It was dark behind the house, overshadowed by a stand of taller trees, willows, and as I ran, thinking of speed and not watching my feet, I collided with something heavy and metal, stumbled and fell, striking my head. Darkness rushed over me.

Chapter Twelve

I must have blacked out only briefly, but the next thing I knew I was being heaved along by my shoulders, there was shouting and lights were springing up in the other cottages. Andrew had his hands under my armpits and was dragging me towards the horses.

‘I can walk,’ I gasped.

With that he let me go and we both ran, careless of any noise, desperate to reach the horses before the men reached us. Andrew gave me a leg up, then sprang on to his own horse. We were away up the lane before my feet were in the stirrups. My sight was blurred and my head throbbed, but Hector followed Andrew’s horse without hesitating.

Behind us men were running, but we were away.

Never had I been more thankful for Hector’s speed. When I had ridden away from Hartwell Hall during the night, I was not sure whether or not I would be followed. Now, due to my own carelessness, the men in the fishing village knew that they had been seen. We had noticed no horses, but there must surely be one or two in the village. There had been outbuildings behind the cottages, some of them probably barns.

I cursed myself for having ruined everything at the last minute. My instinct had been right. I had guessed which was the boat that would smuggle the men in. We had stayed out of sight until they had landed and I had caught a quick but clear view of their faces. If we had just managed to ride away without being noticed, everything would have worked out so well that even Phelippes would have been pleased with me.

I crouched low over Hector’s neck and urged him on, passing Andrew and flying on towards Rye. He gave a delighted whoop and spurred after me. Clearly for him it was just an adventure, spiced with the thought of pursuit. Yet the whole purpose had been stealth. I tried to think, but my thoughts were swept away by the speed and the pounding of my heart. Despite myself, despite my aching head, I began to enjoy the race through the night. The moonlight, the silver-black gleam of the sea over to our right, the sharp clean smell of wet rocks and seaweed, all gave the ride the quality of a dream, of some adventure from a knightly romance. Almost I forgot the unpleasant reality behind the dream. Almost.

The town wall of Rye was coming into sight, and on the steep approach up to the gatehouse, I slowed Hector. Andrew was not far behind, pulling up knee to knee with me and laughing.

‘That was a fine race, Master Alvarez. You are good enough on a horse to be a trooper.’

‘I have a very fine horse.’

‘Aye. I thought poorly of him when we first left London, but he’s a very Bucephalus.’

‘He is indeed. Now, do you have the captain’s pass?’

A sleepy gatekeeper shot back the bolts for us and, grumbling, let us through.

‘He’ll no sooner be back in bed than he’ll be turned out again,’ said Andrew.

‘I hope so. I hope they believe us.’

When we reached the inn, Andrew offered to see to both horses while I went to wake Phelippes and the captain. I think perhaps he did not relish the thought of that task. Certainly it was still well before dawn and they would not welcome the summons any more than the gatekeeper had.

‘I will come and care for Hector when I have explained all,’ I said. I could not neglect him after such a ride.

Once inside the inn I found a servant asleep in a chair and shook him awake. He was reluctant to rouse two such important guests from their beds, but when I told him it was on the Queen’s business, he lit a candle and went stumbling away to find them, still half asleep. I sat down in the chair he had vacated and found that my legs were trembling. I also noticed that there was a great gash in my right leg, where I must have collided with something sharp behind that cottage in the dark. I put my hand up to the side of my head, for I realised that it was still throbbing painfully. My fingers came away sticky with blood.

Phelippes and the captain of the guard came down the stairs together just as I was wiping my head with my handkerchief.

‘Kit!’ Phelippes’s voice was sharp with alarm. ‘You are injured! Have you been attacked?’

‘No, no,’ I said hastily. ‘I fell over something sharp, metal, in the dark. It was stupid of me, because they heard me.’

‘Who heard you? Did you see anything in that village?’

Wrapped in a loose gown of dull grey, Phelippes looked somehow younger and less intimidating than usual. The captain had pulled on breeches but his night shift poked out from the neck of his doublet, which was buttoned awry.

‘They have brought two men in,’ I said, ‘using that boat I noticed, the larger one. I think they must be the two men you were expecting, but they heard me fall. I’m afraid it will have alerted them. You must make haste if you want to catch them.’

‘Did you see them well enough to describe them?’

‘I only caught a glimpse.’

I described the two men as best I could from that brief moment when the light from the house door had shone on them.

‘Hmm,’ Phelippes said. ‘One of them sounds like Ballard, but he has a passport, so why should he enter the country this way? Unless he wants us to think he is still abroad. The other isn’t Maud, though. Maud is a much smaller man than you describe. What has happened to Maud?’

There was no answer for that.

‘Where is Andrew?’ the captain said. He had noticed me looking at his doublet and was buttoning it up again.

‘Seeing to the horses. We rode back as if the Devil himself was after us. The horses will be tired.’

‘I’ll rouse the rest of my men. Do you want us to go after them and arrest them?’ He turned to Phelippes, who was tapping his teeth with his thumbnail.

‘No. I want Ballard to run free for the moment. The other one – I’m not sure who he can be. What I’d like you to do, captain, is to use a few of your men, perhaps only two, to follow them at a discreet distance and see where they go. Do you think you can do that? Without them realising?’

He nodded. ‘I have two who can follow without being noticed. I’ll speak to them now. What would you like the rest of us to do?’

‘I think we will spend a quiet day today, rather than be seen rushing back to London. If we are watching them, they may well be watching us. Let them think we had nothing to do with the noise Kit made. Perhaps it was rival smugglers from another village! We will do a little more investigating in the neighbourhood, a little more questioning. That way it will seem that we have discovered nothing so far. We’ll go in the opposite direction, over to the Marsh. I know we were told that it would not be safe for a stranger to land there, but who’s to know we were told? We’ll ride over to Tenterden and the Isle of Oxney, and make a nuisance of ourselves there, well away from your men tracking Ballard and his companion.’

The captain turned and went back upstairs. Phelippes looked at me with his lips pursed.

‘You had better clean up that blood, Kit, then get some rest for what is left of the night.’

‘Thank you, sir. But I’ll just see that Hector is settled first.’

‘Hector?’

‘My horse, sir.’

He shook his head and smiled at the idea that something as functional as a horse might have a name. For Phelippes a horse was nothing more than a means of transport. Then he too went back upstairs.