Who Buries the Dead (8 page)

T
he royal residence of Windsor Castle lay in the provincial town of Windsor, some twenty miles to the west of London on the southern bank of the river Thames. Jarvis had dispatched one of his men that morning with a message warning the Dean to prepare for a visit to the royal vault. But by the time he arrived, the sun had long since slipped below the western walls of the castle.

The Honorable and Right Reverend Edward Legge, who served in the prestigious position of Dean of St. George’s Chapel, waited in the lower court to meet him, the ancient medieval battlements looming dark against a black sky. A ferociously ambitious cleric who’d long ago perfected the art of flattering and pleasing those in power, Legge was ponderous and fleshy, with startlingly dark, heavy brows and a weak chin. Now his jowly face showed slick with a nervous sweat despite the cold wind that whipped at his cassock and sent dried leaves scuttling across the castle’s wide, sloping lawns. At his side stood the chapel’s virger, Rowan Toop, with a horn lantern gripped tightly in one hand. The Dean might be in charge of the day-to-day affairs of the chapel, but it was the virger who oversaw the care and maintenance of the venerable old buildings and supervised the burial of the dead.

“My lord,” said the Dean, both men bowing low as a castle guard leapt forward to open the carriage door. “We are truly honored to—”

Jarvis stepped down with an agility surprising for one of his size and cut off the Dean with a curt, “I trust all is ready?”

“Yes, my lord. If I might be so bold as to offer your lordship a nice hot cup of tea? Or perhaps a glass of wine before we—”

“No.”

The Dean bowed again, his habitual bland smile still firmly in place as he held out a hand toward the chapel’s ornate western front. “If you’ll come this way, my lord?”

They followed the lantern-bearing virger into the medieval church’s vast, soaring nave, with its ancient stained-glass windows and elaborately carved ceiling and stately alabaster monuments. St. George’s was second only to Westminster Abbey as the burial place of kings and queens, princes and princesses—although over the years the precise location of certain royals had become somewhat fuzzy.

The entrance to the Prince of Wales’s new passage lay in the quire, guarded by a recently installed iron gate wrapped with a heavy padlock and chain. “Excuse me, my lord,” said the Dean, producing a large key. “This will take but a moment.”

Jarvis grunted, his gaze drifting over the colorful rows of helms and banners that hung above the intricately carved wooden quire stalls, for the chapel also served as home to the Knights of the Garter.

“As you can see, my lord,” said the Dean as he fumbled with the lock, “we’ve taken every precaution to ensure that there will be no repeat of the unfortunate scenes that followed the discovery of King Edward’s remains.”

“I should hope so,” said Jarvis. When workmen repaving the chapel late in the previous century had accidentally broken into the vault containing the seven-foot coffin of Edward IV, so many gawkers and relic seekers had managed to find their way into the crypt that they’d carried off much of what was left of Edward—one tooth, lock of hair, and finger bone at a time—before anyone thought to put a stop to it.

The chain rattled as the Dean unwrapped the heavy links, his breath forming a white vapor cloud in the cold. “There,” he said, swinging open the gate and stepping back to allow the lantern-bearing virger to precede them.

The narrow, nearly complete passage sloped steeply downward, so that they descended rapidly, their footsteps echoing hollowly, the cold air heavy with the smell of dank earth and old death. The small vault that had originally been intended as only a temporary repository for Henry VIII’s favorite Queen lay roughly halfway between the high altar and the sovereign’s garter stall, on the western side of the passage. Three days before, when Jarvis had last visited the crypt, the workmen had expanded their original, accidental aperture into an opening large enough to allow him to enter. Now all the rubble from that effort had been cleared away and a screen discreetly placed before the opening.

Jarvis waited, hands clasped behind his back, while the Dean shifted the screen to one side.

“Not exactly what you’d expect as the final resting place of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, now, is it?” said the virger, ducking inside with his lamp held before him.

The light danced around a crudely constructed vault faced with rough brick and measuring no more than seven or eight feet wide and ten feet long. The arched ceiling was so low, Jarvis had to stoop considerably as he entered.

The three coffins lay precisely as they had when he’d last seen them, with Henry VIII’s bones and bits of cloth showing quite clearly amidst the decayed wood and warped lead of his shattered casket. Beside him, Jane Seymour’s better-preserved casket rested at an odd angle against the far wall, as if it had been hastily shoved aside by frightened men working stealthily to bury a murdered king.

The coffin of the unlucky Charles I lay to the left of his predecessors, still covered with the original black velvet pall, which had been carefully replaced after Jarvis’s last visit.

The Dean said, “As you can see, my lord, nothing has been disturbed.”

“Remove the pall,” said Jarvis.

The Dean’s smile of gentle complaisance faltered. “My lord?”

“You heard me.”

The Dean nodded to the virger, who glanced around helplessly for someplace to set his lantern.

“Here, give it to me,” snapped the Dean, taking the lantern from the man’s grasp.

The virger swiped the palms of both hands down the sides of his cassock, as if reluctant to touch the dusty, threadbare old cloth before them. He was a skinny man well into his thirties, with straight, straw-colored hair and a long, bony face dominated by a protuberant mouth full of large, crooked teeth. Unlike the Dean, who was the seventh son of an earl and probably destined for a bishopric, the virger was a layman of far more ordinary origins. Moving slowly, he carefully folded back the pall to reveal Charles I’s lead coffin, white and chalky with age.

On his last visit to the vault, Jarvis had left strict instructions that the coffin was not to be touched; its lid was to remain soldered tight and the leaden scroll that encircled it kept in place to await the Prince’s formal examination. Now the scroll gaped open, its cut edges showing clearly where the section bearing the inscription
KING CHARLES, 1648
had been removed. But rather than tackle the solder, the thieves had simply cut a large, square opening in the upper part of the lid—easy enough to do since the outer lead coffin was only a thin sheet and its wooden lining much decayed.

“Give me the lantern,” said Jarvis.

The Dean stood frozen, eyes wide, jaw slack with horror.

“Hand it to me, damn you.”

The Dean gave a start and held it out to him.

Jarvis raised the lantern high, so that the golden light played over the coffin’s interior. An unctuous, foul-smelling matter glistened from the cerecloth where it had been pulled back to reveal a large, bowl-like depression, of the size and shape of a head. But only a few darkened wisps of hair now clung to the stained, waxy shroud. The torso ended abruptly at the neck.

“Merciful heavens,” said the Dean, one hand cupped over his nose and mouth. “Someone’s stolen the King’s head.”

Tuesday, 23 March

H
ero cradled her infant son in her arms and watched in the glow from the fire as his tiny fist opened and closed against her bare skin.

She’d discovered a rare peace in the quiet hours before dawn, when the world still sleeps and the only sounds are the whispered fall of ash on the hearth and the soft suckling of a babe at his mother’s breast. Smiling, she breathed in the child’s sweet scent and let the quiet joy of the moment flow through her. She was still awed by the ability of her body to supply him with nourishment and had become fiercely protective of this time they shared. Her determination to nurse her own child was not the sacrifice Jarvis envisioned—not a selfless act at all, but something
selfish
. Something that brought her pleasure and a trembling awareness of the powerful depths of her love for both her son and the man who had given him to her.

Through all her growing-up years, she’d been determined never to marry, determined never to subject herself to the state of subordination to which England’s laws reduced any woman unwise enough to become a wife. Yet even then, she had wanted this, wanted to have a child of her own.

The babe looked up, his gaze locking with hers. She smiled at him, and he gave her in return a big, toothless grin that sent a trickle of milk running down his chin. And she felt a swift, unexpected sting of tears in her eyes, for life’s greatest joys contain within them a yawning sadness. A bittersweet awareness that even as we savor a cherished instant it is passing and will all too soon be but a memory.

A hushed murmur drew her gaze to where Devlin slept, his dark head moving restlessly against the pillow. She thought of the bullet that had come so close to taking him from her last night, and her arms tightened around the child’s small, warm body. She was not a woman who was accustomed to fear; she’d always despised those who obsessed anxiously about the future. Yet with great love comes great fear—the fear of loss. And in that moment, she knew its cold grip.

She pushed it away, both ashamed of her weakness and appalled by it.

“It’s your fault,” she whispered to the now contented babe. “You’ve done this to me.”

He smiled again, his suckling ceased, his eyes drifting closed.

She felt his small body relax against hers, heard his breathing ease into sleep. And still she sat beside the fire, hugging him close and savoring the moment.

She left Brook Street an hour later, the clatter of her horses’ hooves echoing through the still, empty streets of Mayfair as her coachman turned the team toward the City. She’d been told that to truly understand the costermongers of London, she needed to attend one of the great central markets where they purchased their stock. And so she had chosen to visit the grandest market of them all: Covent Garden.

The rising sun was just beginning to send streaks of gold and fiery orange across a pale sky when she reached the site of the city’s largest produce and flower market. Yet already the vast square before the old, temple-like church of St. Paul’s was thronged with a shouting, shoving, laughing crowd that surged around stalls piled high with everything from mud-encrusted onions and potatoes to bundles of white leaks and dark purple pickling cabbages.

She had hired a skinny, fourteen-year-old boy named Lucky Liam Gordon to serve as her guide to the wonders of the market. He had a thatch of rusty brown hair and a scattering of freckles across a pug nose, and he was the son, grandson, and great-grandson of costermongers. Hero was only just beginning to understand how closely knit—and hereditary—the trade was.

“Them’s the growers’ wagons,” said Lucky, nodding to the lines of empty covered wagons and carts pulling away from the square. “They start rollin’ in from the farms about three. I hear tell they load ’em at sunset, then leave for the City anywhere between ten and one, dependin’ on how far they’ve got to come.” He had to shout to be heard over the roar of hundreds of haggling voices, the cracking of whips and the braying of donkeys and the rattle of iron-rimmed wheels bouncing over uneven paving stones.

Hero let her gaze drift over the crush of gaily painted handbarrows, the rows of donkey carts with cracked harnesses so old they were often held together with wire or rope. The crisp morning air was heavy with the scents of charcoal smoke and dung and earthy vegetables, the pungent aromas from the herb stalls mingling with the sweet fragrance of potted laurels and myrtles and boxes. She smiled at the sight of two little boys chasing each other across cobbles smeared green with discarded leaves. Then one of the boys slipped and nearly collided with a market woman staggering beneath a heavy basket balanced on her head, before careening into Hero.

“Careful,” said Hero, keeping a strong grip on her reticule as she steadied the boy.

He threw her a cocky grin and darted off again.

The number of young children at the market, most of them boys, surprised her. Shrieks rose from a clutch of children washing at the pump, while more could be seen crowding around the fires of the coffee and tea stalls beneath the arcades, or congregating near the narrow lanes leading out of the square. Some looked no older than four or five.

“Why are they queuing?” asked Hero, watching the boys push and shove as they lined up.

“They’re ’opin’ some costermonger without a boy of ’is own will ’ire ’em for the day,” said Lucky. “Some ’as parents what send ’em ’ere to look for work. But a good many of ’em are orphans. They sleeps under the stalls at night and eats mainly specks.”

Hero brought her gaze back to his freckled face. “They eat what?”

“Specks. That’s what we call anything that’s overripe or shriveled, or that the wasps ’ave been at. They’re set aside, ye see, then sold for a quarter the price o’ the rest. Me da always says, if somethin’ won’t fetch a good price, then it must fetch a bad one.”

Hero drew her notebook and pencil from her reticule and began scribbling notes.

Officially, Covent Garden Market was devoted to the sale of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. But she could also see old iron sellers and crockery stalls scattered amidst the produce, as well as countrymen peddling wild ducks and rabbits. Rows of baskets and slippers dangled against the railings of St. Paul’s churchyard, while men and women with rusty trays slung from straps around their necks pushed their way through the crowd, hawking seedcakes and sweetmeats, razors and knives, ribbons and combs.

She was watching a lark at the bird catcher’s stall beat its wings against the bars of its cage when Lucky said, “Ye know that feller?”

“Who?” asked Hero, her gaze scanning the surging, raucous mass of humanity.

“That queer-lookin’ cove up there by the Piazza Hotel—the one with the fancy black boots. ’E’s been staring at ye ever so long. At first, I thought maybe ’e was jist puzzlin’ over what such a bang-up lady’s doin’ at Covent Garden Market. But ’e ain’t no coster, and ’e ain’t no grower neither, from the looks of ’im. So what’s ’e doin’ ’ere?”

Hero could see him now, a slope-shouldered man of medium height, lanky except for a small, slightly protuberant belly. He had a slouch hat tipped back on his head and was leaning against one of the granite pillars of the elevated north piazza, a tin cup from a nearby coffee stall cradled in one hand, the other resting negligently in his pocket.

“How do you know he’s not a costermonger?” she asked.

Lucky laughed. “I know.”

The man took a slow sip of his coffee. He wore neither the blue apron of the greengrocers nor the straw hat, smock frock, and dusty shoes of the countrymen, although his coat and breeches had never been of particularly good quality and were now worn and rumpled and greasy. Only his well-polished, high-topped boots struck a discordant note.

For one long, intense moment, the man’s gaze met hers across the square, and Hero felt her mouth go dry and an unpleasant sensation crawl across her skin. He had an oddly uneven face, with a full-lipped, crooked mouth and one eye that seemed slightly larger than the other. The sun was just cresting the rooftops of the decrepit seventeenth-century houses that lined the square and spilling golden light across the ragged, raucous crowd. The slanting sunlight caught the smoke from the charcoal fires so that, for one eerie moment, the air took on a hellish glow. Then the sun inched higher, and the illusion was broken.

“How long has he been watching us?” she asked Lucky. To her knowledge, she had never seen the man before and could not imagine who he might be.

“I can’t say fer sure,” said Lucky. “But I noticed ’im right after we got ’ere.”

She studied the unknown man’s strange profile. He was perhaps thirty-five or more years of age, his straight black hair worn long enough to hang over his collar, and a two- or three-days’ growth of beard shadowed his face. He kept his head deliberately turned away. But she had no doubt that he was still aware of her, that she was the reason he was here, now.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think ’e followed ye ’ere,” said Lucky. “Only, why would some feller be followin’ ye?”

“I don’t know,” said Hero, shoving her notebook and pencil back into her reticule. “But I intend to ask him.”

Gathering her carriage gown in both fists to lift the hem clear of the muck-strewn paving stones, Hero strode across the square, weaving around weathered, half-rotten stalls and plowing determinedly through the throngs of earnestly haggling purchasers and sellers. She had almost reached the step up to the piazza when the black-booted man pushed away from the pillar and melted into the crowd.

She tried to follow him, shoving past sieves piled high with apples and a thick mass of gawkers gathered around what looked like an upside-down umbrella filled with ribald prints. But by the time she reached the corner of James Street, he had disappeared.

She stared out over the noisy sea of donkeys and barrows and ragged men and women clogging the lane.
“Blast,”
she whispered beneath her breath.

“Who was he?” asked Lucky as he caught up with her.

But Hero only shook her head, conscious of an unpleasant tingling in her fingertips and a sensation of disquiet that would not be stilled.