Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

There was a flurry of movement and Stephen appeared at her side, eyes wide with appeal.

‘Oh, may I, Mama? There are targets and everything! I was not allowed to yesterday and I watched very carefully. Oh, please, may I?’

Harriet looked down at her son and felt her heart jump. It was a terrible thing to be a tyrant, a dictator — even a kind one. The responsibility made her afraid every time she looked at the boy. Hers was all the power, all the freedom. Again the loss of her husband stung her. ‘You may, Stephen. Thank you, Felix.’

The young man smiled and Harriet again saw something of the charm of the boy. The Vizegrafin looked more herself again, bored rather than angry. Harriet wondered if it were possible the other woman had ever felt for her son what she felt for Stephen, if it were possible she herself would ever whisper into Stephen’s ear with such an expression of poisonous disgust.

There was another herb that Casper wished to make use of, but he knew it grew most powerfully in a place he was unwilling to send the boy, so when he felt he had strength enough, he stripped a length of ash for support and began the trek towards the hollowed slopes of the old mine-working up Swineside from Ullock, with Joe flapping behind him. Almost at once, the black witch started laughing.

‘All beat up, Casper? Coming to see me, are you? Coming to gather my flowers? You useless dog. No help to that girl, were you? And they call you cunning! I’d have helped her, but you are blind and stupid and there’s all there is to it.’

Casper concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other. His ribs were sore enough to drive the breath from him every other step.

‘Poor Casper! Felt the fists, have you? Worm, you deserve it. Oh, I love to see you aching and pining. Wish they’d have killed you. You, all respected by the scum of the village, you fraud, you monster. You murderer.’

He was used to it. Ever since he had buried her, Mother Grice chattered and scratched at him. It was like a wound that never quite healed. She grew stronger and happier when he approached the place where her bones rotted, up the track to the old mines where few people ever went, though the path was good. Her bones must have tainted the air and made it taste evil, even to those who didn’t know whose bitterness it was they felt on their lips. The yellow blooms of St John’s Wort flourished there, and though he could gather the leaves and flowers in other spots, they did not seem to have the same potency as these. He was sure she breathed on them specially to bring him back to the place where he had found her little body. This was high-days and holidays for her now, him all bruised and hurting and coming to her weak.

‘Your bitch sister still lives then? Maybe she should come home. Maybe you could call her a witch and have her die in the cold.’

‘Whisht, will you!’ he said, and Joe lifted his beak and cawed unhappily. She laughed like the Devil with a fresh soul. Nothing made her happier than drawing him in to speak. He gritted his teeth and climbed the last few yards to the shade of the old mine and the pool of yellow blooms outside it, then came to a sudden halt. There was something wrong about the opening. Stones had been moved — he could see the scars of them in the soil — and the old logs and fallen branches that usually lay about the place were missing. He stepped to the mouth of the mine. There was a wooden barrier a few yards inside, but in front of it was a pile of what had been missing outside — a rough heap of stones and branches. He approached carefully and bent down, hissing as he did so from the pain in his side, then lifted a rock from the pile and set it aside, then the next. Then became still. For a moment even the witch was silent. Another grave. A man, his head turned to one side and his eyes open. Casper reached forward and touched the skin. Cold.

Grice had got her breath back. ‘Another one of yours, Casper?’ she crowed. ‘Can’t say, can you? What if it was him who beat you? All went a bit dark then, didn’t it? What if you killed him and brought him here? Who is it, Casper? Was he a witch?’

Ignoring the voice Casper continued to remove the stones and branches.

Within minutes of the invitation being made, Stephen found himself standing on the low lawns of the park with Felix bending over him, showing him how to attach a soft leather bracer to his arm. He was beginning to think the incident at the lake was an accident, after all. He reached for the long yew bow.

‘A moment, Stephen,’ Felix said, holding it out of his reach. ‘Remember that an arrow can be as deadly as a musket if used properly. I would not put a gun in your hands without making sure you knew its use first.’

‘I fired a cannon yesterday.’

Felix grinned. ‘Watch what I do. Then you may try.’

He turned sideways to the target, a brave painted cloth on a bound straw backing some thirty feet away. He had removed his jacket in the heat and Stephen could see the muscles of his shoulders bunch as he drew the string of the bow back to his cheek between two fingers of his right hand. The arrow’s shaft was pale as buttermilk, its metal tip resting on the circle of his thumb where Felix’s hand held the shaft of the bow. It looked to Stephen like an animal coiled and ready to escape into the woods, and he remembered suddenly the excitement he had felt running up the steep paths behind Silverside before he had met Casper. Felix’s gaze was fixed on the target at the far end of the lawn. He released the arrow, the string sang a low clear note and Stephen heard the point sigh through the air as if it were tearing the haze apart like frayed silk. With a dull thump the arrow buried itself in the centre of the target.

‘Shot!’ Stephen cried. Felix made a slight bow then bent towards him with a confidential smile.

‘I have hunted boar in the forests near my father’s home. They are dangerous animals when wounded. One must be accurate and deadly with the first shot.’

Stephen’s mind was suddenly full of forests, and he imagined himself riding next to Felix and shooting off arrows at wild animals.

‘Was it frightening?’

Felix considered. ‘Yes, but it is an exhilarating sport. I dislike being bored and such hunts are never boring. Maybe I shall take you some day. But first let us teach you what to do.’

Stephen took the slim body of the bow in his hands. It was very smooth. ‘Why did you not win yesterday, sir?’

He frowned. ‘I was distracted. No, stand more straight, bend the elbow a little or you will be flayed alive.’

Mrs Briggs was still enjoying her breakfast when they went back into the house. She marvelled aloud at their energy, having been to St Herbert’s so early, given all the activity of the previous day. The Vizegrafin looked up sharply.

‘You have been to the Island of Bones? Why?’

‘I understood you were eager to see it yourself,’ Crowther said evenly. ‘And to watch the tomb being opened.’

She looked back down to her coffee. ‘Our father used to sit in the library and stare at it, particularly after Mama died. I always wondered what he saw in it, as he never made any effort to improve the place.’

Crowther could almost feel Harriet’s thoughts on that casual speech. He watched his sister drink her coffee and eventually drive Mrs Briggs away from the table with acid remarks about the superiority of a Viennese firework display to those she had observed from her window the previous evening. He hoped that as their hostess left, he might be able to begin with his sister the discussion of the body in the tomb and his suspicions, but Mrs Westerman seemed to feel differently.

‘Perhaps, madam, you missed the sight of the legendary Luck from your window?’ she was saying to Margaret. ‘It was most impressive from the seat we had in Crow Park.’