The Blooding of Jack Absolute, Page 2

  ‘It would be my honour to fulfil my duty.’

  Father and son smiled at each other. Then Duncan handed the switches across, formally, as if he were passing over a symbol of his office. ‘Punish him well, boy. Give him a most excellent thrashing.’

  ‘Oh, I will, Father.’

  Without another glance at Jack, Duncan left the cellar, the same step that had given him trouble on the way down catching him again. Spitting curses, he stumbled beyond reach of their ears.

  The slamming of the door above still echoed as Craster turned. ‘Well, cousin.’ Smiling, he sat down on a barrel and, in the accent he used with everyone but his father, said, ‘You’m fitchered and no mistake.’

  Jack tried to think of something to say, some defiance to cast back, but his speech was stoppered by the sight of each switch being lifted, bent back, laid down in a row on the barrel head in a gradation of suppleness and strength. Jack found he was gauging each one’s merits almost as keenly as his cousin.

  When the fifth had been placed between numbers two and three, a choice Jack found himself disputing to himself, Craster stood, yawned and began to take off his jacket. ‘I don’t blame ’ee, Jack, wanting to go see the fun. They’s kicking up such a dido at Penzance, they says, anyone with a uniform is in for a duckin’, at the least. Teach ’em Pope’s arse-kissers, eh?’ Craster sighed, attaching the coat to a hook on the door, reaching for the knot of his stock. ‘I’d be over to there myself, ’cepting I didn’t want to miss the celebration here.’ The stock was pulled from round the neck, laid over the top of the jacket. Even in the pale lamplight Jack could see the excitement in the other boy’s eyes. ‘You’ve heard? A keenly lode, they say, biggest in these Hundreds for fifty year, more. The Absolute family fortune made, tis said. Well, part of the family.’ He smiled and reached for one of the switches.

  ‘Which part?’ Now his cousin looked ready, Jack needed to delay him as long as possible.

  ‘Mine, boy.’ Craster bent to bring his gaze level with Jack’s. ‘Don’t they say, “The Devil shits luck for some but when it comes to ’ee, he’s hard bound.”’ He dropped his voice as if confiding. ‘Know what’s going off up there?’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling above through which the sound of a drinking song came faintly. ‘The curate’s there, along with a few of Father’s other friends. His cloth don’t make him no less drunk than t’others. Maybe it makes him more so. But he’s come to share in the family good fortune for Father will get the living over to Morvah out of mortgage. He’ll have to give it to someone. Someone who’s done us a favour. Someone who has filled in a marriage registry form.’ The voice had now dropped to a whisper, their heads so close Craster’s lips were almost on Jack’s ears. ‘Someone who has sworn he married my poor ma and Sir Duncan Absolute before I was born.’

  He straightened, swished the stick through the air with a delighted laugh. ‘Sure enough, Jack, you’ll be the only bastard left on Absolute lands. Till I start gettin’ a few of my own, course!’

  Jack winced, but not from the sight of the switch still cutting the air. The pain of a beating, however severe, would pass, its scars mend. But what gave him the little status he had was that both Absolute boys were bastards; neither could crow over the other, though Duncan was the elder and held the baronetcy of Absolute Hall, while Jack’s father, James, was the younger, the wastrel soldier with a mistress and a life of sin in London.

  The thought of these people – doxy mother, debauched father – whom he had seen only twice in his life, the last time so long ago – three years – that he could barely remember them, though he could recall the wren-egg green of his mother’s frock, pressed to his face, the day they departed Zennor again without him. The idea of them now, leaving him as the sole bearer of shame, suddenly brought water to his eyes. He turned away, not swiftly enough.

  ‘What’s this?’ Craster grabbed at Jack’s shoulder, pulling him around, lowering himself to eye level. ‘Cryin’? Cryin’, is it? Thought I’d never see the day when Jack Absolute deigned to cry.’ He pushed himself off with a hoot of laughter. ‘Well, have to take ’vantage o’ that.’ He stepped back. ‘Tell ’ee what I’ll do, Jack,’ he continued, that strange quaver in his voice still making it go up and down, ‘seein’ as good luck has come for us, I’ll pass some onto you. You show us your arse and I’ll beat only ’un. Break the third stick and it’s over. Don’t, and I’ll use all five on ’ee.’

  Jack looked up, gauging the offer. Three sticks wasn’t a bad one; even Craster’d tire after two. But when he saw the triumph in his cousin’s eyes, when he heard the echo of his own sole bastardy proclaimed, he knew he couldn’t do it. He’d make no pact with the Devil. He had to beat him.

  ‘I tell ’ee what I’ll do, Craster Absolute. I’ll fight ’ee, here and now.’

  The stick paused, lowered. ‘Now why should I do that, when I already have ’ee tied like a hog for the knife?’

  They had known each other all their lives. They had fought, one way or another, a thousand times. With luck, and space to move in, he could outmanoeuvre the bigger boy, for he spent more time with Lutie, learning the wrassler’s ways. Yet in a cramped cellar, where he’d have to stand toe to toe and punch, his bulky cousin would have the edge. And that gave Jack his little hope – for he knew that Craster knew that too.

  He could see him weighing it now, and pressed home. ‘I pinned ’ee last week with a flying mare and made ’ee shout for terms. Can do it again too, even in a cellar.’

  Craster’s eyes flicked around, measuring the room. His voice was not all that had altered in recent months. He was a foot taller than Jack now and many pounds heavier.

  Jack waited and watched and, when his cousin took the bait, kept his smile to himself.

  ‘Done. If you vow that when I beat ’ee, you’ll tell all how I did it.’ There’d been an audience for Craster’s humiliation the week before, Treve and some other of the Zennor boys.

  ‘Done.’ Jack said it a little too quickly and he saw Craster hesitate as he bent to Jack’s knots.

  He straightened again. ‘But just so you can’t try any of your cheatin’ ways …’ He formed a fist, the middle knuckle sticking out and punched Jack hard in the centre of his upper right arm. As Jack twisted away, he punched him with equal force on the left. While he cried out, his cousin bent again to the knots. ‘Evens, eh, Jack?’ The fisherman’s knots proving too testing for his impatient fingers, he drew a small knife from a sheath at his side. As the slashed bonds fell and Jack rubbed life back into his wrists, Craster ran his foot back and forth over the floor. Stepping behind the mark created, he adopted the stance of the prize fighter, left fist forward, right back, weight on his rear foot.

  ‘Come on then, you little bastard,’ he smirked. ‘Toe the line.’

  Jack’s arms burned. The blows had been well placed and he wondered desperately if he would be able to lift them at all. For lifting them was a vital part of his plan. He needn’t get them as high as Craster’s; but he’d need them up all the same.

  He stretched them out to the side, groaned, heard his cousin’s gratified laugh. Then he began to stand slowly, making to stagger slightly to the side while he was still low down to the floor. This brought him near to the cask that held the befouled wine, close to the chipped pint pot that caught the leaks.

  With movement as swift as his previous had been slow, Jack snatched the glass from the floor and dashed the contents into Craster’s face.

  The wine-turned-vinegar had its instant effect. Craster shrieked and spun away, heels of hands pressed into his eye sockets. As Jack ran past him, his cousin made a grab for his legs. Jack twisted from the grasp, kicked back, catching Craster on the shoulder. Another howl pursued Jack as he took the stairs two at a time.

  The cellar door was a small one set into the mansion’s main staircase. Accompanied by the shrieking from below, now resolutely high-pitched, Jack burst out into the entrance hall … and straight into the voluminous folds of a dress.

&n
bsp; ‘Lawks!’ yelled Morwenna, tumbling backwards, landing with a thump, Jack on top, the empty beer jugs launched from her hands. One dropped beside her, bounced, didn’t break; the other skittered and slid backwards to thump and smash into the half-open door of the parlour. The force of it knocked that entranceway open and Jack, spluttering up from the skirt, looked through the gap. Half a dozen men, with red faces, yawning jaws and sagging jowls, looked back; and the reddest one there, once the glazed eyes had focused, began to bellow, ‘The whidden! Young whelp bastard! Where’s ’ee to? And where’s my Craster?’

  Behind him, Jack heard his cousin’s slipping footsteps on the cellar stair, his voice alternating pain and fury. Before him, red-faced men were struggling up, Duncan throwing back his chair, using the table to rise. Jack’s weakened arms did not seem able to push him out of the engulfing folds of the dress and his toes scrabbled for purchase on the polished floor.

  ‘Jack!’ hissed Morwenna. ‘Kitchen.’

  He turned to it. The door there was ajar and past the flames of the range, the steaming pots, the chickens on their spits, Jack saw something more enticing than the food his stomach craved. He saw freedom; for the back door of the Hall was open and beyond the yard were the fields he knew so well.

  He heaved himself to his knees. His uncle, still roaring, was shoving aside a bulky man in the cloth of a cleric who squawked and fell against the table. Behind, Craster had just gained the top of the cellar stair. Pushing himself off the floor, Jack began to run, his legs weak at first, gaining strength with every step. By the time he was halfway across the kitchen’s flagstones, he was flying.

  The roar built behind him, a discordant sing-song of question and response, Duncan’s bass harmonizing poorly with Craster’s erratic alto. It faded as Jack rushed through the door and into the yard, then built again as he sprinted across its cobbles. He was vaulting over the gate when his uncle’s voice came clear again.

  ‘My hunter! Whip out my hounds!’

  If Jack had discovered before that fear could weaken the legs, he learnt now that it could also do the reverse. He raced the three hundred yards up the pitted Hall lane to where it intersected with the road. To the right led to Zennor; to the left to St Ives. Houses, with places perhaps to hide, but both a fair way and if he could move fast on a roadway, horses and dogs could move faster. He could turn part back on himself and sprint for the cliffs, to the path down to his beach. But since there was just that one way onto and off it, he’d be trapped down there.

  As he hesitated, the yelping of the pack, the clatter of hooves on cobbles, carried clearly. He had to decide! Ahead were fields, bisected by streams and little stands of bush, crisscrossed by walls of piled stone, all Absolute land. Even if there was a slim hope the horses would tire from the jumping, he knew the dogs would not. They would not hurt him, for he knew them all by name, but they’d lick him to death when they caught him, and hold him with their pressing bodies.

  He scrambled over the first of the walls. This field was long, full four hundred paces across, sloping sharply down. He took it at speed. The stream at the bottom was swollen by the early autumn rains and he had to run up it a little way to find a point where he could leap, his foot plunging into mud on the far bank. As he drew it out, the sucking sound was topped by a shout.

  ‘There! There’s the whelp! Get ’un!’

  Glancing back for the briefest of moments, he saw Craster peering over the wall. His uncle’s grooms rushed to the gate, flung it open. Dog, horse and man charged through it.

  The field beyond was the reverse slope of the valley and steep. Jack’s breath came hard as he struggled up it but he was pushed on by the ‘Halloos’, the hounds giving tongue, the snort of horses. Someone had brought a bugle and played it now off-key. Craster probably, his musicianship as unsettled as his voice. The memory of his cousin from the cellar, the legacy of his dead arms, the thought of his gloating spurred Jack as he neared the summit of the hill.

  I may be a bastard, he thought, but I’m a bastard that can run!

  He gained the summit. At his feet three fields lay like a spread fan. One was filled by a small copse; hard for riders, yet riders could dismount and the hounds would pen him in. The second was full of after-grass, not yet gathered, swept up in drams, long piles that curled like snakes from wall to wall. About half Jack’s height, he could burrow into them, remain hidden for a while. And he could see coneys hopping between the rows, sight and sniff to distract any dog. He nearly ran into one … until he glanced into the third and largest field to his right. This looked different from when he’d last been there and it took him a moment to realize why. When he did, he immediately began sprinting towards it.

  This third field was pitted with new shafts. This was where they’d found the keenly lode of tin, which would make the family rich again. These were test shafts and they’d be deep. Horses and dogs could not go down ’em and men would little want to. Jack could, would, for he’d played down such holes all his life despite the prohibitions. He’d get in a deep one and worry about getting out of it later.

  His dally had let the pursuit gain. Jack glanced back. Hounds flowed over the wall behind him and, amongst them, hunters jumped, five at least, Duncan and Craster prominent at their head. The look back cost him. He stepped into a divot, one of thousands in that chopped-up ground, tumbled, rolled, was up and sprinting in a moment. But the fall had been seen and the yelling behind him doubled in volume.

  He was not going to make it! They were closing fast and the nearest mine head was still a hundred paces off. Suddenly, he jerked to a stop. The land was cleft before him, a jagged rent in the earth where someone had begun to dig, then abandoned the effort. It had been a while before as the grass had grown over it again. If he hadn’t been looking he’d have plunged down. The rent only went for six feet in length and a dozen across, maybe as deep. He ran its edge, straightening to head for the shaft again. Maybe there was a chance still, maybe if he ran flat out, maybe he could beat them there. He knew it was a faint hope; but he’d not surrender until all his hope was gone. There was no mercy to be expected from his relations. He was a fox now; and Craster would be blooded.

  The first dog ran by him, nipped playfully at his hand –Demelza, a favourite and fastest of bitches. The others would not be far behind. She leapt before him, blocked him, happy with the game. He could only slow, fifty yards from his hope. It was over. Then he heard different sounds. An animal shriek of terror, followed by a human one.

  ‘Christ!’ screamed Duncan Absolute, and the scream was still in the air as Jack turned to see his uncle and his mount arrive at the concealed gash in the ground. The stallion must have seen it late, its forelegs were scrabbling in the grass, gouging trails as it sought for purchase. The suddenness of its attempt to halt had shot its rider forward. Duncan’s feet were out of the stirrups, his hands still clutching the reins but under his stomach now, his body halfway along the horse’s neck. The animal’s eyes were wide and white, its ears at the alert. They proved no obstacle to the man as he slid over them, down the long nose. His feet jerked, his hands came free, reached, found nothing but air as the animal’s rear legs, scrabbling furiously, countered the slide for a brief moment, while the man’s momentum propelled him ever faster and finally into a fall.

  Duncan Absolute tumbled screaming into the earth. One moment he was there, the next vanished. The horse he’d left, lightened in its load, looked as if it had won its fight against the drop until its rear legs slipped from under it on the mud at the hole’s edge. Its rear came down hard, its front legs whipped out. With a shriek almost indistinguishable from its master’s, it followed him into the pit.

  The wail that came from below was swiftly cut off and replaced by the hideous screeching of an animal in agony.

  Jack, frozen by the sight for those extended seconds, now reacted to the sound. He ran back, through the pack of hounds that surrounded him. The other horsemen were struggling with their mounts who were whirling, heads j
erking, huge-eyed. One turned and bolted, the rider unable to halt him as he galloped straight back up the field, clearing the stone wall there in a jump. As it disappeared, another shape came over the stones. It was Lutie Tregonning, who ran down towards them, followed by half a dozen hands from the farm.

  As Jack reached the lip of earth, so his cousin managed to regain control of his mount. Immediately he hurled himself off it, staggered the few yards to the hole, dropped to his knees. The two boys stared down.

  Into horror. The pit was not that deep but it was narrow and there was nowhere for the stallion to move. Besides, Jack could tell in the instant that at least one of the beast’s legs was broken. Above ground, a horse would go still when that happened but its situation would not let it here. Not when it was lying on a human body.

  Back and forth the beast rolled, Duncan Absolute rolling beneath it.

  ‘Father! Father!’ Craster cried, his hands reaching down towards the crumpled figure. Then they went up in vain effort to block out the terrible animal screams.

  Lutie Tregonning ran up, looked down, cursed, then turned back to a horseman, one of Duncan’s cronies, only now bringing his mount under control. ‘Your gun. Quick, man.’

  The man fumbled the pistol from his saddle holster. Checking that the pan was primed, Lutie lowered himself into the pit. ‘Hoke, hoke, hoke,’ he called to the stallion, as he would to cattle in the fields. But the animal was lost, in its agony, in terror. With a grimace, Lutie pulled the hammer to full cock, placed the muzzle right between the beast’s eyes, fired. With a last jerk, the stallion reared up, then collapsed, its limbs twitching.

  The sudden silence was somehow as awful as the noise that had preceded it. The acrid tang of powder filled Jack’s nostrils while his sight was half-obscured by smoke. When he could see clearly again, he watched Lutie reach beyond the dead horse’s neck to the man’s. Fingers pressed there for a long moment; then he looked up at the curate and shook his head.