The Flame Eater

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  It was his mistress who had come, and he stood at once, bowing slightly. “My lady? His lordship is not yet returned.”

  “I know,” Emeline said, sitting herself at the other side of the small table from her husband’s squire and regarding him with what she hoped would appear as natural and friendly curiosity. “It is you I wished to see, Mister Witton.” She smiled. “I have a question to ask you.”

  “Of course, my lady, if I can be of help.” David sat again, smoothing back the hair from his face. “Though I must warn you –”

  “Don’t look so suspicious, Mister Witton.” Emeline folded her hands neatly in her lap and smiled again, a habit she had acquired with her father when wishing to see particularly innocent. “I’m well aware of my husband’s secret work and his loyalty to the king. How can I reassure you? Talking of Berwick, for instance, and the treasure taken abroad after King Edward’s death?” She paused, smiling again. “You see, I fully understand my husband’s work. So don’t worry, I shall not be asking about anything you feel you cannot answer.”

  “My lady, forgive me.” He appeared no less concerned than before. “What his lordship imparts is his to decide.”

  Emeline frowned. “This is something I cannot ask him. But we’ve spoken before, Mister Witton, and you’ve been ready to explain certain matters – the Chatwyn family, about this house, and the house you own yourself. My question is no more intrusive. You see, I know he’s about to leave on the king’s business. I simply want to know how dangerous this is going to be.”

  David Witton looked down at the parchment he had turned over, which now rested at his elbow. “My lady, danger is always inherent. Yet unknown. Nor does his highness speak privately with me so I can know only as my lord informs me.”

  “If I ask his lordship,” Emeline said, her voice low, “he will tell me there is nothing whatsoever to worry about, and to sleep easy. But I need to know the truth, Mister Witton, or I will not sleep at all.”

  David cleared his throat. “I cannot say – not only because I cannot impart – but because I do not know.” He watched her face cloud into disappointment, and relented. “Far less dangerous than the business of the Scottish wars and the siege at Berwick, of that I’m sure, my lady. But somewhat more dangerous, I imagine, than his tutorship of the Lady Cecily.” He smiled, not noticing Emeline’s surprise, and continued, “but my lord is no unpractised simpleton, my lady. He has never been afraid, not that I know of, not even of the pestilence. Nor would his highness send a man on any errand if he thought that man incapable of achieving its ends with success.”

  Emeline stood. “You have put my mind a little at rest, Mister Witton. I thank you.” She turned to go. “I expect his lordship to return late tonight. Am I correct?”

  “Indeed, as far as I know myself.” David looked towards the small sunny window, as if his mind had suddenly wandered elsewhere. “The stars will guide him home, my lady,” he added softly. “As they always do. His lordship may travel far, and face danger for many reasons, but as the astrologers will tell us, we follow a destiny as best we can. “He bowed briefly again. “May I also assure your ladyship, that whatever happens I will be at my master’s side, watching his back, and doing everything in my power to keep him safe.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, Mister Witton.”

  “No thanks are required, my lady,” he replied. “I would lay down my life for my lord at any time and without compunction. He is everything to me.”

  By late afternoon, with Nicholas and Adrian still gone from the house, Emeline was cuddled in her nurse’s reassuring embrace, her mother sitting still beside them in the small downstairs solar. The windows were open to the sunshine and a soft humming of bees floated on perfumes of lavender, rosemary and apple blossom. Sunbeams played like small transparent lemon clouds along the window casements and turned the glass mullions from muted green to glowing hazel. The baroness squinted, eyelids heavy in the glare.

  Martha said, “Hush my dearest lambkin. Your little sister is safe, I promise you. Avice has a better head on her shoulders than you realise, my dearest.”

  Emeline mumbled, “No she hasn’t. All she thinks of is new gowns and romance.”

  “Quiet,” said the baroness suddenly, half rising from her chair. “Someone is coming, and there’s a deal of clatter and shouting outside. Is that just Nicholas returning? Surely he’s no need to make such a drama of simply coming home.”

  Emeline jumped up and ran to the door as her mother ran to the window. “It’s Avice, surely. I’ll go at once to the stables –”

  Cart wheels, the squeak of rusty hinges against wooden planks, a horse’s high pitched complaint and the stamp of hooves on cobbles, the wheeze of an oiled hessian awning flapping in the breeze, cart wheels again and ostlers yelling. Far too much noise and baggage for the simple return of Avice and Sysabel. Then finally a woman’s quavering objection. “My good man, I have not the slightest interest in your gout, your ineptitude or your very bad temper. Hand me down immediately. I must speak to his lordship at once.”

  “’Is lordship’s not at home, m’lady,” snuffled one of the stable lads. “But ‘er ladyship be indoors. I’ll fetch Mister Sanderson, wot’ll h’escort your ladyship to the Hall.”

  Emeline arrived at the stables before Sanderson, and stood in amazement and disappointment, face to face with her husband’s elderly and absent minded aunt Elizabeth. The lady shivered in the stable shadows, a little wobbly kneed from her exertions in climbing down from the litter. Her small lady’s companion was holding her hand, helping her mistress remove her travelling gloves while she rubbed her fingers, bringing back a modicum of vascular circulation. The ostlers led the horses and travel worn litter away as the three guards, dismounting, bowed to Emeline as she gazed towards the Lady Elizabeth.

  “My lady,” she stuttered, “that is – you’ve come all this way from Nottingham, with the roads as treacherous as they are? You are more than welcome, but we were not expecting – though my mother, and Adrian of course would not have known, though he’s out, and Nicholas will be back shortly. The earl,” she added, “is mercifully still at court.”

  “Thank the good Lord for His consideration,” sighed her ladyship. “But it is dear Sysabel I’ve come to find. You see –”

  And Emeline said, “I know, my lady, I know. Are you chilled? I shall order hot spiced hippocras at once.”

  Beneath her watchful mother’s eye, Emeline acted the hostess and organised wine, chambers prepared, places for the additional grooms, guards and servants, and ordered a hearty hot supper to be served in the hall for five of the clock or as close thereafter as could be achieved. There would, she said a little faintly, be two gentlemen and three ladies, always supposing Lord Nicholas bothered to come home at all. And if he did, he might not choose to stay too long.

  They sat for two hours by the empty hearth, fidgeting with their cups and refusing refills. “Young Sysabel,” sighed Aunt Elizabeth, “is a good girl. Still awaiting her betrothal arrangements of course, since her Papa died many moons ago and dear Adrian, while a most attentive brother, seems loathe to lose her company. He is inclined to be a solitary gentleman, and trusts only his sister.” The lady sipped her hippocras. “Adrian has every reason to trust myself of course, but age is not ever kind, and I do not always remember precisely what it is he has asked me to do.”

  “He should do it himself then,” muttered Emeline.

  Her mother scowled at her. “Young Adrian will be back soon, I’m sure”: said the baroness. “And my son-in-law is expected home later. He will say you should not have felt obliged – coming all this way – a horrendous journey for a lady of advanced – and in any case, my dear, you are most certainly welcome, and I shall much appreciate your presence. My daughter will make sure you are comfortable and without doubt your niece and my younger daughter will be found very soon.”

  The Lady Elizabeth blinked. “I woke one dull morning to discover poor Sysabel had left at dawn,” she sig
hed. “Properly accompanied and guarded, and leaving me a contrite message naturally, but I could just imagine what Adrian would say to me about his sister’s unsanctioned departure. I sent an immediate messenger to your home, my lady, in Wrotham. But within days the messenger returned, telling me Sysabel was no longer there. She had left quite abruptly in the company of Mistress Avice, and had not yet been traced. It was supposed that both young girls were intending a trip to London. I immediately made plans to follow.” She waved vague and directionless fingers. “And here I am, though with no thanks to the state of the roads.”

  “Sissy and Avice,” said Emeline under her breath, “ought to be whipped.”

  A flutter of silken gowns left the supper table for an early retirement, the ladies fractious and dreaming of their beds. A despondent and unfulfilled impatience seemed more wearisome than any imagined activity. Adrian returned almost immediately afterwards, spoke at length with both the Steward Sanderson and his own henchmen, and then took himself off to his chamber, quite unaware that his aunt was deeply asleep just ten steps further along the corridor.

  It was very late when Nicholas arrived home. Emeline, though half asleep, was sitting up in bed, not entirely hopeful, but waiting for him. She rubbed her eyes as the door quietly opened, made sure it was indeed her husband, and whispered, “Thank goodness you’ve come. I was frightened you’d be out all night, or even all week, or simply be too tired to visit me. I need to tell you something.”

  Nicholas collapsed onto the window seat, stretching both back and legs. He was clearly exhausted. “That I’m a neglectful husband, and you’re worried sick about your sister?”

  Emeline watched the deepening shadows slink like bruises around his eyes, silhouetting his expression in wary uncertainty. Down the dragging scar his flesh seemed sunken and hollowed. His lips were tight and pale. Emeline inhaled, abandoned all the words she had been about to say, and instead said, “Nicholas, my own darling, you’ve been speaking with the king. I’m just so pleased you didn’t have to ride off in the night on some wild dangerous scheme without even speaking to me first. But yes, I am worried sick about Avice. And now your Aunt Elizabeth has arrived here.”

  “Impossible.” He had started to undress, as usual not caring to call for his valet, with an impatient tug at his doublet lacings and the open neck of his shirt. He kicked off his boots, shrugged both shirt and doublet together from over his head, and reappeared, blinking anew at his wife. “The woman lives a hundred miles away,” he said. “She doesn’t travel.”

  Emeline flexed her fingers and inhaled again. “My brain, pickled and sadly female as it is, is not entirely lost to me, Nicholas,” she said. “Your aunt is definitely here and asleep in one of the guest chambers. Adrian had forbidden his sister to leave home, so your aunt was worried about Sissy’s sudden departure. She sent a query to Wrotham, only to discover chaos and upheaval with everyone already disappeared, off busily chasing everyone else. So she came here.”

  Nicholas, warmly naked, rolled heavily into bed and took his wife immediately into his arms, tight snuggled against him. Her last words tickled his neck. He sighed. “So we have Adrian, your mother, and now my aunt. Is there anyone I’ve overlooked? Everyone is here in fact, except your sister and my cousin who are the cause of it all. It seems coming here was not so wise. I’d hoped for peace, and a chance to get to know my wife.”

  “Peace?” Emeline’s smile curved into the identical curve of her husband’s shoulder as she slipped her fingers around his waist. “You never promised me peace, Nicholas. I’ve had that all my life and it’s far less attractive than people seem to expect. And I thought you were chasing adventure – not tedium.”

  “Peace can be surprisingly seductive. And relatives can be irretrievably tedious.”

  “At least your father isn’t here.”

  Nicholas sighed. “I imagine he will be. I’ve been talking to his highness, as you know. The king has work for me – while offering his excuses for having indefinitely cancelled my father’s mission to Spain.”

  “Your father knows. He blames you.”

  “Which is why he’ll be delighted to discover me here, and come to berate me again. It’s all that’s left to him.”

  Emeline kissed his ear, nibbling at the short flat lobe. “Poor darling. And I suppose you can’t tell him the king’s given you the mission instead.”

  “Certainly not.” Nicholas kissed the tip of her nose. “And nor will you. But it’s not the same mission. I doubt I’m the type to successfully arrange foreign marriages and pretend proxy courtships. I’ll tell you something of the rest tomorrow.”

  Alarmed, she whispered, “You won’t be leaving so soon, I hope? Please tell me you have time first to look for Avice?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “There’s time. A little anyway. But for now, my love, I have barely the energy to open and close my eyes.” His fingers slipped, caressing her back, following down the gentle bumps of her spine to the tuck between her buttocks. His palm cupped appreciatively, fingertips against her dimples. But as she murmured, speaking of love, Emeline realised that Nicholas was already very deeply asleep.

  His eyes remained closed. Some hours had passed in dreaming, drifting between troubled memories and future fears, Nicholas immovable in soundless sleep, when the sudden interruption woke Emeline first. It now seemed almost a familiar commotion, the jangling upheaval from the stables, voices of men pulled abruptly from their pallets, horses stamping and snorting, those already asleep disturbed by new arrivals, the creak and squeak of gates opening and the echoes across the cobbles, sharp sounds in the night.

  Emeline scrambled up in bed, and Nicholas awoke, opening one reluctant eye. “Already? Again? Nightmare or indigestion?”

  “Listen,” she said with wide excitement. “That’s Sissy’s voice. And that’s Avice. They’ve arrived.” She hurtled from the bedcovers, grabbed her bedrobe and tugged it around her shoulders, tied tight. Within minutes she had thrown open the great doors to the main hall, and took her little sister in a fierce embrace. “You are a horrible, horrible child,” she squeaked, though Avice seemed too squashed to answer. “All England has been searching for you, and I shall never, ever speak to you again.”

  Nicholas was behind her. “I suppose,” he said, yawning, “we’d better wake someone somewhere and order the wine warmed. Then I’m going back to bed.”

  Emeline did not return to bed until dawn. Finally, crawling back to her chamber, she discovered Nicholas had indeed deserted her. Her bed was empty though dishevelled, and so instead she welcomed both Avice and Sysabel into the wide warm luxury. All three passed the little of the night remaining curled close and breathing their simmering exhaustion into each other’s ears.

  It was not until dinner the next day that the entire gathering of recent arrivals met together.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  There had been some hours of excitement, bustle and noise, affectionate demonstrations, tired recrimination, apology and temporary defiance. But it was at the dinner table after thanks being given for the food on the platters and while the grace of religious blessing still reigned, that they sat in those moments of silence and stared each at the other, assimilating what had happened, and acknowledging what would inevitably follow. The fury and accusations were over and a general contentment had slipped in with the blaze of relief. Avice wore one of her sister’s prettiest new gowns, and Sysabel, avoiding her brother’s frown, wore another. The baroness, gloriously grand in a new gleaming fur trimmed gown of her own in bright cerise velvet, unclasped her hands and smiled broadly.

  “Well, well, it appears,” she said with a complacent sigh, “that everything is finally solved, and we are all safe. I shall never forget, Avice, the trouble you have caused. Your religious upbringing clearly gave you a good deal less moral circumspection than your father imagined. But since I know I was an exemplary parent, I hold him responsible. However, now we are here together with all the glories of London just a few step
s to our right and magnificent Westminster to our left. I must admit I am not even cross anymore.”

  “I, on the other hand,” said Adrian with some resonance, “am exceedingly angry.” He frowned across the table at his sister. “I made my wishes plain when I left. You were to stay in Nottingham.”

  Sysabel attended closely to her platter, choosing a small salmon pasty and a manchet roll which she then did not eat. She mumbled, “I’m sorry, Adrian,” rather faintly, “but I’m not an infant anymore you know. I wanted – and I needed to – so I did.”

  “Evidently,” said Adrian with ambiguous emphasis.

  Nicholas took three carefully carved slices of roast beef in mustard sauce onto his plate, added a small spoonful of chicken livers and raisins cooked in claret, smiled first at his wife, then extended the smile to the rest of his family, and said, “How delightful to be surrounded by so many unexpected and cheerful guests. I’ve never known this house so – animated. However, I am devastated to tell you all that I’ve two days at the most before I have to leave. You’re all most welcome to stay and keep Emma company, but I imagine since, as you say, the original problem is now solved, you’ll all wish to hurry home?”

  “Certainly not,” said Avice, thumping down her spoon. “We set off to find who killed Papa and Peter. And that hasn’t been solved at all.”

  “I hardly see,” said Aunt Elizabeth, absently patting her forehead with her napkin, “that you young people could manage any such thing. How does one find a madman? Do they hide under bushes? And how would you know if it is the right madman you discover anyway? I believe England is full of them.”

  “An evil man, not a mad man,” insisted Avice. “Peter was killed in the same way as Papa, so Nicholas thinks by the same man. Someone wanted revenge, and planned it all carefully. We didn’t even know where Papa was, but the murderer found him somehow. And no one could have got in easily to kill Peter. So not mad, just wicked.”