prevented my being cheated. Yet he would have no reason to remember a tired, lonely, and rather untidy boy.

"Yes," he mused, "much younger than I expected."

"I have never been older," I commented. The barest hint of a smile touched his lips, a wry smile. He tasted the Madeira and I did likewise. It was excellent. My father would have approved.

"You have written some pieces," he said. "You seem to know much of cheating."

My expression did not change. "I observe," I replied. "I do not partic.i.p.ate."

"I see. And where does one acquire such knowledge? Much of what you wrote in the Damber piece was strange to me."

"There is always something to be learned," I said, and waited. What did he want? Why was I here? The man was obviously a gentleman, a man of means.

"You have lately written a piece about a kind of ringleader of thieves."

"I have."

"How did you secure that information?"

"It is quite commonly known about London," 1 replied, "and I listen well."

He stared at me for a moment, not liking my reply. "Yet you seemed to have some personal knowledge of this ... man."

"We had a brief encounter."

"And you are still alive ..."

"It was an indecisive battle. However, as you suggest, I am alive."

He frowned and seemed to be wondering just how to proceed. My obvious youth had surprised him, also the fact that I was of gentle birth. He had not yet succeeded in placing me and I had a feeling he was one who liked to put things-and people-into their proper niches.

"Having written such a piece, I am surprised you are alive, if this man has the power you suggest."

There seemed no appropriate comment for that, and I let it pa.s.s, yet I was puzzled. Who was this man? What did he want with me? Was he a friend of Leckenbie? An enemy? Or did he think my writing might be used in composing a broadside of some kind for him? Many such were written and pa.s.sed out in the streets to advance one cause or another, for there was no other means of getting information about except by gossip.

He sipped his wine and after a bit, he said, "This is your means to a living?"

"It contributes," I replied.

"I do not seem to place you," he muttered. "You are not from London, nor Lancas.h.i.+re nor Yorks.h.i.+re..."

"I am from the Hebrides," I replied, not wis.h.i.+ng him to get around to thinking of Ireland.

"The Hebrides?" He spoke as if it were the end of the earth, which no doubt it seemed to him. "I did not think there were gentry there."

"The MacLeods and the MacDonalds would not like to hear you say so."

"Ah, yes, of course."

He finished his gla.s.s and put it down. I retained at least half of mine, for even Madeira can be heady, and I wished to be thinking clearly.

He was puzzled by me. A man accustomed to command, he was now uncertain of how to proceed. I was enjoying myself. The atmosphere was pleasant, the room warm, and I liked the candlelight on the backs of the books.