The Bone Fire

by The Bone Fire (retail) (epub)

  ‘These documents are my own,’ I said quickly, remembering the promise I had made, only moments before, to keep these letters secret.

  Edwin tapped his nose mockingly. ‘Ah yes. Whatever you say, de Lacy. Whatever you say.’ He then swayed forward and grabbed my arm to steady himself. ‘Godfrey will have chores for me, you know,’ he said, breathing beery fumes up into my face. ‘Did he tell you what they were?’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  He grasped me more tightly. ‘He probably wants me to muck out the stables, or sweep out the hall.’ He then belched – onions and beer. ‘That’s what he thinks of me, de Lacy. His own brother. I won’t be surprised if I’m told to empty the chamber pots next.’

  ‘Good night to you, Edwin,’ I said.

  ‘Where are you going, de Lacy?’ he said. ‘Come back.’

  ‘Good night,’ I repeated.

  I walked away, but he called out to me. ‘May it be a good night for you,’ he shouted. ‘In the arms of that mouth-watering little Venetian of yours.’

  I stopped dead and then stalked back to him, pointing a finger into his face. ‘Don’t speak that way about Filomena.’

  He laughed. ‘I was paying you a compliment, de Lacy. Your wife is a thing of beauty.’ He prodded my chest and repeated the words with a lascivious lick of his lips. ‘A thing of beauty.’

  I grasped hold of his finger and pushed him away. ‘Stay away from my wife, do you hear me?’

  He only laughed at this threat, before he fell against the wall again. His eyes were now closed as he slipped down onto the cobblestones, and suddenly I had the urge to kick him. I walked away quickly, heading for the stairs to our apartment, before I gave in to this impulse. But I could not escape Edwin of Eden quite so easily. As I climbed the steep staircase towards our door, I could hear his wild, drunken laughter echoing about the inner ward. It was a strange, unnerving sound – shrill and repetitive, like the jeering yaffle of a woodpecker.

  I closed the door on him – pleased to finally be returning to Filomena and our warm bed. I threw off my cloak and then crawled between the sheets beside my wife, forgetting all about Godfrey and his unpleasant younger brother, until I realised there was somebody else in the bed with us. It was Hugh – his small body curled up like a cat in the space between us. I couldn’t help but laugh at this final defeat, at the end of this trying day. My son had impeccable timing. It was no wonder that Filomena and I were yet to conceive a child.

  Chapter Six

  I woke early the next morning to find that Filomena and Hugh were still sleeping. Weak shafts of daylight were creeping through the draughty window, and the air was thick with silence – that wonderful stillness that only exists in the hour before a castle fully awakens. I turned to gaze at Filomena for a while. She looked so beautiful when she was asleep, her olive skin dark against the pale sheets. I then listened to her breathing – gloriously content in my moment of peace.

  It was then that I remembered my conversation with Godfrey from the night before, and my contentment evaporated. Had my friend already left the castle on his secretive mission? If so, he must have been very quiet, since I hadn’t yet heard the clanking chains of the portcullis being raised. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that Godfrey was still within these walls – though this was not a soothing conclusion. Godfrey never gave up on an idea easily, so he must have decided to leave later in the morning, which hardly seemed like a good idea. If he had been planning to slip out of the castle without being noticed, as had been his assertion to me the night before, then surely it would have been wiser to leave before the others were awake?

  I rose from bed without disturbing Hugh and Filomena, left our apartment and then went to look for Alice Cross, finding her at the other end of the inner ward, where she was limply throwing down handfuls of grain for the chickens.

  ‘Have you seen your master this morning?’ I asked her.

  She looked up from her reverie, almost shocked to see my face. ‘No, my Lord,’ she said. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Is he out of bed yet?’

  She gave a shrug. ‘I expect so. My master likes to be up at first light.’

  I paused for a moment. ‘I wondered,’ I said, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Was the portcullis raised overnight?’

  She furrowed her brow, clearly baffled by my question. ‘No, my Lord. Of course not.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Why would anybody want to raise the portcullis?’ she said with a huff, before returning her attention to the chickens. ‘Everybody knows that there’s plague out there.’

  Godfrey’s promise to slip in and out of the castle came to mind once more. ‘Is there another way out of here?’ I asked, once again trying to sound as if this were the most normal of questions.

  ‘What do you mean, my Lord?’ she said, now screwing up her eyes and looking at me as if I were mad.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Is there a tunnel somewhere? Or maybe a secret doorway?’

  ‘No, my Lord,’ she said firmly. ‘There’s nothing like that. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘It was just an idea.’

  I wandered back to our apartment feeling bad-tempered – not only because of this conversation, but also in anticipation of the bitter argument that was sure to transpire later that morning, when Godfrey tried to leave the castle in front of the other guests – particularly Lord Hesket. Godfrey would expect me to take his side in such a confrontation, and this was not a prospect that I relished.

  I helped Filomena to dress my mother and Hugh, before we made our way outside for our morning exercise. With so little outdoor space within the confines of the castle, we needed to make the most of this stingy square of cobblestones. Gathered alongside Lord and Lady Hesket, Robert of Lyndham and Old Simon, we squeezed together at one end of the inner ward, vying for the few shards of low sun that made it over the high walls at this time of year. Suddenly I felt like a chicken, enclosed in a coop, constricted, even suffocated – overwhelmed again by an urge to escape. I took a few deep breaths and let the feeling pass, distracting myself by making conversation with the others. When I discovered, after making a few gentle enquiries, that nobody else here had seen Godfrey that morning, I decided it was time to search for him again.

  I started in the obvious place, climbing the stairs to Godfrey’s library, wondering, with each step, why he was leaving his departure so late in the morning. When my knocks went unanswered, I tried the door, and found to my surprise, that it was unlocked. As the heavy door slid open inward, I then expected to find Godfrey at his work, since this room was only left unlocked when Godfrey was inside, but instead the place was completely empty. A little mystified by this, I then made my way to his bedchamber, knocked and entered to find that this room was empty as well.

  By now I was becoming concerned rather than puzzled by my friend’s disappearance, so I searched out Alice Cross once again. This time I found her in the kitchen, where she was pummelling a boulder of dough with her strong, capable arms. Behind her, the firewood was already blazing inside the blackened dome of the bread oven. I was surprised to see another person in the kitchen. It was Lady Emma, standing beside the bread oven and staring at the flames with fascination. Her cheeks reddened by the heat.

  ‘I haven’t been able to find Lord Eden yet,’ I told our steward. ‘I’ve looked in his library and bedchamber, but he’s nowhere to be seen.’ Alice Cross went to answer, but I carried on. ‘He can’t have left the castle, because the portcullis hasn’t been raised. So, unless you know of some other way out?’ I paused, waiting to see how she would answer this.

  She lifted her hand from the dough and wiped some of the floury residue across her face. ‘No, my Lord,’ she said wearily. ‘I told you that before. I’ve lived here all of my life. If there were any secret tunnels in this castle, then I would know about them.’

  ‘Then you need to come with me and look for him.’

/>   ‘But I’m baking, my Lord,’ she said, before she waved her arm disparagingly towards Emma. ‘And looking after this child.’

  ‘Never mind that. We need to find Lord Eden.’

  ‘But I can’t leave Lady Emma in here alone,’ she protested. ‘The foolish girl tries to pick up the embers in the bread oven. I have to watch her like a hawk.’

  ‘Then I’ll take her back to her father,’ I said. ‘But please, Mistress Cross. We need to hurry up.’

  I sent our truculent steward to the cellars, whilst I led Lady Emma back to the inner ward to join her father and stepmother, before then climbing the stairs to the parapet walk at the top of the curtain wall. I had the idea that Godfrey might have decided to spend the morning admiring the view from these elevated paths, but the walkways were empty.

  For a moment, I stopped to look out across the marsh myself. The grey clouds were low and ominous, painting a gauzy murk across the far horizon. Rather than lift my spirits, this sight only served to increase the sense of dread that was settling in my stomach. I turned my back and went to descend the steps again, when I met Alice Cross coming up in the other direction. Her face was bright red as she struggled to breathe.

  ‘Lord Somershill,’ she panted. ‘You must come quickly.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

  ‘Lord Eden’s been found.’

  ‘Where?’

  Alice Cross leant against the wall to catch her breath. ‘The poor master is dead,’ she said. ‘The clockmakers found him in their wooden chest.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The master is dead, my Lord,’ she repeated, now struggling to speak between each gasp. ‘I’ve seen him with my own two eyes. His body’s been left in a box. In one of the cellars.’

  I tried to ask more, but Alice Cross had fallen to her knees, overcome with shock. I left her for a few short moments until her colour returned, and then helped her to stand up and take me to Godfrey – though she would not accompany me into the cellar itself, claiming that she could not bear to look at her master’s dead body again.

  I entered the dark room alone, finding de Groot and his nephew Hans standing in one corner, holding their lantern over an ornately carved chest. This was the long box that the clockmakers had used to bring all the parts for their astronomical clock from Delft, and yet now it held the corpse of a man. Even from the door, I could see that it was Godfrey inside the chest. His reddish-brown hair was poking over the sides like the curling tips of dried bracken.

  I walked across the room and pushed past the two Dutchmen to look inside the chest, but I’m ashamed to say that the oddest thought came to mind when I first saw Godfrey’s body. I found myself wondering if this was some sort of joke, orchestrated by The Fool. That Godfrey was only pretending to be dead, in order to play a stupid trick on me. I prodded him sharply, but Godfrey did not wake up and laugh. Instead he remained perfectly, profoundly still, and my notion that this had been a joke soon dissipated. My friend was dead. Murdered – for his sunken face was smothered with blood. For a moment I turned my eyes away, for I could not bear to look at him. It was only hours since we’d been discussing the Plague and its causes – and yet now Godfrey was lying in front of me, as an immobile, inanimate corpse. No more capable of debate than the wooden slats that surrounded him.

  I wiped my face and tried to ignore my churning stomach. ‘Who found the body?’ I asked, turning to de Groot.

  ‘It was Hans,’ he told me. ‘The poor boy came into this room to pack away some tools into our chest. He opened the lid of the box and found this.’ The clockmaker waved a hand over Godfrey’s dead body and then shook his head. ‘Poor Hans,’ he sighed.

  I turned to ‘poor’ Hans. ‘Is this true?’ I asked. The young Dutchman didn’t answer. Instead he stared back at me with a blank, inscrutable expression on his face. ‘You don’t speak English, do you?’ I said, realising that I was yet to hold a conversation with this boy.

  ‘Of course my nephew speaks English,’ said de Groot. ‘He’s been properly educated.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t he answer my question?’ I said.

  ‘Because he’s distressed, my Lord. The poor boy has never seen a dead body before. It’s very upsetting for him.’

  I looked at Hans, who was now peering back into the chest with such prurient interest, that it seemed to me that he was fascinated, rather than upset by Godfrey’s corpse. When he poked his spidery fingers into Godfrey’s bloodied hair and then lifted them to his nose, I grasped hold of his tunic and pulled him away.

  ‘Stop doing that,’ I told him.

  Hans looked at me for a moment – his expression still blank, until a smirk curled across his crimson lips.

  ‘Just get out of here,’ I said. When he hesitated, I shouted. ‘Get out! Come on. Both of you.’

  I steered the pair towards the door, though they were reluctant to leave – especially de Groot, who argued that he should be allowed to remove Godfrey from his valuable chest as soon as possible, before the foul fluids of his death started to stain the casing. I closed the door on de Groot’s noisy protests and then contemplated leaving myself. This was a tempting idea, but on the other hand, I wanted to take a proper look at Godfrey’s body before this cellar became full of onlookers and grievers. I wanted to understand what had happened to him.

  And so, with some hesitancy, I returned to the wooden chest in the corner, feeling a tear form in the corner of my eye as I looked down at my friend’s bloodied face. Godfrey had been a man with energy, hopes and ambitions – all of which had been snuffed out by this act of violence. And for what reason? Why would anybody have wanted to kill a man such as Godfrey? It didn’t make sense.

  I wiped away the tear and looked again, now realising that his body had not been dumped randomly into this chest. Quite the opposite. In fact, it seemed to me that Godfrey’s corpse had been arranged into a pose, with his cloak wrapped about his body, as if the murderer had tucked him into bed. The result was a grotesque tableau. A dead man put to sleep inside a wooden box. Godfrey was not a large man, but nevertheless this improvised bed could not accommodate his slight frame. His legs were bent at the knees and his head was squashed up against one end of the box, so that his chin was resting on his chest. It looked as if he might open his eyes at any moment and start reading an imaginary book that was resting against his knees.

  I took another deep breath, and then leant in more closely, wanting to look at the wound on Godfrey’s temple. It was a wide but shallow gash, surrounded by swollen and bruised skin, and was probably the cause of his death. But just to be certain, I quickly ran my hand beneath the cloth of his tunic, to find out whether I could feel any other obvious injuries. I found nothing but cold, hard flesh that was unyielding to the touch – suggesting to me that Godfrey had been dead a few hours already.

  As the first stale eddies of his death reached my nose, I was suddenly reminded of my childhood in the monastery, where it had been my duty to prepare the dead of our brotherhood for burial. I had washed, dressed and then laid out their bodies in a coffin, so I had a familiarity with the dead – an understanding of how the body changes in those first few hours after life is extinguished. I had never felt saddened by this work, because most of these dead men had been elderly monks, with whom I’d had little contact. But I was sad about Godfrey. And guilty. I had been rude to my friend at our last meeting – angry and churlish about being summoned to his library. I had deliberately left behind the book that he’d tried to lend me, and I’d only agreed to take his letters on sufferance. We had been more than acquaintances, but at that moment, I felt that my own part in our friendship had fallen short.

  I was covering Godfrey’s face with his cloak when the first of the visitors arrived. It was Godfrey’s younger brother, Edwin of Eden, who sprinted into the room dressed in a dirty nightshirt, even though it was nearly noon. He smelt as badly of beer and onions as he had done the previous night, when we had bumped into one another in the darkness of the i
nner ward.

  ‘I’ve only just heard,’ he said breathlessly, running his hands through his greasy hair. ‘Where’s Godfrey?’

  ‘In the chest,’ I said, pointing to the box.

  He gulped. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Would you like to see him?’ I asked.

  Edwin held up his short arms in alarm. ‘Good God, no thank you, de Lacy. I can’t stand the sight of dead bodies.’

  ‘Godfrey was murdered,’ I said. ‘Did they tell you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, suddenly leaning one hand against the wall, as if he were about to faint. His head dropped and a bead of spittle fell from his lips. I thought he was about to vomit, until he stood upright again and took a deep breath. ‘Why would anybody want to kill my brother?’ he asked. ‘I know Godfrey could be an annoying bastard, but this . . .’ He nodded his head towards the clockmakers’ chest. ‘Why would they put his body in there?’

  I went to answer, when he fell against the wall again, now holding both hands to his mouth, as his cheeks puffed in and out like a pair of bag bellows. It was only moments before he noisily heaved the contents of his stomach onto the floor. As I had suspected, it seemed he had been consuming beer and onions.

  When Edwin had nothing left to bring up, I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on,’ I said, trying my best to sound sympathetic. ‘You need to clean yourself up and speak to everybody.’

  ‘Me?’ he said with some surprise. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they’ll expect to hear from you, Edwin. You’re Lord Eden now. The head of this castle.’ His jaw dropped for a moment, and I had the impression that this sudden rise in status had not yet occurred to him. He then ran his thumb and forefinger around the edge of his mouth, removing the last traces of vomit from his lips.