The Combermere Legacy Read online

  They had been surprised to see him once again as they talked to the sergeant, hanging back along the track that led back to Welsh Row. He had disappeared behind a hedgerow when he’d realised he had been noticed. The man made Ralph feel uneasy, but he had said nothing, and once he and Amy had begun playing, and he was chasing Amy with his sword around the water troughs and through the holes dug around the pillar, he had soon forgotten his misgivings.

  It had come as quite a shock, therefore, when they had suddenly become aware of a lone figure standing on the stone steps. The man wore dark grey breeches, a plain white shirt, and no hat, which allowed Ralph to notice his piercing blue eyes, which, despite the toothy grin he offered to the children, were hard and flinty.

  “That’s a fine sword, young man,” the man had said, once it was clear he had been noticed.

  “Yes, sir,” Ralph had replied, warily.

  “He’s going to kill some royalists with it,” Amy had chipped in, and she had skipped over to where Ralph was standing.

  “I’m sure he is,” the man had said. “He looks like a strapping young fellow.”

  At this, Ralph had pulled himself to his full height and stood to attention. “But today I’m going to catch the murderer,” he had announced, “just like my stepfather.”

  “Murderer?” the man had replied, under raised eyebrows. “What murderer would that be?”

  Ralph and Amy had looked at each other in surprise.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Amy had gasped. “I thought everyone knew Henry Hassall was murdered here only a few weeks ago. We were looking for clues.”

  “Then you might want to have a look in the bushes and trees by the river bank,” the man had said, conspiratorially. “I’m sure I found a hidey-hole there earlier today. It might have been where the murderer hid after he carried out this terrible deed.”

  “Really?” Amy had said in wonderment. “Where is that?”

  “Come with me,” the man had urged, with a smile. “I’ll show you.” And he had headed off across the grass towards a line of trees and thick undergrowth about fifty yards away.

  Amy had followed him with an excited squeal, but Ralph had not been so sure. He did not trust the man. There was something in his eyes which promised danger. Ralph had taken an anxious look over towards the earthworks, but the sergeant had disappeared, gone to smoke his pipe, no doubt.

  “Come on, Ralph,” Amy had shouted. “What is the matter with you? Let us find out where the murderer hid.”

  And despite his misgivings, Ralph had sighed and followed Amy into the undergrowth.

  Once they were out of sight of the earthworks, the man had pointed to a gap in between a hawthorn bush and a tangle of brambles, to what looked like a flattened area of grass.

  “In there,” he had said.

  But as Amy stepped into the gap, he had given her an almighty shove, which sent her flying headfirst into the grass. Then, before Ralph could fully comprehend what was happening, he had grabbed the boy by the waist and lifted him off his feet.

  “Right, you little bugger. You’re coming with me,” he had snarled, the toothy smile vanishing instantly. “Make a noise, and you’ll regret it.”

  But Ralph was not going to be dragged away without a fight. He still had his wooden sword, which he swung as hard as he could, catching the man fully on the side of his knee, sending both of them crashing to the ground. The man had breathed heavily as he tried to stifle a howl of pain. Not that it mattered, for Amy had pulled herself to her feet and had started screaming at the top of her voice.

  “Ralph, Ralph,” she had yelled, “run for it.” But that was as far as she had got, for the man had struggled to his feet and lurched through the undergrowth before swinging his arm and catching her a fearful clout on the side of the head. Amy had collapsed, motionless, on the grass, whilst Ralph, driven by sheer panic, had dropped his sword and run headlong through the trees, in desperate search of a hiding place.

  Ralph knew he could not outrun the man and had been preparing himself for discovery, but to his amazement, the man had hesitated and said, “You’ll do,” to Amy’s lifeless form, before hoisting her over his shoulder and wading through the trees and bushes towards the wall at the southern end of Ridley Field.

  It was then that Ralph had pushed further into the undergrowth and had found himself among the reeds on the riverbank. Here he had crouched down onto his knees in the river water and held his breath for what seemed like an eternity.

  He had expected all the shouting to have brought the sergeant running with some of his charges, but the soldier was obviously more interested in his pipe than the children’s safety. Eventually, though, he had heard the sound of footsteps and the crackling of twigs, and he had realised with horror that the man had returned, this time without Amy.

  He was, however, carrying a large sword, which he waved through the grass and bushes as he trampled his way through the vegetation.

  Ralph pushed himself further down in the water, for the man was getting closer and closer. Only a few feet away, he could almost smell his breath. With a sigh, Ralph buried his head into the reeds and waited for the inevitable.

  Chapter 10

  Nantwich – Thursday, July 25th, 1644

  It was past midnight before we found Ralph. He had been hiding amongst the reeds by the riverbank and had only emerged into the view of the search party assembled in Ridley Field when he heard me calling his name. Cowering, shivering, and soaking wet, he cut a sorry sight, and he was immediately swaddled in a blanket by Elizabeth, who had accompanied us into the field. Were it not for the pressing need to locate Amy, he would undoubtedly have been shepherded away into the safety of our home in Beam Street. Instead, he sat on the steps of the stone pillar, huddled in his mother’s arms whilst we searched the rest of the pasture.

  In truth, we had been fortunate to find either of the children, for the sergeant who had let them pass into Ridley Field had, for the most part, been singularly unhelpful, and it was not until Thomas Croxton had arrived on the scene and explained the gravity of the situation, namely that he had allowed a royalist spy to kidnap a child from under his very nose, that he began to realise the potential consequences for himself and started to co-operate.

  It had not been too difficult to guess where Amy and Ralph had gone to play, and their exit point into the field had also been self-evident. When the hapless sergeant eventually began to talk, a picture gradually began to emerge of what had happened.

  The children, it appeared, had been playing in the area around the pillar in the middle of the field, when the sergeant had descended from his look-out position to smoke his pipe. However, when he returned, the children had vanished. Several other soldiers stationed along the earthworks reported having seen a man talking to the children but had thought nothing of it, nor could they say where the children had gone, only that the unidentified person had been observed leading a horse away across the fields in the distance.

  A garbled account from Ralph, who was in a state of shock, suggested that a tall man with blue eyes had struck Amy violently across the face and carried her away through the trees that lined the riverbank. Ralph himself had run into the undergrowth and had refused to move until he heard a voice he recognised.

  The sergeant, it emerged, had carried out a brief search of the field once he realised that Amy and Ralph had disappeared, but, finding nothing, had initially determined to protect his own skin by denying point blank that he had seen the children at all.

  Croxton, annoyed at having been disturbed from his dinner and incandescent at the breach in security, immediately ordered the sergeant to be detained, and he was led away, white-faced and thoroughly chastened, towards the gaol in Pillory Street.

  This solved nothing, however, for Amy had completely vanished, and the only clue I possessed was the note that had been delivered into Mrs Padgett’s hands and which I now held concealed in the lining of my doublet.

  “You seem something more than
vexed, Daniel,” said Alexander, who came to join me on the steps of the stone pillar once the search party had begun to disperse. “What is it, aside from the obvious, that troubles you?”

  I looked up at my friend and smiled by way of acknowledgement. For a big man, he could be remarkably perceptive at times.

  “I am not certain,” I admitted, “but there is something about this whole business that does not sit right. Logic says that Jem Bressy must be involved in this kidnap, but the description Ralph has given is not a match for Bressy. Kinshaw has also intimated that the man who attacked him was brown-haired and clean shaven. Bressy has black hair and a beard.”

  “Ralph is but a child, and Kinshaw may have been mistaken,” ventured Alexander, not entirely convincingly. “Or,” he added, “perhaps Bressy has an accomplice – a replacement for Nat Hulse.”

  “That is a possibility,” I conceded, “but it still doesn’t make sense.”

  I took the scribbled note that Mrs Padgett had given me and showed it to Alexander.

  “The person who wrote this thinks Amy is my daughter,” I said. “Bressy is a skilled intelligencer. Surely he knows enough about me by now to be aware that I do not have any children of my own?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And, of course, you already know my views on the digging that has taken place in this field,” I continued.

  Alexander looked around at the deep holes and piles of earth that had been dug at various points around where we were sitting. “You said they look as though whoever dug them had no idea what he was doing.”

  “Precisely,” I said, rising to my feet. “They are randomly distributed and too numerous. Do you really think a professional like Bressy, or even one of his lackeys, would dig up this field without knowing exactly where he was looking? Surely this is the work of someone else?”

  Alexander strode over to the nearest hole and swished his boot around thoughtfully in the loose earth at the edge. “That is an interesting conjecture,” he said. “As you have said yourself, Bressy must be involved, but, if that is the case, why does he continue to hold Amy? The message you hold suggests he wants us to surrender the engraving to him, but he has already taken that from Kinshaw.”

  “Exactly. So where is Amy now?”

  “I don’t know,” said Alexander, with a grimace, “but one thing is clear. To find the answer to these questions, we have but one course of action open to us.”

  I nodded grimly, for I knew what my friend was alluding to. “We must seek out Maisterson and Wilbraham and persuade them to take us to Combermere,” I said.

  Chapter 11

  Combermere – Wednesday, July 31st, 1644

  The road from Nantwich to Combermere crosses the Weaver at Shrewbridge and rises slowly as it leaves the proximity of the river, passing through green fields surrounding the hamlets of Sound, Broomhall Green, and Aston as it weaves its way into Shropshire and eventually to the town of Whitchurch. Just after Newhall, a track leads off to the right towards the two lakes which sit either side of the Cotton family’s magnificent house, converted from the residence of the abbot of the monastery that once stood there, the long, slender Combermere on the west, bordered by mature oak trees, and the smaller Danesmere on the eastern side.

  The route is one with which I am not overly familiar, for most of the farms which supply my cheese sit on the opposite side of the river, closer to my home village of Barthomley. My travelling companion seemed much better acquainted with the landscape than I, which, on balance, was a good thing, although it would have been preferable if he had been a little less taciturn. Roger Wilbraham, however, had said very little to me since the previous Friday, when I had revealed to him and Maisterson that Brett’s engraving was lost.

  This revelation had led to a series of curses on the part of the two merchants, the like of which I had seldom heard before from gentlemen of such breeding. This, however, had turned to concern when they were told that Amy was still missing. Maisterson had berated us for our carelessness, but ultimately both gentlemen agreed that I needed to travel to Combermere with at least one of them, and so a rider was despatched, asking the Cottons to prepare for our visit.

  In the end, it was decided that Maisterson would stay behind in Nantwich and I would borrow his engraving, pretending it was Brett’s. I would present myself as representing the interests of Brett’s estate, hoping that the Cottons, as regular customers of Brett’s, would be willing to help Wilbraham and myself cast some light on the history behind the engravings.

  The two gentlemen had made it clear that they had not yet divulged all they knew about the engravings, and Maisterson promised that Wilbraham would reveal more to me during the ride. However, by the time I steered my bay mare, Demeter, down the track that led to the former abbey, the young gentleman had still not ventured any further information, and I was beginning to wonder whether the ride might end up being something of a wild goose chase.

  In truth, though, I did not mind the diversion. I was pleased to be able to escape from Nantwich for a while, for the five days since Amy’s disappearance had been fraught with anxiety.

  Firstly, there had been no trace whatsoever of Amy, nor – and this was the most worrying aspect – had there been any further communication from her captor. I did not dare voice the opinion openly, but I began to wonder whether the kidnapper, having managed to secure the engraving from Kinshaw, had decided to dispose of Amy in the cruellest way possible; after all, he had already committed one murder.

  Croxton, to his credit, had all the hedgerows for two miles on the eastern bank of the river searched for signs of her, and when that produced nothing, he sent a search party downriver as far as Beam Heath to check whether a body had been washed up among the reeds, but there was no sign of her.

  All this had made Mrs Padgett more and more frantic, although she busied herself as best she could by cooking up warming broths and potions for Ralph, who had caught a fever as a result of the time he had spent kneeling in the river.

  Alexander, meanwhile, was in a mood because Maisterson and Wilbraham had refused to allow him to travel to Combermere with Wilbraham and myself. Instead, I asked my friend to monitor the movements of Jacob Fletcher and to see whether he could discover a reason for the antipathy shown to the briner by Eldrid Cripps. Alexander’s grumpy acquiescence was a sign that I should leave him to his own devices for a while, and consequently I had not seen him for several days.

  And if all this were not enough, I had been summoned the day before to Colonel Booth’s quarters in The Lamb to receive a letter from Simon. The letter, I noticed, carried the seal of the Eastern Association. I broke the seal carefully and began to read;

  My dear brother,

  I write to you from our quarters in the town of Doncaster, where our unit of dragoons rests, following our momentous victory near York. I am well and in good spirits, buoyed by the fact that I serve under such a committed officer as Lt. Colonel Lilburne.

  We are keen to press home our advantage in these parts, and today we march on the castle at Tickhill at the Lt. Colonel’s own behest, where it is believed the incumbent malignants are low in morale and ready to surrender. I therefore hope to have more good news to impart the next time I write.

  In the meantime, I am pleased to be able to tell you that James Skinner survived the slaughter on Marston Moor without injury and now serves amongst our number. I discovered him, weak and hungry, among a group of prisoners outside York. He was happy to switch his allegiance to our cause, for which I thank God heartily.

  Please remember me to Mother, Father, and George, should you pass by Barthomley, and to Elizabeth, to whom I understand you are now wed. It is a matter of great regret that I was not able to be present on that day.

  Please also tell Rose she is always in my thoughts and that I will write to her separately.

  Your loving brother,

  Simon

  It was, of course, an unexpected pleasure to hear the news about Skinner, even m
ore so for my erstwhile apprentice’s brothers, Jack and Robert, who, as good parliamentarians, were as delighted that their younger sibling was no longer under the influence of royalists as they were that he was still in one piece. Unsurprisingly, though, the reaction I received from Rose Bailey to news of Simon’s letter was not quite so positive, and I was curtly informed that, as far as she was concerned, it would be of no consequence if she never set eyes on my brother again, let alone received a letter from him.

  From this I deduced that Rose had not yet had any kind of direct communication from Simon, and so I was forced to compose a letter to my brother explaining that he was no longer betrothed and that his intended wife was now seeing someone else.

  The change of scenery had therefore come as a welcome relief, and as Wilbraham and I rode through the countryside, my mind began to turn once again to the question of the curious engravings from Combermere, and I remembered that Wilbraham had not yet told me the full story of their origin.

  “We cannot ride the whole way to Combermere in silence,” I said, eventually. “You told me you had further information to impart about these engravings. Now would be a good time to tell me.”

  Wilbraham brought his horse to a stop and looked at me carefully. “Very well,” he said. “I have little choice but to put my trust in you, although God knows I wish there was an alternative.”

  I looked askance at my young companion and decided there was nothing to be gained by ignoring the young gentleman’s lack of courtesy.

  “It is a great comfort to know I have your full confidence,” I replied, making sure my tone conveyed an appropriate degree of sarcasm.