Island of Bones
Copyright © 2011 Imogen Robertson
The right of Imogen Robertson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2011
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN : 978 0 7553 7205 8
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To my parents, Mark and Celia
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you as always to the friends and family who support me all through the process, then kindly go out into the streets to rugby-tackle strangers and recommend the novels: my apologies to anyone they’ve harassed in a bookshop. Also, many thanks to those people who have written to me, or spoken to me at signings and events to say kind things about my first two Westerman/Crowther novels. It has been a continual source of encouragement as I wrote this book, and is much appreciated. Huge thanks, as always, to Flora and everyone at Headline; to Annette, David, and to Goldsboro Books; and to Richard Foreman and all his angels, and the friends and allies I have made through him.
As usual I have gathered material from just about everyone I’ve spoken to in the last year and a half. Particular thanks go to Bob, Faye and all at the retreat in Bridport (especially Walt and Bis) for letting me handle and shoot longbows; to Lottie Tyers for the use of her name; to Andrew for our discussions on folk medicine, and to all those who have been kind enough to talk to me about the grief of losing someone very dear to them. Also, thanks to the people of Keswick, whose reputation for friendly hospitality is as well deserved in the twenty-first century as I’m sure it was in the eighteenth.
And of course I’m particularly grateful to Ned for making all things possible and everything a great deal more fun.
Evening of 3 February 1751, Tower of London
T
HERE WAS A PECULIAR HUSH
around the Tower the night before an execution. The mist from the river shushed the streets and people moved quietly. The guards nodded to each other, stamped their feet and wished for dawn, then thought of the man in the Tower; they looked at the light showing faintly from his rooms and shivered again.
The fire could do little against the damp air of a February night, and nor could the wine warm the two men keeping vigil in the white-washed cell. They had been silent a long time. It was clear they were brothers – they had the same hooded eyes, the same slender figure – but they were turned away from each other, thinking their own thoughts. The younger of the two, Charles, glanced sideways at his brother without turning his head. Lucius Adair Penhaligon, 2nd Baron Keswick, was shivering and flushed; his silk waistcoat was undone and his hands were working one over the other as if he were trying to wash something from them. Charles looked back into the yellow flames, a little nauseated.
The fire cracked and Adair started at the noise; then, as if woken suddenly, he looked around at the plain walls with an air of disbelief.
‘What a little life I have had, Charles,’ he said. ‘And now I am afraid to lose it.’
Charles picked up the decanter and filled his brother’s glass again. His own was still full. He set it back down on the table between them and returned to his contemplation of the fire without replying.
‘How can it be I shall be dead tomorrow at this time? I cannot imagine it – I cannot.’ Adair then downed the contents of his glass. His voice quivered. ‘Can nothing be done? Can
you
do nothing?’
Charles shook his head and heard his brother begin to snivel.
‘I did not murder him, Charles!’ Adair shook his head slowly from side to side, as if trying to shift some weight across the floor of his mind. ‘No one believes me, but I did not, I swear I did not. Where is Margaret?’
‘You have had her letter. She is in Ireland now.’
Adair looked around the room as if the matter was not settled, as if their sister might appear in the shadows. ‘Yes, of course. And has no one else come, Charles? Have none of my friends come to sit with me tonight?’
‘No.’
The sound of his weeping grew louder, and Charles wished he could block out the noise. The stones around the fire were charred black with the ghosts of other flames. Charles watched, willing the sparks to fly free of the grate and consume it all – his brother, himself, then the whole city – and leave not a trace of them or their history behind them. The flames continued feeble and sullen. Very well, if he could not burn away his past, he would abandon it. Once the estate was sold, he would sign himself into the student roll of the University of Wittenberg and lose himself there and in his studies; after that, Padua perhaps. Then he could forget the gothic horrors of his family, the blood and money. Finding himself thinking of his own future, he glanced back at his brother. The sobbing had eased. Adair wiped his face and snuffled into his handkerchief.
‘What will they say of me when I am gone, Charles? Will they say anything, as they lose the money they won from me at the card table? Perhaps they will laugh. They used to laugh at me. I would be so sure of winning, I wore my coat turned inside out for luck, and each night they would ask if I were certain of my success, then laugh at me – but I
was
sure, I was sure every time. I only needed a hundred, and it seemed like such a simple thing. Oh God! Will it hurt, Charles?’
Charles turned away. ‘If the hangman knows his job, it will be quick.’
Adair scrambled suddenly to his feet and ran to the corner of the little room where a jug and ewer waited and bent over it. Charles heard the splatter of his vomit on the porcelain, the dry heavings of his stomach. After some moments Adair returned to the fire to find his glass full again. He could hardly hold it to his lips, so violent was his trembling.
‘Charles, do you think there is a God? The priest tells me I shall be saved if I repent.’
His brother did not answer him.
‘You think I am a coward?’
‘You fear what every man fears.’
Adair suddenly stood again and threw his glass with a cry. It smashed, and the last of the wine dripped down the wall.
‘For God’s sake! Will you not weep for your brother, Charles? How are you so cold? I was no better a brother to Margaret, yet her letter was so sodden I can hardly read it. Do I not deserve your tears? Can you weep? Are you a man at all?’ Adair dropped back into his seat as if that small act of outrage had exhausted him entirely. When he spoke again, it was as if he was talking to himself. ‘I did not kill him – and yet no one believes me. It was the other man, the man with a hundred pounds. It was not my fault. Why does no one believe me?’
Charles stared at his cuffs and would not look up, willing the time to pass.
‘Oh, leave me to the priest, Charles. He will weep, if only because it is his pleasure to see a man pray.’
Charles stood and turned towards the door.
‘Charles?’ Adair tumbled out of his seat and on to the brick floor at his brother’s feet, grabbing hold of his hand. Charles felt the soft damp flesh on his own and was revolted, but Adair’s grip was too desperate for him to be able to pull free. ‘I swear I am innocent of this! The old man wanted to see him alone, and I needed the money – what was the harm? Father was dead when I found him! I took the knife out
of him, but he was gone, then I ran. I was afraid. Oh God! I am innocent and now they are going to kill me, and you shall let them. Why don’t you believe me?’
Charles looked down for a moment, then crouched beside him. ‘I don’t believe you, Addie, because you have always been a bully and a liar. I don’t believe you because you were found with the knife in your hand, and confessed the crime . . .’
‘I only meant I had
caused
it by arranging for the man to meet him! Please, Charles, I am begging you . . .’
Charles felt Adair’s fingers kneading his own.
‘I don’t believe you because you had the money you stole from our father’s notecase in your coat. It was bloody, Addie, our father’s blood was on the bills.’