Shadow of the Raven (28 page)

F
rom the refuge of his upper room at the Three Tuns that evening, Thomas watched the rain drive hard along the High Street. Rivulets had begun to form, coursing down from the woods and depositing stones and broken twigs on the roadway. For a while, hailstones as large as balls of shot hammered down on the roof, and the gusting wind sent an empty barrel rolling across the street. The thunder Thomas had heard rumble an hour or so before now vented its full rage over Brandwick, rattling windows and setting dogs barking. Every few seconds, sheet lightning would illuminate the sky, making it as bright as day.

The storm raged on into the hours of darkness, preventing Thomas from sleeping. Not that he would have been capable of rest even if it had been a calm summer's evening. “Lydia is alive. Lydia is alive.” He kept repeating the phrase as he lay on his bed to remind himself that he should be the happiest man on earth. He had been functioning as if on opiates smoked by Chinese men. His brain had been in a dark place until that thought had flooded it with light. And yet he still carried with him a terrible burden, as if a millstone were 'round his neck. Yes, his beloved was alive, but where was she and, more important, in what state? The memory of her held captive in Bedlam flashed before him once more; her shaved head, her gaunt features, her eyes, reproachful. She blamed him for her misfortune. Sir Montagu had managed to turn her mind against him. Had it not been for his own persistence, perhaps she would never have allowed herself to accept his proposal of marriage. As a foreigner and an American, moreover, he had had no right to venture into the hallowed echelons of the English aristocracy. In a society that valued birth over merit and wealth over intellect, he should have known he was trespassing on alien territory.

During the small hours, the wind seemed to abate and the thunder was reduced to a distant rumble. The withdrawal of the storm meant that its clamor was replaced by the steady dripping of water as it trickled through the ill-fitting window frame and fell onto the floor below. The unremitting flow was every bit as distracting as the roar of the wind and the clapping of the thunder. Sighing deeply, Thomas rose and placed a ewer underneath the window to catch the water. Such practicalities seemed to pull him back into the moment. He had battles to fight on two fronts. At first light he would ride to Oxford and visit the Brandwick men who once more found themselves behind bars.

 

Bart Bailey, the fuller, was a solid, practical man and as reliable as the cuckoo's call in April, yet even he found it difficult to rise the following morning after a broken night's rest. Along with most of the other residents of Brandwick, he had been kept awake by the buffeting wind and driving rain, not to mention the rolls of thunder. That was why the villagers were not in the least fazed when the stocks at the fulling mill had not begun pounding when the bell of St. Swithin's tolled six. Yet it was not Bailey's tardiness that was the reason for the silence of the valley. The heavy rain meant that he had opened the sluice gates during the night, and not even a mere three hours' sleep could keep him from starting up the stocks. On this particular morning he had risen as soon as the day dawned and walked the few yards from his cottage to the millhouse. He did so eagerly. The storm had been so fierce that he knew the surge of water from upstream would be great. The river would be in full flood, no doubt, and the mill wheel would be turning at a fierce speed. The heavy overnight rain that had drenched the valley meant the water flow should have been particularly good that morning. He would open the sluice gates fully to allow the river to thunder through and power the paddles. But once inside the millhouse he saw that for some reason the flow was down to little more than a trickle.

“Jack,” he told his boy, “go walk upstream to see if there's a tree down.”

“Aye, sir,” replied the gangling youngster, and he bounded off, up the course of the river, to investigate. It would not be the first time an oak or a beech had come crashing down into the river and swept downstream. In the meantime, Bailey checked the frame and the shanks of the stocks to make sure that the fault was not mechanical. He suspected the rack and pinion might have been damaged. On inspection, however, he could see they were not.

By this time the workers, mainly women, were arriving for their daily shifts. They filed into the millhouse expecting to see the stocks pounding away at the cloth, but the great wooden boots were motionless.

Bart Bailey, standing on a low wall, addressed them. “There's trouble with the waterwheel,” he told them. “Young Jack has gone to look upstream. He'll be back soon, but we may need some sturdy hands to move a trunk or suchlike.”

The fullers nodded. They'd seen debris clog up the wheel workings before. Two men stepped forward for the job should they be needed to clear the water channel.

Seconds later, Jack, red-faced and out of breath, delivered his verdict to his master. “River's clear, sir, save for a few branches, and there's nowt to stop the flow.”

The head fuller grimaced. “Very well. We'd best look at the sluices. You two come with me.” He beckoned to the two men, who followed him out onto the footbridge to check the shutters. The river was rushing at full pelt toward the wheel, but something was damming its flow so that the water was building up behind it, threatening to burst over the banks and flood the racking close. Bailey's son, Charles, volunteered to see what, if anything, was jamming up against the gate. He was young and fit and as strong as an ox, but as he tied a rope around his waist, his father felt even more apprehensive.

“Take good care, now,” said the fuller, watching his son wade into the turbulent river. The two men kept a firm hold of the rope, slacking it off only a little to allow Charles to ease himself closer to the sluice. In his hand the youth held a long staff, using it to prod under the water.

“I feel it,” he shouted after only a moment. His voice was drowned out by the sound of the gathering waters behind him, but the fuller could see by his son's reaction that he had found the obstruction. He continued to watch as Charles prodded further with his stick, then looked up once more at his father. This time the bravado and the determination had been replaced by another expression: one of terror. He began wading back toward the bridge as fast as he could.

“What is it? What have you seen?” questioned Bailey.

Wet through and barely able to catch his breath, the young man bent double for a moment, before straightening himself. Fixing his father in the eye, he pulled his features into a grimace. “There's a blockage down there right enough,” he cried above the water's roar. “ 'Tis the body of a man.”

 

Thomas had packed his belongings and was making ready to leave the Three Tuns for his homeward journey when he heard a shout go up in the High Street. Soon there were more calls. Although he could not make out what was being said, there was an urgency in their tone that spoke of something serious. He rushed to his window to see a crowd gathering around a young man. He recognized him as the fuller's son from the mill. He was trying to reach the door of the inn. It was then, as he approached a little nearer, that Thomas could hear what he was saying.

“Dr. Silkstone. I am to fetch Dr. Silkstone!” he cried out above the furor that engulfed him.

Making haste down the stairs and out into the street, his bag in his hand, Thomas presented himself.

“What is it, Charles? What's happened?”

Breathless and distracted, the young man suddenly seemed relieved to have found the doctor. “Oh, sir,” he cried. “My father says you're to come straightaway. There's a body, sir. Stuck in the sluice, it is.”

The crowd suddenly parted, allowing Thomas to follow the youth up the High Street, past the racking close, and into the mill. Several women were clustered at the entrance; one was in tears. When they saw the doctor approach, they drew to one side to allow him access.

Inside Thomas saw the fuller and another, much younger man with wet hair and clothes, crouched over something on the flagstone floor.

“I believe I am needed, Mr. Bailey,” called Thomas as he approached.

The fuller wheeled 'round. “Thank the Lord you are here, sir,” he blurted, taking Thomas by the arm and guiding him closer. “You'll need a strong stomach.”

What Thomas saw, lying on the cold flags, was indeed a most unsettling sight. He had witnessed many a man mangled under cartwheels or crushed by a millstone, but this was a particularly vicious incident, where the paddles of the mill wheel had repeatedly struck the young man's torso and the back of his head. Half the body remained only as a fleshy, bloodied pulp. The face, too, was grazed and bruised, and an open eye bulged reproachfully at any onlooker. Thomas took a deep breath but regretted it immediately. His lungs were now filled with a noxious reek that made his stomach lurch for a moment. He had been caught off guard, and as he knelt down to inspect the corpse he breathed through his mouth. As soon as he did, he felt a terrible charge surge through his entire body. It was the tattered black frock coat that confirmed to Thomas that he was dealing with no ordinary mill accident.

“What happened?” he asked, his eyes playing on the flayed face of the victim.

“We found him stuck in the undershot of the wheel, sir,” explained Bailey. “It seems he'd been washed downstream in last night's storm.”

Thomas nodded and swallowed hard. “I believe I know him,” he said finally.

Bailey slid his men a sideways glance and leaned closer to Thomas. “It looks like the young chainman, sir.”

The doctor rose to his feet. For a moment he felt light-headed for want of fresh air, but he forced himself to give orders. “You have a room? Somewhere I can examine the body, Mr. Bailey?”

The fuller, who had deliberately turned his back on the corpse so that he did not have to look upon it, nodded and directed his horrified men to move the body, which they reluctantly did.

“To the storeroom, lads,” he said, a look of apology etched on his face.

“You'll need to notify the Oxford coroner, Sir Theodisius Pettigrew, too. Get word to him as soon as you can and tell him I am examining the corpse,” Thomas instructed, as he followed the men and their stinking and bloodied cargo into a storeroom at the far end of the millhouse.

On one side of the wall were stacked bales of woolen cloth that were awaiting scouring. There were barrels of urine, too, collected daily from the villagers by the piss cart, that gave off the sharp tang of ammonia. The stinks combined to produce an overpowering reek, while the resultant vapors brought tears to Thomas's eyes, but it was still infinitely preferable to the stench that rose from poor Mr. Charlton.

On the other side of the room lay a long plank supported at either end by trestles. It was here that the men deposited the corpse with indecent, yet understandable, haste, then retreated to the door. Thomas dismissed them with a nod before beginning the task in hand.

A shaft of bright morning sunlight pierced through the narrow window and shone directly onto the body, making inspection slightly easier, although no less traumatic. Here lay the tall, thin, young man, so neat and formal, a model assistant surveyor, no doubt, yet so timid and reticent. His experience in the woods had taken a terrible toll on his mental faculties, as was patently clear by his performance in court. What had become of poor Mr. Charlton that he had ended up in such a vile state? His corpse bore the marks of countless glancing blows and buffets as it made its way downriver over the rocky bed, only to be pinioned by the waterwheel and crushed. Had someone wanted him dead? If so, why? These were pressing matters, the anatomist told himself, that would need to be addressed later. For the moment, the cause of death must be his focus.

It was immediately clear to Thomas that some of Charlton's injuries had been sustained at the millhouse as his body was struck by the paddles of the waterwheel before it had finally stopped turning. Yet how had he been washed downstream in the first place? Moreover, had he been alive when he entered the water? Was James Charlton's death an unfortunate accident, a tumble in the woods, perhaps, or had he fallen prey to the same villains who had killed Mr. Turgoose? Could it be that the Raven and his gang had added a third murder to their tally? Those were the questions that Sir Theodisius would put to Thomas as soon as he heard of the corpse's discovery, and it was to these pressing issues that the anatomist now turned his undivided attention.

Looking at the corpse, Thomas let out a faint sigh. In life Mr. Charlton had struck him as quite tall, yet now his remains seemed so very slight and fragile as they lay on the table. The smart black coat was left a bundle of shredded rags. The breeches, too, were all tattered and torn, and the stockings muddied and bloodied. He would strip the body of its clothes to give himself the entire picture before going any further.

Before he did so, however, there was an obvious clue to the manner of the surveyor's death, one that Thomas noted immediately. From his mouth there exuded a fine white foam. It was a sign that Mr. Charlton had been alive when he hit the water.

He began divesting the corpse. A few seconds into his task, however, he heard the mill wheel crank into action and the pent-up water start to gush and roar once more. A little later and the fulling stocks began to pound, slowly at first, then gathering pace. Thomas found the sound almost unbearable. He had previously conducted postmortems in the most undesirable circumstances, but he felt this noise all but intolerable. He would request that Mr. Charlton's corpse be removed to the Three Tuns for further examination. He was about to give orders to that effect when the sound of men's voices outside rose above the roar of the water.