by Gary Dolman
“Lucie, the focus of the search is to be Sewingshields Castle. Let’s make Godspeed there and we can only pray that we’re not too late!”
Chapter 37
They saw no trace, either of Uther Pendragon or of Artie or Jennifer Lowther as they hurried to negotiate the rocky, moorland paths across the Vallum, the Wall and the Great Whin Sill. Nor had they when they abandoned their bicycles and turned east along the base of the steep escarpment towards Sewingshields itself. Lucie said as much to Atticus, adding that thankfully, there had been no sign of the searching troops either.
Atticus stopped where their path cut across the base of a brutally high crag.
“These are the Sewingshields Crags, Lucie. By all the gods, this is where we should find them.”
Their eyes searched the folds and fissures of the rock face and again it was Lucie that had the misfortune to see it first.
“Atticus!” she called. She ran towards the foot of the crags and vomited.
The body of a man lay on its back amongst the scree and fallen rocks. It was lying perfectly and unnaturally straight with its hands bound together piously over its chest and its blood-caked head resting on a large, bronze platter. A number of bloody, white sticks radiated from its back and lay against the turf, turf that was almost black with blood.
“The blood eagle,” Atticus gasped and retched.
“What is a blood eagle?” Lucy whispered. There was indeed something akin to an eagle’s wings in the way the sticks were fanned out.
“That is.” Atticus nodded towards the body.
“It is truly, truly diabolical,” he added after a moment. “It was a punishment execution used by the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings. The victim’s back was cut open and his ribs pulled out and twisted to form the shape of an eagle’s wings. If he was lucky, they would pull his lungs out too, so he could suffocate to death. If he was unlucky, they would fill the wounds with salt.”
Lucie stared at the corpse. “Atticus, it is James, Sir Hugh’s footman!”
Atticus stared at the face, bloodless and white against the heavily dewed bronze of the platter. It was tortured and twisted in death and one eye was a trailing, bloody mess, ravaged by a scavenging bird or some other creature. But his wife was right – it was what had once been James, James with the angel’s face.
Lucie reached down and pulled his heavy coat aside. Cut deeply into the flesh just beneath the bound wrists was a cross – a crux decussata, or maybe the rune giefu – horribly enlarged at the centre where someone had perhaps pushed in a fist and drawn out something vital.
“His heart’s been taken, Atticus,” Lucie blurted. “Just like the others. But why has his murderer put a platter under his head?”
“Not just a platter, Lucie, it is the Platter – the Holy Platter. Don’t you recognise it? It’s the one Uther had. I don’t recall a platter being any part of the ritual of the blood eagle though.”
“The angel-faced fart-catcher,” Lucie mused bitterly. She glanced up the sheer walls of the cliffs as if the killer might yet be leering down at them. Then a sudden thought hit her.
“Angel!”
Atticus stared at her.
“Atticus, he’s an angel. Don’t you see? There are his wings and the Platter is his halo. Look at his hands; he’s praying!”
It had to be true.
Atticus said, “So James is the sixth gift. Who, I wonder, will be the seventh and last?”
“The Spear of Destiny, Excalibur, the Holy Platter, the Holy Grail, the garter and the sword from the vault; they’ve all been used. There’s only the bugle horn remaining. But how could you kill someone with a bugle horn?” Lucie gnawed at her lip.
The sound of a bugle rent the air.
It came from behind them, from the wild boglands to the north, from Sewingshields Castle.
“That was the bugle horn,” Atticus cried. “Come on, Lucie, there’s nothing we can do for James now save to find his murderer.”
Lucie nodded grimly and took his arm. Atticus hoisted his bag onto his shoulder with his other and gripped his cane. They glanced at the corpse for a final time before they cut away from the short turf of the footpath into the deep cotton grass and sedge of the moor.
The rough, boggy moorland was hard going. In their haste, they found themselves more than once ankle-deep in freezing, hidden haggs.
“Thank goodness for this rational dress,” Lucie said. “I would have got nowhere in a proper length skirt and bustle. Maybe that was what happened to Lady Igraine and—”
Atticus stopped and put his hand on her arm. “I thought I heard voices,” he whispered.
“Yes, you’re right, I hear it too,” she whispered. “It’s coming from dead ahead.”
Atticus squeezed Lucie’s arm briefly and then beckoned for her to follow him. Slowly and with infinite caution they crept forward up a low rise, their nerves as tight as bowstrings.
Gradually the voices grew louder and more distinct. They seemed to be those of a man and of a young woman.
“It’s Artie and Jennifer,” Lucie mouthed.
Atticus stilled for a moment. She was right. The voices were indeed those of Sir Hugh’s daughter and her half-brother, and they were low and urgent.
Atticus and Lucie moved forward once again and the ground suddenly dropped in front of them to form a broad, shallow depression. In the centre of this depression was a stell, a circular sheep shelter built roughly of dry stones.
Artie and Jennifer Lowther were standing inside it.
“But you must, you must.” Jennifer was pleading, her voice urgent and desperate. “My father has the foxhounds and half the regiment out.” She bent towards the wall. “He hates the very sight of you. He’ll have you shot or torn to pieces by dogs. Do you want that? Don’t you understand?”
“It must be Michael Britton,” Lucie whispered and Atticus nodded; it must indeed be Michael Britton. So they had found them all – all three of the persons whose fingerprints matched those that Lucie had found on the fatal sword grip.
“Uther, if you won’t do it for me, do it for Arthur. Do it for Arthur and for Guinevere. You must, must hide yourself.” She leaned across to Artie and whispered something into his ear. He nodded immediately.
Jennifer turned and kneeled elegantly to the ground.
“Uther, we know for certain that King Arthur has risen. We know he killed those people.”
A faint whisper carried to them, so muffled that neither Atticus nor Lucie could catch the words.
“No we are not!” Jennifer retorted. “We do know it was King Arthur and we know because we’ve found him. Artie and I have found their vault – King Arthur and Lady Guinevere’s secret vault. It is less than fifty yards from this very spot at the end of a hidden cave. We followed King Arthur’s tracks through the grass on the day Samson Elliott was killed and they led us straight to it. He was back in his enchanted slumber by the time that we discovered it, but we saw a brass bugle and a garter there and Lady Guinevere too, and some little barrels marked with his initials: AR – Artorius Rex.
“Now, if you will just stand and walk, we’ll show you for yourself. Uther please, come on – now!”
Atticus steeled himself. His thoughts and conjectures of the previous night, which had so stubbornly refused to harden with the seeming paradox of Bessie Armstrong’s murder had, all at once, crystallised in his mind. They were only confirmed further as he stood listening to Jennifer’s words and now it was time to act.
He shifted his cane to his left fist and, gripping it tightly, he stood and marched towards the scene unfolding in front of them.
A stone thudded against the toe of his boot and bounced into the hollow ahead of him. Jennifer and Artie started and whirled towards the sound. Artie stepped in front of Uther, shielding him with his body, his outstretched arms and his expression of defiance.
“Mr Fox,” Artie exclaimed, his voice as defiant as his expression. “And, Mrs Fox: good day to you both. We imagined you must have
left Northumberland by now.”
“Good day to you.” Atticus bowed his head politely. “And a good day to you too, Mr Britton-cum-Pendragon.”
Their pounding hearts were the only sounds in a charged, silent stand-off.
Jennifer broke first.
“Uther did not kill those people, Mr and Mrs Fox.”
Atticus answered, “So we have just heard. However, with the greatest respect to you both, with the weight of evidence against him, it is going to take a little more to convince a judge and jury than the word of a single lady and gentlemen, even ones who express their beliefs so ardently as you.”
Jennifer and Artie exchanged unspoken words and Jennifer nodded.
“Very well,” said Artie. “We have offered it already and now there appears to be no alternative for any of us. We will show you the vault where King Arthur and Lady Guinevere lie and then you must believe us.
“Mr Fox, would you please be kind enough to assist me with Uther? Sir Hugh’s fusiliers will be upon us before long and we don’t want an innocent man shot out of hand.”
“We certainly do not,” agreed Atticus. “Quickly then, show us this vault.”
He grasped Lucie’s hand and they ran nimbly down into the stell. He passed her his cane and bag and reached down towards Uther, recoiling momentarily as his nostrils were filled with the acrid stench of his greasy, unwashed body.
Artie seemed stricken.
“I’m so sorry, Mr Fox but when he becomes overcome by his illness he cannot find the inclination to care for himself or even to wash as he should, especially when his circumstances are as spartan as they have been of late, sheltering in this sheep pen. Please forgive him.”
Atticus nodded and waved away the apology. He looked down at the man who believed he was a king and thought that, in spite of the steel breastplate he wore under his ragged jacket with its noble red dragon, he had never seen anything less regal. Even after such a short time of living rough on the moors, Uther’s clothes were damp, torn, and encrusted in mud. His hair and beard were matted and unkempt, but by far the most wretched thing to Atticus’s mind was his mien. His expression was of complete hopelessness and total despair. Atticus slipped his fingertips under Uther’s chin and gently lifted his bowed head. Uther’s exhausted eyes gazed out, focussing on nothing through half-closed lids. His face was swollen and slack through lack of sleep and from countless tears which had left their streaked tracks down the grime on his cheeks.
“Let’s go, Michael,” Atticus said.
Uther’s eyes slowly rose to meet Atticus’s at the mention of his birth name. The effort of the movement seemed to cost him every last particle of his strength.
At a nod, Artie and Atticus each reached under Uther Pendragon’s arms and hauled him to his feet.
“Thank God,” breathed Jenny. “This way, quickly now.”
She beckoned them through the tiny gap in the walls of the stell and out onto the open moors, striding out towards the marshes that ringed the site of the old castle at Sewingshields.
“It is just as it was at the Alambagh.” Urth’s acid tone – which now he thought about it so reminded him of old Mrs Ryan, his father’s bombastic housekeeper – voiced his own sudden thought.
As he watched the movements of the enemy, the acres of marshland that spread out at his feet reminded him of the approach to the walled palace that commanded the road to Lucknow, then made fortress by the Sepoy rebels.
It had been Urth then, too, who had suddenly called out to him through the crackle of the skirmish-fire and the roar of the artillery pieces.
“Look, is not he the one who tried to cast us out in the name of his God?” she had bellowed.
Hugh Lowther knew instantly whom she meant. Ahead of him, the regimental chaplain was crouching in a hollow, ministering to a young fusilier who sat shaking his head in bewilderment and terror as his lifeblood spread across his tunic.
“Yes it was,” Lowther had confirmed, knowing already that it would be Verthandi who would speak next – and what she would call upon him to do.
“Kill him for us.”
“But, Verthandi, he is a fusilier.”
“THOSE ARE YOUR ORDERS, DO NOT DEFY US. SHOOT HIM! SHOOT HIM NOW!”
And he realised once again the depth of the Sisters’ wisdom. Because here, in the heat and the chaos of battle, one conical bullet dug out of the flesh of a corpse would look much the same as any other, and many on both sides carried the very same Lee-Enfield rifles.
Quo Fata Vocant.
Looking across the fells of Sewingshields, a first glance might have given an impression of a vast, country meadow, perhaps like the Stray of Harrogate, dotted here and there with patches of sedge grass and gorse. However, as Atticus now knew, the sedges hid deep, freezing haggs and the gorse was impenetrable. It was difficult enough going for a strong, fit man. Encumbered as they were by the dead weight of Uther Pendragon, it had become ten times so.
Eventually, they stumbled over the stony crest of a rise and Jenny called, “It’s not far; we’re almost there now. The cavern entrance is just over yonder.”
She pointed towards a low, overgrown crag, patched green and brown with moss and lichen. It formed one side of a deep, marshy hollow that seemed to have been scooped out of the fell with a pudding spoon.
“I see nothing,” said Lucie.
“It’s very well hidden, Mrs Fox, behind the cover of ivy and brambles. If we can shake off the hounds, he should be safe enough in there for now.”
“Horseman!” hissed Artie, “Over there, on the cliffs.”
All except Uther turned and looked up – up to the very top of the Sewingshields crags, which towered high behind them.
Sure enough, standing quite still in the ruins of the Roman Wall that snaked along the cliff-top was the black silhouette of a solitary, silent horseman. It was impossible to tell at that range who the rider was, much less whether or not he had spotted them. But then, like a phantom, he was gone and the long line of the crags stretched empty and unbroken.
Atticus said, “Quickly, let’s get into this cave. God forbid that it’s one of the fusiliers heading directly for the castle.”
At that moment, heavy raindrops began to strafe the ground around them. He looked up into the angry clouds which had gathered unnoticed over them and added: “The Fates, for once, seem to be on our side. This will surely slow them down.”
They scrambled down the steep side of the hollow, the leather soles of their boots slithering on the long, coarse, moorland grasses and the mosses beneath.
Jennifer, unencumbered by man or baggage hurried ahead, splashing through the sodden ground.
“Be sure to come through the haggs,” she called as she began to search for something in the grass around her, “Your feet will get a soaking but the hounds won’t be far away and it might just break the scent.”
She stooped and tugged a short, stout tree branch free from the clinging grasses. Then, like a battering ram, she drove it into the thick mantle of ivy and brambles that cloaked the crag at that point. It parted to reveal a deep, black void. A wisp of mist began to form and hung in suspension like a ghost as cool air spilled out into the heat and humidity of the day.
“Quickly, get inside,” she urged, her arms trembling under the weight of the heavy scrub.
“Is this the vault?” Uther raised his head from his chest and spoke for the first time.
“It’s the entrance to the cave passage that leads to the vault.” Artie was breathless under Uther’s weight and his face was glossy with sweat. “Inside the vault is where we’ll find King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. If they aren’t already awake, that is.”
He glanced across at Atticus.
All at once, Uther rose and lifted his arms and his weight from the shoulders of Artie and Atticus. He stood upright, swaying slightly like a man drunk. As he did so, Lucie stepped noiselessly forward and pressed close behind Atticus. She slipped the thick shaft of his cane into his hand.
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br /> “Then I will enter by my own strength.” Uther’s voice was suddenly strong and vital.
Atticus ran forward and took the weight of the branch from a fast-tiring Jennifer. She turned, took Uther’s hand in her own and led him gently into the blackness.
Atticus, with a nod to Lucie, dropped the branch and ducked after Artie under the parting of vegetation. There was a sudden, damp, musty smell and he felt a snag on his shoulder as a briar thorn hooked and then broke off into the fabric of his jacket. Then there was just chill and utter, utter blackness.
A match flared in front of him. It illuminated the statuesque, almost angelic form of Jennifer as she held it delicately between her fingers, and reflected in the wide, bright eyes of Uther and Artie on either side of her looking on. She dabbed the match head gently onto the broad wick of a coal miner’s lantern and the stronger, steady light grew, filling the cave.
For a cave it was.
Atticus looked around. Behind him, the entrance was gradually being sealed off by the veil of ivy, weirdly white in the light of the lantern, sinking slowly back into place. In front of him, beyond Artie, Jennifer and Uther, the fissured cave walls disappeared away into a deep, black infinity.
Something moved.
He flinched, startled, and looked down. It was a toad – just a toad, creeping awkwardly across the smooth stone of the cave floor as it made its escape from the glare of the unfamiliar light.
“Are we a little nervy, Mr Fox?”
Atticus looked up to see Artie regarding him with the merest hint of amusement, or was it mockery, on his face.
Atticus transferred his cane instinctively back to his left hand and gripped it firmly. He felt emboldened now. For all his height, Artie was little more than a child after all.
He said, “I’m quite well, thank you, Artie. Now please, after you, I’m anxious to finally see this vault.”
Artie smiled again and lifted the hook of the lantern from Jennifer’s fingers. Then he led the way into the depths of the cave.
