Gunpowder, TREason and Plot, or How we dug up the Ancestors

by Allan Frost

  He cocked the pistol and aimed at an upturned tankard on the floor near the fireplace. Flame spluttered from the barrel, followed a split second later by a dull thud as the shot embedded itself into the oak panelling above the mantelpiece.

  Augustus and Elizabeth wouldn’t be back until the end of next week at the earliest. The pistol was, unfortunately, a little unpredictable; it didn’t fire every time and took a few seconds to reload between shots. Giles was able to get in a fair amount of practice during the intervening period. And no one would suspect him if Augustus and his whore died before they reached home.

  The authorities would blame one of the many ex-soldiers from the Irish war; God knows, there were hundred, thousands even, roaming around the English countryside, all nursing grievances against privileged landowners.

  Giles smiled and reloaded the pistol. This time, the shot ricocheted off the cast iron plate at the back of the fireplace. He took a long, satisfying swig of wine from a new bottle. Yes, he’d soon be master of Priorton Hall.

  It was late morning when Elizabeth took the reins and led the wagon northward along the road from Bridgnorth. Augustus had paid an ostler at the last inn to ride one of the landlord’s fastest mares to Priorton to let the servants know he was on his way. With a little luck, they should arrive at Priorton before nightfall. Unfortunately, luck was not on their side.

  They had barely travelled three laborious, lurch-ridden miles when an approaching cattle drover warned them that one of the wagon’s rear wheels was definitely wobbling erratically. Fearful that the casks would tip onto the road if the wheel fell off its axle, Elizabeth pulled the horses to a halt. She and her husband lay on a grassy verge, taking occasional sips from a gourd of ale while enjoying that form of laziness that can only be felt on a warm summer’s day.

  True to his word, the drover sent a blacksmith from the next village to help them out. However, an hour had already passed by the time the blacksmith and two burly apprentices arrived on the scene. More time was lost when every cask had to be lifted and carefully stacked on the side of the narrow lane to make the wagon light enough for the apprentices to lift while the blacksmith realigned the offending wheel.

  It didn’t take very long to make a replacement restraining peg to hold the wheel in place but reloading the wagon took longer than expected. For all his faults, Jake had packed the casks well in Bristol, far better than the apprentices managed to do even with practical suggestions from Elizabeth. Try as they might, two casks had to be placed under the driving bench rather than run the risk of them rolling around on top of the others in the back.

  It was late afternoon before they were able to resume their journey. Shortly afterwards, the returning ostler let them know he’d left a message with the servants at Priorton Hall. Elizabeth’s mood seemed to change for the better. The last two weeks had made her the happiest woman in the world, yet spending so many hours holding the reins had rendered her extremely tired.

  Lengthening evening shadows gave way to twilight; dusk slid almost imperceptibly into night. Augustus struck a flint, lit a candle and placed it inside the glass-sided lantern to shed at least some light on the lane ahead. As Elizabeth was well and truly exhausted, he took the reins and gently placed an arm around her shoulder.

  The mist in Sir Cedric’s courtroom shifted again and led riveted onlookers to a dark and narrow country lane lit only by a sliver of moonlight. Augustus’s wagon lurched slowly into view. A lantern, hanging from a long wooden pole fixed with a rusty iron bracket at the side of the driver’s seat, swung from side to side in front of the horses. Its dim glow barely illuminated deep ruts in the approaching compacted, well travelled, surface.

  The wagon lurched irregularly and uncomfortably from side to side, up and down. Augustus, struggling to stay awake, kept one hand wrapped around the reins while his other arm had gone completely numb with trying to keep hold of something propped up against his shoulder. The flickering pale yellow light cast by the lantern revealed Elizabeth, fast asleep, her head resting on Augustus’s shoulder.

  Suddenly, a cloaked man slid out of the shadows and stood, swaying drunkenly, at the edge of the road.

  ‘That’s my dream!’ shouted Tim, unable to stop himself.

  ‘Quiet! You’ll ruin the effect!’ admonished Augustus.

  ‘Augustus! Is that you?’ slurred Giles, barely able to stand upright.

  Augustus pulled hard on the reins. The abrupt halt jolted Elizabeth awake.

  ‘It is. Who’s there? Step into the light!’

  Giles weaved his way forward unsteadily. Moonlight reflected off a short length of metal.

  ‘They said you’d be back today.’

  ‘Giles!’ exclaimed Elizabeth.

  Giles brandished his cocked pistol and pointed it back and forth between Augustus and Elizabeth. She gasped and gripped Augustus’s arm tightly.

  Thoughts flashed like lightning across Augustus’s mind. Is that a gun? Yes, it is! Hell’s teeth, he’s going to shoot!

  ‘Lower the pistol, Giles!’

  ‘Who’s with you? Is it that whore?’ he screamed. The pistol pointed straight at Augustus’s chest while Giles’s other arm flailed around as if trying to find something solid to hold onto.

  ‘Dear Elizabeth, meet your brother in law,’ said Augustus, his voice heavy with disdain.

  Giles’s jaw dropped.

  ‘You selfish bastard, Augustus! You’ve married the bitch! What am I to do now?’

  ‘Become a priest. A merchant. Anything. You’re no longer welcome here!’

  ‘I have more right to own the Hall than she has!’ insisted Giles.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ answered Augustus. ‘Elizabeth has every right.’

  ‘Not if I kill you both!’

  ‘And then what? Do you want to be hanged like a common criminal? You won’t get the Hall by murdering us!’

  ‘No, but at least she won’t either! Good God, Augustus, she’s a gold digger, can’t you see?’

  ‘Move aside! Go and lie down and sober up, dear brother. Let us pass!’

  ‘I’ll see you in Hell first!’ Giles yelled, cocking the pistol with fumbling fingers. Augustus held Elizabeth tightly, trying to shield her from the lead ball about to hurtle towards them.

  Giles pulled the trigger, the gun gave a dull click.

  It failed to fire.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ ordered Giles, as if it was quite reasonable to ask a reprieved victim to give a failed murderer a second chance.

  Augustus, realising he only had a moment or two before his brother primed, cocked and shot the pistol again, whipped the horses into action. He bent double, forcing Elizabeth down into his lap as far as he could. The horses jerked the wagon forward.

  Giles mustered a degree of drink-constrained co-ordination as quickly as he could, aimed the pistol again but still it refused to fire. That was the problem with new technology. It wasn’t as reliable as it was cracked up to be.

  The wagon sped away into the darkness. Elizabeth, feeling much safer now that Giles was some distance behind, peered around the side of the wagon. By the light of the moon, she saw him peering into the barrel of the pistol, trying to see if there was a blockage. He pulled the trigger again to test it.

  The pistol discharged with a click and flash of powder.

  A look of total astonishment froze on Giles’s face as he fell to the ground. Blood trickled from a small singed hole in the middle of his forehead.

  XVIII

  The vaporous mist cleared again, this time to reveal Augustus tugging the reins to bring the wagon to a standstill outside the Lodge. After jumping down and removing the lantern from its pole, he helped Elizabeth down to the ground.

  She seemed particularly frightened, half expecting an outraged and bloody Giles to creep up on them at any moment. She needn’t have worried; Giles was in the middle of a heated debate with someone unseen about what his fate would be in the Afterlife.

  Weak moonlight and the lantern, now detache
d from the pole and held high by Elizabeth, combined to provide sufficient visibility for Augustus to fiddle with a large iron key to unlock the front door of the Lodge. They entered. Elizabeth lit two other candles resting on a rustic table in the hallway while Augustus unlocked and opened the door to the cellar. Taking one of the candles, he led the way down a short flight of uneven stone steps.

  ‘I’ll stack the casks in the far corner,’ he said. His voice seemed weary and disturbed.

  ‘There’s nothing you could do,’ Elizabeth reassured him. ‘Giles was hell bent on murdering us. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Perhaps I should go back to check on him. He could cause untold damage if he crawls here. There never was any reasoning with him.’

  ‘I’ll wait here. Leave me the key; I’ll feel safer if the door’s locked.’

  They returned to the hall. Augustus put the key in the lock, opened the door and left with the lantern; it was less likely to blow out, unlike one of the exposed candles.

  ‘Be careful, Augustus,’ urged his wife as she locked the door behind him.

  He drew his sword, fully aware that it wouldn’t be much use against Giles’s pistol if it chose to work properly again.

  Giles’s lifeless body lay some hundred metres along the lane away from the Lodge. At first, Augustus couldn’t see it in the dim moonlight but eventually the glow from the lantern illuminated his brother’s features.

  ‘Who’s there?’ asked Augustus, as if he couldn’t make an educated guess. He dreaded hearing an answer.

  ‘Who do you bloody well think? I hope you’re satisfied.’

  ‘Satisfied? Why should I be satisfied?’

  ‘Because I’m dead,’ came the reply. For once, Giles wasn’t drunk. Death does strange things but Augustus wasn’t convinced his brother could have sobered up so quickly.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure, you ignorant bastard! Look there, on the ground!’

  Alarmed at seeing a shadowy figure lying motionless beneath something ephemeral shifting a few centimetres above the ground, Augustus almost dropped the lantern. Surely those can’t be Giles’s feet? He lifted the lantern slowly, just to make sure. Whatever it was floated, or rather hovered, above what were presumably Giles’s mortal remains. He gulped.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve just been told.’

  ‘Told? By whom?’

  ‘I don’t know. Didn’t see him, just heard a voice. Said I didn’t qualify for Paradise, well, not yet. Said my soul’d be sent to Hell.’

  ‘You’re a ghost, then. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me! As it happens, I stood my ground, well, air. In the end we settled on a spell in the ether until whoever it is makes a final decision.’

  ‘Decision?’

  ‘God! Oh, I mustn’t say that apparently. But you are stupid! I was told I’d have to be a ghost for a while to see how I got on. Didn’t say for how long, but the best I can hope for is a visit to Purgatory and, if all goes well, Heaven later. On the other hand, I might still finish up turning on a spit over a fire in Hell. Nothing’s definite yet.’

  Augustus knew upon which option he’d prefer to place a wager.

  ‘So, all’s not lost?’ he said with as much cheer as he could muster. The glow from the lantern lit Giles’s translucent features for a fleeting moment.

  ‘Shot yourself, I see,’ Augustus observed. ‘Told you pistols weren’t safe.’

  ‘Don’t try to be smart, Augustus! It would have been you if the bloody pistol had done its job. Now I suppose you and that whore will be able to get on with your petty little lives. Pity I can’t come and haunt you.’

  ‘She’s no whore, Giles, and you know it. I suppose it’s safe to tell you Elizabeth and I were married a week ago. At Gloucester Cathedral. All proper and above board. What did you mean, haunt us?’

  Surely the Afterlife had some sense of justice? The prospect of being pestered perpetually by such an obnoxious, troublesome brother, especially after his demise, didn’t seem fair.

  ‘Apparently, I had to make a choice. As the pistol was the cause of my undoing, I chose it. Seems my spirit, ghost or whatever has to remain close to the pistol until the decision on my future is made.’

  ‘Good. I must remember to say hello whenever I pass this spot.’

  ‘Unless you want to take the pistol with you to the Hall . . .’ said Giles hopefully.

  ‘No chance! Where is it?’

  ‘Still in my hand. The real one. There.’

  Augustus knelt and prised the pistol from his brother’s cold fingers. He tossed it into the overgrown ditch a short distance away.

  ‘No one will think of looking there for it,’ he smiled. ‘So, this will be the place where you hang around from now on.’

  ‘Only until I qualify for Purgatory.’

  ‘If you get there,’ Augustus pointed out. ‘How long will you have to wait?’

  ‘The voice didn’t say. I hope no more than a day or two, but I got the distinct impression it could be for centuries.’

  ‘Death’s a bitch, isn’t it?’

  ‘Talking of bitches, I think it proper to make my peace with your wife,’ said Giles. ‘Atonement’s supposed to be good for the soul, isn’t it? Now’s as good a time as any to make a start.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?’ He wondered how his wife would react at the sight of her deceased brother-in-law’s ghost, whether or not it seemed friendly and harmless.

  ‘I missed absolution and the Last Rites,’ appealed Giles. ‘Every positive action will gain me credit towards Purgatory.’

  ‘You should have thought about that while you were alive!’

  ‘I went to Confessional every week without fail!’ protested the apparition.

  ‘That isn’t the point. When you confessed and sought absolution, the idea was that you didn’t repeat those sins. It wasn’t supposed to give you the right to repeat them time after time!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know that now. Don’t preach to me, brother. You did enough of that while I was alive.’

  ‘Some good it did.’

  An uneasy silence fell. This was the most they had spoken together in years without coming to blows. Augustus, unsettled by the fact that he was talking to a ghost, came to the conclusion there was nothing more to say. Elizabeth would be getting worried at the length of time he’d been away.

  ‘Have to get going, Giles. Good luck. I have a strong feeling you’re going to need it.’

  ‘Just one more thing, Augustus. Give me a decent burial.’

  ‘Do you deserve one?.’

  ‘I mean it. Don’t leave my body lying there for all to see.’

  ‘I’ll come back in the morning.’ With any luck, Giles’s ghost would have disappeared by then. ‘Goodbye, Giles. I must get back to Elizabeth.’

  He turned and began walking along the lane towards the Lodge.

  ‘I’ll come with you. To apologise to your wife.’

  Augustus slowed his pace. The last thing he wanted was to turn up with a ghost. Elizabeth would be terrified.

  He hadn’t gone more than fifty paces when he heard Giles mutter, ‘Ouch!’ behind him. He turned and held the lantern at arm’s length.

  His brother seemed to be pressing hard against something invisible, like a sheet of glass. Try as he might, the ghost couldn’t get past it, nor even skirt around it.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Augustus, not really wanting to know the answer.

  ‘I can’t go any further,’ answered Giles, his hollow voice filled with bemused frustration.

  ‘Didn’t you mention something about not being able to move far away from the pistol?

  ‘Oh, bugger!’

  ‘Goodnight, Giles. I’ll speak to you again whenever I come this way.’

  Augustus let out a sigh of relief. At least that solved the problem of Elizabeth meeting Giles for the time being. He’d mention it to her sometime, but not for a whil
e.

  He turned the corner into the drive, strode over to the Lodge and tapped the door.

  ‘It’s me, Elizabeth,’ he called.

  The door opened.

  ‘How’s Giles?’ Elizabeth asked nervously.

  ‘He won’t bother us again,’ replied Augustus. ‘He shot himself.’

  ‘How will we explain that in the morning?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Don’t want the finger of suspicion levelled at me. I’ll think about it, there’s plenty of time. Let’s unload these casks.’

  ‘I’ve put candles on the table in the hall, on the steps into the cellar and a couple at the far end. Give me the lantern; I’ll light the way from the wagon.’

  Augustus, well aware of Robert Catesby’s warning, took great care to ensure none of the small, heavy casks fell or got damaged in any way. Although Elizabeth followed him to and fro to light his way, the ground was uneven underfoot and he stumbled several times and only just managed to keep each cask aloft on his shoulder.

  It was tiring work. Augustus was simply not used to prolonged physical exertion and felt obliged every now and then to take a mouthful of ale from their dwindling supply beneath the driver’s bench. While her husband suffered under the strain, Elizabeth felt the chill of the night air penetrating deeper and deeper into her bones.

  She emerged again from the Lodge while Augustus followed, breathless, behind. They approached the wagon. Augustus dragged a leather satchel from beneath the bench and handed it to Elizabeth. He then lifted the final cask.

  ‘Last one!’

  He carried it on his shoulder into the Lodge, Elizabeth leading the way. She couldn’t wait to reach the warmth and comfort of Priorton Hall, whose servants must be wondering what on earth was delaying them for so long.

  Candles flickered on and around the flight of stone steps, casting irregular light on numerous casks stacked, some of them rather precariously, in the far corner of the cellar. Elizabeth placed the lantern on the hall table and picked up a spitting candle, then descended slowly, carrying the candle above her head. Augustus stood near the foot of the steps, struggling to keep a hold on the cask. It slipped from his grasp, bounced off the edge of the bottom step and crashed onto the stone floor. It spun and rolled along the ground before thudding into the other casks.