A Brief History of Montmaray

by Michelle Cooper

  “Who…?” I choked out, feeling the blackness rising from the floor, misting my vision.

  Veronica grabbed my arm, her nails digging through my sleeve. “Stop that!” she said. She turned around. “Rebecca! The blanket!”

  Numbly, I realized the unmoving legs were clad in gray trousers and shiny black boots. One of the Germans, then. I was too cold and dizzy to know whether I should feel relief at this.

  “Sophie, listen,” said Veronica, tightening her grasp on my arm and shaking harder. I’d have bruises later, I thought irrelevantly, looking down at her hand. “You have to go outside, head off the other one. Get him away from here somehow, while I figure out …”

  Veronica’s voice trembled and died, and it was this that made me take a deep breath, pull my arm free, and reach for the candle on the table. Veronica needed me. The candle wavered in my hand but didn’t go out, and I took courage from this. Rebecca emerged from Uncle John’s room, clutching a blanket.

  “He’s in the courtyard,” Rebecca said hoarsely. “The other man. We heard him.”

  “Lock the door,” Veronica said. We all glanced at the kitchen door and its rusty, never-used bolt. Rebecca moved towards it. “Please, Sophie,” Veronica added, nodding at the other door, the one that led into the Great Hall.

  I took another deep breath and then did as she told me. Walking into the Great Hall, which was lit only by streams of moonlight and the flickering candle, was worse than even my dream. Dark shapes crouched like monsters preparing to pounce. The clocks whirred threateningly. There was a rustling noise from near the piano that ceased the instant I stopped to listen. I held the candle higher and forced myself to concentrate on my footsteps. Nearly there… just another yard or so, and then…

  The chapel door was ajar. Had Rebecca left it that way? Or was it …

  “Stop that!” I told myself aloud. Then, clenching my jaw so hard that it cracked, I crept forward.

  The chapel, as far as I could see in the shaky light, was empty. I stepped inside and raised my candle. Well, there was no reason for him to be in here, nothing to see—the walls were bare, the altar unadorned, the stained-glass window featureless in the dark. I turned and made my way towards the main chapel doors, the double ones that led out into the courtyard. Unbolting them, I pulled one open a crack. I peered out. The full moon slid behind a cloud.

  Then an icy breath snuffed out my candle.

  I whimpered and then clapped my hand over my mouth, too late. It was only the wind, of course, but I was spooked beyond all rational thought—even more so a second later when I heard the scritch-scratch of mice (I simply couldn’t face the possibility they were rats) in the corner.

  Matches, I need matches, I told myself. There were probably some on the altar (I thought of Rebecca on her knees before it), but as I turned, I caught a flash of light from the library tower far brighter than any candle. I pushed the chapel doors open a little further and looked out. He was in there, all right. Veronica needs you to do this, I reminded myself. I edged outside and began to tiptoe across the courtyard towards the tower. Then I remembered the gun and realized that sneaking up on him was a very stupid idea. It was impossible to stomp in bare feet, though, and when I reached the open door of the library, I saw that the man bent over Veronica’s desk was completely unaware of my presence. My heart pounding, I coughed loudly and shoved the door against the wall.

  Herr Rahn jolted upright, pointing his torch directly at me. My arm shot up to shield my face.

  “Your Highness,” he said, lowering the torch at once. “I … I apologize.”

  I clutched the doorframe, my eyes blank with that flash of white light. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “But … but the books, I had to see…”

  Blinking at him, my vision slowly clearing, I realized he was blushing. “You’d better not have disturbed anything,” I said, his embarrassment giving me the nerve to speak so severely. Also, I’d realized he didn’t have the gun with him—or if he did, it was so well concealed that he probably wasn’t intending to use it in the near future. “My cousin will be very cross,” I added, frowning in what I hoped was an authoritative manner and crossing my arms hard across my chest to conceal their trembling.

  “No, no, I promise I was only looking at the bookshelves,” he said. I turned and stared at the door, praying he’d take the hint. “It is a very fine library,” he said hopefully. “Perhaps Her Highness would be so kind as to…”

  “Not now!” I burst out in frustration. Would he never leave? “It’s one o’clock in the morning!”

  “Er, no,” he agreed. “But—”

  “You really should go,” I said.

  “I do apologize,” he said, and he looked so sad and gentle-eyed that I felt quite sorry for him. Then I remembered what was lying in the kitchen and felt even worse. Herr Rahn bowed his head and moved towards me, his glance falling on the desk and its framed photographs as he passed. “That is a very handsome young man,” he said with a shy smile.

  “My brother,” I said, without needing to look to know whom he meant.

  I shut the library door behind us and walked Herr Rahn out through the courtyard to the drawbridge.

  “Good night,” he said as we stood under the remains of the portcullis. I saw him give it a bright, inquisitive glance and then repress an urge to ask about the design.

  “Good night,” I said. I waited till his dot of torchlight had bobbed all the way across the drawbridge and onto the rocks beyond the Chasm. Then I turned back towards the castle.

  It was only at that moment that I began to wonder what had actually happened. The two men must have separated to search for the library. I had assumed, without any conscious thought on the matter, that Rebecca had come upon the German—Hans, I now knew—in the kitchen and hit him over the head with the frying pan. She wouldn’t think twice about it if she believed anyone might be a threat to Uncle John, especially if she’d been startled awake. But that didn’t explain the pool of blood. Could so much blood come out of someone’s head? Wouldn’t there just be a bruise? Unless she’d used a knife … My insides suddenly seized up, and I bent over and was sick in the courtyard mud.

  Oh, God help us, I remember thinking. For are any of us non-believers at moments of despair?

  I stumbled back into the kitchen to find the hearthrug lying crooked and damp over freshly scrubbed flagstones. Veronica was at the sink, wrist-deep in murky water, but she whirled round at the sound of me.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “He was in the library,” I said. At any other time, this invasion of her private domain would have been met with outrage, but she only nodded. “He’s on his way back to the village,” I said. “I hope.”

  “Right,” she said grimly. “Good.” She let the water drain away and started wringing out the cloth she’d used to clean the floor.

  “Veronica!” I said when she gave no sign of being about to say anything else. “What happened? Who… and where’s the… What did you do with it?”

  “Quiet!” said Rebecca, edging backwards out of the pantry. “You’ll wake him.”

  I felt a bubble of laughter rise and pop in my throat. “You can’t wake him!” I cried. “He’s dead!”

  Veronica dropped the cloth and hurried over, wiping her hands on the hem of her nightgown. “Shh!” she hissed, glancing up at the ceiling. She pushed me down onto one of the chairs and crouched beside me. “Listen,” she said. “He … Father woke up, he must have heard the Germans talking in the courtyard. He went into the Great Hall and took down Benedict, and then, when the blond one saw the unlatched door and came into the kitchen—”

  “Oh God, no,” I moaned, covering my face with my hands.

  “We must hide that body,” said Rebecca.

  “Are you mad?” I said, lifting my head. I looked at Veronica, but for once she wasn’t arguing with Rebecca. “Are you both mad?” I said. “We have to tell Herr Rahn! This is his friend, we
can’t just—”

  “They’re SS,” said Veronica fiercely. “I saw the insignia on his tunic. Do you understand? Part of the German army, Hitler’s special forces. What do you imagine they’ll do when they find one of their men has been mutilated with a sword?”

  “They were trespassing,” I said, a fresh wave of nausea rising at the picture Veronica’s words evoked. “In the middle of the night! A man has the right to defend his—”

  “They’ll say His Majesty is insane!” cried Rebecca, looking more than a little insane herself with her gray hair hanging in hanks around her white face and—oh God, was that blood on her nightgown? “They’ll take him away, lock him up, oh no…” Her voice rose in a wail.

  “Quiet!” said Veronica. “You’ll wake Henry!”

  “You can’t possibly agree to this,” I said to her.

  Veronica shot a glance at Rebecca and lowered her voice. “Sophie, you didn’t see it. The body was all … it’s horrible. It wasn’t just self-defense. We can’t let the Germans see what he did to the body, they’ll … You know what they’re doing in Germany to their enemies. What could they do to us?”

  There was a sudden noise from the stairwell and then Carlos skidded into the room, followed closely by Henry. Veronica jumped to her feet.

  “What’s going on?” said Henry, rubbing her eyes. Carlos went over to the hearthrug and sniffed. I lunged at him and dragged him away by the scruff of his neck.

  “Nothing,” said Veronica. “Just … Rebecca thought she heard something and it scared her a bit, that’s all. Now go back to bed.”

  “Why’s the floor all wet?” said Henry, frowning at her feet. “And what’s—”

  “Henry!” shouted Veronica. “Go upstairs at once!”

  “Wait,” I said. It never does any good to order Henry around; I’ve learnt that lesson. “Perhaps she can help.”

  Veronica’s jaw dropped, but before she could say anything, I’d knelt down beside Henry. “Listen,” I said. “We think the Germans may have come up here, snooping around. You know how Uncle John gets with strangers, we have to keep them away. Now, if only someone could go up to the gatehouse and keep a watch …”

  “I can!” said Henry at once.

  “And if you see anything—they’ll probably have a torch or something—run back as quick as you can and tell Rebecca.”

  “Should I take Carlos?” she said eagerly.

  He tilted his huge head up at us. “Yes, he can sit at the bottom of the ladder,” I decided. “Here, you can have my candle.” I handed over the candle, bent in the middle from where I’d been clutching it, and Henry scooped up the matches from the table.

  “And if I see anything,” she said, “I can give a secret signal, like a bat screech or—”

  “Yes, yes,” said Veronica, pulling off her jersey and tugging it over Henry’s head. “Now go, quickly.”

  “But what are you going to do?” she said.

  “Search the grounds, patrol, that sort of thing,” I said, feeling as though I’d landed in the middle of one of her dreadful adventure books.

  She nodded and then the two of them were gone.

  “Where’s Uncle John?” I finally thought to ask.

  “In there,” said Veronica, nodding at his room. “He seems to have come over all strange, Rebecca could hardly get him into bed. He’s just lying there now.”

  “Shock,” I said knowledgeably, having firsthand experience of it now. “And where’s the…?”

  “In the pantry,” said Veronica. We all winced.

  “And what, exactly, are you saying we should do with it?” I said. It was easier to think of the body as it, rather than him. And by then, I’d begun to accept the awful truth—that hiding it was the only possible course of action.

  Veronica turned away from me. “Well, I thought we could dig a hole in the courtyard or hide it in the woodshed or something,” she said. “But if they search the castle—and they will—they’ll find it. We’ll just have to throw it off the cliff. It’s perfectly plausible that he was wandering around on the rocks in the dark and he slipped. And the body won’t last long in the sea, they never do.”

  Her voice wavered then and I was glad of that, at least. If she’d sounded cold and rational, I’m certain I would have hated her at that moment.

  “But … but what about Henry, up in the gatehouse?” I said. “If she goes out onto the curtain wall, she’ll see us for sure.”

  “I didn’t mean into the Chasm,” said Veronica. “It might wash up into the firewood cave if we do that. I meant around the other side. The ledge that runs below the Napoleon hole.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s impossible!” I said. There was—theoretically—a way down to that ledge from the castle, starting near the drawbridge, but not even Henry would have attempted that steep, narrow, slippery path at night, let alone with a heavy bundle.

  “No,” said Veronica. “We can go through the tunnels.”

  I stared at her, aghast.

  “One of them leads to that ledge, I’ve seen the plans,” she said. “Well, a sketch, at least, from John the Third’s reign. And another tunnel heads off it. As far as I could see, it comes out in the middle of sheer escarpment, which is even better for our purposes.”

  I must have turned as white as my nightgown. Veronica touched my arm.

  “I can’t do it by myself,” she said softly. “And it’s probably better if Rebecca stays with him—who knows what he might do next.”

  “The… the tunnels under the chapel?” I stuttered. “With the rats and the damp, and you don’t even know where they go… Oh, Veronica!”

  I thought I’d been so brave going out through the courtyard to see off Herr Rahn. And yet that was nothing, nothing at all, compared to what she was asking now.

  But even as I thought this, I knew there was no one else to help her.

  “Shoes,” I said desperately, trying to fill my head with practical things so the terror wouldn’t overwhelm me.

  Veronica frowned. She said she wasn’t sure if we shouldn’t stay in our nightclothes, in case Herr Rahn came back—it would look less suspicious; we could pretend we’d been awoken again by a noise and were just having a look around. But, as I pointed out, we were going to be carrying a blood-soaked, body-shaped bundle—how could we not look suspicious? We might as well be warm and well shod.

  So I ran upstairs to grab our clothes, and when I came back, Rebecca and Veronica had dragged the body as far as the Great Hall. It was long and bulky, wrapped entirely in the blanket and tied around with a bit of old rope Henry had been using for skipping. I pulled on my skirt and tied my shoelaces, trying frantically not to think about the dark, spreading patch around the middle of the bundle. Then Veronica and I each lifted an end and we staggered off.

  It was much, much heavier than George had been. Rebecca followed us as far as the chapel, muttering anxiously and sending wide-eyed glances over her shoulder. She had taken the man’s torch, and it traced a wobbly path for us behind the altar, picking out the steps leading down to the crypt. I’d never had reason to go anywhere near it—there hadn’t been anything left of my parents to bury, and my FitzOsborne grandparents had died before I’d been born—but Veronica said she’d been down there once to do rubbings of the tomb inscriptions, so she led the way, backwards. I took the torch from Rebecca, tucked it under my arm, and kept my eyes on my feet as I followed, shuddering with each step.

  I reached the bottom of the stairs and we set the body down. Glancing around fearfully, I saw the place wasn’t quite as horrifying as I’d imagined. The ceiling was low, but the floor was dry and smooth. Two rows of fluted pillars ran the length of the space, and between the pillars and the walls lay the stone tombs, forty or fifty of them. The nearest were carved with effigies—a crowned figure with his hands crossed over his chest, another clutching a scroll, a woman with a featureless face—but most were unadorned, inscribed with no more than a name and a date.

  Veronic
a took the torch from me and played it over the scroll-holding figure. I edged closer and realized who it was. Why, it was Edward de Quincy FitzOsborne! I let out a breath in a near laugh. Good old Edward! They were family, I realized, Fitz-Osbornes just like me—I had nothing to be afraid of, not really.

  “I wonder,” Veronica mused aloud, setting the torch on the floor, “if we could…”

  Then, to my horror, she curled both hands around the stone lid of the tomb and tugged.

  “What are you doing?” I screeched. Family or not, I had no desire to see what was inside that tomb.

  “It’d save us a long trip,” she puffed. “Come on, give me a hand.”

  “You can’t … you’re not putting it in there!” I said. “That’s our great-great-great-great-uncle!”

  “He’s nothing but dust by now. And he wouldn’t mind, if he knew why we were doing it.”

  It was only my desire to avoid the tunnels that made me go over to help, but even with both of us pulling, the lid refused to budge. It wasn’t just the weight of the lid—it seemed to have been sealed somehow.

  “I suppose that’s one of the first places they’d look, anyway,” said Veronica with a sigh. “It was worth trying, though. Well. The tunnels are supposed to be down the other end.”

  We picked up the bundle again, which seemed to have grown even heavier, and stumbled on. After about twenty yards, the floor became rougher and began to slope upwards. The rows of pillars ended, and several yards later, so did the crypt itself. But there was no sign of any tunnel entrance, not even one buried under rubble. I’d hoped for an archway, a lamp set into the wall, perhaps even a helpful signpost, but there was only black granite, curving overhead like a frozen wave. Veronica frowned and moved the torchlight over the rock face.

  “It’s supposed to be a square hole, large enough for a man to crouch inside,” she said. She started to retrace her steps, shining the light into the niches I’d only just noticed, which were carved at irregular intervals into the wall. Some of them gleamed dully, the light bouncing off neat little piles of bones. I shivered as Veronica and the light grew more distant, although it wasn’t particularly cold—indeed, the air was warm and stale. “It has to be on this side,” floated back Veronica’s voice. “Except … oh, this is nothing but solid rock, I swear …”