by S. D. Sykes
‘These castle walls are cold, ’tis true,
They freeze with winter ice and snow,
But a man can always warm his pole,
Inside a tight and furry hole.’
I passed the lantern to Sandro and then rapped noisily on the door. ‘William Shute,’ I said. ‘It’s Lord Somershill.’
‘Oh, piss off, Lord Somershill,’ came the reply.
Sandro was now sucking in his cheeks in an attempt not to laugh out loud. My valet had never heard anybody speak to me so rudely, and, for a moment, I wanted to burst out laughing myself – for there was something so ludicrous about this whole scenario. We were attempting to have a conversation with a man who had locked himself inside a cellar, drunk a bottle of wine and was now bellowing out a vulgar song.
But this was not the time for comedy, so I cleared my throat. ‘You would be safer out here,’ I said. ‘I can offer you protection.’
He gave a long groan. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he slurred. ‘If there’s anywhere safe in this castle, then this is it. Nobody can reach me in here. The doors are indestructible.’ He then took up his song again.
‘If ever there was consolation,
To this frozen isolation,
It is found, in every guise,
Between a woman’s warming thighs.’
I went to bang on the door again, when Sandro nudged me and pointed to the shadows. There was somebody else listening intently to William Shute’s song. As Sandro lifted the lantern we could see the small, elfin face of Lady Emma. I went to approach her, but Sandro put out his hand to stop me. ‘Let her come to us, Master Oswald,’ he whispered. ‘Or she will run away.’
I watched the girl for a while as she stared into space and then, suddenly, she looked directly back at me with a pair of guarded, red-rimmed eyes. Her thin hair had been scraped back from her face and pulled untidily into a bunch at the back of her head. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. I felt the urge to embrace her, in some feeble attempt to offer comfort, but Sandro was right. Such a move would only have terrified the girl.
Instead, we stayed perfectly still, and sure enough, as William Shute continued to boom out his song, she slowly stepped towards us, her eyes now fixed upon Sandro. I had the impression that she wanted to speak, because her tiny mouth was moving with agitation, as if she was trying to force the words out. Sandro sensed this as well. He held out his hand to her, drawing her patiently towards us, as a man might tempt a robin to feed from his palm. Lady Emma was about to take his hand, when the moment was destroyed by Lady Isobel’s appearance.
‘Emma!’ she shouted. ‘There you are!’ She strode forwards and grasped the child by the arm. Emma flinched at her touch and then froze, holding her arms taut against her body, as if she were protecting her limbs from a rabid dog. The Fool, unaware of this commotion, continued to chant out his song from the other side of the door.
‘These castle walls are cold, ’tis true,
They freeze with winter ice and snow . . .’
‘What is Emma doing here?’ Lady Isobel asked me, her face knotted into an angry frown.
‘She just appeared,’ I said. ‘We didn’t invite her to join us.’
‘. . . But a man can always warm his pole,
Inside a tight and furry hole.’
Lady Isobel gasped at hearing these lyrics. ‘And you allowed a child of her age to listen to this,’ she said, waving at the door to the storeroom. ‘This crudity.’
‘As I said to you before, Lady Isobel. We didn’t know Emma was here.’ I paused. ‘And anyway, I thought you were keeping her in seclusion?’
She took a deep breath, stung by the implied criticism. ‘The girl escaped,’ she said, grasping Emma roughly again by the hand. ‘From now on I will lock the door to our apartment at every opportunity.’ She tried to pull Emma away, but the girl resisted.
‘I think Emma was trying to talk to us,’ I said.
Lady Isobel flared her nostrils. ‘What on earth do you mean by that?’ she said. ‘Emma cannot speak.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ I said. ‘I’m told she used to speak to her lady’s maid.’
‘The girl is a simpleton, Lord Somershill,’ said Lady Isobel, keeping a tight grip of Emma’s small hand. ‘Believe me. I’ve lived with her for the last three years. Even if this child could speak to you, then she would have absolutely nothing to say.’
As the girl was dragged away, Sandro turned to me, his face flushed with outrage. ‘How can that woman be so cruel?’ He pressed his hand to his chest. ‘To that poor girl?’
‘Lady Isobel is mourning her husband,’ I said, feeling the need, for some unknown reason, to defend the woman. ‘I don’t think she’s herself.’
Sandro looked at me with a sideways glance, disappointed at my reply, since we both knew that Lady Isobel’s recent loss was a very poor excuse for her treatment of Emma. If anything, the widow’s veil had revealed and not shrouded her true nature.
‘Listen, Sandro,’ I said. ‘I’ll visit Lady Emma tomorrow, and make sure that’s she’s not being mistreated. Does that satisfy you?’
He nodded cautiously in response – appeased for the time being, though I knew he would keep me to my word. ‘I think that Lady Emma wants to tell me something,’ he said.
‘Really?’
He blew a curl from his eye, and now that I looked at him properly, I realised that he desperately needed to have his hair cut. In so many small ways, this castle was slowly turning us into barbarians. ‘Yes, Master,’ he said, in response to my question. ‘I do.’
Chapter Twenty-four
It was the stench of smoke that first caused me to wake – its tendrils seeping under the door and poisoning the sweet air with fumes. Once I had opened my eyes, I could hear raised voices in the inner keep below our window.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Filomena, as I jumped from the bed and pulled on my boots.
‘There’s a fire,’ I said.
She crossed herself. ‘Mother Maria.’
‘You should get dressed,’ I told her. ‘In case it spreads.’
She rubbed her eyes and pulled her gown about her shoulders. ‘Where is the fire?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, running to the door. ‘I’ll come straight back. Just wake the others. Be ready to leave this apartment.’
I descended the winding staircase to hear Sandro’s footsteps clattering down behind me. ‘The smoke is coming from the cellars,’ he shouted. ‘From the storerooms, I think.’
I stopped and turned to look at the boy. We both knew what the other was thinking.
The smoke was billowing into the inner keep as we opened the door from our stairwell. It was white and cloud-like against the darkness of the winter’s night, and I could see nothing at first, until the light of a lantern shone out through the murkiness. We ran towards it.
‘Who’s there?’ said Alice Cross, as her face loomed from the smoke.
‘It’s me, Lord Somershill,’ I said. She was standing over Lyndham as he held his head between his knees and coughed. ‘What’s happened here?’ I said.
It was Alice Cross who answered. ‘The Fool started a fire in the storeroom.’
‘What?’
‘He was drunk,’ she said. ‘Probably knocked over his lantern, and set fire to his clothes.’
I felt Sandro nudge me. He didn’t believe this story any more than I did. ‘The Fool didn’t have a lantern in there,’ I said.
Alice Cross frowned. ‘How else did he start a fire then?’
‘That’s a very good question,’ I said.
Lyndham raised his head from his knees. ‘The flames went up so quickly, de Lacy. I couldn’t do anything to help him.’ He coughed. ‘I tried to kick in the door, but it was too late.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘It was terrible. Shute was trapped inside. He didn’t have time to escape.’
Sandro crossed himself. ‘The Fool is dead?’
Lyndham nodded. ‘There was not
hing I could do.’
I put a steadying hand on my valet’s swaying shoulder. ‘Has the fire spread?’ I asked, turning back to Alice Cross.
She shook her head in response. ‘No, no. It’s contained within the storeroom,’ she said. ‘Those cellars are built of stone. It won’t go any further.’ She then threw up her hands. ‘But think of all that food that’s been burnt. What a waste.’
‘What about the man who’s dead?’ I replied.
She puffed at my comment. ‘The Fool brought it on himself, Lord Somershill. Nobody asked him to lock himself in there.’
Sandro tapped me on the arm and whispered, ‘I don’t understand, Master Oswald. Surely the poor man had time to get out before the fire spread?’
‘I agree,’ I whispered back. ‘I don’t think this was an accident.’ I nodded towards the door that led to the cellars. Smoke was still issuing from this opening. ‘Come on. Let’s go and look.’
‘Don’t go in there, de Lacy,’ shouted Lyndham, as we set off. ‘The fumes will poison your lungs.’
‘I need to see what’s happened,’ I said.
Lyndham struggled to his feet and followed us towards the smoky passageway. ‘God’s bones, de Lacy,’ he shouted. ‘You’ve got to listen to me. You cannot go in there. The smoke will kill you.’
We stood at the door to the passageway, as the fumes continued to billow out, and I knew that Lyndham was telling the truth. I could already feel the choking miasmas constricting the back of my throat. ‘What happened here, Lyndham?’ I asked, turning to the defeated-looking man. ‘And please don’t tell me that Shute knocked over a lantern.’
Lyndham coughed again. ‘All I know is that I was outside the storeroom, when the fire started. It went up very quickly, and I could do nothing to help.’
‘You were outside the room?’
‘Yes. I’d decided to guard the door, you see. After you said that Hans was planning to kill Shute, I thought it would make sense to wait there to catch him. If he wanted to get to Shute, then he would have to get past me.’ He coughed. ‘But I must have fallen asleep, because then I was woken by Shute’s screams.’ He coughed again. ‘I shouted at the man to pull down his barricade and escape before the flames took him. But it was too late. Too late.’ His voice became flustered and shrill and he was struggling to speak. ‘The fire had taken hold so quickly, you see. Shute didn’t stand a chance.’
I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. ‘Hans said he would kill The Fool, and now he has,’ I said.
‘But I don’t see how,’ protested Lyndham. ‘I was outside the door all the time. Even if this devil is creeping into the castle through some secret tunnel, there’s no possibility that he passed me.’
‘But you said you were asleep?’
He clasped my arm, and then squeezed his hand. ‘Listen to me, de Lacy. Don’t you think I would have noticed the door being bashed down? I don’t sleep that deeply.’ He paused. ‘There is no possibility that Hans passed me.’
‘So the door was never opened?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So how did Hans get in then?’ I asked. ‘How did he start this fire without opening the door?’
Lyndham released his hand. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, now shaking his head in frustration. ‘Maybe the man truly is a devil. Able to walk through walls and slip under doors.’
‘Or maybe he didn’t come inside the castle at all,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘It’s nearly dawn. There’s something I want to show you.’
The portcullis was raised at first light, the clank of the chains echoing about the castle. The door in the gate was unlocked and Lyndham, Sandro and I emerged into the thin morning light. As we looked out across the marsh, we could see the sun, peeking its head over the horizon – a ball of white heat at the foot of a cold grey sky. Flocks of birds were already darting in short bursts across the muddy waters, going about their daily fight for survival against the tyranny of winter.
The air was crisp and freezing, and caused Lyndham to start coughing as the cold hit the back of his throat. In other circumstances I might have suggested he went back inside, but he needed to see this.
I led them both about the perimeter of the castle walls, past the point where I usually dropped the bread for Annora, spotting that the loaf from the previous night was still lying in the long grass. The girl had not come to pick it up, so I kicked it out of sight before the others noticed. We then continued towards a section of wall that was smoking. There, at the foot of the wall was the ventilation shaft that Godfrey had so proudly added to the castle in his recent modifications.
‘This shaft leads to the storeroom where Shute was hiding,’ I said. Then I rubbed my hand about the stone facing to the hole and lifted my fingers to my nose. ‘As I thought. Birch oil.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Lyndham.
‘Hans and his uncle have buckets of this stuff,’ I said. ‘It’s very flammable. The young Dutchman must have crept back inside the castle while you were guarding the storeroom door.’
‘Oh God, de Lacy,’ said Lyndham, coughing again. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing by lying in wait there.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ I said, in an attempt to comfort the man. ‘You weren’t to know that Hans would pour a bucket of oil into this cellar from outside the castle. It’s easy to set this liquid on fire. That’s why the room ignited so quickly.’
Lyndham held his hand in front of his mouth, trying to shield the cold air from the back of his throat. ‘But I don’t understand. How did he know that Shute was in the storeroom?’
‘The Fool was singing loudly enough to wake the dead last night,’ I said. ‘This shaft must have broadcast his song to the whole headland.’
Sandro interrupted us. ‘Look, Master Oswald,’ he said. ‘I’ve found something.’
We waved away the smoke to see Sandro holding a bucket aloft. It was a rotten-looking vessel, still stinking of the pungent liquid it had once contained. It was, indeed, the birch oil bucket from de Groot’s workroom – so there could be no doubt now that my theory was correct.
‘He’s trying to kill us. One by one,’ said Sandro, dropping the bucket in a dramatic flourish. ‘Soon we will all be dead.’
‘Stop it, Sandro,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t help to panic.’
But then it was Lyndham’s turn to give in to despondency. ‘Your valet has a point, de Lacy,’ he said, sinking to the ground. ‘It seems impossible to protect ourselves from this man. If he’s not sneaking into the castle and playing his tricks, then he’s doing this. Killing us, one by one.’
‘Which is why we need to find him,’ I said.
‘Find him? But how?’ said Lyndham, with a note of scorn in his voice. ‘We’ve had no success so far. The man is as fleeting as a ghost. He comes and goes into this castle as he pleases.’
‘Which is why we have to leave the castle to look for him,’ I said.
Lyndham raised an eyebrow at this.
‘We should have done it before,’ I said. ‘Instead we’ve let ourselves become his hostages.’
The knight hesitated. ‘But I thought we’d all agreed not to leave the castle,’ he said, as another coughing fit followed, prompting me to pull him away from the wall to be clear of the fumes that were still belching out from the vent. I had always felt physically inferior to this tall and muscular man, and yet it seemed that something as ephemeral as a lungful of smoke had defeated him. He sat on a patch of rough grass and coughed again as we were overwhelmed by the smell of the fire. It was repellent – of tar, wood smoke and something else that I could identify from bitter experience. The smell of a burning man.
‘Are you sure about this plan to leave the castle?’ Lyndham asked me, once he had finally found his voice again.
‘Yes, I am,’ I said, ‘it’s the only way to stop Hans.’
‘When shall we go then?’
I hesitated. ‘I’
m going to go alone,’ I told him.
‘Don’t be so foolish, de Lacy. I’ll come with you.’
‘No. You can’t,’ I said.
He made a point of clearing his throat. ‘Don’t worry about this cough. It’s just the smoke,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing. I’ll be back to myself within the hour.’
‘It’s nothing to do with the smoke,’ I said. ‘You can’t leave the castle because of plague.’
He raised his eyebrow again. ‘But you can?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll be safe.’
‘But why should it be any different for you?’ he asked, regarding me with a puzzled frown.
‘Because I’ve suffered from this disease before,’ I said. ‘In the Great Plague of 1349. I’ve had it once, so I cannot catch it again.’
He looked at me with some scepticism. ‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how did you manage to survive?’ he asked, continuing to frown. ‘I thought everybody died when they caught the Plague.’
‘A priest saved me,’ I said, ‘and not with his prayers.’
‘What do you mean?’
I hesitated for a moment, for even talking about this experience was painful. ‘The corruption of plague was killing me,’ I said. ‘The lumps in my armpits and my groin were so swollen and black that I didn’t have long to live. So the priest took a knife to each boil. To release the poison from my body.’ As I gave this description my scars prickled at the memory. In truth, I remembered little of the surgery itself, as I had been delirious with fever – but I recalled my recuperation in vivid, aching detail, not least because Brother Peter had regularly washed my wounds with vinegar.
‘I have heard such stories before,’ said Lyndham. ‘But I also heard that this surgery never works.’ He looked me over. ‘You were lucky to survive.’
