Death in the Castle (8 page)

He quickened his horse to a trot and drew up before them, very straight and brusque. “Well, men? What do you want now?”

A rough fellow with a brush of tawny hair stepped forward and he recognized Banks, the troublemaker. “Please, Sir Richard, we’ve heard the castle’s to be sold.”

Sir Richard looked down at him from his seat on the great gray stallion. “Well?” he inquired coldly.

Banks looked back at him sturdily. “What’s to become of us, sir?”

The question released the tongues of the others.

“Yes, Sir Richard—that’s wot we wants to know—It’s our bread, you know, sir—we’ve children to think of—”

Children! They had nothing but children swarming into the world for him to feed! The bitter injustice of it, that these British men could beget their British sons while he was childless—had always been childless, in reality, for how could a man in his position acknowledge a moment’s madness when he was a mere boy—sixteen, to be exact. He stopped the memory, but not before a face appeared in his mind, a pretty, face, a simple girlish face. He dismissed it instantly as he always did, angry that memory could be so relentless. His wife was his love, his only love, and yet when they argued as they had only the other morning, as to which was responsible for their childlessness, he saw that face, Elsie’s face, and he sent it away. No, he could never reveal his secret. He could never retort to his wife, “I know I could have begotten a son—” Nor had Elsie herself ever made a sign to anyone, even to him, that there was a secret, nor had Wells reminded him in all these years, though he must know—everything. Wells had been young then—older than himself by twenty years, at that. Wells had simply announced one day that he and Elsie had been married the day before.

“At my request and for adequate compensation,” his father had said sternly and refusing further explanation, had sent Richard off to Oxford.

“You have far too many children,” he told Banks now.

The men burst into angry clamor. He lifted his hand to silence them and they stepped back.

“We have decided nothing,” he said curtly.

He stared at them an instant, recognizing them one by one. James Dunn, whom he had hunted ferrets with as a boy, old Bumsley who had to be watched against poaching, Lester and Hunt and Frame, three of his best stalwart workers. His voice softened somewhat as he went on. “There’s a great deal to be considered. We are mindful of you and your families. Lady Mary is as attached to the place as you could be. We know our position and you may be assured that we will look after your welfare. We are aware of your troubles. Banks, we know your roof wants thatching—”

There was an outcry.

“ ’Tain’t Banks alone, Sir Richard—”

“We’ve not had a new thatch since my grandfather’s time.”

“Thatch—who wants thatch nowadays? A good slate roof on every cottage, I say—”

“And septic tanks—”

The horse, startled at the noise, danced left and right and rose to its hind legs. Sir Richard reined it in sternly.

“We are aware of all these matters. We have large plans for the future. You will know of them in due time.”

The men fell back as they always fell back when he wore his kingly air.

“Thank you. Sir Richard—we know your hardships, sir. Times is bad for us all. But with our families and all—the women complaining about the leaks when it rains—the children’s beds have to be moved—damp runnin’ down the walls.”

The broken chorus went on again until he stopped it.

“We know,” he repeated grimly.

Banks put out his right hand.

“No ’ard feelin’s!”

Sir Richard put out his left hand. Upon the forefinger was his great seal ring. He did not wear it always, but sometimes, as today, when he rode over his lands, he put it on. The sight of it on his well-shaped hand was a secret comfort, an invitation to dream. Nothing, no hardship or confusion, could change the fact that he was born Sir Richard Sedgeley of Starborough Castle.

Banks held the hand a moment. “A fine ring, Sir Richard!”

“It was given to my ancestor, William Sedgeley, by the king, five hundred years ago, when Starborough Castle became ours. Castle and ring have belonged by right to every Sedgeley heir since that time.”

There was a moment’s silence. He knew what they were thinking. To whom would the castle go, and the ring, when there was no heir? Banks bent his head as though he were about to kiss the ring, and then dropped Sir Richard’s hand. Did they know the secret? He’d wager they did. They knew everything, with their low cunning. It was part of their power over their rulers, to find out the secrets, the weaknesses, the youthful sins, the private follies, and use them when the time came.

He pressed his horse into a gallop and left the men staring after him. When he was out of their sight he pulled the ring from his forefinger and put it into the pocket of his coat. Then he reined his horse into a quiet trot again, and felt his lips tremble. Where could he find strength to sustain him, where gain wisdom to guide him? He was alone and lonely as only the rulers can be—must be, for how could he demean himself to ask from anyone the help he needed? There was no one his equal or, for that matter, his superior—no one living. Only his ancestors could give him courage, and to them he now turned.

He followed the road to Starborough village and to the church that had been built long ago for the devotions of a sovereign and his court. In it lay the dust of all the Sedgeleys since the day they had been given the right to lie there. He knew already where his own dust would lie—in that far corner to the east, where a shaft of sun fell through the prism of the rose window.

He dismounted, tied his horse to the hitching post and walked into the shadowy quiet of the church. It was empty and he strode up the aisle. Then he saw that it was not empty. The old vicar was standing before the altar, working at one of the tall silver candlesticks. He turned, startled, and put out his hand.

“Sir Richard, this is unexpected, but pleasant. I am just mending a bit of the candle here. One of the choirboys knocked it off during choir practice last night, but the candle’s quite good if I can just … they are shockingly dear, these large altar candles …”

“Let me help you,” Sir Richard said.

“Ah, don’t trouble yourself,” the vicar said. “Though I could do with a bit of help if you would just hold the candlestick … while I …”

Sir Richard grasped the heavy candlestick with both hands while the vicar lit a taper and held it to the candle to melt the wax enough to insert the broken bit. Sir Richard looked at the kind old face so near his own. He could remember the days when he was a boy and the vicar had come as a young man to Starborough village.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I came here hoping for help for myself—not expecting you, of course—but just to—perhaps meditate a bit, near the graves of my ancestors. I am in great trouble.”

The vicar did not look up. “Are you? I’m sorry to hear that, Sir Richard. Somehow I don’t associate you with trouble. You’ve always been a good man.”

“It’s not that kind of trouble,” Sir Richard said. “Nothing I’ve made for myself.”

Nothing he had made for himself? Yes, it was hardly fair to call that brief episode on a languid summer’s day, when he had met Elsie in the forest gathering wild strawberries, that hasty moment of physical excitement in a boy’s body, a trouble that he had made for himself.

“Your seed is valuable—don’t waste it,” his father had said bluntly. “You’re not only my son and heir. You’re the son and heir of a noble line.”

If his father had not been so crippled by war wounds, if he had been able to have other sons, how differently might he have spoken! But there was only himself, precious as the crown prince, his father’s one hope of immortality. And had his father not pressed his ambition so heavily upon him, might not he, Richard, have been a different youth, less rebellious in heart, his repressed emotions less violent?

“Whatever your trouble is,” the vicar was saying, “if I can help I’ll be glad … There—I think that’ll hold. Set it down carefully, if you please, and we’ll let the wax harden. Sit here in the choir stalls, Sir Richard, and tell me …”

But Sir Richard had wandered to the alcove where the Sedgeley tombs were placed. He was looking at the stone profile of William, in effigy on the central tomb, wearing his knight’s armor. His stone hands were folded together in prayer, though he had been a warrior and not a praying man and there was little doubt, if the family records could be trusted, that it was true he had been the lover of a queen.

“I feel responsible for the castle,” Sir Richard said slowly, gazing at the stone face, an arrogant face, even in death. “I am responsible,” he went on resolutely, “for the castle and for the land that belongs to it and for the people upon the land. They look to me as their ancestors looked to mine. Yet I fear I can no longer hold my realm.”

The vicar had followed and now stood with his hands folded under his robe. “I’ve heard a bit about that, Sir Richard. I’d hoped it was gossip.”

“I wish it were. Unfortunately it is not. I shall have to sell the castle in order to save the land. There’s no way out of it. An American is thinking of buying it, but …”

He paused and the vicar shook his head. “Oh dear, an American? Can’t government—”

“Government’s offered me a prison or an atomic plant—equally impossible! The castle is a treasure, committed to me. I can’t save it. If I had an heir—but I don’t. I’m a failure, I fear, as a ruler over my hereditary kingdom, if I may express it so. My people put their faith in me but I’ve not been able to—It’s a strange story in its way, as strange as any of the tales of the castle in the old days.”

“Tell it to me, Sir Richard. It will do you good.”

“There was a king who took refuge in my castle—Charles the First. He’d lost London, he’d lost Sussex and he faced the loss of the throne,” Sir Richard began. It was a story known to them both but always worth telling. “His people turned against him because he had failed them. People don’t forgive a king. I lost London, too, you know—my own fault! My wife’s often told me, ‘You should have taken your rightful place in London’—that’s what she’s said how many times—and now it seems I’ve lost my Sussex, as well—and my own people. …” He kept staring down at the stone face as he talked. “I don’t think it’s ever been proved how Sir William died—some say he took poison. It doesn’t matter. Let us say he took poison when it was discovered that he—’ He put out his hand and touched the folded stone hands. “Damp,” he muttered, “always damp. I remember when I was a boy. They were cold and wet.”

“The church gets no sun,” the vicar said.

Sir Richard seemed not to hear. He was muttering, half to himself. “He was betrayed by his own followers—betrayed to the King by someone who knew the story—his prime minister, I believe, a man whom he trusted. The prime minister knew about the child—a son, secret, of course.”

The vicar looked at Sir Richard and put a hand on his arm. “Are you sure you’re quite all right?”

Sir Richard shook the hand away impatiently. “Of course I am—why, shouldn’t I be? … It’s all true. His wife never had a child. She blamed him. She insisted it was not her fault that they were childless. But he knew he could have a child—”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Sir Richard,” the Vicar said, bewildered. “How did he know he could have a child—whoever he is?”

Sir Richard turned to the vicar. His eyes were narrowed, his voice a whisper. “Because he’d had a child—by the queen! That’s proof, isn’t it?”

He gave a sudden shout of laughter, and then was as suddenly grave again. He moved abruptly away from the tomb and to the altar. He stood before it, staring up at the rose window, his back to the vicar.

“Tell me one thing—is there such a place as a home for souls?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” the vicar said gently. “Will you explain what you mean?”

“Well, you know—what if
they
really live there in the castle?”

“They?”

“My wife swears she hears
them.
And if
they
do, you know, what will
they
do if we take the castle down? Won’t there be retribution—or some such thing—a disaster perhaps—for which again I’d be responsible, wouldn’t I?”

The vicar stared at him. “Really, Sir Richard, you’d better have a cup of tea, and a bit of rest. Come to the vicarage and—”

Sir Richard did not hear him. “What would you do, for example, if this church were destroyed—through some failure of your own, say, which you did not intend, of course?”

“I would pray to be forgiven,” the vicar said quietly, “and then I would continue my work under the open sky.”

Sir Richard said no more. He left the vicar staring after him, and strode from the church, mounted his impatient horse and galloped away. Suddenly he felt the stab of fluttering pains inside his skull, now at his crown, then settling to throb dully behind his eye-balls. He would stop at the village inn and have a glass of ale.

… The long shadows of late afternoon fell across the stones when he approached the inn. The door was open and as he dismounted he heard loud voices, interrupted by derisive laughter. Some sort of argument was going on. He heard his name. He stopped by the hitching post and listened. The innkeeper—ah, yes, that was George Bowen’s hoarse voice.

“I don’t care what Sir Richard says! Get the hell out of here is what I say. Take it or leave it! Go home, you American chaps—we’ve had enough of you here—you and your kind! Fed up, that’s wot we are! It’s a sin and a shame to have to hear such talk—takin’ the castle away from us! The Queen will never allow it, trust her!”

A friendly American voice made careless retort. “Don’t get all steamed up, man! It’s not up to us. We’re hired to do the work, that’s all. Anyway, the whole deal is off. Your precious Sir Richard threw us out.”

“Thank God for Sir Richard, says I!” George bawled back at them. “He won’t let us down, he won’t! We’ll have no tourists comin’—English kiddies wouldn’t have no place to learn their own history if it wasn’t for him and the castle. They come by the ’undreds—those London brats—”