The Rowanwood Curse (Hal Bishop Mysteries Book 1)

by Elizabeth O'Connell

  “Remember what I told you—that the farmers believe the land is poison?” Sir Jasper shook his head. “There was a die-off of their sheep in the spring, and this Gilley got it into his head that I’d poisoned the grazing. Threatened to take me to court!”

  “In the spring?” Hal raised an eyebrow. “What month?”

  Sir Jasper blinked. “Oh—March, I think.”

  Hal closed his eyes, drumming his fingers on the table. “And what’s happened now?”

  “Sheep worrying.” Sir Jasper ran a hand over his face. He looked very tired. “Evidently some dog has been at the sheep in the bye, and Gilley thinks I’ve set it on them. He came to the mine this morning to tell me so.”

  This seemed promising to me; a sheep farmer’s whole life was tied up in his flock. If this Mr. Gilley thought that Sir Jasper was putting his flock in danger, he would have had a powerful motive to curse him.

  Hal had his pipe back out, lighting it. “Hm. Do you keep dogs?”

  “Of course,” Sir Jasper said. “For the hunt. They’re kenneled for the winter—but of course, one of them has gone missing. I suppose it’s possible that he’s gone wild and begun attacking sheep, but it seems far more likely that it’s one of their own dogs.”

  “But why should it trouble you?” I said. “If it can’t be proven that it’s your dog, then what does it have to do with you?”

  “Sheep worrying is an offence.” Sir Jasper ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t prove it isn’t my dog—and of course, they’ll want damages. I suppose I’m not truly worried—but it is vexing.”

  “Hm.” Hal sat back in his chair, smoke curling about his head. “Perhaps we ought to see this Mr. Gilley after lunch, Jem.”

  Sir Jasper seemed pleased by this idea, and the rest of the meal passed rather more pleasantly. He returned to the mine, and Hal and I got into our coats for the second time that day, to make our way over to the Gilley farm.

  “Do you really think that Mr. Gilley is the one who cast the curse?” I said, my breath clouding the air as I walked.

  “I don’t think anything at the moment.” Hal said, puffing at his pipe. “But it is certainly a curious coincidence that the sheep die-off should happen just as Miss Pryce’s illness began.”

  It was a long walk to Gilley’s farm, down the hill, and past the village. The cold wind burned my throat as we walked. I wished that we might have taken Sir Jasper’s aether-carriage, but after our earlier conversation I had not dared to broach the subject with Hal.

  I was glad when we finally reached the gate of the farm. We made our way down into a little valley, and to the stone barn which stood in the center of the property.

  Hal called for Mr. Gilley, and the man himself appeared, emerging from the barn looking disgruntled, squinting in the sunlight. He put a hand over his brow to shield his eyes, and frowned at us.

  “Who might you be then, eh?” He was a ruddy-faced man that I guessed to be at least forty, dressed in a weather-beaten old cap and work boots, plainly irritated at being called away from his work. “You weren’t expected.”

  Hal introduced us. When he explained that we were staying with Sir Jasper, Mr. Gilley’s mouth curled up.

  “If you’re working for the squire, then I don’t have any reason to talk to you,” he said.

  Hal raised an eyebrow. “That’s disappointing. I should have thought you’d like to know what’s happening to your sheep.”

  “I know perfectly well what’s happening to my sheep, and I don’t need a magician to tell me.” Mr. Gilley all but spat out the word “magician,” as though it left a foul taste in his mouth. “It’s your grand Sir Jasper that’s set a dog upon my sheep. He’ll have us all out in the end, I expect.”

  “But why should you be so certain that it’s Sir Jasper’s dog?” I said. “Surely there are other dogs about.”

  “Aye, but none of our dogs would do a thing like this.” Mr. Gilley’s face clouded over. “I’ve seen sheep worrying before, you know—a dog in among a flock. A sheep dog that goes wild will chase a flock, run ‘em till they’re dead from fear; worry at them, bite them even—but they won’t tear them apart like this.”

  “Well, then, what makes you think it’s a dog at all?” Hal said, stroking his chin.

  “Couldn’t be anything else.” Mr. Gilley’s mouth set in a stubborn line. “Have you seen the dogs Sir Jasper keeps about his place? Huge beasts—mastiffs, I think. Now that’s an animal that could tear a sheep to pieces.”

  Hal was silent for a moment, rubbing his chin, smoke rising in puffs from his pipe. “Perhaps if I could see the sheep, I would know what you meant.”

  Mr. Gilley regarded him shrewdly. “I don’t know what you’re getting at. Why does it matter what’s happened to my sheep? I thought you said you were here about Sir Jasper’s daughter.”

  “It mightn’t matter at all,” Hal said. “But the timing is rather curious. I’m inclined to think that pure coincidence is rare—generally where there seems to be a connection, there is one. Here, your sheep die in the spring—and Miss Pryce falls ill. The sheep are being attacked—and she grows worse.”

  “I hope you’re not accusing me of anything.” Mr. Gilley scowled beneath his cap. “I’ve no truck with spirits—I’m not so fond of magic, come to that.”

  Hal smiled thinly. “Then you are wiser than most men I’ve met. No, I haven’t enough information to accuse anyone yet. It may very well be that you are right about your sheep.”

  Mr. Gilley’s eyebrows shot up, nearly to the brim of his cap. “You’re having me on,” he said. “You’d never accuse Sir Jasper.”

  “As I say, I’ve accused no one,” Hal replied equably. “I am merely leaving my mind open to every possibility.”

  The farmer chuckled, and a grin broke out over his sour face. “Eh, you’re a strange fellow. But I think I like you. Come along and see the sheep.”

  We followed him through the barn and out into a wide field, walking down into the valley where the flock sheltered from the wind. The wet, sickly odor of the dead animals carried on the wind, and I smelled it long before we saw the sheep. As we stepped down into the valley, a grisly sight greeted us. The dog—or whatever the creature might have been—had savaged the sheep terribly. The field was dotted with piles of white-grey wool and darkening red, carcasses spilling out their entrails over the moor.

  “You see that?” Mr. Gilley walked over to one of the piles. He crouched down, pointing.

  I looked, and felt my stomach turn. The sheep’s back legs had been torn from its body; it had been eviscerated, and its guts spilled out. One eye stared back up at me, unseeing, and its tongue hung out as if in silent mockery. I swallowed.

  “Have you ever seen a dog do a thing like that?” Mr. Gilley tucked his hands under his arms, shaking his head. “It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Then you may consider yourself fortunate.” Hal crouched down beside the sheep. He lifted its head and ran a hand along its shoulder. “Jem, come here.”

  I reluctantly knelt down next to him, the smell twisting my stomach violently. “What is it?”

  “Feel its face.”

  I stared at him; for a moment I wondered if he was simply putting me on. He must have noticed my discomfort—and I could think of no reason that I should need to touch this sheep. But Hal’s face gave no hint that he was joking, and it would seem childish to decline. Scowling resentfully at my brother, I put out a hand and gingerly touched the sheep’s face.

  Almost at once, I understood why Hal had wanted me to do it; there was a strong impression of magic on the sheep—dark magic, the same as in the Hall, the same that came from the mine. It slid into my mind, filled my nostrils with its fetid, cloying odor, and twisted around my stomach. I pulled my hand back abruptly and stood, before turning and being violently sick in the grass.

  “Eh, it’s just a dead sheep, lad,” Mr. Gilley said, sounding bemused.

  “It isn’t that, Mr. Gilley.” Hal stood u
p. “There’s a spell that’s affecting things around here—a curse—and it’s touched your sheep. My brother is reacting to the magic.”

  Mr. Gilley snorted and shook his head. I stood up, wiping the back of my hand over my mouth, and feeling rather foolish. The farmer must have thought I was terribly weak-stomached, Hal’s explanation notwithstanding.

  “All right, Jem?” Hal had relit his pipe and was puffing out smoke again. The warm, familiar smell of the sage and tobacco smoke overtook the sickening odor of the magic, and it occurred to me that Hal’s ever-present pipe might serve a purpose—not to mention explain why he wasn’t the one being sick over a dead sheep.

  I nodded, and Hal resumed his examination of the field. He crouched down again, putting a hand on the ground. I followed him; he was bent over an enormous paw print, twice the size of his hand.

  “You see why I think it’s a mastiff, eh?” Mr. Gilley folded his arms over his chest. “Have to be a big dog, to make tracks like that.”

  “It was certainly something quite large.” Hal stood up again. “How many have you lost?”

  “At least five.” Mr. Gilley looked out over the field, at the piles of red and grey, a somber look on his ruddy face. “Some more will die of fright, maybe. I can’t afford to lose any more. Not since I lost so many ewes in the lambing.”

  Hal followed the farmer’s gaze out over the field, but he wasn’t looking at the sheep. He stared off into the distance, a thoughtful look taking over his face. “I wonder—never mind. It’s too early to speculate. You say you lost several sheep in the lambing?”

  “Aye.” Mr. Gilley rubbed his face. “Some sort of illness. I never saw aught like it. Went out to pasture, and just fell down trembling—nothing we could do for them but to watch them die.”

  “Was that here, in this field?”

  The farmer chuckled half-heartedly. “You don’t know a thing about sheep farming, do you, lad? No, they were up in the high country for the good grazing—it was spring, you know.”

  Hal looked back out over the field. “If you want my advice, you’ll go see Mrs. Ogham and ask her for some powdered monkshood—burn it near the field, but take care the sheep don’t eat it. It should keep the beast away.”

  We left the farmer to his grim task of recovering and burying his sheep, and made our way back up the hill to the Hall. I could not get the image of the torn sheep out of my mind, and the memory was twisting my stomach still. Hal was deep in thought, walking ahead of me with his hands in his pockets, still smoking his pipe.

  I hurried a little to catch up to him. “Whatever made those prints must have been massive. Do you think it was a dog?”

  He looked at me as though surprised to find that I was walking with him. “Well, it could hardly be anything else,” he said vaguely. “Unless—but no, that’s taking it too far.”

  “Unless what?” I pushed my hands into my own pockets. “What are you thinking, Hal?”

  He frowned, looking down at the ground. “It reminded me of something I saw once—a picture of a deer that had been attacked by a wolf. But that was in America—there aren’t any wolves in England.”

  “But what about the magic?”

  “It’s certainly connected to whatever’s happened to Cecilia.” He shook his head. “There’s no doubt about that now—you felt it as well, didn’t you?”

  I remembered the feeling of the magic twisting about my stomach, and shivered. “Yes—but I don’t understand why they should be connected. Why would someone curse Cecilia and set a dog to savage Mr. Gilley’s sheep?”

  Hal frowned. “If I knew that, I should be halfway to solving this case. It is certainly a puzzle.”

  He slipped into a brooding mood after that, and we trudged the rest of the way up the hill in silence.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was late afternoon by the time we reached the Hall. Sir Jasper had not yet returned from the mine, and the great house was still and quiet. The chill of the outdoors was not in the least abated by the heavy stone walls, and I shivered as Reeves took my coat. I was tired from the long walk, and the nausea and headache induced by close contact with whatever spell had touched Gilley’s sheep still lingered, not improved by the presence of the same dark magic within the walls of the Hall.

  Hal looked at me sympathetically, then turned to Reeves and asked to be directed to the kitchen. Reeves raised his eyebrows but his face remained otherwise impassive, and he led us past the dining room and down a narrow passageway. The kitchen was light and warm in comparison to the rest of the house; the high walls painted a bright white, the stove lending its heat to the room. In the center of the kitchen, a big red-faced woman was rolling out dough. Her long white apron marked her out at once as the cook.

  She looked up at our entrance, setting down her dough and wiping her hands on her apron. Reeves introduced us, and she smiled. “Oh, so you’re the magicians Sir Jasper’s brought in to see to Miss Cecilia. Well, we’ve heard about you down here—Jenny’s been talking about it all day, hasn’t she, Sally?”

  The scullery maid, a stocky dark-haired girl with heavy brows who I assumed must be Sally, looked up from her dishes and nodded curtly. “Aye.”

  “But what brings you into the kitchen?” The cook’s eyes gleamed. “Here to question us about the curse?”

  Hal reached into his pocket, pulling out the packet of tea that Mrs. Ogham had given him that morning. “No, only a very mundane request. Might you make a pot of tea for us, using that?”

  The cook, looking rather crestfallen, picked up the packet. She sniffed it, and wrinkled up her face. “I can certainly make the tea for you, sir—but if I may ask, why would you want it? I have perfectly nice tea in my larder if it’s only a pot of tea you want.”

  “It’s a health tea,” Hal said solemnly, and nodded over to me.

  “Oh, I see.” The cook gave me a pitying look, and leaned over to Hal, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “The food they make for sickly people is always so unappetizing. It’s my opinion that’s why so many of them waste away.”

  I glared at my brother, knowing that for the remainder of our time at the Hall the cook would believe that I was next door to being an invalid, but he took no notice of me at all. The cook took the packet and heaped three spoonfuls into a china teapot, before bustling over to the kettle and putting it on to boil.

  “It’s a terrible thing that’s happened to poor Miss Cecilia,” she said. “She was always a bright creature—a great girl to laugh. I don’t know much about magic, but I can tell you what part of that girl’s trouble is.”

  Hal raised an eyebrow. “Can you?”

  “Certainly.” She leaned over the counter, looking about as though someone might be listening. “It’s a broken heart that’s the root of the problem, if you ask me.”

  “A broken heart?” My ears pricked up at this; a love quarrel had been at the bottom of more than one curse in history—this might be the motive we were looking for.

  “Oh, aye.” She went back to rolling out her dough. “It’s that cousin of hers. She was smitten from the moment she set eyes on him—and he was set on her, come to that.”

  “But if they were both in love, then why should her heart be broken?”

  “The usual reason—her father didn’t approve.” She patted the dough and set it into a pan. “There was bad blood between him and the lad’s father—the late Lord Marquardt, Sir Jasper’s brother, you know—and I suppose he didn’t like the reminder. Then again, there was Mr. Soames.”

  The name sounded familiar, but it took a moment for me to place it. “Peter Soames? Sir Jasper’s secretary?”

  “Aye, that’s the one. He’s a bright lad, to be sure, and Sir Jasper’s always been fond of him—but he hadn’t a chance when Lord Marcus arrived.”

  “Curious, then, that Lord Marcus should leave when his cousin became ill,” Hal said.

  “But he was asked to,” the cook said, looking bemused. “Sir Jasper asked him to leave before she ever fell i
ll. Miss Cecilia and Sir Jasper had a dreadful row about it.”

  The kettle whistled, and she poured the boiling water into the teapot. “I never saw the poor lass so upset. I’ve known her since she was a wee thing—I came here not long after her mother died, God rest her.”

  “And Lord Marcus was content to leave?” Hal raised an eyebrow. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Oh, not at all.” The cook covered the dough and set it aside. “He flatly refused to leave—and after all, this is really his house. Sir Jasper was furious. But then when Miss Cecilia became sick, he simply disappeared.”

  “And no one knows where he went?” Hal pulled his pipe back out, and went to light it, but at a very stern look from the cook he slid his matches back into his pocket, and was reduced to merely tapping the pipe on the counter.

  “He didn’t say a word to anyone, just up and left.” She poured the tea, the strange bitter licorice scent filling up the kitchen. “More than likely, he’s back with his mother, in France or Italy or wherever it is she’s from.”

  “Hm.” Hal tapped his pipe more vigorously against the counter. “As I say, very curious. Why should he leave then if not before?”

  “Don’t ask me, love.” She brought out a plate of biscuits to go with the tea. “I can tell you that Sir Jasper was in a right foul temper after Miss Cecilia fell ill. And it’s few men who can stand up to Sir Jasper even when he’s in a fair mood.”

  She resumed her preparations for dinner, and for a moment Hal and I sat in silence, sipping our tea. Despite its strange flavor, it had a soothing effect on my nerves, and combined with the generally warm and pleasant atmosphere of the kitchen, all but cured my headache.

  Hal watched the cook at her work for a moment. “Do you know anything of the late Lord Marquardt’s death?”

  The cook looked up, red-faced, from the oven. “That was afore my time—though he hadn’t been dead very long when I came in. I heard that it was a real tragic thing though—an accident, they say, though I’ve heard otherwise, too.”