by S. D. Sykes
I climbed the ladder cautiously to see the hooded boy next to the bare window that overlooked the giant waterwheel. Baby Henry mewled in his arms. Opposite me, Humbert peered through a hole in the wall, where a great patch of wood had been pulled away and stolen. As we watched Geoffrey, the great wheel still churned through the river, mindlessly obeying the force of the water.
I spoke softly. ‘Give the child back, Geoffrey.’
Humbert stepped through the gap in the wall. I climbed the final rung of the ladder. We were closing in.
Or so we thought.
Now the boy thrust Henry through the window, letting his shawl drop and his pink legs dangle precariously over the great paddles of the wheel. The hood fell from Geoffrey’s face. ‘Come any closer and I’ll drop him.’
But this was not Geoffrey Hayward. This was another child altogether.
I froze. ‘Mary?’
She looked at me defiantly, though there was a beading of sweat across her forehead.
‘What are you doing?’ I said. ‘Henry’s your brother.’
Mary reddened. ‘No he’s not. I hate him.’ She shook the baby and he squealed.
From the corner of my eye I could see that Humbert was preparing to leap forward. His hands were tightened into fists. Terrified that such a move would only cause Mary to drop the baby into the paddles of the wheel, I edged forward to look upon the girl’s pale and pained face. ‘Don’t do this,’ I said. My voice was soft. I did not want to alarm Mary, for the baby would not survive the long drop from the window onto the wheel. If the giant wooden paddles did not break his tiny back, then the icy water of the river would certainly end his short life.
She trembled, and her grip on the baby seemed to falter. ‘Stay away from me.’
‘This wasn’t your idea, was it?’
‘Go away!’
‘It was Eloise’s, wasn’t it? And Brother Peter’s.You don’t really want to harm Henry, do you?’
‘I’ll drop him,’ she screamed. ‘He won’t live.’
A whistle came from the corner of the room, and I turned my attention to the shadows, where I saw Becky crouching in the shadows. Next to her, on its rotten perch, sat the large, hooded bird that I had last seen in London.
‘Becky,’ I said, ‘tell your sister to let Henry go.’
Becky only backed away further into the corner, as if she wanted the walls to consume her. Her face was stained with tears. The bird gave another rasping whistle and began to dance from foot to foot.
I took a further step forward. ‘Mary, please. Don’t do this. You’re a kind and merciful girl.’ I pointed to the bird. ‘You rescued Rab from your father, didn’t you? Why would you want to harm a small and innocent child?’
A tear had formed in her eye. ‘This boy has stolen everything from me and Becky.’
‘You don’t mean that, Mary.Those are somebody else’s words.’
She dangled the baby further out into the cold air. He squirmed and kicked, as if he knew this was the end of his life. ‘My father was Lord Versey too,’ she said.
‘Just give Henry back to me, Mary.This is not the way to solve your grievances.’
‘Go away!’
‘Your brother deserves to live.’ I kept my eyes firmly upon hers. ‘He’s just a baby.’
Her face was now coated in tears.
‘You can learn to love Henry,’ I said, edging forward another step. ‘I know you can. Despite what your Aunt Eloise says.’
‘Keep away from me,’ she said, but her voice was losing its bristle.
Another step. ‘Just give Henry to me, and we can forget this ever happened.’ I held out my hands.
‘I hate him,’ she said, though now she held the baby a little closer to her body.
‘Please, Mary.’
‘I can’t.’ Her bottom lip quivered and her eye twitched. ‘I promised.’
‘You don’t need to keep such a promise.’ Another step.
‘Yes I do,’ she blubbered.
‘Let me take him.’ I was so close now. Her eyes were locked into mine.
‘I can’t,’ she whispered.
‘Just let me have him. Nobody will be angry. We love you.’ Her face dissolved into tears. She thrust the baby at me, and then ran into the corner to seek solace with her sister – but Becky would not touch her.
After Henry had suckled at his mother’s breast for more than an hour, he fell asleep, and Humbert was able to carry him away to his crib.
‘Don’t take your eyes from him,’ said Clemence as Humbert left the room. This was a redundant piece of advice, since I don’t believe Humbert would even have contemplated blinking.
Clemence readjusted her tunic, and then looked to me.
‘You should have believed me,’ I said.
She took a long slurp of ale to quench the raging thirst that was always kindled by feeding her son. ‘Surely you understand why I suspected you?’
I gave a snort and shook my head. ‘No, Clemence. I don’t.’ She frowned. ‘You had a lot to gain from the death of Henry,’ she repeated, as if this were an accepted truth.
‘Except that I’m your brother and I’m not a murderer.’
Her face reddened, and I would say she was embarrassed. Ashamed even. ‘Yes, Oswald. You are my brother. Even if we don’t share the same parents.’ She looked to the floor. ‘And I am truly sorry for doubting you.’
She held out her hand to me, but I would not take it. Instead I felt my temple, where Humbert’s stone had cut my skin. ‘You’ve inflicted a good wound.’
She tried to smile, but it was awkward. ‘Women like a man with a battle-scarred face.’
‘Would you have tortured me, Clemence?’
She looked to the floor again. ‘My baby had disappeared. I was desperate.’
‘So, that’s a yes?’
‘No,’ she said firmly.
We watched the fire for a while, before I summoned the energy for our next discussion. ‘You must be merciful to Mary,’ I said. ‘She’s just a child herself.’
My sister shuddered. ‘A child who abducted and then tried to murder my son.’
‘She was indoctrinated, Clemence. By her own aunt, and a priest. She wouldn’t have hurt Henry. I’m sure of it.’
Clemence pursed her lips. ‘Don’t ask me to forgive the girl, because I won’t.’
I sighed. ‘Couldn’t you try? She is your stepdaughter.’
‘No.’
She poured me some ale and served it to me.The act was symbolic, as she had never done so before. Then she sat next to me on the bench. ‘So we have not one butcher bird, but two. Eloise Cooper and Brother Peter.’
I rubbed my hands through my hair and felt at the scabs on my scalp. ‘I don’t think they had anything to do with the murders of the other infants.’
‘You still suspect John Barrow?’
I nodded.
She raised an eyebrow sceptically. ‘Are you sure the earlier murders were not part of their plan? Make us believe a madman is hunting for newborn babies, so that they could disguise their own crime against Henry?’
‘Peter wouldn’t kill two small children, Clemence.’
She stood up. ‘Of course not. Instead he would persuade an eleven-year-old girl to do his work. The man is a veritable saint.’
I sighed. For this saint was my father. His blood ran in my veins. Could his cruel nature be bred into my bones? My eyes returned to the fire, where the flames licked at the wood, forming a miniature palace beneath the trivet of oak. When I was a child I used to look into such blazing chambers and imagine I could see into a different world, where tiny people lived among the burning embers and soaring flames. Sometimes I fancied I could see their beds and their chairs. Even their horses and cows.
The flames had entranced me, and I must have been falling to sleep, for Clemence touched my arm. ‘Go to bed, Oswald. You’re exhausted.’ I stood up and left the room, but she called me back. ‘Thank you, brother. You saved Henry’s life.’
The dungeons beneath the castle still held Eloise Cooper and Brother Peter – and though it was tempting for me to ride away and leave their punishment to my sister Clemence, it would have been the coward’s option. Before I went to bed I sought out Slow, the dirty servant who slept by the fire, and told him to take some supper to Eloise, for, regardless of her crimes, the woman still carried my child. I resolved to speak to them both the next morning. The events of the past day had indeed been exhausting – Clemence was correct. But as I tried to sleep that night, the sobs of Mary de Caburn kept me awake. The girl crouched in the corner of the solar and kept her guilty face hidden from the world.
The following morning, after a quick breakfast, I descended to the dungeons to carry out the unpleasant task of questioning Eloise and Peter. Clemence insisted upon coming with me, but for once, I was pleased of her company and support.
When the door to Eloise’s cell was opened, an unpleasant fug emerged from the chamber. Eloise was standing in the corner, and though she was tired and dirty, she attempted to hold herself with some dignity. Once I might have been impressed by her composure, but now her self-control repulsed me.
Seeing my face at the door, she appealed to me. ‘Oswald. For Christ’s sakes. Get me out of here.’
‘You think you deserve to be freed?’
She cursed under her breath. ‘It was just a joke.’ She gave a shrill laugh and then pointed to Clemence. ‘We just wanted to give this vicious old bitch a scare. Imagine her as your stepmother. No wonder the poor girls ran away to London.’
‘Stop lying Eloise,’ I said.
She waved her hand at me. ‘What will you do then? Keep me here for ever and starve me to death?’
Clemence butted in. ‘That would be a suitable punishment for you.’
Eloise held her stomach. ‘Just give me some food. I beg of you.’ She looked to me pleadingly. ‘Oswald. Have mercy. I’m carrying your child and I’ve had nothing to eat since this woman locked me in here.’
‘I sent down some pottage last night with John Slow.’
She snorted. ‘Well it never reached this cell.’
Clemence spun around to me. ‘You sent her food?’
‘For the sake of the child.’
Clemence dissolved into laughter. ‘That old tale. Surely you don’t believe she’s truly expecting your child, Oswald?’
I will admit this thought had crossed my mind at first, but there was already a change to Eloise’s body, even though her confinement was only in its first stages. I was hardly likely, however, to describe the fullness of Eloise’s breasts to my sister. ‘Of course she’s with child,’ I said. ‘A physician has confirmed it.’
Eloise looked to me gratefully, mistaking this lie as a gesture of support.
Clemence laughed again. ‘I would wager the child is not even yours, Oswald. This siren would lure any sailor onto the rocks.’
Now it was Eloise’s turn to laugh. ‘Says you! The woman who passes off that fat little bastard as the son of my brother.’
Clemence’s hands balled into fists. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Anybody can see that Henry is the son of your manservant. What is the stupid boy’s name?’ She looked to the ceiling. ‘Oh yes, Humbert.’
‘How dare you?’
Eloise’s eyes glinted. ‘Did you think we hadn’t noticed? Sister.’
‘Be quiet!’
‘My brother was murdered only days after your wedding. Not time enough to get you with child. So you asked your faithful clod to do the job.’
‘I did not!’
‘Of course you did. The fool is always in your bedchamber. Better watch out he doesn’t father any more de Caburns. Because you can’t attribute them to my dead brother.’
This last comment was enough to provoke a fight. Soon the two women rolled about the filthy straw and dust of the room like two street urchins fighting over a pie crust.
I separated them at length.
But only once I had enjoyed the performance.
We left Eloise in the cell, for want of knowing how to punish her. But there was one person who could stand in a court and be sentenced. If not for the abduction and planned murder of baby Henry, then for three murders the previous summer.
As we walked along the long and shadowy tunnel towards the cell at the other end of the castle, the faint smell of pottage began to meet our noses. Clemence turned to me, the candle illuminating her tangled hair and scratched cheeks. ‘I think your supper for Eloise ended up in the stomach of the wrong prisoner.’
I thought of Slow’s doleful face and his look of confusion as I had told him to take a bowl of soup to the dungeon the previous night. It seemed he had delivered the food to Brother Peter, rather than to Eloise.
As we reached the gloomy brown door at the end of the corridor, I called through the grate. ‘Peter. Stand aside.’
No answer came from within.
I looked to Clemence. ‘Just open it,’ she said. ‘This will be a short interview. We only need to tell him that we will be writing to the royal judge and hope to shortly see him hanging by his neck.’
A wave of nausea swept through me. For despite all of Peter’s sins, I did not want to watch his body struggling and writhing against death, knowing of its inevitability. But when we opened the door and shone the candle into the room, there was no Peter to be seen. Instead, a crooked and naked crab-like man sidled across the floor nervously his bandy legs like a pair of arch braces.
I recognised him immediately. ‘Slow? What are you doing here? Where’s Brother Peter?’
The man fell to the floor and crawled his way towards me like a grovelling dog. ‘I gave him the pottage like you said, sire. But he tricked me.’
I held my head in my hands. ‘No. Please.’
‘He stole my clothes. And then he ran away.’
‘Why didn’t you shout?’
He cringed again, as if I might hit him – which, in all honesty, I felt inclined to do. ‘I did, sire. But nobody can hear a sound from down here. Lord Versey made sure of it.’
Clemence spun out of the room, and screamed the length of the tunnel.
We sent out dogs, men and horses. But nothing was found of Peter.
Not even a footprint.
Chapter Twenty-Four
You might wonder that I could forgive my sister – a woman who had ordered her servant to assault me and who had then threatened to torture me. But I have seen the lengths to which a parent will go, for the sake of their own child. My own father had killed three people to protect my position as Lord Somershill. I condemn this, without hesitation. But I am, at least, able to comprehend his motivations.
It seemed that this sentiment, this need to protect one’s own offspring, also ran in my blood, for I was not prepared to dispense the punishment to Eloise that Clemence felt she deserved. Instead I wanted to broker a truce with the woman. And why? Because Eloise was carrying my child. My own little piece of eternity.
Eloise spent only the one further night in the cell, before she was released into the anteroom to the great hall, where a guard stood at her door.
‘Are you feeling any better?’ I asked, passing her a plate of morning bread. Her face was wan, and there were dark lines below her eyes. She was dressed in the same clothes and sat on the edge of the wooden truckle bed, as if she were about to leave.
She pushed the plate away. ‘When will you send a clean gown? This one is filthy.’
‘When I receive some answers to my questions.’ I had tried this same conversation the previous night, only to be soundly ignored.
Today she seemed a little more cooperative. ‘What is it you want to know?’ she asked, with a small sigh of boredom. She drummed her fingers upon her thighs.
‘How did you meet Brother Peter?’
She looked to the arrow slit in the wall, allowing a sharp breeze to blow the hair from her face. In this light, her face looked old. ‘He found me in London.’
‘He just knocked
at your door, did he?’ I said. ‘And your servant admitted him? A scarred man in a dirty cloak?’
She moved her gaze to meet mine. ‘No. Peter approached me by letter, if you must know. He told me that Mary and Becky were being ill-treated by Clemence. I agreed to meet him, in order to discuss the matter.’
‘Was it your suggestion they run away to London?’
She frowned. ‘Of course not. When I met Brother Peter, I merely expressed my shock at hearing the news. I did not expect him to bring the girls to me.’
‘So Brother Peter led them to London. Thank you for confirming that much.’
She winced, angry with herself. ‘I believe he met the girls by chance, when they reached the city.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Eloise. The two girls did not travel from Somershill to London on their own. Not even dressed as boys.’
‘They are clever children, Oswald. Don’t underestimate them.’
‘But they couldn’t have carried Rab all the way, could they? The bird is too heavy.’
She stopped drumming her fingers and now played with her hair. ‘If you must know, the whole thing was the priest’s idea. He wanted to cause trouble for Clemence.’ Eloise got to her feet and walked to the wall, poking her hand out through the arrow slit and letting it move about in the air outside. ‘Look at what your sister did to his face with her pan of boiling water. The priest will spend the rest of his life hiding in the shadows. Your mother even thought he was a leper.’
‘Do you know why Clemence threw boiling water over Peter?’ I asked.
Eloise pulled her hand back and turned to look at me. ‘No. He wouldn’t tell me.’ She hesitated. ‘But you were there when it happened, I believe. So why are you asking me?’
I shrugged to disguise my relief. It seemed Brother Peter had kept my true identity a secret from Eloise. It was something to be grateful for, at least.
‘Why did you go along with Peter’s plan, Eloise?’