No Time Like the Past (3 page)

The attics were tiny. We could barely stand up in our little room. Peterson flashed his torch and I stared in wonder at the treasure trove of broken household goods, unfashionable portraits, bric a brac … and it would all be gone in a day or two when the place went up in flames. We found a corner. Markham indicated he would take the first watch and I settled down to sleep.

I had the last watch. I sat against the wall, watched the patterns of light travel across the floor as the sun rose, and then woke them for breakfast. We sat on the floor and munched a couple of those shitty high-energy biscuits they keep shoving in our ration packs and listened to the house stir. A door opened and a woman’s voice called outside. Someone must be in the hen house because I could hear chicken noises. Faintly, a child shouted and there were running footsteps on a wooden floor. They were up and about. Time to get cracking.

We were just packing everything away when we heard the hoof beats. Someone was approaching – and at great speed. It had begun.

‘Bloody hell, he’s early,’ muttered Peterson. ‘Leave all this. We’ll come back for it later.’

We crept down the stairs and oozed out onto the gallery, grateful, for once, for the bad lighting. Correctly guessing that everyone’s attention would be on the front door, we wriggled forwards. Lying on our stomachs and peering through the bannisters, we had an excellent view of the front doors below and most of the Hall. There was no vestibule. The front doors opened directly into the Great Hall. Whoever was there – whatever was about to happen – we would be able to see everything.

Peterson and I are historians. We get caught up in what’s happening. That’s why we usually bring a member of the Security team with us. They watch our backs because we forget to. My attention was fixed on downstairs. I never thought to look behind us.

Markham nudged me and nodded over my shoulder. Two little boys, dressed well but soberly, stood in the doorway to what I guessed might be Lady Lacey’s own sitting room. They held hands and both of them looked terrified. Galloping horsemen arriving just after dawn during a civil war – that’s never reassuring.

The eldest boy was very pale, and slender and delicate looking in his blue jacket and breeches. His blond curls hung around his face. His brother was stockier, darker, and dressed in similar material. Idly, I wondered if it was his brother’s outgrown suit. These must be Charles and James, the two boys.

They both stared at us in silence. Given that the sight of three complete strangers lying on their stomachs, peering through the bannisters couldn’t possibly be something they’d ever seen before, we probably had only seconds before one or both of them raised the alarm.

Down below, someone pounded on the front door, demanding admittance. The boys stopped staring at us and turned their attention to the Great Hall instead. Then back to us again.

Markham rolled over onto his back, winked at them, put his finger to his lips, and gestured them back into the room again. Amazingly, they did as they were told. In fact, they seemed glad to go.

Downstairs, the pounding redoubled. No servant came to answer the door. Had they already fled? In all our time there, we never saw a single one.

Lady Lacey – at least I assumed that was who she was – slowly crossed the Hall. I could only see her rear view. She wore something light on her head – I couldn’t make it out. Her dress was of some dark, stiff material, caught up over a lighter underdress. Her skirt was even fuller than mine was and the wide sleeves gave her that fashionable narrow back. In the sudden silence, I could hear the sound of silk swishing over the stone flags.

The pounding began again. Visibly squaring her shoulders, she pulled back the bolts. The door crashed back against the wall. Echoes boomed around the building. I risked a look over my shoulder. The boys had gone.

A dusty figure tumbled into the Hall, bent forwards, and panted for breath.

Margaret Lacey stepped back, her hands to her face.

‘
Edmund
?’

I suddenly had a very bad feeling about all of this.

Straightening, he seized both her hands. ‘Margaret – I have come to warn you. He is coming. He is on his way. I came across the fields, but he will be here at any moment.’

She half turned and I could make out her white face.

‘Rupert? Coming here? But why?’

I couldn’t see his face clearly – he was outlined against the light behind him, but I heard him take a deep, shuddering breath.

‘Because he knows, Margaret. God help us both – he knows!’

Chapter Three

You see, this is the problem with legends. They’re legends. A bunch of colourful facts bundled together to make a good story. This is why the world has historians. We jump back to a given event, sort out the real facts, escape whatever peril(s) is (are) menacing us at the time, and return in triumph. That’s what historians do. It’s not all sitting around drinking tea and blowing things up, you know.

Anyway, it seemed that even St Mary’s gets their facts wrong occasionally. From the way they were clinging to each other, it was obvious that Edmund Lacey and his sister-in-law had a greater affection for each other than had previously been known.

And who was ‘he’? And what did ‘he’ know? These were not difficult questions to answer, and ‘he’ was on his way here. We were in uncharted territory now.

I glanced at Peterson, immersed in the human drama below, and at Markham who was still keeping watch behind us. He cocked his head, listening. Then I heard them too. More hoof beats. And more than one horseman this time. Markham melted away into the shadows, reappearing moments later to whisper, ‘Four of them. Riding hard. Don’t like the look of this.’

Neither did I. I twisted round to make sure both boys were safely out of the way.

Back down in the Hall, both Margaret and Edmund Lacey had also heard the sound of approaching riders. She uttered a small shriek and clung to him.

He pushed her towards the stairs. ‘I will speak with him. Calm him down. Go upstairs and stay with the boys.’

Her face was a mask of fear. ‘He will kill you. He will kill us both.’

‘No. He will be angry, but he is my brother. He will not harm me.’

He should have listened to her.

I wondered why he left the front door open, but that was just common sense. When an enraged Rupert Lacey eventually arrived, his mood would not be improved by having to hammer on his own front door for admittance. On reflection, however, they might have been better off barricading themselves inside and taking their chances. Angry was not the word to describe the burly figure striding through the open door, sword drawn.

We all have our illusions about Roundheads and Cavaliers. Roundheads – right but repulsive. Cavaliers – wrong but wromantic.
[1]
Roundheads were bullying killjoys headed by the charmless Oliver Cromwell. Cavaliers served their king and were tall, handsome, well dressed, and charming.

Not in this case. These two brothers were definitely doing things the wrong way round.

In the brief glimpse I’d had of him, Captain Lacey was tall and slender, with fine, light-coloured hair and Rupert Lacey looked like your typical Roundhead. Short, square, blunt features, large hands. There couldn’t have been a greater contrast between the two brothers. Almost as great as that between the next generation of brothers, young Charles and –

Oh, shit!

I knew what this was about. Everyone must know what this was about. The physical evidence was there for everyone to see. Including Sir Rupert. He must have had his suspicions for years, but now something had happened – some stupid joke at his expense, maybe, we’d never know – and he’d left the King’s army, left everything, to come here today and – what?

All right, it was a promiscuous age, especially amongst the aristocracy. Things would quieten down a little during Cromwell’s Commonwealth, but since football hadn’t really got off the ground yet, adultery was still the national sport. Lady Lacey, however, had made an unforgiveable mistake and if her husband killed her for it – and he would, by the looks of him – there wasn’t a soul in the land who would condemn him. Because she’d committed the cardinal sin. She’d played around before presenting her husband with an heir and you just don’t do that. The rules are very clear for wives – husbands, of course, can do as they please – but if you’re a wife then you do your duty. You present your husband with an heir – and possibly a spare, just to be on the safe side. Then, if you want to, you can have a little discreet fun afterwards, but there must never, ever, be any shadow of doubt over who fathered the first son. With titles, land, and money at stake, no one can afford any questions over the heir’s paternity.

She’d broken the rules and she was about to pay the price. And possibly her children would, too.

How strong must their passion have been for Captain and Lady Lacey to take such a risk? Was it love? Captain Lacey was a handsome man. Her husband wasn’t. Even from here, he looked boorish and bad tempered. Vicious, even. She’d married the wrong brother. Yes, this was probably love. She didn’t look like a strumpet and neither did Edmund; there was a war on and he’d abandoned his post and risked his life to warn her.

I felt Peterson’s hand on my shoulder, and we inched backwards into the shadows with which St Mary’s was so liberally provided.

Lady Lacey hurried up the stairs and around the gallery. She passed so close to me that her skirt brushed my face as I crouched in the shadows, and I could smell some sort of spicy orange smell from the stuff she rubbed into the folds to keep it fresh. I doubt she would have seen me even if I were standing directly in front of her. She was blind with fear: her dark eyes distended and desperate. She couldn’t have been much more than twenty-four or twenty-five and the little knots of curls on either side of her face made her look even younger. She swept into her room and closed the door behind her. I waited in vain for the sound of the key turning but it never came. She couldn’t lock herself in.

We wriggled forwards again.

Sir Rupert halted just inside his own front doors, his chest heaving. Captain Lacey walked slowly to the middle of the Hall and stood, waiting for him.

‘You!’ It came out as a roar. ‘You dare show your face here? In my house?’

Captain Lacey held out his hands. ‘Rupert, be calm.’

He was wasting his time. Rupert Lacey advanced down the Hall like a one-man cavalry charge. Captain Lacey stepped back warily, keeping out of sword range and that would have been a very sensible move indeed, had not his brother whipped out a pistol and shot him.

The sound of the shot echoed around the Hall, followed by screaming from Lady Lacey’s room. I could hear her shouting, ‘Edmund! Oh God, Edmund! May God and his saints preserve us’ and I couldn’t help feeling that given her current situation a little more wifely concern for her husband, however insincere, might have been more prudent.

Edmund fell with a crash and lay still.

‘Shit,’ whispered Peterson, which was a bit of an understatement, all things considered. None of this was right. There should be a contingent of Roundheads pillaging the place as fast as they could go. Sir Rupert definitely shouldn’t be here at all, and as for Lady Lacey and her children … I remembered she was to die today.

No time to think. Without even a glance at his fallen brother, the wronged husband was heading for the stairs, gun in one hand, and sword in the other. He shouted, ‘Margaret! I come for you now,’ and she broke off in mid-shriek. The silence was terrifying.

Under cover of his footsteps on the wooden stairs, I said, ‘Markham, stay with Captain Lacey. Peterson, watch out for the youngest kid. He’ll bolt for the roof. I’ll stick with Margaret.’

Peterson made a slight sound that I had no difficulty in interpreting as ‘I’d really rather not go up there, if you don’t mind.’

I smoothly changed gear. ‘On second thoughts, Markham to the roof and Peterson, you see to the captain. Remember there are three other men somewhere around.’

They vanished and I pulled myself to my feet and silently followed Sir Rupert along the gallery.

His family had made a sad little attempt to barricade themselves inside. It didn’t slow him down at all. Finding that the door wouldn’t open, he put his shoulder to it. He was a powerful man and the door jerked open. I could hear furniture scraping across the boards as he heaved. It didn’t take him long to force a gap wide enough not only for him to squeeze through, but for me to see what was happening.

He burst into what was obviously her private sitting room. The spicy orange smell was stronger in here. Two wooden seats with comfortable cushions stood one on each side of the empty fireplace. There was no library as such, not yet, but a row of some half dozen books stood on one table, held up by two very amateurishly carved wooden horse’s heads. Perhaps a gift from one of her sons.

A good carpet lay in the middle of the room and a small Flemish tapestry hung along the inside wall, well away from damaging sunlight.

Her needlework lay where it had been hurriedly discarded. A set of toy soldiers sprawled across the floor in front of the fire. It was a light, sunny, pleasant family room. I could easily imagine Lady Lacey and her sons spending their time here, quietly happy.

She stood, seemingly trapped, on the far side of the room, between the fireplace and the window. Both boys clung to her skirts. James had buried his face in them. Not taking her eyes from her silently advancing husband, she groped frantically at the panelling behind her, found what she was looking for, and twisted a wooden boss.

A whole section of panelling slid aside.

They had a priest hole. Of course they did. A tiny, supposedly secret room where Catholics could hide during Protestant oppression. And vice versa, of course. And where erring wives could take the children to keep them safe. A 17
^th
-century panic room.

Except that, at this point, everything went wrong for her. The younger boy lost his head. Perhaps he didn’t like the look of this tiny, dark cave. Even as Lady Lacey drew her elder son backwards into the priest hole, young James gave a terrified cry and tore himself free from her grasp.

She screamed, ‘James!’ and lunged for him. Sir Rupert seized his arm and for a few dreadful seconds, they tugged the little lad back and forth. He was screaming. She was screaming. Lacey was roaring like a bull. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him start frothing at the mouth.

If he’d concentrated on James, he would have had him, but although he’d dropped his pistol, he still had his sword in his other hand and he couldn’t resist the chance to have a stab at his wife. She screamed again and jerked back, releasing her son. James fell forwards and Sir Rupert lost his balance and tripped over a footstool. Before he could pick himself up, Margaret flung herself backwards into the priest hole, and James dodged past his cursing father, squeezed easily through the partially open door, and disappeared.

I heard footsteps his footsteps, clattering along the gallery. He was heading for the roof.

Sir Rupert heaved himself to his feet, swore viciously, kicked the footstool aside, strode to the area of panelling between the fireplace and the window, and began to beat on it with his sword hilt.

‘Margaret! Come out! Come out, I say!’

I’m paraphrasing. That wasn’t actually how he expressed himself at all. I learned several new words that day. Including the meaning of the verb to swive.

Wisely, she did no such thing. She’d secured the priest hole from the inside and if she had any sense, she’d never come out.

Again, if he’d kept his head, he’d have gone after his younger son – although strictly speaking James was his only son – and used him as a hostage. My guess was that Lady Lacey would not have remained concealed for long. Unless, of course, her affection for her lover’s child was greater than that for her husband’s. We’ll never know, because tiring of battering uselessly at the panels, he strode to the window, flung it open, and shouted.

I just had time to conceal myself at the end of the gallery – actually, just where Dr Bairstow’s office would be, one day – as his two henchmen came piling up the stairs. From the lack of commotion in the Hall, I guessed that Peterson had somehow managed to get Captain Lacey away and Markham was elsewhere, keeping an eye on James.

They clattered up the stairs and presented themselves for orders. Where was the third man? What was he up to?

These were no Cavaliers. They weren’t in any army. Even the worst type of army wouldn’t accept these men. I could smell them from here. Both of them were in a state of high excitement and I suddenly realised why Lady Lacey had been so terrified and why she had seemingly abandoned one of her children. What had her husband planned for her? And possibly the elder boy, Charles, as well.

He barked a series of orders, spit flying from his mouth with the violence of his words. The men disappeared in a hurry and he began to tear down the curtains and hangings and pile them against the entrance to the priest hole. The books were tossed contemptuously onto the pile. Even her needlework was ripped to shreds and flung to the floor.

My God, was he intending to burn them alive?

The two men reappeared – one with kindling and the other with two oil lamps. At his instructions, they piled it all against the panelling. Sir Rupert relieved some of his feelings by smashing such furniture as he could and that was added too. They emptied the oil lamps on the heap and one of them produced a tinderbox.

Finally, with a contemptuous laugh, he tossed a lighted rag onto the bonfire. With a whoosh and a flash of blue and yellow flame, the whole lot went up.

He
was
going to burn them to death. They couldn’t escape now even if they wanted to. He must be mad. Insane with rage. He stood in the light from the window, his face working with emotion. Such was the depth of his fury that I honestly think if he could have laid hands on her, he would physically have torn her apart.

The three men strode from the room. I could hear their voices fading down the stairs.

I was a little surprised he hadn’t waited around to gloat, but it dawned on me – of course, there would be an exit. There had to be, otherwise soldiers looking for religious dissidents just had to wait outside the priest hole until the fugitives either surrendered or went mad with thirst. The things religious people do to each other never fail to amaze me.

That accounted for the third man. He was outside, covering the exit. I wondered briefly where it came out – and now they’d all gone to ambush Margaret Lacey and her son as they were driven from the priest-hole either by the smoke or by the heat.