The Flame Eater

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Now she looked to David. “Can his lordship ride all that way?”

  David nodded. “In my experience, my lady, there’s nothing his lordship can’t do if he wishes it. But apart from the original wounds which have reopened, he’s been slashed to the back of the head and deep across the knee. Perhaps more. You’ll need to support him on horseback, my lady, while I lead the beast by its bridle.”

  Nicholas squinted up through the last gentle patter of the rain. He said, with almost a smile, “We were finished, you know, my love, before you magically materialised. David expected to die. I was already nigh dead.”

  “Life is always unexpected, my lord, as the wheel turns, whether with turns of fortune for the better – or for the worst.”

  “For the better,” Nicholas murmured, “with my beautiful wife appearing from the shadows like some voluptuous Sir Lancelot.”

  Emeline smiled. “You must be feeling better, my love, to talk like that.”

  “Let us hope so,” David said. “And hope too that Harry and Rob took that other traitor to the constable for questioning and are now back at the Strand. And more importantly still, that Lord Jerrid reached home safely and is being tended by the doctor at this moment, and did not fall in the gutter on the way.”

  “Jerrid is very fond of gutters,” mumbled Nicholas. “But he survives. He always survives.”

  “And you, my love. You would have been all right in the end,” Emeline assured him. “I was listening, ready to rush forwards, you know. I realised you were trying to delay, hoping the Watch would come.”

  “It appears,” Nicholas said, “that the Watch was watching elsewhere. And now I’m going home. The other side of the city of course, and it will take me an hour, but I shall cling to that saddle, with your warm strong arms around me, my love. I want my own damned home and my own sweet wife and my own warm dry bed. I may never leave it again.”

  “I wish that were true,” said Emeline. “But it will only be until the next adventure.”

  His horse had wandered, nosing the moss along the side of the empty storehouse and the weeds between the stones. David grabbed its reins, brought the horse alongside and with some difficulty, helped his lordship mount. Then Nicholas reached down, and Emeline bounced up before him, cuddled side saddle, one arm around his waist.

  Adrian remained where he had fallen. He was propped, quite silent, against the low stone wall of the herb garden attached to the storehouse behind. He gazed up at his cousin, his pale blue eyes colourless in the night’s shadows. Nicholas stared back.

  Eventually Nicholas said, “Are you hurt, cousin?”

  Adrian roused himself, as if he had been half asleep. “Not much. Your brawlers did little damage.”

  “Whereas your brawlers did a great deal.”

  The rain had almost ceased. It dripped from the overhang of the buildings along the lane, and hung faint like a silver sheen within the darkness. The clouds were separating and a first glimmer of stars peeped between. The faint pearly light pricked out the raindrops on Adrian’s cheeks, spangling along his eyelashes. He sighed. “It would be easier if you killed me.”

  The horse was prancing, impatient. Nicholas soothed it, stroking its neck although his own hands were trembling. He remained watching his cousin. “I do not kill in cold blood. And I do not kill within my own family.”

  “Except for your leech of a brother.”

  “I’m tired of that repeated taunt. If you slaughtered Peter yourself, then you know the truth. If you didn’t, though that seems unlikely, then my protestations of innocence are of no concern to you.” He paused, then leaned down, saying quietly, “Get yourself out of here, Adrian. Find passage across the ocean to join Tudor’s precious court of traitors if that’s your wish. I’ll not stop you. Or go back to Sissy, and try to reform your life. I’ll not inform on you to the crown.” His voice sank even lower. “But tell me this. What was this bitter battle for? Simply following your desire to eliminate the Chatwyns?”

  Adrian croaked, half laugh, half sob. “Urswick came with letters. I went to collect them, and then deliver them as I’d been instructed.”

  “Just one simple request for Tudor to find a rich wife and align himself with Northumberland?”

  Adrian shook his bedraggled hat and its torn feathers. “Other letters as well, which you never found. A whole walletful of them. Rallying support, demanding allegiance, declaring himself the rightful monarch, reminding some of favours long owed and Lancastrian loyalties long overlooked. Tudor’s coming, Nicholas. He’ll be king of England before the year is out.”

  “So the men who fought for you were Tudor’s men. That means Frenchmen and English traitors.”

  “Men who appreciate and care for me. For me, Nicholas, not because of wealth or title, but because of loyalty. True friends. Unlike my own uncaring family. But they weren’t under my orders, nor I under theirs.” Adrian looked away, wincing as he touched his shoulder. “I’ve no funds to pay for that many henchmen. They protected me because we fight for the same cause. And because they respect me.”

  Nicholas nodded, and began to turn the horse. He looked back once. “Then let these respectable and respecting friends come back to collect you,” he said, “otherwise the Watch will find you. That, or in the morning the dairymaids and swineherds will discover your remains dead from the cold. So best get yourself down to the docks and find a carvel heading southeast.” He paused, holding the horse still. “Can you walk?”

  Adrian looked away. “Why should you care?”

  “Self pity again, Adrian?” Nicholas nodded to David to walk on, saying only, half to himself, “It is so often those who cannot summon pity for others who wallow in pity for themselves.”

  The horse walked slowly, keeping to David’s careful pace. Emeline, with a lot to say and questions bubbling in her head, said nothing. It was not the moment. She sat sideways, one arm around her husband’s back, the other tucked into his belt. He slumped a little, half supporting her, half allowing the horse its own choices. It was David who led.

  They were some distance away when they heard the noises. The night had grown quiet and a slant of moonlight reflected in the puddles, lighting the wet cobbled silver. Stars peeped between the clouds. The storm had passed entirely. But clear in the new washed air were the sudden shouts, then the rattled gurgle of pain.

  For a moment Nicholas frowned. Then he yelled, “Get back,” and wheeled the horse back the way they had come.

  Adrian lay where he had been before, but now, instead of being propped again the little garden wall, he sprawled flat upon the wet earth. The seeping mud squelched into his ears. His hat had fallen off and his hair was thick with filth. His eyes were closed. Nicholas tumbled from the saddle, half collapsing. One knee bent, standing only on one leg, he leaned down towards his cousin. Adrian’s throat was sliced across so deeply that above the stiffened laces of his shirt, the gullet, sinews, flesh and blood oozed clear. A butcher’s chop, impatient to kill and be gone. Nicholas whispered, “Adrian?” But Adrian was already dead. There was no longer any sign of the killer. “Finished, then,” murmured Nicholas, “by those friends of honour and respect. By those he thought cared.” He looked up at David. “We must arrange the funeral. But nothing can put right what has been done.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  With her shift a dazzling bleached white and the skirts over it a flutter of embroidered primrose, Avice sat, studiously draped in taffeta glory upon the settle. There was sunlight from the long mullioned window slanting across her russet ringlets, her little toes were well shod in pale blue kid, and the long curls of ribbons lacing her neckline, waist and cuffs were pretty pink satin. Her smile echoed the brilliance of her new clothes. She had rarely been more content.

  “I am,” she said, “not sorry in the least.”

  “I think Nicholas is,” decided Emeline. “He shouldn’t be. But he truly is.”

  “Of course he shouldn’t be sorry. He should be jumping happily up and down j
ust like me. After all, the horrid man sent a dozen armed traitors to get rid of him. Adrian killed his brother Peter, not to mention Papa, and then tried to murder Nicholas himself.”

  “Well,” pondered Emeline, “we feel that way of course. But Nicholas knew Adrian from birth. He was his cousin, for goodness’ sake. And after all, Peter was a vile creature who deserved to be slaughtered. As for Papa – well, I’d prefer not to think about it.”

  “Someone should kill Nicholas’s own father; mean nasty man he is.”

  “It’s a bit later for that now. And neither of us need see much more of the earl, even though he’s my father-in-law so I suppose I ought not to say it. Meanwhile Nicholas is taking me back to Chatwyn Castle.” Emeline regarded her sister with a widening smile. “And you have three new gowns and practically a dozen new shoes and shifts and bedrobes and enough ribbons to strangle yourself. What more can you ask for?”

  “A husband. Maman says she’ll start to arrange it after we get back to Wrotham, and she says Nicholas will help find me someone rich and handsome. After all, I’m an heiress. Not as much as you are, though second best is still quite cosy. But,” Avice screwed up her nose, “I want someone nice who will like me. To think I once thought myself in love with Adrian. Ugh.”

  “And that silly secretary Edmund Harris, and the goose boy before that.” Emeline smiled into her sister’s scowl. “Don’t worry. None of that is as bad as me, thinking myself in love with Peter. I should thank Adrian for having killed the wretch, otherwise I’d now be married to him.”

  There was a moment’s pause. “Which is what made me wonder – you know,” Avice switched to a sudden whisper, “if it wasn’t Adrian after all. If perhaps it was Maman. Or Nurse Martha. Or both of them together. There’s no one else had more cause to get rid of Papa and Peter too. And they’re both so – well, determined. Capable!”

  Emeline stood quickly, pushing back her stool. “We’ve discussed all these possibilities before and I’m not ever going to think about it again. It was all Adrian. Talking about Maman like that, Avice, is mean.”

  “It isn’t mean. It’s admiration.” Avice smoothed the creases in her skirts. They turned to gold in the sunlight. “Martha and Maman together, just think of it. To protect you from Peter when Papa wouldn’t listen to any suggestion about calling off the marriage negotiations. And then the fury when they realised Papa was living with his mistress, and spending his money on her when he wouldn’t even let Maman have more than one candle in her bedchamber. All that hypocritical preaching about holy morality and being chaste and no new dresses. And there he was romping in piles of cash with naked women.”

  “Maman didn’t know about the other woman.” Emeline shivered in spite of the sunbeams on her back.

  “What if she did? We wouldn’t have known. She could have seen Papa and followed him one day. And both Maman and Martha would march into battle just as bravely as the king, I know they would. And just like in battle, it wouldn’t have been murder. It would have been a righteous war.”

  Jerrid Chatwyn reclined in bored lethargy for a week in one of the spare bedchambers at the family house on the Strand, then ordered a litter followed by a cartload of bedding, medicines and wine barrels, and transferred himself back to his own rooms at Westminster Palace. His body, fit and honed during past years of joust and jest, healed quickly. But he was still in bed under doctor’s orders when his elder brother, also keen to return to court, trundled in to visit.

  “You’re a fool, Jerrid,” the earl informed him. “You could have been killed. All this absurd playing at gallantry and trying to make me look like a sluggard in comparison. I’m not impressed, not at all.”

  “I didn’t do it to impress you, Symond,” his brother informed him. “And my opinion of you never changes, whatever you might get up to. Nor do I expect to change yours of me. But you could pass the jug. My cup’s empty.”

  The earl glowered, repositioned himself on the stool beside the bed, and topped up his brother’s wine cup from the brimming jug of best Malmsey. “Damned fool of a brother. Damned fool of a son.” He had topped up his own cup too, and now drained it for the third time. “The Chatwyn name’s already been held up to gossip and slander. Now brawling in the streets, and young Adrian getting himself killed.”

  Jerrid raised an eyebrow. “Still thinking it was Nicholas who slaughtered Peter, are you, Symond? Or you’ve finally accepted it was Adrian?”

  “Adrian. Nicholas.” The earl shrugged and poured more wine. “What difference? I’ve lost my previous boy, my heir butchered, whatever devil’s hand did the deed. So now Nicholas likes to show himself a hero, as you do, Jerrid. But I know you both better. Peter was my hero, poor lad. I’ll miss him, you know, till my own dying day.”

  “Then you’re a bigger fool than I even thought you.” Jerrid turned away. “It’s natural enough to care for your eldest son. But to merit Peter over Nicholas?”

  “Nicholas? A smarter boy than I once gave him credit for, perhaps. But Peter? He was exceptional in every way.” The earl stood, tossing back the stool. “I’ll not listen to my boy criticised, but I’ll tell you this, Jerrid, before I go. He’d have brought pride to the family, instead of this foolhardy mummery. Peter was a red blooded Chatwyn, and all the girls fell in admiration at his feet. No nonsenses of book learning or secret errands. No sneaking about the countryside in shoddy clothes and a false identity. Peter was proud to act under his own name, and show his talents.” And the earl finished the last cup of wine, turned on his heel and marched from the chamber. The heavy door swung back on iron hinges and thudded shut.

  Jerrid Chatwyn sighed, closed his eyes, and silently wondered if he would be strong and steady enough to climb from the bed, cross over to the table, and retrieve whatever little was left in the wine jug.

  The baroness was organising her imminent journey. Petronella would stay with Emeline, while Martha would return to the Wrotham manor with the others. It was Sysabel who fell between the cracks.

  The Lady Elizabeth sighed. “My responsibility, as always, I assume. I’ll take the girl. But the sooner she’s wed, the better. She gives me the twitches.” The lady patted her stomacher, broad scarlet pleats over a small well filled belly. It was a long balmy afternoon, dinner not long over, and the sleepy sunbeams crept into everyone’s eyes. “Yes, marry the girl sooner done the better is. But now,” Lady Elizabeth murmured, “that duty is for Nicholas, with Adrian gone. And Symond’s duty too, though he’ll not stir himself, I’ll be bound.”

  “Symond is snoozing upstairs.”

  “Symond is snoozing even when he’s awake.”

  The baroness smiled. “You’ve a poor opinion of your brother, my lady.”

  “Who? Oh, Symond. Yes indeed,” sighed the lady. “The family is much flawed. Once I had hopes for young Adrian. He seemed a bright boy. But his father, you know, was a gambler and a drunkard. Being the youngest he never inherited a farthing, but he came into a little coin when he married, for the wife was one of the Bridgeworth girls. Then he gambled her money. Cheated at dice I heard, but I cannot see the merit in cheating if you do not win even then. He was a bully too and my least favourite sibling when I was a girl. Silly little wife had not a pennyweight of sense either. Drowned. Both of them. A grand trip to Flanders, costs borrowed from Symond who hoped to be rid of them. Well, rid of them he was, for they had the stupidity to sail off into a storm. I washed my hands of them.”

  “You didn’t,” the baroness pointed out. “You ended up with Adrian and Sysabel.”

  “I was reasonably fond of them when they were younger,” remembered Aunt Elizabeth with vague disinterest. “But then they grew up.”

  “Sysabel has not stopped crying.”

  “It will teach her the worth of prayer and duty,” Sysabel’s aunt announced. “And she may come to appreciate my own efforts as guide and chaperone a little more. She alone will inherit from me eventually, not that I have too much to leave and have as yet no plans to depart. But no do
ubt young Nick and Symond too will add something for her marriage portion.”

  Nicholas still kept to his bed, strictly commanded by his doctor. The half tester spread its painted silks across the headboard, surrounding him in gentle shadows. He watched his wife enter with relief. “Smuggle the horses around the back outside the window,” he told her. “Alert the grooms to say nothing, warn the horses not to neigh, tell my doctors I’m fast asleep, grab some cheese for supper, stuff a flask of wine into the neck of your gown, take down the shutters, open the casement, find a nice long vine of hanging ivy for climbing, and we’ll escape off into the countryside before the sun goes down. I think I should become a highway robber.”

  Emeline nodded. “I almost believe you.”

  “Have you any idea,” her husband demanded, “how unutterably dreary it is stuck in this damned bed for days on end? I’m stiff enough to carve into a table. My only pleasure is stumbling out of bed to piss or cursing at the apothecary.”

  “Just two more days, my love. The doctor promises you can get out of bed and limp downstairs on Friday. I shall clear the spicery of lavender, and we shall have salmon and roast duck for dinner. A last celebration before we say goodbye to Maman and Avice.”

  He grinned back. His forehead was still thickly bandaged, his left hand was invisible beneath a wadding of linen, and under the covers his right knee was swaddled. He also had two broken ribs and a small wedge of flesh missing from his left earlobe. But, he assured everyone, he was now feeling exceedingly well. “I lost so much blood during those damned attacks, there was none left to feed the leeches once I got home. But bed rest isn’t my favourite pastime as you know, my sweet, though you might think it is, the amount of time I’ve been tied to it over the year. Besides, I feel wretched about Adrian. And even worse about Sysabel.”