‘We’re looking for injuries. The faintness you can see comes from demineralisation. Rainwater’s acid, it filters in and gradually washes the bones’ calcium away.’ Miles swivelled in his chair towards her. ‘This will take a while, Sage. Why don’t you go and get a drink? The canteen is open for another twenty minutes.’
Sage winced. She’d been rubbing her back for a while now. ‘I think I will, if just to sit down.’
She had only just sat down with a mug of tea and a large sandwich when she heard someone saying her name. She looked up. ‘Elliott?’
‘Can I talk to you?’
‘Of course. How are you doing?’ She noticed that he was nervously moving his weight from foot to foot. Sage picked up her tea, and sighed. ‘Sit down, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Professor Sayeed told me you were X-raying the bones tonight.’ He sat, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming along. I didn’t have a chance to really talk to you yesterday. You know the police questioned me?’
‘I know. They questioned me too.’ The cold awful certainty of the white face in the black water crept into her memory. ‘They knew you worked with Steph on the dig.’
‘We weren’t friends, and I wasn’t interested in Steph like that. They’re saying I must have been the last person to see her, but I left before she did. This whole thing is giving me nightmares. The baby and the woman in the well, then Steph… Plus retrieving that body yesterday. It must have upset you too.’ He rubbed his face with a hand. ‘When you have so much else to worry about.’
Sage sipped her tea. She rubbed the bump before she realised what she was doing. It was a satisfying curve now, and she caught Elliott looking at it. ‘You must wonder why I seem so detached about the dead baby.’
He stared at her. ‘I didn’t think about it.’
‘I’m not blind to it, but it was an event that happened so many centuries ago. Millions of babies were dying from disease, starvation, neglect, even ignorance. This is the story of just one.’
He nodded. ‘It’s more important to care about the living than the dead. I admire you for choosing to bring a baby up on your own.’
‘I don’t have much choice.’ She took a bite of her sandwich.
‘You don’t have to be with someone just because they’re the father.’
Something about his voice made her look at him. ‘What?’
He shrugged. ‘I mean, you’re young, life is long. You don’t need to rush into anything just to look after a baby.’
She put her tea down with a thud, and it seemed to startle him. The conversation was making her uncomfortable although she wasn’t sure why. Time to change the subject. ‘What you found with that alembic glass was groundbreaking, Elliott. You may be able to help historians fill in some more details of how sixteenth-century scientists worked, what they were thinking. Finding the metal oxides they were working with is as good as it gets, an insight into the work of someone dead hundreds of years.’
He seemed surprised. ‘I suppose so. It may not be exactly related to the bones—’
‘We don’t know that. It may even be the reason that baby is down the well. Who can say? Professor Guichard is here to consult about the ritual aspect of the case. I think he might be able to advise you on funding for further research.’
Elliott nodded, lowering his head to avoid her gaze. ‘The alembic has been a fascinating puzzle. I’ve been reading about chrysopoeia, the transformation of metals into gold.’
‘And?’ She smiled down at the top of his dark curly head. His hair was already thinning at the crown. She got a glimpse of what he might be like in a decade’s time, passionate about his craft, fascinated with history. She’d got into the habit of thinking he was the same age as the other students but looking at him she remembered he was in his late twenties. Not much younger than her.
‘It’s done now by bombarding mercury with neutrons. It produces unstable forms of mercury which decay into thorium and gold.’
‘Thorium? Didn’t you find that in the glass?’
‘Some. Also uranium, as you know.’ He managed a shaky laugh. ‘I’m not suggesting Solomon Seabourne used a particle accelerator to make gold, but there is some gold in the sample. Maybe he did it. Actually made gold.’
‘Well, that would hit the tabloids,’ Sage said. ‘Look, Ell, you can’t talk about this until all the results are back. You also need to share this with someone from analytical chemistry.’
‘I know.’
Sage was trying to engage him, but he looked at his hands again. ‘I know Steph’s death is hard on you, it is for all of us.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t think there was anything between me and Steph.’ His mouth twisted. ‘And I don’t want the police assuming a relationship where there wasn’t any. I’m sorry she’s dead, of course.’ That at least sounded sincere. ‘But I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Of course.’ The police must have given him a hard time. Sage swallowed. ‘I can’t help Steph but I’m going to distract myself with an ancient tragedy instead, and leave the police to work out what happened. Would you like to come and see the X-rays?’
He half smiled. ‘I’d like that.’
Yousuf had set up in one of the offices in radiology. He had his glasses propped on his forehead and was poring over the results when they found him. ‘This is remarkable. Oh, Sage, this is Dr Henderson, the head of radiography and imaging.’
A short man with a circlet of white hair grasped her hand, hard. ‘Hello, Sage. This is a very interesting case.’
She leaned closer to the screen. ‘What am I looking at?’
Yousuf pointed to the lowest rib, to a white line, vivid against the white threads of embroidery. ‘This is the X-ray we took first. That, my dear, is the tip of a Tudor dagger. I’d put my reputation on it.’ A swipe of the mouse enlarged the image and Sage saw the triangular wedge he was talking about.
‘This is the skeleton of an otherwise healthy female probably in her twenties,’ Dr Henderson said. ‘I’m afraid she has been the victim of a particularly serious assault that almost certainly would have killed her. There is a skull fracture, broken ribs and clavicle, and some injuries to the ribs that look like stab wounds.’
That caught Sage’s attention. ‘Can you say what was done to her?’
Yousuf’s voice was soft, soothing. ‘There is a serious peri-mortem head injury; she might have been out cold before or around the time she was stabbed here, in the chest. If you’re assuming she was pregnant, in order for the baby to have any chance, it would have to have been delivered in minutes, no longer. The abdominal injury, even if the knife avoided any major blood vessels, would have been fatal on its own. We see a nick in the pelvis here, and a cut on the rib up here.’
Elliott shrugged, but Sage slowly understood the sequence, imagined the frightened woman trying to save herself, save the baby. ‘Why would an injured woman be cut in this way if she wasn’t pregnant? She was already badly hurt.’
‘In Elizabethan medicine caesareans were rarely attempted, mostly because babies didn’t survive. This is incredibly rare.’ Henderson pulled up an image of an X-ray on his laptop. ‘This was from a case in New Mexico, nine years ago. See, the nick to the side of the breastbone, and the corresponding nick in the pelvis. This was a panicked incision; the mother was shot in the head, the baby had minutes at best. There’s a lot of anatomy in the way.’
Professor Sayeed indicated the ribs. ‘See, here is a similar cut a little further over. If the baby was breech, its collar bone and humerus could have been in the path of the knife. Which we saw on the bones from the well.’
Sage tried to keep her voice calm, even if her gut was squirming at the thought. ‘How can you be sure she wasn’t unconscious or even dead before they took the baby?’
Yousuf pointed to the shadowy hand bones on the screen. ‘This is a stab wound clean through the palm, it shattered the capitate bone. It’s a classic defensive wound.’
Elliott pushed
a chair forward. Sage sat down without thinking. It dawned on her. ‘You think Isabeau was killed for her baby?’
Henderson cleared his throat. ‘Dr Sayeed and I can suggest a sequence of events that fits the evidence.’
‘She was stunned first,’ said Yousuf. He indicated a crack on the back of the skull. ‘These fine lines suggest a considerable force from a blunt object. She may well have died from bleeding in the brain if she hadn’t been injured further.’
‘Then?’ Elliott was leaning in to see the screen.
Henderson answered. ‘Maybe she was rolled onto her back, and put out a hand to ward off a knife. Then she may have received the stab to the chest, which scored the ribs either side. It probably went straight through her breast.’
The image made Sage wince. She swallowed hard, to try and clear the lump in her throat at the thought of the poor woman. ‘Then, the baby?’
‘The mother may have been unconscious or even already dead.’
She spoke slowly. ‘But you don’t think that, do you?’
He pointed up at the screen. ‘Fractured collarbone, broken second and third rib on the left side. I think someone knelt on, or otherwise restrained her. Perhaps to cut open the abdomen. Which was done from the pelvis up, in a slashing motion,’ he demonstrated on himself, ‘like this. The knife stuck in the lowest rib and broke the tip off.’
‘To get the baby.’ The murmur came from Elliott.
Yousuf nodded. ‘I think it unlikely that she was injured then another person tried to deliver the baby. A rescuer would not kneel on a dying woman: it’s counterintuitive. This scenario is unique in the historical record of the Island.’
Henderson cleared his throat. ‘Foetal abductions, though incredibly rare, do occur, and are often associated with psychotic delusions in the attacker, who is almost always female. She may believe the baby will salvage a failing relationship if she claims it’s hers. Some even think the baby is their own, in the wrong body.’
Sage let the thoughts whirling in her head settle. ‘So Isabeau – we’re fairly certain that’s her – was actually pregnant. That much of the legend was true.’
‘Yeah, but who was the attacker?’ Elliott said.
‘Well, the woman who was interred with the baby’s body must be a possible suspect.’ Sage stood up, suddenly needing to move. ‘Think about it: who would carry a stolen baby around, unless they had just taken it?’
Yousuf’s voice was heavy with scepticism. ‘That’s quite a jump.’
‘A woman went missing on 13th November 1580. Agness Waldren, I’ve seen her memorial.’ Sage rummaged in her bag for her tablet. ‘There was some sort of storm, I think. She was never found.’
‘So you think she may have been buried in the well after being killed?’ Elliott asked.
Sage turned to Yousuf. ‘How did the woman in the well die?’
Yousuf winced. ‘The fall itself could have killed her. She was probably alive when she went in, because she hit the bottom with one leg extended, not limp; it was forced into her pelvis by the impact. A dead body would be more likely to fold up on impact. Her other femur was shattered, the leg pulled up along her body. The well must have been almost empty of water at the time.’
Sage gripped his hand with both of hers. ‘Thank you, Yousuf, Dr Henderson.’ She nodded to Elliott. ‘That’s enough drama for us today, Ell. I’ll drop you home if you like.’
* * *
Sage sat at her desk at home, listening to the sounds of the town as it edged the shore. Ferries, cars, people laughing on the promenade. The massive fans that steered the hovercraft spat droplets of kerosene-flavoured spray onto the window, even three floors up.
On her computer screen, the X-ray of the skeleton was a ghostly grey against the background, the gold net embroidery and clusters of gems showing up as white tracery. The effect was the shadowy form of a woman, draped in spiders’ webs and flowers. She shut down the computer, wondering if just one glass of wine would do any harm to the baby. Instead she rang Nick.
‘Yes.’ The voice was crisp, impatient.
She ended the call. The phone rang a moment later. She answered.
‘Hello? Sage?’
‘Yes.’ The tears started welling up as she heard his voice, and she let them spill onto her cheeks. ‘I thought— I just had a really bad day.’
‘Me too. James Bassett collapsed at home today. He’s at the hospice, Judith is with him.’ Nick sighed, and Sage imagined him slumping onto the sofa. ‘What happened to spoil your day?’
‘We dug Isabeau up. The local radiology department had a look at her body. There’s little doubt it is her. She was covered with embroidery – very expensive gold thread and gemstones – which raises questions in itself.’
‘And?’ His voice was soft, and deep. ‘Sage?’
‘They – the radiologist and Yousuf – think that Isabeau may have been attacked by someone with the purpose of stealing her baby.’ She could hear Nick take a breath but powered on over his reaction. ‘It’s called foetal abduction. It’s very rare but—’
‘You think the woman in the well cut Isabeau’s baby out?’ Nick’s voice was appalled.
‘Maybe. Yousuf is a forensic anthropologist, he says he could interpret the findings that way.’ Sage cradled her bump with her free hand. ‘It was horrible, listening to that with Bean wriggling inside me.’
‘Bean?’
‘The baby.’ She looked at the clock: nine thirty. ‘Is it too late to come and see you? I could sleep on the sofa, scandalise the village some more.’
‘No, don’t do that.’ His voice was firm. ‘I’ll come to you, scandalise your neighbours instead. I may get called away to the Bassetts though. I suppose you have a sofa?’
Sage sighed with relief. ‘I do.’
‘So, you’d better give me your address.’
She gave it to him, then tidied up the flat. It took her mind off stolen babies and dying students. By the time she had washed up a sink full of dishes, he was at the door.
When she opened it she couldn’t speak, as if all the words had been said. She could feel him smile as he kissed her.
48
13th November 1580
Four yards of linens for swaddling your lordship’s daughter Lily, at one shilling and two pence a yard four shillings and eight pence
Accounts of Banstock Manor, 1576–1582
Two weeks later life at the manor was torn apart by a single mistake. A man, taking a tray of food to Mistress Agness, soon to be shipped to a special house for mad gentlewomen, left the door on the latch for a moment, forgetting the bolt. He realised his error and turned to the lock, but Mistress Agness was on him like a wild animal, biting and scratching. He is not a young man and fell under her greater weight, hitting his head against the wall. He lies in bed with a palsy down one side of his body, nursed by his wife and daughter, but I doubt of his recovery.
The woman is free. The rector and his man join the searchers across the farms and along the harbour, but the sky is dark with clouds and the wind brisk. On foot, we beat our way through the woods that line the shore and are lit up by great flashes of lightning. There a man finds a cloak, caught on the branches of one of the low trees that line the sandy shore. It is long and plain like a man’s cloak, but I think immediately of Agness.
The tide is sweeping in, foam blowing from the tops of rollers that break upon the stone ledges. They line our shore under the sand and bring many a sailor to grief. There, against the little remaining light as dusk is hastened in, stands the shape of Agness. Her arms are outstretched into the wind, upon the rocky shelves that push into the sea, in a parody of a crucifixion. The first of the waves are licking at her boots, and she is screeching something wordless into the tempest.
‘Agness!’ I shout, waving the men to try and reach her. One man slips on the weeds growing on the rocks, another hesitates.
‘The waves are too strong,’ he shouts to me over the crash of the sea. ‘One stumble and we’re lost!
’ Indeed, the boiling and hissing of the water surging between the rocks is getting closer, catching the light in the foaming of the waves.
‘Back then,’ I say, beckoning the fallen man to safety. ‘She is mad indeed.’
We watch as the sea slaps her skirt with each wave, causing her to stagger. Thomas, one of the grooms, leaps forward to within reach of her flailing arms and catches her elbow. He drags her a few feet from the clutches of the sea, but she pushes him off.
‘No!’ she shrieks, bounding across the ledge away from him. ‘Don’t you see? The French witch has called up a storm!’
A sound, like a tree breaking but many times louder, cracks the air. The whole world is made white by lightning. Thomas falls to his knees and Allen Montaigne, Seabourne’s man, pulls me away as the roar of thunder breaks over our heads like a thousand drums.
‘God will save me,’ Agness bellows, her voice cracked like a crow’s. The second crack of lightning throws me onto my face on the sand, the thunder deafening me, rolling around inside my head. The flash blinds me even through closed eyelids.
When I look up, and brush the sand from my beard and spit out salty grit, Thomas is crawling towards me.
‘Where is she?’ cries Allen Montaigne. ‘I cannot see her.’ He gives me a hand, and I pull myself up. Behind us, a blazing tree close to the shore is split asunder by the force of the skyfire. When I turn to the sea, she is gone, and though we search the shoreline until dark, we can find no trace of her.
Vincent Garland, Steward to Lord Banstock, His Memoir
49
Saturday 20th April
Sometime during the night, Nick must have left the sofa and stretched out beside Sage on top of the duvet. She could hear him breathing when she woke to the sunshine striping through the blinds.
He roused with a start, as if at her awareness of him. He turned over towards her, propped up on one arm.
‘Hello.’ He rubbed his hand through his hair, making it stand up.
‘Good morning.’ She adjusted her T-shirt before she sat up. ‘How did you end up…?’
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