Kitty rode behind me on a fine chestnut colt marked with a star. She was sitting side-saddle in the usual fashion, and wearing a velvet riding cap. I was riding a dappled grey mare called Athena. There had been some argument among the grooms about whether she should be ridden today. She was set to be covered by Aislabie’s best stallion, Blunt. Perhaps Athena had sensed there was something afoot, as she had been ‘skittish’ all morning, according to Mr Pugh. I must keep a close watch upon her, he warned. She seemed placid enough to me. I patted her flank and nudged her on with my knees down a long, sheltered avenue. A pheasant rustled through a patch of wild garlic, then darted across our path into the woods beyond. Athena plodded on, unperturbed.
Kitty caught up with me and brushed a hand against my leg. It was such a glorious spring day, we might be mistaken for a true husband and wife, taking a quiet tour of the county’s finest estate. I nodded to a journeyman trimming the grass along the path, and he touched his hat.
So far our views had been of woods and distant farm land, with the deer park at our backs. As we emerged from the trees, the water gardens were revealed at last. We brought our horses to a halt, speechless with astonishment. Below us, the river had been tamed into a long, straight canal, ending in a dramatic cascade. I could hear its roar even from here, a constant rushing sound. Beneath the cascade, the riverbanks had been widened to form a large fishing lake, smooth as glass. The river travelled on from there through a narrower cascade into a steep valley bristling with pine trees – and out of view.
Kitty was staring out at the lake. Its pristine surface acted as a mirror, reflecting the trees surrounding it and the sky as if there were two worlds, above and below. A pair of swans glided by, the very picture of grace.
‘Beautiful,’ Kitty murmured.
It was truly a magnificent sight, and for a moment I was left amazed. But we had not come here to admire the view. I leaned down in my saddle to inspect the ground. ‘The tracks have disappeared.’
We had reached a fork in the path, the left leading down to the lake, the right taking a steep course up a densely wooded hill. I suspected the men had travelled along one of those paths with the stags across their backs, then moved on to the grass for stealth, to avoid the crunch of gravel beneath their boots.
We turned left, following the path to the lake – and found Lady Judith by the edge of the water, astride her bay stallion. Her horse whinnied at our approach.
‘Mr Hawkins. And this must be your wife? Welcome to Studley, Mrs Hawkins.’
‘Thank you . . .’ Kitty stared at Lady Judith’s breeches, entranced.
Lady Judith laughed, and rubbed a hand along her thigh. ‘Why, I believe you are more astonished than your husband.’
‘They are a wonder,’ Kitty marvelled.
‘Are they not? Sadly I can only wear them about the gardens. It would be too great a scandal to present my legs to the world.’
‘The world,’ Kitty observed, ‘is full of idiots.’
Lady Judith laughed again, appraising me anew. Women judge men by their choice of wife, and Mrs Aislabie approved of mine. I edged Athena closer to the lake, curious to see myself reflected in the mirrored surface, but when I peered into the water, all I saw was the silt and mud beneath. A trick of the light and the angle of perspective – but it gave me a hollow feeling, to see nothing of myself.
‘Do you like fishing, Mr Hawkins?’ Lady Judith pointed to a pair of tiny lodges built on either side of the higher cascade. ‘The lake is stocked with carp. One can fish from the window in poor weather.’
I smiled politely.
‘Tom is too impatient for fishing,’ said Kitty, the least patient woman in the western hemisphere.
‘My husband is the same. He must be doing. But what do you say, sir, about our little endeavour?’
‘I’m lost for words, madam.’ And I was truly astounded – at the beauty, and the cost.
‘The canal was a nightmare of mud for almost ten years. Thousands upon thousands of cartloads,’ she shuddered, as if she had been personally responsible for carrying them all. ‘There is much yet to be done, but when it is finished I believe it will be the most embellished estate in England. You must walk the grounds with John tomorrow – he can explain his plans far better than I. This garden is his great passion. At least, it was. He has been distracted these past few weeks. Mrs Fairwood’s arrival has affected him profoundly.’
‘You wish her gone from Studley, I think?’
Lady Judith looked out across the lake. ‘If we may speak in confidence, as friends . . . Yes. I believe it would be for the best. I fear she is dangerous in some odd way. I do not like mysteries and secrets. And Mrs Fairwood is a great mystery.’
I explained that we had been following the trail of bootprints from the house, and that they had vanished on the path above. ‘Both paths lead into the woods,’ she said. ‘It’s the border between our land and Fountains Hall. Mr Messenger’s estate.’
‘Mr Forster is a guest at Fountains Hall, I believe? He has invited me to visit him.’
Her lips curved into their familiar smirk. ‘How curious, if the trail should lead to him. Perhaps he murdered those poor stags.’
‘With one arm?’
‘He might have bored them to death.’
I grinned, but was not so quick to dismiss Forster. Yes, he was a dull companion at supper, but that did not mean he was incapable of violence, one-handed or otherwise. I had learned not to underestimate anyone, these past few months.
‘Have you not explored the higher path yet?’ Lady Judith asked. ‘We must ride it together.’
We turned our horses away from the lake, following her up the steep path into the woods. We climbed for a short while before Lady Judith pulled upon the reins. ‘This is my favourite view.’
The lake was still within sight from here, but now we could also see the vast scale of the work taking place above the highest cascade. On the far side of the canal, three formal ponds had been dug into the riverbank: two neat crescents flanking a perfect circle.
‘We call them our moon ponds,’ she said.
They were pretty, but the rest of the bank was a hodgepodge of planting and construction. It was clear that the gardens would take years to complete. Behind the precisely laid-out ponds, a dozen labourers were digging foundations for a building. Mr Doe and one of his fucking follies, I supposed. Beyond these works stretched a nursery of young trees, which gave the area a bald look. How long before those trees would grow to maturity? Far longer than Mr Aislabie’s lifetime, no doubt. But what a mark he would leave upon the land.
There were journeymen everywhere. I counted thirty before I gave up: planting borders, carting dung, felling trees, trimming hedges, clearing blown wood from the water. It took an army to overcome nature; countless hours of labour to create serenity. Unfathomable patience and vision. Unfathomable wealth. And I thought – Thirty more men; thirty more suspects.
‘Could any of those men bear a grudge against your husband?’
Lady Judith blinked in surprise. ‘No indeed – why should they? Are you not diverted by the view, Mrs Hawkins?’
Kitty shielded her eyes against the sun. ‘Very.’
‘We have been working on these gardens for twelve years. It will be another ten at least before they are complete.’
‘Can we not see Fountains Abbey from here?’ I asked, craning my neck.
Kitty’s eyes widened. ‘An abbey?’
‘A ruined monastery,’ I explained. ‘There’s a picture of it above our fireplace. It sits on the river does it not? Very close to here?’
Lady Judith pursed her lips. ‘It is hidden over that hill.’ She gestured vaguely at the wooded slopes ahead.
‘How frustrating. Well, you must level the hill, I suppose.’
‘We have considered it.’
‘Indeed?’ I had been joking.
Lady Judith huffed. ‘We’ve decided to wait for Mr Messenger to die. Then we shall buy it and open up all th
e land below.’ She urged her stallion up the steep path, beckoning for us to follow. ‘We have built something wonderful just up here, let me show you.’
We fell into shadow beneath the trees, the air turning cooler. The top of the hill formed a plateau, the trees cleared away to create a sunken lawn. At the far end of the grass stood a small but handsome stone lodge, backed by a border of elm hedges. It was, in miniature, what I had expected of Mr Aislabie’s hall, rather than the groaning, creaking thing we were staying in.
Pheasants scattered into the undergrowth as we approached. Deep in the trees to my left, jackdaws were cawing loudly to one another, in alarm or excitement. I could see where their wings were flapping against the bushes. I shifted in my saddle.
‘And here is our banqueting house, newly built this year,’ Lady Judith said. Her voice had taken on a knowing tone, as if banqueting were the last thing that happened there. ‘We’ve had some merry times up here.’ She jumped down from her horse and looped the reins over a tree, striding over to the door. ‘There’s a most diverting statue of Venus inside.’
Kitty slid from her horse, but she was watching me closely. ‘Tom?’
Two more jackdaws flew low across the sunken lawn and deep into the bushes. Lady Judith’s stallion snorted, and shook its head. Athena’s ears twitched. I tapped her flanks and rode down into the lawn and up the other side, recognising its shape as I crossed it. A coffin lawn – a memento mori. In the midst of life we are in death. I hated all that nonsense.
I nudged Athena on to a narrow trail amidst the trees and found the bootprints we’d been searching for, pushed deep into the mud. Athena whinnied softly. I stroked her neck and murmured to her, soothingly. She took a few more steps into the woods.
The wind blew down the trail and I caught something ripe and foul in the air. I wrinkled my nose. Burst deer guts. Once smelled, never forgotten. As we approached the bushes the stench became stronger. This was where the stags had been killed, their innards left in piles beneath the bushes. Glistening links of intestine spilled out across the path, covered with a dense swarm of insects. The jackdaws pecked at the offal and snapped insects from the air, as more and more birds joined the feast.
There is nothing worse than the stink of burst deer guts. The stench was unbearable. Athena whinnied, and flared her nostrils in disgust. I jumped down and tried to approach, breathing through my mouth. It was no use. I reeled back and vomited hard, until my stomach was empty and my ribs ached.
‘Tom?’ Kitty’s voice, at the edge of the clearing.
I wiped my mouth. ‘Don’t come down here, Kitty.’
‘Why, what have you found?’ I could hear her making her way down the path, gown rustling against the bushes.
‘Deer guts. Truly, stay where you are – it is too foul to bear. I won’t be a moment.’ I wiped my mouth and remembered what Samuel Fleet had taught me. Forget the stink, forget the blood. Step back and think. What could I learn from this discovery?
The trees and bushes were thickly tangled in this part of the gardens. It would be easy to kill the stags here undisturbed. The trail itself was well disguised: I would have missed it if I’d not been drawn by the jackdaws. And we were a long way from the house, bordering Messenger’s land. Francis Forster’s host, and John Aislabie’s enemy.
Someone had led the three stags here and slaughtered them. They’d not been hunted out in the woods. They’d been gathered in this hidden place to be killed. But the innards had been abandoned here. That meant there’d been no time to bury them, and no way to discard them elsewhere.
What struck me with the greatest force was the effort of it all. Whoever this was, he had slaughtered three young stags in their prime, ripped out their guts, and carried at least one of them on his shoulders for over a mile, in the dark. He’d found an accomplice or accomplices to help him with the rest. All so that he could lay the bodies out upon Aislabie’s front step this morning. This is but the beginning of sorrows.
A campaign, then. And if this was how it started – how on earth would it end?
I freed Athena’s reins and put my left foot in the stirrup. I needed to speak with Aislabie’s keeper, as soon as possible.
I had just swung my right leg over the saddle when the jackdaws rose into the air on a swirl of black wings. Startled, Athena reared up, almost throwing me from her back. I slid in the saddle, my right foot free of the stirrup. As I fought for balance she reared again, then plunged down the trail into the bushes. I gave a shout of alarm, clutching the reins hard.
We whisked through the trees at an impossible speed, branches whipping against my face. I ducked low, searching with my foot for the stirrup. As we raced down a muddy slope I found it, and pulled myself upright.
I pulled upon the reins, trying to regain control, but it was too late. Athena was trapped in a blind panic and there was nothing I could do but to ride it out with her. I held on, terrified, as she tore through the woods, whinnying and snorting as the mud and leaves flew up from her hooves and the jackdaws cawed and circled above us.
If she threw me now, I would break my neck.
A low branch loomed up ahead, forcing me to drop my head. As I raised it again, Athena leaped over a fallen tree, almost throwing me from the saddle. The trees were dense here, with only the narrowest of paths cutting a way through. We scraped through a tunnel of hawthorn bushes, the thorns ripping my hands. I threw up an arm to protect my eyes and in another moment we had burst free from the wood on to a fresh stretch of bright green riverbank. Sunlight dazzled my eyes and the river sparkled.
I pulled again on the reins, but Athena galloped on at a furious pace. The world was a blur of spring grass, glittering river, flanking woods and then, rising up ahead, a vast building of golden stone. We had stumbled upon Fountains Abbey. Athena’s hooves clattered on the remnants of ancient floors, thudded through high grass and mud, as we entered the old monastery ruins. Too fast. She leaped over a broken column, faltered, then cantered on down a maze of crumbling walls. The sun disappeared as we galloped through a long, vaulted hall, and then we flew out again into a great roofless space, the sky wide and bright above our heads, birds calling from a great tower, and we were slowing. Thank God, we had stopped.
I swung my leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground, panting hard. Athena moved away as if nothing remarkable had happened, as if we had just enjoyed a pleasant trot through the countryside.
I collapsed, rolling on to my back. The sun warmed my face. Pigeons cooed from nests made high upon the ruined walls. My breath returned to me, and with it came a flood of relief that I had survived. And, now it was over . . . I should rather like to do it again. I put my scratched and bleeding hand to my chest and began to laugh. It came from deep inside me, like drawing water from a well. I had not laughed so freely in a long time.
I didn’t hear the footsteps until they were upon me. I sat up, still laughing, to find a stranger standing over me, holding a pistol. He was aiming it at my head.
Chapter Eleven
Mr Messenger’s family had lived at Fountains Hall for a hundred years. It was a fine estate, the mysterious abbey ruins a brooding counterweight to the rich farmlands and quarries beyond. The hall itself was built with stone taken from the abbey, binding the two in some ineffable way that some might consider mystical, even holy.
Aislabie coveted Fountains Abbey. He imagined it as the focus of his gardens, the way a chef envisioned a great pyramid of sweetmeats at the centre of a feasting table. He wanted it. He must find a way to have it. Messenger was short of funds. Surely he would give it up, for a fair price?
There had been a time – during the months of the South Sea madness – when Messenger had contemplated the exchange. Boundaries were discussed, and sale prices. Then the agreement had collapsed. Perhaps Messenger had never intended to sell the abbey to Mr Aislabie in the first place. Perhaps it had all been a piece of mischief on his part. But it had soured relations between the two neighbours for good.
&nbs
p; Have you forgotten, at this point, that I have a pistol aimed at my head? I have not, I assure you. This particular pistol looked old – older than the man holding it, who appeared to be about fifty. It was a horse pistol, with a long barrel and a plain mahogany grip. My hope was that it had last been fired some time during the Civil War, and that the internal parts had corroded in the subsequent eighty-odd years. My second, encouraging thought was that, in the main, gentlemen did not shoot other gentlemen in the face. Not without very good reason. Not even in Yorkshire.
‘Mr Messenger?’ I guessed.
‘WHO THE DEVIL ARE YOU?’ he yelled. His face was fat and exceedingly red, and there was a bandage tied around his right knee. ‘What do you mean by this OUTRAGE! You’re TRESPASSING, sir! Are you a SPY? Are you a SPY for that DAMNABLE ROGUE?’
I raised my hands in supplication. ‘My name’s Thomas Hawkins, sir. I lost control of my horse.’
He narrowed his eyes at Athena, who was munching thoughtfully on a crop of dandelions. ‘You came from Studley.’ He had a growling but gentlemanly voice, soaked in the local accent.
‘Yes, sir.’ I kept my eyes upon the barrel of his pistol. ‘I’m a guest of Mr Aislabie.’
Messenger’s face puckered. ‘Aislabie’s man are you? Sneaking about my land. A spy—’
‘Mr Messenger!’ Francis Forster hurried across the broken stones as best he could, hampered by his bandaged arm. ‘Put down your weapon, sir!’ He swept his uninjured arm towards me, as if introducing a celebrated actor to the stage. ‘This is Mr Hawkins. I spoke of him last night? Mr Thomas Hawkins.’ And then, when Messenger still didn’t react, ‘Half-Hanged Hawkins.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Messenger’s thick grey brows jerked in surprise. He uncocked his pistol, and lowered it. ‘Half-Hanged Hawkins.’
I stood up, brushing the dirt from my breeches.
Messenger cleared his throat, embarrassed. ‘Welcome to Fountains Abbey, sir.’
We bowed to one another as if we were at court. And in truth the monastery did have the air of an ancient palace, built for a forgotten king. Messenger dug a pewter flask from his coat jacket and passed it to me. I took a swig and coughed at its unexpected power. Scotch whisky: a silent signal of Messenger’s support for the king across the water. He watched me drink it with a knowing eye, but I have never let politics stand in the way of liquor. And I was half Scots myself. I grinned, and held on to the flask.
A Death at Fountains Abbey Page 12