Oisín McGann - Ancient Appetites

Now that he thought about it, Nate realized it would be all too easy to get a spy into the Wildenstern home. They had a staff of over a hundred; he couldn't say exactly how many. He knew hardly any of their names, and he was on better terms with many of the servants than most of the other family members. These people guarded them, fed them, dressed them and made their beds for them. The senior servants like Clancy and McDonald the butler were trained from childhood, but for the lower-level positions… well, as long as they had good references and did their work properly they could move around the house without suspicion. There was no way of telling if they were rebel sympathizers or not.

'To protect our business out on the seas, the Company has the power to commandeer vessels of the Royal Navy,' Silas continued. 'But this is rarely necessary – most of our ships are extremely well armed. We can also draft in armies here in Ireland to deal with any insurrection. Although I suspect Irish soldiers would be more trouble than they're worth – which is why we have so many British troops at our disposal…'

There could be dozens of assassins in the house and we might never know, Nate was thinking. They could murder us all in our beds.

'… Not that the British government is completely on our side either,' Silas added, speaking too quickly now as he grew more animated, still unaware that Nate was hardly listening. 'They are constantly trying to place limits on our power, and there is a new and disturbing wave of liberal thought sweeping through Britain, a growing movement of bleeding-heart lawmakers who think we would have less of a problem with the rebels if we did more to raise the poor out of their "misery". As if you can reason with bloodthirsty lunatics…'

'They could kill us all,' Nathaniel said aloud.

'I'm sure they would, given the chance,' Silas agreed.

N athaniel left Silas's office as early as he could, taking the mechanical lift to the ground floor. He walked outside with Slattery's note clutched in his hand. Careful to check that he wasn't observed, he made his way round to the south wing, the oldest section of Wildenstern Hall, built nearly three hundred years ago. The door he was looking for was below ground level, at the foot of a flight of stone steps. It was solid oak, reinforced with iron bands, and he was surprised to find the hinges well-oiled and the lock in good working order.

He pushed on it, but it didn't budge. Looking back up the steps, he found he was nervous, unsure of what to do. He knocked tentatively and then again, harder this time, annoyed with himself for being so hesitant. Wildenstern Hall was his home, after all.

There came the sound of footsteps and he heard a key in the lock. The door opened slightly and a face peered through the crack.

'Ah, there y'are, sir. We was expectin' yeh to come through the passage. We don't use this door so much.'

So there was another way in, Nathaniel noted. Strange that he didn't know it. The man opened the door and ushered him in, taking a quick, furtive look outside before closing it again. There was only a hint of daylight now, from around the door. Nate found himself in a long dark stone tunnel. The air down here was cool and a little damp, and there were heavy wooden doors at regular intervals on either side of the corridor.

'Not been down here before, sir?' the man asked. 'Better let me lead so. Roof's a bit low and the floor's uneven, so yeh have to watch yerself. McHugh's my name, sir. Pleased to meet you.'

The man had a candle in his hand and it cast a fluttering light as they walked along. Nate noticed that McHugh was wearing a leather apron over his shirt and trousers. He was a short man, with a stocky body, large arms and short legs; short red hair circled a growing bald spot. The roof was very low in places and Nate found himself catching his toes on the worn and cracked flagstones. He had a dozen questions he wanted to ask about the place, but he couldn't bear to sound so ignorant of his own home. He supposed there were places all over the house that the servants knew better than their masters.

The tunnel took them to a door at the end where lantern light shone from round a corner. Going through the doorway, McHugh stepped aside and let Nate walk past. He wasn't prepared for what he saw and his breath caught in his throat.

There were three men in the large, chilly room apart from McHugh. Slattery was on the far side, leaning over a table wearing only an apron over his bare upper torso, and washing his hands in a wooden basin. Its water was red with blood. The second man was obviously another of Slattery's thugs, a giant of a fellow with matted hair on his bare forearms and tufts of it sticking up from under his collar. He too wore an apron.

But it was the flabby, middle-aged man in the chair who seized Nate's attention. His wrists and ankles were shackled to the sturdy chair. He was naked to the waist and blood was spattered all over his chest, most of it seeming to come from his nose and mouth. His head hung limply forwards, but Nate could still see that his face had been badly beaten and some of his teeth were broken or missing.

There was a bottle of whiskey on the table and Slattery poured a little onto his hands, rubbing them together before rinsing them in the basin.

'Good afternoon, Mr Wildenstern, sir.' He nodded. 'Be with you in a moment.' Seeing Nathaniel look at the whiskey bottle, he smiled. 'It's good for cleaning a person's smell from your hands, sir In this line of work I find myself continually covered with the stench of others. And though I like the smell of whiskey, I never let a drop pass my lips – or those of my men when they're in my company. I believe that alcohol is the root of all sin and will be the ruin of this nation. It makes us lose control… and that is a terrible thing.'

He finished washing his hands and, picking up the basin with one hand, came over to his battered victim. He threw the bloody water into the man's face. There was no reaction. Grabbing him by his greying hair, Slattery lifted the limp head and stared into the unresponsive face.

'We are despised, my lads and I,' the bailiff declared softly, letting the man's head drop back onto his chest. 'It's not how we would like things – we're not evil men. We'd like to be treated with the consideration, respect and diffidence that normal people expect, but it's us as has to do the hard things that need to be done to keep order. The unpopular things.

'Information, Mr Wildenstern, is the key to control,' he continued. 'Your father – if you don't mind me sayin' so – is a great believer in it. Know what's going on, know who's doing what and, above all, know who knows what you don't.' He indicated his senseless prisoner. 'This man's name is Eoin Duffy. He's a moneylender and a trader in stolen goods. A few days ago we received a tip-off that an engimal – one of those known as "bright-eyes" – that belonged to the company building the railway tunnel for the Wildensterns had been bought by a local collector. We retrieved the engimal from the collector and persuaded him to tell us where he had bought the creature. He gave us Mr Duffy's name.'

McHugh tossed Slattery a rag and he dried his hands. Nathaniel was torn between being riveted and repulsed by the sight of the tortured man.

'Mr Duffy here has been very helpful,' Slattery went on, taking down his shirt from a coathanger that hung from a hook on the stone wall. 'He gave us a name: Séamus Noonan. Noonan is a known associate of the late James McCord, the former owner of the deafened horse. Again, he's not known to be a rebel sympathizer, but Duffy here is, aren't you, Mr Duffy?' The unconscious man did not reply. Slattery grinned. 'Noonan gave him the engimal to pay off the money he owed Duffy and make a little more on top – they're worth a lot of ochre, these things.'