by Tom Harper
‘A house this big must have had back stairs for servants.’
Doug reached the end of the corridor and felt around on the wall. It was painted white and panelled, indistinguishable from the other walls.
‘There’s a hole here under the moulding.’ He stuck in a finger. With a click and a squeak, the wall swung in.
‘Et voilà.’
Doug’s phone had a torch built in. He turned it on and held it forward. In the diode glow, Ellie saw a spiral staircase dropping away, too steep for the light to make much impact. She pulled the door shut behind her and followed after Doug, chasing the phone’s orb of light as it spiralled down. Generations of servants had worn the stone smooth: when she glanced back, she slipped and almost pitched head first down the stairs. Doug caught her and put his finger to her lips.
‘Careful.’
Ellie listened. She could hear voices again – below them, around the corner, too muffled to be in the stairwell. As they crept down, a bar of light appeared in front of them, pouring in through a round hole in the wall.
‘It must be the latch for another entrance.’
Ellie knelt and put her eye to the hole. She was looking into the drawing room where they’d sat earlier. The fire had gone out, but all the lights were on. Annelise Stirt stood beside the fireplace clutching a brandy glass, looking at someone Ellie couldn’t see.
‘Twenty-five years since he showed it to me, and I still remember it like yesterday,’ Annelise said. ‘And I never lost your number. Just in case’
‘Very fortunate.’ Blanchard’s voice, cool and unshakeable as ever. Ellie’s mouth was dry as salt. ‘Mr Spencer will be delighted to have it back.’
Annelise took a sip of her brandy. Her movements were snatched; the glass banged on the mantel when she put it down.
‘You don’t know how much I’ve wanted to see it again. Ever since Mr Spencer invited me to his chateau, I’ve been like a latter-day Sir Perceval. I spent a night in a castle and saw wondrous things, and ever since I’ve been trying to get back to it. Of course, I never breathed a word.’
‘If you had –’
Shouts echoed through the house: through the hole in the door, and down the stair-shaft as well, so they seemed to come from all around. A thump echoed down to them. Someone was pounding on the door above.
Doug pulled Ellie to her feet.
‘They know we’ve gone.’
More pounding. Ellie heard a creak, then a crash and angry shouts. She looked around. They were on the ground floor, but the stairs didn’t end. There must be a basement. She didn’t dare go into the drawing room with Blanchard there. They carried on down.
The light from Doug’s phone stopped in front of an old door, thick timbers studded with nails and banded with iron bars. It wasn’t locked – they pushed through. On the far side, they found a pair of heavy bolts. Doug slammed the door and shot them home.
‘That should hold them for a while.’
‘Where are we?’
Doug swung the light around, giving glimpses of brick vaults and cavernous spaces. A few dusty barrels sat in the shadows.
‘These would have been the old champagne cellars. The chateau must have had a vineyard attached to it at one stage.’
‘So where now?’
Doug shone the light around the room again, more slowly this time. ‘Champagne ferments in huge barrels. There’s no way they ever got them through the servants’ entrance.’
Footsteps descended to the far side of the door and stopped. Ellie gazed at the bolts and wondered how long they’d hold.
‘Are you in there, Ellie?’
Blanchard’s voice. The sound of it was like a spell, gripping her throat so she couldn’t speak.
‘You’re trapped, Ellie. Open the door.’
He waited.
‘I always knew you were special, Ellie. You’ve done better than anyone in eight hundred years. You’ve led us quite a chase. But it’s over now. You have some things that belong to us. Give them back, and we will have no hard feelings.’
Behind her, Doug was rummaging in a corner. Ellie still couldn’t speak. Blanchard began to sound irritated.
‘And you, Douglas Cullum. Did you come to rescue your friend? How chivalrous of you – especially considering how she treated you.’ A dry laugh. ‘Perhaps she did not tell you? She betrayed you. She gave herself to me completely. You were nothing to her – until she discovered she had a use for you.’
Ellie felt as if she were made of glass, as if a hammer blow had just shattered her into a million pieces. She glanced over her shoulder. Doug had half-vanished into a recess between two pillars, struggling with something in the wall.
‘My patience is not infinite, Ellie. Open the door.’
She heard some noises she couldn’t decipher – a shuffling, a murmur, a click. What –?
An almighty explosion detonated through the cellar, echoing off the vaults until Ellie thought her head would crush in. The door shook: dust billowed off it like an old carpet. But it didn’t give.
Someone grabbed her from behind. She screamed, though with her ears still ringing from the blast she barely heard it. It was Doug, grim-faced. He was saying something, but the words wouldn’t register. He dragged her to the recess in the wall, where a wide low door stood open. Another blast shivered the door – Doug mouthed something that looked like ‘shotgun’.
He led her down a low, stone-walled tunnel that ended in a wooden ladder and a trapdoor. An open padlock had been hooked through the hasp: Doug pulled it off and pushed the trap door open.
They’d come up in one of the outbuildings. Through a window in the back wall, Ellie could see the chateau standing tall and proud about twenty yards away. The building must have once been part of the winery: now it was a garage. A green Land Rover filled the room, and the walls were loaded with gardening tools. A set of car keys on a champagne-cork key ring hung from a hook. Doug threw them to Ellie.
‘You drive.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Just be ready.’
Doug took a rusted sledgehammer from one of the shelves. The look on his face was so fierce she was relieved when he hurried outside with it. Ellie climbed in the Land Rover and started the engine.
For a few moments the night was unutterably still. Ellie sat there in the dark, shaking so hard she wondered if she’d be able to drive. She looked at the backpack on the back seat, scuffed and muddy from their ordeals. She thought about throwing it out of the car, leaving it for Blanchard and just running away, somewhere they’d never be found.
The sound of smashing glass broke the silence. A second later, Doug came haring into the garage. He threw himself into the passenger seat, gasping for breath.
‘Drive!’
Ellie jammed her foot on the accelerator, The garage doors weren’t quite open – she clipped them as she went out, spun on the gravel and careered down the driveway. The rear-view mirror lit up as floodlights came on outside the chateau. She glimpsed movement, figures running to the cars. To her horror, the cars started moving.
‘I thought you broke them.’
‘I smashed the headlights. They can’t chase us far if they can’t see where they’re going.’
The gates loomed ahead, and the road beyond.
‘Which way?’
‘Whichever.’
She reached the road and turned right. She accelerated so fast she didn’t have time to look back.
Destrier skidded the Mercedes through the gates and stopped. He wouldn’t get far on those country roads without headlights. He leaped out of the car and ran round to the boot. From a canvas bag he took a long rifle with a telescopic sight. He steadied it on the roof of the car and aimed. The speeding Land Rover zoomed into focus, tail lights heading towards a stand of trees. The high-beams threw up a curtain of light in front of it so he had a clear silhouette of the driver.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
XLVIII
Wiltshi
re, England, 1143
AT LEAST THERE’S no body.
Hugh says, ‘They’re keeping it somewhere safe. They’ll take the King and use it there.’ He doesn’t say what it is.
The sentries get called in and questioned. Everyone’s seen something, even if he’s just made it up to please the Queen. Precious hours go by while we sift the facts from the lies. Scouts ride out in every direction. All they know is that they’re looking for a one-eyed mercer – the Queen won’t let anyone know the truth.
‘You can imagine the value the Empress will get out of his plight if it comes out he was kidnapped by a merchant.’
What she means is that half of England no longer believes Stephen’s the legitimate king. If word of this gets about, he’ll be finished. If we get him back alive.
Servants bring logs: the fire burns all night. The Queen and Bishop Henry sit up in the Queen’s apartment, while Hugh and William stride around the manor fetching men, provisions and arms. I loiter by a tapestry and don’t get noticed. A company of knights is assembled in the courtyard, but there’s light in the sky and they still don’t know which way to go.
Just before dawn, one of the scouts gallops into the courtyard. He’s found a herdsman on the Monmouth Road who saw six men riding quickly towards Wales. Three rode abreast, one wrapped in a hooded cloak held between the others. He remembers the man at their head, a giant of a man in black armour, mounted on an enormous black charger.
It’s enough for William. We clamber into our saddles and ride out.
We can’t go in force – we’d move too slowly, and alert the King’s enemies that something was wrong. William’s chosen thirty knights, together with Beric, Anselm, Hugh and me. I think about this weapon Malegant has, that he intends to use on the King, and wonder if we’re enough.
The roads are almost empty. Whoever’s abroad, they hear our band of knights, swords flashing, armour jangling, and assume the worst. Everywhere we go, the hedgerows shiver and the trees whisper with the echo of just-vanished voices.
Early afternoon brings us to a river, so wide even an arrow couldn’t get across. We’re near the sea: curlews pick at worms in the sand, and rank smells drift up off strands of weed. It looks so foreign that when Hugh says the name I can hardly credit it. The Severn. The last time I saw this, I was a ten-year-old orphan on my way to Hautfort. And I was in a boat.
‘They can’t have crossed here.’ William circles his horse on the riverbank. There’s no way a horse could swim it. There are mooring posts for a ferry, but the only boat is a waterlogged hulk, almost submerged.
Anselm points to the hull. There are holes in the bow, the axe-marks still visible. It wasn’t done today: the splintered wood has rotted black.
‘Someone doesn’t want us crossing.’
We ride along the shore, until we come to a large boulder blocking our path. We splash into the shallows, and as we come around it we see a boat with two men aboard floating a little way off. We pause, waiting for the current to bring them towards us, but they stay perfectly still. They’re anchored fast. At the front of the boat a man baits a fishing line with a minnow and casts it into the river.
Hugh rides out as far as he dares and hails them. ‘Is there a ford or a bridge across this river?’
The fisherman frowns and puts down his line. Hugh’s frightened the fish.
‘Nothing.’
‘A boat?’
‘None bigger than this one.’ He eyes the knights gathered on the foreshore. ‘There’s no way to get a horse across for twenty leagues.’
‘Have you seen another group of knights come this way? Five men and a prisoner?’
‘They came through this morning.’
‘Did they cross?’
‘Not here.’ He extends an arm, pointing upstream. ‘That way.’
The river shrinks as we follow it. The tide’s going out: long sandbars surface in the water. Hugh keeps glancing at the river – I can see he’s tempted. But the sandbars have their own hazards: they push the water into narrow channels, where it flows fast and deep.
Eventually, Hugh calls William to halt. ‘We can cross here.’
William shakes his head. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘So’s delay.’
The bank on the far side is almost sheer where the river’s carved away the sand. But the channel looks narrow – I’m sure I’ve jumped wider before.
‘Let me try.’
I strip down to my tunic so the armour won’t weigh me down, draw back a little way, then touch my spurs and come springing forward at a gallop. The horse leaps. His back rises under me, lifting me in the air. I lean forward, gripping his flanks with my knees, dizzy with the speed.
With an enormous splash, we hit the water. I’ve misjudged the distance – but not the horse. He strains forward, his head tipped back. His powerful legs churn against the current. For a minute I feel I’m straddling a barrel: it’s all I can do to keep from rolling over. Then his body stiffens. He’s touched bottom. Water cascades off his flanks as he digs his way up the bank, spraying sand behind him. He reaches the top and collapses to his knees, his lungs groaning.
I’m not much better off. I scramble out of the saddle and turn back to face the others. I cough the water from my chest, then shout, ‘You see?’
Thirty-odd faces stare back at me with a mixture of admiration and disbelief. Even at that distance, I can see no one’s going to follow me.
‘Stay with the river,’ Hugh shouts. ‘Look for the place where they crossed – there must be tracks. We’ll find it from this side and join you there.’
I don’t like the plan. Night’s coming, the day’s cold and I’m sodden. I don’t know how much further my horse can go, and I don’t have any armour.
Hugh throws my spear across the river. ‘Take this. Don’t delay.’
I stand there on the sand and watch them ride off. When they’re out of sight, I unbuckle the saddle and lay it on the grass to dry. I take off the saddle blanket and mop the water from the horse’s back, flanks and legs. When he looks as if he’s regained some strength, I slip his bridle back on and lead him away.
A few hundred yards inland I find a farm track running broadly parallel with the river. I scan the fields for any sign of a farm, but there’s nothing. With a sigh, I turn north. I’ve forgotten Malegant, the King, Hugh’s treasure – all I want is a bed for the night and a warm plate of food.
I come into a copse of birch and thorns. It’s dark in here, though the birch bark seems to glow with a silver light. No birds are singing – I wonder where they’ve gone.
A twig snaps. I spin around. A man’s standing in the trees, watching me. He’s wearing a dirty smock and queer rabbit-fur buskins, but I don’t think to mock him. He’s holding a bow, and the nocked arrow’s pointed straight at my throat.
XLIX
Near Troyes, France
THE MERCEDES ROCKED as the passenger door opened.
‘I’ve got a good shot,’ Destrier announced. He turned slowly, following the car with the gun. ‘Do I go for it?’
It wasn’t often that Blanchard hesitated. Destrier opened his left eye and looked at his boss. ‘Do I?’
Blanchard stared after the car, the brake lights like jewels in the night. He said nothing.
Destrier got agitated. ‘I’m about to lose them in the trees.’ No answer. ‘Fuck it, Blanchard – do I shoot?’ He twisted a dial on the scope to correct the distance. His finger curled around the trigger. ‘I’m going for it.’
The gun jerked in his grasp as a firm hand gripped the barrel and pulled it upwards. The shot flew at the moon.
Destrier put the gun down and gave Blanchard a look of pure, unvarnished rage.
‘Just because you fucked her …’
The slap caught him clean on the jaw, so hard it left him numb. He tasted blood in his mouth. He wasn’t used to being hit. It took all his discipline not to smash Blanchard’s nose with the butt of the gun.
‘That’s none o
f your business.’ Blanchard’s breath steamed in the night. ‘If you want to keep working for Monsalvat, you never mention that again.’
At the far end of the valley the Land Rover had vanished into the trees.
They drove for an hour and didn’t say a word. Ellie’s eyes flicked between the mirrors and the road ahead; she didn’t dare look at Doug. Only when they saw a sign for a twenty-four-hour supermarket did Doug say, ‘Turn in here.’
The store was virtually empty. In the stationary section, they found graph paper, tracing paper, and a child’s geometry set. On their way to the checkout, Ellie added two boxes of biscuits, some instant coffee and a six-pack of Coke.
‘Is there a hotel near here?’ they asked the cashier.
‘If you follow this road, you have a camping in five kilometres.’
Dawn had begun to crease the sky, blood-red beams splitting grey clouds. They found a sign for the campsite and turned down a muddy track. After a few hundred yards a plastic chain dangling a NO-ENTRY sign barred their way. Beyond it, they could see a clutch of caravans jacked up on bricks, a squat cinderblock toilet and an empty field beyond. A dog-eared sign pinned to a tree announced the site was closed until April.
Doug got out and unhooked the chain. Ellie rolled in and parked behind the caravans, out of sight of the road. Doug took his penknife and fiddled the lock on one of the caravans until it gave.
‘That’s a useful skill.’
‘Misspent youth.’ He didn’t smile.
The caravan was like a museum: nicotine-yellow walls, orange lino floors and brown formica surfaces. A bare, mouse-eaten mattress covered the far end. Ellie drew the curtains, leaving just enough of a gap to see anyone coming. Doug took their stationery out of the shopping bag and spread it over the table. He nodded at the kitchenette built into the bulkhead.
‘Do you think that works?’
She thought the tension might snap her.
‘What Blanchard said …’
‘A coffee would be great.’