He guessed that one of his men's musket balls had struck a lantern that had spilt onto a powder barrel. Whatever, the shot had caused the explosion and the explosion had taken the heart from the village's defenders. They were running.
Tours felt an immense anger. Le Revenant would escape again, and the last soldier who had let Le Revenant escape had climbed the wooden stairs of Nantes' guillotine. 'On, you bastards, on!'
The troops, panting from the charge, ran ragged into the village's single street.
They took no prisoners, there were none to take. The rebels had fled.
There was scarcely anything to plunder, only some coarse bread, some cheese, a goat, some wasp-eaten apples, and two dozen chickens.
The house that had exploded burned fiercely, the rafters collapsing in a shower of sparks. The heat was extraordinary, making the men stay a good thirty yards from the roaring flames. At least one man had died in the explosion, for his body lay close to the back door of the house, the man's head almost beneath the fallen, white hot roof beams.
Colonel Tours was not interested in the dead man. He cursed his own men, cursed their failure, tried to think of a glib excuse that would persuade Citizen Marchenoir in Paris why they had failed again.
His men did not care about Citizen Marchenoir. They cared for the good boots they could see on the corpse. Good boots were a rarity in the France of liberty.
They found a hook in one of the village barns, a rope in a stable, and they tossed the roped hook to snag the corpse before the fire destroyed those good boots.
They had to throw the hook a dozen times before it caught in the dead man's clothes. They pulled the corpse back from the scorching, terrible flames and eager hands reached for the fine leather riding boots. They had agreed to cast lots for them.
The top half of the corpse was horribly burned, the head and shoulders almost shrivelled to half their size and blackened by the flames.
Tours watched them. He was tempted to order them to give him the fine boots, but what use were boots to a doomed man?
'Colonel! Colonel!' One of his officers was shouting. 'Colonel!'
'What is it!'
The Captain brought Tours a sword that had been hidden beneath the half-shrivelled body.
The hilt was still hot. The snakeskin grip had been browned by the heat. Tours drew it.
It was a lovely, lethal weapon. The steel shone in the brilliant light of the fire. The officers looked enviously at the Colonel.
The blade was engraved. Tours held it so that the light struck at an angle and peered at the design. He saw a coat of arms, lavishly rich, supported by armoured knights and surmounted by a coroneted beast. Beneath it was a motto, two words of English, 'Dare All'.
The shield bore a smeared lance-head, the sign of Lazen, and slowly, unbelievably, it dawned on Colonel Tours who the dead man was.
In a French village, looted and gutted, beside a house that burned itself to fine ash, Colonel Tours was looking at the body of Lazen's sixth Earl.
There would be no coronet in his grave, no dusty plumes on his horses, no velvet for his pall.
Le Revenant was dead.
—«»—«»—«»—
The next evening, as they waited for dinner, Campion surprised the three men by saying she was not hungry. She took a bottle of wine, a glass, and walked out of the Castle. Mrs Hutchinson tried to follow her, but Campion insisted on being alone. She went to the temple.
She sat on the wall and stared at the incised zodiac.
She had argued with herself for so long. She believed in the magic of love, that the stars could fall to silver a world, yet duty mocked her belief.
Duty was marriage. There was no need to love, only a need to make the lawyers happy, to preserve the house.
She thought of Skavadale. She thought how her body had shuddered when he touched her. She thought of his arms about her, the kiss, she thought of his words that he had himself mocked, but said all the same. Stars in her eyes, lilies at her feet, and love in her hands.
Yet the arguments spilt like water held in her hands. If Toby died then Sir Julius would crawl out from wherever he hid in his foulness and she knew that she could not spend her life fending him off or protecting the treasures of the house against him and his friends. She would need a man.
And if Toby did not die? Then she could not marry a gypsy, a man known to the house as a groom. She wondered why not.
She smiled into the sunset and spoke aloud. 'I can do whatever I like.'
But the words sounded strange to her. She had duties. She had been reared, not to extravagance and careless fancy, but to responsibilities. You live in this house, her father had told her, because you deserve to.
She thought of the Gypsy's promise.
She thought of her own promise.
She stood.
She held the bottle over the steps, paused, and tilted it. She watched the wine fall like a libation to the old gods, the gods who had made a creature fairer than the dawn, and then abandoned it.
Cartmel Scrimgeour, standing with Lord Culloden in the window of the Music Room, frowned. 'What is She doing?'
The answer was a discord played on the spinet, a sound that made both men turn round.
'She's growing up,' Achilles d'Auxigny said. 'She's discovering that the world isn't a warm cradle, but a great cold, horrid, open vastness. She'll cry when she sees it. Any child would cry if they could see the waste spaces of adulthood. Childhood's end, Scrimgeour. Childhood's end.'
The lawyer laughed. 'I'm sure I don't understand you at all!'
'I'm French,' Achilles said in curt explanation. He closed the lid on the keyboard and walked into the evening to meet his niece.
She told him she would marry Lord Culloden in two weeks' time.
He put one arm about her shoulders and led her to a back door of the Castle. He took her that way so that no one should see her tears.
She would be married.
Chapter 16
Old men dozed.
Young men yawned and wondered which drawing-room they would conquer the next day.
A knight from the shires snored gently, his ample belly rising and falling. Flies walked among the horse hairs of the Speaker's wig.
It was an autumn evening, yet the heat in Britain's House of Commons was as oppressive as on any midsummer night. Great mats had been hung at the open windows, mats soaked in aromatic liquids to fight the stench of the River Thames.
'Believe me!' The voice rose in the chamber. 'Those who attempt to level, never equalize!' There were a few murmurs of agreement. Some of the opposition slumped lower on their benches. Valentine Larke was one who murmured agreement.
A member entered the far door and walked carefully within one of the two woven lines that ran the length of the carpeted central aisle of parliament. If two opposing members faced each other with their toes on the lines, then neither could reach the other with a drawn sword. Thus, by toeing the line, was the peace of Parliament maintained.
The newcomer was searching the government benches. He saw Larke, smiled in recognition, and came towards him. 'I've become a message boy!' He gave Larke a sealed paper, then glanced towards the orator. 'Oh God! Burke on his hobby horse?, I suppose one had better listen.' He sat wearily.
Larke pulled the gummed red wafer from the paper.
He unfolded it. The message was in French.
Not a muscle moved in his face as he read it. To anyone watching it would have seemed as if the message was of trivial interest. The flat, bland eyes read it twice, then he leaned over to the man who had brought it. 'Who gave it to you?'
'Fellow outside, Larke. Handsome beggar!' He saw he had not satisfied Larke. 'Tall, blue eyes, black hair, young. Civil sort of fellow. Apologized for troubling me. Not a bit, I said…' He spoke to air. Larke had stood and, with a curt bow to the Speaker, left the House.
—«»—«»—«»—
Valentine Larke crossed WestminsterBridge and turned right towards
Vauxhall. He walked fast. It was a warm night, the river's effluent stinking. He shrugged off the whores who accosted him as he came close to the PleasureGardens.
He stopped at the entrance and, for two pence, purchased one of the black masks which were popular with the Garden's clients. Yet he did not go inside. He could hear the music and laughter, but his summons did not lead to the shadowed walks and private arbours of the VauxhallGardens.
He put the mask on.
He carried a heavy stick which he thumped heavily on the cobbles as he walked into a small, stinking side street that led to the river. The street was dark. It was a likely place for footpads, yet Larke's size and the confident sound of his stick carried him safely to a window-less brick building.
The building had large, double doors like a warehouse. A single torch lit the entrance. Cut into one of the doors was a smaller door on which Larke knocked hard.
A shutter was pulled aside. An eye inspected him. 'It's a guinea to come in. Two for the bottom tier, three for company.'
'Fetch Harvey.'
'Who are you?'
Larke pounded the heavy stick on the door. 'Fetch Harvey!'
A minute later, without paying a penny, he was inside the notorious Harvey's Palace. The proprietor bobbed in front of him, telling him what a privilege it was, and would he like an artiste for company? Larke snarled at him to be quiet. 'What staircase for room six?'
'The third, sir. Over there, sir.'
'Now leave me.'
Some wine, sir?'
'Leave me!'
It was dark inside Harvey's Palace. The building was a huge, echoing, brick-built cavern. In its centre, like a grotesque half-built ship supported by timber baulks and surrounded by spidery scaffolding, was a great wooden bowl. Chinks of light slashed from between its planks. The room was oddly silent, though Larke guessed that in the high cabins that were built above the bowl were probably a hundred or more people.
Stairs rose between the scaffolding, rickety stairs that creaked as Larke slowly climbed to the first tier of rooms. He had to peer closely to see the number six crudely chalked on one of the doors. He knocked.
'Come!'
Larke entered. He found himself in a square room, its walls, floor and ceiling made of wood. It had a table, three chairs, and a wide bed crammed into its small space. One man waited for him, a man sitting in shadow who growled as Larke closed the door. 'Take the mask off, Belial.'
Larke felt a shiver of pure fear. When he had heard that the Gypsy had delivered the message he had thought he might find the Gypsy himself here, or even some other emissary from Marchenoir, yet the man who waited for him was no emissary. It was Lucifer himself.
The leader of the Fallen Ones was swathed in a great, black cloak. He had told Larke to remove the mask, yet he wore an identical one himself. The black nosepiece appeared on him like the beak of some dark bird of prey. His eyes glittered behind the holes of the cheap lacquered disguise. 'Come and sit, Belial.'
On the far wall, beside which Lucifer sat, was a curtain. Bright light showed at its edges. Lucifer, as Larke edged by the bed, gestured at the table on which were plates of cold food. 'Eat if you want, it's foul enough.'
Larke, before sitting, pulled the curtain back, letting in a flood of light.
He was looking down from a hooded window. The upper half of the bowl was entirely composed of similar windows, tiered above each other, and all hooded so that the patrons of Harvey's Palace could not be seen from any other window. They could see only down to the floor of the bowl where, six feet below Larke, two girls writhed on a carpeted floor. Their naked bodies glistened.
As Larke watched, a hatch opened at the bowl's side. He sensed a sigh from all the hidden, hooded windows.
A man struggled through the hatch. The sigh turned to quiet laughter.
The man's monstrous body defied belief. He was huge. His naked, grease-smeared flesh wobbled as he heaved and grunted and finally rolled onto the floor of the pit. His fat hung in great dewlaps. He had breasts that fell to his navel while his belly, like a sack of fat, hung like an apron. He grinned from beneath a yellowed wig that made him look uncannily like the King. He turned to lay on his back and the great rolls of greased fat quivered and rippled and settled as the man spread his arms and legs wide. The two girls made small, squeaking noises as they crawled towards him and as, like white worms on a huge yellow slug, they pulled their thin; sinuous bodies onto the quivering slapping mound of his heaped, bunched flesh. Larke let the curtain drop.
Lucifer sneered. 'Squeamish? Or are you worried that this place takes profits from your own whorehouses?'
Larke looked into the masked face. 'This is my place.'
Lucifer laughed. 'Then you might serve decent wine. This stuff is piss and vinegar. And for Christ's sake, sit down.'
Larke sat. He was nervous. He had never met privately with Lucifer, only Marchenoir did that. Lucifer spoke to Moloch, and Moloch sent the coded messages with the Gypsy to Belial, and Belial spoke with Chemosh. That was how it should be, yet here was Lucifer, his eyes glittering like pale stones, sitting in the dusty darkness of Harvey's Palace.
Lucifer poured some wine for Larke. 'Tomorrow, in Paris, there will be an announcement.' He spoke in French. He pushed the glass towards Larke. 'Moloch will announce that an enemy of France is dead. Le Revenant. The Lazender boy. The sixth Earl is dead. Burned to an ember. Dead.'
Dead. Valentine Larke stared at Lucifer. Slowly, as the news dawned, he smiled. Toby Lazender dead! The sixth Earl dead! The Fallen Ones victorious!
Lucifer laughed. 'Surprised you? Thought it would never happen? Well, he's dead. Burned to death, and just to make sure they're chopping off his charred head today with Dr Guillotin's machine.' He raised his glass. 'Dead.'
Larke raised his own. He felt the enormity of this news grow in him like a stupendous bubble of joy. They had done it! They had won!
Lucifer sipped his wine. 'Moloch has done well, Belial.'
Larke nodded eagerly. 'He's done well.'
From beyond the curtains came grunts and slaps, moans and cries. The two men ignored the sounds. Lucifer scratched beneath the nose piece of his mask. 'Moloch has done well. You have done well.' He paused to sip his wine. 'Chemosh has yet to do anything!'
Larke frowned. He had sponsored Lord Culloden for the Fallen Ones and if Chemosh failed it reflected upon Larke. His voice was guarded. 'He's marrying the girl on Saturday.' He looked sharply at the dark-cloaked man. 'My God! If she hears about her brother's death…'
'She won't! I told you it's not being announced till tomorrow.' Lucifer paused to sprinkle pepper and lemon juice on an oyster. 'From Paris to Lazen must be at least six days!' He tipped the shell's contents onto his long tongue and his adam's apple slipped up and down his thin throat. One of the girls in the pit screamed. There was laughter from the tiered cabins.
Lucifer leaned back in his chair. 'Where is the new Earl of Lazen?'
'In one of my houses.' Sir Julius was a virtual prisoner who fed, drank and whored at Larke's expense. He had the pox, he had a skin disease, and he could hold little in his belly.
Lucifer traced a star on the table with spilt wine. 'You go to Lazen in the morning, Belial. I want you to arrive during the wedding service on Saturday. You can do that?' Larke nodded. Lucifer spoke softly. 'Take men with you. Take the new Earl. Let the girl get married, then break the news of her brother's death to her.'
Larke smiled. It was dawning on him that the plan had worked, had really worked! The fifth and sixth Earls were dead! Julius was the seventh, and he had signed his life away, while the girl, the final obstacle, was to be married. They had won. The Fallen Angels, unseen, unheard, and unsuspected, had taken the greatest fortune in England and made it theirs.
The girl screamed in the pit again. Voices in the cabins shouted for more. Lucifer smiled. 'How many girls die here?'
'Two a month? More in winter when it gets busier.'
'And the bodies?'
&nbs
p; 'The river.'
Lucifer's black, shining mask looked towards Larke. 'What are your plans for the Lady Campion Culloden?'
For a moment Larke wondered if Lucifer was suggesting that she should be brought to this place. The thought amused him, but he hid his smile. 'Marriage and death, just as we planned.'
'That was not what we planned.' Lucifer's voice was gratingly low. 'I thought we planned to give her the pox, to disfigure her. It was Chemosh who decided to marry her.'
'Which he will do,' Larke said defensively.
'Then how will she die?'
Larke shrugged. In truth he did not know what Lord Culloden had decided. 'A riding accident? It seems the girl likes horses.'
'When?'
'I don't know.'
Lucifer did not speak for some seconds. From the pit came gasping sounds, low moans, and the slap of flesh. The shining black mask was staring at the table. 'If her father dies, and her brother dies, and then she dies, will there not be men in this country who will take some small interest?'
Larke nodded. 'I made that very point to Chemosh.'
'And his solution?' The mask looked at Larke, who could do nothing but spread his hands helplessly.
'I don't know.'
'If indeed he has a solution.' Lucifer leaned back. 'Our friend Chemosh must think himself most fortunate. He'll be ploughing a pretty field, yes?'
'Indeed.'
'I must thank you, Belial, for sending the portrait to Moloch. He was most pleased.' He paused, and his voice was like the whisper that echoed in the Mad Duke's shrine. 'Most pleased.'
'Good.' Larke was nervous.
'Moloch, who has done well,' and the voice was lower still, nothing but a sinister sibilance from the hunched, dark figure, 'would like to meet the girl.' He laughed.
Larke said nothing.
Lucifer seemed to shiver, as if controlling some terrible emotion. 'Moloch has a peasant's appetite, a priest's cruelty, and the strength of an ox. Would you like to see the girl with Moloch?'
Larke licked his lips. It was known among the Fallen Angels that Lucifer favoured the grim Frenchman most. 'It would be amusing.'
A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels Page 26