The Lost Prophecies (38 page)

‘Whose?’

‘Dunno,’ said the same person. He’d obviously got our measure the previous day (we weren’t important).

We might have got no nearer than that except for the appearance of Mr and Mrs Shaw. They were still in their night attire. The crowd around the door parted to admit the householders, so Abel and I squeezed through after them.

The kitchen was large, with brick arches containing the hearths and a separate oven for baking. The place was heavy with the smell of last night’s cooking and the press of people. There were a couple of sinks set into the outer wall, and it was in this area that everyone’s attention was concentrated. One of the flagstones in the floor had been lifted and placed to one side.

Rather than earth or rubble, what lay beneath must have been a conduit of some kind, usual enough in a large kitchen like this. Gully the steward, the most important man there apart from the family, was standing by the hole. He alone out of the household looked spruce and trim. He caught his master’s eye and gestured downwards. He did not speak. I saw Shaw peer over the edge and flinch away. His wife stepped forward and also looked down before drawing back sharply. She clutched at his arm.

Naturally, my curiosity was stirred. Abel and I edged our way towards the cavity in the floor. By now, most of the people in the kitchen had had their fill of the sight and all eyes were on the Shaws to see what they were going to do or say next. I glanced down. I’d been right. About five feet below was a brick-lined drainage channel. Its function was to carry the waste from the kitchen sinks and, judging by the smell, probably the waste from the garderobes in the house as well. It was wide and deep. But that wasn’t what caught my attention.

Clearly visible at the bottom was the bare head, exposed neck and clothed back of a man. He was wedged along the line of the drain, his face hidden, submerged in a couple of inches of water. I knew, by instinct more than direct recognition, that the body was that of the recent visitor to our chamber. It was Henry Gifford, the tutor-priest.

For some reason I experienced a pang of guilt. I exchanged glances with Abel. He too had recognized Gifford and looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

‘Who found him?’ said Mr Shaw, breaking the silence.

‘I did, sir.’

It was one of the cooks, a large white-faced woman. (But her pallor might have been caused by shock.) She stepped forward.

‘Well, Anne?’ said Shaw.

‘When I came in this morning I noticed that the flagstone was out of place, sir. It was pushed to one side a bit. I couldn’t put it back by myself and I called to Adam to help.’

A servant, presumably Adam, now stepped up beside the woman. Words tumbled out of him.

‘She called and I came and we was trying to shove the flagstone back and I saw something wasn’t right and I said to Anne, “Something is wrong”, and we shifted the flag right away from the hole and looked down and saw . . . what anyone can see lying down in the bottom there. A person, sir. Now the steward comes in—’

‘I heard the stir, Mr Shaw,’ said Gully, stepping forward to join the line of witnesses. There was a pause as if he was going to say more, but he stopped short.

‘How did he die?’ said Shaw. Even at the time, it seemed an odd question or, rather, an odd moment to ask it.

‘Drowned, sir?’ said Gully.

‘Choked by the foul vapours?’ said someone else. Whether the speaker had intended it or not, there was something almost humorous in the remark, and one or two titters broke the tension. Then, as if a dam had been breached, the room was filled with talking.

Abel nudged me. He indicated the flagstone propped against the wall. He whispered in my ear: ‘Do you see, Nick, there are handholds on either side of that thing?’

Abel was right. The sides of the piece of paving stone were fairly regular except for two ragged indentations at opposing points. You wouldn’t have noticed them if the stone was in its place amongst the other rough-hewn flags on the floor. But a strong man, preferably a couple of strong men, would have been able to prise the slab from where it was set in the kitchen floor, using these handholds. This would have been useful if you’d wanted access to the drain to inspect it or to clear a blockage. What was odd was that, if the flagstone was intended to be raised, then the simplest thing would have been to set an iron ring in its upper surface. Much simpler than providing a couple of makeshift grips that looked as though they’d scrape your fingers when you grasped them. Unless, of course, one wanted to conceal the fact that this was a secret method of raising the stone and getting into – or out of – the drainage channel.

It was probably because we’d seen the priest-hole in our bedroom that Abel and I simultaneously realized the significance of the flagstone. Combe House had been adapted to conceal the followers of the old religion, or rather of its priests and ministers. There was most likely a secret network of tunnels, channels and hidey-holes throughout the house. Secret, but, of course, known to everybody at Combe. It could hardly be otherwise. No doubt all of its occupants were adherents to the old religion or sympathizers, at least. I remembered that the steward Gully had talked about the house being ‘out of the world’. It wasn’t only peace and quiet they were looking for but the freedom to persist with the old forms of worship.

William Shaw noticed the direction of my and Abel’s glances. He too looked at the flagstone. He was no fool. He realized what we’d understood.

‘We must get him out,’ said Mr Shaw, raising his voice to quell the babble.

Silence fell, but no one moved. Perhaps they were reluctant to descend into the drain and grapple with the body. Perhaps each person in the kitchen was waiting for someone else to step forward.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Abel. ‘It’s a small entrance and I am slight enough. I was familiar with bodies once. I served in the Dutch wars.’

I was proud of my friend. He was showing the stuff that we players are made of. He wasn’t far wrong either in drawing attention to his convenient slightness and the narrowness of the entrance to the conduit. Maybe at the same time, by volunteering himself, Abel was drawing attention away from the fact that he and I were the outsiders in the place, that we had our suspicions about Combe and because of that were ourselves objects of suspicion.

Scarcely waiting for Shaw’s assent, Abel perched on the edge of the hole and lowered himself into the drain. I went nearer to help. Several of us crowded around the aperture. I became more convinced than ever that this odd means of access to the kitchen conduit was part of the hidden realm of Combe.

Abel found it difficult to manoeuvre himself around the form of the prone man. He leaned forward in the confines of the channel but could not get sufficient purchase on the body to move it more than a few inches. His feet squelched in the mixture of water and detritus at the bottom of the drain.

‘A rope,’ he called up.

A rope was produced and, after a deal of grunting and muffled cursing, Abel secured it under the arms and around the chest of the dead man. Then, with the help of three of us pulling from the surface, the body was tugged to a position immediately below the hole, raised to a curious bent-backed position, then a standing one, and finally hauled out in a fashion that was inevitably unceremonious and undignified.

Abel Glaze scrambled out, unassisted. He was filthy, his hands and front smeared with slime, mingled with blood and water. He smelled rank. Meantime, the mortal remains of Henry Gifford were laid out on the kitchen flagstones for all to see. And what I could see was that this man had not been drowned or choked by foul vapours but murdered. Now that he was rolled on his back, eyes glassy and mouth gaping in the centre of his blue jowls, there was visible a great gash on his forehead. If there was not more blood on his countenance, it was because it had been washed away in the slop of the drain. I noticed that the members of the family – by this stage the son and daughter had arrived on the scene together with the widow Muriel – as well as the servants reacted with gasps or groans at the sight of Gifford’s corpse. But there were no tears, no cries of grief.

Such a fatal wound might have been an accident. Gifford might have slipped and struck his head on a stone ledge while creeping about underneath the house, but my mind straight away leaped to murder. Not the mind of William Shaw, however. He bent over the body, with his wife keeping at a slight distance. After a short scrutiny, Shaw pronounced: ‘An accident, a tragic accident.’

He was looking at Abel and me while he said this, as if daring us to question his judgement. He didn’t speculate or explain what Gifford had been doing down beneath the kitchen floor, but then, perhaps, in this house of secrets he didn’t have to. He gave orders that the body should be removed.

It was evident that we wouldn’t be able to leave Combe House just yet. Abel required a wash and a change of clothes, and Mr Shaw was too distracted to arrange for the escort he’d promised us. While Abel went outside to the yard, where there was a well and a hand-pump, I made myself scarce on the upper floor. In truth, I wanted to keep well away from the whole business of the dead tutor-priest, especially if his end had been deliberate, not accidental. I wondered what had happened to the so-called Armageddon Text. I wondered if Henry Gifford’s abrupt death was connected to the mysterious black book.

As I was standing in the passageway by our bedchamber, my musings were interrupted by a whimpering sound. I paused with my hand on the latch. The whimpering was now augmented by the noise of scratching. Further along the passage stood one of Mary Shaw’s spaniels, the source of the scratching and whining. Whichever name it went by, whether it was Finder or Keeper, the dog was pawing at the entrance to a room two or three doors along from mine and Abel’s.

I walked along to open the door of the room. As I neared the chamber I realized that the dog was anxious to join its mate, since an equivalent whining and scrabbling was coming from the other side. There was a hefty lock on the door, but it wasn’t secured. The instant the door widened sufficiently, Finder (or Keeper) slipped out to join his fellow, and the two of them scuttled down the passage without any acknowledgement to their rescuer.

I peered into the room. Though quite small, it was well lit, with a cluster of windows set irregularly in the east-facing wall. The sunlight pouring through was enough to dazzle my eyes. There was a pleasant smell from the herbs strewn on the floor. The room was seemingly a house of office, since there was a close-stool positioned beneath the windows. I looked at the view. In a spirit of curiosity I lifted the lid of the stool. The pierced seat was padded to make it more comfortable for the sitter. It must be for the benefit of the family, since only the Shaws would require privacy and padded seats for their private functions. In fact, they would most likely have a couple of such rooms in a property the size of Combe House. The servants enjoyed a communal privy on the ground floor, to which Abel and I had been directed after our arrival.

Yet there was something odd about this room. Privies, even refined ones for family use, are usually blind and airless places, not equipped with windows that give a fine view over the countryside as this one did. In the other wall was a door, also unlocked. It gave on to a bedroom. This was a large apartment, unusually so for a guest chamber (if that’s what it was, rather than a member of the family’s, since there appeared to be no personal possessions here). I looked around. There was a wardrobe against one wall. The wardrobe was unlocked and empty. I went to the main door, which led into the passage, and came to one or two conclusions. I returned to the first room and gazed around, particularly at the floor covered with rushes and clippings of rosemary and lavender.

I was on the point of leaving the room when I heard steps coming along the passage. I shrank back, reluctant to emerge. Then I recognized the steps as Abel’s. I stepped outside to meet him. He started when he saw me.

‘Nick, is that you? I have something to tell you.’

‘And I have something to show you,’ I said. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘Safe downstairs. I have been washing myself. And changing my shirt.’

I almost pulled him into the room I’d just emerged from. I shoved the door to. I pointed out the disordered state of the floor coverings, with the rushes and sprigs of rosemary and lavender not neatly spread about but lying in heaps and swirls. Near the close-stool was the outline of a trapdoor. It was difficult to see it straight away because of the light streaming through the windows.

‘So?’ said Abel. ‘It is for emptying the contents of
that
out of the pan beneath the seat and into the house drains.’

By
that
he meant the close-stool.

‘It’s a large trapdoor for emptying a pan of shit,’ I said, bending down and grasping the iron ring set into the floor. The trapdoor swung smoothly open. No sound, no creaks or squeaks. A slanting shaft of stone led down into darkness. A waft of colder air emanated from it, together with a less pleasant odour than that which had filled the room.

‘Big enough to take a man . . .,’ I said, closing the trapdoor.

‘. . . and probably linking to the drain running beneath the kitchen where Gifford was discovered,’ said Abel. ‘Though I’m not sure I’d care to slide down it.’

‘You would if you had to. I think the close-stool normally sits over this trapdoor. It’s not deliberate concealment but it draws the eye away from a careful examination of the floor. And when I first came in here I was struck by the number of windows. They’re at eyelevel too. The first thing you do when you come in here is to look outside. Your eyes would be filled with the daylight. You wouldn’t be likely to bother with the floor.’

‘And if you did,’ said Abel, ‘you would find only a channel going down to the main drain.’

‘There’s more,’ I said. ‘Next door is a bedroom, but it is large and somehow empty – apart from the bed. Anonymous too. We’re in a recusants’ house, Abel. They need somewhere to worship. Their priest needs somewhere to robe himself, and to live and sleep. I think this is where Gifford prepares for Mass – where he prepared for Mass, I should say – and next door is where the family assembles for it.’