Deliver us from Evil (13 page)

At length, he spat the taste of vomit from his mouth and stumbled forward, despite his father's cries, for he could not bear to remain in such a place, which had seen such horrors and sheltered such crimes. The wood seemed lighter ahead of him, and as he looked, he caught a glimpse of the road. He recognised it as the stretch where he had last seen Emily, and so he turned and began to run towards it. Then he tripped and tumbled into a tangle of brambles, but he barely noticed the pain of the thorns for, when he turned back, he saw he had fallen across the body of a girl. Feverishly, he scrabbled out from the brambles. The body was wearing Emily's dress. When he pulled her round, he saw that her eyes were closed, and her blonde curls were matted with blood. He touched the wound; it was still damp - and then softly but unmistakably, Emily moaned. Robert stared at her feverishly; he pressed his ear to her heart, for he thought he must have been deceiving himself, but no, the heart was beating, she was still alive. He began to sob: he kissed her once, then lay with her, his cheek pressed against hers, holding in her warmth as though afraid it might escape.

Captain Foxe found them soon afterwards. He turned wordlessly, and brought Sir Henry. The father knelt beside his daughter; he stroked her matted curls, and wept with mingled sorrow and relief. With Robert's help, he gently lifted Emily; then he carried her towards the road, where the body of his wife had already been taken to lie, in the cold and stillness of her death.

'Wronged shall he live, insulted o'er, oppressed,

Who dares be less a villain than the rest.'

The Earl of Rochester, 'A Satire Against Mankind'

‘
I

he injury to Emily's head was not deep, and she recovered well. But she could offer Captain Foxe little information. All she could remember was walking with her mother into the wood, and hearing the militiamen run up behind them. There had been a sudden blow to her head . . . and she had seen nothing more.

Nor were the militiamen themselves any help. They refused to talk; and indeed, it seemed to Captain Foxe as though they had lost the power of speech altogether, for they sat wordless in their cells, and almost motionless save to sniff at their gaolers like wolves smelling blood. When Captain Foxe himself sat down before them, not a trace of recognition would cross the men's faces, although they had served beneath him for many years; instead their eyes would gleam with hunger and their lips begin to moisten and smack. Such a transformation alone would have persuaded Captain Foxe that his men had been bewitched; and yet with time, their very flesh began to rot, so that there was nothing left of their noses but the bone, and their skin had a pallid, maggoty gleam. The gaolers spoke of leprosy; but Captain Foxe remembered the creatures he had seen in Wolverton Hall, writhing like worms in the depth of the cellars, and knew what he was watching when he saw his soldiers now. They stood accused of murder, and would doubtless hang; but they had once been good and gentle men, and Captain Foxe could not bring himself to believe in their guilt. Instead, the faster they began to decline, the more he saw them as victims themselves, and of a fate more terrible even than Lady Vaughan's.

Their guilt was pronounced. They were hung in Salisbury marketplace, and their corpses tossed into a carrion pit. Colonel Sexton was pleased. On the same day that his troopers were executed, bells were ringing the length of the city and bonfires being lit, for it was rumoured that Parliament would meet and summon back the King. Effigies of Charles Stuart were being displayed, and toasts to his return drunk openly in the streets. In such a time of uncertainty, the apprehension of two vicious murderers was a triumph Colonel Sexton was reluctant to forgo. When Captain Foxe pleaded with him not to believe that the true killer had been found, the Colonel ignored him; and when Captain Foxe begged for permission to continue with his own investigations, it was curtly refused.

But Captain Foxe, who had fought in the war for the right to follow where his conscience led, was not prepared to ignore its urging now. He could not command his troopers to assist him in the search for the killer; but he had time of his own, and the help of Mr Webbe. Together, they began to trace sightings of a horseman cloaked in black, seen galloping along the Old Sarum road on the very day when Lady Vaughan had been killed. To those who had glimpsed the horseman's face, Captain Foxe would show the portrait of Sir Charles; and all were agreed that the likeness was very great. Only in Woodton itself did the trail run cold, for no matter how extensively he inquired, Captain Foxe could find no one there who remembered having seen the man in black. He pressed everyone he could think of who might have been near Wolverton Hall on the day, but the villagers were surly and taciturn, as though they resented his questions; and in the end he had no choice but to abandon his search.

Captain Foxe would sit with his wife, or watch Robert and Emily playing in the yard, and feel close to despair. He was more certain than ever that the source of the evil he was hunting lay in Wolverton Hall, not half a mile away from everything in the world he most loved; and yet he could neither expose nor counter its threat. As the afternoons lengthened, as winter began to ripen into spring, so Captain Foxe's dread also grew, a malign blossom which darkened with each successive day. Three murders there had been; but on Mr Aubrey's map, the monuments had been four. Captain Foxe would wake in the night, and find himself muttering their names: Clearbury Ring, the Cathedral, Old Sarum - and Stonehenge. One more killing, at the very least - unless he could stop it. One more killing - and one more date. 'May Day,' Mr Aubrey had said, when Captain Foxe had asked him what the feast after Candlemas might be. 'Beltane, it was called by the ancients, when mighty fires would be lit to celebrate the emergence of the new from the old, of long-dead sap rising fresh through frozen veins.'

'Life from death?' Captain Foxe had frowned. 'There can surely be no evil in that.'

But Mr Aubrey had shrugged. 'It depends, might it not, on the nature of the thing that is woken from its grave?'

Captain Foxe had responded to that question with silence; but it continued to haunt him as he thought of what answer might have been supplied. With each day that brought May Day closer, ever darker possibilities bred in his mind; and his dreams were crowded with imaginings. In one, he saw a figure standing by his bed; its face was very pale, and its eyes had the gleam of moonlight on ice. 'Samuel?' he whispered. But Sergeant Everard made no reply. 'Samuel?' repeated Captain Foxe. 'We have been searching for you, Samuel. But we did not find you. Where have you been?'

There was silence. When Sergeant Everard spoke at last, his voice seemed to come from very far away, as though bled of all its life.
‘
I
have been lying in the soil,' he whispered, 'where the worms have their shelter and feed upon buried men.'

'What are you?'

'Dead, sir, and yet not altogether so.'

'Why did you lure Lady Vaughan away?'

'It must come.' His voice now was as faint as a dying wind. 'All are of blood, and all must turn to blood again. No escape, sir.' He bent low across Captain Foxe's chest. 'No escape.' He rested one hand on the Captain's forehead, the other on the neck. With his nail, he began to slice across the throat.

Captain Foxe felt a warm dampness rising from the wound. He shuddered . . . and woke up. Gingerly, he touched where Sergeant Everard had sliced. The dampness was gone. But Mrs Foxe, woken by his nightmare, stared at where he was clutching his throat and asked him to move away his hand. 'There is a line there,' she said, 'a thin welt. What did that to you? What has been here tonight?'

Captain Foxe stared at her, but did not answer, and rose from his bed. The front door was open; he crossed to it, and stared outside. Nothing. He grabbed a cloak, then hurried along the track that led through the village. Ahead of him, on the brow of a ridge, a horseman in militia uniform was riding. He turned, to glance back at Captain Foxe. It seemed to be Everard, it seemed to be his face
...
but Captain Foxe could not be certain. A cock crew; and the horseman at once began to fade, as though melting into the light of the coming dawn. At the same time, there was the sound of laughter and raised voices, and Jonas Brockman staggered out from a house into the road, followed by Elijah, his son, and two other men. Elijah bent double and was sick; all appeared to be violently drunk. Nevertheless, Captain Foxe hailed them, for he knew them from the village; but although they heard his greeting, the revellers stared at him with unconcealed dislike and made no reply. Then one of them stumbled and dropped a purse; gold coins spilled out; the men all collapsed into laughter again. They made no attempt to gather up the coins; yet Captain Foxe had never seen such wealth as lay before them now, glinting in the dirt. He shivered, and glanced over his shoulder at the hill beyond which lay Wolverton Hall. The drunks must have seen his gesture, for they began to jeer at him, and Jonas Brockman picked up a coin and flung it at his head. The coin struck him, and drew blood; but he allowed himself to give no sign of pain. Instead, he turned and walked slowly back to his house. The abuse of men he had known for years followed him. He barely heard what they said, though; for above their voices came the crowing of the cock again, and Captain Foxe could think only of how the next morning, when the cock made such a noise, Beltane would have dawned - May Day would have come.

He had no choice, he realised, but to confront Colonel Sexton again - to demand that something,
anything,
be done. Yet he could barely bring himself to leave for Salisbury; he hugged his wife and son desperately, as though he would never let them from his arms; and when he did arrive in the city, it was not to Colonel Sexton he first went but to Mr Webbe. Captain Foxe found him preaching to an almost empty square, virtually on his knees, beseeching his listeners not to permit Charles Stuart's return; but his audience only laughed, and one proposed a toast to the health of the King. This was warmly answered; and Mr Webbe shrugged and stepped down from his box. 'As a dog returneth to his vomit,' he sighed, 'so we creep back to the slavery of kingship. See, John' - he pointed - 'how the Cavaliers return, and walk openly in the street. God's kingdom of His poor, it seems, is not to be built in England just yet.'

'Then you must save those who can still be saved.'

'Who do you mean?'

Captain Foxe explained; and Mr Webbe immediately agreed that he would do all in his mortal power to protect Mrs Foxe, and Robert, and the Vaughans. He left at once; and Captain Foxe, crossing the market place to the Council House, began to believe that God had not abandoned him yet. Nor were his hopes to be dashed by Colonel Sexton, although he found the Council House in chaos and the Colonel himself in a despairing state. Captain Foxe's request for men was greeted with a derisory laugh. 'You may take whom you wish, John,' shrugged the Colonel, 'and take them while you can, for
I
shall not be in this seat for very long.'

'You have been saying that for many months now, and yet you are sitting there still.'

'The end is coming fast, though.' Colonel Sexton grimaced, and leaned forward.
'
I
have it on good authority that Parliament will vote tomorrow for the King to be restored.'

'All the more reason, then, why
I
should be given my soldiers, so that
I
may achieve what must be achieved while you still have your command.' Captain Foxe saluted. '
I
will be back tomorrow, sir, May Day, very early, before the break of dawn.'

He returned to Woodton. The roads in the village were empty, and all was quiet, but it seemed the stillness of foreboding, such as precedes a storm, rather than the calm of a tranquil summer evening, for there were eyes gleaming from within the darkness of doorways, and as Captain Foxe rode along, they would watch and follow him.

Passing Sir Henry's manor house, Captain Foxe turned aside to warn his friend of the troubles there might be to come; but Sir Henry seemed to need no warning, for he appeared unsettled and nervous already, and could barely look his companion in the eye. Captain Foxe was not insulted, however, for his friend had seemed much changed since the death of his wife; and he did not doubt that, whatever happened, Emily would be protected to the last drop of Sir Henry's blood. He only prayed that such protection would not be needed in the end - that all would still be well, once May Day had passed.

'hls loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;

Nor number, nor example with him wrought

To
swerve from truth, or change his constant mind

Though single.'

John Milton,
Paradise Lost

C

aptain Foxe ate early that evening with his family and Mr Webbe, then retired to bed. He woke at three. He dressed, then knelt by his wife and kissed her on the brow. She stirred, but did not wake, and he left her to her dreams - her and Robert, whom he likewise knelt by and kissed farewell. The touch, as he rode, seemed to linger on his lips. But he tried not to think too much of his family; he could serve them best by putting them far from his mind. He could not afford to be distracted: it would be May Day very soon.