Island of Bones

V.6

Silverside Hall

Mrs Briggs took Harriet directly into the drawing room. ‘Oh, I am glad you came, Mrs Westerman! So grateful. I do not know what to do. I thought perhaps your son might get a message to Casper for me, but I am not at all sure what I should say. I had to ask you — what should I say? It is a terrible, terrible slander if I am wrong.’

‘Mrs Briggs,’ Harriet said, looking her in the eye, ‘I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about. Is this something to do with the Vizegrafin?’

Mrs Briggs had collapsed onto one of her sofas, produced a handkerchief and begun to gnaw on it. However, when Harriet finished she looked up swiftly. ‘The Vizegrafin? What might she have to do with it?’

Harriet sighed and sat down next to her. Mrs Briggs took a deep breath. ‘I may seem an idiot to you, Mrs Westerman, and if I do, I hope you will be kind enough to tell me so, as it would be a great relief.’

‘Mrs Briggs. .’

She held up her hand. ‘Yes, yes. I know, I shall start at the beginning. When we were talking last evening in your room, we mentioned the Fowlers, father and son.’

‘I remember,’ Harriet said, cupping her chin in her hands.

‘I told you I have tried to give them work from time to time, I think? Yes? Well, as it happens, one of those occasions was when we opened the tomb on Saint Herbert’s Island. I had no idea that they might find anything to steal there.’

‘The snuff barrel!’

‘Precisely, Mrs Westerman.’ She patted Harriet on the knee. ‘If you remember, Mr Sturgess brought it to us.’

Harriet frowned as she tried to remember. ‘He said they had been fighting, and were taken up before him as the magistrate.’

‘Yes, yes. I began to wonder. . and when you said that Casper thought they were the men that beat him. .’

‘I am not entirely sure I am following you, Mrs Briggs.’

‘My dear girl, who might? I was so worried by what I was thinking I spent the whole night pacing my room and wondering at it.’ She drew breath again. ‘Mr Sturgess has always been passionately interested in the history and antiquities of the area. Such as the Luck.’

‘Mr Askew said he made various contributions to the museum.’

‘So he did, so he did. He tried to employ Casper to help him, but he is not the sort of man who sends fools after buried treasure. The whole village knows though that Mr Sturgess has a great interest in such things. I had thought that interest had waned, but then with Casper beaten and the Black Pig searched. . Mr Sturgess is normally rather free with his fines and punishments and sending people to the Petty Sessions. I thought he had learned to be more merciful.’

Harriet bit her lip. ‘I heard a man call Casper the Luck-keeper today.’

Mrs Briggs nodded quickly. ‘I was here twenty years before anyone let that name slip in front of me. But those Fowlers, suppose they told Sturgess that Casper might have the Luck? They are stupid men, he could have threatened them with the rope or the prison hulks if he said the snuffbox was worth enough. Suppose they traded their necks for that bit of chatter, and then Mr Sturgess sent them off after Casper?’

‘It is a grave suspicion, but it would make sense of his determination to have Casper taken up for the murder of Mr Hurst, and Mr Askew.’

‘Just so, poor deluded man! To so compromise himself for the sake of a jewel! Oh, I pity him. I wanted to see if your son might warn Casper, and thought perhaps I might write a letter to Mr Sturgess in a friendly way, to suggest his enthusiasm might have overcome his good sense in his search for the heritage of this area.’

Harriet stood up. ‘How long has Mr Sturgess been resident in the area, Mrs Briggs?’

Her hostess examined the air above her head. ‘Let me see. . it was when Mr Briggs first invested in the wine business on the continent, rather than simply importing what had already been grown. . so it must be four, no nearly five years ago now.’

‘I think it would be best if I pay Mr Sturgess a visit.’

Mrs Briggs put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, Mrs Westerman, must you? He might be so ashamed. He has been such a good neighbour to us. And I might be terribly wrong.’

‘I think I shall take Felix with me.’ She began to walk towards the door, when Mrs Briggs’s voice stopped her.

‘But what of Mr Askew, Mrs Westerman? And Mr Hurst? Have your enquiries proceeded at all?’

‘Yes, Mrs Briggs. Some.’

Agnes made the pile of her treasures as carefully as she might. There were the larger sticks she had found, then piled on top the splinters and sticks she’d managed to pull free from the more rotted joists that held the earth above her. On top of these she had bundled threads. They might not serve to lead her through the tunnels, but she had ripped the seam from her handkerchief and picked it apart with shivering fingers until she had this pile of thin stuff on top of the lighter twigs. In her left hand she held a flint, found and split in the darkness, in her right the arrow, its head pointed down.

Praying for sparks, she began to strike it down onto the flint.

When Casper had walked these paths to search the old shafts of Comb Beck, he had had no thought to look for the Fowler men. This afternoon he had found their camp easily enough, and seen enough of it to know they would return to it. A neat site by Masmill Beck, far enough from the path to be hidden. The beck had worked its way well into the slope just here. It had been easy to find slightly higher ground that offered the view he wanted, but where the rocks gave him some cover. What they couldn’t provide he made himself, cutting down a branch from a rowan three yards off. The tree squealed behind his eyes, and he murmured his apologies. The white witch touched its trunk, and he felt it settle. Since Stephen had told him of Swithun’s injury, her voice had become stronger. The black witch, Grice, who had been crowing over his failures till he could hardly know where he was, had slunk back a little. He was calm now, and moved with serious careful intent.

Now he lay behind the rocks, screened by the rowan but with good sight of the Fowler camp. He held his knife in his right hand. If either father or son came alone, he’d be able to subdue him and get sense out of him with no need of it, but if they came together he’d have to kill one quick to catch the other. He had no wish to murder any man but if needed, he’d do it easily. It seemed to him the Black Witch was struggling to have at him, but something prevented her. He flicked his eyes upstream. The white lady was sitting on a rock in the middle of the waters, her hair all glowing and gold. She raised her hand to him and smiled. He knew only he could see her, and her presence gave him comfort. He smiled then turned his eyes back towards the camp.

Agnes’s eyes were wet with tears. She’d seen sparks jump, but they would not catch. For a moment she rested, then neatened the pile of threads and began again, striking metal and stone with a chant in her head of ‘this time, this time.’

When the threads started to glow, she gazed at them stupidly a second then dropped the arrow and blew on them as gently as she could. One of the twigs began to catch. The thin light beyond the barricade was lessening. She began to tremble. What if all the light went before the smoke from her fire made it out of the tunnel’s mouth? She tended the fire and cooed to it like a mother with a child. Then looked up to see the first smoke pulled through the gap in the barrier.

Harriet had taken Mrs Briggs’s best saddle-horse and Felix rode beside her on his own mount. He had grown sulky finding Mrs Westerman had no intention of explaining to him what they were about. She simply ignored his questions as if they had no more sense to them than the calls of the birds. As they reached Portinscale, Mrs Westerman suddenly reined in her horse and bent low in the saddle to speak to a woman with a basket on her hip.

‘Miriam! Have you been in town? Have you seen any sign of Mr Crowther?’

The servant looked up with a smile. ‘Yes, madam. I saw him not ten minutes ago a way ahead of me. He turned up into Mr Sturgess’s house.’

Mrs Westerman’s horse leaped forward and Felix spurred his own in pursuit.

The evening was coming on. Slowly the light was leaching from the air, and its taste began to change in Casper’s mouth. The blooms of the day were closing, and the scents of darker flowers started to tendril out among the shadows. He felt no difference between himself and the trees and rocks around him; he was a part of the turn of the hill, just like the white lady and the black witch. The heavy air shifted with a faint sound: something was coming along the path, someone. He turned his eyes to where the white lady still sat like a mermaid on her stone in the stream. She put her finger to her lips.

It was Swithun. Alone. He looked about himself and ducked inside one of the rough covers, coming out a moment later with a large canvas bag which he began to stuff with his goods. Casper tensed his muscles and as Swithun bent forward to drive his blanket as deep and tight into the bag as he could, Casper swung down from his hiding-place. As his feet touched the ground, Swithun spun round to find the evening air had split open and Casper before him. He cried out and Casper brought his fist up hard under Swithun’s chin. He fell back onto the ground and Casper was on him, sat on his chest and pinning his arms to the earth with his knees. Casper lifted his knife so Swithun could see it, then brought it to his eye. Swithun stopped struggling at once. His long eyelashes tickled the point of Casper’s blade. He shifted his weight onto Swithun’s right arm. He groaned but so afraid was he of the knife he did not dare move. Casper lowered his face over Swithun’s until he could taste the younger man’s breath. He tasted the fear on it.

‘Where is she?’

Swithun was panting like a fox cornered. ‘I can’t say. He’ll kill me. Please, Casper! I’ll send word. Please. You won’t kill me?’

There were times when the evil that bubbled and stewed in the black witch were of use. Casper let her speak now, through his own throat. His voice became older.

‘I won’t.’ He moved the knife a little so Swithun could feel its point just on the bone of his eye-socket, flicked away a strand of the boy’s hair then returned its tip to the white and pushed just enough with the flat for the pressure to be felt. Swithun whimpered. ‘But I’ll put out your eyes if you don’t tell me, and leave you to wander blind. Imagine the pain of that, Swithun. Think of the dark.’

‘Sturgess’s folly!’ He said it fast; his body was shaking so hard it was as if he were fitting. Casper kept his face close, and blew gently on Swithun’s eye so he blinked and his eyelashes touched the blade.

‘That’s nowt but a little dip for him to sit in. I’ll do your left eye now, see if that makes you more inclined to be truthful.’ He began to press.

‘No!’ Swithun screamed. ‘I swear, it goes further back! He tried to mine! Some fella told him there was more copper there, when he first came. He tried it for three months.’ Casper released the pressure a little and waited for Swithun to calm himself. ‘It’s deep enough; just on from where he’s got all his shells it narrows and goes back. There’s a barrier — she’s behind that. I swear it!’

‘And how come I hear this from you?’

‘He brought in workers. Did it while he was landscaping his garden, like he was some fucking Lord. You were off somewhere.’

Casper thought back, keeping his knife where it was. There had been dark times now and again where he’d hardly notice a season pass, and come stumbling back to the village thin and hurting. It could be. And he would take no note of an out-comer prettifying his garden.

‘Is she living?’

‘Yes, yes, Casper! I swear! My da said Sturgess tried to do her, but he let go of her arm in time. I took her food, and water. We never wanted to hurt anyone, Casper. But he said we’d hang.’

‘Sturgess? You tried to bargain with him?’

‘He said we’d hang, I say! Over a snuffbox. Everyone knows he’s always looking for the Luck. We had no choice! We didn’t know it would come to this.’

Casper lifted his knife away and straightened, then shifted his weight to take the pressure off Swithun’s injured arm a little.

‘She do that to you?’

‘Yes.’ The voice was small, miserable. There was a smell of piss in the air.

‘You brought her food? Your da helped her live?’

‘Yes, Casper! We did! Swear on the Luck, we did!’

The black witch wanted blood. She always did. She wanted to see the knife go into the eye and watch the jelly of it burst. Casper ignored her. He felt the white lady standing behind him, her hand on his shoulder, and leaned back into her touch.

‘That’s earned you one chance, Swithun. One. Pack your stuff, find your da and then leave here. Don’t do anything else. Whatever you’ve been promised, put it out of your mind. If you run now, you can live. I’ll even keep an eye on your ma and you can send for her later if you want. But you and your da are banished from here. If you’re ever seen here again, you’ll breathe your last in those moments. You hear?’ Swithun nodded. ‘Swear it. Swear on the Luck you tried to take which sees and knows and remembers.’

‘I swear it.’

Casper sprang up and was swallowed into the woods before Swithun even knew he was free. He rolled over, got to his knees and vomited onto the earth.