Sovay (24 page)

Sovay never found out what Virgil had to tell her, or what he thought of her appearance, or why it had so disturbed him, for just then Lady Bingham reappeared at her elbow, prompted by a nod from Sir Robert. It would soon be time for them to move on to the next stage of the night’s business and she had been given special charge of Sovay. From this point on, no one was to come near the girl.

Captain Greenwood stood with Toby, gazing out from the battlements. It was a clear night. The stars glittered in great profusion, stretching from horizon to horizon, their light dimmed by the brightness of the moon. A full moon. A hunter’s moon. Much favoured by the fraternity. The heaths would be thick with them tonight. Somewhere near a dog fox barked. The sound sudden and sharp in the clear air. Next to him, Toby started. These city boys knew nothing. Everything out here was strange to him, but he had sharp eyes. He’d found a lantern, the wax still tacky. Someone had been signalling from up here.

‘Easy, lad!’ The highwayman put a hand out to steady him. ‘It’s just a fox.’

Toby had done very well so far. Greenwood rubbed his wrists where the manacles had chafed the skin, but now was not the time for the boy to lose his nerve. It had been simplicity itself to subdue the guards, already befuddled by gin, and leave them, bound and gagged, in their own dungeons.

‘What are we looking for?’ Toby asked. His voice was brave enough, but nerves or the night air were making him shiver.

‘Hush!’ Greenwood answered in a whisper, his finger on his own lips. ‘Sound carries out here. We’re looking for a sign.’

‘A sign of what?’

The highwayman shook his head. He wasn’t sure, but he knew from his military days that it didn’t do to move too soon. They had no idea of the size of the force pitted against them. There were servants, certainly, and the men who had acted as their gaolers. Greenwood guessed they were recruited from the prisons and the scum of the regiments, but they were hard men just the same. How many more of them? This place was big enough to contain an army. As for his own forces? A wounded boy and a bunch of whores, who might fight like demons, or might cower in corners. They might run amok and start up who knew what alarms before making off and getting lost in the surrounding darkness. There was no telling how they would behave. It would be like herding cats. Although their presence here was none of his doing, he felt responsible for them. Probably better to leave them where they were, for the moment anyway. He paced, angry and frustrated. He wanted to help Sovay. All his instincts told him she was in danger, but on his own, with only Toby to help him, there was precious little he could do.

The highwayman was so lost in his brooding thoughts that Toby was the first to see anything.

‘There, out there, Captain!’ The boy tugged at his sleeve.

‘What?’ Greenwood scanned the area around, out to the horizon. ‘What do you see?’

‘A light. Then another.’ Toby looked out anxiously, pointing. ‘There in them trees.’

Greenwood stared into the dark parkland but could see nothing.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. And there’s something else.’ The boy was tugging at his sleeve again, shifting his focus. ‘A coach with its lights out, just come over the rise.’

Greenwood felt a surge of excitement. The boy’s sharp sight had served them well a second time. There it was! A faint grey presence etched on to the blackness, as faint as the phantom coach of legend. It showed, just for a second, before slipping under the covering canopy provided by the great avenue of trees. They both listened intently, but could not hear the crunch of the wheels on gravel. Either the coach had stopped or the driver had muffled the wheels. Greenwood gripped the parapet until his knuckles whitened. It had to be Gabriel. Who else would come with such stealth? He hoped he’d brought some sort of force with him. What difference would one man make?

There was a smell, acrid and pungent. The Captain turned his head, following the scent like a dog. Smoke, coming up from below, drifting on the night air.

‘Over here, Captain!’ Toby was tugging at his sleeve again, dragging him to the other side of the tower. ‘Look down there!’

They both ducked down instinctively to avoid any possibility of being seen from the ground. Greenwood crawled along, spying through the deeply cut crenulations until he found a position where he could remain hidden but could see what was going on below.

‘What are they doing?’ Toby whispered.

Greenwood shook his head. ‘I do not know.’

A line of people were walking in procession, flanked by servants bearing torches. Dysart led the column. In the torchlight, the black silk of his coat shimmered greenish-black, like a blowfly’s back. Six pairs of men followed behind him at a careful, measured pace, gaudy in their evening attire, but subdued and quiet, as solemn as monks.

Sovay was at the back of the procession, accompanied by Lady Bingham who walked close to her, as if she held the girl by the arm. They were taking a path between high yew hedges that wound in the way of a maze towards a circular building. The rounded roof, just visible through the dark, spreading branches of tall pines, gleamed in the moonlight. Why were they going there? For what purpose? Sovay did not seem to be a prisoner, and was going willingly, but there was something he did not like about this little procession, something sinister that smacked of ritual. The Captain watched until the height of the hedges and the density of the surrounding grove took them out of his sight.

Once they had disappeared, he judged it safe to move.

‘What about Jack and the others?’ Toby said as they took the stairs.

‘Leave them where they are for the moment,’ Greenwood replied. ‘They are in no danger that I can judge. We’ll come back for them. I don’t want them running around, drawing attention.’

They were outside now, edging along the side of the building. Greenwood was without a pistol, but he had helped himself to rather a fine sword that he’d found in one of the galleries.

‘Where are we going?’ Toby asked.

‘To the stables to borrow a horse. From the turret, it looks to be in the north-western quadrant.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Over there. Quiet now.’

There was activity in the kitchens, servants talking, but the stable block was in darkness. Any footmen or drivers who had come with their masters would be away eating and drinking, knowing they would not be needed, and grooms likewise.

The stable was dark except for the moonlight slanting through the windows, and quiet with just occasional snorting and pawing from the horses in their stalls. The Captain left Toby on lookout, found a saddle in the tack room and went in search of a horse. He was good with horses and the animals liked him. He went along the stalls speaking softly to them, finally settling on a docile-looking chestnut. He didn’t want anything too mettlesome prancing and dancing about. He led her out of her stall, talking all the time as he put the saddle on her. He rode out quietly and reached down for Toby.

‘Up behind me, Toby lad. We’ll be off into the park to meet the phantom coachman.’

CHAPTER
2
7

T
he entrance to the temple was flanked by two guards dressed in some kind of oriental armour. In the torchlight, rows of overlapping metal plates glimmered across their leather tunics and quilted skirts. Their gauntleted hands clutched tall halberds, equipped with long, curved blades. They held these crossed, barring the entrance. As Dysart approached, they withdrew their weapons. The great bronze doors yawned open with an exactly synchronised, smooth motion as if they were part of the same linked mechanism. Only the gleam of sweat on the guards’ bronze faces and the glitter of dark eyes under the edge of the flaring wide-brimmed helmets betrayed that these were men and not mechanical exhibits from Dysart’s collection.

When everyone had entered, the doors swung shut on oiled hinges. They closed with a hollow boom and the halberds clicked back into place. The sudden draught of air agitated the flickering torchlight and sent strange, fantastic shadows dancing around the semicircular entrance hall. Around the yellow stone walls, a line of black robes hung, bunched and drooping from their hooks like crows on a gamekeeper’s gibbet.

Each man went to his allotted peg, marked with roman numerals in gold, to collect his robe: plain black gowns, with full sleeves and cowled hoods, like monks’ habits. As soon as they were robed, their individual natures disappeared. Except for Dysart, who wore a gold insignia denoting some kind of office, it was impossible to tell one from another. They had become the Order of the Illuminati.

Two further bronze doors opened and the robed men processed into a shadowy chamber. Virgil, Hugh and Mr Oldfield went with them. Sovay began to fear that she had made a disastrous misjudgement. Perhaps loyalty to this society was greater than any obligations of friendship or family.

‘Calm yourself, my dear.’ Lady Bingham patted her arm, her blue eyes mild. ‘It is but play-acting, that is all. You know how men like to dress up.’

Sovay took no comfort from Lady Bingham. She walked away from her captor towards the massive bronze inner doors. Embossed faces of hideous monsters and leering satyrs grinned and grimaced at her and she shivered. The room was chill inside its stone walls and her cloak had been taken from her, but whatever fate awaited her in the room beyond, she was determined to show no fear.

The doors opened and two cowled figures escorted her into the inner chamber. Sovay turned, expecting Lady Bingham to accompany her, but the older woman made no move to join her.

It was play-acting merely, Lady Bingham told herself. Many women had gone through the ritual before to become associate Illuminati: sisters, daughters of members, why she herself had, many years ago, when she was a young girl. Surely, Sovay had been warned in some way, schooled as to the part she had to play? Perhaps it was that look behind, or the thought that she should have been the one to warn Sovay, but at the very last moment, Lady Bingham’s blue eyes softened and her expressionless face creased with concern. Seized by a powerful sense of misgiving, she stepped forward, but the doors were already closing. It was too late. Sovay was imprisoned with her fate.

The semicircle of robed figures stood, heads bowed, facing the Grand Master. Sir Robert Dysart stood on a raised plinth in front of a plain stone altar, set into a recess that had been carved from the living rock. Above it, a beam of red light shone out through the centre of a great lens shape carved into the wall. The All-Seeing Eye of the Illuminati.

Dysart raised the sword that he held in his hands, the tip pointing out at those assembled before him.

‘Shouldst thou become a traitor or perjurer,’ he began, ‘let this sword remind thee of each and all the members in arms against thee. Do not hope to find safety, whithersoever thou mayest fly, shame and remorse as well as the vengeance of thine unknown brothers will torture and pursue thee.’

The cowled heads bowed in deep obeisance. The hoods shadowed their faces so Sovay had no way of knowing one from another: who was her friend and who was her foe.

‘Doest thou swear eternal silence and everlasting obedience to all superiors and regulations of the Order? Doest thou renounce all personal views and opinions, consider the wellbeing of the Order as thine own and swear to serve it, as long as breath remains in you?’

‘We so swear,’ a rumble of male voices intoned the response.

‘I don’t like it.’ Hugh used the cover of the ritual responses to mutter to Virgil who stood next to him. ‘What if he really means to go through with it? I’m going to stop this!’

‘We cannot act yet!’ Virgil put a hand on his arm. ‘We have to wait until he swears the oath.’

‘And doest thou further swear,’ Dysart continued, ‘to break the bonds that bind you to father, mother, brother, sister, wife, family, friends, King, and church, and any and all to whom thou may have promised faith, obedience and allegiance?’

‘We so swear.’

‘Then from this moment forth, you are free from the so-called oath to country and from the laws and tyranny of kings and governments.’ Dysart raised the sword above his head in a gesture of benediction. ‘
Homo est Deus
. Live in the name of the Generating Fire and the Illuminating Light!’

That was it. The oath was sworn. It put allegiance to the Illuminati above everything, above King, country, and it was treasonous as the law stood now.

Dysart turned away to face the glare of the All-Seeing Eye. Hugh and Virgil began to move forward but found their way blocked by a tight phalanx of cowled figures. Two attendants seized Sovay by the arms and took her towards the altar: a slab of marble, the colour of ancient, dripped candle wax. The slab was chipped at the edges, the surface marked with scratches ingrained with dirt, as though it had spent much time under the ground and had been recently disinterred from some antique pagan temple. Here and there the stone was washed with red, either the result of natural pigmentation, or the porous stone’s tendency to take on the colour of sacrifice.

Sovay’s eyes widened. She struggled against the men who held her, but their arms were strong. They backed her onto the altar and the hard stone caught her behind the knees, threatening to throw her off balance and onto its stained surface. Sir Robert advanced towards her. Only she could see the greedy gleam in his eyes, the flare of his narrow nostrils, the rictus grin of anticipated pleasure as he held the sword ready, poised above the altar. It was as if he could already see the billowing flow of scarlet onto scarlet, as if he could smell and taste the hot, coppery gush of her deep heart’s blood. Where were Hugh and Virgil? Where was Mr Oldfield? Would nobody step forward to save her? Was loyalty to the brotherhood so much greater than the love of family and friend?

This was a ritual enactment. A token sacrifice. Often, the woman in question, taken by excitement and euphoria, joined in the pleasurable activities which inevitably followed one of Dysart’s ‘ceremonies’. Indeed, many here were hoping that this beautiful young girl in that dress that revealed her magnificent figure would be willing to do so. Then there was a rustling, shuffling from those assembled, a restless movement of expectation, almost precognition, as Dysart raised his sword. The disturbance at the side of the chamber was hardly noticed as a wave of excitement rippled through their ranks. All eyes were on Dysart. Surely, he did not really mean to carry out this thing?

‘Enough!’ A voice rang out from the gathered congregation. The two men holding her stopped in their motion. Their grip tightened as the voice went on, ‘I declare this gathering to be a seditious assembly and furthermore declare that any and all present here are guilty of treason, having openly and publicly denied allegiance to the King and to the laws and rightful Government of this country.’

Dysart whirled round, the sword now no more than a theatrical prop in his hands.

‘Oldfield! And what are you going to do about it?’

Virgil and Hugh had fought their way to the front of the assembly. They threw back their hoods and stepped up to confront him.

‘I declare you to be apostate!’ Dysart roared, holding them at bay with his sword. ‘Your lives are forfeit!’

‘That might be so,’ Oldfield shouted back as Hugh and Virgil continued to circle him. ‘But you will find that, even now, magistrates are approaching Thursley with the appropriate warrants.’ He looked around at his cowled brethren. ‘They are accompanied by sufficient forces to ensure that the warrants will be served upon everyone present. They might even be here.’

At the mention of magistrates and warrants, confusion spread among those assembled. The confusion turned to panic at the sound of gunshots from outside, followed by repeated blows on the great bronze outer doors and shouts demanding admittance. The Illuminati threw back their hoods to reveal their startled and frightened faces. They became ordinary men again; the sinister ceremony diminished to a foolish charade. They began to run in every direction, desperate to escape, but knowing they were trapped. Some tore off their robes, frantic to divest themselves of their regalia and there was a rush to prise open the door of the ante-room, to get out of the incriminating chamber.

Hugh went to Sovay, put his robe around her shoulders and held her to him. Sovay was trembling. She might have appeared calm and dry-eyed, but all the while fear had been dissolving her like an acid from the inside. It had not been fear of Dysart and what he might do that had most worked on her; it had been the fear of betrayal, that the oath to the Illuminati was real, that Hugh, Virgil, men she trusted above all others, might turn their backs upon her. That had nearly unstrung her. An echo of that feeling swept through her as she clung to Hugh, but it soon receded to leave her stronger than before, determined to play her part in Dysart’s downfall.

‘Are you all right?’ Hugh asked as he held her.

She nodded, hiding her face in his shoulder.

‘Really?’ Hugh looked down at her, tipping her chin up to see her more closely.

‘Of course. It was only a little play-acting, after all,’ she said as she smiled up at him, but he saw that her eyes were brimming with tears.

‘Where’s Dysart?’ Virgil interrupted them.

In all the confusion, the spy master had vanished.