The Secrets of Life and Death (22 page)

The viands served at the castle were of high quality, and I was feasted like a king. It appeared that some of our abductors were a group of noble cousins, or brothers-in-arms, that had served the Báthorys and the Nádasdy family for generations. They drank toasts until my head spun and their speech was slurred, and laughter flew about the chamber. I kept my wits about me, and sipped my wine slowly, watching the strange men. They boasted incessantly. Then they settled down, as far as I understood, to tell the tallest tales.

Claims from each were greeted with jeers and groans of disbelief, but as I didn’t speak Hungarian I was free to watch their faces and antics. They acted unsophisticated, but I discerned some learning about them, and most spoke reasonable bastardised Latin when they had to, as well as some German. One of them, a great fellow with a reddish beard, turned to me.

‘Hey, you,’ he called in Latin. ‘Is it true your master is a sorcerer?’

‘My master is a scholar.’ I shrugged. ‘To a peasant, gunpowder is sorcery. What we understand is science, what we don’t, we call magic.’

‘The fire he threw around the wolves on the road.’ The scarred Lord László sat at the end of the table, running a finger around a goblet. I noticed he had lost two fingers, and part of his hand. ‘Was that science?’

‘Indeed,’ I lied.

‘A useful trick. I could have used it.’ He held up his arm for my inspection. ‘I was caught by a wolf pack in my youth, boar hunting with some of these ruffians. A single bitch did this.’

‘Then Pál ran it through with his spear.’ Another man raised his goblet once more. ‘Pál!’

Another round of drinking deep, though I noticed the hunched László sipped, as I did, his dark eyes less clouded than his companions.

Redbeard thumped the table. ‘You are a noble, back in your England?’ he asked.

I answered simply, shrugging to make the lie more convincing. ‘My father is a baron, but I am a younger son. May I have the honour of knowing your lordship’s name?’

‘I am Mihály Báthory of Ecsed, captain of guards of this castle.’

This released a battle cry that almost deafened me, from half the men around the table. ‘Ecsed, Ecsed!’

I laughed nervously, as they thumped their fists upon the table. A roar came back at them: ‘Somlyó! Báthory Somlyó!’ to be answered with a wall of bellowing and stamping that dissolved into raucous laughter.

I raised my goblet, and the men fell silent, watching my movements much as the wolves had done.

‘Báthory!’ I shouted, and a storm of repeated battle shouts came back. As I lifted the goblet to my lips, the sound died down, and they drank deep. Except László, who instead raised his drink to me, as if he understood what I was doing. I smacked my lips, calling to the manservant for more wine, though in truth my cup was almost full.

‘Tell me, what is this division of the Báthorys?’ I asked.

Lord László leaned back in his chair. ‘It is simple,’ he replied. ‘But you must go back to the very first Báthory. The story tells of a great dragon. No man could kill it, and it grew fat on the bodies of knights and heroes sent to slay it. Then a man, his name was Vitus, took up the quest. He offered to slay the dragon if the people gave him a swamp called Ecsed, at the heart of the dragon’s domain. The people laughed at him, as no one wanted the swamp anyway, and the land around was barren and stony.’

László ran his finger around his cup as before. ‘He went into the swamp, and fought the dragon for three days and three nights. At the end of it, the dragon’s tail and wings had cut great dykes into the Ecsed swamp, and its breath had burned away all the rushes and trees. Then Vitus went into the lair of the foul worm itself, and the dragon took him by the leg, its teeth piercing his thigh through his chainmail. At that very moment, Vitus hacked off the dragon’s head.’

‘A great hero, indeed,’ I said, nodding.

‘But three teeth had lodged themselves in the bones of the man, and he was lame for ever. The swamp, drained by the dragon’s thrashing and enriched by its blood, became the most fertile land for many leagues. The peasants named Vitus, his sons and his grandsons “Bator”, Hungarian for brave. Vitus married Orsolya, the heiress to the great estate of Somlyó.’ He drained his cup, and grimaced at the dregs. ‘That dragon left its teeth in all the Báthory descendants. They fight like a litter of wolf cubs, until a weaker prey comes along. Sometimes the Ecseds have been overlord, sometimes Somlyó, but always Báthory.’

‘And now?’

‘She,’ he said, waving at the hall around him, ‘is Somlyó
and
Ecsed. She has two cups of the dragon’s blood in her veins.’ He held up his mutilated hand. ‘Remember this when you approach her. Cross her, and she will bite. If you do not make her well enough to bear a child, the countess, her husband, and every Báthory in this castle will fight over your bones like the wolves we are.’

By the time dawn blued the sky, the worst of the wreckage in the cottage was either bagged up for the tip, or awaiting repair. Jack rubbed sore eyes that prickled with tears at all the destruction. The body of the hedgehog, its neck broken, was discovered under a three-legged chair in the kitchen.

Jack found herself staggering, as if she was dozing on her feet. Sadie was in Jack’s bed, safe between two circles, and hopefully sleeping. Now and then, Felix would press another chipped mug of tea into Jack’s hand, and stand over her until she drank it. She’d also finished the last of the decoction, and knew she should be brewing more. She leaned against the re-lit range as she measured out the herbs she could find. The ones in glass jars had been scattered but the most important ones were safe in battered biscuit tins. She rested in the rocking chair, and closed her eyes for a moment, soothed by the rhythmic sound of sweeping in the front room.

The sound of vigorous knocking woke her up. It seemed to be coming from the front of the house, from the barely used porch. She could hear Felix shifting boxes, and the sound of his deep voice. She called the growling Ches to her, and locked him in the kitchen with a handful of biscuits. Standing at the bottom of the steps, she couldn’t hear any sound from upstairs, but couldn’t believe Sadie hadn’t heard the commotion.
Please be quiet, don’t look out the front window
. Jack rubbed damp hands down her jeans, and tried to straighten her mop of hair. She walked through the front room and into the porch. Felix was speaking to a female police officer, in uniform.

‘No, I’m just visiting a friend. Uh … yes, well, I’m helping her decorate.’

Jack took a deep breath, and joined Felix in the porch. ‘Can I help?’

The officer looked past her into the wreckage beyond.

‘Could we talk inside? It’s cold out here.’ She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. When Felix fell back, the officer followed, brushing past Jack, followed by a young man with a clipboard.

Jack looked around the room. Felix had rolled the carpet back down, stacked boxes of presumably salvageable books against the wall, and restored the one intact bookcase to its usual place. It was half full with the books that had survived. There were a dozen black bags ready for the tip, but the furniture was upright and apart from a smell of disinfectant wafting from the priest hole, the door propped open, the room felt clean. The draught from the smashed window, despite cardboard wedged in the frame, made her shiver.

‘How can we help you, officers?’ He sounded calm, as if there was nothing unusual going on.

‘Well, Mr … ?’

‘Guichard. Professor Felix Guichard, and this is my friend, Jack Hammond. It’s her house, really.’ He smiled down at her, put an arm around her waist, and her mind went blank.

‘Decorating?’ The officer looked at Jack, huddled against Felix.

Jack eased her shoulders back, attempted a smile. She knew she must look terrible. ‘Well, if you take the wallpaper off, the plaster comes too. But it will be nice when it’s done.’

‘We are doing house-to-house enquiries in the area, and we understand you have a Volvo estate?’ She rattled off the registration number.

Jack slid an arm around Felix’s waist, leaning on him as she started to shake. ‘Yes, but it’s at the garage. The brakes failed, and I crashed it into a wall at the church. The vicar knows all about it.’

The officer looked at Jack’s face, with its huge bruise and black eye.

‘Our inquiry is into a missing teenager, Sadie Williams. Perhaps you’ve seen her mentioned in the press?’ Jack shook her head, but Felix spoke.

‘I’ve been following the story, of course. I’ve been helping DI Soames with the investigation of another runaway girl, Carla Marshall. If there’s anything I can do …’

The woman seemed to warm a little, and smiled at Jack. ‘If you could just tell me where you were on the evening of the twelfth of November, between ten and twelve in the evening?’

Jack’s mind went blank.
They must have a record of the car, perhaps on CCTV, in the city.
She looked at Felix.

‘That was the night you came to see me at the university, wasn’t it?’ he said, as if trying to remember. ‘No, that was the tenth … uh, we were supposed to meet at a pub somewhere …’

‘The day you couldn’t make it?’ Jack improvised. ‘So I picked up some dog food and a bit of shopping, and drove home again.’

The male officer was making notes, and looked less interested. The female officer swept her gaze around the room once more, before turning back towards the door.

‘Just for our records, would you have any objection to our lab techs examining your car?’

‘Oh … well, no, of course not.’ Jack had to clench her teeth to stop them chattering. She had cleaned the car, but had no idea how much of Sadie’s DNA might still be in there. ‘But the people at the garage are working on it at the moment.’

The officer smiled again. ‘Well, I can see you are busy and we have more people to talk to. I’m sorry to bother you so early in the morning, but calling before nine means we catch more people in.’

‘Of course. I hope you find her soon,’ Felix said, and stepped away from Jack to shut the door behind them.

Jack staggered the moment he took his arm away. She reached down to steady herself on the sofa arm, and sank onto the cushions. She looked up to see Sadie standing at the foot of the stairs.

‘I heard them, they were looking for me.’

‘I know. Thank you for not calling out, or coming down.’

‘I nearly did, for a moment, when I first woke up.’ Sadie was biting her lip, her eyes staring into Jack’s. ‘But I felt sick when I got to the top of the steps.’

Felix stood between them, looking from one to the other. ‘Now what?’

Jack waved at Sadie. ‘You can carry her into the circle, and I’ll let Ches out. Then we need to work out what the
fuck
is going on.’

Jack stopped by the back door, clutching a bag of shopping, looking at the devastation wreaked in the yard. The wire of the aviary, empty at the time, had been torn open down one side, and the yard was covered in black feathers. A white feather caught her eye, and she bent to pick it up. One of the magpies, probably one of the pair she had hand-reared a couple of years ago. She found a body lying under the hedge, perfect except for its broken neck.

She stood, cried and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her coat, while Ches bumped his head against her and whimpered. It wasn’t until she turned to go back in the house that she saw Felix standing by the door.

‘They mate for life, you know.’ Jack’s voice caught in her throat. ‘Crows, rooks, magpies. Those nests were almost as old as the oaks. There’s been a rookery here for hundreds of years.’

‘Will they rebuild?’ He walked up to her, holding a couple of full black bags.

She looked around the yard, littered with branches and sticks.

‘I don’t think there’s a pair left.’

‘I thought I would clear up the …’ He looked around. ‘Save you doing it.’

‘Felix, what could have done this?’

The gloomy look on Felix’s long features lifted. ‘Ah, I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve got Sadie doing some research for me.’

‘You have?’ The dog, who had been bristling at Felix, started sniffing him.

‘Does he bite?’ Felix froze, looking at her with a nervous smile.

‘Yes.’ She snapped her fingers at Ches who bounded towards the house, and judging by the squeals inside, straight into Sadie.

He followed her into the kitchen, their feet crunching over the fine dust from china and glass. ‘We need to have a look at your books and, ideally, I need to get my laptop.’

‘I didn’t know much about the books … I mean, they’re not mine, they came with the cottage. But a lot of them were wrecked.’

‘Well, I think you have a very comprehensive occult library. Had. Most could be restored.’

‘I haven’t even looked at most of them. Maggie and I were going to sell them off, but the documents made enough money.’ She stopped, and looked at him.

‘Money for what?’ He started looking through the bag Jack had dumped on the table. ‘The hot chocolate is for Sadie, I presume?’ He lined up the three least-chipped mugs and started spooning in the powder. ‘You were saying, you needed money?’

‘For Maggie and Charley, so they could move out, but leave me the cottage.’ She stepped closer to him.

‘I see …’ He looked down at her, looking into her eyes.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for helping us.’

‘It’s OK.’ He shook himself a little, and smiled. ‘And you bought cookies. Sadie will be thrilled. Apparently you’ve been feeding her on “hand-knitted organic crap”.’

She stood looking at his mobile features, watching him stir the drinks, and was amazed that she felt so at home with someone. Men were not something she had much experience of. There had been a few little crushes in her teenage years, mostly on boys in the village, but her weakness had made relationships impossible. For the last decade she had ruled out any romantic entanglements, yet Felix showed up and within days she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Jack carried two of the drinks through to the front room, and gave one to Sadie, who had a speculative look in her eyes. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything. She was looking better, her hair glossy and tousled, and a dozen old books in various stages of deterioration covered the sofa.