The Wrong Rite (5 page)

A bevy of peacocks? No, Uncle Caradoc refused to keep peacocks because they sang too raucously off-key. A building of rooks? Not possible, there’d never been a rookery at the manor, nobody knew why. Madoc slid out of bed, cautiously so as not to wake Janet, and slipped over to the window in his bare feet. The floor was cold as banished hope, the fire was down to a few ashy coals. Outside, the mist was thick over the ground; he couldn’t see any birds, but they were out there, squawking their beaks off.

Janet hadn’t been able to sleep much on the plane, but Madoc was trained to nod off when and where he could. He’d had all the rest he needed, no sense in going back to bed; he’d only start fidgeting and wake the ladies. No need to make up the fire, the room would get warm enough once the sun was up. He dragged on trousers and an anorak over his pajamas, stuck dry socks in his pocket, slung thick-soled brogues around his neck by their laces. He let himself out the window, pulled it shut after him, and climbed down the ivy for auld lang syne.

The noise was coming from up beyond the farmhouse, the separate dwelling where Uncle Huw and Aunt Elen lived. Over among the ruins, Madoc guessed. Only the chapel had been kept in some kind of repair, it still had a door and most of its roof. He headed that way and was right to have done so. Now he could see them through the mist, great black birds, bigger than any blackbird, flapping in and out through the unglazed windows. Too big for rooks, not big enough for ravens. A flock—no, a
murder
of crows. Carrion crows, fighting each other to get in, flying back out with dripping red gobbets in their beaks.

He’d seen them like this at highway kills, swarming over each other to get at the carcass, tearing at the open wounds with their powerful black beaks, not budging from their feast until the next car was almost upon them. He ran to see what they were eating.

Only a sheep, thank God! Or what was left of one. Blood and wool were all over the floor, black wings filling the chapel with their frenzied beating. As he entered, stepping carefully to avoid what he could of the mess, the clever, cautious marauders took flight and went streaming and squawking out through the windows and the hole in the roof. Madoc could see it clearly, the mangled body on the eroded stone floor, the blood puddled deeper in the low spots. It was mainly at the neck they’d been pecking; the head was off by itself, standing up on its stump atop the altar, with a tatty brown cloth cap cocked over its left horn and a badly charred briar pipe stuck in its mouth.

Padarn’s cap, Padarn’s pipe. Madoc would have known them in Tierra del Fuego, he’d never seen Uncle Caradoc’s oldest sheepman without them. Padarn couldn’t be many years younger than the baronet whose liege man he’d been since the day he was born, in a thatched stone cottage beyond the ruins where his father and grandfather and not a few before them had lived and died in the service of the Rhyses.

Padarn could never have committed this outrage, not with one of Sir Caradoc’s sheep. His ram, rather, the huge curled horns and the splotch of ruddle on its exposed left hip—distinguishable from a bloodstain, though only just—told Madoc that. Padarn would not have destroyed his patron’s animal unless by his patron’s orders. Padarn would not have desecrated even an abandoned chapel, he was strict Chapel himself. Padarn would never, not ever, have lent his own cap and pipe to so impious a display. Nor would he have parted from them willingly in any case. What in God’s name had happened to him?

There was hardly any place to search. Madoc found the old shepherd in a matter of seconds, down behind the carved stone altar. He was lying on his side, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around his head as if to protect it from the crows. Crows liked to peck out eyeballs, Padarn would know that. Madoc drew a shuddering breath and knelt beside him.

“Padarn! Padarn, it’s Madoc. Madoc Rhys, can you hear me?”

He got no answer, he took hold of the hand that was on top. It was clammy from the damp and ice-cold, but not that kind of cold, not cold and rigid. “It’s all right, Padarn, the crows are gone. They won’t get at you. What’s happened here?”

Gently Madoc drew the old man’s arms away from his face. Padarn’s knees relaxed a bit; he rolled over on his back, his eyes wide open, staring up into the cobweb-snarled, bat-hung, stone-buttressed ceiling. His lips moved a bit, but nothing came out.

Madoc knew shock when he saw it. No use in trying to make the poor chap talk sense yet. He felt quickly for injuries, saw no blood, found no apparent damage except one great lump on the head. Padarn must have been hit with his cap still on, thank God; the skull seemed to be intact. It was probably safe enough to move him—he couldn’t stay here in the damp, not with all this blood splashed about. Take him into the farmhouse, get him warm, give him stimulants, send for the doctor. Padarn had never been a big man; age had whittled him down to a wisp. Madoc picked up the old sheepman easily enough, he was steering a path to the door through the carnage when his uncle arrived.

“Madoc! What in God’s name is going on here? What are you doing with Padarn?”

“Hello, Uncle Huw. I was bringing him to you, actually. He’s badly in shock and probably concussed.”

“How did it happen?”

“As you see, somebody’s been up to nasty tricks. I’d guess that Padarn heard the ram in trouble, came to see what was wrong, and got knocked on the head. He’s got a lump the size of a doorknob, it’s a mercy his skull isn’t fractured. We’d best get him warm and send for the doctor. And the police.”

“No! Give him to me and go back to the manor.”

“I can’t do that, Uncle Huw.”

“Then you will do as I say. I am not having my father’s ninetieth birthday ruined by some damned fool playing at witchcraft—Padarn will be best in his own bed. We will light him a fire and give him hot tea to drink. Then we will come back and clean up this unspeakable mess before the mist lifts and others come to see what the crows are fussing about. Then I will go back to Padarn. If he does not come to himself in an hour or so, I will drive him to hospital and tell some awful lie about an accident. You will say not one word of this to any living soul, nor shall I. After the party is over and done with, I will see that all steps are taken to track down and punish the culprit.”

By the time the party was over, the culprit could be over the hills and far away. Madoc knew better than to argue. Uncle Caradoc had, ten years ago, yielded over to his son all responsibility for the vast sheep farm as well as his hereditary position as local magistrate. One of these days, Huw would be fifteenth baronet and lord of the manor. As a policeman, Madoc deplored Huw Rhys’s decision. As a Rhys, he could not but think his uncle was right in putting the family first. When Huw offered to take the old sheepman’s limp body from him, he shook his head and followed his uncle, docile as a sheep himself, to Padarn’s cottage.

The place was tiny, its inside walls were blackened from many an open fire, but it was no hovel. Electricity had been laid on and Padarn’s creature comforts not neglected. The bed had a decent mattress and was neatly made up with clean sheets and good woolen blankets, all smooth and snug.

“Looks as though he never went to bed last night,” Huw grunted. “All those hours in the cold and damp. Make up the fire, Madoc, and boil the kettle.”

A shiny little electric kettle was sitting on the shelf by the sink, left filled with water in the practical way of country folk. Madoc plugged it in and went to tend the fire while Huw, gently as a mother, eased Padarn out of his clammy garments and into a flannel nightshirt, chafed his feet to get the blood flowing, and covered them with socks of Padarn’s own knitting to keep in the warmth. The kettle boiled, Madoc made tea, sugared it well, filled a stoneware jug with the rest of the hot water and slipped it into the bed.

Padarn must have been tough as an old boot. By the time Madoc’s fire was up to a good blaze and Huw had got a few spoonfuls of sweet, strong tea into him, the patient had begun to stir.

“Ah, that’s the way of it. Can you talk,
bach?
” Huw begged. “Can you tell us what happened, then?”

“Witches.” A frightened whisper. “Witches, coming at me through the air. Great flapping things with eyes of fire and terrible cries. It is doomed I am surely.”

“No, Padarn. It was crows you saw, only crows. It is the old ram from the lower pasture that is dead, and the crows coming to peck at him. Only the crows,
bach,
you know I would never lie to you. Is it hungry you are? Could you eat something?”

“It is more tea I could be drinking.”

The voice was stronger, not much, but enough to wipe the anguish off Huw Rhys’s face. “Here you are, then. Hot and strong, to put the heart back into you. Can you hold the cup yourself?”

Padarn could, and did. He handed it back empty with a small sigh of content, and closed his eyes. The other two men stayed just long enough to make sure his breathing was regular, the kettle unplugged, and the fire drawing well; then they hurried back to the chapel carrying what they could find in the way of cleaning tools.

The crows were back. Madoc felt a savage impulse to pelt them with stones from the ruins, he fought it down. One could barely blame wild creatures for snatching their chance at a square meal. No doubt the best solution from the crows’ point of view would have been to carry the ram’s remains to some secluded place and leave them to be picked clean. Huw wasn’t having that.

“Among the ruins is an old well that went dry and was boarded up long before you were born. We’ll dump the body there and cover it over with stones. As for Padarn’s pipe and cap”—he shrugged—“I’ll wash them off, and perhaps he won’t remember.”

“We ought to carry it in a tarpaulin or something so we shan’t get bloody ourselves and give the show away,” said Madoc. “And something to soak up this mess on the floor.”

“Sawdust. I’ll go.”

Huw strode off toward the big barn, vigorous and hale despite his sixty-odd years. He was still a tall man, broad-shouldered and fair-skinned; this was the way Madoc remembered Sir Caradoc from earlier visits. Huw was looking more and more like his father as time passed, taking on his guise as well as his responsibilities.

Madoc had responsibilities, too. A policeman couldn’t just destroy the evidence of a crime without first trying to learn what he could from what there was. Could this have been the work of one person alone? A big ram would have been hard to handle, even an old one, Madoc knew that from painful firsthand experience. One experienced sheep handler with a well-trained dog might have managed it, he supposed, or a psychopath in a frenzy of blood lust; but he wouldn’t care to bet on either just yet. More likely a pack of necromantic nuts celebrating some rite of spring.

Thinking of dogs, where was Padarn’s? He’d always had one of his own, always a female called Fan after his long-dead wife. Last time Madoc and Janet were here, the most recent Fan had been fairly gray around the muzzle. Perhaps she’d died and Padarn hadn’t yet replaced her. He’d ask Uncle Huw later on; just now he’d better scout around for clues, if any.

He did find a few bloody footprints, but they didn’t tell him much. From the crude shapes and fuzzy texture, he deduced that the culprit or culprits must have been wearing the sort of cheap cloth scuffs that could have been bought almost anywhere and discarded once the gory deed was done. Wear disposable gloves as well, strip yourself otherwise naked, wash off the grue after the slaughter was over, under the pump or in Aunt Elen’s lily pond, get dressed and go home, and who’d be the wiser?

It was hard to envision a bona fide warlock in rubber gloves and fuzzy slippers and nothing in between. The cap and pipe suggested less a primeval ceremony than a vicious act of spite or vandalism trying to pass itself off as a practical joke, but one never knew. Madoc was still looking when Huw came back on the dead run with a bucket of sawdust and a shovel and a big canvas sheet.

“Mist’s beginning to rise,” he panted. “Folk will be stirring, we’d best work fast.”

They did. In a matter of minutes the ram and the sweepings were down the well and the cover back on. Huw went to see how Padarn was doing. Madoc sluiced a few bucketfuls of water over the chapel floor and altar, made sure he hadn’t collected any telltale stains, took the bucket back to the barn, went back to the manor, and swarmed up the ivy. The window he’d been so careful to close behind him wouldn’t open. Janet had to get up and let him in, laughing fit to kill.

“Hi, Tarzan. Me Jane. What in the world have you been up to?”

“Just taking a little morning climb. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Not really. What time is it?”

“Getting on toward six, I expect. Why don’t you go back to bed for a bit? I’m going to shave.”

Madoc took his time in the bathroom, he felt the need of a cleansing soak. Like as not, the gloves and slippers would turn up in the pond if anyone ever got around to dragging it. The knife or cleaver used for that rather competent beheading might well be there also. He didn’t suppose any of the things would help much, but a start had to be made somewhere.

He might as well quit champing at the bit. Uncle Huw wasn’t going to budge, and Madoc couldn’t really blame him. Not with so many being gathered together for so momentous an occasion. Not with the Rhyses all working their heads off to get ready.

He wished he could forget about heads off, at least for now. He wished he could tell Janet, he might feel better. And make her feel worse. The day after tomorrow would be time enough. It would have to be. He heaved himself out of the tub at last and picked up his razor. He was doing the fussy bit under his nose when Janet tapped at the door.

“Were you planning to spend the day in there? I’m getting up.”

Getting themselves and the baby put together took a while, but they were down in the kitchen not long after seven. Betty had tea in front of them before they’d even sat themselves down.

“Is it up so early you are, then? We thought you’d be sleeping till noon.”

“And waste a day like this?” said Janet. “Just one piece of toast for me please, Betty. I ate far too much last night. Oh, and thanks for making me that special trifle. I practically licked the dish. Are we the first ones down?”