The Christmas Wassail

TWELVE

We looked at one another, a fearful speculation in our eyes. Then James said firmly, ‘It must have been forced. Only my grandfather has a key.’

But the door had not been forced. There was no splintered wood, just a slight creaking as it swung again on its hinges. I began very much to wish that I had brought my cudgel with me, inconvenient as it would have been on horseback. Instinctively I fingered the knife at my belt, but recalled uneasily that when I had cut my meat with it at dinner, it had been blunt. I had meant to sharpen it before I left home, but in my anxiety to get away, I had forgotten. Fortunately, my companion, being a gentleman, was wearing a poniard — one of those fancy daggers with an elaborate, gem-studded hilt and a slim, but lethal, blade.

We exchanged another look and James took a deep breath. ‘We must tether the horses and go in,’ he said.

I nodded.

A minute or so later, the cobs’ reins safely wound around the lower branches of a convenient tree, we mounted the low step outside the door, which I pushed open with a cautious hand. Then we both started back with a startled yell as something swooped towards us out of the darkness with a great beating of wings and a long, ululating cry before flying twice around the hall and away out of the door in the direction of the gorge.

‘God’s flesh!’ breathed James, supporting himself against one of the door jambs. ‘What was that?’

‘Only an owl,’ I gasped, trying to laugh but not quite managing it. ‘We must have disturbed its slumbers.’

James steadied himself with an effort. ‘Sweet Virgin, is that all? I thought it was the Devil himself come to greet us.’ He forced himself upright and glanced at the front of the house. ‘You know, it’s only eleven or twelve weeks ago that I was living here, but for some reason today it feels like a different place. There’s something malignant about it that I never noticed before.’

‘That’s because it’s been empty for all this time. Without its furniture it echoes, and there are no welcoming lights.’ I squared my shoulders. ‘Come on! Let’s go in. Standing here quaking at the knees won’t help us.’ And I resolutely pushed the door open once again.

Our boots striking the stone flags sounded unnaturally loud in our ears, and a drift of dried leaves, blown around the floor in the draught from the door, was like the pattering of ghostly feet. Moreover, as James had predicted, we could also hear the scurry-ing of rats as they headed for their holes and safety.

The house was built on the old pattern, with the great entrance hall soaring up into the roof and the rafters high above our heads. At the far end was a dais, while a series of doors pierced the walls to left and right of us, leading to other rooms and the staircases rising to different levels.

James shivered. ‘There’s a strange odour,’ he whispered, his voice shaking a little as he spoke. ‘Can you smell it?’

‘It’s only the mustiness of the house, where it’s been shut up,’ I said. ‘Do you think anybody’s here? Sir George, perhaps? You did say he’s the only person who has a key and the door was unlocked.’

‘What in God’s name would he be doing here?’ James snapped. ‘In a cold, dark house with no furniture? Don’t be a fool, man!’

I didn’t take offence, recognizing his irritability for what it was. The place, in spite of so recently being his home, was making him feel as scared as I was. He was right; there was an unpleasant odour that didn’t come simply from neglect and decay. There was something evil in the air. I, too, shivered.

I nodded at the first door on our left. ‘What’s through there?’

‘My grandfather used that as his private room. His and Patience’s bedchamber is immediately above it, reached by some spiral stairs set against one wall. The next door opens on to the main staircase which leads up to the women’s solar and, above that again, my parents’ former bedchamber and mine. The third door on this side is the entrance to the kitchens, pantry, buttery, bakery and so on. Over there’ — he nodded to the doors on our right — ‘is firstly the main parlour with Bart’s bedchamber up above; the second is the door to the counting-house and the last one leads to the servants’ quarters, on all levels. You can get to the brewery and the laundry that way, too.’

While he had been talking my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, and it was when another gust of wind caught the door, blowing it wide again, that what I had thought to be a pool of shadow at the foot of the dais, at the far end of the hall, suddenly assumed the form of a body. I drew a sharp breath.

‘What is it?’ James demanded.

I didn’t answer directly. ‘Is there any chance of finding a candle, or a lantern, or a light of any sort in here?’ I asked. ‘And, of course, we’ll need a tinderbox.’

‘Why? What do you want them for?’ His voice was becoming shrill. He heard it himself and made a deliberate effort to control his mounting fear. ‘I’ll go and look in the counting-house,’ he said. ‘Something may have got left behind.’

He returned within a very few minutes with two lighted candles, each in its candlestick, one held in either hand.

‘We’re in luck,’ he said, adding a little shakily, ‘Or if it’s not luck, then someone has been here recently. As well as the candles and tinderbox, there are also a couple of lanterns.’ He handed me one of the candles. ‘Now tell me what this is about.’

‘It may be nothing at all,’ I answered, trying to sound reassuring. ‘But I thought I saw something lying at the foot of the dais.’ I moved forward as I spoke, holding my candle aloft. The flame made the shadows leap and race up the walls, assuming grotesque shapes.

‘There is something there,’ James breathed, pushing past me and also raising his candle. The next moment he gave a horrified, gurgling cry and staggered back, almost falling over me, his free hand pressed to his mouth. ‘G-God in heaven,’ he stuttered. ‘What … What have they done to him?’ His knees sagged and he fell to the floor, rocking himself backwards and forwards and making a dreadful keening sound as he did so.

Almost afraid to look, I stepped to the sprawled shape on the floor, raising my candle even higher …

Sir George Marvell was lying on his back, his throat black with congealed blood where it had been cut from ear to ear, his eyes wide and staring. Or at least, they would have been had the eyeballs not been gouged from their sockets. Had that been all, it would have been more than enough, but his upper clothes had been ripped from his body to expose his chest and into his right breast someone had carved the word ‘DIE’.

I don’t know how long I stood there, transfixed by this gruesome sight. I was vaguely aware of James getting to his feet and rushing to the door. Then I heard him vomiting outside. My brain seemed to have ceased to function. All I could think of was that however unpleasant a man Sir George had been, he had not deserved to be treated like this.

James’s voice jerked me back to reality. He must have re-entered the hall without my being conscious of it.

‘Why …?’ He tried to control the tremble in his voice. ‘Why would someone want to mutilate Grandfather like that? Why … Why have they carved “DIE” into his chest? What he must have suffered …’

I shook my head. ‘If it’s any comfort to you, he was dead before that happened.’

‘How can you possibly know?’

‘There’s very little blood,’ I pointed out. ‘Only a bead or two. That means his heart had stopped beating when that was done to him. Otherwise, there would have been far more blood all over his breast. I suspect the same goes for his eyes.’

My companion expelled his breath in a great sigh. ‘That’s some consolation, I suppose. But … But why would anyone want to disfigure him when he was already dead? I mean, why write “DIE”?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

I was beginning to regain control of my limbs and breathing, and my mind had started to function in an orderly fashion once more. I led James back to the door where the nipping winter air revived us still further. The sky overhead was leaden and there was no glimpse of the sun, but I guessed it to be well past noon. In three or four hours it would be growing dark. Something had to be done.

‘What ought we to do?’ he asked at almost the same moment. All his natural confidence had ebbed and I suddenly realized how young he really was.

‘You must ride down to Bristol and fetch the sheriff and whatever help is available,’ I told him. ‘You’re a good rider and it’s all downhill, so it shouldn’t take you that long to get there. It will be a different story, of course, coming back. You must also break the news to Lady Marvell and your parents.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I shall remain here with Sir George’s body until help arrives. We can’t, in Christian charity, leave it on its own — not now that we know it’s here. The search for Miles Deakin will have to wait until another day.’

James snuffed his candle, putting it down on the floor, and fastened his cloak. The colour was coming back into his cheeks, together with some of his self-assurance now that he had something definite to do. ‘Do you still think he’s involved?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I think it’s possible.’

I walked with him to where the cobs were tethered and watched him mount.

‘Will you be all right?’ he asked. ‘On your own.’

His concern suddenly made me feel old. ‘Yes, of course I will,’ I answered with asperity. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘Well, you’ve nothing but that knife of yours with you.’ He spoke with some disdain, and not without cause, of my plain, wooden-handled meat knife. ‘If somebody came back …’

‘Why in God’s name should they?’ I snapped. ‘Your grandfather has been dead some days. My guess would be he was killed the night he disappeared. Whoever did that to him is long gone. He isn’t coming back to admire his handiwork. And now, get going! As fast as you can.’

James dug his heels into the horse’s sides and I watched as man and beast disappeared at a gallop. Then I led my own cob around the side of the house in search of the stables. These I discovered at the back, along with other outbuildings and, providentially, still boasting a good supply of straw. There was even a sack of feed, starting to go mouldy, it was true, but my hardy mount seemed to find nothing amiss with it and began to eat as soon as I put some in a manger. Satisfied that I had done my best by the animal, I retreated to the front and went back into the hall.

My candle had by now gone out and I had to grope about on the floor until I found the tinderbox where James had dropped it. On the dais was a broken-down armchair which had obviously not been considered worth taking when the Marvell family moved house. Carefully avoiding the body on the floor, I lowered my bulk into it, expecting the worst. But, rickety as it was, the thing held.

I wondered how long it would be before I could reasonably expect to see anyone. If he could keep up his initial pace, there was a good chance that James might reach Bristol within half an hour or so. But after that, who knew? People had to be roused and acquainted with the facts, arrangements had to be made and then the long climb back uphill accomplished. I feared I was in for a long, cold wait. It crossed my mind that I would have done better to have sent James to the Clifton manor house for assistance, but it was too late to consider that now. Neither of us had been thinking very clearly.

I switched my thoughts back to the mutilated corpse lying at the foot of the dais. ‘DIE’. But why, when the victim had already been killed? Moreover, something about the arrangement of the letters, all crowded on to the right-hand breast, bothered me, although for the moment I was unable to say why. In spite of myself, my eyes were drawn instinctively to that dark shape on the floor and, in the end, suppressing a natural feeling of revulsion, I picked up my candle, which I had put down beside me, and went to have another look at it.

This time, knowing what to expect, the shock was not so great and I was able to view the body with a certain amount of detachment. I couldn’t help wondering how a man who had been a soldier, and who must also have been alerted to a certain degree of personal danger by the murder of his friend, Alderman Trefusis, had allowed himself to walk into an ambush. For his murderer must have been lying in wait for him; if not inside the house, Sir George having the only key, then probably among the trees and bushes which surrounded it. What message could possibly have persuaded him to leave his home in the middle of the night and, at his age, walk the five or so miles uphill to the crest of the downs in the biting winter cold at the end of December?

It was at this point, kneeling beside the body, that I noticed something I had missed earlier in the first horror of seeing it. Sir George’s right hand was also partially mutilated with cuts and slashes across the base of the first two fingers. And when I lifted the hand to peer more closely at it, I noticed a knife lying at a little distance as though it had been dropped in a hurry. Had the perpetrator of the crime been disturbed before he had finished his ghoulish work?

For the moment, I was too tired and too distressed to pursue the idea, but I stored it away in my mind. My thoughts returned to the word ‘DIE’ carved into the knight’s right breast while I tried to fathom out why it puzzled me. Whoever killed Sir George certainly hated him with a venom that was almost akin to madness, so perhaps the mutilation was nothing more than an added expression of that hatred. Maybe it was nothing more than that.

I was by now too cold and weary to think any more about it. My brain felt numb with fatigue and horror, so I wrapped myself in my cloak, returned to the chair and waited, half waking, half drifting on a sea of sickly dreams, for James to return with the necessary reinforcements.

It was not really until the following morning, the first day of January, that I fully recovered the tone of my mind. The events of the previous afternoon and evening had passed in a sort of daze; a blur of noise, of people’s voices raised in horrified exclamations, of the clatter of feet as Richard Manifold, Sergeant Merryweather and their minions tramped in and out. And I had a vague recollection of the sheriff’s appalled face as he stared down on what had once been a man. His attempts to question James and myself met with little success: we were both too tired and still too shocked to make any sense. I remembered James saying that he had persuaded his father not to accompany the rescue party, and thinking he had been wise to do so.

Two men had come with a stretcher and the knight’s body had been tenderly lifted on to it and decently covered with a cloak. At the time, it had not occurred to me to wonder what had happened to his upper clothing, but now, in the early morning, lying in the comfort of my bed with Adela breathing quietly beside me, I was amazed to think that I had overlooked such a simple fact and that no one else had thought about it, either. Had the murderer taken it away with him, and if so, why? Or was it still lying in some dark corner of that bloodstained hall? And was it important enough for me to make another visit to the Marvell house later today? I had an uncomfortable feeling that it might be.

I rolled on to my right side and snuggled into Adela’s back. At least, when I finally returned home the previous evening, I had been spared her reproaches for my tardiness. Long before the sheriff’s sad party made its entrance through the Frome Gate, almost everyone in the city had learned of the terrible discovery made by James and myself and had turned out of doors, braving the winter cold, to see the solemn procession pass by. Adela had been one of the first to greet me as I straggled, exhausted, in its wake, and had insisted that I go straight home to bed. She would brook no refusal on my part.

‘You’re worn out, Roger. If all the rumours flying around are true, you’ve had a very nasty experience. If anyone wants to question you, they can do so tomorrow, but for now you need sleep. You’re coming back with me.’

I was too tired to argue with her, and indeed, such was the turmoil of my mind, I was glad of someone to tell me what to do. And as Small Street was so close at hand, I found myself indoors within a very short space of time. Elizabeth, with Luke clutched in her arms, and the other two were gathered together in the hall and greeted us in wide-eyed silence, aware that something terrible had happened and that I was somehow involved in it, but not quite certain how. Grumbling, they had been packed unceremoniously off to bed, Luke being further committed to his foster sister’s care. And, early as the hour was, once I had been given supper I had followed them not long after. Adela had asked no questions — obviously a sufficient amount of the murder’s gruesome details were already well enough known to make them unnecessary — and I had been tenderly assisted up to our room where, naked and unwashed, I had fallen asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow.

Much to my surprise, my slumber had been undisturbed by any dreams, fair or foul, and now I was awake and refreshed, staring over Adela’s shoulder at the early morning light rimming the shutters and feeling fit to face whatever the day might bring. I kissed the nape of Adela’s neck and she stretched and murmured something, but did not wake. Gently, I eased myself into a sitting position, hugging my knees under the blanket, and considered the previous day’s events as dispassionately as I could.

Many people had disliked Sir George Marvell — even, I suspected, his own wife — but someone had truly hated him, and the only person I knew of who had reason to loathe him enough to want to desecrate his dead body was Miles Deakin. The knight had not only horsewhipped him, deprived him of an extremely rich old wife (who might have been expected to die very shortly, leaving him a wealthy man), but he had also had the young man’s parents turned off their land, robbing the family of its livelihood. But then again, what did I really know of Sir George’s past life and how many other enemies he might have made? If he could treat one young man in such a brutal fashion, what might he have done to someone else?

It was the words ‘young man’ that suddenly brought me up short. Sir George, it was true, had been over seventy by several years, but he had been strong for his age and active. It would surely have taken more than one man to bring him down and cut his throat. I found it difficult to believe that the knight, summoned to an empty house in the middle of the night, would not have been on his guard against trouble of some sort. And the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that there must have been more than one person …

I became aware of Adela steadily regarding me. She had rolled on to her back and was wide awake, her brown eyes holding a look of loving resignation.

‘Why does it always have to be you?’ she sighed. ‘You and Trouble are twins, joined at the hip. If he’s there, you’re there, unable to keep away.’

‘I don’t do it on purpose,’ I pleaded. ‘These things just happen.’

‘No, they don’t,’ she answered tersely. ‘They happen because you’re incapable of keeping your nose out of other people’s business.’

It was the old cry that had followed me throughout my life and, in fairness, I had to admit that such an accusation was probably justified. From childhood, I could never resist a riddle or a mystery.

I tried to look apologetic which made her laugh, but when I would have taken her in my arms she pushed me away.

‘You stink, Roger. Go and wash under the pump and then put on some clean clothes. By that time your breakfast will be ready.’

I did as she bade me, but when I finally sat down to eat — having also performed my daily chore of tending to the Yule log — my thoughts had reverted to the death of Sir George. I had swallowed a bowl of porridge and munched my way through two oatcakes without really tasting anything, when I had a sudden idea. Springing to my feet, I handed Adela my knife and stretched out full length on the floor. The children stared at me in fascination, obviously of the opinion that I had finally gone mad, while Hercules, interpreting the move as the prelude to a new and delightful game, hurtled across to throw himself athwart my chest and frantically lick my face.

I pushed him aside and indicated the knife Adela was now holding.

‘Sweetheart, I want you to imagine that you have just murdered me and you’re going to carve the word “DIE” into my chest. Show me how you would do it.’

My wife flung the knife from her. ‘I refuse to do anything so horrible,’ she declared. ‘It’s disgusting. I don’t know how you can ask it of me.’

‘I’ll do it,’ breathed Adam excitedly, scrambling down from his stool. ‘I have my little knife.’

I sat up abruptly. ‘Don’t let him touch me!’ I yelled. ‘He means it!’

Adela did more than prevent him: together with Elizabeth and Nicholas, she bundled Adam out of the kitchen and sent them all to play upstairs until it was time for their morning lessons. Once we were alone — except for Luke, who was too young to appreciate what was going on — she told me exactly what she thought of my ghoulish behaviour. ‘And in front of the children, too! It’s enough to make them ride the nightmare. I despair of you, Roger!’

‘Sweetheart,’ I begged, ‘bear with me. I agree I shouldn’t have asked you when the children were present, but I got carried away. Adela, this is important. I feel sure you must have been told the details of Sir George’s murder before I got back yesterday, so it hasn’t come as a shock to you. If you were the murderer and you were going to mutilate my body with the word “DIE”, how would you do it?’

She could see that I was in earnest and made an effort to overcome her repulsion. Picking up the knife again, she advanced towards me as I lay down once more. Even then, she hesitated.

‘Go on,’ I urged. ‘How would you do it?’

Adela took a deep breath. ‘As he — the killer — did, I suppose.’ And holding the knife point downwards in the air, she drew an imaginary letter D above my right breast, a letter I following the line of my breastbone and an E over my left breast. Then she tossed the knife back on the table and burst into tears.

‘It’s too horrible to think of,’ she sobbed. But I knew she wasn’t picturing Sir George Marvell as the victim. She was seeing me.

Hurriedly, I got to my feet and folded her in my arms. ‘My love, forgive me! Forgive me! I shouldn’t have made you do it.’ I wiped her eyes tenderly with the edge of my sleeve.

When she was quieter, she asked, ‘Did it do any good? Did it tell you anything you wanted to know?’

‘Yes.’ We sat down, side by side, on the stools and, still with one arm about her, I poured her some more ale from the jug on the table. ‘You see, you assumed, as I think anyone would have assumed who only knew the facts without having seen the body, that that was what the murderer had done. You spaced out the letters right across my chest.’

‘And it wasn’t like that?’

‘No. All three were crowded on to the right breast, close together.’

‘So?’

‘So … So perhaps it was just the beginning of another, longer word which was never finished.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the killer, or killers — and I feel certain there must have been more than one — were disturbed before they could finish. There was a knife flung down on the floor, half-hidden by the body, and …’ My voice tailed off as I remembered the mutilated hand with one of the fingers partially cut through.

I caught my breath. Suddenly I felt certain that the murderers had indeed been interrupted before they could complete their ghoulish work. And I felt equally certain that I knew the name of the man who had disturbed them. None other than Briant of Dungarvon.