A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels

by Bernard Cornwall

  She escorted him into the Entrance Hall where strange servants were piling Lord Paunceley's luggage. She smiled at Stepper. 'I do apologize, Mr Stepper. He is an old friend of my father, so perhaps he can take these liberties.'

  Not at all, my Lady, not at all.' He was wrapping the scarf about his neck. 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, my Lady, but not mere words. Oh no!' He laughed to himself. 'And to say that I smell! Most amusing.' Now that he was out of Lord Paunceley's presence, the bookseller was regaining his usual optimism and jauntiness. 'I have some volumes that perhaps ought to be in the Castle's library, my Lady?'

  She made a polite response. She was trying to edge him toward the door when, with a clatter of boots and laughter, it was thrown open and she was staring into Christopher Skavadale's smiling face.

  The doubts evaporated. Every doubt that Achilles had put into her head, and which had festered during these last ten days, disappeared. She had remembered his face, but not the life of it, not the bright, vivid life that stabbed at her and made her smile to see him. She had missed him.

  Another man came to the door and Campion used the stranger's presence to shake the bookseller loose. Skavadale bowed to her and gestured to the newcomer. 'May I present Mr Geraint Owen, His Lordship's secretary? This is the Lady Campion Lazender.'

  Owen bowed. 'I trust you will forgive this intrusion, your Ladyship.'

  'Owen!' Lord Paunceley's voice was plaintive from the library. 'I'm cold, Owen! I'm being insulted! I'm thirsty! Owen!'

  The Welshman smiled at her. 'You will forgive me, my Lady?'

  Campion nodded. She saw the bookseller to the door, telling him to bring whatever books he thought necessary for the library, and then she turned to the Gypsy. She could not hide her happiness. Achilles, she thought, could not be right. This man, this splendid, smiling, handsome man could not be her enemy. 'You came with Lord Paunceley?'

  'Yes.'

  She laughed. 'He's a monster!'

  Skavadale nodded. 'True. And how's your own monster?'

  She shrugged. Julius still lived in the old stable house, drunk for much of the time, guarded day and night by servants. Dr Fenner was treating his pox with mercury. 'He's alive.' She said it dubiously and looked up into the Gypsy's face, feeling the familiar pang that he gave her. 'Why has Lord Paunceley come?'

  Let him tell you.'

  'He wants me to go to France, doesn't he?' Skavadale nodded, and she shook her head. 'I'm not going!'

  'I've already told him that.'

  A servant went past with a tray of tea, another carried a basket of logs. Campion turned to the library.

  It took ten minutes for Lord Paunceley to make himself comfortable. The tea was too weak, the fire too slow to start, and he querulously demanded that the windows be shut. Like a shaggy, bad tempered beast he arranged the library for his comfort as if, on this fine autumn day, he was settling for the winter. Only when the last footman had left, and when he was satisfied with the tea and oatcakes, did he turn his ugly face on Campion. 'You are privileged, my Lady!'

  She thought he meant that she was fortunate to live in Lazen. She nodded. 'I know, my Lord.'

  'I have not left London these three years, apart from visits to Tyburn! Yet here I am! I have come, at considerable inconvenience, to your very door! You are privileged indeed! Do you know why I have come?'

  She said nothing. Paunceley sucked noisily at his dish of tea. He plucked the cloak over his knees. He looked slyly at her. 'Your uncle came to see me!'

  'I know.'

  He thought the Bastard didn't work for me! Ha!'

  She frowned. 'You mean Mr Skavadale?'

  'Mister!' The word delighted Lord Paunceley. 'You hear that, Bastard! She calls you "mister"! Ah! You cheer an old man up, dear Lady Campion, you lighten my old age. Mister indeed!'

  Skavadale smiled at her. 'His Lordship does not believe that the Rom marry, my Lady.'

  'Marry!' Lord Paunceley cackled. 'What do they do? Dance naked round a cauldron at a coven?'

  The Gypsy smiled. 'We're not like your family, my Lord, we marry in church.'

  Paunceley smiled. 'I suppose I shall have to call you "mister", then. Or would you prefer a knighthood, Bastard? Sir Christopher Skavadale? My God! They gave that dauber Reynolds a knighthood! Sir Joshua! I suppose anything can happen if you have a mad, fat, German King.' He looked at Campion. 'Which language do you prefer to use?'

  'Whatever your Lordship prefers.'

  'I prefer Russian. Speak Russian, do you?'

  'No, my Lord.'

  'God knows why Vavasour didn't educate you. Because you're a girl, I suppose. Waste of time educating girls. They only grow into mothers and think they're clever because they do what any cow can do. All right! French!' He sipped noisily at his tea. 'I was sorry about Vavasour. I liked him.' He grimaced at her. 'Pity about your brother, too.'

  'Thank you, my Lord.'

  'Can't say I was sorry about Culloden. A shooting accident?'

  'So the Coroner said, my Lord.'

  He laughed. He dipped an oatcake into his tea and then sucked at it. 'So your stinking bookseller, my Lady, has told you all about the Illuminati?'

  'He has told me what he could, my Lord.'

  Paunceley looked at the Welshman. 'Tell her more, Owen. Illuminate thou her!'

  She decided she liked Geraint Owen. He had a quick, nervous smile, expressive hands, and an easy manner. He confirmed all that Stepper had told her, and then added more. 'They have secrets within secrets, my Lady, small septs to perform specific tasks.' He pushed his long dark hair back from his pale face. 'We think one such sept was behind the massacres in Paris a year ago, almost certainly another is the guiding group for the politics of France.' He shrugged as though he hardly expected to be believed. And Mr Skavadale seems to have discovered another group, my Lady. The Fallen Angels.' He smiled.

  She was sitting in the window seat. It seemed strange, with the Lazen valley golden behind her, to be hearing of these plots and secrets.

  Paunceley scowled at her. 'So that's it! A group of toads who call themselves the Fallen Angels! They want Lazen, it seems.' He peered at her with his small, fierce eyes. 'And your uncle tells me that you won't go to France to destroy them!' He said it with evident astonishment.

  'No, my Lord.'

  'Why ever not? I thought you girls enjoyed jaunts to France! My sister always enjoyed jaunts to France. Why won't you go?'

  'I have learned to value my life, my Lord.'

  'Christ and His angels!' Paunceley guffawed. 'Value your life! You sound like a threadbare Wesleyan! Have you been born again, my Lady?' She said nothing and he plucked the fur-edged cloak tighter to his thin body. Do I have to explain it all to you as if to a child?'

  'If you wish, my Lord.'

  He scowled. 'Your uncle claims you are not a fool. So be intelligent now. The Illuminati, my Lady, seek to take over the fortune of Lazen. To do that they need to kill your brother and yourself. They have been successful with your brother. That leaves you. You have avoided one clumsy attempt, does that make you feel there will be no more? You are suddenly immune to attack?' She said nothing. He scratched beneath his wig. 'From this day on, my Lady, you are in danger. Every servant, every guest, every traveller on your roads may carry your death. Suppose that you marry? Suppose that, God help you, you spawn a child? Then that child is in danger, too!' He twisted his hands together as if wringing the neck of a baby, then waved dismissively at her. 'So you'll die! Your suckling infant will be dead, and Lazen will be lost! And all because you wouldn't go to France! Well! I couldn't care! I'm an old man! Soon they'll be burying me!' He twisted to look at the Welshman. 'Make sure it's in the Abbey, Owen! In the choir! I won't have a draughty grave!' He turned back to her. 'So? You'll go?'

  'Go?' She frowned. 'My Lord, if I am in danger then I am perfectly capable of guarding myself.'

  He groaned. 'Listen to her! You're saying what half the dead nobles of France said! Don't you understand, my Lady? They wi
sh you dead! You will live in fear so long as Lucifer lives. Kill Lucifer, and you may rock your whining brat into slumber. But so long as Lucifer lives, you fear.'

  'I do not understand, my Lord…'

  'You're a girl, that's quite reasonable.'

  'I do not understand, my Lord,' and she did not hide the anger in her voice, 'what purpose my going to France serves.'

  'You don't understand?'

  'No, my Lord.'

  Paunceley stared at her. There was something malevolent about his reptilian face as he slowly smiled. 'Two weeks from now, Lady Campion, the Fallen Angels are going to gather at Auxigny. All of them. They will gather for one purpose.' Slowly his hand came from his fur robe and a thin finger jabbed at her. 'You are that purpose. But if you are not there, girl, then they will not gather, and if they do not gather then they will not be in one convenient place where my Bastard can kill them. Do you understand now?'

  She looked at the Gypsy whose face showed nothing, then back to Lord Paunceley. 'No, I don't understand.'

  Paunceley scowled. Tell her, Bastard.'

  Skavadale smiled at her. His voice was soft. 'Bertrand Marchenoir has offered me a place among the Fallen Angels. The price is that I deliver you to Auxigny. They will think I have come to join them, but I will have come to kill them.'

  'There!' Lord Paunceley leaned back in his chair. What could be simpler? A jaunt to France? A little betrayal, a little death, and you'll be back before the wheat's milled. In my youth I would have asked for nothing more!' He looked at Owen. 'You've got the Harvest Whore at Weymouth, yes?'

  'The Lily of Rye, my Lord. Yes. She's waiting.'

  The vile, dirty-wigged, ugly face came back to her. 'So what in Christ's name is so worrying? We provide the boat! The Bastard looks after you! He kills your enemies, and he's very skilled at that, and then you come home!'

  She said nothing. They all seemed to be waiting for her reply, but she gave none. She looked at Skavadale. In a sense, she thought, her uncle had been right. The Gypsy was working for the Fallen Ones as well as for Lord Paunceley, but which had his loyalty? She remembered Lord Culloden telling of the girl he had killed at Auxigny, of the death that was required as a sacrifice for every new Fallen Angel, and she shuddered to think that she was to be the next victim. She searched the Gypsy's dark, strong face and she could not believe that this man was an enemy. The silence stretched.

  The Gypsy sighed. He was sitting on the library steps. He looked at Campion with a flicker of sadness, then shrugged to Lord Paunceley. 'I have another girl who can go, my Lord.'

  Paunceley looked at him. 'You do? So what does she look like?'

  'Blonde hair, same height.' He shrugged. 'Of course, we'll have to pay her.'

  'She's used to taking money, is she?' Paunceley laughed. 'Is she beautiful, this whore of yours?'

  The Gypsy nodded. 'She's thought beautiful, my Lord.'

  'What girl?' Campion asked.

  Paunceley scowled at her. 'If you will not help us, my Lady, then pray do me the courtesy of not interrupting us!'

  She stood, inflamed by his rudeness. 'What girl?'

  The Gypsy shrugged. 'She's an actress.'

  'So was Nell Gwynn,' Paunceley laughed. 'Every whore calls herself an actress! There aren't enough theatres in Europe for all the actresses!' He looked at Skavadale. 'You'd better take her, Bastard.'

  'She'll go in my place?'

  Paunceley's voice was suddenly savage. 'Lady Campion, I would not sacrifice a shilling to save this house, I couldn't care if the Illuminati turn it into a whorehouse. But I do care about Britain. It may have a fat King and it may be filled with more fools than a carnival, but I would not like to see it seething with gibbering revolutionaries who will disturb my declining years. I am paid to keep the lunatics in Parliament, not to have them rampaging in our streets! Lucifer, my Lady, will turn this country into another France, a blood-filled charnel house! So I must kill him. That's why fat George employs me! And if you will not help me, then, by God, I'll pay every trollop in town to go in your place!' He looked back to Skavadale. Tray excuse my intemperate interruption, Bastard, and tell me about this lubricious maiden you will escort through France?'

  Campion was staring in astonishment at the Gypsy. 'You mean this girl will call herself Campion Lazender?'

  He nodded. 'Of course!'

  'She will not!'

  Her words were almost shouted. Paunceley smiled. It had been his idea to invent a fictitious girl who would go in Campion's place. He looked at her. 'You can't forbid it.'

  She was astonished at the jealousy that had stabbed at her, the jealousy of some unknown girl having this man's company in France. She looked at him. 'How are you going to travel in France?'

  'With the Rom as far as Paris, after that the public stage.'

  There was silence.

  Paunceley chuckled. 'Perhaps the actress would be better, Bastard? I doubt whether the Lady Campion could endure the discomfort.'

  She ignored him. She stared at Skavadale. She thought of Achilles' warning, yet was not this assemblage in Lazen's library proof that the Gypsy's loyalty was to Paunceley? Every scrap of sense warned her not to go, but at the same time she was being offered a chance to be alone with this man, away from servants and chaperones and gossip. She swallowed nervously. 'And what happens at Auxigny?'

  Skavadale smiled. The girl is my bait. She draws the Fallen Ones and I kill them.' Everyone in the room was staring at her and Skavadale took the opportunity to silently mouth another message. 'Toby.'

  So Toby would be at Auxigny.

  Geraint Owen cleared his throat. 'We'll provide you with passports, travel permits, all the papers. It really will be safe, my Lady. We send men into France all the time!'

  'How many come back?'

  He smiled. 'Most.'

  She touched the seals of Lazen at her breast. 'If we went, when would we go?'

  Paunceley smiled. Tomorrow?'

  'Tomorrow!'

  'Unless you have other things planned?' he said sarcastically. 'A small tea party, perhaps? Some friends to giggle with you!' He held up a hand to ward off her angry protest. 'Do not tell me I am rude, Lady Campion! Remember I am made in God's image!' He turned to Skavadale. Take your whore, Bastard. This one can't endure a small insult, and France is one great insult these days.'

  Skavadale said nothing. He watched Campion. He waited.

  She knew she would go. Achilles' advice notwithstanding, she would go. She would go because Toby was there, but above all she would go because, if she did not go, then another girl would take her place.

  She would go to the land of death and madness. She would go to France and she knew, as the three men watched her, that she did it in the name of love.

  She took a breath. She thought this was the most fateful decision she had ever made, but if that kiss in the temple, the touch of his hand, if that magic that had seared through her meant anything, then she must trust him. She looked at the tall, light eyed man who could set her soul aflame. 'I will go to Auxigny.'

  —«»—«»—«»—

  That night, as Campion slept, Lord Paunceley waited alone in the library.

  A decanter of port was at his elbow, a book on his lap, candles beside him. The fire glowed red.

  He heard the door open, there was a second's silence, then it closed with a soft click. The reptilian face lifted from the book. 'Gitan?'

  'Oui.'

  'Come where I can see you.'

  Christopher Skavadale sat on the hearth fender. The fire lit one side of his face.

  Lord Paunceley stared into the dark, thin face as though he would read it like the book on his lap. Then he gave his thin, mischievous smile. 'She's more beautiful than sin, Gitan.'

  'Yes.'

  'I haven't seen a girl so lovely in fifty years!' Paunceley sighed. 'And so innocent! Do you like them innocent, Gitan? Do you have a taste for purity?' Lord Paunceley sipped his port. 'She's in love with you. That's why she's going, isn't it?'


  Skavadale shrugged. 'How would I know?'

  'You would know, Gitan, you would know.' Paunceley stared at him. 'How sad, Gitan, that you were born in a ditch, eh? You'd make such a couple!' He laughed softly. 'But it can't be, can it? You can't marry her, so you'll take her to Auxigny instead, yes?'

  'Yes.'

  Paunceley stared at him. In the hall outside a clock struck one. Paunceley smiled a subtle smile. His voice was suspicious. 'Did you tell her that her brother was still alive?'

  Skavadale paused, then nodded. 'Yes.'

  'How clever of you. Does she believe you?'

  'She believes me.'

  Lord Paunceley closed his eyes. His harsh, grating voice was hardly louder than the sound of the log fire. '"Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, 'Yea'",' and he drew out the last word to a long, lascivious syllable and opened his eyes to stare at the Gypsy. The fire flickered and the candles shivered. 'And what name, serpent, have you chosen from the angels?'

  Skavadale smiled. 'Thammuz.'

  Paunceley quoted the Bible again. 'The "women weeping for Thammuz", yes?' He laughed softly into the bright, light eyes of the Gypsy. 'You'd like to be called Lucifer, wouldn't you? It would suit you!' He waited, but the Gypsy did not respond. Paunceley smiled. 'So what can I do?'

  Skavadale took a sealed letter from a pocket. 'This has to be delivered to Larke.'

  Paunceley grunted as he leaned forward to take the letter. 'You're telling him to go to Auxigny?'

  'Yes.'

  Paunceley put the letter inside his book. 'So innocent, so pure, so ready to be ravished. Do you ravish her, Gitan? Do you go to her in the night and make her moan?'

  'No.' Skavadale smiled.

  'More subtle than any beast of the field.' Paunceley laughed. 'But you will, Thammuz! Before you deliver her to Auxigny, you will!' He waved his hand in dismissal. 'Goodnight, Gitan! Oh, thou most excellent servant, goodnight!'

  The Gypsy went on silent feet to his room in the Garden House, and Lazen, beneath the infinite spaces of the dark sky, slept.

  Chapter 20