Midwinter Nightingale

by Joan Aiken

  Simon stayed where he was until the carriage began to move; then he walked along to the horse box. Behind him he could hear shouts as men uncoupled the first four coaches that would continue westward to the Combe country. At the rear of the train a second engine was huffing into position to push the stock cars and a single passenger compartment south to Windfall Clumps and Marshport.

  Now Simon saw the reason for all the bleating he had been hearing for the past hour, and he was appalled.

  Three cattle coaches had been hitched on behind the horse box and they all held sheep. But the coaches were not solid wooden cars—they were merely topless cages constructed from thin metal bars, each about twice the height of a man; and the sheep had been stuffed into them quite regardless of the poor animals' comfort, so that the ones on the floor of the cage were being crushed by the others piled on top of them. Each cage was crammed to its fullest capacity, and the top layer of sheep in each cage was held down by a tight net.

  The ones at the bottom must soon be suffocated, thought Simon in horror. Indeed he saw that one poor beast, on the floor of the car, had been so desperate for air that she had thrust her head between two of the iron cage bars, buckling them and almost decapitating herself in her struggle to get some breath into her lungs.

  Simon was filled with such fury and outrage at this sight that he strode along to the engine and said to the driver, who was helping another man connect its coupling to the cattle cars, “Whose sheep are these?”

  The driver turned and looked at Simon in mild astonishment. “Blest if I know, guvner! We gotta take em to Marshport—that's all I know.”

  “Well, who does know?”

  “That feller as loaded em and traveled here along of em. Where is he? He was along there a minute ago. He left his crook—here it is, a-leaning against the 'waybill.”

  Simon recognized the staff of the grimy man who had talked to Jorinda. But of the man himself there was no sign.

  “How did he bring the sheep?”

  “Drove em onto the platform, guvner, an' hoisted em into the trucks. There was only just room. He had a dog, a handy clever brute that one were, kept the wethers rounded up.”

  But the man and his dog had gone; though he searched all over the small station, Simon found no sign of them.

  Returning to the engine driver and his mate, who were looking at him in mild amazement, Simon said, “This is disgraceful! There are laws forbidding such ill-treatment of animals.”

  “Arr. So there oughter be! But, who's about to see they're kept?” said the driver, and his mate nodded gloomily and spat.

  “Well, I'm going to, now, this minute. I'm going to let those poor beasts out.”

  “Eh! Ye canna do that!” The driver was scandalized.

  “Can't I though?” Simon took the pole that the sheep-herder had left behind and, with it, unhooked a couple of latches that kept the side of the sheep cage in position. It folded down to make a sloping ramp onto the platform, and the sheep tumbled and spilled down it, bleating and staggering, some of them hardly able to move, bewildered, gasping and trembling. A few of them continued to lie motionless on the floor of the cage. For them the rescue had come too late.

  “Blimey!” said the engine driver. “That's showing em, though, ain't it?”

  “But look here,” said his mate. “They sheep do be somebody's property. We had to deliver em to a Mister Mitchle Bone at Marshport. What's he a-going to say about this howdydo? Or Sir Thomas, what they come from?”

  “Tell him to get in touch with me and I'll pay him (if he dares to, knowing how those poor beasts have been ill-treated).” By now Simon had undone the fastenings of the second and third sheep cars and more and more of the liberated animals had tottered down to the platform and the rail track.

  “Here's my card,” said Simon, handing a pasteboard square to the driver, and he repeated, “Tell the owner to get in touch with me.”

  “But guvner—what be ye a-going to do with all they dentical sheep?”

  Simon had climbed into the horse box and now reappeared, leading Magpie with her saddle, saddlebags and bridle strapped on.

  “Do?” he asked, tightening a girth. “Why, I'll take them to where they can get better treatment.”

  “Not on our train?”

  “Certainly not on your train. They can do the journey on foot. But it's not far.”

  “Reckon they'll follow ye, guvner?”

  “I reckon so,” Simon said with confidence. “Animals mostly do.” He put two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle.

  Some of the sheep, who had started to nibble on what sparse vegetation there was around the station, lifted their heads and moved toward him. Thunderbolt the owl came drifting from the open carriage window. Simon jumped up on Magpie's back and Thunderbolt settled on his shoulder.

  “Come up, mare! No more train travel.”

  Magpie, not sorry to leave the stuffy horse box, shook her head and whinnied, then trotted off briskly alongside the rail track that led south. Simon whistled again, and the whole flock of sheep streamed after him in a gray-white mass.

  “Well, by gar!” said the train driver. “Us mit as well go home for the day; there's no other passengers on this part of the train.”

  “What about me?” grumbled a peevish voice. It was the horse-box attendant, standing on his steps.

  “You can wait for the two-thirty-five back to King's Cross.”

  The driver was studying Simon's card. “By gar!” he said again. “Who'd a thought it? Proper well set up young un he were, but no more than a lad, I'd ha' said. But looky here….”

  “Why? Who is he then?” asked his mate, staring at the card. “I'm no scholard.”

  On the card in black capital letters were the words:

  SIMON 6th DUKE OF BATTERSEA

  “He's a blooming dook, that's who he be,” said the driver.

  The chaise, which had been stationary all this time behind a clump of willows, now proceeded on its way.

  London was not a pleasant place in the best of weather, and on a damp, dark, foggy winter evening it was at its worst. The massive masonry was blackened by tendrils of wet moss, peacocks let out doleful cries from the aviary, the lions roared despairingly from the menagerie, and they were answered by the long-drawn angry howls of hungry wolves on the Kent side of the river Thames.

  Dr. Blisland, though he had entered the gloomy fortress on every day of his life, in his official capacity as fortress physician to any prisoners who might require medical attention, felt an unaccustomed shiver in his spine that evening as he climbed the slope to the Traitors' Gate and walked toward the Wakefield Tower, where his patient was confined, passing a sign that said ADMISSION TO HIS MAJESTIE'S VIVARIUM OF WILDE BEASTES 6D. Another, opposite, said HEARKENING CHAMBER. WEREWOLF HOWLING 9d. Two large sacks, presumably containing 6d and 3d pieces, reposed outside these doors. They were corded up and sealed with red wax, ready to be taken to the Bank of England.

  The guards nodded as Dr. Blisland passed by; they knew him too well to require a sight of his pass.

  “How is the baron tonight? At all wrought up? Feverish in any way? Expectant?”

  The armed guard who stood with his harquebus at the foot of the winding stair shook his head. “Not that one, sir. Cool as a carrot. You'd think he'd be just as glad to stay in as to be let loose. You'd reckon he'd been here fifteen days, not fifteen years.”

  Dr. Blisland shivered again as he climbed the worn stone steps. Fifteen years in this place! he thought. Enough, you'd guess, to finish off someone with the healthiest constitution, let alone one with such a strange, terrible complaint….

  “No tantrums? No high strikes?” the doctor softly asked the second guard, who stood whistling a carefree tune at the top of the stair outside the massive iron-barred door. He shook his head.

  “Not a chirp or a squeak. Mild as a mudpat. Calm as a cowslip. Didn't even want to look at the evening paper.”

  The guard nodded to a sh
eet that lay beside him on the step. The headline, in huge black capitals, read: “WILD BEAST marquis out at last. 15-yr term completed.

  Queen Adelaide's ex-husband to be released tomorrow. Baron who swore revenge now walks free.”

  The guard chuckled as he turned the huge key and shot back several bolts.

  “In fact the gentleman said he'd sadly miss your evening parley-vouz—the port wine and the pill.”

  “Let us devoutly hope that he continues taking the pill,” the doctor said, a trifle uneasily "Does he plan to return to his London mansion — Armorica House? I could continue to pay a daily visit there.”

  “No, I fancy he plans to spend but one night in town and then go on to Fogrum Hall. His son is there, you know, Master Lot.”

  “Yes, I do know.” The doctor frowned, then shrugged. “Nothing we can do if the man chooses to associate with that worthless boy”

  As the guard slid back a fourth bolt, the two men heard a low-voiced call from withm.

  “Excuse me one moment, pray! I am at my devotions.”

  “Take as long as you like, my dear sir,” the doctor returned heartily

  Respecting the silence that ensued, the two men retired a step or two down the winding stair and continued their whispered conversation.

  “Mighty strange to think that man was once married to Queen Adelaide.”

  The guard shook his head in agreement. “But she was only a young lass in her teens at that time, Princess of Thurima, remember — came from one o' they Euro-lin gian families where the gals get no say as to who they marries. Good ol' King Jim, he unfastened the knot quick enough as soon as he knew what she had to put up with.”

  “Assisted by His Grace the archbishop.”

  “Ay, to be sure. His Holy Nibs undid the buckle in double-quick time.”

  “I wonder, though,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “where that leaves the son of that marriage…. Does he inherit his father's title?”

  “No loss if he don't, I reckon. By all accounts he's a proper young blayguard. Was that a true tale about the peacocks he —”

  “Hush! I hear Baron Magnus calling!”

  A faint voice could now be heard inside the door.

  “Are you there, my dear sir? Now I am qu.de at your service and shall be most happy to 'welcome you to my poor abode.”

  “And I am ready for you, my dear Baron!” the doctor exclaimed, springing up the stairway. The guard fol-lowed him, whistling cheerfully, undid the last bolt and pushed open the heavy door, which opened inward. As the doctor stepped in, a skinny hand shot out from behind the door and seized his wrist in a grip of steel. He let out a startled cry.

  “Aha! My dear sir! I fooled you finely—finely—did I not?”

  The grip was at once relaxed; the baron stepped from behind the door, revealing himself as a frail-looking elderly man with snowy white locks which, in prison fashion, he wore loose to his shoulders. He was not above middle height, but so thin he seemed taller. He wore a suit of rich black velvet and his white shirt was of the finest cambric. His face wore at all times a look of immense mildness and innocence, replaced only very rarely—as now—by a twist of puckish humor.

  “There—there! It was too bad of me to put you in a fright! On our last evening too! I believe you really thought I had returned to the bad old days. Did you not? When I had to be held down by eight men before you could oblige me to take the pill. Never fear, my dear Doctor! Those times are gone beyond recall. Now I can hardly remember them without abhorrence. Why, nowadays I 'welcome the pill with gratitude—with fervor!”

  The doctor had in fact been badly startled, and it took him a minute to recover.

  “Shall I stay, sir?” suggested the guard, a trifle uneasily.

  “No, my good man, that will not be necessary,” Baron Magnus told him with a patient smile.

  But the guard kept his eye on the doctor, who finally gave him a nod.

  The man withdrew, but murmured, “I'll be right outside, Doctor, if you should want me…. Just give a call.” And, when outside the closed door, he recommenced whistling, to show that he was within earshot.

  Baron Magnus frowned, shrugged, murmured, “Odious, odious noise! Repulsive tune! I wonder if he is aware how much I hate all tunes? Perhaps not …But the poor fellow means no harm, I feel almost certain….” And he moved toward the table, while the doctor, opening his bag, withdrew a small phial, containing one white pill, and a silver flask, from which he poured a portion of port wine into a glass that stood ready for him.

  The cell occupied by Baron Magnus was wedge-shaped, accommodated to the round tower that contained it. The furnishings were simple—a bed, a table, two chairs and a curtain across one corner, where toilet things were housed. Meagre light from two small slit windows high up was augmented by many candles. The dark stone walls were hung with rich tapestries embroidered with forests where wolves, stags and huntsmen endlessly pursued one another among many-branched trees. Costly carpets covered the floor.

  “How piercingly sad this is!” sighed the baron, reseating himself at the table. “How very, very much I shall miss our evening conferences, my dear doctor! They have furnished the gladsome summit of each day. And yet, my good friend,” he added, as the doctor approached him with the glass of port in one hand and the pill, a very large one, held between finger and thumb, in the other, “yet, my dear doctor, my days passed in this unsought, unplanned seclusion have not been wasted— far from it.” He pointed to a massive pile of leather-bound volumes stacked against the wall.

  “All these works have been imbibed, absorbed, committed to memory. I emerge from custody a far wiser, better-informed being than the sad, resentful fellow who first reluctantly entered this melancholy edifice. I shall have so much to impart to my dear wife—ah—forgive me!” he said, as the doctor, startled, spilled a splash of port wine on the tablecloth. “Allow me!” The baron pulled a snowy kerchief from his pocket and wiped away the drop of wine. In doing so he accidentally flicked the pill that Dr. Blisland was proffering. It fell on the carpet.

  “Forgive me!” the baron exclaimed again, and bent from his chair to retrieve the pill. “Here it is, quite safe! I shall swallow it forthwith.” He did so. “And now I shall imbibe this superlative wine, which I suspect, my dear sir, is furnished from your own cellar—am I not right? I do not believe that the prison medical service would ever supply such a superior vintage. But I seem to have surprised you, dear Dr. Blisland? What can I have said that caused you so to start?”

  “It—it was just—” stammered the doctor, greatly embarrassed, “it was just that—has Your Excellency forgotten that Lady Adelaide—er—passed away some years ago?”

  And was married to the king at the time, he might also have said, but did not.

  “Ah, yes, indeed. Indeed. This prison solitude inculcates a certain slowness of wit, a grievous lethargy of memory. Of course my poor dear Adelaide died some time ago—a most unfortunate occurrence, was it not? Now I begin to recall the circumstances. Something fell on her from above, did it not, as she was attending divine service?”

  “Er—yes—that is so,” replied the doctor, deciding to pass over the fact that when she died, the Lady Adelaide had been married to King Richard IV for some years and was queen of England. Poor thing, she's dead anyway, so he can't harm her now, supposing he should wish to, he thought, remembering the baron's litany of screaming, raving denunciations and threats as he was dragged from the courtroom.

  “I shall gnaw their vitals! I shall chew their tongues. I shall pull off their fingers and use them for bookmarkers; I shall dangle their bodies in my moat for the pike to finish off. I shall make them sorry they ever saw my face!”

  His own distorted face had been almost unrecognizable as he shouted these threats; suffused with hate and fury, he had looked more like a wild beast than a human being.

  How remarkably different from the way he appears now, thought the doctor, studying the baron's gentle, smiling countenance. What a w
onderful effect those pills have had on him, to be sure! I shall write an article for the British Medical Journal, he decided, recorking the empty port flask, about the beneficial effects on L.A.D., Lycanthropy-Aggravated Dementia, of Saint-Peter's-wort with evening primrose and rose of Sharon imbibed daily with a moderate dose of vintage port wine. Why, at one time, that man who now sits, so gentle, sensible and chatty, across the table from me, at one time he actually believed, and would have others believe, that he was a …

  “Poor, poor Adelaide,” sighed the baron, picking up his glass and inspecting it, to make sure there was no drop of wine remaining. “How greatly she must be missed. But I shall be overjoyed to embrace our dear son, Lothar—I am sure he resembles his beloved mother. I am very sure he will be a comfort to his poor widowed father.”

  That he won't, thought the doctor uncharitably

  He stood up.

  “Well, Baron, this is goodbye, then? Unless you plan to remain in town and should wish to avail yourself of my services at any future time?”

  “No, no, my dear friend, I am for Great Distance and Fogrum. But—should I at any time return to the metropolis—I shall take it as an act of friendship if you will dine with me at Armorica House?” He showed his very white teeth in a beguiling smile as he said this.

  “A safe journey home to you, then.”

  “Dear me! The dwellers on the South Bank seem uneasy tonight, do they not? Something appears to be troubling them. I wonder what it can be?”

  “It is the winter cold, I daresay,” said the doctor, with another shiver. “The lions in their cages are accustomed to warmer climates—”

  “But the wild wolves are of a hardier temper,” the baron said, smiling again. “This cold weather stirs them up to sing for their supper. I like to hear them at it! I shall miss their nightly anthem when I quit these quarters, hospitable in that respect if in none other. No, dear Doctor, I do you an injustice. You have always been a kindly host with your healing medicine and your agreeable talk. That I shall also miss. What a contrast to my royal cousin Richard, who has paid no single visit in fifteen years.” A single malignant flash came and went in his dark eyes.