House of Torment

Johnnie shrugged his shoulders. In his mood of absolute disgust with his surroundings, the recital interested him very little. He connected it at once with the appearance of Shelton and the valet at the end of the tourney, but it was not his business.

"The hog to his stye," he said bitterly. "I am going to take some supper, and then to bed, for I am very weary."

Arm in arm with Ambrose Cholmondely, he descended the stairs, went into the Common Room, and made a simple meal.

The place was riotous with high spirits, the talk was fast and free, but he joined in none of it, and in a very few minutes had returned to his room, closed the door, and thrown himself upon the bed.

Almost immediately he sank into a deep sleep.

He was dreaming of Elizabeth, and in his dream was interwoven the sound of great bells, when the fantastic painted pictures of sleep were suddenly shaken violently and dissolved. They flashed away, and his voice rose in calling after them to stay, when he suddenly awoke.

The bells were still going on, deep golden notes from the central cupola over the Queen's Gallery, beating out the hour of eleven. But as they changed from dream into reality – much louder and imminent – he felt himself shaken violently. A strong hand gripped his shoulder, a hoarse voice mingled with the bell-music in his ears. He awoke.

His little room was lit by a lanthorn standing upon the mantel with the door open.

John Hull, a huge broad shadow, was bending over him. He sat up in bed.

"Dame!" he cried, "and what is this?"

"Master! Master! She has been taken away! My little mistress! Most foully taken away, and none know where she may be!"

Johnnie sprang from his bed, upright and trembling.

"I took the letter and the flowers as you bade me. But all was sorrow and turmoil at the house. Mistress Elizabeth went out in the afternoon with Alice her maid. She was to take the air. They have not returned. Nothing is known. His Worship hath fifty men searching for her, and hath had for hours. But it avails nothing."

Johnnie suddenly became quite quiet. Hull saw his face change. The smooth, gracious contours were gone. An inner face, sharp, resolute, haggard and terribly alive, sprang out and pushed the other away.

"His Worship writ thee a letter, sir. Here 'tis."

Johnnie held out his hand. The letter was brief, the writing hurried and indistinct with alarm.

"Dear Lad, – They have taken our Lizzie, whom I know not. But I fear the worst things. I cannot find her with all my resource. An' if I cannot, one must dread exceeding. I dare say no more. But come to me on the instant, if canst. Thou – being at Court – I take it, may be able to do more than I, at the moment and in the article of our misfortune. The weight I bring to bear is heavy, but taketh time. Command me in every way as seemeth good to you. Order, and if needs be threaten in my name. All you do or say is as if I said it, and they that deny it will feel my hand heavy on them.

"But come, dear lad. Our Lady help and shield the little lamb.

"Your friend,"ROBERT CRESSEMER,"Alderman."

Johnnie thrust the letter into his bosom.

"John Hull, art ready to follow me to the death, as it may be and very like will?"

"Certes, master."

"Anything for her? Are you my man to do all and everything I tell thee till the end?"

John Hull answered nothing. He ran out of the room and returned in an instant with his master's boots and sword. He saw that the holster pistols were primed. He took one of Johnnie's daggers and thrust it into the sheath of his knife without asking.

The two men armed themselves to the teeth without another word.

"I'll be round to the stables," Hull said at length. "Two horses, master? I will rouse one groom only and say 'tis State business."

"You know then where we must go?"

"I know not the place. But I guess it. We hear much – we Court servants!" He spat upon the floor. "And I saw him looking at her as the Doctor rode to Hadley."

"Wilt risk it? – death, torture, which is worse, John Hull?"

"Duck Lane, master?"

"Duck Lane."

"I thought so. I'm for the horses."

A clatter of descending footsteps, a man standing in a little darkling room, his hand upon his sword hilt. His teeth set, his brain working in ice.

Receding footsteps… "Faithfullest servant that ever man had!"

And so to the bitter work!

CHAPTER VII

HEY HO! AND A RUMBELOW!

They had ridden over London Bridge.

The night was dark, and a wind was beginning to rise. Again, here and there about the bridge, soldiers were lounging, but Commendone and his servant passed over successfully. He was recognised from the last time, three nights ago. As they walked their horses through the scattered houses immediately at the southern end of the bridge, Johnnie spoke to Hull.

"I have plans," he said quietly; "my mind is full of them. But I can give you no hint until we are there and doing. Be quick at the uptake, follow me in all I do, but if necessary act thyself, and remember that we are desperate men upon an adventure as desperate. Let nothing stand in the way, as I shall not."

For answer he heard a low mutter, almost a growl, and they rode on in silence.

Both were cool and calm, strung up to the very highest point, every single faculty of mind and body on the alert and poised to strike.

One, the Spanish blood within him turning to that cold icy fury which would stick at nothing in this world to achieve his ends, the while his trained intelligence and high mental powers sat, as it were, upon his frozen anger and rode it as a horse; the other, a volcano of hidden snarling fury, seeing red at each step of his way through the dark, but subordinate and disciplined by the master mind.

They came to the entrance to Duck Lane, walked their horses quietly down it – once more it was in silence – until under the lamp above the big red door of the House of Shame, they saw two horses tethered to a ring in the wall, and a man in a cloak walking up and down in front of the house.

He looked up sharply as they came into the circle of lamp-light, and Johnnie saw, with a fierce throb of exultation, that it was Torromé, the King's valet.

"It is you, Señor," the man said in a low voice of relief.

Johnnie nodded curtly as he dismounted.

"Yes," he said, in a voice equally low, putting something furtive and sly into the tones, for he was a consummate actor. "Yes, it is I, Torromé. I must see His Grace at once on matters of high importance."

"His Grace said nothing," the man began.

"I know, I know," Johnnie answered. "It was not thought that I should have to come, but as events turn out" – he struck with his hand upon the door as he spoke – "I am to see His Highness at once."

"I trust Her Grace – " the man whispered in a frightened voice.

"Not a word," Commendone replied. "Take our horses and keep watch over them also. My man cometh in with me. Word will be sent out to you anon what to do."

The man bowed, and gathered up the bridle of the two new horses on his arm; while as he did so, the big red door swung open a little, and a thin face, covered with a mask of black velvet, peered out at the newcomers.

"It is all right," the valet said, in French. "This gentleman is of the suite of His Highness."

The peering, masked face scrutinised Johnnie for a second, then nodded, and the red lips below twisted into a sinister smile.

"Enter, sir," came in a soft, cooing voice. "I remember you three nights back…"

Johnnie entered, closely followed by Hull, and the door was closed behind him. They stood once more in the quiet carpeted passage, with its sense of mystery, its heavily perfumed air, and once again the tall nondescript figure flitted noiselessly in front of them, and scratched upon a panel of the big door at the end of the passage. There was the tinkle of a bell within. The door was opened. Johnnie pushed aside the curtains and entered the room, hung with crimson arras, powdered with the design of gold bats, lit with its hanging silver lamps, and reeking with the odour of the scented gums which were burning there.

Madame La Motte rose from her chair behind the little table as they entered. The big, painted face was quite still and motionless, like a mask, but the eyes glanced with quick, cunning brightness at Commendone and his companion – the only things alive in that huge countenance. She recognised Johnnie in a moment, and then her eyebrows went up into her forehead and the lower part of her face moved down a little, as if the whole were actuated by the sudden pull of a lever.

"Mon gars," she said, in French, "and what brings you here to-night? And who is this?.."

Her eyes had fallen upon the broad figure of the serving-man in his leather coat, his short sword hanging from his belt, his hand upon his dagger.

She might well look in alarm, this ancient, evil woman, for the keen brown face of the servant was gashed and lined with a terrible and quiet fury, the lips curled away from the teeth, the fore part of the body was bent forward a little as if to spring.

Johnnie took two steps up to the woman.

"Madam," he said, in a voice so low that it was hardly more than a whisper, but every syllable of which was perfectly distinct and clear, "a lady has been stolen from her friends, and brought to this hell. Where is she?"

The woman knew in a moment why they had come. She gave a sudden swift glance towards the door in the arras at the other side of the room, which told Commendone all he wanted to know.

"It is true, then?" he said. "Thou cat of hell, bound mistress of the fiend, she is here?"

The huge body of the woman began to tremble like a jelly, slowly at first in little shivers, and then more rapidly until face and shapeless form shook and swayed from side to side in a convulsion of fear, while all the jewels upon her winked and flashed.

As the young man bent forward and looked into her face, she found a voice, a horrid, strangled voice. "I know nothing," she coughed.

There was a low snarl, like a wakened panther, as Commendone, shuddering as he did so, gripped one bare, powdered shoulder.

"Silence!" he said.

With one convulsive effort, the woman shot out a fat hand, and rang the little silver bell upon the table.

Almost immediately the door swung open; there was a swish of curtains, and the tall, fantastic figure of the creature who had let them into the house stood there.

"Allez – la maison en face – viens toi vite, – Jules, Louis."

Commendone clapped his hand over the woman's mouth, just as the eel-like creature at the door, realising the situation in a moment, was gliding through the curtains to summon the bullies of the house.

But John Hull was too quick for him. He caught him by the arm, wrenched him back into the room, sent him spinning into the centre of it, and took two steps towards him, his right fist half raised to deal him a great blow.

The creature mewed like a cat, ducked suddenly and ran at the yeoman, gripping him round the waist with long, thin arms.

There was no sound as they struggled – this long, eel-like thing, in its mask and crimson robe twining round his sturdy opponent like some parasite writhing with evil life.

John Hull rocked, striving to bend forward and get a grip of his antagonist. But it was useless. He could do nothing, and he was being slowly forced backwards towards the door.

There was horror upon the man's brown face, horror of this silent, clinging thing which fought with fury, and in a fashion that none other had fought with him in all his life.

Then, as he realised what was happening, he stood up for a moment, staggering backwards as he did so, pulled out the dagger from his belt and struck three great blows downwards into the thin scarlet back, burying the steel up to the hilt at each fierce stroke.

There was a sudden "Oh," quite quiet and a little surprised, the sort of sound a man might make when he sees a friend come unexpectedly into his room…

That was all. It was over in some thirty seconds, there was a convulsive wriggle on the floor, and the man, if indeed it was a man, lay on its back stiff in death. The mask of black velvet had been torn off in the struggle, and they saw a tiny white face, painted and hairless, set on the end of a muscular and stringy neck – a monster lying there in soulless death.

"Have you killed it?" Commendone asked, suddenly.

"Yes, master." Hull's head was averted from what lay upon the carpet, even while he was pushing it towards the heap of cushions at the side of the room. Leaning over the body, he took a cushion from the heap – a gaudy thing of green and orange – and wiped his boot.

"Listen!" Johnnie said, still with his hand covering the woman's face.

They listened intently. Not a sound was to be heard.

"As I take it," Commendone answered, "there are no men in the house except only those two we have come to seek. The alarm hath not been given, and that eunuque is dead. We must settle Madame here." He laughed a grim, menacing laugh as he spoke.

Immediately the figure in his hands began to writhe and tremble, the feet beat a dull tattoo upon the carpet, the eyes protruded from their layers of paint, a snorting, snuffling noise came from beneath Commendone's hand. He caught it away instantly, shuddering with disgust.

"Kill me not! kill me not!" the old woman gasped. "They are upstairs, the King and his friend. The girl is there. I know nothing of her, she was brought to me in the dark by the King's servants. Kill me not; I will stay silent." Her voice failed. She fell suddenly back in her chair, and looked at them with indescribable horror in her eyes.

"I'll see to her, master," Hull said in a quiet voice, his face still distorted with mastiff-like fury.

He caught up his blood-stained dagger from the floor, stepped to the stiffened corpse, curved by tetanus into a bow, and ripped up a long piece of the gown which covered it. Quickly and silently he tied the old woman's ankles together, her hands behind her back – the podgy wrists would not meet, nor near it – and again he went to the corpse for further bonds.

"And now to stop her mouth," he said, "or she will be calling."

Commendone took out his handkerchief. "Here," he said. In an instant Hull had rolled it into a ball, pressed it between the painted lips, and tied it in its place with the last strip of velvet.

All this had taken but hardly a minute. Then he stood up and looked at his master. "The time comes," he said.

Johnnie nodded, and walked slowly, with quiet footsteps, towards the door in the arras at the other side of the room.

He felt warily for the handle, found it, turned it gently, and saw a narrow stairway stretching upwards, and lit by a lamp somewhere above. The stair was uncarpeted, but it was of old and massive oak, and, drawing his sword, he crept cautiously up, Hull following him like a cat.

They found themselves in a corridor with doors on each side, each door painted with a big white number. It was lit, warm, and very still.

Johnnie put his fingers to his lips, and both men listened intently.

The silence was absolute. They might have been in an empty house. No single indication of human movement came to them as they stood there.

For nearly a minute they remained motionless. Their eyes were fixed and horror-struck, their ears strained to an intensity of listening.

Then, at last, they heard a sound, quite unexpectedly and very near.

It came from the door immediately upon their right, which was painted with the number "3," and was simply the click of a sword in its scabbard. Johnnie took two noiseless steps to the door, settled his sword in his hand, flung it open, and leapt in.

He was in a large low room panelled round its sides, the panels painted white, the beadings picked out in crimson. A carpet covered the floor, a low fire burnt upon a wide open hearth. There were two or three padded sofa lounges here and there, and in front of the fire-place in riding clothes, though without his hat or gloves, stood Sir John Shelton.

There was a dead silence for several seconds, only broken by the click of the outer door, as Hull pushed it into its place, and shot the bolt.

Shelton grew very white, but said nothing.

With his sword ready to assume the guard, Johnnie walked to the centre of the room.

The bully's face grew whiter still. Little drops of moisture glistened on his forehead, and on his blonde moustache.

Then he spoke.

"Ah! Mr. Commendone!" he said, with a horrid little laugh. "News from Court, I suppose? Is it urgent? His Grace is engaged within, but I will acquaint him. His Grace is engaged – " There came a titter of discovery and fear from his lips. His words died away into silence.

Johnnie advanced towards him, his sword pointed at his heart.

"What does this mean, Mr. Commendone?"

"Death."

The man's sword was out in a moment. The touch of it seemed to bring the life back to him, and with never a word, he sprang at Commendone. He was a brave man enough, a clever fencer too, but he knew now that his hour had come. He read it in the fixed face before him, that face of frozen fury. He knew it directly the blades touched. Indeed he was no match for Commendone, with his long training, and clean, abstemious life. But even had he been an infinitely superior swordsman, he knew that he would have had no chance in that moment. There was something behind the young man's arm which no Sir John Shelton could resist.

The blades rattled together and struck sparks in the lamp-light. Click! Clatter! Click! – "Ah!" the long-drawn breath, a breath surging up from the very entrails – Click! Clatter! Click!

The fierce cold fury of that fight was far beyond anything in war, or the ordinary duello. It was à outrance, there was only one end to it, and that came very swiftly.

Commendone was not fighting for safety. He cared not, and knew nothing, of what the other might have in reserve. He did not even wait to test his adversary's tricks of fence, as was only cautious and usual. Nothing could have withstood him, and in less than two minutes from the time the men had engaged, the end came. Commendone made a half-lunge, which was parried by the dagger in Sir John's left hand, and then, quick as lightning, his sword was through Shelton's throat, through and through.

The Captain fell like a log, hiccoughed, and lay still.

"Two," said John Hull.

Johnnie withdrew his sword, holding it downwards, watching it drip; then he turned to his servant. "Sir John was here on guard," he said; "this is the ante-room to where She is. But I see no door, save only the one by which we entered."

"Hist!" Hull replied, almost before his master had finished speaking.

He pointed to the opposite wall, and both men saw a long, narrow bar of orange light, a momentarily widening slit, opening in a panel.

The panel swung back entirely, forming a sort of hatch or window, and through it, yellow, livid, and terror-struck, looked the face of the King.

Without a word John Hull rushed towards that part of the wall. When he was within a yard of it he gathered himself up and leapt against it, like a battering-ram. There was a crash, as the concealed door was torn away from its hinges. Hull lay measuring his length upon the floor, and Johnnie leaped over the prostrate form into the room beyond.

This is what he saw:

In one corner of the room, close to a large couch covered with rich silks, Elizabeth Taylor stood against the wall. They had dressed her in a long white robe of the Grecian sort, with a purple border round the hem of the skirt, the short sleeves and the low neck. Her face was a white wedge of terror, her arms were upraised, the palms of her hands turned outwards, as if to ward off some horror unspeakable.

King Philip, at the other corner of the room, standing by the débris of the broken door, was perfectly motionless, save only for his head, which was pushed forward and moved from side to side with a slow reptilian movement.

He was dressed entirely in black, his clothes in disarray, and the thin hair upon his head was matted in fantastic elf-locks with sweat.

He saw the set face of Commendone, his drawn and bloody sword. He saw the thick leathern-coated figure of the yeoman rise from the floor. Both were confronting him, and he knew in a flash that he was trapped.

Johnnie looked at his master for a moment, and then turned swiftly. "Elizabeth," he said, "Elizabeth!"

At his voice the girl's hands fell from her face. She looked at him for a second in wild amazement, and then she cried out, in a high, quavering voice of welcome, "Johnnie! Johnnie! you've come!"

He put his arms about her, soothing, stroking her hair, speaking in a low, caressing voice, as a man might speak to a child. And all the time his heart, which had been frozen into deadly purpose, was leaping, bounding, and drumming within him so furiously, so strongly, that it seemed as if his body could hardly contain it. This mortal frame must surely be dissolved and swept away by such a tumult of feeling.

She had only seen him once. She had never received his little posy of white flowers, but he was "Johnnie" to her.

"They have not hurt you, my maid?" he said. "Tell me they have not harmed you."

She shook her head. Happiness sponged away the horror which had been upon her face. "No, Johnnie," she answered, clinging, her fingers clutching for a firmer hold of him. "No, Johnnie, only they took me away, and Alice, that is my maid. They took me away violently, and I have been penned up here in this place until that man came and said strange things to me, and would embrace me."

"Sit you here, my darling maid," the young man said, "sit you here," guiding her to the couch hard by. "He shall do you no harm. Thou art with me, and thy good friend there, thy father's yeoman."

She had not seen John Hull before, but now she looked up at him over Johnnie's arm, and smiled. "'Tis all well now," she murmured, drooping and half-faint. "Hull is here, and thou also, Johnnie."

Even in the wild joy of finding her, and knowing instinctively that she was to be his, that she had thought of him so much, Commendone lost nothing of his sang-froid.

He knew that desperate as had been his adventure when he started out from the Tower, it was now more desperate still. He and Hull had taken their lives in their hands when they went to Duck Lane. Their enterprise had so far been successful, their rescue complete, but – and he was in no way mistaken – the enterprise was not over, and his life was worth even a smaller price than it had been before.

With that, he turned from the girl, and strode up to the King, before whom John Hull had been standing, grimly silent.

Commendone's sword was still in his hand; he had not relinquished it even when he had embraced Elizabeth, and now he stood before his master, the point upon the floor, his young face set into judgment.

"And now, Sire?" he said, shortly and quickly.

Philip's face was flushed with shame and fear, but at these sharp words, he drew himself to his full height.

"Señor," he said, "you are going to do something which will damn you for ever in the sight of God and Our Lady. You are going to slay the anointed of the Lord. I will meet death at your hands, and doubtless for my sins I have deserved death; but, nevertheless, you will be damned."

Then he threw his arms out wide, and there came a sob into his voice as the liquid Spanish poured from him.

"But to die thus!" he said. "Mother of God! to die thus! unshrived, with my sins upon me!"

Johnnie tapped impatiently with the point of his sword upon the floor.

"Kill you, Sire?" he said. "I have sworn the oath of allegiance to Her Grace, the Queen, and eke to you. I break no oaths. Kill you I will not. Kill you I cannot. I dare not raise my hand against the King."

He dropped on one knee. "Sire," he said again, "I am your Gentleman, and you will go free from this vile house as you came into it."

Then he rose, took his sword, snapped it across his knee – staining his hands in doing so – and flung it into the corner of the room.

"And that is that," he said, with a different manner. "So now as man to man, as from one gentleman to another, hear my voice. You are a gentleman of high degree, and you are King also of half this globe, named, and glad to be named His Most Catholic Majesty. Of your kingship I am not at this moment aware. I am not Royal. But as a gentleman and a Christian, I tell you to your face that you are low and vile. You deceive a wife that loveth you. You take maidens to force them to your will. If you were a simple gentleman I would kill you where you stood. No! If thou wert a simple gentleman, I would not cross swords with thee, because thou art unworthy of my sword. I would tell my man here to slit thee and have done. But as thou art a King" – he spat upon the floor in his disgust – "and I am sworn to thee, I cannot punish thee as I would, thou son of hell, thou very scurvy, lying, and most dirty knave."