Ancient Appetites (12 page)

'Well now, that's just the thing we need, so.' Shay grinned. 'Here, hand us a lead there, Francie, and we'll take one with us. You go back and keep a lookout like I told you, there's a good lad.'

Disappointed that he wasn't going to get to see the treasury, Francie untied one of the leads from the wall and passed it to his father. Shay took it and waved to Jimmy, heading off up the side tunnel with the bright-eye leading the way. It skittered along on four spiderlike legs protruding from a small but heavy body, mewing happily and eager for some exercise.

Francie undid the second engimals leash and led it back to the mouth of the tunnel. He figured they could keep each other company. There was a bench near the entrance and he sat down for a minute or two. But he couldn't relax so he stood back up again. The bright-eye was restless too. It flashed its light on and off at him. He sniggered and did a little jig in front of it. The engimal tried to imitate the steps, dancing delicately on its spindly legs. Francie laughed, adding some more steps. Again the bright-eye copied the moves.

They danced around each other, the boy leading and the engimal following, dancing to imagined music. That was how the three remaining members of Shay's gang found them when they drove up with the horse and dray. Staring down from the flat-bedded cart, the men's faces wore expressions of disgust.

'This is our lookout, is it?' Padraig sneered, tying the horse to one of the rails. 'We'll be right as rain so.'

Francie blushed from his ears to his collar and pulled the engimal's lead up short.

'Less dancin' an' more lookin' an' listenin', yeh little git,' Spud grunted at him. 'Or yeh'll feel the back of my hand across yer head.'

Feeling deeply ashamed, Francie sat down on the bench and kept his eyes on the ground as Padraig led the horse past him. The other men grabbed a wheelbarrow each and followed the cart into the tunnel. They were right, of course; he was supposed to be keeping watch, and instead there he was dancing around like a ninny. Well, that was enough of that. He kept his eyes out on the yard beyond the tunnel and listened carefully for any sounds of approach.

But it was boring. He struggled to keep his attention from wandering, to keep from drifting into a daydream. His gaze passed over one of the trestle tables used for laying out plans, and fell on a large roll of paper. He strolled over to take a peek. Unrolling it, he saw it was a copy of the plan he had stolen the week before, showing the lowest level of the tower section of Wildenstern Hall. The railway tunnel was here, leading into what was to be the underground station. Along its left side was the access tunnel that O'Keefe and his men had been working in over the last few days. To the right of this tunnel was the treasury. Shay and his men would be using black powder to blast through the dividing wall. It was so far underground, the people in the funeral procession above wouldn't hear a thing.

Then they would load the wheelbarrows and fill the cart. If they played their cards right, they could all be rich men overnight.

Francie was smiling nervously to himself just thinking about it. No more polishing buckles or cleaning the manure out of the stalls. No more sleeping in that poky, damp, draughty, smelly attic. And good riddance to it all. His eyes followed the line of the tunnel to the treasure room. He frowned.

The word 'Treasury' had been crossed out on this plan. Underneath it, in a scrawling handwriting, were the words 'Powder Store'. Francie stared down at these words until the world around them seemed to fade into a haze. All he could see were those words: 'Powder Store'. He could hear his pulse in his ears. His breath caught in his chest . . . and then he started running.

Tearing up the tunnel as fast as his legs could carry him, he screamed to his father.

'Da! No! It's not the treasure! It's not the treasure!'

A figure appeared in the gloom ahead of him.

'What is it, Francie?' Shay called, hurrying towards him. 'Keep your voice down, for the love of God! What's wrong?'

'It's not a treasure room, Da!' Francie panted desperately. 'It's the p—'

Then an invisible brick wall slammed into them and they were hurled towards the mouth of the tunnel in an exploding cloud of dust and shattered masonry.

W
hen the time came for the coffin to be carried on its bier out to the cemetery, Daisy suddenly found herself involved in a battle of the sexes as she arrived at the door of the church.

'Eunice, you mustn't create a fuss.' Gideon was pleading with his wife. 'It would be a breach of tradition for you to go to the mausoleum. Women don't attend the interment.'

'I don't care if it's not tradition!' Eunice hissed. 'I want to see him buried!

Tatiana piped up in a petulant voice:

'If she's going, I'm going. I want to see him buried too. I don't see why women aren't allowed. Why shouldn't we be?'

She looked for support from Daisy, who closed her eyes for a moment and prayed for strength. Women did not accompany the coffin to the grave; it just wasn't the done thing. And though it was just one of the many injustices heaped upon women in this day and age, this wasn't the time or place to have the argument. She was painfully aware of the massive crowd watching curiously from the sidelines. All around her, men were staring impatiently, outraged at this act of female rebellion.

'Perhaps we could just see Marcus's remains taken as far as the mausoleum, Uncle Gideon,' she said sweetly. 'And then we can retire and leave the men to the interment.'

'What a load of rot!' Eunice declared. 'I'm watching the whole thing. Are you with us or not, Melancholy?'

Daisy bridled at the use of the name she hated so much. Edgar was standing off to one side in a posture that said he would take no part in this disgraceful discussion. That left Roberto as the next most senior man in the family. She hesitated, then turned on her husband, who was observing her with an expression of reluctant amusement.

'Roberto, we'd like to attend the interment.'

'My darling—'

'Yes, dear?' She arched an eyebrow at him.

Berto did not want any friction with the family today, but he already knew the hell she could put him through if she did not get her way. He glanced again at that eyebrow, cloaked behind the gauzy veil – it rose another fraction of an inch. But it was the look on the face of his father that decided him.

'Perhaps we could break with tradition this once,' he said in a loud voice, glaring defiantly at Edgar. 'I think everyone should have the chance to say goodbye to Marcus.'

Gideon wore an expression of disgust, Eunice one of triumph. Nathaniel was standing back with Gerald, both of them suppressing mocking grins. As the coffin continued on its way, Daisy spotted a man at the edge of the crowd pressing his thumb to the top of his head. But then his wife slapped the back of his neck and he sheepishly cut short the gesture.

In the end, as the men bristled with indignation, over a dozen women followed the casket into the cemetery. All the family's recent Patriarchs were interred in a huge, gothic marble mausoleum at the top end of the cemetery, near the church. Further down, the Heirs who had died before reaching the position were placed in another mausoleum; not quite as grand but mightily impressive nonetheless. The great iron door stood open. Above the columns framing the entrance, an eight-foot, white marble angel raised the tips of his wings straight up towards heaven.

The men filled the path on either side of the door, and Daisy found herself standing beside Eunice on the grass in the shadow of the angel. The archbishop started droning on again in his professionally mournful voice. The six footmen carried the coffin inside on its bier. She had to raise her head to see over the men's shoulders. Her shoes were not well suited for walking on grass and she could feel the high, narrow heels starting to sink into the soft ground. She leaned her weight onto the balls of her feet.

Looking at the other women in their black silk crepe dresses, she was struck once more by the obscene amounts of money spent on funerals. These designer dresses would be used once and then thrown away; it was considered bad luck to keep funeral outfits in the home, even though most of these women would continue to wear black for months after the burial. This would be done partly because they were in mourning, but also out of fear of the dead. It was believed that dead souls clung to the living and that dressing in black hid the grieving family from the recently departed. As this unholy thought went through her mind, Daisy stared at the iron door of the mausoleum and a shiver ran down her spine. Born to a family like this, what kind of souls haunted that dark cavity?

'Bloody clergy, you can never shut them up,' Eunice muttered. 'I wish he'd get on and be done with it. These shoes are killing me—'

And then it seemed as if Judgement Day burst over them. The ground erupted with a cracking, deafening boom, muffling everything that followed with a whining silence as a shock wave lifted the people off their feet and cast them aside like leaves in the wind. Daisy found herself sliding across the flagstones of the path, yards from where she had been standing. She couldn't hear a thing and grit filled her eyes. Soil was falling from the sky.

She struggled against the confining folds of her unwieldy crinoline dress and staggered to her feet. Tearing off her veil, she rubbed her eyes, blinking rapidly to try and clear them. Bodies lay tossed and tangled all around her.

A coffin crashed to the ground – and then another, splitting open to spill out broken skeletons wrapped in shreds of cloth. Others fell in pieces. It rained splinters of wood and bone.

Nathaniel was near the door of the mausoleum, looking stunned and trying to stand up. His mouth was open and he had his hands over his ears. There was a long angel-shaped shadow on the ground around him and as Daisy watched, it moved. She looked up at the roof of the mausoleum. The marble angel above the entrance was teetering forward. Daisy screamed at him but he could not hear her.

For a second she froze – and then something crashed to the ground behind her and the fright it gave her started her running. She just managed to reach Nate before her foot caught on the hem of her dress and she stumbled, careering forward and shoving him aside. Daisy sprawled on the ground and before she could get up, the towering marble sculpture toppled from the roof and slammed down on top of her.

*

Nathaniel experienced a moment of complete confusion. One second he was standing watching his brother's coffin being deposited in the mausoleum, the next he was conscious only of being hurled against the mausoleum wall by a huge and sudden force. Then he was falling forward onto the ground, winded and stunned. Reflex had him back on his feet almost immediately, but it had the effect of spinning the world around him in a most unsettling way. He wondered why he couldn't hear anything . . . and why the air was filled with dust and debris.

He was gaping in awe at a sky filled with smoke, earth and flying coffins when a second thrusting force threw him forwards onto his face, knocking what little air was left out of his lungs. His jarred senses gave up their valiant struggle and tipped him into unconsciousness.

When Nate came round, he was surrounded by a criss-cross flicker of running legs. Lifting his head, he coughed up and spat out some crumbs of soil that he had somehow swallowed. His chest hurt, but not as much as his neck, head and shoulders. Getting stiffly to his feet, he looked around.

The cemetery was in ruins. Downhill and to his left yawned a massive crater of fresh earth. Tilted and broken gravestones formed angular black and white marks in the new carpet of fresh topsoil. Ruptured coffins lay scattered all around them, and in places a macabre snow of shattered bone had fallen with them. People were running everywhere; screaming, panicking, or making frantic efforts to help the injured.

As his hearing returned, Nate became aware of a voice behind him.

'. . . Nate? Nathaniel!'

He turned and was astounded to find the marble angel from the mausoleum's roof standing on its head behind him. Its upraised wings were embedded into the ground almost to its shoulders and its square base jutted into the air. Lying trapped beneath it was his sister-in-law.

'Would you be so kind as to help me?' Daisy hissed through gritted teeth.

Nathaniel took time to assess the situation properly. It posed a fascinating problem. The statue had landed on its wings in such a way that its head was still clear of the earth; but the wings had nailed the folds of Daisy's wire-hooped crinoline dress firmly to the ground on either side of her. She must have been thrown forward at the time because the dress was up around her waist and was pinned so tightly that she could not move her body. A quick peek behind the sculpture confirmed that her frilly, white, ankle-length bloomers were clearly visible.

'Nathaniel!' she screeched. 'Have you no decency?! Good God in Heaven, I'm in this position because I just saved your life!'

'I'm much obliged,' Nate replied, thinking it highly unlikely that she was telling the truth.

'It's a decision I'm already beginning to regret. Are you going to help me or not?'

He regarded the upturned statue with great deliberation as she lay there fuming.

'I think,' he said at last, 'that it'll take a team of men to draw your new friend from his scabbard. I'll have to get help.'

Daisy made a barely audible whimper, but maintained a dignified expression as she looked up at him from between the shoulders of the embedded sculpture.

'You will be discreet, won't you?'

'Of course,' he assured her, taking his coat off and draping it over her exposed undergarments. 'You can trust me.'

'And don't take too long,' she added.

'Don't worry' he called back to her as he walked away, 'you'll be quite safe. After all . . . you have an angel watching over you.'

Francie woke to find himself being carried through the settling cloud of dust. He coughed hoarsely, gagging on the grit in his throat. As his head lolled to one side, a nightmarish shape charged towards him and he heard snorting and panting breath over the rapid stomp of hooves. The drayhorse galloped past him, its eyes wide with panic, its flanks streaked with wounds. The remains of its cart clattered along on broken wheels behind it. In seconds it was lost from sight in the dusty fog.

Struggling feebly, Francie tried to get his feet under him. The strong arms holding him lowered him gently to the ground. He stood on shaky legs and rubbed his eyes. Shay gripped his shoulders and looked into his face.

'Are y'all right lad?' he asked.

Francie nodded slowly, but found he was crying.

'It's gone to pot, Francie,' his father told him in a broken voice. 'The whole place is blown to hell. The others are gone, d'yeh understand? They're gone. It's just us two. In a couple of minutes this place is goin' to be crawlin' with navvies so we have to skidaddle, d'yeh get me? Now listen, Francie, 'cos this is the hard bit.' He pulled his son closer. 'Yeh have to go back to work.'

' What?'
Francie frowned in bewilderment. 'What're yeh on about?'

'If we run now, they'll know it were us.' Shay shook him by the shoulders. 'We have to act normal. They'll come after whoever done this and they'll be lookin' for anyone actin' like they shouldn't. Yeh have to go back to work . . . And don't ever let on you were here.'

Francie was numb from shock. He couldn't grasp what his father was saying. The world had exploded around him and he was supposed to pretend it had never happened?

'Da, I—'

'Can yeh walk all right?'

'Yeah, but—'

'Then I have to leg it. Get back to the stables, son. Quick as yeh can now!'

With that, Shay was gone, running into the haze of dust that was settling around them. It was only as he was vanishing into the cloud that Francie noticed his father was carrying one of the bright-eyes from the tunnel. Francie didn't give it much thought. He could hear voices and he suddenly felt fear again. If they caught him here like this, he was finished. Starting off at an unsteady stagger, he quickly found his feet and bolted for the nearest bushes. He only just made it out of sight when the first of the workmen came bounding down the hill.