I’ll drive, William. I think you would do it very badly,” said Letty as she put the last suitcase into the car. “Two hours out of hospital—you can’t be feeling very sharp.”
“Au contraire! I’m feeling very chipper! Really, four days chained to a hospital bed was excessive.”
“It’s funny—I was in such a lather to get to Fontigny and now I can’t wait to be back in England. I’m never sure where I want to be.”
“You’ll find your place one day, Letty. For the moment I’m just thankful you’re apparently undamaged and free to be taken back to your father in Cambridge.”
“In one piece and having done what I came to do. I found her, William. Daniel’s killer.” She fell silent. Not quite ready to move off, she paused before starting up the engine. “But I’d thought no further than that. What happens now? They still use the guillotine for capital crimes, don’t they? You don’t suppose, do you, that I’ll have sent someone to the guillotine? I couldn’t bear it! I wouldn’t like to think that old Dutronc and his infernal machine were to have the last word! And I think even Daniel would say I’d over-steered. He was quick-tempered but not the least bit vindictive. He would have wanted to see their guns spiked, but not blowing up in their faces.”
“It won’t come to that. Families of this consequence no longer end up on the scaffold or even in a court of law these days. They have friends in high places. I wouldn’t put it past them to be pulling a few strings we know nothing about.”
“I think they’ve started already. Whipping up local and national sympathy. Were you aware that the old girl’s dying? They’ve all gone off to Lyon to be by her bedside at the clinic. She’s known for some time, apparently. And, of course, the whole world rushes to forgive an ailing, grieving mother. Not sure I believe a word of it. That’s what they’re good at, after all—propaganda, they call it. Lying, in other words.”
“I wouldn’t dismiss the idea. It does go some way to explaining why she was so eager to see that son of hers settled. She saw herself as the guardian of the faith…they saw her as the guardian. They had manufactured a belief in the Mother Goddess, after all. Not surprising, then, to find at the centre of the system a woman. A priestess? Almost an object of veneration herself. But not immortal! And the time was coming to hand on the torch. A choice had to be made.”
“Gabrielle would have been their first choice, but she ruled herself out, I think! Deliberately? I wonder.”
“Yes. The old girl had no illusions about her son. He needed a steady hand and a quick mind to guide him, and if they came accompanied by various other agreeable attributes, the countess was well pleased. Perhaps she would have hung on long enough to see the family line was assured? That there was a new countess in place to guard the flame? Someone to train on.”
“A frightening notion! They’d have had me tied up, tricked out, and stuck on a spike as a Corn Dolly to be thrown away when her time was up! Evil creatures! Oh, William!” Letty seized his hand. “Thank God you were there! Several steps ahead of me all the way. Showing me where to put my feet. Putting up with my nonsense. I was rash…and it was my carelessness that nearly got you killed. I’m so sorry.”
Too late she realised that, though he could deal with any amount of thoughtlessness—rudeness even—contrition and a show of emotion were still unwelcome.
“No need to apologise. Nothing personal, I’m sure. I look on you as a Force of Nature, Letty. Next time I hear a warning rumble, I’ll put on my tin hat and hop into the nearest trench.”
“But I think we’ve left them in some disarray, at least, don’t you? D’Aubec’s shoulder was smashed, apparently, and he’s going to take some months to recover. He’s taken sanctuary with his uncle Auguste and a battalion of lawyers. And when I’ve told Sir Richard about their political activities and he’s made a few phone calls to Whitehall, enquiries will follow. The family will find a few more spokes have been stuck in their chariot wheels. It will take them some time to recover their momentum.”
“Yes, but don’t go off watch yet! Organisations of that age and strength are not easily killed off. Their roots go deep, and we have done no more than lop off a couple of branches.” He was struck by an uncomfortable thought. “Good Lord! We know what the effect of that can be! I do hope, Letty, that our efforts amount to more than a little judicious pruning!”
She looked across at him, suddenly doubtful. “There was a moment, William, when I wondered whether I ought to…whether it was my Christian duty to attack this monstrous growth from the inside. I could have got inside, you know. I could have fought from that favoured position to neutralise, to disarm…I could have done something.”
“It had occurred to me that you were planning a self-sacrifice of that kind. Though the ‘favoured position’—by which I suppose you mean marriage to d’Aubec—might not have been exactly what most people understand by ‘martyrdom’! I think you’d become fond of him?”
She looked away, hiding her face, unable to answer.
As they neared the turnoff to the castle road, Gunning persisted, determined to extract an admission, though the pain of the extraction was etched on his own face: “Your last chance to come clean, Letty. Are you going to regret leaving him behind?”
“I should never have risked starting a relationship, I know.” She smiled and glanced up at the imposing silhouette of Brancy. “Too deeply rooted. Too Burgundian. He might well not transplant easily. Still, in the circumstances, I thought I had to give it a go. William, I want you to wait here for a moment.”
She braked outside the lodge cottage at the end of the carriage drive. Hearing the car, an elderly lady called a greeting from the doorway. “He’s ready and waiting for you, mademoiselle. I’ll just fetch him!”
“Marcel’s mother,” Letty explained to Gunning. “She’s done me a huge favour. I didn’t come away empty-handed from all this.” She jumped from the car and walked down the path to talk to the groom’s mother and take from her hands a travelling box.
“Can we find room for another passenger in the back?” she asked him. “Or would you like to have him on your knee?”
“Good Lord! I was hoping you’d forgotten about that,” said Gunning. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“No. Not sure of much anymore. Marcel seemed keen for me to take him away and offered his mother’s services. He’s a good dog. Well worth having. And I did earn him! He can join the pack back home. We’ve got cows he can herd.”
“What’s his name?”
“Oh, something grand and Burgundian…‘Dagobert,’ I’m afraid.”
“Crikey! Imagine calling that across a soggy Cambridge meadow!”
Gunning opened the box and took out the small form wriggling with excitement. Letty noted that he allowed his thumb to be chewed.
“He’s going to be brown. Why don’t you call him ‘Bruno’?…Bruno! There, you see—the tail wagged. That’s decided, then.” He held up the dog and spoke into his face: “Now, mate, if you’ll take my advice you’ll go back to sleep again in your box. We’ve a long journey ahead and I won’t have you tearing holes in these trousers—or worse.”
As they drew off, he changed the subject, conceding that it pained her to bring up her feelings for d’Aubec. “Let’s not forget that the Lady’s still up there, asleep in the hillside…charged with the same patriotic duty as King Arthur but, unlike him, we know she exists. And will we ever know what the urn contains? Charred horse bones? Mouse droppings? A trace of spikenard? Or the ashes of a very important woman? It’s all still in place, Letty. Waiting.”
“And Paul Morel?” she said as they chugged past the entrance to the Allée du Parc. “I should have realised from the moment I saw d’Aubec beating that poor boy that he was a man of ungovernable temper. But—I’m too hard on myself, had you noticed? I rather think I did realise. A violent man. A man with two characters. Esmé would understand, I think. I can’t imagine why they decided not to charge him with Morel’s murder. As soon
as d’Aubec was safely in custody, the lad’s friends came forward to speak out. Why did no one listen to them?”
“Ah, I can tell you that. Old Huleux came to see me in hospital and cleared up a few things for me. He had to speak slowly in words of one syllable to penetrate my headache but I think I got it! They did listen to the boys who, themselves, had been very concerned at the trouble young Paul was getting into. You knew he’d been serving an apprenticeship with Jules? Yes, well, he was receiving a training in more than care of horses; he was learning the trade of the assassin into the bargain. It took two of them to murder Daniel. Paul was there. He saw it all, he told his mates. When he started to make life difficult for the boss, Jules was ordered to finish him off and bury him in your trench.”
“Make life difficult? How could he do that?”
“After the shaming public beating at the hands of d’Aubec it was understandable, perhaps, to brag to your friends that you intended to get even by speaking to the police—revealing the family’s part in the killing. Understandable but not very sensible. Morel was a loose cannon. D’Aubec had to defuse him and chuck him overboard.”
“And why waste a good corpse?” said Letty bitterly. “He used the boy’s body to divert suspicion. The watch and the wallet. D’Aubec was really psychopathically vindictive, wasn’t he? He had to gild the lily. Wasn’t content just to implicate Paul Morel in Daniel’s murder, he had to plant that gold coin—from his own collection, no doubt—to bring Paradee into disrepute. Killing two birds with one stone.”
Letty stared straight ahead as they drove past the deserted dig, covered with tarpaulins. Deliberately, Gunning drew her attention to it.
“You’ll miss all that, won’t you? I’ve always been aware of the attraction the digging had for you…of your ambitions in that field. A pull rather stronger than anything young d’Aubec could conjure up, I had thought at one time.” And, probing further: “Anything more known of Paradee? You don’t hear much gossip from a hospital bed!”
“Oh, he skipped off one step ahead of the authorities. Leaving debts behind him, according to Phil. His backer refused to honour any of the bills and it’s left a very nasty atmosphere in the town. It will be a few years before anyone else is welcomed to do any excavating. Phil and Patrick are going off to the Levant. I think they’re to join the Woolley dig. Paradee was as good as his word in that—he did make arrangements for his team…In fact, I really think he and I—we could have made a go of it…Oh, William! I had a narrow escape!”
“Oh, yes? About as narrow as the Atlantic! Don’t be so silly! Your personal Mr. Plod wouldn’t have let you get away.”
She smiled. “Mr. Plod turned out to be a bonny fighter!”
“But inadequately armed! Words! The only weapon I can call on. Not much use I’m afraid. It takes the blast of a Luger and a bullet through a cherub’s eye, I hear, to get the attention of a man like d’Aubec.”
“Don’t underestimate the power of words, William.”
“William, I’m just going to stop off at the church before we leave town. Do you mind? I’d like to have a last look at Mary. I’d like to seek her blessing…see whether she condemns me or whether she understands…”
She stayed for several minutes in front of the fresco, in silent conversation with the saint. Finally, she spoke to Gunning: “William. There’s something I want to do in London, something I’ve been planning while you’ve been away in Lyon. Would you mind awfully taking me to our house in Fitzroy Square when we get back? I don’t want to go straight home to Cambridge.”
Gunning looked with silent speculation at the blush spreading over her cheeks. Her face, vivid but secretive, strangely echoed the enigmatic features of the Magdalene. He turned from one fair head to the other in puzzlement, and then he raised his hand in an unpractised gesture. Clumsily, he made the sign of the cross, his eyes questioning Mary’s.
They parked on a cliff top watching the ferryboat making its way into harbour, and Gunning made up his mind to speak. “I have to tell you something, Letty…”
For a moment she heard the old, grating hesitancy.
“You know you brought me back to life again? Perhaps you don’t even now realise how far gone I was when you came upon me. I wouldn’t have survived a week in the House of Correction with their medieval methods of punishment. Not another one. And I knew that. Lacking the moral strength to kill myself, I was prepared to allow others to shoulder the sin of doing it for me. A cowardly act but I was set on it. And then I came face-to-face with a bossy girl who bought my life for half a crown.”
“A bargain…though she didn’t at first know that.”
“She picked it up, handed it back to me, and then helped to carry the burden of it. Grumbling the while! I have a good deal to thank you for.”
“No, William. It’s I who am thanking you. And not just with this…” She turned and kissed his cheek and hugged him. “There’s a little gift for you in the glove box.”
He opened it and took out a brown paper parcel, holding it awkwardly.
“You’ve forgotten what to do with presents! You pull the end of the string like this…here, let me…”
He gasped as the contents slid into his hands. “Thoreau’s Walden! But it’s the book you took into Heffer’s to sell! The very copy.” He opened it reverently.
“I just pretended to sell it. I put it away in my bag and came out flourishing three pound notes and boasting about my haggling skills. I could see that you lusted after it!…William?”
And into his continued silence: “Words failing?”
“Silently singing.”
He turned his face away from her, the salty breeze from the Channel stinging his eyes.
BARBARA CLEVERLY is the author of nine novels of historical suspense, including The Damascened Blade, winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award, The Last Kashmiri Rose, Ragtime in Simla, The Palace Tiger, The Bee’s Kiss, Tug of War, An Old Magic, and The Tomb of Zeus. She lives in Cambridge, England, where she is at work on the newest Joe Sandilands novel, Folly du Jour.
If you loved Barbara Cleverly’s BRIGHT HAIR ABOUT THE BONE, you won’t want to miss any of her award-winning novels of historical suspense. Look for the first Laetitia Talbot mystery, THE TOMB OF ZEUS.
And look for the acclaimed Joe Sandilands novels—THE LAST KASHMIRI ROSE, RAGTIME IN SIMLA, THE DAMASCENED BLADE, THE PALACE TIGER, and THE BEE’S KISS—at your favorite bookseller.
And available now from Delta:
TUG
OF
WAR
A Joe Sandilands Mystery
BY BARBARA CLEVERLY
ALSO BY BARBARA CLEVERLY
The Last Kashmiri Rose
Ragtime in Simla
The Damascened Blade
The Palace Tiger
The Bee’s Kiss
Tug of War
The Tomb of Zeus
And coming soon from Bantam Dell
Folly du Jour
BRIGHT HAIR ABOUT THE BONE
A Delta Trade Paperback / November 2008
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2008 by Barbara Cleverly
Delta is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Cleverly, Barbara.
Bright hair about the bone / Barbara Cleverly.
p. cm.
1. Women archaeologists—Fiction. 2. Burgundy (France)—Fiction. 3. Antiquities—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6103.L48B75 2008
823'.92—dc22
2008
006629
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-440-33810-9
v3.0
Bright Hair About the Bone Page 40