After several minutes they heard the sound of shuffling footsteps, and the door creaked open. There stood a gaunt and baggily liveried butler of typical Fenchurch St. Jude stock.
“Good evening, sirs, mi’ lady,” he greeted, glancing briefly at them before he respectfully returned his gaze to the floor. “Please come in. The Marquis is expecting you.”
He stepped back and allowed them to enter. Inside was a vast entrance hall, sparsely furnished and dimly lit. High above them a square, balustraded gallery ran around the top of the huge and shadowy enclosure, and opening off this were other faintly visible doorways and corridors. The place was filled with the smells of an ancient dwelling, a faint background of mustiness overlaid with subtle resonances of cool stone, fine woods, and the smell of polish and torch smoke.
David also noticed something else. At first he thought it was a wind, a faint susurration moving across the floor stones, but as he looked to the side of the corridor it occurred to him that it was less a sound and more a sensation. He looked first at Melanie and then at Brad, but neither of them seemed cognizant of the movement. Still, as he glanced around, he half expected to see a dust devil flailing cobwebs in its wake, save that his every tool of perception told him that the air in the cavernous entrance hall was deathly still.
Finally they reached a door at the end of the hall, and the butler pushed it open for them and motioned for them to go in. They entered and David gasped silently at the sight beyond.
Before them was an immense drawing room, refulgently aglow with the light of uncountable lamps, flaring torches on the walls, numerous sconces, and a great and kingly fireplace crackling and roaring at one end. The walls of the room were opulently paneled in deep walnut and superbly appointed with rich old tapestries and large wall hangings of lush red damask. The furniture and carpets were also all befitting the home of a Marquis, and various candelabra here and there added still more light to the already intense atmosphere of the place. Most startling of all, however, was the Marquis’s sizable collection of ancient Sumerian and Babylonian art, and his curious array of exotic animals, both caged and stuffed.
Here and there on the walls were the heads of okapi, impala, and other exotic antelope with long, stiletto horns curving upward. In various cages around the room were bright-colored finches and other tropical birds that David did not recognize, with flowing and iridescent tails hanging lazily out of their wicker prisons, and in a large golden pagoda of a cage at one end of the room, a strange and melancholy monkey with haunting and blood-red eyes.
The art was equally exotic. David recognized bas-reliefs of bird-headed deities from Ashumasirpal, stone statues of Mesopotamian demons; Chaldean votives of goats and lion-bodied gods; horn-shaped cups of Scythian gold; bronze dragons, and statues of a host of other Babylonian creatures of the night. Most impressive of all was a huge stone stele hanging over the fireplace, an ancient calendar, as far as David could determine, inscribed with the Babylonian version of the signs of the zodiac and a great deal of accompanying text written in cuneiform.
Sitting in a chair near one of the Babylonian idols was the Marquis, and standing at the fireplace was one of the most distractingly beautiful women David had ever seen. The Marquis stood.
“Professor Macauley, I believe,” he said, extending his hand.
“Please, call me David.”
“And you must call me Grenville,” the Marquis returned graciously. Indeed, the Marquis now behaved with such cordiality that David looked him over once again to make sure that he was the same distinguished and handsomely silver-gray gentleman who had conducted himself so rudely when they had first met at the excavations.
David introduced Brad and Melanie, and then it was the Marquis’s turn. He reached out his hand toward the beautiful woman and she slowly stepped forward.
“This,” said the Marquis, “is Julia Honaria “How do you do,” the woman said, speaking for the first time, and her eyes caught David’s. She was, he thought, one of the most breathtaking creatures he had ever encountered. Her hair was a luxuriant raven black and cascaded down her bare white shoulders in a way that was at once faultlessly coiffed and yet suggestively erotic. Her features were perfectly formed, like some exquisite porcelain doll’s, and her smoldering dark eyes were wide and flashed with suggestive fire. Her lips too were full and poisonously scarlet, and her complexion as pale and flawless as a piece of Italian marble. Contrasted against the perfection of her features, her attire seemed almost unimportant, save that it too was spectacular. She wore a black gown that looked as if it must have cost at least a thousand dollars and across her large full breast was a splay of rubies and diamonds that, although dazzling, still only ran a close second to her beauty.
It was only after he had taken in all the details of the woman before him that he noticed the portrait over the fireplace behind her. It was a large and moldering family oil, and from the style looked to be late eighteenth century. In it was depicted a man, a tall man, aristocratically dressed, with a hunting dog beside him. The scenery framing him was relatively nondescript and could have been any wooded glade in the valley, or for that matter, in any other part of England. But what caught his eye, what froze his attention for several long moments, was the fact that the man’s face was totally concealed by a little muslin curtain suspended on gold cord and draped across the front of the painting.
David looked bewilderedly at the Marquis and could tell that the older man had noticed his reaction to the veiled portrait, but he offered no explanation.
“Please, won’t you sit down,” he invited, gesturing toward the various sofas and chairs encircling the fireplace. “Would you like something to drink?”
As if on silent cue the butler once again appeared and took their requests.
Then Grenville turned and directed his attention toward David. “May I begin by apologizing for my unseemly behavior toward you at our first meeting.”
“Quite all right,” David said, accepting his apology.
“You see, this land has been owned by the de L’Isle name for quite some time now, and it has become, in a sense, a part of my flesh. When I first became aware of the intrusion of your digging, I couldn’t have been more shocked and pained than if you had taken a scalpel and sliced into my arm. I was livid. Now, of course, I have calmed down and realized that you were in the right and I was in the wrong. I do hope we can overlook my former rudeness and arrive at some sort of rapprochement “I think we already have,” David said politely. “I mean, with you renting us the hunter’s cottage for such a reasonable amount.”
“My pleasure,” Grenville said, smiling. He lifted his drink. “May I propose a toast to your lovely wife.”
“Oh, why thank you,” Melanie said, blushing slightly and clearly touched by Grenville’s gallantry. They all toasted.
“This is quite a collection of statuary you have here,” David complimented. “I had no idea you had such an interest in antiquities.”
“Thank you,” Grenville replied. “I’ve gathered it all myself over the years.”
“Have you studied ancient Near Eastern art?”
“Oh, my goodness no, at least not in the academic sense. I’m really just a dilettante. Do you have any expertise on the subject?”
“Only cursorily,” David returned. “I took a few graduate courses on the subject and have attended a seminar here and there, but it’s really not my area of expertise.”
“What about you, Mr. Hollister?”
“I know a little,” Brad stammered, surprised that he had been brought into the conversation.
Grenville stood and retrieved one of the horn-shaped cups of Scythian gold. “What do you think of this?” He handed the cup to Brad.
The younger man turned it over in his hands, scrutinizing it carefully. “I think it’s extraordinary. It must be worth a fortune.”
“Really,” Grenville purred with a faint lack of interest. “I must remember that if ever I need the money.” He strolled over to
the mantelpiece. “This is really my prize possession,” he said, motioning toward the huge cuneiform calendar. “You know, the Babylonians were really very fine astronomers. They had the lunar month worked out to an incredibly precise decimal point, Astrology was everything to them. They didn’t do anything without consulting the stars. Everything was cycles. They wouldn’t crown a king or even bury their dead unless it was favorable to the stars.”
“Really,” Julia interrupted for the first time. “Don’t you think you’re getting a bit tedious on the subject?” She cast Grenville a sharp glance and then immediately resumed her aura of lascivious charm, her eyes flashing at David and then at Brad.
“Sorry,” Grenville said emotionlessly. He once again took his seat.
Julia turned toward Melanie. “So what do you do?” she asked.
“I’m just a housewife,” Melanie replied somewhat shamefacedly. “But I’m going to return to college just as soon as the opportunity affords. I have all of the credits necessary for a degree in art history. I’ve just got to finish my dissertation.”
This came as news to David, and he looked at his wife with surprise.
“I hadn’t mentioned it yet to you because I’ve only just made the decision myself,” she said, seeing the incredulity in his glance.
He didn’t know why, but the notion of Melanie returning to graduate school disturbed him slightly. The thought quickly flitted out of his mind when he realized that Julia was gazing at him rather penetratingly, and as he looked back it occurred to him that when Grenville had introduced her he had offered no clue as to what their relationship was. Was she his mistress? A relative? A friend?
The butler appeared at the doorway and nodded to Grenville. The Marquis turned again toward his guests. “It appears that dinner is ready. Shall we go in?”
They all stood and followed Grenville and Julia through yet another hallway and into a dining room that was every bit as sumptuous as the drawing room. Large Sheraton-style sideboards stood on either side of the exquisite chamber, and another massive and crackling fireplace filled one entire wall. Lighting was provided by the literally hundreds of candles that filled the room, some in several large chandeliers that hung over the table, and others in the countless dozens of candlesticks and candelabra that cluttered the furniture, mantelpiece, and various ledges in the room. Equally striking were the chairs around the dining room table, which were high-backed and of elaborately carved and polished bog oak, and the liveried footmen that stood behind each one of them, waiting dutifully to seat the guests.
But what again drew David’s attention were the portraits on the walls, half a dozen or so of them done in various styles and from various centuries, all men, and again, each with the countenance of its subject completely concealed by a small curtain of muslin.
He noticed that Melanie and Brad were also riveted by the sight as they took their seats around the table.
Grenville sat down and sighed. “I suppose I should explain this little family mystery.”
David looked at the Marquis with interest.
“You see, my venerable ancestor, one Gervase of Shrewsbury, and the first Marquis de L’Isle, had a deformity of the face that he sought, at all costs, to conceal from everyone. Even his portrait he had veiled, and from that point on decreed that all portraits of the de L’Isle lineage should be veiled in a similar manner. In deference to my ancestor it has become our family custom.”
David nodded as he mulled the explanation over. Grenville picked up a little bell and jingled it. “And now, that over, I have a very special treat for you.”
They all looked at him expectantly.
“As you may be aware, the Celts who lived in this valley around the time that the bodies you have discovered were buried in the bog did not have the pleasure of drinking distilled liquor as we have just done in the drawing room. However, analysis of sediments in bronze vessels from that time show that they were not completely without alcoholic drink. They occasionally imbibed a type of wine made from the bog myrtle. The only recorded reference to that notorious beverage was made by the Roman historian Tacitus in his work Germania.”
“Right!” Brad interrupted. “Bog-myrtle wine.” Grenville smiled tolerantly. “Precisely, and as it so happens I have in my possession the recipe for that ancient beverage, handed down for centuries through the de L’Isle family. In fact, in my cellar I have quite a stock of the heavenly liquid, homemade of course, but I would now like to share a bit of that rare elixir with you, my honored guests.” He snapped his fingers, and the footman who had appeared at the sound of the bell stepped forward with a decanter of a deep-purplish liquid and started to fill their glasses. When he reached David’s, Julia leaned across the table and said loudly, “Be careful. Bog-myrtle wine is purported to be a powerful aphrodisiac.”
David laughed and noticed that Melanie was beginning to grow uneasy over Julia’s flirtatious attentions. He looked back at their host and to his surprise saw that Grenville was also cognizant of Melanie’s reaction. Furthermore, he was aware that David had noticed that he had noticed. David was beginning to realize that Grenville was an unusually observant man.
“To your marriage,” the Marquis said urbanely, his brown eyes glinting knowingly at David as he raised his glass aloft in another toast.
They all drank and David washed the first cold swallow over his tongue, tasting carefully. A pungent burst of flavor exploded throughout his senses, and at first it was so overwhelming that he almost winced. But then the piquant, strangely musty flavor unfolded into a pleasant cacophony of tastes, and he found himself craving a second swallow. He noticed that both Melanie and Brad seemed to be experiencing the same reaction, first uncertainty, and then a craving for more. Grenville and Julia watched carefully.
“Well?” Grenville asked.
“Quite delicious. In fact, amazing,” David commended and Melanie and Brad soon joined in the accolades.
“I’m pleased you like it,” said Grenville. “There will be an unending supply of it during dinner.” He snapped his fingers again and the liveried footmen began to serve the meal.
“And as Lord Markham, that great seventeenth-century arbiter of social decorum, once observed, the first course in any proper English banquet must be primarily for show,” Grenville added, and on that cue one of the footmen brought forth an immense silver serving tray on which there was a cooked pheasant with a small bejeweled crown of gold on its intact head and its tail feathers streaming out behind it.
David noticed that Brad, being a vegetarian, looked slightly less than enchanted, and once again Grenville instantly detected that something was afoot. “What is it, Mr. Hollister?” he said, glancing briefly at David.
Brad shifted uneasily. “I’m afraid I don’t eat pheasant. I’m a vegetarian.”
David thought that Grenville and Julia were going to choke. They both gaped disbelievingly at the younger man for several seconds, Julia seeming especially disturbed. Finally Grenville composed himself. “Well, no matter,” he said amiably. “But I’m afraid you’re not going to enjoy the meal very much.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Brad added quickly. “I’ll make do. I’m used to this sort of thing.”
As the meal proceeded David understood more fully Grenville’s warning that Brad was in for a less than perfect evening, for as the courses came one by one, it quickly became apparent that the menu was tipped heavily in favor of meats. There was a thick Yorkshire pudding, quail, venison steaks, and a large and succulent brisket of beef. On the stranger side, there was a salmi of owl, tiny roast songbirds, and a dish that Grenville asserted was prepared from the tongues of flamingoes. There was also an assortment of other odd dainties, quinces in syrup, cinnamon water, gingerbread, and little cakes called jumbles, paste of Genoa, Banbury tarts, marzipan, and fruits preserved in sugar that Grenville referred to as suckets. In all, it was more like a feast that one might have imagined encountering in Epicurean Rome rather than in an old English manor house.
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br /> Those dishes that David was courageous enough to sample he discovered were indescribably delicious. Others, like the flamingo tongues, he found too disconcerting to brave. And all was washed down with the ever more dizzyingly wonderful bog-myrtle wine.
With each glass of wine Melanie seemed to loosen up more, and she started to engage in an increasingly animated discussion with Brad, Grenville, and Julia. David noticed that she even sampled the salmi of owl, which so far was the stunner of the evening. And several other things piqued his curiosity. First, he noticed that although Grenville was quaffing down glass after glass of bog-myrtle wine, as were they all, it seemed to have little or no effect on him, and he continued to watch their every move with the unsettling acumen of a falcon watching its prey. Grenville also continued to notice David noticing him, and indeed, a strange sort of silent dialogue had developed between the two of them, Grenville sometimes behaving as if he were entertained by David’s own formidable powers of observation, but other times slipping and appearing to display a mote of annoyance over them.
The second thing that struck David as out of the ordinary was Julia’s appetite. To say that she was ravenous was putting it mildly. She ate more than any of them, partaking of each and every dish and having seconds and thirds when she did. Once she even emitted a short sort of animal-like snarl when Grenville appropriated a slice of brisket that she apparently wanted. On another occasion, when Brad asked Grenville why he owned so many exotic pets and Grenville replied that it was because Julia liked them, David looked up to see Julia smiling, with the wing of a roast songbird protruding from her mouth, and he actually felt an odd chill.
It was toward the end of the meal, between a serving of oxtail soup and seviche of flounder, that David suddenly and inexplicably felt the same strange neuralgia of the jaw that he had first experienced in the thicket. True to form, Grenville also immediately detected his discomfort, but instead of making his normal inquiry about what was wrong he looked quickly at Julia. For a moment she did not notice and was engaged in a boisterous swig of bog-myrtle wine. But then she became aware that she was being stared at. She looked at Grenville and seemed to perceive some message in his eyes. Then she looked at David, and as quickly as the pain had begun, it ended.
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