Where Serpents Sleep sscm-4

by C. S. Harris

  Studying the cobwebs draping the delicately carved tracery of the windows and the leaded panes, Sebastian knocked on the warped old door and listened to the sound fade away into nothing. He was raising his fist to knock again when he heard a furtive whisper of sound from the far side of the thick panels. The scrape of a slipper over stone flagging, perhaps, or the brush of cloth against cloth.

  He waited, aware of a sense of being watched. Tilting back his head, he scanned the crenulated decoration at the wall’s edge, then heard the rasp of a bolt being drawn back.

  The door creaked inward a foot and stopped. He had a glimpse of a young woman’s pale face, her brown eyes widening in fear. Behind her stretched an empty stone-flagged passageway with thick whitewashed walls.

  “Miss Jarvis sent me to inquire—” he began, only to have the woman let out a little mewl of terror. Her hands slipping off the door’s latch, she whirled, her fists clenching in her skirts, her brown hair flying as she pelted back down the passageway.

  Thrusting open the door with one outflung hand, Sebastian sprinted after her. He took two steps, three, then felt a blinding pain that crashed down upon the back of his head and brought with it the bright darkness of oblivion.

  Chapter 40

  The pain was still there. He realized he was lying on something cold and hard. That confused him. He considered opening his eyes to investigate, but at the moment, that seemed more effort than it was worth. He lay still, trying to recall where he was and what he was doing here. He remembered handing the reins of his horse to Hero Jarvis. He remembered walking through the abandoned garden. Stone steps. A warped door. A brown-eyed woman running.

  He shifted his weight, wincing as a jagged agony arced around the side of his head. From somewhere quite close, he heard Miss Jarvis say, “You were right. It was a trap.”

  He opened his eyes.

  He found himself staring at a stone groined vault high above where he lay. The stones were old and worn, and stained with damp. Turning his head ever so carefully, he was able to see a row of thick, crude pillars holding up the roof and the no-nonsense face of Miss Jarvis.

  He groaned again and closed his eyes. “Where the hell are we?”

  “I’m not entirely certain what this place was originally. At first I thought it might be the crypt of one of the churches or chapels Somerset pulled down to build his palace. But more likely it’s simply a storeroom or cellar from one of the medieval bishops’ palaces he also tore down.”

  Sebastian brought up a hand to probe gingerly at the back of his head. “And why precisely are we here?”

  “I am told the vault floods when the tide comes in.”

  He opened his eyes again, his hand falling. He realized he was lying on a wide, elevated stone ledge some three feet off the ground that ran along as much of the crypt wall as he could see. She sat perched on the edge of the ledge beside him. She was hunched forward, her arms crossed at her waist, her hands hugging her elbows in close. From the way she had her jaw set, he suspected she was having to try very, very hard to keep control of herself. He realized her veiled hat was gone, her sleeve torn. However she had come to be here with him, she obviously had not come without a fight.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She rocked gently back and forth in a movement so subtle he doubted that she even knew she was doing it. “I waited for you for about five minutes, but you never came back. Just as I was trying to decide what to do, a gentleman walked out of the Cock and Magpie and asked if I needed help.”

  “A gentleman?”

  “Most definitely a gentleman. He was both well dressed and well spoken. Just like the gentleman with the gig on the road from Richmond.”

  “And?” he prompted.

  “I wheeled my horse, meaning to flee. But he reached up and grabbed my reins just above the bit. And then he pulled a pistol on me.”

  “In a respectable neighborhood in broad daylight.”

  “Quite,” she said evenly. “I freely admit to deserving any and all reproaches you care to heap upon my head. It was a trap.”

  He might not like Hero Jarvis, but there was much that he found he did, reluctantly, admire about her. And so he surprised himself by saying gently, “We all make mistakes.”

  She raised her head to look at him. “When they dragged me down here—”

  “They?”

  “Yes. Another man joined us in the garden. They had simply dumped you at the foot of the steps. I thought you were dead.”

  “What steps?” he said, trying to sit up.

  She turned to help him. “Do you think that’s wise?”

  “What time does the tide come in? Any idea?”

  “It’s been running at about half past five, I think.”

  “And what time is it now?”

  “You can hear the bells of St. Clements down here. They just tolled three.”

  Sebastian had aborted his attempt to stand and contented himself with sitting, slumped, while he regained his breath. He said, “If I was on the floor, how did I end up on the ledge?”

  “I requested they pick you up and put you on the ledge. They ridiculed me for it, but in the end they did it.”

  He could imagine her high-handed orders to her captors, the men’s laughing compliance. She said, “They also left the lantern at my request. I told them I was afraid of rats.”

  His gaze fell to the simple tin lantern with horn windows at their feet, its single tallow candle spilling a faint golden glow that left the farthest reaches of the chamber in darkness. “Are there rats?”

  “I haven’t seen any.”

  The giddiness was beginning to recede. He said, “Tell me about the steps.”

  “They’re there, just to our right. They’re barred by an iron gate at the base and a stout wooden door at the top.”

  He could see them now, worn shadowy steps disappearing upward. He lurched to his feet and reached for the lantern. She got to it first.

  “If you insist on inspecting the gate, I’ll carry the lantern. If you drop it, I’ve no way to rekindle the candle and neither do you.”

  “How do you know I’ve no tinderbox?”

  “I checked your pockets.”

  He clapped a hand to the capacious pocket of his groom’s coat. His pistol was gone. With difficulty, he overcame the impulse to swear long and crudely.

  The gate covered an arched opening some four feet wide. Built of iron, with thick vertical bars braced top and bottom by stout crosspieces, it looked newly installed, without a trace of rust. A thick chain had been wrapped around the bars twice, then secured by a heavy padlock well beyond his reach. He clasped both hands around one of the iron bars and pushed. Its solidity mocked him.

  She said, “I did check it. It’s quite strong.”

  He tested each bar and crosspiece himself, just to be certain, but he doubted even the strength of ten men could dislodge them. Breathing heavily again, he leaned against the gate, his gaze on the stairwell it protected. From here he could see that the steps led up to a stout wooden door set into a corbeled arch at the top. He said, “There was a woman in the house. A young woman. Did you see her?”

  Miss Jarvis shook her head. “They never took me into the house. These steps lead down from an alcove in the garden wall near the river.”

  He could see a point, some ten or twelve steps up, where the stonework used for the steps changed, became darker, less worn, as if it were of more recent construction. He’d heard tales of the building of the old Somerset House by Edward Seymour, about how he’d appropriated land occupied by the inns of the Bishops of Chester and Lichfield, Coventry and Worcester. The old bishops’ palaces had been pulled down, their building materials either reused or dumped as fill to raise the height of the garden for a terrace.

  “Let me see the lantern,” he said, reaching for it.

  “Are you quite certain you’re—”

  “I’m fine.” Holding the lantern aloft, he explored the crypt. Built of worked sandston
e blocks, it was a space some forty-five to fifty feet long and five bays wide, the ceiling vaults supported on rows of squat, plain pillars. One end was neatly walled off with a darker sandstone that reminded him of the upper steps. At the other end, the far reaches of the chamber disappeared beneath a cascade of rubble.

  He played the lantern light over the jumble of stones, some rough, others shaped but broken. Here and there he saw glimpses of carvings, of scrollwork and carefully incised patterns.

  “That’s where the river is,” she said, coming to stand beside him.

  “How far?”

  “Some ten or twelve feet, I’d say.”

  So much for any wild schemes of digging through the rubble to freedom.

  “I’ve seen engravings of the Thames from the days when the bishops’ palaces stretched from the river to the Strand,” she said. “Some of them were constructed over arches that opened to the river. Barges used to come up the river and then pull in under the arches to unload. It could be that’s what this is from.”

  “So maybe it won’t flood completely,” he said, his head falling back as he studied the worn stone of the ceiling vaults.

  “I suspect they tested the theory before they left us down here to die,” she said drily.

  He glanced over at her. She’d kept pace with him as he prowled the crypt, her hands still clutching her elbows in close to her sides. He said, “Why leave us down here? Why not simply kill us outright?”

  She squared her shoulders. “As I understand it, their intention is to throw our bodies in the river. Make it look as if we suffered an accident. Any autopsy would simply show that we’d drowned, wouldn’t it?”

  “Why would they care whether or not it was obvious we were murdered?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  He met her gaze. Her eyes were dilated so wide they looked black. “I don’t intend to drown,” he said, turning back toward the steps.

  She trailed after him—or, more exactly, after the light. “Well, that’s reassuring.”

  He laughed softly, the lantern making a chink as he set it down on the stone paving. “We could try shouting.”

  “I did. Do you have any idea how much earth there is on top of us?”

  He was trying not to think about that.

  “Where are you going?” she asked as he headed back toward the rubble wall.

  He selected a massive chunk of what looked like a broken ionic capital from some long-ago despoiled church. Bending his knees and grunting, he hoisted it to his chest, his head swimming sickeningly. She watched, silent, as he staggered back toward the gate and heaved it at the padlocked chain. It clattered against the iron, then crashed to the stone floor. The chained gate held firm.

  Swearing, he heaved the stone at the gate again and again, until he was sweating and his hands were bleeding from the stone’s jagged edges. After perhaps the tenth try, she said calmly, “Stop it. It isn’t doing any good and you’re only hurting yourself.”

  He swung to face her, his breath shuddering his chest. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “We could try to set fire to the door. Someone might see the smoke and come to investigate.”

  It was a crazy idea, but not without merit. He eyed the distance to the door at the top of the stairs. “And how do you propose we do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Still breathing hard, he went back to select a fist-sized chunk of rock from the rubble. “Here, hold this,” he said, handing her the rock. He stripped off his groom’s coat and waistcoat, then pulled his shirt off over his head. The damp chill of the subterranean vault sent a shiver through him. He hadn’t thought to check his boot to see if they’d missed his knife. They had.

  “Do you always carry that?” she asked, watching him slip the knife from its hidden sheath.

  “Always.” He flashed her a smile that showed his teeth. “I even threw it at your father once.”

  Using the blade, he sliced his shirt into strips and began to plait them. Her mind was quick. She said, “Let me help.”

  He wrapped the plaited shirt around the rock like a long wick, then opened the hinged tin and horn door of the lantern.

  “Don’t put out the candle,” she warned.

  Grunting, he kindled the torn edge of the shirt, watched it flare and catch. Thrusting his arms through the iron bars of the gate, he held the burning, weighted shirt as long as he could. Then he hurled it at the door above.

  It flew through the air, a flaming catapult that illuminated the shadowy stairwell and hit the stout door with a solid thud. Falling to the stone lintel in a shower of sparks, it burned up bright for one shining moment and went out.

  “Hell and the devil confound it,” he whispered, then added, “I beg your pardon, Miss Jarvis.”

  She stood beside him, her hands, like his, gripping the bars of the gate. “That’s quite all right.”

  He swung to look at her, assessing the sturdy cloth of her riding habit. It wouldn’t burn any better than his coat or waistcoat.

  She said, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Your petticoats.”

  “My—” She broke off. He thought for a moment that she meant to refuse him. But what she said was, “Turn around.”

  He went to select more rocks from the rubble. She said, “I’m finished.”

  He threw his coat up to the door first, followed by his rough waistcoat, not even bothering to try to light them first. “Why?” she asked as he set to work ripping the first of her fine petticoats.

  “They’re fodder. The lawn of the petticoats will burn fast, but the wool coat will smolder.”

  “We hope.”

  “We hope,” he agreed.

  He threw the first petticoat-wrapped rock short, so that it burned in a bright, useless heap on the second step. The second try landed square.

  “Thank goodness,” she whispered, pressing against the gate, her gaze on the small fire above.

  It burned for a time, long enough to fill the air with smoke and the pungent odor of singed wool. Coughing, she said, “Will it kill us, do you think? The smoke, I mean.”

  “Probably not if we go to the far end of the chamber, near the rubble. I could feel air coming in there.”

  But in the end they had no need to retreat. Once again, the fire sputtered and went out. They had part of one petticoat left.

  “It isn’t going to work,” he said.

  “It has to work.” She pushed away from the gate. “Start ripping up the last petticoat,” she said, setting to work on the brass buttons of her riding habit. “Your coat was wet from lying on the stone.”

  “You’ll be cold,” he said.

  She stripped off her habit with angry, purposeful jerks, the white flesh of her arms bathed in gold by the dim light of the flickering lantern. “Just hit the door.”

  Both parts of the riding habit landed with satisfying plops atop his coat and waistcoat. He’d have added his breeches, too, but they were of buckskin and would never burn. Clad only in her short, lightweight stays, a thin chemise, boots and stockings, she watched him carefully kindle the last petticoat. He let it flare up until it was almost burning his hand, then lobbed it at the pile of clothes above.

  This time, the cloth beneath the burning missile caught, blazing up hot and fast. The air filled with the crackle of flames, the smell of singed wood. They stood and watched it burn, the big bell of St. Clements tolling four times in the distance. Then, as the small bell began to toll again for those who might have miscounted the first bell, this fire, too, hissed softly and went out.

  Chapter 41

  “I’m sorry I involved you in this,” she said.

  They sat side by side on the ledge that ran along the near wall of the stone vaulted chamber. She had her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs so that she could hug them close. He had set the lantern next to her on the ledge, but its feeble warmth provided a pitiful defense against the cold gloom of the subterranean
room.

  He turned his head to look at her. She’d lost most of her pins. Her hair was coming down, falling in artless disarray about her face. It made her look uncharacteristically approachable. He said, “I involved myself.”

  “Why?” That frown line appeared again between her eyes as she studied his face. “Why do you involve yourself in the investigation of murder?”

  He tilted back his head, his gaze on the ancient vaulting above. “I’ve been told it’s a form of arrogance, thinking I can solve a mystery that baffles others.”