Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

Mr Palmer took a more delicate swallow of his own wine and filled both their glasses. ‘Mr Crowther and Mrs Westerman wish to discover what they can of Lord Greta’s escape, and his life on the continent, and also the betrayal of his brother to the government.’

Sir Gawen’s face became rather still. ‘Do they, do they indeed? So they are in blood again, but old blood. Old blood.’ He tapped his fingers on the map. ‘You know this is the finest present you have given me since you started visiting me, Palmer?’ The latter nodded. ‘Naturally you do. Yet you give it in order to seek information for your friends, not for some crowning scheme of your own, or for your King.’ He picked up his wine again and tilted it from side to side, letting the liquid reach almost to the brim before letting it fall back. ‘Some of the guilty went unpunished in eighty-one, did they not? Do you sacrifice this treasure to make amends?’ The glass tilted the other way. ‘Or do you see, Mr Palmer, the advantage in putting these two rather unusual personages in your debt again?’

Mr Palmer said nothing.

‘You went to the archives before you came here, did you not? It was after that visit that you decided to offer this treasure to me.’

‘Yes, Sir Gawen. After I saw your name on the writ for Rupert de Beaufoy’s arrest.’

The old man set down his wine. ‘Your teacher cannot complain if you have learned your lessons well, Mr Palmer.’ He stared at the map in his lap again, moving his hands across old, guessed boundaries, feeling with his fingertips for dragons in uncharted territory. ‘Very well. We shall come to that when we must. Greta escaped to France from the Tower itself. It was his wife who managed the affair, dressing him as a maid and smuggling him out under the noses of the guards. They joined the court of the Pretender. They had managed to get away with some money, but most of that was spent in bribing their way out of the country.’

‘Were your predecessors sorry to see him escape, sir?’ Palmer asked.

A corner of Sir Gawen’s mouth lifted crookedly. ‘Not altogether. He was a liked man among the people. It suited us better to see him skulk off to France in a frock rather than become a martyr. The crowd is fickle. Sometimes it is better to make them laugh at our enemies. Tell ’em he ran off in his wife’s spare petticoats and they are less likely to make a hero of him.’

‘And then?’

‘He lived in some want in France. The Pretender and his son spent whatever money our enemies gave them on themselves and left the others to gather trifles. For over twenty years he watched his supposed King fail and flounder, and the Young Pretender become as spoiled and whining a brat as his father had been. Then his wife gave him a son when they had given up all hope of being so blessed. That was in forty-two. And this time his wife took the sword from him. She begged him not to join the Rebellion of forty-five, and as always her wishes were his guide.’

‘So his younger brother was sent in his stead?’

‘Indeed, with the few followers they still had. They got into the country quietly enough. We had grown a little too secure, having another George on the throne, I fear. Let that be a lesson to you, my boy. There are no such things as peaceful times. Only, when people such as you and I manage our business well, for a period they may appear to be so. We learned where they were. Something delayed them from joining the main force at the appointed time; they dallied longer in their hiding-place than they should have done. We found them in the house of a sympathiser not far from Preston. Swords were drawn, but no blood shed. The followers were transported. De Beaufoy was executed for treason in forty-six when the Rebellion had been driven back into the waters from whence it came.’

‘And from whom did you receive the information about where de Beaufoy was in hiding?’

Again Sir Gawen smiled and stroked the parchment on his lap. ‘It is a very fine map.’

‘It is.’

‘The rumour was he was betrayed by a servant who stole from him, then gave him up to the government.’

‘I did not ask, Sir Gawen, what the rumour was.’

‘You did not. Very well. We received our information from Sir William Penhaligon, as he then was.’

‘Mr Crowther’s father.’

‘Indeed. He had come into possession of certain letters that revealed whose house they were sheltering in, so he said, and got that information into hands that could make use of it. Mine. And he was clever about it. He sent a servant with the message, and nothing written down. I can see that rogue before me, more sharply than I can see you, Palmer, in this gloom. A great thick-armed fellow who had ridden through the country without sleep till he reached my door. He had a mouth so full of the barbarous dialect of that place I could hardly understand him. He gave me the name of a house, said Rupert de Beaufoy was thought to be there according to letters intercepted, and added, only, “Sir William Penhaligon sends this message to his King”. Then he was gone again.’

‘You did not doubt the message?’

The old man shook his head very slowly. ‘It was too fine a prize to be ignored. We knew of Sir William a little. He was a clever man and had already made enough friends among my friends. The information was good. We found it was time to bestow a new title in those lands. Sir William wished to purchase further land from the forfeited estates of Lord Greta. We arranged that he received an advantageous price.’

‘And the rumour that de Beaufoy was betrayed by a servant?’

‘Dropped into an ear or two. Allowed to fly uncorrected.’

Mr Palmer was silent a few moments. ‘Intercepted. Was it not at the time of the Rebellion that Gutherscale Hall burned?’

‘Not that I had leisure to think on it at the time, Palmer. But when we were secure again I had the same suspicion.’

‘That Lord Greta had ordered that the Hall be burned rather than receive Sir William as a tenant.’

‘Perhaps. And that either the arsonist was discovered, or was ordered to make some other threat against Sir William. If so, Greta underestimated Sir William and his determination to hang onto what Greta himself had abandoned.’

It was strange how quiet this room was, being so close to Whitehall and the hustle and show of the city. A silent ink spot in the centre of all that movement and display.

‘Perhaps?’

Sir Gawen sniffed his wine. ‘All these years, Mr Palmer, and now I find myself transparent. There was a man, much loved by Greta, whom we expected to find with his brother. A Kit Huntsman. He was not there, and we have never had sight of him since.’

Mr Palmer thought of the skeleton on the island and of the sharp lines of Mr Crowther’s face.

‘There is something more,’ Palmer said at last.

‘Rupert suffered the traditional fate of a traitor, you know. The King was adamant. Hanged, cut down when alive, disembowelled, then his limbs cut from his trunk. He lived a long while into it.’ The haze in the streets seemed to have thickened. Sir Gawen no longer appeared so eager to look Mr Palmer in the eye.

‘We have agreed it is a very fine map, have we not, Sir Gawen?’

The old man nodded. Palmer wondered whether, if he lived to such an advanced age, the secrets he held would bend his spine as they seemed to have done to Sir Gawen.

‘We heard a rumour, a whisper that perhaps the story of the servant was no longer believed, and then. . A man saw a face in the crowd.’

‘When?’ Palmer asked.

‘The year of Lord Keswick’s murder.’

‘What season?’

‘That season.’

Palmer breathed deeply, yet his blood still felt thin and hot in his veins. ‘And no one thought to offer that information to the accusers of Lord Keswick’s oldest son?’