Ferney

by James Long

  Grey had pulled him away, back into the yard, as Mother Mogg had gone off at her best speed, looking constantly back.

  ‘Do NOT do that, sir.’

  ‘She has the King’s Evil. I have the touch. I am the rightful king. I must cure when I can and that will be one of the signs.’

  ‘It’s your neck you must save now,’ Grey said, then looked back at Ferney and Gally with a grim face. ‘Hide all well. Do not be found with traces of us or it will go badly for you,’ and then Madox had urged them away.

  In a space in the middle of the yard, a woman’s face appeared, hanging in the air, and said, ‘I say, do come and look.’ The caravan slowly developed around it as Gally fought her way back. Victoria Melhuish was staring at her. ‘Do come and see,’ she repeated. ‘It’s come up well.’

  The ring lay on a square of cloth on the table. There was an astringent smell in the air and a small array of plastic bottles was ranged next to it.

  ‘Thank you so much for letting me see it,’ the woman said. ‘I think you’ve made quite an important find here.’ She picked the ring up carefully. ‘Do you see the cypher?’

  Under the crystal, below the king’s enamelled head was a device of two intersecting semicircles.

  ‘The double C,’ she said. ‘Charles the Second, done in gold wire. Now that doesn’t by itself mean it was a royal ring but it is present on the rings that we know Charles gave to special favourites, and there are some other rather special things about this ring. Look at the hoop for one thing.’

  The outside of the hoop was decorated with damaged enamel in an intricate pattern, gold showing through the black. Inside, Gally could see lettering.

  ‘Use this.’ Victoria Melhuish held out the magnifier.

  ‘ “Prepared be to follow me”,’ read Gally.

  ‘Now,’ said the other woman, ‘I’ve freed the bezel, though we have to be careful. It swings round, you see. There’s the crystal and the portrait on the front and there’s the signet ring on the back.’ She took the ring and gently turned the bezel round. Gally used the magnifier again and found herself looking at an indented shield.

  ‘It’s the Stuart royal arms,’ the woman said, ‘and do you see the initials? They’re reversed too, of course.’

  ‘JC?’ said Gally.

  ‘That’s right. Now this might be a coincidence but there is a record of a royal ring given to the Duke of Monmouth and those initials would fit.’

  ‘I thought he was Jamie Scott?’

  Victoria Melhuish raised an eyebrow in appreciation. ‘That was the country name for him, I think, but in all the court references he was known as James Crofts.’

  ‘JC.’

  ‘Well, we mustn’t jump to conclusions, but it certainly needs further study and the inscription is rather interesting.’

  ‘ “Prepared be to follow me.” You think that was Monmouth’s call to arms?’

  ‘Oh no, not for a moment. I should think Charles might have had that engraved as a gentle reminder to his natural son that he owed his loyalty to his father. The question is really, how did this come to be under your step?’

  ‘Yes, that is the question, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course with what happened after Sedgemoor, anything identifying Monmouth’s supporters was better off buried.’

  A tickle of unease.

  ‘Because it was dangerous?’

  ‘George Jeffreys and the Bloody Assize? I should say so. I think they executed a hundred and fifty in Taunton alone, didn’t they?’

  They’d come in the night looking for friends of Richard Madox. The knowledge hit Gally like a punch. She flinched and the woman looked at her, surprised, but mistook it for an invitation to carry on.

  ‘Well, King James didn’t want any more plots so he made quite sure everybody got the message. There’s a horrific royal warrant telling them how to do it.’ Victoria Melhuish had an odd enthusiasm about her that suggested her tight elegance restrained something darker. ‘They had to hang some of them, then quarter them, boil the bits and coat them in tar. Then they displayed . . .’

  ‘No, stop. That’s enough.’ Gally lurched out of the caravan and was loudly sick into the nettles.

  ‘Oh my goodness. I am so sorry,’ said the woman, appearing at the caravan doorway behind her with a concerned look. ‘Was it what I said?’

  ‘Not your fault,’ said Gally weakly. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Boilman and Burnman. The names rang in her head. Boilman and Burnman.

  ‘Are you all right now?’

  Gally nodded.

  ‘It’s a question of what happens to the ring now, you see. I wondered whether it would be best if I took it to the museum for proper conservation. It should be catalogued.’

  There was no strength left in her for argument.

  ‘Oh . . . I suppose . . .’

  Mike drove blessedly in at that moment, the car’s roof-rack loaded with sagging rolls of matting, interrupting them. Gally introduced them.

  ‘I was just asking your wife if it would be all right to take the ring to the museum.’ She smiled at Mike brightly.

  Mike had the sense to defer to Gally and the brief pause had let her catch her breath. She felt a sharp sense of anxiety. ‘How long would you need it?’

  Victoria Melhuish pondered her words. ‘Well, the important thing is that the law has to be observed of course. You’ve done exactly the right thing by informing the museum and of course there’ll have to be a coroner’s inquiry.’

  ‘About what?’ said Gally startled.

  ‘Ah. Perhaps you don’t know the system. It would probably be classed as treasure trove, you see.’

  ‘Would it?’

  ‘Any gold or silver object found hidden with its ownership unknown belongs to the Crown. Something like this, of historical importance, would usually go to the museum. You would be compensated for its value, of course.’

  I don’t want compensation, Gally thought wildly. What does she mean, ‘ownership unknown’? It was given to me. She opened her mouth to say so and in a confusion of doubt stopped herself in time. Mike, watching her closely, seemed to pick up on her distress.

  ‘I’m sure compensation’s not the issue,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we can discuss it then bring it over in the next few days.’

  The woman raised an eyebrow and looked doubtful and Mike plunged on. ‘Not, of course, that we doubt what you say, but we’ve never met you before . . .’

  The woman looked rather shocked, as if her honesty was being impugned. ‘Oh, I see. Well, you could always ring the museum if you’re in doubt.’

  ‘Yes, we will,’ said Mike ushering her towards her car.

  ‘You will put the ring somewhere safe, won’t you?’ she said as she got in reluctantly. ‘It must have quite a considerable commercial value.’

  When she’d gone, Gally gave Mike a hug. ‘Thank you. I thought she was planning to go off with it right there.’

  ‘Poor you.’

  ‘They’ll have to have it, though – won’t they?’

  ‘Do you feel bad about that?’

  She looked at the ring. Boilman and Burnman and tarred joints of quartered humans hung on hooks to scare the people out of ever massing against their king again. She shuddered. ‘No, perhaps not.’

  She parked at Yeovil Hospital and made her way, despite misdirection, to Ferney’s ward. She was nervous. The sister told her where to go.

  ‘He’s doing all right,’ she said. ‘He keeps us in stitches with the funny things he says.’

  ‘What sort of funny things?’

  ‘Oh, it’s the medication, I expect, but he does have some odd ideas. When Dr Barraclough asked him if it was his first heart attack, he said he’d had lots.’

  Ferney was propped up in bed, very pale, and she couldn’t at first see anything but the old man’s body around him. He saw her immediately and gave a small smile.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Still here,’ he said.

  ‘What have
you been saying? The sister’s asking questions.’

  Ferney made a face. ‘I’m not quite myself sometimes and they keep giving me these chemicals.’ He shrugged it off. ‘Did you read my letter?’

  ‘Look, Ferney, before we get to that, I wasn’t sure if I should come – in case it was bad for you. It does feel different now, though. At your house, I felt I was killing you by being too close. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Killing? No. Helping me die, maybe.’

  ‘I don’t feel that now.’

  ‘They’ve propped me up with chemicals and that. Life’s hung its hat up again. It’ll be that way for a while. I want an answer, Gally. Did you read my letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It shocked you.’

  ‘Of course it shocked me.’

  ‘Have you . . . have you been able to check it?’

  ‘Well, not really. Not yet. Other things came instead.’

  He watched her closely and she forgot his frailty in those timeless eyes.

  ‘Do you remember seeing your first clock?’ she said.

  He looked puzzled, then thought about it and nodded. ‘We both saw it.’

  ‘Well, tell me then,’ she said. ‘You and me – we went to see it. Where was it?’

  ‘Shaston, I think. Yes, I’m sure.’

  Shaston. It was just a daydream then. Shaston, not Shaftesbury. Shaston?

  ‘Where is Shaston?’ she said slowly.

  ‘Shaftesbury now, isn’t it? They called it Sophonia for some silly reason for a while, way back when, but it was Shaston for a long time – oh, right up to recently.’

  She surprised herself by feeling pleased.

  ‘You remembered that by yourself,’ he said and his eyes gleamed.

  ‘Yes,’ and she couldn’t restrain her smile.

  He gripped her hand. ‘What did you remember about it?’

  ‘You – on the way back, saying it was the end of eternity and all our time would have a price on it from then on’

  ‘Huh. I was right, too, wasn’t I?’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘Do you remember what it was like before?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘There was that daft man. Some lord or other, I forget. Anyway he had the old manor for a time and he saw what the monks did over at Stavordale – they had this great water clock they filled up every day and every night for their services, so he had to have one too. That was the way – that and candles. But there wasn’t such a thing as a regular hour, you see. They just divided up the daytime into twelve and the night-time into another twelve. It meant an hour on a summer day was twice as long as it was in winter. Do you remember that?’

  She shook her head. ‘So was that better or worse?’

  ‘Neither of them was any damn good, but the church liked the new clocks. The church was all about keeping the poor in their place, always was. The merchants with their special pews, they saw the possibilities of the clocks right off. Poor old eternity never stood a chance.’ He looked out of the window for a moment. ‘Oh, that was a real time of change. They tell you about the Industrial Revolution at school, this recent one, like it was the only one. That was the real revolution, though, back then. All kinds of things, cranks, cams, springs, gears – all coming one after the other. That’s what really changed life. Sometimes for the better, too, I have to admit.’

  ‘When was that?’ she asked, thinking, how far back did I get?

  ‘The clock? I wish I’d remembered exactly, but I’ve tried to work it out since. As near as I can get I reckon it was 1348.’

  That was a date that rang horrible bells and he saw it dawning on her. ‘Funny isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Maybe just exactly then, when you and I were listening to that clock chiming, there was some seaman getting off his little sailing ship just down on the coast there at Melcombe, wondering why he didn’t feel so good. I don’t know what month it was but the Black Death came in on its ship in August, the books say. You could probably remember it yourself if you try. You’ve cracked it now, I reckon. If you just work at it, you’ll get anything you want back.’

  ‘I don’t feel in control. I really need to talk to you about the bad bits.’

  ‘The nightmares.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I knew they might be a problem. I’ve been lying here worrying. When I gave you the drum it was meant to be the start of the explanation. I never thought I’d have a silly turn like this.’

  ‘A silly turn? You mean a heart attack.’

  ‘Whatever. Anyway I realized it probably made it all worse. These nightmares of yours – they’ll be about what came after Monmouth. That man Jeffreys.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Boilman and Burnman. They’ve been in my head for years. I thought it was my father dying, you see? I thought it was because he’d burned up, but I was wrong, wasn’t I? It was Jeffreys and the Bloody Assize and that’s why the drum frightens me, the ring and the drum. This woman came from the museum to look at the ring and she told me a bit.’

  ‘Don’t dwell on that,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t a good time.’

  ‘I need to know. You know I do. It’s the only way I can get rid of it. You said as much yourself. Those two, they’ve been my nightmares ever since I was old enough to remember.’ Ever since well before the car crash, she suddenly realized for the first time.

  ‘They would be. You see, all those cloth workers round our way that marched with the Duke, they came looking for them afterwards. Everyone accusing everyone else. Jeffreys, he was a true sadist. They grabbed me, took me in. Do you remember that?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘We’d buried the ring, but we only had time to tuck the other things, the swords and the armour, away in the roof. There was an old woman saw Monmouth with us.’

  ‘Mother Mogg.’

  ‘You remember that?’

  ‘Just a bit of it.’

  ‘Well, well. She must have said something. They came searching for Madox and for me. They would have searched the roof, only you thought up some clever trick and distracted them, but like I say, they took me away.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You know what they did with the bodies of the people they killed?’

  She nodded. ‘I think I do.’

  ‘The man who boiled up the bits for Jeffreys – they called him Tom Boilman ever after. He was struck by lightning in the end. Burnman, his real name was Raphael. He provided the wood for the fires, tended them carefully, helped Boilman pour the tar. Nobody would ever talk to him from then on. He wasted away.’

  An image of butchered, blackened flesh kept trying to creep out into the open and she pushed it away. The guilt she always felt, the guilt that had always seemed to belong, in defiance of logic, to the car crash. Was that because she’d let him down? Was she somehow responsible for death?

  ‘What did they do to me?’ she said in a voice that shook.

  ‘Scared you and threatened you. Took you to the boiling. Told you I’d be next into the pot in pieces if you didn’t save my life by admitting everything.’

  ‘And did I?’ she said fearfully.

  ‘No, of course you didn’t. You had far too much sense. You knew the best chance for both of us was if you said nothing. All that time, knowing the drum was up in our roof and the ring was under the step, you held out and in the end you fooled them. A lot of people came to an end then, but not you and not me because you were brave.’

  She breathed again. It might not spell the immediate end for the nightmares but she knew at that moment she would be able to set them in their place, that – given time – she could now think them through. A huge burden had been lifted, but there remained a part of it that the story hadn’t touched.

  ‘No one died because of me, because of something I did?’

  ‘No one,’ he said, puzzled. ‘Is something troubling you?’

  She shook her head. It must be her father then. That at least would still dog her even if the nightmares went.

/>   ‘It was such a cruel time,’ he said. ‘You and I, we’ve seen all sorts of cruelty. Most cruelty is fear, really. People do it to you in case you’re going to do it to them. The more afraid they are inside, the crueller they are. Cruelty gives them the feeling it will always happen to someone else, not to them. It’s different for us. We’ve been through enough pain to know we won’t ever take any pleasure in it.’

  ‘Is this a better time to be alive?’

  ‘Better than some,’ he said. ‘Better than the plague times. We didn’t get to stop long then. Proper revolving door that was, either busy being born or busy dying.’

  She smiled. ‘Isn’t that a line from a song?’

  ‘I must have heard it somewhere. Not that the Death was all bad. Lots of land to go round afterwards and it got rid of a lot of priests.’

  Gally looked up to see a recently familiar face heading for Ferney’s bed, a face above a dog-collar.

  ‘Here’s one it didn’t get rid of,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I don’t want to see him,’ said Ferney aghast.

  ‘I can hardly stop him,’ Gally hissed.

  ‘Tell him I’ve got the Black Death,’ said Ferney far too loudly.

  The man wheeled to an uncoordinated halt beside the bed. ‘Mr Miller? Oh hello again, Mrs Martin. How nice to see you here. Always nice when the younger ones take the trouble. I’m Roger Wigglesworth, the stand-in vicar. Heard you were laid up, Mr Miller, so I thought I’d pop in. Did I hear you were talking about the Black Death?’

  ‘I’d better tell you I’m not a Christian,’ said Ferney bluntly. ‘If you’ve got others who are waiting on your visit, you’d better not be wasting your time on me.’