The Flame Eater

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “He’s long mistrusted Northumberland,” Jerrid said. “The Percies – the Nevilles – old jealousies – old rivalries and each loathing the other. Back when his grace governed the north, Northumberland sat quiet, nursing his grievances. But he never forgets.”

  “Damned Northerners.”

  “While you Southerners,” grinned Nicholas, “are all fair minded lovers of forgiveness and justice.”

  “We are, my lord. Though I’ll make an exception for Henry Tudor. That young man will make more mischief yet.”

  “A man of mischief indeed. Aiming to wed a wealthy Herbert girl, and into Northumberland’s own family? It’s a grand ambition for a landless exile. But I thought there was another ambition? To wed one of the old king’s daughters, wasn’t it? Some declaration from Brittany of wanting to wed Elizabeth or Cecily?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “Indeed, it was what he wanted, though the dowager made no agreement. Her daughters may be declared bastards, but they’re still daughters of a king and now one is due to marry a Portuguese prince.”

  “Perhaps,” Jerrid shook his head, “Tudor heard the rumour put around that our king planned to marry his niece – taking the elder girl Elizabeth for himself? And so Tudor thought he’d need to look elsewhere?”

  “Perhaps.” Nicholas leaned back. “But I’ve an idea those rumours were spread by Tudor’s mother herself, or at least by her friends and household. Of which Urswick is one.”

  It was outside in the stables where the first attack came. Wolt was crouched beside the straw bales, avoiding hooves and crying, nose and tears dribbling onto his knees. Harry stood over him, one fist raised. “If you keep snivelling,” he threatened, “and if you tells me just once more time how you misses your Ma, I’ll shove this fist right down your gullet.”

  The blow came immediately, the rock to the back of Harry’s skull and the boot to his groin. Wolt stopped crying, stared into the face of the attacker, then scrambled silently back behind the straw. What he saw had made a great deal of sense and so, frightened, he remained very quiet. Not daring to wriggle, he peeped between the bales as Harry was searched then kicked aside. Four men, small, busy, intent, fingers exploring, shaking heads and backing off, were quick and efficient. Eventually when the intruders had left and been gone long enough to seem safe, Wolt crept forwards and stared around him.

  He bent over Harry, listening and touching, frightened to face death yet again. But Harry was breathing, a forced and guttural wheeze. Hesitating a moment, Wolt looked over towards the tavern. It was still open with the raucous echo of singing, of drunken men laughing and swearing and reminders of the familiar pleasant evenings he had once spent in such places with his mother and her friends. He sighed, then ran straight for the second stable block where he hoped Rob and perhaps his masters would already be preparing for departure. He could hear the horses neighing and snorting, a close reminder of what he feared and disliked.

  It was dark. The stars blinked sleepy from behind the clouds and even the gulls slept. The wind blew Wolt’s hair into his eyes and he did not see the man hiding behind the water butt until it was too late.

  The singing was too loud. Nicholas smiled, edging past the crowd as the last drinkers tumbled from the open doors into the little courtyard outside. Three men, arm in arm, were in chorus. “Oh, the long golden curls, soft virgin’s ringlets both here – and down there –” with great laughter and approval from their companions.

  Then Jerrid called and pointed. “Nicholas, get over there. What the devil is that?”

  Nicholas knelt, turning over the small crooked body lying on the beaten earth. When he laid it back down, his fingers were sticky with blood. “Sweet Jesus,” Nicholas whispered, “has the child been out here dying while I sat drinking inside?”

  “He’s dead then?” Jerrid came beside, kneeling in the dirt.

  “He’s still warm. But yes, the boy’s dead. A long knife to the back, well aimed below the ribs.” Nicholas stood, looking around. “Find Harry and Rob. But watch out for any further attack.” He lifted the boy from the hardening blood puddles and the dirt, and carried him towards the smaller stable block. Already he could hear the grooms boys shouting and the disturbance of the horses. Jerrid followed. David ran ahead, pushing open the loose hinged doors, calling for Harry and Rob.

  Rob stumbled up from the straw. “They got the boy? And someone got my Harry down with a blow to the head. But my brother’s no weakling. He’s coming round now, with a mug of ale to bring his wits back. Bastards were after that letter, I reckon.”

  Nicholas laid Wolt’s small thin body on the ground beyond the reach of hooves or boots. The two stable boys stared and David pushed them back. “My lord, you’re sure he’s beyond help?”

  “Poor little urchin. He’s beyond any help I can give him except arranging for a decent funeral.”

  “That’ll hold us up, my lord.”

  “The boy had no advantages in life. I meant to do him a kindness by taking him on, but it’s proved no kindness in the end. The least we can do is say a prayer and see him into consecrated ground.” Nicholas stepped back and looked over to where Rob cradled Harry. “You’re not badly hurt? Then tell me exactly what happened.”

  Harry groaned. “I’d just told the little bugger to stop snivelling,” he muttered, “and then knew no more meself. My bloody head bloody hurts and I can’t see nothing straight.”

  “Can’t see nothing anyways,” complained Rob. “Since it’s bloody dark.”

  Jerrid nodded to one of the stable boys. “It’s light we need,” he said. “Light the lantern, boy, and let’s see the state of these wounds.” Wolt’s small crumpled face was white, his shoulders now rigid. Down the back of his shirt the blood had streaked the grubby linen in huge viscous stripes. “But I judge it a quick death,” he looked to Nicholas, “if that consoles you. Someone stuck his knife where he knew it would kill fast. Well practised, I’d say.”

  “Frenchies,” Harry shook his head and wished he had not.

  One of the stable boys said, “Them heathen foreigners wot don’t talk no proper language was here, for I heard them. Gabbling away, they was, though t’weren’t nothing no decent Christian soul could understand.” The boy pushed forwards into the spreading circle of light. “I reckon they couldn’t understand nor each to the other, they just pretends since they don’t know no English, only jibber jabber. Only one proper word they shouted and more than once too, being murder, like a threat and a promise. Murder! Murder! Right nasty.”

  “What else did you hear?” Nicholas demanded of the boy.

  “Gabble an’ bumps,” said the stable boy. “I were up in the straw and thought it better to stay there.”

  The tavern had closed its doors for the night, but above it Nicholas had rented a bedchamber, and they sat there while awaiting the local doctor, the stable boy having been sent running to bring him from the village. Harry lay nursing his head where a pear shaped swelling protruded from the straggles of hair. He still found it hard to focus. “They was searching me for summint,” he insisted, “since me shirt’s all rucked where them sticky French fingers has been.” Rob sat beside him, cross legged on the sagging mattress. David watched from the window seat and Nicholas sat talking to Jerrid at the other end of the bed.

  Nicholas said, “So we’re content to guess they were after the letter we took from Urswick? But is that the most likely answer?”

  “Perhaps.” Jerrid leaned back against the bedpost. “What else would they search Harry for?”

  “Simple thieving? Looking for a purse?”

  “But they made no attempt to take his boots or his knife.”

  “And then killed the boy, because?”

  “Not to carry tales nor say what he’s seen,” said Rob from his brother’s side.

  “Seen what? How could the child recognise a pair of French cut throats he could never have seen before?”

  “And why slaughter the most insignificant of all? What reason to knife a
snivelling brat with his elbows out of his shirt sleeves?”

  “Urswick’s no fool,” Nicholas said softly. “He got away when I thought him taken – but he made no attempt to get back the letter he’d carried – and abandoned it without care. Not as a coward, since he’s clearly otherwise. He clearly saw no benefit in risking his life to retake it.” He paused, looking to his uncle. “Yet someone else has – and even killed for it. I’m not sure what to think.”

  “There was no sign the boy had been searched,” Jerrid decided. “His clothes were neither hitched up nor pulled aside. Harry – yes. Wolt – no. But someone knifed him anyway.”

  “Then this was all to do with Dorset’s escape, my lord?” David asked, frowning.

  “For what reason? Dorset has not yet even arrived in the country and in fact we know him still held by force in France.”

  “Them Frenchies just like killing us decent God fearing folk,” nodded Rob. “They don’t need no special reason.”

  “After Wolt is buried tomorrow morning,” Nicholas said, standing quickly as the candle guttered, spat and sank into liquid wax, “we’ll move west along the coast. The first time Dorset planned an escape through Flanders. Now he aims for Brittany. So if he comes at all, which I doubt, it will be nearer to Weymouth where he makes land. But we need to use our wits, my friends, not just our legs. There’s something happening here that makes no sense to me, but I intend finding out before heading back to London.”

  Jerrid frowned at Harry’s spread legs. “So we’re doomed to damp mattresses for at least another week.”

  Nicholas nodded. “While I dream of knives in the dark, and the awful weight of guilt.”

  Many miles distant, his wife was riding, well wrapped, hooded, and head down, the damp country lanes leading away from the city. Beside her rode her exhausted younger sister, and further behind trailed their maid Petronella. Ahead Sysabel rode beside her own maid Hilda, and leading some way ahead rode a slump backed and solitary man, silent beneath the moon. It was a little ahead of him that their single outrider rode, a younger man who had, as soon as he heard the plan from Bill, insisted on accompanying them. Sysabel looked behind and waved one neat little gloved hand. Emeline waved back. Avice yawned. The night was not cold but tiredness brings shivers and a sharp little breeze blew through the treetops. Old Bill had led them quickly away from the grand houses of the Strand, cutting up beside the Fleet and its narrow sludge, avoiding the bent tiled gables of the gaol and its stench of depression and hopeless anger, aiming for the open fields beyond St. John’s and the orchards of Piccadilly.

  “It’s so annoying to have to ride north,” said Avice, “when we all want to go south. But I suppose that’s the disadvantage of leaving at night. London’s gates are all locked against us.”

  “We could hardly leave in the morning,” said Emeline. “I can just see mother’s face – and the earl’s scowl – as we all trot out and say goodbye because we’re off for an adventure to catch murderers. And anyway, it was all your idea in the first place.”

  “I like adventures. But I’m so horribly tired.”

  Emeline smiled. “I’m tired too but I’m going to save my husband’s life.”

  “And that silly Sissy thinks she’s off to save her brother.” Avice sniggered. “It should be quite a battle.”

  “Sissy secretly thinks Nicholas is the murderer. She says he and Jerrid are two feathers off the same wing.”

  “A raven’s wing? Scavengers and squabblers.”

  Emma clutched tighter to the reins. Her horse slowed. She allowed the space between herself and Sysabel to lengthen. Then she looked at Avice and whispered, “Martha was telling me about abortions, though I can’t guess how she knows. I mean – well – Martha! She’s so calm and kind and sensible.”

  “Martha always knows everything.”

  “And she’s capable of everything. I mean, she’s strong and clever and she’d so anything if she thought it was right.”

  Avice was puzzled. “What do you mean?” and edged her horse a little closer.

  “She knew about Sissy already because Hilda told her. Now there’s a silly goose who needs watching. If she was my maid, I’d be furious.”

  “Was Martha angry at Peter – doing things to Sissy when he was supposed to be marrying you?” Stirrup to stirrup, Avice whispered to her sister’s ear. “I never liked Peter even when you were silly about him. Now I know how right I was”

  “You only disliked him because I told you he was wonderful. If I’d told you he was a pig, you’d have stuck up for him. Just as you did with Nicholas at first.”

  “Oh, pooh,” sniffed Avice. “I just have better taste than you.”

  “Like Edmund Harris.”

  “You know,” said Avice, “he’s not so bad really. Maman says he’s being very polite and she’s disappointed because she wanted him to be the murderer.”

  “Maman says she’s given up on him being the culprit. And you’ll think I’m quite mad,” Emeline whispered, “but I was wondering about Martha.” Avice stared open mouthed, and Emeline hurried on. “Well, she said how the sin was all Peter’s – not Sissy’s at all. And if she knew about Papa”

  Avice sniggered. “Martha’s much too nice to kill people. And Peter died almost a year ago. Martha didn’t know anything about what he’d done back then.”

  Emeline shrugged. “But he was courting me and she never approved – and told me to be careful when I said how romantic he was.”

  “I think,” Avice decided, “she has secrets. She was probably young and beautiful once and had a romantic love affair and nearly had a baby and learned never to trust men.”

  The moon hesitated between clouds, a slim crescent, its reflection wavering in the muddy puddles underhoof. A silvery vapour shifted through the trees ahead, threatening rain.

  “If it rains,” Sysabel called back to Emeline, “we must find a hostelry for the night.”

  “We’ll find one anyway,” Emeline replied, raising her voice. “The nights can be dangerous on the highways. Bill will find us a respectable inn.”

  “Bill,” muttered Avice, “wouldn’t know an inn from a ditch, and doesn’t know what the word respectable means.”

  “Then we’ll stay in a slum,” sighed Emeline, “which will all be part of the adventure.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The earl chewed his next mouthful of cold beef, dripped the juices onto his fine red silk doublet, and nodded to the page to refill his cup from the jug of claret. “Pretty. Black hair, nice wide hips. The boys, well they took after me with their blue eyes. But Alice, hers were deep brown. I liked that.”

  “How terribly sad, the manner in which she died, my lord.”

  “Certainly was for me. Coming home to shadows, empty corners, young Nick crying night after night.”

  The baroness stared. “Did Peter – not – cry?”

  His lordship sighed. “A brave lad, my Peter. And of course Nick suffered the most, having been with them all. A six years child with his Maman cradled in his arms, watching her cough and spit her way to delirium. She was buried before I got back home, so I never saw. Nick arranged it with the priest. Affected the lad of course. And the little ones too. Philippa, my little girl, three years old, and loved her big brothers. And the baby John, who bare knew life before he knew death. Nick carried each one out to the graveyard, insisted, the priest said, but couldn’t carry his mother. She was too big for him. Cried, he did afterwards, telling me he’d laid the little ones in their coffins but couldn’t carry his Maman. Could only lean over and kiss her cold face.”

  “My lord, it must haunt him still.”

  “So there’s an excuse,” the earl sniffed, reaching quickly for his cup, “when the boy runs from trouble and won’t face what might hurt him. But it’s twenty years gone since that time, and he must grow up and have children of his own. She’s fine young woman, your daughter, and must make her husband accept his responsibilities.”

  After a snug
night and a bright glossy morning of clear summer skies, fresh bread rolls still warm from the oven and butter golden from the churning, it was some time before her ladyship learned that the morning was not an auspicious one after all. She was informed by Martha.

  Immediately the baroness ordered her riding clothes laid out, her horse saddled, a small baggage trunk packed, the litter rolled out and made ready for Martha and the luggage, five outriders prepared, armed and waiting, and Petronella warned that she must accompany her mistress.

  “Petronella has gone already, my lady. She went with the other party.”

  “Damnation,” said the baroness for the first time in her life. “Then drag young Bess downstairs, tell the wretched girl to wash behind her ears and then push her into the litter with Martha.”

  She then marched back into the hall and interrupted the earl’s morning snooze. “Do whatever you wish, madam,” said the earl, elbowing himself upright in the chair. “It’s madness, one after the other, is all I can say. I’ve no interest in riding off into the rain after madmen and even madder females.”

  “It is not raining, my lord. The sun is shining. I trust the day will stay bright, and I shall catch up with my daughters by evening.” The baroness paused. “I do not ask for your company, sir. But are you unconcerned for your niece?”

  “The girl’s a fool. I’ve been saying it for years. Go ask that feeble sister of mine if she wants to go galloping off into the wilds after her charge. She’s the chaperone, since young Adrian is another who’s conveniently left the stable door open on his responsibilities.”

  “I cannot imagine the Lady Elizabeth galloping off anyway, my lord. But she should be informed.”

  “Used to like a good gallop when she was younger,” remembered the earl with a wistful glance at his widened midriff. “Never married.” He sighed. “Affianced once, but the treacherous bugger was attainted and m’father put a stop to the wedding. Lizzy sulked for years.”