Fortune's Fools

by Paul Tomlinson

  “Ah, well. Perhaps a little more time down here might refresh your memories.”

  Grimwade smiled and moved towards the cell door.

  “I’m still hungry,” Bryn said.

  Grimwade chuckled and exited.

  Bryn braced himself against the stone ledge and began pulling at the chain which held him. His arms bulged as he tried to pull the fastening out of the wall. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

  “You want to be careful, you’ll pull a muscle,” Gosling said.

  Bryn frowned, glancing from his partner to the chains and back. “Do you think we should have left a note with that body?”

  “Which one?”

  “The old man, John Smith.”

  “Henrik,” Gosling said.

  “Whatever. Our meaning may not have been clear.”

  “It was crystal clear.”

  Bryn thought about this for a moment. “Why did we leave the body in that Guard House room?”

  Gosling slapped his palm to his forehand and wiped it down his face, sighing in exasperation. “We wanted Captain Sheldrake to know that we knew that we had been hired by him, using the dead man as his agent.”

  “Oh,” Bryn said. “And the dead man will tell him that, will he?”

  “Yes, Bryn, I coached him myself and made sure he knew what to say.”

  “That’s good.” Bryn gave up trying to pull the restraints out of the wall. “If I had a nail, I could probably pick these locks with my teeth,” he said.

  “If you’re going to wish for something, why not wish for a key?” Gosling peered into the shadows, a scuffling sound attracting his attention. A sleek brown rat sat on its haunches, regarding him with little black eyes. What kind of fool gets himself into such a situation? It seemed to sniff disdainfully, and then turned its attention back to the greyish straw that littered the floor.

  Chapter Fifty

  Anton woke late and found Edric Edison sitting cross-legged on the floor of the shack by the make-shift bed.

  Edison smiled. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  Varian turned over and closed his eyes, unconcerned.

  Anton sat up.

  “Time to go to work, partner,” Edison said. He got up and opened one of the shutters, peering out.

  Anton shielded his eyes from the light.

  “How long have you been partners?” Varian asked.

  “I don’t know, what time is it?” Anton said.

  “Too early,” Varian muttered.

  Edison looked around the dilapidated shack. “I like what you’ve done with this place, it’s... unpretentious. Reminds me of the privy behind the Nag’s Head.”

  “If you’re in need of the jakes, you’ll have to go and dig a hole in the sand,” Varian said, his voice muffled by the blanket.

  “I will leave you to dress. Join me outside when you are ready,” Edison said. “It’s a lovely day out there.”

  “He is far too cheerful for his own good,” Anton muttered after Edison had closed the door behind him. “I expected him to be unconscious until Thursday at least.”

   Anton climbed out of bed.

  “Are you going?” Varian asked, his back to Anton.

  “I was going to. Why, did you want something?” Anton smiled suddenly.

  “Yes. Close the shutter will you.”

  Anton hrrmphed and dressed as noisily has he could manage. He banged the shutter closed and stomped out, slamming the door.

  Edison was standing at the edge of the coast road, looking out over the sea. The breeze stirred his auburn hair, and its fresh, salty tang helped blow away the last of his headache.

  “Hello, again,” Edison said brightly, as Anton came out of the fisherman’s shack.

  Anton crossed the road and stood beside the taller man, looking out to where a cloudless sky met slate blue water. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

  “Partners,” Edison said quietly, shaking his head.

  “Pardon?”

  “I said partners. How can we be partners? We cannot stand the sight of one another,” Edison said.

  “Fate has brought together stranger bedfellows,” Anton said. “Should you not be suffering with a hangover this morning?”

  “I have the benefit of a healthy constitution.”

  “That or an absence of feeling,” Anton muttered.

  “It would seem you are not at your best in the morning,” Edison said.

  “I always feel out of sorts after a long night of trying to rescue people who don’t need rescuing,” Anton said, pointedly.

  “Ah, yes,” Edison seemed embarrassed. “Actually, I woke at dawn, so have had some time to shake off the worst of my sore head.”

  In the silence that followed, Edison stared at Anton, who eventually shifted uncomfortably.

  “Is something wrong?” Anton asked.

  “You are an actor by profession?” Edison asked.

  “I hope I proved that on the stage.”

  “And an assassin by inclination?” Edison asked. “Is murder simply a hobby?”

  “I am no assassin,” Anton said. “It is not I who will kill her.”

  “You believe, then, that I will commit the deed?” Edison asked.

  “While you are an actor of considerable reputation, and a thief of rather less distinction, I do not believe you are any more capable of cold-blooded murder than I.”

  “You have never killed a man?” Edison asked.

  Anton shook his head. “Never. Aside from inflicting a few wounds with my sword, I have never harmed another man. Why do you ask?”

  “I was thinking about Grimwade’s little task. Why would you want to participate in such a crime?” Edison asked.

  “Because as an actor, it is a part I fancy playing for a while. For the adventure of it. And there is also the question of a debt to be repaid,” Anton said, his hand moving towards the amulet at this throat.

  Edison looked back out over the sea. “But this is no game,” he said. “We are talking about murder. You have admitted that you have never killed anyone; nor have I. I do not believe that I could, even should I want to. And I do not want to.”

  “If your conscience troubles you, you have only to consider her crimes. The lives she has taken, and the manner of their taking,” Anton said.

  “I do not doubt that she deserves to die – but I have no wish to be her executioner.”

  “We do not have to kill her,” Anton said.

  “But Grimwade said...”

  “He will arrange her death: a slow-acting poison, or some such. She will die while in our company. All we have to do is dispose of the body, such that no one will ever suspect that she was murdered. It is left to us to work out how best this might be done,” Anton said.

  “Grimwade made no suggestion as to the actual circumstances of his wife’s death? Of how she would come to peg out in our presence?” Edison asked.

  “He did suggest one scenario. Apparently his wife is visited by a succession of attractive young men who are paid handsomely to... er...”

  “Provide her with some distraction?”

  “Exactly. Grimwade suggested that you might visit her in this capacity...”

  “You did not agree to this plan, I hope?” Edison asked.

  “No, no. I merely said that we would consider it,” Anton said.

  Edison sighed, relieved. “For the sake of argument then,” he said. “Let us say that I have spent this time with her, and I pour a goblet of wine, which has been specially prepared with a potent poison.”

  “How much time?” Anton asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “How much time would you have to spend with her before you could put out her light?”

  “Well, it would look suspicious if I left almost immediately. Perhaps two hours might be appropriate?” Edison said.

  “Could you entertain her for two hours, even if you wanted to?” Anton asked.

  Edison cast him a disparaging look. “Two hours could be easily fil
led, if it was properly divided. It could begin with food, to get up the strength; then proceed to drinking, enough to put oneself in the mood,” he said.

  “But not sufficient to take away the ability. This could be followed by kissing and undressing,” Anton continued.

  “And if she’s too much of a hag to kiss, we could proceed straight to undressing?” Edison asked.

  “Indeed. And then you might begin some kind of game: you remain teasingly beyond her grasp and she pursues you around the bed chamber.”

  “But what if she was to catch me and demand that the entertainment proper begin at once?” Edison asked.

  “A thought too unpleasant to contemplate,” Anton said. “It might be well for you to have a weapon to hand, just in case. Do you think we might obtain a pistol in Sangreston?”

  “You think a tiny lead ball will bring her down?”

  “A cannon, then,” Anton said.

  “Perhaps another plan is called for,” Edison said. “I shall think on it.”

  They stood in silence for some time.

  “How do you feel about the idea?” Anton asked.

  “What, of killing Grimwade’s wife? We would be doing the world a favour if we were to help Griselda Grimwade into her grave.”

  “No, about being partners.”

  “If I am to face Griselda Grimwade, I would rather do it with a partner than alone,” Edison said.

  “And now that we are no longer rivals for Megan Jarrett’s affections, there is no reason for us to remain enemies,” Anton said.

  “I suppose not,” Edison said. “Since we each have also saved the other’s life.”

  They both nodded, considering the idea.

  “Let us go inside and toast our new partnership,” Anton said.

  Edison looked back towards the dilapidated shack. “Could we not go into town and find an inn?”

  *

  “This is all your fault, you know,” Sheldrake said.

  Henrik’s corpse was seated in an arm chair in Sheldrake’s bed chamber. The front of his robes were clotted with gore and his sightless eyes had lost their sheen.

  “Hire assassins to bring me his head, I said. And what do I get? He brings me their ears. They did not suffer, he says. Hah!” Sheldrake was pacing up and down in his shirt sleeves, his face covered with lather and a razor in his hand. “What sort of people did you hire? What skilled slayers of men? They went out to kill a man. One man. And they were both killed. Imbeciles. You hired imbeciles!”

  Sheldrake hurled a pitcher of water at the dead man: it bounced off his skull with a dull thump and shattered on the floor. Henrik slumped sideways in the chair.

  Regaining his composure, Sheldrake returned his attention to the removal of his whiskers. “Mind, even his death might not rid me of him: I killed Torrance myself, and he has returned to plague me in my quieter moments.” His voice was distorted as he twisted his face to get a better angle for the blade. “It has gotten so that you cannot trust a corpse to lie still anymore.” Sheldrake splashed water on his face, wiped the remaining soap off onto the towel. He picked up a pair of scissors and began trimming his moustache. “That is why I am keeping you where I can be sure of what you are doing.” He twisted his head, trimmed at his nasal hair. As he removed the blades, an errant hair was trapped between the blades and he had plucked it free before he realised. This triggered a sneezing fit.

  “You try anything more than a little gentle rotting, and I will have you on a bonfire quicker than you can blink.” His eyes were streaming. “You know, you make a much better listener now that you are dead.” He picked up the towel and wiped soap into his eyes. “Owww, I am blind!”

   

   

   

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “She’s on her fourth pie,” Edison said, glancing back towards the cart.

  Anton shrugged. “Perhaps Grimwade should have poisoned them all,” he whispered.

  They slowed their horses, knowing that the prepared ground lay just ahead.

  “A silver shilling says the next pie will have her guts boiling and her heart bursting,” Anton whispered.

  “What a poetic turn of phrase,” Edison replied. He considered a moment. “Grimwade sent her with eight pies, so he was expecting her to eat more than five. My money is on pie number six.”

  They had been travelling through deep forest for almost an hour. Edison held the reins to the horse pulling the two-wheel cart which carried Griselda Grimwade. And her luncheon.

  In all, the forest was thought to cover some hundred thousand acres, stretching many miles north and east of Sangreston; though this area also included some agricultural land, heathland, and an occasional village. The trees were, in the main, ancient oaks, with an occasional birch or chestnut.

  At the outer fringes, and close to the several roads which passed through the forest, travellers might see deer, or find themselves dodging discarded acorns and chestnut husks cast down by mischievous red squirrels. But deeper within, the air grew still and dark under the canopy of leaves. Whatever the weather, the air was always cool there. The trees creaked and overhead, the leaves whispered. A man could soon find himself imagining all kinds of terrors lurking behind the dark boles of the trees. Here one direction soon began to look like another, and without sight of the sky, it was easy to become lost.

  Various legends and superstitions had grown up around the forest, and these, coupled with people’s natural fear of such a lonely and deserted place, had earned the it the reputation of being a dangerous place. Bears still lived freely within the forest, and wolves were sometimes heard after dark. And perhaps there were also some beasts that no man had set eyes upon and lived to tell about. But, in reality, the gravest danger likely to face a rider who travelled the forest was ambush by one of the bands of outlaws who chose it as their home.

  Many braved both real and imagined dangers: it was far quicker to take a route through the forest than it was to travel around it. And some took a road through the forest for other reasons.

  “Call a halt to take a piss,” Edison whispered urgently.

  “I don’t need one.”

  “There is the marker. The grave was dug on the other side of those bushes.”

  They slowed to a stop.

  “Pardon me, madam. Nature calls to me,” Anton smiled apologetically, and disappeared into the bushes.

  Griselda polished off the fourth pie and picked up a fifth.

  Anton came out of the undergrowth adjusting his breeches.

  “Could you not have taken a little longer?” Edison hissed.

  Anton frowned. “It is not an exercise which can be prolonged.”

  “My turn,” Edison leaped from his saddle and headed for cover.

  Anton turned to smile at Griselda. Her face was smothered in gravy and pastry crumbs. Watching her eat was an unsettling sight: there was something in it of a wild dog attacking a carcass. Anton returned his gaze to the road ahead.

  “I need to pee too.”

  “What?” Anton whirled round in his saddle.

  Griselda smiled coquettishly. Pie-coated teeth. “I need to pee.”

  Anton dismounted and helped her down from the wagon.

  “Come on,” she indicated that Anton should follow.

  “What?” He was genuinely afraid.

  “You must stand by and protect me. Outlaws might come and ravish me,” she explained.

  Ravish you? Anton thought. He followed her towards the foliage which grew thickly to either side of the road. He looked around wildly, hoping that Edison would appear.

  “No peeking,” Griselda warned him.

  “Nothing could be further from my thoughts.”

  There was the sound of a brief struggle, followed by a sound like someone emptying a large bucket.

  “Aaaah, relief! – Aaaargh!”

  There was a heavy crash.

  Edison appeared at Anton’s side. “What happened?”

  “I think pie num
ber five got her,” Anton smiled.

  Muttering, Edison handed over a shilling. “We will have to go in and get her, drag her over to the grave.”

  “After you,” Anton gestured politely for Edison to go first.

  “Thank you so much.” Edison pushed his way through the leaves. “How much was it that I owed Grimwade?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  “We should have asked him for more money.”

  Griselda Grimwade lay face down in the grass, her underwear around her ankles and her pale doughy buttocks pointing at the sky.

  “Cover her up,” Edison said.

  “Handling the undergarments of women is more your territory than mine,” Anton smiled.

  Edison tried to lift her enough to pull up her drawers, averting his eyes.

  “You are enjoying that, are you not?” Anton asked.

  “Lift her middle so I can get these things pulled up.”

  “Just cover her up with her skirt and we will drag her towards the hole: we do not want to hang around and have someone see us doing this.”

  “The gods forfend.”

  They took an arm each and dragged her towards the marked spot. They had come out here the previous day and dug a hole to receive her corpse. It had been planned as a swift, easy disposal.

  “Her drawers have worked themselves free,” Edison gasped, as they slowly dragged the dead weight between them.

  Edison left Anton with the body once they had it at the grave side and went back for the undergarment. Unable to bring himself to touch them, he kicked it to the grave, nudged it into the hole with the toe of his boot.

  Anton stood looking down at the immense form of Griselda Grimwade lying beside the grave. “I have some bad news,” he said. “In all probability, the hole is not long enough, and it certainly is not wide enough.”

  “I have some more bad news,” Edison wasn’t to be outdone. “The shovel we left has gone: we cannot fill in the hole.”

  “And we cannot make it any bigger.”

  They stood in silence. Not out of respect for the deceased, but out of frustration and weariness.

  “Are you thinking what I am thinking?” Anton asked.

  “I do hope not,” Edison answered.