by Tom Lloyd
‘Dever, I need you to go to the village, there’s still a little light left. I want a staff tending the house by tonight and your uniform will be the best incentive to overcome their fears. If that is not enough, and by the Gods your command as scion should be all they need, tell them their wages will be paid uninterrupted if they come back with you. For those who refuse, remind them who owns the village.’
Dever looked a little startled by that, for I am not a hard master and it would be an evil thing to evict people as autumn encroached. I hoped the fear of that evil would prove enough, but my blood had also been stirred by the pitiful state of house, housekeeper and ponies. In a rash temper I was ready to do as I implied. After a glance to gauge my mood, he turned and departed, his mouth set in a grim line.
I was left standing at the fireplace, my little fire struggling onward and upward, adrift in the energetic swirl of my wife and daughter as they fought to revive the house from its slumber. I’m afraid I could not bring myself to join them, not quite yet.
Unable to bear the oppressive atmosphere that ruled Moorview, I slumped into a chair, facing out through the terrace doors to the loneliness beyond. The light was fading fast, the gloom rushing out from under rock and heather towards us. It felt a vain effort to light the lamps, throw open the windows and set the fires blazing, but my family did just that.
Never mind the creeping chill of the air, my wife forced Moorview to breathe it in, to stir from its decaying slumber and return to the world of the living. By the time the servants returned, trailing disconsolately behind Dever’s horse, Moorview had begun its rise back from the otherworldly grasp of the moor. Though darkness surrounded us, we shone our light as defiantly as we had before that great battle almost forty years ago.
It was late before we at last found ourselves back in the family room, resting a few precious minutes before retiring to bed. Supper was a meagre affair, a fatty broth and hard lumps of bread that was nevertheless hot and sustaining. I looked over my little flock with pride. Even little Sana now dozing in her mother’s arms had helped. Though all five children appeared worn out, there was at least a satisfied smile on each face.
The rooms of the house had been tidied and cleaned as best we could, the stables would see no deaths, fires were lit in our bedrooms and fresh linen put on the beds. For all the work still to come on the morrow it was enough for tonight.
I took a moment at the window, staring out into the void made impenetrable by the flickering lamps behind me. From the dark of the moor came the sounds of night, the sudden crack of a falling branch, the hoots and howls of the wild. A soft shower of rain began to patter through the leaves of the trees that flanked the castle.
The rain did nothing to calm the creatures of the moor; if anything they seemed incensed by its failure to dim our lights. A discordant concert of insects, the click of bats and the bark of distant hunters assailed me as I stood resting against the shutter frame, but at my side I felt the uncaring strength of stone. When Cebana came to fetch me back, I felt a curious victory as I closed and secured those shutters.
Whatever worries I had could not penetrate that heartening sense. The thieving maid, the damaged roof, the broken cistern, and the chaos my mother had left behind; all only a few of the tasks I had to come. At least I felt at home again. That the servants crept about with fearful stares, jumping at the slightest noise and finding all manner of excuses not to be alone, I dismissed as the least of my concerns.
The Cold Light of Day
The next day came all too soon. After a light breakfast, we took a turn about the grounds to survey our home in the light of day. Berin delighted us all by bringing a pony to the lower gate, as Sana had requested as soon as she opened her eyes. As most of them were, it was a gentle and affectionate creature – thin but with a shaggy coat hiding that from Sana. My daughter wasted no time in proclaiming the little mare her property, hugging it fiercely while her eyes dared me to deny her it. Needless to say, I could not. I had done the same many years ago.
There was a slight ground frost that morning, nothing severe but it added a sparkle that managed to redeem the muddy and overgrown features of Moorview. The sky was grey and unhappy, holding more than a promise of tears from heaven, but our turn about the grounds saw none and we were in as good a cheer as could be expected. Only the nag of my mother’s interment spoiled the mood at all. She had of course been sealed in a coffin after her death, but family tradition stated that no one went to the final rest without a family member at their side.
My mother’s unexpected death had made that impossible, but at least I could be there when we took her to the crypt. By some peculiarity, the family crypt was located more than fifty yards outside the walls, nestled at the foot of a rocky outcrop and overlooking the moor. The crypt itself drove a fair way into the rock, exploiting a natural fissure that had originally been used as a temple. Some ancestor of mine had built a shrine within the house itself and thus the temple had proved unnecessary since, during my childhood at least, our weekly worship was conducted in the village temple. Since it was consecrated ground, and secure, it had become a family tomb and served very well in that respect for many generations.
Seeing Madam Haparl being slowly helped out to the rampart terrace, I left my family and made my way up through the lower gate and up the stone stair that led up there. The main tower was set against the perimeter wall, at the near-side of which was a large terrace at rampart height that afforded an uninterrupted view of the moor. My intention was to chide her obstinate refusal to rest, but the gleam in her eye defeated such intentions. Despite the footman supporting her weight, her face was determined enough and she gave me no time to speak.
‘My Lord, forgive the intrusion, but the sheriff is here as you requested.’
‘Thank you, Madam Haparl.’ I went to the battlements and leaned over to call out to the new scion. ‘Dever, the sheriff is here, could you deal with him please?’
Dever nodded and, giving Sana a brotherly poke on the way past that produced a sudden burst of giggles, walked back with all the carefree confidence of youth. Returning to our housekeeper I dismissed the servant supporting her and directed Madam Haparl to a bench. It provided a fine view of the moor, but the slight camber of the ground was such that my eye drifted again and again off to the right. I could feel the presence of the family crypt lurking heavy and dark there, just beyond the trees.
‘The priest will be here in an hour or so. He’ll have morning rituals before he can come to see over the interment.’
A slight inclination of the head acknowledged my words, but it seemed I would have to be more direct.
‘Your words yesterday – afraid of what got my mother – what did you mean by that?’
She flinched and pulled her shawl close about her, fixing her eyes as low as possible, now fearful rather than evasive. I took hold of her arm, then withdrew hurriedly as I remembered her stroke. She flinched at the touch but made no sound.
‘I’m sorry …’ I began. As I did she gave a weak cough to clear her throat and I kept quiet to let her speak.
‘Did the doctor not tell you, sir?’
Our voices were a remarkable contrast – mine loud and urgent, hers weak and incapable of haste. ‘His letter was short and not very helpful. He said her heart gave out, nothing more. This house isn’t the one I left; there’s a stink of fear in everything now. Just what happened?’
‘Her heart gave out, there’s no doubt of that.’
‘But what more?’ I exclaimed impatiently. ‘Had she been ill? Yesterday you near made out that she had been murdered!’
She made no reply at first, just stared out over the desolate moor. I followed her gaze, but instead of losing myself in the gentle curve of the ground my eyes came to rest on a small bird, a speckled wren if I remember my childhood accurately. It hopped a yard or so in our direction, cocked its head slightly and then kept still. For a few seconds I was sure the wren was watching us, its quizzical stance direct
ed toward Madam Haparl as if the creatures of the moor also required an explanation.
With no apparent warning, the bird stabbed downward then took flight, a writhing worm in its beak. The unexpected movement made me flinch, only very slightly but enough to wake Madam Haparl from her reverie. Slowly, and with more than a little difficulty, she turned herself enough to look me straight in the eye. It was a cold face that regarded me, wary eyes made malevolent by the change of the stroke.
‘I wouldn’t know about that, sir, but the look on her face – it was like nothing I’ve ever seen, nor care to again. Your mother had no weakness of the heart, none that I knew. I was fetched when she was found. I stood by while the priest was called and I wrapped the body with her maid. I’ll not forget the look upon her face, not if I live another sixty-four winters. The countess died of fright, terror that stopped her heart cold. What she faced there I don’t know, but …’
‘But it was enough to kill her?’ I breathed, the icy hands of dread clutching at my heart.
She inclined her head again.
‘And no one saw anything? The dogs didn’t … The dogs! Where are they?’ How I had failed to noticed before I could scarcely believe. One reason the house struck me as so empty was the lack of dogs underfoot, something that had escaped me entirely. My mood had been so affected, their absence had just been marked as yet another aspect of Moorview’s gloom.
‘The dogs are gone, sent away a few months back.’
‘But why? What possible reason was there?’ There had always been dogs at home; they were part of every estate and manor in the country. To send them away seemed absurd.
‘They would have been no help. Didn’t guard no more, just hid indoors and kept to the kitchen for the main part. They howled all night every night. None of us could sleep, so the countess sent them away. Only Cook’s little rat-terrier was interested in going out, forever after a scent as the others yammered all night. Whatever afeared them all, Scraps was after. Chased trails all day around the house he did, till he got out one night.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we heard him scream. Never heard a dog scream before. They’ll yelp when you tread on them, howl when they’re lost, but Scraps, he screamed. It set the others off worse than before. That’s when the countess said to take them away, give them to the villagers or the Winsan family.’
‘And Scraps? What about him?’ Gruesome visions swam before my eyes, of a torn little body being tossed through the air, of Cook’s shrieks as a trail of blood led her around the house next morning.
‘We don’t know sir. Never saw hair nor hide again. No trace, no blood or anything. He was just gone. Fearless that dog was, would have chased a lion without thought. Till he screamed.’
I sat back, imagining the eager little terrier as I remembered him, a white bundle of energy and enthusiasm. Pictured him pushing his way out a half closed door, the moons half hidden behind black clouds as they illuminated his quest and he followed a scent that had consumed his days and nights. Racing down the terrace, perhaps following the paths or cutting off into the inky depths of the forest beyond, chasing his prey down.
Until he screamed.
‘But what could have happened?’
‘I don’t know sir, but I’ve no wish to meet whatever your mother saw. Though I’ll not leave here I’ve no wish to die.’
‘Where did you find her?’
‘The countess? On the second-floor landing, the corridor toward your father’s old study. There’d been a storm that night, probably she’d heard the shutter there come loose and couldn’t sleep for the banging.’
‘The window was open?’ I said sharply, but she just shook her head sadly, as if to say that I wasn’t the first to wonder at that.
‘One had slipped its bolt. The sheriff said it couldn’t have been forced from the outside. Anyway, what man could climb that wall?’ She jerked her head that way and I followed the movement. It was enough to remind me that my father’s old study had been in the tower side, the wall sheer and free of creeper.
‘Could someone have entered another way?’
‘Of course sir, we’ve no need for guards in these times. I always locked the house, or someone did if my strength shamed me, but such a large house is impossible to secure completely. The sheriff said he could find half-a-dozen ways to break in, and then there’s the downed tree that broke the window in the long gallery.’
‘Ah yes, I saw that. What happened there? I didn’t see any disease in the stump. It was a good silver birch, was it not?’
‘It was, and none of the groundsmen could say why the storm blew it down.’
‘Could it have been the work of man?’
‘No sir, there was no sign of axe-work, only scratches made by some animal and that must have been seven feet off the ground.’
‘So what has happened here? Tell me straight, I beg of you. Tell me what curse has fallen on my family and home.’
I must have sounded as desperate as I felt, for her sharp gaze softened as I spoke. She loved this place as much as I, perhaps more so, and I knew whatever distress I felt would be shared.
‘I cannot, not for fear but I just don’t know. I know only as much as the others; that some horror walks the moors at night, and the woods and the grounds and the very house too perhaps. I know to be afraid of the shadows. I know not to be alone. I know the spirits of the moor are restless for something. Dogs can feel the unnatural and hounds that wouldn’t hesitate to make for a Brichen boar were so terrified they’d mess their own beds before going outside.’
The honesty in her rasping voice chilled me and I found myself unable to reply. It was Cebana who came to my aid, a comforting hand appearing on my shoulder though I recoiled from the unexpected touch.
‘My dear, are you well?’ she asked, alarmed by my reaction. I managed a weak smile that hardly convinced her, but she understood enough not to press the matter. ‘The sheriff would like to speak to you, to pay his respects.’
My mind was blank for a moment before I returned to reality and struggled to my feet. Cebana ushered me toward the house, saying as she did so, ‘Go on, he’s in the library with Dever. I’ll help Madam Haparl back inside.’
I did as I was told, the murmur of Cebana’s voice receding into the background as I returned to my duties.
The sheriff was a solid, thoughtful man of thirty-odd winters. His bushy, sandy-coloured eyebrows jutted out to cast a shadow over his face, their wild excesses a strange contrast to his neatly trimmed beard. While his face appeared guarded, his manner could not have been more open. Though he was a landowner in his own small right and not my tenant, he was courteous and accommodating in every available aspect.
The maid had admitted stealing some minor trinkets, nothing grand that we would have missed unadvised. Dever had already decided that she simply be released from service and ordered to leave the district. This, the sheriff asked me to confirm – a suzerain has nearly as much legal power as a magistrate and it would save the man a trip if I agreed. I would have preferred her to feel a few stripes on her back but the decision, perhaps rightly, had been taken out of my hands and we moved on to other matters.
The details he gave me of my mother’s death were as Madam Haparl had, lacking the atmosphere perhaps but congruent none the less. When summoned, he had inspected the scene and entire house as best he could. There were several ways a man could enter the house with no hurscals manning the walls, squeezing himself through easily tackled windows and the like, but no evidence that it had been done. Other than the look of fear on my mother’s face, there was no sign of foul play to be found.
Forel and I watched the sheriff leave with the dejected maid trailing on the heels of his mount, then returned to the house to set our minds to the task of assessing my mother’s belongings. Her jumble room had in former times been a painting studio. In summer it was a delightful place to spend the afternoons, light and airy with a bank of shutters on either side of the window to enhance the
vista. Unfortunately, these days it lived up to its new title.
From that very room a whole host of paintings had been produced to hang in pride of place wherever they were gifted. Indeed, one great landscape painted there is hung in the great hall of Narkang’s Silver Palace. Secretly, we have always felt it inferior to its sister piece here, but both kings have taken great pleasure in it and the scene is much copied for the nation’s taverns.
Forel pushed open the door and we regarded the mess with a dispirited eye. Antique dressers, an ornate writing desk, stacked and forgotten pictures, all of these merely added surfaces for trinkets, papers of all sorts and ages, hats, scarves, ornaments and much more. For a full thirty seconds we stood there and contemplated how to even enter the room.
‘It looks as if she was looking for something,’ commented my son as he overturned a ribbon-bound packet of papers with his toe. It did indeed, for all the drawers were open and in places, letters had been placed with the individual pages side by side.
‘But what could have persuaded her to create such chaos?’
Forel had no answer to that. He shrugged the question away and stepped carefully through the room. Picking up an official-looking document he brandished it in my direction.
‘A deed. Perhaps she needed to raise some money?’
‘I’d have heard of it surely?’ I replied.
‘Perhaps not. She was a proud woman, and independent. She was happy to live here all alone as the dowager countess rather than give up the estate to you. If she had needed money, would she have asked?’
I nodded at the truth in his words, though I felt for sure our nearest neighbours, the Winsans would have heard of any sale and informed me. Our families had always been close and to not offer any property to some part of the Winsans first would have been extremely strange.
As Forel picked his way about the room, lifting odd things and ‘hmm’ing at what was revealed, I decided that we first needed to collect all the papers together, then they could be sorted and we could investigate what other treasures were here. I suspected that I would find one of the writing boxes on the floor would contain my mother’s favourite jewellery. No doubt an evening would be spent trying to remember the tricks to open the various compartments.