Shadow of the Raven

by Tessa Harris

  Sir Montagu smirked. “As I said, I am fully aware of the antipathy of the common horde, dear Rainton, but it is up to us to remove that thorn by fair means or foul.”

  For a moment there was silence as the gentlemen contemplated the implications of Sir Montagu’s words. Then their host lightened the mood as the young earl was announced. The boy, dressed finely and his unruly curls now tamed by a ribbon, stood at the doorway flanked by his nursemaid. The kindly looking matron, Nurse Pring, who had previously been in Lydia’s service, gently pushed her charge forward into the room. He turned back to look at her, but she flapped her hand at him and he took a few paces forward.

  “Your lordship, I would like to introduce you to some friends of mine,” Sir Montagu told the boy, softening his tone.

  The child pursed his lips and a look of apprehension settled on his face.

  “They would like to be your friends, too,” Sir Montagu told him, holding out his hand.

  Sir John’s eyes widened. “How like his mother he is!” he exclaimed, staring at the young earl’s chestnut hair and large eyes.

  Sir Montagu chose to ignore the remark. “We have been discussing business,” he told his bewildered charge, hooking him close to him.

  The boy’s expression remained unsettled, his gaze darting from one man to another until he finally settled on Nicholas Lupton’s familiar face. He let Sir Montagu’s hand drop and hurried over to him.

  “Mr. Lupton!” he cried, tugging at the steward’s sleeve. But Lupton looked slightly abashed and fended him off in a jovial, but firm, manner.

  “No, sir. You are a young man now. Gentlemen do not behave in such a way.”

  Fitzwarren laughed loudly at this remark, the others sniggered, but the collective smile was soon wiped off their faces by the child’s next remark.

  “Where is my mamma?” he asked, looking up at Sir Montagu.

  The lawyer shifted uneasily. “Why, sir, you know your mamma is unwell and in a hospital.”

  “But when will I see her again?”

  There was an awkward silence. “When she is fully restored.”

  “But when will that be?” The boy stamped his foot as he spoke.

  Offended by such behavior, Sir Montagu nodded to the nursemaid.

  “Your lordship,” she called harshly. “That is quite enough. Come here now.” She slapped her skirts.

  The child looked at Lupton, who stared back icily, giving him not a crumb of comfort. It was then that the young earl’s eyes filled with tears and his face reddened.

  “Now!” repeated the nursemaid, ignoring her charge’s sobs.

  With heaving shoulders the child dragged his feet over to the door.

  “Send him to bed,” instructed Sir Montagu. The woman curtsied and was walking out of the door when the lawyer called her back once more. “And no supper!” he barked. She acknowledged his order with a nod, took the boy’s hand, and pulled him from the room.

  The men listened in an uneasy silence to the child’s pleas as he was dragged upstairs once more. It was Sir John who spoke first: “He has his mother’s good looks,” he said.

  “But no manners,” ventured Fitzwarren with a snort.

  “ ’Tis hard for him,” said Lupton, sympathy softening his tone. “He found his mother after all those years and now she has been taken from him again.”

  Sir Montagu frowned and upbraided his steward. “Tush, tush, Lupton! Do I detect sentimentality?” He was aware that Lupton had become fond of the boy, and, he dared say, of Lydia, before the steward’s treachery had been revealed and he had slipped so effortlessly into the role of estate manager.

  Lupton cocked his head. “No, sir, but—”

  “Good.” Sir Montagu cut him off abruptly. “After all, the boy will benefit from this scheme in the long run,” he pointed out. He was ringing the servants’ bell once more.

  “And what will become of Lady Lydia?” chimed in Sir John.

  Sir Montagu’s lips twitched. “You always did have a soft spot for her, didn’t you, John?” He recalled the time that he had offered his old friend Lydia’s hand in marriage if he were to assist him in his plans to fend off Thomas Silkstone.

  “You say she has gone quite mad?” asked Rainton.

  Sir Montagu twisted his head and nodded warily. It was clear he suddenly felt that his authority was being challenged.

  “Quite,” he replied firmly.

  “So there is no possibility of her recovery?” pressed Sir John. Sir Montagu knew exactly what he was driving at.

  “Even if she does recover, she no longer has any say in matters concerning the estate,” he said emphatically. He turned to address everyone else in the room. “Your investment will be perfectly sound, I can assure you, gentlemen.”

  When the butler appeared at the door, Sir Montagu called for glasses to be recharged, endeavoring to lift spirits. The sack poured, he proposed a toast.

  “Gentlemen, to our future success,” he cried.

  Each one eyed the others, drawing on their mutual strengths, and in that moment their confidence seemed to return. They were entrepreneurs, pioneers, men of vision at the dawn of a new age of industry and invention. The power lay in their hands to use as they saw fit. And, as with all worthwhile endeavors, there would be those who would fall by the wayside and be trampled underfoot. The way ahead would be strewn with difficulties, but their power weighted the odds very much in their favor. The men raised their glasses high.

  “Our future success,” they echoed.

  Chapter 5

  Great Tom was tolling ten as Thomas walked under Wren’s pepper-pot dome and up to the doors of the Christ Church Anatomy School, Oxford. Within moments the familiar shock of hoarfrost hair that belonged to Professor Hans Hascher appeared to greet him. The professor, a native of Saxony, had been most helpful in his dealings with Lydia’s late husband, Captain Michael Farrell. He had put his own laboratory at Thomas’s disposal as the young anatomist had tried to prove Farrell’s innocence.

  “It’s good to see you again,” said the Saxon, lunging forward and kissing Thomas enthusiastically on both cheeks in the continental manner. His English, although understandable, was heavily accented.

  “And you, Professor,” said the doctor, taken slightly aback by the effusive welcome. “Although I am sorry it is a postmortem that reunites us,” he added.

  Hascher tilted his snowy white head. “And not a pretty sight, I fear,” he groaned.

  Without ceremony he led Thomas into a small room with high windows at the back of the school. While the light might have been adequate, the ventilation was not, and the stench so familiar to Thomas, though not yet nauseating, indicated that the unfortunate victim had already made his presence felt. The covered corpse lay on the dissecting table in the middle of the room. The two men approached it, and with a silent nod Thomas indicated he was prepared. The professor then pulled back the cloth to reveal the face of Jeffrey Turgoose, staring blankly up at the ceiling. His eyes were wide open and his features frozen in shock. Apart from a long, thin scratch on the man’s cheek, which seemed to have been recently inflicted, there were no other outward signs of violence on his face.

  Thomas glanced ’round at his colleague. “So, Professor, we have work to do,” he said, divesting himself of his coat.

  He donned his leather apron and laid out his instruments. The saw, the curved knives, the trocar were always arranged in the same order so that he could reach for them blindly, without having to turn away from the corpse. The professor, meanwhile, silently lit lanterns and fetched clean water in a sort of well-rehearsed priestly ritual that always preceded an autopsy examination. All was set.

  Knowing the story of a dead man in life, when his heart still beat and the blood still coursed through his veins, did not make the anatomist’s task any easier. Quite the opposite. Each organ held within it an imprint of his history, each slice of brain tissue a fragment of a memory. Thomas always had to remind himself to put up his emotional shield and
render himself detached as long as he was in the presence of a cadaver. A murder, however, threw up its own conundrums. For the task in hand, it was the immediate past of the victim that interested him. Where had Mr. Turgoose been found? By whom? Where was the weapon that had discharged the shot?

  Sir Theodisius had been able to answer some of his questions, but not all. The coroner had been given a thirdhand account of events by Nicholas Lupton. The source could therefore not be relied upon for accuracy or impartiality. It was nevertheless all that Thomas had to work on for the time being. The report ran thus:

  Mr. Turgoose and his assistant, a young man by the name of James Charlton, entered Raven’s Wood, with a guide, in order to conduct a preliminary survey. Abandoning their conveyance because of the muddy conditions, they continued through the wood on foot. The horse that was carrying their equipment was being led ahead of them by the guide and apparently stumbled into a sawpit. Whether or not this was a diversionary tactic on behalf of the party’s attackers is not known, but what reportedly happened next appears straightforward enough, albeit resulting in tragic consequences. Hearing the obvious distress of the horse being led by the guide, a man whose name is Seth Talland, Jeffrey Turgoose went ahead to ascertain the source of the commotion, leaving his assistant alone. According to both Charlton and Talland, it was then that the brigands, their faces blackened with soot, struck. Emerging silently from the cover of the trees, they first ambushed Charlton, threatening him with a gun if he raised the alarm, then robbed him of his pocket watch. The young man, seeing his master approach, let out a scream, but, in response, a varlet discharged his weapon, shooting Jeffrey Turgoose as he returned. When he fell, mortally wounded, the bandits set about Charlton, who feared for his own life, punching him in the face. Hearing the shot, however, Talland came running and frightened off the raiders. They left with only a few trinkets. Finding Charlton injured and his master shot, Talland did what he could. He tended to the surveyor but soon realized it was too late. Jeffrey Turgoose had clearly breathed his last. Shocked and in great distress, the guide and the surveyor’s man managed to make their way back toward Boughton Hall, where, as soon as they reached the main gates, the alarm was raised. Both men were traumatized and exhausted, although Charlton’s injuries, it is believed, are only minor.

  Thomas paused briefly out of a sense of reverence before he began the grisly task in hand. Professor Hascher, at his side, also took a moment to compose himself. At least he could be grateful that this corpse was relatively fresh. Mr. Turgoose had been felled only three days ago, and the cool weather meant that putrefaction had not yet begun in earnest. At the young doctor’s signal, Hascher took a deep breath and drew back the rest of the covering to reveal the corpse in its entirety.

  Forcing himself to focus, Thomas leaned over the cadaver. Mr. Turgoose had been divested of his clothes and shoes, something of which Thomas did not approve. He felt it vital to view the body as near as possible to how it was at the moment of death. Irritated, he glanced at a pile of garments on a nearby table. There were buckled shoes, too, still caked in mud.

  Starting at the feet, his magnifying glass in hand, Thomas detected nothing untoward, save a small bruise on the right foot. The lower torso, too, was devoid of injury on first inspection, so it was to the chest that Thomas devoted most of his attention. Leaning over the thoracic cavity, he examined the mortal wound. There was little doubt in either man’s mind that a gunshot was the cause of death. It was also clear from the amount of blood loss that the missile had punctured a main artery.

  “The extractor, if you please, Professor,” said Thomas, peering into the wound. The shot had entered the victim’s body on the right lateral chest, shattering a rib. It had gone on to pierce the right lung and caused damage to the right atrium of the heart and the pulmonary artery before lodging itself between the second rib and the flesh. Death would have been instantaneous.

  Taking the instrument, Thomas inserted the shaft deep into the wound; then, turning the handle to lengthen the screw, he could feel it latch onto the lead ball. It was a procedure he had undertaken only once on a living patient, and that was when the shot had pierced the bone and the shards threatened to infect the wound. Too many a man had died of sepsis rather than by the ball, in his experience. There were those who still believed that the shot itself was poisonous. Up until relatively recently, such wounds had been scalded with a red-hot iron or oil. At least Mr. Turgoose had been spared the lingering death accorded to so many soldiers who fell afoul of such ignorant practices in field hospitals. Thomas nearly always preferred to leave the shot in situ, knowing removal would most likely lead to infection and inevitable death. In this case, of course, the threat of corruption was not an issue, and he carefully excised the missile. The mortified flesh made a strange sucking sound but yielded up its unwelcome visitor without too much resistance. Walking over to the window, where the light was much brighter, he inspected the shot. Professor Hascher joined him.

  “Vhat make you of zis?” asked the Saxon.

  Thomas was silent for a moment as he studied the lead ball under his magnifying glass. “I am puzzled,” he said at last.

  “Puzzled?” repeated the professor. “How so?”

  Thomas walked back to the corpse and dropped the shot into a kidney dish on the adjacent table. “ ’Tis so small. No bigger than a pea.”

  Professor Hascher, peering over the dish, had to agree. “But big enough to kill poor Mr. Turgoose,” he ventured, shaking his head.

  Thomas eyed him intently. “Of that there is no doubt,” he replied. “But for highwaymen and footpads the blunderbuss is the usual weapon of choice.”

  Hascher pictured the large, cumbersome gun with its splayed muzzle, and nodded. “Boom!” His hands jerked upward and he spread out his fingers to signify an explosion before returning to glare at the wound.

  “This wound is clean,” said Thomas. “This is the only shot and it is small in caliber.” He squinted at the lead in the kidney dish.

  “So if not a blunderbuss, zen . . .”

  “I’d say Mr. Turgoose was shot with a pistol, and a small one at that,” said Thomas. He flung a look over at the clothes, crumpled and bloodied, on the nearby table.

  Without a word, both men advanced to inspect the disheveled pile. There was something discomforting to Thomas about going through a dead man’s clothes, like checking his bills or reading letters from his wife. He picked up the pair of worsted stockings. Both were splashed with blood mingled with spots of mud. The breeches, too, were spattered, but it was the fustian coat that had borne the brunt of the terrible affair. The professor held it aloft so that Thomas could inspect it more easily. The right breast was drenched in dried blood and at the center of the large, dark red stain was a hole. The Saxon was about to fold it and return it to the bundle, when Thomas stopped him. Experience had taught him always to look in a dead man’s pockets. He delved in, first to the left, which he noted was torn, then the right.

  “What have we here?” he asked, pulling out a crumpled scrap of paper.

  The professor leaned in, frowning and hooking his spectacles onto his nose.

  “Well, well,” muttered Thomas as he scanned the note. Written in an ill-educated hand were scrawled the words: Beware of Raven’s Wood.

  Chapter 6

  Up in the woods that spilled onto the Boughton Estate, the men were hard at work coppicing in the coupe. The longer spring days saw them rising with the birds and taking up their tools, not downing them again, save for the odd break, until dusk. The woodland floor should have been bursting into life by now. But where clusters of cowslips and celandine would normally peep their yellow heads above the leaf carpet, the beech mast still lingered underfoot. Spring was late.

  The trees in this coupe were hazel, beech, and a few sweet chestnut. They were particularly good for fencing. They stood with their branches thin and straight and pointing upward, like hairs on the heads of frightened men. Because their arms had been lopped befo
re their prime, their branches neither thickened nor spread. They could not reach out and entwine in a thick canopy as they did deeper inside the forest, so that grass and moss grew at their feet, enabling cattle and pigs to graze and forage freely in the mire.

  On this particular morning, two men and a boy were working the stools to the northeastern corner of Raven’s Wood, cutting mainly hazel, but a few ash and sweet chestnut standards, too, that were allowed to grow bigger for sturdier roof timbers. Although it was mid-April, the leaves of all but the oak had still not been persuaded to unfold themselves. The men did not complain. It made their task much easier. It was seven years since the older ones had last worked the area. The poles on most of the trees had grown high, upward of four feet from the crown, and straight, too. There was good timber to be had for fencing and roofs; firewood, as well. It was Chilterns wood that kept London fires aglow day and night, and the coppicers could barely keep up with the demand. Nearby an old mare grazed contentedly. She’d been unhitched from the wagon and hobbled. By the end of the day, she’d be pulling it down the hill into Brandwick piled high with timber.

  Abraham Diggott—or Abe, as he was known—had the most years under his belt. He’d been born in the forest and had worked the trees for near on half a century, and now his face and hands were as gnarled as the broadest oak. It was often said by those who knew him that when he cut himself, it was sap, not blood, that ran from his veins. The dull thud of the ax, followed by the rasp of the saw, were sounds as melodious to him as the call of any nightingale. And seeing the bodies of his son and grandson move in and out of the dappled shade of the coppice as they cut through wood gladdened his heart. This joy, this sense of being alive, was what the forest gave him. These days, however, he knew his body was failing him. It no longer obeyed his commands. Like a blunt ax, it was not fit to work; only unlike an ax, it could not be peened and sharpened. His time was quickly passing, and he knew his son, Adam, tall and broad, would soon have to take charge.