Coda: The Third Albert Mystery (The Albert Mysteries Book 3)
Page 34
Often, he referred to the paper but even Regineaux – a wordsmith of universally-acknowledged renown, confessed in print that the experience transcended his capacity to ‘tame it with mere words.’
“That is the very thing!” said Henri. “The music was as he says, a wild thing. Like thunder and lightning, and,” he referred again to the article, ‘shadow and fog.’ You should have been there, Auggie. You would not say ‘it is just music,’ the last words he said in perfect imitation of his friend, with a little flourish of his right hand which now held the croissant.
Elsewhere in Paris, the few thousand who had attended the concert awoke with the feeling that they had been purged.
To the many millions who hadn’t attended, headlines inL’Express, Le Monde – even L'Humanité alerted them to what they’d missed.
‘Le Conquérant!’ exclaimedLe Figaroin 72 point bold-faced type over a caricature of Albert, his spectacles akimbo, riding through the Arc D’Triomphe on a white charger beneath a tricolor flag emblazoned with a treble clef.
Meanwhile, several dimensions away, Albert’s curiosity and its attendant queries had led him to the picturesque little chapel of St. Leonard, on a private estate just outside Cheltenham, to which his celebrity had gained him private entrance.
It was cold in the chapel. Albert felt it had been a long time since the stones had been warmed by worship. A few rows of uninviting pews – designed to keep congregants upright during long-winded sermons – faced off against one another on either side of the wide central aisle.
There were no statues. No monuments to the long-dead, no bones mortaring the stones, only a few memorial plaques dotting the wall in places. It was to one of these that Albert was drawn. As he read, his hands folded behind his back, his lips moved, but no sound escaped to trouble the ancient silence:
‘In memory of the truly fioles the Lady Annabella Howe one of the daughters of Emmanuel Lord Scrope Earl of Sunderland the widow of John Grubham Howe of Compton and the moft indulgent mother of John Grubham Howe of Stowell in the county of Gloucefter. She died ye 20th day of March 1703/4.’
‘Quem semper acerbum semper honoratum habebo.
It was not in vain, after all, that Albert had been cudgeled with Latin from seventh grade onward. He translated.‘He was always bitter that I shall always be honored.’
Albert rocked back and forth on his heels a couple of times, and nodded. “I’m sure he was,” he said, and with those words departed.
THE END
NOTES AND ADDENDA
With the exception of Lossberg, Foss, Mirth and her family, and Larky and Welf, all the ancient characters in this book are historical. I put the words in their mouths, but attempted to do so in a manner not out of keeping with what they might have said, given what is known of them.
The Liber de Pricipis instructione, by Giraldus Cambrensis, is an actual document written in the late 1100s.
Lady Annabella Scrope-Howe is, indeed, an enigmatic figure who, for reasons unknown, King Charles the Second elevated to the social standing of an earl’s daughter; an act unprecedented for the illegitimate offspring of a lesser noble.
Illustrative of this enigma is the curious memorial to Annabella which I had Albert discover in the tiny chapel of St. Leonard on the Stowell estate just outside Cheltenham, England, which reads exactly as quoted in the epilogue and closes with the dedication:Quem semper acerbum semper honoratum habebo.
‘He was always bitter that I shall always be honored.’ *
How very curious. He who? Her son John? Or, perhaps, King Charles the Second whom she had forced to act against his will?
And what is the meaning offioles, for which the only definition I can find is ‘gilt phials’ (gilded vials)?
My account of the good lady is fictional, and it is not my intention to besmirch her reputation nor to posit her as an actual murderess or blackmailer, which, I’m sure, she was not. I have merely taken license with the mysteries surrounding her to weave an historically plausible story.
Lady Annabella Howe (Scrope)
All of my references to the loss of King John’s treasure are founded on contemporary accounts. The retrieval of the treasure is not historically recorded.
Astatusthat would have remained very muchquohadI been the one to discover it.
Robert Tiptoft, 3rdBaron Tibetot, (1341–1372) did, in fact, come inexplicably into possession of a vast fortune shortly after claiming ownership of Langar. He died as a soldier fighting in France and, upon the death of his wife, Margaret, his estate was divided among his daughters, two of whom married Scropes brothers, one of whom purchased Castle Combe with his matrimonial windfall. It is, in my estimation, the most charming village in England, where the soil is peculiarly fecund for the growing of charming villages.
The seal of Isabella of Angoulême
For the record, young Henry survived to become King Henry III. His mother, every bit as beautiful and determined a woman as I have portrayed her, saw to it that the rest of her children married well – many becoming kings, queens, and nobles in England and in various countries across Europe. She remarried, Hugh the Tenth of Lusignan, and moved to the continent where she bestowed her indefatigable DNA on nine more children, for a total of fourteen - all of whom lived to adulthood - unheard of in those times. Unfortunately, she felt herself an outcast among European nobility and was not, it seems, much contented in her later years since, in them, she attempted to overthrow the French monarchy.
Menopause is rough.
Mirth
Were Foss and Mirth grandparents – by however many multiples of generations removed – of William Shakespeare? That would require a DNA test.
Though Mirth certainly knew how to turn a phrase . . .
Beyond this, the only things fictional inCoda are the facts.
*For this quote, I thank James Kemsley Agent of Stowell Park Estate Ltd Yanworth, Cheltenham, England.
GLOSSARY
Barbett ‘crown’ and Snood)
Crespine (worn over barbett and snood)
soeaÞ – birth canal. Pronunciation unsure.
Pathicus – One subject to unnatural lust.
Gauntlets – Armor worn over forearms and hands
Gambeson – Woven garment worn under armor
Goodwoman Gross – A woman said to have the ability to command fairies to do her bidding.
Seelie Wight – Sometimes helpful, sometimes mischievous household elves, sprites, or fairies.
The fourth installment of Albert’s adventures is:
Improvisato
BOOKS BY DAVID CROSSMAN
from
Alibi-Folio
The Albert Mysteries
Requiem for Ashes
Dead in D Minor
Coda
Winston Crisp Mysteries
A Show of Hands
The Dead of Winter
Justice Once Removed
Photo Club Mysteries
Dead and Breakfast
Bean and Ab Young Adult Mysteries
The Secret of the Missing Grave
The Mystery of the Black Moriah
The Legend of Burial Island
The Riddle of Misery Light
Historical Novel
Silence the Dead
Fantasy
Storyteller
Thriller
A Terrible Mercy
www.davidcrossman.com
davidcrossman@comcast.net
David A. Crossman is a polymath—a profession for which there’s not a great demand—dividing his time between the home he shares with his wife Barbara, wherever they might be, and the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts.
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