The Caledonian Race: A Pulp Adventure (George Glen Series Book 2) Read online

  I looked around. Besides the first barmaid and the landlady, there were two other servants working here. One was prettier than the other. They wore their white bonnets demurely, but the hair spilling out wildly underneath and the low cut of their dresses made me think of lewdness.

  Meanwhile, the Guardsmen had taken to ordering whisky instead of ale. Since it was served in small glasses, they finished more quickly and the barmaids had their hands full trying to keep up with their work.

  "This Irish stuff is excellent," Vincent praised Rahel, the landlady, at the next opportunity. "Where on earth did you find it?"

  "Brawley bought a whole barrel last month. It's the sixteen-sixteen from Coleraine in Ireland. The distillers there even have a royal licence."

  "How appropriate for His Majesty's Guard," Wilbur laughed. "And a hell of a lot better than the sixteen-seventeen."

  "Oh yes, that one was mangy," commented another Guardsman, who already seemed properly drunk. "Old O'Bannon was still head distiller then. You can taste that right away. Not so ... so ... what's the word ... so peaty." The heavy tongue could no longer be ignored.

  "It's a pity our countrymen in Scotland can't distil one as good as this yet," Wilbur philosophised. "Of course, the fact that the King grants distilling licences to the Irish speaks to his policy. He wants to be the King of all Britain and satisfy all his subjects. To that end, he grants rights not only to the Irish, but even to the Welsh."

  "Bloody Welsh!" the drunken Guardsman bellowed, spitting on the floor beside him.

  "Before all of you are lying under the table, we'll have the main course," Rahel announced proudly. She clapped her hands and the three servants came rushing over with large trays covered with roast chicken. Each Guardsman was now given a plate in front of them with a complete bird placed on it. A tempting smell of roasting came into my nose. Now I cursed myself for having grabbed the ham so greedily earlier. Nevertheless, I accepted the food with gratitude, broke off a thigh and shoved it down my greedy gullet.

  " Delicious, Rahel!" Vincent praised the chubby landlady. "No cook in the world could prepare a chicken better than you. Is it the spices or just your gifted, expert hands?"

  "Take your pick!" tossed back Rahel good-humouredly. With an almost motherly look, she watched her boys devouring their food with an appetite. Her gaze remained fixed on Richard for a little longer. She had to tear herself away from the look of him to return to her duties. I was rather amused by this circumstance. I found it funny that the landlady seemed to have an eye on Richard. What would the landlord think of that?

  After the meal, it became quieter at the tables. The low sun shone through the windows with the last strength of the day. The first Guardsmen took their leave. Little by little the guest room emptied. Wilbur also finally stood up and jovially patted us on the shoulders as a farewell. "And what about us?", I asked quietly afterwards. A shrug of the shoulders was the only reaction as Wilbur was the penultimate to leave the 'Breeze'.

  Now Vincent also rose languidly. However, he did not go out through the door, but crossed the room and went up a narrow staircase at the back to the upper floor. What he was looking for there remained in the dark. However, the toilet had been located on the street.

  And there Richard and I were all of a sudden completely alone.

  "What is this about?" Rich sounded slightly frightened.

  "I have no idea. What are we supposed to do?"

  "They didn't tell us what to do or where to go." Bewilderment spreads through us.

  "When we left France, I thought we'd be accepted into the Guard here straight away."

  "You certainly deserved it, George. I was less glorious on the journey there."

  He was right, I was thinking, but the current situation frightened me. "What do they expect us to do now? Are we just supposed to walk away?"

  "Well, we are convicted thieves. We committed the burglary at Stephen Fletcher's home. They've tried to chop our heads off for it before."

  "I don't believe that now, but what are you going to do? Crawl back to Stanley? Go back to robbing carriages at night? It's only a matter of time before we end up on the scaffold again." I was deeply unsettled. Until a few moments ago, I had believed in a better future. Now it was all gone.

  "You do realise that we won't be made Guardsmen, don't you?", Richard now tried to convince me. "They made fun of us. We can't expect any help from them."

  I had to nod in defeat. All my dreams had collapsed like a house of cards. We had arrived at the rock bottom again - down in the dark, hopeless muck of the streets. It was time to accept it. "Well, let's get out of here!" Resignedly, we headed for the door as a gigantic figure blocked our path. Uncertainly, I looked up. A small head was perched on the giant's muscular, stocky body. The hair was cut very short. The eyes looked at us awake and amused. A smile was visible on his face. "Where are you going?" he asked, the booming bass making the whole room vibrate.

  "We ... We," I stammered.

  "You ... you," he mimicked me. "You haven't paid for your meal yet."

  "But I thought..."

  "There is no thinking here! There is no believing here! Here we work! And if you don't pay your tab, you sweep." With that, he put a broom in the hands of Richard and me each. Perplexed, we began our work under the watchful eyes of that giant.

  Chapter 3

  If at the beginning we had naively believed that we only had to work off this one meal, we had been thoroughly mistaken. The tall guy was Brawley, the landlord of the 'Breeze' and Rahel's husband. On the evening of that day he had informed us we would be working for him from now on. We had no wages to expect, but he would provide us with a warm dish a day, clean clothes and a sleeping place, but in return we had to slave all day in the inn. And he didn't want to hear any complaints. Since our alternative had been to return to the Wolves' Club and do our everyday work as thieves, we had gratefully taken Brawley's outstretched hand.

  In the meantime, a whole month had passed. The days had become much cooler and rainy, so I considered myself lucky to be able to sleep in the cellar of the inn on a straw mat and not on the street. Richard also liked to sleep here. The room was filled with wine barrels and also with the big whisky barrel that the Guardsmen had made such a fuss about. My only object of value - my rapier - I had wrapped in a cloth and stowed in the straw mattress. I didn't think Brawley would take it from me, but I couldn't really be sure about the fellow.

  Our life was suddenly better and more comfortable than ever, despite the harsh announcements. I was wearing a white linen shirt with no holes, brown wool harem pants and shoes. For the first time since I had left Lady Isabelle's castle, I was wearing proper shoes with solid soles again. Once a week Richard and I were allowed to use the hot tub, which was in the landlord and landlady's private quarters. We were clean and mostly well fed. Our work was to wash dishes, sweep the floors and accompany the landlord to the market where meat and vegetables were bought in bulk. We acted as his pack horses in this case. Rahel did not accompany us in the mornings, as she was pursuing her second occupation during that time. Not without pride in his voice, Brawley had explained to us that his wife held a position as a cook in the newly erected banquet house of Whitehall Palace and prepared the food for the royal meal in the mornings. Rahel must really be a gifted cook, for she was picked up every morning by a carriage and driven back to the 'Breeze' in the afternoon. Brawley called her 'his little lady-in-waiting' without any irony, although I had to grin at the term 'little' every time. I did so inwardly, however.

  Richard and I were required to clean the windows of the clubhouse and sweep out the chimneys on a regular basis in addition to our work as pack horses; a task I already knew from Lady Isabelle's château. We then had our meal in the kitchen in the evening. Rahel kept us well fed. We were given a decent, hot meal every day and did not have to eat the leftovers, as was common for servants. Often the landlady kept us company and enjoyed our (and especially Richard's) company. She was not particularly stri
ct with us and we also made every effort to please her.

  At most times of the day there were Guardsmen in the clubhouse. It was used as a meeting place for the men, where they met before or after duty to have a drink and chat with each other. In the evening it generally got the most crowded. Boisterous bawling could then be heard as we ran around between the tables clearing dishes.

  One person stayed in the 'Breeze' almost every day. The old Guardsman Edwin had his regular place in a corner and drank his whisky in a leisurely manner when he was not busy with his pipe. Every now and then I saw him put a large book in front of him, in which he was carefully scribbling notes with a quill. All sorts of Guardsmen were always seeking him out and chatting with him. He didn't seem to have any actual friends, though. Everyone came to Edwin and everyone talked to him, seeking advice or raising a concern. But the conversations rarely lasted more than a quarter of an hour, and then the old Guardsman was left alone in his corner again. Although he consumed a vast amount of whisky in the course of a day, I had never seen him drunk.

  Gradually, Richard and I knew almost all the Guardsmen by their names. There was the taciturn Locan, who never spoke until he had finished his third tankard of ale; Jaspin, a bright, over-excited lad who constantly cracked dirty jokes; Emory, who seemed to be a bit of a ladies' man just like the good Vincent; Oslac, an older Guardsman who was always talking about the good old days and complaining about how rotten the current decade was, and of course Kendal, who was notorious for starting a fight when he had too much to drink. Only when they were on duty did they wear the red tunic with the lions embroidered on it. When they were off duty, the vermilion bandage on their upper arm was their distinguishing mark. After I had asked Brawley about these bandages, he had explained to me that this was common practice among military units. On every battlefield the men wore such bandages, how else could one tell friend from foe during a battle? The Guardsmen did not go into any battle, but this was to be understood as a kind of guild sign that one wore even in one's spare time to show that one belonged to something greater. That had made sense to me. And as we spent the days and nights in the 'Breeze', I began to dream again of being able to wear this bandage one day myself. The life of the Guardsmen seemed dazzling and glorious to me. If only there was an opportunity to make our case again. I decided to approach Tom about it at some point in the near future. He seemed to me to have the most integrity. He would not laugh at us and ridicule us. From him we could perhaps expect help. The leader, however, stayed away from the clubhouse for the most of the time. Wilbur had once mentioned that Tom was married and preferred to spend time with his beautiful wife and children than with his drunken cronies. But he would show up one day and then I would talk to him.

  Richard did not have these lofty goals. He had already arrived in paradise. He visibly enjoyed always being fed and he also enjoyed Rahel's affection. When I once mentioned to him that she had an eye on him, he had flatly denied it and acted as if that very thought was repugnant.

  Another reason why life seemed so pleasant to us at that time was the girls. There were cooks, barmaids and seamstresses. The cooks worked in the kitchen in the evenings, the seamstresses were housed in a separate room, where they mended the Guardsmen's clothes or made new ones for money. Since it was customary among the Guardsmen to engage in exhibition fights for diversion or exercise, the seamstresses were always busy mending tattered shirt sleeves and trouser legs. The young women were for the most part very presentable, each in a different way, but the sight of the creatures was a bright spot on every day. I liked Kelcie best, a red-haired seamstress whose face was full of freckles and whose gaze I had been allowed to return a few times. Richard was attracted to Elinor, a blonde kitchen help, who had a reserved smile and large, light blue eyes. Moira, a dark-haired barmaid, also set any healthy man's blood boiling. She had an hourglass figure and often allowed the guardsmen to grab her buttocks while serving without any comment, while some of the other girls were more dismissive and liked to slap the men's faces. Then there was Tamora, Avery, Abigal, Rowena and Ethel. The latter not only had the name in common with my mother. She also reminded me a little of her, which gave me a little stab in the heart every time she crossed my path. The drama of my mother's death was a few years behind me, but I still had not forgotten it.

  Since there were quite a few servants, they did not all work at the same time, but more or less took turns. Every now and then I saw one enter the building and another leave. It was like a beehive. When I once asked Rahel about the reason for this coming and going, she had said that the girls had errands to run. Strangely, they never had any baskets or bags with them. The whole thing was a mystery to me.

  Unfortunately, we didn't have much to do with the girls. The sewing room was taboo for us. The only points of contact were in the kitchen and when serving. However, we soon realised that the girls saw us as nothing more than kids. Kelcie would often tousle my hair when I tried to charm her in a witty way. This told me that she only saw a little boy in me, although she was certainly not more than three years older than me. Richard had similarly limited success with Elinor, which might also be due to the fact that he didn't address her at all, but only admired her furtively from a distance. In general, we were not welcome to chat with the servants. Rahel ran a strict regime in this matter, although on the other hand she was also very gracious.

  The girls lived in a corridor on the upper floor of the 'Breeze', adjacent to the innkeepers' quarters. Well after midnight they would retire there and it was up to us to clean the taproom of the day's filth.

  Every noon, a ritual followed that I had only consciously experienced for the first time after a few weeks. Edwin, always the first guest in the clubhouse, sat in his usual corner with the big book in front of him. Rahel brought him his first glass of whisky while he thoughtfully let the quill dance on the pages of the book. After that, things got busier in the taproom. One by one, the seamstresses came down the stairs and began their day's work. Before they did so, however, each of them made a short detour to Edwin, chatted with him briefly and then pushed a small bag over to him. Edwin glanced inside, counted the jingling contents and then took the bag. He made another entry. Then all the ladies took their turn.

  When a few cockcrows later the first Guardsmen entered the 'Breeze', the ritual was repeated in a peculiar way in reverse order. Each Guardsman first went to see Edwin, who then handed him a small bag, which the Guardsman gratefully accepted. There were hardly any words exchanged. The only thing I noticed was that the girls' bags were much fuller than the bags given to the Guardsmen. This mysterious ritual took place every day in the same way and had aroused my interest.

  Chapter 4

  It had already become early October when I decided to get to the bottom of the mysterious proceedings at the 'Breeze'. It was an evening like any other. Richard and I were busy clearing dishes and washing up. We walked routinely through the taproom. A heated conversation was going on at one of the tables. Vincent was talking in a boastful tone about our adventure. Also about how I had tamed André de Bellegarde in Calais. This time, however, he told it almost as it had actually happened. I listened with interest. At that moment Kendal turned to me, who had already drunk copiously, and looked at me disparagingly. "This little prick is supposed to have tamed that supreme stallion? I don't believe this. Vincent, you're setting us up." I smelled his foul breath and recognised that dull, appraising look that drunken people tend to have. It reminded me of my father in a disgusting way.

  "The lad may be good at clearing away our mugs and mopping up our vomit, but he's certainly no ..."

  Kendal's flow of words came to an abrupt end as I slammed my fist against his nose. I had been too much for his insult. As he glared at me, smelling blood, and rose thoughtfully from his chair, I realised that I had probably overdone it a bit. Kendal was drunk, but he was a good fighter and pub fights were his speciality.

  I could still hear Vincent shouting, "Leave it alone, Kendal!". This wa
s followed by the first punch against my temple. Kendal was incredibly fast, although he was supposed to be staggering around slowly. I immediately went down under this heavy blow. Blood dripped onto the sandy floor of the pub. Before I could pick myself up again, Kendal kicked me several times hard in the abdomen. I doubled over in pain, seeing flashes of light in front of my closed eyes, when suddenly Kendal cried out loudly in pain. I opened my eyes. Richard had tackled him from behind and had his neck in a clamp grip. Kendal had to let go of me by this unexpected manoeuvre and was already turning blue under Richard's stranglehold. But he regained his strength and with a single movement of his upper body he threw Richard over his shoulder, sending him crashing backwards onto the table where the men had just been carousing. Whisky glasses and ale mugs shattered as he touched the plate ungently. Richard groaned painfully. Kendal, bursting with strength again, reached out with his right fist to smash Richard's face to a pulp as a blade, flashing in the candlelight, drove against his neck.

  "That's enough!" roared Vincent, pressing the blade of his rapier emphatically against Kendal's throat. "You have insulted George. He defended himself and now it's over."

  Babbling angrily to himself, Kendal let go of Rich. He rose from the table with a groan. His clothes were soaked with booze. I too had risen and was now supporting my friend. There was a faint smile on Vincent's face as we moved away from the table. In his corner, half hidden in the shadows, I recognised Edwin, who was sucking on his pipe. As the glow briefly lit his face, I saw him nod slowly in our direction. Then he had disappeared into the darkness again.