Chapter 42
The entire de Beauchamp family and the Craigs looked up from their plates at the echoing sound. Hettie, who had been helping Margaret to potatoes, set the platter on the table with a thump.
“That’s a gunshot,” Sir Timothy said. “Are the gardeners shooting at a fox?” He rose from his chair and hurried toward the front door.
Margaret heard the young girl screaming and followed her father out. Nat strode beside her, his long legs eating up the yards faster than she could move. One of the footmen already had the door open. Anne Catlow hurtled toward them, pointing back over her shoulder.
What lay behind the girl was a horror none of them expected to see. A host of men in armor with guns and drawn swords advanced toward the house. On the ground near their picketed horses, Jacob Damson knelt with a man’s head in his lap.
“They’ve shot Andrew,” Sir Timothy said, his eyes wide with horror. “Get down into the cellar, Margaret! Take your mother and your sister down with you, now!”
At that moment, Hubert, the head gardener, rushed up, seized Anne under his arm, and all but fell up the steps into the front hallway. Sir Timothy and the footman slammed the door shut and barred it.
“To arms!” her father called out. “Everyone, find any weapons you can muster! Here, Martin,” he said, as the Craigs came rushing out into the hallway. “Help me pull furniture in front of the door.”
“What about Jacob?” Margaret asked. Her father directed the men toward the bookcase that stood in the sitting room. It was the heaviest piece of lumber in the house. Dumping precious books in all directions, they dragged it and set it up against the door. Martin lifted a cabinet up over his head and pushed it against the rear of the bookcase. They piled chairs against it, hooked underneath knobs and handles.
“They don’t care about him,” Sir Timothy said, looking about for more barriers. “We must all survive so we can see to his solace later on. Go into the cellars, my dear. Bar the door. Protect yourself.”
“We will not leave you to defend the house alone,” Lady de Beauchamp said. She seemed to float into the room like a nymph.
“My dear, obey me,” Sir Timothy said. “I can’t defend the house if I have to look after you as well.”
Delfine shook her head. “It is my house as well, Timothy, and these are my children! Margaret, go into the kitchen. I know Mrs. Ball was making soup today. Tell her and the scullery maids to pull the pot up the stairs to Nathaniel’s bedroom.”
“Right above the front door,” Nat said, with a grin. “I’ll help them, Mother.”
“This is not a game!” Sir Timothy bellowed. He and the others had begun piling other furniture up against the windows. “Run down to the barn and fetch the weavers! Tell them to bring anything they can find to use as weapons.”
“You can’t,” Margaret said. “They’re still on their half-day off.”
Sir Timothy stopped, looking stricken. “Then get the farmhands, and anyone else you can find.”
“I’ll go, sir,” Percy said, raising a hand. “I’m faster than Master Nat.”
Nat nodded agreement.
“Good man. Go!”
The youth spun on his heel and dashed toward the kitchen. Margaret and Hettie followed him. She gave Mrs. Ball her mother’s instructions.
“Heavens above, good soup wasted!” the housekeeper declared. She turned to the others. “Well, you heard the mistress! All of you together! We’ll need more than one barrage. Liza, fill that with water and set it boiling.” She pointed to a large copper pot with a wire handle. “Take cloths, this is both hot and heavy. Not you, mistress,” she admonished Margaret.
“Oh, yes, me,” Margaret said, in a tone that would not permit argument. “It’ll need all of us. Hettie, help me.” She took a handful of cloth from the pile of neatly folded towels on the sideboard to shield her hands and helped hoist the rounded-bottom copper cauldron from the fire. Hettie followed her example, as did the other kitchen maids. The savory broth inside it sloshed up and back as they moved it at an agonizing pace at a time toward the rear staircase. Bones and pieces of potherb surfaced and sank again, making bloop noises. It was hot, heavy work, and Margaret thought more than once that they would lose control of the round monstrosity. All of them were well splashed with soup by the time they managed to wrestle it up the narrow stairs.
“I’ve absorbed more dinner than I’ll get to eat later,” Hettie said. Margaret gave a grim chuckle.
“A moment,” Mrs. Ball gasped out, signing for them to put the pot down on the hall carpet for a moment. “I never thought in my life we would have to wage siege warfare in this house!”
By then, word had spread to the rest of the household. The housemaids snapped iron curtain poles and ancient weapons that had been mounted on the walls as decorations and piled them in a heap for the men to take. The footmen armed themselves and took up positions on either side of the door and the windows. The groundskeepers had a few guns, which they armed and handed around.
Lady de Beauchamp was already at the casement of her son’s bedroom window. Margaret had to admire her mother’s ingenuity and sharp eyes. The sill was exactly wide enough to permit the pot to balance on it.
The women wrestled the broad copper pot into the room, and prepared to lift it to its perch.
“Not yet,” Delfine said, holding up a slender hand. “We have to wait until they try to breach the door. We’ll boil as many of them as we can.”
“Mother, you astonish me,” Margaret said, regarding her with admiration. Her mother, whom she had thought of as delicate and beyond physical matters, patted her cheek. Her hands were cool and gentle, as they always were.
“My darling, I don’t know why you would be astonished. I’ve always thought that you take after me.”
“They’re making a rectangle,” Petronella said, kneeling at the window and peering up over the sill. “What does that mean?”
“It means, my darling, that we have to fight for our lives,” Lady de Beauchamp said.
* * *
“What now, sir?” Captain Rawl asked Ben. The mercenaries had been chivvied into four rows of ten facing the door. None of them looked pleased at the idea of facing an enemy of unknown strength. “Do you want us to charge the door, or try one of the other entrances?”
Ben regretted letting the dragoon shoot the gatekeeper’s man. Having to face just a locked gate would only have slowed them by minutes, not hours. They’d lost the element of surprise. Still, the estate was sufficiently isolated to make this an easy enough task. He must not lose sight of the important elements.
“Send men to the weavers’ shed, down there,” he said, pointing. “That must be secured. If there is anyone inside, take them prisoner. They are the only ones who know how to operate the machinery. And if you see a boy with brown hair, bring him to me. Do not damage anything inside unless I send an order.”
“As you wish. Twelve men! Two shillings each to take the woolen mill!” Rawl barked an order, and a dozen of the mercenaries separated themselves from the main body. Pistol muzzles pointing upward, they ran toward the rear of the manor house. Rawl pointed his chin toward the house. “They’re watching us. I can see movement in every window.”
“Let them watch,” Ben said, with a vicious grin. “Maybe it will move them to surrender. I hope so, for their sake. Form up and make ready!”
* * *
“Who are they?” Nat asked. He held onto a pike that had come off a plaque in the sitting room. Aaron had its twin. Both of them were frightened to death. “What do they want?”
“Anne Catlow said they were crying out that they were king’s men,” Sir Timothy said. He held an axe brought to him by one of the gardeners. Every man—and woman—around the estate had come into the house with saws, hammers, pickaxes, garden shears, pitchforks, and every hand tool they could find. But they were no more than forty in number, and no one but the reeve and a few of the old men had ever served as soldiers. Aaron had talked with enough of them to know.
“If that’s so, then why didn’t they just ask to see you?” Martin asked. He was filling the upper pocket of his shirt with shotgun shells from a cardboard box.
Sir Timothy turned a grim face to him. “This is not an official visit, sir. I am certain this is connected to Aaron’s abduction.”
“The aqualators?” Martin asked. “They’re of no use to anyone if they take them out of the installation.”
“They do not intend to take them anywhere,” Sir Timothy said, peering out through the bottom of the window. “They mean to be rid of those who are the rightful owners, one way or another. Yes, there they go. A company of them is moving downhill. Thank the Lord that the weavers are not there to be attacked by them.”
Aaron felt cold, as though his whole body had been thrown in an icy stream. Every moment of that terrifying night came back to him. He cursed his injured feet. Those were still in bad condition from his forced cross-country barefoot walk. Lady de Beauchamp had spread ointment on them, bound them up in soft lint, and given him a pair of felted woolen slippers to wear over them, but every step still hurt.
With a sinking heart, he realized that he had left his record player and box of albums in the weavers’ barn. The battery was charging next to the stream, wrapped in oilcloth to protect it from the weather. The raiders wouldn’t see that, but the phonograph was impossible to miss. He couldn’t let that be taken. Any up-timer gadget that fell into the possession of down-timers would arouse more questions. Not to mention the fact that his mother would strike him dead if he came back to Grantville without it.
He rose quietly. Nat gave him a puzzled look, but Aaron held up a hand to forestall any outburst. Taking the pike, he made his way through the kitchen.
The cooks and footmen near the doors held kitchen tools and wickedly long knives.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Mrs. Ball asked him.
“I’ve got to go down and get something out of the barn,” he said. “It’s urgent! It’d be bad for Sir Timothy if they find it.”
Mrs. Ball, alarmed, nodded to the nearest footman to unbar the door.
“Hurry up, lad,” she said. “Get back here safely.”
The twelve men were far enough away not to see him as he slipped down the hill and dashed the short distance to the barn door. It swung ajar. The two people who had been watching it overnight were either in the house or close by, waiting to defend it.
He spotted the box of records near Fred Wilkinson’s old-fashioned loom. Funny how Ivy’s dad still pretended he hated all things up-timer, but you could tell he really liked Barry Manilow and Carole King when Aaron played them. Aaron gathered the scattered albums and put them into the plastic case. He had just stacked the record player box on top of it, when he heard the sound of jingling and footsteps outside the door.
No time to get away. He shoved the two boxes into the shadows against the wall. As the men came inside, he dove for the shelves of finished woolens and burrowed in among them.
“Nicht anyone herein,” one of the men said.
“Makes it easy, then,” another answered him. “Weavers, eh? Me old uncle was a fuller. Stamped many a length of woolens, he did. Gad damn, the smell would choke ye.”
Aaron held his breath. The strong odor of lanolin and dust tickled his nose. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. He must not sneeze. His eyes watered. He couldn’t hope to outrun them. His heart pounded so loudly, he was sure the men could hear it.
* * *
“Breach the door!” Captain Rawl shouted. When no one moved, he looked at Ben.
“One gold pound for each of the first five men through the front door!” Ben bellowed.
At once, a handful of men unlimbered axes they’d been carrying on their backs and dashed toward the house. Another bunch scrambled after them, swords and pistols at the ready.
Shots came from the windows to either side of the door. The mercenaries returned fire, ducking behind the axemen to reload their pistols.
Ben watched with satisfaction as the men set to chopping at the fine old carved portal, splinters and chunks of wood flying everywhere. The squire had been hiding secrets from his lordship and the king. Now he was going to lose everything. It was a handsome house, all red brick with ornate trim, like it had been touched by an artist’s hand. Maybe Ben would set himself up as the caretaker. He fancied the life of a country lord.
A gunshot report came from the left window. One of the axemen let out a curse and fell, dropping his axe. The other axemen ducked down, and the pistol-wielding soldiers returned fire in wreaths of black smoke. The solid boom of the door as it was being struck became a squeal of wounded wood being wrenched out a long splinter at a time. One man after another went down from the defenders’ gunfire. They fired back, but only God knew if they hit anyone.
“Close in!” Rawl commanded, waving his arm over his head. “The door’s almost down! Come on, you mannikins! You’ll earn no gold by staying out! Charge!”
The rest of the dragoons let out a war cry and raced to join their fellows.
* * *
James Douglas raised his head at the distant noise. It wasn’t thunder. No, all too familiar. It came from the south, in the direction they were riding.
“That’s gunfire,” Henry Paisley said.
“Seems as though we’re right on time,” James said. He twisted in his saddle. “Ride on! Ride on! We’re needed! Douglas to the rescue!”
He spurred his horse. Henry and his steed galloped right beside him. The troop followed, bellowing, “Douglas to the rescue!”
* * *
As the mercenaries reached the doorstep, they heard a wrench of wood from above. The ones who looked up to see the source of the noise got caught in a waterfall of brown liquid. Ben was far enough away not to get splashed, but the ones who were drenched bellowed in pain.
“Boiling oil!” one of the men cried, his cheeks bright red.
No, it smelled more like soup. Chunks of carrots, onions, and marrow bones decorated the man’s helmet and shoulders. Ben almost laughed at the cheekiness of the householders. Pouring soup on the intruders from an upper window! He couldn’t fault them for courage. But it was useless. They’d almost breached the house.
“Keep chopping, boys!” Rawl shouted, as half the door swung off its hinges. “Almost there!”
The mercenaries with the axes kept hacking, but some of them held back. Ben knew half of them were bully cowards who would run off at any sign of resistance. A couple near the rear were sending him side-eyed glances, as if they were going to race back to their horses and leave.
“I’ll kill anyone who retreats!” he shouted. He hoisted his pistols. “D’ye want to try me?”
None of them did. They worked on pulling down the door, ducking when they heard more shots. They fired back. A cry of pain came from the right window. They’d winged or killed one of the defenders, at least.
There was a sudden silence from within, and the gunfire stopped. Had Sir Timothy shot his load?
No, he spotted movement above once again.
“Fall back! Fall back!” Ben cried.
Too late. The men at the door got a shower of boiling water and ran away from it, howling in pain and wiping at their eyes. This time some of them did cut and run. Ben fired his pistols at their retreating backs. One of them dropped, shot in the back like the coward he was. The other swung onto his horse and galloped out of the gate.
But the door was breached at last. A wide piece of furniture stood in the way. The rest of the mercenaries were so angry at the attacks from above that they shoved it bodily.
It crashed into the front hall of the manor, and the soldiers poured into the house. They were met by a number of men wielding the most absurd assortment of weapons. There was a noise like a stick hitting a hollow box, and the first man in went down, bleeding from a dozen places. A ratcheting sound followed, and another man dropped with the same wounds.
The mercenaries didn’t like being fired on, especially with a weapon that left a dozen holes in the victim. Some of them tried to retreat, but Ben shoved his gun in their faces. It wasn’t loaded, but they didn’t have to know that.
“Move in, you cowards!” he shouted.
* * *
“That’s gunfire,” Master Matthew said. He rode with one of the apprentices sitting pillion behind him. The boy held a pair of polearms that had belonged to his grandad and Master Matthew’s own musket held barrel-up. Master Blackford rode a fine dark bay that pranced like a warhorse. He had a set of silver-hilted pistols in his belt. His beadle, Paul Thornton, had Alder Wilkins behind him on a massive brown gelding.
The others, either crowded into wagons or on their own horses, looked concerned.
“They’re under attack at the house,” Fred Wilkinson said. He sat on the front of his family’s cart beside his two sons. Ivy Wilkinson had argued that she should come, too, but he had threatened to tie her to the doorpost. “We’re closer to the barn. Save the looms! They’re unique across all of Great Britain!”
The contingent of weavers diverted from the main road and took the lane that led to the narrow bridge across the stream behind the shed. All the while, they heard more sounds of banging, shouting, and further shots fired.
* * *
“In with you!” Ben shouted, pushing the men ahead of him. The hallway was blocked by numerous pieces of furniture. He caught a glimpse of men behind them, but he couldn’t count how many. Only a few seemed to have firearms, but they wielded other missiles. Pieces of ironwork and bricks came hurtling over the barricades at him and his men. “They’ve not enough weapons to hold us off! Take everyone inside prisoner! If they fight back, kill them!”
The sound of ratcheting came again. The mercenaries, their eyes wild, crouched in time before the hollow box noise arose. It saved some of them from a broadside barrage of tiny pellets, but the blast was large enough that they were peppered in the neck and shoulders. A couple pinged off Ben’s breastplate and struck him in the chin. He hissed in pain.
“Kill them all!” he snarled. “Ten gold pounds for the man who brings me the squire.”
The mercenaries let out a wild cry of glee. The injured fell away to bind up their bleeding wounds, and were replaced by more eager hands.
But they were under attack by more than the hollow box gun. A filleting knife zipped through the air toward Ben’s face. By pure instinct, he flinched away. It struck one of his men in the arm, who dropped his pistol. Ben stooped for the gun, and shot it over the heap of upholstered chairs to his right. A wail of pain came from behind it.
Ben shoved it over and plunged into the room beyond, and took in the scene with a sweeping glance. The place was defended only by a few men and boys.
* * *
Sir Timothy was waiting with an ancient blunderbuss that his father had used to kill wild boars. The moment the heap of armchairs toppled over, he stood up and pulled the trigger. It exploded, throwing him backward. One of the invaders fell, blood gushing from a massive hole in his chest. The squire ducked around the corner to reload the gun.
The gardeners and foresters struck at the invaders with billhooks and tree saws. Martin Craig dipped down to reload his shotgun and came up looking for another target. A wild-eyed man came after him wielding a curved sword. Martin had to retreat. He dodged away, letting Noah, armed with a pitchfork, come in between him and the soldier. The two of them tangled. The undergardener, used to wrestling with stubborn briars, was by far the stronger man. He twisted the pitchfork. With a cry, the soldier found his arm being bent back. The sword blade snapped between two tines of the fork. Noah brought the head of the fork around and clouted the soldier in the side of the head. The soldier yelled and went for Noah with both hands outstretched. Noah swung the fork back the other way and knocked the man to the ground. The soldier behind him started to back away. Noah pressed toward his new target with a terrifying grin on his face.
Martin looked around him, his expression one of concern.
“Aaron! Where is Aaron?” he shouted.
“Went down for his phonograph!” Nat called to him.
“He did what?”
At the sound of Aaron’s name, one of the men looked up. At that moment, Martin recognized him.
“Ben!” he shouted.
The man turned, and Martin saw the pockmarked cheeks. Yes, it was the down-timer who had come to inspect the weavers’ barn with one of the guild masters. They recognized each other at once. Martin drew his shotgun up to shoot, but Ben ducked down behind a couple of the invaders to shield himself.
Martin clambered over the makeshift barricade and went after the man, shoving his way through the melee. No one was going to get away with kidnapping his son. Ben fled, not caring what happened to the people behind him.
Martin pursued Ben out into the courtyard, swatting the invaders aside. There were so many of them compared with the few household staff who were capable of withstanding them. The air was heavy with black powder smoke, making his eyes tear. As he leaped down the stairs after his quarry, Hubert the gardener swung a mattock and connected with the chest of a man in an ill-fitting red uniform coat. That man toppled over and didn’t move, but two more men rushed Hubert from behind and shoved him over. One of them grabbed up the mattock and brought it down on the gardener’s head. Martin saw that and hip-shot the attackers with a full blast from his shotgun. They went down screaming. But there were more behind them, too many more, all pouring into the house. The women of the household were throwing things down on the invaders, but most of their missiles were doing little damage. Martin loaded another pair of shotgun shells, but it was futile.
In a moment, they would be overrun.
Then, the sound of a horn echoed across the ground. Martin looked up to see another troop of soldiers hammering through the gate on horseback. He drew up his shotgun, ready to make the shells count. Then he hesitated. Unlike the invaders, these were in matching uniforms—and Martin caught a glimpse of bare knees. They were wearing kilts. Scotsmen? What were they doing here? Finishing up the attackers’ job for them?
The horsemen hammered across the lawn, coming to a halt nearly at the steps. They swung down from their saddles, swords drawn, and waded into the fray. Unlike their opponents, they moved with practiced skill, defending against blows and striking back on the downstroke.
“Looks like we are dead on time!” their captain said, when he saw Martin gawk at him. “Lower yer weapon, sir. We’re here ta help ye.”
* * *
When the Scottish cavalry appeared, terror started to spread through the mercenaries on the manor house steps. Ben saw some of them pull away from the attack and flee toward their picketed horses. They couldn’t face trained soldiers, and they knew it. Their only hope of survival was to run.
“Stop them!” he bellowed at Captain Rawl.
“Ye’ll not get paid if you go!” the captain shouted, as one man after another legged it for the horses. There was another scrimmage, as the mercenaries went for any horse that they could reach. The rightful owners fought with them, often getting a knife in the hand or the eye. The horses wheeled, screaming, their hooves plunging as the men tried to get them under control.
“Leave them,” Rawl said, his face set. “They’re no help at all. We’ve got who we’ve got.”
“Right,” Ben said. The mission was failing, but he would still get vengeance on the landowner. The Earl of Cork would have to take other action against Churnet and Trent when he could. He shouted to the men who remained in the courtyard. “If we can’t obtain the mill for his lordship, no one shall have it! Down to the barn! Burn it! Smash everything and go!”
* * *
“There are women and children inside,” Martin told the Scottish captain. “Help us!”
“Aye, we’re ready for it,” the man said, showing white teeth in a fierce grin. “To me, men of Douglas!”
“Aye! Douglas to the rescue!” the Scotsmen bellowed. They charged the mercenaries, whose ranks parted before them like curtains opening. The kilted men scarcely got a half dozen blows in before the way was open to them. They bounded up the steps and into the house. Martin immediately heard men screaming for mercy.
“Are ye with us, man?” the leader asked him. He looked like a good fellow, young and bright eyed, with a neat red beard and large hazel eyes.
“I’ve got a score to settle first,” Martin said. He looked around for Ben, but didn’t see him. He did spot a couple of the invaders heading downslope toward the lane that led to the weavers’ shed. He broke the twelve-gauge in half, tipped out the empty shells, and reloaded from his pocket, then strode after them. If Aaron was in the shed, he was going to get him out safely.
* * *
Margaret paused before dropping an alabaster Florentine bust on the milling fighters below, and looked out across the lawn at the sound of horse tack jingling. What now? What more disaster could possibly befall them?
Horsemen streamed toward the house. The second man held a banner aloft with a snake or some other twisty beast on it. She didn’t recognize them, but saw that they were clad in woolen plaids and kilts. Scotsmen? Had the king sent for allies from the north to help take over their estate?
The men leaped off their horses and ran toward the door, pistols and swords at the ready. Margaret took aim at the leader, who was nearly underneath her. Then, he lifted his head, jaunty plume of his bonnet bobbing beside his face, and winked at her! She was so astonished that she let the bust slip out of her fingers.
It smashed down upon a couple of the invaders’ heads, knocking them flat on the steps. She realized with a start that they were trying to run away from the Scotsmen. But did the de Beauchamps have two enemies, or only one?
“We should help the men,” she called to her mother. “We do not know how they are faring.”
“We are helping them, my dear. We are staying out of the way,” Delfine said, coming up with a hefty, plain, dark wooden box that Margaret recognized as one in which Nat kept small treasures from his childhood. She threw it out of the window and was rewarded with a wild cry from below. “We can’t fight soldiers hand-to-hand.”
“We must be able to do something!”
The room was nearly bare now of ornaments and all Nat’s possessions but one. Margaret couldn’t bring herself to throw his precious guitar out, but everything else including the chamber pot underneath his bed had gone. She looked around for more missiles. There was nothing, unless they dismembered the bed frame. The heavy wooden trunk at the foot of it was too wide to go out of the casement.
They had barred the door, hammering a chair back underneath the handle, and tied torn bedclothes into ropes to secure the chair in place. Now they could do no more but huddle together with Petronella in the middle of the ring. Margaret’s younger sister had seen this all as a great adventure at first, but now her nose was pink, and tears dripped down her cheeks. Delfine gathered her young daughter to her heart. She held out her hand to her elder, but Margaret shook her head. She had never felt so helpless. She was no coward, but the ongoing sound of gunfire and yelling had shredded her nerves. The frustration made her impatient. She must have more ammunition to use!
She tugged her brother’s mattress onto the floor and pulled the slats out of the bedframe. Holding one of the dry boards to the fire in the grate, she waited until it was ablaze, then dropped it out of the window onto the fighters. She went back for another one. She would not stop until the nightmare ended.
Fewer and fewer men were below to receive the brunt of her attacks. Margaret felt satisfaction as more and more of the invaders ran away toward their horses and fled. She soon ran out of wood to burn. There was nothing else to be done until and unless they heard someone trying to break into their room. The curtain poles and the kitchen knives were ready for them to make their last stand, which she would with all the strength in her body.
Until…
“Margaret de Beauchamp, come forth!”