Deliver us from Evil (5 page)

They followed the trail as far as they could. They lost it shortly before the gateway to Wolverton Hall: the snow was very churned up there from the evening before, and it was impossible to distinguish all the various tracks.

'Well,' whispered Emily, '
I
suppose we should go back.' She gripped Robert's hand, and squeezed it tightly. 'For remember what we saw yesterday, when we followed your father's trail.'

Robert nodded. He too wanted to turn. But as though frozen to the ground, both children remained where they stood. Then Emily walked forward and Robert followed her. Dread tasted sickly and sweet in his mouth and, as he drew nearer to the gateway, he began to feel it in his blood, lightening his stomach and the bones in his legs. 'Emily,' he called out. But she did not stop; and he knew she must be feeling as drawn as he was.

Stillness hung deathly over the gardens as the two children crossed to where Hannah's body had been found. There was nothing there now; brushing away the snow, Robert imagined that he could see brown stains upon the frozen soil, but he did not care to inspect too closely, and he and Emily both rose and hurried on. 'The stables,' said Emily, as they rounded the house. 'Surely, if he came here, that is where his horse is going to be.' At first they had hopes of discovering something, for a covered cart was standing in the yard, and although it was unhitched it must have been drawn there recently, for its paintwork was still fresh and its ropes unfrayed. Robert and Emily peered in through the back: but there was nothing there, save only a scattering of dirt. This disappointment was succeeded by an even greater one, however, for when they turned from the cart, they saw that the snow around the stables was undisturbed and the stalls themselves were rotten with disuse. The odour of damp wood hung thick in the air; and the mud across the floor was slimy with moss. Emily made a face. 'Eeugh!' she exclaimed. 'No one has been in here for many years.' She held her nose as she stared round at the dripping stalls again, then back at Robert. "What about the house?'

Robert frowned. 'What about it?' he said at last.

if he came here
at
all last night, then that is where he will be.' Again, she glanced round and up at the sun, which hung pale above the ridge of a western hill. 'Do you not think?' she asked.

I
suppose so,' agreed Robert reluctantly.

Emily shivered. But the glint of excitement was unmistakable in her eyes. She should not have said it, Robert thought. They would not then have had to go inside - there would not have been any challenge to their pride. But it was too late now. He looked up at the house. Every window was black,
it
may still be light outside,' he murmured, 'but in there
...'
And then he remembered the candles, how they had been placed by the windows the night before - and he realised that someone must have been inside to have lit them all.

They crossed the stable-yard to the rear of the house. When Emily pushed at a window frame, the wood snapped and crumbled at once. As quietly as they could, they clambered through. The room inside smelt worse than the stables, thick with mould, and dampness, and rot. They could feel weeds beneath their feet as they crept forward, and hear the crunch of frozen animal droppings; ahead of them loomed the skeletons of chairs, their fabric hanging like tatters of skin, and feathery to the touch with spiders' webs. Emily looked around. 'Eeugh!' she said, pulling an even worse face than she had done before.
'No one
could live here.'

'Then why are you whispering?' Robert asked.

'Eeugh!' she repeated, more loudly this time. She bent down, and picked up a broken piece of wood. ' Eeugh!' she cried out again several times, as though challenging the darkness. But although her voice echoed, there was no other reply. Emily flung the piece of wood through the nearest door.

There was a clattering, and the sound of china smashing. Both children scurried through to see what was broken. The light was much dimmer; even so, they could just make out the shattered fragments of a vase. Robert stared about him in amazement. Crockery and ornaments were everywhere. The house, he realised, must have been left utterly untouched — for almost fifteen years it had stood abandoned, and yet not a single thief had dared to pilfer it, not a single beggar had sheltered in its rooms. And then suddenly, he heard Emily whispering to him. 'Robert, come quick, through here, there's a tight!'

She was in the next room and Robert hurried through to her. He realised they were standing in the hall. An oaken stairway rose ahead of them; it was still imposing, although spiders had woven the tapestries silver and fungus was oozing like sores from the wood. At the summit of the stairway stretched a gallery, where portraits could be made out dimly on the wall. Only one was lit so that the face could be seen; four candles, in a row, had been placed before it on the floor. 'No,' Robert whispered. 'No.' But though he wanted to shrink back, he had to make sure.

'What is it?' Emily hissed.

He pointed; then began to climb the stairs.

'Robert!'

She wasn't following him. He glanced back at her; her face, in the candlelight, seemed very pale. 'Can you not see it?' she whispered. There are no other footprints - none at all.' He looked down
at
where he had trodden, across the floor and up the steps; the trail was perfectly clear; for all around it, the dust and mould remained thick and undisturbed. Robert ran to the top and looked down either side of the gallery - again, his footprints were the only ones to be seen. And yet someone must have lit the candles - very recently too, for the wax had barely begun to flow. Robert looked up at the portrait, gazing at it in horror - and yet not in utter surprise. For he knew the face at once - he had seen it cowled and deathlike, the night before. It was the same man
...
there could be no mistake.

Robert stared at it a moment more; then shuddered violently, and turned and ran. As he did so, two of the candles were knocked to the floor, and in the sudden gloom, he almost fell down the stairs. He crashed into the side of the wall. As he struggled to regain his balance, he saw a cloaked form approaching him. It had risen from the darkness of the floor below, and was climbing the stairs. 'Emily,' Robert screamed, 'Emily, are you there?' But the blood was pounding in his ears, and he couldn't hear what she said - if she said anything at all. The figure was on him now. He thrashed out blindly - he struck it once - and then it seized his arms. 'Robert.' He froze. 'Robert,' he heard again, 'in the name of our dear Lord Jesus Christ - please!'

He looked up into his father's face. Captain Foxe smiled. 'You are safe,' he said.

Robert half-laughed, half-sobbed. He hugged his father as tightly as he could.

Captain Foxe lifted his son up in his arms, and clasped him in turn. 'What was it?' he asked. 'What was it made you scream?'

Robert turned and pointed at the portrait on the wall. His father inspected it briefly; then glanced round. Mr Webbe was just behind him; Emily was folded in the preacher's arms. The eyes of the two men met, and a shadow crossed the faces of both.

'Who is he?' Robert asked, still gazing at the portrait. '
I
saw him last night.'

Again, Captain Foxe met Mr Webbe's eye; then he nodded. Mr Webbe set down Emily, and climbed the stairs; he heaved the painting down from the wall. As he did so, he shuddered, and held it as though its very touch might poison him. Neither he nor Captain Foxe spoke a further word; and Robert's question hung unanswered in the damp and mouldy air.

They left the house through the open front door. There were a couple of troopers standing on the lawn, Robert saw; they saluted Captain Foxe, and then one of them waved with his arms, beckoning to something in the darkness behind the house. Robert heard the faint clopping of horse hooves, and a rumbling of wheels; there were more shouts, and then the cart which he and Emily had seen before emerged from round the house. Captain Foxe stood watching its progress across the lawn; he nodded to his troopers, and gestured with his arm towards the gateway in the wall. He watched the cart pass; then he frowned and turned, and stood for a moment frozen in thought. He studied the front of the house, barely visible now in the twilight gloom.

'Robert. . . ' He paused. 'Yesterday - you never saw poor Hannah -and yet you knew at once, it seemed, that
it
was she who was dead.'

'Yes,' his son agreed.

'How?'

'It
was the candles.' 'Candles?'

'Yes. The candles in every window of the house.
It
made me think of the dead child we had seen.
I
did not know for certain, but
I
suddenly feared that the baby had been torn from Hannah's womb.'

'Why?'

‘I
t
was Childermas,' said Emily suddenly. 'When we remember the slaughter of the Innocents.
I
told you that, didn't
I
, Robert, when we saw the candles lit yesterday?'

Captain Foxe glanced at her briefly, then turned back to his son. 'But why should you associate that with Hannah's murder?' he asked.

Robert swallowed, not wanting to answer. The darkness suddenly seemed very cold again.

'Robert,' his father coaxed him.

it
was the same, wasn't it?' he blurted out at last. 'Like with Mr Yorke. The way he was killed. Like a sacrifice.'

Mr Webbe furrowed his brow. 'Sacrifice?' he asked in his low, soft voice.

'Yes.' Robert turned and appealed to his father. 'You remember? You must do. Just tike
Mr
Aubrey said. A sacrifice must be offered on the feast-day of Yule. Well, it was. And now a child has been killed on Innocents' Day.' His voice trailed away. 'Anyway,' he continued weakly, 'that was how
I
knew.
I
just remembered what Mr Aubrey had said.'

'Yes,' said Captain Foxe slowly. 'You remembered what Mr Aubrey had said.' He pondered in silence for a moment; then glanced across to Mr Webbe. 'Perhaps we should see what else he might have to say.'

Mr Webbe made no reply.

Captain Foxe shrugged. He reached for Emily's and then for Robert's hand. Together they trudged through the snow, meeting no one on the track, towards the blessed flickering of the village lights.

'These looks of thine can harbour naught but death;

I
see my tragedy written in thy brows.'

Christopher Marlowe,
Edward II

F

or the next three days, Captain Foxe was absent again. When he finally returned, it was late at night, and his household had to rise from their beds to greet him. Mrs Foxe and Robert found him sitting by the doorway, pulling off his boots. He looked exhausted and tense; he was streaked with mud, and his clothes were sodden through. At the sight of his wife, however, his face lit up and he reached up to fold her in his arms. 'How
I
have missed you, my dearest love,' he whispered softly. '
I
have kept you much in my thoughts, as a comfort to my soul, for there is great evil abroad, and devilry.' He closed his eyes and kissed her; then he turned to his son. 'Would you care to go fishing tomorrow?' he asked. Robert stared at him in surprise.

Captain Foxe smiled. 'Would you care to go fishing?' he asked a second time.

Robert nodded slowly. The promise had originally been made to him as a reward for his achievements in Greek; he had assumed - in the wake of Hannah's death - that the fishing trip had gone the way of the goose. He nodded again, very fast. He did not want his father changing his mind.

But Captain Foxe, having given it, kept to his word. He had a meeting, he told his son as they set off early the next morning, with a man whose stretch of river was famous for its chub; the man had personally insisted that Robert should come and try out his luck. Captain Foxe did not say who the man was, nor what his interest in him might be; and Robert knew better than to pry. But he observed his father's set expression, and the brace of pistols in his belt; and he doubted
it
was fish
his
father hoped to catch that day.

They travelled by way of Salisbury. Captain Foxe had business there; he apologised to his son, and insisted it would not delay them very long. Outside the Council Hall, he dismounted, and was pleased to see two of his men come hurrying towards him immediately. 'We've found him, sir,' said one of them. 'We've got him round the back with Sergeant Everard.'

Captain Foxe nodded. 'Excellent.' He ordered his men to follow him, and led the way round the side of the Council Hall. They entered a yard where the soldiers' horses were quartered and, in its very rear, a covered cart. It had been brought there three days before, when Captain Foxe ordered its removal from Wolverton Hall. Two men were inspecting it. One, to judge by his clothes, was a driver or stablehand; the other wore the uniform of a militiaman. Captain Foxe smiled. 'Samuel!' he called out.