by C. S. Harris
“Ever hear of the Alcibiades letters?”
“No.”
Sebastian studied his old schoolmate’s flushed, angry face, the soft blue eyes and disheveled fair curls that fell across his brow. If it was an act, it was a good one.
The notes of the salute drifted across the parade. “Toot-toot,” said Master Francis, marching in place, hand raised as he blew into an imaginary trumpet.
Sebastian watched the sun glint on the boy’s flaxen curls and finely featured face. “Your son looks amazingly like you,” he said. “And your mother.” For a moment, the shrill notes of the trumpet and the shouts of the small crowd faded. He was thinking of another man with fair curls and soft blue eyes and the delicate bone structure of a scholar.
Or a priest.
As if from a long way off, he heard Sir Peter say, “The Ash leys always breed true.”
Sebastian swung to face him. “Ashley is your mother’s family name?”
Sir Peter’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Yes. Why?”
“And Dr. Simon Ashley—the Bishop’s chaplain—is what? Your mother’s brother?”
“Yes.”
“Bloody hell,” whispered Sebastian.
“Why didn’t Uncle Simon come with us to watch the Changing of the Guard?” demanded Master Francis, following the drift of their conversation in that disconcerting way of children.
“He had someplace else he was supposed to be,” said Sir Peter.
Sebastian knew a sudden chill. “You saw him today?”
“It was rather curious, actually. He said he’d heard tales of the Prescott brothers playing in the crypt of St. Margaret’s as children, and he wanted to know if Uncle Francis ever told me the secret hiding place they’d had there.”
“Had he?”
Sir Peter nodded. “There’s supposed to be a small altar niche in the western wall of the crypt. One of the stones at the base of the niche is loose.”
“When was this?”
“That we saw him? Shortly before Francis and I left the house. Perhaps half an hour ago. Why?”
Sebastian thought about Paul Gibson, shoving notebooks and candles into a haversack last night in gleeful anticipation of a day to be spent inspecting and analyzing the moldering remains of centuries of his fellow men. An ambitious churchman who had already killed twice in his attempt to secure the evidence of his father’s treason would not hesitate to kill a one-legged Irish surgeon with an abiding fascination with the human body.
“Papa!” said Master Francis, tugging at his father’s coattails. “Do you see—” The boy let out a whoop as Sebastian scooped him up and took off at a run across the parade grounds.
“Quickly,” he shouted over his shoulder to Sir Peter. “I need to borrow your horse.”
Prescott struggled to keep up with him. “But I don’t understand—”
“I don’t have time to go back to Brook Street. And I’ll need you to take a note to Bow Street. It is very important that you deliver it personally into the hands of Sir Henry Lovejoy. Can you do that?”
“Yes, but—Hell and the devil confound it, Devlin! What the devil is going on?”
“Simon Ashley murdered your father. Your real father. And if I don’t make it out to Tanfield Hill in time, he could very well kill a friend of mine. Paul Gibson.”
Chapter 42
Sebastian spurred Sir Peter’s neat chestnut gelding hard, his left hand sweaty on the reins, his injured right arm hugged in tight to his body. A stiff wind scurried the growing banks of clouds overhead, hiding the sun and thrashing the limbs of the oaks and elms that shadowed the road to Tanfield Hill. By the time he reached Hounslow Heath, the pain in his sliced arm was a searing, white-hot agony that kept his breathing quick and shallow and dulled his thoughts. He pushed on.
The first drops of rain began to fall as he clattered over the millstream’s bridge and spurred the gelding up the hill. Rain streaked the quiet tombstones with splashes of wet and pattered softly in the long grass of the churchyard. Reining in beneath the ancient bell tower, Sebastian slipped from the saddle, one hand coming up to cup the gelding’s nose when it would have whickered softly. The churchyard was deserted. If either Gibson or Simon Ashley were here, they had stabled their horses at the Dog and Duck before descending into the crypt.
Cradling his aching arm close to his body, Sebastian worked his way around the church. At the gaping entrance to the crypt’s stair vault, he slowed, alert to any sound of movement. Someone had torn away the weathered boards from the broken opening and thrown them aside. He could see the narrow, steep steps plunging down into a dark void faintly lit as if by a distant flickering flame.
Chill, dank air wafted up from below, bringing him the smell of old, old earth and death. Painfully conscious of the soft crunch of debris beneath the soles of his boots, Sebastian crept down the worn stairs. His feet found the last step, then the sunken, uneven paving of the crypt’s floor. Flattening his back against the coursed, rough stones of the wall, he drew in a deep, steadying breath.
The flame of a single candle glowed at the far western end of the crypt, sending the long, distorted shadow of a man stretching out across the worn paving and rows of crude columns. Then the shadow moved, and Sebastian saw Simon Ashley, the hem of his black cassock brushing the dusty floor. He had his back turned, his shoulders working as he used an iron bar to pry up the stones at the base of a crude niche in the back wall.
Gibson was nowhere to be seen.
Sebastian reached down with his left hand to slip the dagger from his boot. Moving cautiously, he crept past shadowy bays stuffed with dusty, cobweb-draped caskets stacked five and six high, some banded with iron in an attempt to foil grave robbers, others pitifully small and painted white, as denoted a child. As his eyes adjusted to the sepulchral gloom, more details began to emerge: the ruched frill of a coffin lining peeking through split wood, its lace edging threaded with tattered ribbon; a casket handle shaped like a cherub; the tarnished brass of a lozenge-shaped end plate that read, Mary Alice Mills, died 1725, aged 16 years . . .
The toe of his boot bumped against something lumpy and yielding. Looking down, Sebastian saw Gibson’s haversack, a jumble of notebooks and tape measures and calipers spilling across the worn paving stones.
Paul Gibson lay just beyond it, sprawled facedown at the base of a towering wall of ancient coffins warped and crushed by the weight of the ages. Crouching beside him, Sebastian pressed his fingertips to his friend’s neck. Gibson’s pulse was faint, but there. At Sebastian’s touch, he let out a soft moan.
The Chaplain jerked around, his fist clenched on a yellowing packet of letters, his eyes widening at the sight of Sebastian. “Devlin. What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
Sebastian pushed to his feet, the dagger held low at his side. “Give it up, Ashley,” he said evenly. “A Bow Street magistrate and half a dozen runners are already on their way here.”
The Chaplain shook his head, the flickering light from the candle he’d wedged atop a nearby casket dancing over his pale face and the stark white of his ecclesiastical collar. He slipped the letters inside his coat and wrapped both fists around the iron bar. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that.”
Sebastian was hideously aware of his right arm hanging useless in its sling, of Gibson lying unconscious beside him, of the time it must have taken Sir Peter to find Lovejoy. How long, he wondered, would it take Lovejoy and his constables to make the journey out to Tanfield Hill? An hour? More?
Too long.
He said, “I know about your father and the Alcibiades letters. What I don’t understand is how you came to hear of them. You must have been a child at the time this all happened.”
“Rosamond told me. Years ago, when I was taking her to task for never visiting Father. She said Sir Nigel had the letters on him when he died. So when I heard the crypt had been opened and his body found, I thought I needed to act quickly, before the letters could be brought to light.”
“S
o Prescott did tell you about the crypt.”
Ashley nodded. “Right after Earnshaw left. I thought I had more than enough time to get here, retrieve the letters, and be gone long before the Bishop arrived. But my horse picked up a stone in its shoe and went lame. By the time I came down the steps, he was already crouched over his brother’s body. He had some papers in his hands. I assumed they were the Alcibiades letters. I’d picked up an iron bar the workmen had left at the top of the steps, and when he turned, I just . . . hit him. I didn’t want to kill him. I swear I didn’t. But I had to get those letters.” The Chaplain’s jaw sagged, and he swallowed. “Only, it wasn’t the letters. Just some old estate papers.”
“But . . . Francis Prescott was your friend; your sister was once married to his brother. You don’t think he would have kept quiet about your father’s treason? For Lady Prescott’s sake, if not yours?”
Ashley frowned. “For Rosamond’s sake? Why would he?” Sebastian studied the other man’s puzzled features. Lady Prescott might have told her priestly little brother about their father’s treason, but she’d obviously kept quiet about her own infidelity.
Ashley said, “You think I should have taken that chance? Risked seeing my father tried and hanged for treason?”
“Rather than kill a man? Yes.”
Ashley’s lips twisted. “My father’s life depended on my acting quickly. His life, and my future. It’s easy for you to stand there, secure in your position as your father’s heir, and judge me. You have no idea what it’s like to be a younger son, to have to make your own way in the world. No idea. These letters would destroy any chance I ever had for advancement in the Church. Believe me, sons of traitors don’t rise very far in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.”
Sebastian was aware of Gibson stirring at his feet. “And Earnshaw?”
The Chaplain tightened his grip on the iron bar and raised it like a cricket bat. “He saw me in the churchyard. He didn’t get a good look at me, but he saw enough that something could have later jogged his memory. The shape of my silhouette, perhaps, or something distinctive about the way I move. I couldn’t take the—” Ashley broke off as Gibson let out another groan and fought to push himself up onto his elbows.
For one disastrous moment, Sebastian’s attention jerked back to his friend. He heard the whoosh of Ashley’s iron bar slicing through the air and dropped to his hands and knees an instant before the curved end of the bar smashed into the big, velvet-draped casket beside where his head had been.
The ancient coffin shattered, raining down splintered wood and the stained horsehair stuffing of its old lining and the gleaming shards of a broken skull. Ashley staggered with the impact, struggling to free the tip of the iron bar from the wood. Sebastian kicked up at him, hitting the Chaplain in the knee just as the iron bar popped free of the coffin.
Ashley spun around to slam back, hard, into the stack of coffins crammed into the last bay. The dry, ancient wood shattered and buckled, the coffins shifting ominously. Then the entire stack collapsed in a roaring cascade of broken wood, unfurling brown-stained shrouds, and disjointed, desiccated body parts.
Sebastian threw himself across Gibson’s prone body, his one good arm coming up to protect his head as bits of wood and bone rained down around them. A grinning skull still covered with leatherlike skin and stuck to its frilled pillow by a mass of matted dark hair crashed into his upraised arm and sent his knife spinning into the rubble. The candle Ashley had balanced atop a nearby coffin toppled.
The crypt plunged into a suffocating blackness.
Sebastian’s eyes adapted quickly to the lack of light. But like most men, the Chaplain was hopelessly blind in the dark. He stumbled about, coughing in the dust, his iron bar whistling through the air as he swung like a madman in first one direction, then another, the tip clanging against a stone column, whacking into another stack of coffins.
Quietly searching the rubble around him, Sebastian found what looked like someone’s kneecap and hurled the bit of bone against the back wall of the crypt. It hit the stones and fell with a clatter.
“Devlin?” Ashley swung around, trying frantically to peer into the murky gloom. “We can make a deal. You keep quiet about my secret, and I’ll keep quiet about yours.”
Moving stealthily, Sebastian slipped his good arm beneath his friend’s unconscious body.
“I know about Miss Jarvis,” said Ashley, his voice echoing about the dark vaults. “I overheard her talking to the Bishop a couple of weeks ago.”
Sebastian froze.
Ashley shouted, “I know you can hear me, Devlin. You try to pin these murders on me, and everyone in London will know about the bastard you planted in Lord Jarvis’s oh-so-proper daughter.”
His heart pounding in his chest, Sebastian struggled, one-handed, to lift his friend. “Gibson,” he whispered, then froze as a faint glow illuminated the dusty scene.
Ashley’s candle had not, obviously, gone out. Falling into one of the collapsing caskets, it must have sputtered, only to catch again. Now, fed by ancient cloth and wood, it flared up to fill the crypt with a growing light and the smell of burning hair and wool.
“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian, struggling to haul Gibson up with him.
But he’d already lost the brief moment of advantage offered by the darkness. With a hiss that sounded like burning pitch, the mummified body in a nearby coffin blazed up as if it were a giant torch, filling the crypt with a surge of light and the stench of burning flesh.
“Devlin!” roared Ashley, the iron bar raised over his head as he charged.
Closing his hand over a mound of debris, Sebastian scooped up a fistful of grit and smashed bone and threw it in the Chaplain’s face. The Chaplain flung up one crooked arm to protect his eyes, his step momentarily faltering.
Letting go of Gibson, Sebastian rammed into the Chaplain headfirst, barreling the man across the aisle to crash into the cobweb-draped pile of coffins in the opposite bay.
The wall of caskets collapsed around them in a dusty crescendo of bones and wood and broken iron bands. The two men went down together, rolling over and over. A jagged piece of wood tore a gash down Sebastian’s leg. His injured arm whacked into the base of a stone column and a whiplash of pain exploded in his head, stealing his breath and dimming his sight.
He was aware of Ashley rearing up, that damned iron bar still gripped in his fists.
“You bastard,” swore Sebastian. Pivoting, he slammed the heel of his boot into Ashley’s forearm. The bar went spinning out of sight.
He heard a roar, and realized the glow in the crypt had brightened. With an ugly whoosh, the flames raced from one bay to the next, fed by the massive piles of dried wood and corpses and ancient textiles stiffened with congealed body fluids.
Ashley scrambled up, eyes wild. Sebastian drove his good fist into the cleric’s face, knocking him back in a crash of breaking wood and clattering, bouncing bones.
The fire was all around them now, filling the air with a foul, oily smoke that stole Sebastian’s breath and stung his eyes. “Gibson!” he shouted. Coughing badly, he lurched back to where the surgeon was trying to push himself up onto his one good knee.
“Put your arm around my neck,” Sebastian shouted over the roar of the fire.
Sebastian surged up, dragging Gibson with him. Together they staggered toward the stair vault through a tunnel of flames. The bays of coffins had turned into giant banks of fire that filled the air with flaming wisps of ancient winding sheets and burning pieces of wood that rained down everywhere.
Then the stack of coffins nearest the stair vault collapsed in a fiery avalanche that sent flaming debris skittering across the central aisle. A smoking slab of wood fell on Sebastian’s head, slamming him to his knees. He tried to get up and felt something heavy clobber him in the back, knocking the breath from his lungs. He pitched forward, losing his grip on Gibson.
“Gibson!” he shouted, reaching for him. A violent fit of coughing racked his body, stealing t
he last of his strength.
He knew a terrible rage: for the unborn child who would never know its father, for the woman who would face the birth of that child alone. Gritting his teeth, he fought to push himself up, and heard a shout from somewhere up ahead.
Looking up, he saw the dark shadows of men moving purposefully through the smoke and curling flames. Hands reached out, lifting Gibson from Sebastian’s grasp, carrying him toward the stairs. Sebastian heard a familiar, high-pitched voice, saw the gleam of fire reflected in the lenses of Sir Henry Lovejoy’s glasses.
“We must hurry, my lord,” said the magistrate, his fists closing on Sebastian’s coat. “Can you get up?”
Sebastian nodded. He was coughing too badly now to talk. Leaning heavily on the little magistrate, he staggered up the worn, narrow steps.
At the top of the stairs, he tripped over the remnant of the old brick wall and went down. Rolling onto his back, he blinked up at heavy gray clouds. Rain splashed in his face, and he dragged the sweet air of the countryside into his lungs.
“Gibson?” he asked, the effort of turning his head in search of his friend bringing on another bout of coughing. “How is he?”
“He has a nasty gash on the side of his head, but he looks to be all right. Better, in fact, than you, my lord.”
“And Ashley?”
“We couldn’t reach him.”
Sebastian coughed again and gave up trying to sit up. For the moment it felt good simply to lie here on his back in the cool grass, letting the rain wash the dust and cobwebs and the smell of old death from his face.
He said, “I didn’t think you’d make it in time. Sir Peter must have found you far quicker than I’d anticipated.”
“Sir Peter?” Lovejoy frowned. “I haven’t seen Sir Peter.”
Sebastian raised his head to look at the magistrate. Lovejoy’s hat was gone. The sleeve of his coat was singed, and there was a rakish-looking black smear above one eye. “Then what the devil are you doing here?”