The Rose Garden

‘First mate?’ Jack grinned a challenge. ‘You meant to say “captain”, I’m sure.’

But the tension was broken, the unspoken bond of affection restored.

Fergal passed through into the dining room and returned with a bottle of claret and cups and, having settled both Butler brothers at the kitchen table with the bottle there between them, he got down to work cleaning up after the dinner, with me as his helper.

I scraped and washed the dishes while he wiped them and returned them to their places, making sure that I was watching so I’d know the spots myself.

And all the while I listened to Jack’s story of his capture in St Non’s.

Jack had gone to the inn, as he’d said, to enquire after Wilson. He’d met with a friend there who’d stood him a drink. ‘We did pass the time merrily,’ Jack said. ‘’Twas then that the merchant himself must have seen me and gone out in search of a constable, and Creed being there in the town he replied. He didn’t dare set a foot in the inn, though. He has better sense. Nor indeed did he take me when I stepped out into the street, for again there would be witnesses, and doubtless men among them who’d have come to my defence.’

‘Where did he take you, then?’ asked Daniel.

‘In the wood, before the mill. It is a lonely stretch of road, that, and he fell upon me in a proper ambush with a cudgel, like the coward that he is.’

‘A cudgel?’

‘Ay.’ Jack gave the bruised back of his head a rueful rub, in memory. ‘You do not think I’d let myself be bound without a fight, if I were conscious, surely? No matter who it was doing the binding, nor how many men he had gathered around him.’

Fergal, who’d already talked to the men who had been with the constable when they’d stopped in at the house, gave a nod and said, ‘Ay, well, they would have been there from their duty to the law and not their loyalty to Creed, I’ll warrant. Likely they were just as pleased as Jack was to see you there by the roadside, Danny.’

Daniel’s thoughts had travelled back a few steps. Tipping the bottle of claret he emptied the dregs into his cup and turned to his brother again. ‘So, your time in St Non’s … was it worth all the trouble?’

Jack met his gaze squarely. ‘Did I find out aught about our Mr Wilson, you mean? Ay, I did.’ With a pause for a quick drink himself, he went on, ‘His true name is Maclean. And the servant he travelled with did call him “Colonel Maclean” once or twice, says my friend.’

Daniel smiled and relaxed.

‘Do you not find it telling that he did not use his given name with us?’

‘All who are close to this venture do guard their true names out of caution,’ was Daniel’s reply to his brother. ‘But Colonel Maclean is a good name to have, Jack, for that is the name of the duke’s private secretary.’

‘So he is on our side, as he claims.’

‘Ay. Indisputably.’

‘I hope that you are right,’ said Jack. He still looked unconvinced, but having just patched up one quarrel with his brother he did not appear to be in any rush to start another. He set down his empty cup. ‘This wine has given me a thirst for something stronger,’ he confessed. ‘I think I will go down to try the Spaniard’s rum.’

Fergal, beside me, turned round in disbelief. ‘You know that Creed will be more keen than ever for your blood, now.’

‘He will not try a second time today.’ Jack’s tone was certain. ‘And the lads will gladly see me safely home again this evening.’

Daniel didn’t raise an argument. But when his brother left the house, I saw his face and read the worry on it.

Silence fell again upon the kitchen, and to break it I asked, ‘Who is the Spaniard?’

Fergal’s eyes made that familiar crinkle at their corners. ‘’Tis not a who, but a what,’ he corrected. ‘The Spaniard’s Rest, down by the harbour.’

A pub, I thought, giving a nod of my own. ‘Where by the harbour?’ I asked.

Fergal told me, and I said, ‘In my day we call it the Wellie. The Wellington.’

‘What sort of name is that, then?’

How could I explain to them without revealing details of the wars that were to come – the Duke of Wellington, Napoleon, and Waterloo? I only said, ‘He was a famous soldier, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. A hundred years from now. A lot of names were changed to honour him.’

But Fergal still preferred ‘The Spaniard’s Rest’, and said so. With a sideways look at Daniel, he said, ‘And where are you off to, then?’

Daniel had stood to his full height and was stretching his shoulders a little bit wearily, his one hand moving in that automatic gesture to his belt to see his dagger was in place. ‘To keep an eye on Jack.’

‘He would not thank you for it, Danny.’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘Then sit down, you great idiot. Creed wants your own blood more than he craves Jack’s, and you know it.’

Daniel’s silence acknowledged the fact as he reached for his hat.

‘Danny …’ Fergal tried again.

‘He is my brother,’ Daniel said, as though that answered everything.

And Fergal, seeing that there was no winning, sighed. ‘Well, take your sword, at least.’

Daniel shook his head. ‘There’d be no room to draw it, in the Spaniard.’ But I noticed that he tucked a pistol in his belt as well before he left us, and I couldn’t help but wonder just what sort of crowd went drinking at the Spaniard’s Rest. A rougher clientele, I reasoned, than I would have found in the Polgelly pubs of my own time.