The Butcher Bird by S. D. Sykes

Author:S. D. Sykes [Sykes, S. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Our journey to London began with an argument. My own preference was to take the route from Sevenoaks towards Bromley Saint Peter and Paul, then approach Southwark from the east at Greenwich. Mother preferred to go west to Hever and then follow the road north to Caterham, pass Croydon and then approach Southwark from the south. Unfortunately it was Mother who won this argument, since she had the backing of Edwin, our groom – though their choice of route would involve climbing the North Downs after the Eden Valley, where the carriage was sure to struggle on the steep tracks.

There was another reason for my opposition to this route, which I did not share with Mother, since it would have hurled her humours into a somersault. The route from Hever towards Caterham was heavily wooded, and therefore more likely to harbour the group of people that Mother feared more than anybody else – bandits. I gave young Geoffrey a sword and told him to let it hang obviously at his side. I also dressed both him and Edwin in the livery of the de Lacy family, in some tunics and surcoats that Gilbert had searched out from the chest in the gatehouse. The outfit didn’t fit Geoffrey well, as the arms of the tunic needed to be turned over at his wrists, and the surcoat was belted with great difficulty at his waist. Nevertheless, these uniforms gave our party the air of nobility, which would either profit or harm our progress. Either we would appear a more attractive target to a band of robbers, or they would leave us alone, in fear of some high-ranking retribution.

The sun was thin as we headed west along the drover’s track to Burrsfield, before we turned north-west and followed the Eden Valley towards Hever Castle. The winter had been long and wet, and the soil was often heavy and grey where the clay had worked its sticky way to the surface. At times the mud threatened to fix our carriage as firmly to the road as if the wheels had been smeared with the glue that Gilbert often brewed up from rabbit skins.

Winter still reigned in these forests and valleys, where the paths were carpeted in the fallen saw-edged leaves of the sweet chestnut. As we ventured deeper into the woodland, through the hatches that allowed entrance to the hunting forests, we passed fallen trees that had not been cleared from the tracks after the storms of the previous month. They were often the tallest ash trees, snapped at their waists by the wind and now lying across our path like dying soldiers. Once or twice we had to work our way around these obstacles by taking long diversions, and it was then that I truly cursed Mother and her insistence upon accompanying me on this journey.

Had I travelled on horseback alone with just one companion, then I would have been in Caterham by now. At this pace, I worried we would not even make Hever by nightfall.

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