Deliver us from Evil (34 page)

'. . . sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all'

John Milton,
Paradise Lost

It w
as on this same spot,' said Robert. He stood frozen in the shadow of the giant stone and seemed almost to hear, in the icy stillness, the imagined creaking of a rope in a breeze, the dripping of blood upon a risen, monstrous form
...
He shuddered, and looked about him. 'And yet now,' he said loudly, 'there is nothing here.' 'Nothing?' murmured the Marquise.

'Nothing.' Robert crossed back to his horse. He did not mention the fear in his stomach, faint but inexpressibly sweet, which had touched him the moment he entered Stonehenge. He glanced at Milady. She was twisting a bracelet round and round her wrist; while beside her, the Marquise sat rigidly still. Both, Robert thought with a shock, appeared as unsettled as himself, and he wondered what they knew, or might have sensed, to make them so; for he had never imagined that either might grow afraid.

He spurred his horse forward, not wanting to linger among the stones, not now, not so close to journey's end. Emily.
Emily.
But though he sought to fill his mind with memories of his friend, the terror in his stomach did not fade, and as he approached the wood beyond which Woodton lay, the bare winter trees, and the darkness of their shadows, filled him with foreboding, so that he could barely hold the reins in his hands, and he had to pause, to steady his grip. The Marquise and Milady both halted beside him. All three gazed in silence at the road ahead, as it passed into the wood and was lost amidst the fog.

'
I
hid amongst those trees once,' said Robert, 'from a horseman swathed in black, whose face was so dreadful it still haunts my dreams.' He rode slowly forward, until he could feel the first damp shadow of a bough overhead. He shivered, and halted again. 'What will we find there,' he whispered, 'beyond the trees?'

The Marquise glanced at him sharply. 'You are the one who has seen Him risen.'

'You still affirm, then, it was indeed the Evil One?'

'Evil?' The Marquise smiled contemptuously. 'There is nothing good or evil, but terror makes it so.'

'Yes, and
I
remember that Faustus argued the same. But he was rendered into dust for all that, and lost upon the wind.'

'Faustus knew much - but he did not know all'

'And you - can you be so certain that you do?'

The Marquise stared distantly ahead. '
I
do not know all,' she acknowledged at last, 'for if
I
did, then
I
would be like a god myself, and not need to continue along this road. Yet what
I
do know,
I
trust, will be sufficient to guard us and spare us from the fate of Tadeus.'

'Tell me, then,' said Robert, 'for
I
would not have any more secrets kept from me.'

The Marquise shook her head. 'What
I
can
reveal is of no matter now - and what
I
need
to reveal,
I
do not yet know.' She formed her thin lips into an icy smile. '
I
am sorry.' Then she spurred her horse forward, and was lost almost at once amidst the fog and the trees. Robert glanced at Milady; she smiled back faintly at him, then she too began to ride into the wood. Still he sat frozen in his saddle. He could feel his fear now risen in a sweat upon his brow: clammy and grey, like the dripping fog. He wiped at it with his hand; sat frozen for a moment more; then shook out his reins and began along the track.

At first all seemed still, and he imagined he was entering that kingdom of the dead, black with mists and formless wraiths, of which he had read in the legends of the Ancients. He remembered the night when Hannah's body had been found; and how he had imagined then that Hell was formed not of flames, but of ice. Who was to say he had been wrong, he thought - and that he was not indeed on the road to Hell now? Then suddenly, from ahead of him, there rose a muffled voice; and Robert felt a shiver of relief for, although it had sounded contemptuous and angry, it had seemed mortal at least. A militia post, he decided, remembering the guard from the night before. He felt within his cloak for the royal pass. He could see figures ahead of him now, and a barrier - not makeshift as the one the previous night had been, but tall and fortified with brambles and stakes. It did not just block the path, he realised, but formed a stockade for as far as he could see. He wheeled in his horse, and stared up at the gate. Four soldiers were standing along its top. One of them was shouting at the

Marquise to go away. Robert recognised the man at once: Elijah Brockman, one of Sir Henry's labourers, whom Emily had once seen at Wolverton Hall. As Robert inspected him, he realised with a shock that Elijah was not dressed as a militiaman at all, but in strange, rusted armour and tattered, rotting clothes. Robert had not seen such a uniform for a long while - not since that May Day all those years before, when soldiers had marched on Woodton and guarded the pyre where his mother had been burned.

'And yet,' he thought aloud, narrowing his eyes, 'they do not seem like the dead.'

The Marquise glanced at him. 'Nor are they,' she replied. 'Then what?'

'Mortals - mortals all. The merest trash.' She turned round, and gazed up at the guards. They were all shouting at her now, laughing and yelling abuse. One of them picked up a stone and flung it at her. The Marquise held up an arm to ward it away; and at once the soldiers fell deathly quiet; their faces grew white, their weapons clattered to the floor. The Marquise inclined her head, and the soldiers immediately scurried from their post. Robert heard the scraping of metal bolts; and then the two wooden gates were swung apart. The Marquise rode slowly through the gap. As she did so, she turned in her saddle and beckoned to the men. Like whipped schoolchildren, they gathered about her, their eyes bright with fear. 'Now,' the Marquise purred, outstaring each guard in turn, 'tell me what your business is, locking honest travellers out?'

'Orders,' stammered Elijah. 'We ain't got no choice.' He turned to his comrades and appealed for support. They all began to shout at once. The Marquise raised a hand; silence was restored immediately. She pointed at Elijah with her riding crop. 'You,' she said. 'Whose orders?' She waited. She slashed, suddenly, with her whip across his cheek. As Elijah grovelled in the mud, she leaned from her saddle and whispered in his ear.
I
said, whose orders?'

I
..."
Elijah licked his lips. 'Him,' he said at last, very suddenly. 'Him.'

The Marquise smiled seraphically. 'And does
- He -
give you his orders himself? Can you lead me to
Him?'

At this question, the soldiers' faces grew even paler than before. They stammered meaninglessly, as though filled with terror at the very idea.

The Marquise's smile grew all the broader. 'Your officer, then,' she asked. 'You do have one,
I
presume? Someone who receives -
His -
commands, and passes them on to you?' 'Oh, yes, yes,' the soldiers cried out at once.

'Very well.' The Marquise pointed her crop at Elijah again. 'Lead us to him. And the rest of you - you have orders - see you obey them well.'

She glanced round at her companions, and nodded; then spurred her horse forward as Elijah led the way. Robert and Milady followed her, riding side by side along the track. They wound through the trees; then emerged into the open; and before them stretched the plain again, and through the fog the first faint outline of the village. Robert trotted forward slowly. He had imagined the view had been forever branded on his memory; yet now he saw Woodton again, he barely recognised it. The fields all around it were charred; the buildings he could see appeared roofless and collapsed; the whole scene was one of the utmost desolation. He would have thought the village had indeed been wiped out by the plague - as Colonel Sexton had claimed - save that on the margins of the wood, and in the blackened fields, gangs of labourers were at work, lines of shivering, bone-thin slaves. Robert gazed at them closely: certainly, they did not seem infected with plague; nor indeed like the creatures of the previous night. But they were all shackled; and as they toiled, women and children as well as men, they would be struck by the whips of well-fed guards, uniformed just as the sentries had been. Robert sat frozen on his horse, staring in horror as a young girl was lashed until she cried, and fell motionless, and still she was lashed.

'Tell me,' he asked, beckoning Elijah, 'what has happened to Emily Vaughan?'

'Emily
..."
The soldier blanched. 'Why, sir' - he frowned, and narrowed his eyes - 'do you know of her?' 'Where is she?'

Elijah laughed suddenly, a cracked and mocking noise. 'There are those as can answer that much better than myself He laughed again, then spurred his horse along the road into the village.

Robert pursued him. 'What did you mean by that?' he cried angrily, seizing Elijah's reins.

The soldier stared back, his blackened teeth set in a grin, as though trying to restrain not mirth, but stupid fear. '
I
'm just doing like what she told me to,' he shouted, waving at the Marquise. 'Taking you to my officer.' His grin faded suddenly. 'Ask him, if you want, about Emily Vaughan.'

Numbly, Robert let go of Elijah's reins. They were entering the village now. Robert glanced at the houses on either side of the road. Nettles filled their floors; their wooden beams were slimy with mould; brambles had covered what tumbled stones remained. Nor was abandonment the only mark of desolation, for often the ruin had been more deliberate. The trees which had lined the village road had all been sawn down, and their stumps painted with bitumen; and it took Robert a moment - gazing about him, wondering what was wrong -to realise that the very church was gone. He left the main road; galloped down the bank to where the churchyard had been. There was nothing left of it but shattered headstones and weeds; while on the ruins of the church itself he saw a gang of slaves working - tearing at piles of stone with their raw hands, or carrying and scattering the rubble across the fields. Many of the labourers Robert recognised. One of them was Jonas, Elijah's father. Yet a guard stood over him, brandishing a whip, wearing the uniform which Elijah too wore; and Robert wondered how it could be, that father and son were separated so.

He rode slowly back to rejoin his companions, who were waiting for him on the village green. He shuddered to be approaching the place and Milady, seeing him come, rode across to him and reached out to touch his hand. Robert barely felt her; for he was imagining suddenly that he was surrounded by screaming faces, and that in the corner of the green two stakes had been prepared.

'Lovelace.' Milady touched his hand again.

Robert started. He rubbed his eyes. There were no stakes after all. But he realised that of all the places in Woodton, the green itself appeared unchanged, as though in memory of the decision that the villagers had made there, of the bargain they had struck. Robert wheeled his horse round slowly. He stared at where his parents' house had once stood. Not a trace remained of it: not a grass-covered mound, not a single brick. Instead, three gallows had been placed upon the site; and from each one, a gibbet filled with bones and dried guts swung.

'You should never have come back, Robert Foxe.'

Robert turned round in surprise.

Elijah laughed at him mirthlessly. 'Aye,' he nodded, '
I
guessed it were you - for all you've grown a Cavalier. Well - it will not help you.' He nodded towards the gibbets. 'He has ever hated your family's memory, terrible he has, worse even than death.'

'He?'

'Aye,' Elijah nodded. He pointed, then cackled. 'Why, who did you think my officer was?'

Robert stared; then slowly followed Elijah as he led the way again along the road. But he had no need of a guide now: not along a path he knew so well. The Vaughans' house soon began to emerge from the fog. Robert observed that it still appeared well-maintained: its roof had not collapsed, and there were lights gleaming from inside its windows. Elijah swung down from his horse, and led the way in through the main door. The house, Robert thought as he followed inside, appeared much changed: not like a residence at all but rather like the Council Hall, where his father had worked. As Elijah paused by a door, Robert asked him to explain. 'We all live here now,' Elijah answered.' 'Tis one of the rewards for the duties we perform.'

'And the others?' Robert asked. 'Your father, for instance? Where does he live?'

Elijah scowled, but did not reply. Instead he swung open the door, and stood aside. At the same moment, from the room beyond, there came a bellowed shout of indignation; and then, as Milady and the Marquise both glided inside, a sudden deathly silence. 'Ask him,' whispered Elijah in Robert's ear; then he turned, and was gone, and Robert passed through the doorway.