The Flame Eater

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  He was so surprised, he released her. “What a strange thing to notice. And how perverse. I usually forget the wretched thing is there. But I’ve never expected anyone else to like it. Especially you.”

  She was momentarily affronted. “Why especially me?”

  “Because,” he said, leaning back, eyes narrowed, “that was one of the reasons, I presume, you hated me before we were married. Wasn’t it? The ugly brother. The deformed one.”

  Blushing again, “No, well, not really. Peter told me – but I’d never seen you. I didn’t know what he meant and he never explained very well. I suppose, thinking back to what he used to say, he was a little unfair.”

  “A little unfair?”

  “You’re laughing at me again. Yes, of course he was wrong.” She sighed, and leaned forwards, taking her husband’s hand again. “But I know something now, which I didn’t realise until you went away. It’s your eyes – and Peter’s eyes. Both such bright vivid blue. But your eyes are so – full. They dance all the time with a hundred expressions. I can watch you thinking. Your eyes are so wonderfully alive. Peter’s eyes,” she leaned back again, and looked down, “they were just the same colour as yours, brilliant as jewels, with such beautiful black lashes, just like yours. But his eyes were empty. Perhaps he hid his thoughts. But they weren’t starry, like your eyes. They just looked. Or they looked away. Open or closed. There wasn’t anything else in them.”

  Nicholas chuckled, shaking his head. “No spiders? No battle banners? No blind wandering clouds?”

  “No laughter.”

  “Peter was a complicated brother. He had some good points and we laughed together as children. He grew more difficult as he matured. But I thought you adored him.” Nicholas stood quickly, then swept her up with him, carrying her to the bed where the covers were already dishevelled and haphazard from their love making before supper. He laid her against the pillows and sat beside her. “But it’s not Peter I want to talk about now. It’s us. And I want you naked before I close the shutters and lose the last moonlight.” Where the bed posts rose straight and unadorned, the shadows swung in curtained folds, held by unravelling tassels, then falling straight and thick in dull sage, lined in cobalt blue. Nicholas reached over, pushing them further against the wall behind. “I want to see you. If I could find a candle, I’d light it. But in your father’s house I imagine they’re hidden, and certainly counted. So now, open to me.” And he tugged her shift off over her head, the little cupped sleeves from her arms, and quickly flung it to the floor. He kissed her breasts, then wrapped his arms around her, hands closing on her buttocks to bring her tight against him, and whispered, “Now – you undress me.”

  Her voice was a tickle against his collarbone. “How?”

  “Learn.” He moved away abruptly and sat up, facing her. “Struggle. Discover. That’s life. But unlike life, there’s no punishment. Get it right, and I’ll pleasure you with all my heart. Get it wrong, and I’ll do exactly the same.”

  “Silly,” she smiled. “tell me how, and then I can do it properly.”

  “I don’t want proper.” Nicholas grinned at her, and the tucks in his cheeks curled up as she had described to him. “I want you to explore,” he said, “and find your own way to me.” He shrugged. “I’m not wearing too much, as you can see. And a shirt is little different than a shift, after all.”

  “It’s not the shirt that troubles me,” she said. She peered, finding the small corded lacing at the neck, loosened it further, and pulled up the shirt from its neat hem, tossing it over his head and then tugging it from his arms. “See? That’s easy.”

  “So – discover the rest of me.”

  His hose were dark, wide grey stripes on darker grey, knitting that clung to the muscles of his legs and enclosed his feet tighter than any shoe. Emeline touched the waist where the taut smoothness of his skin disappeared into the slim silken gathers. She slipped her fingers inside. She felt two thicknesses of material, though both were fine and soft and thin. Her fingers roamed, intrigued, down where his body was no longer visible. His skin was harder than her own softness, and a light tickle of hair covered it. Up across his chest, over the button nipples, his body hair was longer and as silken as the stuff of his hose. Being dark, it gleamed, even there within the shadows of the bed. Emeline hooked her fingers further within the waist of his hose and found the narrow end of the lacing. She undid the knot, and pulled the ribbon loose from its ties. The fine tight knit stayed clasped about his hips, but across the taut flatness of his stomach, she could pull it down, finding it attached to his braies, and she pulled them too. Gradually she eased both together down to his groin. The hair she had touched before now seemed to grow into a line like an arrow shaft, beckoning downwards towards thicker, blacker curls. She stopped.

  “Undo the codpiece first,” he grinned at her, “or you’ll ruin me, my love.”

  She recoiled slightly, but fingered the bowl between his legs, and looked at him, questioning. “How can I ruin you that way?” she asked. “Last time you certainly didn’t seem so delicate.”

  “As delicate as a meadow lark’s egg.”

  “You’re teasing.”

  “There’s places where I’ll risk injury, and places where I’d sooner not.”

  First she untied the laces holding the braies tight to the hose, then found the small ties which kept the codpiece in its place, allowing for hasty removal. She began carefully to slip it undone, whispering, “How confusing men are.” And, very slowly, eased the hose down his legs. Once the knitted silk reached his knees, she paused”

  Still sitting in front of her, he leaned forwards, his hands to her shoulders. His voice was very low now, and gruff, as if he had forgotten the laughter. “No stopping. Kiss me,” he told her softly. “No, not like that. Kiss me there.”

  She blushed, “I don’t know how to do such things. I might hurt you.”

  He swung his legs suddenly to the side, pulled off his hose and slung them to the ground. Then he took her in his arms. “I’m not so easily hurt, unless you mean to bite it off. Yes, I was teasing when I said I was delicate, though the scraping of stiffened leather is something I’d sooner avoid. So I’ll teach you slowly, little one, lesson by lesson each time I bed you, and you’ll learn not to be timid. But now I want you too badly to stop for education. So I’ll swive, not talk, and the rest can wait.”

  “Do I disappoint you?” she whispered as his fingers sought her own secrets.

  He chuckled, though his mouth was against her breasts and her hair was in his eyes. “In no sense and in no manner, my love,” he told her. “I’m unused, perhaps, to bedding innocent virgins, but I’m learning too.”

  “You said – you touched yourself – when we were apart.” She took a deep breath, but her voice faded out and she had to start again while he watched her, waiting and smiling. She mumbled, “If you show me how you do – then I can learn to do the same.”

  “But I can’t suck my own prick,” he said, and the laughter was back in his eyes. “A fine trick if I could do it, but I’ll teach you in time. Now, breathe deep again, and I won’t hurt you.” He lay her back, straddling her, his fingers between her legs and his mouth to her ear. “And next time I’ll show you other positions, but for now I’ll keep it easy.” He pushed her legs a little further apart, then entered her quickly, thrusting deep. “Now,” he whispered, his own voice tightly under control, “put your legs up under my arms and around my back. Good. Link your ankles. Like this you’ll hold me deep, and I’ll discover all of you,” and he pushed suddenly and hard, making her grunt. “Hurting?” he asked, but she shook her head, and he took his weight on his elbows, laid his head against hers, and forced deeper.

  Each thrust was fast and hard before he stopped abruptly, sinking down on top of her, panting as if gasping for breath, and she felt him pulsing inside her. She squeezed around him as he had told her before. “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered, and she smiled. Turning his head, he kissed her, his tongue searching o
ut her tongue. She could taste the wine he had drunk for supper, and the rich fascination of his own spent desire. “Next time,” he murmured, “will be better. I was impatient. Each time – I promise – will be better.” And he rolled away, curled behind her, tucked the covers up across them both, clasped his hands around and over her breasts, and within one minute was asleep.

  For some moments more Emeline felt his breath warm against the back of her head, and the heat of his body snug at her spine, his knees beneath hers. Then she too slept, and was not aware of dreams.

  She woke to his kiss on her forehead, blinked and looked up. He was fully dressed, bending over her. “Your woman is waiting to dress you.” He spoke softly, and smiled as though not to alarm her, and she saw Martha standing behind him. “There is some visitor of importance downstairs,” he said. “And it appears we are both needed.”

  The shutters, since they had never been raised the evening before, still stood below, and the sun streamed through the little casement window. Emeline mumbled, “A visitor? We never get visitors.”

  “This one,” said Nicholas, “is come to see your mother, but it seems she is confused, and also distressed. She has sent the steward for us.” He waited a moment while Emeline blinked again, clearing her head of sleep. Then he said, “News perhaps. Pirates or portents, storms or secrets. Are you ready for the next adventure, little one?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Emeline sat up in a hurry, pulling the coverlet with her. “Visitors? Adventures? Is it morning? Then it will just be the butcher wanting to know what to deliver in time for my father’s return. Or the smith with a special price to offer on horseshoes.”

  “Or the raker’s assistant, come to swill out the privies? No, my dear, it is none of those things, or your mother would not be acting as she is. Dress, and be quick. Then hurry downstairs.”

  Emeline recognised the visitors as soon as she reached the lower sweep of the main staircase. The Sheriff of Gloucestershire stood solid, legs wide, as though expecting attack. His assistant, who was considerably taller, stood quietly behind. The baroness faced them, standing before the great empty hearth in the main hall. Nicholas stood beside her. He appeared to be supporting her, having taken hold of her elbow and with his other hand to her back. As the baroness saw her elder daughter approach, she went white and trembled.

  “Emma, my dear. There is something which has happened – so very unexpected and very – very hard to fathom. But must be faced. Come here, my love.”

  She went, standing quickly beside her mother and her husband. She faced the sheriff, saying, “There must be something very wrong, sir. Is it Avice?”

  Nicholas said softly, “Your sister is still asleep upstairs. It is better you know first.”

  “Then it’s my father,” Emeline said. “Tell me.” The baroness appeared dizzy, and stood a little bent, swaying and barely upright, though Nicholas held her firm. He signalled for the sheriff’s assistant to bring a chair, and sat his mother-in-law firmly down. He then moved to his wife’s side, his arm around her waist. She looked up at him.

  Quietly he told her, “Emma, your father was found in Gloucester yesterday, although there was some delay in informing us since he was not immediately recognised. It seems he is dead. It was not, I understand, a natural death.”

  Emeline stood a moment in appalled amazement. Then she whispered, “He was murdered? Like Peter?”

  “Very like Peter,” Nicholas said softly. “Now I must speak to these officials in private, and leave you to comfort your mother. I shall be back shortly. If you want me sooner, I shall be in the side chamber.”

  She looked up at him. “You call this an adventure?”

  He said, “I would not have, my dear, had I known the nature of the news. But it will be,” and turning, nodded to the two sheriffs who followed him from the hall.

  Emeline waited until all the footsteps had faded, and a strange expectant silence leaked in where the sounds had been. Into the wandering shadows and the wilful hush, she drew out her kerchief, and came to kneel beside her mother’s chair. “Maman,” she murmured, “you will be safe, I promise. I shall always look after you. Please don’t cry.”

  Red eyed and white faced, the baroness stared glumly at her daughter. “I am not crying,” she said, her tears glowing gold in the slanting sunlight. “And I am not distraught. Nor do I need looking after. But I am deeply shocked. From what I understand, James deserved everything – I mean everything that came to him. For he was right in one thing. God brings justice, and justice is what your father received.”

  Emeline did not understand. She tried to take her mother’s hand and was immediately pushed away. So she stood, and crossed to the staircase. “He’s at peace now, Maman. You don’t need to grieve for him.” Then turned once, looking back, “I’m going up to Avice. I shall be back in just a moment.”

  But it was later when the situation was more fully explained. The baroness had ordered a fire lit large, hippocras heavily spiced and steaming for herself and her daughters, and had then joined her son-in-law in earnest discussion with the sheriffs. Emeline and Avice sat, cups in hand before the blaze.

  “Grieve?” Avice said, glaring. “I hate him and I’m glad he’s dead. I hated Papa when I thought he was sincere, and God loving, and stuffy, and mean minded. Now I know he was a pig and a hypocrite, I hate him even more.”

  “You don’t mean it. Maman said the same. She doesn’t mean it either.”

  “We do and so would you, if you stopped thinking you have to be loyal. Papa won’t be sitting all smug with the angels. He’ll be suffering hellfire and burning all over again. Now go away. I want to be alone. For ever and ever. I will never marry.”

  Emeline winced. “Not still dreaming of the gallant Sir Adrian?” Then she saw her sister’s face, and swallowed hard, whispering, “I know, Avice darling. He was still our father.”

  “We were only ever happy when he went away somewhere,” Avice mumbled. “And now we know what he was up to when he went away, so I never, ever want to think about him again. Or any man. They are all beasts.”

  It was Nicholas alone who travelled to Gloucester and stood witness to the identity of the burned and oozing corpse which had been discovered in the arms of his naked mistress. Sometime after the fire had been extinguished, it had been the signature on the property’s bill of sale which alerted the local authority to the possible and awful truth, for it was Baron Wrotham who had bought the small backstreet house two years previously, and had immediately installed the young woman known to her neighbours as Bessie the whore.

  The baron’s face remained in part, although it seemed to snarl, with the jaw gaping and the teeth springing from the bone like little crooked mile stones. The gums had been all burned away and the tongue was a blackened stump protruding from the gaping throat. One startled eye stared out, the other a burned and hollow socket, but flesh hung, tattered and sticky, in sufficient determination to prove the man he had once been. His son-in-law knew him, but did not pity him.

  The woman now lay stretched out close by. Nicholas shook his head. He said, “I will not know her.”

  The assistant constable bowed, hands behind his back. “My lord, we don’t expect it. ‘Tis the woman’s little lad will come to claim her.”

  “You’ll show a child his mother in that condition?” The naked woman had one remaining breast, one thigh, one leg and one arm. Her face, hair only ashes clinging to a scarlet scalp, was almost gone. Her nose had burned to a twisted lump of gristle, her eye sockets both empty and her mouth a fleshless scream. “Get someone else,” Nicholas said. “Get the local priest.”

  The constable frowned. “The boy’s fair twelve year, my lord, and being a whore’s son, will know life’s neither easy nor meant to be for those of his sort.”

  Nicholas untied his purse. “I’ll stand witness myself,” he said softly, “and will swear this is the woman you say she is. Here’s money for her funeral. Show the boy a closed coffin, and tell
him she’s already been identified.”

  “You know her then, my lord?” The constable’s frown deepened.

  “If I say so, I imagine you’ll not dare to doubt my word?”

  Nicholas then sat an hour with the sheriff, discussing the slaying, how it was done, how afterwards it was disguised by flame and finally how it had been discovered. Still alone, he had then visited a small hovel in the back lanes of Gloucester. He did not return to the sheriff’s chambers until mid-afternoon, and it was nearly twilight before he left the city.

  Baron Wrotham’s coffin, draped in black velvet, trundled the old lanes and the primrosed paths, through the last sinking glow of sunshine and through the strengthening shadow. Beneath the breezes, the fluttering leaf, and the valley’s gentle perfumes, the cart followed the roads north east from Gloucester to Wrotham under Wychwood, bouncing through ruts and ditches as the coffin rattled and groaned. The horses snorted, flicking flies with their tails, and passers-by stopped as men took off their hats and bowed their heads. May blossoms sprigged the hedgerows, and the cattle were clustered beneath the trees’ shelter, or waded, rump deep, in the cool green streams. The warblers were back from Africa, nesting in the high tree tops and singing for their mates, and across the empty and darkening sky a group of blackbirds, swirling arrows pitching and plunging, mobbed a sparrow hawk, each a dancing black shadow against the cloud. The hawk flew lower, disappearing then into foliage for the night. The blackbirds chittered, looking for a final territorial argument.

  With his faithful squire at his back, Nicholas rode slowly behind the cart, controlling his liard hunter, its dappled flanks further dappled by the last of the pale sun. He rode so slowly that finally the sun sank behind the little hills and the sky billowed suddenly pink, dandelion yellow and cerise in their faces. It was gone midnight when he arrived back at Wrotham House, and immediately arranged for the baron’s closed coffin to be laid before the altar in his own private chapel.