Instruments of Darkness

by Imogen Robertson

  Crowther looked about him at the deep silhouettes of shadows in the lane and, like an incantation, mouthed the old syllables of his lost name. They conjured the image of his father, his lands, his brother. He saw the faces and vistas of his youth and early adulthood, and felt them crowd about him. He had told himself they were lost and forgotten, yet he knew in truth, if he were as honest with himself as he claimed to be, that they had never left him for a moment in all these years. So, beyond his talent with eye and knife, this then was all he knew of himself: he was a man who had seen his brother hanged for the murder of their father. He was a man who had angrily, bitterly, pulled free of his brother’s hands when the latter had protested his innocence and begged for help. In those deaths, in that action, his whole fate and being were bound. The rest was merely dressing and show.

  Very well. Flight had finally proved impossible; he must turn about and look the world in the face again. He sighed and looked down at his hands. He had been twisting a loop of the reins so tightly around his fingers, he had driven the blood away and left them stiff and aching. He released them, and felt the warmth of circulation pricking again under his skin. He must risk living a little more in the world, and see how the world responded.

  A shadow suddenly freed itself from the hedgerow some yards in front of him, and stood waiting for him in the road. Crowther felt himself pulled from his thoughts and back into the very present. Should the fellow try to rob and murder him, he would still at least have to thank him for taking him from his own preoccupations.

  “Captain Thornleigh?” The voice was a loud whisper, impatient and nervous. Crowther kept his cloak high, felt his fear ease away and his curiosity awake, and rather than respond he brought his horse to a stop.

  “You left me waiting, Captain. My servant will become nervous if I am gone all evening. I am sorry indeed that it did not come out right with Brook, but I must know what you will have me say tomorrow. I would not bring anything disagreeable to the Hall for all the world, but my mind is troubled, sir, troubled.”

  The man stepped forward, and caught his first glimpse of Crowther’s face. His own went white.

  “My mistake, sir. I thought you came from the Hall. My apologies for disturbing your ride.” He looked down and stepped clear of the track. Crowther did not move, however, but continued to stare into the man’s face. It was broad and pleasant enough. A well-preserved specimen of middle age, and middling means. Crowther felt a dim light of recognition spark in his brain.

  “You run the draper’s shop in the village.”

  The man looked up again with a little reluctance, and a not entirely convincing smile. He continued to glance up and down the lane as he replied.

  “I do, sir, I do. I sold the gloves you are wearing now, sir. I remember, as gentlemen normally come to buy their own, but your maid Betsy came in with an old pair, and we endeavored to find a match in size and quality. I hope we managed to your satisfaction, sir.”

  Crowther was aware of a slight reprimand in his tone. Aha, so he had offended this little man by not coming into the shop and discussing leathers and fits with him, had he? Indeed, villages were as complex to negotiate as the courts of Europe. He lifted his hand and looked at his glove in the fading light as if for the first time in his life. The man had good eyes to recognize his merchandise at this hour and distance. The shopkeeper did not like to be kept in suspense.

  “I hope you find them a comfortable fit, sir?”

  “Very, Mr. ...”

  “Cartwright, sir, Joshua Cartwright. It is writ above the door of my shop.”

  Crowther folded his hands across the reins, and watched Mr. Joshua Cartwright’s eyes skip right and left along the path.

  “So it is, forgive me. And you are waiting for Mr. Hugh Thornleigh?”

  “Captain Thornleigh he is to me, sir. Always shall be. As you say, though I think I may have mistook the evening, so I shall head home now, begging your pardon. I do not like to leave the shop long. With the death of that man my maid will be worrying herself over me, and I don’t want her coming out to search for me in the dark, sir. Wouldn’t be right.”

  “Indeed.” Crowther nodded, smiling his chilly smile.

  “Good night then, sir.”

  The shopkeeper stumbled a little, climbing over the stile under Crowther’s suspiciously benign stare, and set off back toward the village with busy officious strides through the uncomplaining grass of the meadow. He turned back every other minute, as if hoping Crowther might simply disappear, though without apparently slackening his pace, an impressive maneuver on uneven ground. Crowther remained mounted and still until the shopkeeper was lost in the gloom of the first cottages, then slid from his horse and led it behind the hedgerow, returning to assume Cartwright’s position leaning on the low stile. He hoped he would not have to wait long.

  He was lucky; the moon had shifted her position but little in the sky when Crowther heard someone moving down the road toward him. He stepped into the road, just as the man who had surprised him had done. A figure on horseback approached. When he spoke, Crowther knew him at once as Hugh Thornleigh.

  “Joshua?” And when Crowther said nothing: “Well, what will you have of me? Much good your assistance, or that of this Carter Brook, did me. We have nothing to speak on. Send me no more messages, but give your Hannah this coin at least—get her a salve for her sore feet. She must be exhausted, the number of times you’ve sent her tripping up to the Hall today.” The voice was fat and slurred; a gloved hand reached toward him. “Well, take it then, Cartwright.”

  Crowther stepped closer and lowered his cloak.

  “You may keep your coin tonight, Mr. Thornleigh. Joshua found it necessary to return to the shop. He seemed rather concerned, however, about what he should say to the coroner tomorrow.”

  Hugh was surprised enough to jerk at his reins, and his horse whinnied and shook her head in protest.

  “Mr. Crowther! You have a talent for coming up on my blind side. What do you mean, skulking around the bushes?”

  “It is a pleasant evening. I have no reason to hurry home.”

  “Aye! This is a coincidence, is it? You sent Joshua running away, did you? Damn it, what business is it of yours whom I choose to meet and where!”

  Crowther opened his eyes innocently wide, and waited for Hugh to calm his ride before he replied.

  “I think it may be a matter of more general interest at the moment, Mr. Thornleigh. Who is Carter Brook, and in what way was he to assist you?”

  “Again I ask, what business is it of yours? By what right do you, sir, question me?”

  “In the cause of the general good, naturally.”

  Hugh snorted, and Crowther stepped forward a little. “And as I spent the better part of the day examining this Mr. Brook’s body, I would say my curiosity is therefore both right and natural in the circumstances.”

  “Reaching, I call it. I have never met Mr. Brook,” Thornleigh paused, and his voice became a little lower, “though I was due to do so last night. I was prevented from keeping to the time of the appointment, but I did intend to meet him in the copse. When I managed to get there, no one was waiting, so I stayed till my coat was getting dew on it, then came home. It may well be his throat that was cut—though never having seen the man I could not say for sure. But I still see no reason to answer to you on that.”

  “You may have to answer to a higher power than myself.”

  “You a religious, Crowther? How does that square with cutting up bodies and leaving them all mangled?”

  Crowther raised an eyebrow. “I meant the coroner.”

  “I have every intention of telling the coroner,” Hugh said irascibly. “Cartwright has no reason to fuss at me. But, yes, it is likely that the body is that of Carter Brook.”

  “You will also tell the coroner the manner of your business with the man, I suppose?”

  “He was employed to find out the address of my elder brother. I had hoped he had met with some success. The
ring would seem to say as much, but whatever else he knew, he can no longer tell.”

  Crowther plucked one of the white flowers free of the hedgerow next to him and stared into the darkness.

  “Yes, he was very effectively prevented from sharing any secrets.”

  Hugh looked down his nose at the elder man.

  “You suggest his errand and his death were connected?” He laughed. Crowther thought the similarity to the noise his horse had made moments before uncanny. “No, Crowther, you are pursuing a false trail there. I am simply a man cursed with the worst sort of luck in the world, and any step forward I attempt will always send me sliding backward again. I dare say some other business followed him from London.”

  Crowther found he was uninterested in whatever conclusions Hugh decided to draw.

  “And why did you arrange to meet him at night, and away from your home?”

  “Perhaps I had hopes of it being a fine night,” Hugh said with a sneer.

  “Could the shopkeeper, Mr. Cartwright, identify the body?”

  “I believe they knew one another. Joshua met him in London and engaged him on my behalf. I will ask him to address himself to the coroner.”

  Crowther nodded, and began to move away toward his horse. Hugh raised his chin.

  “You have been whipped up by the women of Caveley, I presume.” Crowther could hear the edge in Thornleigh’s voice. “How exciting for you. Go careful there, sir. A nasty, pushing family. Visit them more than twice and it will be chanted through the neighborhood that you have made a bid for the hand of the little one. And the elder is a shrew, and a bluestocking, everyone admits it. The Commodore is likely very happy to have stowed her ashore and gone on his way himself. Perhaps he finds women who know their place and duties a little better away from home.”

  Crowther turned back slowly toward the speaker, brushing the remains of the flower he had plucked from his fingertips.

  “I have heard that many disappointed men find comfort in wine and slander. You give a thorough example of it. I wonder if your ill luck caused you to become what I see, or if it was your behavior that has brought the ill luck upon you.”

  The worst thing about these words, spoken so clearly into the evening air, was their lack of passion. An earl could not have spoken more coldly of a dog. Crowther continued to watch Hugh as he smarted under them. Even in the relative darkness he could see the unmarred cheek of the young man flush indignantly.

  “Do you wish me to ask you to name your friends?”

  Crowther felt himself smile. This was what came of leaving the dissecting room, he thought—his secrets discovered, murder, duels, missing sons and dead children. He should have kept his doors locked more tightly.

  “If you wish to fight, I shall certainly meet you, Thornleigh. Though I warn you, my hand is always steady at dawn. I doubt if you can say the same.”

  They held each other’s gaze a moment.

  “Damn your eyes, Crowther,” Hugh whispered, jerking hard at his horse’s head and he turned away, riding hard back toward Thornleigh.

  Crowther led his own horse out into the lane again, and mounted with a grunt of effort. He looked up to see the first of the stars appearing above him. Well, he thought, we must follow where the signs lead us. As we follow the pathways of the body to their sources and springs, so this blood spilled must take us to the heart of the matter. He had already stepped clear of the path advised by the squire. Now he must see where his steps took him, and if the family at Caveley had to pay for their curiosity, then so be it. They would be wiser for it, and Mrs. Westerman seemed eager to be educated. He thought again of Hugh, his scarred face and dead eye, and wondered how much the devil had marked him for his own under that torn skin. The family at Caveley had liked him once, and yet now the Mistress seemed happy to see him killing himself with drink. Crowther urged his horse forward.

  7 APRIL 1775, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS BAY, AMERICA

  Captain Hugh Thornleigh of the 5th curled awkwardly over his writing desk and stared at the wall of his billet, trying to compose his thoughts.

  He understood little of the complexities of the political situation of the colonies and cared less. The legal niceties of taxes and teas did not concern him. The army had appealed to him as a career, not just because of the possibilities to give further glory to his ancestors’ name, and create a comfortable life for himself independent of the family estate, but also because it knew how to use men of action like himself. He hoped he would one day lead armies rather than companies into battle, but he fully expected to leave the rationale for those battles to other men. He cared for those under his command, and was known as a fair commander: ready with his fists, but as ready to laugh and knock the air from a man’s lungs with a slap across the back. He needed only a wife to spoil, and a son whom he could teach to shoot, to make himself content. Still, this letter to his father must be written. He began as follows:

  My Lord,

  I wish I had better news for you since our arrival in America. The situation of Boston is indeed pleasant—good, green, rolling country not unlike our own—so the provisions are plentiful and our men remain healthy and alert, for the most part, to their duty. There are some gentlemen in town with whom one would be happy to dine anywhere in the world, but the manners of the common sort show a strange lack of regard for rank. It is hard to put across.

  It is not the surliness of the London mob so much, but a rather more insidious habit of behaving as if we were all cut from the same stuff, if you take my meaning. By way of example—if eating outside the regiment, a fellow may serve you your food and sit down to conversation as if you had both just come in from the fields together. This lack of awareness of station and position in the ordinary sort of people must be the root, I believe, of the mood of rebellion that approaches like a contagion both from the countryside around us, and even within the town itself. The people are arming, and though they are in no way proper soldiers, and any but the largest force of them must be short work for a small company of His Majesty’s own, they have begun to gather in great numbers and a dark mood. We may have to slaughter a fair number of them before they are willing to slink back to their farms. A sad state indeed, when the king’s subjects find themselves facing each other in such a situation.

  Thornleigh paused, and resumed staring at the wall again with a worried frown till a voice called from his door.

  “Thornleigh, drop your pen. No one can read a word you write anyway. I am ordered to see how the hospital arrangements are being managed. Will you come with me?”

  Hugh turned toward the voice with a ready smile. It was his friend Hawkshaw, so light and thin he seemed to have been wound together out of odd bits of rope. Thornleigh unfolded himself from his round-shouldered hunch over the letter, and placed on it his pen with the awkward delicacy of a bear attempting to arrange roses for a drawing room. Hawkshaw walked quickly across the room and peered over his shoulder at the page.

  “Did you never go to school, Thornleigh? My masters would have whipped me to shreds for having such a horrible hand.”

  Hugh grinned. “Old Lobster Grimes beat my hands till they bled. Funnily enough, it never made me write any better. I’ll come to the hospital with you, though I cannot let another packet sail without reporting to my father. He likes to claim firsthand intelligence in the House.”

  Hawkshaw grimaced. “Lord! Politics! Well, it may come to nothing as yet. We must be all civility and neatness and keep our powder dry. In the meantime, let us enjoy the air a little and look at all these pretty green hills and roads like travelers till we must watch them like soldiers.”

  “I did not come here to admire the country.”

  Hawkshaw did not reply, but looked out of the window into the quiet streets of the town. The trees planted at intervals along the wide and pleasant streets gave the whole an air of peace and solidity. A woman, her maid following close behind her, was walking by. She blushed a little to see the officer watching her, then with a smi
le, she looked back down at the path in front of her.

  “Ah, the fair ladies of this city,” he murmured. “Yet she may slit my throat soon as lie with me, sell my pistols to the Minute Men and call herself a daughter of liberty.” He turned back toward Thornleigh with a crooked grin. “Which is why I always visit the ladies of this town wearing my sword only, so as not to tempt their revolutionary fervor.” Hugh laughed. “There are rumors that some of us may see action soon enough, Thornleigh. Talk of a march on Concord to relieve them of the arms we suspect are being collected there.”

  Hugh snorted. “Hardly an action. I have stolen apples from my neighbors’ orchards with more risk to life and limb. These rebels are cowards and braggarts. As soon as they see a company of British soldiers drawn up in front of them, they shall hand over whatever we ask for.”

  “I wish I had your confidence. They may not look like an army at the moment, but I think I see a determination in their eyes that could make any soldier cautious. Some of them fought in the last wars alongside us, remember. The reports of them were not all bad.”

  “What good will determination do them against ball and bayonet and trained men? Determination doesn’t render them bulletproof.”

  “Nor us our red coats.”

  “They are farmers! Hunters! If they can reload more than once in a minute I’ll buy them all the tea and stamps they want myself.”

  “If they fire straight with every shot,” Hawkshaw said quietly, “they need not worry if they fire slow.”

  Captain Thornleigh was not by nature a reflective personality, but his friend was. Indeed, the friendship that had grown up between the two captains since Thornleigh had transferred to them had surprised many in the regiment. They were now known among the officers as the Bull and Whippet; if either man knew, they did not seem to mind it.

  As they left the room, a breeze knocked the shutters against their frames, catching the curtains between them so the clack was muffled, like gunfire echoing across a body of water.