A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels

by Bernard Cornwall

  Campion looked at the windows above the pillared carriage porch of Periton House, windows that looked dark against the limewash, and she thought that there, behind the dark glass, was her new bedroom. That was where the mystery of marriage, the mystery that seemed so commonplace and uninviting, waited for her.

  Culloden's gloved hand rested on her forearm. 'We shall be happy here, my dear.'

  'Yes, my Lord.' She said it dutifully. She knew that he wanted to kiss her. She smiled and picked up the reins. 'Home, my Lord?' She meant Lazen, and she turned the horses skilfully on the gravel turning circle of the house.

  She said her private farewell to Lord Culloden in the Long Gallery. Mrs Hutchinson expressed her fear that, instead of selling his commission, his Lordship would discover the regiment riding to war and, as a true-born Englishman, go with them. Lord Culloden smiled at her. 'If that happens, dear lady, I will bring a thousand banners to lay at your feet.'

  Mrs Hutchinson laughed and lifted the sewing that lay on her lap. 'Not too torn by your sword, I trust!'

  'And for you, my dear,' he lifted Campion's hand and kissed it, 'I will bring the crown of France, that France does not want, and make you a queen.'

  She laughed. She saw how the flesh of his neck bulged at his collar. In ten years, she thought, he would be as fat as butter. He smiled at her. 'May I ask a favour of you, my Lady?'

  'Of course, my Lord.'

  He turned to one of the many tables in the Long Gallery and picked up a small, framed portrait of Campion. 'That I may take this as a foretaste of joys to come?'

  The painting had been done three years before. It showed Campion in a dress of cream silk. In her hands, held at her breast, was a bunch of pink-red campion flowers, and her face was an expression of shyness and delight.

  Mrs Hutchinson smiled. 'That's my favourite of her!'

  Lord Culloden looked at the portrait in its gilt frame. 'It is most beautiful, my Lady, but does not do you justice. But I would still ask it as a favour of you.'

  She laughed. 'Then take it, my Lord, with all my heart.' And as she said it there came a memory of another man, taller and darker, who had stood in this room and stared at the Nymph portrait and, as she watched the small portrait picked up by Lord Culloden, she wished, with all her heart, that it was another man who took her likeness for his remembrance.

  He left in the spring sunshine. Campion, when the coach had disappeared between the gatehouses, went to her father's room. She had made it her duty to clean him these days, to share with Caleb Wright the blood and the mess, and to give her father the love that alone made his pain and dying bearable. At least, she thought, her father would see her married before he died, and for that, if for nothing else, she was glad.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  Lord Egmont Paunceley was a contented man as he sat alone in his parked coach. He was well wrapped in a fur cloak that he had bought when, as a young man, he was attached to the British Embassy in Moscow. On his right side was a basket of comestibles; jellied duck, pies, a plum cake, and four bottles of good Burgundy. Lord Paunceley was on a day's outing.

  On his lap was a book, a fine edition of the Histoire de dom B, a piece of illustrated French pornography that was deservedly famous among collectors. It was, he reflected, so much finer than the badly illustrated, crude, uncivilized works that now came from Paris. The new fashion, he thought sadly, was to write about perverted peasants, while his Lordship's taste ran more to the humiliation of high-born virgins.

  It was a mild spring day, the crowd large, the hawkers of pies and lemonade loud. Lord Paunceley's coach was within the private enclosure. He closed his book, placed it carefully in a pocket, then drew back the curtain of the right hand window. He nodded with pleasure at what he saw.

  The public stands were full. That was good. Moreover the crowd was in a good mood, which was interesting. Nothing could tell the temper of the country better than this crowd. Lord Paunceley raised a glass of wine to his ugly face. What was most astonishing, he decided, was the number of people present! Did they not have work?

  He saw Geraint Owen coming across the grass and he rapped on the window. He scowled as the Welshman climbed into the coach. 'You're letting in a draught, man!'

  'Good morning, my Lord! A fine one, yes?'

  'Passable. You brought the despatches?'

  'No, my Lord, I threw them into the Thames.' Owen placed them on the table that folded down in front of Lord Paunceley.

  His Lordship stared distastefully at them. 'Well?'

  Owen smiled. 'You have the papers from last week's meetings of the Committee for Public Safety, my Lord. Nothing of note except a letter to the American President requesting that he keeps his treaty obligations and declares war on us.'

  'Ha!' Lord Paunceley stared out of the window. 'Is that all?' For a man who had just been given papers purloined from the highest committee of the French government, he sounded distinctly churlish.

  'A private letter for you, my Lord, from the Earl of Lazen.'

  A wrinkled, dry, claw-like hand was abruptly thrust from beneath the great cloak of wolf fur. 'Give it to me.'

  Owen wondered whether he would be offered wine. He was not so fond as his master was of these expeditions, and a little wine would help him bear the festivities. As Lord Paunceley scrabbled the letter open and tilted it towards the light, Owen leaned forward to look out of the right hand window.

  Beyond the glass was a small, scrubby area of mud where a few blades of grass tried to survive. The patch of ground was almost entirely surrounded by tiers of seats, high enough to obscure the new buildings that had spread out from London to encompass what had once been the dairy land of Tyburn.

  In the centre of this arena was 'Albion's Fatal Tree'. Once, Geraint Owen supposed, there truly had been a tree on this spot, but if so it had long since disappeared. It had been replaced by a great timber construction, three posts placed in the ground and joined, at their tops, by three long beams that formed a triangle supported twelve feet in the air.

  A ladder was against the beam closest to the private enclosure. A man straddled the great timber, looping a rope that ended in a noose.

  Lord Paunceley put down the Earl of Lazen's letter, then spooned some jellied duck into his mouth. 'Our fellow goes first, I trust?'

  'Indeed, my Lord,' Geraint Owen nodded.

  Their fellow was a Frenchman. He had claimed to be secretary to the executed Duc de Sallons, but Achilles d'Auxigny had asked him what colour were the silk hangings of the Duke's bed and the so-called secretary had said blue. Achilles had sighed. 'They were pink, dear boy, always pink. Rather pretty, as I remember.' A search of the émigré's luggage had revealed a paltry code book and instructions for the man to find out what ships were being constructed in Britain's naval dockyards. He would be hanged this fine morning.

  Lord Paunceley waved his spoon at the rope. 'It won't be quick, I hope!' he said anxiously.

  'No, no!' Geraint Owen reassured him. They never hanged spies quickly. It spoilt the crowd's enjoyment.

  Lord Paunceley peered at Owen. His Lordship's reptilian, questing face was screwed in displeasure. 'Do you drink wine in Wales, Owen? Or only water? Ale, perhaps? Or do you have some particular Welsh beverage? Crow's blood? The bile of toads? The juice of virgins squeezed at midnight into coconut shells?'

  'A glass of wine would be most pleasant, my Lord.'

  'It's very good wine,' his Lordship said dubiously.

  'I'll do my best to survive it, my Lord.'

  His Lordship poured him a generous glass. 'I do so enjoy these occasions. When you are my age, Owen, you will find that an execution is a most marvellous tonic. To be old and to see the young die! That is a measure of success, is it not? There. Sip it. I paid four shillings a bottle, and God only knows how high this war will drive that price. Where's Lord Werlatton?'

  The sudden question merely confirmed Owen's suspicion that the Earl's letter had been about his son. 'In the Vendee, my Lord.'
r />   'Not murdering people in Paris?'

  Owen smiled. 'He's in the Vendee, my Lord.'

  'How soon can we send word to him?'

  Owen shrugged. 'Within a week.'

  A great cheer spread through the tiers of seats and Lord Paunceley peered anxiously through the window. 'Ah ha! Our work, you see, is not in vain!'

  The Frenchman, dressed in boots, breeches and shirt, was a fine looking man. He stood in a cart, his head held high and the wind stirring his dark brown hair. Lord Paunceley chuckled. 'A loss to the ladies, eh?'

  'Indeed, my Lord.' Owen was thinking that his Lordship would have done better to let the wine sit in his cellar for another two or three years. He decided it was best to say nothing.

  The cart that held the prisoner passed close to Lord Paunceley's carriage. His Lordship laughed. 'A brave young fool, Owen.'

  'Indeed, my Lord.'

  'And all so laughably pointless! They only had to read the Naval Gazette! Still, we must not be ungrateful for the entertainment they will give us.' Paunceley rubbed at a speck of dirt on the window. 'The Earl of Lazen, Owen, wishes us to summon his son home. He is to come for his sister's nuptials. Her virginity is to be sacrificed to some lumpen ape of the aristocracy and I am supposed to bring Werlatton back so he can watch the proceedings! Oh, splendid!' This last was because the Frenchman, who had reached the gallows in his cart, was trying to make a speech about liberty. One of the gaolers brought the speech to a swift end by the simple expedient of punching the man in the belly. The blow doubled him over and conveniently allowed the noose to be slipped over his dark head and tightened.

  Lord Paunceley was leaning forward, tongue between his teeth, watching. 'Gently now! Gently!'

  The carthorse was urged slowly forward, and the Frenchman forced to walk backwards by the tension of the rope about his neck. The crowd was silent. They grinned. There was small sympathy for the death of a Frenchie, except for a few women who thought it a terrible waste of a good looking man.

  'Gently! We don't want to lose him!' his Lordship said anxiously.

  The prisoner's feet came to the end of the cart, they were seized by the executioners who had jumped to the ground, and, as the cart went away, they took the man's weight and lowered him slowly so that the rope tightened, his head tilted to one side, and then they let him hang.

  'Good!' Lord Paunceley smiled. The man would choke to death slowly, very slowly, his legs dancing for the entertainment of the crowd. 'Very finely done, Owen, very finely done!'

  Geraint Owen looked, frowned, and looked away. French spies had to die, of course, but he would have preferred them to die a soldier's death, standing before a firing squad. Yet he allowed that this slow, agonizing death might be a deterrent to others.

  The Frenchman jerked, his legs moving as though he were trying to swim upwards in the air and take the choking, blinding pain from his neck. Lord Paunceley smiled as the crowd cheered. 'That will teach him to count His gross Majesty's ships!'

  'Indeed, my Lord.'

  'It seems, Owen,' Lord Paunceley had his head turned away from the Welshman, 'that the Earl is dying. He would like his son to be at his deathbed. Touching, yes?'

  'Indeed, my Lord.'

  'Ah! He's watered!' Liquid dripped from the Frenchman's dangling boots to the pleasure of Lord Paunceley and the crowd. 'I like Lazen, he's a good man. You know he once held my office?'

  'I did know, my Lord.'

  'He wasn't as good as I, of course. Oh but this is magnificent!'

  The Frenchman was twisting on the turning rope. His right leg was in spasm. Lord Paunceley watched avidly. He came frequently to the gallows for this entertainment. 'The French are so inhumane, Owen.'

  'They are, my Lord?'

  'Machines for killing people! What next? They call it "sneezing in the basket"!'

  'I had heard, my Lord.'

  'Ridiculous! This is the natural way, Owen, God's way! It gives the man time to dwell on his transgressions, to repent, to prepare his soul.' Lord Paunceley's fur-swathed shoulders shook with laughter. 'So how do I get Lord Werlatton back to England in a hurry? Tell me precisely so that I may reassure Lazen.'

  The prisoner choked, loud enough for Lord Paunceley to hear. The man was twisting and jerking and the crowd was roaring its approval.

  Geraint Owen had leaned back on the seat so as not to see the death agonies. He closed his eyes. He blotted out the baying of the crowd and thought instead of the small ships that plied the channel and decided the Navy was wrong for this task. To use the Royal Navy meant making a request of their Lordships of the Admiralty and answering God alone knew how many ridiculous questions. Instead, the Welshman decided, he would use one of the many smuggling ships that ignored the war to keep the gentry supplied with brandy and good wine. 'I can have the Lily of Rye there within two weeks, my Lord.'

  'The what of what?'

  'The Lily of Rye, my Lord.'

  'Sounds like a harvest whore. And have it where?'

  There's a village called Saint Gilles. It has a small quay. We've used it before.'

  'Then use it again, pray. What day should Werlatton be there?'

  Owen thought again. In his remarkable head he kept, along with the myriad details of the secret war, a tide table of the Channel. 'He has to be there on the nights of the fifteenth and the sixteenth, my Lord. The usual signals.'

  'Whatever they may be. How you do enjoy your work, Owen. Very well. I will write to Lazen and tell him that His corpulent Majesty's resources will be laid at the altar of his daughter's virginity, and you will inform Lord Werlatton to come and witness the loss of his sister's purity. Do you think she is a virgin, Owen?'

  'My Lord, I have not the first idea.'

  His Lordship chuckled. 'One does doubt it. So few girls are these days. It goes out of fashion, Owen, like a full-bottomed wig. Soon it will be a mere word in the lexicon and the young will need to have it explained. Oh, how sad!' This last was not for the extinction of virginity, but rather because the prisoner's twitching was slow and fading. 'He's going! You remember the one who lasted four hours?'

  'The Gascon?'

  'The very same.' Paunceley watched the hanging man and frowned. 'He's gone! It was hardly worth the journey, Owen.' The prisoner's knees were slowly drawing up. 'From being His Majesty's prisoner, he has become His Majesty's corpse. Do you think vulgar George would like it if I presented the body to him? With an apple in its mouth?'

  'I would never presume upon the tastes of my betters, my Lord.'

  Paunceley laughed. 'Fat George isn't your better, Owen. He's not fit to lick your impediments. So, Saint Gilles? The fifteenth or sixteenth?'

  'Indeed, my Lord.' Owen had never known his Lordship be so interested in the minutiae of an expedition.

  'The Harvest Whore?'

  'The Lily of Rye, my Lord.'

  'Then so be it. Arrange it. Expedite it!' The tortoiselike face turned to Owen. 'I suppose Lord Werlatton has not whined to you any more about his family being persecuted?'

  Owen smiled. 'No, my Lord.'

  'No tales of hooded men besieging his sister?'

  'No, my Lord.'

  Paunceley laughed. 'I knew there was nothing in it! Nothing at all! What nonsense young men do utter!' He turned back to the window and watched as the body-men scrambled to cut down the corpse. They could fetch fifteen guineas from an anatomist for such a fine specimen. Paunceley smiled. 'I intend to stay for more pendant pleasures, Owen. I believe we have a brace of women this morning! You wish to stay?'

  'Your Lordship is very kind…'

  'You were ever an accurate man.'

  'But I will decline, my Lord.'

  'So be it, Mr Owen, I bid you good morning. Pray do not ventilate the carriage as you go!' Lord Paunceley shivered ostentatiously as the Welshman left, and then, before the next victims arrived, and before even returning to the book in his pocket, he wrote down the details of the ship and the rendezvous that would fetch Lord Werlatton home. He was getting o
ld, he thought to himself, and the memory was not what it was, not what it was at all. Then, the details noted, he tucked his pencil and notebook away and settled back for more immediate and entertaining pleasures.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  On a May night, a night warm and glorious with spring, Campion sat at her table in the Long Gallery. The windows were open. The curtains bellied slowly like a line of strange white ghosts.

  Most of the gallery was in darkness. A few candles burned on her table where she sat beneath the Nymph portrait. The candle flames shivered in the soft breeze.

  Before her, on the table, were four jewels.

  'I love him, I love him not, I love him, I love him not.' She said the words aloud, sadly and slowly, placing the jewels one by one from her left to her right side. Each jewel had a long, golden chain that trailed on the table.

  These were the jewels of Lazen.

  They were seals for marking hot wax. Each golden, jewel-banded cylinder was tipped by a mirror-image of steel. One mirrored the axe that had taken St Matthew's head, the next St

  Mark's winged lion, the third bore a winged ox for St Luke, while the last showed a serpent wound about the poisoned chalice of St John.

  She looked up at the Lely Nymph portrait. The first Countess, the first Campion, wore these jewels about her neck. It was said that these jewels, these seals of the Evangelists, had once controlled all of Lazen's fortune, all its future.

  Each of the gold cylinders unscrewed. Within each seal was a second symbol, fashioned in silver, though the significance of these hidden symbols had long been forgotten. In St Matthew was a crucifix, in St Mark a naked woman, in St Luke a tiny pig, and in St John was nothing. There had been something once, but someone in the past had taken the symbol out.

  She unscrewed the seal of St John and felt with her finger the rough edges of the small claws that had held whatever had once been inside. Something missing.

  She felt an extraordinary sadness.

  At least, she thought, the Gypsy was far away. She tried to persuade herself that her unworthy madness was over, that his face was a fading memory, and her shame a secret that receded into a forgotten past. Yet she knew she had not forgotten him. The prospect of marriage was made worse by the thought, the hope, that the Gypsy would come to Lazen with Toby. On a day when she should be most happy, she would be forced to see that haunting face and feel the awful, shameful, secret longing.