"And what do the rules say?"
"Put your addict inside, once he's well and truly hooked."
I looked at him thoughtfully, and leaned on Magnus's walking-stick for support. "You know very well," I said, "I gave bottle C to you, and that was the last; and you must have given the house a pretty thorough search when I was lying prone upstairs all the week."
"I did," he replied, "and searched it again today. I told Mrs. Collins I was looking for buried treasure, and I think she believed me. Suspicious sort of chap, aren't I?"
"Yes. And you found nothing, because there was nothing there."
"Well, you may count yourself damn lucky that there wasn't. I've got Willis's final report in my pocket."
"What does it say?"
"Only that the drug contains a substance of some toxicity that could seriously affect the central nervous system, possibly leading to paralysis. No need to elaborate."
"Show it to me now."
He shook his head, and suddenly he was not there anymore, and the walls were all around me, and I was standing in the hall of the Champernoune manor house looking out of the casement window at the rain. Panic gripped me, for it was not meant to happen, at least not yet; I had counted on being home, behind my own four walls, with Roger acting as my usual guide-protector. He was not here, and the hall was empty, and had been altered since I had seen it last. There seemed to be more furniture, more hangings, and the curtain masking the doorway to the stair above was drawn aside. Someone was crying in the bedroom overhead, and I could hear the sound of heavy footsteps pacing the floor. I looked out of the casement window once again, and saw through the falling rain that it must be autumn, for the clump of trees on the opposite hill where Oliver Carminowe had concealed himself and his men, as they lay in ambush waiting for Bodrugan, was golden brown as it had been then. But today no wind blew, tossing the leaves onto the ground below; the steady mizzle made them hang dispirited, and a shroud of mist clung above Lanescot and the river's mouth.
The crying turned to a high-pitched laugh, and down the stairs came a cup and ball, rolling one behind the other, until they reached the floor of the hall itself, when the ball rolled slowly under the table. I heard a man's voice call anxiously, "Mind how you go, Elizabeth!" as someone, still laughing, came clumping down the stairs in search of the toy. She stood a moment, her hands clasped in front of her, her long dress trailing, an absurd little bonnet askew on her auburn hair. Her likeness to Joanna Champernoune was startling, then tragic, for this was an idiot girl, about twelve years old, with a full loose mouth, and eyes set high in her head. She nodded, laughing, then picked up the ball and cup and began to throw them in the air, screaming with delight. Suddenly, tiring of the game, she tossed them aside and started to spin around in circles until she became giddy, when she fell on to the floor and sat there motionless, staring at her shoes.
The man's voice from above called out again, "Elizabeth... Elizabeth," and the girl struggled clumsily to her feet and smiled, gazing at the ceiling. Footsteps came slowly down the stairs and the man appeared, wearing a long, loose robe to his ankles, and a night-cap. I thought, for a moment, I had traveled back in time and it was Henry Champernoune who stood there, weak and pale in his final illness, but it was Henry's son William, an adolescent when I saw him last, squaring up to take his place as head of the family when Roger broke the news of his father's death. Now he looked thirty-five or even more, and I realized, with a shock of dismay, that time had leaped ahead of me at least twelve years, and all the intervening months and years were buried in a past I should never know. The frozen winter of 1335 meant nothing to this William, who had been a minor and unmarried then. He was now master of his own house, although battling, it would seem, against sickness, and enmeshed as well in the inescapable net of some family flaw.
"Come, daughter, come, love," he said gently, holding out his arms, and she put her finger in her mouth and sucked it, shaking her shoulders, then, with a sudden change of mind, darted to the floor and picked up her cup and ball again and gave it to him.
"I'll toss it for you above, but not down here," he said. "Katie has been sick as well, and I must not leave her."
"She'll not have my toy, I won't let her," said Elizabeth, nodding her head up and down, and she put out her hand and tried to snatch it back.
"What? Not let your sister share it when she gave it to you? That's not my Lizzie speaking, surely? Lizzie's flown up the chimney and a bad girl has taken her place."
He clicked his tongue in reproof, and at the sound of it her full mouth drooped, her eyes filled with tears, and she flung her arms about him, crying bitterly, clinging to his long robe.
"There, there," he said. "Father did not mean it, Father loves his Liz, but she must not tease him, he is still weak and sick, and poor Katie too. Come, now, upstairs, and she can watch us from her bed, and when you toss the ball high she'll be the better for it, and maybe smile."
He took her hand and led her towards the stairs, and as he did so someone came through the door leading to the kitchen quarters. William heard the footsteps and turned his head.
"See that all the doors are fastened before you go," he said, "and bid the servants keep them so, and open them to no one. God knows I hate to give the order, but I daren't do otherwise. Sick stragglers bide their time, and wait for darkness before they walk abroad and knock on men's doors."
"I know it. There have been many so in Tywardreath, and death has spread because of it."
There was no doubt about the speaker who stood at the open door. It was Robbie, a taller, broader Robbie than the lad I knew, and his chin was bearded now like his brother's.
"Watch how you go upon the road, then," answered William. "The same poor demented wanderers might attempt to strike you down, thinking, because you ride, you have some magic property of health denied to them."
"I'll ride with care, Sir William, have no fear. I would not leave you for the night except for Roger. Five days since I was home, and he's alone."
"I know, I know. God keep you both, and watch over all of us this night."
He led his daughter up the stairs to the room above, and I followed Robbie to the kitchen-quarters. Three servants sat there in dejected fashion, hugging the hearth, one with his eyes closed and his head resting against the wall. Robbie gave him William's message, and he echoed, "God be with us" without opening his eyes.
Robbie shut the door behind him and walked across the stable-court. His pony was tied to the stall inside the shed. He mounted and began riding slowly up the hill through the mizzling rain, passing the small cottages that formed part of the demesne, lining the muddied track. All the doors were fastened tight, and smoke came from the roofs of only two, the others seeming deserted. We reached the brow of the hill, and Robbie, instead of turning to the right on the road to the village, paused by the geld-house on the left, and, dismounting, tied his pony to the gate and walked up the path to the chapel alongside. He opened the door and entered, I following after. The chapel was small, hardly more than twenty feet in length and fifteen broad, with a single window facing east behind the altar. Robbie, making the sign of the Cross, knelt down before it, and bowed his head in prayer. There was an inscription in Latin beneath the window, which I read:
"Matilda Champernoune built this chapel in memory of her husband William Champernoune, who died in 1304."
A stone before the chancel steps was inscribed with her own initials and the date of her death, which I could not decipher. A similar stone, to the left, bore the initials H.C. There were no stained glass windows, no effigies or tombs built against the walls: this was an oratory, a memorial chapel.
When Robbie rose from his knees and turned away, I saw another stone before the chancel steps. The lettering read I.C.; the date was 1335. As I followed Robbie out into the rain and down towards the village, I knew of only one name that would fit, and it was not Champernoune.
Desolation was all about me, here by the geld-house and in the vi
llage too. No people on the green, no animals, no barking dogs. The doors of the small dwellings huddled close around the green were closed, like those on the demesne itself. A single goat, half-starved by its appearance, with ribs protruding from its lean body, was tethered by a chain near to the well, cropping the rough grass.
We climbed the hill-track above the Priory, and looking down on to the enclosure I could see no sign of life from behind the walls. No smoke came from the monks' quarters, nor from the chapter-house; the whole place seemed abandoned, and the ripening apples in the orchard had been left to cluster on the trees unplucked. And when we passed the plowlands on the high ground I saw that the soil had not been turned, and some of the corn was not even harvested but lay rotting on the earth, as if some cyclone in the night had swept it down. As we came to the pastureland on the lower slopes the Priory cattle, roaming loose, came lowing after us in desperation, as though in hope that Robbie, on his pony, might drive them home.
We crossed the ford with ease, for the tide was ebbing fast and the sands lay uncovered, flat and dirty brown under the rain. A thin wreath of smoke came from Julian Polpey's roof--he at least must have survived calamity--but Geoffrey Lampetho's dwelling in the valley looked as bare and deserted as those on the village green. This was not the world I knew, the world I had come to love and long for because of its magic quality of love and hate, its separation from a drab monotony; this was a place resembling, in its barren desolation, all the most hideous features of a twentieth-century landscape after disaster, suggesting a total abandonment of hope, the aftertaste of atomic doom.
Robbie rode uphill above the ford, and passing through the copse of straggling trees came down to the wall encircling Kylmerth yard. No smoke curled up from the chimney. He flung himself from his pony, leaving it to wander loose towards the byre, and running across the yard he opened the door.
"Roger!" I heard him call, and "Roger!" once again. The kitchen was empty, the turf no longer smoldered on the hearth. The remains of food lay untouched upon the trestle table, and as Robbie climbed the ladder to the sleeping-loft I saw a rat scurry across the floor and disappear.
There can have been no one in the loft, for Robbie came down the ladder instantly, and opened the door beneath it which gave access to the byre, revealing at the same time a narrow passage ending in a store-room and a cellar. Slits in the thickness of the wall allowed streaks of light to penetrate the gloom, and this was the only source of air as well. There was little draft to cleanse the atmosphere of sweet mustiness pervading, due to the rotting apples laid in rows against the wall. An iron cauldron, unsteady on three legs, and rusted from disuse, stood in the far corner, and beside it pitchers, jars, a three-pronged fork, a pair of bellows. This store-room was a strange choice for a sick man to make his bed. He must have dragged his pallet from the sleeping-loft and placed it here beside the slit in the wall, and then, from increasing weakness or lack of will, lain through the days and nights until today.
"Roger..." whispered Robbie, "Roger!"
Roger opened his eyes. I did not recognize him. His hair was white, his eyes sunk deep in his head, his features thin and drawn; and under the white furze that formed his beard the flesh was discolored, bruised, with the same discolored swellings behind his ears. He murmured something, water, I think it was, and Robbie rose from his side and ran into the kitchen, but I went on kneeling there beside him, staring down at the man I had last seen confident and strong.
Robbie returned with a pitcher of water, and, putting his arms round his brother, helped him to drink. But after two mouthfuls Roger choked, and lay back again on his pallet, gasping.
"No remedy," he said. "The swelling's spread to my throat and blocked the windpipe. Moisten my lips only, that's comfort enough."
"How long have you lain here?" asked Robbie.
"I cannot tell. Four days and nights, maybe. Not long after you went I knew it had me, and I brought my bed to the cellar so that you could sleep easy above when you returned. How is Sir William?"
"Recovered, thanks be to God, and young Katherine too. Elizabeth still escapes infection, and the servants. More than sixty died this week in Tywardreath. The Priory is closed, as you know, and the Prior and brethren gone to Minster."
"No loss," murmured Roger. "We can do without them. Did you visit the chapel?"
"I did, and said the usual prayer."
He moistened his brother's lips with water once again, and in rough but tender fashion tried to soften the swellings beneath his ears.
"I tell you, there's no remedy," said Roger. "This is the end. No parish priest to shrive me, no communal grave among the rest. Bury me at the cliff's edge, Robbie, where my bones will smell the sea."
"I'll go to Polpey and fetch Bess," said Robbie. "She and I can nurse you through this together."
"No," said Roger, "she has her own children to care for now, and Julian too. Hear my confession, Robbie. There's been something on my conscience now these thirteen years."
He struggled to sit up but had not strength enough, and Robbie, the tears running down his cheeks, smoothed the matted hair out of his brother's eyes.
"If it concerns you and Lady Carminowe, I don't need to hear it, Roger," he said. "Bess and I knew you loved her, and love her still. So did we. There was no sin in that for any of us."
"No sin in loving, but in murder, yes," said Roger.
"Murder?"
Robbie, kneeling by his brother's side, stared down at him, bewildered, then shook his head. "You're wandering, Roger," he said softly. "We all know how she died. She had been sick for weeks before she came here, and hid it from us; and then when they tried to carry her away by force she gave her promise she would follow in a week, and so they let her stay."
"And would have gone, but I prevented it."
"How did you prevent it? She died before the week had passed, here, in the room above, with Bess's arms about her, and yours too."
"She died because I would not let her suffer pain," said Roger. "She died because, had she kept her bargain and traveled to Trelawn and thence into Devon, there would have been weeks of agony ahead, even months, agony that our own mother knew and endured when we were young. So I let her go from us in sleep, knowing nothing of what I had done, and you and Bess in the same ignorance."
He put out his hands and felt for Robbie's, holding it tight. "Did you never wonder, Robbie, when in the old days I stayed at the Priory late at night, or on occasion brought de Meral here to the cellar, what it was I did?"
"I knew the French ships landed merchandise," said Robbie, "and you conveyed it to the Priory. Wine and other goods which the Prior lacked. And the monks lived well because of it."
"They taught me their secrets too," said Roger. "How to make men dream and conjure visions, rather than pray. How to seek a paradise on earth that would last for a few hours only. How to make men die. It was only after young Bodrugan perished in de Meral's care that I sickened of the game, taking no further part in it. But I had learned the secret well, and so made use of it, when the time came. I gave her something to ease pain and let her slip away. It was murder, Robbie, and a mortal sin. And no one knows of it but you."
The effort of speaking had drained him of all strength, and Robbie, lost and frightened suddenly in the presence of death, let go his hand, and, stumbling to his feet, went blindly along the passage to the kitchen, in search, I think, of some additional covering to draw over his brother. I went on kneeling there, in the cellar, and Roger opened his eyes for the last time and stared at me. I think he asked for absolution, but there was no one there, in his own time, to grant it, and I wondered if, because of this, he had traveled through the years in search of it. Like Robbie, I was helpless, and six centuries too late.
"Go forth, O Christian soul, out of this world, in the name of God the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified thee..."
I
could not remember any more, and it did not matter, because he had already gone. The light was coming through the chinks of the shuttered window in the old laundry, and I was kneeling there, on the stone floor of the lab, among the empty bottles and the jars. There was no nausea, no vertigo, no singing in my ears. Only a great silence, and a sense of peace.
I raised my head and saw that the doctor was standing by the wall and watching me.
"It's finished," I said. "Roger's dead, he's free. It's all over."
The doctor put out his hand and took my arm. He led me out of the room and up the stairs, and through to the front part of the house and into the library. We sat down together on the window-seat, staring out across the sea.
"Tell me about it," he said.
"Don't you know?"
I had thought, seeing him in the lab, that he must have shared the experience with me, then I realized it was impossible.
"I waited with you on the site," he told me, "then walked with you up the hill, and followed behind you in the car. You stopped for a moment in a field above Tywardreath, near where the two roads join, then down through the village and along the side-lane to Polmear, and so back here. You were walking quite normally, rather faster, perhaps, than I would have cared to do myself. Then you struck to the right through the wood, and I came down the drive. I knew I should find you below."
I got up from the window-seat and went to the bookshelf, and took down one of the volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"What are you looking for?" he asked.
I turned the pages until I found the reference I sought.
"The date of the Black Death," I said, "1348. Thirteen years after Isolda died." I put the book back upon the shelf.
"Bubonic plague," he observed. "Endemic in the Far East--they've had a number of cases in Vietnam."
"Have they?" I said. "Well, I've just seen what it did in Tywardreath six hundred years ago."
I went back to the window-seat and picked up the walking-stick. "You must have wondered how I managed that last trip," I said. "This is how." I unscrewed the top and showed him the small measure. He took it from me and held it upside down. It was fully drained.