Denzil possessed the woman that Hugh Gilbert had been forced to reveal: Florence Brock. She had been only too willing to fall into his trap. Like most women, she was weak and subject to her sex’s foibles. Holless replaced his broad brimmed black hat with its band of grease where his hair line sat on his bony head, took a deep breath of fresh air, and began the walk back with his heavy bucket of ice.
The damned horse must have gone in a semi-circle while he’d been distracted, Nat thought, as he’d watched Holless disappear into the small door set into the slope. He was carrying a bucket so it must be a store house of some description. And then it came to him. He’d seen such structures before. It was an ice house, set in the coolest part of the wood and facing north. Even the Tudors had enjoyed iced desserts and he’d read somewhere that these ice houses could keep cold in all but the hottest of English summers. It struck him that it was a lowly task for a steward. He’d watched Holless’ progress through the trees, saw how nervous he appeared to be out here, away from the Hall and how wary he seemed of the trees which loomed above him.
Nat tied the nag to a bramble where it seemed perfectly content to stay and crept nearer and, trying the handle, found the door bolted from within. Why would he want to do that? Nat could hear nothing. The tunnel must head down into the earth quite steeply. Made sense. He melted back into the camouflage of the thick brambles to wait for Holless’ return. Minutes passed until a heavy bucket clattered against the door as he unbolted it. Nat squatted down again in the thicket. And he was right! Holless carried a wooden bucket filled with chunks of ice. He locked the door and wiped his watering eyes. Then, lurching slightly in order to accommodate the heavy weight, he strode back to the hall.
He waited for the man to disappear and then he emerged, picking a few scratchy prickles from his flesh and pulling the bramble vines from his clothes. Holless’ own secretive and sly habits made it feel good to spy on him. He did wonder if the ice house had an entrance within the hall itself. Fortified houses often modified a dungeon as an ice house - pretty sure he’d had a pop-up book on that once, as a kid. He looked at the small door closely. Ah . . . it was housed in an arch of well fitted stones which then blended back into the bank. Could be the original foundations of an older house or religious building. He wondered what other parts of that building survived under Montebray Hall?
The poor nag looked exhausted and Nat thought that he might have to cut her loose and carry his bag himself. She’d cost more to feed than she would be of use to him and would probably collapse under him if he tried any serious riding. In any case, he’d prevaricated for too long and now the sun was sinking and the woods were increasingly dark and cool. He might as well find somewhere sheltered to camp for the night and make a fresh start in the morning. That’s what he’d do. A bright and early start towards London! He liked this new decisiveness.
He took pity on the horse and set her free in the forest where she had plenty of nettles to keep her occupied. He wished her well. Following an animal track, he intersected with the main track to and from the Hall and a drier spot in the trees next to it. He’d started to gather some dry kindling when he paused at the sound of a horse’s muffled hooves thudding along the soft earth from the direction of the Hall. What fool set off at that pace in the dark! He crouched down, laying down the wood and leaving his arms free for fight and saw the outline of a fine black horse with the unmistakable figure of Denzil Moorcroft riding it at a swift canter, his blonde hair, lit by the dying light, streaming out behind him. Where was the man going at this hour? He saw enough to see that Denzil was enjoying the ride.
The path circled around to the left at that point encouraging Nat to think that it did indeed, trace a far more ancient outline of buildings that had long since disappeared. On a hunch, he followed the ox bow shape and scooted to the other side of the loop just before Denzil arrived there. His horse was truly magnificent and was chomping at the bit as it fought for its head and a gallop urged on by sharp spurs. Moorcroft was right to try to hold it back, he thought, and he had to concede that the man rode well if cruelly. Close enough now to see the hot breath of the beast steaming from its nostrils and to hear the flapping of Moorcroft’s cloak as he flew by, Nat sensed something else other than the stallion as Denzil passed. A smell. A scent. Something he recognised. Something which reminded him of his father. Old Spice Aftershave! Denzil Moorcroft reeked of it. And the scent and the memory of it made Nat’s eyes go wide with the shock of recognition.
He spent a restless night after failing to light a fire with the damp wood. His blanket, wrapped around him, was barely enough to keep him from shivering as sleep eluded him and his mind was too disturbed by the unexpected encounters in the woods. There was something odd about Holless’ visit to the ice-house but he wasn’t focusing on that now. They say that scents are the best path to memories and Nat was lost in his. He remembered the Christmases and birthdays when he’d presented his Dad with a badly wrapped bottle of ‘Old Spice’. God! The man must have been sick of it! But he wore it – constantly - Nat hadn’t realised until now how it had become Dad’s signature smell. With the scent of ‘Old Spice’ still in his nostrils, as the moon began to set and the first faint light of dawn seeped over the horizon, he gave up trying to sleep and sat up with his blanket pulled tight around him, the pain of all of those memories hurting his heart, grieving for those who were not yet born. By dawn, he’d hoisted his pack into the lower branches of a tree, safe from greedy animals and then he turned back to the Hall, following the ice house track that Holless had used. He had to speak to Florence.
31
Seven Days
In another lifetime, Florence had been bored easily. Those around her knew it and several would no longer holiday with her, finding her constant need for adventure, exhausting. She needed activity, needed a purpose and became very irritable when she was forced into idleness or routine. Now, when it should have been a luxury after the hard labour these past months, it was captivity and she wanted to scream. She didn’t have to labour in order to eat; she had time to sit and stare; and by the end of the day, she wasn’t exhausted. Florence was startled to discover that this life was actually quite . . . boring and this extravagance of having time on her hands, something which she’d thought of never of tiring of, was actually tedious. The minimal freedoms she was permitted, were supervised by Holless and Prudence looked anxious whenever Florence strayed further than the bounds of the house and garden.
She meandered around the sumptuous room, trying to recall what she knew from her own time. Running her hands over the exposed hefty beams in the walls and across the ones in the ceiling, she imagined the history imprinted there. And there it was again. A tingling on that beam. What on earth was it? She didn’t believe in ghosts but then she didn’t believe in time travel either. Trees were her business and she began to consider: these wonderful oak beams were the very fabric of the building and if no longer growing, they still gave their form and strength to the house. Many of the timbers still showed the shape of the trunk of the tree - or heavy branch - where the carpenters’ planning had taken just the rough edges and knotty growths away. Florence had wondered if the timbers would be brighter, newer and less black, being not so very old but they were already deeply tarred and soaked with years of intense wood smoke from the fires. The joy of them was their smoothness; not a splinter anywhere. Some craftsman had known his trade here. Just the indentations of a joiner’s chisel and plane pitted their surface. No one had had the effrontery to varnish them and every knot and pattern was distinct to her as she ran her hand across them with the electric tingle meeting her fingertips as she did so. They were still trees, weren’t they? Did they keep a link with that power which had brought her here? Every thought led back to Nat. She could share this with him, talk through the implications.
The furniture was . . . solid, with carvings somewhat crudely made, of ivies, berries and leaves, inset into panels and finials. The wood was dark and glossy with beeswax p
olish, and handles, and hinges were of black iron as were the functional escutcheons housing every well-greased lock. She had noted how easily each lock turned, frowning Holless’ pretence of handing over the keys of the house to her. She had the strategically vital key to the linen chest! Every other one, Holless retained. She wondered where he kept the weighty iron keys. One or two of them, she saw tethered to his belt but he couldn’t possibly carry all of them. If she couldn’t leave, then she would know the secrets of this place and she’d do it through patience and stealth.
Florence had been locked into her chamber while Holless had business to attend to. Nat would be miles away by now. She deliberately put the thought aside and considered the draperies instead! What could have prepared her for the complexity of pattern and colour and texture of these fresh hangings. There was none of the austerity of Holless’ puritanism here and she wondered how the room had escaped his touch. She was also curious about Denzil. Entirely at his mercy, he had shown no inclination to physicality and she wondered why. She didn’t think for one moment that it was a kindness. She sighed heavily, slumped on the vast bed, her eyes rolling over the brilliantly petalled flowers and fabulous birds with peacock tails stitched into every inch of the fabrics, entwining together on rich brocade branches with silks as thick as her fingers. The piercing blues were the most startling hues of them all. She remembered seeing the tapestries of her own visits to stately homes where the colours were barely discernible and the blues had faded to petrol dullness. But these! These were turquoise sky colours and meadow green and wild flower yellow colours, sparkling in contrast against the black beams and panels. They were in relief and not flat with the wear of ages. The room sparkled with these jewels of embroidery and idly thought how they’d shine in candlelight. She wondered again, what business it was that earned Denzil such wealth. Her guilt at luxuriating in these fabrics was squashed by her experience of grinding poverty. A shadow crossed her face.
The bed itself was the crowning glory of the room. Four posts, of course, each one carved like an architectural pillar in the heavy style of the Stuarts with a deep canopy atop it all. None of the carving would have been out of place in a rood screen and it continued to be a delight to her professional eye. Oak again, she smiled. What else! The bed itself was very high, an architectural feature in the room, designed to keep out drafts during the long deep winters as well as to reflect the high status of its occupant, and she was pleased to see a small footstool just under the base. The coverlet fabric was the heaviest of damasks but its background shade, the palest of rose pinks with every wild flower that she knew stitched delicately into its weave. Whole water meadows vied with mountain flora and familiar roadside wildflowers. Here was meadowsweet and Lady’s Mantle entwined with dog roses and wild garlic and stingingly violet bluebells. It was strange but she could actually smell them as she leaned towards it to soak in their edible perfume. She appreciated that it had taken hours of work under skilled hands using the finest of fabrics. The cost of this coverlet alone must have been astonishing and it comforted her that her future husband had the money and inclination to spend it on such items for her; it was fit for a queen and not for an idiot girl who’d lost the man she loved and was a captive to a brute.
She rolled in frustration and anger on the rich fabric, bunching it into her fists and she writhed in the agony of her fate, she turned her face towards the fading light sparkling in the mullioned windows and was quite astonished to see the shape of a man actually squatting precariously in the frame on the ledge, his face pressed against the panes themselves and hanging on with his fingertips for dear life! She sat up on the high mattress and stopped her cry of alarm with her hand, as she saw who it was. In a flurry and rustle of expensive and voluminous silks, she launched herself over the bed like a veritable ninja, a move which any stunt double would have been proud of, until she landed and then her legs become entangled in the layers of skirts, propelling her dangerously towards the small window. She averted a crash and lifted the latch and Nat fell into the room in an untidy heap on the sweet rushes and an expanse of very expensive dress silk containing her.
He stood and brushed off the residue of both rushes and silk with what dignity he could muster – but with a wide, rather proud grin at his climbing prowess; there was mortar dust on his fingers like mountain climbers’ chalk. Florence struggled back onto her feet like an overturned turtle, surely confirming to Nat that underwear was yet to be invented!
‘Get off me!’ she hissed as loudly as she dared and with hands firmly planted on hips and deep roses in her cheeks. She was horrified that Nat was here – and in her chamber. He held up a peremptory hand, ‘Me first, if you please M’lady. It was a strenuous climb and I’d like to deliver this particular speech before I pass out from lack of oxygen or bleed to death from thorn wounds!’
‘You have to go!’
‘Not bloody likely. Do you think that I’d have risked climbing up that vicious rose for nothing? You’ll hear what I have to say if it kills me.’
It might, she thought. She saw the rose briar in his tangled and rather dirty hair, and wanted to throw her arms around him. She didn’t but stood with pinched lips and crossed arms, wanting him to go. Didn’t he realise how dangerous this intrusion into her room could be if discovered? As he gathered himself, she saw how ingrained with dirt he was and how very sparse he was under those rags. There were small biscuits on the little table; she wondered if he wanted some. How long had it been since she’d been close to him like this? The smell was simply appalling! She simply couldn’t help her eyes filling with tears ashamed and afraid, and he saw them.
He watched her pitying him and felt a stab of anger. Yes, her eyes told him that he was a mess and that she didn’t want him here dirtying her fine room and fabrics, but he needed her to understand that there was something wrong at Montebray and that she was in danger – and he had to be quiet so that he didn’t add to her peril. Looking directly at her, challenging her to despise him, his voice was strong and steady – and quiet.
‘He’s dangerous,’ he exhaled. All rehearsal now erased from his performance. He needed to blurt out his thoughts before he was discovered or she rejected him. ‘I don’t know exactly how, but he is. Something’s wrong here and if you stay, he’ll ruin you and . . . and I won’t be here for you . . . to protect you. You need to leave – with me. You’re in danger.’ He wanted to add that seeing her with him destroyed him, tortured him and that he couldn’t think of a life anywhere without her. She smiled at him and he thought that he’d made progress.
Florence knew that Nat had to go before he was found – here. Denzil would kill him for sure. How easy it would be to accuse him. His smile nearly broke her, for now he was grinning at her, eyes twinkling, but she couldn’t allow such weakness.
‘And he smells wrong.’ He nodded at her as if to bat the point for her to return.
And just when she thought she might have to confess all to him, there it was! A smugness which drove her crazy. It gave her the opening that she needed to make him despise her. She met his eyes and rasped her angry whisper at him, desperate for them not to be discovered.
She began slowly. ‘I said goodbye to you and hoped that you’d gone – left for life on the road and adventure. I thought at last that I was free of you and that I could truly begin my life here. Her pace quickened. ‘Then you climb in to my room, putting me in peril and for what!’ she whisper-yelled in a fiercer hiss. ‘To tell me he smells wrong! Have you any idea how you smell!’ and she actually danced a little skip in temper. ‘You stink of goose fat and . . . turds and . . . something really rotten!’ There. She’d said it. And he did.
‘It’s the tanning,’ Nat conceded with a little hunch of his shoulders. ‘Sorry. But that’s not why I’m here . . . I’m here to ask you not to do this. Don’t marry him, Florence. Please.’ She broke the long silence.
‘Why?’ she snapped, challenging him with flashing eyes.
And there that was. He couldn
’t formulate the reasons that he wanted to express. He wasn’t sure what they were. Nat wanted to say, ‘Because I love you far more than he ever can. Because I know your true self. Because you don’t love him – you’re just afraid of loving me. Because if I thought for one minute that he truly cared for you and would cherish you, I would walk away. Because in any life time, I would love you.’ But he didn’t and his answer was clumsy, ill-formed and inadequate.
‘Because, I still believe that we can find a way back and even if we can’t, we could make a life here together, you and I. And you don’t belong here . . . with him. I’m afraid for you. How could I leave the only thing that makes any sense of all of this, behind?’ It was as honest as he could be. As honest as he knew about how he felt.
‘Ah,’ she sighed. She thought, that’s the best you’ll give me then. Did he not feel it? Was she simply the residue of his life before? Her disappointment melted into him. In her voice, there was a resigned certainty, in contrast to her eyes’ sadness. ‘Well. Here’s what I think, Nathaniel Haslet, since you’ve been good enough to share your profound thinking process with me.’ Sarcasm was never a good sign, he thought and she was withering. ‘You’re afraid for yourself alone in this life without me to remind you. You think that once you’re alone and I’m gone, then there is no way back and you’ll have to accept life here. That’s how I feel too. But, Nat, I’m not as free as you. I’m a woman here and I am at the mercy of all that that brings. Unless I marry well, I can see no life for me except that of a serving girl and then the wife of a servant. I’ve thought this through and if you’re honest, you’ll see that, for me, it’s the only answer. What could you offer me?’ She knew that she had to be cruel.
Shadow of the Savernake: Book One of the Taxane Chronicles Page 30