Highwayman: Ironside by Michael Arnold Read Free Book Online

had fetched victuals while Bella had seen to the horses. There were some hard-edged offerings from the cheese cratch, thin strips of bacon, and good bread, cooked in the ovens on the premises, and the trio were soon enjoying a well-earned meal. If the bell jangled at the door, they would shift into well practised action. Lyle would be gone, vanished into the shadows and out through the small rear door that would take him to the woods beyond, while the others would inhabit their roles of tapster and stable-hand like a pair of players in the long-defunct theatres that had hugged the southern bank of the Thames. Eustace Grumm ran the tavern, going by the name of John Brown, while Bella was his great-niece, Lucy. It had worked for a year, ever since Lyle had returned from France with his two rather incongruous companions and a tidy fortune made at the sharp end of a duellist's blade. The charade had given them a business, a place of relative safety from the wolves of the road, and it had become the home none of them had thought ever to find. A secure bolthole away from their life of crime, and yet all the while funded by it.
    Lyle took out his prized pistol and placed it on the table. He began to pick at the flaky mud with his fingernails, scraping away the road's grime to reveal the magnificent weapon beneath. When the larger lumps were scoured clear, he took up a cloth and worked at the more intricate parts of the lock.
    "You threw your war-hammer at him," Grumm muttered in amusement, bits of half-chewed bread flecking his beard as he spoke. "What would Master Besnard think?"
    "He would congratulate me on staying alive. And he'd tell you not to stare down that beak of yours so sanctimoniously."
    Grumm crammed a chunk of cheese into the side of his mouth. "He'd advise you to pick your fights more carefully."
    Lyle looked up from the pistol. "I won, didn't I?"
    "Barely."
    As she worked her way through a plate of bacon that was scorched crisp, Bella leafed through the pile of papers she had taken from Sir Frederick Mason's strongbox. She glanced at Lyle, her expression sour. "Like I said, Samson. Piss-all in this lot."
    Lyle gnawed a grubby fingernail. "Keep looking. Sir Frederick must have been carrying something of significance for Maddocks to be shadowing him."
    "Fat lot o' good he did," Grumm said happily.
    "Yet the fact remains," Lyle said. "He had Walmsley in the carriage for close protection, but Maddocks was already out on the road. He tracked us so quickly, he can't have been far behind Mason."
    "Lucky we jumped him when we did," Bella said.
    Grumm cackled. "They was to rendezvous before they hit the Combe, I'd wager."
    "You may be right," said Lyle, for it seemed reasonable. Between the villages of Hill Brow and Rake, the London Road climbed above a deep, wooded vale known as Harting Combe. In the summer months, when the going was firm, travellers could gaze down upon the Combe as they thundered along, enjoying the clean air and the stunning view. But the road south of Rake was very steep as it plunged off the high ground, becoming almost impassable during autumn and winter when the terrain was water-logged and filthy. Those on foot might still risk the shorter route, or even skilled riders if they possessed a good mount, but no heavy vehicle could begin to negotiate so sharp a gradient in such precarious conditions. They would be forced, then, to risk the low, forest-choked bridleway that curved along the foot of Harting Combe, meeting the main highway again at a point beyond London Road's steep drop. It avoided that difficult section of road, which was a blessing, but it forced pilgrims to take their chances in the dense woodland of the isolated vale, compelling those travellers of a wealthier nature to ensure they were well protected. Mason, Lyle had guessed, would be one such person, and he had decided to strike the lawyer at the Combe's southern edge, for many a coach had met with an armed escort before taking the