the fresher, perhaps… No, it was a stranger horse, while he and the cob at least knew each other's ways. He would take the cob. He led Barnaby's horse around to the stable and dumped in a manger the hay that the cob ought to be enjoying. Then he ran back to the cob, mounted, spurred the startled beast, and was off. Behind him, Dirty Mill and its inhabitants lay in the dark, its front door still swinging gently in the frosty, light night breeze.
Sweeping aside the startled anchor watch at Royal Duke's entry port, Hoare put fingers to mouth and sounded his whistle of alarm once more. Unlike the fruitless blast he had uttered at his own doorstep, the response to this second shriek was as it should always be. From belowdecks came a humming as of a hive of enormous disturbed bees. First to come on deck was Mr. Clay, nightgowned, nightcapped, and barefoot to the icy planks, buckling his serviceable sword about his waist as he came. He was followed by Leese and two of his men, also carrying their swords, as they, like the riflemen they copied in all things, termed their long bayonets. Others followed.
As had become instinctive with him by now, Clay stepped up to his captain's side to assume his duty as stentor.
'My wife and child have been taken,' Hoare began. 'Kidnapped.'
The hum of bees rose to an enraged pitch.
'Hancock, our pigeon man, was one of them. He's dead. Here's a letter my people's takers left behind. I'll have Mr. Clay give you its gist while I prepare to follow them. Alone, as you will learn.'
He ducked below to his cabin forward of the orphaned pigeons. As soon as he had a chance he would slaughter them all and hang them around Hancock's neck like Mr. Coleridge's albatross. But first, he must get together the likenesses with which he must ransom his family, and bring his people home. He had lost his first family; he would never let this second one out of his sight again. They had become unutterably precious.
'After hearing what you told us about Hancock, sir'-Clay told Hoare when he reappeared, the roll of drawings slung across one shoulder like a scabbard in lieu of the sword he must leave behind tonight-'I took it upon myself to take a muster of all hands, since they were already on deck. Besides Hancock, and of course Thoday and little Collis, the cook Green is missing, sir. Run, I suspect.'
From one of the many Londoners in his crew, Hoare now took directions to Gracechurch Street, absorbing them as best he could, given his present mental state. He remembered, at least, that he should cross the river by the Westminster Bridge. He shook off the man's pleas to let him guide him there. 'Can't risk it, Eddison,' he whispered, 'but thank you.'
After issuing a few last-minute instructions, in which he stressed again his absolute veto of any attempt upon the part of the Royal Dukes to follow him up to London in the hope of being helpful, Hoare wrapped the Pickering drawings into a long cylinder, strapped it to his shoulder, and mounted. As he set off in the cold moonlight, he heard Mr. Clay's astonishing roar of a voice from Royal Duke behind: 'Now Godspeed, sir, and good luck! Bring us back your women!'
Mr. Clay's farewell was followed by three quiet, grim cheers. Well, Hoare thought, at least he had not made enemies of them all.
He must not force the cob's pace. The night air was icy, the snow could hide all sorts of traps in the London road, and he was conning the animal's nose into the moonlight. So, though his heart kept urging him to gallop, gallop, gallop to the rescue, he held the beast to a sober trot. Under close-reefed topsails, so to speak, with a leadsman in its chains. He had the time now to think about what had happened, and what lay ahead of him.
The pigeon man and the cook. For sure, the cook had run. Besides being a Portsmouth 'brute' by trade as well as build, she was an evil witch as a cook, and she had not been well-liked, so it could be no surprise that she had left the ship. Perhaps she had been in league with Hancock, who was dead and could not tell his tale.
As to Hancock himself: even in as unconventional a ship's company as the Royal Dukes, there was no traditional role in a ship's company for a captain of the pigeons. Such a rating had never existed before. Besides, there was the matter of stink-the stink of his feathered, cooing charges, and worse, the stink of the man himself. Hancock had become a pariah.
The fact might well have eaten into his soul, as Hoare knew from experience could happen to any Jonah: shunned, neglected, imposed upon, often beaten up. As Hoare must now confess, to his own belated chagrin, Hancock might well have taken Hoare himself into a deep hatred, for he himself had not even tried to conceal his disgust whenever the man's stench reached his nose. Certainly, Hoare recollected with a shudder, the pigeon- master's man's grin, as he rode onto him only an hour or so ago, had been a welcoming one-of a sort. Hancock had been seeking the life of an enemy.
Besides, through his work, Hancock had been in close, frequent touch with persons off ship, and with the ciphering and deciphering task directed by Sarah Taylor. (Hoare hoped, in passing, that Taylor herself had not been tainted. Surely not.) In the eyes of whomever might be trying to penetrate the operations of Royal Duke, the pigeon man would have been a logical target for seduction.
By now, Hoare estimated by the sinking moon in his eyes, it would be past four bells in the middle watch-two o'clock in the morning. The London road was a street now, lined with solid buildings of a mercantile nature, clear of snow but not of clutter, and he all but alone in it. When he had rounded a jog in the street, Westminster Bridge hove into sight. He would be another half hour to Gracechurch Street, provided he did not lose himself. He had best add on still another half hour in which to untangle his way.
At the bridge's near end, he spied lantern-light, and in it two huddled men. The watch, he supposed. He came to a decision. He could not stand the idea of wandering a-horseback through the London labyrinth, lost and despondent, Gracechurch Street ever receding. He would take a pilot aboard, and throw himself on the mercy of his family's captors.
The offer of a golden half-crown was more than enough to make the younger of the two watchmen snatch at the prospect of bringing this night-bound gaby in uniform to his destination.
'Swift, safe an' sahnd, sir,' he promised, 'an' will exercise the 'oss while I wytes, to boot.'
Hoare got the man's name from his partner-he was Job Threadneedle, as in the street where the limner Pickering lived-and hauled him onto the cob to ride pillion. The beast must be weary. But necessity knew no mercy, and besides, it was due for a rest of unknown duration.
They crossed the bridge together to the music of a travel narrative from Hoare's pilot, who had a story about every corner they passed, told in a nasal drone that sometimes Hoare failed altogether to understand. When Threadneedle spoke, he breathed, and the stench of his breath reminded Hoare of Hancock. By now, the pigeon man's body should be under the scrutiny of the team Mr. Clay had ordered sent down to Dirty Mill. When his passenger began to give his directions in rhyming cant, Hoare shut him off with a harsh whispered snarl to speak English.
' 'Ere we be, sir, syfe an' sahnd, jest lyke I promised yer we'd be,' Threadneedle said into Hoare's ear at last, with a final putrid puff. By Hoare's estimate, only twenty minutes had elapsed since he had brought his vile-smelling pilot aboard.
'Well done, man,' Hoare whispered. He slid off the cob, and Threadneedle slid onto the warm saddle.
'Wait till they admit me,' Hoare went on. 'Then take the animal to the nearest inn, stable it and have it tended to, and make yourself at home there. If you're still sober when I join you, there's another sovereign in it for you.'
'Walk-er!' To a mere watchman, two whole golden boys would be a fortune.
'Where will you put up?' Hoare asked.
After scratching his head, Threadneedle decided.
'Bow and Forest, sir,' he said, and pointed with the itching head. 'No more'n a 'undred yards dahn Grycechurch, that wye. Coachin' inn, it is; tykes in all kines, so long as they got the blunt, any time o' night.'
Incredibly, Hoare realized he knew where the Bow was. It was the London terminus of the coach line to Cambridge, and the Hoares would have been using it overnights on their passages to and from Great Dunmow.
'Very good, Threadneedle. By the bye, tell them you are in my employ… Commander Hoare, of the navy.'
'Commander 'Oare, of the nyvy,' the pilot repeated. 'An'… an' good luck, sir. Don't you worry, sir, Hi'll be waitin' you. 'Opes to see you there, syfe an' sahnd.'
