Rotherweird

by Andrew Caldecott

  Fanguin raised a hand. ‘How did Flask know Sir Veronal was coming before Sir Veronal arrived?’

  Gorhambury stood up and took a sheet of paper from his pocket. ‘A man masquerading as “Paul Marl” suggested to the Mayor that he invite Sir Veronal to restore the Manor. This is his letter. Maybe he told Flask?’

  Gorhambury received some mildly approving looks. There had to be a regulation against showing private mayoral communications to countrysiders. The Town Clerk’s recent experiences appeared to have widened his view of the public interest.

  Gorhambury read out the opening paragraph: ‘Your esteemed service merits reward. Rotherweird’s singular status is born of a singular secret. There is an ancient treasure, hidden behind an equally ancient hidden gate. The gate will not reveal itself unless the Manor is restored and occupied by the Slickstone family, whose sole survivor is Sir Veronal Slickstone. He is rich beyond avarice and will respond to a well-judged invitation, but on no account reveal to him the existence of treasure. He will lead you there in time. Be sure to emphasise the privilege of being invited in as an “outsider” . . .’

  Gregorius Jones had been lost for some time, but this was the final straw.

  ‘I’m no doubt being dim—’

  ‘Pas possible,’ chirruped Boris.

  Unabashed, Jones continued, ‘We talked about Paul Marl at Finch’s place. He doesn’t exist.’

  ‘New game,’ suggested Boris, ‘who is Paul Marl?’

  Something stirred in Fanguin’s brain – an association, a connection, a crossword clue, anagrams, Latin, Flask’s weasel . . . ‘Wait!’ he shouted. ‘Wait!’

  He drummed the table for a moment, rallying his facts, before crying, ‘Eureka! The Latin for flask is ampulla. Add “R” for Robert and you get R Ampulla. Jumble the letters and you get Paul Marl. Like “Lost Acre” and “Stole Car”. Ergo: Paul Marl is Robert Flask, and Robert Flask is Paul Marl.’

  Ferensen’s lanterns and candles were taking over from failing natural light. The faces of the company were part lit, part in shadow – Rembrandt faces, chiaroscuro. Animation seemed to come to the tapestried landscape – the sails of a windmill turning, sickles sweeping, heads turning and conversing. The gold letters on the spines of Ferensen’s books flickered. The past had come to dine.

  Oblong added a disturbing detail. ‘It was Flask who suggested to the Headmaster that we re-enact the legend of the midsummer flower at the Fair – another anonymous letter, but the same writing as the notebook.’

  Finch reeled in the debate with a sober summary. ‘So: a person calling himself variously Paul Marl or Robert Flask comes to Rotherweird. He appears to be well versed in our history already. He persuades the Mayor to invite Slickstone to do up the Manor. He provokes a North Tower protest, then vanishes before Slickstone’s arrival. He launches the idea of re-enacting the midsummer legend. For good measure he leaves behind a page of a notebook to put others on the trail of Lost Acre.’

  Gregorius Jones then displayed his curious gift for developing an argument by stating the blindingly obvious. ‘That means he must already know about Sir Veronal’s past,’ said the athlete.

  ‘But he’s not from Rotherweird,’ objected Boris.

  Orelia corrected him. ‘Not from Rotherweird’s present. The mixing-

  point confers great longevity, remember.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ said Ferensen. ‘Courtesy of Mr Fanguin, I have a photograph of Flask from the School magazine. He’s nobody I know – or knew. And I knew them all . . . I think.’ Ferensen was no longer guarding his secret; he knew they knew. ‘We need a new angle. Miss Roc – tell them about Sir Veronal’s end.’

  She told the story – how Ferox the weaselman had taken charge, the confrontation at the mixing-point, the horror in the cage, and the relish with which Ferox had greeted Slickstone’s fate – Slickstone, his oldest and closest friend.

  ‘I met Ferox,’ said Salt. ‘His priority was saving Lost Acre. He knew it faced extinction.’ He spoke calmly, his old rage apparently burnt out.

  Ferensen took over. ‘In the old days Ferox was Slickstone’s guide and guard in Lost Acre. He had been there centuries before us. He spoke only Latin until Slickstone taught him English. In Lost Acre they were inseparable.’

  ‘He spoke Latin and English to me,’ added Salt.

  ‘Arms and the Man,’ commented Finch enigmatically, but everyone understood: Slickstone’s choice of a weasel emblem had subliminally come from his time spent in Lost Acre with Ferox, two predators together.

  The next contribution transformed the debate. For some time Fanguin had been unusually quiet. Now he stood up and placed his box on the table. ‘Talking of weaselmen, what on earth is this?’

  He lifted out the skull and rotated it. The snout was narrow and mean, the cranium large and rounded, the teeth pointed and sharp, demonstrably a weaselman.

  In Orelia’s mind’s eye the bony shell acquired fur, the sockets eyes and the sides of the temples ears.

  ‘It’s him – I promise it’s him,’ she said.

  ‘Can’t be,’ replied Fanguin. ‘I found it long before Midsummer Day.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Ferensen.

  ‘In the ruined garden of a ruined house.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Ferensen again.

  Fanguin recalled the schizophrenic tree with contrasting leaves and the ruined property down the dead-end track near Hirstoak. Then the revelation struck. ‘There,’ he said, pointing.

  They all turned to the opening scene of the tapestry: the fatal meeting between Wynter and Grassal, where it all began, superficially innocent, but lethal in context.

  ‘The house is ruined now, the garden overgrown, but the layout is exactly the same. There are “Keep Out” signs everywhere. Flask went there by bicycle. I found the skull in his tent.’

  ‘How did you know it was Flask’s tent?’ asked Ferensen, a look of intense concentration on his face, as if they were close to the truth.

  ‘There was a crossword – Flask did crosswords for the Chronicle. This was a draft, with all the squares, black and white, but only one clue – without the answer. Flask’s work in progress.’

  ‘And the clue?’ asked Ferensen. ‘We already have “Stole Car” and “Paul Marl” – this man delights in scattering clues.’

  Fanguin had not forgotten. ‘Yet another anagram – a double anagram, in fact. “Troupes with bad posture” – seven letters. “Troupes” with an “ou”, not a double “o”.’

  Finch’s eyes lit up. ‘Flasky boy, you’re playing us like puppets.’

  ‘I don’t get the clue,’ mumbled Gregorius Jones, who was looking strangely distracted, reaching over to touch the weaselman’s skull.

  Oblong obliged. ‘Posture and troupes have the same letters. Just like Lost Acre and Stole Car. The word “bad” before posture is a hint that you need to mix the letters.’

  Those present felt faintly sorry for Gregorius Jones, but yet again the athlete had unwittingly opened the way to a deeper truth.

  Fanguin followed up. ‘Jones has a point – which is the answer? Troupes or posture? And why should it be either as they’re both in the clue?’

  ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ muttered Finch.

  Silence. Around Oblong’s head spun Flask’s notebook, the

  weasel’s head, the name Paul Marl and much else besides. His brain juddered into life. ‘Proteus!’ he cried. ‘The answer is Proteus. It has the same letters as “troupes” and “posture”.’

  ‘And who is Proteus?’ gabbled Gregorius Jones.

  ‘The god who can forever change shape,’ said Finch.

  The company took stock as a hideous thought occurred to Ferensen. Sir Veronal had died, forever changing shape. The further they progressed into the clues Flask had left, the darker the puzzle became, and darker still when Fanguin reinforced Oblong’s solution.

  ‘That’s how he signed his crosswords – Shapeshifter.’

  ‘If you ask me, which I know you
ain’t,’ said Aggs, ‘you gotta work out why he beetled off to that rat-hole in Box Street.’

  Ferensen sensed another personality behind the devilry. He disclosed the information Valourhand had shared with him by the black tile beneath the library, just as he was about to leave to face his old enemy in Lost Acre.

  ‘There was a charred page from The Roman Recipe Book in the grate at Box Street.’ They all stared at Ferensen in disbelief. ‘Valourhand found it.’ Ferensen took the charred fragment from a drawer and placed it on the table. ‘We can see on the margin of the page the figure of a jester – nothing monstrous about him. Strimmer told Valourhand that the last page of the Recipe Book had ordinary

  figures in the margin, men and women. So is this Wynter’s last experiment?’

  Orelia felt humbled. Fanguin, Valourhand through the agency of Ferensen, Finch, Aggs, even Jones had made telling interventions in the night’s debate, but she had added nothing of note, despite living with old objects. She had studied the tapestry. She had sold Sir Veronal the stones. She had a feel for the educated Elizabethan mind – fiercely curious with swathes of virgin territory to explore in search of universal truths: the body, the soul, alchemy and the heavens. The focus had all been on Flask. They needed a new angle to progress.

  Ordinary figures hardly fitted the reputed wickedness of Wynter’s last experiment. Around her, discussion raged about their significance. They might be enemies of Wynter, doomed to die. They might be the subjects of the experiments, though she thought not. Wynter had had no dealings with soldiers, other than Oxenbridge at the end, which had to be too late, and Ferensen had never mentioned a jester. Frustratingly, she felt that she held the crucial evidence, although she had no idea what it might be. She ran through what she knew of Sir Veronal – the visit to the shop, the party, their conversation at the reopening of The Slickstone Arms. She remembered how, on this last encounter he had been entirely relaxed, on the verge of victory. Was it something he said? . . . something he said . . .

  She imagined the inky figures and shuddered. She knew. ‘Quiet please,’ she said, and the discussion died, such was the edge to her voice. ‘I know – not who Flask is, but what Sir Veronal was after, how this page connects with the crossword. At The Slickstone Arms Sir Veronal paraphrased Pascal: “I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.” He said that would be the ultimate gift: to move among those who say they’re your friends and discover if they really are. Proteus could – that’s what Wynter’s last experiment did. He found an arrangement that created a shapeshifter – jester, soldier, nun, whoever. Wynter and Sir Veronal feared treachery above all. Wynter was too late to conduct the experiment on himself, but the book lived on. And—’ She stopped, suddenly seeing the significance of what she was about to say.

  Ferensen was ahead of her. He went pale as a ghost. ‘And if it’s in the book, it works. If it works, it was tested on someone. Suppose this guinea pig lived on – he or she would know about Lost Acre; he would know about Sir Veronal. He gambles that if Snorkel uses the word ‘outsider’, it will trigger a memory despite the tabula rasa. He knows about the legend of the midsummer flower. He has been in and out of Lost Acre for centuries. He knows of the millennial threat, and that this is the year – from Ferox, probably. He does not know how to save it, but hopes others will find a way. He plants the idea of a reconstruction with the Headmaster. He cultivates interest wherever he can.’

  ‘He contacted Pendle about the Chronicle,’ added Oblong, ‘and he knew the year was significant, which is why he left it in his notebook for us to find.’

  ‘But the most troubling matter is . . .’ Ferensen paused, as if aware that his next revelation had even more shocking implications. ‘Flask also wanted Sir Veronal destroyed.’

  There was uproar around the table.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Ferensen followed up with a surprise question. ‘Tell me about Hengest Strimmer.’

  ‘Clever, ambitious, devious,’ replied Fanguin.

  ‘That figures,’ said Ferensen. ‘Now, hear me out. Flask – whoever he is – devises a fiendishly clever plan. He gets Snorkel to lure Sir Veronal to Rotherweird. He leaves the stones for Salt to find – he knows Salt goes to Lost Acre. Sorry, Salt, it’s true. Where did you find them?’

  Salt grunted. He had found them near the white tile, together, all too obvious to someone using that way in.

  ‘When you take the stones to Rotherweird, Flask is hopeful Slickstone will find them soon enough. As indeed he does. There’s another chattel of Wynter’s that he has: The Roman Recipe Book. He secretes it in the North Tower attic and leads Strimmer to the room, and only the room, so Strimmer thinks he has found the book. He persuades Strimmer to confront Slickstone, knowing that will bring them together. The fact Valourhand does Strimmer’s dirty work makes no difference. Strimmer and Slickstone are too alike not to share their knowledge. Sir Veronal retrieves the book. But . . .’ Here Ferensen paused for effect. ‘Flask must have altered the stones’ position on the last page. This is the original page, which he burned. I’ll bet you good money he replaced it with a failed earlier attempt. He knew what it would do.’

  More uproar.

  Ferensen continued, ‘Oh yes, Orelia is right: that is the head of Ferox. So the Ferox you met was Flask, shapeshifting. He wanted to be there when Sir Veronal got justice. Good old-fashioned revenge.’

  ‘Revenge for what?’ asked several voices at the same time.

  Ferensen turned aside. ‘Finch?’

  ‘I told you at Escutcheon Place: when the soldiers came and the Eleusians were broken up, Sir Veronal betrayed Wynter. He gave evidence against his master – treachery, the greatest crime.’ Finch knew the passage by heart. He had thought Wynter’s words bravado; now he was less sure. ‘“The accused sought no pity from the Court. He said he would be back, and that vengeance would be his. He said another would come to pave the way.”’

  ‘But Wynter is dead,’ stuttered Fanguin.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ferensen, ‘so Flask isn’t Wynter, but someone close to him – and very much alive. Consider what we know about him: he’s vain. He likes wordplay. He knows about Lost Acre and its secrets. He has been in the mixing-point – why he lives on. He’s happy to kill in Wynter’s memory.’

  He walked over to the first tapestry and ran his finger over the insignificant character standing beside Wynter at his first meeting with Grassal. ‘Meet Calx Bole, Wynter’s extraordinary manservant. Meet Robert Flask, alias Paul Marl, alias the false Ferox. And I’ll tell you why I’m certain. This man always wants us to know he’s one step ahead. Aggs – it was your question: why did he go to Box Street? The work on The Roman Recipe Book doesn’t seem a persuasive reason – why not do it late at night in his original lodgings? Why abandon handsome rooms for nasty ones?’

  ‘Why lose the best general person in town!’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with your cleaning, and all to do with his final anagram. This time it’s Spanish, not Latin. He wanted to leave a final calling card to sign off his masterpiece. He likes to be admired, but he also likes to tantalise. For Box Street, read Box Calle. Mix the letters and what do we get? Calx Bole.’

  Silence. The figure of Calx Bole, as fashioned of coloured thread, appeared to be smiling at them all.

  Finch rolled back the centuries. ‘I go back to the shapeshifter. We were always in Escutcheon Place, we Finches. We’ve seen much come and go. The first Herald, my ancestor, Hubert, was ruler in all but name – they had no mayors then. He recorded one horrific incident – I found it tucked away in his History. The master carver who did much work on the archivoire visited the house on the twentieth anniversary of Wynter’s death to check its secret compartments were in working order. Only he had been murdered two days earlier. A ghost, poor Hubert thought. But it must have been the shapeshifter. And when I used the key, one compartment was empty. I guess it held the stones. And Calx Bole in the guise
of the carver, another of his victims, took them.’

  ‘What about the cat with fiery feet?’ asked Orelia.

  ‘Bole’s creature, Bole’s familiar,’ replied Ferensen.

  ‘Arms and the Man,’’ said the Herald a second time, before reminding them of the cat with fiery feet on the last shield of The Dark Devices.

  ‘The cat started the fire,’ added Orelia, ‘but why?’ She answered her own question. ‘It – or Flask – discovered that my aunt watched and noted – she must have recorded Flask going to the Island Field at night . . . on his way to Lost Acre presumably. I knew there was something odd about the fire. Slickstone took the “Sa – Sl” volume after killing my aunt – not, incidentally, for references to his own name but references to Salt. So why would he start a fire weeks later?’

  ‘I met the cat on Midsummer Eve. Slickstone thought the cat his friend,’ said Gregorius Jones, still sounding distant and barely engaged.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘How?’

  Questions came thick and fast as the company slowly coaxed the events beneath the library floor from Jones. After explaining the actress’ escape, he emphasised that she had made a vow of silence and would not be returning.

  ‘The cat wasn’t there to stop Slickstone but to be sure he got through,’ commented Orelia, who now saw a new problem. ‘Why did the cat say to me during the fire, “Do you have the book?” Bole already knew Slickstone had The Roman Recipe Book, or that Strimmer did. That was the whole plan. So why ask me?’

  Ferensen hazarded a guess. ‘I believe Morval kept a volume of Wynter’s failed experiments – but why Bole would want that, I don’t know.’

  The inconclusiveness of the answer unsettled everyone. They could see two narratives. In one, the second volume had little significance; Bole’s twin ambitions had been the saving of Lost Acre and revenge on Sir Veronal. He sought this other volume as a memento of his master or out of some private interest. The alternative was altogether darker: Wynter’s words about coming back meant what they said, and Bole was the man come to prepare the way. This second volume might assist that objective.