They enjoyed the trivial: the food, transport, clothes and the safety. The sight of a police officer was a wondrous thing to them. They spent time being together in ordinariness, learning what love felt like when they weren’t in extremis. To walk hand in hand, to hold one another, to make love without fear or urgency.
One Sunday morning, sated, happy, they mused about their future.
‘Pity that you don’t have the football pools here. We’d make a killing.’ He saw the blank look and explained the paper based lottery system that he’d known.
‘Paper coupons!’ she laughed. ‘It’s the National Lottery now.’ And she laughed at his mouth falling open at the amounts the Euro Lottery paid out. The news was full of Brexit and her face fell every time she heard it. ‘Just wait,’ she sighed. ‘They’ve got no idea…’
Silk pyjamas were Florence’s joy after so long wearing impossible clothes against her skin. She leaned against the window frame, arms wrapped around herself, smiling at the thought of Nat’s return and the crispy duck. She’d taught him about contactless payments and assured him that a take-away was actually a reasonable price and so he’d gone out for the food with a promise that she’d warm him up when he got home. The feel of her beneath the sensual silk was all the encouragement he needed. She smiled. Not wanting to turn on the lamps yet, the apartment was lit by the city alone so that Florence had a good view down the hill towards the Castle gates where Denzil stood, looking sharp in a dark overcoat. The sudden glow of his cigarette lit his face as he drew on it slowly, with intense pleasure.
One moment she’d been looking forward to the gorgeousness of crispy duck and sliding into Nat’s arms, and the next, her knees buckled and she was instantaneously transported to memories of exquisite terror. Denzil lifted his head to let the stiff wind blow the hair out of his face; it was ghastly in the glow of the street-lights.
Florence flung herself to the floor beneath the window’s ledge, wanting to vomit. A nightmare! Denzil! DENZIL! How? Clawing at the low window sill, she pulled herself up so that her eyes could confirm what she hoped they would not. Samuel had warned them about PTSD. But he was there in the same stance which visited her worst dreams, confident, arrogant, sophisticated and athletic. Edward had told them that he thought that Denzil was dead… Was this a ghost? A descendent? No. The set of his sneer was all Denzil Moorcroft.
She gasped, realising that she’d stopped breathing, cold sweat trickling down her breastbone. Every instinct told her to hide, to run from this monster but she controlled the fear. She was a different woman to the one who’d been flung into the past. Florence Brock had looked into an abyss of despair and pain and was no longer terrified. This woman had to know what the hell Denzil Moorcroft was doing in the 21st century, what horror he was planning—if he was looking for her.
Collapsed on the floor beneath the window-sill, she dialled Nat and heard the sound of his phone ringing in the bedroom. ‘Shit!’ She left a message which would be sure to chill him and then ran to the cupboard to find warm clothes. The bloody toilet roll hoard tipped onto her head. It would have been funny in other circumstances. She found what she needed and set off. She was sure that Denzil had no idea that he’d been observed so as long as she kept her distance and kept to the shadows, she’d be safe.
Florence raced down the stairs and launched herself into the night, the wind howling and taking her breath away. She triggered the overhead light and had to duck away quickly out of its range, just as Denzil turned his head. Crouching in the cover of the shrubbery, she watched him take a long pull on the cigarette and then flick it into the gutter. She had the advantage; he didn’t know that he was observed.
Denzil stamped his feet against the cold, pulling up the deep collar of his coat, frowning. Impatiently, he moved towards the iron gate of the Castle grounds. Whoever he’d been waiting for, hadn’t arrived, and she watched as he pushed the gate open and slipped through. He closed it again, quietly, and disappeared into the darkness. Florence wondered why it wasn’t locked.
Her fleece hat and dark clothes made her hard to see as long as she stayed away from the dramatic up-lighters illuminating the squat mansion. She kept her back to the wall and scanned the grounds, her peripheral vision catching a twitch of movement towards the east wall. Carefully, keeping undercover, she followed. The cover ended at the wall which overlooked the Trip to Jerusalem and there was no-one there at all. She blew out her cheeks in frustration and felt the phone buzz in her pocket. Nat’s photograph filled the screen and she put it to her ear just as the tip of something sharp and pointed pierced her neck.
That familiar voice whispered in her ear, ‘Say nothing. Put the device on the ground, my dear.’ She let it drop and heard the crunch of glass as he stamped on it. ‘How I have missed you, wife,’ his voice was liked congealed blood. ‘Come, Mistress Moorcroft. We have an appointment to keep.’
There was nothing that she could do with the point embedded in her flesh as he pushed her on in front of him. He had snared her and so she kept silent, hoping that the remains of her iPhone would still be trackable. A trickle of blood found its way down her neck. Holding the stiletto, Denzil was in close contact with her and it sickened her—the scent of his cologne, the cigarette smoke, his sour breath.
‘Here, dearest,’ his voice was light, cheerful but she heard his laboured breathing and knew that this was an effort. They were at a boarded-up mound by the wall. It looked like a blocked well.
‘Sit,’ he shoved her to the ground and she winced at the tear of her skin. Denzil tapped on the wood with his free hand and it creaked open, revealing the face of Ezra Holless. She laughed with the irony of it. To her surprise, Denzil withdrew the dagger and used his knee to deliver a heavy blow to the side of her head. ‘Do be quiet dear,’ he hissed peevishly.
Holless hardly acknowledged her as he man-handled her down into the tunnel. The sandstone floor was loose and slippery and although Holless held on to her to prevent her falling headlong into the depths below, Denzil tired of the hindrance, wrenched Holless’ hands aways from her until she tumbled and skidded, coming to a halt against a rock wall.
‘Mortimer’s Hole?’ she snorted determined not to show the fear that gripped her.
Neither man replied, Holless simply grabbing her collar, hauling her upright. Denzil was flushed with the exertion and excitement as he held an electric torch to her face.
‘Little bitch. Did you think that I would not find you? That your Taxane friends could hide you from me?’ his face was twisted. ‘Do you see this, my dear?’ he asked more calmly. ‘This is the very implement that you thought to kill me by. I have kept it near to me to remind myself of your…passion.’ He shone the torch on the hand-made nail, a good five inches long. The same one that she’d hoped would inflict agony on him before he bled out. Last time she’d seen it, it was embedded in his balls. Now, he’d used it to bore a hole into her neck. She stared at it and then at him and she grinned horribly. ‘Pity I missed.’
‘Oh, indeed. You will come to rue that error, believe me. But come, wife. Let us descend into Nottingham’s best kept secret. The sandstone caves will see us safe this night and provide more secure hiding for us all.’
Florence had thought that she’d looked into the abyss; now it seemed that she was about to descend into it.
37
A Trip To Jerusalem
As soon as Nat saw the landslide of toilet rolls, he knew something was wrong. Now his hands were clammy as he concentrated on making the phone call. Florrie had programmed the damned thing and taught him how to use it but there weren’t any actual buttons. There were only two numbers on it: hers and the Taxanes’. Who else could he call? He touched button two. The phone rang once and he heard the immediate concern in Samuel’s voice; he’d never rung him before. There was no time for preamble, ‘She’s gone, Sam. She saw Denzil. Here. Went after him—on her own. I… She’s… Oh God, Sam. We’ve got to find her!’
Samuel almost dropped the towel he�
�d tied around him as he’d stepped out of the shower. ‘Dear God! Where exactly are you?’ He was already drying himself, phone trapped under his chin.
‘Bottom of the hill—by the Castle gate,’ he gasped.
The man was panicking, breathlessness. He’d already started searching then. Well, of course he had. ‘When? How long ago?’
‘I don’t know! There was a message—on the phone— I forgot to take it with me… Oh God, Sam. Where is she? How the hell can he be here? What’s going on?’
‘Nat, listen. There’ll be a time—on the phone. Can you..?’
‘I don’t know how—what do I—can’t see…’
‘It’s OK. Just stay calm. We can be with you…soon. Get into the Trip. Wait for us there.’ What was he thinking! How could the man stay calm. He just needed Nat to stay put.
‘No. I’ve got to…’
‘Nat! There is nothing you can do until we get there. Just wait for us. We’re on our way. If Moorcroft’s got her, you’ll need help.’
Samuel was hopping on one foot, tripping up as he tried to get the wet leg into the trousers, when Marissa threw open the door to his rooms, pale, her face set and wearing jeans and a jacket. He couldn’t help a small smile of appreciation. They suited the Lady du Bois. One look at her face told him that she knew.
‘There’s a problem. Florence is in danger, Sammy. Alcuin has passed a message through. We have a serious incursion.’
Bloody Alcuin, Samuel thought, dragging on his socks. He might be a decrepit old monk but he didn’t like Marissa’s adoration of him. If she saw the look on his face, she didn’t react. They rushed to the car that was already waiting for them. Samuel had asked for the Jaguar. The red F-type didn’t like the potholes of the long driveway but it loved the stretches of flat ring-road into Nottingham and Samuel focused on keeping within the speed limit— the car was a magnet to traffic patrols.
Marissa nestled into the enveloping leather seat, adjusting its form with the marvellous buttons. She loved cars. While Samuel drove, she told him that Florence reappeared in the 17th century.
‘Nat called. I know. She saw Moorcroft. Here. By the Castle.’
‘I see.’ Marissa was thoughtful. ‘He’s an enigma you know,’ she began. ‘He appears only once throughout the Civil War— a note made by one of Thomas Fairfax’s officers, describing a winter feast at Montebray— Locksley.’ She shook her head. ‘Even that is fascinating. Why should he change the name of so significant a house? There is mystery to it. We’d know almost nothing of him if Florence and Nat hadn’t told us what he is.’
‘Deliberate obfuscation, I suspect. Certainly kept us from spotting him.’
‘Mayhap, but the question remains as to why, does it not? What is his purpose? What does he want, Samuel?’
There were a great many whys, Samuel thought. The confines of the car and the seat heaters wafted a floral miasma of Marissa’s perfume over him and he inhaled deeply—freesia. Marissa was musing about Moorcroft’s strategy.
‘Are you listening, Samuel?’
‘Mm?’ he sighed, lost in thought. ‘Have you any idea how long I mourned you?’
She turned to him, seeing the pain long etched into lines on his face, lit by the dashboard. ‘As long as I mourned you,’ she replied.
He shook his head. This was the conversation that had to be had and she could not escape him here. ‘I doubt it. You had the compensation of the Great Yew, the excitement of your work reading the ink. Alcuin bloody Colby. I was bereft—for years, Marissa. Why?’
She didn’t answer immediately and he thought that she was angered but when she spoke, her words were measured; she’d had a long time to consider. ‘I was seduced, Samuel, by the miracle of it all. Can you imagine what it was like for me, coming from an age of treachery, betrayal and brutality into this age of miracles and wonders? And then, to discover that I had the gift of reading Time itself! It called to me. It was too much to resist.’
‘And I was not enough,’ he said flatly.
She said nothing but kept her eyes on the road ahead.
The pain was still raw. ‘I found you, Marissa. I was your constant companion for the three years of your induction; I taught you our tongue; I introduced you to the modern age; I recorded the details of your own story. I fell in love with you. I had dreams, hopes…’
She interrupted him, ‘That I was in love with you too?’
Ah, that cruel honesty, he thought. How could he possibly have contemplated it? Here she sat, as youthful as the day she entered the Chapter and he… well, the decades of lemon drizzle had taken their toll.
She needed to explain, ‘I loved you, Samuel. I still do. There can be no atonement for the harm I did. The pain I inflicted on both of us…’ She reached for his hand as it gripped the wheel. ‘You know, there is a period of grace in the Chapter, whereby if one is unable to accept the confines of the place, its rules and requirements, then one is permitted to return to the Enclave before damage is incurred. I over-stayed that grace, lost in my own wonder. I did not understand what I had given up until it was too late. When I came to my senses, they could not permit me to go with the knowledge that I had. I would be untruthful not to tell you that there were recompenses for me,’ she bowed her head. ‘Astonishing revelations were shown to me! Insights into the paths of time and the impact of the travellers upon it. I was intoxicated, bewitched with the complexity and beauty of it.’ Her eyes shone with the memories. ‘They kept me occupied. I was valued greatly. There are…were… but two of us in the Chapter who are exceptionally adept.’
‘Alcuin,’ Samuel didn’t bother to disguise his contempt.
Marissa ignored it. ‘Yes. We supervised the readings and interpretations. We even discovered a common ancestor,’ she laughed.
Samuel’s face was stone. He was in no mood to hear of her fondness for Alcuin Colby—ancient old stick as he was. Samuel was jealous.
Marissa was relentless; she needed him to understand. ‘Alcuin nurtured my talents, glad to have someone to share his thoughts with. We responded to the materials sent through the tree’s portal, sending messages out to the Enclave when necessary. We might accommodate a traveller who had slipped from the future into our age or send someone to a pivotal point in the timeline.’
Samuel heard the longing in her voice, the excitement and thrill of what she’d dealt with each day. What could he offer as an alternative to that? He wondered if he was enough.
Marissa was determined. ‘And then, I began to find these arrivals through the Yew…commonplace. Imagine! I was no longer excited by the documents and what they revealed. I could take no pleasure from them. Something was absent. Someone to share my heart with.’
He gave her no encouragement, just drove steadily, knuckles white on the wheel. Not Alcuin then.
‘Oh, yes, the other Chapter inmates were convivial and there was the opportunity for…companionship, should I have wished it, but it was the loss of you which dulled the light. I bore it for as long as I could and then I spoke to Alcuin. He was adamant—no sympathy for my predicament. There could be no return for one such as I who had had such access to the revelations of time. The door would simply not open for me to go back.’
Samuel turned his head and saw her face. He hadn’t known.
‘I begged them. Told them that I’d rather die. Alcuin tried to calm me… he’d been a monk, you know and he didn’t understand the call of…the heart. He told me that it wasn’t his decision to make; the tree decided who would stay and who would not. I pressed my hand against the wood, hoping that it would open it for me…’
‘You were incarcerated there,’ the shock was clear as Samuel looked at her.
‘There was no cruelty intended,’ she shook her head. ‘It was simply that the knowledge I held was too sensitive to be shared in the world beyond; it might be itself a risk to the timeline. I learned to accept my fate and hope that you had found joy, elsewhere.’
‘Joy. Found joy elsewhere?’ he gave a hollow
laugh. ‘I spent ten years trying to persuade them to let me in to the Chapter and then another ten trying to find a way to reach you with a message. There was one Christmas— when I may have had too much brandy—I took an axe to the bloody door.’
Marissa gave a wry smile, ‘You did? And?’
‘Not a dint. Not a one. Broke my wrist.’
‘Oh no. Poor Samuel,’ she reached across and kissed his wrist softly.
The Jaguar swerved slightly, ‘But why now?’
‘It seems that my fate is somehow entwined with that of Florence Brock and perhaps Nathanial Haslet. The message that came through was addressed personally to me. Alcuin had an intuition and processed me to the door with the whole Chapter in our wake. He placed my hand against it and…’
‘It opened for you.’
‘And you were waiting for me.’
‘Always and forever, Marissa.’ He smiled and then shot a look at her. ‘You’re not going back, are you?’
‘Never, Samuel,’ she laughed. Even if I could, she added silently, missing her old friend.
They turned off the ring road and headed into Nottingham City, smiling into the night. The conversation had answered questions.
Marissa was thoughtful, ‘You know, Moorcroft camouflages himself extremely well in recorded history.’
‘Mm?’
‘We’d expect him to be more prominent—given his status in the era. He is conscious of his trail and one must wonder why? His appearance here is unsettling.’
‘Especially given his proximity to the Enclave.’
‘Neither can we believe that the presence of Florence is coincidental. The portents are ominous, my love.’
Nat didn’t want to admit it but he wanted a drink. What he needed to do was to run, to chase Florrie, to find her and to cave in Denzil Moorcroft’s head with something heavy. He’d run everywhere, crazed, searching the streets around them with no sign of his nemesis or his love. And no clue. They’d evaporated and he didn’t know where to begin to look. It irritated him to have to admit that he needed Samuel Richard’s help. He needed to match Denzil’s cunning and that meant that he needed The Taxanes’ knowledge and resources. The bloody would-be-professor had his uses.
TAXUS BACCATA: Book Two of the Taxane Chronicles Page 25
