by C. S. Harris
He paused uncertainly some feet away, the dog drawing up beside him, pink tongue hanging out as it panted happily. `Monsieur le vicomte?' he asked.
`Yes.' Sebastian turned slowly to face him.
`And you, I take it, must be Miss Tennyson's mysterious unnamed French lieutenant?'
The man brought his heels together and swept an elegant bow. This particular French officer was, obviously, not one of those who had been raised through the ranks from the gutters of Paris. `I have a name,' he said in very good English. `Lieutenant Philippe Arceneaux, of the Twenty-second Chasseurs Cheval.'
Chapter 18
`We met last May in the Reading Room of the British Museum,' said Arceneaux as he and Sebastian walked along the placid waters of the Serpentine. The dog frisked happily ahead, nose to the ground, tail wagging. `She was having difficulty with the archaic Italian of a novella she was attempting to translate, and I offered to help.'
`So you're a scholar.'
`I was trained to be, yes. But France has little use for scholars these days. Only soldiers.' He gazed out across the park's open fields, to where His Majesty's finest were drilling in the fierce sunshine. `One of the consolations of being a prisoner of war has been the opportunity to continue my studies.'
`This novella you mentioned; what was it?'
`A now obscure elaboration of a part of the Arthurian legend called La donna di Scalotta.'
`The Lady of Shalott,' said Sebastian thoughtfully.
The Frenchman brought his gaze back to Sebastian's face.
`You know it?' he said in surprise.
`I have heard of it, but that's about it.'
`It's a tragic tale, of a beautiful maiden who dies for the love of a handsome knight.'
`Sir Lancelot?'
`Yes.'
`Convenient, isn't it, the way Camelot, Lancelot, and Shalott all happen to rhyme?'
Arceneaux laughed out loud. `Very convenient.'
Sebastian said, `Were you in love with her?'
The laughter died on the Frenchman's lips as he lifted his shoulders in a shrug that could have meant anything, and looked away. It occurred to Sebastian, watching him, that the Lieutenant appeared young because he was probably no more than twenty-four or -five, which would make him several years younger than Gabrielle.
`Well? Were you?'
They walked along in silence, the sun warm on their backs, the golden light of the afternoon drenching the green of the grass and trees around them. Just when Sebastian had decided the Frenchman wasn't going to answer, he said softly, `Of course I was. At least a little. Who wouldn't be? She was a very beautiful woman, brilliant and courageous and overflowing with a zest for life. While I...' His voice broke and he had to swallow hard before he could continue. `I have been very lonely, here in England.'
`Was she in love with you?'
`Oh, no. There was nothing like that between us. We were friends, fellow scholars. Nothing more.'
Sebastian studied the Frenchman's lean profile. He had softly curling brown hair and a sprinkling of cinnamon-colored freckles high across his cheeks that gave him something of the look of a schoolboy. At the moment, the freckles were underlaid by a faint, betraying flush.
`When did you last see her?' Sebastian asked.
`Wednesday evening, I believe it was. She used to bring her young cousins here, to the park, to sail their boats on the Serpentine. I would meet them sometimes. The boys liked to play with Chien.'
Sebastian glanced over at the brown and black mongrel, now loping methodically from tree to tree in a good-natured effort to mark all of Hyde Park as his own personal territory. `Chien? That's his name?' Chien was simply the French word for dog.
`I thought if I gave him a name, I might become too attached to him.'
The dog came bounding back to the young lieutenant, tail wagging, brown eyes luminous with adoration, and the Lieutenant hunkered down to ruffle the fur around his neck. The dog licked his wrist and then trotted off again happily.
`Looks as if that's working out well,' observed Sebastian.
Arceneaux laughed again and pushed to his feet. `He used to live in the wasteland near that new bridge they're building. I go there sometimes to sit at the end overlooking the river and watch the tide roll in and out. He would come sit beside me. And then one day just before curfew, when I got up to leave, he came too. Unfortunately, he has a sad taste for the low life, particularly Gypsies. And a shocking tendency to steal hams. George used to say I should have called him Rom, because he is a Gypsy at heart.'
The Lieutenant watched the dog roll in the grass near the water's edge and his features hardened into grim lines. After a moment, he said, `Do you think George and Alfred are dead too?'
`They may be. Or they could simply have been frightened by what happened to their cousin and run away to hide.'
`But the authorities are looking for them, yes? And Gabrielle's brother has offered a reward. If that were true, why have they not been found?'
Sebastian could think of several explanations that made perfect sense, although he wasn't inclined to voice them. Small boys were a valuable commodity in England, frequently sold as climbing boys by the parish workhouses or even by their own impoverished parents. The chimney sweeps were in constant need of new boys, for the work was brutal and dangerous. Even boys who survived eventually outgrew the task. It wasn't unknown for small children to be snatched from their front gardens and sold to sweeps. Very few of those children ever made it home again.
But the chimney sweeps weren't the only ones who preyed on young children; girls and boys both were exploited for sexual purposes, the very thought of which made Sebastian's stomach clench. He suspected the trade in children was a contributing factor to Tennyson's decision to ignore the concerns of the magistrates and post a reward for the boys return. Then he noticed the way the Lieutenant's jaw had tightened, and he knew the Frenchman's thoughts were probably running in the same direction.
Sebastian breathed in the warm, stagnant aroma of the canal, the sunbaked earth, the sweet scent of the lilies blooming near the shadows of the trees. He said, `Did Miss Tennyson seem troubled in any way the last time you saw her?'
`Troubled? No.'
`Would you by any chance know how she planned to spend this past Sunday afternoon?'
`Sorry, no.'
Sebastian glanced over at him. `She didn't speak of it?'
`Not that I recall, no.'
`Yet you did sometimes see her on Sundays, did you not?'
Arceneaux was silent for a moment, obviously considering his answer with care. He decided to go with honesty. `Sometimes, yes.'
`Where would you go?'
A muscle worked along the Frenchman's jaw as he stared out over the undulating parkland and shrugged. `Here and there.'
`You went up to Camlet Moat a week ago last Sunday, didn t you?
Arceneaux kept his face half averted, but Sebastian saw his throat work as he swallowed.
One of the conditions of a prisoner's parole was the requirement that he not withdraw beyond certain narrowly prescribed boundaries. By traveling up to Camlet Moat, the Frenchman had violated his parole. Sebastian wondered why he had taken such a risk. But he also understood how frustration could sometimes lead a man to do foolish things.
`I have no intention of reporting you to the Admiralty, if that's what you re worried about,' said Sebastian.
`I didn't kill her,' said Arceneaux suddenly, his voice rough with emotion. `You must believe me. I had no reason to kill any of them.'
Some might consider unrequited love a very common motive for murder. But Sebastian kept that observation to himself. `Who do you think would have a reason to kill them?'
Arceneaux hesitated, the wind ruffling the soft brown curls around his face. He said, `How much do you know about Camlet Moat?'
`I know that Miss Tennyson believed it the lost location of Arthur's Camelot. Do you?'
`I will admit that when I first heard the suggestion, it
seemed laughable. But in the end I found her arguments profoundly compelling. The thing is, you see, our image of Camelot has been molded by the writings of the troubadours. We picture it as a fairy-tale place - a grand medieval castle and great city of grace and beauty. But the real Camelot if it existed at all would have been far less grand and magnificent. There is no denying that Camlet Moat's name is indeed a recent corruption of Camelot. And it is an ancient site with royal connections that remained important down through the ages.'
`One wouldn't think so to look at the island today.'
`That's because the medieval castle that once stood there was completely razed by the Earl of Essex in the fifteenth century, its stones and timbers sold to help finance repairs to the Earl's family seat at Hertford.'
Sebastian frowned. `I thought the site belonged to the Crown.'
`It has, off and on. But it was for several centuries in the possession of the descendants of Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville.'
Every schoolboy in England was familiar with Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville, one of the most notorious of the robber barons spawned by the chaos of the twelfth century, when William the Conqueror's grandchildren Matilda and Stephen did their best to turn England into a wasteland in their battle for the throne. Accumulating a band of black knights, de Mandeville pillaged and looted from Cambridge to Ely to the Abby of Ramsey; the treasure he amassed in the course of his bloody career - a king's ransom in gold and coins and precious gems - had reportedly never been found.
`There is a legend,' said Arceneaux, that de Mandeville buried his treasure at Camlet Moat. They say that when he was attained for high treason, he hid on the island in a hollow oak tree overhanging a well. The tree broke beneath his weight, and he fell into the well and drowned. Now his ghost haunts the island, guarding his treasure and reappearing to bring death to anyone who would dare lay hands upon it.'
`Don't tell me you believe this nonsense?'
Arceneaux smiled. `No. But that doesn't mean that other people don't.'
`Are you suggesting Gabrielle Tennyson might have been killed by a treasure hunter?'
`I know they had difficulty with someone digging at the site during the night and on Sundays too. The workmen would frequently arrive in the morning to find great gaping holes at various points around the island. She was particularly disturbed by some damage she discovered last week. She suspected the man behind it was Winthrop's own foreman, a big, redheaded rogue named Rory Forster. But she had no proof.'
`She thought whoever was digging at the site was looking for de Mandeville's treasure?'
The Frenchman nodded. `My fear is that if she and the lads did decide to go up there again last Sunday, they may have chanced upon someone looking for de Mandeville's treasure. Someone who...' His voice trailed away, his features pinched tight with the pain of his thoughts.
`When you went with Miss Tennyson to the site, how did you get there?'
`But I didn't...' he began, only to have Sebastian cut him off.
`All right, let's put it this way: If you had visited the site last Sunday, how would you have traveled there?'
The Frenchman gave a wry grin. `In a hired gig. Why?'
`Because it's one of the more puzzling aspects of this murder Bow Street has yet to discover - how Miss Tennyson traveled up to the moat the day she was killed. You have no ideas?'
Arceneaux shook his head. `I assumed she must have gone there in the company of whoever killed her.'
As she did with you, Sebastian thought. Aloud, he said, `I'm curious: Why bring this tale to me? Why not take what you know to Bow Street?'
A humorless smile twisted Arceneaux's lips. `Have you seen today's papers? They're suggesting Gabrielle and the boys were killed by a Frenchman. Just this morning, two of my fellow officers were attacked by a mob calling them child murderers. They might well have been killed if a troop of the Third Volunteers hadn't chanced to come along and rescue them.'
They drew up at the gate, where Tom was waiting with the curricle. Sebastian said, `What makes you so certain I won't simply turn around and give your name to the authorities?'
`I am told you are a man of honor and justice.'
`Who told you that?'
The Frenchman's cheeks hollowed and he looked away.
Sebastian said, `You took a risk, approaching me; why?'
Arceneaux brought his gaze back to Sebastian's face. He no longer looked like a young scholar but like a soldier who had fought and seen men die, and who had doubtless also killed. `Because I want whoever did this dead. It's as simple as that.'
The two men's gazes met and held. They had served under different flags, perhaps even unknowingly faced each other on some field of battle. But they had more in common with each other than with those who had never held the bloodied, shattered bodies of their dying comrades in their arms, who had never felt the thrum of bloodlust coursing through their own veins, who had never known the fierce rush of bowel-loosening fear or the calm courage that can come from the simple, unshrugging acceptance of fate.
`The authorities will figure out who you are eventually,' said Sebastian.
`Yes. But it won't matter if you catch the man who actually did kill them, first.' The Frenchman bowed, one hand going to his hip as if to rest on the hilt of a sword that was no longer there. `My lord.'
Sebastian stood beside his curricle and watched the Frenchman limp away toward the river, the scruffy brown and black dog trotting contentedly at his side.
Sebastian's first inclination was to dismiss the man's tale of ghosts, robber barons, and buried treasure as just so much nonsense. But he had a vague memory of Lovejoy saying something about a local legend linking some ancient Templar knight to the moat.
`Was that the Frog ye been lookin' for, gov'nor?' asked Tom.
Sebastian leapt up into the curricle's high seat. `He says he is.'
`Ye don't believe 'im?'
`When it comes to murder, I'm not inclined to believe anyone.' Sebastian gathered his reins, then paused to look over at his tiger. `Do you believe in ghosts, Tom?'
`Me? Get on wit ye, gov'nor.' The boy showed a gap-toothed grin. `Ye sayin' that Frog is a ghost?'
`No. But I'm told some people do believe Camlet Moat is haunted.'
`By the lady what got 'erself killed there?'
`By a twelfth-century black knight.'
Tom was silent for a moment. Then he said, `Do you believe in ghosts, gov'nor?'
`No.' Sebastian turned the chestnuts heads toward the road north. `But I think it's time we took another look at Camelot.'
Chapter 19
Alistair St. Cyr, Earl of Hendon and Chancellor of the Exchequer, slammed his palm down on the pile of crude broadsheets on the table before him. `I don't like this. I don't like it at all. These bloody things are all over town. And I tell you, they're having more of an effect than one could ever have imagined. Why, just this morning I overheard two of my housemaids whispering about King Arthur. Housemaids! We've heard this nonsense before, about how the time has come for the once and future king to return from the mists of bloody Avalon and save England from both Boney and the House of Hanover. But this is different. This is more than just a few yokels fantasizing over their pints down at the local. Someone is behind this, and if you ask me, it's Napoléon's agents.'
Jarvis drew his snuffbox from his pocket and calmly flipped it open with one practiced finger. `Of course it's the work of Napoléon's agents.'
Hendon looked at him from beneath heavy brows. `Do you know who they are?'
`I believe so.' Jarvis lifted a pinch of snuff to one nostril and sniffed. `But at this point, it's more than a matter of simply closing down some basement printing press. The damage has been done; this appeal to a messianic hero from our glorious past has resonated with the people and taken on a life of its own.'
`How the bloody hell could something like this have aroused such a popular fervor?'
`I suppose one could with justification blame the success of the pulpit. W
hen people fervently believe the Son of God will return someday to save them, it makes it easier to believe the same of King Arthur.'
`That's blasphemy.'
`I'm not talking about religion. I'm talking about credulity and habits of thought.'
Hendon swung away to go stand beside the window and stare down at the Mall. `I'll confess that at first I found it difficult to credit that there are people alive today who could actually believe that Arthur will return, literally. I had supposed these pamphlets were simply tapping into the population's yearning for an Arthur-like figure to appear and save England. But an appalling number of people do seem to genuinely believe Arthur is out there right now on the Isle of Avalon, just waiting for the right moment to come back.'
Jarvis raised another pinch of snuff and inhaled with a sniff.
`I fear the concept of metaphor is rather above the capacity of the hoi polloi.'
Hendon turned to look at him over one shoulder. `So what is to be done?'
Jarvis closed his snuffbox and tucked it away with a bland smile.
`We're working on that.'
Sebastian had expected to find the moat overrun with parties of searchers eager for the chance to collect the reward posted by Gabrielle Tennyson's brother. Instead, he reined in beneath the thick, leafy canopy at the top of the ancient embankment to look out over an oddly deserted scene, the stagnant water disturbed only by a quick splash and the disappearing ripples left in the wake of some unseen creature. He could hear the searchers, but only faintly, the thickness of the wood muffling the distant baying of hounds and the halloos of the men beating the surrounding countryside. Here, all was quiet in the August heat.
`Gor,' whispered Tom. `This place gives me the goosies, it does.'