The Fallen Angels

by Bernard Cornwell

  Neither spoke. There was nothing to say.

  His hand stroked her back. Slowly she stopped the sobs. She kept her eyes shut.

  It was impossible. She was to be married. She had come here, she thought, like a young girl who thought that this guilty assignation would be like a naughty game. Instead she had found a power deeper than her comprehension.

  He gently tilted her head back, kissed the tears from both her cheeks, and smiled at her. “I promise to come back, my Lady.”

  She said nothing. She would be married.

  He stepped away from her. “And remember. No harm will come to you.” He stooped, picked up his saddlebag, and walked down the steps. “I leave you the wine, I’ll take Hirondelle to the stable.”

  She watched him. Her throat was full. She did not know what to say. The memory of that one kiss was like a burning on her, as if a star had fallen to earth.

  She watched him mount his horse. He looked at her from the saddle. “I will come back. Ja develesa, shukar.”

  She watched him ride into the night. She wondered what his last words had meant. She felt an immense solitude as if she was the only creature on the surface of the whole, dark planet.

  She did not want to go back to the Castle, that would be worse than loneliness.

  She sat on the parapet and poured herself wine. She raised the glass in a toast to herself, a toast to foolishness.

  She drank alone in the temple, beneath the stars, and knew that nothing, after that kiss, would ever be the same again. She wept. She was to be married and she would never know happiness. The Gypsy had seen to that. She should not have come, not because of the shame, but because it would be better to live without this memory forever mocking her compromise with love. She leaned her head on a pillar and stared at the tear-blurred stars.

  She knew she should go back to the castle. Slowly, as if she was immensely weary, she stood. She looked for her long silk glove and found it had gone. Skavadale must have taken it when her eyes were closed, and that made her smile. He had said he would come back and the missing glove somehow persuaded her it was true.

  She walked slowly down the temple steps, her cloak trailing on the white stones. She was alone, but he had promised to come back. He had promised.

  14

  T he fastest horse in the world, she thought, could be bred out of Hirondelle.

  The Swallow ran like the wind.

  She rode the horse next morning, taking it first beneath her father’s window, and then trotting through the town, up past Two Gallows Hill to the Millett’s End road. The blossom of yellow broom made the heath bright.

  She rode side-saddle. Lord Culloden and his cavalry friends escorted her and she took Hirondelle to the top of the rings, to the earthen bank that had been built in the far off past when men painted themselves blue and fought with bronze and stone. She watched the young men ride among the bushes below, their healthy shouts loud.

  It seemed to her that the Gypsy had come in a dream and gone in a dream, leaving only this horse behind. Lord Culloden, whose moustache had not been shaved off, was curious. “Where did you get her?”

  “It’s Toby’s wedding gift.”

  Lord Culloden seemed rather put out. A wedding gift should be to a couple, not just one person, and Hirondelle was not a horse large enough for his Lordship. He frowned at his friends who played an intricate game on the heath, slashing with their swords at the bushes of broom. “You didn’t come back to the ball last night.”

  “I’m sorry, my Lord, I was feeling unwell.”

  “Too much champagne?”

  “It must have been that.” She was appalled because, suddenly, she found it hard even to talk with Lord Culloden. That was not his fault. She had allowed herself to be tempted to the temple in the park, she had flirted with danger, and now she had to struggle against her feelings. Nothing that had happened last night changed her betrothal, nothing had been said that could change it. A part of her yearned to smash her ordered life, to declare the marriage would not take place, but for what? A gypsy adventurer? To be sure he was not a servant, but still he was not a man who would be thought worthy of her. She felt a flash of anger. Even if he was just a servant, Christopher Skavadale was a man worthy of whatever he achieved.

  Lord Culloden nodded toward the track that led over the heath. “Bad memories, my Lady?”

  She made the proper reply. “Memories of your timely courage, my Lord.”

  He smiled. He touched first one end, then the other, of his moustache. She wondered if he had forgotten his promise to shave it off. His face, on this morning after the champagne of the long night, looked fleshily heavy as if hinting at what he would look like in middle age.

  She turned Hirondelle. His Lordship looked surprised. “You’re going?”

  “I promised father I’d read to him.”

  “Splendid! Splendid!” He smiled.

  She let the horse gallop to the hill’s brink, a gallop that made her feel free and happy. She curbed Hirondelle where the road fell down between the heavy, flower-bright hedges. The valley of Lazen, the Little Kingdom, spread before her. She looked at the far horizons, hazed by the sun, and wondered where in this wide world the Gypsy had gone. He would come back, he had promised, and that thought gave her a happiness that rose like the song of the larks tumbling over the heath. He would come back.

  It happened in the night, an attack so sudden and so painful that the castle was aroused by the sudden fear flickering like flame in the passages.

  Dr. Fenner was sleeping in the Earl’s rooms. When Campion, a robe wrapped about her night-gown, met the doctor his hands were bright with blood. Caleb Wright, his face grim, hurried past her with an armful of stained, slinking sheets.

  The doctor plunged his arms into a bowl of water. “Wait, my Lady.”

  “Wait?”

  “He’s not fit to be seen yet.”

  “What happened?”

  “A flux, my Lady.” Fenner shook his hands dry and picked up a towel. “Wait, my Lady!” He went into her father’s room and Campion heard a moan of terrifying pain before the door blessedly closed.

  Caleb Wright came in with fresh sheets. He paused at the door. “My Lady?”

  “Caleb?”

  “You’re to go to Mistress Sarah and say I sent you. She knows what to do.”

  She frowned. “What is it?”

  “You go, my Lady, you go at dawn, and don’t you bide questions.” Caleb gave the order, nodded at her, and went into the room of pain.

  Campion went into her father’s sitting room, a room he had not used in years, and leaned her forehead on the window pane. It was cold on her skin. Footsteps hurried in the corridor. She heard the housekeeper shouting for hot water, for towels, and Campion stared into the night over Lazen, the deep night of empty darkness, and knew the death, horror and shadows of which Christopher Skavadale had spoken were pressing close. She shut her eyes on her tears. Her father was dying.

  “Caleb sent you?”

  “Yes.”

  Mistress Sarah, who looked older than the rings on the heath, hooked the pot crane toward her. The ceiling of her cottage was low and blackened by smoke. Bundles of dried plants hung on the low beams. “Fool Fenner be up there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Flux?”

  “Yes.”

  The old woman spat at the fire. “Rector?”

  “Yes.”

  “No good mumbling psalms. Good Lord will take him or not.” She pushed the scarf back from her thin hair and stared at Campion. “You’ve grown well, girl.” Mistress Sarah reached for a knife. “I delivered you. Easy as pulling giblets, you was. Why your mother had to have a Londoner for her last, I never will know. Killed her sure as Cain. And killed the babe. But I wasn’t good enough, oh no. Not Sarah Tyler. Might be that I deliver live babies, but I bain’t be from London.” She had opened a cupboard and taken down a cloth bag.

  Campion smiled. “I hope you’ll deliver mine, Sarah.”

&
nbsp; “Be a fool to have aught else, not unless you wants to die. How old are you girl?”

  “Twenty-five this month.”

  Mistress Sarah laughed. “God! You be late! I had nine by then!” Chickens pecked in the sunlight at her back door. “Pass me a bowl, girl, wooden one. Marrying a lord, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pull the glitter off him, girl, and he’ll piss like a peasant. Don’t you let him bring no Londoner to your bed. Bed indeed!” She sniffed. “Spit them out on a birth-stool, girl, like the good God meant us to.” She took the bowl. Out of the bag she brought a white lump that she sniffed. She made a face, then cut the lump into fragments. A nauseous smell seeped through the rich odors of herbs and flowers. A dog on the settle whined in displeasure. “You be quiet! Bain’t for you, be for his lordship.”

  “What is it?”

  “Not your business, girl.” She had picked up a pestle and was pounding the nauseous smelling fragments. “Why anyone needs London I don’t know. I never went more than a mile from here. My Harry, he once wanted me to go to a fair in Dorchester. We took a ride on old Gattin’s wagon and I told them to put me down at Sotter’s Farm. The edge of the world, I told them, and I never been so happy as when I walked back that day. Now, you come or stay, girl.”

  The old woman went out of her back door. Her front door opened onto the Mill Street, but the back led directly to the beech trees which bordered the Shaftesbury road. A goat, tethered to one of the trees, made a run for them. Mistress Sarah hit it as it jerked at the end of its rope, then scurried, bent backed, into the piles of leaf mold between the trees.

  Campion followed. The neighbors, seeing her, touched their forelocks.

  Mistress Sarah was raking her hands through the old leaves. “My mother taught me this, and her mother before her, but it bain’t be good enough for Londoners. Oh no. They knows better. I don’t doubt your father paid that London doctor a rare fortune to kill his wife and child! Learning be a great thing, girl, lets you make a fortune for nothing. Still, your father knows better now. There.” She had picked some of the brick-red fungus that grows on dead leaves. “Come on, girl. And if I don’t live to see your first, then you use my youngest daughter.” Mistress Sarah hit the charging goat again. “She knows what to do.”

  “I will, Sarah.”

  The old woman cut the red fungus into shreds. “Stops the pain, this, you tell Caleb that. Gives dreams, too.”

  “What is it?”

  “Not your business.” She repeated her earlier answer with a frown. “Your business is your business, girl, but this is mine. If the day comes when all the business of Lazen is in the Castle, then that be the day the Castle must go.” She mixed the red and white scraps and poured them carefully into a white linen bag. She pulled the drawstring tight. “There. That’s for your father with my respect. He’s a good man.”

  Campion took the bag. She hesitated, knowing what answer she would receive, but decided that the question, in politeness, had to be asked. “What do I owe you?”

  “Be off with you! You knows better than that, girl! Go on!”

  She climbed into the chaise and the coachman shook the reins. She smiled at Mistress Sarah. There would have been a time, Campion knew, when a woman like Sarah Tyler would have been burned as a witch, but Lazen had its reasons for protecting such women. The Castle provided the small cottage and, as rent, Mistress Sarah provided the old medicines. Campion looked at the white linen bag and prayed for a miracle.

  She gave the bag to Caleb Wright who pushed it into a pocket. When she asked him what it was, he frowned. “Why do you think he’s been sleeping, my Lady?”

  “Dr. Fenner’s laudanum?”

  “Fenner! He couldn’t put a tired cat to dreaming! I’ve been giving him Mistress Sarah’s physic these last two weeks. Now you go on in. Your father wants you.”

  The Earl said nothing as she entered. He just held out his hand for her to hold.

  She took the hand and sat on the bed.

  He looked worse than she had ever seen him. His skin was white, the lines deep, his mouth pulled down. There was sweat on his forehead where she wiped it with her hand. The room stank.

  Father and daughter stayed in silence. Downstairs, on the gravel forecourt, the loud voices of Lord Culloden’s officer friends shouted and laughed.

  He winced. “Get rid of them.”

  “I will.”

  “Tell them to go to hell.”

  “Father!” She said it soothingly, stroking his forehead. He calmed. His mouth twitched in a brief smile.

  “Fenner’s an idiot.”

  “He’s tried to help you.”

  “Doctors can’t help. They just lie and take their fee.”

  She stroked his head. “What did he say?”

  The head turned on the pillow with agonizing slowness. “He told me I’m dying.”

  She smiled, though there was a prickling at her eyes. “You said doctors lie.”

  “Not this time. Not this time. I told him he wouldn’t be paid if he lied to me.” He smiled at his small victory. “You know I once rode from here to Werlatton in a straight line and I took every damn fence and every damn stream? Now look at me.”

  She said nothing. She stroked his forehead and held his hand.

  His smile was a death’s head face. “I won ten guineas for that. My father said it couldn’t be done. No one’s done it since.”

  “No one will ever do it again.”

  There was silence again. The voices of the cavalry officers were farther away. They were trying to cram themselves into the small boat that was used to clean the lake. From outside her father’s rooms came the sound of stiff brushes on the carpet.

  He sighed. “I suppose Mounter will want to come and mumble over me.”

  “Not if you don’t want him.”

  He shrugged. “Must do the decent thing.” The thought amused him, or perhaps it was the next thing he said that caused the smile to crease the corners of his eyes. “The Bishop said that heaven is year round grass with stiff fences.”

  She smiled. “And no plow?”

  “No plow.” He blinked. “And foxes that run for God-damned ever.” His face suddenly tightened as he said the last three words. He clenched his teeth and the breath hissed on his lips. He was pale as the sheets. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and looked into her face. “If I’d kept the dawn start I might not be in this bed.”

  She smiled sadly. Her father had changed Lazen’s hunting tradition. Instead of the dawn meet in the mists he had unleashed the hounds at mid-morning when the foxes had digested their night feeding and would run faster. Her father, in just such a fast chase, had fallen at a hedge and his horse had rolled on him. He had never complained. What was planned for the fox was due to the hunter, he would say, and over the years of his paralysis and pain he would always have the master to his room to tell him news of each hunt.

  Her father’s hand tightened on hers. “Which King died in Berkeley Castle?”

  She smiled at the odd question. “Edward II.”

  “You’re much too clever for a girl. Know how the fellow died?”

  She shook her head. Her father grinned his corpse’s grin. “They put a horn into his ass and then ran a hot poker up it.”

  “They didn’t!”

  “They did. Not a mark on him, they say. Straight up! He preferred tupping men, you see, so it was revenge.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. He liked to shock her, but it seemed this story was not for that purpose.

  He closed his eyes to fight the pain. His hand tightened feebly on hers, then relaxed. “That’s what the pain’s like, my love. Again and again. Like a red hot poker in a royal ass. God knows why I deserve it.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Mounter says it’s God’s will. I shall have a word with the Almighty about that.”

  She smiled. “Perhaps the pain will go away, father.”

  He looked at her. “You never were a fool, so don’t
start being one now that I’m dying.” He squeezed her hand again. “Did you see Sarah?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is she?”

  “She hasn’t forgiven you for the London doctor.”

  He gave a weak smile. “She never will. She called me a damned fool in the market place in front of the whole damned town.” He smiled. “She was right.”

  “What did she give me?”

  “Something to make me sleep.”

  “To make you better?”

  “Better.” His hand tightened again and she saw the rigidity in his jaw, the flicker in his eyes, and she knew that a spasm was racking him. Tears showed at her eyes, tears she was determined not to shed.

  He looked at her. “Can’t stand women who cry.”

  “I know.” It came out as a sob.

  He pulled her with feeble strength so that her head was on his shoulder. He put his thin, weak arm about her and let her weep.

  “Campion,” her father said later. “Bloody silly name that. I wanted to call you Agatha, but Campion runs in the bloody family. I suppose you’ll have to call one of your daughters Campion, poor little bugger.”

  She laughed as she was supposed to laugh. She felt exhausted by crying.

  She had spent the day with her father, watching him sleep fitfully, talking, sometimes laughing. A succession of visitors had come to the room, some welcome, some not, but all curious. Now, as dusk fell beneath a great bank of black cloud in the west, she was alone with him again. He had told the doctor, the rector, even Caleb, to leave them together.

  He turned his head. “Fenner says this could last for days, God help me.” It was the nearest he had come to complaining. He looked at the four golden seals at her breast. “You know my father knew the first Countess? He was six when she died.”

  “I know.”

  “They say she had a tongue like a whip.” He smiled. “She was a great, great lady. That’s what you have to be now, my love.”