The Messenger: A Novel

by Burke, Jan

  I was shocked, and stood considering what my reply to this should be, when an elderly butler, who looked rather starched up, descended the stairs and asked in a solemn voice if I was the gentleman who owned the dog sitting on the front steps.

  I said that I was, expecting to be told that I should remove the animal—and myself—forthwith, but the butler merely nodded and ordered the footman to admit the dog into the house, to help my valet to take my luggage to the green bedroom, and to offer any other assistance required to make his lordship’s guest comfortable. He ordered another footman to take my hat and cloak.

  “Thank you,” I said, “but while I hope to speak to his lordship, I wouldn’t wish to further burden the household at such a time—”

  “You are no burden at all, sir. Indeed, you are most welcome. Do I have the honor of addressing Captain Tyler Hawthorne?”

  I felt relieved. His master had mentioned me. “Yes—although I’ve left the army now, so it’s no longer ‘Captain’—”

  “I understand. I am Wentworth, his lordship’s butler. I will take you up to see him shortly, but perhaps I may offer you some refreshment first?”

  “I’m in no need, thank you, but if I might wash up a bit before seeing his lordship—?”

  Before I could say more, Shade was let in, and he greeted Wentworth—who seemed equally delighted to see him—as an old friend. The greeting further relieved my mind. I was by then beginning to appreciate Shade’s ability to judge character.

  The footman reappeared to say my room was prepared. Wentworth said that I should ring whenever I was ready, and he would personally escort me to his lordship’s rooms.

  The room I was given was clean and comfortable, if not in the style I expected of Lord Varre. Merritt was waiting for me, and began to help me to make myself more presentable.

  As I dressed, I noticed that the figure of a large dog was carved in black marble and set into the mantelpiece.

  “Our Shade to the life, isn’t it, sir?” Merritt said. He then informed me that he believed the stables were in good order, as was the household, then paused and added, “Although I will say, sir, that none of them is very old, Mr. Wentworth being the exception, and no one else in service here for long. They’re none of them from nearby, the locals apparently having a fear of the place.”

  “A fear of it?”

  “Something to do with illness in the place, sir. Strikes it regular, they tell me.”

  “Are you uneasy, Merritt?”

  He gave me a look of disbelief. “What, me, sir? After facing Boney and his friends for half my life? I should think not, sir.”

  I smiled. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Wentworth escorted me down a hallway, Shade following. The butler seemed to think nothing of the dog accompanying me. My anticipation grew. Now, untroubled by fever or fear of dying, I would be able to express myself more clearly. I would have answers to my questions.

  He took me to a small antechamber, then opened a second door and ushered me into a large bedroom, heavily draped and darkly paneled, lit only by a single candelabra. Still, the light was enough for me to see the face of the man on the bed. I came to a sudden halt, shocked.

  The man was not Lord Varre.

  He was a man of perhaps sixty years of age, although illness might have added years to his appearance. He was propped up by pillows, pale and thin.

  I was on the verge of offering profound apologies when I remembered that the butler had known my name. If I was mistaken, then how had he come to expect my arrival?

  “Come in, come in, Captain Hawthorne,” the man on the bed said, his voice soft but clear.

  I moved closer. I studied his face and saw a definite resemblance to the man who had rescued me at Waterloo. Lord Varre was surveying me with as much interest as I had him.

  “Wentworth,” he said, “please see that we are not disturbed.”

  “Certainly, sir. I shall be just outside your door should you need me.”

  The butler gently closed the door behind him.

  “I am doubtless not whom you expected to see,” the man on the bed said, then sighed. “I suppose you were looking for a much younger man?”

  “Your son, I presume?” I said.

  “No, sir. I am Marcus deVille, Lord Varre. The man you met was Lucien Adrian deVille, known by his family as Adrian—my great-great-great—oh, who knows how many generations he encompassed? A grandfather of mine, you might say.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “Aye, who could blame you? Come here and sit by me, and I will tell you what little I know.”

  I obeyed. Shade came with me, and was recognized. Again he was greeted as a member of the household.

  “Excuse me, but did this dog once belong to you?” I asked.

  “Shade? Oh no, no. He was owned—if he can be owned—by Adrian, the man who introduced himself to you as Lord Varre. As I understand it, Shade has now attached himself to you. In this house, he will be treated as royalty. I owe him a great deal.”

  He suffered a coughing fit. I helped him to a glass of water.

  “Thank you…I will speak plainly,” he said. “I am in ill health, and haven’t time to tell you all you should know, let alone fill your head with a lot of rubbish that will do you no earthly good. I take it you can sense that I am not long for this world?”

  This was true. “You are gravely ill, sir, but I believe you will see at least another dawn.”

  “More than I hoped for,” he said, unperturbed, “but still not so very long. So let me begin by saying that I know you are nearly immortal, will not age, are able to recover from any wound or illness, and have another gift besides—which Adrian thought a rather stupid request, when most men would have asked for lovers or wealth. He asked for wealth when the gift was given to him. But you, you weren’t so selfish, were you?”

  “Perhaps, as he said, I was merely stupid.”

  “Do you regret it, being able to help the dying?”

  “No,” I answered at once.

  He smiled, and fell silent for a moment.

  “You are more than he bargained for, Captain,” he said at last. “And I’m glad of it. Let me tell you a strange tale. Centuries ago—I know not how many—a young man became enamored of potions and magic and the dark arts. He was a brilliant scholar and gathered every manuscript he could, and sought out alchemists and necromancers and objects reputed to have magical powers. He learned of an old man who lived in a small village and was rumored to be a sorcerer. This young man had already made a habit of pursuing every rumor he ever heard of those with supernatural powers, although he was already quite cynical about these matters. He found a great deal of fakery among those who claimed to be magical. This particular old man did not try to baffle him with incense or drugs. Indeed, he simply said he had been waiting for him.

  “He gave the young man a ring, a mourning ring, and near midnight, took him to visit a cemetery. The young man was not frightened, as some might have been, and spent his time admiring the ornate crypts of the aristocrats who were interred there.

  “‘I wish I were wealthy,’ the young man said, and looking slyly at the crypts added, ‘and alive to enjoy it.’

  “The old man said he had expected no less—nor more—of him. Soon a great black dog appeared, and although he never admitted it to another, I have read the young man’s journals, and know that at last he was frightened.”

  Lord Varre began coughing again. “Perhaps,” I said, giving him another sip of water, “we should continue this after you’ve had a little sleep?”

  “No, no,” he said. He lay back and closed his eyes, but went on with his story.

  “I imagine you know the bargain the old man offered him. That dog was Shade. A cemetery dog. They are rare. Some are harbingers of death, I’m told. But that is not Shade’s role, as nearly as I can tell. He protects you. He has some special connection to those in your line, who have the power to talk to those too injured or ill to speak.

/>   “Adrian had little patience for such work, though. He was surprised to learn that the sorcerer had died not long after they had met, and had left his fortune to Adrian. In this way, Adrian did indeed become vastly wealthy.

  “There were problems, though. He soon realized that his lack of aging was noticed by those around him. He would need to travel. He was always a restless person, so he did not mind this. As he roamed the world, braving places others feared, he saw endless opportunities and began to make money in shipping and trade.

  “As he traveled he continued his studies of black magic and potions. I have never been certain where he was born. At times, I have believed he was Spanish, as some of his oldest documents are in that language, and he seems to have called himself Hidalgo de Seville for a time, but that may easily have been yet another name he created for himself.

  “Wherever he was from, wherever it was he went, at some point he decided to come back to England. He made himself useful as a warrior. Unable to be much disabled by his wounds, he became a valued and feared knight, and earned the title of Baron Lucien Adrian deVille, Lord Varre. He was given these lands. The original house is long gone, but the attic and cellars are full of his papers and other belongings.

  “He didn’t much like it here, I’m happy to say. He loved having the title, but there was that old difficulty, you see. He married and remained here for eleven years, at the end of which time his wife died bearing him his third son, who did not survive infancy. He took his remaining sons with him on a voyage to Italy, and left the care of the manor to a trusted steward, with whom he corresponded frequently.

  “By this time he had become an expert poisoner. If his diaries are to be believed, he enjoyed a dalliance with Lucrezia Borgia.”

  The old man opened his eyes and stared at me. “Supposedly, after a decade abroad, Lord Varre and his youngest son died in Italy, where they were buried. Indeed, there is an elaborate crypt bearing our family name near the villa he owned there. His eldest son inherited titles and land, and returned to England.”

  “He died? But—”

  “Supposedly. The young man who returned to England was said by one and all to greatly resemble his father. So much so, he was mistaken by some to be his father, until they realized that his father would have been a middle-aged man. He was a generous landlord and master, so these questions did not trouble others for long. And if he did not seem to age, well, his father was the same, wasn’t he?”

  “You’re saying it was indeed Adrian. But if so, what of his sons?”

  “There were indeed two bodies buried in that crypt in Italy.”

  “His own sons!”

  “Adrian’s love of himself always surpassed his love of his family. The only shows of sorrow I have ever read in his diaries were oblique references to his losses. Losses he had caused, of course.”

  I was speechless with dismay. Lord Varre lay quietly, allowing me time to consider all he had said.

  “The Borgias!” I finally choked out. “Good God—if this occurred at the beginning of the sixteenth century, do you mean to say it has gone on for three hundred years?”

  “At times, he left us in peace. And he learned other tricks, of course. Stagecraft became one of his accomplishments. A trusted servant would be well paid to help him to present himself as a much older man. There were rumors from time to time, but the servants learned, of course, that there was a high penalty for indiscretion. Mostly, he traveled, seeking thrills that were harder and harder to find.

  “When he wasn’t at home, he took on other identities. He was a master forger and created himself as a German Freiherr, a French comte, an Italian visconte. His wealth and address made him believable, as did hundreds of years of acquiring fluency in a wide range of languages. He sometimes remained in these guises even when he returned here. He would be the cousin who was a German baron, a French count, or an Italian viscount. A bright young man, he seemed, so self-possessed. He charmed everyone, and those who had lived in the area for a long time noted the family resemblance. He began to take his sons and grandsons to the now well-populated crypt in Italy. Eventually his offspring became aware of the pattern, so that when he found the need to spend time in England as Lord Varre, his sons easily became convinced that it was better to live one’s life as a wealthy gentleman in France or Italy than to die young and join one’s ancestors in that crypt.”

  He again suffered a coughing fit, and I begged him to rest his voice for a while. He did, and Shade laid his head on the bed beside him. He gently stroked the dog’s fur and smiled. “Ah, Shade. What a comfort you are, old friend.”

  Shade made a low sound of pleasure.

  “You doubtless wonder,” Lord Varre said after a time, “why Adrian was willing to give up such power to you. You received the care of Shade, and a ring, and some other—gifts, I take it?”

  “Yes, at Waterloo.” I showed him the ring.

  “Adrian arrived here again not long after he met you. I had never seen him without Shade. He told me of his plans for you. You were meant, Captain Hawthorne, to be an unsuspecting temporary vessel, one might say.”

  “Temporary?”

  “Yes. This past winter, Adrian began to receive messages from the dying—he avoided them for the most part, but in the recent war-filled years, this was not easy. He had become an admirer of Bonaparte, from all I can gather. He was rather disturbed, for once in his life, by boredom and complacency, because the dying told him there would be another. At long last, he would be allowed to die. Shade would choose a new master on a certain date in June, at a certain place. So Adrian hurried back here. This was the second time in my life I had seen him, this time posing—of all things—as a young cousin of mine returned from America.”

  He brooded for a few moments, and it seemed to me that some strong emotion was acting upon him. Indeed, he wiped brusquely at his eyes before he went on.

  “His manner was a remarkable thing for me to observe—Adrian, whom I had every reason to hate—was in a panic. He produced a key and ordered Wentworth, the only one of my servants who is aware of the true state of matters, to unlock a set of rooms in the cellars that have been forbidden to the rest of the family. He began scouring his books and at last seemed to believe that he had found a solution to his troubles.

  “He did not tell me the whole—but he mentioned that it had something to do with a mourning ring, some power he invested in it.”

  “This one?” I said, holding up my hand. “The mourning ring he gave me at Waterloo?”

  “Perhaps. I cannot be certain. He collected them. I have asked Wentworth to give you that collection. You are also to have his remaining books and papers.” He frowned. “Do not fail to take them, Captain Hawthorne.”

  I assured him I would do as he wished.

  “Good…good. In any case, Adrian told me that he must go to Belgium but would return shortly. Now he was quite pleased with himself. He believed he had retained his power of regeneration—that is, of recovering from wounds. It would take him a bit longer without the dog, he said, but he would recover. There were other cemetery dogs and he would find one and draw it to him.

  “I had already seen that he had developed the power to bring others under his influence. I, myself, found him difficult to resist, and he seemed to find my resistance more amusing than troublesome. His influence was not merely over humans, most of whom were glad to do his bidding. He could bring birds to his hand. If there was an ill-tempered horse in the stables, he could ride it as if it were a child’s pony. I have seen him coax a fox from its lair and pet it as if it were a cat.

  “He felt confident that he had a method of reclaiming his full power, but he also saw an opportunity. His plan was to grow a bit older here, with me playing his grandfather. He would wait a little more than twenty years, and when his body reached forty-four in natural appearance, he would reclaim his gift from you.”

  “Why did he want to reach that age?”

  “When he had first stopped aging, he not
ed that although some men lived to be seventy or more, a great many men did not live past forty. As time went on, more men lived longer, and he foresaw this trend would continue. In this day, a twenty-four-year-old man is considered to be a young man. He felt at forty-four he would be taken more seriously in business dealings and the like, and yet still be young enough to travel and partake of sports, take mistresses, and father children.”

  “So,” I said, feeling a mixture of relief for my own part and disgust with Adrian, “I will be free of this in twenty years?”

  He gave me a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry, Captain Hawthorne. I must most sincerely beg your forgiveness.”

  “I’m sure you have it, for I can think of no wrong you’ve done me.”

  “Oh, but I have, you see.” He placed a trembling hand over mine. “Forgive me, Captain Hawthorne, but in this very house, I murdered Lucien Adrian deVille, first Baron Varre.”

  30

  Murdered him?” I repeated blankly.

  “Yes, I daresay you don’t believe such a thing is possible.”

  “Of you? No, indeed—”

  He laughed, which induced another choking fit. “Bless you, my boy,” he said, when he was able to speak again. “Bless you for that. But I’m afraid I’m as damned as Adrian. Perhaps twice as damned, for I have caused you take his place for…well, the future is not foreseeable.” He glanced at Shade. “This old fellow may know how long you must remain as you are, but I do not.” He looked back at me. “Adrian told you that you cannot be killed?”

  “I hardly believed him.”

  “It is true. Indeed, Adrian bragged to me of exacting revenge on anyone who had tried to murder him—many of those men were my ancestors. In the sixteenth century, a group of them had overpowered him and stabbed him in the heart. They sought the dog, too, but this was wrong of them. As it happened, he proved more fierce than Adrian himself, and eluded them. Still, they were happy—Adrian did not stir. He did not breathe, nor did his heart beat. So, certain he was dead, they covered him in chains and threw him into the sea.”