Blood Roots: Are the roots strong enough to save the pandemic survivors? (14 page)

It was nearly two hundred yards across open ground to the gate. Grazing deer had kept the undergrowth down and the bracken at bay. The moon was exceptionally bright. There was a little broken cloud but it was fast moving and obscured the moon for only a few seconds at a time.

‘I’m off when the next cloud comes across,’ Mark said finally.
‘Wait here till just before dawn if necessary. I need you to cover the lawn area with the rifle in case there are any problems. If for any reason I don’t get out by daylight, make your way back to Seal and come back and wait here for me again tomorrow night. Whatever happens, don’t make contact with your father until we know what the situation is.’

A cloud swept across the moon and Mark bolted for the huge iron-railed gates.

‘Good luck,’ Fergus called softly after him.

As the moon emerged from behind the cloud Mark was already lying motionless, face down on the grass. It took him two more passing clouds to get to the safety of the wall and another to get over the locked gates.

As he paused in the shadows alongside the massive stone pillars, his heart pounded with both the exertion of climbing the twenty foot high gates and the dread of finding out what had happened to Steven and
Archangel
’s crew.

Archangel
’s voyage from New Zealand was almost over. Steven stood at the helm as the yacht entered the Thames. Thirty-eight years of age, tall, muscular, blond and good-looking, he cut a dashing figure. The fact did not go unnoticed by his partner Penny; she watched him adoringly, as she often did. Also attractive, her sharp features softened by her mass of curly blond hair, she was twelve years his junior. She was holding their son, baby David, and talking to her cousin Allison sitting uncomfortably beside her.

Allison was old to be pregnant, but the bloom of pregnancy made her look less than her forty-three years. Her sensual lips, short-cropped hair and high Chatfield cheekbones made her a real beauty.

Penny also kept a watchful eye on her other son, the blond-haired, fine-featured Lee, who on account of his small size looked younger than his seven years. He was up in the pulpit with his sixteen-year-old cousin Luke who, like her son, was short in stature and lightly built. Luke, smiling as ever, pointed out landmarks to the little boy.

Steven decided to sail up the Thames and anchor off Greenwich just below the remains of the Thames Barrier. He had considered anchoring at Gillingham in the Medway, but had no idea what the situation was at Sevenoaks. More than two years earlier he and his father, after escaping from Haver, had nearly been ambushed by the Chatfield brothers opposite where
Archangel
had anchored at Gillingham. He had decided not to chance anchoring there again.

With a final glance back at
Archangel
, the crew began the journey to Haver. Allison, who was due to have her baby any day, was finding it difficult to walk. They called a halt, and searched for more than an hour before finding a wheelchair in a derelict house. They also found a buggy for baby David. The roads were covered in weeds, and cracked and uneven in many places. Despite the wheelchair and buggy the going was slow and difficult.

Two days later they reached the town of Sevenoaks. It was late in the evening and getting dark. Despite their excitement, they knew they would have to wait until the next day to approach Haver. They stumbled into a house at the top of Sevenoaks High Street, slumped fully clothed onto the musty-smelling beds and quickly fell asleep.

At six in the morning, while Penny, Allison and the children slept on, Steven and Luke crept out of the house and made their way into Haver Park. An hour later Allison, Penny and Lee heard footsteps clattering up the stairs.

‘The Union Jack and the Cross of St George are flying above the West Tower!’ blurted an excited Steven.

‘How’s my mother?’ Allison asked.

‘We didn’t go in. As soon as we saw the flags flying we raced back to get you.’

‘Anyway, your mother won’t be up yet,’ Luke added. ‘There were no lights on in the house.’

‘I wish I could take Lee into Haver,’ Penny said.

‘You can,’ Allison said softly.

Steven looked at her, confused. ‘Is he an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid or isn’t he?’

‘He is a carrier. Some or all of the people living at Haver may fall ill if we are not careful, but the illness won’t kill them.’

Penny was confused too. ‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t believe Lee’s carrying the standard strain of typhoid. I think it’s a new disease — a disease that’s only fatal to people with dark skins, like the Aborigine women we met in Brisbane and those with Maori blood, like Zoë. Don’t ask me how such a disease works, I don’t know.’

‘How long have you suspected this?’ Steven demanded. She didn’t answer. ‘Did you know before we left New Zealand?’ Again she did not reply. ‘You should have told my father!’ Steven shouted, unable to contain his anger.

‘And do you know what he would have done? He would have sacrificed Holly for Lee, just to keep you there.’

‘You mean exposed her to the virus and let her die?’ Steven could barely contain his anger. ‘He wouldn’t have done that!’ he shouted. He knew his little orphaned part-Maori niece Holly was his father’s favourite.

‘Are you sure? Anyway, my decision not to tell him made sense. As long as Lee never came into contact with Holly she was safe, and the New Zealand community stood to gain the benefit of her Maori genes.’

Lee opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Luke.

‘Come on, let’s get going. What’s the point of arguing about it now? The flags are flying. We’re here, and it’s safe to go in. It’s safe for Lee to go in too. That’s all that matters.’

They helped Allison down the stairs and into the wheelchair, put baby David in the buggy and hurried along the High Street, retracing the route Steven and Luke had taken earlier. The mist was beginning to disperse. As they passed through the pedestrian gate beside the cattle grid they could discern the outline of deer and cattle further along the valley. They dragged the wheelchair and buggy up the narrow, overgrown tarmac path that wound its way through the trees to the top of the hill.

‘See?’ Luke said, pointing at the flags fluttering in the breeze
above the West Tower, his face beaming.

Steven was more subdued. He was wrestling with the facts Allison had presented, trying to come to terms with her deception.

‘There’s a man on top of the tower,’ Lee said excitedly. All eyes focused on the parapet and saw a large crow flutter down to the gardens below.

‘Funny-looking man,’ laughed Luke.

‘I did see a man,’ insisted Lee.

‘No one will be awake yet. You can help me take my grandmother a cup of tea in bed. Do you remember your Great-Great-Aunt Margaret?’ Luke said.

‘That’s my job,’ Allison said firmly, her voice resonating with happiness.

‘He can take his own grandmother a cup of tea,’ countered Penny.

Steven relaxed a little. He remembered the look on his cousin Diana’s face when Penny told her mother that she was leaving for New Zealand with Lee. He hoped Diana would forgive him now he had brought them both safely home.

They hurried across the parkland towards Haver House. The gates beneath the West Tower were open and Lawn Court was deserted. There were no lights in the windows of the buildings surrounding the courtyard, but they could see lights ahead beyond the archway of Cromwell’s Tower.

As they walked across Lawn Court Penny burst into song. ‘There’ll always be an England …’

Her voice reverberated off the stone walls of the buildings surrounding the courtyard. Luke, Allison and Steven joined in, singing at the top of their voices. Lee, who didn’t know the words, accompanied them as best he could.

As they entered the archway, the parapet that ran above the Great Hall on the other side of Flag Court loomed into view.

‘Why is there a rotting pumpkin on a pole up there?’ Luke asked Steven.

Steven looked up. As they continued through the archway the strange object became more distinct.

‘Stop!’ Steven yelled suddenly. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ He started to struggle to turn Allison’s wheelchair around.

Penny and Luke heard a strange grating noise behind them and jumped with fright. With a rattling of iron chains and a cloud of rust, the portcullis crashed down into the archway behind them, cutting off their retreat. Then another portcullis dropped in front of them. They were trapped beneath the archway.

Steven looked up at the rotten pumpkin again. His heart sank. Despite the decay, there was no mistaking the sharp features. It was Diana’s head.

‘Welcome back,’ said a voice behind them.

They spun around. Damian, Jasper and Greg stood smiling at them through the portcullis.

Penny’s wailing bounced off the cavernous stone roof of the archway beneath Cromwell’s Tower, intensifying the sound. She had looked up and seen the head of her mother on the pike. Steven tried his best to comfort her. Lee and baby David, unsettled by her wailing, were crying too.

‘Why?’ Steven asked, looking at the three Chatfield brothers in turn.

Jasper tossed his long blond locks and twiddled his moustache with his fingers. ‘She got what she deserved, the murdering bitch.’

‘Where’s my mother?’ Allison asked. She had been searching the crowd of people who were milling about outside the entrance to the Great Hall. They were staring in the direction of Cromwell’s Tower, but appeared too frightened to approach.

Jasper laughed. The uneasy look on Greg’s face provided Allison’s answer. Her wailing matched that of Penny. Luke tried to console his aunt.

‘What’s been going on?’ Steven demanded.

‘We ask the questions,’ Damian shouted. He was both excited and agitated. He had lost none of his volatility.

‘Lock them up,’ Jasper barked to his two brothers. ‘Put them in the cell in Cromwell’s Tower. Except him,’ he continued, pointing at Steven. ‘When the others are secure bring him to me in the ballroom for interrogation.’

‘She’ll never make it up those stairs,’ Steven protested, nodding towards Allison. He’d climbed up the tower to the cell many times. The spiral staircase was steep and dangerous. ‘She’s due to give birth any day.’

Greg hesitated.

‘Get her up there with the rest,’ Jasper snarled.

‘It could kill her,’ Steven pleaded.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Damian sniggered. ‘She’s going to die anyway.’

‘I demand to see your father. I want to see His Lordship.’

All three of the Chatfield brothers went white. ‘What’s been going on?’ Steven asked yet again. His question remained unanswered.

The three brothers disappeared from view, then Jasper reappeared in Flag Court where the rest of the community continued to mill about. Steven was still trying to console Penny.

‘They’re going to kill us all,’ she sobbed. ‘Even the children! I know it.’

‘I’m sure they won’t kill anyone, including Allison,’ Steven assured her. But remembering how white the brothers had gone at the mention of their father he wasn’t so sure. The anger in their eyes had been frightening. Steven concluded that Nigel was dead.

As Jasper strode across Flag Court, a woman in a beautiful satin dress walked through the entranceway to the Great Hall. At first Steven didn’t recognise her. The last time he had seen her, she too had been dressed in the same shapeless grey tunic as his other relatives. With her hair beautifully groomed and the dress accentuating her hourglass figure, she looked stunning. It was his cousin Virginia. His other cousins bowed low to her, then bowed again as Jasper arrived and took her arm.

Steven was relieved. He had always got on well with Virginia. He guessed from Jasper’s bearing and command of his brothers that he was now Lord Jasper of Haver. Virginia was presumably Lady Virginia. Surely Virginia would intercede on Allison’s behalf?

Behind them, the door leading to the spiral staircase of Cromwell’s Tower burst open. Damian and Greg emerged with their pistols drawn.

‘Get up to the cell,’ Damian shouted, pointing his pistol to the open door.

‘Allison can’t make the stairs,’ Steven insisted. ‘They’re too steep.’

‘Go and stand in the corner over there,’ Damian said, pointing his pistol to where the stone and the portcullis met. Steven sensed his cousin, despite having the pistol in his hand, was wary. They had fought twice in the past, and on both occasions Damian had lost.

‘Now,’ Damian growled, pointing the pistol directly at Steven’s head. Feeling his cousin wanted an excuse to settle old scores, he obeyed.

White-faced and grimacing with pain, Allison struggled from the wheelchair. Both Luke and Penny helped her.

‘Hurry up,’ Greg commanded, attempting to show that he too had some authority in the Chatfield family.

‘Let Allison go up the stairwell first,’ Luke whispered to Penny. Slowly, they got Allison through the doorway and helped her up the first few steps. Lee followed, then Penny, carrying baby David. Steven noted that Luke had bravely placed himself immediately in front of the two volatile Chatfield brothers.

‘Stay where you are …’ Damian snarled at Steven as he pushed Luke into the tower and disappeared after him. The door slammed and Steven heard the lock turn. It was a pointless command: he was trapped anyway.

He listened to the shouting, crying and pleading as Damian forced the group of prisoners up the staircase. It was clear from the noise and the slowness with which the commotion receded that Allison was struggling. It was also evident from Damian’s exasperated cursing that he was getting angrier by the minute. Steven knew that when the party finally reached the cell, Damian would be itching to take
his anger out on someone. He only hoped the anger would keep till Damian came back to collect him for his interrogation.

Allison’s screams a few seconds later told him that wasn’t to be.

‘Raise the portcullis,’ Damian yelled.

He and Greg had left Cromwell’s Tower by another doorway leading onto Flag Court and were now standing looking in at Steven trapped under the archway. Several of Steven’s relatives ran across Flag Court towards the doorway to obey the command. It had been two and a half years since Steven had seen them, but they each seemed to have aged considerably more than that.

The youngest and fittest, Kimberley Steed, her sister Rebecca and their cousin Theresa Morgan, arrived first, followed by Cheryl Grey and her sons, the tall twelve-year-old Harry and the only slightly shorter ten-year-old Ruben.

Steven’s uncle Paul and his cousin Duncan Steed arrived last. Both were in their early sixties, both were panting, and both looked older than Steven’s father Mark, who was several years their senior. Paul in particular looked dreadful. His hair was white, his face gaunt and his eyes sunken. Duncan’s lined face and heavy jowls were partly obscured by his mop of unruly red hair and his bushy ginger-grey beard.

‘What’s been going on?’ Steven called as his uncle hurried past. Paul glanced at the Chatfield brothers. Too frightened to talk, he shook his head.

Seconds later Steven heard the complaint of rusty metal against metal as the portcullis began to lift. He couldn’t believe his eyes. His cousins were lifting the wrong portcullis, the one leading out onto Lawn Court and the West Gate beyond. He watched as the gap grew, inch by inch. But Greg and Damian had noticed the error too. As the gap reached twelve inches and Steven prepared to slip under and make a run for it, Damian rushed up to the other portcullis and poked his gun through the latticework.

‘Try it and I’ll shoot you.’

‘You’re raising the wrong portcullis, you bloody idiots,’ Greg
yelled. ‘Drop it now!’ The portcullis came crashing down.

Inch by inch the inner portcullis leading into Flag Court was lifted. Damian, who was getting impatient, took Greg aside and spoke to him, after which Greg hurried to the door leading into the tower and yelled up the stairwell, ‘Put your backs into it, or else!’ He stayed beside the doorway, periodically yelling abuse at his cousins.

When the portcullis was less than eighteen inches off the ground, Damian motioned Steven to crawl under. He hesitated. He didn’t like the grating sound of the rusty chains. ‘Now,’ Damian snapped.

As Steven edged under, Damian nodded to Greg, who shouted up the staircase, ‘Drop it!’

Steven instinctively rolled into Flag Court. With an accompanying cloud of rust the portcullis crashed down, missing him by inches.

Damian was laughing. ‘Nearly got him,’ he called to Greg.

‘Lucky you missed. Your boss, Jasper, wouldn’t have liked it,’ Steven said as he dusted himself off.

The look on Damian’s face told Steven he had touched a raw nerve.

‘It would just have been an accident,’ said Greg, who had hurried over. ‘Your idiot cousins can’t get anything right.’

‘And be careful what you say to my brother,’ Damian warned, ‘or Penny will be having an accident.’ He turned to Greg. ‘You organise getting the portcullis up, I’ll take this mongrel for his interrogation.’

Damian, pistol in hand, pointed towards the entrance to the Great Hall. ‘So what’s been going on?’ Steven asked as they walked towards the entrance.

‘Did I give you permission to talk?’

As he walked, Steven tried to answer his own questions, but he ended up with few answers and even more questions.

They entered the Great Hall, the immense, oak-panelled room with its decorative plasterwork ceiling and elaborately carved screen concealing the Minstrel Gallery still impressive. Two of his cousins were setting up the table on the raised dais at the far end of the hall. Haggard-faced Susan, her thinning grey hair tied back, shuffled
around the table attending the vases of flowers. His younger cousin Jennifer meticulously arranged place settings, using rods to ensure the distances between items of cutlery and between individual settings were identical. Five elaborately carved gilt chairs stood behind the table on the dais facing over the main hall. The huge centre chair could only be described as a throne.

The two women looked up momentarily. They failed to acknowledge him, and quickly lowered their eyes. He could tell they were not surprised to see him. Somehow the whole community had been warned of his party’s approach. Lee must have been right: there had been a man on the West Tower. He wished he had heeded the boy’s warning. But would it have made any difference? The Union Jack and Cross of St George were flying. Why had they been there when it was not safe for him to enter?

He was surprised to see that one of the fifty foot long refectory tables had been pushed against the wall, leaving a single table set for the next meal. Unlike the top table the refectory table had only a small tablecloth at the end closest to the dais. There was a small vase of flowers there too, and three neatly arranged place settings. The remainder of the table was bare wood with a knife, fork and spoon dumped at intervals along it. There were no flowers and no gilded chairs — just rough wooden benches running down each side. There were not as many place settings as Steven expected.

Something serious had happened.

They passed into the foyer of the Grand Staircase. The statue of a nude reclining on her tummy at the foot of the stairs stood as it always had, seductive and mysterious. It was rumoured the subject had been the mistress of one of the former lords of Haver.

As Steven climbed the stairs he ran through a list of the people he hadn’t seen: Cameron Steed, Warren Dalton, Penny’s sister Melanie and Charlene Dalton. Where were they all? It was too early for them to be working on the farm, surely?

He entered the ballroom. Like the Great Hall, it was immense, with panelled walls and a patterned ceiling. A great, carved marble fireplace stretching from floor to ceiling dominated one end of the room.

Jasper lounged on a richly embroidered settee, one of the priceless seventeenth-century pieces of English furniture for which Haver was famous. He had his hands cupped behind his head, his elbows sticking out, and his feet on a footstool. There was arrogance in his posture and on his face.

There was also arrogance in his voice. ‘So you’re back,’ he said to Steven, as Damian settled down on a chair beside him. Steven noticed that Damian did not ship his pistol in its holster, but held it on his lap.

Virginia was sitting on the settee alongside Jasper. Steven nodded at her and smiled. Her face remained expressionless. Steven noticed Damian watching her carefully.

‘Mind if I sit down?’ he asked as he sauntered towards a chair beside the window.

‘Yes I do mind,’ Jasper snarled.

‘You don’t sit in the presence of the Chatfields unless you’re told to,’ Damian added.

Jasper shot his brother a glance. He didn’t need any help from Damian to establish his authority.

Steven returned to stand in front of them.

‘Address us properly. Have you got that?’ Jasper said.

‘Yes … Sir Jasper.’

‘Yes
Your Lordship
,’ Jasper corrected him.

‘Then I take it your father’s dead? I’m sorry to hear that,’ he lied. ‘What happened?’

Jasper lost his temper. He jumped to his feet and pointed his finger straight at Steven. ‘From now on, speak when you’re spoken to, and just answer my questions. Do you understand?’

Steven glanced at Damian, who had taken his pistol from his lap. Virginia’s face remained expressionless. ‘Yes Sir … Your Lordship.’

Jasper sat back down on the sofa, and resumed his arrogant posture. ‘Where’s the rest of your party?’

‘Locked in Cromwell’s Tower.’

Jasper half rose from his seat then slumped back down again. ‘Stop being a smartarse. Where’s your father?’

‘In New Zealand.’

‘Don’t expect me to believe that,’ Jasper bellowed. ‘Next you’ll be trying to kid me that Adam and Robert Dalton and Fergus Steed and Jessica are there with him too.’

Steven explained what had happened: how Adam had been killed by a lion in Cape Town and how Robert had been murdered by their relative Corky in Brisbane. He told them how the tsunami had wiped out the Gulf Harbour complex and how Penny had wanted to return to England because she was homesick, but Mark, Fergus and Jessica had stayed there with the other New Zealand Chatfields.

The only thing he omitted from the story was the clinching reason for their return to England. He didn’t mention that Lee was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid.

‘So you’re asking me to believe you left your father and the others in New Zealand and returned to England just because Penny was homesick?’ Jasper sneered.

Steven shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s the truth.’

‘And that bitch Allison was homesick too, I suppose. Or did she want to come back to a real man — my father rather than yours?’

Steven didn’t rise to the bait. ‘She was worried about her mother.’

‘She needn’t have bothered,’ Damian sniggered.

‘So Aunt Margaret’s dead, too?’ Stephen asked quietly.