A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels

by Bernard Cornwall

  'Telling the future.' He smiled at her. 'Most of the time it's nonsense, just like the belief that we control fire, but it's useful nonsense. We just tell people what they want to hear, and it's odd how often, once someone tells you that something will happen, you make it happen. You just needed to be told once. Shall I dukker you?'

  'Tell my fortune?'

  'Shall I?'

  She shrugged, as though it did not matter whether he did or not. 'If you'd like to.'

  'You have to give me a hand.'

  'You're going to read my palm?' She sounded disappointed.

  'No. Hold your hand out, just hold it out. You'll have to take the glove off and close your eyes.'

  She peeled down her right glove and put it beside her glass on the wall. She closed her eyes. It felt like a child's game. She smiled nervously.

  She held her hand out. She knew he was going to touch her. She wanted him to touch her. The fortune-telling was her excuse, no more, a means to persuade herself that she did not flirt with that dark, forbidden place.

  She heard his glass clink as he placed it on the wall. His scabbard scraped on stone and his boots rustled the dead leaves. She waited.

  His hands, dry and warm, closed on her hand.

  She shuddered. She shuddered in every part of her. With one touch he had answered all the questions. When Lord Culloden touched her there was nothing, yet Skavadale's touch spoke of mystery and wonder and she had to stop a mad impulse to close her fingers on his and draw him towards her.

  He stroked her hand. He was gentle. She felt his fingers flicker about her wrist, trace down her palm, stroke magic into her own fingers. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to shout a triumph at the whole, dark world because she had been right. The world had told her that love held no mystery, that she must settle for the commonplace, and now this.

  His hands seemed to move fast over hers, touching, tingling, and then suddenly pressing. She wanted that touch never to leave her. She let her thumb caress his hand and, as it did, so his touch went away.

  'You can open your eyes.'

  She opened them. She was almost astonished that the world had not changed. He walked round to the far parapet and she looked down at her hand and wished that he still held it.

  She looked at this tall, cloaked figure. 'Well?'

  He was staring at the Castle.

  'Mr Skavadale?'

  He turned back to her. 'I can't tell the whole future. I don't have the skill.'

  'What can you tell?'

  There was silence. The music came soft over the park. A bat swerved close to the temple's entrance and disappeared.

  He stared at her with his light eyes. 'You are going to move in shadows, in death, in horror, but you will not be hurt.'

  She shivered. She was in Dorset, in a park, and this man talked of shadows, death and horror. 'You're making it up.' She drank her wine and put the glass down. 'You're trying to frighten me.' She said it defiantly.

  He shook his head. 'Nothing will be what it appears to be, but you will be safe. Remember that. You will be safe.'

  She smiled. 'That's not a fortune, Mr Skavadale. That's just pessimism.'

  He shrugged. 'You wanted me to raise the spirits of the dead? Make the earth tremble?'

  'It would have been more impressive.'

  He laughed. 'I told you the truth, you must do what you want with it. I wish I could tell you more, but I don't have my mother's skill at dukkering.'

  'Did she tell your fortune?'

  He nodded.

  'So what did she tell you?'

  'That I would find what the Rom are searching for.'

  She smiled. 'And what are the Rom searching for?'

  He walked back to her and leaned against the globe, smothering the marble with his black cloak. He had a pleasant smell of leather, horses, and tobacco. 'My people have a story.'

  She looked into his humorous, light eyes. She wondered how many girls dreamed of this man. 'Tell me your story.'

  He smiled. 'When the gods put man onto the earth, they gave him a choice. He could do two things. The first was that he could work and make the earth rich. To help him, the gods gave him lordship over every beast; the ox to plough for him, the dog to hunt for him, the cow to feed him, the sheep to clothe him, the horse to carry him. All that, the gods said, man could have.' His soft, deep voice paused.

  'And the second choice?'

  'The second choice was to be poor, to raise no crops, to herd no cattle, to build no monuments. Instead, the gods said, man could pursue happiness. And what, man asked, is that? And the gods said that they had made one creature after man, the last creature they made, and though that creature could be beaten, whipped, twisted, gutted, skinned, and killed, it could never be mastered. Yet if man could find the creature and make the creature come willingly to him, then man would find happiness. So man asked "What is the creature?". The gods said that the creature was fairer than the dawn and man would know when he had found it. So all the tribes, one by one, chose riches; all the tribes except the Rom. We stole a horse to make our search quicker, and we have roamed the earth ever since and hunted the last and brightest of creation. We have hunted for the creature who is fairer than the dawn.'

  She laughed. The sound was nervous. She felt as if there was no world outside this small, white building.

  He leaned forward. Very slowly, very gently, he raised his hands. She saw them coming and did not move. He pushed the hood of her cloak back so that her pale gold hair shone in the moonlight. 'Fairer than the dawn, my Lady, and in her eyes, stars.'

  She looked into his eyes. 'There are no lilies at my feet, Mr Skavadale.'

  'You never looked.'

  The sadness was immense. The music came faint across the park. It told her that another man had her hand, her promise, her body to be his in marriage. She pulled the hood back over her head and took a deep breath. 'This is foolish.'

  'Is it?'

  He had taken her to the place she feared, to where truth, however wrapped in the finery of fable and flattery, demanded her response. She could not give him what he wanted. She could not look at him. 'I am to marry, Mr Skavadale. I should not be here.'

  'Then go, my Lady.'

  She looked up at him sharply, but said nothing.

  He stood. 'This need not be said, my Lady, but no one will know we have met.'

  She began to reply, but fell silent. Tomorrow, she thought, she would have feared just that.

  His voice was no longer soft and gentle. 'I'll put Hirondelle in the stable for you. Don't let the grooms tighten the throat latch too much, they do that here.'

  'Yes.' She stood. She shook her cloak straight. She was embarrassed. 'Yes, they do.'

  He walked to the top of the steps. 'I apologize if I have offended you, my Lady.'

  She walked to the other side of the entrance. The sky was black, star-spattered, huge. She did not know what to say. She knew he did not want her to leave, to walk back to the music and the candles. Nor did she want to leave.

  She did not look at him. 'Do your people have a story about what happens when man finds his creature?'

  'I've not heard it.' He said it casually, his eyes staring up into the stars.

  She looked at the Castle. Her place was there, among the dancers who led her towards the well-ordered marriage with Lord Lewis Culloden who would give her children and stand beside her when the children married and lie beside her in the tomb. She felt the immense sadness of it, as if an infinite desolation awaited her.

  She looked at him and caught his gaze as he turned his eyes on her. She felt as if she was at the turning point of the earth, in a tiny place, that one move would spin her into chaos.

  She could not speak.

  Slowly, with infinite gentleness, he raised his right hand and she watched it come close to her face and she told herself that she must move, but then the fingers touched her cheek in a gesture so soft, so comforting, that she shuddered again as he stroked her skin down to her
jawbone and then slid his hand, warm and gentle, to the back of her neck.

  She stared up at him, her eyes huge.

  He kissed her.

  She closed her eyes and was astonished.

  She kissed him and she felt as if the shudder had started deep inside, had shaken her, warmed her, and she felt, to her astonishment, the same in him. She slid her lips from his, laid her cheek on his shoulder and clung to him with an arm behind his back. She was crying.

  Neither spoke. There was nothing to say.

  His hand stroked her back. Slowly she stopped the sobs. She kept her eyes shut.

  It was impossible. She was to be married. She had come here, she thought, like a young girl who thought that this guilty assignation would be like a naughty game. Instead she had found a power deeper than her comprehension.

  He gently tilted her head back, kissed the tears from both her cheeks, and smiled at her. 'I promise to come back, my Lady.'

  She said nothing. She would be married.

  He stepped away from her. 'And remember. No harm will come to you.' He stooped, picked up his saddlebag, and walked down the steps. 'I leave you the wine, I'll take Hirondelle to the stable.'

  She watched him. Her throat was full. She did not know what to say. The memory of that one kiss was like a burning on her, as if a star had fallen to earth.

  She watched him mount his horse. He looked at her from the saddle. 'I will come back. Ja develesa, shukar.'

  She watched him ride into the night. She wondered what his last words had meant. She felt an immense solitude as if she was the only creature on the surface of the whole, dark planet.

  She did not want to go back to the Castle, that would be worse than loneliness.

  She sat on the parapet and poured herself wine. She raised the glass in a toast to herself, a toast to foolishness.

  She drank alone in the temple, beneath the stars, and knew that nothing, after that kiss, would ever be the same again. She wept. She was to be married and she would never know happiness. The Gypsy had seen to that. She should not have come, not because of the shame, but because it would be better to live without this memory for ever mocking her compromise with love. She leaned her head on a pillar and stared at the tear-blurred stars.

  She knew she should go back to the Castle. Slowly, as if she was immensely weary, she stood. She looked for her long silk glove and found it had gone. Skavadale must have taken it when her eyes were closed, and that made her smile. He had said he would come back and the missing glove somehow persuaded her it was true. She walked slowly down the temple steps, her cloak trailing on the white stones. She was alone, but he had promised to come back. He had promised.

  Chapter 14

  The fastest horse in the world, she thought, could be bred out of Hirondelle.

  The Swallow ran like the wind.

  She rode the horse next morning, taking it first beneath her father's window, and then trotting through the town, up past Two Gallows Hill to the Millet's End road. The blossom of yellow broom made the heath bright.

  She rode sidesaddle. Lord Culloden and his cavalry friends escorted her and she took Hirondelle to the top of the rings, to the earthen bank that had been built in the far off past when men painted themselves blue and fought with bronze and stone. She watched the young men ride among the bushes below, their healthy shouts loud.

  It seemed to her that the Gypsy had come in a dream and gone in a dream, leaving only this horse behind. Lord Culloden, whose moustache had not been shaved off, was curious. 'Where did you get her?'

  'It's Toby's wedding gift.'

  Lord Culloden seemed rather put out. A wedding gift should be to a couple, not just one person, and Hirondelle was not a horse large enough for his Lordship. He frowned at his friends who played an intricate game on the heath, slashing with their swords at the bushes of broom. 'You didn't come back to the ball last night.'

  'I'm sorry, my Lord, I was feeling unwell.'

  'Too much champagne?'

  'It must have been that.' She was appalled because, suddenly, she found it hard even to talk with Lord Culloden. That was not his fault. She had allowed herself to be tempted to the temple in the park, she had flirted with danger, and now she had to struggle against her feelings. Nothing that had happened last night changed her betrothal, nothing had been said that could change it. A part of her yearned to smash her ordered life, to declare the marriage would not take place, but for what? A gypsy adventurer? To be sure he was not a servant, but still he was not a man who would be thought worthy of her. She felt a flash of anger. Even if he was just a servant, Christopher Skavadale was a man worthy of whatever he achieved.

  Lord Culloden nodded towards the track that led over the heath. 'Bad memories, my Lady?'

  She made the proper reply. 'Memories of your timely courage, my Lord.'

  He smiled. He touched first one end, then the other, of his moustache. She wondered if he had forgotten his promise to shave it off. His face, on this morning after the champagne of the long night, looked fleshily heavy as if hinting at what he would look like in middle age.

  She turned Hirondelle. His Lordship looked surprised. 'You're going?'

  'I promised father I'd read to him.'

  'Splendid! Splendid!' He smiled.

  She let the horse gallop to the hill's brink, a gallop that made her feel free and happy. She curbed Hirondelle where the road fell down between the heavy, flower-bright hedges. The valley of Lazen, the Little Kingdom, spread before her. She looked at the far horizons, hazed by the sun, and wondered where in this wide world the Gypsy had gone. He would come back, he had promised, and that thought gave her a happiness that rose like the song of the larks tumbling over the heath. He would come back.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  It happened in the night, an attack so sudden and so painful that the Castle was aroused by the sudden fear flickering like flame in the passages.

  Dr Fenner was sleeping in the Earl's rooms. When Campion, a robe wrapped about her night-gown, met the doctor his hands were bright with blood. Caleb Wright, his face grim, hurried past her with an armful of stained, stinking sheets.

  The doctor plunged his arms into a bowl of water. 'Wait, my Lady.'

  'Wait?'

  'He's not fit to be seen yet.'

  'What happened?'

  'A flux, my Lady.' Fenner shook his hands dry and picked up a towel. 'Wait, my Lady!' He went into her father's room and Campion heard a moan of terrifying pain before the door blessedly closed.

  Caleb Wright came in with fresh sheets. He paused at the door. 'My Lady?'

  'Caleb?'

  'You're to go to Mistress Sarah and say I sent you. She knows what to do.'

  She frowned. 'What is it?'

  'You go, my Lady, you go at dawn, and don't you bide questions.' Caleb gave the order, nodded at her, and went into the room of pain.

  Campion went into her father's sitting room, a room he had not used in years, and leaned her forehead on the window pane. It was cold on her skin. Footsteps hurried in the corridor. She heard the housekeeper shouting for hot water, for towels, and Campion stared into the night over Lazen, the deep night of empty darkness, and knew the death, horror and shadows of which Christopher Skavadale had spoken were pressing close. She shut her eyes on her tears. Her father was dying.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  'Caleb sent you?'

  'Yes.'

  Mistress Sarah, who looked older than the rings on the heath, hooked the pot crane towards her. The ceiling of her cottage was low and blackened by smoke. Bundles of dried plants hung on the low beams. 'Fool Fenner be up there?'

  'Yes.'

  'Flux?'

  'Yes.'

  The old woman spat at the fire. 'Rector?'

  'Yes.'

  'No good mumbling psalms. Good Lord will take him or not.' She pushed the scarf back from her thin hair and stared at Campion. 'You've grown well, girl.' Mistress Sarah reached for a knife. 'I delivered you. Easy as pul
ling giblets, you was. Why your mother had to have a Londoner for her last, I never will know. Killed her sure as Cain. And killed the babe. But I wasn't good enough, oh no. Not Sarah Tyler. Might be that I deliver live babies, but I bain't be from London.' She had opened a cupboard and taken down a cloth bag.

  Campion smiled. 'I hope you'll deliver mine, Sarah.'

  'Be a fool to have aught else, not unless you wants to die. How old are you, girl?'

  'Twenty-five this month.'

  Mistress Sarah laughed. 'God! You be late! I had nine by then!' Chickens pecked in the sunlight at her back door. 'Pass me a bowl, girl, wooden one. Marrying a lord, are you?'

  'Yes.'

  'Pull the glitter off him, girl, and he'll piss like a peasant. Don't you let him bring no Londoner to your bed. Bed indeed!' She sniffed. 'Spit them out on a birth-stool, girl, like the good God meant us to.' She took the bowl. Out of the bag she brought a white lump that she sniffed. She made a face, then cut the lump into fragments. A nauseous smell seeped through the rich odours of herbs and flowers. A dog on the settle whined in displeasure. 'You be quiet! Bain't for you, be for his lordship.'

  'What is it?'

  'Not your business, girl.' She had picked up a pestle and was pounding the nauseous smelling fragments. 'Why anyone needs London I don't know. I never went more than a mile from here. My Harry, he once wanted me to go to a fair in Dorchester. We took a ride on old Gattin's wagon and I told them to put me down at Sotter's Farm. The edge of the world, I told them, and I never been so happy as when I walked back that day. Now, you come or stay, girl.'

  The old woman went out of her back door. Her front door opened onto the Mill Street

  , but the back led directly to the beech trees which bordered the Shaftesbury road. A goat, tethered to one of the trees, made a run for them. Mistress Sarah hit it as it jerked at the end of its rope, then scurried, bent backed, into the piles of leaf mould between the trees.

  Campion followed. The neighbours, seeing her, touched their forelocks.

  Mistress Sarah was raking her hands through the old leaves. 'My mother taught me this, and her mother before her, but it bain't be good enough for Londoners. Oh no. They knows better. I don't doubt your father paid that London doctor a rare fortune to kill his wife and child! Learning be a great thing, girl, lets you make a fortune for nothing. Still, your father knows better now. There.' She had picked some of the brick-red fungus that grows on dead leaves. 'Come on, girl. And if I don't live to see your first, then you use my youngest daughter.' Mistress Sarah hit the charging goat again. 'She knows what to do.'