Hill of Bones

by The Medieval Murderers

  She drew one slender finger seductively down the front of Malinferno’s partially undone, soiled linen shirt as she uttered these final words. The professor was unimpressed, and stopped her hand before it reached a region where his brain would cease to function.

  ‘Nice try, Doll. But I will have the scarab back.’

  ‘Damn you, Joe Malinferno.’

  Doll stamped her pretty slippered foot, and dropped the ruby scarab she had purloined into Malinferno’s upturned palm. He closed his fist over it, and winked at Doll.

  ‘Anyway, I need to sell it, or you and I will not have any means of getting to Solsbury Hill after we do the unrolling for the duchess.’

  Doll Pocket gave out a whoop. ‘Then we are off on the treasure hunt, after all?’

  Malinferno grimaced. ‘Yes, if I can sell the scarab.’

  As if deliberately trying to annoy him, Doll suddenly cackled like a demented hen, and grabbed Malinferno by the waist. She swung him round in a madcap dance that had the aged floorboards creaking under them.

  ‘Oh, we’ll have a real good time, won’t we, Joe?’

  Her celebration was suddenly drowned out by the most hideous noise Malinferno had ever heard. It resembled the sound of a pedestrianist running the race of his life, gasping for each breath. It would have to be a giant of a man, though, for the breaths were ear-splitting hisses and snorts that rent the air with their exhalations. These frenetic gasps were accompanied by a veritable thrumming, like the parts of a weaving loom, or water pump in a flooded mine, with overtones of howling dogs. Doll pulled up the sash window, and thrust her head out.

  ‘Oh lawks, it’s the very devil come to carry us away.’

  Malinferno peered over her shoulder, aware of the softness of her skin and the alluring scent that perfumed it. He realised her expostulation was not far from the truth. Slowly rolling to a halt in front of their lodgings was a shiny black four-wheeled coach. But the unnerving thing was that there were no horses attached to the front of it. Smoke and steam roiled around the rear of the coach, giving it the very appearance of some demon’s conveyance. The whole contraption vibrated like a living creature. On the driver’s seat perched a dwarfish figure wreathed in a dirty green coat, his face obscured by a heavy black mask. Malinferno realised that the sound that resembled howling dogs had in truth been howling dogs. Wherever this hellish coach had come from, it had been chased by a gathering pack of street curs, which yelped and barked at its passage, baring their teeth in fear and loathing. The pack now stood at a safe distance from the steaming rear of the coach, growling and circling. The dwarf rose from his seat, skipped down nimbly to the ground, and threw a stone at the dogs. They slinked away, apparently more scared of the little demon than his conveyance. He then turned towards Malinferno’s lodgings, and toiled one at a time up the steep steps to the front door. Doll squealed in a mixture of horror and delight.

  ‘Blimey, Joe, have you made a pact with the devil or something? Because I think he’s come to collect.’

  It turned out that there was nothing demonic about the steam-shrouded carriage and its dwarfish driver. In fact, its appearance heralded another stroke of good fortune for Malinferno. For, when Joe descended to the front door to admit the little man, he discovered the conveyance had indeed come for him. But it was not sent by Satan. The owner of the new-fangled, steam-powered horseless carriage was none other than the niggardly Duchess of Avon. The dwarf, John Smallbone by name, pulled the leather mask with round glass portholes for each eye from his face, revealing a quite cherubic expression. He explained that his mistress had sent him to collect ‘the professor’ as the venue for the unrolling had been changed. Malinferno was intrigued, but pulled a face, jingling the coins in his pocket.

  ‘I am not sure I can afford to work for your mistress, John Smallbone.’

  The dwarf cackled, his chubby face turning bright red with the effort.

  ‘The mistress is careful with her money, isn’t she?’ He tapped the side of his bulbous nose. ‘But I think you will find her more generous due to these changes in circumstance.’

  ‘What does the new commission entail?’

  ‘I cannot say, but I am told you are to come with your actress friend . . .’

  Doll, who by now had come down to stand behind Joe, and was listening to the exchange, gave a cry of annoyance.

  ‘Watch it, titch. I ain’t no whore of an actress, but a lady.’

  The dwarf refrained from adding the epithet ‘of the night’ to Doll’s self-description, contenting himself with a deep bow of insincere contrition.

  ‘My apologies, lady. I meant no offence.’ He turned back to Malinferno to continue his explanation. ‘As the journey is some distance, I have come in the Trevithick Flyer.’ He indicated the infernal conveyance. ‘It will easily carry yourselves and your Egyptian mummy to the rites and festivities the duchess has laid on for her special guests.’

  Malinferno was not sure about venturing into the unknown. But the lure of further funds was sufficient to cause him to agree to the change in plans. He ushered Doll upstairs to begin packing their meagre belongings, before turning back to John Smallbone.

  ‘You said we had a journey ahead of us. Where are these festivities to be held?’

  ‘Oh, did I not say? The duchess plans a solemn ritual on an ancient and mysterious site some three miles outside Bath. They do say ghosts roam there at night.’ His little body shuddered. ‘I should not like to be there after dark. It is called Solsbury Hill.’

  The journey to Solsbury Hill took longer than anticipated, so Malinferno and Doll Pocket’s arrival was closer to dusk than John Smallbone fancied, bearing in mind the ghostly associations he had mentioned. The problem was the Trevithick Flyer, which, it turned out, could not cope with the gradient up from the outskirts of Bath to the hill in question. The horseless carriage huffed and puffed merrily through Bath, drawing attention to its maniacal progress every yard it moved. Fingers pointed at this strange carriage that rolled along without horses, but with a great bubbling canister of steam lashed to its rear portion. And the sight of Smallbone, with his infernal mask once again on his face, was enough to cause many a sign against the devil to be cast his way. But as the ground began to change from level to a steady incline, the carriage rolled along more and more slowly. Malinferno’s scientific mind saw that this increased lack of propulsion was in inverse proportion to a growth in alarming sounds emanating from the boiler behind them. The wheezes and sighs that had marked their initial progress forward became louder and more stertorous. The engine was gasping like a labouring runner whose heart and lungs were about to burst. Doll clutched Malinferno’s arm in alarm.

  ‘Lawks, what if the boiler explodes, Joe?’

  Malinferno pasted a confident smile on his face. A smile that was more optimistic than he felt at heart.

  ‘Trust in science, Doll. Mr Trevithick is a great engineer . . .’

  Before he could finish his speech lauding the skills of the masterful Cornishman, however, the boiler gave a great, despairing groan. Doll rose from her seat.

  ‘Bugger Mr Trevithick. I’m getting off before we are blown sky high.’

  She jumped out of the carriage, and onto the side of the roadway. Malinferno was much pleased that the lightening of the load seemed to assist the labouring engine. The Flyer began to gain speed once more. He leaned out the window to express his sense of triumph. But he was exasperated to see that Doll, even hampered with her long skirts, was walking faster than the engine could propel the carriage. She was rapidly forging ahead, and Malinferno was too embarrassed to call out to her to wait. Finally, a steep hill was reached, and the not-so-winged Flyer gave up the ghost. With a piercing hiss, the steam pressure gave up and groaned out of the emergency release valve. The conveyance was no more, and Malinferno was left red-faced, staring out the carriage window. Doll sat down on a convenient milestone, her legs akimbo, and roared with laughter.

  It took John Smallbone an hour to find a farm
er who could bring a pair of heavy horses used for ploughing in order to pull the Flyer to its destination. The coach was exceptionally heavy with Trevithick’s engine stuck on the back, so eventually the passengers had to descend and walk beside their cumbersome conveyance. In fact, Malinferno was reduced to carrying both his and Doll’s baggage. So it was a sweating and purple-faced professor who arrived in the duchess’s encampment on Solsbury Hill, along with his prettily perspiring companion and a more conventionally powered carriage, pulled by horses. Doll’s muslin dress stuck to her curves, and several of the males in the crowd who had assembled at their arrival had eyes for her barely concealed bosom. Servants in knee-breeches and white powdered wigs scurried across the site, which, with its tents and men on horseback, resembled a grand hiring fair. Or maybe Mr Astley’s Amphitheatre of Performing Arts, which usually stood close by Westminster Bridge, for Doll heard a terrible animalistic roar, then spotted, not far away, the brown furry outline of a performing bear tethered to a post in the ground. She almost expected to see tumblers, and a girl standing by a board having knives thrown at her.

  John Smallbone leaped from the driver’s box, and his dwarfish stature only added to the carnival atmosphere as he bustled across the site to find his mistress, the duchess.

  Malinferno muttered in Doll’s ear, ‘See how the noble lords are looking at us. I think we are the freak show at this grand spectacle.’

  Doll laughed, and passed her handkerchief over her brow.

  ‘I think they are looking at me, Joe. Not you. Though I think someone else has just distracted them.’

  She pointed at another carriage, which had just arrived atop Solsbury Hill and debouched a woman dressed in what Doll could only have described as en Venus. That is, she was not dressed much further up than the waist, save for an outlandish peasant headdress ornamented with spangles and fluttering ribbons. Malinferno glanced over at her.

  ‘What a trollop. She has no doubt been brought in to entertain the gentlemen after we have played our part in this . . . ridiculous melodrama. Look how they crowd around her, simply because her bosoms are on show.’

  Doll poked him in the ribs. ‘If her bosom troubles you, then take your eyes off it for a minute. We need to work out how we are going to set up the mummy so we can unroll him for the delectation of this crowd. And did you bring the spades? We have some digging to do when we have finished with the demonstration.’

  Malinferno was irritated by Doll’s suggestion that he was leering over the middle-aged tart who seemed to have attracted everyone else’s attention. But he couldn’t help watching until she disappeared in the crowds making their way towards the duchess’s tent.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course I have them here. And the scarab and the papyrus, so we can salt the mummy with extra finds. What is more important is how on earth we are going to sneak away in order to dig where Bromhead’s map says the treasure is located.’

  He fumbled in his greatcoat pocket for the precious piece of paper entrusted to him by his friend Augustus. He unfolded it and pressed the ancient map flat on top of the box that held the remains of the Egyptian mummy. He pointed a finger at the sketchy drawing. It was of the roughly triangular-shaped earthworks with one point of the equal-sided triangle at the bottom. This point was rounded, and to Doll’s eyes looked more like a naughty child’s sketch of a mound of Venus than anything geographical. She giggled, and Malinferno gave her a funny look before he carried on.

  ‘Look, we came up to the hill on this track running from the south-east, and Augustus’s notes suggest we should dig where he has put this cross. This means our site is . . .’ He looked up in order to orientate himself, and groaned. ‘. . . Exactly where the duchess has pitched her tent.’

  Doll looked to where Malinferno was pointing. It was one of the more extravagant tents erected on the site, and was obviously the duchess’s. They could see her speaking to John Smallbone through the opening facing them. The interior was laid out with carpets and a bed, as if it were an Eastern harem. Or at least Malinferno’s image of such a location, though his idea was based only on his intimate knowledge of the rooms in Madame de Trou’s brothel in Petticoat Lane. The duchess peered out into the darkening sky, and waved a dismissive hand at Smallbone. The little dwarf bustled back over to Malinferno and Doll Pocket.

  ‘The duchess is annoyed that you are late. She says the banquet has finished, and the guests are awaiting the entertainment.’ He pulled a face. ‘I am sorry. It is my fault you missed all the food. Let me guide you to the tent where you can prepare for your show. You are on after the dancing bear. I will try to rustle up some cold meat and potatoes.’

  He hurried off before Malinferno could explain he did not put on a ‘show’ like some circus entertainer. He gave his audience an educational experience. He turned to Doll to express his outrage to her, but she was already following Smallbone. She waved a hand at him.

  ‘Come on, Joe, or the show will be late.’

  The whole of the southern end of the hill was littered with tents. It was as if an invading army led by Napoleon Bonaparte had landed close to Bath and was about to strike at the very heart of England. But of course rumours of the Emperor’s escape from St Helena had long been scotched. England’s firmest enemy seemed to be declining into comfortable old age on his tiny island empire.

  After clambering over several guy ropes and almost pitching face down over a tent-peg, Malinferno grudgingly entered a small and stiflingly hot tent where Doll was already disrobing. His demeanour improved as he admired her curves, and the pinkness of her flesh. She flashed him a steely look, and threw the long white robe he wore as Anubis over his face.

  ‘Get dressed, you overgrown satyr.’

  Doll’s vocabulary was improving in leaps and bounds in his company, as was her general education. Her voracious mind swallowed up every piece of history Malinferno could throw at her. She was an amazing autodidact, though often he teased her by describing her more as an idiot savant. She wasn’t in any way a fool, however, but rather a very able mind that had been in its raw state when Malinferno had met her. Soon she would be more knowledgeable than he was, if indeed she wasn’t already.

  ‘Stop wool-gathering, Joe. We will solve the problem of digging the treasure up soon enough. When everyone is too drunk to stay awake, we can get to work.’ She thrust the Anubis jackal-head at him. ‘If you can stay sober tonight yourself.’

  He nodded his agreement to her resolve. But just then Smallbone reappeared bearing provender on a tray almost as large as he was. In the middle was a large bottle of red wine. Malinferno licked his lips.

  ‘Just one glass, Doll. To lubricate my vocal cords.’

  Doll sighed. ‘Very well, but pour one for me too, if you please.’

  The bottle was well nigh empty before Malinferno and Doll were led by Smallbone to the large marquee where dinner had taken place. Some of the debris from the repast was still scattered over the white tablecloth. Dramatically, Malinferno swept it all away by yanking the cloth off, and imperiously he commanded the bewigged servants carrying the linen-bound mummy to lay it straight on to the polished surface of the oak table. The guests crowded into the marquee, and his anatomical exhibition began.

  Now it was over, he was occupied with levering the intoxicated body of the honourable representative of some rotten borough off Doll’s bosom. The phantasmagoria laid on by the duchess had finished, and the box containing the unwrapped mummy was borne away by the servants. Most of the guests had staggered away to their carriages and Bath, or to tents set up on Solsbury Hill. One small group still hovered around the table that bore the remains of the wines and port that had been served over the meal Doll and Joe had missed. At the centre of the little clique stood the old trollop Malinferno had seen arriving soon after they had. Her turban was askew, and her face flushed from drink. Someone whispered in her ear, and she laughed coarsely. Her drooping, veiny dugs wobbled, and she absent-mindedly tweaked one exposed nipple. As though tiring of her entourage
she waved them away, and slumped on a balloon-back chair that looked quite out of place on the scuffed grass of the hill. Malinferno grimaced at the sight of her gargantuan thighs.

  ‘Let’s get the spades, and see what we can do about digging for this treasure.’

  Doll ignored his whispered command, and pointed at the old girl. ‘I’ll be with you in a while. I just want to make sure she gets to her bed, poor thing.’

  Malinferno gave her a curious look, but guessed her intentions were all mixed up with a fellow feeling for the old tart. There but for the grace of God, and all that. Or for the grace of Malinferno. He had never thought until now that he had saved a fallen woman, but he had. It was not something he would say to Doll, though, if he valued his life. He took one last look at the old woman, who now seemed to have dozed off, and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Very well, but don’t be too long tucking her up into bed. We have work to do tonight.’

  He went off to the tent they had used to change into their Egyptian clothes, and where he had secreted two spades brought up in the crate containing the mummy. He would have liked to have retained the crate but it and the mummy had been whisked away. Doll watched Joe leave the marquee, then rose and sauntered tiredly over to the half-naked trollop sitting snoring beside the table of scattered bottles. She rummaged around the debris until she found a bottle with some dregs of red wine in the bottom. Holding it to her lips, she tipped it back and drank deep, quenching a sudden thirst. When she lowered the empty bottle again, she saw the old woman was scrutinising her with one bleary eye. Doll smiled.

  ‘Hard work, pleasing them, isn’t it?’

  The woman laughed with that guttural sound that Doll had heard earlier across the tent. When she spoke her voice sounded as though she came from one of the Germanic states, though there was a pleasing melody to it nevertheless. Doll could see there had once been an attractiveness to her, though now her coarsened features gave her more of a homely, careworn appearance. Doll was glad she had kept her vow of getting out of the bawdyhouse as quickly as possible. She wouldn’t admit it to Joe, but she was grateful he had not objected when she had latched on to his coat-tails. That night they had met in Madame de Trou’s she had first thought of him as an easy touch. But it was not long before she saw how unsure he was of himself, despite all his bluster. She decided he could help her, but she could also help him. They were a good team, even though they often bickered about who was in charge. She tried to concentrate on what the woman was saying.