François stared at him. It was true then; his mother had followed him to Paris. Her voice calling to him as he lay exhausted in a shepherd’s hut in the mountains of the Auvergne; that voice more familiar to him than his own ... in need of him. The bounds of distance and time had fallen away – all physical barriers gone. The stuff of dreams, the boast of occultists. The essence of him, the soul, the animus – he knew no name for it – some projection of him had answered Kate’s call; had gone to her in that moment. Her goal his goal – the destruction of the man who would have destroyed him. The man who had already murdered Jeanine and the girl Madeleine.
Herries went on; ‘Your mother had a companion, the French girl – Louise Morin?’
‘The daughter of my stepfather’s business associate, that would make sense,’ he agreed, ‘my mother speaks no French.’
Herries raised an eyebrow as he drew on his pipe. ‘From what I heard, there was an understanding between you and Mademoiselle Morin.’
François shook his head. ‘Long forgotten.’
‘I understand that she is married now.’ Herries added gently, ‘To a businessman by the name of Chevalier.’
The recent vision of Louise flashed through François’ mind; the lingering misery of it: François....
‘If that is so, I’m glad for her,’ he answered, ‘François Jeakes is five years dead.’
The muted sound of a distant explosion reached them.
‘You’ve come a long, long way since that day in Vincennes, François ... by God’s Grace and your own tenacity, you have survived this far. But discretion must be the watchword. Who knows, in the current troubles you might be hailed a hero to have escaped from the galley fleet of papist Louis. On the other hand, diplomatic ties with France are still strong – where has King James fled to, but France? His family is there, just as mine is. Spies are legion, and at times such as this men stand on other men’s heads to win favour.’
‘François Jeakes is five years dead,’ François repeated.
Charles Herries moved away to a ladder-back chair beside the fire. He gestured for François to take the one opposite him.
‘So, Captain Fuller, what brings you back to London?’
* * *
Kate was called out before dawn to the camp on the heath. A laundry woman who had recently arrived with the Dutch army was in labour. Little more than a girl she had kept her pregnancy secret so that she should be allowed to make the crossing with her soldier lover. By the time Kate found her, the laundress was delirious. The boy-child was turned in the womb, the cord caught around its throat.
Kate wrapped the tiny blue corpse in a towel and passed it to one of the other camp women. There was little more she could do, save dose the mother for fever and inform her lover – newly arrived and quite put out by the unexpected turn of events – that there would likely be a second death if he did not fetch a doctor at once.
There had been a hard frost, the lanes and tracks so muddy the day before had hardened to patchy ice. Every leaf, every blade of grass on the heath was crusted with white. The sky was the blue of a blackbird’s egg and in the blinding light of the sun the mist rising from the thawing earth met the drops of melted ice falling from the trees.
As Kate walked to her home in Tyburn Lane, lightheaded for want of sleep, she felt a strong sense of anticipation – a gripping sensation at the base of her skull, tension under her ribs – signs that had dogged her on and off since she had brought Anna back from St Giles. A presaging instinct she knew of old. Such a sense of expectation as had been upon her the day François’ father first came to her.
François had been much in her thoughts of late, his absence these last five years a gnawing void. She had left France knowing that he lived. Then she had contented herself with that certainty and the memory of the astral-he who had answered her call in the Paris catacombs. To nurture hope that this building tension signified more was reckless, she knew; even to imagine such a thing was foolish. But the business with Anna had weakened her resolve to the point of foolishness. And Cassy, the one person in the world she would have turned to, was too ill to trouble any more.
Distress had taken Anna to St Giles’ graveyard once before; on the eve of François’ departure for France with the Herries ... coming hard after the death of Anna’s father, Kate’s husband John Jeakes, then her favourite uncle’s attempts to poison her mind against Kate, and then her beloved brother leaving for France. And the malign spirit – the shade of the man Kate had once been proud to call lover – the vengeful ghost of Matthew Marsden, had taken the hand of her unhappy daughter. Not merely to possess the living child, but to lure her to the graveyard and death.
Ah Kate, did you think me gone?
Punishment for Kate having survived him ... for keeping that which she had of him; their son François.
She thought with sadness about the men of science who scorned the notion of contact between this world and the next, remembering how François himself would rush home from a lecture and closet himself away with John Jeakes to discuss the latest scientific revelation. But some truths, she knew, went beyond the scope of man’s intellect.
Distress had exposed Anna to evil influences that first time; but for Kate’s intervention would certainly have killed her, in any case had left her a troubled child. What new distress had brought her back this time, Kate was at a loss to know. Anna had long ago learnt to retreat inside herself. But getting Anna out of her sodden clothes that night, she had seen the stains on the shift, the streaks of blood where no blood should have been. And wept at her child’s sad initiation into womanhood; wept that she had been unable to better protect her from the world, or herself.
Above all she most feared that Marsden’s corrupting hold had gone too deep this time, that he had drawn Anna beyond a mother’s reach ... beyond any possibility of worldly happiness. The girl had been in a semi-conscious daze when at last she had dragged her from under the branches of the tree. One minute they were staggering home like a pair of drunken slatterns, Anna slumped against her, the next she was having to subdue the girl’s distressed attempts to drag them back to the graveyard ... to find the creature Anna called her guardian. The same unearthly beast that had attacked Kate.
When at last Anna was asleep, Kate had inspected her neck and throat in a hand-mirror. The soreness, the deep bruising left by the wolf attack, had made talking to Anna difficult. But there was nothing to see. Not a single blemish. And she had not known whether to laugh or cry. Matthew Marsden was long dead. But his power over the living was gaining strength. To conjure such a creature, to imbue it with so much of the living man he had once been ... if it had overpowered her body and mind so easily, what chance did Anna stand?
The camp laundress all but forgotten, she trudged round the corner into Tyburn Lane, her feet numbed by the sodden leather of her boots. A wren fluttered between the stones of her garden wall.
She did not know him at first, for the low sun was in her face; a figure standing by the front door. She shielded her eyes – a soldier by his hat. A moment of confusion, of self-protecting doubt, then dawning awareness....
‘François‒?’
‘Hello, Kate,’ he said.
Traces
François meant to visit his old home during Wednesday, the day after his talk with Lord Herries. St Martin’s Lane was only a short walk up Regent’s Street and through Picadilly. But duties hindered his plan. There were more mob attacks during the night and an emergency meeting of ministers at Whitehall called upon all available militia to guard the trouble spots.
After a day escorting Catholic citizens to the safety of the docks, Captain Fuller and his men were assigned the night watch on an area of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. A few skirmishes were quelled and for a while quiet settled over the capital.
But the calm was brief.
Just after midnight, kettledrums and trumpets roused the sleeping city. Figures began to flit from house to house. Alarmed messages passed between neighbou
rs at the upper storey windows. A woman fled her house in her nightgown; beside herself with terror, she beseeched François; ‘For the love of God, captain, come to our aid – the Irish are cutting throats!’
Rumour had it that a horde of Catholic Irish had risen up, that Uxbridge had been torched and every man, woman and child put to the sword ... that they were even now marching on London.
Within a half hour it seemed all of London was out of bed. Amid the clamour and confusion, men poured on to the streets, many stood by their doors armed against the expected atrocities. Candles were lit to shed light upon the dark streets; windows everywhere blazed with light.
The night of the Irish fear, they would later call it; a terror that would cast its web beyond the capital into the shire counties. Unreasoning ... unfounded.
Captain Fuller held three streets, his men assigned in pairs to guard the properties there – fending off would-be troublemakers, keeping any venturesome occupants within their own doors.
For three hours women and children huddled together indoors, besieged by fear, barricaded in by their men-folk. Until, at last, intelligence gathered by Whitehall was circulated around the capital; there was no army marching on London. It had been a false alarm.
Captain Fuller’s company stayed at their watch until Thursday noon. Major Winthrop suggested a few hours sleep before returning for another night of vigilance.
Margot was waiting for François. Behind the gauzy bed hangings washed with daylight, she held her hands out to him as he closed himself into the bedchamber. The smell of onions was on her hands, baking bread clung to her hair. He sank into the warmth of her, took her to him and left only when she was sleeping.
Lieutenant Veron stirred at his going; offered to go with him, wherever he was going. But François sent him back to bed; night duties were only three hours away. Besides, new friends had no place in old haunts.
The militia were out in St Martin’s Lane. In the daylight though there was not the vigilance of the night just passed. Soldiers stood about in the fine drizzle; kicking their heels or talking among themselves. A few were helping to clear a house with a smoke-blackened frontage ... candles, one explained with a shrug, as he passed by them.
Reaching the apothecary, he lingered a while on the opposite side of the rutted lane.
The three storey building seemed to be detached from the events of the night. No sign of brickbats or discarded torches. If there had been any candle stubs in the windows, he guessed that they had been cleared away by a diligent servant – Ursula, perhaps, or her successor. Rosemary, thyme and lavender – his mother’s herbs, still grew beside the brick path leading up to the door.
And carved into the lintel above the door the name; John Jeakes & Son. The promise of what might have been.
The rain had stopped. Sunlight broke through shifting cloud, reflecting back at him from the windows of the apothecary. He walked into the winking light, plucking sprigs of herbs and crushing them between his palms. In his stepfather’s day the door had always been unlocked during the day to allow ready access for patients. Now though it was locked.
At first no-one answered his knock. When, at last, a key ground in the lock his heart quickened.
‘Can I help you?’ The elegant young woman who opened the door was guarded. She pulled a shawl of cream lace closer to her neck.
François removed his hat. After a moment’s consideration, he said; ‘I have come to see Mrs Katharine Jeakes.’
He watched her pale blue eyes narrow under a frown as she asked, ‘Pardon me‒?’
He pointed up at the sign on the lintel. ‘Mrs Jeakes?’
Her brow relaxed under curls the colour of honey. ‘Ah, you must mean the widow, Kate.’
Her accent resolved itself for him now – French, cultured – a friend of Anton, or perhaps Louise. He stared past her into the shadowed hallway; glimpsed the stairs, the familiar doorways leading to the kitchen, the consulting room.
‘May I ask, mademoiselle, if Kate is at home?’ he pressed.
‘No, sir, she no longer lives here – she has been gone for many months now.’
François scratched his head as though confused by the information. ‘Do you know where she is living now?
‘Are you a friend, sir?’
‘A friend, yes ... an old friend. My name is Captain Fuller – I have only lately returned to London.’
From inside the house a male voice called to her; ‘What is it, Isabelle? Who is there?’
She held François’ gaze a moment seeming to reappraise him. He noted the guilty start as an unseen hand touched her shoulder.
‘Sister?’ There was censure in the voice of the man who now stepped forward, his face set in a wary frown. With darting glances at Captain Fuller, Isabelle repeated his name and purpose for her brother’s sake.
‘Leave this to me, Isabelle,’ the brother instructed, standing aside for her to pass. ‘You will forgive my caution, captain,’ he said with a sneer, ‘the streets are awash with strangers and villains. For all I know you may simply have read the sign over the door.’
François inclined his head. ‘Then perhaps I can put you at your ease. I am an old friend of the Jeakes family. I left London shortly after the gentleman apothecary whose name is carved above us, died. His daughter Anna would then have been eleven years of age. My association with the family was through the eldest son‒’
‘They no longer live here.’ It was a curt interruption.
François observed the man barring the threshold that had once been his father’s. He was young – no older than himself. His face was smooth, his brown hair straight and oiled – immaculate as the manicured fingernails he pressed against the door jamb. There was a familiarity about him; something that caused a tightening in his head, in the pit of his stomach. Something not quite remembered.
‘So your sister has told me,’ François replied evenly.
‘The widow and her daughter moved to a house in Tyburn Lane – that is all I know Captain Fuller.’
François replaced his hat and with a polite acknowledgement, turned to leave.
‘The son died ... in France. Some kind of scandal.’
François slowly turned back again and was met by a wry expression. The young Frenchman was amusing himself.
‘Forgive me, monsieur,’ François replied, offering his hand. ‘I do not know your name.’
‘I am Pierre Chevalier.’ The handshake was stronger than the tapering fingers suggested, ‘The son of Arnaud Chevalier.’
‘Lately out of France?’ enquired François.
Chevalier’s shrug and bored smile were his only answer. Unable to provoke the stranger, he would not be gulled into conceding any further information himself. Instead he turned away and closed the door in the captain’s face.
Latching the gate behind him, François glanced back at the house. The familiar crack in the brickwork above the lintel ... the refracting distortion in that end pane of glass in Kate’s first storey room ... the bird lime splash under the eaves where the swallows made their nest every summer. Familiar things made unfamiliar by the presence of strangers.
A movement behind the distorted window pane caught his eye. A woman’s face appeared. As he watched, she moved – her image stretching and blurring then resolving itself in the clearer glass of an adjacent pane. Not the sister, Isabelle, not her. But a face that belonged to the familiar; one face that had not gone away. He stared, wondering if his weary mind had conjured a phantasm.
‘François‒’
The voice that had brought him back to this place because in truth he knew from Lord Herries where Kate and Anna now lived. The desperate voice of his recent visions. He took a few paces to stand directly opposite the window of his mother’s old room. Then, once more, removed his hat.
He stood transfixed for the moments Louise held his stare; watched as she rested her forehead against the transom and pressed the fingers of her right hand against the glass.
Then she
was gone.
Stalking
Anna picked her way back across the wet grass to the cottage. Upon the gathered waist inside her bodice she carried three eggs still warm from the coop.
He had come again, his second visit to Tyburn Lane. He was sitting in father’s chair talking to Kate; a stranger who called her sister, who played up to her though she knew that he truly came to see Kate ... and Kate losing herself in him, singing to herself as she worked, younger seeming.
She did not mind much that he took her mother’s attention. She was glad to escape the constant watchfulness that had come over Kate since she brought her home from St Giles’ graveyard. And though Anna feigned indifference, there was wonder in the things he spoke about.
Adventures hovered about him like invisible baggage; hinted at, teased out of him by her mother. Secrets no one else must know, Kate had warned her, for an outlaw in France might still be an outlaw in England though the two countries were at loggerheads and a sea apart. Spies abounded – the eyes and ears of this king, that prince, another faith. Then there were the thief-takers and outlaw breakers. All of them cloak and dagger men hunting for secrets. Her friend Jenny had told her that Frenchmen had taken over entire villages on the coast of Cornwall with the purpose of wrecking English ships and sending back reports to King James and the English royal family at the court of France.
The wolf did not follow her right to the back door. It held off a few yards away and lowered its haunches, its steady gaze trained on her. She scuffed the dirt from the iron soles of her pattens then slipped them off and with one last backward glance at the wolf, latched the cottage door behind her.
He had moved from the chair to the foot of the stairs against the far wall, his profile caught in a shaft of light from the narrow window. Kate leaned against the wall beside him. Her face was in shadow, her hair crowned with light. Anna busied herself rubbing the straw and dirt from the eggshells before gently dropping them into a pot of boiling water over the fire. Then, without interrupting the murmur of their voices, she sidled up to the vacated chair and sat upon her hands – feeling for any traces of his warmth in the polished seat.
The Sorcerer (The Witch Trilogy Book 3) Page 4