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?’