King, Ship, and Sword

'There it is!' Caroline exclaimed as Le Gantelet Rouge came in sight on the right-hand side of the road, out where the homes were humbler and further apart, where stone-fenced or hedged pastures and farm crops began to predominate.

'Uhm… cocher?' Lewrie called, leaning out his window. 'I say, cocher. Arrкte, s'il vous plaоt… а le Gantelet Rouge. For dйjeuner.'

'Mais oui, m'sieur,' the lead coachman laconically replied as he slowed the horses and turned the coach into the large, shady yard in front of a two-storey stone inn with a slate roof, with a cool gallery to one side, and many outbuildings and barns.

'We will be awhile, erm… quelque temps?' Lewrie said to the coachmen once they had alit. 'Ah… you're free to… '

'Faites comme vous voudrez messieurs' Caroline provided for him, explaining that while they took a long dinner and a rest from the ride on the hard benches, the coachmen could do as they will; have a bite themselves, some wine, and such. 'Give them a few franc coins, Alan.'

'Oh, right-ho,' Lewrie agreed, handing up coins from his purse.

'The gallery looks inviting,' Caroline commented as the entered the travellers' inn.

'Perhaps an inside table, Caroline. Out of sight from the road.' 'Yes, of course,' she agreed, then looked at him with amusement.

'Right-ho, Alan? The Plumbs must be wearing off on you. You will be saying 'Begad,' 'Zounds,' and 'Stap me' next.'

'Well, uhm… '

They shared a bottle of wine, lingering over it and making but guarded small talk. Half an hour later, and they ordered a plate of hors-d'oeuves, then a second bottle of wine when that was consumed. They ordered soup and bread, then opted for breaded veal and asparagus, to while away another hour. Le Gantelet Rouge boasted an ormolu clock on the high mantel, and its ticking, the slow progression of its minute hand, was maddening, after a while, 'til…

A coach could be heard entering the inn yard, wheels hissing and crunching over the fine gravel, and chains tinkling… bound to the rear of the inn, nearest the stables and well. Was it Sir Pulteney, was it soldiers? Both Alan and Caroline began to tremble despite their efforts not to, ready to bolt!

'Zounds, but there you are!' Sir Pulteney Plumb exclaimed very loudly as he bustled in the rear entrance, now in more modest travelling clothes and a light serge de Nоmes duster and wide-brimmed farmer's hat, which he swept off elegantly as he made a 'leg' to them. 'Told you the 'Red Gauntlet' sets a fine table, haw haw! And, here is my good lady! Begad, m'dear, but look who has stopped at the very same inn as us! Allow us to join you, for we are famished and as dry as dust.' The Lewries had to sit and sip wine, order coffee to thin the alcohol fumes from what they had already taken aboard as Sir Pulteney and Lady Imogene ordered hearty full meals and dined as if they had all the time in the world.

'Now, for your coach and coachmen,' Sir Pulteney said at last as he rose and moved to the front door. Lewrie followed him to see Sir Pulteney paying off their hired coach and ordering their luggage brought to the inn. 'I told them that you found the inn so delightful, and the arrival of old friends so pleasant, that we would all be staying on the night, and coach to Le Havre together in the morning.' Sir Pulteney explained after he returned. 'They will rack back south to Paris a touch richer than they expected, and, God willing, your whereabouts ends here, haw haw!'

'What happens tomorrow, then?' Lewrie asked him.

'Not tomorrow, Captain Lewrie… what happens now is more to the Point,' Sir Pulteney said with a sly expression as their luggage made its way through the inn, to the rear stableyard, and into the Plumbs' coach.

'Sated, my dear? Excellent! Now we will all pay our reckonings and resume our journey, what?'

There was no coachman for Sir Pulteney to pay off, for once he had handed Lady Imogene and Caroline into the coach, he sprang to the coachee's bench and the reins most lithely, and got the team moving with a few clucks, a whistle, and a shake of the reins.

Lady Imogene crossed herself as they got under way once more 'Pulteney adores playing coachee… though I fear he's not as talented as he imagines himself, and he rushes on much too fast sometimes.'

'Good Christ,' Lewrie said, shaking his head in dread.

Sir Pulteney got the coach on the road and began to set a rapid pace, whipping up like Jehu, the Biblical charioteer, putting the wind up Lewrie, who'd had his share of harum-scarum whip-hands like Zachariah Twigg and his damned three-horse chariot. Twigg was in his sixties, for God's sake, usually aloof, staid, and cold, but hand him the reins and he'd turn into a raving lunatick, screeching like a naked Celtic warrior painted in blue woad, revelling in how close he came to carriages, farm waggons, and pedestrians, as if re-enacting Queen Boadicea's final charge against the Roman legions.

Sir Pulteney took the eastern road from Pontoise, following the north bank 'til reaching a crossroads that led north towards the smaller towns of Mйru and Beauvais, slowly climbing into a region of low and rolling hills that were thickly forested… and the roads were windier.

Did it matter a whit to that fool? Like Hell it did, for their coach sometimes swayed onto two wheels, and those inside were jounced, tumbled, and rattled like dice in a cup. Lewrie's testicles, it must be admitted, drew up in expectation of the grand smash to come.

At long last, and at a much slower pace, Sir Pulteney steered the coach off the road to a rougher and leaf- covered forest track, some few of those new-fangled Froggish kilomиtres short of Mйru, or so the last mile-post related, before they drew to a very welcome stop, deep in a forest glade.

'What now?' Lewrie had to ask, easing the kinks in his back from keeping himself as stiff as rigor mortis the last few hours, as he and Sir Pulteney went into the woods in one direction, the ladies another, to tend to the 'necessities.'

'Why, we become other people before we reach Mйru, sir,' their rescuer told him, beaming with pleasure as he took a pinch of snuff on the back of his hand. 'Then, once there, we change our mode of travel. Ten years ago, during the height of the French Revolution's bloodiness, there were more than a few residents there, Royalist in their sympathies, who aided our endeavours at spiriting the blameless to safety. In such a rural place, I rather doubt the Committee for Public Safety, or the later Directory, even bothered to root out so-called reactionaries, or hold their witch-hunts. No no, I'm certain there are still many of our old allies ready to speed us on our way. Ah-ah-achoo!' Sir Pulteney paused for a prodigious sneeze into a handkerchief, with all evident delight. 'You will partake, Captain Lewrie?' he said, offering a snuff box. 'Zounds, but that's prime!' he said, sneezing again.

'Never developed a liking for it, thankee,' Lewrie said. 'You say we're t'become other people?'

'Your trail goes cold at the Gantelet Rouge in Pontoise. Now, it will go even colder at Mйru,' Sir Pulteney confidently told him as they went back to the coach. 'My trail, and Lady Imogene's, as well. We will openly sup in Mйru after obtaining a much humbler conveyance, then travel through the night to put as much distance between us and Paris, and any pursuit, before tomorrow's dawn. That will require new aliases, and some, ah… costume changes, to transform us into a most unremarkable party of travellers… French travellers, Begad!'

'I'm t'play a Frenchman?' Lewrie gawped in dis-belief. 'Me, sir? That's asking rather a lot!'

'I took that into consideration, Captain Lewrie,' Plumb replied, 'just as I noted that your wife's French, though not fluent, is much better than yours, which suggested to me the very personas which must be assumed, haw haw! Imogene and I shall do most of the talking.'

'Wouldn't we need new documents or something?' Lewrie wondered.

'For foreign visitors, of a certainty, but for innocent and up-standing Frenchmen? Hardly! Aha!' Sir Pulteney exclaimed, hurrying them to the boot of the coach, 'my lady has already begun the alteration of your wife's appearance!'

The leather covering of the boot had been rolled up, revealing several large trunks, one of which was open, whilst a second served as a seat for Caroline as Lady Imogene fussed over her, now and then having a good dig