Silent on the Moor

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “Are women ever finished gossiping?” I asked by way of reply. Rook nuzzled my knee and I bent to pet his rough white head.

  “The dog likes you. He doesn’t usually take to gorgios,” John-the-Baptist remarked.

  “We are old friends now, Rook and I.” I straightened, brushing the dog hairs from my skirts. “You must be very glad to see Rosalie again.”

  He nodded. “Aye. It’s been too many years apart. But there’s an end to that.”

  “You mean to take her with you this time?” I wondered if Rosalie knew that. She seemed perfectly content to remain where she was, mired in guilt and bound by a promise to her dead sister.

  “I do,” he told me, folding his arms over his chest in a confident gesture I had seen so often upon his nephew. “This business here is done, or it will be soon.”

  My hand stilled of its own accord. “You know this for a fact?” I wondered then if he had spoken to Brisbane, if perhaps he knew something more of Brisbane’s plans than his own aunt did.

  “My sister has the sight. She told me this will be the end of things,” he said, his brows lowering ominously.

  “Ah, yes. When the moon waxes full, I have heard,” I returned waspishly.

  A small smile played about his lips, nearly hidden by his moustaches. “You do not believe in the sight?”

  “Oh, no, I believe. I have seen it often enough to know its power. It would just be helpful if the sight could be more specific,” I complained.

  John-the-Baptist gave a little snort of laughter, but said nothing.

  “You knew Brisbane as a child,” I said suddenly, remembering Rosalie’s tale of how John-the-Baptist had intervened in a quarrel between Brisbane’s parents.

  He gave a nod, and the kerchief at his neck fell an inch or so, baring the flesh. I could see a thin white line, the legacy of his interference. It marked him still.

  “I taught the boy to sit a horse like a centaur and to play the violin as if it were part of his own arm,” he said proudly. “Rosalie and I had no children. The boy was like my own.”

  “It must have been quite a wrench for you when he left,” I hazarded.

  Again, that slow secret smile. “A wrench? Lady, I gave him the money.”

  My expression must have betrayed my surprise for he gave a roar of laughter, startling the dog. “We are not like gorgio folk,” he reminded me. “A boy is a man when he can keep a wife. And Nicholas had wit. I knew he could survive.” He shook his head. “Lady, you look doubtful, but I tell you the truth. Nicholas was more of a man at ten years old than I was at twenty. He took care of himself because he was forced to it. Life for a poshrat in our tribe is not easy, particularly if his father is the gorgio parent. He would never have been fully accepted.”

  I recognised the word poshrat. It meant a half blood, and it was never used by the Roma as a term of affection.

  “You mean your own people did not consider him one of them?”

  “Never,” he said flatly. “This is why marriage between your people and mine is not encouraged. Life is very hard for the children, more so if the mother is Roma. It is her duty to keep the blood pure and not marry outside of her own people.”

  I gave a sigh of exasperation. “And so the children are punished, when it is through no fault of their own that their blood is mixed?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It is the way. I am not so particular. If the boy was born to my wife’s sister, he is a Rom, that is my way. But I am only one man in the tribe. I cannot change the old ways, and I would not want to. I did what I could for him, and I helped him to leave. I never told Rosalie, but believe me when I say it was the best.”

  “I suppose it was,” I said slowly, thinking of the life Brisbane had made for himself.

  John-the-Baptist must have intuited my thoughts, for he threw his arms wide. “You see what he is now? A gorgio lord, even if he does not bear the title. He owns land and the other gorgios treat him with respect. It is not our way, but it is the gorgio way. If he must live in their world, he must be better than they are.”

  I took his point, but there was no possible reply to such a statement. Brisbane, as a half blood, would always be judged by a different standard, by both his Gypsy family and the English he lived amongst. It struck me as a formula for an incredibly difficult and lonely life.

  “My tea is ready,” he said. “I leave you now.” He lifted his cap to me and I offered my hand.

  He smiled in surprise and took it. His own hand was wide, the fingers long as suited a violinist.

  “You are a lady of many surprises,” he observed, giving me a mischievous smile. “I wonder what secrets you know.”

  “Not as many as I would like,” I told him truthfully.

  He laughed again. “Do not wish to know what is hidden,” he advised me. “Things that are kept in locked cupboards are not worthy to be seen.”

  He left me then, whistling for Rook to follow. The dog gave me a mournful look and trotted obediently away. As they moved, I heard the sound of the Grimswater bell, beckoning faintly. John-the-Baptist did not turn, but Rook pricked up his ears and paused a moment, then put his head down and followed his master.

  “I will see at least one mystery in this place solved,” I muttered, gathering up my skirts and picking my way hastily over the moor toward Grimswater. The ground was softer here, the mud clutching at my shoes and hems like soft, grasping fingers. I jerked myself free time and again, never quite making headway as I zigzagged over the ground, searching for a safe, dry path.

  I thought that keeping to the low clumps of moor grasses would ensure safe footing, but no sooner had I stepped upon a promising bit of gorse than the ground gave way beneath me and I sank nearly up to my knees in squelching black mud.

  “Damnation,” I said. I wriggled my legs but they were stuck fast in the mud.

  I heard a voice behind me.

  “Lady Julia, are you quite all right?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Godwin was bounding toward me, light-footed as a damsel, springing from tussock to tussock until he reached me, not even breathing heavily.

  “Godwin, thank God. I am quite stuck,” I told him, looking ruefully at my legs.

  He clucked at me and bent swiftly to remedy the situation. He looked up at me, his hand poised near my leg.

  “May I?” His lips were twitching with amusement, and I thumped him on the back with a fist.

  “Yes, you lummox. I don’t care about propriety just now. Get me out!”

  He bent again to his task, wrapping his hands firmly about my stockinged thigh and pulling slowly and evenly until the leg came free with a sickening sucking sound. There was a gush of black water and the hole filled again, swirling peaty mud about my other leg.

  “Do not put tha’ foot down again,” he warned. “Thee’ll only be stuck fast again. Wrap your arms about my back and keep tha’ foot free of the ground.”

  I obeyed, but in spite of my little lecture about propriety, it was an awkwardly intimate position to occupy. His back was broad and warm under my arms, and I could feel the play of the heavy muscles as he gently worked my leg free. There was another great sucking sound as the earth rendered up my leg, dripping filthy water from my sodden boot and stocking.

  Godwin turned and scooped me up easily. “Put tha’ arms about my neck. I’ll carry thee to solid ground, and then we’ll see if thou’re hurt,” he said, cradling me gently as he had the pups. We had not far to go, and I did not argue with him. It was rather pleasant being taken care of, and so long as I did not make a habit of it, I did not see the harm.

  In a very few minutes we had regained the path. He set me gently on my feet and spent quite a long time examining my ankles and knees for injury, feeling both carefully with surprisingly deft hands.

  Finally I twitched my skirts down with a brisk gesture. “I think that will do, Godwin,” I told him repressively. “I am quite all right, and I thank you for your timely rescue. I might have been stranded out th
ere for hours.”

  The prospect was not an enticing one, but what he told me next chilled my blood.

  “Tha’ might not have survived at all,” he said, his expression sober. “There are mires on the moor, and some of those spots have no bottom, nought but pools of mud tha’ go on forever, right to the centre of the earth. Sheep have been lost on the moor before, and people, too, from time to time. Did no one say thee must keep to the path?”

  I thought I remembered Ailith saying something of the sort, but I could not recall. “Perhaps. I had no idea it was all that dangerous. Thank you for intervening. My thoughtlessness put you at risk, and I am sorry for that.”

  He flushed with pleasure and embarrassment. “’Twas nothing. I’ve known these moors from boyhood. Besides, I would have done it twice over to save thee. I want you to think well of me, my lady.”

  He ducked his head, almost bashfully, and I gave a little cough, uncertain how to respond. Whatever admiration Godwin harboured for me, surely he knew nothing could come of it.

  But perhaps I could use it to my advantage, I thought suddenly. I reached into my pocket and drew out the object I had been carrying.

  “Godwin, do you recognise this?” I opened my palm, and lying flat, glowing burnished gold in the morning sun was the amulet of the ram.

  His eyes widened and his tanned face went white to the lips. He took a step backward and looked at me in horror.

  “Where did you get tha’?”

  I held his gaze with my own. “I think you know where I found it. And the other, just like it.”

  He shook his head, angrily, as a child will. “I have never seen tha’ before.”

  I took a step closer, raising my palm to his eye level, forcing him to see it. “Godwin, you are not that accomplished a liar. You have seen it. Tell me where.”

  He shook his head again, and when he spoke, his voice was clipped and completely lacking in the warm northern burr to which I had become accustomed. “I have never seen it before. And I have work to do. You can find your own way back to the Hall.”

  I stared after him as he broke into a run, taking the moor path in great, loping strides. I shoved the amulet in my pocket, nearly ripping the seam in my frustration. I had mishandled the situation badly. It had not occurred to me that he would be so horrified by the sight of the amulet. I had thought to surprise him, to startle him into telling the truth. I had not counted on his abject terror at seeing it.

  I turned my steps toward Grimsgrave Hall, determined to find answers at last.

  Not surprisingly, Brisbane was out when I arrived back at Grimsgrave. There was no sign of Godwin either, and I went to my bedchamber to freshen up a little. Grim quorked at me from his cage, but whether it was a greeting or a scolding, I could not tell.

  I opened the little door of the cage and clucked at him, encouraging him to come out, but he merely fixed me with a cold, beady eye.

  “Good morning, Grim,” I said formally, but he continued to look just over my shoulder, ignoring me with all the cool hauteur of a fine gentleman. A scolding then.

  “Very well, sulk if you must. I am going to have a think,” I told him. I reclined on the bed, hoping a few moments of meditative silence would help me to put the pieces together.

  Still, nothing seemed to fit quite properly, and after a quarter of an hour I gave up and got something to read. Redwall Allenby’s travel journals would be just the thing, I decided. He had left for Egypt just after the mine had collapsed and shortly after the disappointment of unrolling the ruined mummy. It occurred to me that he might well have alluded to his experiments in his first journal, and I opened it, skimming the spiky letters in faded brown ink. His writing style was painfully pedantic, with regular, dutiful recordings of what he ate, how long he slept, and even his toilet habits. I cringed a little as I skipped over them, searching for some mention of anything of significance.

  But there was nothing, I soon realised. I reached for the next journal, and the one after, and these were more detailed, but just as disappointing. His travels had broadened to the Americas, to other parts of Africa and Europe as well as he trailed each new purchase related to Egyptology. He seemed to make many varied and interesting acquaintances, but none of his connections deepened to friendship, and there was a distinct air of superiority when he spoke of them. He was the worst kind of traveller, I reflected sourly. The entitled Englishman, considering himself lord of all he surveyed, and looking down on everything and everyone with marked contempt.

  But as the journals went on, I noticed one change. There was frequent mention of money troubles, of requests on the part of his mother for funds for Grimsgrave, and his repeated annoyance that he should have to maintain an estate he no longer occupied. His spending was curtailed, expenses were curbed, and at last, to his outrage, he was obliged to accept a post with an expedition if he hoped to return to Egypt for the 1884-1885 season.

  “The Evandale expedition,” I murmured, tracing his endlessly dull recitation of the facts surrounding the equipment of the party. There were lists of supplies, innumerable complaints about poor accommodations and slights to his dignity. I skipped over the greater part of them, turning a dozen pages at a time. The first thing of interest was a tiny set of sketches, not very well-rendered, but perfectly recognisable. One was a ram of Osiris, the other the tyet of Isis. Underneath were scrawled the words, Seven Days. Something stirred in my memory, but only distantly. I turned the page, reading as Redwall railed against the members of the expedition, lambasting Lord Evandale for a fool, and naming the Comte de Roselende as his greatest enemy.

  I have known him from childhood, and although I have the power to inform Lord E. that he has accepted employ under a false identity, I have said nothing. I have seen his black eyes upon me, and I know he realises I have recognised him. I have him in my power, and he wonders, even now if I mean to do him harm. He is a fool. I do not care what becomes of him. He is less than the dirt beneath my feet. Petty revenges will not distract me from my true purpose here: I will make great discoveries this season, discoveries which will ensure the recovery of my fortune, and the Allenby name.

  I sat up as I read the words. Redwall Allenby rarely noticed anyone whose path crossed his. The fact that he found an enemy in Egypt was highly interesting. That was the season of his disgrace, I realised quickly, the last season he had spent in Egypt before returning home to England, and a premature death. He had been wrong not to fear his enemy. Whoever he was, Redwall had apparently estimated him badly.

  I turned the page to read more, but it was blank, and in its place was clipped a photograph, smudged and grimy, but still clear enough. It was a group photograph, the Evandale expedition in that fateful year when Redwall Allenby was disgraced and drummed from Egyptology forever. I found Redwall at once, in the back of the group, tall and handsomely blond, perhaps only a slight twist of the lips betraying his annoyance at not being seated next to Lord Evandale in the front of the group. Lord Evandale’s feet rested on a stuffed lion, and his expression was one of jovial bonhomie. Clearly he was no enemy to Redwall; he had not the temperament for it, and his face was like a child’s, open and guileless. He was obviously delighted to be financing an expedition, and he had gathered his staff about him like an indulgent parent. I studied the other faces carefully, but none were familiar, save one. The man standing next to Redwall Allenby. He was muscular and well-formed, perhaps an inch taller than Redwall. He sported a luxuriant black beard, and across his firm waist stretched a watch chain, its slender length hung with a coin struck with the head of a Gorgon. The reverse of the photograph was labelled in Redwall’s familiar hand, and I only turned it over to confirm what I already knew. Redwall Allenby had identified the tall, dark man beside him as St. John Malachy-LaPlante, the Comte de Roselende. But of course, I knew him as Nicholas Brisbane.

  THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER

  Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.

  —William Shakespeare

  Henry VI,
Part 2

  I stared at the photograph for a long time, feeling oddly light, as if my head was stuffed with cotton wool. I had known Brisbane loathed the Allenbys. He had even told me himself that he had been in Egypt, masquerading as an Egyptologist. Why had I not connected the points sooner? Brisbane had been the instrument of Redwall Allenby’s disgrace and destruction.

  Sickened, I closed the journal, shutting Brisbane’s clever, calculating face away. I turned onto my side, thinking hard. The feud between their families was an old one. Sir Alfred Allenby had been responsible for seeing Brisbane’s mother put into gaol where she died. Did Brisbane hold the rest of the Allenbys accountable for what one of them had done?

  He must have, I thought fiercely. He had insisted upon Lord Salisbury purchasing Grimsgrave Hall for him when a dozen other properties might have done just as well if not better. Properties in excellent condition, near to his business interests in London, properties with no ghosts or scores to settle. But Brisbane had chosen none of them. He had insisted upon having Grimsgrave, knowing the Allenby women would be at his mercy, dependent upon him as completely as Mariah Young had been upon the clemency of Sir Alfred Allenby.

  And because Sir Alfred had shown no mercy to her, none would be given to the Allenbys, I realised with horror. Brisbane had marked his time, dangling the promise of a snug, pretty cottage in front of them, but forcing them to live under his roof, beholden to him. Until from frustration or anger or thwarted pride, Lady Allenby had attempted his life, giving him the perfect pretext to send her away. That he had not had her hanged ought to have given me a flicker of hope, but it did not. Brisbane was a subtle and clever man with a fair measure of hot Gypsy blood. He had been schooled in blood feuds since childhood. If he wanted an enemy to suffer, a quick snap of the hangman’s noose would be too quick, too easy. How much more terrible to be immured in the stone walls of a convent, knowing nothing more of the outside world, but remembering every day that one’s child and one’s beloved home were still in the hands of a sworn enemy.